Back in April, Tracey Emin launched a major new arts project for Radio 4, called Cultural Exchange.
Each weekday on Front Row, 75 leading creative figures will reveal their passion for a favourite book, piece of music, film or other work of art. Cultural Exchange launched on Front Row on Monday 22 April with Tracey Emin on Vermeer’s painting Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid, which you can listen to here. The most recent entry was writer Mark Haddon on The Uffington White Horse, a 110 metre long bronze age chalk figure carved into the hillside near Faringdon in Oxfordshire, which is available here. Each chosen work will have its own webpage, with additional clips from Radio 4’s archive about the choice. And the full Cultural Exchange experience will be available as a daily download.
The archive so far includes:
Howard Jacobson
Writer Howard Jacobson chooses:
Mike Nichols’s 1971 film Carnal Knowledge
Germaine Greer
The Writer/Academic chooses:
The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie chooses:
Ben Enwonwu’s Tutu
Suggs
The frontman of Madness chooses:
On a Portrait of a Deaf Man by John Betjeman
Meera Syal
Meera Syal chooses:
Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird
Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg chooses:
Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait (1658)
Tamara Rojo
The Artistic Director of English National Ballet chooses:
Mats Ek’s ballet The House of Bernarda
Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci chooses:
Fellini’s La Dolce Vita
Diana Athill
Editor and author chooses:
The letters of Lord Byron
Adrian Lester
Adrian Lester chooses:
Redemption Song by Bob Marley
Mohsin Hamid
The author chooses:
Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
And more! With many more amazing entries still to come, this project is proving to be a broad and enlightening one, bringing you unique opinions on some of history’s greatest masterpieces by some of the world’s leading authors, artists and musicians.
Happy listening, Becky xx
