Somerset House Podcast

From alternative modes of listening to live performance as a form of time travel, the Black political economy of music and the platform conditions of distribution, musician, curator and theorist, DeForrest Brown Jr. wants to discover new ways of relating to audio. In a world of noise and an oversaturated music industry, what new worlds might we discover if we reimagine how we make and listen to music?  
In this sonic essay for The Process, DeForrest reveals some of the ideas generated from his one-month residency at Somerset House Studios in 2025. Drawing on his research project, Rhythmanalytics, where he explores electronic music at the end of the music industry, DeForrest gives insight into his multi-media project, Synoptic Audio.   
In a richly textured dialogue between sound and words, DeForrest shares his experience of returning to Somerset House Studios to perform live as part of Assembly 2026 programme.  
Credits:
Contributors: DeForrest Brown Jr  
Executive Producer: Eleanor Ritter-Scott 
Producer: Tess Davidson  
Sound Engineer: Mike Woolley 
Host: Laurent John 
Theme Music: Ka Baird  
Additional sound: DeForrest Brown Jr (live recording, Assembly, Somerset House Studios, 2026)

Artist Dana-Fiona Armour reveals what the sea snake knows about our changing oceans – and what it’s telling us about the climate emergency. 
It’s animals like the sea snake – a vital but often neglected bioindicator of marine health – that can be a crucial lens to environmental change. With fragile eco systems, rising sea temperatures and decreasing salinity, what would it take to retune our ears and listen to the sea snake? 
In her major courtyard commission for 2026, Serpentine Currents – Fragments of a Changing Future, Armour visualises how marine ecosystems are degrading and changing. 
The installation blends sculpture, science and responsive light technology, translating complex research and predictive ocean data from the British coast into visuals, with the sea snake at its heart.  
The dataset is also projected 50 years into the future, in a world where warming seas might allow sea snakes to inhabit UK waters. 
If the sea snake is telling us that the oceans are collapsing, with devastating consequences, then what does the future of our coastlines look like? 
Dana is joined by marine biologist, composer and researcher, Heather Spence, and researcher at French CNRS and Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, Anthony Herrel.  
Credits: 
Contributors: Anthony Herrel and Heather Spence 
Executive Producer: Eleanor Ritter-Scott 
Producer: Tess Davidson  
Sound Engineer: Mike Woolley 
Host: Laurent John 
Theme Music: Ka Baird  
Additional field recordings and sound: Heather Spence, Felix Blume (FreeSound)

For the first in The Process Archive sub-series we revisit three works from Assembly, Somerset House Studios experimental sound and music series, with artists Elaine Mitchener, Beatrice Dillon, Jennifer Walshe and Memo Akten.
Originating in 2018, Assembly emerged from the roots of sonic art and sound-based practice within the Studios resident artist community. To mark its fifth edition, we look back at some of the works that have defined it.

Somerset House Studios artist Appau Junior Boakye-Yiadom reimagines the drums as a time-travelling device across continent, history, and bodies.
A visual artist who has been learning the drums as part of an art project since 2020, Appau Junior Boakye-Yiadom has long been interested in how we might reframe our perception of the drums. Its primal release of sound and movement. An ability to shape and reshape our sense of time. But what happens if we take it one step further and reimagine the drum kit as a time-travelling device?
In this episode of The Process, Boakye-Yiadom explores the often-invisible histories of the drum, from being othered and dismissed as noise, rather than music, to sounding the resistance against colonial power. Why is it that drummers like Clyde Stubblefield – the most sampled drummer of all time – are often neglected in music history? And who decides what is visible?
To unpack these questions, Boakye-Yiadom speaks to British Italian multi-genre drummer, percussionist and composer, Valentina Magaletti, and writer and musicologist, Matt Brennan, author of A Social History of the Drum Kit.
Boakye-Yiadom works across a multi-disciplinary practice, creating installations where the mediums are ever-evolving, and constantly in conversation with each other.
He joined the Studios community in 2023, as the inaugural recipient of the Donna Lynas Residency, supported by Modern Art Oxford, Somerset House Studios, South London Gallery and Wysing Arts Centre, receiving a salary for three years and the support of each partner, including mentoring, use of facilities and inclusion in public programmes.
 
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The Process is an artist-led podcast series, developed by Somerset House, which explores the new ideas, big questions and surprising tangents which emerge from the artistic process.
Drawing on the creative community both on site at Somerset House and from the exhibition programme, each episode follows artists as they explore one idea they’re currently pursuing, to see where it ends up. From financial astrology to the black renaissance, quantum listening to the transformative powers of cute, along the way we hear from a cross-section of thinkers who have inspired them to help shape where it might go next.

Artist duo Cooking Sections blur the lines between art and activism with their installation, The Ministry of Sewers. 
The Ministry of Sewers is an exhibit by artist duo Cooking Sections for the Folkestone Triennial. Inspired by the 1976 appointment of Dennis Howell as Minister for Drought  – then Minister for Floods and Snows – it invites audiences to reimagine an alternative public service, using the voices of local communities to mobilise action against the scale of water pollution in the UK and reclaim the coastlines. From raw sewage spills to stream contamination and agrochemicals, The Ministry of Sewers amplifies the voices of swimmers, schoolchildren, farmers and scientists alike, all the while demanding change in shaping an alternative future of clean, swimmable seas all year.
 
In this episode of The Process, Cooking Sections’ Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe explore the blurry boundaries between fact and fiction in artmaking: how might art and activism intersect, and can performance be a tool for direct change? 
They hear from Paula Serafini, Senior Lecturer in Creative and Cultural Industries at Queen Mary, University of London, and Liv Pennington and Michele Shonfield, two of the ministers involved in the installation, on how art can empower people to speak out on issues that affect them. 
Credits
Contributors: Cooking Sections - Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe; Paula Serafini, Patricia Rolfe, Michele Shonfeld, and Liv Pennington 
Executive Producer: Eleanor Ritter-Scott 
Producer: Arlie Adlington 
Host: Laurent John
Theme Music: Ka Baird 
Sound Engineer: Mike Woolley
The Somerset House Podcast, shaped and sculpted by artists, explores original cultural ideas which connect listeners to the creative process. 

The Process is an artist-led podcast series, developed by Somerset House, which explores the new ideas, big questions and surprising tangents which emerge from the artistic process. 
Drawing on the creative community both on site at Somerset House and from the exhibition programme, each episode follows artists as they explore one idea they’re currently pursuing, to see where it ends up: from financial astrology to the black renaissance, quantum listening to geometry for aliens. 
Along the way, we hear from thinkers across disciplines, including artists such as Mark Leckey and Gazelle Twin on their fascination with ghosts and all things paranormal, and Hannah Diamond on the transformative potential of cute – and how these creative influences shape their practice in new and surprising ways.