The Mater Podcast

APPLY to Joya AiR + Mater residency (plus info and terms & conditions): https://joya-air.org/joya-mater-apply

Joya: AiR is a landmark international, interdisciplinary arts residency grounded in the intersection of creative practice, ecological inquiry, and sustainable cultural engagement. Situated within an off‑grid, climate‑positive environment in rural Andalucía, the residency fosters an intellectually rigorous and generative context where artists, writers, and researchers from diverse disciplinary backgrounds can deepen their practice, expand critical perspectives, and engage collaboratively with ecological and cultural challenges.
Joya AiR website: https://joya-air.org/
Joya AiR on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joya_air/

Mater is an evolving research & publishing project founded by Maddie Rose Hills, exploring our relationship with materials through commissioned writing, interviews, exhibitions, and podcasting. Mater brings together artists, geologists, architects, curators, ecologists, gardeners and writers, investigating what draws us to particular materials, the stories materials hold, and how they shape our lives.
Mater website: https://mater.digital/
Mater on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mater________/

Email me with any questions: [email protected]

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My two guests are completely passionate about the subject of Minerals... artist Mále Uribe and writer/geoloist Marcia Bjornerud

Mále Uribe is a Chilean architect and artist whose work explores material culture, the value of natural resources, myths, chemical properties, industrial processes and microworlds. As designer in residence at London’s Design Museum in 2019, her installation Salt Imaginaries focused on the extractive processes around minerals located in the Atacama desert in Chile. and her 2025 Somerset House installation for the Chilean Pavilion at London Design Biennale was a investigation of minerals from the Andes titled’ Minerasophia: Underground Cycles. In her work materials are understood as vibrant and autonomous entities that carry a transformative power.

Male suggested Marcia Bjornerud for this podcast.. Marcia is a structural geologist whose research focuses on the physics of earthquakes and mountain building. Bjournerud has written several books including Turning to Stone: Discovering the Subtle Wisdom of Rocks, and Timefulness: How thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World. She is a Fellow of the Geological Society and a contributing writer to The New Yorker, Wired, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times..

Marcia Bjornerud
https://www.lawrence.edu/people/marcia-bjornerud-walter-schober-professor-of-environmental-studies-and-professor-of-geosciences
Emergence essay, Wrinkled Time: https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/wrinkled-time/
Turning to Stone: Discovering the Subtle Wisdom of Rocks. Book by Marcia Bjornerud
Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World. Book by Marcia Bjornerud

Mále Uribe
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/estudio.male/?hl=en
Salt Imaginaries, London Design Museum: https://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/designersinresidence2019cosmic/salt-imaginaries-by-mle-uribe-fors
Minerasophia, Chile Pavilion and Design Biennale, Somerset House: https://londondesignbiennale.com/pavilions/2025/chile

'La Medula' Poem by Ursula le Guin (referenced by Male): https://www.instagram.com/p/BuqP-zPl8xb/
Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Book by Jane Bennett

Mater
https://mater.digital/
Find more images from our conversation on the Mater instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mater________/?hl=en
Get in touch: [email protected]

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This fascinating conversation was recorded at the Rembrandthuis museum in Amsterdam, where I had the pleasure of speaking with The Rembrandt House curator, and the former head of paintings conservation at the Rijksmuseum. We were discussing the paintings of the 17th century Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn: about Rembrandt’s pigments, the evolution of his painting process, and the art of painting conservation. My two guests couldn't be more perfect for this podcast because they have both been at the forefront of both unveiling and sharing the latest discoveries into Rembrandt’s materials..

Petria Noble is the former Head of Paintings Conservation at the Rijksmuseum, a position she held between 2014 and 2022. She is a researcher specialised in paintings by Rembrandt van Rijn, and an expert in the material aspects of his paintings. Prior to joining the Rijksmuseum, Petria worked for 18 years as a Paintings Conservator at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague.

Leonore van Sloten has held a position as curator at The Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam since 2005, here she’s responsible for various exhibitions and publications on Rembrandt and related themes.. She initiated and curated amongst others the 2019 exhibition Rembrandt Laboratory: Rembrandt’s Technique Unravelled, the exhibition that we discuss in this conversation, which shone a spotlight on the world of scientific research into materials and techniques.

I'm Maddie Rose Hills, and you have been listening to The Mater Podcast
Find images from our conversation on the Mater Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/mater________/?hl=en-gb

Related links
Rembrandt House Museum: https://www.rembrandthuis.nl/en/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=692326751&gbraid=0AAAAADSRQune0nZ9wB8TfU1tnowVtWEeI&gclid=Cj0KCQiA0KrJBhCOARIsAGIy9wBP9jrDMiXcvx-b-bCP7UN7yffJpwk_csoiU9bx7erGmLeE_ftk9gkaAhFcEALw_wcB
Petria Noble: https://dutchmethodunfolded.humanities.uva.nl/?page_id=474
Leonore van Sloten: https://www.leonorevansloten.com/
Mauritshuis: https://www.mauritshuis.nl/en?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=1613811005&gbraid=0AAAAADuJqF0q5DhmqQoriFVNj5wZ7Kuwt&gclid=Cj0KCQiA0KrJBhCOARIsAGIy9wC2-pIUMtAUUgxiUzjJYrDJNwt6u8xX_5m1lWHykc1HmpHLyBsKHNwaAgC9EALw_wcB
Art Matters Journal: https://www.amjournal.org/

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BCB: https://www.britishceramicsbiennial.com/
This year’s programme: https://www.britishceramicsbiennial.com/news/full-programme-announced-for-british-ceramics-biennial-2025/
Clare Wood: https://www.britishceramicsbiennial.com/person/clare-wood/
Burleigh Pottery: https://www.burleigh.co.uk/pages/about-us
ReForm Herritage: https://re-form.org/
Recast programme BCB: https://www.britishceramicsbiennial.com/project/recast/
The podcast that Clare mentions about the Recast programme: https://open.spotify.com/episode/750cQoCFPCXBv8YjQGJWLN
Claire Baily episode of The Mater Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-mater-podcast/id1749226924?i=1000694666344

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Welcome back!! Today I'm speaking with Tessa Silva about MILK. Tessa is a British-Brazilian artist whose work considers our collective use of materials from ancient history to the present day. Using craft as a tool to investigate the relationship between culture and nature, Tessa unravels the storied histories of the materials she works with in the knowledge that every material has its own biography. Using milk as her primary medium, Tessa has spent the last six years working with surplus milk proteins as a material to produce bespoke, handcrafted sculptural objects. Titled Feminised Protein, a term first coined by American writer, feminist, and animal rights advocate Carol J Adams to address the exploitation of non-human reproductive cycles to produce food on a mass scale, Tessa’s project exists in dialogue with themes of sustainability, history, nature and motherhood.

The Feminised Protein project has been exhibited at institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, and at the 10th edition of Future Heritage, curated by Corinne Julius. Tessa has delivered lectures on her practice at the V&A, Henry Moore Studios, and for the British Council’s Circular Cultures programme.

Tessa Silva
Tessa on Instagram

Tessa's Mater text
Esther Leslie's Mater text

Ma-tter Seetal Solanki
Alfriston Clergy
Weald and Downland museum
Hook and Son Farm - raw organic dairy farm
Arts Council England, Developing Your Creative Practice grant

Tessa referenced two other episodes of The Mater Podcast: 'Emma Witter & Krista Mileva Frank' and 'Andrew Cummings & Claye Bowler'

Mater on Instagram
The Mater website

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