ART FICTIONS is a monthly, contemporary art meets literature programme, created by artist Jillian Knipe. Each guest artist selects a piece of fiction, which we both explore, then use as a lens through which to view their artwork. We delve into the book‘s themes, context and characters, which opens up and steers a rich conversation about the artist‘s practice. The podcast bounces back and forth between art and text, all the while focussing on the ideas which govern both. It is a way of talking…
Guest artist QIAN QIAN joins independent curator, consultant and Reike instructor BECCA PELLY-FRY to discuss her work via 'Cosmicomics' by Italo Calvino. First published in Italian in 1965 and in English in 1968, Cosmicomics is a collection of short stories, mostly circling around a character called Qfwfq, which connect to real events in the history of the universe. Becca and Qian Qian talk about…
Guest artist HOLLY STEVENSON joins Freud Museum curator VANESSA BONI and JILLIAN KNIPE to discuss her work via 'Down Below' by Leonora Carrington. The original manuscript was "lost", so it was re-written via dictation and first published in 1944 in the surrealist journal VVV. Having fled from Nazi occupied France after her lover Max Ernst was arrested, the book describes first hand Carrington's…
Guest artist SOPHIE VON HELLERMANN joins MARCELLE JOSEPH to discuss her work via 'Martyr!' by Kaveh Akbar. Originally published in 2024 by Knopf, it portrays bereaved Iranian-American writer, searching for a reason to live. Sophie and Marcelle talks about love, survival sacrifice, guilt, lightness, martyrdom, autofiction, resourcefulness, addiction, mythology, baroque, discovering, uncovering,…
Guest artist HAROUN HAYWARD joins JILLIAN KNIPE to discuss his work via 'The Sea The Sea' by Iris Murdoch. Winner of the prestigious Booker Prize, it was first published in 1978 by Chatto & Windus, and most recently by Vintage Classics as part of Penguin Books. The chaotic story centres around Charles Arrowby, a director, actor and playwright who has retired from his highly glamorous London life…
Guest artists JENNET THOMAS and SALLY O'REILLY come together to discuss their work via the short story 'Critique' by Ben Marcus. Published in 2018 by Alfred A Knopf and Grant Books, it is one of 13 stories appearing in 'Notes from the Fog' which explore dysfunction, desolation and disconnection within a woundingly funny collision of art and reality. 'The Big Throw' at SET Social 23 April 2026 Buy…
Guest artist CARRIE MOYER joins JILLIAN KNIPE to discuss her work via 'Cassandra at the Wedding' by Dorothy Baker. Published in 1962 by Houghton Mifflin (US) and Victor Gollancz (UK), most recently Daunt Books, with sympathetic tenderness and acerbic wit, it follows twin sisters Cassandra and Judith as they navigate Judith’s wedding to a very pleasant and capable young doctor. The other key…
From Episode 9, ALICE BROWNE chats with JILLIAN KNIPE about what she's been doing, reading and seeing, as well as her hopes for the year ahead. We delve into worship, floating, yellow, sainthood, caves, underwolds, pergatory, visceral visions, dark spaces, psychological potential, sharing dreams, self destruction, happy endings, vertical journeys, painting cracks, slapstick behaviour, maleable…
Guest artist ALINE MOTTA joins PELUMI ODUBANJO to discuss her work via 'Water is a Time Machine' by the artist herself. Originally published in Brazilian Portuguese by Fósforo Editora and Luna Parque Edições in 2022, the text reconfigures memories by using a non-linear perception of time and is part of a multi-layered project including video and performance. It includes personal documents that…
Guest artist AYO AKINGBADE joins ELIZABETH FULLERTON to discuss her work via 'In the Eye of the Wild' by Nastassja Martin. Published in 2021, the story follows the aftermath of a French anthropologist's gruesome attack by a bear, while she is living with the Evan people on Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. FOLLOW US on INSTAGRAM! BUY US A COFFEE! SUPPORT US via PATREON! EMAIL US…
Guest artist LAUREN GODFREY joins JILLIAN KNIPE to discuss her work via 'Heartburn' by Nora Ephron. Published in 1983, it tells a recipe rich story of Rachel Samstat and her husband Mark's marriage breakdown as a result of his affair with Thelma Rice. BUY US A COFFEE! SUPPORT US ON PATREON! Lauren and Jillian's conversation encompasses misogyny, kreploch soup, fat phobia, hot sass, slaying haters,…