Beste Grant Gibson podcasts (2024)

1
Zena Holloway on grass roots. 46:41

18d ago46:41

46:41

Zena Holloway is a bio-designer and founder of Rootfull, which creates exquisite clothes, lights and sculptures from grass roots. She started her career as an underwater photographer, doing extraordinary high-end fashion shoots, as well as working with the likes of Kylie Minogue, Tom Daley, Katie Price and numerous other celebrities. At the same ti…

1
Alkesh Parmar on orange peel. 45:07

2M ago45:07

45:07

Alkesh Parmar is a designer and researcher. Over the years, he has hollowed out champagne corks and turned them into chandeliers, as well as transforming traditional Indian terracotta cups into light fittings. But he is best known for his work with citrus peel in general – and orange peel in particular. Using a material generally thought of as wast…

1
Sanne Visser on human hair. 57:01

2M ago57:01

57:01

Sanne Visser is a Dutch-born, London-based designer. She describes herself as a ‘material explorer, maker and researcher’, who is best known for a string of installations and products using human hair. Since graduating from Central Saint Martins a little under a decade ago, she has exhibited all over the world and been nominated for a number of awa…

1
Bharti Kher on material alchemy and her fascination with bindis. 1:02:32

2M ago1:02:32

1:02:32

Artist Bharti Kher was brought up in England before moving to India almost on a whim in the early ’90s. Since then, she has established herself as a major player on the international art scene. Her sculptures talk about women’s place in society and the female body. She has a fascination with mythology and mixing the real with the magical, as well a…

1
Oliver Heath on biophilic design. 52:22

3M ago52:22

52:22

Oliver Heath is a designer, architect, author and one of the world’s leading advocates for biophilic design. Along with his team and the sustainable platform Planted, he currently has an exhibition at the Roca Gallery in South London, which focuses firmly on bio design – illustrating what it is, why it’s important, and how it can be used in the spa…

1
Ernest Scheyder on lithium, mining, and the politics behind going green. 52:36

5M ago52:36

52:36

Ernest Scheyder is an author and senior correspondent for Reuters. His new book, The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives, looks at the impact of the green transition in the US – and, more particularly, the tensions over the increasing need to mine for metals to decarbonise the grid (and power a plethora of devices) …

1
Adi Toch on why she buries copper. 54:01

6M ago54:01

54:01

Adi Toch is one of the world’s most fascinating metal artists, who over the years has buried her pieces for months on end before digging them up, and even made them react to sound. She has also taken part in collaborations with furniture makers and glass artists. Adi has work in the permanent collections of the V&A, The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambri…

1
Human Nature's Jonathan Smales on mining the Anthropocene, and building in timber and Hempcrete at The Phoenix. 1:06:23

6M ago1:06:23

1:06:23

Jonathan Smales is a housing developer like few others. He is the co-founder and executive chairman of Human Nature, whose new project, The Phoenix, on the outskirts of Lewes, East Sussex in the UK, has just won planning permission. What makes the development different? The Phoenix will contain 685 homes, designed by a roster of fascinating archite…

1
Bert Frank's Adam Yeats on manufacturing in post-Brexit Britain. 40:07

6M ago40:07

40:07

Adam Yeats is co-founder and managing director of Bert Frank, one of the UK’s leading lighting companies. Yeats started the brand with designer, Robbie Llewellyn, in 2013. Since then it has gone from strength to strength, opening a showroom in London’s Clerkenwell in 2019, exhibiting at home and abroad, and winning the Elle Decoration British Desig…

1
Ptolemy Mann on colour, weaving, and painting. 57:48

6M ago57:48

57:48

Ptolemy Mann is a British artist who came to widespread attention with her woven textile pieces, often stretched across a frame and notable for her extraordinary use of colour. More recently, her practice shifted and she has turned to painting on paper with fascinating – and inevitably colourful – results. Her latest pieces combine the two, as she …

1
Fairphone's Bas van Abel on repair, longevity, and conflict minerals. 1:01:15

9M ago1:01:15

1:01:15

Bas van Abel founded Fairphone in 2013. The company attempts to transform the way our smartphones are manufactured, by reducing e-waste, sourcing conflict-free minerals, and improving working conditions in its supply chain. It creates a product consumers are encouraged to keep longer and which, importantly, they can also repair themselves. Fairphon…

1
John Tuomey on his childhood, becoming an architect, and his beautiful new memoir. 55:47

9M ago55:47

55:47

There have been over 100 episodes of Material Matters but, for listeners who might be new to all this, the idea is that I speak to a designer, maker, artist, or architect about a material or technique with which they’re intrinsically linked and discover how it changed their lives and careers. However, once in a while I break my own self-imposed for…

1
Sara Grady and Alice Robinson on making ethical leather. 55:47

9M ago55:47

55:47

Sara Grady and Alice Robinson co-founded British Pasture Leather in 2020. The duo aim in their own words ‘to link leather with exemplary farming and, in doing so, to redefine leather as an agricultural product’. All of which means creating a new network of systems within the industry. Essentially, the pair are attempting to make the material we buy…

1
Florian Gadsby on clay and becoming a potter. 58:13

10M ago58:13

58:13

Florian Gadsby is a bit of a phenomenon. The ceramicist currently has a new show at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and has also published a memoir, By My Hands, that charts his formative years with clay, including apprenticeships in the UK and, most intriguingly, Japan. Essentially, it unpicks his route to becoming a fully, fledged professional pott…

1
Christien Meindertsma on wool (and linoleum). 51:23

10M ago51:23

51:23

Christien Meindertsma is a Dutch designer who has a fascination with materials. She currently has an installation at the V&A, entitled Re-forming Waste, which shows new work based around her interest in linoleum, as well as technological advances with the material she has described as her first love, wool. Christien came to wider attention initiall…

1
Simone Brewster on 2023, her breakthrough year. 59:01

11M ago59:01

59:01

This special festive episode is slightly different because, as we come to the end of 2023, we thought it would be interesting to talk to someone who has had a breakthrough year. And we couldn’t think of anyone that description fits better than UK-based designer, Simone Brewster. In June, Simone held her first solo exhibition at the NOW Gallery on L…

1
Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert on hot glass. 53:48

11M ago53:48

53:48

Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert is a Paris-based designer, maker, and artist, obsessed with blown glass. In an eclectic career, that has seen him travelling through the USA and Europe, before settling in France in 2007, he has shown work at the V&A, Vessel Gallery in London, and Palais de Tokyo among others. His pieces are also held in a number public co…

1
Neil Thomas on building with bamboo. 56:18

12M ago56:18

56:18

Neil Thomas is the founder and director of Atelier One, one of the most creative engineering practices in the UK. The firm has worked on building projects such as Singapore Arts Centre, Federation Square in Australia, and Baltic in Gateshead, as well as with a hugely impressive roster of artists, including Anish Kapoor, Marc Quinn and Rachel Whiter…

1
Caroline Till on material futures, regenerative design, and lots more. 59:03

1y ago59:03

59:03

Caroline Till is a consultant, author, curator, and academic. She founded Franklin Till, along with Kate Franklin, in 2010 and, since then, the future research agency has worked with the likes of international textile exhibition Heimtextil, paper giant GF Smith, Caesarstone, Tarkett, and IKEA’s former blue sky thinking agency, Space 10. The pair ha…

1
Tom Lloyd and Luke Pearson on their material change. 1:05:00

1y ago1:05:00

1:05:00

Tom Lloyd and Luke Pearson co-founded the hugely influential design studio, Pearson Lloyd, in 1997. Since then, it has gone on to work in areas such as the workplace, transport and health care, with organisations like Virgin, Lufthansa, the Department for Health, and furniture giant Senator. The practice is the Designer of the Year at the Material …

1
Goldfinger’s Marie Carlisle on wood and social good. 48:33

1y ago48:33

48:33

Marie Carlisle is CEO and co-founder of social enterprise (and Material Matters exhibitor), Goldfinger. The organisation opened its doors at the foot of West London’s Trellick Tower in 2013 and makes high end furniture from wood – that has often been reclaimed or ‘treecycled’ – in its workshop. Not only that but it has a showroom and cafe, as well …

1
Michael Marriott on resourceful design and his fascination with materials. 58:54

1y ago58:54

58:54

My guest for the 100th episode of Material Matters is a British designer who sits somewhere between industry and craft. Michael Marriott has a fascination with materials – so much so that his web shop is called Wood Metal Plastic – and a love of resourceful design. Over the years he’s created furniture for the likes of Established & Sons, SCP, and …

1
Alice Kettle on embroidery. 53:55

1y ago53:55

53:55

Alice Kettle is one of the country’s leading textile artists. She uses embroidery to tell stories and throw the spotlight on contemporary issues – most noticeably the refugee crisis in her series Thread Bearing Witness. Currently, she has a solo installation at two sites in The City of London as part of her prize for winning The Brookfield Properti…

1
Beatie Wolfe on making music material again and the power of art. 1:11:30

1+ y ago1:11:30

1:11:30

Beatie Wolfe is a musician and artist, who has in her time been described as a ‘musical weirdo and visionary’ and one of the ‘22 people changing the world’. In a relatively short career she has: created a 3D interactive album app and a musical jacket; worked in the world’s quietest room to develop an ‘anti-stream’; fired her music into space; made …

1
Ndidi Ekubia on silver and her extraordinary, liquid-like vessels. 50:41

1+ y ago50:41

50:41

Ndidi Ekubia creates extraordinary, almost liquid-looking, vessels from silver. She graduated from the University of Wolverhampton in 1995, before going on to the Royal College of Art. Since then, her work has been shown internationally at exhibitions such as TEFAF in Maastricht, Masterpiece in London, and Pavilion of Art & Design in New York. Her …

1
Ercol chairman, Henry Tadros, on elm, beech, ash and keeping his company relevant. 47:00

1+ y ago47:00

47:00

Henry Tadros is chairman of one of the country’s most renowned furniture companies, Ercol. The firm was founded by Italian immigrant, Lucian Ercolani, in 1920 but it really found its feet after the Second World War with the Windsor Range – an industrial version of a traditional craft chair – that is best known for its steam bending process and usin…

1
Donna Wilson on knitting, becoming a brand, and creating her extraordinary creatures. 51:02

1+ y ago51:02

51:02

Donna Wilson is a globally-feted designer. She initially made a name for herself in 2003 with a series of knitted toy creatures made of lambswools, which managed to be odd and endearing all at the same time. Since then, she has worked with the likes of SCP, John Lewis, V&A Dundee, as well as having a solo show at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Meanw…

1
Julian Stair on pots, death, and using cremated ashes in his work. 54:24

1+ y ago54:24

54:24

Julian Stair is one of the UK’s leading ceramic artists. He has exhibited internationally since the 1980s and made his name making beautiful, pared-back everyday forms. Julian’s work is in 30 public collections, including the British Museum and the V&A and he was awarded an OBE in 2022 In March, he launched a fascinating, and deeply moving, new exh…

1
Paul Cocksedge on coal, metal, light, concrete and much more besides. 53:18

1+ y ago53:18

53:18

Paul Cocksedge is a London-based designer who has built a reputation over the past twenty years for creating projects that push the limits of technology and materials. During that time, for example, he has melted polystyrene cups in an oven to make a lamp shade, treated steel as if it was a folded piece of paper, worked with concrete from the floor…

1
Ineke Hans on designing for the circular economy. 49:39

1+ y ago49:39

49:39

Ineke Hans is a world-renowned product and furniture designer. She originally studied art at Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Arnhem before switching to design. In 1993, she moved to London’s Royal College of Art and, subsequently, worked for Habitat as a furniture designer. By the end of the decade she was focusing on her own work and, since then, clien…

1
Darren Appiagyei on turning Banksia nuts and waste wood. 37:02

1+ y ago37:02

37:02

Darren Appiagyei is a wood turner and founder of inthegrain. The Camberwell College of Arts graduate made his name with vessels fashioned from the Banksia nut. Subsequently, he has gone on to create pieces from waste wood he finds on a local farm not far from his studio in London’s Deptford. He believes his work is ‘about embracing the intrinsic be…

1
Summer Islam on building with biomaterials. 55:07

1+ y ago55:07

55:07

Summer Islam is a founding director of Material Cultures, a not-for-profit organisation that in its own words ‘challenges the systems, technologies, processes, supply chains, regulations and materials that make up the construction industry with the aim of transforming the way we build’. Currently, Summer has an installation in London’s Building Cen…

1
Keith Brymer Jones on his life in clay and TV stardom. 48:05

2y ago48:05

48:05

Keith Brymer Jones is a potter, whose hand-made ceramics – which include the best selling Word Range – have been stocked in major stores, including Habitat, Laura Ashley and Heals. Over the years, he has been a ballet dancer, a front man in a nearly famous post-punk band, and a YouTube sensation. However, he is best known as a judge on the hugely p…

1
Peter Apps on Aluminium Composite Material and the Grenfell Tower fire. 55:21

2y ago55:21

55:21

Peter Apps is a journalist and author, as well as the deputy editor of Inside Housing. His extraordinary, devastating new book, Show Me The Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Happen, looks at the evidence of the public enquiry into the circumstances leading up to, and surrounding, the fire at London’s Grenfell Tower on the night of 14 June 2017. Unpicking…

1
Smile Plastics’ Rosalie McMillan and Adam Fairweather on recycling plastic and reviving a company. 57:12

2y ago57:12

57:12

Rosalie McMillan and Adam Fairweather are co-founders of the materials, design and manufacturing house, Smile Plastics. They have a factory in South Wales which takes plastics and other materials traditionally classed as waste and transforms them into extraordinarily eye-catching, large scale, solid surface panels. Over the years, the company has w…

1
Aric Chen on design and energy, giving microbes agency, and lots more. 43:40

2y ago43:40

43:40

Aric Chen is general and artistic director of the Het Nieuwe Instituut, the Dutch national museum for architecture, design and digital culture in Rotterdam. During one of those careers that makes you wonder what on earth you’ve been doing with your time, he has also been creative director of Beijing Design Week, lead curator for design and architec…

1
Professor Rebecca Earley on polyester, people and pragmatism. 57:51

2y ago57:51

57:51

Professor Rebecca Earley is a design researcher and award-winning team leader at University of the Arts London and is based at Chelsea College of Arts where she is Professor of Circular Design Futures. Initially, she trained as a printed textile designer before creating her own fashion label, B.Earley, in 1995. Her prints and garments have been com…

1
LAYER's Benjamin Hubert on creating and sustaining a career in design. 45:00

2y ago45:00

45:00

As a special preview to Material Matters 2022, launching from 22-25 September at Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf, we meet one of the stars of the fair. Benjamin Hubert is an industrial designer and founder of LAYER, the experience design agency that has worked with the likes of Airbus, Bang & Olufsen, Braun and Moroso, to name just a handful. The pract…

1
Hannah and Justin Floyd on wool (and the new material they've created from it). 48:41

2y ago48:41

48:41

Hannah and Justin Floyd are the creators of an intriguing material, called SolidWool. The composite is made up of wool, which is used as the reinforcement, and bio-resin that acts as a binder. The wool itself comes from the Herdwick sheep found in the Lake District that was once a staple of the carpet industry but which has recently fallen out of v…

1
Simon Hasan on Cuir Bouilli (or boiled leather). 50:56

2y ago50:56

50:56

Simon Hasan made a name for himself when he graduated from the Design Products course of the Royal College of Art in 2008 with a collection of pieces made from Cuir Bouilli or boiled leather, an ancient material that was used to make medieval armour. The collection made quite a splash and, subsequently, he worked on a number of projects such as Cra…

1
Michael Young on a life in design. 50:19

2y ago50:19

50:19

Michael Young is a world renowned product designer who initially made his name in London during the mid-90s, and quickly found himself working for significant brands, including Magis and Rosenthal. After a sojourn in Iceland, he traversed the globe and set up his practice in South East Asia. Over the years, his portfolio has become wildly eclectic.…

1
Majeda Clarke on weaving. 58:20

2+ y ago58:20

58:20

Majeda Clarke is a weaver, whose work is concerned with identity and a sense of place. She combines traditional techniques from some very different parts of the world – such as Bangladesh and North Wales – with an aesthetic that has been influenced by Josef and Anni Albers. She came to textiles relatively late in life (having previously been in edu…

1
Carl Clerkin on mending and narrative. 51:29

2+ y ago51:29

51:29

In my opinion, Carl Clerkin is one of the most original – and certainly one of the wittiest – designers currently practicing. He graduated from the now-defunct furniture course of the Royal College of Art in the late ’90s, a time when many of his contemporaries were dreaming of fame and fortune with a glamorous Italian manufacturer. However, he ste…

1
Juliette Bigley on metal. 45:54

2+ y ago45:54

45:54

Juliette Bigley is an artist and sculptor who creates extraordinary, abstract, but somehow familiar, pieces out of metal. I first saw her work at New Designers, the graduate design show held annually in London, after she left The Cass in 2013 and, since then, her career has gone from strength to strength. She has a piece in the permanent collection…

1
Nigel Coates on a life in architecture. 1:15:12

2+ y ago1:15:12

1:15:12

Nigel Coates is a hugely influential architect, designer, artist and educator. He first came to widespread attention as a teacher at the Architectural Association in the early 80s when he co-founded NATO, a radical architecture collective that published a series of magazines with a unique perspective on the city. Later, he co-founded the practice, …

1
Richard McVetis on embroidery. 46:42

2+ y ago46:42

46:42

Richard McVetis is an embroiderer, who is fascinated with time. Each of his, often monochromatic cuboid, pieces is meticulously made to explore the subtle differences that emerge through the ritualistic and repetitive nature of sewing. More recently, he has taken inspiration from his family’s mining heritage to investigate a story of race and class…

1
Elaine Yan Ling Ng on eggshells. 46:46

2+ y ago46:46

46:46

Elaine Yan Ling Ng is a Hong Kong-based designer and innovator. She founded her own studio, The Fabrick Lab, in 2013, after stints working with the likes of Nissan and Nokia. Initially trained as a textile designer and weaver at London’s Central Saint Martins, her work encompasses traditional craft and cutting edge technology, with clients and coll…

1
Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien on card and colour. 1:02:42

2+ y ago1:02:42

1:02:42

Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien founded their eponymous design studio, Doshi Levien, in 2000. The duo, who are also real life partners and met while studying at London’s Royal College of Art in the late ’90s, came to prominence in 2003 with an extraordinary range of cookware, designed for French company, Tefal. At the time, the pieces seemed differe…

1
Aardman's Peter Lord on Plasticine. 1:09:47

2+ y ago1:09:47

1:09:47

Peter Lord founded Aardman Animations, with his school friend David Sproxton, in 1972. The Bristol-based company rapidly became known for its witty, character-driven, stop-motion work in Plasticine, giving the world characters such as Morph, Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep, as well as working on a dizzying array of feature films, shorts, TV sh…

1
Alison Britton on clay. 42:33

2+ y ago42:33

42:33

Alison Britton is a ceramicist, writer and educator, who emerged as part of a revolutionary group of artists from the Royal College of Art in the 1970s, which was determined to provided an alternative to the then-dominate school of pottery, led by Bernard Leach. Instead, their work was angular, abstract, urban, a little bit feisty and, hey, Post-Mo…

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