In this episode of the MUSAE podcast, Dr Aoife O'Gorman (UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science) talks to Sanja Šikoparija and Víctor Fernández, who worked together as part of the NOURISH team, one of the winning projects from MUSAE's Second Open Call. Aoife also talks to Eva Monestier from POLIMI, coordinators of the MUSAE project.

MUSAE is an EU Horizon funded project developing approaches for art-driven innovation. The project brings together experts from different disciplines to define an innovative model to integrate artistic collaboration in the European Digital Hubs.

The vision is to enable companies to develop innovative products and services that address key issues in the food system.

The UCD team - Prof Lorraine Brennan and Dr Aoife O Gorman - bring expertise in food and health and are actively involved in mentoring the artists as they develop their future prototypes.

For more information about MUSAE, please visit: https://musae.starts.eu/

MUSAE - NOURISH Team, participants in MUSAE's Second Open Call and POLIMI

In episode 3 of Extracts, hosts Sarah Comyn and Megan Kuster arein conversation with Siyabonga Mthembu. Based in Johannesburg, Siya is the lead member of one of South Africa’s best known musical ensembles, The Brother Moves On. The Brother Moves On is widely regarded for their music which, in their own words, offers "transitional music for a transitional generation", An incredibly popular band, The Brother Moves On attracts huge audiences in South Africa and around the world. Their live shows are known for the band’s experimental performance approach which mixes art, music, and stories to create the conditions for transformative audience experiences. In today’s episode, Siya talks with us about the music industry, how Johannesburg’s gold mining foundations and legacies continue to shape his work, his concept of ultra sanity, and the projects he is looking forward to experimenting with next.

About Extracts

EXTRACTS is a podcast series about how artists are working to reimagine the potential futures of mined, excavated, and extractivist landscapes hosted by Sarah Comyn and Megan Kuster.

The music is from the South African performance art ensemble ‘The Brother Moves On’. We gratefully acknowledge the UCD Humanities Institute and UCD’s College of Arts & Humanities Research Strands Seed Funding scheme for funding this project.

Here's the link to John Grzinich's album 'Geofractions,' mentioned in the intro: https://maaheli.bandcamp.com/album/geofractions

Extracts - Episode 3. Siyabonga Mthembu

In this episode a recording of a keynote from the Irish Humanities Alliance's Annual Conference for 2025.  

The conference, entitled 'Feeding the Soul - Transnational Narratives of Food and Belonging' took place in UCD Humantities Institute on 4-5 September 2025

The first keynote was given by Raúl Matta (Centre de Recherche Institut Lyfe).
His keynote, 'Foodscapes as affective assemblages, or why (food) stories matter' was preceded by some conference opening remarks by UCC Professor Brendan Dooley, Chair of the Irish Humanities Alliance.

The second keynote was given by Tania Aguila-Way (University of Toronto)
Title: ''root & stomach and seed speak glottal' - Tracing Stories of Plant-Mediated Diasporic-Indigenous Solidarities from the Poetic Page to the Community Garden'.

Tania Aguila-Way - Tracing Stories of Plant-Mediated Diasporic-Indigenous Solidarities from the Poetic Page to the Community Garden

In episode 4 of Extracts, hosts Sarah Comyn and Megan Kuster are in conversation with forest-maker Aghmad Gamieldien about his work.

Aghmad Gamieldien is the founder of Mzanzi Organics, a social enterprise focusing on small-scale farming, and the creation of pocket forests in and around Cape Town, South Africa. His holistic approach to forest making and rewilding deals with the past of Apartheid in South Africa, including the country's complex history around land. Looking to the future and focusing on connecting people as a way to deepen relations with the earth, Aghmad also advocates for food sovereignty and indigenous trees. Preserving traditions, embracing renewal, and cultivating community, his forest-making work includes - 'District Six Heritage Forest' on Table Mountain, 'Khoi First Nations Forest', and 'Langalibalele Forest.' 

For more information on Aghmad Gamieldien's work check out Mzanzi Organics website:  https://www.mzanzi.org and also on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mzanziorganics/mzanziorganics

The conversation with Aghmad was recorded on 7 January 2025. 

About Extracts

EXTRACTS is a podcast series about how artists are working to reimagine the potential futures of mined, excavated, and extractivist landscapes hosted by Sarah Comyn and Megan Kuster.

The music is from the South African performance art ensemble ‘The Brother Moves On’. We gratefully acknowledge the UCD Humanities Institute and UCD’s College of Arts & Humanities Research Strands Seed Funding scheme for funding this project.

The music is from the South African performance art ensemble ‘The Brother Moves On’.
We gratefully acknowledge the UCD Humanities Institute and UCD’s College of Arts & Humanities Research Strands Seed Funding scheme for funding this project.


Extracts - Episode 4. Aghmad Gamieldien

In episode 5 of Extracts, hosts Sarah Comyn and Megan Kuster are in conversation with artist Adrián Balseca about his art practice making visible the often not-so-easily seen narratives enfolded in regional extractive economies, bodies, labour, and mobility. 

Born in the city of Quito in Ecuador, Adrián became involved with socially-engaged arts projects at a young age. Today his work incorporates video, installation, sculptural objects, photography, and graphic design. Similar to Gloria Anzaldúa’s approach of turning to much earlier texts and records, Adrián’s art work is inspired by historical archives and his work explores relationships between minerals, human bodies, and health. In this episode, Adrián speaks with us about his process, his materials, and his ideas about history as his clay and travel as a mode of thinking. 

You can find out more about Adrian's work on his instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/adrian_balseca

The conversation with Adrián was recorded on 19 November 2024. 

Our music is by the South African performance art ensemble ‘The Brother Moves On.’ 

We are grateful for the support of the UCD Humanities Institute, and UCD’s College of Arts & Humanities Research Strands Seed Funding scheme, for funding this project.

Extracts - Episode 5. Adrián Balseca

In episode 6 of extracts, hosts Sarah Comyn and Megan Kuster are in conversation with Ignacio Acosta, who is an artist and researcher working with photography and video in territories under pressure from extractive industries. His collaborative documentary practice, use of drone technology and camera traps, and immersive installations aim to help audiences build a connection to the places impacted by extractive industry and contribute to activist social movements trying to project sites at risk of large scale mining.

Find out more about Ignacio Acosta's work on his website: http://ignacioacosta.com

They recorded the conversation with Ignacio on 19 November 2024. 

About Extracts

EXTRACTS is a podcast series about how artists are working to reimagine the potential futures of mined, excavated, and extractivist landscapes hosted by Sarah Comyn and Megan Kuster.

The music is from the South African performance art ensemble ‘The Brother Moves On’. We gratefully acknowledge the UCD Humanities Institute and UCD’s College of Arts & Humanities Research Strands Seed Funding scheme for funding this project.

The music is from the South African performance art ensemble ‘The Brother Moves On’.
We gratefully acknowledge the UCD Humanities Institute and UCD’s College of Arts & Humanities Research Strands Seed Funding scheme for funding this project.

Extracts - Episode 6. Ignacio Acosta

In episode 7 of Extracts, hosts Sarah Comyn and Megan Kuster are in conversation with interdisciplinary artist Jeanine Oleson (Associate Professor of Sculpture at Rutgers University) about her work on copper and more recent projects.

Jeanine’s art work invites audiences into multi-sensory experiences, often drawing on wry humour and absurdity as a mode of expressing critiques of mastery. In this episode, Jeanine speaks about her interest in labour and workers’ rights, how growing up in a port city developed around the fishing and forestry industries in the US state of Oregon influenced her development as an artist, how copper became the protagonist of her ‘CONduct/(or conDUCT) Matters’ project, and the process of filming at Chino Mine, one of the largest open-pit copper mines in the United States. 

In the show, Jeanine mentions a historic 1954 film based on an actual strike against the Empire Zinc Mine in New Mexico, and the film is called Salt of the Earth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk3-As0yh3k

You can find out more about Jeanine Oleson's work on her website: https://www.jeanineoleson.com

The conversation with Jeanine was recorded on 19 November 2024. 

About Extracts

EXTRACTS is a podcast series about how artists are working to reimagine the potential futures of mined, excavated, and extractivist landscapes hosted by Sarah Comyn and Megan Kuster.

The music is from the South African performance art ensemble ‘The Brother Moves On’. We gratefully acknowledge the UCD Humanities Institute and UCD’s College of Arts & Humanities Research Strands Seed Funding scheme for funding this project.

The music is from the South African performance art ensemble ‘The Brother Moves On’.
We gratefully acknowledge the UCD Humanities Institute and UCD’s College of Arts & Humanities Research Strands Seed Funding scheme for funding this project.


Extracts - Episode 7. Jeanine Oleson

This episode of the UCD Humanities Institute's podcast series features a recording of a Research Integrity event jointly organised by the UCD Humanities Institute and the UCD Earth Institute as part of the ReCLAIM project TRAIN - Transnational Research and Interdisciplinary Networks.

Sponsored by the UCD Research Culture ReCLAIM initiative funded by Wellcome Trust, the event consisted of an informal afternoon meeting with members of the research community, with four invited experts in the field

Irene Kavanagh (University College Cork)
Myrte Vos (Leiden University)
Grace Mulcahy (University College Dublin)
and Shen Wang (University College Dublin)

The event was chaired by Dr Bianca Tedaldi. 

Research Integrity - ReCLAIM

The Critical Minerals Symposium was organised by Dr Gigi Tang and Katie Donnelly, and took place in UCD Humanities Institute on November 7, 2025. 

The keynote lecture 'Quarry of Thought - Minerality and AI' was given by Associate Professor Tom Nurmi, The Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

The podcast also features some opening remarks by Associate Professor Sarah Comyn from UCD.

Quarry of Thought: Minerality and AI. Critical Minerals Symposium Keynote by Tom Nurmi

Recording of a talk at the HI by Professor Sarah Colvin (Cambridge) entitled 'Haunting Times - Ghosted Memory and Epistemic Revenants in Zhadan's Ukraine (Voroshilovgrad, 2010) and Bulawayo's Zimbabwe (Glory, 2022).

Serhiy Zhadan’s novel Voroshilovgrad (2010) is set in a fictional Ukraine in the early 2000s, an imaginative world where the dead and the living intermingle; NoViolet Bulawayo’s Glory (2022) in a fictional Zimbabwe in the 2010s, where the protagonist encounters ghosts from a past that has not been dealt with. The talk and discussion will consider how the novels expose the repressive practice of epistemic ghosting and stage the resistant practice of epistemic haunting. Those who have been ghosted return, bringing (back) memories and history that complicate linear and singular memory management.

Sarah Colvin held chairs at the universities of Edinburgh, Birmingham, and Warwick before becoming Schröder Professor of German at the University of Cambridge in 2014. Her research and teaching interests include the areas of literary aesthetics, cultural production and social justice, the political novel and prisoner writing as well as narrative theory and narrative ethics. She is PI of the Cambridge team for the Horizon Europe project Cartography of the Political Novel in Europe (www.caponeu.eu). Her recent publications include the monographs Literature and Epistemic Injustice: Power and Resistance in the Contemporary Novel (Routledge 2026) and Shadowland: The Story of Germany Told by its Prisoners (Reaktion Books 2022) and the edited collections Epistemic Justice and Creative Agency: Global Perspectives on Literature and Film (with Stephanie Galasso, Routledge 2023) and Sharon Dodua Otoo: Literature, Politics, Possibility (with Tara Talwar Windsor, Wiley 2024).

Sarah Colvin. Haunting Times - Ghosted Memory and Epistemic Revenants in Zhadan's Ukraine and Bulawayo's Zimbabwe.

UCD Conway Institute is an interdisciplinary research centre based in University College Dublin. We explore the mechanisms of health and disease. This allows us to develop new preventative strategies, diagnostics and therapeutics to benefit health & well-being. Our vision is to be a leader in biomedical research and innovation. We provide an invigorating environment to facilitate excellence in the biomedical sciences and translate new knowledge.  https://www.ucd.ie/conway