Hear historian of emotions Thomas Dixon describe and define joy, before listening to comedian Daliso Chaponda and developmental psychologist Caspar Addyman talk with Bidisha. They remind us to let our inner jester and inner laughing baby come out and play. 

Musician Sola shares her track ‘All Mine’ and talks about the pleasures of making music. Whilst enjoying ice cream, performance artist Travis Alabanza speaks with Bidisha about identity and defiance and the sheer delight they experience when they can be themselves on and off stage.  

How can joy be a collective experience? Bidisha finds out through speaking with Kemi Akinola, the founder of Be Enriched, a community kitchen in South London bringing people together over food and creating a place of comfort and joy for 4000 diners a year.

Presented by Bidisha
Produced by Debbie Kilbride
Sound design by Micky Curling
Music by Sola
Executive producer Emily Wiles

Hello Happiness: Episode 4, Joy

Genes are recipes for proteins and proteins do stuff. But if a gene can make more than one protein, how does that affect genetic variation and the possible routes to adaptation? We get an introduction to the topic of adaptive alternative splicing from David Manahan.

Alternative splicing and thermal adaptation in mice

Access a slow-looking exercise of this work.

Transcript
Narrator: This work by Danh Vo from 2013 is titled "Lot 20. Two Kennedy Administration Cabinet Room Chairs." The sculptural work hangs vertically on the gallery wall and initially appears like a single enormous piece of leather, extending around 6 feet long and about 3 feet at its widest point. It is draped in folds like a curtain. The surface that would have covered the chair seats and backs is dark black with a glossy sheen, reflecting the light at various angles while remaining shadowed within the deep folds. On the reverse side, the leather is a light tan color with a softer texture, like unfinished suede. The majority of the visible surface is black, with just a few sections at the top revealing the tan underbelly when the leather is folded over.

From a distance the black leather surface looks smooth and unblemished. Upon closer inspection, small circular indentations are visible along the edges where metal rivets would have secured it to a chair frame. Some of the corners are aged and cracked while others are torn and ragged. Remnants of white stuffing where the leather was ripped from the chair are still visible in a small oval shape on the suede underside.

This allusion to the violence of skinning a slaughtered animal and hanging it like a trophy is also reflected in the political history of the period and Vo’s family history of fleeing violence during the Vietnam War.

How do objects bear witness to history? How does the way these former chairs are presented affect our perception of the past?

Exhibition Website

Description of Lot 20. Two Kennedy Administration Cabinet Room Chairs, 2013

Access a slow-looking exercise of this work. 

Transcript
Narrator: "Untitled (Black & Black)" is a work by Pier Paolo Calzolari from 1986. The full installation measures nearly 8 feet high by 8 feet wide and extends 2 feet from the gallery wall. The dimensions of each component are varied within that frame. The piece is composed of two sections, one hanging vertically on the wall about two feet above the other, which runs horizontally along the gallery floor. A single copper pipe stretches down from the section on the wall to reach the ground section, the only connector between them.

The wall section includes a jet-black panel hanging vertically, about 8 feet high by 2 feet wide. A thin gray sheet of lead is attached to each edge of the panel where it protrudes out from the wall; they are wrinkled, demonstrating their malleability. Along the left edge of the panel, not one but many layers of lead sheets are stacked together, tightly packed like gills. They are difficult to identify because they are thickly covered with layers of brilliant white frost, sparkling and glittering as it catches the gallery light. At the base of this left side of the panel a pipe extends down to a small refrigeration unit humming on the gallery floor below the work. 

The ground section of this work is about 8 feet long by 2 feet wide made of long lead sheets laid horizontally along the floor against the gallery wall. A chalky white powder is scattered along its dark gray surface in shapes that appear to have formed organically, as if saltwater pools had collected and then evaporated. A small motor sits on the far-left edge of the lead sheet, adjacent to a black compressor with a rounded top and a cooling structure contained within a rectangular metal box. This is surrounded by copper evaporator and condenser coils, which are attached to the lower-left corner of the wall panel and cause the freezing process. The whole unit is about 2 feet square, as if a refrigerator’s inner workings were removed and repurposed for use here. Calzolari’s interest in organic materials and chemical and physical transformation is evident in this artwork and reflective of Arte Povera, an Italian art movement of which he was a member. 

The contradictory nature of salt, necessary for life and yet deadly in large doses, is mirrored in the polar opposites of black and white, and absence and presence of color throughout the artwork. Both refrigeration and salt are intended to preserve things but through very different processes. Salt is a natural preservative, while refrigeration works through a chemical process of transforming a liquid into a gas, and this evaporation cools the surrounding area. 

While made of unique materials, this work evokes a minimal vertical painting in deep black with a vibrant strip of white along its left side. Calzolari was drawn to frost as a luminous material. In his own words, “I saw how this sort of absolute, unparalleled whiteness had the capacity to constantly renew itself... and be something that was not just white, but rather a sort of pulsation.” Why might Calzolari have titled this artwork "Untitled (Black & Black)" when the color white is so essentially present in the frost and evoked through Calzolari’s use of salt before being burned black?

Description of Untitled (Black & Black), 2021

Klickt hier, um zum Manuskript zu gelangen:

https://bit.ly/Deutschlernen_Langsam-Gesprochene-Nachrichten_24042024

Die Langsam gesprochenen Nachrichten der Deutschen Welle bieten von Montag bis Samstag aktuelle Tagesnachrichten aus aller Welt. Das langsam und verständlich gesprochene Audio trainiert das Hörverstehen. Zusätzlich gibt es den vollständigen Text zum Mitlesen. Die Audio-Datei kann auch heruntergeladen werden.

Hier geht's zur Übersichtsseite: dw.com/langsamenachrichten

Deutsch lernen (B2/C1) | Langsam Gesprochene Nachrichten vom 24.04.2024

In this episode of Pediapod, Section Editor Jeanie Tryggestad discusses the most recent advances in the field of Pediatric Endocrinology.

What's hot in Endocrinology?

Klickt hier, um zum Manuskript zu gelangen: 
http://bit.ly/Deutschlernen_Langsam-Gesprochene-Nachrichten_25042024 

Die Langsam gesprochenen Nachrichten der Deutschen Welle bieten von Montag bis Samstag aktuelle Tagesnachrichten aus aller Welt. Das langsam und verständlich gesprochene Audio trainiert das Hörverstehen. Zusätzlich gibt es den vollständigen Text zum Mitlesen. Die Audio-Datei kann auch heruntergeladen werden.

Hier geht's zur Übersichtsseite: dw.com/langsamenachrichten

Deutsch lernen (B2/C1) | Langsam Gesprochene Nachrichten vom 25.04.2024

Klickt hier, um zum Manuskript zu gelangen: 
https://bit.ly/Deutschlernen_Langsam-Gesprochene-Nachrichten_26042024

Die Langsam gesprochenen Nachrichten der Deutschen Welle bieten von Montag bis Samstag aktuelle Tagesnachrichten aus aller Welt. Das langsam und verständlich gesprochene Audio trainiert das Hörverstehen. Zusätzlich gibt es den vollständigen Text zum Mitlesen. Die Audio-Datei kann auch heruntergeladen werden.

Hier geht's zur Übersichtsseite: dw.com/langsamenachrichten

Deutsch lernen (B2/C1) | Langsam Gesprochene Nachrichten vom 26.04.2024

Testet euer Wissen mit interaktiven Übungen: 

https://bit.ly/Top-Thema_100-Jahre-diplomatische-Beziehungen-zur-Tuerkei

Mit dem Top-Thema könnt ihr euch gleichzeitig über Neues aus aller Welt informieren und euren Wortschatz erweitern. Wir bieten euch zwei leicht verständliche Berichte mit Vokabelangaben und Fragen zum Text pro Woche. 

Hier geht's zur Übersichtsseite: dw.com/topthema

Deutsch lernen (B1) | 100 Jahre diplomatische Beziehungen zur Türkei

Was ist ein Liebestöter? Kann man Kabelsalat essen? Und warum gibt es keine Hexen, aber einen Hexenschuss? Oft bedeuten diese Wörter etwas anderes, als man denkt. Viele von ihnen stehen nicht im Wörterbuch. Jede Woche erklären wir hier ein kurioses deutsches Wort zum Beispiel aus der Umgangssprache oder aus Redewendungen – lustig, ernst oder einfach schwierig zu verstehen.

Klickt hier für mehr kuriose Wörter: dw.com/wortderwoche

Deutsch lernen (B2) | Die Wohlfühlatmosphäre

The free museum and library that aims to challenge how we all think and feel about health by connecting science, medicine, life and art.

Hello Happiness: Episode 4, Joy

Wellcome Collection

Related tracks