Free Thinking

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Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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The ideas shaping our lives today - with leading artists and thinkers in extended interview and debate.

Free Thinking: Connecting with Nature

Connecting with Nature

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Connecting with Nature

Music from thunder, art inspired by a dog walk; essays about a city wood and a rural field

Composer Erland Cooper, writer Anita Roy, artist Alison Milner and Dr Pippa Marland discuss taking inspiration from walking in the park, in the city, by the sea and thunderstorms.

Music from Orkney thunderstorms, dog walks in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park that have inspired a set of tiles, essays about the seasons from a diverse collection of writers: Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough's guests, composer Erland Cooper, writer Anita Roy, artist Alison Milner and Dr Pippa Marland, compare notes on the way they filter countryside experiences to create art, music and literature. 

Anita Roy and Pippa Marland have co-edited a collection of essays titled Gifts of Gravity and Light featuring Luke Turner, Testament, Tishani Doshi, Michael Malay, Jay Griffiths and others with a foreword by Bernadine Evaristo.
You can find a selection of blogs and poems pulled together in a lockdown nature writing project run by Pippa at landlinesproject.wordpress.com
Anita Roy has also published a selection of her stories called Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean.
Alison Milner's tiled artwork is on show at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park          https://ysp.org.uk/        https://www.alisonmilner.com/ 
Erland Cooper's music inspired by Orkney and the poet George Mackay Brown will be heard on an episode of Between the Ears broadcasting on BBC Radio 3 this autumn.  His music is being performed in concerts at the Edinburgh International Festival, the Cathedral Arts Quarter Festival Belfast, Stroud, Bristol and Birmingham.      https://www.erlandcooper.com/

Producer: Sofie Vilcins 

You can find a Green Thinking playlist of programmes exploring different aspects of nature and our approach to the environment on the Free Thinking programme website and an episode of the Verb exploring the experience of going for a walk hearing from guests including Testament and Stuart Maconie.

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