Sketches

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Sketches: Stories of Art and People

Documentaries

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Anna Freeman presents a showcase of stories about the meaning of art in people's lives.

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Sketches: Stories of Art and People: City Streets

City Streets

BBC Radio 4 - Sketches: Stories of Art and People, City Streets

This week Sketches speaks to three people whose art relates to their city.

We're in Baghdad via Oxford - as well as  Bristol and London with three stories about art and city streets.

Anna Freeman presents three stories of people whose work relates strongly to the streets of different cities.  Ben Wilson aka Chewing Gum Man likes to make art in public spaces until it got him into trouble.  He was taken to court over painting on advertising billboards. But he feels strongly about preserving public space for people and art and one day became inspired by the tiny blobs of spat out chewing gum he noticed dotted around the streets.  He had the idea of creating paintings out of them. Tiny as they are they are incredibly intricate and some are moving tributes to the local people and places around Muswell Hill Ben has got to know while he works on the pavement.

As a child in Baghdad Dhamyaa Abbass loved to sew and make dresses out of her mother's old clothes.  But her parents wanted her to concentrate on her studies and she grew up to become a head teacher.  Dress making had to be put aside.  Years later she came to England as a refugee and began building a life in Oxford with her children.  She got involved with the Multaka Project.  Multaka – which means meeting point in Arabic – uses two University museums - The History of Science and Pitt Rivers - and their collections as a meeting point to bring communities together through the mutual sharing of art, stories, culture, and science.  It pairs Arabic speakers with English speaking guides.  The project also encouraged Dhamyaa to take up dress making again and she began designing and sewing dresses that reflect her culture and love of her home country.  It's her way of coping with homesickness for the country she was forced to leave. 
Darryl Carrington has performed in touring circuses, international arena shows and festivals around the world as a juggler, trapeze artist and cabaret act. But in recent years, he's found a renewed love for using clowning and his own experiences of neuro-diversity to connect with audiences through street performances.

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Sketches: Stories of Art and People

City Streets

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