Free Thinking Folgen

How do children develop language and experiment with sounds? What toys help them develop? And, how they explain their games? As the Young V&A, previously the Museum of Childhood, opens in East London, Anne McElvoy hosts a discussion looking at the history of play. Does our interest in children's play tells us more about them or, the adults who care for them?Dr Helen Charman, is the Director of the revamped Young V&A in East LondonDr Yinka Olusoga is a Lecturer in Education at the University of Sheffield. Her research interests focus on the social construction of children and childhood in the educational policy, political debate, art and popular culture, in the present and in the past. She has been leading research in the Iona and Peter Opie Archive and with the Play Observatory.Dr Rebecca Woods is a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker and a senior lecturer in language and cognition at the University of Newcastle. Her work focuses on children’s language acquisition.Joe Moshenska is Professor of English Literature and a Fellow of University College. Another BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker, he has been researching Tudor toys.Producer: Ruth WattsYou might be interested in a recent Free Thinking episode exploring boyhood to manhood which looks at teenage experiences - and you can find more about museum displays including the re-opening of the National Portrait Gallery in London and the V&A exhibition Diva in a collection on the website called art, architecture, photography and museums.

Joya Chatterji has written about the South Asian twentieth century in her new book called Shadows at Noon. Tripurdaman Singh has been researching Indian princely states. Novels by Kamala Markandaya (1924-2004) are being republished. Her daughter Kim Oliver and literary scholar Alastair Niven discuss Nectar in a Sieve. A bestseller when it first came out in 1954, it's a story about a tenant farmer, his wife and the impact of a tannery built in a neighbouring village. Rana Mitter hosts.The books recommended by our guests are: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Those-Days-Sunil-Gangopadhyay/dp/0140268529https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lady-Alice-Bhatti-Mohammed-Hanif/dp/0099516756https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/23130761Producer: Julian Siddle

The Sacred Return of Lost Things is the theme of this year's Art Biennial in Liverpool. Catherine Fletcher talks to some of the artists showing work about how they have engaged with the city's history. Visual artist Melanie Manchot introduces her first full length feature film, STEPHEN, about a character recovering from gambling and alcohol addictions. Rudy Loewe describes their new large-scale installation The Reckoning, based around the Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago. And Charmaine Watkiss introduces a sacred space she has created in Liverpool’s Victoria Gallery & Museum, with life-size drawings and a sculpture representing unheard voices and stories that survived the Middle Passage.New Generation Thinker Vid Simoniti gives his view and reports on an exhibition at the Whitworth in Manchester called Economics the Blockbuster – It’s not Business as Usual which looks at disrupting ideas about value, ownership, trade and economy. Liverpool Biennial runs until 17th September 2023.Economics the Blockbuster – It’s not Business as Usual is part of Manchester International Festival MIF23 and this show runs until October 22nd. You can hear about music featured in MIF in other Radio 3 broadcasts and on BBC Sounds and on the Free Thinking programme website there is a collection of discussions about art, architecture, photography and museums.