Zandra Rhodes is a true British original, as integral to the creative iconography of British culture as Bowie, Ab Fab and the Spice Girls; an independent fashion designer who kick-started her career as a student on the Pop Art scene with David Hockney in London the 1960s; who built a successful global fashion empire in the 70s and 80s beloved by Jackie Kennedy, Freddie Mercury, Diana Ross, Princess Diana and Cher; and who, in the face of dwindling popularity in the 90s when her exuberant prints were no match for the grunge and minimalism trends of the era, pivoted to launch the Fashion and Textile Museum and designing costumes for the opera.

The through line to all of this has been her innovative use of sketch and pattern as a founding block of her design; a love of travel and a delight in absorbing the world around her into her work; and her deep-rooted friendships with the likes of artists Andrew Logan, David Sassoon and Duggie Fields. Diagnosed with cancer in 2020, the electric-pink haired Dame Zandra has defied the grim diagnosis and remains as exuberant and erudite as ever, quick to throw out a throaty chuckle and share a salty anecdote with her trademark gregariousness. As The Holburne Musuem in Bath, England, stages a retrospective of her famous prints, the 85-year old takes a moment out of her jam-packed schedule to talk to Danielle Radojcin about just what it is that makes her keep on keeping on…

In this episode, Danielle travels to the sweeping grounds of Wolterton, an 18th-century Palladian Hall in Norfolk, where centuries of history and years of careful restoration have set the stage for a bold new chapter in contemporary art. The Arts & Culture Programme at Wolterton launched this summer with Sea State, an exhibition co-curated by Simon Oldfield and Gemma Rolls-Bentley, featuring two extraordinary artists whose practices are deeply tied to the natural world: Maggi Hambling and Ro Robertson.

For Hambling, the sea has always been both muse and adversary – unpredictable, overpowering, and endlessly alive. Here, she unveils new works, including Time, an intimate installation honouring her late partner Tory Lawrence, and her ongoing Wall of Water series, paintings that crash with the force and emotion of the waves themselves. As well as her relationship to the sea, she talks about how her painting process relates to her grief and the passing of time.

Alongside Hambling, Robertson’s site-specific sculpture The Swell rises in Wolterton’s Marble Hall – a fluid, steel form rooted in nature’s cycles and the artist’s own connection to the queer body in the landscape.

Together, their works transform this historic house into a space of reflection, grief, power, and renewal – inviting us to confront our place within the vastness of the natural world. Both discuss the sea as both subject and metaphor, about love and loss, queerness and sexual desire, identity and memory, and how Wolterton’s history has become a showcase for these ideas.

“A friend said my superpower is to make serious things seem lighhearted.” Danielle Radojcin meets artist Nicole Wermers at Herald St’s Museum Street space in Bloomsbury, London, where she was showing her new exhibition Tails & Fainters. Best known for her sculptural assemblages that slyly explore class, gender and the unseen labour that shapes urban life, Wermers talks through the thinking behind this latest body of work.

Born in 1971 in West Germany, Wermers moved to London in the 1990s and has lived and worked here ever since. She studied at Central Saint Martins and was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2015 for her exhibition Infrastruktur. Her installation, The Violet Revs, representing a fictional female biker gang, is currently on display at Tate Modern. She’s also a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, and her work continues to offer a sharp, humorous commentary on the shifting landscapes of cities and the invisible forces shaping how we live.

Portrait of Nicole Wermers. Courtesy of the artist and Herald St, London. Photo by Peter Guenzel.