New film The Strays, artists Chila Kumari Singh Burman and Dawinder Bansal, Janet Malcolm’s photography memoir

By BBC Radio 4

Front Row

22/02/23·42m 18s

Nathaniel Martello-White on making his directorial debut with the psychological thriller The Strays, set between a south London estate and an affluent English suburb.

Chila Kumari Singh Burman’s show at FACT in Liverpool, Merseyside Burman Empire, references her MBE for services to Visual Art, awarded last year in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, and her experiences growing up in Bootle as the daughter of Punjabi-Hindu parents. Dawinder Bansal’s Jambo Cinema installation, which explored her life growing up in 1980s Wolverhampton with Indian-Kenyan parents, was one of the big commissions at last year’s Commonwealth Games Cultural Festival in Birmingham. Chila and Dawinder discuss making art that draws upon their South Asian heritage.

Throughout her career, the distinguished writer Janet Malcolm, who died in 2021, was fascinated by photography. She came to prominence through her journalism for the New Yorker including six years as the magazine’s photography critic. Photography was the subject of her first book and it has turned out to be the subject of her final book, a memoir – Still Pictures: On Photography and Memory. Photographer of the Year Craig Easton reviews.

Presenter: Nick Ahad Producer: Ekene Akalawu