Personal Experience: How to Make a Podcast About Art

        In 2021, after five wonderful (and stressful) years, I finally got my Bachelor’s degree in Art History. And, as most graduates, faced a difficult question: what’s next? I wanted to do something that would allow me to share my knowledge and at the same time learn new things – so I decided to start a podcast. Here, I want to talk about my experience of making a podcast about art and culture and share some tips for everyone who wants to try it.

        A podcast is a perfect format for beginners because it allows you to experiment and does not require large investments, especially at the start. Podcasts have rapidly become a go-to platform for curious minds and creative spirits, offering an accessible and engaging way to explore new ideas. Unlike YouTube videos, you don’t need an expensive camera and light—many people start with a simple microphone or even a phone recorder (the first episodes of my podcast were recorded in the closet of my apartment). I started by transforming some of my old texts into little scenarios and tried to adapt them to the format by imagining that I was telling the story to my friend. Then I experimented with editing and sound effects to make the stories more lively. Even though it was all very new for me back then, I enjoyed the process of creating new episodes and learning more with every one of them.

        But, since I was working primarily with the visual arts, and my podcast was about that too, the question quickly arose – how do you talk about paintings and sculptures without being able to show them? At first, I thought there was no way to do it without the visual component, but then I remembered that I had a whole subject at university called “Describing and Analyzing Works of Art”, so technically I already knew how to do that. Imagination is a powerful tool, and with a good, detailed description, the listener doesn’t always have to see the work to understand what it’s about. Plus, they may be interested in searching for images on their own – to make it easier for them, I leave all the images I mention in the episodes on the podcast’s social media accounts.

        Another problem I had was striking a balance between an academic and an entertaining approach. At that time, I had a few years of university studies behind me and experience working in a museum, where I mostly wrote academic texts. They were interesting to my professors and colleagues, but too complicated for someone without such a background. I wanted to tell something simpler and easier to understand, but not simplify the material too much so that I could still talk about complex and sophisticated topics. To do this, as mentioned above, I imagined that I was retelling these stories to my friends or my mom, and sometimes directly tested my scripts on them. In the process, I also wanted to read some books on drama and screenwriting so that I could turn, for example, biographies of artists into compelling stories. This helped me a lot, and I still use many of these techniques in my work today. 

        Lastly, I had a hard time at first figuring out which stories to tell. For example, there are a million different materials about Vincent van Gogh, and it seemed like a strange idea to do another one – but many people want to hear about van Gogh much more than they want to hear about some unknown artist! At the same time, any story can be told in new ways, emphasized in unexpected places, interesting parallels can be drawn… Now I try to mix stories about little-known characters from the art world and those that most people have heard of – so yes, I have episodes about Van Gogh, the Impressionists, and Picasso, although I didn’t originally plan to talk about that. And I feel it works pretty well because my listeners always tell me they managed to learn something new about these well-known people. 

        Podcasts about art and culture are more than just entertainment – they are windows into creative process, historical movements, and cultural debates that shape the way we experience the world.  

        If you’re thinking about starting a podcast, here are some tips that might help:

1. Think carefully about the concept – it shouldn’t be just “an art podcast”, but something that will distinguish you from other similar projects. It’s important to find some interesting aspects or unusual optics that you can offer to your listener.
2. Plan at least 5-10 episodes in advance – if you know what you’re going to talk about next, you’ll feel much more confident and will be able to stick to the original concept without difficulty.
3. Work well on the descriptions – factual information is not always well absorbed by the ear, and vivid and detailed descriptions spark the imagination, making the story more exciting and interesting.
4. Test your scripts on family and friends and don’t be afraid to ask for advice – when you’ve been working with material for a long time, it can be difficult for you to assess how understandable and interesting it is. And, in the discussion process, new facts and funny jokes may come to your mind!