In this episode, we speak with artist Sarah Al-Sarraj about her new speculative audio work The Mandjet. Framed as a fictional radio phone-in and set in a near future reshaped by rising waters and contested borders, the work uses humour, satire and political tension to explore how environmental crisis transforms our relationship to land, water and community. We discuss the process of building this imagined world, the use of radio as a storytelling device, and the complex figures who inhabit it.
Our conversation also explores the histories that underpin the work. Using one of the main protagonists, the leader of a radical water-autonomy movement, as a starting reference, we talk through the drainage of the English Fens and the resistance of the Fen Tigers as well as touching on contemporary debates around water privatisation, environmental justice and political dissent. Finally, we consider how folkloric actors, whether real or imagined, collective memory and ideas of borderlessness shape both the narrative and Sarah's wider artistic practice.
This mini-series is commissioned by Henry Moore Institute as part of the programme for their exhibition Phantasmagoria: Folkloric Sculpture for the Digital Age, open 15 May - 30 August 2026.
Actors:
Rosemary Moss
ELLC
Raza Tariq
Ashirbad Roy
Yasmin Alrabiei
Special thanks:
Siegrun Salmanian
Angelina Radakovic
Davis Galvin
The opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of the Henry Moore Foundation, its trustees, employees or associates
Bios;
Sarah Al-Sarraj (b. 1997) is a visual artist and cultural worker based between Pittsburgh (US) and London (UK). Her work centers on worldbuilding as a creative and critical process, where painting and immersive technologies are understood as portals to other worlds. Predicated on the belief that our world was designed in service of imperial violence, she builds new lifeworlds rooted in land, spirit, and ancestry. Currently working with game engines, she is interested in appropriating military simulation technologies to build uncolonisable realms inspired by Global Majority knowledge systems and emerging quantum thought.
Her creative practice is informed by working in movements, at organisations such as Forensic Architecture, the Inclusive Mosque Initiative and Healing Justice London. She is inspired by the tangible material potential of visionary practice in global liberation movements and she occasionally lends her hands to illustration and graphic design for various groups.
Broadcast through @rtm.fm
Artist @ssaarraahj
Host @influential_bro @_rebecca.edwards @niamhschmidtke
Music @joemoss1 @jtre_v
