30/03/2011

This week Libby Purves is joined by Travis Meinolf, Vernon Rapley, Prof Lewis Wolpert and Rachel Clare. Travis Meinolf is an 'action weaver' who travels around the world engaging communities in interactive weaving, drawing on human connections, conversations and stories and embeds them into cloth woven on the move. He is interested in the symbolism and meaning of cloth and has been observing the way people in Libya are representing themselves through sewing their own flags. As part of an event organised by 'Curious About Craft', he will work with the local community in Birmingham. Vernon Rapley is Director of Security at the V&A. Formerly Detective Sergeant, he led London's Metropolitan Police Art and Antiques Unit until June 2010. With a team of just three full time police officers, he was dedicated to the policing of the world's second largest art market, recovering an average of £7 million of stolen and laundered art each year. He will be giving two lectures - Introducing Fakes and Forgeries at the V&A and one in aid of Venice in Peril at the Royal Geographical Society. Professor Lewis Wolpert is a developmental biologist, and is Emeritus Professor of Biology as Applied to Medicine at University College, London. In his new book 'You're Looking Very Well' he explores the scientific and social implications of getting old, and tackling every aspect of the subject from ageism to euthanasia to anti-ageing cream. 'You're Looking Very Well' is published by Faber & Faber. Rachel Clare is director of 'Crying Out Loud' which brings the most memorable international physical theatre companies to the UK. This spring, 'Groupe Acrobatique de Tanger' bring their dizzyingly evocative Chouf Ouchouf on tour, which weaves together contemporary performance and traditional Moroccan acrobatics, evoking the danger, joy and urgency of a Moroccan medina.