Maria Balshaw on Creative Rebellion, Life After the Tate & The House as a Container

Beyond the whirlwind of galleries and exhibitions, Tate Director Maria Balshaw's home holds the quieter, deeply personal moments of her life.Growing up in Northampton, she longed to escape her characterless new-build house and nurtured a desire to be different. Her current home in Kent is a reflection of that creative rebellion, with medieval beams at its centre, classical sash windows on one side and Crittalls on the other.Maria grows vegetables in her garden year-round, swims in the sea nearby, and measures time by what’s coming into flower – a way to be at one with nature and shed the stress of an urban working week. Her mother spent her final months in this house, sitting on the terrace in the sun, watching buzzards circle the valley, convinced one of them was her late husband waiting for her. At the end of March, Maria is stepping down from her position at the Tate after nine years, signing off with a major Tracey Emin exhibition. She knows exactly where she’ll be the following morning: in the garden, in her wellies, at the start of the growing season. This is a conversation about movement and rootedness – and about what it means to build a home that can hold both.This episode was recorded inside Maria’s home in Kent.A full tour of the home and garden is available to our Patreon community.Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMattTo hear more from us:YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video versionInstagram: @homingwithmattContact: Email us at [email protected] Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496Music by @simeonwalkermusicIdentity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office Produced by @podshoponlineThe full visualised home tour is available to our Patreon community.Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Why are some people drawn to minimalist architecture while others prefer nostalgic rooms filled with antiques and personal artefacts?Writer and philosopher Alain de Botton believes the answer might lie deeper than taste. For many years, Alain has explored the emotional forces that shape our inner lives – from love and loss to status anxiety. Through his educational organisation, The School of Life, he has focused on wellbeing and self-understanding.  Much of this thinking connects directly to the built environment.In his book The Architecture of Happiness, Alain argues that buildings are never neutral: they can steady us, unsettle us, and quietly influence who we become.In this conversation, Alain reflects on his own relationship with domestic space – and how, in many ways, he has spent a lifetime trying to recreate the modernist calm of his childhood home in Switzerland.   Together, Matt and Alain explore beauty, belonging and control – and examine why so many of us turn to architecture in search of a kind of psychological skin.  This is a conversation that goes to the heart of what Homing is about: how we build safety, both in the spaces around us and within ourselves. This episode was filmed at Alain’s house in North London.To hear more from us:YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video versionInstagram: @homingwithmattTikTok: @homing.with.mattContact: Email us at [email protected] Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496Music by @simeonwalkermusicIdentity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office Produced by @podshoponlineFor exclusive walking tours – from Dan Pearson’s year-round outdoor kitchen to Polly Morgan’s taxidermy zebra – join us on Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith has spent most of his life on the same plot of land, tending its gardens and letting the land shape him in return. Tom has designed gardens at places like Chatsworth, Tate Britain and The Hepworth Wakefield. He’s won nine gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show, and was awarded an OBE in 2023.  But long before any of that, he was a child roaming Serge Hill in Hertfordshire, the estate his grandfather bought decades ago. Tom spent his childhood climbing its trees and staging Shakespeare plays. And apart from a brief spell away, he’s lived just 200 yards from his childhood home for almost his entire life. Tom’s wife, Sue Stuart-Smith, is a psychotherapist and author of the book The Well Gardened Mind. Together, they created the Serge Hill Project – a part of the estate where community groups, schoolchildren, young offenders and people recovering from illness can get hands-on with the soil and experience the uplifting power of nature.This is a conversation about landscapes, legacy and what it really means to stay rooted in one place.The episode was recorded at The Apple House, a modern pavilion on the estate designed by their son Ben.A full tour of the building and its surroundings is available to our Patreon community.Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMattTo hear more from us:YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video versionInstagram: @homingwithmattTikTok: @homing.with.mattContact: Email us at [email protected] Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496Music by @simeonwalkermusicIdentity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office Produced by @podshoponlineThe full visualised tour of Tom’s estate is available to our Patreon community.Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Anxiety is something many of us carry quietly. It can shape everything, from how we move through the world to how we feel at home.In this episode of Homing, Dr Alexandra Shaker explores how the home can become a sanctuary and how physical environments can either soothe or unsettle us.Alexandra is a specialist in anxiety disorders with a PhD in Clinical Psychology. Her book The Narrowing combines her personal experiences of panic attacks with what she’s learned over years as a practitioner and researcher.   The conversation traces some of the root causes of anxiety and practical ways to live alongside it, from mindfulness and sleep hygiene to the importance of community and belonging. Matt and Alexandra discuss how spaces, lighting, sounds, and materials can trigger panic, and how the home can be adapted into a calming, grounding refuge.This episode is about understanding anxiety in the body, the power of practical support, and how a home can centre us and keep us grounded through difficult times.To hear more from Alexandra:Her Substack Janus Gate features pressing questions, hesitations and preoccupations through the lenses of psychological research and contemporary culture. You’ll also receive her book reviews. To hear more from us:YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video versionInstagram: @homingwithmattTikTok: @homing.with.mattContact: Email us at [email protected] Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496Music by @simeonwalkermusicIdentity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office Produced by @podshoponlineFor exclusive walking tours – from Dan Pearson’s year-round outdoor kitchen to Polly Morgan’s taxidermy zebra – join us on Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Author and podcaster Elizabeth Day spent years chasing a vision of the ‘perfect’ home life, only to discover that reality can look very different.She grew up in the Northern Irish countryside, in a home that was physically safe but shadowed by unrest in the wider community. Childhood fears of monsters under the bed were replaced by the reality of masked terrorists, which has made the concept of home as a place of safety so central to her life today.In the high-pressure early years of her journalism career at The Evening Standard, Elizabeth sought to create peaceful, restorative spaces – first in her own apartments, and later in the relationships she invested in.Her path has also been marked by profound challenges: the unexpected breakdown of her first marriage and a 12-year fertility journey that ultimately ended in disappointment. As a high achiever with a clear picture of her life goals, learning to navigate what she describes as “failure” has been far from straightforward.She describes her life in more recent years as “a dismantling of that and a recovery of who I was at four.” Her current home and her loving marriage to Justin are built upon the lessons she learned from these experiences. Elizabeth describes finding her home as a moment of fate, as if the universe delivered exactly what she needed. This episode looks at how perfectionism can take us away from ourselves, and how love and self-compassion can help us feel at home again.The episode was recorded in Elizabeth’s house in South London.A full house tour is available to our Patreon community.Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMattElizabeth’s new novel, One of Us, is published by 4th Estate and available to purchase in hardback here. You can also preorder a copy of the paperback out (21 May) here.To hear more from us:YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video versionInstagram: @homingwithmattTikTok: @homing.with.mattContact: Email us at [email protected] Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496Music by @simeonwalkermusicIdentity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office Produced by @podshoponlineThe full visualised studio tour is available to our Patreon community.Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

In the first episode of a new strand of Homing, Katherine May frames the home as a place to slow down and take refuge from the overstimulating world beyond.Katherine is known for her bestselling book Wintering, which explores the importance of rest and retreat during the fallow periods of life that we all experience. The conversation delves into what happens when we allow ourselves to notice natural rhythms and cycles: the solstices, the shifting light, and the subtle signals that tell us when it’s time to slow down. Katherine describes home as a sensory environment – almost as an extension of the body itself – and how the spaces we live in can either soothe the nervous system, or quietly overwhelm it. The conversation turns to boredom and creativity – and why giving children unstructured time and space can be one of the most generous things we do for them. Katherine helps us understand the home as a place where we can learn to restore ourselves, enabling us to go back out into the world with renewed strength.To hear more from us:YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video versionInstagram: @homingwithmattTikTok: @homing.with.mattContact: Email us at [email protected] Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496Music by @simeonwalkermusicIdentity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office Produced by @podshoponlineFor exclusive walking tours – from Dan Pearson’s year-round outdoor kitchen to Polly Morgan’s taxidermy zebra – join us on Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

For interior designer and art curator Natasha Landers, home is where the public and private worlds meet. Her Walthamstow house is a curated gallery, where Black art is not just displayed, but lives among her daily life.Natasha grew up in a Hackney council house, sharing a bedroom with her brother in a home where space was tight, but imagination wasn’t. From an early age, she found ways to express herself – decorating her bedroom and reworking her clothes. She was the first in her family to go to university, leaving the noise of East London for the stillness of the Welsh valleys. The silence was unsettling. No traffic. No sirens. Just the realisation that home isn’t only about place – it’s about what your body recognises as safe. Today, Natasha is a diversity consultant, working in boardrooms where she's often the only Black person in the room. Spaces where she’s learned to hold her ground – and gently challenge how others see the world. Her home has become part of that work, and she opens it up as an exhibition space for Black artists.  She’s lived there for 26 years, shaping it slowly and conscientiously. A roll-top bath once sat in the living room for two years, waiting for the moment it could finally be installed.It’s also a home that knows how to slow down. After years of people-pleasing and burnout, Natasha has learned to honour rest – and to find pleasure in small, everyday rituals. This is an episode about patience, knowing when to perform and when to stop, and how a home shaped over time can become a place where you’re finally allowed to just be. The episode was recorded at Natasha’s home in Walthamstow.A full tour of the house and art collection is available to our Patreon community.Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMattTo hear more from us:YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video versionInstagram: @homingwithmattTikTok: @homing.with.mattContact: Email us at [email protected] Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496Music by @simeonwalkermusicIdentity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office Produced by @podshoponlineThe full visualised home tour is available to our Patreon community.Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

For Dan Pearson, working with the landscape isn’t simply his profession — it’s how he makes sense of the world.In this emotional conversation, he opens up about self-image, mindfulness and the alchemy of gardening – something that can feel like magic, but is really about careful attention and a deep respect for the natural rhythms of life.Dan fondly recalls his childhood home: a dilapidated house where wildlife knew no boundaries, with rat holes under doors and vegetation pressing up against the furniture.Today, he lives in a modest stone farmhouse with small windows, nestled into the side of the valley, with a huge landscape that opens out in front. He and his partner cook and eat in their outdoor kitchen year-round, watching the weather roll in over Freezing Hill. At the bottom of the garden, there’s a pond for swimming or meditation. It’s the embodiment of the prospect-refuge theory.This is an episode about humility, about living in sync with nature and understanding that as human beings, we're part of a wonderful ecosystem much larger than ourselves.  The episode was recorded at Dan’s home in Somerset.A full tour of his garden and outbuildings is available to our Patreon community.Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMattDan also publishes Dig Delve, an online magazine about his Somerset garden, with photography and editorial by his partner Huw Morgan. Homing listeners can use the discount code HOMING2026 for 15% off annual or quarterly subscriptions.Website: www.digdelve.comInstagram: @digdelve Dan’s personal Instagram: @coyotewillowTo hear more from us:YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video versionInstagram: @homingwithmattTikTok: @homing.with.mattContact: Email us at [email protected] Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496Music by @simeonwalkermusicIdentity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office Produced by @podshoponlineThe full visualised home tour is available to our Patreon community.Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

For homewares designer Matilda Goad, balance isn’t just a design principle – it’s a way of living. Her home is a reflection of that: comfortable and familiar, but full of playful touches.Growing up in a country cottage, boredom became a lesson in invention. With her grandfather an artist and her mother a fashion designer, Matilda was surrounded by creativity from an early age and developed a strong drive to prove herself.That ambition runs through everything she does. From designing her iconic scallop-edged lampshade to opening a new hardware store off the Pimlico Road, Matilda has a talent for taking the functional and adding a playful twist. Her home in London is an extension of her visual identity and the backdrop to some of life’s most significant moments. Both of her children were born at home – one in the sitting room, the other in the bedroom. For Matilda, home is psychological safety: a place that can hold everything.We talk about sensitivity to environments, using anxiety as fuel, and the discipline required to sustain creative drive. She shares practical rituals to reset, from breathwork exercises to lighting techniques, and the realities of building a business slowly and organically.This episode is about purpose, momentum and how our homes mirror the lives we’re building.– MattAn extended version of the tour is available to our Patreon community.Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMattTo hear more from us:YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video versionInstagram: @homingwithmattTikTok: @homing.with.mattContact: Email us at [email protected] Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496Music by @simeonwalkermusicIdentity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office Produced by @podshoponlineThe full visualised home tour is available to our Patreon community.Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

For a special Christmas episode of Homing, I was invited into the home of cookery writer and ultimate host, Skye McAlpine.Skye is like a modern-day “Mother Christmas”. She was raised between London and Venice by parents who were great bon viveurs, and her childhood home was an open house, filled with guests, conversation and celebration. It’s there that she absorbed the idea that a home is meant for sharing – a philosophy she has carried into both her life and her work.If you follow Skye online, you’ll see that her kitchen is at the heart of everything she does; a space to cook and gather those she loves around one long table. For Skye, hosting is an expression of love, and choosing a favourite event is, in her words, “like choosing a favourite child”.The glamorous version of her life is only one side of the story. Skye also shows me the unseen, everyday moments of life at home.During our tour, she laughs about the dust that gathers on every surface, which makes her cough. We talk about insomnia, doomscrolling, introversion, and the importance of not letting the pressure to appear perfect stop you from putting yourself out there.This is an episode about place, belonging, childhood, and what it really means to make people feel at home.So before your Christmas dinners, I hope you give this episode a listen and absorb Skye’s wisdom for creating a table full of love.This episode was filmed in person at Skye’s London Victorian townhouse.– MattTo hear more from us:YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video versionInstagram: @homingwithmattTikTok: @homing.with.mattContact: Email us at [email protected] Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496Music by @simeonwalkermusicIdentity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office Produced by @podshoponlineThe full visualised home tour is available to our Patreon community.Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★