Recording Artists

Today, we're sharing the first episode of OMMM, Getty's newest podcast and first video podcast.

This series encourages you to engage with works of art mindfully, wherever you are. Part art history, part mindfulness meditation, each episode focuses on one work of art and uses it as an inspiration for meditation and reflection. 

Long-time museum educator and meditation practitioner Lilit Sadoyan translates her work leading mindfulness meditation tours at the Getty Museum into a podcast that fits into your daily routine. Between episodes, catch Lilit’s interviews with fascinating guests like a sleep historian, a mountain climber, and an art conservator, who shed new light on familiar works of art.

Today's episode features a sensory awareness meditation inspired by Vincent van Gogh's Irises (1889). Van Gogh’s Irises is one of the best known works in the Getty collection. This was one of the first paintings the artist began after entering an asylum following his mental breakdown in Arles. Van Gogh found respite and recovery in the garden—and in his art.

With irises shown in full bloom erupting directly from the damp soil, this painting makes it easy to imagine the experience of being down on the ground in a garden on a spring day. Being outside in a garden engages all of our senses—the feeling of the wind, the sound of birds, the scent of warm earth. This experience inspires the episode’s sensory meditation.

Subscribe to OMMM wherever you get your podcasts and at getty.edu/ommm, where you can also find additional images and transcripts.

Subscribe on YouTube for the video version: https://gty.art/4wZysOS

Check out season two of ReCurrent, a Getty podcast about what we gain by keeping the past present.

Hosted by Jaime Roque, this season explores cultural stories hidden in photographs, archives, and everyday places. Hear from artists, activists, and communities where Getty stories continue to unfold.

On this episode, Backlot and Barrio, Jaime spends time with photographer George Rodriguez, whose camera moved between Hollywood’s backlots and Los Angeles’ East Side. He documented celebrity culture while remaining deeply rooted in community, identity, and resistance.

Subscribe to ReCurrent wherever you get your podcasts and at getty.edu/podcasts/recurrent, where you can also find additional images and transcripts.

How does a mid-20th-century experimental art and science group help us make sense of our social media ecosystem today?

In this extended excerpt from Stanford professor Fred Turner, you’ll hear how the origins of our media landscape date back to the 1940s and the push to counter fascist authoritarianism through democratized access to information. He also explores the unexpected role experimental art-science groups like E.A.T. played in developing our current media culture.

You can read more in his book The Democratic Surround.

Stay tuned for more bonus episodes.

Check out Getty’s first podcast for kids and their families, If Objects Could Talk!

Listen as artifacts leave the museum vault and come alive to share their side of the story. Featuring objects from Getty's antiquities collection, each episode introduces listeners to the history, creation, and everyday use of incredible items like an Egyptian cat statue, an ancient kind of dice, and a glass flask shaped like a fish. Voice actors and immersive sound design bring these historical fiction tales to life.

Hear the rest of the series and learn more at https://www.getty.edu/podcasts/if-objects-could-talk/. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to be the first to hear the inaugural season, beginning September 8, 2025.

Laser physicist Billy Klüver really loved his lasers. But what divided the beauty of the laser (at least in Klüver’s eyes) from art? As the co-founder of the nonprofit group Experiments in Art and Technology, drawing the line between art and engineering came up a lot. In this bonus episode, we’ll hear Klüver talk about disciplinary boundaries in artist-engineer collaborations, and about his beloved lasers.

Stay tuned for more bonus episodes.