Making Ways of Seeing: A Conversation with Mike Dibb and Richard Hollis

In 1971, Stephen Hearst, head of the BBC Music and Arts department, commissioned John Berger to make a television series on topics of his choosing. With Mike Dibb, then a young producer/director in the department, Berger made the four-part television series Ways of Seeing. Following its success, BBC Publications commissioned Berger and Dibb to turn the television programme into a book, a project for which Richard Hollis, a graphic designer Berger had previously worked with on the magazine New Society and his novel G., was brought in. Together with script consultant Chris Fox and artist Sven Blomberg, this group produced the book Ways of Seeing, jointly published by the BBC and Penguin Books in 1972. In this conversation with Juliette Kristensen, Mike Dibb and Richard Hollis discuss the history of the making of the television series and the book, Ways of Seeing.