This week: what are Edmonton’s gems – the art that makes us uniquely us? We talk to sculptor Robin Bell about his much-loved whale sculpture at West Edmonton Mall, Remedy Cafe owner Zee about how Edmontonians have helped craft his menu and the famous bathroom graffiti, and find out the backstory to Norman Yates’ mural on the side of the U of A’s Education Building.

This week: how do artists influence medicine – how do they play into how we heal each other? We have two stories, both looking at performance artists in the healthcare system. But they come from different sides of a divide: Demmi Dupri takes the stage in art therapy as a clown, and actor Andrew Ritchie works behind the scenes as a standardized patient for doctors to practice on.

This week: if art is for everyone, how do we make sure everyone can access it? We wander over to the Talking Book Club at an Edmonton library, and hear the story behind CRIPSiE and the Mindhive Collective’s new show The Wedding Reception: Love in the Margins.

This week: how do we shift from being consumers of culture to becoming creators? We speak to writer Lizzie Derksen about the long road to calling herself, well, a writer. And we poke around a 3D printed sculpture at the Stanley Milner Library’s Makerspace in Edmonton to investigate whether 3D printing will transform us into makers of things.

This week: let’s art about sex, baby. We’re asking how art can help us understand sex and sexuality on today’s show. Native Youth Sexual Health Network’s Erin Konsmo tells us why she’s been teaching Indigenous youth how to bead condoms. And we ask local model Andrea and artist Harry Abink what it means to pose in the nude.

This week: how do we go beyond preaching to the choir? How do we open up a conversation beyond the inner circle? We’ve got two stories today – one about a cross-country project called Train of Thought aiming to get First Nations and settler people talking about the struggles we have in common. In the other, we speak to actor Connor Yuzwenko-Martin about his role in the play Tribes at the U of A’s Studio Theatre. It’s an attempt to get deaf and hearing communities to understand each other better.

This week: is the author dead? Does it matter what an artist intended when we’re trying to figure out what their work means? We ask Marcelle Kosman and Hannah McGregor, creators of the Harry Potter podcast Witch Please, why it’s worth reading the Harry Potter books as if author JK Rowling is dead. Then we ask translator Chantal Wright whether the original author gets lost in a translation, and what gets poured in. Finally, we ask Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky why he rarely comments on the political meaning of his photographs of extreme landscapes created by humans.

We invented the Artisan Partisan Party for our Alberta Election 2015 episode. Its triumphant slogan: Creating a Culturally Rich Alberta.

This week: what would Alberta look like if we had a government that was totally oriented around making the arts thrive? With the May 5 provincial election looming, we ask Edmonton artists Theodore Fox, Ahmed Knowmadic Ali, and Gerry Morita for their take. And we come up with a snazzy ad for our fake political party.

This week: how does stuff come to look the way it does? Our reporter Jonathan Dyck shares the agony and ecstasy every graphic designer goes through before they march out into the working world. We head down to Churchill Square to ask how residents feel the design works for them. And young federal NDP hopeful Reakash Walters talks about the careful crafting behind a politician’s public image.