conscient podcast

• To go to a farm and take a carrot out that’s covered in dirt and wipe it off on your pants and eat it on the spot. It's something that most people don't have access to anymore. So that loss of contact with the natural world is having a radical impact on how people view it, how they value it, and how they seem to be willing to let it go. Not realizing that we depend on the natural world. We are part of the natural world, and if we screw it up, we're gone.

I had the pleasure of spending an evening with Dawn Dale, along with a group of artists at an art and ecology potluck at our home in Ottawa on April 7, 2024. Dawn spoke about her artwork and in particular her alfar sculptures whose distinguishing feature are animal ears, perfect for listening to Nature and how they ground her to the Earth by creating a calming yet energising presence. 

I was intrigued to know more about these alfars (check out her web site to see what they look like) and about her art practice in general and so we spoke over a cup of dandelion tea at a relaxed pace in her kitchen in Gatineau, Québec on May 29, 2024.

Dale's primary focus is eco-feminist art realized in large-scale outdoor, site-specific works, ephemeral organic installations in gallery spaces as well as experimental drawings. The alfar came about much later after she was in a bus accident which curtailed her ability to realize those large scale works. 

You’ll hear her speak about her elemental paper clayworks that come out of 3D demonstrations in wax and clay wax throughout the years of teaching at The Ottawa School of Art. These intuitive portraits of the elementals or alfars that populate her imagination and surroundings of her home occupy a lighter side of her environmental concerns as she continues in the historical precedent of bonding the world of humans to the realm of nature through anthropomorphized creations. 

Dale’s love of nature and art is contagious as you’ll hear, also her concern for them. 

For example, I appreciated this insight about the role of art:

• Art is a reflection of the things that we value.

Let’s start with a soundscape recording in her backyard, which I think sets the tone nicely for our conversation. We’ll also conclude there.. 

Dale suggested the following books

• Braiding Sweetgrass - Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the teaching of plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Creative Act : A Way of Being by Rick Ruben
• HomoAestheticus: Where Art Comes From and Why by Ellen Dissanayake
• Reweaving The World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism edited by IIrene Diamond and Gloria Orenstein
• The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution by Carolyn Merchant
• The Reenchantment of Art (1992) by Suzy Gablik
• The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature by David Suzuki

*

END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODES

Note : I'm currently 'pressing pause' and am not producing new content until further notice. 

Hey conscient listeners, 

I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020. It’s my way to give back.

This Indigenous Land Acknowledgement statement was developed by members of the Algonquin community for my former employer the Canada Council for the Arts. I have adapted slightly to make it my own.

• I acknowledge that my studio, located in Ottawa, is on the unceded, unsurrendered Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation whose presence here reaches back to time immemorial.
• I recognize the Algonquins as the customary keepers and defenders of the Ottawa River Watershed and its tributaries. I honour their long history of welcoming many Nations to this beautiful territory and uphold and uplift the voice and values of our Host Nation.
• Further, I offer my respect and affirm the inherent and Treaty Rights of all Indigenous Peoples across this land and honour commitments to self-determination and sovereignty that have been made to Indigenous Nations and Peoples.
• I acknowledge the historical oppression of lands, cultures and the original Peoples in what we now know as Canada and fervently believe the Arts contribute to the healing and decolonizing journey we all share together

In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and its francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I I publish a free ‘a calm presence' monthly Substack see https://acalmpresence.substack.com.  

Your feedback is always welcome at claude [at] conscient [dot] ca and/or on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Threads, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tik Tok, YouTube and Substack.

Share what you like, etc

I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible. 

Thanks for listening. 

Claude Schryer

Latest update on March 21, 2026

• We're all going to be affected by the same outcome. When I went up to Svalbard (Norway), I went with the intention of also capturing the beauty and the terror of the reality of these changes and how they can be at once fascinating to listen to, but also devastating to the environment.

You’ve just heard an excerpt from composer and environmental sound artist Mary Edwards’ Everywhere We Are is the Farthest Place composition, an ode to the transforming Arctic landscape, climate vulnerability, elemental sensuality and Terrestrial Space Analogues. 

Mary kindly shared a compilation mix from this soundscape composition with me to provide an example of her work that you’ll hear throughout this episode. 

Mary holds an Interdisciplinary Master of Fine Arts in Sound and Architecture from Goddard College, and has been awarded residencies and commissions around the world. 

I met Mary for the first time at the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology’s Listening Pasts/Listening Futures Conference in Florida in March 2023 and was immediately struck by the originality of her art and her positive energy, generosity and curiosity. We spoke by Zoom on May 24th, 2024 when we were both recovering from an unseasonable cold snap. 

We talked about her interdisciplinary arts and listening practices that encompass notions of temporality, impermanence, nostalgia and the natural world. For example:

• Listening is an inherent part of what I do. It’s not just creating sound and music, but raising awareness. If we listen more intently to our environment, we can understand the health of our environment.

Welcome to the wonderful and engaging sonic world of Mary Edwards. 

Mary recommended the follow :

• Silent Spring and other writing on the environment and Sea Trilogy by Rachel Carson
• Silence: A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements of Our Lives by Jane Brox (note: during our conversation Mary accidentally called her Suzanne Knox)
• The work of composer Sven Libaek see https://theroundtable.bandcamp.com/album/the-music-of-sven-libaek

*

END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODES

Note : I'm currently 'pressing pause' and am not producing new content until further notice. 

Hey conscient listeners, 

I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020. It’s my way to give back.

This Indigenous Land Acknowledgement statement was developed by members of the Algonquin community for my former employer the Canada Council for the Arts. I have adapted slightly to make it my own.

• I acknowledge that my studio, located in Ottawa, is on the unceded, unsurrendered Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation whose presence here reaches back to time immemorial.
• I recognize the Algonquins as the customary keepers and defenders of the Ottawa River Watershed and its tributaries. I honour their long history of welcoming many Nations to this beautiful territory and uphold and uplift the voice and values of our Host Nation.
• Further, I offer my respect and affirm the inherent and Treaty Rights of all Indigenous Peoples across this land and honour commitments to self-determination and sovereignty that have been made to Indigenous Nations and Peoples.
• I acknowledge the historical oppression of lands, cultures and the original Peoples in what we now know as Canada and fervently believe the Arts contribute to the healing and decolonizing journey we all share together

In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and its francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I I publish a free ‘a calm presence' monthly Substack see https://acalmpresence.substack.com.  

Your feedback is always welcome at claude [at] conscient [dot] ca and/or on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Threads, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tik Tok, YouTube and Substack.

Share what you like, etc

I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible. 

Thanks for listening. 

Claude Schryer

Latest update on March 21, 2026

This is an audio from a short video recorded on June 22, 2024 on an inflatable kayak outing where I thank conscient podcast listeners (and a calm presence readers) and let you know that there are many new conscient episodes coming in the next few days and to please take your time (in particular if you are a regular listener). Please don’t feel overwhelmed). 

This amount of volume and diversity of voices is part of my ongoing research. 

One trick is to listen to the opening seconds featuring a key quote from that episode and see if it draws you in… 

I also mention that season 6 is in the works on the theme of ‘art during periods of crisis’ (working title). 

*

END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODES

Hey conscient listeners, 

I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020 on un-ceded Anishinaabe Algonquin territory (Ottawa). 

It’s my way to give back.

In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and its francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I I publish free ‘a calm presence' Substack see https://acalmpresence.substack.com.

Your feedback is always welcome at [email protected] and/or on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Threads, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tik Tok, YouTube and Substack.

Share what you like, etc

I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible. 

Claude Schryer

Latest update on September 28, 2025

• I luckily managed to move from a space of ‘I have to save the planet or else’ (and we talk about that word ‘save’) to ‘I choose to commit my life to climate change in the best way I can’ because everything that matters to me in this world stands to be lost in a climate crisis, especially one that would play out in a very severe and apocalyptic way. (Katrine)
• Having this I would say a calm perspective from artists, helping us get in touch with our feelings, simply, I found it to be a stabilizing force. (Sébastian)

This is a special episode of the conscient podcast featuring two guests, one from the arts and another from science over a glass of wine or two.

Katrine Claassens is an artist, writer and environmental communications specialist. She has a Master's degree in Climate Change from the University of Cape Town in South Africa and an Honours degree in Visual Art from Stellenbosch University. 

Katrine’s work reflects her interests in climate change, deep ecology, urban ecology, and internet memes. As an artist she has led workshops, given public lectures and curated exhibitions all over the world from the Arctic to Antarctica. As a climate communications specialist Katrine works with governments, think-tanks, academia and NGOs to navigate complex and shifting landscapes but first and foremost I would say that Katrine is an artist, an activist and a climate leader.

Sébastian Méric de Bellefon is an engineer with a background in software development. He has a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Institut Supérieur d’Électronique de Paris, and a Master’s degree in biochemistry and genetics from Université de Montréal. 

After working in other industries as a software developer and consultant - banking, online radio, healthcare - and so he met Katrine and became a nerd about all things related to climate science and decarbonization pathways. 

Three years ago, he started a new career path writing software for clean energy companies, first at General Power Systems to create Virtual Power Plants and now at Power Factors to streamline the operations of wind and solar farms. 

I first met Katrine at an online Creative Climate Leadership alumni meeting, a course I took in March 2020, organized by Julie’s Bicycle in the UK, where Katrine mentioned that she had immigrated to Canada from South Africa and like myself, as was an art and climate activist and so we decided to meet in Montreal, where I met her husband Sebastian and after a delicious vegan meal I asked if the two of them would be willing to record a conscient episode. They agreed and we talked for an hour while finishing off a bottle of homemade dandelion wine. 

I love Katrine’s current work on social media’s representation of nature, for example:

• My practice is looking a lot at the internet and memes and how nature is consumed or understood or contextualized through TikTok videos and YouTube videos and memes on Instagram. 

Near the end I mentioned that our conversation reminded me of the CBC Radio show Brave New Waves in the 1980s in Montreal that took place over night and where guests from various backgrounds had long winding conversations…

During the conversation the following links were mentioned 

• The success and failure of Picasso by John Berger 
• Mountain Lion by D.H. Lawrence : ‘And I think in this empty world there was room for me and a mountain lion. And I think in the world beyond, how easily we might spare a million or two humans. And never miss them. Yet what a gap in the world, the missing white-frost face of that slim yellow mountain lion!’
• Circle Songs by Bobby McFerrin 
• Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann

Katrine mentioned the following books during the conversations:

• Picture book of cave paintings (such as the Earth Children series)
• Nature is not Metal (instagram account)

Sébastian recommended the following books about ‘S-Curve’ (technological transitions)

Note: after the conversation Sébastian offered this further information about s-curves.

‘Here's an introduction to adoption of S-curves and Wright’s law in the context of clean energy. S-curves refers to the pace of adoption, and Wright's law refers to the diminishing manufacturing costs due to cumulative learning.

"Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition" - Oxford 2021 https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(22)00410-X

This paper shows how core low-carbon technologies fit a common and predictable adoption/learning pattern, and how this pattern differs from fossil fuels. Then they estimate the cost of a full transition to renewable energy, and compare it to other possible pathways.

Technologies include solar PV, wind turbines, batteries and hydrogen electrolyzers. The latter can be useful for electricity storage, but I find it even more interesting for fuels (e.g e-methanol for cargo shipping), fertilizers and chemical feedstocks (often derived from natural gas). So the conclusions of this paper can be somewhat extended beyond the energy system.’

*

END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODES

Note : I'm currently 'pressing pause' and am not producing new content until further notice. 

Hey conscient listeners, 

I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020. It’s my way to give back.

This Indigenous Land Acknowledgement statement was developed by members of the Algonquin community for my former employer the Canada Council for the Arts. I have adapted slightly to make it my own.

• I acknowledge that my studio, located in Ottawa, is on the unceded, unsurrendered Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation whose presence here reaches back to time immemorial.
• I recognize the Algonquins as the customary keepers and defenders of the Ottawa River Watershed and its tributaries. I honour their long history of welcoming many Nations to this beautiful territory and uphold and uplift the voice and values of our Host Nation.
• Further, I offer my respect and affirm the inherent and Treaty Rights of all Indigenous Peoples across this land and honour commitments to self-determination and sovereignty that have been made to Indigenous Nations and Peoples.
• I acknowledge the historical oppression of lands, cultures and the original Peoples in what we now know as Canada and fervently believe the Arts contribute to the healing and decolonizing journey we all share together

In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and its francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I I publish a free ‘a calm presence' monthly Substack see https://acalmpresence.substack.com.  

Your feedback is always welcome at claude [at] conscient [dot] ca and/or on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Threads, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tik Tok, YouTube and Substack.

Share what you like, etc

I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible. 

Thanks for listening. 

Claude Schryer

Latest update on March 21, 2026

• It is taking far too long for us to acknowledge the damage we have done to the world's water and to indigenous people and to take action : truth, reconciliation, change. Scientists have discovered that some whale songs actually evolve over time. It is my hope that the choirs who perform this work with me and all those who hear it will refuse to let what the whales are saying be lost in the ocean and will join their song in calling for respect and reciprocity. (Deantha Edmunds, May 19, 2024, Podium 2024)
• Stay humble, keep listening and keep learning. That is how we will use choral music as a way to advocate and change the environmental crisis that we're facing (Elise Naccarato, May 19, 2024, Podium 2024)

Note: a transcript of this show and a translation of episode é157 podium 2024 - que pouvons-nous chanter et faire de plus ? can be found in the 'Transcript' tab.

Welcome to a special episode of the conscient podcast featuring a bilingual panel that I facilitate called ‘Voicing the ecological crisis: what more can we sing and do? It recorded on Sunday, May 19, 2024, as part of Podium 2024, the Open Voices, Open Minds choral conference and festival organized by Choral Canada and l’Alliance chorale du Québec in Tiohtià:ke on the unceded traditional territory of the Kanien'keha:kaé (Montreal).

I had the honor of selecting the panelists and moderating this important conversation. 

You will hear the presentations of Deantha Edmunds and Elise Naccarato in English in this episode. I invite you to listen to é157 of balado conscient to hear the French language presentations from this panel by Megan Chartrand and Sarah Fioravanti. You’ll find a transcription of their presentations in the ‘transcript’ section of this episode. 

I have to admit that the subject of our conversation that Sunday afternoon was extremely serious, complex and I'd even say existential, but I reminded the assembly that I had promised in the program that we would ‘leave the conversation with a practical reality check while humming with hope’.

But how does one ‘hum with hope’ when we are facing imminent societal collapse due to ? I asked the group and I asked myself how choral music or collective singing can help?

I also reminded delegates that the ecological crisis, be it climate change, loss of biodiversity, the ravages of extractive capitalism, etc is deepening at a frightening pace, leaving many, including artists, feeling disempowered, demoralized and sometimes in denial.

So when Meghan Hila, the Executive Director of Choral Canada, asked me to help out with this  panel, I was very pleased to facilitate conversations about climate change specifically and how commissioning new works on ecological themes, strategies to decrease the carbon footprint of choral music activities and how to engage in increased collective political action as a community of artists and singers.  I admire the leadership of Choral Canada and learned a lot from listening to their artistic work and innovative strategies. 

The congress itself was quite fabulous and it was good to remember that the Canadian choral community has a long history of engagement and foresight with environmental issues.

For example, during Podium 2024, Nicholas Fairbank talked about Environmental Topics in Canadian Choral Music and the long list of choral music that are already in circulation on environmental themes.

I also attended a session by composer Katerina Gimon, poet Lauren Peat and conductor Elise Naccarato about their Unsung: If the Earth Could Sing project, an environmentally-inspired choral cycle and so on over 3 days.

I also heard about choral activities that explore some of the root causes of the ecological crisis such as colonisation and disconnection from nature. The Friday night, May 17th I attended a groundbreaking concert called Ahskennon’nia : songs of peace where one of our panelists, Deantha Edmunds, was a soloist. She talks about it during her presentation. 

Deantha was also a soloist on May 18th with her Song of the Whale composition performed with the Holy Heart Chamber Choir of Newfoundland. I was deeply moved by this gorgeous soundscape composition that ends with the words ‘carry the song on, evolve’. 

Those 5 words stayed with me : ‘Carry the song on, evolve…’

I also heard some engaging discourse about the intersection of indigenous and non-indigenous musical collaborations, about moving from the colonial notion of choirs towards collective and group singing, about how choirs are often a microcosm of the diversity of our society with all its complexities, how the canon of choral music is being challenged and rethought, how listening itself is evolving and so on.  

However, what I do not hear at this congress, and to be honest, I don’t hear it much elsewhere in the arts sector, is a recognition and a sense of urgency that we are in an existential climate and nature emergency.

This was troubling to me. 

For example, as we spoke on May 19th, wildfires were ravaging across western Canada and our fellow citizens were migrating to safer ground and that sadly this pattern will be amplified in the future.

But I also said that who better than artists, singers, composers and educators to help society work through these complexities…

For example, professor Adam Con from the University of Victoria mentioned at a panel on education that choral music is well suited to the challenges that we face because collective singing is participative, community engaging, cooperative, inclusive and accessible activity.

I agree with Professor Con and think we’re going to need more choral community activities about the ecological crisis as our future unfolds.

First you’ll hear Inuk singer and composer Deantha Edmunds, who will talk about her experience with performances about the ecological crisis and reconciliation. 

She speaks for 10 minutes followed by conductor and choral music director Elise Naccarato, who will share her experience and insights with commissioning and producing choral works about social justice and ecological issues.

After the panel presentations there were 3 questions from the audience. 

This first was about the predominance of women in climate change advocacy. Deantha Edmunds responded. The second intervention was from veteran choral music composer Donald Patriquin. 

• As a composer and as a proactive composer, singers and we must all get the ecological message out to those who will inherit the earth. Who are those: the children. There has to be much more there because they absorb so much. They absorb much more than we do at our age. So let's compose works for children.’

The final question was about programming and audience response to socially engaged music to which Elise Naccarato and Deantha Edmunds responded. 

*

END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODES

Note : I'm currently 'pressing pause' and am not producing new content until further notice. 

Hey conscient listeners, 

I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020. It’s my way to give back.

This Indigenous Land Acknowledgement statement was developed by members of the Algonquin community for my former employer the Canada Council for the Arts. I have adapted slightly to make it my own.

• I acknowledge that my studio, located in Ottawa, is on the unceded, unsurrendered Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation whose presence here reaches back to time immemorial.
• I recognize the Algonquins as the customary keepers and defenders of the Ottawa River Watershed and its tributaries. I honour their long history of welcoming many Nations to this beautiful territory and uphold and uplift the voice and values of our Host Nation.
• Further, I offer my respect and affirm the inherent and Treaty Rights of all Indigenous Peoples across this land and honour commitments to self-determination and sovereignty that have been made to Indigenous Nations and Peoples.
• I acknowledge the historical oppression of lands, cultures and the original Peoples in what we now know as Canada and fervently believe the Arts contribute to the healing and decolonizing journey we all share together

In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and its francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I I publish a free ‘a calm presence' monthly Substack see https://acalmpresence.substack.com.  

Your feedback is always welcome at claude [at] conscient [dot] ca and/or on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Threads, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tik Tok, YouTube and Substack.

Share what you like, etc

I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible. 

Thanks for listening. 

Claude Schryer

Latest update on March 21, 2026

• We essentially know two percent of all different disciplines and that kind of unknownness creates a very free playground for an artist to dance in or to draw in because we know we're going through a massive crisis. The world is ending. We see chaos. We see all of that but my personal hope as an artist remains in how little we know and how little we understand about our own selves, forget the dying large world and huge cosmos outside of our world that we know so little about. So I feel like my work has always celebrated unknownness. Just because we don't know it doesn't mean it's not there.

I first met Asma Khan online, when she was an artist in residence and teacher at The Imaginarium a workshop run by the Wolf Willow Institute, which is a practice space for building our complexity muscles and aimed to bring what is known and unknown into a new inquiry, which is what much of Asma’s work is about.

I was mesmerized by Asma’s work at this workshop. It literally brought me into another world. 

Asma is, among other things, a multidisciplinary artist working with painting, drawing, watercolors, collage, pen and ink, and digital drawing. Her practice explores complex natural systems, aiming to find spiritual symbology and feminine sensibility in phenomena like gravity, time-space, black holes, coral ecosystems, mycelium, and neural structures. 

Motivated by the mysteries of the natural world, Asma combines rigorous research with intuitive drawing to reveal connections between micro and macro systems. Living between Montreal and Karachi, Asma is committed to cross-cultural and interdisciplinary engagement. 

For example, her recent project, ‘Micro-frequencies for Prayer’, supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, created a series of prayer rugs using microscopy data to represent overlooked objects in domestic environments, highlighting their unseen complexity.

During our conversation in her studio in Montreal, I asked Asma to describe some of her prayer rugs for me which I think you’ll enjoy. You can see one in the episode photo.

I also think you’ll enjoy the way she talks about time. It really stretched my mind.

• There is large time, which is the time of God, the time of black holes, the time of the cosmos, and there is the time of man, which is a very limited time. If we look at our own history, our earth has gone through many extinction events. When we go through, and it's not even a matter of if, but when we go through an extinction. I feel like it's a good thing once again for us to check our egos. The dinosaurs went through it and we're going to have to go through it too and many other life forms have gone through extinction. I don't personally see it as a sad event. I see it as a necessary event  because it's small time. I feel like art is a vehicle that helps us get from small time to large time.

I also appreciated her comment about art in crisis, which is a topic I will explore in season 6 of this podcast:

• If we want to truly be informed from our safe spaces, we really have to focus on the art and science that's coming from places of great discomfort and shifts because they're seeing it before we're seeing it.

For further insight into her work, follow Khan's artistic journey on Instagram @asma.ahsan.khan.

Asma recommended the following book and film: 

• The Most Unknown film
• Carlo Rovelli’s work, notably White Holes 

*

END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODES

Note : I'm currently 'pressing pause' and am not producing new content until further notice. 

Hey conscient listeners, 

I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020. It’s my way to give back.

This Indigenous Land Acknowledgement statement was developed by members of the Algonquin community for my former employer the Canada Council for the Arts. I have adapted slightly to make it my own.

• I acknowledge that my studio, located in Ottawa, is on the unceded, unsurrendered Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation whose presence here reaches back to time immemorial.
• I recognize the Algonquins as the customary keepers and defenders of the Ottawa River Watershed and its tributaries. I honour their long history of welcoming many Nations to this beautiful territory and uphold and uplift the voice and values of our Host Nation.
• Further, I offer my respect and affirm the inherent and Treaty Rights of all Indigenous Peoples across this land and honour commitments to self-determination and sovereignty that have been made to Indigenous Nations and Peoples.
• I acknowledge the historical oppression of lands, cultures and the original Peoples in what we now know as Canada and fervently believe the Arts contribute to the healing and decolonizing journey we all share together

In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and its francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I I publish a free ‘a calm presence' monthly Substack see https://acalmpresence.substack.com.  

Your feedback is always welcome at claude [at] conscient [dot] ca and/or on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Threads, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tik Tok, YouTube and Substack.

Share what you like, etc

I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible. 

Thanks for listening. 

Claude Schryer

Latest update on March 21, 2026

• We need culture to shift behaviour, because everything is culture but the mentality is that art is an adornment and not actually a tactic. I think art is a tactic.

I first met Annette while I was chair of the Sectoral Climate Arts Leadership for the Emergency or SCALE in 2022 and have since then gotten to know her as an artist here in Ottawa on the traditional unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation.

Annette’s multi-disciplinary work emphasizes social-critical art culture with political themes at its centre, addressing both local and meta-national conditions. 

Overall her work raises issues within a civil society to challenge the “isms” and all their inhumane expressions.

Art climatism anyone? 

Annette defines herself as a builder of capacity of the arts and culture sector to respond in the climate emergency and she is well placed to do this as Organizational Development and Network Lead of SCALE, so we talked about SCALE and the challenges of mobilising an arts sector that already has many challenges to face and yet the climate emergency is unique…

I mentioned that co-founders and mission circle members of SCALE have also been featured on this podcast, including judi pearl (e59), david maggs (e30 and e166 ), kendra fanconi (e36 and e87), tanya kalmanovitch (e53), ian garrett (e54), kimberlye skye richards (e76 and e171), Sanita Fejzić (e155 et é154), anthony garoufalis-auger (e93 et é56), tracey friesen (e85), viviane gosselin (e84), robin sokoloski (e61) and anjali appadurai (e23). A cohort of art and climate activist. 

I appreciated Annette response to all of my question but in particular about the role of art in previous periods of crisis: 

• In any time when there's a cultural upheaval there has been the power of art, not only to illustrate the situation that we're in, but also to imagine a place where people could go. Dada did that after the first World War : dismantling the beast that brought this devastation and then coming in with a sense of imagination and joy to move forward and show people around them that there are other ways of being. … Look at Afrofuturism or indigenous futurism: there's a real beautiful way of imagining futures that are not utopian. They're looking at how the world could come out of the mess that we're in. … There's real power in that.

Annette recommended the following books and podcasts:

• Playing for Time by Lucy Neal
• Raw Materials podcast by San Francisco Moma
• Dark Matter Labs and their pilot on Universal Nutrition

*

END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODES

Note : I'm currently 'pressing pause' and am not producing new content until further notice. 

Hey conscient listeners, 

I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020. It’s my way to give back.

This Indigenous Land Acknowledgement statement was developed by members of the Algonquin community for my former employer the Canada Council for the Arts. I have adapted slightly to make it my own.

• I acknowledge that my studio, located in Ottawa, is on the unceded, unsurrendered Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation whose presence here reaches back to time immemorial.
• I recognize the Algonquins as the customary keepers and defenders of the Ottawa River Watershed and its tributaries. I honour their long history of welcoming many Nations to this beautiful territory and uphold and uplift the voice and values of our Host Nation.
• Further, I offer my respect and affirm the inherent and Treaty Rights of all Indigenous Peoples across this land and honour commitments to self-determination and sovereignty that have been made to Indigenous Nations and Peoples.
• I acknowledge the historical oppression of lands, cultures and the original Peoples in what we now know as Canada and fervently believe the Arts contribute to the healing and decolonizing journey we all share together

In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and its francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I I publish a free ‘a calm presence' monthly Substack see https://acalmpresence.substack.com.  

Your feedback is always welcome at claude [at] conscient [dot] ca and/or on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Threads, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tik Tok, YouTube and Substack.

Share what you like, etc

I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible. 

Thanks for listening. 

Claude Schryer

Latest update on March 21, 2026

• Listening can teach us to appreciate our environment in a critical sense, but also in a kind of admiration for it. If we admire something because we think it has a depth or it has a beauty or some interesting aspects, we want to keep it, we want to foster it.

I first met Sabine at the Tuning of the World Conference in Banff, Alberta in 1993.

Sabine's work focuses on media art, listening culture, cultures of perception, experimental audiomedia, media history, media ecology, acoustic ecology as well trans- and intercultural studies. 

She has worked as an experimental audio media maker, working as director, author, curator and dramaturg for the cultural departments of the German public radio and was co-founder of the Master‘s program Sound Studies at the University of the Arts in Berlin and worked there as a professor for Experimental Audiomedia from 2004-2008.

Since 2006 Sabine teaches and researches as a professor for Sound and Media Culture at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences in Germany where she is director of the Soundscape & Environmental Media Lab and 3D Audio Lab.

As a scientific and artistic director she has curated numerous art projects, symposia and festivals. I was a guest speaker at one of these events in 2018, The Global Composition in Dieburg, Germany where I spoke about the origins of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology in 1993.

While on a trip to Canada in May 2024 Sabine stopped by my home in Ottawa to talk about her work and share her thoughts on art and the ecological crisis with a focus on listening and sound. 

I was struck by Sabine’s observation about how artists are always careful with what they do, which Sabine defines as :

• a consciously shaped relationship with the world in a mindful attitude and with high appreciation for the phenomena of this world and its values.

I was impressed by the parallel she draws between the poly-crisis of today and Frederich Schiller’s On the Aesthetic Education of Man, written in 1795, which addresses the dehumanization and alienation of industrial labour through aesthetic education and the arts.

I was also interested in this quote because my father’s relatives emigrated from Germany to North America right around that period in the early 1800’s. 

At the end of our conversation Sabine gave me a copy of the 2nd edition of Die Ordnung der Klänge (The Ordering of Sounds), her German translation of R. Murray Schafer’s The Tuning of the World.

Sabine suggested books were:

• On the Aesthetic Education of Man by Frederich Schiller
• Aesthetics of Care: Practice in Everyday Life by Yuriko Saito

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END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODES

Note : I'm currently 'pressing pause' and am not producing new content until further notice. 

Hey conscient listeners, 

I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020. It’s my way to give back.

This Indigenous Land Acknowledgement statement was developed by members of the Algonquin community for my former employer the Canada Council for the Arts. I have adapted slightly to make it my own.

• I acknowledge that my studio, located in Ottawa, is on the unceded, unsurrendered Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation whose presence here reaches back to time immemorial.
• I recognize the Algonquins as the customary keepers and defenders of the Ottawa River Watershed and its tributaries. I honour their long history of welcoming many Nations to this beautiful territory and uphold and uplift the voice and values of our Host Nation.
• Further, I offer my respect and affirm the inherent and Treaty Rights of all Indigenous Peoples across this land and honour commitments to self-determination and sovereignty that have been made to Indigenous Nations and Peoples.
• I acknowledge the historical oppression of lands, cultures and the original Peoples in what we now know as Canada and fervently believe the Arts contribute to the healing and decolonizing journey we all share together

In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and its francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I I publish a free ‘a calm presence' monthly Substack see https://acalmpresence.substack.com.  

Your feedback is always welcome at claude [at] conscient [dot] ca and/or on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Threads, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tik Tok, YouTube and Substack.

Share what you like, etc

I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible. 

Thanks for listening. 

Claude Schryer

Latest update on March 21, 2026

This is a bonus episode featuring the audio version of my June 3, 2024 accept | adapt | respond posting on my 'a calm presence' Substack, whose purpose is to provide 'short, practical essays about collapse acceptance, adaptation, response and art'.

You can subscribe to the newsletter (which is actually more of a learning journal) here.

You can subscribe to the a calm presence podcast on any podcast player. 

Note: this reading of accept | adapt | respond includes excerpts from my 1998 soundscape composition Au dernier vivant les biens. 

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END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODES

Hey conscient listeners, 

I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020 on un-ceded Anishinaabe Algonquin territory (Ottawa). 

It’s my way to give back.

In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and its francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I I publish free ‘a calm presence' Substack see https://acalmpresence.substack.com.

Your feedback is always welcome at [email protected] and/or on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Threads, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tik Tok, YouTube and Substack.

Share what you like, etc

I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible. 

Claude Schryer

Latest update on September 28, 2025

• As an artist and educator, I see that this moment calls for a way of working through decolonization and forging a path of care. I like to think of this through multispecies communities so that, as humans, we're surrounded by more than human life, even in our urban environments. This path of care for our multi-species, communities that make up the neighborhood, the community, and ultimately the earth is where I see my call for research and practice. 

I know Julie Andreyev from my time on the board of the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology and from the acoustic ecology in Vancouver where she is an Associate Professor in the Audain Faculty of Art, Emily Carr University of Art + Design where she teaches New Media + Sound Arts and Critical Studies.

Julie is located on the unceded, traditional and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish people, including the  xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations, as well as the unceded traditional territories of more-than-human animals and plant life including bears, deers, raccoons, eagles, ravens, crows, hummingbirds, cedars, firs, salals and others.

It’s the first time I see a land acknowledgement that includes more-than-human life and Julie is a good person to lead the way. 

Her multispecies art practice explores more-than-human creativity and our relations. You’ll hear talk about some current projects including Bird Park Survival Station, a long term reciprocity project with local birds, and Branching Songs a sound art project that draws attention to wondrous gifts provided by trees and forest ecosystems.

During our conversation Julie mentioned her book : Lessons from a Multispecies Studio : Uncovering Ecological Understanding and Biophilia through Creative Reciprocity

Near the end Julie tells a fascinating story about crow friends of hers, so stay tuned. 

Julie’s recommended listening are:

• Tree Museum Talking Territory Podcast : interviews that explore the aesthetics and politics of trees, animals and relations to the land. 
• When We Talk About Animals podcast
• Quantum Listening by Pauline Oliveros 
• One Drum by Richard Wagamese
• The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger
• Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

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END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODES

Note : I'm currently 'pressing pause' and am not producing new content until further notice. 

Hey conscient listeners, 

I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020. It’s my way to give back.

This Indigenous Land Acknowledgement statement was developed by members of the Algonquin community for my former employer the Canada Council for the Arts. I have adapted slightly to make it my own.

• I acknowledge that my studio, located in Ottawa, is on the unceded, unsurrendered Territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation whose presence here reaches back to time immemorial.
• I recognize the Algonquins as the customary keepers and defenders of the Ottawa River Watershed and its tributaries. I honour their long history of welcoming many Nations to this beautiful territory and uphold and uplift the voice and values of our Host Nation.
• Further, I offer my respect and affirm the inherent and Treaty Rights of all Indigenous Peoples across this land and honour commitments to self-determination and sovereignty that have been made to Indigenous Nations and Peoples.
• I acknowledge the historical oppression of lands, cultures and the original Peoples in what we now know as Canada and fervently believe the Arts contribute to the healing and decolonizing journey we all share together

In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and its francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I I publish a free ‘a calm presence' monthly Substack see https://acalmpresence.substack.com.  

Your feedback is always welcome at claude [at] conscient [dot] ca and/or on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Threads, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tik Tok, YouTube and Substack.

Share what you like, etc

I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible. 

Thanks for listening. 

Claude Schryer

Latest update on March 21, 2026