conscient podcast

(bell and breath)

where does your shit go?

(toilet flush 1)

where does your shit go?

(toilet flush 2)

where does your shit go?

(toilet flush 3)

where does your shit go?

(toilet flush 4)

where does your shit go?

*

These four toilet flushes were recorded in Peterborough, Toronto and Ottawa, Ontario 

Thanks to the sanitary workers around the world who literally clean up our shit. 

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

My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to Ecology Ottawa.

*

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

a conversation between robin and myself about the origins of this poem (in memoriam Robin Mathews : November 1, 1931 - April 25, 2023)

(in memoriam Robin Mathews : November 1, 1931 - April 25, 2023)

Transcription of bonus episode

Robin

That's a funny poem. 

Claude

What's it about, do you think? What do you remember it being about? Do you recognize it as your own? ? 

Robin

I do recognize it, but I don't know where it came from. 

Claude

Well, you wrote it just a few weeks ago on January 1st. You talked something about the grimms myths, that deeper into the woods is a reference to that. Does that ring a bell? 

Robin

Yeah. Grimm's fairy tales, I think has the line and they went deeper into the forest. 

Claude

Right. So that might have been an inspiration. 

Robin

Might have. Without even connecting to it. 

Claude

Well, what I'll try to do is to illustrate it a bit with sound. 

Robin

Oh, neat. 

Claude

Yeah with some wind sounds and some of the, the sort of distant voices.  It's a beautiful poem. Thank you. 

Robin

Oh, good. I’m so pleased. Where did these things come from, eh? 

Claude

Yeah, from the poet. It's a bit of haunting poem because it has these illusions to going under water and distant voices

Robin

And being alone

Claude

Maybe that's the way you were feeling on that day. 

Robin

Don't ask me 

Claude

I mean, poetry is like that, right? It just comes out and you're not sure exactly what you're feeling but the words are there 

Robin

And the idea that the surface is up there somewhere and you're under it, you know? 

Claude

We've had a lot of conversations over the years about poetry and political poetry. I don't know if you remember, but we did a number of interviews and you read a lot of your poems as well. I 

Robin

You've got them, have you? 

Claude

Yeah, I have them. You know, so maybe I'll publish some of them if that's okay with you and make them available. 

Robin

Yeah.

Claude

You sent us postcards over the years you used to paint on a postcard and then write a little note and send them in the mail and so we have a whole bunch of them at home of your paintings. 

Robin

Yeah. I remember. I don't know why I stopped doing that. It's kind of fun to get original postcards. 

Claude

And we collected them. Maybe you ran outta landscape.. 

Robin

Or paint. 

Claude

Or paint or postcards…

*

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

(in memoriam Robin Mathews : November 1, 1931 - April 25, 2023)

(bell)

(Deeper Into the Forest (2023) poem by Robin Mathews, narrated by Robin Mathews with sound design from field recordings by me)

Deeper Into the Forest

Lights flash in the skies above.

Voices sound….

As if coming over a hill,

As if connected to bodies

Out of reach,

(perhaps, even, the products of imagination)

Except… you know the voices,

You recognize (or think you recognize)

The lights.

You know the message

Even before it is uttered.

The pathway you walk upon is narrow, rough.

It leads deeper into the forest….

It leads down a steep hillside

To water … to the water's edge

And down into the water … down …

Into it and under it

Where another forest grows

Of a richness you do not expect to see.

You do not expect to walk

Under the branches of that forest -

Branches above your head 

Moving

As if guided by unseen currents 

Of wind … or of water ….

Overhead … there  is something like a surface

You can never reach;

And above that surface there are voices - 

Or a simulacrum of voices -

As if coming from over a hill, distant, unclear…

Or as if connected tenuously to bodies

Out of reach.

You know the voices

And you know they cannot shape words

That will break the surface over your head.

Lights flash in the skies above,

Dart through the water.

But words do not form.

The surface above you

(which you cannot break through)

Closes…

And the voices, as if caught in a settling wind,

Diminish … and then cease.

In the darkness that moves toward you

As if it were a living creature

The voices fade away … or seem to fade away…

And you know the surface above your head

Will not break.

The voices beyond the surface

Will grow distant and imperfect

And you, quite alone, will move deeper into the forest

Where sounds occur … almost as if voices

Are reaching for communication, 

As if coming from over a hill, distant, unclear,

As if connected tenuously to bodies

Out of reach.

You know the voices

And you know they cannot shape words

that will break the surface over your head.

Lights flash in the skies above, 

Dart through the water. 

But words do not form.

The surface above you,

Which you cannot break through.

Closes….

In the darkness that moves toward you

As if a living creature

The voices fade away … or seem to fade away,

And you know the surface above your head

Will not break.

The voices beyond the surface 

Will grow distant and imperfect

And you, quite alone, will move deeper into the forest.

*

This poem was written on January 1, 2023 by my father in law, the poet, playwright, literary critic, political activist, and educator Robin Mathews at age 91. 

 

The poem relates to ‘Sounding Modernity’ by the way it evokes our ability to remember and feel our environment. 

This episode is dedicated to him and his wife Esther Mathews with thanks to the Mathews family.

A short bonus episode is also available with a conversation with Robin about the poem. 

Robin is a Canadian icon who is regarded as a Canadian nationalist par excellence. For over 60 years Mathews fought for Canadians of all races and origins-–and for Canadian independence. His contributions to the preservation, development and promotion of Canadian culture are exceptional and unique. 

For more information see:

• https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/robin-mathews
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Mathews_(poet)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadianization_movement
• https://abcbookworld.com/writer/mathews-robin/

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

My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre Society

*

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

(bell and breath)

(muffled sound of ocean waves)

This recording filters out all high and mid-range frequencies that I captured of ocean waves at Canaveral National Seashore in Florida, on March 23, 2023 around midnight while doing an impromptu soundwalk with colleagues from the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology conference Listenng Pasts - Listening Futures.

Why did I do this? 

I invite you to sit with the loss of these upper and mid frequencies as a metaphor for the loss of biodiversity on earth.

I don’t mean to inflict undue pain here

In any way. Rather my point is to invite you to sit with this sound. To sit with the trouble, as Donna Haraway would say.

And I suggest you try to avoid enjoying it as an aesthetic experience or getting used to it as the new normal.

It’s not normal.

Luckily all I have to do to bring back the high frequencies is turn a button and you could experience the rich splendour of this soundscape…

but I’m not going to do that.

What does ecological loss sound like where you live?

*

Thanks to the Atlantic ocean for allowing me to record your waves and to filter your sounds in order to help raise awareness within human communities about the perils of our behaviour to your great waters and all of its living beings. 

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

My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to the National Parks Conservation Association.

*

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

(bell)

I got up this morning, or I was awoken rather by the most beautiful sound. It was a snow plow, very gently pushing the snow from the sidewalk. It was a beep and I could hear it, at a distance, and now it's passed. 

So I decided to take out my microphone and, and record. It made me think about my friend and colleague Eric La Casa in France, who I've known for a long time, and is a very accomplished sound artist, and who often records quite ordinary sounds spaces - but they're not ordinary at all - especially in the hands of a sound artist like Eric, who has a way of capturing subtle sounds and patterns of sounds and layers of sound that are very meaningful and artistically interesting. 

So I was thinking of Eric as this sound came and left, and my microphone was off, but my ears were open, and so I wanted to record what's going on on my street this morning at about 5:00 AM and to see what's out there without passing judgment on what's good or bad but just spending, as Eric often does, recording, soundscapes as they are and allowing us to not only listen to them, but to feel the space and to consider the larger context of what these sounds are telling us, and in the context of this project, sounding modernity, it's important to listen to all sounds, to be open to them constantly, and not necessarily with a lot of effort, but certainly with an openness to hearing what the spaces around us are saying in their own language and to be attentive to that, with or without microphones. In this case, I will record a bit of the street sound. 

Thanks for listening.

(sound of window opening and street sound)

*

Thanks to Éric La Casa for his complicity and our long friendship. 

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

My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is a donation to Harmony House Ottawa.

*

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

(Claude Schryer n 2023)

It's March 6, 2023 and I’m at Trout Lake Park in Vancouver. About 2 years ago, I went for a long soundwalk with climate activist, and now politician, Anjali Appadurai, which became episode 23 of season 2 of this podcast. 

It was the first time that Anjali did a soundwalk and it was a very powerful moment for me because I've often thought back about what Anjali said that day. It has informed my work as a climate activist and on the role of art in the climate emergency. I encourage you to read, to listen to it. Today, we are going to hear an excerpt from that conversation, near the end, about the issue of privilege which comes back again and again in this sounding modernity season. So here’s Anjali from our soundwalk in 2021….

(Anjali Appadurai in 2021)

• This really meshes with what I was talking about. It circles back to the beginning of the conversation when we were talking about who's the ‘we’ and that privilege is the central question to that. Looking at the issue as this multi-layered thing and looking at it as a spectrum of history. What have the power dynamics been? Say you can take a slice of history, say the last 500 years. What were the advantages? Privilege can go back as far as you wanted to go back, right? And of course it's so nuanced. Not every white guy has this much privilege, but you do have a privilege that goes back hundreds of years and I think one aspect of privilege, one that a lot of people leave out is this economic aspect, right, of class and resources. And that is not often talked about in the climate conversation, but it's a huge piece of it. Because when we talk about the extinction of our species, this extinction doesn't happen overnight. It happens in a spectrum. Who are the last ones standing? Those with the most resources and who are the first ones to go? It's those with the least, the most disenfranchised. So I don't think you can talk about climate without talking about privilege ultimately. And I think it's on each of us to unpack that for ourselves and to bring that into the conversation. 

(Claude in 2023)

Back in 2023 again now. I’m going to skip ahead to another excerpt of our conversation from 2021 with Anjali. This time she talks about privilege in a more global context. 

(Anjali in 2021)

• I'll just leave with one more thought. There's a lot of framing about how to divide up in an equitable way, the remaining emissions, the sort of carbon budget of the world. So the carbon budget is a framing in and of itself and then there's this other framing that floats around the right to atmospheric space and how, if you look at atmospheric space as a human right, and if you divide up how much we have left in the world, how many people have way more than what would be their fair share, how many people have way less? And that's a deep question of privilege as well. And talking about the global north, I mean, that really plays into our global privilege.

(Claude in 2023)

My question for you is ‘what are the privileges in your life?’

*

This episode is an excerpt from e23 appadurai – what does a just transition look like?. 

Thanks to Anjali for her permission to use our 2021 conversation in this context. 

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

My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to the Climate Emergency Unit.

For more information on Anjali's work see : https://www.linkedin.com/in/anjali-appadurai-44645a69/ 

*

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

(Jacek Smolicki)

The ultimate question I'm asking is how can we move away from soundwalk as a kind of framed aesthetic experience or artistic experience and turn it into an existential practice or basically something that is just ingrained in our everyday life and we don't have to frame it anymore. It's just basically part of our way of living. 

(Claude Schryer)

Can you give an example of that? 

(Jacek Smolicki)

An academic example would be the concepts developed by Steven Feld, acoustemology, where basically listening, a kind of sonic way of being in the world is part of your culture, part of existence. You don't tell yourself, okay, I will listen to the world more carefully from now for another hour, and then I can just return back to my everyday life but you basically just keep listening, right? A kind of sonic sensitivity is one of the most important ways of understanding the world as opposed to being pushed to the background and only lifted up during those kinds of frame situations such as a soundwalk. 

(Claude Schryer)

I've been sound walking in an analytical way, so I'll try to make sense of the sounds and where they are and what they're about but there's also an absorption factor where you allow the sounds to speak to you in their own language, right? As opposed to sort of rationally figuring them out. So, if we stop here and listen, what are you hearing? 

(Jacek Smolicki)

I hear a coexistence of culture and nature and at the same time a kind of friction between two realms that in fact are just one realm and we kind of try to maybe separate them. We talked a little bit about this positionality and we hear the whistle of the train. From one perspective, we heard some people here referring to that sound as being very calming and reassuring, but if you think of indigenous people, that sound might mean a completely different thing. It's a form of bordering and creating, some kind of a division, of cutting the land and deciding how the land is to be traversed and utilized. So it definitely has a violent connotation if we look from that perspective and if we listen from that perspective. I think that this is some kind of sensitivity that I'm aiming at, also, while teaching, to be able to also take that thought into consideration when we try to value or kind of assign value to different sounds. I think Dylan Robinson is talking about oscillation. I think he calls it to be able to constantly oscillate, to move from one way of understanding sound to another. And basically by doing that it destabilizing certain certainties that characterizes our way of listening and, and by doing that, becoming open to those other understandings and perceptions… 

(Claude Schryer)

And asking questions. You know, we were on a panel together a few days ago (Stetson University) when we were asking the question, how can listening help the world that is in crisis? and it's an open-ended question because with listening everybody has their own way of listening, but there are certainly deeper ways of listening that we can learn and unlearn as we work our way through these issues. 

(Jacek Smolicki)

Exactly and that we've been talking a lot about hope. We've been talking a lot about how this openness is almost inherently good. I have that feeling. People talk about if we open up our listening and if we invite other perspectives, then we are doing something good. But I think that opening comes with certain responsibilities too, right? I like to think of it in a way that the more open we become to those different perspectives, the more troubled, actually, we should become more concerned rather than content and calm, so there's this disruptive aspect to listening that Hildegard Westerkamp has been writing about, but as we open ourselves, as we include other perspectives, we at the same time disrupted something, right? That we at the same time should be calling ourselves to action and becoming more responsible. So, there's some kind of an obligation I think that should follow that act of opening and deepening our listening. 

(Claude Schryer)

I agree. Thank you for this moment. We will listen again.

*

This episode with artist Jacek Smolicki was recorded on Friday March 24th, 2023 at 8.44 am at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. 

It’s a soundwalk about soundwalking but also about the role of acoustic ecology in the ecological crisis. 

After completing our first 5 minute conversation (e113 part 1) we heard a passing train and continued our conversation, which is this episode (part 2).

I encourage listeners to do your own soundwalks. There are many guides and methods. One of my favorites is Soundwalking by Hildegard Westerkamp but also Jacek's new book Soundwalking through space, time and technologies.

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

My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to the  Children and Youth Artists' Grief Deck! Artists’ Literacies Institute.

*

Jacek Smolicki (born during martial law in Kraków) is a cross-disciplinary artist, designer, researcher and educator. His work brings temporal, existential and critical dimensions to listening, recording and archiving practices and technologies in diverse contexts.

Besides working with historical archives, media, and heritage, Smolicki develops other modes of sensing, recording, and mediating stories and signals from specific sites, scales, and temporalities. His work is manifested through soundwalks, soundscape compositions, diverse forms of writing, site-responsive performances, experimental para-archives, and audio-visual installations.

He has performed, published, and exhibited internationally (e.g. In-Sonora Madrid, Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, AudioArt Kraków, Ars Electronica, Linz, and Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo). His broad scope of site-responsive artistic and research work includes projects concerned with the soundscapes of the Swedish Arctic Circle, the Canadian Pacific Coast, the world's tallest wooden radio mast in Gliwice, the UFO testimonies from the Archive for the Unexplained in Sweden, the Jewish Ghetto in Kraków, the former sites of the Yugoslav Wars, Madrid's busking culture, and Alfred Nobel's factory complex in Stockholm, among many other places.

In 2017 he completed his PhD in Media and Communications from the School of Arts and Communication at Malmö University where he was a member of Living Archives, a research project funded by the Swedish Research Council.

Between 2020-2023 Smolicki pursues an international postdoctorate funded by the Swedish Research Council. Located at Linköping University in Sweden, Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, and Harvard, USA, his research explores the history and prospects of field recording and soundwalking practices from the perspective of arts, environmental humanities, and philosophy of technology.

In 2022/2023 he is a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Harvard.

He is also an associate scholar at the Informatics and Media Hub for Digital Existence at Uppsala University. From January 2020 he is a member of BioMe, a research project that investigates ethical implications of AI technologies on everyday life realms. Smolicki explores sonic capture cultures and the impact of AI technologies on human and other-than-human voices.

He is a co-founder of Walking Festival of Sound, a transdisciplinary and nomadic event exploring the critical and reflective role of walking through and listening to our everyday surroundings.

Since 2008 Smolicki has been working on On-Going Project, a systematic experimentation with various recording techniques and technologies leading to a multifaceted para-archive of contemporary everyday life, culture, and environment. The On-Going Project includes Minuting, a record of public soundscapes performed daily ever since July 2010, for which he received the main prize at the Society for Artistic Research conference in 2022.

For info see https://www.smolicki.com/index.html.

*

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

(Claude Schryer)

Jacek, what is soundwalking? 

(Jacek Smolicki)

That's a very broad question, but I'll try to answer from two perspectives: my own and from what is kind of more generally considered soundwalking. So, to quote Hildegard Westerkamp, one of the pioneers of that practice, basically, a soundwalk is any kind of excursion into an environment which is motivated by us listening to it. Whether we do it with or without technologies or whether we do it on our own or in a group and the point of soundwalking is to connect or reconnect us with the environment, with how it sounds at the very moment to kind of reaching this sense of immersion in the here and now. 

My approach to sound is slightly different. I treat soundscapes as a kind of gateways to not only the momentary - the way that the sound  expresses itself in the moment  or the sound expresses events that happen at the moment - but also as gateways into the past and into the future. 

I like to kind of expand the perspective of soundwalking and use it as a kind of a vehicle to move us between different scales, between different temporalities and between different standpoints or different angles from which we can engage in this act of connecting with the environment. And the way I do it is by encouraging people to listen with whatever listening capacities they have, but also through technologies. 

And, as a scholar in media, in communications and within a personal interest in technological developments within sonogram, I'm trying to treat technologies as our companions rather than enemies or something that is alien to our human nature and try to build kind organic synergies between the way we implement technologies in our lives and in our ways of understanding nature around us. 

(Claude Schryer)

And all the ethical ramifications of that…

(Jacek Smolicki)

Exactly and of course, ethical ramifications, so I like to call my approach to soundwalking as kind of a kind of transversal listening or hybrid listening where basically listening becomes like a vector that cuts through different layers of the environment in a kind of geological material sense, but also in a temporal sense. So as we stand here for example, we're not standing only here in this particular geography, but we are at the same time kind of benefiting from other geographies that surround us and we can actually hear, for instance, air traffic and through that sound we can connect with very distant geographies in a most direct sense, the geographies from which those planes arrive or are destined to, but we can also think of the plans around us as some of them are not necessarily native to this geography, right? They come from somewhere else. They pertain to different histories of, for instance, colonization and so on. And the same applies to temporalities. The sounds we hear today are here for some reason, right? They have roots in other sonic events that might not be directly accessible to us and this is also why I like to encourage imagination as a kind of natural component to soundwalking and listening and to enable a more speculative approach to how we listen. So instead of really trying to dissect and understand all the sounds around us to also think more imaginatively about what kinds of sounds existed before we stepped into that environment and what kind of sounds might exist in the future also because of our actions at the very moment.

(Claude Schryer)

We're doing a soundwalk now here, mostly talking about sound walking, but it's an experience and I've done it over the years and I encourage my listeners to do it because it's a very rewarding practice and it's one you can do anywhere, anytime. So before we run out of time, what would be a good question for people to ask themselves or to keep in mind as they soundwalk? 

(Jacek Smolicki)

I think one important question would be what is my position within the soundscapes that I'm working through and how do I approach the soundscape? What kind of associations dominate my way of experiencing it, for instance, and start basically there and then trying to maybe gradually leave that zone and consider other ways of positioning ourselves in the soundscapes and by doing that, acknowledging the possibilities of other perspectives on the soundscapes and other ways of understanding and coexisting with it. 

(Claude Schryer)

In other words, what is my position in listening ?

*

This episode with artist Jacek Smolicki was recorded on Friday March 24th, 2023 at 8.38am at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. 

It’s a soundwalk about soundwalking but also about the role of acoustic ecology in the ecological crisis. 

After completing our 5 minute conversation we heard a passing train and continued our conversation, which is part 2 of this episode.

I encourage listeners to do your own soundwalks. There are many guides and methods. One of my favorites is Soundwalking by Hildegard Westerkamp and also Jacek's book Soundwalking through time, space and technologies.

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

My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to the Children and Youth Artists' Grief Deck! Artists’ Literacies Institute.

*

Jacek Smolicki (born during martial law in Kraków) is a cross-disciplinary artist, designer, researcher and educator. His work brings temporal, existential and critical dimensions to listening, recording and archiving practices and technologies in diverse contexts.

Besides working with historical archives, media, and heritage, Smolicki develops other modes of sensing, recording, and mediating stories and signals from specific sites, scales, and temporalities. His work is manifested through soundwalks, soundscape compositions, diverse forms of writing, site-responsive performances, experimental para-archives, and audio-visual installations.

He has performed, published, and exhibited internationally (e.g. In-Sonora Madrid, Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, AudioArt Kraków, Ars Electronica, Linz, and Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo). His broad scope of site-responsive artistic and research work includes projects concerned with the soundscapes of the Swedish Arctic Circle, the Canadian Pacific Coast, the world's tallest wooden radio mast in Gliwice, the UFO testimonies from the Archive for the Unexplained in Sweden, the Jewish Ghetto in Kraków, the former sites of the Yugoslav Wars, Madrid's busking culture, and Alfred Nobel's factory complex in Stockholm, among many other places.

In 2017 he completed his PhD in Media and Communications from the School of Arts and Communication at Malmö University where he was a member of Living Archives, a research project funded by the Swedish Research Council.

Between 2020-2023 Smolicki pursues an international postdoctorate funded by the Swedish Research Council. Located at Linköping University in Sweden, Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, and Harvard, USA, his research explores the history and prospects of field recording and soundwalking practices from the perspective of arts, environmental humanities, and philosophy of technology.

In 2022/2023 he is a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Harvard.

He is also an associate scholar at the Informatics and Media Hub for Digital Existence at Uppsala University. From January 2020 he is a member of BioMe, a research project that investigates ethical implications of AI technologies on everyday life realms. Smolicki explores sonic capture cultures and the impact of AI technologies on human and other-than-human voices.

He is a co-founder of Walking Festival of Sound, a transdisciplinary and nomadic event exploring the critical and reflective role of walking through and listening to our everyday surroundings.

Since 2008 Smolicki has been working on On-Going Project, a systematic experimentation with various recording techniques and technologies leading to a multifaceted para-archive of contemporary everyday life, culture, and environment. The On-Going Project includes Minuting, a record of public soundscapes performed daily ever since July 2010, for which he received the main prize at the Society for Artistic Research conference in 2022.

For info see https://www.smolicki.com/index.html

*

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

(various layered excerpts from my soundscape compositions throughout this episode)

Conclusion 1 : we need to face reality and learn how to unlearn

• Mayer Hillman, e01: ‘We’re doomed. The outcome is death, and it’s the end of most life on the planet because we’re so dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. There are no means of reversing the process which is melting the polar ice caps. And very few appear to be prepared to say so.’
• Joan Sullivan, e01 terrified ‘even if we are doomed, and I think we are, I refuse to do nothing…’ 
• Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures collective : ‘we need to walk a tightrope between desperate hope and reckless hopelessness, balancing rational and relational rigour.'

Conclusion 2: we need to develop and implement a radical theory of change through the arts

• David Haley, e19 : ‘we now need aesthetics to sensitize us to other ways of life and we need artists to sensitize us to the shape of things to come.
• Jen Rae, e19 : ‘The thing about a preparedness mindset is that you are thinking into the future and so if one of those scenarios happens, you’ve already mentally prepared in some sort of way for it’. 
• David Maggs, e109: ’If we only speak with our arts, and do not listen with them first, revelation is replaced by dictation…’

Conclusion 3: we need to transition out of modernity

• Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures collective : ‘We are part of a much wider metabolism, and this metabolism is sick. There is a lot of shit for us to deal with: personal, collective, historical, systemic. Our fragilities are a big part of it. This shit needs to pass, so that it can be composted into new forms of life, no longer based on the illusion of separability.’
• Eric Beinhocker: e19: ‘Humankind is in a race between two tipping points. The first is when the Earth’s ecosystems and the life they contain tip into irreversible collapse due to climate change. The second is when the fight for climate action tips from being just one of many political concerns to becoming a mass social movement. The existential question is, which tipping point will we hit first?

Conclusion 4 : we need to change the story

• George Monbiot, Out of the Wreckage: ‘Despair is the state we fall into when our imagination fails. When we have no stories that describe the present and guide the future, hope evaporates. Political failure is, in essence, a failure of imagination. Without a new story that is positive and propositional, rather than reactive and oppositional, nothing changes. With such a story everything changes’. 
• George Marshall, e01 : ‘we need passionate storytellers to break habitual patterns, discover alternative values and consider new perspectives’.

Conclusion 5 :  we need to connect our efforts

• Todd Dufresne, e19: ‘whoever survives these experiences will have a renewed appreciation for nature, for the external world, and for the necessity of collectivism in the face of mass extinction.’
• Asad Rehman, Green Dreamer podcast (e378) : ‘Our goal is to keep our ideas and policies alive for when the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable’. 
• George Monbiot,  tweet November 13, 2021 :  ‘We have no choice but to raise the scale of civil disobedience until we have built the greatest mass movement in history.’

My question to you is ‘how can listening help’?

*

This episode is longer than the usual 5 minutes because that’s how long (8m 30s) it took to tell this story.

This episode is a selection of quotes and findings from my learning and unlearning journey about art and the ecological crisis that I presented during my keynote speech to the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology ‘Listening Pasts - Listening Futures’ conference on March 24, 2023 at the Atlantic Centre for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. 

I warmly thank the authors I have quoted.

I also thank the Canada Council for the Arts for their support of the Sounding Modernity project and travel funds to attend the conference. 

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

My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is a donation to Atlantic Center For The Arts.

*

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

(bell, breath and occasional balloon sounds)

Me : have you ever had the feeling that you were being observed?

Observer : I’m observing you. 

Me: Who are you and what are you observing? 

Observer: Ah, well, I’m a part of you and  I’m observing the traps that you fall into.

Me:  Traps?

Observer : Do you remember the Facing Human Wrongs course you took during the summer of 2022

Me: Ya.

Observer: The one about navigating paradoxes and complexities of social and global change and all those trappings along the way?

Me: Ya, I remember. Easier said than done, though.

Observer: Yup

Me: So. What are you observing? 

Observer : Well, what can I say? I notice that you’ve fallen into a trap called ‘exit fixation’ which is where people feel a strong urge to walk out on an existing commitment. For example, when someone realises that the path they are on is full of paradoxes, contradictions, and complicities. Often their first response is to find an immediate exit in hopes of a more fulfilling and/or more innocent alternative or maybe even  an ideal community with whom to continue this work. 

Me: Like an escape?

Observer: Ya, something like that

Me: BTW where are those balloon sounds coming from?

Observer : Oh, that’s from your imagination

Me: hum. It sounds like …

Observer: (laughter) it could be anything 

Me: OK. Anyway, what else do you see?

Observer: Well. I also see a trap called proselytizing which happens when people try to teach and convince others that a particular issue of interest should be the most important thing for everyone. 

Me: Wait a second, I do that all the time as a climate activist and with my art and ecology podcast and… 

Observer :(interrupting) of course you do and well you should - no worries - but, the danger is that your work could be perceived as an effort to assert ‘moral high ground’ and while this trap may be driven by a genuine passion for an issue, and you certainly are passionate about your work, it has the potential to impose onto others in a way that does not respect their own un/learning journey, and often actually has the opposite effect, pushing people away rather than inviting them in. 

Me: ok. Ya, I see. Let me think about that.

Observer: Sure and when this trap occurs, it can be useful to ask, you know, why do I need to teach or convince or inspire others about my learning experience? Where is this perceived need stemming from?  And if you really feel you need to bring something to the attention of others, maybe you can ask yourself: What is the most pedagogically responsible and effective thing to do so that your message can land?

Me: ok. What else? 

Observer:  I also see some virtue signalling and self-righteousness trappings, which is when you assert yourself  as having the best, most righteous, most critical, most insightful, most creative, most valid or, the most marginalised perspective. 

Observer: This approach tends to be focused on wanting to be seen in a certain way by others or by oneself, and may be motivated by a desire to minimize or deny one’s complicity in harm. 

Me: maybe subconsciously, but it’s a catch 22, isn’it ?

Observer: (interrupting) more like a labyrinth or a dilemma that you need to sit with… You remember when Donna Haraway says that we need to ‘stay with the trouble’. Something like that. (silence) ok. one last trap?

Me: Sure

Observer: This is a tough one for you. 

Me: hum…

Observer: Hey I need you to be strong here buddy, ok

Me: Ya ya ya I’m listening 

Observer:. It’s called spiritual bypassing and it happens when spiritual ideas or practices are used to sidestep, avoid, or escape sitting with analyses of historical and systemic violence and the difficulties of one’s complicity in historic and systemic harm. Do you know what I mean? 

Me: Yes I think I do but I don’t think I do this.

Observer: (interrupting) maybe not consciously but spiritual bypassing often manifests itself alongside with cultural appropriation which is something you think about every time you record a soundscape with that microphone of yours, right?  

Me: I see what you mean. You’re quite a good observer. 

Observer:  thank you but right back at you. Think of me as a guardian angel.

Me: Or the devil… 

Observer: Whatever (laughter) Now one of the dangers with spiritual bypassing is to project interpretations of ‘oneness’ that erase the realities of historical and systemic inequalities, and interpretations of ‘Enlightenment’ that tend to reinforce exceptionalism and you tend to do that…

Me: Yes, sure, I do, but it’s all part of being an artist.. 

Observer: (interrupting) True but that does not necessarily make it right, does it? Something to think about...

Me: (interrupting) That’s a lot to think about, to learn and unlearn.

Observer:  what are the traps in your life? 

*

This episode is longer than the usual 5 minutes ( 7 minutes) because that’s how long it took to tell this story.

This episode  comes from learnings I received from taking the Facing Human Wrongs course during the summer of 2022 with support from Azul Carolina Duque.

The sound of balloon came to me while I was deflating a balloon while creating sound for a theatre production called Why Worry About their Future, produced by my colleague Sanita Fejzić, as part of the undercurrents festival here in Ottawa, when I realised that the sound of air being released from a balloon was the right sound to accompany this 2 person play. 

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

My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to the South American Indigenous Network Emergency Fund (second donation).

*

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