conscient podcast

• Are we willing to divest from our arts practices, or to change radically our performance practices, in order to make necessary changes and concessions?

milton lim, conscient podcast, january 2020, ottawa

Milton Lim is a media artist and performance creator based in Vancouver.

Lim holds a BFA (Hons.) in theatre performance and psychology from Simon Fraser University.

His current work utilizes publicly available data and game structures to articulate new expressions of value and labour within our systems of power and politics.

He is a Co-Artistic Director of Hong Kong Exile, an Artistic Associate with Theatre Conspiracy, a key archivist with videocan, a Digital Interaction Designer with The Cultch, and one of the co-creators behind culturecapital: the performing arts economy trading card game.

This conversation took place in January of 2020. 

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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

• I really believe that what we call arts in this culture now, its role is to inform, form and transform the nature of cultures in relation with the world.  I think that's what we're talking about when we're talking about work that addresses the climate crisis.

beth carruthers, conscient podcast, October 2019, ottawa

Beth Carruthers is an artist and researcher whose work focuses on studying the impact of the arts across sectors to see how they can become more engaged with sustainable futures. 

Beth Carruthers’ work is immersed in questions of how cultural practices and sensuous, embodied human-environment and interspecies interactions might lead to more ethically sensitive and ecologically just human-world and interspecies relations.

Beth is known for her work investigating the role and impact of the arts in transforming "cultures of unsustainability" to cultures of sustainability.

Beth wishes to acknowledge her good colleague Sacha Kagan for the term, “culture(s) of unsustainability” and for his excellent discussion of François Julien’s “silent transformations” in the context of ecological art. 

I spoke with Beth in October 2019 in Ottawa.

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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

• Art can speak to people in meaningful ways that really does call on us to respond to this differently. So wherever you are, anywhere in the world, you will almost certainly have some kind of creative cultural allegiance and how do we use that in a purposeful way is a critical question for us all…

alison tickell, conscient podcast, october 2019, ottawa

Meet UK musician and climate change activist and CEO of Julie’s Bicycle Alison Tickell.

Alison is a colleague and friend who I first met at the National Arts Centre’s Summit on Theatre and Climate Change in April 2019. 

She is CEO of Julie’s Bicycle, a UK based charity that supports the creative community to act on climate change and environmental sustainability. Julie’s Bicycle believes that the creative community is uniquely placed to transform the conversation around climate change and translate it into action.

I had the pleasure of going for a walking interview with Alison on parliament hill in Ottawa on October 26, 2019. 

I asked Alison how the arts contribute to environmental awareness, about the relationship between art and the public and the work of Julie’s Bicycle. We then got into a philosophical conversation about art, life, Buddhism and many other things as we descended the stairway from Parliament Hill to the shore of the Ottawa river... 

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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

• What triggered my climate denial bubble to burst? I feel compelled to share this personal experience, in the hope that it might help others who are also struggling with the current sustainability crisis and searching for a path forward…

In this first episode of the conscient podcast I narrate my 'terrified' essay, about his climate change anxiety and the role of arts and culture in raising environmental awareness.

This episode is an audio version of my May 2019 blog, terrified (see original blog in the transcript of this episode).

terrified is the touchstone of conscient, where I share my anxiety about the climate crisis and my belief that arts and culture can play a critical role in raising public awareness about environmental issues and to move from awareness to action.  

terrified centers around our 17-year-old daughter’s choice of university and her generation’s struggle with the consequences of the climate emergency. 

I quote 7 writers in this blog and I want to acknowledge them: Mayer Hillman, Paola Antonelli, Greta Thunberg, Emily Johnston, George Marshall, Joan Sullivan and Richard Wagamese. 

Future episodes of conscient will feature audio essays, such as this one, or interviews with arts, culture and environmental leaders from around the world. 

Une version française de cette émission est également disponible, voir l’épisode 2 du balado conscient.

I would like to thank podcast consultant Ayesha Barmania, artist and climate change writer Joan Sullivan, my wife Sabrina Mathews, my daughter Clara and my son Riel for their support.

Thanks also to Danielle Boutet, who did the French translation of terrified.

Thank you for listening. 

Claude Schryer

Thanks to all the authors who have been quoted in this blog and to Sabrina Mathews and Joan Sullivan for their invaluable support in editing.

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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