• It's all about balance and moving away from perpetual growth mode. It's about understanding that if you're a tightrope walker, you can't stand still, because the minute you stand still, you fall off. So you have to move forwards, or backwards. There’s no qualitative judgment about whether it's better to move forward or backward. It doesn't matter. You can grow or you can shrink : it's all about balance. If you stay balanced, you'll survive.

A colleague recommended that I invite arts administrator and consultant Jane Marsland to a conscient podcast conversation.

I went to Jane’s website and read about her interest in developing ‘new approaches and methods of working to emphasize agile and adaptive organizational responses that are informed by knowledge of constant environmental changes’. Art and constant environmental changes sounded just right for this podcast.

Janes utilizes a process of working with arts organizations that she has learned through eighteen years of being affiliated with Arts Action Research in New York. Jane believes that each organization has a unique vision, point of view and way of working. The challenge is to learn how to discover, understand and reveal these unique qualities and processes.

I asked Jane about art and ecology and how she advises arts organizations on adaptation to complex issues like climate change. I also asked her about the end of the world (as we know it). I think you’ll be enchanted by her responses. 

When I asked what she reading or seeing these days she recommended 6 items:

• Climate Change and Other Small Talk, a series of short videos by Sunny Drake
• Combining by Nora Bateman
• Dancing at the Edge:Competence, Culture and Organization in the 21st Century by Maureen O’Hara and Graham Leicester
• Three Horizons: The Patterning of Hope - 2nd Ed by Bill Sharpe
• Transformative Innovation: A Guide to Practice and Policy for System Transition by Graham Leicester
• Who Do We Choose To Be? Facing Reality | Claiming Leadership | Restoring Sanity by Margaret Wheatley
• Ten Things to do in a Conceptual Emergency by Maureen O’Hara and Graham Leicester

*

END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODES

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 [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 January 9, 2026