Hey there

Welcome to the first conscient roundtable conversation recorded on Saturday March 1, 2025 in Tiohtià:ke (also known as Montreal). 

This episode features local artists, activists and cultural workers Alyssa Scott, Devon Hardy, Jimmy Ung, Katrine Claassens, Sophie Weider, Sébastian Méric de Bellefon and myself (I’m actually from Ottawa) talking about our passions, fears and dreams and engaging in some playful banter, though, I have to say, this group had some pretty serious issues on their minds.

Do you know any art and science jokes? 

Our conversation lasted 91 minutes and is presented here without any edits but before running the tape, so to speak, I want to share 4 of my favorite excerpts from this roundtable to whet your appetite and set the table for the feast of words you are about to hear.

First we talked a lot about artists and scientist during this session, for example, Sophie Weider observed that : 

• What I think is interesting about making art about a problem that I guess came out through science because it brings in the audience and prompts the audience to reflect on themselves as part of this problem or as part of this innovation or whatever it is.  I think that that brings in the identity piece that you were talking about, Jimmy, where it's like even just consuming art is a way of discovering yourself and your identity. But then art that asks you to reflect, or perhaps create, art that might be engaging or community engaged art does that extra step of now that you've reflected and seen, okay, wait, I'm part of something bigger than myself, what do I have to say about it or what do I have to do about it.

Shortly after, Jimmy Ung, who was our host that day along with his wife Hannah, responded:

• And we're thinking about this art-science relation. And to me, it's always felt clear to me that what art can do for science is to democratize science. It's to make it more accessible. But then what I'm curious is about, about is what can science do for the arts? And I'm kind of stuck there in my own mind, like, what is it that science can do for artists? And I kind of often approach life through three pillars of beauty, which is art, goodness, which is morality and ethics, and then truth, which is the role of science, I think. And I always felt that the answer is often that the third one is always the mediator. So when trying to find how to better find that balance between art and science, then we should look to morality and ethics. And when we try to find the balance between what's good and what's true, then it's the role of art to be the mediator, and so on and so forth.

And you'll hear at the very end, and I hope you're able to stay until the end. Sophie Weider again talked about the end of the world as we know it, which is something that's always on my mind. It's a topic that I often explore in this podcast, but I love Sophie's take on it. So here it is.

• Just to quickly respond to your comment about despair of the world as we know it. Obviously there is a lot of science and yeah, information about the direction the world is heading and, and I think we can assume that things will go badly before they're again good. But I would like to say that like the end of the world as we know it is not necessarily a bad thing. We all know that there are huge systemic problems that are causing the challenges we're facing today. And those things need to be solved, and we need to have a fundamental shift to see them solved. Whether that will happen or whether human race will just fizzle out, who knows? But I'd like to think that change will happen and that it is possible, at least possible that it could be positive in some way, at least, maybe at the end of the day, even if a lot of hardship has to come before then. I don't know if that's hopeful or just sad, but that's my take.

And a few seconds later, Katrine Claassens, one of our guests, talked about artists as midwives:

• Maybe just to add to what you said about thinking of artists as midwives, we are not death doulas (providing hospice care) but rather as midwives for another world. 

Katrine later refers to an artwork in California : https://liztoohey-wiese.com/forced-into-a-great-and-difficult-transformation

So, you get the idea. 

You’ll hear these four excerpts in context in a few minutes but i like the way they set us in the mood to listen. I want to thank the brave participants of this first roundtable session for their generosity, courage and wisdom. They are now on the public record as cool and visionary people.  If listeners want to know more about these conscient roundtables – why I created them or background on brave new waves and David Bohm’s dialogue work - please read or listen to my posting on my a calm presence called conscient roundtables. 

And if you want to comment on what you hear please go to conscient.ca and use any of the conscient podcast social media to share your thoughts. If you like what you hear then I invite you to share it within your networks and-or give conscient podcast a review on apple podcasts. All of this helps to get these conversations to circulate and create a bit of buzz about the issues we care about and that merit more public conversations. 

My email is [email protected]

So please relax and enjoy this roundtable on art and science and more.

Note: because of the length and informal nature of this roundtable episode I have not generated a transcription beyond the four quotes above. 

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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 publish a Substack newsletter called ‘a calm presence' see https://acalmpresence.substack.com. 

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

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 March 26, 2025