PART 1: ELLIE IRONS

What does it take to be “sustainable?” How can we, as a society, grow in ways that help the world grow around us?

New York artist, Ellie Irons, and Texan business owner, Mike Serant, come together to talk about their grassroots efforts to foster relationships between humans and the world that sustains us. We discuss the unfortunate branding of ‘weeds’, the domino effect of healthy soils, and what it takes to build ‘an organic army’.

Today, I talk with artist and plant collaborator Ellie Irons. Ellie and I talk about a number of her ongoing public art projects, why tough weedy urban plants are so inspiring to her, and how she’s using her work to bridge a communication gap between science and the world it describes.

Music was created specifically for this episode by Veronica MJ; this piece, "Natalia", was conceived as an ode to Natalia Molchanova, the great Russian free diver, and is meant to evoke a sort of chaotic stillness that one can experience when diving deep down into a body of water, or sitting alone atop a mountain or deep in a forest.

Check out our website to read more about the musicians and our guests, and to follow their collaborations together.

Thank you to technical director Eric Carbonara at NadaSoundStudio, and to the Center for Humanities at Temple University for supporting this podcast.