MUSIC & DANCE - The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast

How can music challenge systemic oppression and bring about social change? How can we envision alternative paths while avoiding the pitfalls of past paradigms?

Jake Ferguson is an award-winning musician known for his work with The Heliocentrics and as a solo artist under the name The Brkn Record. Alongside legendary drummer Malcolm Catto, Ferguson has composed two film scores and over 10 albums, collaborating with icons like Archie Shepp, Mulatu Astatke, and Melvin Van Peebles. His latest album is The Architecture of Oppression Part 2. The album also features singer and political activist Jermain Jackman, a former winner of The Voice (2014) and the T.S. Eliot Prize winning poet and musician, Anthony Joseph.

JAKE FERGUSON

I think as humans, we forget. We are often limited by our own stereotypes, and we don't see that in everyone there's the potential for beauty and love and all these things. And I think The Architecture of Oppression, both parts one and two, are really a reflection of all the community and civil rights work that I've been doing for the same amount of time, really – 25 years. And I wanted to try and mix my day job and my music side, so bringing those two sides of my life together, but because I'm not a spoken word person...well, I can write a good story. I can write a good essay, but my ability to write stories or write lyrics is very limited, hence why I was so keen to get Anthony and Jermain involved.

And Jermain is somebody I've worked with for probably about six, seven years now. He's also in the trenches of the black civil rights struggle. We worked together on a number of projects, but it was very interesting to then work with Jemaine in a purely artistic capacity. And I think the bringing together those two worlds really created the album. You know, I wanted to create a platform for black artists, black singers, and poets who I really admire. And it was a no-brainer to give Anthony a call for this second album because I know of his pedigree, and he's much more able to put ideas and thoughts on paper than I would be able to.

JERMAIN JACKMAN

There's something raw about The Architecture of Oppression, both part one and part two. There's a raw realness and authenticity in those songs that AI can't create. There's a lived experience that AI won't understand, and there's a feeling in those songs. And it's not just in the words from the spoken word artists, if it's not in the instruments that are being played. It's in the voice that you hear. You hear the pain, you hear the struggle, you hear the joy, you hear all of those emotions in all of those songs. And that's something that AI can't make up or create.

ANTHONY JOSEPH

I've known Jake for many, many, many years, probably since the nineties. Yeah, it's going all the way back. There's a lot of spillover between me and Jake in that way, both personal and music – which is the same thing, I think. So, I'm coming from that context. And in terms of the sort of political underpinnings, you know, you can't be a Black British artist and escape the sort of stuff that Jake is talking about because that's the kind of the mess that we work in. It's the mess that we sort of inherit and the mess that we try to push through to make art. We can't escape the sort of political ramifications of colonialism or racism.

They are the things that sort of underpin a lot of our lived experience, and I think Jake says it quite eloquently. I mean, he says he's not a writer, but he's definitely a thinker, and he knows what he's talking about. So, exactly as he said, "We're still dealing with these things in 2024." We shouldn't be, but I think records like the two volumes actually of this record are quite important because a lot of Black art, you know, there's hardly any sort of black artists are sort of directly addressing these issues in a very concentrated, focused way. You know, at the beginning you said, Mia, that it's not something you want to listen to before bed. And yeah, they're difficult records. I think the new one is a lot more accessible in a way than the first one was. The first one was...is a scary listen. You know, absolutely. It's not easy. It's not easy listening, but then the experience is not easy.

How can music challenge systemic oppression and bring about social change? How can we envision alternative paths while avoiding the pitfalls of past paradigms?

Jake Ferguson is an award-winning musician known for his work with The Heliocentrics and as a solo artist under the name The Brkn Record. Alongside legendary drummer Malcolm Catto, Ferguson has composed two film scores and over 10 albums, collaborating with icons like Archie Shepp, Mulatu Astatke, and Melvin Van Peebles. His latest album is The Architecture of Oppression Part 2. The album also features singer and political activist Jermain Jackman, a former winner of The Voice (2014) and the T.S. Eliot Prize winning poet and musician, Anthony Joseph.

JAKE FERGUSON

I think as humans, we forget. We are often limited by our own stereotypes, and we don't see that in everyone there's the potential for beauty and love and all these things. And I think The Architecture of Oppression, both parts one and two, are really a reflection of all the community and civil rights work that I've been doing for the same amount of time, really – 25 years. And I wanted to try and mix my day job and my music side, so bringing those two sides of my life together, but because I'm not a spoken word person...well, I can write a good story. I can write a good essay, but my ability to write stories or write lyrics is very limited, hence why I was so keen to get Anthony and Jermain involved.

And Jermain is somebody I've worked with for probably about six, seven years now. He's also in the trenches of the black civil rights struggle. We worked together on a number of projects, but it was very interesting to then work with Jemaine in a purely artistic capacity. And I think the bringing together those two worlds really created the album. You know, I wanted to create a platform for black artists, black singers, and poets who I really admire. And it was a no-brainer to give Anthony a call for this second album because I know of his pedigree, and he's much more able to put ideas and thoughts on paper than I would be able to.

JERMAIN JACKMAN

There's something raw about The Architecture of Oppression, both part one and part two. There's a raw realness and authenticity in those songs that AI can't create. There's a lived experience that AI won't understand, and there's a feeling in those songs. And it's not just in the words from the spoken word artists, if it's not in the instruments that are being played. It's in the voice that you hear. You hear the pain, you hear the struggle, you hear the joy, you hear all of those emotions in all of those songs. And that's something that AI can't make up or create.

ANTHONY JOSEPH

I've known Jake for many, many, many years, probably since the nineties. Yeah, it's going all the way back. There's a lot of spillover between me and Jake in that way, both personal and music – which is the same thing, I think. So, I'm coming from that context. And in terms of the sort of political underpinnings, you know, you can't be a Black British artist and escape the sort of stuff that Jake is talking about because that's the kind of the mess that we work in. It's the mess that we sort of inherit and the mess that we try to push through to make art. We can't escape the sort of political ramifications of colonialism or racism.

They are the things that sort of underpin a lot of our lived experience, and I think Jake says it quite eloquently. I mean, he says he's not a writer, but he's definitely a thinker, and he knows what he's talking about. So, exactly as he said, "We're still dealing with these things in 2024." We shouldn't be, but I think records like the two volumes actually of this record are quite important because a lot of Black art, you know, there's hardly any sort of black artists are sort of directly addressing these issues in a very concentrated, focused way. You know, at the beginning you said, Mia, that it's not something you want to listen to before bed. And yeah, they're difficult records. I think the new one is a lot more accessible in a way than the first one was. The first one was...is a scary listen. You know, absolutely. It's not easy. It's not easy listening, but then the experience is not easy.

How can we learn to flourish because of who we are, not in spite of it? What is the sensory experience of the world for people with autism and ADHD? How can music help heal trauma and foster identity?

Mattia Maurée is an interdisciplinary composer whose work centers around themes of perception, body, sensation, trauma, and resilience. Their scores for critically acclaimed films have been played in 13 countries. Their poems have been featured in Boston City Hall as part of the Mayor's Poetry Program, Guerrilla Opera, and Arc Poetry Magazine. Mattia composes and performs on violin, voice, and piano, and has taught music for over 20 years. They have received a Master's of Music in Composition at New England Conservatory and a Bachelor's of Music from St. Olaf College. They also are an AuDHD coach, host the AuDHD Flourishing podcast and help other neurodivergent folks heal and find their creative flow in their course Love Your Brain.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

There are some things that don't need to be explained. It's helpful to have a label or labels that show that there's a wide variety of experiences in this world, but then it's also nice to have those unspoken artistic experiences that are other pathways for healing and understanding.

MATTIA MAURÉE

One of the things I think about a lot is this. I vividly remember the desire throughout pretty much most of my twenties and certainly my teen years to be a famous artist and win big awards. And when you dig down into what you actually want from that, it's connection. The teen brain, in particular, is extremely geared toward connection and gets different brain chemical payouts for different things than adults. So certainly, when I think of like teenagers, I think of that drive for connection and fitting in and being accepted is so strong. And that was a part of my artistic output or desire as well was like, okay, if I write, you know, something world-changing, like then it could be like a really well-regarded composer and get that respect. Or if I go more of the songwriting and film route, I can be beloved or have people love my music and have this emotional experience with my music. There were all these dreams that I had that I think largely boiled down to just wanting to be accepted. And you can get that outside of your career and outside of the arts.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

How do you make that time for your art? And how do you come to a good place where you have a relationship with your unconscious so that it can solve some of these things that perplex us?

MAURÉE

So for me, it just kind of removing a lot of the shame and then a lot of the energy that I was wasting trying to fit myself into a neurotypical process or framework or way of thinking or being. So, you know, some people call that unmasking, just kind of removing. I was wasting a lot of energy, basically trying to be someone else and function in a different way. And then just beating myself up internally for not being able to do that. And throughout my healing journey, as I really realized, Oh, that's actually what's happening. Like there's not actually anything wrong with me being able to...That's why it's called Love Your Brain. It's not just, you know, tolerate your brain. Or, fine, you can work with this brain that you have. It's like, no, I genuinely love the weird experiences that my brain can give me and the incredibly rich, deep experience I have of the world. Like I experience nature so deeply and so intensely. I have really strong connections with animals. I have really great intuition, which I think is just from picking up all this sensory data and putting it together. All these experiences that I get to have, but I don't get to have those experiences if I'm just trying to make myself be something else, which I think is most people who are late diagnosed, I feel like that's their experience. It's just like I've been trying to be someone else for so long. It's exhausting. And then you don't have the energy then to be creative, the carving out the time, making the time to actually create.

How can we learn to flourish because of who we are, not in spite of it? What is the sensory experience of the world for people with autism and ADHD? How can music help heal trauma and foster identity?

Mattia Maurée is an interdisciplinary composer whose work centers around themes of perception, body, sensation, trauma, and resilience. Their scores for critically acclaimed films have been played in 13 countries. Their poems have been featured in Boston City Hall as part of the Mayor's Poetry Program, Guerrilla Opera, and Arc Poetry Magazine. Mattia composes and performs on violin, voice, and piano, and has taught music for over 20 years. They have received a Master's of Music in Composition at New England Conservatory and a Bachelor's of Music from St. Olaf College. They also are an AuDHD coach, host the AuDHD Flourishing podcast and help other neurodivergent folks heal and find their creative flow in their course Love Your Brain.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

There are some things that don't need to be explained. It's helpful to have a label or labels that show that there's a wide variety of experiences in this world, but then it's also nice to have those unspoken artistic experiences that are other pathways for healing and understanding.

MATTIA MAURÉE

One of the things I think about a lot is this. I vividly remember the desire throughout pretty much most of my twenties and certainly my teen years to be a famous artist and win big awards. And when you dig down into what you actually want from that, it's connection. The teen brain, in particular, is extremely geared toward connection and gets different brain chemical payouts for different things than adults. So certainly, when I think of like teenagers, I think of that drive for connection and fitting in and being accepted is so strong. And that was a part of my artistic output or desire as well was like, okay, if I write, you know, something world-changing, like then it could be like a really well-regarded composer and get that respect. Or if I go more of the songwriting and film route, I can be beloved or have people love my music and have this emotional experience with my music. There were all these dreams that I had that I think largely boiled down to just wanting to be accepted. And you can get that outside of your career and outside of the arts.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

How do you make that time for your art? And how do you come to a good place where you have a relationship with your unconscious so that it can solve some of these things that perplex us?

MAURÉE

So for me, it just kind of removing a lot of the shame and then a lot of the energy that I was wasting trying to fit myself into a neurotypical process or framework or way of thinking or being. So, you know, some people call that unmasking, just kind of removing. I was wasting a lot of energy, basically trying to be someone else and function in a different way. And then just beating myself up internally for not being able to do that. And throughout my healing journey, as I really realized, Oh, that's actually what's happening. Like there's not actually anything wrong with me being able to...That's why it's called Love Your Brain. It's not just, you know, tolerate your brain. Or, fine, you can work with this brain that you have. It's like, no, I genuinely love the weird experiences that my brain can give me and the incredibly rich, deep experience I have of the world. Like I experience nature so deeply and so intensely. I have really strong connections with animals. I have really great intuition, which I think is just from picking up all this sensory data and putting it together. All these experiences that I get to have, but I don't get to have those experiences if I'm just trying to make myself be something else, which I think is most people who are late diagnosed, I feel like that's their experience. It's just like I've been trying to be someone else for so long. It's exhausting. And then you don't have the energy then to be creative, the carving out the time, making the time to actually create.

How can physics help solve messy, real world problems? How can we embrace the possibilities of AI while limiting existential risk and abuse by bad actors?

Neil Johnson is a physics professor at George Washington University. His new initiative in Complexity and Data Science at the Dynamic Online Networks Lab combines cross-disciplinary fundamental research with data science to attack complex real-world problems. His research interests lie in the broad area of Complex Systems and ‘many-body’ out-of-equilibrium systems of collections of objects, ranging from crowds of particles to crowds of people and from environments as distinct as quantum information processing in nanostructures to the online world of collective behavior on social media.

NEIL JOHNSON

It gets back to this core question. I just wish I was a young scientist going into this because that's the question to answer: Why AI comes out with what it does. That's the burning question. It's like it's bigger than the origin of the universe to me as a scientist, and here's the reason why. The origin of the universe, it happened. That's why we're here. It's almost like a historical question asking why it happened. The AI future is not a historical question. It's a now and future question.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Before we get into your fascinating work at DON, the Dynamic Online Networks Lab, tell us a little bit about your upbringing and educational journey that made you the physicists you are today. I guess some young people growing up wouldn't say, “I want to study data science and solve complex real world problems when I grow up,” but were you like that?

JOHNSON

I was never very good at things like crosswords and math puzzles. I was really more interested in messy real world problems. I remember listening to the news a lot. But fast forward, I start taking classes in school, and end up in physics. I happen to do a natural science undergraduate degree at Cambridge, which did feature physics prominently. It was built around the idea that in the world that we want to understand, just one discipline isn't enough. And yet, I fell into doing a PhD in physics in Harvard. But I was never really happy with that. I remember printing out my PhD and thinking, “that was a waste of time,” because I now know probably more about that tiny little project than anyone else in the world, and who cares? I was reading about something called a Santa Fe Institute for Complex Systems as I was graduating. I became a research fellow in Cambridge for a few years and then a faculty member in physics at Oxford University. During that process, I started exploring other projects. I've always been interested in the idea that messy problems might have some kind of solution if you could get data on them. That launched me off into looking at all sorts of other disciplines.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

It's intriguing to me to think of people as particles. There's a lot of variance, but if you draw far enough back, they can be like particles. So I imagine your work is a lot like translation work, translating figures from one field to all these different disciplines. 

NEIL JOHNSON

You are absolutely right. I learned all this physics, but actually I’m more interested in other types of problems than something sitting at minus 273 degrees that I'll never even be able to see. The typical criticism of physics is that they treat objects as identical. Nobody can explain why the Titanic went down one water molecule at a time. All of those factors went together, none of that explanation comes from a simple assumption of particles being identical and all. So the idea that there's heterogeneity, which is the core idea of all the social sciences, the idea that you could bring that into physics is actually new. All the assumptions physicists make is because particles can be treated as identical, but doing so brings you to conclusions that don't correspond to the messy real world. So in our projects, part of the creative process is learning how to interact with other disciplines. It’s not something academia in general does. I happen to be a saxophone player. In something like music, the richness comes from different instruments—their shortcomings and advantages combined together. My hope is that's what we end up doing in the academic field to try and address some of these messy problems.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Your work is mostly funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. We have certain ideals to how a functioning democracy should work. I understand you're trying to be a safety filter to help protect society from bad actors. I’ve noticed in your research of online extremist groups, you've drawn parallels between their behavior and that of natural systems such as fish schools.

JOHNSON

A lot of our work is comparative. We look at background behavior. Is there a burst of new activity? We zoom in on that and ask why that is suddenly appearing and why it didn't appear before. Imagine one day you wake up and you find water in a pot is boiling and you want to understand why water is boiling. If you go at it one molecule at a time, it's not giving you the big picture of what is going on. We've probably all done this: you take milk, stick it in the fridge, too lazy to go to the grocery, so you just leave it there. The 11th day, the milk's gone bad. Why did that happen on the 11th day? What was happening was that all you could see was the kind of macro level, you couldn't see the individual pieces of milk. This is a new area of physics, exactly the same as how shock waves—a wave that builds up so quickly, there's no kind of precursor—appear. Using the data we collect online, we have a tool for making predictions of when we expect shocks to arise and what shape they'll have. So the reason we went for a systems level view is because you can't understand water boiling one molecule at a time, you can't understand why milk produces that curd on the 11th day, one molecule of milk at a time. And I’m no expert in animal societies, but it turns out when we look at the data, online communities that promote hate and extremism scatter when some threat comes—what an anthropologist would call fusion and fission.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Yes. All these things that are developing slowly are subterranean, in the dark and we don't know and it's accumulating. You spoke about how AI can be used to accelerate and propagate the labor of writing hate speech. Bill Gates said that AI will change jobs for everyone except those who create AI. So with the change of many traditional jobs, and people perhaps not finding purpose and meaning in their life because their jobs are under threat, there is a growing sense of insecurity that feeds into a need to find communities online, sometimes among extremist groups.

JOHNSON

I'm a huge optimist for AI, actually. I see it as part of that process of climbing its own mountain. It could do wonders for so many areas of science, medicine. When the car came out, the car initially is a disaster. But you fast forward, and it was the key to so many advances in society. I think it's exactly the same as AI. The big challenge is to understand why it works. AI existed for years, but it was useless. Nothing useful, nothing useful, nothing useful. And then maybe last year or something, now it's really useful. There seemed to be some kind of jump in its ability, almost like a shock wave. We're trying to develop an understanding of how AI operates in terms of these shockwave jumps. Revealing how AI works will help society understand what it can and can't do and therefore remove some of this dark fear of being taken over and all this kind of thing. And If you don't understand how AI works, how can you govern it? To get effective governance, you need to understand how AI works because otherwise you don't know what you're going to regulate.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

We talked about your curiosity growing up, but could you reflect on your upbringing—your parents, those teachers who have been important to you along the way? And as you think about the future and education, what would you like young people to know, preserve and remember?

JOHNSON

I was my first generation going to college. I've had some very inspirational teachers and some very non inspirational teachers, like everybody, but there was one that stands out by miles—a teacher I had in elementary school when I was eight. He was from Jamaica and just arrived in England. He was a jazz musician. He would start off the day playing jazz. He taught math as well, but he brought in a technique, which I still use to this day, to multiply numbers together. I've never seen it taught anywhere, it was done in some kind of slanted table. We'd done multiplication the previous year and I couldn't understand it, but he drew these tables and I thought this was just remarkable. That set me off and it showed me there was this interesting thing called jazz, and you don't have to do much to actually change a lot. Passing on some idea that might be unusual, as long as you can back it up, can have a really positive benefit going forward for future generations. So that's what I try to do. And I'm so happy for young people because I think the era of having to memorize things is going to go by the wayside. I think we're going to turn into a very creative period where education becomes creative, rather than jumping through the hoops and remembering things. I'm really excited for anybody who's entering there.

How does the brain process emotions? How are emotional memories formed and stored in the brain, and how do they influence behavior, perception, and decision-making? How does music help us understand our emotions, memories, and the nature of consciousness?

Joseph LeDoux is a Professor of Neural Science at New York University at NYU and was Director of the Emotional Brain Institute. His research primarily focuses on survival circuits, including their impacts on emotions, such as fear and anxiety. He has written a number of books in this field, including The Four Realms of Existence: A New Theory of Being Human, The Emotional Brain, Synaptic Self, Anxious, and The Deep History of Ourselves. LeDoux is also the lead singer and songwriter of the band The Amygdaloids.

JOSEPH LEDOUX

We've got four billion years of biological accidents that created all of the intricate aspects of everything about life, including consciousness. And it's about what's going on in each of those cells at the time that allows it to be connected to everything else and for the information to be understood as it's being exchanged between those things with their multifaceted, deep, complex processing.

*

When you're playing music with a group of people, there are those special moments when it all works, and you're in the groove. As soon as you begin to think about it, you lose it because you've introduced thought, and it's trying to take over. There's something at a lower level, a different level altogether, where all that is happening and working. And I think that's true of the whole body, that sometimes when we start thinking that introduces problems rather than solutions.

How does the brain process emotions? How are emotional memories formed and stored in the brain, and how do they influence behavior, perception, and decision-making? How does music help us understand our emotions, memories, and the nature of consciousness?

Joseph LeDoux is a Professor of Neural Science at New York University at NYU and was Director of the Emotional Brain Institute. His research primarily focuses on survival circuits, including their impacts on emotions, such as fear and anxiety. He has written a number of books in this field, including The Four Realms of Existence: A New Theory of Being Human, The Emotional Brain, Synaptic Self, Anxious, and The Deep History of Ourselves. LeDoux is also the lead singer and songwriter of the band The Amygdaloids.

JOSEPH LEDOUX

We've got four billion years of biological accidents that created all of the intricate aspects of everything about life, including consciousness. And it's about what's going on in each of those cells at the time that allows it to be connected to everything else and for the information to be understood as it's being exchanged between those things with their multifaceted, deep, complex processing.

*

When you're playing music with a group of people, there are those special moments when it all works, and you're in the groove. As soon as you begin to think about it, you lose it because you've introduced thought, and it's trying to take over. There's something at a lower level, a different level altogether, where all that is happening and working. And I think that's true of the whole body, that sometimes when we start thinking that introduces problems rather than solutions.

Environmentalists, writers, artists, activists, and public policy makers explore the interconnectedness of living beings and ecosystems. They highlight the importance of conservation, promote climate education, advocate for sustainable development, and underscore the vital role of creative and educational communities in driving positive change. Enjoy this Special Series with music courtesy of composer Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song.

World Ocean Day episode features music by Erland Cooper

Voices on Part 1:

MAX RICHTER

INGRID NEWKIRK, Founder & President of PETA- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

BERTRAND PICCARD, Aviator of 1st Round-the-World Solar-Powered Flight, Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse Foundation

CARL SAFINA, Ecologist, Founding President of Safina Center

CLAIRE POTTER, Designer, Lecturer, Author of “Welcome to the Circular Economy”

ADA LIMÓN, U.S. Poet Laureate, Host of The Slowdown podcast

CYNTHIA DANIELS, Grammy and Emmy award-winning producer, engineer, composer

JOELLE GERGIS, Lead Author of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Author of “Humanity’s Moment”

KATHLEEN ROGERS, President of EARTHDAY.ORG

ODED GALOR, Author of “The Journey of Humanity”, Founder of Unified Growth Theory

SIR GEOFF MULGAN, Fmr. Chief Executive of Nesta, Fmr, Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit Director & Downing Street’s Head of Policy, Author of “Another World is Possible”

ALAIN ROBERT, Rock & Urban Climber known for Free Solo Climbing 150+ of the World’s Tallest Skyscrapers using no Climbing Equipment

NOAH WILSON-RICH, Co-founder & CEO of The Best Bees Company

CHRIS FUNK, Director of the Climate Hazards Center at UC Santa Barbara
Author of Drought, Flood, Fire: How Climate Change Contributes to Recent Catastrophes

DAVID FARRIER, Author of “Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils”

DR. SUZANNE SIMARD, Professor of Forest Ecology, Author of “Finding the Mother Tree”

PETER SINGER, “Most Influential Living Philosopher”, Author, Founder of The Life You Can Save

JENNIFER MORGAN, Fmr. Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Special Envoy for International Climate Action, German Foreign Ministry

Almond blossom, vincent van gogh

Voices on Part 2:

MANUELA LUCÁ-DAZIO - Executive Director, Pritzker Architecture Prize - Fmr. Exec. Director of Venice Biennale, Visual Arts & Architecture Dept.

BRITT WRAY - Author of “Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis”, Researcher Working on Climate Change & Mental Health, Stanford University

WALTER STAHEL - Architect, Economist, Founding Father of Circular Economy - Founder-Director, Product-Life Institute

MATHIS WACKERNAGEL - Founder & President of the Global Footprint Network - World Sustainability Award Winner

JAY FAMIGLIETTI, Fmr. Senior Water Scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Exec. Director, Global Institute for Water Security, Host of "What About Water?" Podcast

RICHARD VEVERS - Founder & CEO of The Ocean Agency

ARMOND COHEN - Executive Director of Clean Air Task Force

PAULA PINHO - Director of Just Transition at the European Commission Directorate-General for Energy

MARTIN VON HILDEBRAND - Indigenous Rights Activist - Winner of Right Livelihood & Skoll Awards - Founder of Fundacion Gaia Amazonas, named #40 NGOs of the World by The Global Journal

HAROLD P. SJURSEN - Professor of Philosophy - Science, Technology, the Arts - NYU, Beihang University, East China University

BILL HARE - Founder & CEO of Climate Analytics, Physicist, Climate Scientist

SIR ANDY HAINES - Tyler Prize Award-winner for Environmental Achievement - Professor of Environmental Change & Public Health

LISA JACKSON PULVER - Deputy Vice-Chancellor of University of Sydney's Indigenous Strategy & Services

beneath the ice, mia funk

Voices on Part 3:

PAULA PINHO, Director of Just Transition at the European Commission Directorate-General for Energy

PIA MANCINI, Co-founder/CEO of Open Collective - Chair of DemocracyEarth Foundation, YGL World Economic Forum

JENNIFER MORGAN, Fmr. Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Special Envoy for International Climate Action, German Foreign Ministry

WALTER STAHEL, Architect, Economist, Founding Father of Circular Economy, Founder-Director, Product-Life Institute

MERLIN SHELDRAKE, Biologist & Bestselling Author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, Winner of the Wainwright Prize 2021

RON GONEN, Founder & CEO of Closed Loop Partners, Former Deputy Commissioner of Sanitation, Recycling & Sustainability, NYC

MANUELA LUCÁ-DAZIO, Executive Director, Pritzker Architecture Prize, Fmr. Exec. Director of Venice Biennale, Visual Arts & Architecture Dept.

NICHOLAS ROYLE, Co-author of "An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory”, Author of “Mother: A Memoir”

MARK BURGMAN, Director, Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, Editor-in-Chief, Conservation Biology

MIKE DAVIS, CEO of Global Witness

JAY FAMIGLIETTI, Fmr. Senior Water Scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Exec. Director, Global Institute for Water Security, Host of "What About Water?" Podcast

BRITT WRAY, Author of “Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis”, Researcher Working on Climate Change & Mental Health, Stanford University

RICHARD VEVERS, Founder & CEO of The Ocean Agency

ARMOND COHEN, Executive Director of Clean Air Task Force

BILL HARE, Founder & CEO of Climate Analytics, Physicist, Climate Scientist

DAVID PALUMBO-LIU, Activist, Professor & Author of “Speaking Out of Place: Getting Our Political Voices Back”, Host of Speaking out of Place Podcast

IBRAHIM ALHUSSEINI, Founder & CEO of FullCycle Fund

GAIA VINCE, Science Writer, Broadcaster & Author of “Transcendence” & “Adventures in the Anthropocene”

INGRID NEWKIRK, Founder & President of PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

Saudade, Mia Funk

Voices on Part 4:

INGRID NEWKIRK, Founder & President of PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

JEFFREY D. SACHS, President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Director of Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia University, Economist, Author

JENNIFER MORGAN, Fmr. Executive Director of Greenpeace International, Special Envoy for International Climate Action, German Foreign Ministry

MERLIN SHELDRAKE, Biologist & Bestselling Author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, Winner of the Wainwright Prize 2021

WALTER STAHEL, Architect, Economist, Founding Father of Circular Economy, Founder-Director, Product-Life Institute

ARMOND COHEN, Executive Director of Clean Air Task Force

PIA MANCINI, Co-founder/CEO of Open Collective - Chair of DemocracyEarth Foundation, YGL World Economic Forum

RON GONEN, Founder & CEO of Closed Loop Partners, Former Deputy Commissioner of Sanitation, Recycling & Sustainability, NYC

AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL, Poet & Author of World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks and Other Astonishments

ANA CASTILLO, Award-Winning Xicana Activist, Editor, Poet, Novelist & Artist

Voices on World Environment Day Episode

BRITT WRAY
Author of Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis Researcher Working on Climate Change & Mental Health, Stanford

JEFFREY SACHS
President of UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network
Director of Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia University

EVELINE MOL, Participating Student Barnard College

BERTRAND PICCARD, Aviator of 1st Round-the-World Solar-Powered Flight, Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse Foundation

AVA CLANCY, Participating Student, Bates College

MIRA PATLA, Participating Student, Colby College

DARA DIAMOND, Participating Student, King's College London

ARIELLE DAVIS, Participating Student, Barnard College

CLAIRE POTTER, Designer, Lecturer, Author of Welcome to the Circular Economy

MEGAN HEGENBARTH, Participating Student, University of Minnesota

GRACE PHILLIPS, Participating Student, Pitzer College

BIANCA WEBER, Participating Student, Syracuse University

ELLEN EFSTATHIOU, Participating Student, Oberlin College

SURYA VIR, Participating Student, University of Wisconsin-Madison

MACIE PARKER, Participating Student, Boston University

BEILA UNGAR, Participating Student, Columbia University

CARL SAFINA, Ecologist, Founding President of Safina Center, Author of Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace

Photos courtesy of Unsplash
Photo credit: Kyle Johnson, Sebastian Unrau, Abner abiu Castillo diaz, Deepak Nautiyal

Songs of Nature - Musicians, Writers, Ecologists, Philosophers on the Mysteries of the Natural World
Excerpts of interviews from One Planet Podcast & The Creative Process

Voices on this episode are:

SY MONTGOMERY
NYTimes Bestselling Author of Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell, Secrets of the Octopus, The Hawk’s Way: Encounters with Fierce Beauty, and other books

MAX RICHTER
Award-winning Composer, Pianist & Environmentalist (The Blue Notebooks, Waltz with Bashir, Arrival, Ad Astra) His album SLEEP is the most streamed classical record of all time.

MERLIN SHELDRAKE
Biologist & Bestselling Author of Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, Winner of the Wainwright Prize 2021

THOMAS CROWTHER
Ecologist - Co-chair of the Board for UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration - Founder of Restor

TIOKASIN GHOSTHORSE
Founder/Host of First Voices Radio - Master Musician of the Ancient Lakota Flute

ERLAND COOPER
Nature’s Songwriter - Composer of “Folded Landscapes”

RICK BASS
Environmentalist & Story Prize Award-winning Author of “Why I Came West”, “For a Little While” - Fmr. Geologist - Organizer of Climate Aid: The Voice of the Forest

PETER SINGER
“Most Influential Living Philosopher” - Author, Founder of The Life You Can Save

KATHLEEN ROGERS - President of EarthDay.ORG - Planet vs. Plastics Campaign 2024

artworks by mia funk

Artworks by Mia Funk

GIULIO BOCCALETTI
Author of Water, A Biography
Natural Resource Security & Environmental Sustainability Expert
Chief Strategy Officer 2016–2020, The Nature Conservancy

PAULA PINHO
Director of Just Transition at the European Commission Directorate-General for Energy

RON GONEN
Founder & CEO of Closed Loop Partners
Fmr. Deputy Commissioner of Sanitation, Recycling & Sustainability, NYC

MARCIA DESANCTIS
Journalist, Essayist,
Author of A Hard Place to Leave: Stories from a Restless Life

JEAN WEINER
Goldman Environmental Prize Winner
Founder of Fondation pour la Protection de la Biodiversité Marine, Haiti

DERRICK EMSLEY
Co-founder & CEO of veritree - Data-driven Restorative Platform & tentree Apparel Co.

DR. FARHANA SULTANA
Co-author: Water Politics: Governance, Justice & the Right to Water
Fmr. UNDP Programme Officer, United Nations Development Programme

NEIL GRIMMER
Brand President of SOURCE Global · Innovator of the SOURCE Hydropanel: Drinking Water Made from Sunlight and Air

ALAN JACOBSEN
Director of Photography
Emmy & Sundance Special Jury Award-Winning & Oscar Nominated Documentaries

RICHARD VEVERS
Founder & CEO of The Ocean Agency

BRIAN WILCOX
Chief Engineer & Co-founder of Marine BioEnergy
Grows Kelp in the Ocean to Provide Carbon-neutral Fuels

SETH M. SIEGEL
Entrepreneur, Public Speaker & NYTimes Bestselling Author
Let There Be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water-Starved World
Troubled Water: What's Wrong with What We Drink

JOELLE GERGIS
Lead Author of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Author of Humanity’s Moment

JAY FAMIGLIETTI, Fmr. Senior Water Scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Exec. Director, Global Institute for Water Security, Host of "What About Water?" Podcast

ROB BILOTT
Environmental Lawyer, Partner Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP
Author of Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer’s Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont

JILL HEINERTH
Explorer, Presenter, Author of Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave Diver

OSPREY ORIELLE LAKE
Founder & Executive Director of the Women's Earth & Climate Action Network International
Author of Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature & Artist

JESS WILBER
International Outreach Citizens’ Climate Lobby
Coordinator, Senior Stewards Acting for the Environment

BERTRAND PICCARD
Aviator of 1st Round-the-World Solar-Powered Flight, Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse Foundation

IBRAHIM ALHUSSEINI
Founder & CEO of FullCycle Fund

GARY GRIGGS
Global Oceans Hero Award-Winner · Distinguished Professor of Earth Sciences
Director Institute of Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz 1991 to 2017

Sample Credits:

BBC News Excerpt, Public broadcast, 19th July. Fair usage, courtesy Simon Gurney, BBC Studios Limited.

BBC News Excerpt, Public broadcast, 19th July. Fair usage, courtesy Simon Gurney, BBC Studios Limited.

UN Broadcast Excerpt, Greta Thunberg, Young Climate Activist at the Opening of the Climate Action Summit 2019, United Nations license 24 October 2022.

CBS News Excerpt 1970. Fair usage, archive courtesy Leah Hodge, CBS

Voices of the Earth: Reflections on Nature, Humanity & Climate Change

00:00 "The Conditional" by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón

01:27 The Secret Language of Animals: Ingrid Newkirk, President of PETA

03:03 A Love Letter to the Living World: Carl Safina, Ecologist & Author

04:11 Exploring the Mysteries of Soil and Coral Reefs: Merlin Sheldrake, Biologist, Author of Entangled Life

04:47 Exploring Coral Reefs: Richard Vevers, Founder of The Ocean Agency

05:56 The Importance of Climate Education: Kathleen Rogers, President of EarthDay.org

07:02 The Timeless Wisdom of Turtles: Sy Montomery, Naturalist & Author

07:38 Optimism in the Face of Environmental Challenges: Richard Vevers

08:32 Urban Solutions for a Sustainable Future: Paula Pinho, Director, Just Transition, Consumers, Energy Efficiency & Innovation, European Commission

08:57 The Circular Economy: Walter Stahel, Founder & Director of the Product-Life Institute

09:39 The Power of Speaking Out for Sustainability: Paula Pinho

10:16 Empowering the Next Generation Through Education: Jeffrey Sachs, President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network

This episode was created by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).

How is being an artist different than a machine that is programmed to perform a set of actions? How can we stop thinking about artworks as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences? In this conversation with Max Cooper, we discuss the beauty and chaos of nature and the exploration of technology music and consciousness.

Max Cooper is a musician with a PhD in computational biology. He integrates electronic music with immersive video projections inspired by scientific exploration. His latest project, 'Seme,' commissioned by the Salzburg Easter Festival, merges Italian musical heritage with contemporary techniques, was also performed at the Barbican in London. He supplied music for a video narrated by Greta Thunberg and Pope Francis for COP26. In 2016, Cooper founded Mesh, a platform to explore the intersection of music, science and art. His Observatory art-house installation is on display at Kings Cross until May 1st.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Tell us about Seme and how it originated.

MAX COOPER

That was a commission from Salzburg, a classical and opera music festival, a very well renowned one. Each year they have some sort of electronic related project amongst this non electronic program, so they asked if I could do that. They said that their program this year was around Italy, so Italian opera, Italian classical music.

Palestrina choral music was one of the main interesting and beautiful discoveries for me. I was delving into a lot of historic Italian music, and a lot of it just didn't really lend itself to what I'm interested in musically. A lot of it was commissioned by very grand people for very grand places to sound very grand, and that didn't really resonate with me. But when I went to Palestrina, it was music from the 1500s that was written for worship, church music. With the help of Niels Orens, Tom Hodge, Kim Sheehan, and Sarah Aristidou, I was able to take these original scores from Palestrina, and more or less keep the music as it was, although there was one of the pieces that we modulated a little bit into a slightly more modern scale. We slowed them both down as well to give each harmony more breathing space. Sarah and Kim sang the vocal layers, I played synth layers, and Tom played piano. It was a musical discovery I wouldn't have come across if I hadn't had that unusual brief of trying to make a project around Italy.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Tell us about some of your earliest musical memories and your journey towards music.

COOPER

Music was always there as I was growing up. My mum was a music teacher, my dad was an engineer, so there was always music and science around me, but I didn't really engage with music seriously until I found electronic music. Something about the purity and the simplicity of it really grabbed me, and then I got into the whole club scene and started DJing and all that. I came to music in a serious way much later than I'd come to the sciences, for example. I'd always been studying sciences and progressing that career well ahead of my wanting to delve into music, but music was always there and it always connected with me emotionally. I found at some point that if I sat down and tried to render how I felt musically, it led to interesting results, and music people enjoyed, so I kept pursuing that and then linking in my scientific interests. I didn't want to only do music, I didn't want to only do science, so it was: How can I tie all these interests together? I started experimenting with commissioning visual artists to make science related work, collaborating with people interested in the same sorts of things, and then building a system for playing visuals and the music in live contexts. And I just followed that path down to where I am now.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

For a work in progress expanding upon ideas in your 2022 album Unspoken Words, you’ve been asking people: I want to know how you feel and what it's like to exist inside your mind. What would you like to say that you cannot say in everyday life?

MAX COOPER

I can describe things technically; as a scientist, we have language to describe. You could say the neural correlates of consciousness, right? You could describe what they are and how the brain functions and behaves in an objective manner. But that really doesn't seem to get anywhere near the question of what it's actually like to be a human. Music, essentially, for me is: I can sit down, and I can make a chord progression, and make a musical structure that resonates with how I feel at that moment and seems to capture things which go beyond anything I can put into words. That was the idea of the Unspoken Words project: To try and capture those things and then interpret them with visual artists. For me, that's as close as I can get to describe what it's like being me. So I'd say you just have to listen to the music, and then you'll hear what it's like, I suppose.

Harnessing Historic Architecture in Audiovisual Art

​​I love working with historic sites. I've done a few events and installations working in old cathedrals; we did one with And& Festival in Leuven, and in Carlisle Church in Belfast with the AVA Festival guys, and the Acropolis of Athens, and lots of other venues. I love venues where I can turn up and map projections onto architecture. Particularly when you're using old historic buildings, they're full of feelings and ideas before you, you know, from the history and what you associate them with. That embeds itself into the music and the visuals that you're presenting, so you get this extra layer of engagement and emotion and ideas coming through, which I love. I generally use projectors rather than screens for that reason, so that I can use the architecture and try to make the show itself interact with it. Whenever I can, I try to project. It adds to the storytelling, I think, and it makes it feel more special. We're all used to going to clubs and festivals, you know, the big black box of the club and there's a sound system and there's a screen—we're all used to that. But when you go somewhere with crazy historic architecture and you're having a party inside that space and there's all these moving things, there’s the extra magic. 

The Artistry of Nature

I find the most beautiful projects are the ones where I can map a natural system explicitly. A lot of my projects—if I'm approaching some sort of very human idea, for example, like I did with Unspoken Words—have to be quite interpretive. But I love when I'm working with a natural system which is really boiled down to something. The Fibonacci sequence is an example of that, or the distribution of the primes, or the digits of pi in a treemap, or waves or symmetry. There are these ideas which are really foundational to science and nature which are boiled down to simple quantitative systems. I find that whenever I do a project representing something like this with a visual artist, instead of seeing the artistry of the artist, or my idea, what we see is the artistry of nature. And the artistry of nature is always richer than the artistry of a human, in my opinion.

The Importance of the Arts

The sciences don't teach us everything, and we're moving as science and technology become ever more dominant. The arts become ever more important for us to stay in touch with the things that the sciences can't tackle: What it's actually like to be a person, what's actually important, what we know. We can have this endless progress inside this capitalist machine, for greater wealth and longer life and more happiness according to some sort of metric, or we can try and quantify society and push it forward. Ultimately, we all have to decide what's important to us as humans, and we need the arts to help with that. I think what's really important is exposing ourselves to as many different ideas as we can, and being open minded, and trying to learn about all facets of life so that we can understand each other. The arts are an essential part of that.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this episode were Sophie Garnier and Lyle Hutchins. The Creative Process is produced by Mia Funk. Associate Text Editor was Sofia Reecer. Additional production support by Katie Foster.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What role do the families we’re born into or the traumas we experience shape the people we become? Do good deeds offset bad deeds? How can the arts increase our capacity for empathy, understanding, and kindness?

Dan Futterman is creator, executive producer, and writer of Amazon Prime's American Rust, the acclaimed crime drama starring Jeff Daniels, Maura Tierney, and David Alvarez. Previously, Dan has written screenplays for Capote, Foxcatcher, In Treatment, and Gracepoint. He served as executive producer on The Looming Tower. Dan is also an actor, director, and two-time Oscar nominee.

Adam Rapp is the executive producer and writer of American Rust. He has written plays, films, and series, including Red Light Winter, The Sound Inside, In Treatment, Blackbird, The Looming Tower, and Dexter: New Blood. His latest novel is Wolf at the Table. He recently wrote the book for the new Broadway musical, The Outsiders. 

ADAM RAPP

We ended on such a cliffhanger with Isaac presenting the wrench at the police station to Jeff Daniels' character. It allowed us to sort of start from a place of what's going to happen next. And I think because what is drawn in the novel and because of what Danny brought into the original script of the first season and all the ideas he brought in. The biggest thing we talked about was the relationship between Del Harris and Grace Poe and what is the ambiguity there? Who's zooming who? You know, it's not to ever land on one side of it because we're all culpable in some way of being both good and bad, being virtuous and also questionable at times in our own lives. And I think when you start answering questions on either side of that too firmly, I think it allows the audience to disconnect from it and then they go, Oh, he's a monster, or she's a monster. And then you just have this sort of a good and bad guy, good and bad woman narrative that is oversimplified all too often in our culture.

So I think the way season one was built, when we thought about season two, we were trying to run with a lot of the same ideas, even when you go from Isaac's sexuality discovery and the way he's living his life and who he's trusting and who he's giving blind faith to down to Billy. And like, who is he becoming? Is he going to become someone who shoots people? Or is he going to become someone who chooses love and romance?

And I think we kept our North Star about where that gray area is for all our characters. And Rob Yang's character comes to mind (Steve Park), who is driven by the truth and driven by finding justice at all costs to the point where he becomes so self-obsessed he becomes toxic in his own way and hell-bent to find the solution to that mystery in West Virginia.

DAN FUTTERMAN

It felt to me like a lot of the drive of season two is about payback. There are people who feel they're owed things. They want payback. There are people who feel like they have to get back at people because they've been wronged in some way. For Steve Park, there's a feeling of the justice of payback. Something was done that was terribly, terribly wrong, and he's going to right it. In a way, every character has something, some way that they're trying to right the wrong that was done to them or that they did in the first season.

Jeff Daniels’ character, Del Harris, is really driven by trying to right what he sees as wrongs that he did in the first season. And he's staying a little bit away from Grace because he doesn't know how much to blame her for how much were his own decisions or how much she kind of drove him to do things. So that was fun to explore. There's a lot of intertwined stories because of this. So that was a big driver, at least in my mind, and I think in all of our minds.

RAPP

You can't choose your family. You know, I hear that all the time. I'm always amazed when I see families that stick together and wind up being friends at the second, third, fourth decades of their lives. I didn't grow up with that. I didn't see that. I've only seen it as an adult, and it's remarkable when I see it. So I think viewers will relate to this nature versus nurture versus DNA, raising all the questions of psychological and biological inheritance.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

You’ve both been involved in many adaptations. American Rust, The Looming Tower, Capote, In Treatment, Foxcatcher…Adam, you have just adapted The Outsiders as a musical. What were the challenges of adapting these works?

RAPP

The Outsiders, in particular, S. E. Hinton, Susie Hinton wrote that when she was 15 and 16. It was published when she was 17. She was told by one editor in particular that she couldn't have any swear words, so she was sort of forced to write about these very big, intense, love-and-death operatic themes where there's a boy who dies by suicide by cop. There's a boy who dies from a fire. So it's about grief. His parents die in a car crash prior to all that. There's this hugely stacked deck of grief that exists in the novel. But when you read the novel, there's a very sweet and loving tone to it. So when I started working on it, I recall childhood in Joliet, Illinois. My mom was a single parent, and she raised three kids on her own on a nurse's salary. So I had to give myself permission to take her great dark themes and actions that are in her novel and like give language to it that was also from an adult world.

FUTTERMAN

I write with my wife sometimes, Anya Epstein, who's a terrific writer. We did In Treatment together, the third season. That's actually where we met Adam. Adam wrote a great series of sessions for the wonderful actor Irrfan Khan, who unfortunately died not that long ago. And we're writing something now that's not an adaptation. It's been really freeing and wonderful to do. Each project brings with it different challenges. We had a very, very good experience on The Looming Tower. Adam and I both worked on that. Lawrence Wright was kind of in and out of the writer's room, and he is just an incredible font of information. Even though the book is quite long and packed with information, he just had more to give and contacts with all of these people CIA, FBI, State Department...that was incredible to be able to tap into. 

If people have very strong ideas of where they want something to go, you just have to work as a writer within those constraints and try to find your creativity. And so trying to absorb that, run it through your process and your creativity, and put something out that feels true can be challenging.

On the novel, American Rust

Philipp Meyer wrote a very, very beautiful book and it was the reason that made me want to do it. Jeff gave me the book. He'd been having trouble getting it made, getting a script that he liked. And he said to me, "Will you read this and just remind me what I love about it? And if you feel that way?" And I read it very quickly and felt that it was terrific. And there were a lot of possibilities in making it. So just kudos to Philipp Meyer. He wrote a beautiful novel. And if anybody's listening is looking for a great novel to read, there's that and there's Adam Rapp's novel Wolf at the Table.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS

A lot of your work examines violence in American society. What are your reflections on the ways AI, social media or our addiction to screens may be accelerating this? As you think about the future and the importance of the arts, what would you like young people to know, preserve and remember?

RAPP

Right now, live theater is probably much different than looking at a screen. It's much different than looking at your computer or your Game Boy or whatever. I see grown men on the subway playing video games on their phones. And we're not even looking at each other on the subways anymore. We're like deep in our in a screen. And I wonder what that's done. And so I think theater actually has a powerful ability to rewire us to the human experience. And maybe because of it, maybe we can find more empathy or more capacity toward kindness.

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producers on this episode were Sophie Garnier and Donna Sanders. The Creative Process is produced by Mia Funk. Additional production support by Katie Foster.

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.