Life After Telling the Truth on Yourself (Live with Amanda Palmer at Rubin Museum)

*Welcome back to another live episode of Podcast Noor! We went into this conversation with the intention of talking about “telling the truth on yourself” - vague, but also specific. Everyone has their own experience with what that means. Throughout the conversation, Amanda and I zoomed in and out of the personal and the collective with what it means to tell the Truth, to tell Your Truth, and the barriers to doing so. This candid conversation is a series of confessions, catharsis, community, and an important reminder inspired by the memory of the late great Sinead O’Connor to: “stop treating women like shit while they’re alive.” *Produced and filmed at the Rubin Museum of Art; hosted by Tim McHenry.For more information about the Rubin, please visit rubinmuseum.org.*Links + Trasncript:www.ays.media/podcastnoor/amandapalmer*Watch the full video on Amanda Palmer's Youtube: www.youtube.com/amandapalmerAmanda's Patreon: www.patreon.com/amandapalmer

Breaking Barriers Through Movement: Live Panel Conversation in Partnership with On

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Hello beautiful community, welcome back to Podcast Noor. This episode is a special live panel conversation. We recorded this podcast panel a few days before the 2023 New York City Marathon as one part of a partnership with the sportswear brand ON (www.on-running.com), and their social impact arm called Right To Run. On has been my go-to, for walking, running, working, out, and they just feel like clouds on my feet.

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This conversation is about democratizing movement and what it really looks like to make movement and exercise accessible for all people. Our three panelists come from different experiences, Gaby Alcala being indigenous and an immigrant, Derek Drescher navigating addiction and homelessness, and Senn van Beek finding or rather creating safe spaces for folks. You'll hear me introduce them fully in the episode.

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We are in Williamsburg, Brooklyn at the On store in their upstairs community space. Before people were able to enter, they were greeted by my Mama and the Founder of ISeeYou Foundation (www.isyfoundation.org), where every attendee made an ISeeYou care package for people experiencing homelessness in New York City.

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Around 50 of us gathered upstairs with pizza and the delightful On team, and we got into our bodies and got vulnerable about obstacles that we find in our way.

My favorite part of this event was how engaged community members were. This is a very full conversation, voices from all over the world. The energy in the room is of collective healing and collective winning. Everyone is rooting for the other even when fear is present. And you'll hear my own experience when I share my fears around running and an audience member stops me in my tracks.

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We are so excited to share more from our project with On's Right To Run. For now, enjoy this storytelling session on breaking barriers to movement. I'm Noor, At Your Service.

Transcripts + Listening: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.ays.media/podcastnoor/on-panel⁠

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🎶 Theme Music: "Thunderdome (W.T.A)" by Portugal. The Man / @portugaltheman 

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~ Follow On  ~ 

⁠⁠www.instagram.com/on

⁠www.on-running.com

Right To Run: https://www.on-running.com/en-us/explore/off-stories/right-to-run

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~ Follow Our Panelists ~ 

Gaby Alcala

Derek Dresecher

Senn van Beek

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~ Follow At Your Service @ays ~ 

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⁠⁠⁠⁠www.ays.media/podcastnoor/⁠⁠on-panel

(This is an upload from Ep 10 of our 2022 Webby-Nominated Investigation: REP: A Story About The Stories We Tell)

Listen at ⁠www.ays.media/rep⁠

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Politics, Pop Culture, and Public Opinion. We call them the 3Ps; and they are at play in the stories that define our world and shape our beliefs.

Featuring an exclusive interview with Bella Hadid, we consider how the dehumanization of Palestinian People has shaped America. To examine how Public Opinion determines what we think and feel, we focus on Palestine, not as an issue, but as a people.

Story Guides include: Bella Hadid, Aymann Ismail, Dr. James Zogby, Nadine Naber, Peter Beinart, and Dalia Mogahed.

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Listening + transcripts are available at www.ays.media/rep.

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Follow on Instagram:

Noor Tagouri: @noor

At Your Service Media: @ays

Follow on Twitter:

Noor Tagouri: @ntagouri

Zaron Burnett III: @Zaron3

You have the opportunity to do the bravest thing you’ve ever done. Don’t pass it up. Free Palestine. CEASEFIRE NOW.

37. What Goes Into A Sarah Bahbah Vision? On Thinking in Subtitles, Reclaiming Her Arab Culture, Unlearning Shame Through Art, and More.

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Welcome to the Season Two Finale of Podcast Noor: the dreamy world of one of our generation's most prolific artists. 

Sarah Bahbah is a Palestinian-Jordanian artist, and director born and raised in Australia now living in Los Angeles. Sarah‘s photographs are the stuff dreams are made of: color, luxury, romance, heartache, endless curated food spreads and almost always, paired with a perfectly curated subtitle. Her photograph series often feel like films, and when she's in director mode sometimes they actually do become dreamy films.

Photography, film and writing are mediums Sarah uses to process her feelings into art. Sarah also comes from the ad world; she founded her creative agency Possy in 2016 and has worked with brands like Gucci, Conde Nast, Capital Records, Sony Music and GQ.

Early 2023, Sarah  self-published her first book, the fine art book titled, "Dear Love" featuring a decade of her work, as well as raw and vulnerable life stories. She opens up Intimately about her experience with childhood sexual abuse, and even interviews her father about his experience of being forced to leave his homeland of Palestine, and never really feeling at home anywhere else.

And of course as someone who relates to the experience of growing up in an Arab household, I really dig into asking about Sarah‘s relationship with her parents and how they feel about her work, and Sarah so graciously shares very openly. 

This is such a loving final episode of the season, Sarah does not hold back and I really think you guys are going to enjoy this conversation. 

Welcome to the Season Two Finale of Podcast Noor. 

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Transcripts + Listening: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.ays.media/podcastnoor/sarahbahbah

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🎶 Theme Music: "Thunderdome (W.T.A)" by Portugal. The Man / @portugaltheman 

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Some Questions Asked in This Episode:

What goes into a Sarah Bahbah vision? 

How did art find you?

How did you approach interviewing your father? 

What did you find in your journey of belonging?

How do you define love and ego today? 

What was your process of reclaiming your culture?

Are there any women in your family who engaged with art?

Walk us through your choice to self-publish a 500 page fine art photography book with beautiful words.

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~ Follow Sarah Bahbah  ~ 

⁠www.instagram.com/sarahbahbah⁠⁠

www.sarahbahbah.com⁠

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~ Follow Noor Tagouri @noor ~ 

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~ Follow At Your Service @ays ~ 

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⁠⁠⁠www.ays.media/podcastnoor/⁠⁠

Seun Kuti on his Father Fela’s Legacy, Matriarchy in His Family, What it Means to be a Pan-African Revolutionary, Racism in North Africa, and More.

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3, 2, 1…

Live from the iconic Apollo Theater in Harlem, our next storyteller hails from Lagos, Nigeria. Seun Kuti is an artist and the youngest son of Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti. He has spent most of his life preserving and extending his father's political and musical legacy as the leader of his father's former band, Egypt 80.

Since his father’s passing, Seun has revived The Movement of the People. M.O.P is a Nigerian left-wing pan-African political movement started by Fela and thanks to Seun’s grassroots efforts, it’s been making a come back. 

We sat down at the Apollo Theater shortly before he and his band perform their show “Africa Now!”

In this episode, we talk about how Fela’s legacy has been misinterpreted and celebrated, the role of matriarchy in the Kuti family and how this was the foundation of their anti-colonial work. We dig into the pan-African revolution, the trap of being a rebel without a cause, addressing North African racism and more.

PS: Remember the artist Mumu Fresh, who scored our “REP” investigation? She has some questions for Seun, artist to artist, and so we passed those along too. 

Welcome back to Podcast Noor.

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Transcripts + Listening: ⁠⁠www.ays.media/podcastnoor/seunkuti⁠

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🎶 Theme Music: "Thunderdome (W.T.A)" by Portugal. The Man / @portugaltheman 

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Some Questions Asked in This Episode:

How did matriarchy in your family shape your worldview?

What is your personal relationship with religion and spirituality and how it has been weaponized in your life?

When in your life did you realize how radical and different your father Fela Kuti was?

Did you feel pressure in continuing your father’s legacy? 

Do you remember the questions that you were asking in your head when you lost your father Fela?

How are you choosing to use music as a tool to relay the message of Pan-Africanism and the Movement of The People?

How do future generations avoid these states of oppression?

How do younger generations make work towar⁠ds those connections so that they can protect the future?

How do we actually create this space to not only support the younger generations so that they have what they need and the resources they need to make those better connections to aim for that sense of unity and peace and thriving versus what we're doing to them today?

What do you believe are the impacts of Afro-Pop being elevated on a global stage?

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~ Follow Seun Kuti ~ 

www.instagram.com/bigbirdkuti⁠

⁠www.instagram.com/egypt80band

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~ Follow At Your Service @ays ~ 

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"Hijab Butch Blues" Author on Being Queer and Muslim, Revisiting Prophetic Stories, Questioning Faith, and Community Care.

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Welcome to our *second* episode with an anonymous guest. The brilliant author of the memoir “Hijab Butch Blues.” 

Lamya H is queer, non-binary, and Muslim. Yes. There are people who are all 3. They are a writer and organizer based in New York City. Lamya’s work has appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon, Vice, Vox, and others. 

Lamya has received fellowships from Lambda Literary, Aspen Words and Queer|Arts. They are organizing work centers around creating spaces for LGBTQ+ Muslims, fighting Islamophobia, and abolishing prisons.

We recorded this conversation during the month of Ramadan and reflected on the similarities between Muslim community care and Queer community care, the common American-Muslim struggle of double lives, and compartmentalizing identities. We got into the concept of questioning faith, even our personal relationships with hijab. 

I read 'Hijab Butch Blues' in less than 2 days. The writing is profound, personal, and clear. Lamya poses questions throughout the book for people of all faiths. And it’s no surprise that the book was featured as Roxane Gay's March 2023 selection of 'The Audacious Book Club.”

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I also feel a deep sense of urgency with this episode. Homophobia and transphobia are rampant in the United States, and it has been weighing on my heart heavily the role many American Muslims have been playing in this. I believe it is more important now than ever to amplify the HUMAN STORIES of community members who need our protection and love. 

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May we always be a protection and light for each other. May we always lead with love. 

And…may you enjoy this episode of Podcast Noor with Lamya H.

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Transcripts + Listening: ⁠www.ays.media/podcastnoor/butchware

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🎶 Theme Music: "Thunderdome (W.T.A)" by Portugal. The Man / @portugaltheman 

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~ Follow Lamya H ~ 

www.lamyah.com

www.instagram.com/lamyaisangry

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~ Follow Noor Tagouri @noor ~ 

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www.youtube.com/noor⁠

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~ Follow At Your Service @ays ~ 

www.instagram.com/ays

www.threads.net/ays

www.ays.media/newsletter

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Some Questions Asked in This Episode: 

What does it mean to be queer and Muslim to you today? How would you have answered that when you were younger?

What does community care look like for yourself?

What is Hijab to you?

And so how do you advise people who are navigating compartmentalizing their identities, or hiding parts of who they are, especially from family?

What role did writing play in your life?

How have you redefined your anger?

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⁠www.ays.media/podcastnoor/

Dr. Butch Ware: Is Capitalism Your Religion? Thinking With Your Heart, Finding a Spiritual Guide, The Weaponization of God and the Devil, and More.

Welcome back to Podcast Noor, enjoy a live podcast recording with Dr. Butch Ware! This conversation was recorded as part of a live event, our Virtual Ramadan Iftar in April 2023, where we gather hundreds from around the world to share an evening breaking fast and sharing conversation.

Dr. Butch Ware is a historian of West African Studies at UC Santa Barbara. His teaching focuses on Islamic thought, anti-slavery movements in West Africa and the African Diaspora. Dr. Ware is also the author of “The Walking Qur'an: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa.”

This conversation is very spiritual and there were so many times that I was broken wide open. We get into things like the difference between the mind and the heart, and how to engage your heart as your thinking organ. We talk about how, for a lot of people who claim to be practicing a specific religion or faith tradition, their religion is actually capitalism. We get into how to find your spiritual guides, and I even dare ask the question, “Who do you think the Devil really is?” rather than “what” the Devil is - what is the idea of the devil? What does it actually represent? 

Dr. Ware talks to us about the weaponization of God, and how sometimes parents use God as a weapon in their toolbox to try to control kids to obey them. In that sentiment, he also talks about his learnings in which he found that there really is no such thing as a “Muslim child”, and you can replace ‘Muslim’ with any sort of faith tradition. The power in that message is a really, really important one and one that I benefited from and I think it could do a lot of healing for others. 

I’m so happy that a lot of you have been sharing with me that you have been enjoying these spiritual conversations because I am very openly on this journey, asking these really big questions. So, here is Dr. Butch Ware. 

PS, since this was Live, you’ll hear me reference the Q&A portion but I did not keep it for this podcast recording because it was too long. Next time I guess you’ll just have to be there!

Welcome to this episode of Podcast Noor. 

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Transcripts + Listening: ⁠www.ays.media/podcastnoor/butchware

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🎶 Theme Music: "Thunderdome (W.T.A)" by Portugal. The Man / @portugaltheman 

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~ Follow Butch Ware ~ 

www.instagram.com/butchware

www.linktree.com/butchware

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~ Follow Noor Tagouri @noor ~ 

www.facebook.com/noor 

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www.youtube.com/noor⁠ 

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~ Follow At Your Service @ays ~ 

www.instagram.com/ays 

www.threads.net/ays 

www.ays.media/newsletter 

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Some Questions Asked in This Episode: 

How do you engage with your Heart as a thinking organ?

Who do you think the Devil really is?

Do you sense that faith communities feel stuck today?

How could one go about engaging a spiritual guide? 

What happens when you ask yourself: What is the role I am playing in social injustice?

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www.ays.media/podcastnoor/

Is The Climate Crisis a Spiritual Crisis? Ayisha Siddiqa and Sophia Li on Sustainability as a Birthright, The Role of Ego in the Climate Crisis, and Personality Cults in Activism.

The climate crisis is REAL, and it’s impacting all of our lives. It’s been on my heart to have a climate focused episode on Pod Noor but I wanted to make sure the conversation was one my listeners were really going to connect to. 

So the question I had been asking myself was: “Is the climate conversation, a spiritual one?” And because everything and everyone is interconnected, the answer I found was: Yes, of course it is. I wanted multiple perspectives and stories on this topic so - yay! Another Podcast Noor panel :) 

The first person who came to mind for this conversation is one of my dearest friends, Sophia Li. 

Sophia Li is a Chinese-American award-winning climate journalist and advocate. Her life’s work is to make talking about issues such as climate justice, human rights and web3 more accessible, more digestible, and more human. Harvard even named her one of the top climate communicators of 2022.

Sophia is also the co-founder of STEWARD, a Digital Art collection and community that partners with conservation, environmental justice and Indigenous nonprofits and global artists to protect the major ecosystems of our natural world.

And around the time I knew I wanted to have this conversation, I saw a powerful cover of Time magazine’s Women of the Year issue featuring a young activist by the name of Ayisha Siddiqa. 

Ayisha Siddiqa is a human rights and land defender from the tribal lands of Mochiwala and Mahsan in Pakistan. She is the co-founder of Polluters Out and Fossil Free University. Her work focuses on uplifting the rights of marginalized communities while holding polluting companies accountable at the international level. she’s a climate advisor to the UN secretary general and a research scholar at the NYU School of Law, working to bridge the environmental and human rights sector with the youth climate movement. She’s also an incredible poet. 

There are many layers to this storytelling session. We dig into: the role of ego on climate change, how the war on terror has hurt the planet, the harmful assumptions of being and “activist,” personality cults, and of course how climate change is a spiritual issue. 

We recorded this in partnership with our friends at CitizenM Bowery; overlooking the hustle and bustle of the Lower East Side from the iconic rooftop at CloudM. 

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PS: Stick around because our post interview conversation went even deeper with the role of spirituality and religion in climate change so I recorded some on my phone to share with y’all. :)

Welcome to this episode of Podcast Noor. 

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📍This episode was recorded at our favorite studio in the sky, CloudM at CitizenM Hotel, Bowery, NYC.

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Transcripts + Listening: ⁠www.ays.media/podcastnoor/ayisha-sophia

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🎶 Theme Music: "Thunderdome (W.T.A)" by Portugal. The Man / @portugaltheman 

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~ Follow Ayisha Siddiqa ~ 

www.instagram.com/ayisha_sid

Polluters Out: www.pollutersout.org

Fossil Free University: www.fossilfreeuniversity.org

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~ Follow Sophia Li ~ 

www.instagram.com/sophfei

STEWARD: www.steward.eco

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~ Follow Noor Tagouri @noor ~ 

www.facebook.com/noor

www.instagram.com/noor

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www.youtube.com/noor⁠

~ Follow At Your Service @ays ~ 

www.instagram.com/ays

www.threads.net/ays

www.ays.media/newsletter

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Some Questions Asked in This Episode: 

What was your entry to the climate conversation?

Can you define land defender and water defender? How can we all engage in this?

What role does ego play in the climate crisis?

What role does art play in this conversation and movement?

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www.ays.media/podcastnoor

Franklin Sirmans and Jason Seife on Critique as Collaboration, Becoming Friends with Your Critics, The Cultural Responsibility of Museums, and Colorblindness as an Artist

Recording from Miami, Podcast Noor is back with another panel, between an Artist and an Art Critic/Curator; and we're here to talk Critique as Collaboration.

When I asked previous Podcast Noor guests, Painter Jordan Casteel and former Gallery Director Sarah Hoover, who I need to sit down with in Miami,

They both enthusiastically responded with the same name: Franklin Sirmans.

Franklin Sirmans is an art critic, a writer, a curator - and he's also the Director of one of the coolest art museums in the country: Miami's Pérez Art Museum, also known as PAMM. And since this storytelling session would be taking place at PAMM, I asked Franklin if he would be down to be in-conversation with one of the artists showing at the museum, someone who he thinks would be great for our Podcast Noor listeners.

He responded without hesitation: Jason Seife. 

Jason Seife is an interdisciplinary Miami-based artist, effortlessly weaving his beloved Cuban and Syrian heritage into the intersection of Fine Arts and Graphic Design. He's worked with some of the largest names in the music business including Kanye West, Pharrell Wiliams, Big Sean, and Nicki Minaj, designing everything from album artwork to jewelry to merchandise. In his newest body of work, titled "Coming to Fruition" Jason references old Persian carpets, centering his Middle Eastern heritage and the intricate details found in mosques and traditional Islamic art.  

PS: Stay till the end to hear a special guest question from my little brother, Yaseen; really the best question of the interview!

"Coming to Fruition" is on view at PAMM through March 2024

www.pamm.org/en/exhibition/jason-seife-coming-to-fruition

Transcripts + Listening: www.ays.media/podcastnoor/franklin-jason🎶 Theme Music: "Thunderdome (W.T.A)" by Portugal. The Man / @portugaltheman~ Follow Franklin Sirmans ~www.instagram.com/franklinsirmans

~ Follow Jason Seife ~www.instagram.com/jasonseife ~ Follow Noor Tagouri @noor ~ www.facebook.com/noor www.instagram.com/noor www.threads.net/noorwww.tiktok.com/@noor ⁠⁠www.youtube.com/noor⁠~ Follow At Your Service @ays ~www.instagram.com/ayswww.threads.net/ayswww.ays.media/newsletterSome Questions Asked in This Episode:How do you approach critiquing a body of work that is also critiquing something that's happening in society?

How do you feel about the term collaboration?

How do you carry the responsibility of critiquing?

So what does being in your body during the process look like for you?

(Special Guest question from my little brother!!)

www.ays.media/podcastnoor