Processing... The Center for Creativity's Podcast

Season 2 of Processing… continues to give us insight into how creative makers work through periods of intense political and personal uncertainty. Today, we recount the events of the past summer surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement, and the way such intense actions influenced how our makers view their own art. This season features the stories of Hannah Eko (MFA in writing graduate), Craig Hayes (undergraduate student), Oronde Sharif (Department of Africana Studies faculty), Ivette Spradlin (Studio Arts faculty), and Tahirah Walker (former staff, Center for Teaching and Learning). Hosted by Shannon Fink (Center for Creativity Operations Manager).   

In this episode, we hear about the purpose of art during times of great social anger and protest, not only for the world at large, but personally. Ivette explains conflicted feelings of navigating social pressures around creating art during protest. Hannah describes her "sarcastic optimism" concerning some institutional changes around Black creativity and how that measures real progress on the subject. Tahirah talks of her frustration with a Groundhog Day loop of systemic racism. Craig speaks on how he used his anger around news of the cases of police brutality to connect to others. Oronde communicates how the perfect storm of COVID and months of social isolation created a platform for this summer of political actions, and how he believes a perspective shift for activists and creatives will help forge real and lasting change in the years to come. 

“...it wasn't really until, like, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery...  it is when those things happened that it all hit me. And I really started struggling, and that's when I really started getting into writing, saying like, ‘I can't be the only one that feels like everything's going wrong’.” Craig Hayes 

Processing... is a production of the Center for Creativity at the University of Pittsburgh. The team includes Jasmine Green, Mike Campbell, Nancy Kirkwood, Kit Ayars, Erik Schuckers, Chad Brown and Shannon Fink. For more information, visit us online at creative.pitt.edu. Music in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions. 

 

Links to topics we discussed

• Overview of police brutality cases in 2020 
• Classical Musicians Convene Tough Talks About Race 
• SFMOMA employees accused the institution of racism and censorship in an open letter 

Season 2 of Processing… continues to give us insight into how creative makers work through periods of intense political and personal uncertainty. Today, our five creatives take us through some of the struggles they faced while transitioning into the new normal of 2020. This season features the stories of Hannah Eko (MFA in writing graduate), Craig Hayes (undergraduate student), Oronde Sharif (Department of Africana Studies faculty), Ivette Spradlin (Studio Arts faculty), and Tahirah Walker (former staff, Center for Teaching and Learning). Hosted by Shannon Fink (Center for Creativity Operations Manager).

In this episode of Processing..., we hear from each creative about if and how creativity helped to sustain them through painful shared experiences like pandemics and protests, and through intensely intimate ones like the death of a loved one. Tahirah recounts how she uses her past experiences of grief to help push her forward in her creative journey. Ivette describes how she has used photography to form connections between neighbors and between pandemics, as well as talking about a personal experience of loss this year. Oronde details the difficulties in how we are able to continue performance traditions in the face of public safety, in order to give people a familiar creative harbor to return to. Hannah talks of how writing has given her an anchor to hold onto in the midst of unimaginable chaos. Meanwhile, Craig describes how the impact of both the pandemic and the back-to-back cases of police brutality in the spring caused a shift in the way he writes that helps him connect to others feeling the same way. 

“I think that, it's funny, like that's how I actually think of writing is like, it helps me to make sense of, and also even just to kind of record my own confusion. I think in the midst of a crisis, it's really about the same.” - Hannah Eko 

Processing... is a production of the Center for Creativity at the University of Pittsburgh. The team includes Jasmine Green, Mike Campbell, Nancy Kirkwood, Kit Ayars, Erik Schuckers, Chad Brown and Shannon Fink. For more information, visit us online @ creative.pitt.edu. Music in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions. 

Links to topics we discussed: 

• Tahirah Walker: Panels of Emotion  
• Tahirah Walker: Dear Mr. Wonder article 
• Stevie Wonder, “As”, (1976) 
• Ivette Spradlin: Pitt professor captures pandemic through a camera lens 
• Greater Pittsburgh Arts council pivots its existing emergency funds to coronavirus relief 
• Black Nativity play at Pitt  
• Recount of events surrounding George Floyd  
• Recount of events surrounding Breonna Taylor  
• Overview of police brutality cases in 2020 
• Craig’s Alakazam series 
• Recount of events surrounding Oluwatoyin Salau 

Most of us instinctively react to feelings of anger, fear, confusion, and sadness by retreating. We often prefer consumption to creation during difficult times: rereading favorite books, or binging a whole season of television in an afternoon, or doomscrolling on our phones. We’re not built to handle uncertainty, and our impulse is to escape into the familiar.

But creativity calls us to take risks, to dare failure, to face the immense and potentially overwhelming possibilities of a blank page or canvas or computer screen, an empty stage, a bare plot of earth. It’s often uncomfortable at the best of times. And these, to state the obvious, are not those.

How do creative makers work through periods of intense political and personal uncertainty? Can outrage and anxiety power creativity, or do they inevitably work against it? How can we learn to practice creativity, a generative and fundamentally optimistic act, in times that all too often seem to reflect back to us the most fearful versions of our neighbors and ourselves?

In this season of Processing, we’ll engage with these questions by talking with Pitt creators who persist.

Music by Blue Dot Sessions from their albums RadioPink, Little Rock, and TinyTiny Trio.

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