A podcast about art and culture in a time of profound social change: listen to conversations with artists, museum curators, and cultural thinkers on controversy, censorship, migration, incarceration, and the future of our institutions. Follow the show to hear the full season.

Artist Javier Salazar Rojas, also known as The Deported Artist, reflects on life after deportation from the United States and the role of art in rebuilding community. We discuss incarceration, forced displacement, and how collective art-making can create dignity, healing, and connection beyond the commercial art world.

Crocker Art Museum curators Francesca Wilmott and Sara Morris discuss Making Moves, collaboration across museum departments, and feminist approaches to curating. The conversation explores how museums can break down hierarchies between art and craft, rethink art history, and become more responsive civic spaces.

Zapotec artist and weaver Porfirio Gutierrez discusses ancestral weaving traditions, natural pigments, migration, and the meaning of cultural return. We also examine why the Western category of “art” does not neatly fit Zapotec knowledge systems, and how museums have historically separated textiles from fine art.

Artist Kota Ezawa reflects on the ideas behind work shown at the Whitney Biennial, SFMOMA, and other major institutions. We discuss his labor-intensive process, his use of reduced imagery and watercolor animation, and how he thinks about making art in a world saturated by images.

Curator Abby Chen discusses the Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, the geopolitical tensions surrounding Taiwan and China, and what museums can become in a moment of rapid social change. We also talk about colonial collections, institutional power, and whether museums can resist becoming just another part of the attention economy.