Sound Science Podcast with Dr. Yewande Pearse

Born and bred in North London, Dr Yewande Pearse completed her PhD in Neuroscience at the Institute of Psychiatry, London in 2016. She is now based in Los Angeles, where she works as a Research Fellow, developing a stem cell therapy treatment for a rare childhood brain disease. Outside of the lab, Yewande is a writer for Massive Science – an online science media platform, and a TEDMED Research Scholar for this year’s Stage Programme.

Born of a mutual love of science and music, Yewande believes that science is for everyone. Sound Science is a monthly podcast about the science stories that affect our lives and in some way relate to music. With the help of guest experts in the field and a carefully selected sound track curated to the theme of the scientific topic, Yewande brings you stories that will make you hear science differently.

Yasmin Shamir: A natural-born creative with a passion for communication, Yasmin expresses through many mediums. Thanks to a career in music, traveling became a big part of Yasmin’s story, leading her to co-found Trippin alongside Kesang Ball and Sam Blenkinsopp in 2017. Trippin has since become a leading travel and culture platform focused on amplifying local voices and creating powerful content that inspires its audience to travel more purposefully. Yasmin relocated to Mexico in 2018 and has been involved in various community projects from health and fitness, to music, art, and spirituality, pursuing her passion to connect people with things that make them feel good. As a person of dual heritage, Yasmin explores cultural practices with sincerity. Celebrating the diversity of human experience and seeking common threads that unite us all, she sees Roots & Ritual as an opportunity to take listeners on a journey, introducing them to people, places, and practices that have much to teach us, if we’re willing to listen.

This episode is all about plants, and the art practices that help us to connect with them.

Millennials are obsessed with house plants, driven in large part by an interest in self-care and wellness. Plants are good for our mental health, and thanks to social media, they’ve become increasingly desirable for their aesthetic.  However, what we tend to forget is that making us feel better, and livening up our urban dwellings is the least they do for us. Plants provide the core basis for life on Earth. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to breathe, and we’d have nothing to eat. Despite how essential they are to our survival, we take them for granted. In this episode, we explore how turning plants into art, can help us to develop a deeper understanding and empathy toward them.

Bio:

Alice Yuan Zhang is a mixed reality artist, designer, and program organizer. Her work bridges the sacredness of natural environments with the speculative power of human-made ones, inviting exploration into interspecies empathy, generative networks, and the illusion of agency. She is the co-organizer of virtual care lab, a current resident artist at CultureHub, and an involved member of NAVEL. Alice studied at the University of California, Berkeley.

Alexander Kaye is an artist born near Detroit Michigan and currently residing in Los Angeles California. His practice began in writing and producing music and has since expanded into sound and visual art. He creates experimental music with modular synthesis, field recordings, audio manipulation, chance/aleatoric techniques, and traditional instrumentation. Often finding creative guidance through random operations, he embraces unknown variables as part of the process that influences all of his work.

Adrienne Adar is a sound artist and photographer based in Los Angeles. She creates interactive work, often incorporating living plants and technology in site-specific installations. Adar animates plants with sound, seeking to activate unexpected connections to the natural environment. Adar received her MFA from NYU/International Center of Photography and studied at the Slade School of Art, London. Her work has been shown in Los Angeles, New York, Wyoming, London, and Seoul, Korea, as well as Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin, China. She is a participating organizer of High Desert Test Sites in Joshua Tree, CA and a member of the Southern California Succulent Society.

Born and bred in North London, Dr Yewande Pearse completed her PhD in Neuroscience at the Institute of Psychiatry, London in 2016. She is now based in Los Angeles, where she works as a Research Fellow, developing a stem cell therapy treatment for a rare childhood brain disease. Outside of the lab, Yewande is a writer for Massive Science – an online science media platform, and a TEDMED Research Scholar for this year’s Stage Programme.

Born of a mutual love of science and music, Yewande believes that science is for everyone. Sound Science is a monthly podcast about the science stories that affect our lives and in some way relate to music. With the help of guest experts in the field and a carefully selected sound track curated to the theme of the scientific topic, Yewande brings you stories that will make you hear science differently.