The Center's Studio Podcast

A landmark exhibition spanning the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints marks a milestone in the culture's artistic output and appreciation. The 121-work exhibition, Work and Wonder: 200 Years of Latter-day Saint Art, is curated by Heather Belnap, Ashlee Whitaker Evans, and Brontë Hebdon. They join in this wide-ranging conversation about the show's five years of development and the four themes that emerged from their extensive, global research: Memory and Archive, Individual and Church, Sacred Spaces, and Identity. The curators provide fascinating stories about the works in the show, which is at the Church History Museum from the end of September 2024 through the beginning March 2025, organized by the museum and the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts.

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The publication of Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader is a landmark event, the first comprehensive critical examination of Mormon Art. In this interview, co-editors Mason Kamana Allred and Amanda Beardsley introduce the chapters with insights into the reasons why each is indispensable. Then, the authors of this 664-page book from Oxford University Press submitted questions for the podcast about the making of the book and what lies ahead in art and objects by LDS people. Part 1 of 2 historic interviews.

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The publication of Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader is a landmark event, the first comprehensive critical examination of Mormon Art. In this interview, co-editors Mason Kamana Allred and Amanda Beardsley introduce the chapters with insights into the reasons why each is indispensable. Then, the authors of this 664-page book from Oxford University Press submitted questions for the podcast about the making of the book and what lies ahead in art and objects by LDS people. Part 2 of 2 historic interviews.

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The young nonprofit organization, Inspired Arts League, is the focus of this interview with its founder Brittany Scott and executive producer Ellen Wheeler. It’s a fascinating model: invite global artists who are already accomplished to be members and give them as a group, through workshops and collaboration, tools to more effectively tell stories and inspire hope in the world through art. Scott and Wheeler announce their inaugural exhibition October 14-25, 2024 at the venerable Salmagundi Club in New York City.

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In this interview with Rachel Helps, Wikipedian-in-Residence at the BYU Library, researcher and author Helps explains her work refining, creating, correcting, and researching Wikipedia pages that relate to the unrivaled collection of Mormon Studies volumes at the Harold B Lee Library at Brigham Young University. The conversation includes interesting finds and experiences covering eight years of work and hundreds of articles. Helps also mentions her interactive fiction projects.

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Brett Peterson is Director, Exhibition Media and Interactives at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, which is at the forefront of engaging audiences and making exhibitions memorable by the creation of accompanying original, responsive digital media. In this episode Peterson describes the shifting expectation of visitors regarding technology. He tries  to find new ways to evoke emotions and heighten works on display, including magical digital and physical pairings. He asks, "How can I add meaningfully to what people already love about museums?" and "How can you make the visitor feel like it is for them?" The interview ends with Peterson's predictions how fine art museums and other related public institutions will embrace interactivity for richer and more personalized experiences. 

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Artist Collin Bradford makes video, sound, photography, sculpture, and other media. In this interview, the incoming art department chair at Brigham Young University discusses his work, how art speaks directly to the brain through the senses, and his work as a reflection of concerns about the future. His video installation, A Burning Hope (2021) is part of the museum exhibition, Materializing Mormonism: Trajectories in Contemporary Latter-day Saint Art, organized by the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, which is at the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, and the artist describes the making of the video and potential interpretations of it.  Finally, Bradford discusses the future and how students embody a new sensibility of sincerity and intensity in their art making.

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This episode with composer S. Andrew Lloyd celebrates the world premiere of his song cycle, Amaranthine, which was written for and performed by international opera star Rachel Willis-Sørensen at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall, April 9, 2024. The composer discusses how he came to write the prize-winning work and his emotional response to hearing it for the first time. Amaranthine is the first composition to appear from The Ariel Bybee Endowment at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, a prize Lloyd won in 2022.

Musical excerpt performed by S. Andrew Lloyd

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The winner of the 2024 Prize of The Ariel Bybee Endowment at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts is Mia Black. In this interview, Black introduces herself and her winning project, which will be a collection of American Folk Music aimed at elementary school-age classrooms. The breakthrough idea here is Black's plan to organize the collection using waves of immigrants and their songs to tell the story of what people brought with them, including their music, to their new homes in the United States.

Music for this episode is "Old Joe Clark," from the Library of Congress, American Jukebox, recorded at the Reed family home, Glen Lyn, Giles County, Virginia, August 27, 1966.

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Brad Pelo, President and Executive Producer of The Chosen discusses the series' global ambition to provide all episodes in 600 languages. The vast challenges of dubbing and subtitling the series about Jesus while maintaining the writer's unique contemporary dialogue and tone are discussed in this interview alongside the powerful experiences Pelo has witnessed riding the wave of this one-of-a-kind tv series.

Music for this episode: Ave Maria (Bach-Gounod) sung by Jamie Peterson

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