The Creative Process · Arts, Culture & Society: 2022-2023

Manuela Lucá-Dazio is the newly appointed Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. In this capacity, she works closely with the jury, however, she does not vote in the proceedings. She is the former Executive Director, Department of Visual Arts and Architecture of La Biennale di Venezia, where she managed exhibitions with distinguished curators, architects, artists, and critics to realize the International Art Exhibition and the International Architecture Exhibition, each edition since 2009. Preceding that, she was responsible for the technical organization and production of both Exhibitions, beginning in 1999. She holds a PhD in History of Architecture from the University of Roma-Chieti, Italy and lives in Paris, France.

“So for me being born in a place like Naples helped me absorb and to be constantly open and curious about other cultures, simply because they were part of my own culture. So it's a challenging city, I must say. And it's incredible how you more easily communicate with other people when you are in a place that you feel is a public place, but it belongs to you. It belongs to everyone. It's a space for the community. So this was the first lesson that I learned studying architecture because then you start to read the places in a more organized, scientific way. And I think maybe this dimension passed into my DNA.

So from my point of view, a prize is not just to establish the most beautiful building, the most expensive building, or the tallest building in the world. It's rather to foster the discussion to bring forward critical points to be discussed. To bring forward contradictions, to really enhance the discussion about what is relevant for our society or for society in a specific moment.

So this, for me, is the role of a prize, to highlight critical issues and to foster the discussion, to face them, and to find solutions, to find new paths. So in the case of the Pritzker Prize, the mission has been very clear since the very beginning. So it's to acknowledge a living architect or architects for a body of built work that has produced a consistent and significant contribution to humanity and to the built environment through the art of architecture.”

www.pritzkerprize.com
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www.labiennale.org/en
Photo credit: Anselm Kiefer

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“There's no such thing as completely clean energy. We use that term a lot, but it's not really true. We have low carbon energy, and lower carbon energy, but any kind of industrial system has requirements for materials and processing, and nothing is completely natural in the industrial world. If we can electrify transportation, I think we can clean up the grid, and then I think we can deal with these life cycle issues in a way that's responsible, but it'll never be zero. That's impossible.

Today, there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, just in the advocacy and policy space now. And then you look at all the people, the scientists and the engineers and the investors and the business people who are trying to create these new machines and bring down the cost. You're talking tens of millions maybe. And the annual spend on clean energy globally is somewhere in the range I believe of about 400 billion a year. We're getting up there in terms of social effort, and it's hard to believe that with all these options coming onto the scene that we won't solve or get very close to solving this problem during this century. And our philosophy, which makes us a little different from other environmental organizations that work on this, is we think you ought to be pursuing all of those options because you don't know which are going to work out.”

Armond Cohen is Executive Director of Clean Air Task Force, which he has led since its formation in 1996. In addition to leading CATF, Armond is directly involved in CATF research and advocacy on the topic of requirements to deeply decarbonize global energy systems. Prior to his work with CATF, Armond founded and led the Conservation Law Foundation’s Energy Project starting in 1983, focusing on energy efficiency, utility resource planning, and electric industry structure. Armond has published numerous articles on climate change, energy system transformation, and air pollution; he speaks, writes, and testifies frequently on these topics. He is a board member of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance and an honors graduate of Harvard Law School and Brown University.

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Armond Cohen is Executive Director of Clean Air Task Force, which he has led since its formation in 1996. In addition to leading CATF, Armond is directly involved in CATF research and advocacy on the topic of requirements to deeply decarbonize global energy systems. Prior to his work with CATF, Armond founded and led the Conservation Law Foundation’s Energy Project starting in 1983, focusing on energy efficiency, utility resource planning, and electric industry structure. Armond has published numerous articles on climate change, energy system transformation, and air pollution; he speaks, writes, and testifies frequently on these topics. He is a board member of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance and an honors graduate of Harvard Law School and Brown University.

“There's no such thing as completely clean energy. We use that term a lot, but it's not really true. We have low carbon energy, and lower carbon energy, but any kind of industrial system has requirements for materials and processing, and nothing is completely natural in the industrial world. If we can electrify transportation, I think we can clean up the grid, and then I think we can deal with these life cycle issues in a way that's responsible, but it'll never be zero. That's impossible.

Today, there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, just in the advocacy and policy space now. And then you look at all the people, the scientists and the engineers and the investors and the business people who are trying to create these new machines and bring down the cost. You're talking tens of millions maybe. And the annual spend on clean energy globally is somewhere in the range I believe of about 400 billion a year. We're getting up there in terms of social effort, and it's hard to believe that with all these options coming onto the scene that we won't solve or get very close to solving this problem during this century. And our philosophy, which makes us a little different from other environmental organizations that work on this, is we think you ought to be pursuing all of those options because you don't know which are going to work out.”

www.catf.us

www.creativeprocess.info
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“I think that was definitely a pattern that I unknowingly replicated when I first started traveling. I think that's how the travel industry has kind of marketed to us, right? This idea that, you know, bucket lists and wanting to like check boxes of things you're going to do in each place and becomes this thing of, rather than consuming a product that's an actual physical thing, you're consuming a country or consuming an experience. It's the same framework. We're still grasping at things. We're still compulsively trying to do XYZ without really thinking about its impact, without really thinking about the relationships that we're making in those places, without really thinking about reciprocity. And a lot of it comes from a deeply colonial mindset also, right? So much of the travel industry was built on the idea of colonialism which really makes us all inherit this idea that whatever we need in life is going to come from seeking it elsewhere and grabbing it from somewhere else, right? Which I think is the more modern 2023 way that we kind of replicate that colonial travel mindset of–My life right now is not great. I'm going to take a vacation. I'm going to take a break and go somewhere else where I can get what I need? Which I think is in a lot of ways can describe what I did at 24 as well.

I think looking at that. Really deeply and really thinking about what is lost from that mindset and the harm that is caused by it has been something I've been trying to do over the last few years. And a lot of that has to do with land trauma, right? Like really acknowledging where our settlement of land comes from and how we can heal that in the ways that we travel.”

Amanda E. Machado is a writer, public speaker and facilitator whose work explores how race, gender, sexuality, and power affect the way we travel and experience the outdoors. She has written and facilitated on topics of social justice and adventure and lived in Cape Town, Havana, Mexico City, Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, and other cities. She has been published in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Guardian, New York Times, NPR, and other publications. She is also the founder of Reclaiming Nature Writing, a multi-week online workshop that expands how we tell stories about nature in a way that considers ancestry, colonization, migration trauma, and other issues.

www.amandaemachado.com

IG www.instagram.com/amandaemachado0

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Amanda E. Machado is a writer, public speaker and facilitator whose work explores how race, gender, sexuality, and power affect the way we travel and experience the outdoors. She has written and facilitated on topics of social justice and adventure and lived in Cape Town, Havana, Mexico City, Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, and other cities. She has been published in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Guardian, New York Times, NPR, and other publications. She is also the founder of Reclaiming Nature Writing, a multi-week online workshop that expands how we tell stories about nature in a way that considers ancestry, colonization, migration trauma, and other issues.

“I think that was definitely a pattern that I unknowingly replicated when I first started traveling. I think that's how the travel industry has kind of marketed to us, right? This idea that, you know, bucket lists and wanting to like check boxes of things you're going to do in each place and becomes this thing of, rather than consuming a product that's an actual physical thing, you're consuming a country or consuming an experience. It's the same framework. We're still grasping at things. We're still compulsively trying to do XYZ without really thinking about its impact, without really thinking about the relationships that we're making in those places, without really thinking about reciprocity. And a lot of it comes from a deeply colonial mindset also, right? So much of the travel industry was built on the idea of colonialism which really makes us all inherit this idea that whatever we need in life is going to come from seeking it elsewhere and grabbing it from somewhere else, right? Which I think is the more modern 2023 way that we kind of replicate that colonial travel mindset of–My life right now is not great. I'm going to take a vacation. I'm going to take a break and go somewhere else where I can get what I need? Which I think is in a lot of ways can describe what I did at 24 as well.

I think looking at that. Really deeply and really thinking about what is lost from that mindset and the harm that is caused by it has been something I've been trying to do over the last few years. And a lot of that has to do with land trauma, right? Like really acknowledging where our settlement of land comes from and how we can heal that in the ways that we travel.”

www.amandaemachado.com

IG www.instagram.com/amandaemachado0

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“I have a granddaughter who's just going into high school, and she is filled with idealistic thoughts and is optimistic. She's a person who is both in love with art and in love with science. She's vivacious and just everything about her seems like life is beautiful, and 'I'm going to be able to do this and that.' And, of course, when I talk to her, I do everything I can to encourage this kind of openness and optimism, and belief in herself and her ability to do worthwhile things. And not be too concerned about is she going to be able to have a job with enough income to be where she wants to be. 

She's not thinking on those levels. And so it’s how to perpetuate and strengthen that kind of spirit and hope, that it can be validated by giving this generation the opportunity to do things. Because I believe that if she and people who think and feel like her were really given the opportunity to be influential and to do things that would have a tremendous shift in the way the world is going. She doesn't think in terms of quarterly profits. She thinks in terms of human happiness and human good, human fairness, and the beauty of nature. And all of these things that naturally come together in our head. And so that's what I think we need to do. I think the universities can play a part. Schools play a part, but there has to be a broader general sense that this is how we should conceive the future. And, you know, galleries, podcasts, books, newspapers, universities, schools, every kind of institution needs to offer something to help this.”

Harold P. Sjursen is an educator and administrator having served on the faculty of both a liberal arts college and school of engineering. His background is in the history of philosophy, but since childhood has sustained an interest in science and technology. His current research interests focus on the philosophy of technology, global philosophy, and technological ethics. His engineering education projects address issues related to the internationalization of higher education, the integration of the liberal arts and engineering and ethics beyond the codes for engineers.

http://harold-sjursen.org

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Harold P. Sjursen is an educator and administrator having served on the faculty of both a liberal arts college and school of engineering. His background is in the history of philosophy, but since childhood has sustained an interest in science and technology. His current research interests focus on the philosophy of technology, global philosophy, and technological ethics. His engineering education projects address issues related to the internationalization of higher education, the integration of the liberal arts and engineering and ethics beyond the codes for engineers.

“I have a granddaughter who's just going into high school, and she is filled with idealistic thoughts and is optimistic. She's a person who is both in love with art and in love with science. She's vivacious and just everything about her seems like life is beautiful, and 'I'm going to be able to do this and that.' And, of course, when I talk to her, I do everything I can to encourage this kind of openness and optimism, and belief in herself and her ability to do worthwhile things. And not be too concerned about is she going to be able to have a job with enough income to be where she wants to be. 

She's not thinking on those levels. And so it’s how to perpetuate and strengthen that kind of spirit and hope, that it can be validated by giving this generation the opportunity to do things. Because I believe that if she and people who think and feel like her were really given the opportunity to be influential and to do things that would have a tremendous shift in the way the world is going. She doesn't think in terms of quarterly profits. She thinks in terms of human happiness and human good, human fairness, and the beauty of nature. And all of these things that naturally come together in our head. And so that's what I think we need to do. I think the universities can play a part. Schools play a part, but there has to be a broader general sense that this is how we should conceive the future. And, you know, galleries, podcasts, books, newspapers, universities, schools, every kind of institution needs to offer something to help this.”

http://harold-sjursen.org

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“With UnPrisoned and with really my whole body of work as a producer, I'm really drawn to stories that make people feel seen that take issues that have stigma and shame attached to them, and making those issues just more palatable and more human. And few people realize that 50% of American families are touched by incarceration. And when you meet someone like Tracy McMillan, who really is a miracle, this is a woman who's now in her fifties who grew up in 22 different foster homes because her father was incarcerated when she was so little. And yet for all of his mistakes, the fact that he was a career criminal, he still, when he could change her diapers, he was present when he could be there. He braided her hair, and there was real love there. But they were separated not only by his mistakes, but by a system that is really unforgiving and really unfair, especially to black and brown men. So, the idea that we could tell a story where a young woman who was raised that way and by that person turns out to be Kerry Washington. You know, turns out to be somebody who you want to be, turns out to be Olivia Pope, this woman that we all see as so beautiful and such a hero and so strong and so powerful, I felt was just an incredible opportunity. And when we first put Tracy and Kerry in the same room, Kerry said to Tracy, 'You know you're a miracle, right?'

And I don't think it really hit Tracy before that moment. When you really look at the data, when you look at the foster-to-prison pipeline, over 80% of males who age out of foster care end up incarcerated. So there are two broken systems that work hand in hand here. And we had the opportunity of a real success story.”

Joy Gorman Wettels is the founder of Joy Coalition, an impact producing venture with a focus on creating purpose-driven film and television content for a global audience. She executive-produced the newly-released UnPrisoned, and is currently working on a multi-part storytelling ecosystem inspired by landmark civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize. Her body of work includes, notably, the critically acclaimed series Home Before Dark, the influential 13 Reasons Why, created by Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning playwright Brian Yorkey and directed by Oscar-winner Tom McCarthy (Spotlight).

Other works include The Meddler, named Vanity Fair's #1 film of 2016, and the forthcoming adaptation of Little House on the Prairie. She serves on the Advisory Council for UCLA’s Center for Scholars and Storytellers and the Advisory Board for Hollywood, Health and Society at USC. As part of their commitment to social change, Joy Coalition works in collaboration with the Office of the Surgeon General in response to the youth mental health crisis. She’s accepted a Sentinel Award, Television Academy Honors for advancing social change, and the 2018 Mental Health America Media Award. 

www.joycoalition.com 
www.imdb.com/name/nm2229726
www.imdb.com/title/tt20228406/mediaviewer/rm1596470273/?ref_=tt_ov_i

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Joy Gorman Wettels is the founder of Joy Coalition, an impact producing venture with a focus on creating purpose-driven film and television content for a global audience. She executive-produced the newly-released UnPrisoned, and is currently working on a multi-part storytelling ecosystem inspired by landmark civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize. Her body of work includes, notably, the critically acclaimed series Home Before Dark, the influential 13 Reasons Why, created by Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning playwright Brian Yorkey and directed by Oscar-winner Tom McCarthy (Spotlight).

Other works include The Meddler, named Vanity Fair's #1 film of 2016, and the forthcoming adaptation of Little House on the Prairie. She serves on the Advisory Council for UCLA’s Center for Scholars and Storytellers and the Advisory Board for Hollywood, Health and Society at USC. As part of their commitment to social change, Joy Coalition works in collaboration with the Office of the Surgeon General in response to the youth mental health crisis. She’s accepted a Sentinel Award, Television Academy Honors for advancing social change, and the 2018 Mental Health America Media Award. 

“With UnPrisoned and with really my whole body of work as a producer, I'm really drawn to stories that make people feel seen that take issues that have stigma and shame attached to them, and making those issues just more palatable and more human. And few people realize that 50% of American families are touched by incarceration. And when you meet someone like Tracy McMillan, who really is a miracle, this is a woman who's now in her fifties who grew up in 22 different foster homes because her father was incarcerated when she was so little. And yet for all of his mistakes, the fact that he was a career criminal, he still, when he could change her diapers, he was present when he could be there. He braided her hair, and there was real love there. But they were separated not only by his mistakes, but by a system that is really unforgiving and really unfair, especially to black and brown men. So, the idea that we could tell a story where a young woman who was raised that way and by that person turns out to be Kerry Washington. You know, turns out to be somebody who you want to be, turns out to be Olivia Pope, this woman that we all see as so beautiful and such a hero and so strong and so powerful, I felt was just an incredible opportunity. And when we first put Tracy and Kerry in the same room, Kerry said to Tracy, 'You know you're a miracle, right?'

And I don't think it really hit Tracy before that moment. When you really look at the data, when you look at the foster-to-prison pipeline, over 80% of males who age out of foster care end up incarcerated. So there are two broken systems that work hand in hand here. And we had the opportunity of a real success story.”

www.joycoalition.com 
www.imdb.com/name/nm2229726
www.imdb.com/title/tt20228406/mediaviewer/rm1596470273/?ref_=tt_ov_i

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“I think maybe what we've learned is how important family and community are. What I noticed in Madagascar is how genuinely happy they are despite not having a lot in life. We have so many material possessions here in the US, and not to say that's all bad if people want to pursue that, but I just definitely noticed how it wasn't so much about what you have, but like who you are as a person. I would want them to know that anything is possible. You just need to persevere and that can have such a huge ripple effect. Not only one person's life, but anybody, whether that's a community or the whole world on a global scale. I wouldn't want people to feel discouraged because I think there are definitely moments along the way of that and people will just not want to try to do that because people around them may say ‘It's not possible.’ But if you keep going, then it will eventually come to life.”

Maggie Grout is the founder and CEO of Thinking Huts, an international NGO that increases global access to education with innovative, humanitarian-driven technology solutions. Founded by Maggie  8 years ago, when she was15, Thinking Huts seeks to empower young people, especially girls, to achieve more opportunities by obtaining an education. Grout gave a TEDx talk in 2021 on “how we can tackle the global education crisis with 3D printing.”

Grout was born in a rural village in China and adopted at a young age, but where she came from largely shaped her outlook on life and subliminally led her to start Thinking Huts in 2015. Growing up in London and Colorado, Grout was exposed to the melting pot of cultures in British and American society, but she often wondered why so many people were unaware of how others lived an ocean away. She understood what poverty looks like firsthand and how education empowers people to attain greater opportunities.

www.thinkinghuts.org

www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast