Welcome to our third episode of Change Lab Presents

Throughout this season, on alternating weeks, we’ll feature a handpicked episode from podcasts by, for or about the Black community.

This week we’re excited to share an episode from Scene On Radio, produced by host John Biewen, in conversation with series collaborator Chenjerai Kumanyika.

Scene on Radio is a Peabody-nominated podcast that dives deeply into issues central to American society. The show comes from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and is distributed by PRX. 

Today’s episode features Myra Greene, who for years explored blackness through her photography, often in self-portraits. She then explored what it would mean to take pictures of whiteness. By photographing friends, peers, and mentors, Greene visually ponders whether photography can capture and describe the nuances of whiteness.  

Please enjoy this Change Lab Presents episode of Scene on Radio.

Scene On Radio Website

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Like the consummate designer he is -- Kevin Bethune has iterated his own job description. 

Kevin’s strikingly diverse career-path includes stints as a nuclear engineer at Westinghouse Electric, a financial manager at Nike and strategic design innovator at Boston Consulting group -- all achievements that would stand alone as a high-point on most resumes. 

But Kevin still had goals he’d yet to articulate and accomplish. And, as you’ll hear through his deeply introspective reflections in this episode of Change Lab, Kevin takes his dreams very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that they became the driving force behind his current venture, an innovation think-tank called dreams, design + life.

Animated by the idea of bringing a child-like openness and imagination to realizing our highest possibilities, Kevin now leads a multi-disciplinary team at dreams, design + life. There, he uses design innovation tools to help businesses plan for an uncertain future. 

Kevin is a unicorn even by Silicon Valley standards. He comes to the table bearing a trio of specialized degrees from prestigious institutions – including a Master of Science in Industrial Design from ArtCenter. And, perhaps even more rare and relevant to his success is the kindness, humility and integrity he brings to every layer of his creative process. 

Though he has faced his share of obstacles as a person of color. He’s prevailed by remaining true to his commitment to connecting people with their dreams and taking the high road in business and in life.

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Welcome to our second episode of Change Lab Presents

Throughout this season, on alternating weeks, we’ll feature a series of bonus episodes we’ve handpicked from some of our favorite podcasts by, for or about the Black community.

This week, we’re excited to share an episode from The Brown Girl's Guide to Politics from the Wonder Media Network.

Host A’shanti Gholar leads conversations with women changing the face of politics. Episodes include interviews with politicians, candidates, and influencers. 

Today you'll hear from Brittany Packnett Cunningham. Named by People Magazine as one of the five inspiring people chartering a path forward as America fights racism, Brittany is the co-founder of Campaign Zero and a leading force in the fight for social justice.

Please enjoy this Change Lab Presents episode of The Brown Girl's Guide to Politics.

https://brittanypacknett.com/bio

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Throughout her long and distinguished career as a commercial and fine art photographer, Barbara DuMetz has produced images that feel familiar even if you’re viewing them for the first time. Through her lens, even the most ordinary subject matter has a mythic quality. She has a story to tell that reaches far beyond the frame. 

That’s her unique creative gift. And it’s one she began cultivating as an ArtCenter student and ultimately deployed to great effect in editorial spreads for glossy magazines and iconic ads for global brands like Coca Cola and Delta.

Despite her vast reserves of natural talent, it was hardly a given that Barbara would achieve her lofty creative goals as a Black woman making her way in the predominantly white male field of commercial photography in the 1970’s and ‘80’s.

And yet she persisted. Against steep odds, Barbara built a professional photography practice from the ground up and paved the way for a new generation of Black female artists. Her personal journey is nearly as inspiring and captivating as her iconic images of such legendary trailblazers as Maya Angelou, Quincy Jones and Thelonius Monk – the latter of whom she first met by chance as a young aspiring photographer.

In this week’s lively, history-soaked Change Lab episode, you’ll hear her describe that encounter with Monk with sheer wonder at his genius. And then, with characteristic humility, she’ll concede, after some prodding, that maybe, just maybe, her work echoes the deeply-felt rhythms of her beloved jazz. As anyone listening to this conversation can attest, Dumetz walks through life to a beat as cool and distinctive as the art she makes.

Links from this episode:

BarbaraDuMetzPhotography.com

1984 Olympics Coca-Cola Advertisement

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Welcome to our first episode of Change Lab Presents

Throughout this season, on alternating weeks, we’ll feature a handpicked episode from podcasts by, for or about the Black community.

This week we’re excited to share an episode from The Institute of Black Imagination. Hosted by artist, writer, and brand consultant Dario Calmese, the show features conversations from The Pool of Black Genius: a collection of iconoclasts at the leading edge of cultural thought and innovation. Today’s episode features architect, designer and scholar, Dr. Mabel O. Wilson, who discusses her trans-disciplinary practice touching upon the worlds of curation, performance, art and cultural history.

Please enjoy this Change Lab Presents episode of the Institute of Black Imagination

Links mentioned in the episode:

Mabel's Instagram: @studio_and

Her new book: Race and Modern Architecture: A Critical History from the Enlightenment to the Present 

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There is something almost poetic about beginning this season, dedicated to amplifying Black voices, with today’s interview with Bob Davidson, who recently stepped down from his post as Chairman of ArtCenter’s Board of Trustees.

Bob was instrumental in my decision to assume my current role as President of ArtCenter. And over the past eleven years, our collaboration has been among the most profoundly transformative of my entire career. Our bond transcended our professional roles (for all intents and purposes, he was my boss) and became something much richer and deeper, rooted in our shared values and an almost spiritual commitment to manifesting the College’s mission statement: learn to create, influence change.

And change we did. In partnership with Bob, we launched two iterations of a master plan that prioritized long-term sustainability and diversity. The College has grown in many important ways thanks to his contributions. But there’s still much work to be done, which we discuss at length in today’s conversation.

Even though we’ve known each other intimately for over a decade, our candid conversation was revelatory. I hadn’t known the extent of the racism he faced growing up in the Jim Crow south. Nor was I aware of the subtle bias he experiences in his daily life now. At the same time, he confirmed many of the qualities and achievements I’ve long admired – his self-made success at the highest levels of business and his steadfast unwillingness to let anyone stand in the way of progress —his or anyone else’s for that matter.

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On September 23rd, Change Lab will kick off its seventh season, which is dedicated to amplifying Black voices in art, design and activism. Much has changed since our last episode – everything really. So in response to these radically shifting times, this next set of interviews will lean into the special relationship between uncertainty and creativity and how it just might hold the key to unlocking ideas and works of art and design that can change the world.

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This episode of Change Lab happens to be the last one of this season and we’ll resume again, as usual, in the fall. And though it wasn’t planned this way, it’s hard to think of an interview more timely or better suited to demonstrating the strength of the creative spirit to transcend expectations, assumptions and challenges than this one with Chaz Bojorquez, aka the Godfather of Graffiti.

There are few art world honors as coveted as having a piece of work included in the Smithsonian’s permanent collection. Likewise, in the pop culture universe, not many artists can claim to have their own special edition line of Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers.

Chaz can claim both of those achievements and many more.

A native of East Los Angeles, Chaz merged his tandem passions for creative forms of socio-political protest, underground comics and the Chicano muralist movement into a signature style that has influenced his widespread popularity and established prestige now, finally, attributed to street art.

After Chaz visited ArtCenter last fall to deliver a talk about the role of graffiti in creating cultural unity, Lorne was taken by the power of his wisdom and his work. In fact, we were all so impressed with his accomplishments that we decided to award him an honorary doctorate at our Spring commencement ceremony (which was sadly postponed due to the COVID-19 crisis). But Lorne and Chaz had the opportunity to sit down together in early February to reflect on his remarkable career that blurs the boundaries between high art and street art, calligraphy and graffiti, popular and alternative culture.

Related Links:

https://americanart.si.edu/artist/charles-chaz-bojorquez-6040

https://lagunaartmuseum.org/artist/chaz-bojorquez/

http://www.sohodh.com/chaz-bojorquez

https://sneakernews.com/2013/06/26/chaz-bojorquez-x-converse-chuck-taylor-all-star/

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Diane Luby Lane is the founder and executive director of Get Lit-Words Ignite, a leading arts education nonprofit dedicated to increasing literacy and stemming dropout rates among at-risk youth. Her groundbreaking curriculum, fusing classic literature with spoken word performance techniques, has been adopted by schools around the country. In this inspiring episode of Change Lab, Lorne Buchman sat down with Diane to discuss the redemptive power of poetry her mission to share it with the world.

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Storytelling is Dennis Gassner’s mother tongue. It’s the language – and the context -- through which the ArtCenter alum and legendary production designer processes the ideas of a script, and it fundamentally shapes the worlds his characters inhabit on screen.

The six-time Oscar nominee is best known for the technically ambitious and artfully realized environments he has created for six Coen Bros films, the last four James Bond movies, Blade Runner 2049 and Bugsy – for which he won an Academy Award. Dennis received his most recent Oscar nomination for his stunning work on 1917, a World War 1 epic for which he designed, built and destroyed French villages and battlefields all, seemingly, filmed in one-take. The film also presented him with the rare opportunity to go to war with his longtime collaborators, director Sam Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins – two major talents with whom he’s found great success in the moviemaking trenches.

On the eve of the most recent Academy Awards show, Change Lab’s Lorne Buchman interviewed Dennis in his home, which is steeped in Hollywood history and filled with artifacts from his films and the places they’ve taken him. As we sat facing each other on two art deco couches he used to furnish a lavish set in The Hudsucker Proxy, we discussed his transition from architecture to production design, his discovery (while at ArtCenter) that facing fear is fundamental to creativity and his conviction that successful storytelling is best measured by the heart rather than the head.

Related Links:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0309357/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

https://www.1917.movie/

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