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(various layered excerpts from my soundscape compositions throughout this episode)   Conclusion 1 : we need to face reality and learn how to unlearn Mayer Hillman, e01: ‘We’re doomed. The outcome is death, and it’s the end of most life on the planet because we’re so dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. There are no means of reversing the process which is melting the polar ice caps. And very few appear to be prepared to say so.’ Joan Sullivan, e01 terrified ‘even if we are doomed, and I think we are, I refuse to do nothing…’  Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures collective : ‘we need to walk a tightrope between desperate hope and reckless hopelessness, balancing rational and relational rigour.'   Conclusion 2: we need to develop and implement a radical theory of change through the arts David Haley, e19 : ‘we now need aesthetics to sensitize us to other ways of life and we need artists to sensitize us to the shape of things to come. Jen Rae, e19 : ‘The thing about a preparedness mindset is that you are thinking into the future and so if one of those scenarios happens, you’ve already mentally prepared in some sort of way for it’.  David Maggs, e109: ’If we only speak with our arts, and do not listen with them first, revelation is replaced by dictation…’   Conclusion 3: we need to transition out of modernity Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures collective : ‘We are part of a much wider metabolism, and this metabolism is sick. There is a lot of shit for us to deal with: personal, collective, historical, systemic. Our fragilities are a big part of it. This shit needs to pass, so that it can be composted into new forms of life, no longer based on the illusion of separability.’ Eric Beinhocker: e19: ‘Humankind is in a race between two tipping points. The first is when the Earth’s ecosystems and the life they contain tip into irreversible collapse due to climate change. The second is when the fight for climate action tips from being just one of many political concerns to becoming a mass social movement. The existential question is, which tipping point will we hit first?   Conclusion 4 : we need to change the story George Monbiot, Out of the Wreckage: ‘Despair is the state we fall into when our imagination fails. When we have no stories that describe the present and guide the future, hope evaporates. Political failure is, in essence, a failure of imagination. Without a new story that is positive and propositional, rather than reactive and oppositional, nothing changes. With such a story everything changes’.  George Marshall, e01 : ‘we need passionate storytellers to break habitual patterns, discover alternative values and consider new perspectives’.   Conclusion 5 :  we need to connect our efforts Todd Dufresne, e19: ‘whoever survives these experiences will have a renewed appreciation for nature, for the external world, and for the necessity of collectivism in the face of mass extinction.’ Asad Rehman, Green Dreamer podcast (e378) : ‘Our goal is to keep our ideas and policies alive for when the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable’.  George Monbiot,  tweet November 13, 2021 :  ‘We have no choice but to raise the scale of civil disobedience until we have built the greatest mass movement in history.’ My question to you is ‘how can listening help’? * This episode is longer than the usual 5 minutes because that’s how long (8m 30s) it took to tell this story. This episode is a selection of quotes and findings from my learning and unlearning journey about art and the ecological crisis that I presented during my keynote speech to the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology ‘Listening Pasts - Listening Futures’ conference on March 24, 2023 at the Atlantic Centre for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.  I warmly thank the authors I have quoted. I also thank the Canada Council for the Arts for their support of the Sounding Modernity project and travel funds to attend the conference.  I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is a donation to Atlantic Center For The Arts.

(bell, breath and occasional balloon sounds) Me : have you ever had the feeling that you were being observed? Observer : I’m observing you.  Me: Who are you and what are you observing?  Observer: Ah, well, I’m a part of you and  I’m observing the traps that you fall into. Me:  Traps? Observer : Do you remember the Facing Human Wrongs course you took during the summer of 2022 Me: Ya. Observer: The one about navigating paradoxes and complexities of social and global change and all those trappings along the way? Me: Ya, I remember. Easier said than done, though. Observer: Yup Me: So. What are you observing?  Observer : Well, what can I say? I notice that you’ve fallen into a trap called ‘exit fixation’ which is where people feel a strong urge to walk out on an existing commitment. For example, when someone realises that the path they are on is full of paradoxes, contradictions, and complicities. Often their first response is to find an immediate exit in hopes of a more fulfilling and/or more innocent alternative or maybe even  an ideal community with whom to continue this work.  Me: Like an escape? Observer: Ya, something like that Me: BTW where are those balloon sounds coming from? Observer : Oh, that’s from your imagination Me: hum. It sounds like … Observer: (laughter) it could be anything  Me: OK. Anyway, what else do you see? Observer: Well. I also see a trap called proselytizing which happens when people try to teach and convince others that a particular issue of interest should be the most important thing for everyone.  Me: Wait a second, I do that all the time as a climate activist and with my art and ecology podcast and…  Observer :(interrupting) of course you do and well you should - no worries - but, the danger is that your work could be perceived as an effort to assert ‘moral high ground’ and while this trap may be driven by a genuine passion for an issue, and you certainly are passionate about your work, it has the potential to impose onto others in a way that does not respect their own un/learning journey, and often actually has the opposite effect, pushing people away rather than inviting them in.  Me: ok. Ya, I see. Let me think about that. Observer: Sure and when this trap occurs, it can be useful to ask, you know, why do I need to teach or convince or inspire others about my learning experience? Where is this perceived need stemming from?  And if you really feel you need to bring something to the attention of others, maybe you can ask yourself: What is the most pedagogically responsible and effective thing to do so that your message can land? Me: ok. What else?  Observer:  I also see some virtue signalling and self-righteousness trappings, which is when you assert yourself  as having the best, most righteous, most critical, most insightful, most creative, most valid or, the most marginalised perspective.  Observer: This approach tends to be focused on wanting to be seen in a certain way by others or by oneself, and may be motivated by a desire to minimize or deny one’s complicity in harm.  Me: maybe subconsciously, but it’s a catch 22, isn’it ? Observer: (interrupting) more like a labyrinth or a dilemma that you need to sit with… You remember when Donna Haraway says that we need to ‘stay with the trouble’. Something like that. (silence) ok. one last trap? Me: Sure Observer: This is a tough one for you.  Me: hum… Observer: Hey I need you to be strong here buddy, ok Me: Ya ya ya I’m listening  Observer:. It’s called spiritual bypassing and it happens when spiritual ideas or practices are used to sidestep, avoid, or escape sitting with analyses of historical and systemic violence and the difficulties of one’s complicity in historic and systemic harm. Do you know what I mean?  Me: Yes I think I do but I don’t think I do this. Observer: (interrupting) maybe not consciously but spiritual bypassing often manifests itself alongside with cultural appropriation which is something you think about every time you record a soundscape with that microphone of yours, right?   Me: I see what you mean. You’re quite a good observer.  Observer:  thank you but right back at you. Think of me as a guardian angel. Me: Or the devil…  Observer: Whatever (laughter) Now one of the dangers with spiritual bypassing is to project interpretations of ‘oneness’ that erase the realities of historical and systemic inequalities, and interpretations of ‘Enlightenment’ that tend to reinforce exceptionalism and you tend to do that… Me: Yes, sure, I do, but it’s all part of being an artist..  Observer: (interrupting) True but that does not necessarily make it right, does it? Something to think about... Me: (interrupting) That’s a lot to think about, to learn and unlearn. Observer:  what are the traps in your life?  * This episode is longer than the usual 5 minutes ( 7 minutes) because that’s how long it took to tell this story. This episode  comes from learnings I received from taking the Facing Human Wrongs course during the summer of 2022 with support from Azul Carolina Duque. The sound of balloon came to me while I was deflating a balloon while creating sound for a theatre production called Why Worry About their Future, produced by my colleague Sanita Fejzić, as part of the undercurrents festival here in Ottawa, when I realised that the sound of air being released from a balloon was the right sound to accompany this 2 person play.  I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is to the South American Indigenous Network Emergency Fund (second donation).

(sound of bath draining, at first with a strong oscillating rhythm followed by water flowing and silence) It goes down the drain (again) and into the sewer system to be processed and dumped into the Ottawa river, then it evaporates into the sky and it rains back into our lakes and rivers, bringing with it with many pollutants, and then is pumped into our homes, in our bodies and heated until… (repeated and improvised) Where does your bathwater go?  * The rhythm comes from this sound of my bathtub draining, which occurs from the pressure on the tub that creates an oscillation.  I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is a donation to the Ottawa Riverkeeper.  

(bell and breath) On December 19th, 2022 I read David Maggs’ Art and the Ouija Board? blog, as part of his Metcalf Foundation Fellow on Arts and Society. I was struck by this section in particular: Like a Ouija board or a dowsing wand, art is the capacity to pay attention to the world in unusual ways, a capacity to attend to the world in terms of the aesthetic. To make sense of life through lines, shapes, patterns, forms, colours, textures, rhythms, harmonies, imagery, and more. As Canadian poet Don McKay puts it, “Poetry returns from the business of naming with listening folded inside of it.” If we only speak with our arts, and do not listen with them first, revelation is replaced by dictation, and we can expect our audiences to engage with us as pamphlets or punditry. While not without purpose (no doubt didactic art can inform), information engages at the level of knowledge, whereas transformation requires engagement at the level of being, giving art a value proposition few can rival in this age of unprecedented need… (3 minute ‘A Soundwalk in the Rain of St. John’s, NFLD’ 1992 by Claude Schryer) Thank you David. Thank you David for your series of blogs on the relationship between art and transformation. Now David is from Newfoundland, which reminded me of a piece I recorded on July 2nd, 1992, at 2.20pm called A Soundwalk in the Rain of St. John’s, NFLD where I was a radio artist in residence at Sound Symposium 6.  Of course, an interesting debate is whether the sounds of the environment are music or whether they're noise. And I guess that depends principally on your interest in hearing them as music or not. What we hear now is a combination of traffic sounds and water falling on concrete and grass and falling through trees. And once in a while a drop falls directly on the microphone. It's quite loud and quite noisy, but I find it quite beautiful to listen to. And as I listen more and more, I hear little differences in how the rain sounds as it falls and different kinds of materials, how the traffic changes, how this space, Memorial University, is in fact an acoustic space with a lot of activity, a lot of different kinds of sound activity. And so we'll try to hear it. The rain, of course, is a problem because it really is dominant and it's a powerful natural phenomenon that we basically can't avoid. So we're probably better off listening to it and enjoying it. Of course, that's from my perspective as a person from another part of the country, Montreal, where it probably rains less than here in St. John's but I'm particularly interested in discovering this part of the world, this province, and seeing how it sounds. So rain is a part of your life here and it's quite fascinating. It's quiet though, and, and it's a little gray here…. How can we listen through art? * Thanks to David Maggs and the Metcalf Foundation for your important work. David and I were co-founders of the Sectoral Climate Arts Leadership for the Emergency (SCALE) and have had many fruitful exchanges over the years. I admire his courage and encourage you to subscribe to his Dispatches (at the bottom of the page) I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is a donation to the First Light St-John’s Friendship Centre.

(Sound of fire) This is another fireside storytelling episode, this time by a wood stove at our cottage. Thanks for joining me. Pull up a chair…  As I mentioned in episode 106, sometimes, when I get discouraged I like to build a fire, like this, to lift my spirits and to re-energize.  (Sound of fire)  Today’s story is an excerpt from Part 1, Warm Up : Into The Future from Vanessa Andreotti’s Hospicing Modernity book, written by the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures collective. I first heard this story, in audio form, while driving through a severe snowstorm on January 19th 2022. (rumble of car) The road was very slippery. I could hardly see. I probably should have stopped but I was mesmerized by the story and kept driving through the storm, not knowing how my trip or this story might end. I recall that the story inhabited my body and my spirit that day, where it remains. I believe that stories,, including speculative fiction, have that ability to sit with us and guide us through life. So, this story places you on December 10 2048, one hundred years after the universal declaration of human rights. You are in a 3D virtual reality world conference where people are gathered to decide the direction of education after a period of catastrophic events.  I’ll read you a short excerpt now from the end. In the period between 2038 and 2047, we finally accepted that we were part of the problem and needed to engage with our painful reality to avoid being wiped out. The Mars colony tragically failed in 2038, destroying our hopes for life on another planet. In 2039, a massive event made us all suddenly recognize the enormous cost of our mistakes. Finally we could see that we were addicted to arrogance, consumption, and unaccountable autonomy. We realized that we needed mass rehabilitation. We grasped the gravity of the fact that we were only three billion people left on the planet. We understood that we had caused the extinction of 70% of all species - and the extinction of all life in entire regions of the earth - and we were extremely close to causing our own. We recognized that planet Earth is alive and we are part of the metabolism, not the center of the world or a special species. We also worked out that humanity is capable of both horrendous and wonderful things. We started to face our own and others’ humanity in all its complexity and be taught by the human wrongs we had inflicted upon each other, upon other beings, and upon the planet.    Then we all had to learn quickly, collectively, and without schools or moral manifestos: To heal intellectually, emotionally, collectively, economically, ecologically, and politically; To abolish colonial and racial violence, inequality, hierarchies of worth and separations;  To center the earth and decenter our egos, identities, human narratives, and separations; To age and die in generative ways; To care for, rather than compete with, everything and everyone; To plant, repurpose technology, compost, repair, and regenerate everything; To prioritize the common good for humans, non humans, and the planet; To use words and conversation carefully and wisely, with humility and maturity; To own up, sober up, clean up, grow up, show up, and exist differently. What speculative fiction stories inhabit you? * Thanks to the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures collective for use of the story in this context and to collective member Azul Carolina Duque for her advice. I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is a donation to the South American Indigenous Network Emergency Fund .

(bell and breath) Today's episode does not have any sound other than my voice and a series of silences.  And I think you’ll understand why in a minute. (Silence) Writer and broadcaster Jesse Wente, author of Unreconciled, became the first indigenous person to chair the Canada Council for the Arts during the summer of 2020, a few weeks before I retired from the Council.  (Silence) In an August 6, 2020 interview with the Toronto Star, I was deeply moved by what Jesse said.  The way I view work now within colonial structures and institutions is harm reduction. Ultimately, the goal for me is to reduce the harm the Canada Council causes, not just to my community but to any community that suffers under colonialism, which is really all of us on some level, and to make it somewhat easier to exist, work, live and participate. (Silence) I invite you to think about this statement. In fact, I invite you to explore your feelings about this statement.  (Silence) Jesse goes on in that same Toronto Star interview to say : What does the new world look like? How do we support that? How will we be nimble enough to be comfortable not knowing and yet developing policy around not knowing? With artists and the cultural sector, even though we’ll be among the last to restart, I think we have a fairly significant role to play in helping to define what recovery and restoration look like. (Silence) Now I could not find a sound in our modern world to respectfully accompany Jesse’s words and his questions.  (Silence) The only sound, or absence of sound, so to speak, that made sense to me was silence.  (Silence) Jesse asks us to think about what the role of the arts sector in helping to define what recovery and restoration look like, and if I may add, what it might sound like.  (Silence) Jesse also invites us to imagine what a new world might look, or sound like. (Silence) My question for you is ‘What do you not know?’ * I would like to thank Jesse Wente for his kind permission to use his quotations from this interview in this context. Thanks also to the article authors Karen Fricker and Carly Maga and the Toronto Star and the Canada Council for the Arts. I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible). My gesture of reciprocity for this episode is a donation to the Anishnawbe Health Foundation.

(bell and breath) (sound of campfire) I invite you to slow down, or maybe stop, what you’re doing and listen to a campfire story We’re sitting in the snow, by the Preston River in Duhamel, Québec. The snow absorbs the sound here but it is also slightly amplified by the cottage and frozen trees. It's raining so you also hear drops of water, snow and ice falling in between the fire crackles.  Sometimes, when I get discouraged about the ecological crisis, I build a campfire like this to lift my spirits and re-energize. Campfires are also a great place to tell and listen to stories that engage your emotions.  Today’s story is an excerpt  from my conversation with climate photographer Joan Sullivan from e96 – the liminal space between what was and what’s next. The story begins with Joan taking photos in the winter by the St-Lawrence River near Rimouski : If you've ever stood on the shores of a winter river that has no ice, it's kind of, you know, gray, right? That particular day, it wasn't gray, but in general, a winter river is just sort of meandering through a gray-ish landscape. It's banal. It's not visually dramatic. And it occurred to me that very day that the worst possible thing is that it becomes normal to see a river without ice. It's becoming normal and it is not normal. So I didn't know what to do. I'm all alone, you know?  I just take my camera and I tried to take a photo of this orange, you know, metaphorically on Fire River, but my hands were shaking, you know, it was like, click, click, click. And, and, you know, each image was blurred. And, and I just deleted them all. So I started again. I tried to hold the camera, you know, close to my chest, to like, steady it, and my hands were shaking, and it was the strangest thing. It's never happened to me in 30 years of photography that I couldn't stop my hands. And it's suddenly dawned on me that I, my hands, weren’t shaking up because of the cold, but because of an anger, you know, this deep, profound anger about our collective indifference in the face of climate breakdown. Wait, we're just carrying on with our lives as if you know, la la la and nothing, nothing's bad's happening. So there was this sense of rage. I mean, like, honestly, it's surprising how strong it'd be in a violent rage just sort of coming outta me.  I wanted to scream, and I just, you know, took my camera and just moved it violently, right? Left up, down the, and almost, I suppose, it was almost like I was like drowning in the water. You know, my arms are just doing everything. And I was holding down the shutter the whole time, you know, 20, 30, 40 photos at a time. And I did it over. And oh, I was just, I was just, I was just beside myself. And you know, you at some point, you just stop and you're staring out at the river. And I just felt helpless. I just didn't know what to do… (River sound continues in background) Thank you, Joan, for this story and your work as an artist. You can listen to the whole 8 minute story on the conscious podcast e96.  The question for this episode is drawn from Joan’s story :  What can we do about our collective indifference?  * The campfire for this episode was recorded on December 30th, 2022 at our cottage in Duhamel, Québec.  The story is an excerpt  from my conversation with climate photographer Joan Sullivan from e96 – the liminal space between what was and what’s next. You can hear the entire story  here :-)  The YouTube video version of this episode  includes footage from our cottage and from Joan’s Je suis fleuve photo series.For more information on her work see https://www.joansullivanphotography.com I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible).

This recording is a rope holding a boat to the dock at Toronto Harbour on November 26th, 2022.  Sketches by Sabrina Mathews.

(bell and breath) (loud sound of train passing at close distance) (once the train has passed, cross fade between quiet city and very quiet mountain forest) (indigenous artist and curator France Trepanier from conscient podcast é55 trépanier - a very small moment in a much larger space, in French): I think that with this cycle of colonialism, and what it has brought, that we are coming to the end of this cycle and with hindsight, we will realize that it was a very small moment in a much larger space, and that we are returning to very deep knowledge. What does it mean to live here on this planet?  What does it mean to have the possibility, but also the responsibility to maintain harmonious relationships?  What does a very small moment in a much larger space sound like?  * This quote is from indigenous artist and curator France Trepanier from conscient podcast é55 trépanier - un petit instant dans un espace beaucoup plus vaste (a very small moment in a much larger space) recorded on June 7, 2021. When I recorded this train I felt great relief once the train had passed, but also a feeling of accountability for the life forms that were masked by the violent rumble of the train.  Thanks to France Trepanier for her permission to use her quote for this episode.  This passing train on Adanac street in Vancouver was recorded on a Zoom H4n Pro audio recorder on October 14th, 2022 at 10am. I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible).

(sound of bell and breath) On December 5th 2022 we had a heat pump installed in our house in order to reduce our carbon footprint.  What is a heat pump, you ask? Well, basically, It heats and cools a space by transferring thermal energy from the outside using a refrigeration cycle powered by electricity.  It’s a more environmentally friendly source of heating than say methane gas but it still generates carbon through manufacturing and in the production of electricity to run it. It also does not address the fact that the highest carbon polluters in the world are multinational corporations and nation-states. So what power does one individual household have? Quite a bit actually? The least we can do is change what is within our control, in our own homes and living spaces.  That does get us off the hook by any means in terms of our accountabilities but it does move us in the right direction and it feels good to take action . . Now, let’s get back to my story. Our house was heatless on this day and I was working right here in my second floor studio, when I heard a mysterious tapping sound coming from the basement through the air duct.  (fade in sound of distant tapping) I stopped working and turned on my audio recorder. As I listened I felt myself being transformed by the sounds of the heat pump, which, of course, are made of materials from the earth, just like we are.  (fade in indoors heat pump drone) (fade in external heat pump fan).  (heat pump installation technician from Ottawa Home Services): This thing is smart. Everything talks to each other. I would just leave it on auto and let it choose what it wants to do. What does decarbonization sound like to you?  * This episode was recorded at our home in Ottawa. Thanks to Kevin Taylor and technicians from Ottawa Home Services for their collaboration and to Azul Carolina Duque for her guidance.  While this episode is not directly about art, it has implications in terms of how we listen to the sound of energy around us and how they affect us. In this case, the heat pump is a lesser evil on our environment than a gas furnace but remains an issue. Perhaps our homes are too large to heat and cool for the energy sources available? Maybe we should rethink …. Everything? My point here is that we need to think about how we heat and cool ourselves but also feel these materials in our bodies and listen to them… I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible).

(ocean shoreline) The problem with beauty is that it can distract us from reality. Sit with me, please, take a moment. Sit and listen…  Over there, about 56 kilometers to the northeast, is the traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations, also known as Vancouver. Listen to the ocean flowing, like the blood and liquids in your body. We are water. Listen to the ravens passing by and croaking. They are poetry in motion. Listen to the city rumbling at a distance, but it's hard to hear, isn’t it? Let me help by filtering out high frequencies…  (cutting out of high frequencies)  Ah, there is the drone of the city.  It’s both beautiful and bewildering, isn’t it? A plane is coming. I’ll bring back the high frequencies. (bring back high frequencies)  The sky is littered with aircraft around here - seaplanes, jets, helicopters - but they can have a strong aesthetic effect as they inch their way across the sky, merging with the rumble of the city. (Fading to silence) One of the problems with modern aesthetic experiences is that we tend to choose the ones that reinforce our own world view and deny the shit around us.  Dr. Vanessa Andreotti suggests that we learn to ‘hold space for the good, the bad, the ugly and the messed up, within and around’ How can we ‘de-modernize’ art? * This episode is dedicated to my colleague Hildegard Westerkamp whose voice, from her Kits Beach Soundwalk (1989) composition, was in my head when I wrote the narrative for this episode.  I respectfully borrowed her technique of filtering a soundscape as part of a narrative.  The recording was made on a Zoom H4n Pro in one take on Saturday, October 1, 2022 at 8am at the Boat Pass at Winter Cove National Park, Saturna Island, BC.  I thank Dr. Vanessa Andreotti for the use of her words.  I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible).

(Deep breath) Tension I was thinking about the tensions in our lives and the art of finding a balance point…  So I went for a sound walk in Vancouver and came upon a piece of fishing line. I brought it home, strung it up and recorded myself plucking it  (sound of fishing line being plucked by hand)  I held the fishing line with my left hand while I gradually reduced the tension with my right hand.  Later that day I went for another soundwalk and came upon a white metal fence. I started to gently tap one of the rods with my middle finger tip, like a heartbeat...  (sound of metal fence rod being tapped)  Finally, as I continued my search for sounds of tension, I came upon another metal fence, this one by the ocean and struck it with a wooden stick while slowly decreasing my walking pace.  (sound of metal fence tapped by a piece of wood) I invite you to sit with me for a moment and feel these sounds. Try not to think, just feel.  (sound of decreased tension by filtering and slowing down)  How do you feel now ? (further decrease of tension by filtering and slowing down to silence)  What about now?  (silence) How do you feel now?  (Deep breath) * This episode was recorded on a Zoom H4n Pro audio recorder in Vancouver in September, 2022.  I composed it as a pilot episode with the intention of exploring somatic and embodied listening. It’s basically a sketch but I thought it would be a good way to start this 4th season of the conscient podcast because it asks an open ended question that will come back again and again throughout this project : how do you feel now? I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this episode. (including all the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation and infrastructure that make this podcast possible).

Welcome to episode 0 of season four of the conscient podcast, Sounding Modernity, five-minute sound meditations, published every Sunday from January 1 through December 31, 2023.  My name is Claude Schryer and I'm happy to be back podcasting  about art and the ecological crisis after a 10 month break. I'm talking to you today from the unceded traditional territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation, also known as Ottawa, where my family and I are grateful to live.  Veuillez prendre note qu’une version en français de cet épisode et de toute la saison 4 est disponible sur le canal balado conscient et sur Youtube.  So, what is Sounding Modernity?  In a nutshell, every sunday in 2023 I’m going to publish a 5 minute sound art work comprised pof field recording, soundscapes compositions, narration and silence, lots of silence, en francais and in english, that explores how we listen modernity, topics such acceptance, aesthetics, appropriation, collapse, complicity, despair, entanglement, exploitation, failure, fiction, hope (maybe also hopelessness) humour, kindness, unlistening, reciprocity, resilience, separability, validation, violence, worlding and many more I haven’t thought of yet. Every week will be a new opportunity to create a dialogue for shared learning and unlearning, learning and unlearning, learning, unlearning. Overall the idea is to ‘stay with the trouble’ as Dr. Donna J. Haraway suggests. At the end of each episode you’ll be asked to ponder a question - to think about  a complex issue - and if you feel comfortable, you can respond on conscient.ca to the question, in any way you wish : with words, images, sounds, video, etc. I will respond to all submissions.  My hope is that we find a way, together, to navigate our way out of modernity’s trappings and to create, step by step, the conditions for other worlds to emerge. Let me give you an example of an episode. This is the trailer for episode 1, of season 4, which is actually episode 101 of the entire podcast series. It’s called tension and what you’ll hear is the question that i mentioned earlier.  Now I won’t get into some of the references and theoretical underpinnings of this project however I invite you to read a blog I wrote about the project on conscient.ca.  In terms of promotion I’ll be using social media etc which you are welcome to share but I think the best way to promote this kind of project is through word of mouth so If you like what you hear, please tell your friends and colleagues.  You’ll find links to subscribe to the weekly conscient newsletter, conscient podcast in English, au balado conscient en francais, to the conscient YouTube channel and to the conscient podcast Facebook and instagram pages at subscribe. I want to end this intro by warmly thanking my collaborators and also the Canada Council, Strategic Innovation Fund Seed grant for their support of this project. You can reach me at claude@conscient.ca  Thanks for listening and I hope to hear from you during the season.

'What would the Prairies be without wind?  It’s the keynote sound here, the one against which everything else is registered. But to record it? Impossible.' R. Murray Schafer, winter diary, 1997 See episode 99 for details on winter diary revisited - homage to r. murray schafer and to listen to the version with a 25' introduction and 3' of credits. Note: an article for the Institute for Music in Canada about this composition is available here : Winter Diary Revisited

Episode NotesBarn on the farm of R. Murray Schafer and Eleanor James, Indian River, Ontario, January 19, 2022 (photo by me)Note: the text below is a transcription of the narration in the episode (sounds are described, with their source where possible)Welcome to episode 99 of the conscient podcast, the last episode of season 3, which you might recall was on the theme of radical listening. (fade in of sound of barn)I invite you to guess what is this space. There are some sonic clues. It’s clearly an indoor space and yet there is a hollowing wind with a deep, rich texture... You can hear the gentle crackling of wood… the occasional slap of a rope… a squirrel. (fade out sound of barn)This soundscape was recorded on January 19th, 2022, in a barn, on a farm that belonged to composer R. Murray Schafer and is now the home of his wife, the singer Eleanor James. The farm is located near Indian River, Ontario, about 20k east of Peterborough which is the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe Mississauga people adjacent to Haudenosaunee Territory and in the territory covered by the Williams Treaty. I went to the farm to record winter soundscapes for this episode, Winter Diary Revisited, which is a soundscape composition dedicated to the memory of composer, writer, music educator, and environmentalist, R. Murray Schafer.1st floor of barn of R. Murray Schafer and Elanor James, near Indian River, ON, January 19, 2022Eleanor James, January 19, 2022, Indian River, Ontario (photo by me)While visiting the farm, I had a conversation with Eleanor James about Murray and his relationship to winter. Here is an excerpt:Claude: I'm with Eleanor James and I just spent some time in your barn. Thank you so much. I recorded a bunch of sounds, and I went into the forest and captured sounds of wind and some of the things that Murray and I did when we did the Winter Diary, which is to do this kind of yelling out, to enliven the space and get a feeling of it. (sound of snowshoeing and distant 'Hey' at the farm on January 19, 2022)Claude: There are so many things that you could talk about Murray. Any thoughts about soundscapes but also around recording and winter sounds? Eleanor: There's a couple of things come to mind, which are in his creative output and one of them is Music in the Cold. It's a lovely little manifesto done in an artistic style about how it's better to be in the North than in the South and that music in the cold is tougher and hardier and more austere and (laughs) so he goes into a diatribe about that kind of thing. He really is a Northern personality. So, you have to forgive him for going on a rant about it, but, of course, it was an artistic creation, so it was intended to be hyperbolic. I think it's quite delightful. It's got a midnight blue cover and then the title Music in the Cold.Speaking of which, he has written a wonderful string quartet called Winter Birds which the Molinari quartet of Montreal have recorded, in which his own voice occurs in the very last movement where he describes the winter of 2005 looking out his studio window at the birds feeding. We used to fill the feeders with seeds, and we'd have all kinds of little birds coming and fluttering and going and making little soft sounds. In the string quartet, he describes a whole event of birds, just fluttering and coming and going and the total silence surrounding them, not only acoustically, but visually as well. Nothing but the snow, just like it is today, with snow heaped everywhere and just these little birds making tiny fluttering sounds with their wings.There's also the piece that he wrote for choir called Snowforms which is actually quite popular, and he wrote it as a graphic score and it's written on a sort of pale turquoise green paper, and the choir reads the shapes of snow and again, those shapes were something that he observed looking out his studio window and drew graphically and then composed it so that pitches were associated with these tones. It's just a marvelous description of winter and so for Murray, all of the soundscape work that he was so interested in fed into his artistic abilities and his artistic gifts as a composer.Note: See String Quartet no. 10 - Winter Birds (extrait) / R. Murray Schafer for an excerpt of Winter Birds performed by the Molinari Quartet. See Snowforms for a performance of Snowforms by the Vancouver Chamber Choir.I re-read Murray’s Music in the Cold book when I got back home to Ottawa, which he wrote in 1977, when I was 17. It’s interesting to look back at this piece of artistic reflection and provocation. Here are the last 11 lines of the book: Saplings are beginning to sprout again in the moist earth.Beneath it animals can be heard digging their burrows.Soon the thrush will return.The old technology of waste is gone.What then remains?The old virtues: harmony; the universal soul; hard work.I will live supersensitized, the antennae of a new race.I will create a new mythology.It will take time.It will take time.There will be time. (fade in recording of Eclogue for an Alpine Meadow)I remember back in August of 1985, the late composer Robert Rosen, Murray and I produced a series of ecological radio programs to be performed at Spry Lake, near Canmore, Alberta. Murray was in Banff to present his music theatre piece Princess of the Stars. We each wrote a piece of music for this space.  Mine was for bass clarinet and trombone called ‘Eclogue for an Alpine Meadow’ . You can hear me on bass clarinet. Murray was a mentor to Robert and myself on this project, sharing his vast experience in writing music for and with a natural environment. Note: You can hear the entire piece on the Whom Am I page of the conscient podcast website. Robert Rosen, R. Murray Schafer and me in Banff in 1985 during ecological radio programs project (photo credit unknown)Excerpt of first page of my ‘Eclogue for an Alpine Meadow’ for bass clarinet and tromboneMe and trombonist (name not known) at Spray Lake, Alberta, recording ‘Eclogue for an Alpine Meadow’ for bass clarinet and trombone (photo credit unknown)Murray’s music, and in particular his research in acoustic ecology, have had a deep influence on many composers, educators, researchers and sound artists around the world, including myself. Among other things, Murray taught me how to listen deeply, both with my ears and with a microphone.Me, Kozo Hiramatsu and R. Murray Schafer at Hör Upp! Stockholm acoustic ecology conference, Stockholm, Sweden 1998 (photo credit unknown)I remember having long conversations with Murray about listening, radio, acoustic ecology, field recording, technology, including how it make a living as a composer. Here is a short excerpt from a conversation I had with him in July of 1990 in a restaurant in Peterborough. I apologise for the poor quality of the recording, but I think you’ll enjoy listening to Murray speak about the art of listening:You probe by asking further questions. Was it inside? Was it outside? Are there a lot of people assembled there? Is there nobody there? Is this in Canada? Is it outside of Canada? Is it in Europe? You heard a train. Is it Canadian train whistle or a European train whistle? You heard a language. What language was it you heard? Any of these cues that you might have heard that would help you identify where you were and then tell them afterwards where the actual recording was made but force them to really use their ears. Did you hear any birds? Did you hear any of this, did you hear any sounds that would help you to localize? I'm just saying that that's one sort of type of exercise, which I think someday somebody should put together a package, an educational package.I just feel that one has to constantly go back to nature and listen again, look again, learn again. It’s as simple as that. Anytime you get too far in touch with it, you're probably going to be in trouble. If you don't know how to come, go back and look at a butterfly, because you're so spell bound by strobe lights or something, I think you're in trouble, which is not to say that you can't go back and look at it and reanalyze it. It will change things and then you go back to your old environment and see things differently. In nature, what you're so conscious of is a cycle of life and death, and rather the interchange, that almost sine wave of life and death, but also of silence and activity and that there are certain times when certain creatures are far and certain other times when they speak and that you take in the natural soundscape. Sometimes it's hard to find those rhythms in a modern urban soundscape where everybody sounds so aggressively trying to catch the attention of everyone else.Claude: they lose touch with the balance of their lives.Murray passed away on August 14, 2021, at age 88 in his farmhouse.Home of R. Murray Schafer and Eleanor James, Indian River, Ontario, January 19, 2022Studio of R. Murray Schafer, Indian River, Ontario, January 19, 2022Shortly after his passing, I was honoured to be asked to write a remembrance piece about my personal experience with Murray. This request came from Eric Leonardson, president of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE) an organization that Murray helped found in 1993 at the Banff Centre and that continues its good work to this day. Kirk MacKenzie and Robin Elliott of the University of Toronto also approached me to write a remembrance piece about Murray for a series of memorials they are producing about Murray and his legacy. I decided to produce a soundscape composition instead of writing an article for this remembrance piece. Here’s the story.In 1996, Murray received a commission from the Akustische Kunst department of the West German Radio, the WDR, in Germany, produced by Klaus Schöning, to record a radio program about the winter soundscapes of rural Manitoba called Winter Diary. Murray had produced many radio pieces before for the CBC and the WDR, but he needed a hand with this rather large-sc

'I came to realize that in season three that I continue to be very deeply moved by the layering of words and soundscapes. There's something about it, when new contexts for listening are created, that I find it very stimulating. It's like the spirits of the sounds are actually speaking directly to me and that I can hear and feel their presence. Now I've always felt this, but I rarely talk about it, because it sounds so, you know, strange or is hard to explain, but there it is. It's something that I just love doing and I'm interested to know if you have any similar experiences, so please write or reach out to me and let me know.' This episode is a reading of my January 2022  conscient podcast blog about some of the high and lows of season 3 of this podcast and my interest in layering words and soundscapes that create new contexts for listening, with excerpts from episodes 65, 69, 81, 86, 96 and a preview of e99 Winter Diary Revisited. script conscient podcast, episode 98.  This episode is a reading of my conscient podcast blog for the month of January 2022. Some might recall that I started the 3rd season of this podcast with a fictional case study: (Teacher) Today, we’re going to do a case study today of the second season of the conscient podcast, which ran from March to August 2021. It was produced by an Ottawa based sound artist, Claude Schryer, who is passed away now, but I was very fortunate that his children, Riel and Clara, kindly helped me do some of the research for this class. I want to check if you have all had a chance to listen to the course materials, which were… conscient podcast episodes…   19 reality and 62 compilation. Were you… (Male student, interrupting) Excuse me, but can you tell us why did you choose this podcast? Historically speaking, you know, there were other podcasts in Canada in 2021 that also explored issues of art and environment. Why this one? (Teacher) That’s a very good question. I chose the second season of this podcast because Schryer was exploring the themes of reality and ecological grief, which were timely in 2021 and still are today. Also, because it gives us a snapshot of what artists and cultural workers were thinking about in relation to the ecological crisis. I had fun doing that episode with my family. I presented it to a couple of university classes in the fall of 2021 and got some good feedback. For example, I appreciated this question from a student in an arts policy, equity and activism class at centennial college:  My question is more towards the arts industry in terms of activism. I feel like there's a really high risk for burnout and for a lack of reward in terms of the work that you do. I think a lot of the time it falls on deaf ears and so I was wondering in your experience, what support systems have been put in place to support arts activists in their journey? You can hear my answer and more conversation about art activism in episode 86. I will conclude season 3 with episode 99, a soundscape composition called Winter Diary Revisited, my homage to composer R. Murray Schafer, who passed away in August of 2021. The piece features excerpts from an unpublished essay that Schafer wrote after a 10-day field recording trip that we undertook in rural Manitoba in February 1997 to record a radio program about winter soundscapes for the west German radio. L’épisode 100 du balado conscient sera la version française de cette composition de paysages sonores : Journal d'hiver revisité. After publishing episode 100, I will take a break from podcast production and think about next steps. During this time, I invite you to get caught up on topics of interest in season 3, which started with episode 65, recorded while floating on a kayak at the cottage: … There's a duck... you hear.... di-di-di... the wings are so beautiful … - and share the process of failure and attempts to change that didn't work, in a very straightforward kind of way, because that's life: where we make mistakes and stumble and learn and get excited and then look back and we observe that. So that's what season three will begin like as like. Actually, I can't predict what it will end like, because, well, I'm just starting …. I did make mistakes, stumble, learn and get excited in season 3. For example, my promise to do short episodes, of doing everything in a ‘single take’ or asking all guests about radical listening. I learned and adjusted my ways as season 3 unfolded and I got better at listening, sometimes quite radically, to my guests during conversations. I was able to do most of my conversations live in Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal, which improved the sound quality of the show.  However, some episodes did not work out as I had hoped. For example, here  is the beginning of e69 soundwalk in the dark.  Good morning. It’s 4.56am on Wednesday September 29th and I’m about to go for soundwalk in the dark. I wanted to share with you this experience and see what happens.  At the time it seemed like a good idea to share my experience of improvising a soundwalk in the dark however, the result, in this case, was a lot of fun to produce but did not make for good podcast listening. In retrospect, I should have only kept the best moments from that soundwalk, like this one:  I’m on a hill so you can feel gravity. The pull towards downwards is an interesting sensation, like dancing with the mountain.  So, I’ll continue to experiment with new formats and uncomfortable situations in this podcast but next time I will ensure higher production values. My apologies for episode 69 and some of my other rambling monologues. On a more positive note, one of things I realized during season 3 is my sensitivity to tone of voice. For example, episode 81 is this called inspiration and explores how ‘the tone and emotion in the voice of each person inspires and uplifts me every time I listen to it’. Here is the first minute of e81. Art is a practice of expanding consciousness, which gives us a tremendous opportunity to explore and to embody possibility (Rebecca Mwase) We want to awaken in order to be a service to everyone. (David Loy) Creative cultural allegiance and how do we use that in a purposeful way is a critical question for us all. (Alison Tickell) Comment faire en sorte de nourrir une nouvelle realité? Comment créer de l’art qui soit régénératif? Qui nourrisse quelque chose. (Anne-Catherine Lebeau) I also came to realize during season 3 that I am deeply moved by the layering of words and soundscapes that create new contexts for listening. It’s like the spirits of the sounds are speaking to me. I can hear and feel their presence. I always have felt this but rarely talk about it because it sounds … strange and it’s hard to explain. Maybe you have had similar experiences? Feel free to let me know. Here’s an example (and a preview) from episode 99: When Murray and I recorded Winter Diary in 1997, we recorded a lot of different winter sounds, but not cross-country skiing and it is a typical sound of winter in Canada and a very rich one. You can hear me skiing now as well as people skiing beside me. Skiing sounds have a number of different of elements: there the push and pull of the ski and the poles that hit in the snow and of course the breath of the skier and sometimes you can hear the wind in the trees: snowmobiles in the distance, dog… See you in season 4. I don’t know what the theme or format of season 4 will be yet but I anticipate that it will continue to be about art and the ecological crisis. I’ll update the website and rework the format a bit. Je pense aussi séparer les balados en francais pour faciliter l’accès et la visibilité de ces épisodes. I should be back during the spring of 2022.  One theme that interests me in future episodes is the idea of liminal space that Joan Sullivan talks about in episode 96  :  We find ourselves in a liminal space right now and liminal space means it's that time between what was and what's next. That's where we are. It's a place of not knowing and unless all of us humans, and not just artists, recognize that we are already in a transition - not just an energy transition - but a cultural, a democratic, a social transition. There is an end. We will come out of this. No one knows how, but we will pass through. It's inevitable and what waits on the other side is up to us to design. See you on the other side. Thanks for listening.

'We are missing so many voices that could be the change. Art gives us that opportunity to amplify those voices and I think it's important that now, more than ever, that we amplify those marginalized voices, those racialized voices, those voices that are being directly affected with what's happening around mother earth (CHANTAL CHAGNON). An online map that showcases all the ideas, artists, institutions, projects and programs that are around this idea of climate and art intersecting with each other, and we would launch this resource at the online sharing that would happen in spring of 2022 (KEVIN JESUINO) I think part of the question what it is that art can do in this moment of time in terms of the climate emergency. (MELANIE KLOETZEL). I always say traditional indigenous knowledge, we were the prime example of what sustainability should be. (CHANTAL CHAGNON)' My #conscientpodcast conversation with indigenous artist Chantal Chagnon, multidisciplinary artist Kevin Jesuino and performance maker & educator Dr. Melanie Kloetzel of the climate art web project about decolonization, networking, mapping and growing the climate arts movement.

'We find ourselves in a liminal space right now and liminal space means it's that time between what was and what's next. That's where we are. It's a place of not knowing and unless all of us humans, and not just artists, recognize that we are already in a transition - not just an energy transition - but a cultural, a democratic, a social transition. There is an end. We will come out of this. No one knows how, but we will pass through. It's inevitable and what waits on the other side is up to us to design.' I’ve been wanting to have Joan on the conscient podcast since season 1 but she is a very busy artist and writer, plus we wanted to record our conversation in situ on her farm near Rimouski, Québec however COVID-19 did not allow that, so we settled for a warm remote recording on December 20, 2021, which was a lot of fun. I consider Joan a kindred spirit in our respective journey into the climate emergency through art. We both believe in the power of art and are both equally terrified by what we are doing to ourselves as a species mixed with stubborn belief that ‘we will pass through this’ and that ‘what waits on the other side is up to us to design’.  Joan is an accomplished bilingual photographer and writer who uses both documentary and abstract methodologies in her work. She also writes a monthly column about the intersection of art, artists and the energy transition for the international blog Artists and Climate Change. On her web site https://www.joansullivanphotography.com/, she describes her life (so far) in 3 acts as per below:  Act One  Joan Sullivan spent her first 50 years studying/working to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, mostly in Africa. With a master’s in public health from Harvard, she criss-crossed the continent at the height of the HIV epidemic, working for a variety of international organizations to fund community-based HIV prevention programs targeting the most vulnerable populations: women, migrants, orphans. She recognizes that it was a privilege, a gift in fact, to have been able to spend so much of her adult life in Africa. It was in Africa that Sullivan's photography matured, thanks in part to Mike Hutchings at Reuters (Johannesburg office) who gave her her first gig as a stringer based in Botswana. Sullivan also moonlighted for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as a photographer. Act Two  Upon returning to Canada, Joan Sullivan turned her cameras to an even greater cause: climate change. Since 2009, she has documented the construction of some of North America's largest wind and solar farms. But the more the climate crisis worsens, the more Sullivan's photography evolves from documentary to abstraction. Joan Sullivan is currently experimenting with intentional camera movement (ICM) as a new language to express her eco-anxiety and solastalgia about the planetary crisis and all that we have already lost. It was during the "Study of Artistic Practice", a two-year program at the University of Quebec in Rimouski (UQAR) led by Danielle Boutet, that Joan Sullivan started working on her new series of abstract photographs entitled "Je suis fleuve" (English translation: "I am river"). Through this ongoing project, Sullivan embodies the chaos of the disappearing winter ice on the Saint Lawrence River. Since 2020, these "beautiful images filled with dread" (according to a review by Danielle Legentil, 2020) have been exhibited extensively in Quebec's Lower Saint Lawrence region, including the Jardins de Métis, the Centre d'art de Kamouraska, and most recently the Centre d'artistes Caravansérail in Rimouski.  Act Three  The next chapter in Joan Sullivan's evolving artistic practice is audio. She is currently experimenting with underwater recordings of melting ice, which for Sullivan evoke the cry of the belugas. Her next project will be a marriage of moving images and audio recordings in order to create a series of sensory and embodied multidisciplinary installations. Her first installation is planned for early 2023. But first, she has been invited to a winter residency along the banks of the Saint Lawrence River, at the famous Jardins de Métis in eastern Quebec.

'Yes, we agree that anti-racism is important. Yes we agree that anti oppression is important. Yes, we agree that equity is important. Yes, we agree that sovereignty is important for indigenous peoples in particular and that decolonization is really important but to us, these are tools to get toward a new society, to transform the world in which we live. If I can refer to the panel that we had the other day that led off this conference, to get out of the social historical economic trap that we're currently in, that forces us to compete with each other, that forces us, as Peru ?? was saying, to ignore the land and what the land is trying to say to us, that forces us to treat certain arts as better than others, without truly understanding the artistic standards that some arts products are created to turn. To turn over the Massey Commission and say, you know what, that is the trap that we're also in. These historical institutions that have come out since the 1950s that basically are struggling with relevance this day and age.' (Charles C. Smith) 'We hear conversations around this idea of back to normal and I beg to question: was it ever normal before? What's the better? Was it best before? We wanted to have a conversation around the state of how artists and arts organizations emerging out of a pandemic and also what it means in a time of planetary renewal, given also the racial reckoning about renewal that was going on, we felt it that there were assumptions being made about how we would begin again and so we wanted to make sure that we had our different panels and focus around this idea of starting back, but also addressing what was happening to artists and to organizations prior to the pandemic that led to some of the further marginalization of IBPOC artists and the further under sourcing of IBPOC artists so how do we begin to address that so that can be shifted or changed emerging out of the pandemic.' (Kevin A. Ormsby) My conversation with Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario (CPAMO) Executive Director Charles C. Smith and Program Manager Kevin A. Ormsby on Dec 10, 2021 about the Gathering Divergence Multi-Arts Festival & Conference Fall 2021 | Art in the Time of Healing: The Importance of IBPOC Arts in Planetary Renewal. 1 of 6 episodes recorded at this event.   I was honoured when Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario (CPAMO) Program Manager Kevin A. Ormsby asked me to moderate a panel on National Cultural Policy and arts in Response to Climate Change at the Gathering Divergence Multi-Arts Festival & Conference Fall 2021 | Art in the Time of Healing: The Importance of IBPOC Arts in Planetary Renewal in Toronto on December 10, 2021.  Later on that day, I caught up with CPAMO Executive Director Charles C. Smith and Kevin to talk about their aspirations for the gathering and the state of IBPOC arts communities. This episode also includes excerpts from their keynote presentation earlier that day about the Living in the Skin I am In: Experiential Learnings, Approaches and Considerations Towards Anti-Black Racism in the Arts publication.  Program Manager of Cultural Pluralism in the Arts Movement Ontario (CPAMO), Kevin A. Ormsby is also the Artistic Director of KasheDance, movement coach and Arts Marketing Consultant. The Ontario Arts Council’s Chalmers Fellowship recipient (2017), KM Hunter Dance Award Nominee (2016), Toronto Arts Council’s Cultural Leaders Lab Fellow (2015) and The Canada Council for the Arts’ Victor Martyn Lynch – Staunton Award 2014 recipient for outstanding achievement by a mid-career artist, he has many interests in the creative practice and administration in dance. He has honed his passion for dance, advocacy, writing and education while performing with various companies and projects in Canada, the Caribbean and the United States. charles c. smith is a poet, playwright and essayist who has written and edited twelve books. He studied poetry and drama with William Packard, editor of the New York Quarterly Magazine, at New York University and Herbert Berghof Studios. He also studied drama at the Frank Silvera’s Writers’ Workshop in Harlem. He won second prize for his play Last Days for the Desperate from Black Theatre Canada, has edited three collections of poetry (including the works of Dionne Brand, Marlene Nourbese Phillips, Claire Harris, Cyril Dabydeen, Lillian Allen, George Elliot Clarke, Clifton Joseph), has four published books of poetry and his poetry has appeared in numerous journals and magazines, including Poetry Canada Review, the Quille and Quire, Descant, Dandelion, Fiddlehead, Anti-Racism in Education: Missing in Action (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives), the Amethyst Review, Bywords, Canadian Ethnic Studies and others. This is one of 6 episodes recorded during the Gathering Divergence Multi-Arts Festival & Conference Fall 2021 | Art in the Time of Healing: The Importance of IBPOC Arts in Planetary Renewalevent from December 8 to 10, 2021 in Toronto. The others are: episode 90, my conversation with dance artist, choreographer, director and embodiment facilitator Shannon Litzenberger and reading her State of Emergence: Why We Need Artists Right Now essay episode 91, my conversation with Keith Barker, artistic director of Native Earth Performing Arts, including a reading of his new 5 minute Climate Change Theatre Action play, Apology, My at the end of this episode episode 92, a presentation (including audience questions) by Santee Smith, artistic director of Kaha:wi Dance Theatre from the National Cultural Policy and arts in Response to Climate Change panel episode 93, a presentation (including audience questions) by Anthony Garoufalis-Auger from the National Cultural Policy and arts in Response to Climate Change panel episode 94, a presentation (including audience questions) by Devon Hardy from the National Cultural Policy and arts in Response to Climate Change panel Charles C. Smith and Kevin A. Orsmby, December 10, 2021, Aki Studio, Toronto

'We have a national data set that's about to emerge and that's a really powerful thing. If we can gather data from across the country from arts and culture organizations across the country and build a data set over time, then we'll actually be able to understand what kind of programming we need for environmental sustainability in the arts and culture sector. We can actually do that based on the demonstrated needs of the community.' I first met Devon when she was working freelance doing environmental assessment for theatre companies in Montreal. I was impressed by her commitment to both the arts and the sciences. Since then, we have had many conversations with Devon about her work with Creative Green tools adaptation project and the importance of measurement tools for the arts sector in the climate emergency. I wanted to share this knowledge with listeners, so I went for a walk with Devon in December 16th 2021 and combined this conversation with her presentation at the CPAMO National Cultural Policy and arts in Response to Climate Change panel on December 10. At the very end of the episode, you hear my phone ring. It was my daughter telling me about a Covid outbreak of the Omicron variant in her university. A sign of the times…  Devon’s educational background includes a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Sciences and a master’s degree in Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). For the last several years, she has been working to combine her technical knowledge of environmental sciences and impact measurement with her involvement in the arts community by collaborating on various sustainability initiatives in partnership with Ecosceno, the St-Ambroise Montreal FRINGE Festival, the Quebec Drama Federation, the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts and Climatable, among others. She is currently manager of the Creative Green project.  This is one of 6 episodes recorded during the Gathering Divergence Multi-Arts Festival & Conference Fall 2021 | Art in the Time of Healing: The Importance of IBPOC Arts in Planetary Renewalevent from December 8 to 10, 2021 in Toronto. The others are: episode 90, my conversation with dance artist, choreographer, director and embodiment facilitator Shannon Litzenberger and reading her State of Emergence: Why We Need Artists Right Now essay episode 91, my conversation with Keith Barker, artistic director of Native Earth Performing Arts, including a reading of his new 5 minute Climate Change Theatre Action play, Apology, My at the end of this episode episode 92, a presentation (including audience questions) by Santee Smith, artistic director of Kaha:wi Dance Theatre from the National Cultural Policy and arts in Response to Climate Change panel episode 93, a presentation (including audience questions) by Anthony Garoufalis-Auger from the National Cultural Policy and arts in Response to Climate Change panel episode 95, my conversation with CPAMO Executive Director Charles Smithand artistic programmer Kevin Ormsby from a keynote address including excerpts from their conversation about the Living in the Skin I am In: Experiential Learnings, Approaches and Considerations Towards Anti-Black Racism in the Arts publication Santee Smith, me (from laptop and room camera), Anthony Garoufalis-Auger and Devon Hardy