Recorded September 25, 2019, Columbus, OH. "...how do we allow more space for nature to do the repair are that it is inherently capable of doing, on one hand and we've done a lot of damage. On the other hand, you know, our bodies heal the earth heals. How do we kind of take our own assumptions and biases and determinations of what's useful to us and sideline that all we think about what's useful to all of life."

"The art that speaks to me as a citizen, as a human, starts where suddenly another space opens up for me—a space where I can face my fears, my hopes, embrace all my contradictions—and in that process makes me yearn for being more human." - Faustin Linyekula A conversation with Congolese artist Faustin Linyekula who makes theater works and performs as a dancer and musician storyteller. His work is visceral and intense and also creates aesthetically rich and beautiful worlds that holds space for us to be moved, vibrated, shifted, transformed, and become more ready to do the work at hand. As is true of all of the conversations in our first season, I had this conversation with Faustin before the COVID-19 pandemic. I was traveling in New Zealand/Aoteoroa, listening, learning, and gathering inspiration from artists working and presenting at the New England Festival of the Arts. You will hear in his words and work, many ideas that will help you turn toward uncertainty and crisis with more of your creative capacities. He assures us that instability has always been the human condition and that in releasing our attachment to the illusion of stability we become more free.

“Love the body that you're in, no matter how old you are and understand that there's been wisdom and experience through your body. You know, I've loved just being in my body. I've love playing, you know, just being an athlete, perform, whatever I've done. That is a blessing, you know, so many people just have such, you know, just such body shaming in our entire culture. The second one is, once you get past that or able to like really work with that is then, figure out ways to recall the ancestors for each other, you know? The good and bad, like you know, what was that comment so-and-so made, let's really unpack that. Or what is that thing this relative did. What did that really mean? What were they really doing? Cause that'll lead you down a road that you just would never expect. That'll tell you about yourself. That is a way to call on ancestors. That's a way to call on elders.” —Andre M. Zachery

“What if we're preserving the planet for our bacterial ancestors who are our oldest ancestors and will probably be the last of us on this planet. Like what if our work is to sustain and preserve a planet for the more than human life as well? Vast kinship networks, including the children and not limited to the children. So all of our kin.” –Michael Morris

“So how do you sit with sudden and an immense radical change, like in Australia with the fires or with Hong Kong, with their riots and Chile with their protests and being able to keep imagining and know that, that the changes could go in so many different directions, but to hold a commitment to a value system or to small acts of attention and care and love.” -Alys Longley

"How is our work connected to movement building, to transforming ourselves and our communities? I feel like for me personally, music, art, and creativity has kept me alive; it has got me through a lot of hard things. And I feel like the cultural movements and communities that I've learned about creativity through have brought me a lot of insights into what's possible. Not just criticizing and illuminating injustice, which I've learned a lot about through music, art, creativity, but also the possibilities of imagining more liberatory realities that we can start embodying on a small scale sometimes through our creative practices and through how we collaborate. Especially for us as Complex Movements, how we collaborate between a movement building work, that directly challenges, systemic violence, and power. While simultaneously building community power community vision and starting to enact that." -Complex Movements

"I think with everything happening in the world today, it's so much easier to just think of the doom and to just sit in the doom and say, well, I mean, why waste time imagining a future when it's probably not going to happen? And I try as hard as it is to live my life by the concept or with the concept of radical hope and just the idea that. No matter how ridiculous my hope in the future might seem I'm going to have it anyway" - Emalani Case

“Centering livability instead of sustainability emphasizes social justice and ecological ethics…and it invites critical rethinking of who survives and who gets to thrive in our communities including the full spectrum of biological and artificial life.” Arrive into the moment, decenter "the human" in the fullness of life on the planet, and explore actionable ideas for living well and contributing to better futures.