24th US Poet Laureate ADA LIMÓN on Memory, Wonder & Listening to the Living World - Highlights

24th US Poet Laureate ADA LIMÓN on Memory, Wonder & Listening to the Living World - Highlights

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It’s always very interesting that we have to make a case for art because we don’t have to make a case for fast food. Like, we don’t have to make a case for all of these sort of things in our lives that we do not need, and yet we have to make a case for beauty? We have to make a case for the soul? We have to make a case for humanity? We have to make a case for singing back the wounded world? That to me is fascinating.

Science in Resistance: Direct Action for Climate Justice, Democracy in Education w/ FERNANDO RACIMO

Science in Resistance: Direct Action for Climate Justice, Democracy in Education w/ FERNANDO RACIMO

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By pretending like science is neutral or apolitical, we're really feeding a particular discourse which serves whatever political structures are in place right now, whatever status quo is in place right now. Science can never be apolitical because it's a human activity, it's practiced in society with others, with human and more-than-human beings.

ADA LIMÓN on Nature, Interconnectedness & The Power of Poetry

ADA LIMÓN on Nature, Interconnectedness & The Power of Poetry

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It’s always very interesting that we have to make a case for art because we don’t have to make a case for fast food. Like, we don’t have to make a case for all of these sort of things in our lives that we do not need, and yet we have to make a case for beauty? We have to make a case for the soul? We have to make a case for humanity? We have to make a case for singing back the wounded world? That to me is fascinating.

EMMY VAN DEURZEN on Existential Freedom, Finding Meaning & the Wonder of Natural World

EMMY VAN DEURZEN on Existential Freedom, Finding Meaning & the Wonder of Natural World

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As a psychotherapist, I've worked with thousands of people over my 53 years of practice, and I have had to learn to love each and every one of them. There is something about opening your heart and stopping judging and arguing, and listening again, inquiring until you find what is most lovable about another person, and that is a very difficult thing to do. We're all inclined to reject one another, even the people we love. It is very difficult to systematically seek to accord the other respect, your attention, your care, your capacity for appreciating and valuing what is good in them and what is possible for them in the future.

AQUA: A Story of Water & Lost Dreams w/ Author, Screenwriter CHIARA BARZINI

AQUA: A Story of Water & Lost Dreams w/ Author, Screenwriter CHIARA BARZINI

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I think first of all that in order to have disillusion, you need to have illusion and I really want to sort of take a stand in the name of being a delusional person, you know? I do think illusions are necessary to our sense of creativity, and we need to fall in love with extreme projects, and we need to have ideas that are sometimes unsustainable. We need to dream big in order to be creative and feel alive. The illusions that are a part of Aqua are larger illusions. They're illusions that have to do with my adult life. They're connected to nature and the presence or absence of water, the illusion that we can keep sustaining a city even though the water has run out.

Los Angeles, Lost Dreams, Illusions & the End of Empire - A Road Trip w/ CHIARA BARZINI - Highlights

Los Angeles, Lost Dreams, Illusions & the End of Empire - A Road Trip w/ CHIARA BARZINI - Highlights

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I think first of all that in order to have disillusion, you need to have illusion and I really want to sort of take a stand in the name of being a delusional person, you know? I do think illusions are necessary to our sense of creativity, and we need to fall in love with extreme projects, and we need to have ideas that are sometimes unsustainable. We need to dream big in order to be creative and feel alive. The illusions that are a part of Aqua are larger illusions. They're illusions that have to do with my adult life. They're connected to nature and the presence or absence of water, the illusion that we can keep sustaining a city even though the water has run out.

Navigating Collective Care, Heat Waves: Bioacoustics, Ecology & Human Synchronicity w/ LINCOLN CENTER’S SHANTA THAKE

Navigating Collective Care, Heat Waves: Bioacoustics, Ecology & Human Synchronicity w/ LINCOLN CENTER’S SHANTA THAKE

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Lincoln Center is multiple stages. I think probably over three dozen stages across 16 acres. It is a vast canvas in and of itself. And then we have this beautiful plaza that leads to this beautiful campus, and that’s the visual I think that most people have when they think of Lincoln Center is this beautiful fountain in the center and these three gorgeous buildings.It’s New York’s biggest plaza, and it feels very vibrant and beautiful. In the summer, we really take that plaza and we transform it into a dance floor. So this idea of also interrupting what people’s notion of Lincoln Center is because it’s a space that is very aspirational, which is a great thing.

Ecological Empathy, Time & Memory with GEORGI GOSPODINOV & ANGELA RODEL

Ecological Empathy, Time & Memory with GEORGI GOSPODINOV & ANGELA RODEL

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We are in the middle of a labyrinth which suggests to us many fake corridors. What's the superpower of literature? Literature is like an antidote against propaganda. Propaganda explains the world easily in a two-dimensional way.  Literature gives you a more complex explanation. Literature tells personal stories.

Literature, The Lives of Animals & the Future of Humanity w/ G. GOSPODINOV & A. RODEL - Highlights

Literature, The Lives of Animals & the Future of Humanity w/ G. GOSPODINOV & A. RODEL - Highlights

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We are in the middle of a labyrinth which suggests to us many fake corridors. What's the superpower of literature? Literature is like an antidote against propaganda. Propaganda explains the world easily in a two-dimensional way.  Literature gives you a more complex explanation. Literature tells personal stories.

How Animals Are Adapting to Cities & Reshaping the Natural World w/ Author & Epidemiologist DAN WERB

How Animals Are Adapting to Cities & Reshaping the Natural World w/ Author & Epidemiologist DAN WERB

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So synanthropes are animals that have adapted to human-modified environments, and the Greek translation essentially is together with humans, so synanthrope. And they're a fascinating subset of wild animals that they're all around us, but we don't really notice them. And so in this new book, I was excited about writing something that had to do with the natural world. I was excited about writing something that touched on climate change and the way that the world was changing, but maybe not with such a sort of dirgey approach or funereal approach. Something that actually explored the wonder of the world as it is and as we experience it around our communities in our cities and towns. And I had come across this word synanthrope in the research for my last book, The Invisible Siege, which was about the rise of coronaviruses and the long scientific journey to find cures for COVID-19, and it just kind of stuck with me. There is this connection, of course, between wild animals and viruses and lots of questions about the origin of SARS-2, the virus that spread COVID-19 and caused the pandemic. And while that's touched on in the book a little bit, the vast majority of what I was excited to write about was just what these animals are doing in our cities. How is it that wild animals, raccoons, coyotes, all kinds of birds and animals as fragile as bats… These are not just insects and earthworms and things like that. These are very large predators that have nevertheless found a way to survive among us. And that in and of itself I think is just an amazing story and what I explore in this book.

Our Wild Familiars - DR. DAN WERB on Animals that Live Among Us & Urban Wildlife Conservation - Highlights

Our Wild Familiars - DR. DAN WERB on Animals that Live Among Us & Urban Wildlife Conservation - Highlights

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So synanthropes are animals that have adapted to human-modified environments, and the Greek translation essentially is together with humans, so synanthrope. And they're a fascinating subset of wild animals that they're all around us, but we don't really notice them. And so in this new book, I was excited about writing something that had to do with the natural world. I was excited about writing something that touched on climate change and the way that the world was changing, but maybe not with such a sort of dirgey approach or funereal approach. Something that actually explored the wonder of the world as it is and as we experience it around our communities in our cities and towns. And I had come across this word synanthrope in the research for my last book, The Invisible Siege, which was about the rise of coronaviruses and the long scientific journey to find cures for COVID-19, and it just kind of stuck with me. There is this connection, of course, between wild animals and viruses and lots of questions about the origin of SARS-2, the virus that spread COVID-19 and caused the pandemic. And while that's touched on in the book a little bit, the vast majority of what I was excited to write about was just what these animals are doing in our cities. How is it that wild animals, raccoons, coyotes, all kinds of birds and animals as fragile as bats… These are not just insects and earthworms and things like that. These are very large predators that have nevertheless found a way to survive among us. And that in and of itself I think is just an amazing story and what I explore in this book.

From Extraction to Regeneration: Redesigning Our Relationship with Nature

From Extraction to Regeneration: Redesigning Our Relationship with Nature

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We explore our changing planet, from the melting ice in Greenland to the depleted soils of our farmlands. We’re joined writers, advocates and visionaries to discuss environmental justice, circular economies, and actionable design. Abrahm Lustgarten, Jon Gertner, Liza Featherstone, Rebecca Tickell, Bill Hare, Rob Nixon, Euan Nisbet, Roland Geyer, William McDonough, Carlo Ratti, Jason deCaires Taylor, Jane Madgwick, Paul Shrivastava, Osprey Orielle Lake, Ron Gonen, Louis de Jaeger, Kathleen Rogers, Yolanda Kakabadse, and Ben Goldfarb.

Voices for the Earth: Sustainability, Nature, and the Changing World

Voices for the Earth: Sustainability, Nature, and the Changing World

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Why do we write? Today we explore the practice of writing as an awakening and a bridge to memory. We hear from poets and novelists, musicians, dancers, and science writers. Hala Alyan, Andre Dubus III, Jericho Brown, Ada Limón, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Max Stossel, Sy Montgomery, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Julian Lennon, Julia Christensen, and Erland Cooper discuss how to hold onto hope in a changing world.

Listening to the Living World: Ami Vitale, Yann Martel, Carl Safina, David George Haskell & Others on Climate Change & The Rights of Nature

Listening to the Living World: Ami Vitale, Yann Martel, Carl Safina, David George Haskell & Others on Climate Change & The Rights of Nature

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I want to be wowed by the world. I want to gaze at it in awe and wonder.

Clayton Page Aldern, David George Haskell, Yann Martel, Carl Safina, Martín von Hildebrand, Richard Black, Tom Chi, Paula Pinho, Osprey Orielle Lake, Bill Hare, Fred Pearce reflect on Climate Change & The Rights of Nature 

Building Bridges Between Memory, Nature & Architecture with SALWA & SELMA MIKOU

Building Bridges Between Memory, Nature & Architecture with SALWA & SELMA MIKOU

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Architecture should bring a true sensation of wellbeing. We were really lucky to experience that as children, and now as architects, we try to bring all that we learned into our practice.

How Flowers Made Our World: DAVID GEORGE HASKELL on Deep Time, Plant Intelligence & Listening to the Living World

How Flowers Made Our World: DAVID GEORGE HASKELL on Deep Time, Plant Intelligence & Listening to the Living World

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For at least 150 years biological sciences emphasized individuality and aloneness. So individual species, individual genes, individual organisms. And that's a useful view, up to a point. I mean, it is true that I am an individual organism. I've got a skin, and then the air begins and there's a gap between me and the next person over. But that view is also utterly false in many ways, in that the human body is not just comprised of human cells. There are bacteria, fungi, and viruses, all these other creatures that we now know are essential to our health. Our minds are not solitary. They're formed in relation to other beings. Ecosystems work only through relationship. So relationship and interconnection, not separation. And atomism is in fact the fundamental nature of life. Even from the very, very first fossils that we have of living organisms way back more than 3 billion years ago, these little cells are sitting next to one another.

Listening to the Living World: Biologist DAVID GEORGE HASKELL on Flowers, Forests & Songs of Nature - Highlights

Listening to the Living World: Biologist DAVID GEORGE HASKELL on Flowers, Forests & Songs of Nature - Highlights

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For at least 150 years biological sciences emphasized individuality and aloneness. So individual species, individual genes, individual organisms. And that's a useful view, up to a point. I mean, it is true that I am an individual organism. I've got a skin, and then the air begins and there's a gap between me and the next person over. But that view is also utterly false in many ways, in that the human body is not just comprised of human cells. There are bacteria, fungi, and viruses, all these other creatures that we now know are essential to our health. Our minds are not solitary. They're formed in relation to other beings. Ecosystems work only through relationship. So relationship and interconnection, not separation. And atomism is in fact the fundamental nature of life. Even from the very, very first fossils that we have of living organisms way back more than 3 billion years ago, these little cells are sitting next to one another.

The Environmental, Psychological, Emotional Impact of Occupation w/ Actress, Director CHERIEN DABIS

The Environmental, Psychological, Emotional Impact of Occupation w/ Actress, Director CHERIEN DABIS

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For me, we Palestinians are so much more than our pain and suffering, and the world often sees only our pain and suffering. I wanted to show other facets of who we are, no matter whether we're on the activist side of the spectrum or audience members who don't know very much about the situation. At the end of the day, we all have to choose humanity. In many ways I was inspired by observing the different generations of my own family and how our identities were shaped by everything happening in Palestine. That became the first idea for this film, to really show how it is a collective trauma for all Palestinians. That trauma is being passed down from generation to generation. Even if you're not a direct descendant of Nakba survivors, you still have that trauma. I wanted to explore that passage of trauma, that inheritance of my own trauma and take a look at how history and political events shape people.

 The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game with C. THI NGUYEN - Highlights

 The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else's Game with C. THI NGUYEN - Highlights

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To be in the process of making things, to be in the process of talking to people about what things mean… The creative process is actually, I think, the most meaningful part of life, but it's very hard to measure. When we get shoved towards a world that demands easy measurables, it's very hard to optimize away from the creative process and optimize towards things that are more static.

 Games that Help Us Reconnect with Nature & Our Sense and Wonder & Play with C. THI NGUYEN

 Games that Help Us Reconnect with Nature & Our Sense and Wonder & Play with C. THI NGUYEN

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To be in the process of making things, to be in the process of talking to people about what things mean… The creative process is actually, I think, the most meaningful part of life, but it's very hard to measure. When we get shoved towards a world that demands easy measurables, it's very hard to optimize away from the creative process and optimize towards things that are more static.