

The Creative Process · Arts, Culture & Society: Books, Film, Music, TV, Art, Writing, Creativity, Education, Environment, Theatre, Dance, LGBTQ, Climate Change, Social Justice, Spirituality, Feminism, Tech, Sustainability
Mia Funk
Exploring the fascinating minds of creative people. Conversations with writers, artists and creative thinkers across the Arts and STEM. We discuss their life, work and artistic practice. Winners of Oscar, Emmy, Tony, Pulitzer, Nobel Prize, leaders and public figures share real experiences and offer valuable insights. Notable guests and participating museums and organizations include: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Neil Patrick Harris, Smithsonian, Roxane Gay, Musée Picasso, EARTHDAY-ORG, Neil Gaiman, UNESCO, Joyce Carol Oates, Mark Seliger, Acropolis Museum, Hilary Mantel, Songwriters Hall of Fame, George Saunders, The New Museum, Lemony Snicket, Pritzker Architecture Prize, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Serpentine Galleries, Joe Mantegna, PETA, Greenpeace, EPA, Morgan Library and Museum, and many others.
The interviews are hosted by founder and creative educator Mia Funk with the participation of students, universities, and collaborators from around the world. These conversations are also part of our traveling exhibition.
The interviews are hosted by founder and creative educator Mia Funk with the participation of students, universities, and collaborators from around the world. These conversations are also part of our traveling exhibition.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jun 11, 2023 • 9min
ALICE FULTON - Poet, Essayist, Recipient of MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship
Alice Fulton’s books include Barely Composed, a poetry collection; The Nightingales Of Troy, linked stories; and Cascade Experiment: Selected Poems. Her book Felt received the Bobbitt Prize from the Library of Congress, awarded to the best book of poems published within a two-year period. She has received an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature and fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Guggenheim Foundation, and Ingram Merrill Foundation. Her other books include Sensual Math, Powers Of Congress, Palladium, Dance Script With Electric Ballerina, and an essay collection, Feeling As A Foreign Language. She lives in Ithaca, NY. www.alicefulton.comwww.miafunk.com www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Jun 9, 2023 • 4min
Pulitzer Prize-Winner JERICHO BROWN reads "Foreday in the Morning"
Jericho Brown is author of the The Tradition (Copper Canyon 2019), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please (New Issues 2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (Copper Canyon 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University.www.jerichobrown.com www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastPortrait of Jericho Brown by Mia Funk www.miafunk.com

Jun 8, 2023 • 35min
RICHARD VEVERS - Founder & CEO of The Ocean Agency · Featured in Netflix’s Chasing Coral
Richard Vevers is the Founder and CEO of The Ocean Agency. He is a fellow of The Explorers Club and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Rhode Island. He is best known for his leading role in the Emmy Award-winning documentary Chasing Coral on Netflix and his work has been featured in numerous publications and documentaries. Before diving into ocean and coral reef conservation, Vevers worked at some of the top London advertising agencies and then as an artist and underwater photographer. This background guides his unique creative and business-thinking approach to ocean conservation that includes inventing the camera that took Google Street View underwater, pioneering virtual reality ocean education, currently available to over 90 million kids, leading the most comprehensive underwater photographic survey of the world’s coral reefs, and developing a science-based global plan 50 Reefs."We don't use enough good storytelling when it comes to the ocean. We tend to focus on the ocean in almost that natural history approach, rather than talking about the people. Most people wouldn't be able to name an ocean explorer or anybody really associated with the oceans, which is a huge missed opportunity. We need more characters getting actively involved in storytelling around the ocean, so they become the sort of magnet for interest in the oceans."www.theoceanagency.orgwww.50reefs.orgwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Jun 8, 2023 • 22min
WORLD OCEANS DAY
Happy World Oceans Day! Today we’re streaming voices of environmentalists and artists with music courtesy of composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Erland Cooper.Voices on this episode areGIULIO BOCCALETTIAuthor of Water, A BiographyNatural Resource Security & Environmental Sustainability ExpertChief Strategy Officer 2016–2020, The Nature ConservancyPAULA PINHODirector of Just Transition at the European Commission Directorate-General for EnergyRON GONENFounder & CEO of Closed Loop PartnersFmr. Deputy Commissioner of Sanitation, Recycling & Sustainability, NYCMARCIA DESANCTISJournalist, Essayist, Author of A Hard Place to Leave: Stories from a Restless LifeJEAN WEINERGoldman Environmental Prize WinnerFounder of Fondation pour la Protection de la Biodiversité Marine, HaitiDERRICK EMSLEYCo-founder & CEO of veritree - Data-driven Restorative Platform & tentree Apparel Co.DR. FARHANA SULTANACo-author: Water Politics: Governance, Justice & the Right to WaterFmr. UNDP Programme Officer, United Nations Development ProgrammeNEIL GRIMMERBrand President of SOURCE Global · Innovator of the SOURCE Hydropanel: Drinking Water Made from Sunlight and AirALAN JACOBSENDirector of PhotographyEmmy & Sundance Special Jury Award-Winning & Oscar Nominated DocumentariesRICHARD VEVERSFounder & CEO of The Ocean AgencyBRIAN WILCOXChief Engineer & Co-founder of Marine BioEnergyGrows Kelp in the Ocean to Provide Carbon-neutral FuelsSETH M. SIEGELEntrepreneur, Public Speaker & NYTimes Bestselling AuthorLet There Be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water-Starved WorldTroubled Water: What's Wrong with What We DrinkJOELLE GERGISLead Author of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Author of Humanity’s MomentJAY FAMIGLIETTI, Fmr. Senior Water Scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Exec. Director, Global Institute for Water Security, Host of "What About Water?" PodcastROB BILOTTEnvironmental Lawyer, Partner Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLPAuthor of Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer’s Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPontJILL HEINERTHExplorer, Presenter, Author of Into The Planet: My Life as a Cave DiverOSPREY ORIELLE LAKEFounder & Executive Director of the Women's Earth & Climate Action Network InternationalAuthor of Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature & ArtistJESS WILBERInternational Outreach Citizens’ Climate LobbyCoordinator, Senior Stewards Acting for the EnvironmentBERTRAND PICCARDAviator of 1st Round-the-World Solar-Powered Flight, Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse FoundationIBRAHIM ALHUSSEINIFounder & CEO of FullCycle Fund GARY GRIGGSGlobal Oceans Hero Award-Winner · Distinguished Professor of Earth SciencesDirector Institute of Marine Sciences at UC Santa Cruz 1991 to 2017Sample Credits:BBC News Excerpt, Public broadcast, 19th July. Fair usage, courtesy Simon Gurney, BBC Studios Limited.BBC News Excerpt, Public broadcast, 19th July. Fair usage, courtesy Simon Gurney, BBC Studios Limited.UN Broadcast Excerpt, Greta Thunberg, Young Climate Activist at the Opening of the Climate Action Summit 2019, United Nations license 24 October 2022.CBS News Excerpt 1970. Fair usage, archive courtesy Leah Hodge, CBSwww.erlandcooper.comwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastArtworks by Mia Funk www.miafunk.comMusic from Folded Landscapes courtesy of Erland Cooper and Universal Music Ent

Jun 7, 2023 • 5min
E.J. KOH - Award-Winning Memoirist & Poet - The Magical Language of Others - A Lesser Love
E. J. Koh is the author of the memoir The Magical Language of Others, winner of the Washington State Book Award and the 2021 Pacific Northwest Book Award. For her poetry collection A Lesser Love she received the Pleiades Press Editors Prize. She is the co-translator of Yi Won’s The World’s Lightest Motorcycle, forthcoming from Zephyr Press. Her poems, translations, and stories have appeared in Boston Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and World Literature Today, among others. She earned her MFA in Literary Translation and Creative Writing from Columbia University, and is completing the PhD program at the University of Washington in Seattle. She is a recipient of MacDowell and Kundiman fellowships.IG @thisisejkoh www.instagram.com/p/CRB8O69BWQJ/www.miafunk.com www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Jun 5, 2023 • 12min
The Circular Way with Circular Economy Expert DITTE LYSGAARD VIND - Highlights
"Putting design first, it really enables us to shape a future that we don't yet know. But we need to be super tactile and practical about it as well. And then seeing that is something that design very much has the ability to do. And at the same time, having this growing frustration that wherever you go, wherever you talk about sustainability, it was a compromise. It was something that meant uglier, less convenient, more expensive, all these different things, but then diving into the Danish Design heritage, seeing that what set them apart was that after the World Wars, they had a social purpose of democratizing and rebuilding the welfare state, and that was not something that lessened the final result. On the contrary, it heightened the ambition, the final design, and the solutions."Ditte Lysgaard Vind is a renowned circular economy and design expert and author of Danish Design Heritage & Global Sustainability (Routledge 2023) and A Changemakers Guide to the Future. She is the Chairwoman of the Danish Design Council and founder of The Circular Way. She is known for pioneering new materials as well as business models, while sharing the knowledge gained from practice through teaching and thought leadership, and is a member of the Executive board of The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation as well as the global SDG innovation lab UNLEASH.www.thecircularway.comhttp://danishdesigncouncil.dk/enwww.routledge.com/Danish-Design-Heritage-and-Global-Sustainability/Vind/p/book/9781032198200www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Jun 5, 2023 • 44min
DITTE LYSGAARD VIND - Circular Economy & Design Expert - Author of Danish Design Heritage & Global Sustainability
Happy World Environment Day! Ditte Lysgaard Vind is a renowned circular economy and design expert and author of Danish Design Heritage & Global Sustainability (Routledge 2023) and A Changemakers Guide to the Future. She is the Chairwoman of the Danish Design Council and founder of The Circular Way. She is known for pioneering new materials as well as business models, while sharing the knowledge gained from practice through teaching and thought leadership, and is a member of the Executive board of The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation as well as the global SDG innovation lab UNLEASH."Putting design first, it really enables us to shape a future that we don't yet know. But we need to be super tactile and practical about it as well. And then seeing that is something that design very much has the ability to do. And at the same time, having this growing frustration that wherever you go, wherever you talk about sustainability, it was a compromise. It was something that meant uglier, less convenient, more expensive, all these different things, but then diving into the Danish Design heritage, seeing that what set them apart was that after the World Wars, they had a social purpose of democratizing and rebuilding the welfare state, and that was not something that lessened the final result. On the contrary, it heightened the ambition, the final design, and the solutions."www.thecircularway.comhttp://danishdesigncouncil.dk/enwww.routledge.com/Danish-Design-Heritage-and-Global-Sustainability/Vind/p/book/9781032198200www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Jun 5, 2023 • 19min
Special World Environment Day Stories - Environmentalists, Students & Teachers share their Love for the Planet
Today we’re streaming voices of environmentalists, students, and teachers with music courtesy of composer Max Richter. All voices in this episode are from our interviews for The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast or reflectors of our participating students.Voices on this episode areBRITT WRAY Author of Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis Researcher Working on Climate Change & Mental Health, StanfordJEFFREY SACHS President of UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network Director of Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia UniversityEVELINE MOL, Student Barnard CollegeBERTRAND PICCARD, Aviator of 1st Round-the-World Solar-Powered Flight, Explorer, Founder, Solar Impulse FoundationAVA CLANCY, StudentMIRA PATLA, StudentDARA DIAMOND, StudentARIELLE DAVIS, StudentCLAIRE POTTER, Designer, Lecturer, Author of Welcome to the Circular EconomyMEGAN HEGENBARTH, Participating Student, University of MinnesotaGRACE PHILLIPS, Participating Student, Pitzer CollegeBIANCA WEBER, Participating Student, Syracuse UniversityELLEN EFSTATHIOU, Participating Student, Oberlin CollegeSURYA VIR, Participating Student, University of Wisconsin-MadisonMACIE PARKER, Participating Student, Boston UniversityBEILA UNGAR, Participating Student, Columbia UniversityCARL SAFINA, Ecologist, Founding President of Safina Center, Author of “Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace”Max Richter’s music featured in this episode are “On the Nature of Daylight” from The Blue Notebooks, “Path 19: Yet Frailest” from Sleep.Music is courtesy of Max Richter, Universal Music Enterprises, and Mute Song.www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Jun 5, 2023 • 3min
Happy World Environment Day! Voices from the Parkinson's Community & Artpark Bridges Celebrate the Natural World
The Creative Process and One Planet Podcast wishes listeners Happy World Environment Day. For this special episode we celebrate the natural world with Artpark Bridges, the Parkinson's Community, independent living adults with Parkinson's disease, and People Inc, the Arts Experience, a day habilitation program for adults with developmental disabilities. Artpark Bridges is a year-round community engagement program led by interdisciplinary artist Cynthia Pegado, dedicated to empowering adults of diverse abilities and backgrounds through expressive arts workshops and performance opportunities. Serving the Buffalo-Niagara Falls region of New York State, Artpark Bridges connects citizens with a sense of inclusion and purpose, healing and creative expression. Cynthia Pegado Teaching artist and movement expert, Cynthia Cadwell Pegado, weaves her passion for immersive performance into the creative process of site-specific work for people of all abilities. Ms. Pegado is an eight-time New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) Community Arts awardee, for “Art Moves Me”, her interpretive dance program based on visual art, designed for the Burchfield Penney Art Center and "Sound Dance" designed for Artpark. She has choreographed performance works for students in Parkinson’s specific classes as well as public programs which include Global Water Dances (a worldwide network of choreographers advocating for water quality)Muriel Louveau French vocalist composer Muriel Louveau has been invited by Sonia Kozlova Clark ,director of Artpark festival, as an international artist in residence at Artpark in 2022 to create and customize virtual expressive voice classes facilitated by Cynthia for Artpark Bridges groups including the Parkinson's and People Inc communities. This ongoing program of classes focuses on vocalizing skills and communal art-making with a theme of universal humanity."For me it is an artistic exchange but foremost a human experience. I cannot describe in words how this collaboration with the Artpark Bridges community inspires me, touches me, and opens my heart." Muriel Louveau, Artpark Bridges Sound Moves Me Artist-in-Residence.These recorded pieces have been developed with their students during "Our Garden " vocal workshop Poem "'Lily" written and read by Nancy (People Inc), "Nature" by Ed (PD group), "Fragile Beauty" by Nancy and Cynthia, "Garden of Love" by Cammie (People Inc).www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastFlower Duet - Leo DelibesCreative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported CC BY 3.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Conducted by Philip Milman https://pmmusic.pro/

Jun 4, 2023 • 5min
CARL SAFINA - Ecologist - Founding President of Safina Center - NYTimes Bestselling Author
Carl Safina’s lyrical non-fiction writing explores how humans are changing the living world, and what the changes mean for non-human beings and for us all. His work has been recognized with MacArthur, Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships, and his writing has won Orion, Lannan, and National Academies literary awards and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. Safina is the inaugural holder of the endowed chair for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University, where he co-chairs the steering committee of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and is founding president of the not-for-profit Safina Center. He hosted the 10-part PBS series Saving the Ocean with Carl Safina. His writing appears in The New York Times, National Geographic, Audubon, CNN.com, National Geographic News, and other publications. He is the author of ten books including the classic Song for the Blue Ocean, as well as New York Times Bestseller Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. His most recent book is Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace."So we tend to take living for granted. I think that might be the biggest limitation of human intelligence is to not understand with awe and reverence and love that we live in a miracle that we are part of and that we have the ability to either nurture or destroy.The living world is enormously enriching to human life. I just loved animals. They're always just totally fascinating. They're not here for us. They're just here like we're just here. They are of this world as much as we are of this world. They really have the same claim to life and death and the circle of being."www.safinacenter.orgwww.carlsafina.orgwww.oneplanetpodcast.orgwww.creativeprocess.infoIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastPhoto: Carl Safina in Uganda


