

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

Jul 4, 2022 • 48min
JONATHAN NEWMAN - Lead Author of Defending Biodiversity: Environmental Science and Ethics
Jonathan Newman is an ecologist who studies plant–animal interactions in the context of species invasions and climatic change. He is the lead author of two books: Climate Change Biology, and Defending Biodiversity: Environmental Science and Ethics, and co-editor of Grasslands and Climate Change. He is the author of more than 100 other scientific publications.“Climate change is certainly going to affect biodiversity. Some species will benefit from climate change, but others will not, and we'll have different ecosystems, different biotic communities as a result of this. I think the impacts that are likely are pretty clear, and I think that's a pretty good reason to do all those things we can do without completely destroying our economies and our communities because those things have moral value as well. It's not just the environment that we think is important. We also think humans are important. So doing the things we can do now, do the less painful things first. We should have done them already. We should be now thinking about how to do the harder things.”WLU Webpagehttps://wlu.caClimate Change BiologyDefending Biodiversity: Environmental Science and Ethics,Grasslands and Climate Changewww.oneplanetpodcast.orgwww.creativeprocess.info

Jul 1, 2022 • 13min
Exploring Pachinko & Great Expectations w/ Emmy Award-winning DP FLORIAN HOFFMEISTER - Highlights
“Every time I ask, ‘What do you need? What do I want? What does the director want? How do we collaborate? What is generated during the collaboration? What ideas, questions come across? And then I can start constructing something like a look.”Florian Hoffmeister is a prolific director of photography. Recent works by Hoffmeister include his lensing on the Apple TV+ series Pachinko, the critically-acclaimed political thriller Official Secrets starring Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, and Matt Smith, and the forthcoming film TÁR starring Cate Blanchett.Hoffmeister is well-known for his collaboration with Terence Davies on feature films The Deep Blue Sea, starring Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston and Simon Russel-Beale, and A Quiet Passion, starring Cynthia Nixon and Jennifer Ehle.His work on Brian Kirk’s television phenomenon Great Expectations earned him further distinction as well as numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy, a BAFTA, and an ASC Award.http://florianhoffmeister.dePachinkoGreat ExpectationsOfficial Secrets The Deep Blue Seawww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.org

Jul 1, 2022 • 57min
FLORIAN HOFFMEISTER - Emmy - BAFTA Award-winning Director of Photography
Florian Hoffmeister is a prolific director of photography. Recent works by Hoffmeister include his lensing on the Apple TV+ series Pachinko, the critically-acclaimed political thriller Official Secrets starring Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, and Matt Smith, and the forthcoming film TÁR starring Cate Blanchett.Hoffmeister is well-known for his collaboration with Terence Davies on feature films The Deep Blue Sea, starring Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston and Simon Russel-Beale, and A Quiet Passion, starring Cynthia Nixon and Jennifer Ehle.His work on Brian Kirk’s television phenomenon Great Expectations earned him further distinction as well as numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy, a BAFTA, and an ASC Award.“Every time I ask, ‘What do you need? What do I want? What does the director want? How do we collaborate? What is generated during the collaboration? What ideas, questions come across? And then I can start constructing something like a look.”http://florianhoffmeister.dePachinkoGreat ExpectationsOfficial Secrets The Deep Blue Seawww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.org

Jun 28, 2022 • 10min
Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization w/ ROY SCRANTON - Highlights
"It seems irresponsible to me to downplay the possible consequences of climate change. It seems irresponsible to assume that we're going to fix it. And so I think it's absolutely a responsibility for the people who are talking about it and thinking about it, to look at the worst-case scenario and to look at the current trajectories, absent technologies for carbon scrubbers, to look at where we're actually headed, the worst-case scenarios, and address that and bring that to each other and to our children and to our students. When you really look at the situation, it's scary and terrifying, and it upends everything that we've been told to make sense of life... The second part of what I think being a mentor or being a parent or being an adult or a teacher with regard to climate change means helping younger people sit with the terror, sit with the grief, the sense of unknown, and not push it away and not repress it and not try to find a way to just move past it without dealing with it, but to really inhabit that space of unknowing and fear and grief because that's the reality that we live in.”Roy Scranton, is the award-winning author of five books, including Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization, Total Mobilization: World War II and American Literature, and We’re Doomed. Now What? He has written for the NYTimes, Rolling Stone, The Nation, and other publications. He was selected for the 2015 Best American Science and Nature Writing, has been awarded a Whiting Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and other honors. He’s an Associate Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, and is director of the Notre Dame Environmental Humanities Initiative.http://royscranton.netNotre Dame Environmental Humanities Initiative sites.nd.edu/ehum www.oneplanetpodcast.org www.creativeprocess.info

Jun 28, 2022 • 45min
ROY SCRANTON - Author of “Learning to Die in the Anthropocene” - “We’re Doomed, Now What?”
Roy Scranton, is the award-winning author of five books, including Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization, Total Mobilization: World War II and American Literature, and We’re Doomed. Now What? He has written for the NYTimes, Rolling Stone, The Nation, and other publications. He was selected for the 2015 Best American Science and Nature Writing, has been awarded a Whiting Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and other honors. He’s an Associate Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, and is director of the Notre Dame Environmental Humanities Initiative."It seems irresponsible to me to downplay the possible consequences of climate change. It seems irresponsible to assume that we're going to fix it. And so I think it's absolutely a responsibility for the people who are talking about it and thinking about it, to look at the worst-case scenario and to look at the current trajectories, absent technologies for carbon scrubbers, to look at where we're actually headed, the worst-case scenarios, and address that and bring that to each other and to our children and to our students. When you really look at the situation, it's scary and terrifying, and it upends everything that we've been told to make sense of life... The second part of what I think being a mentor or being a parent or being an adult or a teacher with regard to climate change means helping younger people sit with the terror, sit with the grief, the sense of unknown, and not push it away and not repress it and not try to find a way to just move past it without dealing with it, but to really inhabit that space of unknowing and fear and grief because that's the reality that we live in.”http://royscranton.netNotre Dame Environmental Humanities Initiative sites.nd.edu/ehum www.oneplanetpodcast.org www.creativeprocess.infoPhoto by Ola Kjelbye

Jun 24, 2022 • 13min
The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America - DAVID BANKS - Highlights
“I think that is often what tourism is starting to move towards. Is this existential authentic? And what that means is that you're not even really looking to meet expectations or validate that the thing in front of you is what it says it is. You are trying to recreate who you think you should be in a time that is disconnected from your usual life. Because we're a pretty jaded and suspicious society now. 'Is it a deep fake?' We live in this world of make-believe and fakeness, and you want to get to something that's real. And what's more real than yourself and the story that you tell to yourself about yourself. And if you can really connect to that, you'll feel really good.”David A. Banks is the Director of Globalization Studies at the University at Albany, SUNY and the author of the forthcoming book The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America published by University of California Press. He is also a delegate to the Troy Area Labor Council and the co-host of the podcast Ironweeds.www.davidabanks.orgwww.e-flux.com/architecture/software/337954/where-do-you-live/ https://reallifemag.com/true-ish-grit/ www.reallifemag.com/new-haunts/ The attention economy of authentic cities https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2021.1882947https://ironweeds.podbean.com

Jun 24, 2022 • 52min
DAVID A. BANKS - Dir. of Globalization Studies - SUNY Albany - Author of The City Authentic
David A. Banks is the Director of Globalization Studies at the University at Albany, SUNY and the author of the forthcoming book The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America published by University of California Press. He is also a delegate to the Troy Area Labor Council and the co-host of the podcast Ironweeds.“I think that is often what tourism is starting to move towards. Is this existential authentic? And what that means is that you're not even really looking to meet expectations or validate that the thing in front of you is what it says it is. You are trying to recreate who you think you should be in a time that is disconnected from your usual life. Because we're a pretty jaded and suspicious society now. 'Is it a deep fake?' We live in this world of make-believe and fakeness, and you want to get to something that's real. And what's more real than yourself and the story that you tell to yourself about yourself. And if you can really connect to that, you'll feel really good.”www.davidabanks.orgwww.e-flux.com/architecture/software/337954/where-do-you-live/ https://reallifemag.com/true-ish-grit/ www.reallifemag.com/new-haunts/ The attention economy of authentic cities https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2021.1882947https://ironweeds.podbean.com

Jun 21, 2022 • 18min
Reimagining Growth: KC LEGACION on De-Growth & Sustainability - Highlights
“Degrowth as an idea has intellectual roots in the environmental critiques of the sixties and seventies found in landmark works like Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth report, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, which was a seminal piece of economic theory that applied the laws of thermodynamics to the economy and was very influential for ecological economics, which is intertwined with degrowth.Degrowth was first formulated in 1972 by French philosopher André Gorz in a public debate where he used the term décroissance to question whether planetary stability was compatible with capitalism.”KC Legacion is a Master of Environmental Studies candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. His research presents a reimagined understanding of social media through the lens of degrowth—this project will culminate in a short film set to premiere in September of this year. Outside of their research, KC is a team member of the web collective degrowth.info and a member of a nascent housing cooperative in West Philadelphia.www.degrowth.infowww.kclegacion.comwww.decidim.orgwww.joinmastodon.orgwww.iNaturalist.orgwww.oneplanetpodcast.orgwww.creativeprocess.info

Jun 21, 2022 • 43min
KC Legacion on Degrowth, Technology and Social Media
KC Legacion is a Master of Environmental Studies candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. His research presents a reimagined understanding of social media through the lens of degrowth—this project will culminate in a short film set to premiere in September of this year. Outside of their research, KC is a team member of the web collective degrowth.info and a member of a nascent housing cooperative in West Philadelphia.“Degrowth as an idea has intellectual roots in the environmental critiques of the sixties and seventies found in landmark works like Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth report, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, which was a seminal piece of economic theory that applied the laws of thermodynamics to the economy and was very influential for ecological economics, which is intertwined with degrowth.Degrowth was first formulated in 1972 by French philosopher André Gorz in a public debate where he used the term décroissance to question whether planetary stability was compatible with capitalism.”www.degrowth.infowww.kclegacion.comwww.decidim.orgwww.joinmastodon.orgwww.iNaturalist.orgwww.oneplanetpodcast.orgwww.creativeprocess.info

Jun 18, 2022 • 12min
Drought, Flood, Fire: How Climate Change Contributes to Catastrophes - CHRIS FUNK - Highlights
“I guess the work that we're doing here at the Climate Hazards Center is trying to build out the science to cope with a two-degree world. And I think that we can do that. It's not going to be easy, but I think that's definitely within our capabilities, and it is already making human beings be smarter together in very empowering ways. And these are examples of people in Boulder, Colorado getting ready for the next big flood event and having conversations between the National Weather Service and local communities, or me on a zoom call at seven in the morning with my friends in East Africa as they're getting ready to cope with the next extreme. There are great examples of radio clubs in Niger who are working with their meteorological agencies and local farming communities that are pulling data that we're producing here in Santa Barbara, precipitation estimates, but then using them to decide whether they should fertilize their millet crops or not. And so there are ways that we can counter climate hazards and weather hazards by being smarter.”Chris Funk is the Director of the Climate Hazards Center (CHC) at UC Santa Barbara. He works with an international team of Earth scientists to inform weather and famine-related disaster responses. Chris studies climate and climate change while also developing improved data sets and monitoring/prediction systems. He’s the author of Drought, Flood, Fire: How Climate Change Contributes to Recent Catastrophes and co-author with Shrad Shukla of Drought Early Warning and Forecasting. While his research interests are quite diverse, a central theme uniting Chris’ work is developing both the technical/scientific resources and the conceptual frameworks that will help us cope with increasingly dangerous climate and weather extremes.www.chc.ucsb.eduwww.chc.ucsb.edu/people/chris-funkDrought, Flood, Fire: How Climate Change Contributes to Recent Catastropheswww.oneplanetpodcast.org www.creativeprocess.info


