To the landscape designer Edwina von Gal, gardening is much more than just seeding, planting, weeding, and watering; it’s her life calling. Since starting her namesake firm in 1984 in East Hampton, on New York’s Long Island, she has worked with, for, and/or alongside the likes of Calvin Klein, Larry Gagosian, Frank Gehry, Maya Lin, Annabelle Selldorf, Richard Serra, and Cindy Sherman, creating gardens that center on native species and engage in other nature-based land-care solutions. In 2008, von Gal founded the Azuero Earth Project in Panama to promote chemical-free reforestation with native trees on the Azuero Peninsula. Stemming out of this initiative, in 2013, she then founded the Perfect Earth Project to promote chemical-free, non-agricultural land management in the U.S. Her most recent effort, Two Thirds for the Birds, is a call-to-action to plant more native plants and eliminate pesticides, thus creating a greater food supply for birds.On the episode, she discusses the meditative qualities of gardening; reframing landscaping as “land care”; and why she sees herself not as a steward of land, but rather as a collaborator with it.Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.Show notes:Edwina von Gal[15:32] William Cronon[15:32] Changes in the Land[15:32] Tiokasin Ghosthorse[24:04] Carl Sagan[24:04] The Demon-Haunted World[26:07] Perfect Earth Project[40:37] Two Thirds for the Birds[42:41] John Fitzpatrick[42:41] Cornell Lab of Ornithology[42:41] Merlin Bird ID[47:01] Garden Club of America[50:21] Diana Vreeland[51:09] Peter Sharp[51:09] Channel Gardens at Rockefeller Center[54:46] Frank Gehry[54:46] Biomuseo[54:46] Bruce Mau[56:32] Azuero Earth Project[1:00:37] Doug Tallamy[1:02:01] Nature’s Best Hope[1:05:12] The High Line[1:05:12] Brooklyn Bridge Park[1:05:12] The Battery Conservancy[1:05:12] Brooklyn Museum

While he may technically practice as a photographer, artist, and architect, Hiroshi Sugimoto could also be considered, from a wider-lens perspective, a chronicler of time. With a body of work now spanning nearly five decades, Sugimoto began making pictures in earnest in 1976 with his ongoing “Diorama” series. In 1980, he started what may be his most widely recognized series, “Seascapes,” composed of Rothko-esque abstractions of the ocean that he has taken at roughly 250 locations around the world. In more recent years, Sugimoto has also built a flourishing architectural practice, designing everything from a café in Tokyo to the currently-under-construction Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. As with his subtly profound work, Sugimoto bears tremendous wisdom and is regarded by many as one of the most deeply perceptive minds and practitioners at the intersection of time and art-making.On the episode, he discusses his pictures as fossilizations of time; seascapes as the least spoiled places on Earth; and why, for him, the “target of completion” for a building is 5,000 years from now.Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.Show notes:Hiroshi Sugimoto[5:10] Pre-Photography Time-Recording Devices[39:05] “Theaters”[15:06] “Seascapes”[32:31] “Diorama”[17:16] Caspar David Friedrich[25:14] Odawara[28:52] “Aujourd’hui le monde est mort [Lost Human Genetic Archive]”[44:19] “Abandoned Theaters”[44:19] “Opera Houses”[44:19] “Drive-In Theaters”[49:52] “Architecture”[51:12] Le Corbusier[51:12] Mies van der Rohe[55:30] New Material Research Laboratory[55:30] Tomoyuki Sakakida[59:23] Enoura Observatory[59:23] Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden[1:00:48] Katsura Imperial Villa[1:01:05] Bruno Taut[1:02:14] Donald Judd[1:02:14] “Hiroshi Sugimoto: Five Elements in Optical Glass”[1:06:47] Mingei[1:06:47] Isamu Noguchi[1:06:47] Dan Flavin[1:09:15] Sugimoto Bunraku Sonezaki Shinju: The Love Suicides at Sonezaki[1:09:15] At the Hawk's Well[1:09:15] W.B. Yeats

Soon to celebrate his 50th birthday by journeying from Paris to Tokyo by car along the Southern Silk Road, the French Moroccan creative director, artist, and entrepreneur Ramdane Touhami says he’s “thirsty for life like it’s just the beginning,” and it shows. Among his 17 (yes, 17) companies are the cult grooming brand Officine Universelle Buly 1803, which he and his wife co-founded in 2014 and sold to LVMH in 2021; the Paris-based creative agency Art Recherche Industrie, whose clients include Christofle, Moynat, and Gohar World; and Hotel Drei Berge, which he opened in the Swiss Alps last year. With each of his enterprises, Touhami has proven, time and again, how much craft matters—that there’s a real demand for it in a streamlined world that prioritizes efficiency, and that it’s not necessarily at odds with turning a profit.On the episode, Touhami talks about the parallels between Japan and Switzerland, business as a religion, and the healing power of mountains.Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.Show notes:Ramdane Touhami[5:29] Hotel Drei Berge Hotel[5:29] Élisée Reclus[8:36] Angelo Mangiarotti[8:36] Tobia Scarpa[8:36] Dieter Rams[5:29] “Ramdane Touhami’s Peak Performance”[17:12] Mos Def[20:28] Henry David Thoreau[28:16] Officine Universelle Buly 1803[28:16] Cire Trudon[1:00:35] Aman[27:06] Ignacio Mattos[28:16] LVMH[34:54] An Atlas of Natural Beauty[34:33] Bernard Arnault[34:54] Izumi Aki[41:54] Société Helvétique d’Impression Typographique[43:54] Émile Shahidi[44:30] Radical Media[44:59] Tricontinental magazine[57:24] “A Parisian Designer Builds His Dream House in a Former Brothel”[1:00:35] Southern Silk Road

At age 4, following the fall of Saigon, in 1975, Viet Thanh Nguyen and his family fled Vietnam and came to the U.S. as refugees. Throughout the turmoil and its aftermath, neither he nor his family could have imagined that he would go on to not only become an internationally renowned novelist—winning a Pulitzer Prize in 2016 for his debut novel, The Sympathizer (2015)—but also to serve as an executive producer of an HBO miniseries adaptation of the book, and become a widely respected voice on matters including anti-Asian hate, refugees and immigrants, war and genocide, and memory and memorials. In addition to The Sympathizer, Nguyen has written, among other books, the new memoir A Man of Two Faces (2023); The Sympathizer’s sequel, The Committed (2021); and the nonfiction title Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (2016). On the episode, Nguyen talks about turning The Sympathizer into an HBO miniseries, the polarities between what he calls “narrative plenitude” and “narrative scarcity,” and jokes as a form of truth-telling.Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.Show notes:Viet Thanh Nguyen[3:43] “An Open Letter on the Situation in Palestine”[3:43] Min Jin Lee[5:48] F. Scott Fitzgerald[7:11] The Sympathizer[7:11] The Sympathizer HBO series[7:11] Robert Downey Jr.[7:11] Sandra Oh[8:41] A Man of Two Faces[8:41] Casualties of War[8:41] Apocalypse Now[8:41] Platoon[8:41] The Deer Hunter[11:48] Arundhati Roy[14:18] 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction[21:33] Fall of Saigon[33:34] The Great Gatsby[37:26] Portnoy’s Complaint[40:28] Great America amusement park[47:24] Maxine Hong Kingston[51:06] Chicken of the Sea[51:06] Simone[56:19] Operation Petticoat[56:19] I Was a Male War Bride[56:19] Catch 22[56:19] Richard Pryor

Born and raised in Pennsylvania, the 97-year-old Pittsburgh-based artist and sculptor Thaddeus Mosley has a deep and enduring obsession with wood. In his late 20s, he began to use the material for art, carving sculptures in his basement studio, and with his sculpture-making now spanning 70 years, his enduring dedication to his craft is practically unparalleled. Represented by Karma gallery since 2019, Mosley has only now, in the past decade or so, begun to receive the international recognition and attention he has long deserved. In his hands, wood sings; he shapes and carves trees into striking abstract forms that often appear as if they’re levitating while honoring and preserving their organic, natural character. As with the work of his two main influences, Constantin Brâncuși and Isamu Noguchi, Mosley, too, strives to make sculptures that, in his words, beyond today, “will be interesting in a hundred tomorrows.”On the episode, he talks about the language that poetry, music, and sculpture all share; his early years as a sports writer for a local newspaper; and his life-transforming relationship with the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh.Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.Show notes:Thaddeus Mosley[4:13] Sam Gilliam[17:24] Carnegie Museum[21:08] Carnegie International[21:08] Leon Arkus[21:08] “Thaddeus Mosley: Forest”[21:08] “Inheritance”[24:20] Isamu Noguchi[27:53] Constantin Brâncuși[28:28] University of Pittsburgh[28:28] Martha Graham[46:15] Floyd Bennett Field[46:23] Ebony magazine[46:23] Sepia magazine[46:23] Jet magazine[46:23] Pittsburgh Courier[54:34] John Coltrane[51:37] Li Bo[51:37] Dylan Thomas[56:21] Bernard Leach[57:45] Langston Hughes[57:45] Countee Cullen[57:45] Harriet Tubman[57:45] Fannie Lou Hamer[57:45] “The Long-Legged Bait”[57:45] “Air Step - for Fayard and Harold Nicholas”[57:45] The Nicholas Brothers

Most widely recognized for his paintings that rigorously combine spray paint, stenciled geometric forms, and brushstrokes, the Brooklyn-based artist Adam Pendleton is also known for his “Black Dada” framework, an ever-evolving philosophy that investigates various relationships between Blackness, abstraction, and the avant-garde. Many will recognize Pendleton’s work from “Who Is Queen?,” his 2021 solo exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, which he has said was his way of “trying to overwhelm the museum.” This is a natural position for him: His works in and of themselves are often overwhelming. At once political and spiritual, they provoke deep introspection and consideration, practically demanding viewers to look, and then look again.On this episode, he discusses the elusive, multifarious nature of “Black Dada”; “An Abstraction,” his upcoming exhibition at Pace Gallery in New York (on view from May 3–August 16); painting as a kind of technology; and why, for him, jazz is indefinable.Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.Show notes:Adam Pendleton[05:00] Joan Retallack[05:00] Pasts, Futures, and Aftermaths[05:22] “Becoming Imperceptible”[07:41] Ishmael Houston-Jones[07:41] Joan Jonas[07:41] Lorraine O’Grady[07:41] Yvonne Rainer[07:41] Jack Halberstam[14:26] Fred Moten[05:22] “Who Is Queen?”[23:50] Hugo Ball’s Dada Manifesto[23:50] Amiri Baraka’s “Black Dada Nihilismus”[31:14] Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum[31:14] “System of Display”[31:14] “Reading Dante”[34:40] “Adam Pendleton” at Pace Gallery[34:40] “An Abstraction” at Pace Gallery[34:40] Arlene Shechet[34:40] “Adam Pendleton x Arlene Shechet”[40:30] “Blackness, White, and Light” at MUMOK[45:07] “Twenty-One Love Poems” by Audrienne Rich[50:40] “Occupy Time” by Jason Adams[56:04] “What It Is I Think I’m Doing Anyhow” by Toni Cade Bambara[57:13] “Some Thoughts on a Constellation of Things Seen and Felt” by Adrienne Edwards

The cheeky, happy-go-lucky spirit of the British fashion designer Paul Smith can be felt across everything he does, from his own clothing designs to his multifarious collaborations—Maharam textiles, Mini cars, Burton snowboards, and a suite at the Brown’s Hotel in London among them. Though Smith may run a business with expert tailoring and a mastery of color at its core, everything he creates seems to suggest, with a wink, “Don’t take yourself too seriously.” Beyond designing clothes, Smith also serves as a mentor to the next generation of designers. In 2020, he launched Paul Smith’s Foundation, through which he helps guide young creatives as they develop their careers. Fifty-four years into his business, which opened its first store in Nottingham, England, in 1970, Smith now operates shops in more than 70 countries around the world, from New York and Los Angeles to Paris and Hong Kong.On this episode, he discusses his deep, 40-plus-year engagement with the country of Japan; his long-view approach to building a business that transcends time; his ever-growing collection of rabbit ephemera; and the metamorphic impact of music and humor on his life and work.Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.Show notes:[3:31] Paul Smith[6:33] Rei Kawakubo[12:55] Elle Decor Japan[21:41] Deyan Sudjic[21:41] John Hegarty[23:48] Paul Smith’s Foundation[24:00] Studio Smithfield Fashion Residency[24:00] John Galliano[24:00] Alexander McQueen[24:22] Jony Ive[31:30] Bauhaus[34:50] Beeston Road Club[40:30] The Mini Strip[48:24] Paul Smith Nottingham Store[53:30] Maharam collaboration[53:30] Burton collaboration[53:30] The Rolling Stones[54:19] Brown’s Hotel Sir Paul Smith Suite[54:39] David Bowie[54:39] Patti Smith[54:39] Eric Clapton[54:39] Jimmy Page[1:01:57] Jean-Luc Godard

Belgium-born writer Lucy Sante shares her transition to womanhood at 66, reflecting on her memoir 'I Heard Her Call My Name'. She discusses the 1960s, opening up her womanhood, and her searing, no-nonsense clarity in her work. Sante's literary journey, silence before transitioning, and piercing life moments are explored.

To the cult British interior and furniture designer Ilse Crawford, interiors too often take a backseat to architecture. Through her humanistic, systems-thinking, “Frame for Life” approach, however, Crawford has shown how interiors and architecture should instead be viewed on the same plane and, as she puts it on this episode of Time Sensitive, “walk hand in hand.” Widely known for creating indoor spaces that are notable in their tactility, warmth, and comfort—environments that incorporate, to use her phrase, “visceral materiality”—Crawford oversees her namesake London-based design studio, Studioilse, which she launched in 2003, and whose projects include the first Soho House members’ club in New York, the Ett Hem hotel in Stockholm, and the Cathay Pacific lounges in Hong Kong. Crawford is also the founder of the department of Man and Wellbeing at the Design Academy Eindhoven, in the Netherlands, which she headed for two decades. Prior to her career as a designer, she was the celebrated founding editor of Elle Decoration U.K.On this episode, Crawford discusses her approach to crafting beautiful, highly original spaces that push against today’s speedy, copy-paste, Instagram-moment world; her early career in media; and her personal definition of the word “slow.”Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.Show notes:[5:09] StudioIlse[7:25] A Frame for Life[58:32] Design Academy Eindhoven[7:25] Svenkst Tenn[7:25] Ett Hem[16:36] Jeanette Mix[1:02:51] Cathay Pacific[47:42] Elle Decoration[29:11] The Eyes of the Skin[33:52] Alvar Aalto[33:52] Paimio Sanatorium[33:52] Christopher Alexander[31:35] Sensual Home[35:24] Leonard Koren[35:46] Frida Escobedo[47:42] Architect’s Journal[47:42] The World of Interiors[47:42] Min Hogg[52:48] Donna Karan[54:04] Soho House[54:04] Babington House[1:00:08] Home Is Where the Heart Is?

The Italian chef Massimo Bottura may be a big dreamer, but he’s also a firmly grounded-in-the-earth operator. Based in Modena, Italy, Bottura is famous for his three-Michelin-starred restaurant, Osteria Francescana, which has twice held the top spot on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. He also runs Food for Soul, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting social awareness about food waste and world hunger. With its first Refettorio opened in 2015, Food for Soul now runs a network of 13 Refettorios around the world—from Paris to San Francisco to Naples—designed to serve people in need via food-recovery programs. In 2019, with his wife, Lara Gilmore, he also opened Casa Maria Luigia, a hospitality concept in the Emilian countryside that became the jumping-off point for their new recipes-slash-interiors book, Slow Food, Fast Cars (Phaidon). In everything he does, Bottura keeps the tradition of the Emilia-Romagna region alive while constantly imagining and executing new possibilities.On this episode, Bottura discusses the art of aging balsamic vinegar; his vast collection of thousands upon thousands of vinyl records; his deep love of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Maseratis; and how he thinks about the role of time, both literally and philosophically, in and out of the kitchen.Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.Show notes:Massimo Bottura[03:27] Food for Soul[03:27] Refettorio Harlem[03:27] Refettorio Ambrosiano[03:46] Universal Exposition in Milan[15:36] Carlo Petrini[10:40] Gastromotiva[12:30] “Chef Massimo Bottura on Why the Future of Food is in Our Trash”[15:22] Slow Food, Fast Cars[15:36] Trattoria del Campazzo[56:07] Casa Maria Luigia[58:50] Osteria Francescana[41:32] Cavallino[41:32] Lo Mejor de la Gastronomia[43:30] Joseph Beuys[43:30] Lara Gilmore[1:01:42] Tortellante