Future is Now Podcast
FUTURE IS NOW is a podcast series exploring intersections between art and social change, produced by Z Gallery’s Shahrzad Arshadi and Caroline Künzle. The title comes from a song by German punk rock singer Nina Hagen. She sings: “1968 is over, it’s over, … Future Is Now! It’s really gonna be a better world.” Her lyrics express our feeling that change for a better world is happening right now, through the work of many. In each episode, we will tell you these stories of change: stories of artists and art projects that inspire us. As you listen, we hope they will inspire you too.
JJ Levine’s exhibition at the McCord Stewart Museum, JJ Levine: Queer Photographs, questions the representation of traditional binary gender roles through staged photographs of queer subjects in intimate, domestic settings. In this episode of Future is Now, JJ Levine walks us through some of the photos and shares details of the process and motivations behind the work.
For more information on the artist, see www.jjlevine.com
Dans notre première épisode en français, une conversation avec l’artiste interdisciplinaire, Nathalie Derome. Une pionnière québécoise de la performance underground, et la directrice artistique et générale de la compagnie de production, Des Mots d’la Dynamite, Nathalie créé des spectacles pour les tout petits. Elle nous parle de son processus de création et de comment ces tout jeunes lui ouvrent les yeux sur plein de choses, y compris des questions de préjugés culturels et de racisme. Avec des chansons de son spectacle, C’est Ma Sœur!
In Future is Now’s first French episode, a conversation with interdisciplinary artist, Nathalie Derome. A Québécois pioneer of underground performance and artistic and general director of the production company, Des Mots d’la Dynamite, Nathalie creates shows for very little ones. She tells us about her creative process and how these very young ones teach her about many things, including about cultural prejudice and racism. With songs from her show, That’s My Sister!
In this episode you can listen to Shahrzad Arshadi’s interview with Razan Al-Salah, a Montreal based Palestinian multimedia artist, educator and poet. Razan’s work is concerned with investigating material aesthetics of dis/appearance of places and people in the context of colonial image worlds.
In this episode Razan talks about her life, love of community, art, image, home and most specifically about her family and Oum Ameen / Razan’s grandmother!
A first-generation Canadian artist of South Asian descent, based in Montreal, Mona Sharma works mainly in soft sculpture and digital drawing, two mediums whose accessible exteriors lend well to subversive acts. In this episode, Mona speaks to us about her latest project, To Sleep At Night, a series of digital drawings imagining an ideal living space for people with autism. To view Mona Sharma’s project, see tosleepatnight.ca
Artist Forest Vicky Kapo, an indigenous person of Maori ancestry from Aotearoa, New Zealand, is a dancer, a musician and a visual artist. Forest also cares for the dying, working as a nurse in palliative care. In the Art of Dying, over a soundbed of original music, they share their reflections on art-making, on nursing the dying and on living in today’s world. For more information about their work, see forestvkapo.com.
Khadija Baker is a Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist, originally from Rojava, Kurdistan, Syria. To find out more about Khadija Baker, see: khadijabaker.com
*The Kurdish song at the beginning of this episode is “Jiyana Bê Deng” by Bermal
*The spoken word piece, “Blue Beard Today’s Tale”, was performed and sound designed by Moe Clark (courtesy of Khadija Baker)
**The original theme music for Future Is Now was composed by Corina MacDonald (See traktion.com)
Khadija Baker is a Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist, originally from Rojava, Kurdistan, Syria. To find out more about Khadija Baker, see: khadijabaker.com
*Songs and Music;
EZ REWIME A Kurdish song by Bermal Viyan Armenian Lullaby sung by my beloved hero Arsine Attarian The spoken word piece, “Blue Beard Today’s Tale” soundtrack for Khadia Baker;s animation , was performed and sound designed by Moe Clark
(courtesy of Khadija Baker)
**The original theme music for Future Is Now was composed by Corina MacDonald (See traktion.com)