Art at Meta | Meta Open Arts' Josephine Kelliher on art at work for innovation, community and wellness.

Lead singer from the great indie band Ellery, Tasha Golden, is also a scientific researcher at John Hopkins' International Art+ Mind Lab on the subject of Art's impact on Health.

Touring the world's stages Tasha encountered many people who'd come to her after shows to share with her previously untold stories of pain and trauma. It stuck with her. What is it about music, about the poetry of lyrics, about a stage, that makes people comfortable sharing things they'd never even told their partners or a therapist before? 

So she did a PhD (as you do) and specialized her research on whether word-based arts such as music, creative writing or poetry, can be alternative means to express and process trauma, pain, and life.

This was an amazing chat. How many people do you know who are both accomplished artists and scientists? You'll hear singing, poetry, you'll hear touching personal stories and impactful outputs from scientific research on Art's impact on our mental health. 

A very complete and moving episode before a little summer break. 

Enjoy!

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👉 Find Tasha  here 

📝 Poem Reading, "Bad" read by Rheonna Thornton, from Project Uncaged.

📝 Ellery, Sleep Well Good Night.

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Sound Engineering: Raphael Pazoumian 🌷🎧

Art and creativity are not what one usually thinks of as core needs in a technology business or larger corporate environments. Well, think again. In a post-pandemic world where employees are less connected and engaged, where competition is fierce, creativity might just become the key differentiator in workplace culture, wellness but also in innovation and efficiency.

💡 Meta was one of the first companies to realize the value of fostering creativity in the workplace. Through the 12 years running Meta Open Arts organization, they've built community and innovation through artistic experiences. They commission, curate and create art and design programming for Meta spaces, products and people. 

✨ Josephine Kelliher✨, Meta Open Art's lead for experience programs, talks about the impact of art in the workplace, from building community and wellness to driving innovation and performance.

Think what you want about Meta, the fact is it is a laboratory for innovation, creativity and forward thinking. And it's interesting to understand what it takes, that other companies don't necessarily do, to fosters that in people.

Josephine and I spoke about: 

• 1st half of the conversation : how workplace art programing builds empathy and resiliency which promote employee connection, wellness, diversity, and ultimately loyalty.
• 2d half of the interview :  we addressed the "harder" business outcomes or increased innovation and efficiency, which are direct byproducts of creativity, of providing a safe space to make mistakes and play around

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👉 Find Josephine here and Meta Open Arts on Instagram and Facebook. 

📝 Amy Whitaker,  Art Thinking

📝 Alain de Botton,  Art as Therapy

🎙 TED Talk : Sir Ken Robinson "Do Schools Kill Creativity ?"

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Sound Engineering: Raphael Pazoumian 🌷🎧

What do the FBI, NYPD, Department of Homeland Security, many US Hospitals, Johnson & Johnson, Planned Parenthood, and a group of nuns  have in common? Amy Herman.

Amy is a lawyer and art historian turned expert on seeing. For 14 years, she has been providing art-based leadership training to top officers in the United States military, law enforcement, medicine, education, and industry. 

In her "Art of Perception" seminars and programs,  Amy shows people how to look closely at paintings, sculptures, and photographs. She teaches them to see what's missing, see what's hidden or underrated, see from someone else's eyes. Seeing better to BE better, to do a better job. In the human business, that changes lives.

Amy uses artworks to make people look again, think again, think better and be better.

She developed her Art of Perception seminar in 2000 to improve medical students' observation and communication skills with their patients when she was the Head of Education at The Frick Collection in New York City. She subsequently adapted the program for a wide range of professionals and leads sessions internationally for a very impressive, official and powerful list of clients.

Amy and I hit it off. We talked about: 

•  her job with FBI officers and executives, but also more surprising groups of people. 
• the power of learning to look very closely and how that makes us better at our jobs, but also in our lives. 
• observing, and observing art in particular, as a meditation, an act of presence and patience in a fast spinning world.
•  looking, contemplating and the use of our time on earth. Life, death, and the place that art holds in all of it. 

Loved all of it. I hope you do too!

👉Find Amy here and her Ted Talk here. 

💿 Extract : Joe Navarro, ex FBI here.

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Sound Engineering: Raphael Pazoumian 🌷🎧

"It's not obvious how or why art meets a need. We don't eat it, we don't have sex with it. Yet we are drawn to it and we've been making art since the begining of civilization"

Today's guest is Dr. Anjan Chatterjee, Neurology professor at the University of Pennlysvania. He is a prominent neurologist, former Chief of Neurology at the Pennsylvania Hospital. He is currently the founder and director of the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics, which studies the neural impact of aesthetic and artistic experiences. 

In his book “The Aesthetic Brain: how we evolved to desire beauty and enjoy art”  he makes a compelling case for the intimate links between art and science and their common goal of getting insight into the human experience. 

For all his scientific pedigree Anjan also has an artist’s sensibility. He teaches architecture, has a deep love for street art, and he moonlights as a photographer.

In this conversation Anjan and I discussed:

• how our brain reacts to art and beauty, and how we process and assign meaning.
• the role of art in human experience and social change.
• art's potential for becoming an recognized medical treatment.
• the challenges of scientific research and evidence on a subject so vast and subjective as art.

There’s no way to cover the full extent of these questions in under 40mn but I hope you’ll get enough food for thought!

Thanks for listening ✨

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👉 Find Anjan's bio and work here and follow him on Twitter.

📝 Anjan's latest book, Brain, Beauty and Art.

🔳 The International Association of Empirical Easthetics is hosting a Biennale at the Barnes Foundation this Summer. Tickets and info here. 

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Sound Engineering: Raphael Pazoumian 🌷🎧

✨This is about the healing and humanizing powers of classical music. I spoke with Dustin Seo, a classically trained cellist and Artistic Director of Street Symphony, a Los Angeles based non-profit that brings classical music to homeless communities to build connection and human dignity.

 ❤️‍ Street Symphony was founded in 2011 by Vijay Gupta, A highly accomplished and renowned violinist with The Los Angeles Philharmonic. Gupta believed the act of making and performing music was a deeply spiritual practice - one that had the power to heal audiences and musicians alike. In 2007, Gupta was one of the youngest violinists to join the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but his path in music took an unexpected turn when he met Nathaniel Ayers — a Juilliard School-trained double bassist whose crippling schizophrenia ended his professional career and left him homeless. Gupta said the following about Ayers: “[Nathaniel] had a more encyclopedic knowledge of music than my professors at Yale. This was his oxygen, this was his survival. A lot of people on Skid Row turned to self-medicating with drugs, but Nathaniel turned to music.”

After building a relationship and musical exchange with Ayers, Gupta wanted to do more and bring classical music down from the elite stage of the Disney Hall, to Skid Row, one of the largest and most disenfranchised homeless communities in America. So he founded Street Symphony, to bridge this gap. 

✨ Dustin spoke to me about the work of Street Symphony, and he also happened to played cello for me, which was a treat! He has a totally different perspective on the power and mission of classical music outside the concert halls and his stories of healing and solace from the hard hit Skid Row community were absolutely heart-rending. 

We talked about :

• Music as an equalizing space for human connection, a purveyor of dignity and strength. 
• What music can do when it seems that nothing can help.
• The role of music in bridging the gap between homeless communities and the rest of the world
• The contrast between the gilded image of classical music and its potential as a measure for social justice. 

👉Find Dustin and Street Symphony here. 

💿Flow Like a River

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Sound Engineering: Raphael Pazoumian 🌷🎧

When you see amazing street art, how do you feel? what do you think? what difference does it make to you?  

I spoke with acclaimed street artist Jason Naylor in his Studio. His works are all over  New York City walls, and far beyond: colorful and uplifting designs with a touch of punk.

Jason's distinctive touch is an explicit intent to spread messages of optimism and self-care throughout his work. 

His art and words are a remedy against cynicism, and a permission to play. 

Jason trained initially as a graphic designer, and gained serious recognition as a mural artist as he  partnered with brands like Coach, Pepsi, Guess, XBOX and Maybelline and Sephora. 

We talked about:

• The democratic uplifting powers of street art
• The meaning and impact of *positivity*
• The power of colors
• What are small creative ways to bring more joy into our lives.
• Creativity and creative thinking as a way to make us *pay attention*, be present, grateful and connected.

Whilst speaking to Jason in his studio, I found it super refreshing to hear someone so sincere in their desire to promote "positivity",   a concept that we often tend to dismiss as an inauthentic pseudo self-help slogan.

Enjoy <3

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👉Find Jason Naylor’s works here and check him out on Instagram and Twitter.

📝Jason’s Book, Live Life Colorfully 

💿 SIA, Invincible 

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AHP is on Instagram, Twitterand Facebook.

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Sound Engineering: Raphael Pazoumian 🌷🎧

What is taste and why does it matter? 

 👩Columbia Business School professor and former LVMH Chairman Pauline Brown talks to me about the need and value of cultivating "aesthetic intelligence" aka Taste in business and beyond. 

💄🟧 This is a small departure for a pure "art form" topic but I thought that the subejct of taste and how it's built, what appeals to our individual senses and how it can be used to benefit our wellbeing is a captivating and relevant.

✨Taste is the aesthetic translation of our life experience. It’s a fascinating topic because it shows up in everything we do whether we want it or not, and we can leverage it for ours and our community’s wellbeing.

💄 In 2016 Pauline transitioned from leadership in large corporations to start advising them on how to build better brands, culture and leadership through developing what she calls “Aesthetic Intelligence”. Her book on Aesthetic Intelligence, AKA Taste, is based on a course she developed and taught at Harvard Business School.

Pauline’s approach is based on cultivating personal aesthetic sensibilities and self-expression, and it’s applicable way beyond the scope of luxury branding. 

🔉 We talked about:

• ✅ How individual taste is shaped through our experience.
• ✅ How taste and aesthetic sensibility can be learned and cultivated.
• ✅ The place of creativity and aesthetic expression in the business sphere.
• ✅ The necessity and upsides for business leaders to bring better aesthetic experiences to customers and employees alike.
• ✅ Promoting creativity in business, and the role that aesthetics play in building better leadership and happier employees.

I hope that you’ll like it and that it’ll make you think about where your OWN taste and aesthetic preference come from, how they were built, and how you can use them for good. 

Credits: 

👉 Find Pauline's Aesthetic Intelligence book and course here.

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Sound Engineering: Raphael Pazoumian 🌷🎧

☝️This episode is for anyone who ever found themselves in a museum thinking “I don’t get this, this has nothing to do with me” .

🟧 I spoke to the amazing Sam Ramos, from the Art Institute of Chicago, who is well known for his unique emotion-driven approach to talking about art. 

� Sam’s job is Director of Innovation and Creativity. His goal is to think of new ways to make museum art relevant, useful, and transformative. It’s a difficult task considering most museums still feel like sacred temples, with uninviting factual explanations, and a curation of artworks that is chronological at worst and theoretical at best. 

� Sam has a different, more empathetic approach to talking and teaching the public about art. Someone who engages people emotionally, makes them relate even to art that seems remote at first. Sam is also a talented writer, a brilliant educator and someone profoundly empathetic, kind and interesting. 

We talked about:

• new ways to talk about art that don’t feel like remote intellectual exercises,
• the need to change the museum experience to something more impactful and inclusive,
• and about his work using art to improve healthcare and criminal justice systems.

Credits: 

👉 Find Sam Ramos here. 

🟧 Artwork reference: Mater Dolorosa, 1480-1500

📝 Here are his articles on art for healthcare and legal professionals. 

🎥 Extract from Manhattan, Woody Allen here. 

💿  Eric Satie, Gymnopedie Numero 1. 

📀 The Notorious B.I.G.,  Juicy.

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Sound Engineering: Raphael Pazoumian 🌷🎧

Soul-stirring story alert! 😮 Shakespeare Behind Bars turns high-security prison inmates into Shakespearian actors. Curt L. Tofteland, program founder, tells the story of the power of language and acting to bring out humanity, compassion and redemption.

Shakespeare Behind Bars was the subject of a documentary that premiered at Sundance Film Festival and received no less than eleven film awards from festivals around the world. 

Through SBB, Curt goes to high-security prisons and teaches inmates, people who’ve often done seriously unspeakable things, to act. Through the reading, learning, rehearsing and acting process, those men learn to face their past, their crimes but also their own trauma. They learn that vulnerability and compassion are strengths and not weaknesses, they learn to deal with shame, and they learn to help others. 

This is a story about what connects us all as humans. There is more in common between us and them than we think. 

This is a story about the human character, the search for forgiveness and redemption, the passage of time and how we use it. And of course, it is a story about the transformative power of art, which here is the power of language and words. 

Credits: 

🙏🏻 Thank you to Gregory "G" for speaking with us on the phone about the experience of being a long-term inmate and a participant in SBB.

👉 Read more about Curt and Shakespeare Behind Bars HERE.

SBB Documentary extracts and Trailer - Here

Hamlet Rap from Illinois Youth Center x Shakespeare Behind Bars - full video and reference here. 

Hamlet "To be or not to be" soliloquy by Richard Burton.Listen on spotify. 

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Sound Engineering: Raphael Pazoumian 🌷🎧

In wartime, what good is art? In the midst of the brutal Russian invasion destroying Ukraine, Ukrainian Illustrator Anna Sarvira talks about the role of art as a weapon for release, education and resistance.

This is a special episode. Like most people I’ve been feeling sad, scared, and angry about the war in Ukraine and the unnecessary loss, destruction, and grief. I’ve also been asking myself whether art has any place in all of this, and if so how to maximize its role.

Anna left Ukraine and currently lives in Germany. All her world has collapsed and her family is still in Kiev, in turn sheltering and fighting. In what probably now feels to her like a different life, Anna is a children’s illustrator and has also created illustrations for the Moma Magazine, UNICEF, the British Council, and Coca-Cola. Her work has been exhibited in Italy, South Korea, and Ukraine. Now she uses her creative powers to process, express, and educate the world about what is happening in her beloved country. 

🙏🏻 I’m really grateful that Anna took a little time out from her busy and emotionally draining days to speak with me. 

It was an unplanned and spontaneous conversation (and the sound is a tad sketchier 😬) but sometimes that is what we need. 

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Musical extract (abridged) : DakhaBrakha - Monakh 

Anna's Instagram and info HERE.

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Sound Engineering: Raphael Pazoumian