When I first read the header for the Manifesto for Now project I was immediately drawn in because it said:
I'm concerned too. The Manifesto also questions:
One could argue that all the arts need to undertake this seismic shift and transformation and how is a good question.
So I contacted the manifesto’s co-authors Owais Lightwala and Sarah Garton Stanley (also known as SGS) and we chatted on July 11th, 2024 about the origins of this rather radical project and its impact so far.
Owais is Assistant Professor in the Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University, he’s a producer and entrepreneur in the arts and culture worlds who likes to think about big ideas, solve interesting problems, and build better ways of doing things. Among other things he is the founding Director of Chrysalis at the Creative School, a new multidisciplinary performance hub at TMU.
SGS self-defines as someone who is into Culture, what it means, how we do it and why we need it. SGS is currently VP of Programming at Arts Commons in Calgary, Alberta, a member of the National Advisory Committee National Creation Fund (NAC), a Board Member Theatre Alberta, a co-steward at Birchdale and among many things in the past SGS was Creator and lead The Cycle(s) in collaboration with Chantal BIlodeau, about theatre and climate change at the NAC in 2019, which I had the pleasure of working on while I was at Canada Council.
You’ll hear in our conversation about why the original manifesto was created in April 2023 on the Canvas platform and that they have published 6 of 10 essays so far.
The essays are provocative and at times funny. For example, in the first essay, Art is for audiences first, artists second they observe that :
I love this quote and the opening quotes of this episode that reflect this kind of courageous questioning of the role of art and what kind of art do people need at this time.
Their second essay ‘We are not as important as we think we are (or The Shoe Shiners Dilemma), is equally as sharp:
Oh no. Not that trope again about the singularity of the ‘brilliant suffering artist’ again, blah blah blah! I disagree or at least I don’t understand. So you’ll hear that we did not agree on all points but that’s part of the fun of a manifesto isn’t it, to make us think more deeply, break through some barriers, question some of our rhetoric and assumptions and to take a stand. Who are we as a community and where are we going and, well … who cares?
So I was pleased to see that the last of the 10 essays, not yet written, is called ‘Start here. Your turn’, which I think is an invitation for the arts and cultural community to engage with Manifesto for Now and to respond, as openly and as fearlessly as our two colleagues have done so far.
Owais recommends:
SGS recommends :
*
Chapters (generated by AI, corrected by Claude Schryer)
Introduction to the Manifesto
The host introduces the episode, hinting at the manifesto’s significance and the exciting discussion ahead.
Meet the Guests
Owais and SGS introduce themselves, sharing their backgrounds in the arts and their current roles. Their diverse experiences set the stage for a rich conversation about the manifesto and its implications.
The Manifesto’s Origins
The guests delve into the origins of the manifesto, discussing the questions that sparked their collaboration. They reflect on their shared inquiry into the purpose and impact of the arts in society.
The Role of Arts in Society
The conversation shifts to the role of the arts in addressing societal issues, particularly in the context of climate change and cultural fragmentation. The guests emphasize the need for artists to engage with audiences meaningfully.
Challenging Assumptions
The discussion takes a critical turn as the guests question the effectiveness of the arts in fostering societal dialogue. They explore the complexities of audience engagement and the challenges of measuring impact.
Future Directions of the Manifesto
The guests outline their hopes for the manifesto’s impact on the arts community, emphasizing the importance of ongoing dialogue and response. They invite listeners to engage with their questions and contribute to the evolving conversation.
Art and the Paradigm Shift
The guests discuss their personal struggles with imposter syndrome and the need for a paradigm shift in thinking, moving beyond superficial actions to deeper systemic changes. They emphasize the importance of giving people permission to engage with profound ideas rather than just tactical solutions.
The Arts Community and Climate Change
The conversation shifts to the arts community’s relationship with climate change, highlighting a disconnect between individual concern and collective action. The guests reflect on the need for a more profound sectoral vision regarding climate issues, rather than superficial responses.
Navigating the Climate Crisis in the Arts
The discussion delves into the impact of COVID-19 on the arts sector’s engagement with climate change, revealing how the shift to online platforms has not necessarily reduced carbon emissions. The guests explore the challenges artists face in accessing research and how this affects their storytelling.
Rebuilding Trust in a Fractured Society
The guests address the declining trust in society and the potential role of the arts in rebuilding connections among individuals. They discuss the importance of collective human activities in fostering trust, especially in the aftermath of COVID-19.
Cross-Sectoral Dialogue and Collaboration
As the conversation wraps up, the guests highlight the significance of cross-sectoral dialogue in tackling climate issues and rebuilding trust. They express a desire for ongoing discussions and collaborations that can lead to meaningful impacts.
Recommendations for Engaging Reads and Listening
The episode concludes with the guests sharing their current reading and listening recommendations, reflecting on how these works influence their thoughts and creative processes. They emphasize the importance of diverse perspectives in shaping their understanding of intelligence and society.
Invitation for Dialogue and Critique
In the final moments, the guests invite listeners to engage with their ideas, encouraging feedback and critique to sharpen their thinking. They express gratitude for the opportunity to discuss their work and the importance of community engagement in their creative endeavors.
Transcription of e194 owais lightwala and sgs - manifesting for now
Note: This is an automated transcription that is provided for those who prefer to read this conversation and for documentation. It has been verified but is not 100% accurate (some names might not be quite right). Please contact me if you would like to quote from this transcript: claude@conscient.ca
Claude Schryer
So I wrote an introduction this morning to the episode that I won't read to you, but I'll read you the last little bit and that allows me to jump into the conversation. Does that sound okay? All right, so, yeah. And in the introduction, I go over the manifesto and how I encountered it and what I liked in it. And so you don't need to hear all that now. But overall, I like it a lot, of course. And I have many questions, and I did a little bio of each of you, but here's how you can pick it up. Now, all of this made me think that it would be fun to invite Sarah and Oais. Did I pronounce that right? Yeah, Owais to the podcast and talk about the origins of the manifesto and hear more about how it's going and how this bold idea is actually going down in the arts community, because I suspect there has been some resistance and much applause. Thankfully, they are here with me now. Owais is in Toronto and SG. SG. I got it wrong.
SGS
No, you got SGS. It's just like a point.
Owais Lightwala
I love it.
Claude Schryer
SGS is in Calgary. So welcome both to you, do you both to the conscient podcast, and thanks for being here, and thanks for the funky manifesto. So why don't we start with introductions? I've already read a little bit of a bio, but I'd like to, in your own words, just say where you come from and you know you are, and then we'll jump into what the manifesto is about. So why don't we start with you, Owais.
Owais Lightwala
Okay. My name is Owais Lightwalla. These days I'm an assistant professor at the creative school at Toronto Metropolitan University, formerly known as Ryerson University. Prior to that, I was a theater producer. I used to co run a company called Why Not Theatre for about eight years, which was basically my kind of formative experience in the art sector, because that company started off as a very, very scrappy, tiny little indie company founded by Ravi Jain. And over the course of almost a decade, we built it into a mini-institution, if I can call it that, that ended up playing a pretty central role in terms of the conversations about what Canadian theatre is and where it's going. And these days I'm interested in a lot of different things. I have projects in technology and am trying to figure out how we can use innovative technology, particularly AI, to make the world a better place and make the arts possible. And the other set of interests that I've been working on with SGS has been really thinking deeply about what culture even is and what it's for and what are we trying to do with this? Which has been, yeah, basically a PhD for me in terms of deep thinking about the purpose of the work I've been doing for my entire career.
Claude Schryer
Well, thanks for that to SGS.
SGS
Well, I just want to say that's why Owais looks amazing for a 175-year-old. I think given the amount of stuff that he's done, like, I'm always amazed.
Owais Lightwala
Like, moisturizers got to moisturize every day.
SGS
Yeah. So, yeah. Hi, SGS here. I am currently the vice president of programming here in Calgary, Trudy seven territory at Arts Commons. We just announced last week that we will be renamed in 25 2025 to Workland center because of an incredibly significant philanthropic donation of $75 million to the capital campaign of the renewal of arts commons and into the Future Workland center. I'm originally from Montreal (Tiohtià:ke) and grew up as an artist in Toronto. I think most people in the arts world probably know me as a director and dramaturg and somebody who for a number of years worked previously at the National Arts Centre. I was the artistic producer for the National Creation Fund. I was also the associate artistic director for English Theater for a number of years and have run a number of companies or co run or been in conversation with key leaders in a number of companies in quite a few parts of the country. Canada, also known as and I with my partner Tracy Aaron Smith, we own, and I wouldn't say operate, we co steward and, and work to keep a beautiful historic hunting and fishing lodge off grid in southwest Nova Scotia, Mi'kmaq territory. We try our best to keep it alive. It stays alive all by itself, but I mean nature. And the buildings are in constant conversation. And there's 18 buildings on a beautiful lake. And as I say, it's off grid. It's one of the darkest places in the world and it's one of the freest places that I know. And we get to go back there next week. Can't wait. So yeah, I think that covers me.
Claude Schryer
It does. And I'm here in Ottawa on unceded Anishinaabe-Algonquin territory, and it's July 11, 2024. And I'm very excited about talking to the two of you because when I first read the manifesto, for now, I said, thank God. These people are asking real questions, the very good questions, and provoking us to not necessarily agree with you, but to respond. And that's what I'm doing, is reacting and being grateful, but also thinking about the many issues. And when I first read it, I thought, this is a climate change manifesto. But it is. But it's more than that. So I'd like to know what the origins were. Why did you do it? You described it somewhat in the documents, but how did it come about? Who wants to start?
Owais Lightwala
Go ahead. I feel like you've got a better origin story, at least more succinct than mine.
SGS
OWais. And I would say, in an unlikely and exciting way, have a terrific meeting of the minds. And, you know, I remember a great walk with you always in Ottawa, where I was like, how do you, how do you do what you do? We. We basically met off. Off of thinking about going to do Vipassana together, which we have yet to do, by the way, sort of ten-day meditation retreats, which we were both like, yes, this is the way forward, this is the way to survive.
Claude Schryer
I've done it twice.
Owais Lightwala
It's good.
SGS
Yeah, yeah. Owais has done it as well, and I have not. But in any case, I think we really came together over a set of questions that started with the basic idea of what is producing, what is creative, producing, what is needed, what is required in order to be an incredibly engaged producer, which then very quickly led to why, like, what are we producing? Who are we producing it for? What does it mean to make work? What does it mean to receive work? And then ultimately, what in this country right now do we mean by the arts? And so, we've kind of distilled it down to culture, but really it kind of started with, I think, a shared inquiry and curiosity about, like, all this money. And there's still an extraordinary amount of money that comes governmentally, seems to be headed in certain directions, and even the directions that it's headed into has very little impact now. Like, you know, even if we were to say, critique some of the, the better-known larger institutions for the amount of money they receive, if you look at the percentage of whatever their operating budgets are, we very quickly realize that there's nothing that seems to be working. So, it's like, if nothing is actually working, as we are sort of striving for it to work, then what are we doing and what stories do we want to tell? What's not being met, what do we need and what's happening to the planet? So I think, you know, it's encouraging in a way, Claude, that you picked up on some of those deeper drives in the connections that we've made between the two of us, and what I think propels us to keep wanting to ask these questions over to you always.
Owais Lightwala
I think you summarized it well in terms of how we got interested in it. And what I am finding most gratifying about continuing the investigation is the depth of the questioning, for me, at least, was the first time in my career where I had the opportunity to really go much deeper than a very short term, kind of reactionary thinking that I feel like I was doing as a sector leader. My preoccupation primarily was, how do I keep people on payroll? How do I get the money we need for the next show? How do we get this audit cleared? How do we get that final report done? How do we replace the person that just quit, that we didn't have any plans to replace? There's such a massive rushing burden of being a worker in this industry. I think I've just never fully appreciated how shallow my thinking was able to be for the time that I've been doing this work. And this investigation has really revealed how much deeper the questioning goes. You know, it's funny we brought up the passion at the beginning of this because that practice for me is very connected to this work that we're trying to do, which is essentially around stopping and sitting and listening, rather than. I mean, we are, ironically speaking. But like, if you look at how much we've actually written over a year and a bit now, the number of words we've written for how much time we've spent a just thinking is, for me, actually, that's been the real work, is how much time it's taken to just sit with the thoughts and sit with the discomforting, challenging, not easy sloganing kind of thoughts that might be necessary now.
Claude Schryer
Well, one of the throughlines that I've seen, and there are many, is that less is more, and we are clearly at the end. You know, the theme of this season of the podcast is the end of the world as we know it. Not the end of the world, but what we have become accustomed to is no longer viable for all kinds of reasons. And I like the way, and I've only read six essays, right, because there's four more to come, or three or four more to come, and that's exciting to see. You announced what they're going to be, but, you know, the fact that they're still. You're receiving feedback, and it's a living document in that sense of. Of asking for people to reflect and to respond. I'm interested in how it's going, because what I've noticed in the arts community recently, and I've been retired from Canada Council for a while now and I'm back in the community. Is that, for instance, one of the issues I'm concerned about is climate change and people are overwhelmed by COVID recovery and housing crisis and so many things, as well as many of the issues that you raise, which is the assumptions we've had from the past that, well, I won't name them all. They need to be rethought and not necessarily negative. Let's beat ourselves up, but let's take our rightful place in society and be artists and be what we need to be and what society needs us to be and what audience want us to be. So how is it going? What has the response been so far?
Owais Lightwala
Depends on what day of the week, I guess definitely the, the response has been a mix of people responding very enthusiastically and saying something to the effect of like, oh my God, I'm so glad that you're saying this, or this is something I've been thinking about, or those, the way particularly that was really it. And then a lot of people find it very, very threatening and challenging. There's been some very good critique for sure about the particularly, I think the thing is that the first essay was the most widely read so far still, and the one that has received the most engagement, let's say. But it was also a deliberately very provocative title to say audiences first and art second. And in the moment that we wrote it, it was coming out of a very strong sense of frustration with the way the conversations were going in the sector. And I kind of, I feel like a very hyper focused, myopic sense of an understandable sense of, like, self-interest for the sector, because the sector feels like it's disappearing. And the more we look inward, the more that actually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And it felt very urgent to us to say something that got people's attention, and it did. And not all of it was. Yeah, not everybody responded to it in a way that I feel like is there was fear. There was a lot of fear triggered.
SGS
Yeah, I mean, I think there, there's a strange and not unfamiliar to me, but antipathy between the artist and the audience. And so we say that we're doing everything for audiences, but certainly as a younger creator, I was doing a lot of things to piss audiences off personally. I was doing things to really dive into discomfort. I was doing things that felt important probably in some, you know, understanding of the world were certainly, they were important to me. But, but I. So I guess there's two, there's two questions that I need to ask. Is it something that over time, as I've grown older, I've really begun to wish, you know, my parents are no longer alive, but I've begun to wish and think about, like, how different my life would have been if I always wanted to do things that my parents might have enjoyed. And I know that there's things to react. There's reactivity and there's, you know, we all need to kind of like, go out and, you know, make our way. But the question is, do we actually only need to go out and make our way? Like, what happens in, you know, if this podcast, this season is about the world as we know it? I don't know if that individualistic way of trying to carve out a separate path from, you know, our forebears and all that kind of stuff really is where we're going to be able to go in the future. I think we're realigning, I think maybe around family and sharing a cultural sensibility around what matters and what the future might hold if we work together, if we're interdependently linked. And so for me, that does come back to then we need to be doing everything for the audiences. Like everything, not just part of it, but absolutely everything. And I feel that obviously you can tell passionately, but also, I have a deep belief, and I don't know where it's come from, and I don't believe, I've always had it, that the audiences hold the intelligence. And maybe it's because of AI, maybe it's because of thinking. We think differently now because of the big brain. Maybe we have a clearer understanding as humans about our actual frailty and our actual lack of kind of individual primacy in the midst of an idea or conversation. But I have so much faith in audiences to help shape what it is that gets seen, created, made, held over time. And I'll just close this thought with the one charge that comes up fairly frequently is around populist thinking, because as soon as you put the audience forward, then it's, oh, you're just being populist. And we coined peopleist as a phrase and a way to kind of think through that question. But I do see and think that there's a place for, a huge place for joy. But when the world is incredibly fractured and confusing, maybe that's a better way of thinking about it. When we're living in moments of deep confusion and cultural fragmentation. To be able to offer something that has a simplicity to it or something that allows an audience to just breathe together, I think is the greatest gift that artists can offer audiences. And then when the world becomes less fractured, less fragmented, then the work needs to become more complex because the audience will start demanding, like, help me understand what we need to do differently or how we can live more cohesively or whatever. But in this moment, in this country, and certainly I'd say in this city, Calgary, where I'm sitting right now, to be able to offer experiences where people can breathe and feel held and feel respected, even admired for their human experiences, seems to me the role, the primary role of the performing arts and the.
Claude Schryer
Arts in general, and that role of convening has always been one that the arts have done. But we need it more than ever, and we need it with people that we disagree with, because that kind of societal dialogue is what will reduce the amount of conflict and polarization. And the arts are very good at that through all kinds of forms of expression. The manifesto.
SGS
Are they though?
Owais Lightwala & SGS
Are they?
Owais Lightwala
Yeah. I love that you jumped out because I was going to go for it. Is it? Is it?
Claude Schryer
Should, it should be.
Owais Lightwala
We're just the same brain. Go ahead, Owais, challenge it.
SGS
But how do we, how do we know, like, how do we know that the arts are good for that? We say that, but where's our evidence that we're actually having an impact in terms of, um, uh, not, I guess, changing people's hearts and minds? Like, how do we know that we're having an impact on people's sense of well-being? Like, how do we, how do we know? We keep saying this stuff and I want to believe it, but I don't know if I have the evidence that tells me that the ways in which I as an artist think to convene other folks actually has the impact that I would wish that it did.
Owais Lightwala
Yeah, I mean, the other kind of part of what you said that I find interesting to dig deeper into is like, I don't know that the polarization problem is we don't talk enough. In fact, I think it's what we are. Think I'm getting more and more obsessed with the concept of the difference between our vibes and our realities. And this is probably going to become something that we're going to put into an essay at some point because I'm starting to connect some dots here. But basically, I feel like there's a vibe happening around how we feel about our discourse. Let's call it politically. And we live in this part of the world at least in one of the safest, most politically stable times in human history, with the least amount of political violence and just regular crime. Violence is at a low. And the conversations that we have had mostly digitally over the last couple of decades have, like, led to a sense of us being in more conflict than I think we actually are. And I'm not even sure that the. First of all, I'm not sure that polarization is bad. I'm not sure that conflict is bad. I'm not sure that we need to dissipate the energy of the conflict, because a lot of the conflict is about going through a cultural change, and change is hard. Like, when my partner complains that I don't do something, it's hard for me to change my behavior. But, like, I need to. I need to engage with that challenge, and there's a way to maybe resolve the energy of that tension. By, kind of dissipating. It doesn't result in a transformative. So, I'm not even sure that, like, our first draft kind of responses of, like, the things that we, like saying, you know, the arts are conveners, and convening will bring people together and bring people together. We'll just talk it out and we'll all feel Kumbaya again when our… The decisions, the differences, the. The philosophical questions we're asking about what it means to be human right now, like, are not, I don't know that they're easily resolved or should be. Like, they may need this level of difficulty for us to engage with them.
Claude Schryer
Well, thanks for breaking my bubble, because it is a bit of a utopian view of the arts, and one that we've. It's a bit of a romance, you know, and we like to congratulate ourselves that we think that's what we're doing. But you're right that it's hard to measure. I mean, I've heard audience testimonies, and there has been research and studies on impact and all that, but it's still. You're right that there's a bit of an enigma around whether we actually are affecting change or we think we make ourselves feel better because we think we're affecting change, but we do it nonetheless, and we find ways to connect and to maybe verify once in a while that maybe what we're doing is doing what we think or we hope it does. We could go on, on this for a while because it's a very broad topic but coming back to the manifesto and its place in the community now, the two of you have decided to lead it as an initiative. What do you hope will come then? The last essay, for instance, seems like an open ended one, where you ask us, the community, to respond, how might we interact with this unfolding proposal, which I think will be very impactful because of the timing. It just arrived at a time when people were catching their breath from the pandemic and trying to revise themselves in the AI world in this very complex but still potential world. The world is not over. It's just. It's hurting. So where do you see that last essay going? And how can people use it in ways to help them develop their arts organizations and evolve?
SGS
You know, I think one of the things that we charge ourselves with for each essay is to, at the very least, make some offers rather than, you know, a screed or a yemenite.
SGS
Rant we really attempted with each essay. And in a sense, it's why we move at the pace that we move, because sometimes we have to work through a bunch of rants before, you know, between the two of us, before we can get to a place of opening. And so, yeah, I think always this question to your question, Claude, was like, do you know, like, I think that's the final essay, the final question. The final prompt is to. To really ask, like, what others might do in the vein of this kind of questioning. You know, we're really interested in. And I think what really holds the two of us together in conversation is that we're really interested in what the future of culture, the cultural policies, the way we understand how culture is valued and is held in the daily lives of citizens, not art makers, but in, like, what does it mean on this land, in this time, to people? And to try to unpack that is very much the vertebrae of this manifesto for us, is the beginning of thinking through that. And we want to write more about that and engage more deeply with that, giving us some sort of stepping stones to these questions about, like, what is it, and who cares about it, and how is it helping, and what is this new world that we're heading into? Because it is, like, I completely agree with you, quill. Like, the world is not ending, but the world is. We understood. It absolutely is. And probably that's been the case since the beginning of consciousness, but it seems to be more heightened now in no small measure because of artificial intelligence, because we're actually constantly being shown a system of thought that seems relatively close to ours. And I think it's destabilizing us enormously. And, in fact, the destabilization of the human is, in part, why Spiderweb, show and fold has started, because I started to ask questions around at what point will we no longer be able to determine the difference between the human on the stage and the avatar of the human on the stage? And we're very close technologically to being in the grip of that very question. And so the manifesto, I think, for both of us, but certainly for me, was just like, can we just really try to find the ways to start talking about the absolute chaos of our human existence that we're really trying to live through in this moment? That was a thrust, and that continues to be the thrust of.
Claude Schryer
It's also the way that it's being received by me. For example, because you use storytelling, you use different techniques and ways of articulating ideas that are quite compelling. You know, you get drawn in. You can feel yourself in the experience and the different ways that it's presented. Any further thoughts?
Owais Lightwala
I'm also just, like, sitting with what SGS just said around there's something for me that is, this is such a work in progress because our thinking is growing and deepening as we keep doing it. And the ultimately, I guess, what, I don't know what exactly we can expect from the response, but where we started this whole thing, actually, there was a moment where we were having a discussion about the original kind of focus of the research that I was set out to do, which I mentioned to you, Claude, in our pre chat around. I needed to train producers, and I needed to know how to train producers and what producer training was. And I was talking to SGS, and as SGS wanted to do, asked a really good question and said, what do you really, really want, though? And the way that it cut through my thinking, like a kind of very sharp knife went right into it. The immediate thing just came out as a go. I just need a, paradigm shift is what I really want. And I didn't know that that's what I wanted. I had never articulated that before. I've also never in my life. And I. I'm still struggling with the imposter syndrome of feeling like I deserve to have an opinion about what the paradigm should be. So momentous. And then we started. We immediately started a new Google Doc, and I think it was called paradigm shift, and that's where we started writing. So the thing that I'm most interested in is, can we give people permission to think at the level of paradigm and not at the level of tactical, you know, daily superficial actions that we, we think are important and at least I think we want to believe are important and we're not. Really giving ourselves permission to go very deep in our thinking and therefore not very deep in our action.
Claude Schryer
Sort of like recycling versus systems change. Right. A small gesture, which is important because it's very practical, it's very physical. But the real issue is system change and the kinds of ways that we live. And in fact, in that pre-recording conversation, we talked about climate change, and you had some interesting thoughts about where the art sector is at. Because I'm observing a bit of a lull, or at least a sense of disempowerment from the arts community vis a vis many of the complex issues, I certainly struggle with them. But what are your thoughts on climate change, both of you? And I'll start with Owais.
Owais Lightwala
I mean, my personal feeling right now is I feel like the majority of individuals who work in this sector are deeply concerned about climate change and deeply motivated and often doing a lot about it in their personal lives and as a sector, we don't really have a vision of what our relationship is to it. So the kinds of responses range from a kind of silence on it and trying not to look at it directly in the eye to a superficial level of conversation, saying things like touring requires flying, flying bad, therefore, we should stop touring. And I feel like I've done something. It feels to me like we don't really have a very deep sectoral or collective relationship to climate crisis in the art sector, while we have deeply, deeply concerned individuals who are absolutely thinking about it on a daily basis, to the extent where I know so many people, individuals who are saying things like, I don't want children because I'm so concerned about the future of the climate, which to me is like a very strong level of pessimism about the future, to hold that and, and then simultaneously, then we go to our jobs and try to make shows for people that don't necessarily have a. And I want to be very clear, when I say don't have a vision for what our relationship to it is, it don't mean that, like, why aren't all seasons 25% climate content? Like, that's, again, to me, not actually. I would still call that a very superficial response to the depth of the change that we're talking about.
Claude Schryer
Yeah. In SGS, we were involved in that theatre cycle on art and theatre and climate at the National Arts Centre started in 2019. You've been involved, deeply involved. What are your thoughts on art and climate change at this point? And maybe in relation to the manifesto as well?
SGS
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The green rooms were a really, you know, the green rooms, which, to what you were referring, you know, started as a wild adventure in asynchronous and synchronous time signatures to think about trying to systemically converse about the climate catastrophe in conscious and low carbon ways prior to Covid. And then Covid hit, and we were already immersed in that conversation, but everything, regardless, had to shift and become an entirely online adventure. And during that time, and leading up to that time, actually, even in advance of COVID Ian Garrett was already looking at the carbon emission costs of doing business online and finding that while it is in some respects less than individual travel, in the other respects, it comes very close to meeting some of the same emissions, you know, sort of person to person. So it's lots of kind of discoveries that happened both as a result of this initial inquiry and then what happened with COVID and then Covid being in conversation with climate, and, you know, that whole ongoing conversation. But I guess what I've really come to think a lot about is the question about content, because I feel that the concern that artists have, and I think it's widely held, it's not across the board, there's lots of people, many different opinions, but it's widely held that we are in the clutches of this extraordinary, very difficult climate moment, is that there's a lot of artists endeavoring to put content into the world about their concern without access to the millions of dollars of research that has gone into some possible solutions, partly because the millions of dollars of research that have gone into that go into these possible solutions are tied to resource extraction and companies that are engaged in that work. So if you separate your response, your moral or ethical response to the research, you have the opportunity, as an artist, to be in conversation with people who have really good knowledge about some possibilities that could be shared in the stories that artists are telling. But to a degree, what I feel happens is that artists are telling stories that are based on feelings and the worlds that they're living in, without necessarily entering into the more difficult conversations and the research that exists that could ultimately help to change the conversation potentially, or at least offer new ways of. Of valuing the moment. So I kind of agree that the content is not the thing. In fact, it might be more beneficial to have a sing along show where everybody feels absolutely energized and excited, and then to go pick up sticks together in the woods. More than trying to do a show about, you know, how to live, how to live differently, or to emit less damage into the world.
Owais Lightwala
It would also be our... I think it would be easier based on our strengths as a sector. One of the things we talked about in every single essay at some point, or at least in our pre conversations, is the trust, the declining trust in society. And this is like, well documented, so many different studies and research, that we are seeing a massive drop in trust. And I feel like the impact that the arts could have, less than kind of reaching is, can we rebuild trust amongst ourselves collectively and rebuild a sense of collective, and not from that kind of Kumbaya place of, like, we're gonna dissipate our political differences because we came together. I don't know if that's possible or even productive, but the fact that we might be able to learn to sit with our differences by building a trust with each other in some kind of collective human activity. Because what I do feel very strongly about is the Internet. Personal media is making me less trusting of everybody. Like, I am not feeling like, I feel like I learned a lot and I know more than I've ever known, but I don't feel closer to people as a result of that impersonal kind of learning. And in order for us to do that, to do any kind of meaningful trust shifting in the society, the precursors influence that we have to actually be in conversation with enough of society to actually make a dent. And that's where I go back to what SGS is saying. That, like, I think it is more important that we get people in with what they need right now, so that we have a relationship with them than it is for us to be morally pure and righteous and alone. I think it's better to be fraught, but in a relationship with more people than it is to be righteous and isolated, because that is actually our current state. You know, you talked about fractures a couple of times, which is ironic because I have a fracture right now. I broke my foot last week. And the thing that my foot right now needs is like, it needs a structure, this task that keeps it in place so that I don't further that injury. And the process of healing that fracture is going to be one where I basically have to relearn how to move it and relearn how to walk. And. And I feel like we're in a fractured society saying to people, run faster. Run on your broken foot. Instead of saying, you had mentioned a while ago, less is more. Like, it's just so obvious to my body what I need to do right now. It does not let me walk because it knows what it needs. And as a human species, like, I think. I think. I think I say a lot to people all the time because I read it somewhere and it stuck in my head, that we really, really grossly underestimated the psychological trauma of COVID and we never collectively gave ourselves space to just recover from that. I never worked harder. Like, I never had longer hours and did more work than during the pandemic and then just came right out of it and went right into even more accelerated work. I'm like, where did we have time to recover from? Like, we never. There was never the pause, there was never the space for us to go, holy shit, that was crazy. And how are you all doing? Like, are we okay? Because we never had. Yeah, we never slowed. Actually, our response, the only response we know now is like, push through things by running even faster.
Claude Schryer
Well, we're going to wrap up soon, but a couple of thoughts. One is that a friend of mine, Stephen Huddart, is one of the programmers at the Victoria Forum in BC and the theme is trust around regenerative economies. And so I think some conversations are happening outside of the arts, and hopefully arts. I know some arts activities are happening within that. And I think that cross sectoral dialogue is really important as we look at building rebuilding trust. And the second thing is, I had a conversation with Julia Montemoros, who has worked with scale for a while and is a Mexican-Canadian culture worker. And she was talking about the gaps that artists need to be more involved in the climate emergency and part of its tools. Right. Like you said, SGS, you know, what actually is science telling us? How can we access that easily? How can we collaborate with scientists and other activists and so on? But it's also a question of how we can bring artists into space where they are more impactful doing, telling their stories, but in a context where they are going to be able to do their work in a context that is more. More eventually having an effect. But anyway, I will stop now because I know you both need to move on to the things, and we could go on, and I think we should, maybe at the end of the 10th essay, have another conversation, maybe with other people who have been involved in your circles. Because I do think these conversations are relatively easy to set up. You know, talk for a while, put it out there, invite comments, and then just keep ideas flowing and keep an open mind. I end every episode with just asking what you're reading and listening to that you would recommend, because that sometimes are good pointers to what's informing your work, who you admire. So I'll ask you just to give me a couple of ideas of what is stimulating for you right now when you're reading, listening. Elias, do you want to start?
Owais Lightwala
I am currently reading a book called Children of Ruin. I can't remember children or children of time, but it's a trilogy about hypothetical future civilizations. One in which the world there's a intelligence of spiders that evolve into an intelligent, highly intelligent, sophisticated civilization, surpassing that of humans even, and what that world looks like. And the second book, I forget again which one is called, which the titles say, is about an advanced octopus civilized octopi civilization where octopi reach a level of intelligence where they surpass humans. And I'm going to read the third book at some point this summer because what I love about them is the way that they really are. When you consider what intelligence is and the way that these books are written there's an incredible way that they shape the world of these imaginary realities. And you realize how much of our world is shaped by the very, very practical physiological conditions of what it is to be human. And when you consider the world through the perspective of a creature that lives in water or a creature that doesn't actually have bones or a creature that has a very different sensory system, you can imagine a very different reality. And as she has alluded to as well. But I think we are about to go through a revolution in our understanding of intelligence with where artificial intelligence is going to take us. And there's an opportunity for us to reshape worlds, but we are not good at imagining. Actually, it's staggering to me how bad my own imagination is. And I can mostly only think one or two steps ahead of where we are right now. And the capacity to think 50 steps in a different direction is something that I feel like I'm trying to build more capacity for actual imagination, truly departing from where we are, what we're in reference to right now.
Claude Schryer
Does that include AI?
Owais Lightwala
I don't know how it can't. Like, I think it's, you know, that toothpaste has left the tube, so to speak.
Claude Schryer
Well, thanks for that. And what are you reading?
SGS
Sgs, you know, super briefly. I've got a. A book before me says that, as I mentioned earlier, I'm going to Nova Scotia soon. I'm really looking forward to cracking, which is called plurality, the future of collaborative technology and democracy. And 4000 weeks was sort of, has been something that I've gotten returned to a number of times in my audio life as I'm walking and stuff. But I have to say, really honestly, while I dip into a number of different things, fiction, almost never recently. And what I'm most filled up with is punditry. That's what I read and that's what I listen to, and that's what I would refer to as journalism. Now, I know that some pundits have said that journalism used to be reporting what was happening, but I don't know that that exists in journalism anymore. Journalism is people supposing what might be. So, to a degree, it is a speculative fiction, and maybe that's why I'm so drawn to it. You know, I love, I love listening to Ezra Klein. I find him to be, you know, extremely intelligent, and I just really like his vibe. Whether there's something, you know, deeper within that, I'm not sure. But I find a number of podcasts fill up a lot of my time, and then I read with a critical sensibility, but a kind of Augusto the New York Times, which I know is just a very thin slice and view of the universe that purports to be a much wider and broader piece of pie. So when I knew this question was coming and I was like, ah, you know, would love for it to have, to have a deeper meaning, and I'd like to be able to talk about octopuses like Owais will. But that's my reading.
Owais Lightwala
To be clear. It's like a, it's a fun, popular fiction novel that, like, is light summer reading. I'm also not reading.
SGS
Just great. That's great physics, of course.
Claude Schryer
And we listen, we read, and we go to events, and it all combines. I also listen and read pundits a lot because I find journalism now is a type of prophecy sometimes, and there's so many layers to a good journalist, and we need new words for certain roles in society. Things evolve. They're hybrids. Before I end, is there anything that we haven't said since we're on the air here that you think you want to add? I just want to give you that opportunity in case there's something that we haven't covered that you think people should know about. We're pretty good.
SGS
I would just like to say thank you, like, for being interested in what we're writing about and thinking about, because we're interested in it. And while we do get response and we do know from numbers and data and certainly that people are reaching out to us, to be able to at least engage in the conversations with somebody such as this is really energizing. So thanks. Because we want to keep going, you know, and so it's nice to dig into the quality of this conversation with someone like you to help us to think more deeply.
Owais Lightwala
Thank you also, I think that. Thanks. And I'll also add, for anyone listening, if anything we say enrages you. I would love to hear from you because I've learned so much from the responses we've had from people that I want to invite criticism and critiques and challenges to our thinking, because, frankly, all of it has made my thinking sharper and deeper. Nothing has yet to dissuade me from doing the work. It's been only helpful so you can Google, we're both very googleable people, and you can find our contact information or find the manifesto for now, manifestofornow.com, and make a comment like, have your say in this, because it's. We're not. I don't think either of us is doing this because we. We want to be added on the back for saying safe, blase, feel good things. Like, we're really trying to do something here, and it's. We're still. We're still learning about what exactly that formulation is, what that thinking is. So, anyway, that's welcome.
Claude Schryer
Okay, well, let me tell you, it's working. Thank you both so much.