My conversation with interdisciplinary artist, researcher and consultant Helen Yung who leads the Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence, an artist-driven transdisciplinary research group that specializes in reimagining how things work in the world. Led by artists, this Lab collaborates with people in community, culture, astronomy, physics, psychology, medicine, immigration, mental health, information sciences, education, and more. Helen is a sparkplug of creativity and innovation. I had the pleasure of attending a presentation by Helen about her work at the Worldmaking as Creative Practice gathering in Tkaronto on May 29 and 30, 2025 which was hosted by the Creative Communities Commons at University of Toronto's School of Cities and led by Artist-Researcher-in-Residence Shannon Litzenberger. You’ll hear Helen and I refer to this Worldmaking gathering throughout our conversation, for example, when I ask Helen about art as refuge. At the end of the episode Helen invite listeners to join the to the Forum for Artistic Intelligence (ART/INForum).
A note of thanks to EM Luka, a good friend and collaborator of Helen's, who participated in the conversation but was not included in the final edit due to time constraints.
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Imagine a world where art safeguards culture, bridges divides, and sparks imagination. Helen Yung shares her vision of art as a sanctuary and a catalyst for understanding our pluriversal world, challenging us to reconsider the role of creativity in society.
Chapter Summary
00:00 The Value of Cultural Practices
01:24 Introducing Helen Yung
03:42 Pluriversalism and Artistic Practice
07:05 Art as a Refuge
11:14 Roots and Artistic Identity
Featured Quotes
Behind the Story
Helen Yung discusses her work with the Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence, emphasizing the importance of bringing artistic methods into various societal sectors. The episode touches on the Worldmaking as Creative Practice gathering, where ideas of art as refuge were explored. Helen advocates for pluriversalism, highlighting the need to appreciate and integrate diverse perspectives in a global context.
[00:00:00] Helen Yung
Artistic practice, cultural traditions, cultural practice, folk traditions. These are all places where we have where wisdoms that might otherwise have been lost have been protected, sheltered or found refuge. And like, artists have this like hoarding tendency sometimes, right? Like maybe not all artists, but a lot of us, you know, we look for, for these neglected things, the things that people don't care about so much. We make special or we keep special. And then it's through the artists right now, through the peoples who've kept the stories, kept the cultures, kept the artifacts or the practices that we can reconnect and collapse time. We can close some of that distance between who I am, where I am today, and ancestors from way before through those practices.
[00:00:58] Claude Schryer
Episode 237. My conversation with interdisciplinary artist, researcher and consultant Helen Young, who leads the Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence, an artist driven transdisciplinary research group that specializes in reimagining how things work in the world. Led by artists, this lab collaborates with people in community, culture, astronomy, physics, psychology, medicine, immigration, mental health, information sciences, education and more. So as you can see, Helen is a spark plug of both creativity and innovation. I had the pleasure of attending a presentation by Ellen about her work at the World Making as Creative Practice gathering in Tironto on May 27th and 30th, 2025. This event was hosted by the Creative Communities Commons at the University of Toronto's School of Cities and led by artist researcher in residence Shannon Litzenberger. During the recording you'll hear Helen and I refer to to this World Making gathering. For example, I asked Helen about Art as Refuge. At the end of the episode, you'll have an invitation to join the Forum for Artistic Intelligence. The link is in the episode notes
[00:02:42] Helen Yung
Because I lead a small art research consulting group called the Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence and what we do is that we try to bring artists and artistic methods into other parts of society where more imagination is needed. That sort of mission is in fact something that of course we feel very strongly about that the world needs more imagination. And I'm very much aligned with all the other artists and groups out there who would speak passionately about artists helping to imagine more, imagine better, to rehearse, to co create, to form new relations, create a help bridge understanding, help bridging peace and that sort of thing. I'm all for that. Lately something that's really been coming up for me is more around difference. I think that sometimes there's this desire in our desire for harmony and for wholeness. There's this tendency sometimes for a universalism for all of us being one world.
And the more I work internationally and the more I work with people who come from very different cultures and societies and nations, and the more we consider the possibility of life beyond Earth. I think I've really been spending a lot more time with the concept of pluriversalism and the idea of there being plural or multiverses, multiple universes. And within our world as we know it right now, there are many different universes or ontologies or different societies and their different norms. And so if you think within the international context, like something like the United Nations, I can't speak to that directly. I don't have a lot of experience with that. And I know from colleagues who do work in the UN that there are, you know, it's rife with problems. It's, you know, no system is perfect, but, but in the abstract, the idea of how could nations around the world come to agree on collective action when we actually fundamentally believe different things?
So that very simple and more practical idea of pluriversalism is something that I'm really interested in. And then bringing it back to arts part practice, a key ingredient or method in our practice at the Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence is devising good old fashioned devised theater, devised performance, devised work. And that practice is so important because when we go around the room and everybody gets to contribute something and every person's contribution is valued, every person's perspective is valued. If you, when, when you meet with people who are truly skillful at doing this and approach it with a great deal of humanity, it's not a polite niceness that you offer everybody, like, oh, that was nice. Thank you, thank you for your, you know, it's not just that. It's actually a genuine witness, a genuine seeing of the other, of comfort, like an ease or a willingness, a desire to sit in relation with others who are not you, who see things differently and to actually see it through their eyes, see it through their being, experience it through their body. And like, there's more in there that I think we're just beginning to unpack at the lab around pluriversalism.
And how do we really, truly work with diverse imaginations that are formed by diverse experiences and diverse, even like very different, I almost want to say emotions, but maybe I mean more in the realm of affects or sensations.
[00:07:05] Claude Schryer
We have just finished a workshop that Sam and Litzenberg organized here in Takaronto that talked about worlding as creative practice. And one of the things that you said in your presentation, Ellen, was that art is Sometimes a refuge for other things like spirituality and soulfulness. And I found that very provocative and interesting because we talk about arts, and I'm talking about arts in times of collapse, you know, and these are generalities. But you're right, Emmy, that the work happens in the ground. It happens locally. It happens in these. We're in the Buddies in Bad Times theater here right now. So, Helen, I wonder what you meant by that, because art, it's a process, right? And we just did a bunch of kinetic work. What is art in these times for you?
[00:08:01] Helen Yung
First, at the time I was saying that, and I certainly. It's not an original observation. I think lots of others have said this. But in our modern times, art has been a sort of holding space or a. Well, a placeholder for many other things that humanity craves and needs. And so we've bestowed all kinds of honors and associations with art, like art creates belonging, and art is a deeply rooted in the spirit. And it's not that it isn't those things, but also many other things could be those things.
But we've made art hold all these things because in much of the rest of society, we've disembodied, to borrow that, to inverse the word. We've alienated these things from much of society. And so, like belonging now, how does belonging occur? Belonging never was a thing that really, you know, it's so fundamental and innate to our biology, and yet now we have to seek out belonging by joining in a club or, you know, like. So first there's that, and then in terms of a refuge. I love that word that you've chosen. The question of in these times, what do we need?
Also brings me to the thoughts of places in conflict, in deep conflict. I think about artists who are trying to hang on to pieces of their culture, whether it's the Ukrainian museums and the curators who are standing by their cultural products and cultural artifacts and. And trying to find ways to safeguard that. And, like, I know how much, like, even right now, I'm feeling so moved just thinking about it. And also I went to a wonder talk in Milan where these folks at the circus school in Ukraine, what they did was that they worked with an incredible network of sister circus schools all around the world, including in Canada, and figured out where to send their circus students. And not just the students, but their families, right? They had to, like, relocate entire families so that they could continue their practice.
And because their circus school happens to run, like, all these different specialized programs like magic and, I don't know, aerial or something. It wasn't an automatic fit. It wasn't just like they could just export people to one specific spot. They really had to go all around the world and how moving that kind of international caravan was to listen to. And I think about Tatrisse, the Palestinian prac. I think it's a textile practice. And I know artists who are trying to claim that, preserve that because there's so little else that. I mean, at least this is a handicraft that is, I don't know, worn on the body, I imagine.
[00:11:14] Claude Schryer
Let's get into action thing, action points, things that you recommend listeners think about, do concrete things in either their art practice in their lives based on your experience as a teacher, as an educator, as an activist, as an artist, and so on.
[00:11:36] Helen Yung
So in this workshop or conference that we were just in recently. I know it's not a conference, this non conference, Henia Cheng, the artist, spoke about how when she was doing street dance and hip hop, one of the components of that practice is to go back to your roots and who are you? And that prompted her on this incredible journey that's really shaped is who she is now, what she does now as an artist. And I guess that's one thing like truly like whether by blood or by another form of kinship, by through spirit, like what are your roots and what. What's been passed on to you that you may not be thinking of in that way, but is actually a reservoir of a source of knowledge, a source of wisdom, a source of knowing for you and something that you don't know and something that you want to continue to learn, explore. And I think something that we said also in the last two days was that if you're interested. So now I'm moving into a very practical mode, as requested.
If you're interested in these kinds of conversations and in this kind of work. The Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence believes very much in holding a continuum. So the continuum being, if we were to describe it in polarities, is like art for art's sake. And truly deep art, artistic practice that is intrinsic to itself. And then all the way on the other end is what you might call applied arts or artistic intelligence at work in the world, in other parts of society, whether you're working with urban planners, with scientists, with engineers or broad strokes. But we. One does not happen without the other.
Or rather, I mean, clearly artistic practice can happen by itself, but in our contemporary times, because we have to make a living, it can't. And also I do. Sorry, one more little tiny manifesto is that I believe very much in the role of the artist is to do our best to exhibit in our subjectivity in society. So to be that square peg in a round hole. So to bring our artistic practice and our artistic being in relation to the rest of the world, to whatever extent you're able to, if your way of being in society is to do an exhibition, publish a book or be in relation in that way, great. But also for those who feel more in, who feel it's more available to them to move into society more and bring practice and be more messy and in the in between space. Mary Elizabeth and I, along with a whole bunch of other colleagues, are starting up an international consortium for Artistic Intelligence.
We invite you to join the new. It's called Art In Forum. Art in to stand for Artistic Intelligence. So the Forum for Artistic Intelligence. The website is forum.artisticintelligence.com.