What drives cultural practitioners to experiment, discover, and create?
Filmmaker and Pew Fellow Stewart Thorndike speaks about her love of horror, describing it as a space for defying boundaries and reckoning with darker truths of society not often reflected in conventional filmmaking. She also shares the thrill of her earliest artistic discoveries and the challenges and opportunities technology brings to filmmaking.
Filmmaker and Pew Fellow Zac Manuel reflects on the important influence of music in his practice, from documenting pop star Lil Nas X, to chronicling his own family’s musical legacy. He also addressed the “ethically messy” questions posed by the intersection of art and rapidly advancing technology.
Drummer, composer, educator, and Pew Fellow Chad E. Taylor offers thoughts about making space for an array of creative voices in his work, as well as the philosophy behind his practice, and tells stories about his roots as an artist. He also shared a playlist of the music that moves him.
Pew Fellows Shehrezad Maher and Kristen Neville Taylor both consider the nature of memory and personal and collective histories in their creative work. Here, they discuss their artistic practices and processes.
Composer/musician Sumi Tonooka and poet/author Phillip B. Williams discuss commonalities in the ways they “channel” their compositions and how they’ve experienced shifts in their artistic identities.
Filmmaker Darius Clark Monroe and musician Karen Smith talk about tapping into creativity at an early age, striving to extend their artistic legacies, and finding peace at the ocean’s edge.
Pew Fellow James Allister Sprang shares about his transformative encounter with 4DSound and what it means to be a “listener.”
Visual artists Adebunmi Gbadebo and Odili Donald Odita discuss their shared Nigerian heritage and the materiality of their respective mediums.
Interdisciplinary artist Maia Chao and visual artist James Maurelle discuss how they create productive work environments for themselves, their earliest interests in artistic expression, and why they’ve made Philadelphia their home.
Novelist Camille Acker and filmmaker Sabaah Folayan discuss the origins of their practices, creative influences, and dream projects.