Roborant Review

Authors Chris Feliciano Arnold ( The Third Bank of the River ) and Ingrid Rojas Contreras ( The Man Who Could Move Clouds ) share on dreaming in fiction to fighting with an AI boyfriend, from the vanishing Amazon to the vanishing liberal arts, this episode is a call to action for anyone who has ever felt the pull of a story they needed to tell.

Emory Douglas, former Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party, discusses the movement’s visual strategy, the impact of FBI surveillance, and the enduring power of political art. This conversation explores race, activism, media, and the role of images in times of social upheaval.

Today's episode is with art gallery owner Jack Fischer. In our conversation, we talk about the shrinking collector base, the decision to close his gallery after decades of showing art that leaves behind the raw emotion of the artist's hand, and the changing times of society amidst a very uncertain future of the arts and humanities.

Artist and educator Nigel Poor discusses teaching photography at San Quentin, co-creating Ear Hustle , and the role of storytelling in humanizing incarceration. We talk about memory, empathy, creative practice, and how art can reveal forms of everyday life that are often ignored or misunderstood.

A podcast about art and culture in a time of profound social change: listen to conversations with artists, museum curators, and cultural thinkers on controversy, censorship, migration, incarceration, and the future of our institutions. Follow the show to hear the full season.

Artist Javier Salazar Rojas, also known as The Deported Artist, reflects on life after deportation from the United States and the role of art in rebuilding community. We discuss incarceration, forced displacement, and how collective art-making can create dignity, healing, and connection beyond the commercial art world.

Crocker Art Museum curators Francesca Wilmott and Sara Morris discuss Making Moves , collaboration across museum departments, and feminist approaches to curating. The conversation explores how museums can break down hierarchies between art and craft, rethink art history, and become more responsive civic spaces.

Zapotec artist and weaver Porfirio Gutierrez discusses ancestral weaving traditions, natural pigments, migration, and the meaning of cultural return. We also examine why the Western category of “art” does not neatly fit Zapotec knowledge systems, and how museums have historically separated textiles from fine art.

Artist Kota Ezawa reflects on the ideas behind work shown at the Whitney Biennial, SFMOMA, and other major institutions. We discuss his labor-intensive process, his use of reduced imagery and watercolor animation, and how he thinks about making art in a world saturated by images.

Curator Abby Chen discusses the Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, the geopolitical tensions surrounding Taiwan and China, and what museums can become in a moment of rapid social change. We also talk about colonial collections, institutional power, and whether museums can resist becoming just another part of the attention economy.