The Creativity Pioneers Podcast

The mental health crisis has become impossible to ignore. Nearly 1 in 8 people—close to a billion worldwide—are living with mental health disorders, and the pandemic only made things worse, with anxiety and depression rising by over 25%. In this context, many cultural workers and creatives have expressed a sense of isolation, struggling without the support of nourishing communities. In a way, much...

From climate change to social justice to racial equity and gender identity, Creativity and Culture are playing a critical role in solving the main issues affecting the planet. But creativity practitioners worldwide are isolated, undervalued, and overlooked as changemakers.   How can creative brands convene a new discourse on creativity's role in galvanizing Social Change? How can they inspire, amp...

Creatives thrive in cities, and cities move, change, and grow with the creative minds they host. Urban landscapes are shaped by creative practices rooted in local communities, which can lead to transformative urban agendas with increasing attention to sustainability and inclusion. This happens because of people, collaboration, and experimentation, at the individual and institutional levels, often...

"Art is not a hobby, or a luxury. Rather, it is a necessity, it gives purpose, and saves life." Skinder Hundal, Director of the Arts of the British Council, unravels decades of learning through his outstanding career in artistic institutions in this episode of Creativity Pioneers. Discover how Skinder frames creativity as a tool for collaboration in communities, and how experiencing life through t...

"An institution should be an echo, a magnifier for the relationship between art and viewer. Curating is a collective project." Elvira Dyangani Ose, Director of the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona and the first Black woman to take on the position, is aiming to change the European cultural landscape through curating projects for the people. In her new journey as the head of one of Spain’s most...

“There is this ongoing need to identify and challenge where power rests.” says Eliza Anyangwe, editor for the CNN “As Equals” project and Founder of The Nzinga Effect. After years of experience in the journalism world, Eliza takes on her role as a modern storyteller to challenge ideas of power hierarchies and how to make a place in the world for yourself, and for others. Keywords: Curiosity, Love,...

“How can we contribute as an Afro-global Art institution to a regenerative art ecosystem? How can we not be extractive of collection, capital, people, how do we navigate the paradigm of ownership, how can we create a more equitable and regenerative ecosystem?” asks Ngaire Blankenberg, director of the Smithsonian Museum of African Art. Through her vision of the complexities of identity, she reflect...

Episode recorded during our Creativity Pioneers Instagram Live Conversation. "Let's use the answer of creativity and curiosity to stay alive. I’m still alive because I'm curious. I think that's the only thing. I think that's the only answer because I'm creating something different – said artist Joël Andrianomearisoa - It's like reading a book. We have the book of our life and we have to create a d...

Episode recorded during our Creativity Pioneers Instagram Live Conversation. “Creativity can give us some therapeutic and balsamic power; we can express our creativity and share with the others and be inspired by others, like a chain. And I am happy to belong to this universe of art and always researching, always being curious about things - said Rossy De Palma, polyhedric artist, actress and muse...

Episode recorded during our Creativity Pioneers Instagram Live Conversation. "Creativity is a kind of transcendent energy, very connected with positive thinking. And it's a powerful element that allows us to make positive, great things - said Carlo Stanga, architect, award-winning illustrator, cities traveller and observer - We have to give creativity the right direction, the positive direction to...

Episode recorded during our Creativity Pioneers Instagram Live Conversation. "I define myself as a designer… It's not necessarily only a problem to solve, but really figuring out frameworks and rules for myself, which some artists do as well, especially in procedural art - said Giorgia Lupi explaining the relation between her big data design and the creative artistic process.  This episode moves f...

"If we had to choose one single skill to teach our kids and the future generations, that would be creativity, that innate talent that we all have as human beings…” said Valentino Barrioseta, NGO Bridges for Music Founder and CEO. “You can keep you learning throughout your whole life, and if you master this skills, creativity, curiosity and empathy, I really, really believe there's nothing that can...

"Building institutions that are transformative and change the world is like building cathedrals: it requires a unique mindset to believe in something so big that you willing to commit to putting the foundation together, knowing that you may not live long enough to see it" said Veda Sunassee, African Leadership University's Executive Director. His path to leadership is ingrained in a constant self-...

"It's about creating spaces of thought, spaces of reflection, spaces of deliberation, spaces in which we can disagree, in which you can dismantle things, in which you can build things, spaces in which we can commune, in which we can just look at each other, listen to each other and acknowledge each other's presence" said Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, independent curator, author, and biotechnolog...

"You can do many things with what is available to us, and there are a lot of things that are available to us. We have to find a way to exercise our power and create what we want to create, and not just have a small group of people decide what our stories are going to look like" - said Adepero Oduye, producer, actress, director, and writer – "There's something I want to tell them this way, in my wa...

What is beyond the common notion of creativity and how can it serve us? How can creativity benefit our journey? How can it contribute solving important social issues like education, inequalities or racial injustice? On Season 1 of our Creativity Pioneers podcast, we engaged in conversation with unique creative minds and doers who are at the forefront of radical change - artists, activists, social...

"I am alone in a box of stone. When all is said and done. As the wind blows to the east from the west. Unto this bed, my tears have their solemn rest… It wasn’t easy getting used to this I used to scream. It’s not true, that it’s only when the door is locked that nobody enters". This episode has been inspired by the lyrics of the song "Cornerstone" by Benjamin Sainte-Clémentine, English artist, po...

“Caring can be considered in the practical sense of hands-on ‘caring for’, then in the emotional and ethical sense of ‘caring about’, and in the context of the dialogic strategy adopted in my creative work: ‘caring with’…” said Elena Cologni, interdisciplinary artist - drawing, performative and dialogic sculpture - Senior Research Fellow at the Cambridge School of Art, Humanities and Social Scienc...

“How can we prevent disorientation in terms of getting lost? We need to be super resilient and ready for the next crisis, and it would be possible only by adopting new behaviour and mindset” said Roberto Casati, Senior Researcher with CNRS, professor at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and Director of Institut Jean Nicod in Paris, working at the boundary of philosophy and cogni...

In times of deep crisis, we often look at South Africa as a model for resilience, considering how much of it the country proved to have through its history. “What happened in South Africa is that we are constantly dealing with a vanishing present, and we use history to eradicate that haziness, but history cannot survive without memory. One of the advantages of today is that we have social media wh...

This episode is about the perception of words, and their light and shadows, we’ll talk about the challenge to rediscover their deeper meaning, their true light within. Words lose their meaning when deprived of their shadows, and become mere slogans. Words are important because they are the building blocks of our thoughts, and now - during this pandemic - more than before, new words such as confine...

These episodes are a collection of live talks that were recorded during the first European lockdown, where we explore how creativity could be critical for individual and social resilience. For us, language and words define our thoughts, our experience of the world, and consequently our capacity to generate ideas. That is why we decided to create a small, unconventional vocabulary that would inspir...

How can creativity and art contribute to the history of a Country and shape local communities? Why Chimurenga as "revolution of the mind" lays the foundation for Zimbabwe's new history? Raphael Chikakwa, a Zimbabwean artist and activist, Executive Director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, guides us through the history of his Country - economic struggles, political instability, and regional vio...

“Beauty, justice, and structure”, three words that are part of the personal and political mission to impact society by Sebabatso Manoeli, Senior Director at Columbia University for the Atlantic Fellows for Racial Equity program, and also in charge of the podcast “Race Beyond Borders”. Manoeli shares her vision on how beauty relies on structure, as well as social change requires a structure: an inn...

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