Cultural Fingerprints

Van Eggers has been a skateboarder since he was five and a graffiti artist since he was eleven, and the core of his artwork traces back to those two identities. In this episode of the Cultural Fingerprints podcast, Van walks us through his Long Beach years: living in the legendary Winnipeg Street skate house, full of pros sleeping on army cots and exchanging music, art, and skate lore; relentlessl...

Many custom NYC choking safety signs were drawn by those on staff. Graphic designer, illustrator, and artist Sara Rabin has two on the walls of New York City establishments: one made for Dimes in Chinatown, where she waitressed for a decade, and one from Rodeo in Crown Heights, opened by a friend from that same downtown restaurant orbit. In this episode of the Cultural Fingerprints podcast, Sara w...

How did a dystopian John Carpenter movie end up saving lives in New York cafes? In this new episode of the Cultural Fingerprints podcast, illustrator Phil Ashworth tells the story behind one of city’s most beloved pieces of restaurant safety signage: his Heimlich poster starring Snake Plissken, the reluctant antihero of Escape from New York (1981), begrudgingly saving a choking victim in a bombed-...

How does a record collection started at age 12 shape a career spanning literary publishing, dramaturgy, and digital preservation? In the first episode of Spaces Between, a new Cultural Fingerprints series, Maxwell Neely-Cohen shares how growing up immersed in D.C.'s go-go, punk, and electronic music scenes laid the groundwork for a practice that refuses to sit in one medium. We dive into Max's ear...

How did this famed moment in New York basketball culture become embedded in a restaurant safety sign? In the second episode of Cultural Fingerprints, designer and art director Pitu Sanchez shares how he intersected his love for basketball, food, design, and New York in this legendary passion project: creating a restaurant safety sign that repurposes NBA star Reggie Miller’s iconic trash-talk “chok...

A choking safety sign as art? In this episode, illustrator Lia Kantrowitz and creative director Jessica Saesue discuss their work on the custom choking sign for Fish Cheeks, a contemporary, seafood-focused Thai restaurant in New York. Their creative relationship began at VICE nearly a decade ago and now extends to teaming up on branding projects for not only Fish Cheeks, but also 55 Hospitality’s...

Welcome to the podcast for Cultural Fingerprints, a home for the intersections of language, culture, technology, and place. I'm your host, Rhea Kapur: a researcher, artist, urban archivist, and technologist. More at www.rheakapur.info and www.culturalfingerprints.com , or find me @culturalfingerprints on Instagram and TikTok!