Onions Talk: Change making through social engagement

"I just want to create a company where really badass people get to do the work that they love and that they are so good at and get paid really well and do it from anywhere in the world.” -Beth Salyers Beth Salyers is a public school teacher turned entrepreneur who leads Custom Learning Atelier, which utilises the art and science of learning to accompany you through the discomfort of grow...

Jolene Lum is the co-founder of Urban Tiller, a next generation farm-to-table agribusiness, founded in 2020. They work closely with local farmers in Singapore to deliver fresh produce to customers within hours of harvesting. They have expanded operations to Hyderabad in India in December 2020, and hope to bring value-added services and support to smallholder and new-age farmers in the region as th...

Laura is a social impact strategist and designer, co-founder of The Spaceship (education program that teaches change makers how to solve global challenges with business) and Demopunk (connecting carbon sequestering projects with real estate). She previously led Fashion Revolution in Singapore and Malaysia which opens up many conversations around the enivronmental impact of fashion. Key points in t...

What happens when a millennial talks to a boomer about change making in the midst of a climate crisis? Jack Sim is a successful entrepreneur and the founder of World Toilet Organisation. He became a milionaire at age 29, then retired from the business world at age 40 and dedicated his life to social impact. WTO supported in implementing 110 million toilets in India and built 13 blocks of Rain...

“I never felt ever that there was a path just right for me... We need more people that create paths because the current paths are not good enough.” This episode is about not being afraid to cross disciplines and boundaries. There are many opportunities that exist when we create a path across domains. Key points in this episode: Creative embodied process of co-creating healing Trauma and the need t...

Key points for part 2. Key lessons from memorable episodes Post capitalism and funding - Who prescribes change? Who dictates what change can happen? Who has the power? Rethinking impact evaluation - What serves us and what doesn’t? What’s changed since you started the podcast? Fié Neo is an interdisciplinary artist who makes socially engaged works through participatory practice, wearable art and f...

Have you ever been interviewed on your own podcast? This is what this episode is about. Jojo Spinks (interviewee in first episode) came to me and suggested to do a reverse interview to crystallise all the incredible learning in the past podcast episodes. So here it is! Get to know your host Fié Neo! This episode features my journey setting up INSEP (International Network for Socially Engaged Pract...

This episode is with Dan Boyden, co-director of The Change Collective, which is a collective of arts practitioners working in complex environments, and non-arts practitioners working across civil society who see the value of an arts-based approach. The Change Collective (TCC) is interested in the next generation of thinking and practice linking creative approaches to current social issues. They ha...

Primavera Gomes Caldas, artist and project manager specialising in critical thinking and connecting people, was born in Canada, grew up in French Guiana and moved to France for further education. She speaks of her experiences being French but not French, being not white enough to be white, not black enough to be black. The very first of #pft Prima-Fié-talk, this is a raw and uncensored episode on...

This conversation is about art, systems change, care and the questions we ask ourselves and the world. How can artists adapt to Covid-19? How do you sustain yourself as an artist? What does it mean to be an artist? How are my skills as an artist relevant right now? What better questions does the world need? How do we support each other? Andrew Simonet is a writer, choreogr...

Madeleine McGirk is the managing director of ITAC (International Teaching Artists Collaborative). This episode delves into the value and impact of socially engaged arts in bringing about bottom up social change. We discussed the possibilities of socially engaged processes going into different spaces like businesses and tech to provide new and creative perspectives while diversifying income streams...

Change cannot happen without discomfort. Change needs friction. Do you play the game and climb the ladder to be able to create change? Does the narrative of power and control serve us? What drives your need for change? What are the needs of your people? This conversation weaves in and out of folk tales, trees, honest discussions around the processes of change making and more… Stay till the end to...

What is your story? What are the chapters you want to write? Welcome back to our mini series on wayfinding. This episode is with Josiane Smith, who is a poet and connector, and is currently the Global Programmes Lead at the Social Innovation Exchange (SIX). This episode is about finding hope through healing and features some beautiful poetry! https://socialinnovationexchange.org/our-work/programme...

20 reflections from your host Fié Neo to end the year! Thank you all for being on this journey with me.  If you'd like to say hello, share any thoughts or be updated through email, drop me a message via Facebook: @onionstalk Email: heyonionstalk@gmail.com Instagram: @feeyeh_neo “If you love this show, please leave us a review. Go to RateThisPodcast.com/onionstalk and follow the simple instruc...

What do tap dancing, music and social change have in common? How can we create environments where dreams are possible?  Corina Kwami and I talked about learning to listen through songs and tap dancing, about losing the ability to learn together, about what care means during a pandemic.  Corina Kwami is a Renaissance woman whose mission is to celebrate jazz and what it offers innovators o...

Eily Aurora shares her passion for improvising with nature. Growing up in the countryside, she learned from a young age from local Canadian indigenous people how to listen, learn and communicate with the natural world. To make the song of nature audible, she uses The Music of the Plants device. It's an instrument that can perceive the electromagnetic variations emitted from the surface of plant le...

SIX is like a spark in the system that brings together different unlikely groups to connect and act. They create spaces for different stakeholders in an ecosystem to convene. So Jung (or "So") shares their Wayfinder project as well as their philosophy and processes at SIX, very much about relationships and exchange. She shares the importance of relationships and safe spaces for honesty and trust t...

We are at a crossroad, in a climate emergency. Earth is burning and it seems like the only solutions we have are in tech and renewable energy. Are they really sustainable for people and environment? This panel discussion focuses on social enterprises working with community, ecology and care. We will discuss the future of work within the social and environmental care sector and how jobs can be crea...

06:20 Interrupting racism requires courage and intentionality 18:30 Understanding privilege and how to be more aware 22:50 Micro Aggressions 29:50 “Being told to act more Indian” 36:00 Strategies to deal with micro-aggressions 42:14 What can you do to further this conversation? 10 takeaways Referenced books: White fragility by Robin Diangelo and So you want to talk about race by Ijeoma Oluo Articl...

This episode took courage to produce. It’s a hush hush topic in Singapore (a country with longstanding tradition of censorship), people don’t like to talk about it and it’s often seen as controversial. But this was something we felt we had to talk about to open up this conversation. So, let’s talk about race. Adeeb is the Artistic Director of The Second Breakfast Company, and has also worked with...

What is humane technology? Are we gearing up for a digital revolution? How do we democratise tech? How can we be co-creators? Why are we not creating apps that help us maintain relationships? Pawel is a lecturer of Interaction Design at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. Feel free to connect with him at info@postdigital.nl “If you love this show, please leave us a review. Go to RateThisPodcast.c...

How are Ecuadorians dealing with Covid-19? What are some coping strategies? How is mental health seen in Ecuador? Adriana Alzamora shares her budding entrepreneurship journey setting up a psychotherapy centre called Psicocare in the capital, Quito. Frustrated by the lack of jobs in this bleak economic landscape, four of her friends and her decided to start their own company. #mentalhealth Instagra...

Iris shares their experience growing up in Hawaii and the islands’ difficult colonisation history. We discussed how one agreement with the United States made months too early missed them the chance to decolonise themselves under international law, the importance of fables, myths and stories in Hawaiian culture, the need to introduce alternative narratives to counter the dominant western worldview,...

Aysen shares her incredible story from Turkey to England, from escaping political imprisonment to building her philosophy around activism - activism as a lifestyle. She offers a different take on activism, beyond demonstrations and protests. Activism is about knowing where you live and the people you live with. It’s about talking to real people, real problems because change comes from how much you...

Helen is an interdisciplinary artist-researcher with the Culture of Cities Centre, Board member with the Centre for Social Innovation, and a Salzburg Global Fellow. She leads the Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence in Toronto, which develops experimental applications of artistic intelligence for society, particularly in matters of public policy. She wears many hats and works across various discip...