Can Art Save Us?

By: Paula Moore
  • Summary

  • I’m raising the first national and international conversation to explore courage and curiosity and why it makes a big difference to our mental, societal and democratic health. Scroll down for all episodes. I’m grateful to share my reviews below. I talk to award-winning, diverse, national and international artists about the role of courage and curiosity in their lives. What do these qualities really mean and why do they matter to our mental, societal and democratic health? Can the Arts change the global epidemic of mental illness, loneliness, the polarization of our communities and global conflict? My dedicated website including interview transcriptions is www.canartsaveus.com All of my guests share personal stories, often life changing, their deep challenges and perseverance with success through their different responses to courage and curiosity. Be inspired, we talk, hip-hop poetry, Islamic architecture building peace , tap dance in protest, surrealism and WWII front line photography, life as a drag King, the Queen of the Qanun, war displacement and Syrian music, the Art School for the Homeless, the 1970s West Indian Front Room, inclusive dance, wheelchair acrobatics, British-Pakistani, Black-British, Jewish, and Irish spoken word artists, giant talking ceramics, an end of life film, the music industry and discrimination, graffiti art and Muslim faith, shamanic storytelling, a Cameroonian clay addict, a world leading sculptor and voices of Windrush in arts activism, comedy, photography and iconic sculpture.
    Copyright 2024 All Rights Reserved
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Episodes
  • The Sensory Therapy of Art
    Nov 12 2024

    David Emmanuel Noel, is a visual and interdisciplinary artist who often splits his time between New York and London. He collaborates with musicians and performers to explore race, identity and culture with an emphasis on public engagement. He's interested in promoting a fairer, kinder and inclusive society and he's worked with socially conscious organisations including New York's Groundswell Community Mural Project, the Powerhouse, a UK charity supporting women with learning difficulties, the National Network for Art and Health and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. He's also worked with the Royal Institute of British Architects and David has a very clear interest in the social and therapeutic benefits of art in public spaces. He clearly states every artist should see their art form as a therapeutic tool above or beyond anything else. David is also a political science graduate and holds an m MA in European Studies. How the arts can influence socio-economic and political trends is clearly on his radar. His broad interests across the creative industries have also culminated in David co-founding Occhi Arts and Entertainment, which includes consultancy and an online magazine to showcase artists and to promote arts advocacy. David's artwork has been featured at highly prestigious venues such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Kennedy Centre, Washington DC, along with galleries in London and festivals. His career is undoubtedly like a rich tapestry of work, a cloak for good. His paintings are full of movement and colour, sensory in intent and heightened in collaborations with musicians such as Grammy Award-nominated US band Cloud9 and Daryl Yokely's Sound Reformation. Everything speaks out.

    The Art of PR is the first exhibition to collectively present the work of established and emerging artists from the UK public relations sector, including David Emmanuel Noel and Tonye Ekine, also in Season 7.

    Visit the Coningsby Gallery: info@coningsbygallery.com / 07884 314361

    18 November 2024–23 November 2024

    www.coningsbygallery.com/exhibition/the-art-of-pr-november-2024

    Discover David Emmanuel Noel: www.davidemmanuelnoelart.net/

    Occhi Magazine (Part of Occhi Arts & Entertainment): www.occhimagazine.com/

    Series Audio Editor - Joey Quan.

    Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb

    Closed Captions are added to all audio interviews in this series.

    Read only, text transcripts of every interview, news, reviews and your host, Paula Moore, are available here: www.canartsaveus.com

    THANK YOU FOR LISTENING. PLEASE SHARE THIS FREE TO LISTEN SERIES AND HELP MAKE THE ARTS ALL OF OURS.

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    1 hr and 1 min
  • Survivor. A Child's Holocaust. Unique Animation & Archival Accuracy.
    Oct 11 2024

    Sometimes it seems people are just born gifted and Zoom Rockman started his working artistic life from the age of eight, when he was self-publishing his own monthly comic, The Zoom, now considered a collector's item. Today Zoom is an award-winning political cartoonist, illustrator, puppet animator, and now the Director of his first animated one hour film, Survivor. This is the true story of Ivor Perl, who survived the Holocaust, age 12 with his brother. In stark contrast to Ivor’s life, at age 12, Zoom had become the youngest cartoonist for the world's longest running comic The Beano. At age 16, he became a regular contributor at Private Eye, the UK's number one best selling News and Current Affairs magazine. Zoom's humor and observation was already mature enough for this audience, but six years later, he quit after receiving an anti-Semitic death threat for one of his cartoons and lack of response he felt he had from the magazine. Many more accomplishments have since continued. One being in 2023, Zoom Rockman's, Jewish Hall of Fame, was billed as the ‘must see summer exhibition,’ where he created interactive life size automata of Jewish icons, including Lord sugar, Amy Winehouse and Sacha Baron Cohen. Suffice to say, the London Evening Standard newspaper has previously named Zoom as one of the most influential Londoners under 25, and he was included on Instagram's first ever 21 under 21 list within the art category. Zoom's gift of visual storytelling is ever more pronounced with his new film Survivor. This is a huge act of compassion, archival accuracy and artistic skill, telling the true story of Ivor Perl's survival. To do this, he has created an astonishing 150, hand animated paper puppets representing real people. The intricate detail of his sets accurately replicate locations, and the film is accompanied with music by the award-winning composer Erran Baron Cohen and vocals by Pini Brown, whose voice grips the emotional magnitude of this story. The film is based on Ivor Perl's book and testimony, Chicken Soup Under the Tree. We also talk about the importance of visual literacy, authenticity and telling the truth versus dis-information and failing education. Links are below to follow the film and for screening information.

    Images courtesy of Zoom Rockman. Survivor images are reproduced with the permission of Lemon Soul.

    Discover More:

    FILM www.survivorfilm.com

    IVOR PERL’S BOOK www.lemonsoul.com/products/chicken-soup-under-the-tree?srsltid=AfmBOopCsd-yBvpDEkXZaTjx_emAbzBBlZFiZnu5eC0nchFKyFTc0fQ5

    MARCH OF THE LIVING www.marchoftheliving.org.uk/

    HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY 2025 www.hmd.org.uk/what-is-holocaust-memorial-day/this-years-theme/

    VOCALS BY PINNY BROWN www.linktr.ee/piniontheroof

    COMPOSER ERRAN BARON COHEN www.erranbaroncohen.com

    Podcast Host - Paula Moore

    Series Audio Editor - Joey Quan.

    Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb

    Closed Captions are added to all audio interviews in this series.

    Read only, text transcripts of every interview, news, reviews and your host are available here: www.canartsaveus.com

    THANK YOU FOR LISTENING. PLEASE SHARE THIS FREE TO LISTEN SERIES AND HELP MAKE THE ARTS ALL OF OURS.

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    59 mins
  • Lessons from a Wounded Desert. Arts, Animal and Eco Justice.
    Sep 21 2024

    Sunaura Taylor is an artist, writer, activist, academic and mother. Sunaura is the Assistant Professor in the Division of Society and Environment and the director of the Disabled Ecologies Lab at the University of California, Berkely. A skilled artist, her artworks have been exhibited at venues such as the CUE Art Foundation, a contemporary art space in New York City, the Smithsonian Institution, the world's largest museum, education, and research complex and they are a part of the Berkeley Art Museum collection. Sunaura is also the author of Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation, which received the American Book Award. Her current book is, Disabled Ecologies: Lessons from a Wounded Desert and whilst it’s not a memoir, it is personal and political. She documents how residents organized one of the earliest and most successful environmental justice movements in the USA. Sunaura is a game changer, a global thinker, she brings together what environmental and disability movements can learn from one another. Her books reveal how disability and ableism shape our understanding of nature and environmental crisis. She uncovers networks of disability, both human and wild, that are created when ecosystems are corrupted and profoundly altered. Sunaura raises an important question we should all be asking in the name of shared justice, “What happened to us?” Not, what happened to you? This is someone with an incredible eye for detail, for whom painting is a love of seeing and whose political statements are also drawn from sharp observation, analysis and lived experience. Sunaura also has a critical understanding of curiosity cultivated in her alternative childhood education of being 'unschooled.'

    Sunaura Taylor

    Aquifer Losing Reach, Speculative Aquifers Series

    Pen and Watercolor on Paper, apx 11 x 8’’, 2017-2020

    Sunaura Taylor

    Animals With Arthrogryposis

    Oil on Canvas, 6’ x 9’ (72“ x 108”), 2009

    Author Photo © Julius Schlosberg

    Discover Sunaura Taylor: www.sunaurataylor.net/

    Series Audio Editor - Joey Quan.

    Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb

    Closed Captions are added to all audio interviews in this series.

    Read only, text transcripts of every interview, news, reviews and your host, Paula Moore, are available here: www.canartsaveus.com

    THANK YOU FOR LISTENING. PLEASE SHARE THIS FREE TO LISTEN SERIES AND HELP MAKE THE ARTS ALL OF OURS.

    Show More Show Less
    59 mins

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