Episode 15: INSIDE THE WHEREING PODCAST | Nina Freedman|Host
This is the FInal Episode of Season 1! To all listeners, THANK YOU! From starting this naive experiment, during the pandemic, from my home, it amazes me that I have listeners all over the United States and the world. Wow! I am taking a break over the summer, and will return in September. This episode gives you some short Season 1 highlight clips, and ‘behind the scenes’ info about the Whereing Podcast. It is part of a recent talk about the podcast I was invited to give to the Pratt Institute School of Design, Department of Interior Design INT Talks.
Episode 14: A LIVEABLE PLACE FOR ALL | Karen Kubey |Urbanist and Houser
I speak with Karen Kubey, who is an urbanist and ‘houser’ with an enduring passion and commitment to affordable housing as the generative factor in social equity and justice. We speak about the ways to engage residents in the decisions for the design of their homes, and the need to push for generous, transformative policies, because housing is a human right.
Episode 13: MOTHER TONGUE | ፈለማ የማነበርሃን| Felema Yemaneberhan |Architectural Designer
Felema Yemaneberhan grew up in Los Angeles, but throughout her childhood she was brought back to another home, in Eritrea, north of Ethiopia, a country traumatized by Italian colonization and Civil War. Before the age of 5, she only spoke Tigrinya, the language of her ancestral home, a place where her parents still anticipate returning. When we say mother tongue, what does it mean? ‘Mother Tongue’ merges the past and present, a sometimes invisible gift of identity, particularly when displaced in another land.
Episode 12: ELASTIC | ABSORBABLE | SPACE: Loukia Tsafoulia, Architect
The conversation with Loukia Tsafoulia covers her various multi-disciplinary projects. We first speak about the book she has edited and curated, titled 'Transient Spaces', and her devotion to exploring belonging for migrant and refugee populations. Her other works examine the connections between design, technology and science, specifically the human body, and its sensory interactions with objects and place. A project we speak about is an installation now being exhibited at the the Venice Biennale, called 'Synesthesia'.
Episode 04: HOME AND HOMELESSNESS |BUILDING SMARTER
What might resolve the challenges of sheltering the homeless? Kishani De Silva envisions a pilot scheme to test a smarter, faster, cheaper methodology. Bridging government, design, technology, and community resistance, she speaks, with hope, to the urgent need for alignment, partnership and the intangible meaning of community and belonging.
Episode 03: A SENSE OF DIRECTION
In the week of his 90th Birthday, I spoke to Yi Fu Tuan, a Chinese scholar and philosopher. He invented the phrase ‘humanist geography’ as a way to explore "how geography reveals the quality of awareness’. He writes about the contradictions of space and place as the necessary tension of the human experience for both freedom and security..... for movement and pause. With simple personal stories and observations, we are led us into his world.