Art of Interference

Diné artist and photographer Will Wilson has been photographing hundreds of abandoned uranium mines and remediation site on the Navajo Nation over the last few years. In this episode, we speak with Will about this project, called “Connecting the Dots for a Just Transition,” and the power of photography to reveal and remediate environmental injustice. We also hear from Leah Lowe, the director of Vanderbilt University’s Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy, which exhibited Will’s work in fall 2024 as part of an ongoing initiative exploring the role of “eco-grief” in the arts. For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/ [https://artofinterference.com/]

In this final episode of season 2, we talk with dancer and dance scholar Mariama Diagne about the art of “heavy hovering”—the ability of modern ballet and dance to teach us a different way of moving and being on Earth. We discuss efforts to relocate human life to other planets to escape the effects of climate change, the beauty of meeting the challenges of terrestrial gravity, the environmental legacy of Pina Bausch’s dance theater, and the transformative qualities of West-African dance practices. And since this is our last episode for this year, AoI's five team members also take a pause to reflect on their favorite moment of this season . . . and their preferred dance moves.  For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/ [https://artofinterference.com/]

Smoke is a beautiful—yet sometimes strange, or even terrifying—phenomenon. In today’s episode, we explore how the mysterious qualities of smoke open up possibilities for exploration and better understanding of human relationships with the earth and air. First, we get to know the multi-colored, pyrotechnic smoke sculptures of esteemed artist Judy Chicago, who began producing these works in the late 1960s as a response to the male-centric land art movement. Then, we hear from Bill Fox, the Director of the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno; he has worked extensively with Chicago’s smoke sculpture archive, currently housed by the museum. Finally, we feature a conversation with Dave Petersen, a scientist who’s devoted his entire career to understanding smoke and wildfires. For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/ [https://artofinterference.com/]

“Wind, wind, wind. If you repeat the word wind often enough, then it will blow by itself.” These are the poetic words of this episode’s featured artist, Theo Jansen, who has spent the last three decades creating and evolving his strandbeests—massive PVC creatures that walk down the Dutch coast powered by the wind alone. Wind propels sail boats, kites, turbines, and strandbeests alike, all with invisibility. Join us as we explore how climate change is actually changing winds, discuss on-shore and off-shore wind farming, and dive into the complexities of making wind art.  For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/ [https://artofinterference.com/]

Our air and atmosphere require 21% oxygen to sustain life as we know it. Human-induced climate change has put this ratio under pressure. In this episode of Art of Interference, we feature Santiago Sierra’s work 52 Canvases and Ted Chiang’s short story Exhalation as two recent interventions that draw our attention to the precarity of the air around us. We talk with curator Meredith Malone about the strange beauty of Sierra's toxic images and we discuss what can be learned from marine mammals about the future of oxygen on our planet. For more information visit: https://artofinterference.com/ [https://artofinterference.com/]