In the fourth episode of the Why AxS podcast—where brilliant scientific and artistic minds ponder the important whys—we explore the rise of Futurism in Indigenous art as a means of enduring colonial trauma and envisioning a more inclusive and sustainable future.

We're joined by Virgil Ortiz, a Pueblo artist known for his traditional Cochiti figurative pottery and experimentations with science-fiction storytelling.

Ortiz's art is a testament to his boundless imagination and his ability to push boundaries. He creates art the way his ancestors did while interweaving futuristic, sci-fi themes that bring light to untold histories.

ReVOlt 1680/2180: Sirens & Sikas, for instance, unearths the artistry and significant history of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt, the only successful Native uprising against a colonizing power in North America (which you’ve likely never heard of.)

The striking piece is part of an exhibition currently on view at the Autry Museum of the American West entitled Future Imaginaries: Art, Fashion, Technology. The Autry’s Amy Scott joins this episode of the Why AxS to weigh in on the complex ideas animating an exhibition featuring over 50 works exploring representing a diverse array of Native cultures.

Part of Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide (as is this podcast), the exhibition also opens audiences to the significance of non-Western knowledge, especially when it comes to climate change.

This is where our third guest, Dr. Daniel Wildcat, comes in. The professor and highly accomplished scholar works to incorporate Indigenous knowledge and culture into federal policy.

Join us for a lesson left out of the history books, as we imagine a more inclusive and sustainable future.

Ready to go dark and get deep? In the third episode of the Why AxS podcast—where brilliant scientific and artistic minds ponder the important whys—we explore the infinite possibilities of the origins and nature of our universe.

Our guests couldn't be more disparate in their paths, yet conjoined in their pursuits.

Lita Albuquerque, an internationally renowned visual artist and ArtCenter faculty member, is inspired by the natural world, on this planet and beyond. Her works are intimate and epic, earthly and ephemeral—a celebration of how we connect to our environment, below and above.

Her large-scale installations—like Rock and Pigment, a series of rocks in the Mojave Desert in alignment to the stars overhead—connect human to celestial bodies, allowing us to feel what our minds can’t comprehend—that we’re a tiny speck suspended among billions of galaxies.

Dida Markovic, an astrophysicist at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, also studies the incomprehensible, specifically the dark sector of the universe.

Dark energy and dark matter govern 95% of all the gravitational interactions in the universe–yet, present a mystery to science.

Did you know the intersection of art + science has been rooted in the DNA of Los Angeles from the very beginning?

In this episode of our Why AxS podcast, alum + former ArtCenter Exhibitions director Stephen Nowlin unravels the rich intertwining origins of the artists and experimenters who landed in L.A. and pioneered new industries, from aeronautics to film.

As humans, we aspire to find common ground between the two district sides of our brain. That’s why science needs art to tell its narratives in a language that makes data illuminating, immersive, complex and even transcendent.

We invite you to join us on this journey — and bring both sides of your brain.

Welcome to the Why AxS, ArtCenter’s podcast featuring brilliant scientific and artistic minds ponder the big why's that come with being a tiny part of this universe.

Our first episode, How to Land on a Comet, takes you aboard JPL’s Rosetta Mission, as we’re joined by mission planner Art Chmielewski + alum/illustrator Liz de la Torre (BFA 13), who mapped the surface of speeding comet for a first-of-a-kind rendezvous with a spacecraft — from a single pixel.

Rosetta remains one of the world’s most ambitious — and arduous — space exploration missions. Landing on a comet as it zips and twists through space poses seemingly limitless degrees of difficulty and danger.

Seeking an artistic solution to a scientific problem — how to map the comet’s surface — Chmielewski recruited de la Torre while she was a student at ArtCenter.

Now working as a Creative Strategist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, de la Torre acts as an artistic interpreter of scientific theories, using the illustration skills she honed at the College.

For the Rosetta Mission, de la Torre listened to some of the world's leading experts on comets, and based on their ideas and projections, created multiple approximations of the comet’s terrain.

These beautifully detailed visuals, capturing the comet’s potential tiny pores and bubbling gas, allowed scientists to better visualize the best approach — and helped secure the mission’s success.

They are truly brilliant works of art and science.

Join ArtCenter’s Lauren Mahoney and Ethan Stockwell for an episode full of behind-the-scenes insights into everything from the search for life in the universe to the hidden impact of space research on our everyday lives as we embark on an extraordinary and otherworldly ride.

Join us for ArtCenter’s new mini-series investigating the powers of art and science–and the extraordinary, unexpected outcomes when the two fields intersect.

The four-part series, launching September 12, features prominent artists–often with connections to ArtCenter–and scientists tackling big ideas about dark matter and transcendence from right- and left-brain points of view.

At ArtCenter, science and art often cross paths–after all, CalTech and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are in our backyard, allowing for unique collaborations through programs, exhibitions, internships and more.

With Why AxS, we invite you into insightful conversations with some of the brilliant minds in our orbit as they explore the many big why's that come with being a tiny part of this universe.

To many of our listeners, this guest needs no introduction. She is someone who has burst through seemingly impenetrable ceilings – glass and otherwise – to claim leadership roles historically held by men. She rose through the ranks as a strategic industrial designer before returning to ArtCenter, her alma mater, for a transformative stint as Chair of our Product Design department. She was also a driving force behind ArtCenter’s innovative DesignStorm program, through which major brands engage our students in developing new products and ideas.

The force of nature I’m describing here is none other than ArtCenter Provost and President-elect, Karen Hofmann, who is the first woman to serve in either of those roles. On a personal and professional level, I couldn’t have asked for a better partner in leading this College through the uncertainties of Covid-19 and the enormous logistical, creative, social and emotional adjustments that went along with the transition to remote learning and back. Thanks in no small part to Karen’s dedication and unflagging optimism, we’ve emerged stronger and better equipped to face the future than we’ve ever been. And, come July, Karen will be poised to build on those achievements when she takes office, upon my retirement, as ArtCenter’s first female president.

Throughout her tenure as provost, Karen tackled a set of complex challenges with an eye toward ensuring ArtCenter’s health and longevity. Karen managed to keep calm and carry on, facing each new obstacle with a solution-minded determination that is the hallmark of every great designer. In fact, it was almost as if she was making the case, in real time, that there is no better person to lead ArtCenter through the uncertainties that lie ahead.

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When we first heard from Jackie Amezquita four years ago, she was an ArtCenter Fine Art student on the cusp of graduating. In a raw and revealing interview, she traced the arduous path she’d walked to find the stability she needed to risk everything for her art.

Her remarkable journey (captured in E14 of Change Lab) began in her native Guatemala, where surging violence and poverty had forced Jackie’s mother to migrate to the United States to provide for her family. At age seventeen, Jackie followed her mother’s footsteps to the US (quite literally), and barely survived a dangerous border crossing. After years spent working as an undocumented nanny to put herself through community college, Jackie eventually earned her Bachelor of Fine Art at ArtCenter. Her thesis project drew international media coverage when she bravely embarked on a second grueling walk from the Tijuana border all the way to Downtown Los Angeles.

The power of her resilience and grit continues to stand out as an example of a purpose-driven artist whose message brilliantly aligns with her chosen medium. We’ve held her story close to our hearts, and the hardships she’s transmuted into art resonated all the more this season as we explore the alchemy of creativity and adversity.

It’s for those reasons that We’ve asked Jackie to join us as Change Lab’s first returning guest, even as she puts the finishing touches on her MFA thesis at UCLA. We waned to know more about her investigation into grief and displacement, and we were fascinated by the bravery and creative energy it took to revisit her trauma and to give depth and dimension to a painful story that needed to be told.

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Aimee Mullins is a true polymath. Her passions and professional pursuits are as varied and boundless as the awards and groundbreaking strides she’s achieved within her many chosen fields. She broke new ground in athletics as the first amputee in history to compete against able-bodied athletes in the NCAA’s Division 1 track and field events. She went on to set records in the 100 and 200 meter races and the long jump.

Her poise and athleticism led to a career in fashion as a runway model for Alexander McQueen and as a global ambassador for L’Oreal. She then added acting to her portfolio with roles in wildly varied projects ranging from artist Matthew Barney’s Cremaster series to Netflix’s Stranger Things. Through it all, Aimee has continued to make sense of the many trails she’s blazed in a series of influential TED talks that have been viewed by millions and translated into 42 languages.

It was her paradigm-shifting talk on the “opportunity of adversity” that offered a veritable proof of concept for the ideas we're exploring in this season of Change Lab. Her powerful argument for the creative leaps that result only from the hurdles we face resonated deeply with the idea that the human imagination feeds on challenge and uncertainty – a familiar concept to regular listeners of this podcast.

Aimee contends that we meet and exceed our goals because of—not despite—each obstacle we encounter. An insight she’s earned the hard way navigating the world as a double amputee. Her insistence that “good enough” isn’t good enough has led to advances in prosthetic design that would never exist without her. In fact, Aimee contends that disability itself is a misnomer better attributed to a broken piece of machinery than a human being whose differences are the source of their strength. We all have much to learn from Aimee’s self-determination, curiosity and wonder.

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