ENCORE e41 jen rae – emergency preparedness

The thing about a preparedness mindset is that you are thinking into the future and so if one of those scenarios happens, you've already mentally prepared in some sort of way for it, so you're not dealing with the shock. That's a place as an artist that I feel has a lot of potential for engagement and for communication and bringing audiences along. When you're talking about realities, accepting that reality, has the potential to push us to do other things. Welcome to another ENCORE episode of conscient podcast.

I do this because if you missed an episode the first time it was published you can hear it again.

However this is the last ENCORE episode for a while because I’m taking break from the production of this podcast, of its sister French language version, balado conscient as well as my a calm presence Substack for what looks like undetermined period of time.

I wrote about this in my last Substack posting called pressing pause.

My plan is to meditate on my next steps in this ongoing learning and unlearning journey and do a bit of self-care as I learned to do during the Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet course last fall.

But before pressing pause, so to speak, I wanted to publish this ENCORE episode because it’s about an issue that we will be talking about increasingly in the months and years to come: which is, how do we, as artists and cultural workers, respond more effectively to emergency situations and to ongoing societal disruption.

And who better that Jen Rae, a Melbourne, Australia based artist, researcher, facilitator and educator of Canadian Red River Métis and Scottish descent.

And before going any further I want to acknowledge that Jen Rae lives, creates and works on the unceded traditional lands of the Wurundjeri, Boon Wurrung, Woi Wurrung, and Wathaurong people of the Kulin Nation and offers deep respect to their elders - past, present and emerging.

So, this 47-minute conversation was recorded, remotely, on May 10, 2021. Jen and I talked about a wide range of issues including the intersection between art, emergency preparedness, disaster risk-reduction and resilience.

Here are some of the questions that were raised:

How do we embrace an emergency preparedness mindset? What do we increase our focus on community resilience?How can we challenge Western-centric narratives? How can we further value inclusivity? How can art and speculative fiction in particular, help free our minds and inspire action?You’ll find some answers, also more questions, at the The Centre for Reworlding in Australia, where Jen is the creative research lead.

I’m also publishing this ENCORE episode to listen back to conversations recorded during the COVID pandemic.