This week, the first of two FunDrive episodes recorded live at CJSR: what art can tell us about the past? Author, rapper and broadcaster Wab Kinew will be speaking about his new memoir The Reason You Walk. And University of Saskatchewan Professor Yin Liu will join us to talk about the surprising origins of the blank spaces between our words.
This episode first aired on September 23, 2015.
This week: Gatekeepers. We talk to Weird Canada Executive Director Marie Leblanc Flanagan and Edmonton author Leif Gregerson about the tradeoffs for artists who want to go around labels and publishers.
This episode first aired on September 16, 2015.
This week’s episode is one of those old questions: what’s the point of suffering? We speak to Canadian author Marina Endicott about her pun-tastic novel Close to Hugh, and her characters’ struggle to figure out how we live in the knowledge of death and suffering and not collapse from sadness.
Then we talk to dancer and Pique Dance Centre instructor María Valencia Alvarez about yearning for a baby brother, being shipped off to boarding school, and growing up fast.
This episode first aired on August 26, 2015.
This week: Boot Camp Poets. How could rap or poetry help inmates at the Edmonton Remand Centre find a different life, and what roadblocks might be in their way? This is the second half of a two-part documentary speaking to inmates in the Edmonton Remand Centre’s Boot Camp unit.
In this episode, John Howard Society’s Howie Hoggins speaks to us about what’s ahead for men in the Boot Camp unit transitioning out of prison. Métis writer and researcher Patti Laboucane-Benson tell us what her graphic novel The Outside Circle has to say about why so many Aboriginal people end up behind bars. And we hear more poetry from Boot Camp unit inmates Joshua Charles Thom, Michael Nelson, and Nathan Laboucan.
This episode first aired on July 15, 2015. Listen to Part 1 here.
This week: if art is for everyone, how do we make sure everyone can access it? We wander over to the Talking Book Club at an Edmonton library, and hear the story behind CRIPSiE and the Mindhive Collective’s new show The Wedding Reception: Love in the Margins.
This episode first aired on June 3, 2015.
This week: how do we shift from being consumers of culture to becoming creators? We speak to writer Lizzie Derksen about the long road to calling herself, well, a writer. And we poke around a 3D printed sculpture at the Stanley Milner Library’s Makerspace in Edmonton to investigate whether 3D printing will transform us into makers of things.
This episode first aired on May 27, 2015.
This week: is the author dead? Does it matter what an artist intended when we’re trying to figure out what their work means? We ask Marcelle Kosman and Hannah McGregor, creators of the Harry Potter podcast Witch Please, why it’s worth reading the Harry Potter books as if author JK Rowling is dead. Then we ask translator Chantal Wright whether the original author gets lost in a translation, and what gets poured in. Finally, we ask Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky why he rarely comments on the political meaning of his photographs of extreme landscapes created by humans.
This episode first aired on May 6, 2015.
Special bonus content! This is an extended version of the interview with Witch Please creators Marcelle Kosman and Hannah McGregor that appeared on the broadcast.
This week: what would Alberta look like if we had a government that was totally oriented around making the arts thrive? With the May 5 provincial election looming, we ask Edmonton artists Theodore Fox, Ahmed Knowmadic Ali, and Gerry Morita for their take. And we come up with a snazzy ad for our fake political party.
This episode first aired on April 22, 2015.
We want to hear from you! This episode, we invented the Artisan Partisan Party. Its triumphant slogan: Creating a Culturally Rich Alberta.
What do you think its logo should be? Send us your design and we’ll share it online next week. Email your Artisan Partisan Party logo to allthatmatters@cjsr.com by April 29, 2015.
And don’t forget to vote this May 5.
This week: how do we decide what art is worth? And why? We head down to the Rouge Lounge slam night in Edmonton to hear how the crowd judges live spoken word poetry, and find out why Dan Zimmerman developed the Likeblockr app that stops you from seeing likes and comments on Instagram. Then urban fantasy novelist Daniel José Older tells us how prejudices about the race of writers and characters shape what books get published.
This episode first aired on March 4, 2015.
This week: How do you write a city? How do you write stories, poems, songs, that feel like the place you live? Feel grounded in it? We speak to Jason Lee Norman about his anthology of writing about Edmonton in winter, and hear local poet Mary Pinkowski. Then, three writers with the Boyle Street Writers’ Group share their work, and we head to Iceland ask musician and sculptor Páll Guðmundsson how to make art that feels like the place it comes from.
This episode first aired on February 11, 2015.
All That Matters 