Writer/curator Cathy Byrd sparks conversations about today’s art, design, and film on the Fresh Art International podcast. Synthesizing interviews and field recordings with critical commentary since 2011, the podcast archives the voices, sounds, and stories of contemporary culture makers from around the world.
Episodes
Wednesday Nov 12, 2025
Wednesday Nov 12, 2025
Today, we introduce Cannupa Hanska Luger, an American artist born on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, who now lives and works outside Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Our conversation reveals a few of the ways Cannupa acts on his deep respect for heritage and community, belief in ritual and remembrance, and fascination with science fiction and mythology. The artist shares the stories behind his mystical re-creation of Midéegaadi, a traditional buffalo dance he filmed against a green screen to show in exhibition spaces, on digital billboards, and even in a virtual reality app.
The dance is one strand of Future Ancestral Technologies, a new myth that Cannupa has been weaving since 2015. His interrelated projects reimagine Indigenous life and culture in a postcolonial world where space exploration has reduced and reconfigured the earth’s population. As Cannupa builds a framework for understanding, respecting and sharing indigeneity in the 21st century, he holds out hope for our collective future.
Production: Cathy Byrd | Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio
Special Audio: Cannupa Hanska Luger, Midéegaadi and Mirror Shield Project
Related Episodes: Video Performance Art Reimagines the Future, Live from the Everglades—Part One and Part Two
Related Link: Cannupa Hanska Luger
Wednesday Nov 05, 2025
Wednesday Nov 05, 2025
In this episode, we explore an emerging microgenre in contemporary performance art. Some of today’s artists create liminal spaces, construct original expressive forms, and make powerful statements in a range of inventive video performances.
The 2025 exhibition (Im)Posibilidades: Performance Art for Video at Ogden Contemporary Arts in Ogden, Utah, reveals the microgenre’s potential. Featured projects from the United States and Mexico envision ways to correct historical distortions and construct new possible futures. They show us a world where everyone’s stories can thrive through performance and reimagination.
Production: Cathy Byrd | Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio
Featured Voices: Stephanie Garcia and Peter Hay of PROArtes Mexico, Adam Forrester, Lilly McElroy, Cannupa Hanska Luger
Feature Soundtracks, Courtesy the Artists and Ogden Contemporary Arts: María Eugenia Chellet/La Dolorosa, Lilly McElroy/A Woman Runs Through a Pastoral Setting, Naomi Rincón Gallardo/Eclipse, Cannupa Hanska Luger/Midéegaadi, Ileana Moreno/Kowatl y el Mejor Amigo del Sol, Kameron Neal and Jarrett Key/CARGO!, Yoshie Sakai/ Grandma NightClub Music Video, José Villalobos/El Peso Del Rio/The Weight of the River
Additional music:
Caspertron by Blue Dot Sessions
Mergeron by Blue Dot Sessions
Related Episodes: Joan Jonas, William Pope.L, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Carolee Schneeman, Cheryl Pope, Regina Frank
About the Exhibition: Ogden Contemporary Arts
Wednesday Oct 29, 2025
Wednesday Oct 29, 2025
Today’s episode is a poetic epilogue to the nine Student Edition stories we produced in 2020 with university students from the United States and Canada. The students who produced this fresh story are from Chișinău, capital city of the Republic of Moldova. The tiny Eastern European country declared its independence from the Soviet Union not so long ago, in 1991.
In spring 2025, Fresh Art International’s Cathy Byrd introduced podcasting to locals during a 3-day program. They recorded voices and sounds for stories about the independent art scene inside the state-owned architectural monument they call home.
At the time of our workshop, the venue was hosting a collection of displays and public conversations exploring the impact of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Emerging podcasters Olga Raileanu, Bogdan Glavan, and Daniel Boldurat sat down with local photographer Mihail Calarașan, Ukrainian artist KAR, and sociologist Vitalie Sprînceană to talk about the role of art in times of war.
Note: The original version of this episode premiered on YouTube as #1/ Reflectând Zemstvei / Peace Street.
About Casa Zemstvei and the Reflecting Zemstvei Podcast: Since 2013, artists and independent initiatives have rented spaces in a center-city building known as Muzeul Zemstvei. They call their improvisational community “Casa Zemstvei.” Creators and curators, animators and activists, visitors and regulars embrace the crumbling architecture, the arctic cold, the echoey acoustics, and the primitive grandeur of this historic space.
Workshop participants became producers by learning to master recording equipment, script stories, collect sounds and voices and shape stories. Recorded on location, episodes in the limited edition Reflecting Zemstvei audio program are influenced by the surrounding sonic landscape and informed by the creative characters that inhabit this “House of Wonders.”
Peace Street Producers
Olga Raileanu - Moldovan graphic designer with a background in journalism and media production.
Bogdan Glavan - Moldovan student with experience in sound design.
Daniel Boldurat - Moldovan student with experience in journalism, volunteer at Oberliht Association.
Peace Street Guests
Mihail Calarașan - Documentary photographer, since 2017 he has been working on personal long-term documentary projects.
KAR - Ukrainian artist whose artwork was displayed at the inauguration of the ”Peace Street” at Casa Zemstvei.
Vitalie Sprînceană - sociologist, co-founder and co-editor of platzforma.md.
Related Episodes: Fresh Art International Student Edition
Related Links:
Wednesday Oct 22, 2025
Wednesday Oct 22, 2025
To introduce the new Reflecting Zemstvei podcast produced by local creatives in Chișinău, Moldova, Cathy Byrd and Olga Raileanu take listeners inside an intensive workshop experience that spanned three days in March 2025. In this episode, you’ll meet the young Moldovans who learned to master recording equipment, script stories, and collect sounds and voices to shape stories from their hometown’s independent art scene.
Since 2013, artists and independent initiatives have rented spaces in a center-city building complex known as “Zemstvei,” a state-owned architectural monument that dates from the mid-19th century. They call their improvisational community “Casa Zemstvei.” Creators and curators, animators and activists, visitors and regulars embrace the crumbling architecture, arctic cold, echoey acoustics, and primitive grandeur of this historic space.
Recorded on location, episodes in this limited edition audio program are inspired by the surrounding sonic landscape and the creative characters that energize Chișinău’s “House of Wonders.”
Note: The original version of this episode premiered on YouTube as #1/ Reflectând Zemstvei / How We Made the Podcast.
Production: Cathy Byrd, with Olga Raileanu
Sound Design: Marian Lupu, Olga Raileanu, and Anamnesis Audio
Voices:
Daniel Boldurat - student and volunteer at Oberliht Association
Franz Cocarcea - producer of the video podcast Omul face locul
Bogdan Glavan - high school student, with experience in sound design
Alex Hanganu - student, activist and cultural manager
Olga Raileanu - graphic designer with journalism experience
Marina Scalețchi - communicator
Vladimir Us - curator, president of Oberliht Association
Related Links:
Tuesday Sep 03, 2024
Tuesday Sep 03, 2024
How does your art engage the world? How do you speak to the issues and ideas of our time? What do you hope others will remember about your life, your beliefs, your work?
The exhibition Teresita Fernandez / Robert Smithson, SITE Santa Fe opens a portal for us to consider our place in the landscape and explore the legacy of two significant artists. Their vibrant visual exchange feels both time sensitive and timeless.
This dialogue with artist Teresita Fernández and Lisa Le Feuvre, Executive Director of the Holt/Smithson Foundation, deepens our appreciation of resonant and divergent perspectives. Embracing change, they show us the way to and through a few of the entanglements that come with being an artist and being human.
Host: Cathy Byrd
Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio
Special Audio featured with permission, as follows:
Recordings on site at Spiral Jetty, Salt Lake, Utah, 2013, courtesy Anamnesis Audio.
Extracts from Teresita Fernández, Cuajaní (2024), directed by Teresita Fernández and Juan Carlos Alom; 16mm film converted to digital video, black and white, sound; duration 20 minutes, 9 seconds.
Extracts from Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty (1970); 16mm film; duration 35 minutes; © Holt/Smithson Foundation 2024.
Blister Creek by Blue Dot Sessions
Related Episodes: Unsettled Landscapes at SITE Santa Fe, Louis Grachos, Land Arts of the American West
Related Links: Teresita Fernández, Holt/Smithson Foundation, SITE Santa Fe
Thursday May 23, 2024
Thursday May 23, 2024
Today, we take you to Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates, for our first experience of the yearly gathering known as March Meeting. The Sharjah Art Foundation designs these programs to resonate with issues and events of the moment. March Meeting 2024 is no exception. Across three days, artists, curators, educators and writers from near and far converge to consider the power and purpose of collective creativity.
Here, we bear witness to diverse artistic energies behind grass roots initiatives in the Global South. Finding strength in numbers, creative activists collaborate on initiatives that bring positive change to the vulnerable communities where they live and work. All embrace multiple voices. None are unafraid of messy entanglement. They give us hope, they show us the way— to a more inclusive, sustainable, and livable future.
Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio
Special Audio: Alex Pierce and Zoe Annesley, “Beneath a Tent, a Performance for Strings and Voice”; Bint Mbareh, “Lentil Soup as an Antidote to Rampant Wildfires”; dhaqan collective “Camel Song” and “House of Weaving Song”; La Revuelta YouTube channel; Episodio 7 - El podcast de Anamá Rojas, June 2021; Vela Vela; Stanza for Lumi
Related Episodes: Sharjah Biennial 15—with Hoor Al Qasimi, Searching for Libertalia—with Shiraz Bayjoo, Creating Community in Kazakhstan—with CEC ArtsLink, The BLCK Family of Miami on Collective Creativity
Related Links: Sharjah Art Foundation, Topsoil, Sakiya, dhaqan collective, La Revuelta
Thursday Feb 08, 2024
Thursday Feb 08, 2024
In this episode, we consider the role that teaching artists play in shaping the art school experience. How does an artist in academia cultivate expressive opportunities for students while making time to deepen their own creative practice?
New Orleans based artist Cristina Molina invites us to consider this challenging dynamic at the art school where she teaches—Southeastern Louisiana University's Department of Visual Art and Design. Research and observation, architecture and the environment, memory and motherhood, music and movies, intuition and uncertainty are a few of the forces that drive the artmaking we discover at the edge of Louisiana’s Gulf Coast.
Voices, in Order of Appearance: Garima Thakur, Kate Baczeski, Luisa Hernández, Vanessa Centeno, Dale Newkirk, Tom Walton, Ben Diller, Eric Huckabee, Lily Brooks, Rachel Harmeyer, Cristina Molina
Sound Design: Patrick Davis, with Anamnesis Audio
Special Audio: Garima Thakur, Bioscope, 2022; Luisa Hernández, What Matters Now, 2023; Chad Serhal, The Great American Motion Picture Rotoscope Animation, 2021; Ken Haskett, Morse Code message, 2021; Lily Brooks, We Have to Count the Clouds, 2012; NASA, recorded sounds of the sun, via Cristina Molina, 2022.
Related Episodes: Student Edition
Related Links: Southeastern Louisiana University Contemporary Art Gallery, FreshArt.Education, Fresh Art International Research Guides
Wednesday Dec 20, 2023
Wednesday Dec 20, 2023
Where in the world can you express yourself freely, share cultural knowledge, test inventive art practices, and build a transnational creative community in only 10 days time?
During an intensive CEC ArtsLink program in Kazakhstan, 23 artists and curators from across the region and the U.S. seize the moment to think deeply about their socially engaged projects. Our home base for talks, workshops, field expeditions, and performances is the bULt Collective rave space.
Paying attention to inclusion and access, issues and ideas, concept and creation, they begin to imagine new possible futures for collective art practices in Central Asia and beyond.
Acknowledgement: In Fall 2023, Cathy Byrd recorded voices and sounds for this episode during her CEC ArtsLink residency in Central Asia.
Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio
Featured Voices: bULt Collective, Lydia Matthews, Nara Bikinna, Zilïa Khansura, Laura Nova, Will Owen, Kristine Diekman
Special Audio: Bandistan Ensemble, DJ Nemezida; DJs inspired by traditional Kazakh music/Almaty, Kazakhstan; Nara Bikinna recording of a Tatar gathering/Tyumen, Siberia; recording of felting workshop with Zilïa Khansura/Oak Gallery, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan; Collective Soundwalk Mixdown/Almaty
Related Episodes: Poetic Interventions Point to Pollution in Kyrgyzstan, When Art Sparks Social Engagement
Related Research Guide (downloadable hyperlinked pdf for learning and teaching): Creating Connections/Sparking Engagement—Research Guide Issue 4
Download ALL Free Research Guides HERE
Related Links: CEC ArtsLink, bULt Collective
Thursday Dec 07, 2023
Thursday Dec 07, 2023
Today, we introduce a few of the artists and activists energizing the 2023 Art Prospect & TRASH-5 Festival in Kyrgyzstan. They give voice to the issues, ideas, and intentions that shape their truly creative approaches to mitigate pollution. Their projects illuminate the potential for artists everywhere to build community and drive sustainable solutions to our global environmental crisis.
From the city of Bishkek to the settlement of Altyn Kazyk, we discover myriad ways that socially engaged artists encourage awareness and action. They bring us together from around the world to experience, understand, and create true moments of beauty and meaning—giving us hope for a future that holds clean air, land, and water.
Acknowledgement: In Fall 2023, Cathy Byrd recorded the voices in this episode during her residency with CEC ArtsLink in Central Asia.
Sound Design and Engineering: Anamnesis Audio
Featured Voices: Sto Len, Ronja Roemmelt, Mishiko Solakauri, Begimai Zhunusova, Ellen Harvey, Bermet Borubaeva, Aimeerim Tursalieva
Special Thanks to the Bishkek Sanitary Landfill—Director Nurlan Djumaliev, Head of Municipal Enterprise Section Arzykulov Almaz Toktomukhanmedovich, Landfill Museum Co-Curator Samat Marso
Special Audio: Live musicians performance at the People’s Landfill Museum and the Bandistan Ensemble
Related Episodes: Public Water—with Mary Mattingly, Topical Playlist—Sustainability and the Environment
Related Links: CEC ArtsLink, Art Prospect & TRASH-5 Festival 2023, Tazar, EU Compliant Landfill to Open in Bishkek
Thursday May 18, 2023
Thursday May 18, 2023
Today, we take you to St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States of America. Home of the Gateway Arch, an Emblem of Manifest Destiny, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Emblem of Manifest Destiny. St. Louis is nicknamed “‘Mound City”’ because of the number of earthworks built by Indigenous peoples there, before the westward expansion of colonizers conspired to flatten them. Where caves beneath the city sheltered freedom seekers traversing the Underground Railroad in the mid-1800s. Where, from 1959 to 1972—in the span of less than 20 years—residents of the historically Black neighborhoods Mill Creek Valley and Pruitt-Igoe Homes were displaced in the name of urban development and public safety.
Where, in 2014, the Black Lives Matter movement coalesced. Nearly a decade later, in the year 2023, current events reveal that in this city and this state, the sanctity of civil and human rights remains tenuous on every level.
What role can a public art triennial play in such a troubled context?
A microcosm of the disruptive forces at play in cities across the United States today, St. Louis offers fertile ground for creative interventions that are healing—restorative in nature.
The civic exhibition Counterpublic takes on the challenge. To prepare for the 2023 event, the triennial’s home team committed to a year of listening sessions with a range of public constituents. A report integrated into the exhibition catalogue outlines local interest in holistic engagement with public memory, commemoration, and acknowledgement; the rematriation of Indigenous land; and reparative futures. In response, for three months, thirty projects animate the urban landscape along six miles of Jefferson Avenue.
In this episode, we follow that throughway from south to north to share healing elixirs healing we discover at the heart of seven Counterpublic projects along the way. Listen to the ways they honor and amplify strength, beauty, and hope at the core of reemergent cultural histories in St Louis.
Story: Cathy Byrd
Sound Design: Anamnesis Audio
Special Audio courtesy Nokosee Fields, X, Raven Chacon, Stefani Jemison, Griot Museum of African American History, Torkwase Dyson, Mendi and Keith Obadike, SlowDrag audio "Joy and Everything," remixed by K Kudda, and Counterpublic, Mood Unit by by Blue Dot Sessions
Related Episodes: Model Behavior—New Orleans Art Triennial Inspires Other Cities, Where Art Meets Activism, Unsettled Landscapes at SITE Santa Fe
Related Links: Counterpublic, Fresh VUE: Counterpublic St. Louis 2023