Episode 8: "Breaking Isolation: Arts as a Community Solution"

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CA Arts & Culture Summit One on One with Panelist & Summit Participants: "Breaking Isolation: Arts as a Community Solution" - Transcription

George Koster: [00:00:00] Hi, this is George Koster with the Voices of the Community and California. It's for the arts at the second annual California for the Arts and Culture Summit. I'm here with Kristen Sakota from LA County Department of Arts and Culture, who was a speaker last year. And so Kristen from this year's summit what would you say are one of the main themes that you really resonate with and your department's work resonates with?

Kristen Sakota: Sure. Absolutely. Well, it's exciting to be back again and be here in person. And of course we know that arts and culture is so important. It can apply to pretty much every facet of our civic lives. But it was really important that today we uplifted. I. The notion of cultural equity as well as economic empowerment for our artists and our communities, and the notion of arts and health.

Kristen Sakota: And I'll say at the LA County Department of Arts and Culture, we work in a wide range of ways from grant making to. Arts education to civic art, but we are also focusing on the intersection of arts and health in our work. And so it's really [00:01:00] been exciting to see this as a, as a field begin to grow even more, including at this year's summit.

George Koster: So just a follow up to that, do you feel like there's an opportunity for you to work with the county to actually and this is always a hard one in today's environment, you know, economically secure funds to help execute perhaps everyone's favorite word, a pilot program on arts you know, as health arts prescription?

Kristen Sakota: Yes. Well, I'm happy to say that we actually have already been doing work at the intersection of arts and health and for everybody out there. I wanna say one other thing, which is expanding access to the arts in. Importantly helps our wellbeing and our vital and healthy community. So any kind of access to the arts really supports arts and health.

Kristen Sakota: But we at LA County have already been spearheading some partnerships and collaborations around arts as a mental health. Support for young people as well as through our grant making to arts organizations throughout LA County and also having artists in residence and civic art in our hospitals. [00:02:00] So we're excited about this work, but I am looking forward to growing and building on it from here with yes, hopefully unlocking more funding, more resources, and more opportunity.

George Koster: So just to, to wrap up, for all the folks listening and watching this, what can they do in their communities and within LA County, for example, to actually en engage with nonprofits, your organization, to bring more of this to our community?

Kristen Sakota: Yeah. Well, everybody can engage in the arts themselves, but also we can all be a voice for the arts because.

Kristen Sakota: While broadly we know it's popular, it still sometimes can be a narrative that we have to change. That arts is just a nice to have, right? Or that we don't really need to pay for it somehow. So I think of everyone all across California, all across the country really can continue to be a voice for the arts, but also to engage in it to make ourselves whole and happy and support organizations any way they can.

Kristen Sakota: And if they are a nonprofit or an artist operating. In LA in the county. Of course, you can apply to [00:03:00] our programs@lacountyarts.org, but there's always great information all around California, Californian's for the Arts, California Arts Council, and so on.

George Koster: Thank you so much, Kristen, for all of these really wonderful worlds of wisdom and taking time away from the summit to share your insights today.

Kristen Sakota: Thank you. You're welcome. Good.

Michael Alexander (Guest)

Eduardo Robles: [00:00:00] Eduardo Robles with Californians for the Arts here at the California Arts and Culture Summit, and I'm here with

Michael Alexander: Michael Alexander.

Eduardo Robles: Michael, so great to see you.

Michael Alexander: Well, it's good to see you too. And I think we've only interacted maybe through emails and, uh, maybe a Zoom meeting or two, but this is the first time I can recall getting together face to face with you.

Eduardo Robles: Well, I'm so happy to see you. Can you tell us how you were inspired by the summit? Where do you see advocacy moving towards the future?

Michael Alexander: Well, let me just say. When there was nothing serving arts advocacy in the state, I was on the board of the California presenters and I asked the board if they would.

Michael Alexander: Pop for a thousand bucks if we could get another statewide service organization to pop for a similar amount and start an advocacy organization. And so along with Chris Sinclair, who was then the head of the California Symphony Orchestra Service Organization, the two of us became the first co-chairs of this organization.

Michael Alexander: And for a long [00:01:00] time. We could not afford to have even one staff person, let alone we were barely paying our lobbyist, uh uh, a thousand dollars a month retainer or whatever it was in those days. And so what I saw today in terms of the number of people and realizing that there's this size staff. F is a real point of pride for me because I'm proud that our state and our PO colleagues in the arts advocacy field, and that's all artists ought to be in the arts advocacy field because there's so much need for our involvement in, um, in setting public policy and setting it on the right path.

Michael Alexander: So I was just thrilled with the numbers that were here. I was thrilled with the enthusiasm and the diversity of fields that people are coming from, the diversity on the stage of, of representatives from all kinds of organizations and from parts of the state where we hadn't heard voices in the past. And so I think it's a real testament to the leadership, to the [00:02:00] staff of where CAA and CFTA have gone.

Michael Alexander: To the boards, and it's a couple of generations now of boards in their commitment to making this organization thrive. And it has now grown, I think, into a model of how a statewide arts service organization has to serve not just the arts professionals, but the people of the state that those arts professionals want to serve.

Michael Alexander: Because the state's citizenry is better off because of the successes of California arts advocates and Californians for the art I.

Eduardo Robles: Well, thank you so much, Michael. You know, I really wanted, you know to hear, you know, what you thought about, you know, the, the, the summit, how advocacy evolved. Thank you for walking us through, you know you know, the beginning and where we're at now.

Eduardo Robles: And now we're really at a moment where, you know, the value of the uti, the value of the utility of art, you know it's more [00:03:00] legitimized. There it's more but we still need to do more work, right? As we can hear from the conversations today. But we are, you know, moving the dial in shifting the narrative.

Michael Alexander: I think that's absolutely right, and I think that it's important for us to remember too. You know, I'm staying in this business now and the second half of my seventies, but we're standing on the shoulders of people who came before me, people who were involved in arts advocacy as. Members of the presenting world or the dance world or the orchestra and the visual arts world, and we have a lot of work to do to organize the distant franchised artists or the artists who feel that they have no service organization to advocate for their needs because I know so many.

Michael Alexander: Who feel there's terribly isolated and out of a network, that they do not have a vehicle to help them get their issues brought up in front of the CAC [00:04:00] and in front of the public at large about what it is for us to have storytellers, to have creatives making our lives better and whole. B, because of their work.

Michael Alexander: So we need to one, acknowledge the past, and two, keep dreaming for where we can take an organization like this down the road.

Eduardo Robles: Thank you again. You're welcome. Thank you very much.

Meghna Bhat and Ruben Reveles (Guest)

Eduardo Robles: [00:00:00] Hey, we're coming at you live at the California Arts and Culture Summit. I'm here with

Meghna Bhat: Meghna Bhat

Eduardo Robles: and

Ruben Reveles: Ruben Reveles.

Eduardo Robles: Yeah. Yeah. So how, how has been today?

Ruben Reveles: It's been great. A lot of, uh, a lot of interesting things to learn about and, um, learned a lot of stuff about sound and healing and yeah, it's great and art.

Ruben Reveles: Wonderful. Yeah.

Eduardo Robles: Artwork is real work. Yeah. And how is artwork real work for you?

Meghna Bhat: Oh. I think just the community building and the transformative conversations we have about the power of stories, the power of art and culture, you know, to create a sustainable environment and a future. I love those elements of the conversation.

Meghna Bhat: Yeah. What were you

Eduardo Robles: most inspired by today?

Meghna Bhat: Um, I think the whole, you know, the, I think the deeper conversations about artwork is real work. And as an artist, how do you align your values, you know, to the yes values, right? What do you say yes to? And you say no to, like unpaid work. 'cause I think you're setting it up for other future artists.

Meghna Bhat: So how do you step up and you assert yourself and you know, recognize your [00:01:00] own value. I love that part.

Eduardo Robles: So did it inspire like more advocacy work?

Ruben Reveles: Yes, it, yeah, it really did it. And also to learn what you're not that good at doing and learn your reach out and, and ask for help for people and, you know, and communicating and, you know, meeting all these new people, which is a good extension of, of community work.

Ruben Reveles: Yeah.

Eduardo Robles: Yeah. Our statewide peers, right? Yes. Like our folks all over the city. Yeah. What, what, what was your favorite panel?

Meghna Bhat: Oh, I, I feel, I love the keynote. The, you know, the first two panels were really powerful. Again, they addressed so many aspects of conversations and struggles that each of us are going through in our own artistic discipline.

Meghna Bhat: And just to know that you're not alone and we are trying to problem solve and again, create visibility and, you know, legitimacy of the work that we are doing in our different disciplines.

Eduardo Robles: So did you do a, did you do a workshop?

Meghna Bhat: Yes,

Ruben Reveles: it was great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was more of the art and healing and, and music and sound.

Ruben Reveles: Whoa. So it was really good. Yeah. 'cause being a former musician, you [00:02:00] know, I can relate to what they were talking about. So, and art and healing through music and, you know, that it was great.

Eduardo Robles: Wonderful. Wonderful. So can you tell us a little bit about the organization or, and the artist? Whoa.

Ruben Reveles: Yeah, yeah, sure.

Ruben Reveles: I'm a Chicanx futurist artist. I do a lot of work in movement, vibration sounds, colors, and, uh, through healing right, too. And also a story culture teller and going through Mexico and coming back and displaying the great parts of Mexico, you know?

Eduardo Robles: Yeah. The practitioners. The practitioners here.

Meghna Bhat: I am Meghna

Meghna Bhat: I'm a first generation South Asian immigrant. And I created Gulabi Stories, a South Asian storytelling initiative about healing. And I am a storyteller by artists, so I share stories on stage. I facilitate storytelling workshops for immigrant and refugee communities, and I, I love what I do.

Eduardo Robles: Great.

Eduardo Robles: There it is. Artwork is cultural work, artwork. [00:03:00] Is here at the California Arts and Culture Summit. Thank you for joining us here. Yeah,

Meghna Bhat: thank you very much. Yeah, thank you for this opportunity

Ron Muriera (Guest)

Ron Muriera: [00:00:00] Right reporting live from the California Arts and Cultures Summit. I'm here with, uh, Ron Muriera of the City of San Jose, office of Economic Development and Cultural Affairs.

Eduardo Robles: Uh, as you can see today, that artwork is real work, but that is interesting that you mentioned, um, uh, you know, you, your, your, your, um, um, your role in economic development.

Eduardo Robles: How does artwork, uh, how is artwork, economic work, or

Ron Muriera: I think. One of the things that we are imparting. And within the decision makers is the fact that artists, cultural bearers, creatives, are essential contributors to the economy so that arts are not a luxury, arts are not a hobby. They are a valuable and significant contributor to an economy, whether it's a city economy, the county's economy.

Ron Muriera: So in fact, artwork is real work, and the fact that we can demonstrate that to our decision makers. I think plays a, a really, a pivotal moment for them to [00:01:00] reconsider how they look at us In terms of contributors to, uh, the economic engine,

Eduardo Robles: what, what, what was, um, like a key theme today, like a through line in terms of supporting artwork, uh, utilizing, um, art to provide solutions.

Eduardo Robles: What, what has been for you like, um, like a through line throughout the summit?

Ron Muriera: Um, I saw. Probably a couple of through lines, but most importantly what I saw is, uh, making sure that your voices. Are are lifted and at the table and with that goes advocacy. So I think, um, you know, which is great about the summit, you know, California for the Arts does a great job of making resources available.

Ron Muriera: 'cause I met some folks who this is their first summit and I think one of the things that they shared with me is that we didn't know anything about any of these resources and. Now we can go back and increase our advocacy efforts at our local level, at our county [00:02:00] level. The other, um, I guess takeaway I noticed is about funding.

Ron Muriera: And that's always key. A lot of times, um, there are artists, our cultural bearers and our creatives who don't know about the resources available to them. So I think that was very important among some of the discussions happening in the panel as well as outside. Now, I used to share with folks that sometimes a lot of the work happens outside.

Ron Muriera: In conversations, uh, of the panels and workshops because that's where you can really get to network and meet some key people. And, uh, I've been blessed to be mentored by many people, so I pass that on and, uh, a couple of people have asked me to pick my brain. So that's what I'm gonna do is continue to provide knowledge and experience, uh, what some of the folks who are now just becoming aware of the fact that, uh.

Ron Muriera: Artwork is real work and that advocacy and funding is gonna be important to continue to sustain, um, their artistic practice in California.

Eduardo Robles: Thank you so much Ron, for giving us a little insight into some key takeaways and, you know, showing us how, you [00:03:00] know, artwork is, you know, doing some real work. In California.

Ron Muriera: You got it anytime. I, I love what, uh, California for the Arts and California Arts advocates continues to do. Um, so I just want to give a big shout out to all the work that the team is doing. So thank you so much. Big shout out. Keep it going. CFTA and C. Yay. Yay.

Josiah Bruny [Presenter]

Eduardo Robles: [00:00:00] Alright. Hi, my name is Eduardo Robles with Californians for the Arts and Voices of the Community here at the second annual California Arts and Culture Summit in Sacramento, California.

Eduardo Robles: I'm here with Josiah Bruney our facilitator or our panelist for the Arts and Youth panel. And excited to hear, you know, a little bit about, you know, that conversation you were having with, with the panelists and just some key ideas or some inspiration from, from your, from that dialogue.

Josiah Bruny: Definitely. Thank you so much, Eduardo, for the opportunity. So the key information that I'd like to talk about is just listening and leading with community first. I think that was the most prevalent message in that, in that session. Everyone that was engaged in there, they, they really honed in on how we're not just.

Josiah Bruny: Actively working with these kids and giving them cookie cutter programs. We're actually listening to them and helping them to develop the programs in our communities. So that was really a great takeaway. And [00:01:00] then most importantly, I'm just glad to be here in Sacramento with so many leaders that are from different sectors.

Josiah Bruny: It's not just artists Here, we had school teachers. We had. City officials, and that is what needs to happen more here in Southern and Northern California. Bringing the artist into a space where we could talk about what's going on, but then bringing those leaders that can change the policy back home,

Eduardo Robles: today we had, you know great panels, you know, all talking about, you know, inter intergenerational leadership, you know, what is the urgency for leading for, for, for, for arts leadership with youth.

Eduardo Robles: What is like the bottom line that we need in terms of, supporting, you know our youth. Yeah.

Josiah Bruny: Awesome. So I think the urgency for supporting our youth and youth organizations is not just the funding aspect, but more so the mentorship, [00:02:00] right? We all need to learn that each one teach one and bring our differences to the table.

Josiah Bruny: We can always learn from one another. We were talking about what is the definition for a youth, right? And one of the ladies said. In the group. She said, anybody that's 75 and under, right. And we all start laughing. But if you listen to the Old Testament, they say youth is within you. It's, it's your as old as you feel.

Josiah Bruny: Right? And youthfulness is within us. So I think that's what the urgency is, is for us to stop looking at how old we are, how. Tired we are, but more so how creative we can be how smart we can be together. Let's start sharing different ideals, different ideologies. And really, like I said in the beginning, start listening to one another and leading with community first.

Josiah Bruny: Right? If we bring the community to the table, ask them what they want, and then we go back and say, how can we make that happen for you? I think we'll have a lot better results in the communities that we serve.

Eduardo Robles: Is there anything in the panel that, that you [00:03:00] really were inspired by?

Josiah Bruny: So what I was really inspired by is the artist, I forget her name that was in there, she's a muralist and she brought out another muralist that was in the crowd that's doing similar work to us, right?

Josiah Bruny: And so this really brought about the point of how we need to start sharing our ideas. So this young lady in the crowd, she creates murals, but then she gives the schools and other businesses a template of. This is how you do community murals. Now we're doing the same thing with our no justice, no peace mural tour.

Josiah Bruny: Now, if I wasn't here, I would've never met this young lady, thousands of miles away from each other, but we're doing the same thing, never met one another. Same ideals, and that's where they say not one idea hasn't already been unturned. You just have to meet your people. And so that's what I really would love people to understand is that you just gotta keep in search, be optimistic, look for your people that believe in what you're doing, and then you can grow your, your vision to become [00:04:00] whatever it needs to be.

Eduardo Robles: Are there any, like art programs, community art programs, you're very like you know, jazzed about in terms of like youth empowerment? these, these blueprints that you're saying, across California, Southern California what are your favorite, you know, community art programs that are youth focused in school after school?

Eduardo Robles: What are we doing in, in, in terms of, you know helping transform students? Awesome.

Josiah Bruny: Music changing lives, y'all. That's my favorite. No, but honestly, I think the, the, my favorite campaign that I'm working on right now is our State of the youth campaign. It was brought up earlier that through this campaign we learned through our, um, so during the pandemic we did a survey.

Josiah Bruny: And we asked the kids what is the main thing that they want in their community? And it was a, a, a food and it was the lack of food and healthy food. And so now through that [00:05:00] process of surveying our STU students and learning what they want, we've now developed a 1.5 acre property that was the largest publicly owned dump site in our city, San Bernardino, and transform it to be the first open urban garden where you can go 24 hours a day.

Josiah Bruny: Pick some vegetables. We have over 50 different species of vegetables and fruit, and we're literally creating food forces in our community. Now, this was an issue that at first the city wanted to arrest me for taking water, right? And using water and, and not asking permission. But then I had to show them I raised our property values, we've raised our morale in our community, and not only that, we rebranded the city name up there.

Josiah Bruny: It's now known as the Uptown San Bernardino area. And so that movement literally turned into us doing this statewide tour now where we're going around hosting these things called State of the Youth, and we're doing listening sessions and we're just finding out what the kids want, and they have the option to either create [00:06:00] a community mural, community garden, or a community cleanup.

Josiah Bruny: And this to me is the most dynamic program that I've worked on thus far because you've actually seen it transform instantly. This isn't something that's taken three years, four years. I literally work with these kids for five hours, and within those five hours we transform the narrative in their community and put the power back in their hands.

Eduardo Robles: So. You know, there, there's been a lot of I mean, a lot of harm to communities. Mm-Hmm. And coming out of the pandemic social isol, this pandemic of isolation, and we heard some talk on arts and health and the damage is done to kids, you know, in their academic performance, you know, in literacy.

Eduardo Robles: And so there is probably, you know, some data there, you know, for some, you know, intervention. Support policies, et cetera. How are we taking up, how, how, how are we addressing that urgency? Are, is it being addressed for youth? You know, like mentioned a [00:07:00] little bit on, on the intergenerational leadership, our leaders stepping up to, you know support youth in that way.

Josiah Bruny: Mm. Sadly, I, I haven't seen too many examples that we can follow for that youth development. I mean, you have youth programming again, but mainly it's cookie cutter. It's not giving the students the power to be decision makers at the table, and also to be inclusive in this economic development that we're talking about.

Josiah Bruny: And so that's where we're changing that narrative, right? We know our data, we know our narrative, and now we know the action and our action is to get more youth engaged. In those talking tables. And so we need to start and just meet them where they are, get them civically engaged, get them prepared, teach them advocacy, teach them how to go out and speak for themselves.

Josiah Bruny: But most importantly, we gotta stop acting like it's just cute what they're talking about. And truly listen to the youth. There's some dynamics, children out here and young adults that are making some. Powerful movements, but they just need leaders like ourselves to come and listen to them and [00:08:00] then give them the, the tools to make that change happen within their community.

Josiah Bruny: And that's again, what we're doing through our state of the youth program. And we're hoping that this will become a policy. So just like how every city gives the state of the youth or our state of the city address or the state of the county. We want their youth in those cities and their youth in those counties to have now a youth council that will speak for their region statewide, that says, here's what youth adults are facing.

Josiah Bruny: Because what I've seen is for politicians, I get it right, who's voting for me? That's all they're thinking about. Is it? I need a vote. Yeah. And these young kids, they don't really count as a vote for them. And so we need to change that and let them know that these are the future voters for you, and these are the ones that are gonna set the tempo in the future for all of us.

Josiah Bruny: Hopefully they'll keep social security, healthcare, things like that. Rolling. And we don't drop the ball. Yeah.

Eduardo Robles: Yeah. So the artworks to empower youth, you know, the artworks [00:09:00] thank you so much for offering us, you know. Some of your insight into the panel and some of your programs and you know, this all of the good work that you're doing.

Eduardo Robles: Thank you for spending some time with us.

Josiah Bruny: Thank you. Alright. Awesome.

Indre Viskontas PH.D [Presenter]

Eduardo Robles: [00:00:00] Hi, my name is Eduardo Robles with Californians for the Arts and Voices of the Community here at the second annual California Arts and Culture Summit in Sacramento. Just got out of the arts and Health panel, and I have Indre Viskontas, uh, panelist Guest. Guest panelist. Um, hi.

Indre Viskontas: Hi, Eddie. It's great to be here.

Eduardo Robles: Yeah, yeah. yeah. So, no, you can, oh, I can hold onto it now. Yeah, you can hold onto so one thing we just wanted to kind of talk about was how your you're using kind of research and storytelling to really get at kind of systems changes. You mentioned one, a project you did with college essays.

Eduardo Robles: But how, how are you thinking in terms of like intervention strategies for like, you know, getting, you know, creativity, you know funding, you know art and, you know, art and, and, and, health.

Indre Viskontas: Yeah. So, you know we all, I think we all have this intuition that stories are really compelling and convincing, and people are often, you know, more likely to change [00:01:00] their behavior on the basis of a story than on statistics.

Indre Viskontas: But the truth is, is that those statistics also have a place when it comes to large structural change, funding decisions, government decisions, you know, impacting policy makers and so on. The research, the statistics is actually really important and it's a challenge to measure something like creativity or the arts and its impact on health and wellbeing, just using numbers.

Indre Viskontas: But that's one of the things that we've tried to do over the last couple of decades. We've gotten much better at it. And we also, you know, the reason that we, we need to do this is because I'm often in a room full of policy makers and while we can all agree around the table that arts have an impact, ultimately they may need to make that case to people who are gonna choose between two potential initiatives and have a bottom line.

Indre Viskontas: And when they can cite numbers, I find they are much more convincing to those other players. The [00:02:00] other side of it, of course, is that the arts are very subjective. We have our own individual reaction to it. In fact, one of the things that I often say is that the difference between art and science is not in terms of the goal.

Indre Viskontas: The goal is the same. We wanna know what it means to be human. The difference is in whether you're objective and subjective and how you value that. So in science, we're looking for general principles that apply to everyone. We're trying to be objective. But in art, you're using your individual experience, your own personal story to illuminate what is universal and to connect in that way.

Indre Viskontas: And so that's why I think that both have a place, both have, there's a need for it. And the research that we're doing now on arts and health is only gonna be enhanced by the participation of the artists who can inform what outcomes and, and things that we measure.

Eduardo Robles: Thank you. So in, in, in your point of view, which is the, um, wh as we're kind of emerging into like, you know social, I, I mean we're in social isolation, a pandemic of social isolation, what [00:03:00] is like the key coordinate, the key data point that, you know, now that that's here, it's now it's like you know, there's, you know, the, the department of Fence or you know, or, you know, there's actual like huge de departments that are, you know, looking for strategies to address. So on on, on the cultural sector or arts and culture, What is the key data point that we, we should be kind of like pounding at the door with.

Indre Viskontas: Yeah, I mean, so as you mentioned, you know, the surgeon general Vik, Murthy put out this whole white paper about how we are in this epidemic of social isolation, that it has a, you know, impact on our health.

Indre Viskontas: 15 times more dangerous than smoking or, I don't know, I'm making that up, but it's something like that. It's some, some shockingly high impact on our health compared to things that we know are bad for our health, like smoking. And so this is why I think we start to see like we need to address this issue and traditionally, arts and culture, in my opinion, the whole point is to connect [00:04:00] us.

Indre Viskontas: The whole point is for us to express ourselves and to communicate with one another. When I think about the evolution of music, for example, I think it predates language because a million years before language of all, we were already sitting around. The fire, which had been discovered by our ancestors and living in larger social groups, like a hundred to 150 individuals.

Indre Viskontas: So if that's the case, what were we doing when we were cooking around the fire? We were probably exchanging art and culture, right? We were exchanging calls, we were may, maybe moving our bodies to a beat, et cetera. So to me that's like the fundamental role of the arts is to bring us. Out of our isolation to help us understand one another and to make us feel more connected.

Indre Viskontas: And that's in fact what we see when people are experiencing music that moves them. We see increases in the hormone oxytocin, which is involved in attachment, involved in bringing us together. We see increases in the synchronization between their. [00:05:00] Brains and body rhythms, the way their heart hearts beat, the way they breathe, even the way their brainwaves are sinking up.

Indre Viskontas: So to me, arts and culture is in a huge part of the solution to the isolation problem.

Eduardo Robles: Sorry, pause. Is there anything from the panel today that you would like to elaborate on? Any impressions that you're taking away? I.

Indre Viskontas: Yeah, so I was really moved by the keynote by Nataki Garrett, where she mentioned that the artists should be at the center of, you know, decision making of, you know, how they're being paid, et cetera, and centering the artist.

Indre Viskontas: And that really resonates with me because as a researcher, I think one of our biggest holes has been that we haven't had enough artists be. Involved in the actual research so that we can get a sense of, you know, what it is that they think is important. One of the things I think is really important when we study, you know, creativity or the arts, is not just to look at how it [00:06:00] might impact the way it is, but rather how can we make it better to have an even bigger impact, you know, on the audience.

Indre Viskontas: As an, as an artist myself, that's something that I look forward to. Like what can I, what research can I do that will make me a better singer? A better performer. And so I think that I, I would really wanna encourage artists to reach out to scientists who are interested in creativity. So I, I'm the president of the Society for the Neuroscience of Creativity.

Indre Viskontas: We have a whole slew of people who are interested in this problem, but there's also the Neuro Arts Blueprint and, and a whole bunch of other organizations that are. Pulling together researchers in the space, and I encourage artists to reach out to them and say, you know, how can I participate? How can I help?

Indre Viskontas: Whether it's as a participant in a study or even help craft a study or interpret the data or get the study out into the world. I think there's a real role for artists, and I just don't want them to be shy and to feel like, oh, you know, [00:07:00] even though they might not know all the jargon, all the vocabulary that the scientists use, or all the statistical tools, that doesn't mean they can't make a really meaningful impact on the research, and I encourage them to do that.

Eduardo Robles: Wow. So we, we, there's like a storytelling need, right? Like getting the artist and telling that, that, that, that, that, that story so we can. Play a role in that, right? Like, as an arts advocacy organization looking. So, you know we invite artists, culture bears to, you know to reach out to, you know, the organizations that you're, you're a part of.

Eduardo Robles: So we can start, you know really articulating that story.

Indre Viskontas: I mean, exactly. Right. And I think not just telling the story after the research has been done, but helping us design the research so that the story that you tell afterwards is as, as good as it possibly can be.

Eduardo Robles: Wow. Thank you so much. Um, we, I'm gonna do that again.

Eduardo Robles: Go for it. Okay. Uh, well thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us. Really appreciate it.

Indre Viskontas: It was my pleasure.

Eduardo Robles: Yeah.

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