How do we really create systemic change? How do we shift narratives towards a generative future? How do we bring artists, scientists, policy makers, educators, conservationists, journalists, and all the different siloed tribes together in ways that let them genuinely communicate
and listen to the web of life?
This week's guest is someone who is actively working on so many levels to change all these things. As you'll hear, Markus Reymann is a Director of a European Arts foundation, which doesn't sound nearly as exciting as it is. Because this is an arts foundation with a difference.
TBA21 says of itself that it is a leading international art and advocacy foundation and it stewards the TBA21 Collection and its outreach activities, which include exhibitions, educational offers, and public programming. The
TBA21–Academy, which Markus helped set up, is the foundation’s research center, 'fostering a deeper relationship with the Ocean and other bodies of water by working as an incubator for collaborative inquiry, artistic production, and environmental advocacy. For more than a decade, the Academy has catalyzed new forms of knowledge emerging from the exchanges between art, science, policy, and conservation in long-term and collaborative engagement through fellowships and residency programs. All activity at TBA21 is fundamentally driven by artists and the belief in art and culture as a carrier of social and environmental transformation.'
We talk a lot about social and environmental transformation on this podcast: it's what we're here for and what we believe is essential not just to creating that future we'd be proud to leave behind, but to creating any liveable future at all for most of the species on the planet. We talk a lot, too, about systemic thinking, about paradigm shifts and about our capacity as a species to let go of our dominant narratives, and the need for someone, somewhere to bring together the scientists, the artists, the policy makers, the journalists, the educators…and do it in a way that breaks down the barriers, lets them actually understand each other - and then shows them other cultures that think differently, that have different value systems than ours ,so they can see that there are different ways of doing things that will work.
And this, is what Markus is doing. Here is someone who understands systemic thinking and who is applying it with depth and breadth and great heart.
Bio:
Markus Reymann is Director of
TBA21–Academy, a non-profit cultural organization he co-founded in 2011 that fosters interdisciplinary dialogue and exchange surrounding the most urgent ecological, social, and economic issues facing our oceans today. Markus leads the Academy’s engagement with artists, activists, scientists, and policy-makers worldwide, resulting in the creation of new commissions, new bodies of knowledge, and new policies advancing the conservation and protection of the oceans.
In March 2019, the Academy launched Ocean Space, a new global port for ocean literacy, research, and advocacy. Located in the restored Church of San Lorenzo in Venice, Italy, Ocean Space is activated by the itinerant Academy and its network of partners, including universities, NGOs, museums, government agencies, and research institutes from around the world.
What is Accidental Gods ?
Another World is still Possible. The old system was never fit for purpose and now it has gone- and it's never coming back.
We have the power of gods to destroy our home. But we also have the chance to become something we cannot yet imagine,
and by doing so, lay the foundations for a future we would be proud to leave to the generations yet unborn.
What happens if we commit to a world based on generative values: compassion, courage, integrity?
What happens if we let go of the race for meaningless money and commit instead to the things that matter: clean air, clean water, clean soil - and clean, clear, courageous connections between all parts of ourselves (so we have to do the inner work of healing individually and collectively), between ourselves and each other (so we have to do the outer work of relearning how to build generative communities) and between ourselves and the Web of Life (so we have to reclaim our birthright as conscious nodes in the web of life)?
We can do this - and every week on Accidental Gods we speak with the people who are living this world into being. We have all the answers, we just (so far) lack the visions and collective will to weave them into a future that works. We can make this happen. We will. Join us.
Accidental Gods is a podcast and membership program devoted to exploring the ways we can create a future that we would be proud to leave to the generations yet to come.
If we're going to emerge into a just, equitable - and above all regenerative - future, we need to get to know the people who are already living, working, thinking and believing at the leading edge of inter-becoming transformation.
Accidental Gods exists to bring these voices to the world so that we can work together to lay the foundations of a world we'd be proud to leave to the generations that come after us.
We have the choice now - we can choose to transform…or we can face the chaos of a failing system.
Our Choice. Our Chance. Our Future.
Find the membership and the podcast pages here: https://accidentalgods.life
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