podcast / alumni / president / faculty
September 13, 2017
Writer: Solvej Schou
Photographer: Juan Posada

ARTCENTER’S CHANGE LAB PODCAST HOSTED BY PRESIDENT EMERITUS LORNE BUCHMAN EXPLORES THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF CREATIVITY

How do artists and designers look at the world starting in childhood? What did they do creatively? How did they feel? Where did those experiences take them in their careers and lives? How did the act of creative making change them and the universe around them? How does their work deepen their humanity?

ArtCenter’s first-ever podcast Change Lab: Conversations on Transformation and Creativity addresses all of these questions and more. Hosted by ArtCenter President Emeritus Lorne Buchman in conversation with art and design luminaries, Change Lab explores the vast and varied terrain of the human imagination.

“I want to uncover where the creative spirit is, and when it was first evident,” says Buchman. “It also seems to disarm people when they talk about themselves as kids. I want to create a tone of honesty, forthrightness and trust in the process.”

Buchman himself has a multi-faceted background. He’s headed the College since 2009, and has been a leader in academia for decades. He’s a trained theater director, scholar and author.

He founded a private consulting firm. He has a PhD from Stanford University. He’s also—that’s right—a podcast aficionado, and especially loves Krista Tippett’s deep-thinking podcast On Being (he hasn’t missed an episode for eight years).

“I think that podcasts are great opportunities for smart, thorough conversations,” says Buchman. “With Change Lab, I can speak in more depth, perhaps with more intimacy, about the questions we face as a creative institution, and that I face as a leader, and that these interviewees—who are also leaders in their own right—face as creative people.”

The podcast’s first episode is an astute and open discussion with Lynda.com founder and former ArtCenter faculty Lynda Weinman, who touches on her difficult upbringing, meditation, the influence of feminism and the democratically minded Summerhill school, and the impact of failure and empathy.

“I have been interviewed countless times, but no one has ever asked the type of deeply thoughtful questions as Lorne Buchman does," says Weinman, whose husband is trustee, alumnus and Lynda.com co-founder Bruce Heavin (BFA 93 Illustration).

Other future guests include director John X. Carey (BFA 2011 Film); artist Edgar Arceneaux (BFA 96 Fine Art); Sara Khoury (MFA 92 Graphics/Packaging), Google’s director of user experience design; Mari Nakano (MFA 09 Media Design Practices), deputy design director of New York City’s Mayor's Office for Economic Opportunity; Niklas Gustafsson (BS 98 Product Design), PepsiCo’s global design and innovation director; illustrator, artist and graphic journalist Wendy MacNaughton (BFA 99 Fine Art); and multimedia installation artist and Grad Art faculty Stan Douglas.

“These wonderfully talented and bright people are involved in endeavors that inspire them to think and talk about change in really interesting ways,” says Buchman. “Radius of influence doesn’t matter. You can effect change by being president of General Motors, or you can also have a small, very meaningful effect on another human being through a simple interaction that is no less profound.”