“We aren't constantly swimming in trauma. We're a joyful people. I want to make sure that the way we present the work is reflective of an expansive and nuanced understanding that we can hold pain but we can also hold a lot of love, joy and happiness.” — Kalyn Fay Barnoski, Philbrook Museum of Art When you’re a gatekeeper to a world that’s still unfolding for mainstream audiences, the pressure must be…intense. Kalyn Fay Barnoski , an interdisciplinary artist, musician, curator, and educator from ...
Sep 19, 2023•38 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast “I'm really interested in curators who have done the work of healing through their deep curiosity and then are thinking about what they can curate to help others on their journey. I can't think of anything that's more worthwhile and more meaningful than extending that vulnerability of your own healing journey and trying to support others on theirs.” — Scott Shigeoka, author of “ Seek: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World ” In talking to curators about what it takes to be su...
Sep 12, 2023•47 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast “I just love creating these really hyper specific titles where, after reading these few words, you really have an understanding of the context of the playlist itself…It's crazy how being that specific makes people so compelled to actually listen because it feels relatable.” — Kasey Gelsomino, Kasey’s Playlist You don’t have to press play to know what you’re going to get on a playlist called “ Oat Milk Lattes in the Mountains .” It’s pretty clear from just the name that this playlist is serving u...
Sep 05, 2023•35 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast “[Mixtapes were] the ultimate love letter because it’s like saying: ‘This is me looking at you and trying to understand where your taste lies and also imparting some of my taste. This is where we intersect.’ Maybe I can introduce you to new things while recognizing that I'm here in a context that I think you will appreciate.” — Hrishikesh Hirway , musician and podcaster Being a musician led Hrishikesh Hirway on a quest to understand how songs are born, bit by bit. If he detected a cool sound or ...
Aug 29, 2023•44 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast “It's not like you press a button and you get to see art. You have to go there to know there…You have to be in front of it, obviously, and then you have to have a relationship with it. You have to see it again and again. And sometimes it takes years.” — Dereck Mangus, Baltimore Museum of Art In 2022, the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) turned over the curation of one of its exhibits to 17 security guards on staff. Called “ Guarding the Art ,” the show was a wide-ranging display of individuals’ tas...
Aug 22, 2023•43 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast “The internet demands that everyone be a kind of curator: you're a curator of your own Instagram, of your opinions on Twitter, of what playlists you listen to on Spotify. There's a lot of curation going on but it's more in the sense of selecting between stuff. Curation, to me, is a much more deep-seated act that has more to do with the caretaking of culture, building context, and creating histories that might be overlooked.” — Kyle Chayka, Author, “ Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture ...
Aug 15, 2023•39 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast “Good writing is simple writing. I think that goes for the curation part, as well. I will try and strip myself from the equation as much as possible. You’re like a spider with your tentacles out everywhere, looking and pulling in things from different reader recommendations, dashboards and things you know about the company, and trying to spin it into something really interesting.” — Hannah Ray , Substack The firehose of great things to read has only become more overwhelming since Substack came o...
Aug 08, 2023•49 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast “Back in the day, curation was mostly a job in museums and art galleries. It took the Spotifys, Twitters and Netflixes of the world to really popularize curation as a valid business need. I’m proud to say that we were amongst the first ones to identify the business need for that discipline.” — Robyn Kerkhof, Blinkist Curation has long moved out of the ivory tower of the art world. These days, anyone with taste and the will can be a curator. Sometimes curation is automated with a “ human in the l...
Aug 01, 2023•42 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast “The problem is more to find what one wants to curate because, well, you have to find your way…[Mastodon] is a great place because you have incredible choice and a rich and creative crowd out there.” — Sabine Stoye, Mastodon art and photography curator You may have heard about a Twitter alternative called Mastodon. The service is a decentralized social network made up of independent servers organized around specific themes, topics or interests. It’s one of the largest platforms in the Fediverse ...
Jul 25, 2023•25 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast “In the history of human culture, we've never had a time that’s been better for learning about photography. There are images everywhere, and hopefully somebody like me can help you see some of the good stuff.” — Andy Adams, FlakPhoto Projects In an era flooded with so much photography, usually without context, it’s a relief to have Andy Adams as a guide. Based in Madison, WI, Andy is the founder, curator and director of FlakPhoto Projects , a hub focused on conversations about photography and vi...
Jul 18, 2023•39 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast “If you're a curator in a museum, you're thinking about the thousands or millions of people that are coming through your space, not just your own personal taste. That's [also] important when doing a list. I have things that I love that I drink, but if I'm putting a list together, it's really important to think about all the people that are coming through the door.” — Nadine Brown, Sommelier and Wine Writer The world of wine can be overwhelming. There is so much choice! Thank goodness for sommeli...
Dec 06, 2022•36 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast “‘Disability aesthetics’ is this term that is really loose but points to where we can find disability as the space that informs an artistic practice. When I say ‘disability arts’ or ‘disabled artistry,’ it’s [referring to] artists who have an experience of disability or illness and use that as a space that is generative and that is not hidden from the practice.” — Ezra Benus, artist, educator, and curator The pandemic helped some people understand what it’s like to fear for one’s health daily. B...
Nov 29, 2022•27 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast “When you focus on the research, educating, explaining and pulling things together, and then communicating that back in an easy way, this idea of bias often does not come up. I know that sounds counterintuitive. But it’s really about placing focus on how we explain [the news]. We don’t really worry about [what each side says]. We put our focus on contextual framing, trying to be quantitative, and communicating in a useful way.” — Drew Steigerwald, Co-founder 1440 In today’s media landscape, unde...
Nov 22, 2022•40 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast “A lot of the curation and knowledge management is happening in single-player tools. It'd be a lot more powerful to combine the richness and the utility of all these tools with a more networked discovery and communal approach to building knowledge.” — Sari Azout When we talk about curation, the first question that usually pops to mind is: What is the thing being curated? Could be information , music , art , sneakers , NFTs and on and on . Startupy World founder Sari Azout has another viewpoint. ...
Nov 15, 2022•39 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast “Unlike the traditional definition of collecting, where you just accumulate, sneaker collecting is to accumulate and wear. The finality of collecting the art is to style it, to make it yours. For me, it's not just about the sneaker. It's about the whole fashion and the whole fit. It's about the whole piece that I'm putting out there while highlighting the shoe.” — Jixie Gonzalez, Curvy Kicks Sneakers. They’re everywhere! But for Jasmine “Jixie” Gonzalez, sneakers are more than just footwear. Not...
Nov 08, 2022•44 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast “There's no such thing as an unbiased algorithm, and some companies have probably admitted that sooner than others. But once you do admit it, the only rational step you can take is to try to learn as much as you can about the ways that algorithms can reflect our biases, both positive and negative, and what we can do to tune them so that they are running in line with the principles and standards that we are agreeing to at the outset.” — David Smydra, Twitter Don’t let the Musk circus detract from...
Nov 01, 2022•36 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast “Curation is a specific mode of creativity that's more based in analogical thinking and juxtaposition and categorization. The best curators are critics too … It's not enough to be a great subject matter expert. You also have to have a deep understanding of the spheres of art, aesthetics, commerce and technology, and be someone who's constantly thinking about those things through multiple lenses.” — Meg Tarquinio, PhD If you use Spotify, you know that the platform is a delightful mixture of human...
Oct 25, 2022•36 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast “For several years now, I have just kind of felt like I'm not seeing what I really want to see in my feed, despite following friends and strangers whose taste and opinions I care about…The algorithm doesn't really get it. The big motivation for me is: humans just do stuff better. Some things just can't be automated.” — Ann Friedman The algorithm doesn’t know that you can’t be put in a box. That your curiosity knows no bounds. That you don’t want to exist in a filter bubble. That feeling drove jo...
Oct 18, 2022•42 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast “The beauty of NFTs and Web 3 is that now it's global, where you have a whole gallery in your phone or laptop. You can be your own curator without having all the background and connections that are typically in the traditional art space…Anyone can curate if they have that passion and that love for creativity and art.” — Lex Marcano, NFT Girl With all the Web3 hype and grim headlines about the “crypto winter” we’re still in, it’s impossible to escape conversations about NFTs. The market feels cha...
Oct 11, 2022•38 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast “When you host a lightweight cocktail party, you now have a way to go through life, collecting these new and interesting people and bringing them into your world…You use these parties as an audition to see who you would like to become better friends with.” — Nick Gray , creator of “The 2-Hour Cocktail Party” Whether you’re new to a place or getting on in your years, it can feel increasingly hard to make friends. But Nick Gray has devised a blueprint to change that, outlined step-by-step in his b...
Oct 04, 2022•37 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast Technology is an amazing tool, but at the end of the day there is still no algorithm for cool. Cool is humans observing, selecting and sharing something because it moves them and they think it might move others, too. Join us on a weekly journey to understand tastemaking as a craft that can be learned, honed and expressed through the art of curation.
Sep 26, 2022•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast “Whenever I wonder, ‘Wow, can I really pull this off?’ I know I'm in a good space, because I really want to push the limits of what I can do, what the exhibition can do and what the institution can do while trying to propel things in a positive direction. Risk, experimentality and curiosity are essential criteria for curators.” — Apsara DiQuinzio The exhibit “ New Time: Art and Feminisms in the 21st Century ” is no longer showing at the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, but if you were...
Mar 15, 2022•39 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast “Part of my work is to look at how artists are using their craft to speak to the times that we're living in — everything from climate change to immigration to the everyday human experience. My role is to look at what our museum has historically focused on and, in some regards, attempt to fill in the gaps or expand the conversation.” — Ozi Uduma, University of Michigan Ozi Uduma, Assistant Curator of Global Contemporary Art at the University of Michigan, is part of a four-person, all-female curat...
Mar 08, 2022•35 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast “I am the kind of person that believes in frequency and energy. I really like to meditate. So when I think about how to inspire the people…I use music as the channel to share that energy.” — Ramon Olguin Sanchez A vibe manager — also known as a vibe curator — has been called “ the most millennial job ever .” To be one, you’ve got to be the kind of person who has their finger on the pulse of lifestyle and industry trends. You then curate those elements into a space or experience that’s inviting a...
Mar 01, 2022•23 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast “Film curators definitely have the challenge of [their medium’s] temporal nature. With two dimensional objects, you can easily look at them at once and figure out [how to] arrange them. But when it comes to working with a time-based medium, you really have to watch it…and maybe multiple times to understand how the piece works.” — Leslie Raymond, Ann Arbor Film Festival At 60 years old, the Ann Arbor Film Festival (AAFF) is the longest-running independent and experimental film festival in North A...
Feb 22, 2022•35 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast “To be a good curator, it's important to…be open to what you don't know and to be looking for people to tell you what the new important ideas are instead of going out and saying, I think I know what matters.” — Corey Hajim, TED Business Curator She didn’t know it while it was unfolding, but when you look back at Corey Hajim’s career trajectory, it makes sense that she became the business curator at TED. Prior to joining the conference and content company, Corey got an MBA at Harvard, spent a dec...
Feb 15, 2022•39 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast “Ever since I was at Amazon, I've been intrigued by the way in which discovery needs to be a bit more than search, and how curation is almost the flipside of knowing what you want…Helping you identify what you would get delight from is very often the result of curation.” — Spencer Hyman As a “craft chocolate DJ” who runs a subscription service called Cocoa Runners, Spencer Hyman has plenty to say about the art of curating delicious, ethical chocolate bars. He’s deeply immersed in everything abou...
Feb 08, 2022•41 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast “I’ve learned how to choose the people who have the most interesting voices and stories and not just the ones that make $500,000 a year…I've really learned to mine for story and interesting tidbits and different kinds of people.” — Hannah Rimm If you’ve ever read a Money Diary on Refinery29, you know they’re fascinating and a little bit addictive. Initially, it’s the scenario that draws you in; headlines like “I'm 25, I make $28,000 & I'm A Cowgirl For A Living” or “I'm 37, I Have A Joint Income...
Feb 01, 2022•33 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast “Sometimes in the Jewish imagination, but definitely in the broader public imagination, people reduce all of Jewish history to the Holocaust. And so I think one of the responsibilities that curators have is to show the rich panoply of Jewish experience beyond just 1939-1945…and to create access points to those histories.” — Jason Steinhauer History Club founder Jason Steinhauer is a curator with such deep and varied experience that it’s hard to know where to start. Do we begin with the popular C...
Jan 25, 2022•33 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast “The moment we opened our doors, the project belonged to everybody else who's interacting with it. It’s [now] about serving those people and their engagement with things. A lot of curation is also about listening and continuing to change your perspective and accept things that you didn't know or understand before you started on the journey you're on.” — Matthew James-Wilson, Heavy Manners Library Imagine wanting to create a library and then building it from scratch. What books would you include?...
Jan 18, 2022•43 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast 
