Malia Gilbert-Neal, the executive director of Arts Well, grew up poor and Black in Philadelphia and has been creating community empowerment organizations her entire adult life. In conversation with host Desire Wandan, she shares her life story and the work of Art Well, founded in 2000 in response to chronic community violence in Philly. Today Art Well partners with over 400 organizations to bring arts related activities to schools, libraries, health and social service organizations throughout the Philadelphia area. In all her work Gilbert-Neal strives to focus on the wellness of individuals, communities and the earth. “America makes it very hard to be well. We’re all experiencing the same capitalism that is overworking and underpaying people, expecting them to make huge sacrifices of themselves for the sake of profit and dollars. We’re all experiencing the same racism, sexism and challenges to our human rights,” says Gilbert-Neal. “We’re all swimming in these systems of oppression, so it’s really important to talk about wellness and how to sustain it.”

www.theartwell.org

Instagram: @Maliaknowsthings

----more----

Welcome to All Power to the Developing, a podcast of the East Side Institute. The Institute is a center for social change efforts that reinitiate human and community development. We support, connect, and partner with committed and creative activists, scholars, artists, helpers, and healers all over the world. In 2003, Institute co-founders Lois Holzman and the late Fred Newman had a paper published with the title “All Power to the Developing.” This phrase captures how vital it is for all people—no matter their age, circumstance, status, race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation—to grow, develop and transform emotionally, socially and intellectually if we are to have a shot at creating something positive out of the intense crises we’re all experiencing. We hope that this podcast series will show you that, far more than a slogan, “all power to the developing” is a loving activity, a pulsing heart in an all too cruel world.

----more----

La Transplanisphère, based in Paris, France, has been doing cutting-edge political theatre for two decades bringing artists, students, and “ordinary people” together to explore the political and cultural challenges facing Europe as it becomes more diverse. In residence, since 2018, at the Lycée Albert Schweitzer in Le Raincy, a working-class suburb of Paris, La Transplanisphére has, among many other things, developed methods for teachers who want to use play and performance to explore political issues and the challenges of cross-cultural dialogue with their students. In this episode, Bruno Freyssinet, founder and artistic director of La Transplanisphère, shares the theatre’s history and discusses how, “through play you find the kid in you, you find the openness, the lightness which has the power to totally change your relationship with the ‘Other.’” This episode is hosted by Desire Wandan and Dan Friedman.

https://latransplanisphere.com/ https://www.instagram.com/latransplanisphere/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bruno-freyssinet-55200062/

----more----

Welcome to All Power to the Developing, a podcast of the East Side Institute. The Institute is a center for social change efforts that reinitiate human and community development. We support, connect, and partner with committed and creative activists, scholars, artists, helpers, and healers all over the world. In 2003, Institute co-founders Lois Holzman and the late Fred Newman had a paper published with the title “All Power to the Developing.” This phrase captures how vital it is for all people—no matter their age, circumstance, status, race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation—to grow, develop and transform emotionally, socially and intellectually if we are to have a shot at creating something positive out of the intense crises we’re all experiencing. We hope that this podcast series will show you that, far more than a slogan, “all power to the developing” is a loving activity, a pulsing heart in an all too cruel world.

----more----

Desire Wandan and Dan Friedman co-host this episode with guest Ramsey Kanaan, publisher of PM Press, the most impactful publisher and distributor of anarchist, Marxist, and radical literature in the United States. The conversation touches on the history of anarchism (“reviled, mocked, ignored”) Kanaan’s own embrace of radical politics at the age of 13, his years touring Europe with the punk band, Political Asylum, his founding of AK Press in the UK and PM Press in the USA, the general crisis in publishing, and how PM has been able to survive and thrive in a hostile political and economic environment. “It is important,” Kanaan emphasizes, “to build structures and institutions to control the means of production and distribution of our ideas.”

https://www.tiktok.com/@pmpress