For more than a decade, conceptual artists Jennifer Dalton and William Powhida have collaborated on sharp, often darkly funny critiques of the art world’s economic and political machinery. One of their earliest projects together, a satirical telethon staged during the Great Recession, planted a seed they later returned to: What would happen if you ran an art fair where every work of art was free? That question eventually evolved into Zero Art Fair, a real, fully functioning event that uses a radically different contract to redistribute both artworks and power within the art market. Zero Art Fair invites participating artists to place selected works into a five-year “store-to-own” agreement with collectors who take the work home at no cost. During those five years, ownership vests gradually; if a collector later decides to sell the work, the artist receives half of the sale price as well as a 10 percent resale royalty. The result is a system that clears storage, builds new relationships across class lines, and asserts one of the Fair’s core beliefs, namely that price does not equal value. So far, Dalton and Powhida have staged two editions — the first in a barn in the Hudson Valley as part of Upstate Art Weekend, the second this fall at the FLAG Art Foundation in Manhattan — together seeding more than 400 works of contemporary art into new homes. In this interview, Dalton and Powhida explain how the Fair’s unconventional contract works, why prioritizing access for people who “need help to live with art” reshaped their second New York edition, and what kinds of unexpected relationships and ripple effects have emerged along the way. https://www.zeroartfair.com/ Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

For more than two decades, Ariel Fristoe has been at the center of one of the country’s most inventive experiments in how theater can live inside a community. As the artistic director of Atlanta’s Out of Hand Theater (https://www.outofhandtheater.com/), she has shaped an organization known not for occupying traditional stages but for embedding performance inside civic life, partnering with schools, nonprofits, public agencies and neighborhood groups to spark dialogue and move people toward collective action. Out of Hand’s work is now studied and replicated across the country, in part because it offers an alternative path at a moment when many arts organizations are searching for new models. Instead of focusing on season planning or ticket sales, Ariel and her team design programs that integrate theater with data, storytelling with civic participation and performance with tangible next steps for audiences who want to make change in their communities. In this interview, Ariel reflects on how this approach emerged, how her own leadership evolved alongside it, and why she believes artists are uniquely equipped to work on the most urgent social issues of our time. She also gives a glimpse into Out of Hand’s next chapter — including a major 2026 national initiative — and shares what she’s learned about building trust, building partnerships and sustaining purpose-driven work over the long haul. https://www.outofhandtheater.com/ Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

For more than two decades, composer and educator Byron Au Yong has created music that bridges performance, ritual and activism. His highly collaborative works have been presented by such varied institutions as the Seattle Symphony, BAM, the Smithsonian, the American Conservatory Theater and Nashville Opera. Among his many large-scale projects is his long partnership with writer and rapper Aaron Jafferis, with whom he created the “liberation trilogy”: “Stuck Elevator,” “The Ones” and “Activist Songbook.” Byron is also Associate Professor and Director of Arts Leadership at Seattle University, where he’s reimagining arts education as a space of equity, imagination and community. His teaching encourages artists to consider leading beyond or outside institutions and to learn from one another as collaborators in liberation. His many honors include a Creative Capital Award, a Doris Duke Building Demand for the Arts Grant and a Sundance Institute/Time Warner Foundation Fellowship. In this interview, Byron reflects on how his art and teaching are both rooted in listening, whether it’s listening through the feet to the language of trees to compose his newest work or listening deeply to students and collaborators to imagine new, more equitable forms of leadership. https://byronauyong.com/ Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Since the advent of artificial intelligence and its astonishing image-generating capacities, artists the world over have been both disturbed and fascinated by it. Some fear that these new tools could render human creativity obsolete, while others see in them a chance to reexamine what art and imagination itself can be. For “Art Restart,” this conversation marks the beginning of a deeper exploration of how AI might radically reshape the act of making art and the role of the artist in society. Painter Damian Stamer is an ideal guide for this inquiry. Known for transforming photographs of abandoned barns and rural landscapes near his North Carolina home into luminous, memory-laden canvases — both UNCSA and the Kenan Institute for the Arts have Damian Stamer originals in their collections — Damian has now begun experimenting with AI-generated images as source material for his paintings. Rather than replacing his hand or vision, the technology has become a provocative collaborator, one that helps him probe what remains uniquely human in the creative process. In this interview, Damian reflects on how working with AI has deepened his understanding of intuition, authorship and faith in an age increasingly defined by machines. https://damianstamer.com/home.html Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Even before his diagnosis of long COVID in 2020, cellist Joshua Roman had carved a unique niche in the classical music world. A former principal cellist of the Seattle Symphony turned soloist and curator, Joshua built a career that combined artistic excellence with a passionate commitment to making music relevant and accessible. Whether premiering bold new works or improvising in unexpected settings, he was—and remains—a restless innovator with an unshakable belief in music’s power to heal, connect, and transform. Long COVID has altered nearly every aspect of Joshua’s life, from his physical stamina to how he plans his days to the way he relates to his instrument. Yet instead of sidelining him, the illness has led Joshua to reevaluate the very foundations of his artistry. The result is a new clarity and focus—not only about which projects deserve his limited energy but also what kind of artistic legacy he wants to build. His latest initiative, “The Immunity Project,” exemplifies this shift: a collection of performances and reflections that foreground music’s emotional and restorative capacity, drawn directly from his personal experience of illness and recovery. The project now also includes a recently released album titled “Immunity.” In this interview, Joshua opens up about the physical and existential recalibrations he’s made in order to keep performing, why he now only practices when he truly wants to and how chronic illness has deepened his artistic mission. He also shares his hopes for a classical-music ecosystem that makes space for artists to be fully, honestly human — onstage and off. https://www.joshuaroman.com/ Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Cyrus Moussavi (https://www.cyrusmoussavi.com/) has carved out a career that is as improbable as it is original. Raised in Iowa in a bicultural Iranian American household, Cyrus grew up spending summers in Iran and the rest of the year steeped in his father’s love of prog rock and his mother’s passion for traditional Iranian music. That early immersion in disparate sound worlds laid the groundwork for a lifelong obsession with music—not as a performer, but as a listener, connector, and storyteller. After studying economics and philosophy in college, Cyrus gravitated toward filmmaking, not to make conventional movies but to explore how visual storytelling could capture, preserve and transmit music and the lives of those who make it. As a filmmaker, Cyrus has developed a body of work that’s both deeply collaborative and boldly inventive. His films include “I Snuck Off the Slave Ship,” a science-fiction documentary co-directed with the visionary artist and musician Lonnie Holley that screened at Sundance and BlackStar, among many other festivals and galleries, and the upcoming “Somebody’s Gone,” a feature-length film about gospel legend Brother Theotis Taylor that he is co-directing with Brother Theotis’ son, Hubert. And as a music archivist and promoter, since 2019 Cyrus has led the influential reissue label Mississippi Records (https://www.mississippirecords.net/), where he works closely with artists and their families to bring overlooked and under-celebrated music from around the world to new audiences. In this interview, Cyrus discusses how his early experiences shaped his eclectic sensibility, what it means to ethically archive music across cultures and how he sees his work as both creative practice and cultural preservation.  Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

It’s no secret that arts non-profits across the country are struggling to survive, but few closures have hit their communities as hard as the recent shuttering of Big Medium in Austin, TX. For more than 20 years, Big Medium was one of the most influential visual-arts organizations in the city. It produced the beloved and sprawling Austin Studio Tour, presented exhibitions that championed historically marginalized artists and served as an essential convener for the city’s creative community. At the heart of its work for many years was curator and, more recently, artistic director Coka Treviño, whose passion for equity and for platforming emerging artists helped shape the organization’s inclusive mission. In this conversation, Coka, who continues her own curatorial work via her company The Projecto, reflects on her tenure at Big Medium and the complex web of challenges that led to its sudden closure. From shifts in city grantmaking priorities to the skyrocketing cost of living that made staffing nearly impossible, the interview offers a candid window into just how difficult it has become for arts organizations—even in culturally rich, economically booming cities like Austin—to maintain operations.  https://www.theprojecto.org/ Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Ryan J. Haddad is an actor and playwright whose work across theater and television consistently challenges outdated narratives around disability, queerness and identity. He made a striking Off-Broadway playwriting debut with “Dark Disabled Stories” at The Public Theater, which enjoyed a sold-out, extended run and earned him the Obie Award for Best New American Play. His autobiographical solo show “Hi, Are You Single?” has become a defining part of his artistic voice, touring nationally and earning critical acclaim. Ryan’s television credits include memorable appearances on Hulu’s “A Murder at the End of the World” and Netflix’s “The Politician.” In addition to performing, Haddad is a dedicated writer and access advocate. His essays have appeared in The New York Times and Out Magazine, and he is a contributor to the anthology “Disability Intimacy,” curated by Alice Wong. His creative work and activism have earned him a Drama Desk Award, a Paula Vogel Playwriting Award from Vineyard Theatre and a Disability Futures Fellowship. He is also a proud alum of the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group. In this interview, conducted just a few days before he premiered his latest solo piece, “Hold Me in the Water,” at Playwrights Horizons in New York City, Ryan reflects on the pivotal experiences that shaped his journey as an artist, from performing fairy tales in his childhood living room to commanding major stages and screens. He speaks candidly about navigating the entertainment industry as a gay man with cerebral palsy, building a career on his own terms and advocating for authentic representation and accessibility in the arts. https://www.ryanjhaddad.com/ https://www.playwrightshorizons.org/about/production-history/2020s/2425-season/hold-me-in-the-water Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Carlos López Estrada definitely paid his dues – shooting scores of music videos and short pieces for a pittance while living at his mother’s for years after film school – before he had the chance to direct his first full-length feature film, “Blindspotting.” That well-reviewed film landed him his first studio feature when Disney hired him to co-direct the animated film “Raya and the Last Dragon.”  He is nonetheless the first to point out that a number of elements, including a film-school education and supportive parents, made his path to success easier than what awaited most of his cohort of up-and-coming filmmakers. He therefore focused on a new kind of creative endeavor: Antigravity Academy.  Founded by Carlos in 2023, Antigravity is a hybrid business. It offers a range of educational initiatives designed to provide young, aspiring filmmakers — particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds — with the tools, mentorship and opportunities to develop their voices and tell their own stories. It also has a producing arm devoted to developing and bringing to life projects that would otherwise have difficulty finding funding. Antigravity’s first produced film, “Dìdi,” a glowingly reviewed coming-of-age story by Sean Wang, proved that Carlos’ mentoring and producing instincts are spot-on. “Dìdi” recently won two awards at the 2025 Film Independent Spirit Awards: Best First Feature and Best First Screenplay. In this interview, Carlos describes how his experiences in Hollywood shaped Antigravity Academy’s mission and programs and explains why empowering new voices is not only helping to bring surprising stories to the screen but also making him a better artist. https://antigravityacademy.co/ Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Trained as a fiber and textile artist, Maria Amalia Wood has in recent years been working with paper, manipulating and dyeing wet wood pulp to build richly layered pieces. As important to Maria’s creativity as her raw materials, however, is the community of Latina immigrants like herself that she has fostered through a series of creative workshops in her hometown of Madison, WI. Her latest communal and artistic enterprise is Unidas por Hilos (United by Threads), a monthly gathering of diverse Latina immigrants who embroider their stories, often learning new stitches along the way, in fellowship with one another.  In this interview, Maria shares how her current work is a natural extension of the comfort and energy she found among skilled seamstresses in her native Honduras. She extols the power of embroidery as both a meditative practice and a form of storytelling and reminds us that no matter the activity, homemade food remains the one ingredient guaranteed to bring people together.  https://www.mariaamalia.com/ Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.