S1: It's time for Midday Edition on Kpbs. Today we're featuring a film festival , Art as activism , and an Octavia Butler exhibit. I'm Jade Hindman. Here's to conversations that keep you informed , inspired , and make you think. A new initiative gives artists a platform to advocate and raise public awareness.
S2: Some of our most , you know , urgent issues of shaping our , our region today. So public health , civic engagement , climate.
S1: Then Beth Accomando takes us to the Blue Water Film Festival , plus all of the events happening in San Diego in your weekend preview. That's ahead on Midday Edition. Welcome in San Diego , it's Jade Hindman. You know , so many artists are activists through their work. So today we are talking to some of those artists and exploring their new projects. This is Kpbs Midday Edition , connecting our communities through conversation. In 2021 , the state of California recognized the importance of arts and culture to our well-being through the California Creative Corps Program. A new initiative called Far South Border North is actually part of that mission. It supports San Diego artists and cultural practitioners in making art for social change. Here to talk more about the program is Christine Jones. She's the chief of civic art strategies for the San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture. Christine , welcome.
S2: Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here today.
S1: Glad to have you here. I'm also joined by Johnny Baer Contreras. He is a sculptor and member of the San Pasqual Reservation. Johnny , welcome to you.
S3: Oh , how God , thanks for having me.
S1: Glad to have you here. So , Christine , how did the program first get started.
S2: As you alluded to , is back in 2021 when the state of California and essentially the California Art Council , which is a state artist agency in partnership with the state legislature , developed the $60 million pilot California Creative Core program. So with that California creative core in place , which is essentially a job creation , it's an infrastructure development opportunity , really , essentially to increase how artists and cultural practitioners engage in civic minded work within California's communities that have been most disproportionately impacted by health inequities. So in 2022 , with with the funding in place and the state kind of facilitating the creative core program , the City of San Diego , through the Commission for Arts and Culture , applied for and was awarded a $4.75 million grant to administer a pilot California creative program within our region. So we are the southernmost region of the state. We called our pilot program for South , border North artists and cultural practitioners and community. And essentially , we're one of 14 statewide administering organizations that are piloting distinct and different kind of unique programs across the state of California.
S1:
S2: So public health , civic engagement , climate , social justice are really the frameworks. These are the goals that were outlined by the California Creative Core program overall for the state and for South and North specifically. So they're really all all these different types of campaigns. And we have 71 creative campaigns underway. And they're tackling things like public health in order to stop the spread of Covid 19 associated health disparities. They're looking at water and energy conservation or climate mitigation in exploring civic engagement , including lecture participation and in different types of social justice issues and really ways of building cohesion and building community engagement. I'll share also that , you know , there's so many different types of artists and cultural practitioners that are in organizations that are involved with the program , that these types of implementations are taking on such a variety of different artistic and creative forms. Uh , they might range from performing and visual art to , to film or , or even media and in literary arts. And really , it's exciting to see all the variation in all of of the amount of work that's happening right now.
S1: That is excellent.
S3: Um , whether it's in my community , which is up here on the reservation or something , uh , across the globe.
S1:
S3: So when I saw that there was an initiative that was reaching out to actually , um , bring to light the complex makeup that San Diego has , especially with ethnicities as well as the the Native American community , which is coming at bay , and the bay , the mountains and the flatlands. That was something that I was just really. Really excited to see in the first place , uh , whether I was going to participate or not. And super excited that I was actually selected. So I think it's something , um , that was long overdue , but I've been here about 61 years now , and so , um , I'm really glad that I'm at the place that I am now and able to participate as I am.
S1: Yeah , well , congratulations on embarking on this. Um , you're collaborating on a campaign about climate mitigation and the environment.
S3: And any time somebody brings 60 artists into the same room , I have nothing but applause for the people that organize that. We actually all that we were giving some , um , direction , uh , along with directions , uh , in the way of the Healthy Places index , which was really , um , I satisfied something in me I didn't even know needed satisfying. And that was really being able to look at the demographics and laid out in such a particular way. And we were able to kind of move off into our own areas when we were selected. Particular hubs , uh , throughout the city and our hub , our meeting places of familiar. And so with that , um , one of our first hub meetings , I sat with the playwright Marble Reynoso and I thought , you know , I would like to do something that I don't always do or haven't done at all. And that was be part of a play. And we were able to collaborate and we chose , um , climate justice , of course , and um , and awareness. And the name of the play is so , so almost IRA which are we are air. And the play actually delves into some of the different mitigating factors in the area and traffic and the different impacts. Wow.
S1: Wow.
S3: This is the first time I've been in the actual design process for working on a stage , uh , such as this. Uh , typically I'm up here in the studio on the sample score reservation , which I've had since oh six , and it's somewhat solitary , you know , so to be able to be part of a group is something that I'm really excited about. So yesterday we had our first design meeting , uh , via zoom , and we were able to go through some of the different characters , uh , talking about some of the costumes as well as the set design. Uh , I'm going to be primarily working on the set design. And so when it comes to some of the , uh , sculptural elements , I'm really looking forward to do some doing some of the appendages. Uh , there's several characters. Uh , one is a Komodo dragon , which I'm really kind of , um , looking forward to bringing that to life and the colors and the texture. Uh , and a couple of the other aspects , uh , deal with the specific climate challenges in San Isidro , but it's also going to be based with the steampunk theme. Uh , and if for those of you that aren't familiar with it , it's that it's that era of the 1700s , the industrial age , that it somehow is going to correlate with some of the Mexican industrial age as well. And so we really want to make sure that we're able to highlight that this is taking place in this portion of the state , which is right at the border in San Isidro. So it's exciting. And we yesterday we were talking about everything from the types of , uh , bottle caps that are often found at the different Mexican markets to the the actual clothing that will be worn , and actually embellishing some of the clothing with some of the traditional , uh , mariachi designs. And so and we delved into it , we got deep and I'm super excited. Wow.
S1: Wow.
S3: Um , the traditional , uh , word for that is the Juan , which means near the water. Uh , so the fact that we're able to go into the Kumeyaay language and be site specific is , I'm not sure if it's been done before on stage. Uh , so that's super exciting to be able to be exploring some of the traditional aspects. Um , and. The folding over of what's traditionally looked at is Mexican. Um , and I've often , I've often told folks this , if you call yourself Mexican , you know , you're , you're mixed between the indigenous and possibly Spanish. You know , you're you're you're mestiza mestizo. And I think that that's something that needs to be explored more needs to be out in , you know , the mainstay of things that the indigenous people have been here since time immemorial and it's been folded into language , dress , everything you could possibly imagine. So there's little , uh , excerpts throughout the play within the actual dialogue. Uh , and of course , it's going to be mixed into the actual set design as well. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. So what's next for the program ? I mean , I hear it's also endorsed by World Design Capital. Yes.
S2: Yes. So we have just recently been endorsed by World Design Capital as part of their community program , which which is exciting and really dovetails a lot with the intention of , of really , um , catalyzing artists and playing a role in civic society and participating in cross-sector work for , for a better future for for public good and enriching the artistic vitality of our communities.
S1:
S3: Uh , we're looking at doing a graphic novel novel that will accompany the , the play. Um , we'll see where that we're , we're able to put that out to. Um , and what's next is , um , you know , um , exactly what , what Christine was mentioning and , uh , building the capacity and understanding even even as a public artist with a good 30 years under my belt , I've pretty much been a fish out of water. Um , really , um , looking at the different dynamics involved in the different infrastructures and the demographic out there , um , I think often as artists sometimes can get , uh , insulated and not really , you know , delve into the surrounding communities. Being here on the reservation , it's it's it's in a ruler area of Valley Center , not not the most rural area of San Diego , but certainly when it comes to , um , different types of going ons , you know , it's not the same as being downtown San Diego on the coast. Um , you know , we're mid San Diego. It's very much , um , isolated in the ways of , uh , the culture , um , as it , as it unfolds and develops , um , and it has its own trials , it has its own , uh , difficulties. And as an artist , I'm sensitive to these things , um , that I've been involved in since youth of course. But what's really , uh , getting me excited is the fact that working with the hub down in San Isidro , um , Casa Familia are is preparing me to really venture out and move into different areas and being able to impact multiple , uh , different facets of , of our , of our communities that surround us , um , you know , and that that's , that's a super exciting part because you're able to think about how am I going to bring back what I'm learning and experiencing down , down south , how am I going to be able to bring that back to the reservation and and implement it here ? And so that's what's next for me , is really taking what I'm what I'm what I've been , uh , picking up and participating with and being able to bring it back to the reservation and implement it and get get some art programs developed on the reservations throughout San Diego.
S1: Yeah , absolutely. I've been speaking with Christine Jones , chief of civic art strategies for San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture , along with Johnny Baer Contreras , an artist , sculptor and member of the San Pascal Reservation. Christine and Johnny , thank you so much for joining us and sharing this program.
S2: Thank you , Jade , we really appreciate you sharing the program too.
S3: Thank you , thank you.
S1: Coming up , the Bluewater Film Festival returns for its fifth year with a film that profiles a scientist seeking Earth's history in glaciers.
S4: My first encounter with Lonnie , it was like I was meeting a real life Indiana Jones , going where no scientist had gone before.
S1: You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. Welcome back to Kpbs midday Edition , I'm Jade Hindman. The Bluewater Film Festival returns for its fifth year. The four day event strives to encourage attendees to think about how climate change affects our planet. One of the films to explore this topic is Canary , about scientist Lonnie Thompson , who finds Earth's history and glaciers atop the tallest mountains in the world. Kpbs Arts reporter Beth Accomando speaks with Del Mar resident and co-director of the film , Alex Rivest , about making science engaging.
S5: So before we start talking , I just want to play a little clip from the opening that helps kind of explain what the title means.
S6: Well , we got the ice. Melting was already underway. The next few years. Those icefields are going to be gone. These glaciers are our canary in the coal mine. Our early warning system for the planet. They're telling us. There's serious danger here.
S5: So this idea of the canary in the coal mine. Elaborate a little more about this and about Lonnie Thompson and what he was doing.
S7: So the canary is you hear a lot of people in the world of environmentalism , and especially with climate change , talking about the canary in the coal mine and the canary in the coal mine. Back in the day , coal miners used to go down into the coal mines , and they'd have a little cage that had a canary in it , and they would use the canary as kind of an early warning system for whether or not the air was too toxic for them to breathe. So the canary is a more vulnerable animal would be affected first if the air quality changed. So you would see the canary either start getting sick or pass out or die. That's your warning. You need to get out of there. And so Canary is is kind of the term is representative of an early warning system. And one of the things about Lonnie Thompson's story that we tell in Canary is how the , the glaciers and especially the tropical glaciers , uh , are our quote unquote , canary in the coal mine. They are the first responders to a changing climate. And so the fact that they are changing and they are dying and they are disappearing is the warning signal for the rest of us that we need to take action and try to confront climate change. Lonnie's story , you know , we see him kind of as the Canary as well , because he was one of the first people to witness the changing glaciers. So he set off on this adventure early on in his career , where everyone is drilling in Antarctica and Greenland , where the big ice sheets are. And he dared to ask the question , what about the ice that's in the middle of the planet , in the in the tropical regions ? And he was told , sorry , you can't go get this ice. It's too high for humans and the technology does not exist to drill it. But he found a way to do it. And he spent 15 years failing and failing and failing and eventually was able to pull back these records from tropical glaciers. One of the things about this journey is he spent so much time up there trying to figure it out , that he was one of the first witnesses to see that the glaciers were rapidly disappearing , and so him coming back from the mountains and saying , look , these are changing really rapidly. We need to talk about what's happening at some level. He's the canary. He's the one bringing the message from the from the glaciers and telling the world , listen , you gotta this is what they're saying. This is what we need to do about it.
S5: And explain a little bit about what he was doing , because what he's doing is he's taking these , like , cylinders of ice out and being able to look hundreds , I think , even thousands of years back in time. So explain what that process was and how it's documented.
S7: Typical people , you know , look at a glacier and just see a big piece of white on top of a mountain or a big sheet of of white. And it's hard to even imagine that it has any texture or nuance or kind of information contained in it. But once you start realizing how a glacier is made , you realize that it contains these amazing histories , right ? And so every year in the environment during winter especially , you'll get precipitation , rain , snow will fall onto the top of a glacier , and that rain and snow will pick up whatever's in the air at that time. So it'll it'll contain CO2 levels , methane levels. It'll contain pollen. It'll contain debris from meteorites coming through the atmosphere. If there's radioactive testing , it'll contain that in the air. And it freezes and becomes snow on top of the glacier. And that's it. So during that year , you'll get a layer of snow that has all this information contained in it. And then the next year you get another layer of snow on top of it , and then eventually the next , next year. And that starts pushing and pressing the snow , and the snow eventually becomes ice. And what you end up getting is if you drill into the top of a glacier , uh , straight down and get a cylinder of ice , you are basically looking back in time as far back as you can go , and you can look at what was in the atmosphere as far back as you can go. As you can say , last year , the atmosphere was , you know , the 420 parts , parts per million CO2. And you can see that in the ice. Then you can go back 100 years and say , well , okay. We also have records for what the CO2 levels were. Then it's in the ice is the same thing. So you have these internal controls in some of these ice cores. Uh , in Antarctica are going back millions of years. Uh , Lonnie has ice from Tibet , which they're having trouble dating. But it may go back as far as , uh , 1 to 1.5 million years , which contains an entire history of what the atmosphere was like in that part of the planet. And it's just captured in these glaciers. And one of the really sad things about climate change , you know , a lot of us talk about climate change and what it's going to do to our future. And one of the things you realize is. With the melting glaciers. These records of our past are also disappearing. And so it is. Climate change is is not only affecting our future and how we can live on this planet , but it is also wiping out our ability to look at our past by the warmer temperatures melting glaciers.
S5: Now , this film is not strictly about the science that Lonnie Thompson was investigating. This is also , in part , a portrait of who he is. And I think you've called him the real life Indiana Jones. Why did you feel it was important to make a documentary that kind of tackled both sides of this story ? Yeah.
S7: So I used to be a scientist. I did a PhD in post-doc in neuroscience at MIT , and I was always felt that the science programming I was consuming and I would consume every , every little bit of it , it always felt a little bit like homework to me. Uh , and , and I couldn't figure out why until I realized that most of it was focused on findings or these these senses of a kind of false danger. There's a line behind the bush , you know. Can it attack us ? Yes. There's stuff like this that didn't resonate with the way I saw the world or the scientists that I knew , and I was one of these people who would go to the ends of the earth , kind of just seeking adventure. And I as far off the map as I would go , I would always see people a little further off than I was. And those people turned out , were always scientists. And so there was this notion in my mind of , well , there's something missing here. These people are in these most beautiful , remote and insane locations , and they're there just because they're curiosity. Right ? Curiosity can allow you to be an explorer and I and for me , that notion just stuck with me. And so when I was leaving science , I , I set off and I came to Hollywood because my wife was doing her , um , a medical school in LA. And I said , I'm going to I'm going to figure out a way to show that curiosity can can take you to these amazing places , and it enables you to explore. And I met over shabu shabu dinner in Little Tokyo , my wife's friend Danny O'Malley , who's my co-director on cannery , and I told him this. I said , science programming feels like homework. I go to these places and I see these adventures happening , and I just want to show that. And he said , that's really cool. But unless you understand what it means to the scientist to be there at that point in time , you'll never make it work. And so together we said , well , okay , there's clearly adventure here. Let's go find the human stories. Um , and we , I got we got a grant from the Alfred P Sloan Foundation , basically to prove that scientists are interesting. The question is , can can scientists hold their own show ? And I ended up doing this research , and I have this list , I think 604 scientists , now that we've done research into looking for the best stories that exist in this world , and if you care about education and you care about what science means to the world , it turns out that telling the story of the scientists matters. You take a group of kids , you teach them facts , you take another group of kids , you teach them facts , but you teach the struggles that scientists went through to get those facts. And lo and behold , the students who are taught the struggles of the scientists not only learn the facts better , but they're more engaged with science on every single level. So it's not only better storytelling to tell the story of the scientists and what they're overcoming to to achieve things and learn things , but it actually is best practices for for teaching the science. And so what we have done is found a way to tell the stories of these amazing human stories that allow you a window into complex and beautiful topics at times.
S5: And so this is a film that does give you insights into his story , his struggle , and then is also trying to make people aware of climate change issues that maybe they can try to have a voice in , or try to at least be concerned enough about that. It's something on their radar.
S7: Yeah , that is the sweet spot of , you know , you want to have something that's entertaining , but you also want to , you know , there's a lot of climate films that exist out there , and most of them are just kind of , uh , for lack of a better term , kind of disaster porn. Right ? Where it's it's like , look at all these bad things that are happening. And that is important too. But the thing that I love about Lonnie's story , particularly , is that he's not a guy who went looking for climate change or to to find anything. He was a guy who grew up in coal mining country , West Virginia. He was destined to work in the coal mines , and he saw these things after 40. He's working the high mountains for 50 years now. There's no one who has a perspective like his right , that has has gone to 16 countries and drilled all across the map. And we have lots of discussions. About what climate change is , how what the best approach is. And I think it's important to see how we came to know what we know. And a lot of that comes down to Lani's work and being able to put EIS into these remote locations and look at it over the course of 50 years and say , look , this is what's happening. These are the facts , right ? And you can't argue with with any of these facts because he's there. Show me someone who spent 50 years of their life , you know , up in the high mountains , who says something different than what this guy is saying , right ? The it's kind of , uh , expertise through just action and his lived life. And the thing that I love about Lonnie story is he was told this was impossible. Just like we're told that things are impossible with climate change , right ? It's too big of an issue. None of us can make a difference. So he not only found it was possible , he found a way to figure out how to drill ice cores and find out these important bits of information , but he also. So in finding it out , he found out the recipe that we all need to tackle climate change. He worked with people from all over the world , from Russia , from China , from people with very different political and personal backgrounds. He developed an international collaboration of people who had the same dream , and they set off to do something that everyone said was impossible and they did it. So in facing the impossible , things can become possible if you believe they're possible , but also you , you know , find a team of people who also believe that.
S8: Well , I think.
S5: It was in the film that he said something about , you know , humans create this problem and humans can solve it. Yeah.
S7: Yeah. The thing that's interesting is I set out to to tell science films to tell the story of science. And in this film , at the end is a kind of a film about belief. Right ? And it is it is earned belief through seeing that things are possible , seeing what humans are capable of. You know , we are capable of such destruction , but we are also capable of such amazing things. And I never expected to make a science film that ended up kind of being about belief in us , but that is just central to Lonnie's story and to central to the way that that I now see the world.
S5: And you said you've compiled this list of some 600 scientists and yeah. Do you have plans now to kind of do a maybe not a series of films , but to continue to pursue kind of this line of filmmaking to highlight science and scientists 100%.
S7: That is that is my life's mission , is to take this model of how you can tell a science story , show that it can be entertaining , and and do it on the biggest stage possible. The beauty of science is that it allows you to to get closer and closer to the answers , and to get closer and closer to understanding things. And and just that process is the thing we all need to be engaged with.
S5: Well , I want to thank you very much for talking about Canary.
S7: Thank you very much for the time. I appreciate it , and I'm so excited to to be sharing it with kind of the , the hometown , uh , here in San Diego with the , with the Blue Water Film Festival.
S1: That was Beth Accomando speaking with filmmaker Alex Rivest. His film Canary will screen at the Blue Water Film Festival that kicks off March 21st at multiple venues. Still ahead , the work of Octavia Butler is in a new exhibit at the Children's Museum.
S9: And that's really our primary goal , is that young Octavia is get inspired to really tell their own story in the way they want it to be told.
S1: Kpbs Midday Edition is back after the break. Welcome back. You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. This weekend in the arts , we have an exhibit for kids that celebrates the legendary science fiction writer Octavia Butler. Plus theater about basketball and lots of live music. Joining me with all the details is Kpbs arts producer and editor Julia Dixon Evans. Julia , welcome.
S10: Hey , Jade. Thanks for having. Me.
S1: Me. Always glad to have you here. So there's a new long term exhibit opening at the Children's Museum downtown called Octavia Butler Seeding Futures. Um. Sounds exciting. So tell us a little bit about who Octavia Butler is. For those who don't know and why her work is so beloved and important. Yeah.
S10: Yeah. So Octavia Butler , she was a black science fiction and speculative fiction writer. She was writing these incredibly imaginative stories. Um , for example , one of her more famous works is The Parable of the sower , which was written in the late 80s , and 90s. But it envisioned a futuristic 2024 , and her writing often looked at that , a kind of version of the future that depended on community and sharing. And it was kind of ushered into being by by young people or marginalized people. And Butler received significant honors and awards during her lifetime , and she continues to be honored and respected. She has multiple Hugo Awards , which is a big award for science fiction. Nebula Awards. She's in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. She got a genius grant. So she has this incredible legacy , and her books are still being read and they feel continually relevant. And the big thing here is this imagination and figuring out who we are and how we can change our future. And I got to talk about this with some of the people that are involved in designing this exhibit at the New Children's Museum , the museum's chief curator. Her name's Gabrielle Weirich , and also the advising curator , who is Doctor Ayana Jamison. She's also the founder of the Octavia Butler Legacy Network. And I asked Ayana Jamison what it is about Octavia Butler's writing that just works for children , and this is what she had to say.
S11: I think throughout Butler's lifetime as a writer , she continued to draw from her childhood experiences and inspirations. And so it really calls to the child in each of us , uh , to think about who we are before we start to see what the expectations outside of who we are might be. So I think her writing and her life , which is also what the exhibit is based on , really provide opportunities for people to explore and dream and imagine and speculate about the future that we would love to see.
S10: Gabrielle , this this idea of imagination.
S9: Octavia Butler really is such an inspirational figure because she ferociously and beautifully charged forward with a creative life. She was determined to create a place for herself in a creative field that many people said she didn't belong in. It's really our hope that young people , and really all people who come to the exhibition will see a place for themselves , will see the power of writing themselves in as the center of their own story and their stories of the future. And that's really our primary goal , is that young octavia's get inspired to really tell their own story in the way they want it to be told.
S10: This exhibit has taken over an entire room in the museum , but there's also a new mural that to kind of spill that work outside into the museum space. That's by artist Masuka. Barry , can you tell me about their work ? Absolutely.
S9: Masuka is a very talented young artist who is based in Philadelphia but was raised in Boston. Their work , like Octavia's , really does look to centralize people who aren't typically the center of representation. Also , their work is really looking to the inner child in all of us , trying to bring out the playfulness , the whimsy , the beauty , the joy that we all experience in. Childhood and bring that to the foreground in every artistic experience they create. So they have done an incredible job in the exhibition itself , doing illustrations of the life of Octavia Butler. But also , as you mentioned in our main lobby , there is a large scale mural by Masuka Berry called Follow Your Heart. It is a representation of a young person who is at one with both the natural world and the cosmos , and it really is an invitation to every young person , no matter what their background is , that there is a place for them in this space and in this world , and that they should follow their heart and their true path.
S10: And Ayana , I heard that there were some special consultants on this exhibit , some eight year old consultants , to be specific.
S11: So that's one aspect of it. But another aspect is that we have something called the Seeding Futures Collective. So unlike most like commissions or art exhibits , where you'll have a wonderful big name artist who comes in and create something , right , or you'll have , you know , a scientist or a theorist that says , here's what children should be playing with. The magic of the new children's museum is that we were able to get funded to pay young folks a stipend , invite them to the museum for a two day workshop. So we had applications where they had to write about something that their community needs , that they would need 50 years in the future. And so these folks who were aged 12 and up came to the museum and really learned about Octavia , um , if they didn't know anything yet. And we gave them books and we fed them and we fellowship with them along with the other members in our collective who are advisors and scholars and artists in their own right. And everyone pitched in ideas. And the fact that we had , uh , age 12. And I also have a 13 year old who provided like a conceptual framework for how I would discuss the layout of the exhibit. Octavia really respected and admired young folks , especially in middle schoolers on up , and thought that they could really make decisions for their lives and their communities that were lasting , that they weren't like little adults squished into , you know , adolescent bodies , but that they were whole people. And so we really respected those aspects of development as we crafted the shows colors and themes and elements that go into not only the physical parts of the exhibit , but also the programming that will go on for the next 2 to 4 years , and a larger campaign that gab can talk more about called Science Fiction Creates the future. Yes.
S9: So we are very excited here at the new Children's Museum that the Octavia Butler Seating Futures exhibition will be the core of what is a larger thematic arc over the next two plus years around the theme science fiction creates the future. That thematic arc will consist of a multitude of things one. It will have a series of large scale artist commissions that look to the work of Octavia Butler as inspiration , one by the artist Hans Luger , who is based in Santa Fe , New Mexico , and another by the artist Saya Woolfolk , who is based in Brooklyn , New York. And all of these projects will have a relationship in the space so that young people will not only learn about the life of Octavia Butler , but have an opportunity to experience some of these ideas and worlds through the vision of other artists eyes. We're very excited about not just the Octavia Butler seating future show , but the way that it will impact really everything we do over the next two years.
S11: I would just like to say , as a person who is an art art educator before , as a college professor , that the new children's museum is not the kind of place that's just , um , having kids pretend to be a firefighter , pretend you're going to the moon and those kinds of things. But to really interface with contemporary art in ways that other museums that hold contemporary art do not allow things to be touched or used or climbed on. We're learning from them , and we're letting them instill their values in , in us , right ? As opposed to us controlling what they should and shouldn't do. And I think that's what is so very magical about the new children's Museum. It's a holy. Unique place that is really fertile ground for the kinds of imagination that we need in order to all thrive together as a community in the future. And so that's what I find so lovely about being able to be working on this project in community.
S10: Ayana , Gabrielle , thank you so much.
S9: Thank you. Thank you for having us.
S11: Have a great day.
S1: That was the curator , Gabrielle Weirich and Ayana Jamison , who were part of the curatorial and design team of a new exhibit at the new Children's Museum about science fiction writer Octavia Butler. The exhibit opens to the public this Saturday. You're listening to Kpbs Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman , here with Kpbs Arts producer and editor Julia Dixon Evans. We're talking about what's going on in arts and culture this weekend. We promised some basketball , so let's hear about that. Yeah.
S10: Yeah. Okay , so this is a new play. It's by playwright Rajiv Joseph. And he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. This was in 2010 for his play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. This starred Robin Williams when it was on Broadway and got a ton of awards. And his new play , it's called King James. It's opening at the Old Globe this weekend. And the King James that we're talking about here is basketball great LeBron James. And the play begins in the 2003 2004 season of the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team. That was LeBron James first pro season. And in this play , there's two characters. There's Sean who is black , and Matt who is white , and their paths crossed because one is trying to sell his tickets to a Cavaliers game and the other is trying to buy them , and they otherwise have nothing in common. And then the play just kind of unfolds as their unlikely friendship develops. It spans about a decade. So during this time , LeBron James leaves Cleveland and then he comes back. And I personally love plays like this that are intensely character driven. You know , there's just two actors on stage , but there's also something that's really unexpected and surprising for the theater , like basketball. So it opens on Saturday and runs through March 31st at the Old Globe.
S1: Very nice. All right , so let's talk music now.
S10: And this concert is at the California Center for the Arts , Escondido. So there's a nice North County classical music pick for you. They're doing Mussorgsky's Pictures at an exhibition , which is a fantastic piece. And they're also playing contemporary composer Ned Rahim's English horn concerto. I used to play English words. I admit I'm a little partial , but I think it's such a lovely , mesmerizing instrument and this piece of music showcases the instrument really well. And the concert Saturday at 8 p.m. in Escondido.
S1: And before we go , let's do a few live music picks.
S10: There's a bunch of San Diego indie bands , including Juniper Honey , who had actually relocated to San Luis Obispo. But the Chase still building. This is a local show , and they're playing with Blue Hour and Sands , and this is from their latest EP. This just came out a couple months ago. It's juniper honeys looking at you.
UU: Can I check ? Look. But you look at.
S10: And then one more local show. This is at Soda Bar on Sunday night. It's locals Jackie Mendoza and Moon Daddy. They will play with touring band Teal Pop and I love both Moon Daddy and Jackie Mendoza , so this should be a great indie pop show. We're listening to one of Jackie Mendoza's latest tracks. It's called natural and this was from her 2023 release.
S1: You can find details on these and more arts events and concerts , or sign up for Julia's weekly newsletter at Kpbs , Mortgage Arts. I've been speaking with Kpbs Arts producer and editor Julia Dixon Evans. Julia , as always , thank you.
S10: Thank you. Jade.
S1: That's our show for today. Don't forget to watch Evening Edition tonight at five for in-depth coverage on San Diego issues. The roundtable is here tomorrow at noon. Before we go , I'd like to thank our Midday Edition team producers Giuliana Domingo , Andrew Bracken , Ashley Roush , and Brooke Ruth , art segment contributors Julia Dixon Evans and Beth Accomando , technical producers Rebecca Chacon , Ben Read , Lorsque and Brandon True for the midday edition. Theme music you hear is from San Diego's own surefire soul ensemble. I'm Jade Hindman. Thanks for listening and make it a great day on purpose , everyone.
