The Emotional Intelligence Livestream #12
Arts x Emotions x Antiracism
How can arts & emotion catalyze change – for us and an equitable world?
In the months of sheltering in place and the current climate surrounding racial injustice, many have turned to art for solace and inspiration. Lin-Manuel Miranda said, “Sometimes it’s easier to lean on art, than to lean on people.” From graphics to engage in uprising to escaping into Netflix to rediscovering poems of Rumi to dancing and spoken word to teach us what it might mean to live in freedom and justice. In recent months (and for all time), arts have entertained, inspired, and challenged us. Some artists have been able to flourish in this time, others have been beached, unable to do their work & feed their souls. Meanwhile, the uprising in the US and around the globe is inspiring artists to create, and artists are inspiring social change.
On today’s show we’ll explore the powerful intersection of arts x emotions, as we consider:
- How is art changing the conversation about race & identity?
- How can arts offer a healing process to address the root causes of racism and inequity?
- What would it take to go deeper to not just “solve the crisis” but actually reconcile and build peace from the core – and how can art help us do so?
- How do arts and emotional intelligence come together to unleash both creativity and transformation?
We are in a time of upheaval and uncertainty. Around us people are grappling with the pandemic, recession, climate change, the Black Lives Matter uprising, the rising mental health crisis — there is SO MUCH, and for many, too much. And in such times, artists become interpreters and catalysts, healers and amplifiers. So we’ve convened today’s panel to talk about this intersection of arts, emotions, and change.
Panelists
- Aida Murad is a champion for mental health philanthropy and a visual artist. Raised in Jordan and residing in Los Angeles, she is an Arab-American entrepreneur who is working on systems change within mental health, an entrepreneur coach focused on founder wellbeing, a writer for Thrive Global, and the Co-Director for NEXUS MENA & Arab Diasporas and Mental Health Council bringing impact investors, philanthropists and social entrepreneurs together.
Twitter: @aidamurad IG: @muradaida Web: aidamurad.com - Angèlica Ekeke is a Bay area-based immersive visual journalist who has produced work for the Museum of the African Diaspora, Berkeley Law, and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Her work is rooted in social justice and is focused on reframing narratives that are often overlooked. Both her local and international work is aligned with highlighting and reporting on diasporic trauma in order to promote transatlantic conversations. In an effort to bridge art, journalism, and innovation, she introduced a new medium to the journalism, documentary, and music world —-she calls ‘Visual Symphonies”. These symphonies are a fuse of live journalistic reporting, music, and documentary film. She holds a BA from the San Francisco State University and an MA from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Twitter: @ImtheJournalist IG: @oneworldjournalist Web: oneworldjournalist.com - Jose Val began his artistic career at the age of 16, working in a show for kids called “Nubeluz”, with this show he travels through all Latin America, dancing and singing, performing in Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Panama and more. His first album, which featured his first hit single “De Tierra Santa.” His second album “Yo Te Prometo” was equally successful with Jose’s second single “Ser Diferente,” a duet with Marco Zunino (Broadway actor from the play CHICAGO), gaining over 400,000 hits on YouTube and multiple rotations on the Latin American networks.
Twitter: @jose_val IG: @valaas - Juan C Mulford collaborates with artistic processes that transform societal circumstances: gender and race equality, fight on poverty, access to education. He leads the Colombian Caribbean Region MasterPeace club (building peace through arts); co founded Fundacion Cine a la Calle (which organizes the largest short-film festival in Latin America); worked AIESEC in Latin America, the Central & Eastern European region and the Central Asia countries. Juan was born and raised in a multi-cultural family in Barranquilla, the largest urban center of the Caribbean Region of Colombia, studied International Relations and Political Science at the Universidad del Norte in Colombia, earned his Masters in Arts & Media Management at the Freie Universität Berlin.
Twitter: @Mulford_n_Sons IG: @mulford_and_sons Web: cinealacalle.org - Moderator: Joshua Freedman, cofounder and CEO, The Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Network, working since 1997 toward a world with more EQ. Josh is a Master Certified Coach and author of the best-selling At the Heart of Leadership
Twitter: @EQjosh of @6s_EQ IG: @joshmfreedman of @6secondseq Web: staging.6seconds.org
Key questions
- As an artist, what is “emotion” to you?
- What is the role of art in change?
- How is art changing the conversation about race & identity?
- Is there a line of a song, poem or verse that speaks to you about what’s happening in the world today?
- How can arts offer a healing process to address the root causes of racism and inequity?
- What would it take to go deeper to not just “solve the crisis” but actually reconcile and build peace from the core – and how can art help us do so?
- How do arts and emotional intelligence come together to unleash both creativity and transformation?
- Enhance Emotional Literacy - July 13, 2023
- Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions: Feelings Wheel - March 13, 2022
- Technology Loneliness: EQ Tips from Daniel Goleman - October 24, 2020