
In Site
Stories and interviews addressing the intersection of the creative process, community, and place. Welcome to In Site, a podcast from the Zion Canyon Mesa, a nascent arts and humanities residency center in Springdale, Utah, surrounded by Zion National Park. One of the primary drivers for these podcasts is concern for our times. To paraphrase Yeats, the center feels besieged. So we’ll consider the many crux issues we face, with an eye towards how creative thinking can play a role. We will engage a wide spectrum of artists, writers, musicians, and thought leaders, and hopefully enjoy the journey. As our name implies, we also want to root firmly within our community, our home in southwest Utah on the Markagunt Plateau. We will give backstory and context for controversial, regional issues here in Utah. We’ll also try to act as an honest broker for dialogue, seemingly a lost art. But our concept of home also radiates out from here to the Colorado Plateau, the Intermountain West, the U.S. in general and on from there. Our name sounds out four different ways, and we identify with each: to get it in sight, to gain insight, and perhaps to incite. There is an additional aspect embedded in the idea of In Site that we will continue to explore: the intersection of vision and place. Very often an artist’s inspiration entwines with or emerges from their chosen landscape. At times they are simply one in the same. We believe creativity is crucial to imagining the future we want to see, especially in these uncertain times, and for us to nurture this creativity, perhaps we should examine and embrace this relationship more deeply. http://zioncanyonmesa.org/podcast
Episodes
21 episodes
“The Crucible of Friendship:" A conversation between Judith Freeman and Teresa Jordan
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a friend is “one joined to another in mutual benevolence and intimacy. Not ordinarily applied to lovers or relatives…a boon companion.” It first appears in “Beowolf” in 1018 A.D. as “freondum.” ...
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1:01:55

“Wisdom In Patience” - The Re-Emergence Of Glen Canyon
We’ve podcasted about the Lake Powell Pipeline, so we thought, as the drought continues and water levels continue to drop, let’s go have a look. We told our board about the idea and it turns out that board member Catherine Smith rafted the Colo...
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Season 3
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Episode 2
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2:03:16

“Steer the Wind:” Audrey Tang is Saving the World with Direct Digital Democracy
For anyone concerned about the current global state of Democracy, which should be everyone, Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s Digital Minister, may be our greatest hope:“I’m not here to make citizens transparent to government, I’m here to make g...
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Season 3
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Episode 1
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1:53:58

Helper, Utah and the Mysteries of Community: Part 3 "The Ineffable Authentic"
In Part 3, we continue searching for that special something that no one can quite put their finger on; whatever it is that is drawing people to Helper like a magnet. Gary DeVincent made his way to Helper because he has an eye for qu...
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Season 2
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Episode 11
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1:30:23

"Genders: The Story Of Us All" - with Kathryn Bond Stockton
In her new book Gender(s), a new volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Kathryn Bond Stockton explores the fascinating, fraught, intimate, morphing matter of gender. Sto...
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Season 2
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Episode 10
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1:23:30

Helper, Utah And The Mysteries Of Community: Part 2 “Art As Caring”
With the downturn of the coal mines in the 70s and 80s came a period of economic decline for Helper, Utah. The town was starting to look a little shabby, so proud residents Neida Garcia and Lois Giordano took it upon themselves to spruce things...
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Season 2
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Episode 9
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1:41:18

Helper, Utah and the Mysteries of Community: Part 1 "Utah's Melting Pot"
What constitutes a community? What do they form around, the seed? What makes them persist over time?Helper, Utah was founded as a “helper engine” town in 1881. Here trains would pick up an extra engine to help them up the steep, relentle...
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Season 2
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Episode 8
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1:00:20

Variant: A Celebration at Modern West Fine Art
The American West somehow still maintains its foothold in the global subconscious, its raw and alluring brew of archetypes, wide-open dreamscapes of canyons and mountains, cowboys and Indians, grizzly bears and buffalo. As such, quote/unq...
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Season 2
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Episode 7
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1:11:44

The Thirteen Moons of Henry Real Bird
“WOOOOO! To see the beauty. To see the beauty. It feels like you want to put all that beauty on top of you like that in the morning when the sun comes up and everything, you know?...and then at night, to be able to stand o...
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Season 2
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Episode 6
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1:30:57

The Anthropology of Truth Part 1 - The Seductions of Clarity: Philosophy for a Flattened World with Thi Nguyen
“I’m interested in the ways that our social structures and technologies shape how we think and what we value.” C. Thi NguyenThis podcast is the first of a series on “The Anthropology of Truth.” Today in the U.S., truth, facts, and ...
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Season 2
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Episode 5
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1:17:32

The Power of Music: Mark Johnson and Playing for Change
It’s impossible. A horn section in Burkina Faso backs a string quartet in Lyon, France, together with guitarists in Nepal and Madrid while a choir in Manila supports the singer in Haiti and an African kora soloist, and we aren’t halfway through...
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Season 2
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Episode 4
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1:17:06

A Conversation about Practice - with Kim Stafford and Teresa Jordan
Join Teresa Jordan and Kim Stafford in an ongoing conversation about practice. They talk about the benefits of cultivating a daily practice, not just for the purpose of becoming a better artist or writer, but also because it can improve ...
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Season 2
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Episode 3
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1:20:26

Craig Childs - "The Madness of Disassociation"
Craig Childs makes a point of going to the very places he’s writing about and immersing himself in them. In The Secret Knowledge of Water, he traces his very being into the rock itself by mapping waterholes in the Cabeza Prieta. In
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Season 2
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Episode 2
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1:12:29

Is the Water Wet? - Lake Powell Pipeline Part 3 with Jane Whalen
Having created historical context for the pipeline in two previous podcasts, In Site now explores the pipeline itself. Jane Whalen, board member of Conserve Southwest Utah and Coordinator of the Lake Powell Pipeline Coalition, was the pri...
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Season 2
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Episode 1
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44:28

American Zion - Betsy Gaines Quammen Interview
“A map of the American West is a Rorschach test; people see what they want to see as reflections of who they are.” Betsy Gaines QuammenBetsy’s conservation work in Mongolia with Buddhist monks on fisheries and in Bhutan for snow...
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Season 1
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Episode 7
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1:13:22

Daniel Kemmis - Citizens Uniting to Restore our Democracy
Today we talk with Daniel Kemmis. Daniel studied both philosophy and political science, and names Plato, Rousseau, Jefferson, and Gandhi as his primary influences. He was minority leader and speaker of the house in the Montana State Legislature...
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Season 1
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Episode 6
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55:28

Photography as Medicine - Russel Albert Daniels
The Spanish enslavement of Indigenous peoples across the Southwest was an immense market in humans, second only to that of African Americans. Severed from their lands and cultures, how did some of them create a path forward? Who are the Genízar...
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Season 1
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Episode 5
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1:05:16

Richard Grant Interview - The Deepest South of All: True Stories from Natchez, Mississippi
Here we explore the ongoing repercussions of slavery, observed through the microcosm of Natchez, Mississippi, with Richard Grant, in his fifth book “The Deepest South of All.” Moving from England to Mississippi, Richard brings this disti...
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Season 1
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Episode 4
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58:17

Is The Water Wet? - Lake Powell Pipeline Part 2 with Eric Kuhn
Eric digs into how politicians ignored drought data to create the 1922 Colorado River Compact, and how that intentional myopia continued for almost a century. Today, the entire basin must finally reckon with what has been true all along; ...
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Season 1
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Episode 3
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1:00:16

Barry Lopez Interview "What Do I Mean By My Life?"
“No one can miss the alarm now in the air.” Barry Lopez, “Horizon”He was born on the Epiphany of 1945 and died this Christmas. During a reading years ago, he created a spell of silence over the crowd with a particularly compelling ...
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Season 1
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Episode 2
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1:00:28

"Is The Water Wet?" Lake Powell Pipeline Part 1 with Greg Smoak
This is Part One of a three-part series on the proposed Lake Powell Pipeline (LPP). The first two podcasts explore the historical roots of the complex issues underpinning the pipeline proper. Here, Historian Greg Smoak joins us to discuss the o...
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Season 1
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Episode 1
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46:29
