trashtalk*studio

Víctor Angel is a bio-engineer and designer working at the intersection of human and planetary health. He currently serves as Founder of the Entheogen Genome Project, an open-science initiative to preserve all entheogenic flora, fauna and fungi.The Entheogen Genome Project is an international endeavor to build an open-access, genomic database of all known entheogenic flora, fauna and fungi by the year 2025. The project emerges from a variety of perspectives, all of which converge on the importance of preserving diversity, both cultural and biological, and the shared vision of an open-science platform for entheogenic research and conservation. https://www.entheome.org/https://www.entheome.org/sponsor

Shana Fong is a full-time marketing executive and part-time nature-based life coach. Shana has spent over a decade working at high-growth tech companies in the Bay Area and developed her coaching offering, Emerald Path, in response to her experiences with burnout. Shana is an experienced leader and guide who is motivated to help people connect more deeply with themselves and their authentic path in life through connecting with nature.https://www.emeraldpath.com/https://instagram.com/emeraldpath_

Hanoux / Han - o͝oks / To heal through organic color, shape, pattern & living with earth's cyclical rhythms.A word created by Hannah Ross, an artist and educator.She is Anti fashion.  Process oriented. Hyper localized.Her art preserves ancient dyeing techniques, builds community and uses only biodegradable, regenerative,  & up-cycled materials.  All work is one of a kind. Hannah is currently creating, teaching, foraging, and farming in her studio located in Hudson, NY and Oaxaca, Mexico. hanoux.com

Epimonía is a refugee-founded fashion label with a central mission of supporting refugees. We upcycle material from life jackets that were worn by refugees on the Mediterranean Sea and discarded upon arrival in Greece.Mohamed Malim is a former Somali refugee who was born in a refugee camp in Kenya. Today he's the founder & creative director of Epimonia. All of their products not only serve as a symbolic gesture of support and solidarity for refugees around the world, but we have multiple campaigns and partnerships that have tangible impacts on the lives of refugees.https://epimonia.com/ 

Alexa Firmenich is a consultant, investor and facilitator focused on the climate and environment. Her workshops and learning journeys are based upon deep ecology principles, regenerative leadership and cultivating ecological literacy in decision-makers. She is an Associate at Leaders' Quest, an international organisation that develops quests and learning programmes for top executives and family offices. She is the founder of Ground Effect, an animist investment vehicle that invests in early-stage nature-based solutions and scientific research. As an author, poet, photographer and wilderness guide, Alexa designs experiences that bring stakeholders into direct contact with the living world. She is a founding board member of Terra Habitus, a Mexican environmental fund that operates large-landscape conservation and watershed restoration projects, a founding board member of the Mare Nostrum Ocean Plastics Initiative, and a Board Member of the ecological accounting firm Global Footprint Network. She currently lives between Europe and Mexico.Resources https://www.groundeffect.io/http://www.alexafirmenich.com/abouthttps://www.atlasunbound.co/aboutushttps://alexafirmenich.medium.com/the-nature-word-bd081e7898a6https://alexafirmenich.medium.com/what-the-salmon-have-to-say-d56adea34027https://alexafirmenich.medium.com/aligning-law-and-life-an-inquiry-into-the-rights-of-nature-ec10c1c2edb2

In this episode founder and host of trashtalk*studio, Alexa Gantous, speaks more about her personal journey of coming into ecological empathy and the why behind the podcast. 

Brian Matuszewski is a circular economy enthusiast. From 2017 to 2021, he worked at TerraCycle, where he principally led the development of Loop, a global platform for reuse enabled by a coalition of leading manufacturers, retailers, service providers and NGOs. In his last year at TerraCycle, he oversaw TerraCycle's new foundation centered on building solutions to combat river waste plastic pollution in the developing world. Before joining TerraCycle, Brian led sustainability for one of the world's largest vehicle fleet management companies where he helped the automotive industry uncover value in circular thinking. Brian holds two degrees from Cornell University where he explored the intersection of business and sustainability with a focus on human ecology, the built-environment and environmental policy. Originally from the suburbs of Philadelphia in the United States, Brian now lives in London where he is now advising startups, corporates and governments on enabling a more circular economy.Resourceswww.exploreloop.com www.terracycle.comwww.linkedin.com/in/bmatuszewski

Jobi Manson is a visual artist & sculptor working in the mediums of water, light, sound, & stone. Her curiosities have led her deep into the dimensions that exist beyond language —  straight into the heart of matter, time, space & change. Fluidity, as the central underlying force of her wildest inspiration, her work plays with the subtle intricacies of human connection, mapping invisible landscapes, & exploring new ways to attune and translate phenomena of the natural world. Jobi is also the founder of Sēfari, a water wellness immersion concept, dedicated to helping individuals access complete psycho-somatic transformation, supported by nature.  Sēfari's are guided, elemental journeys of immersion and emergence. They are designed to shift our state, from chaos to coherence — a harmonization of the head and the heart that has a host of physiological and emotional benefits along with the deeper restoration and embodiment of our innate ability to be in flow. Resources@iamsefariwww.iamsefari.com@jobimanson

Hannah Phang is the Head of Marketing and Advocacy at Futerra, the global change agency on a mission to make sustainability so desirable it becomes normal. Futerra combines the magic of creative and the logic of strategy to make sustainability happen for some of the world's biggest brands such as Google, PVH, IKEA, Sierra Club and the United Nations. Hannah is on the Steering Committee of the UN Fashion Charter for Climate Action and co-chairs the working group on promoting broader climate action. Beyond that, Hannah is also a yoga teacher and host of the Crystals, Clits, and Climate podcast, which explores the intersections of spirituality, sexuality, and sustainability.ResourcesCrystals, Clits & Climate podcastCrystals, Clits & Climate website Crystals, Clits & Climate instagram Futerra

Neha Wadekar is an independent multimedia journalist reporting across Africa. She reports on a range of topics, including women's issues, climate change and conflict and crisis. Her written and video work has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, the Los Angeles Times and Mother Jones magazine, among others. Neha has received fellowships from Type Investigations, the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, the Groundtruth Project, the Overseas Press Club, the International Women's Media Foundation, the United Nations Foundation and the Fuller Project for International Reporting. Relevant Articles: https://www.thedailybeast.com/child-forced-to-watch-beheading-rare-inside-look-into-the-mozambique-massacres https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/10/trump-gag-rule-abortion-kenya-valerie-huber-kozma-cfam/  https://time.com/5878719/climate-change-kenya-child-marriage/ https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/apr/09/most-of-the-men-are-your-enemies-one-womans-crusade-in-somalia https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-26/east-africa-somalia-locusts-devastate-crops-threaten-famine Resources: https://nehawadekar.com/about/

Samir Ibrahim is the CEO and co-founder of SunCulture. SunCulture develops and commercializes life-changing technology that solves the biggest daily challenges for the world's 570 million smallholder farming households. The company is featured on Fast Company's annual list of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2021, and is recognized as a Bloomberg New Energy Pioneer and a Financial Times Transformational Business. SunCulture was also named to the London Stock Exchange's “Companies to Inspire Africa” index. SunCulture has been featured by TED, the Financial Times, the Economist, BBC, and more. Prior to SunCulture, Samir studied finance and international business at NYU's Undergraduate Stern School of Business and joined PwC's Financial Services, Structured Products, and Real Estate Group. Samir is recognized as a Forbes 30 Under 30, Top Conscious Business Leader by Conscious Company Media, and a World Energy Council Future Energy Leader alumnus. Samir is also on the Organizing Committee of Shikilia, a coalition of public and private sector organizations providing emergency cash transfers to low-income Kenyan communities.Resources https://sunculture.com/https://www.instagram.com/sunculturekenya/https://www.instagram.com/samiribrahim/

Ayen dela Torre is the co-founder of Where To Next, a community of travelers based in the Philippines.  Her purpose is to facilitate conversations on creativity, freedom, and empathy so people may deepen their connections with their own selves, with others, and with our natural world. Some of the organizations she has collaborated with include Sony Philippines, Forest Foundation Philippines, and Tripadvisor. Resourceshttps://www.instagram.com/wtn_wheretonext/http://wheretonext.ph/https://www.instagram.com/ayenonlife/

Mary Grygiel is a mother and storyteller who writes to confront her thoughts and catalyze change. For the past six years, she's used her voice to grow and deliver the messages of Parley for the Oceans, a global collaboration network where creators, thinkers and leaders take action to end the major threats to our life-giving ecosystem and accelerate the environmental cause. As Content Director, she tries to humanize the narrative and welcome everyone into the conversation for solutions.Resourcesmaryeverard.com@marygrygiel@parley.tv 

Maia Marie is a writer, healer and facilitator. She's worked with schools, NGOs and individuals to facilitate storytelling, self-expression, and listening, in order to bring about connection within ourselves and to our environment. As an initiated stick diviner in the Dagara tradition from Burkina Faso, she connects with ancestors and elemental guides to offer guidance and healing support. She is the co-founder of lalela. a place of listening - a home farm and space for retreat amidst the Magaliesberg mountains, where she lives and loves. Her aim in all her work is to create spaces of gentle holding and kindness where we can all just be ourselves.Resourceshttps://lalela.place/https://www.instagram.com/lalela_a_place/http://lalela.place/2020/08/11/a-retreat-in-collaborative-poetics/https://www.instagram.com/maia.marie_/

Shuya Gong is a venture designer with a background in mechanical engineering. She is a design innovation fellow and lecturer at Harvard University's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Shuya is a senior design lead in systems change and collaborative innovation at IDEO, with expertise in emerging technologies, circularity, and futuring. Her work has been with global brands such as Target, H&M, Nasdaq, and Fidelity on projects spanning the future of food, fashion, finance, fertility, and more! Shuya's fascinations include learning about herbal healing from her father's practice based in Chicago, quantum mechanics, and how plants communicate. Talk to her about living life without plastic, rapid prototyping, and the dystopian (and utopian!) ways technology might change our daily lives.Resourceshttps://legendary-reaction.glitch.me/https://www.ideo.com/blog/6-surprising-benefits-of-quitting-plastichttps://www.fastcompany.com/90603952/the-plastic-bag-is-doomed-here-are-better-alternatives-backed-by-walmart-and-targethttps://www.ideocolab.com/

Relato Nativo Hace nueve años, Mafer Bretón y su pareja iniciaron la exploración y el conocimiento de las plantas medicinales. Desde entonces han vivido una práctica familiar y una búsqueda constante para curar con nuestra Tierra. Desde el uso de herbolaria mexicana tradicional, la magia de las plantas nativas y los relatos que las rodean, hasta la deslumbrante poder de los aceites esenciales, han descubierto un mejor camino: el de la Naturaleza. Todo lo que se encuentra en ella, es un regalo para nosotros como especie… Esta Tierra, es un jardín medicinal capaz de curar nuestro cuerpo y nuestra alma. Decidieron crear Relato Nativo, un proyecto que embotella y enfrasca la magia botánica de la Madre Tierra. Creado y producido a mano en las montañas de Oaxaca en la sierra Sur, desde su rancho, donde siembran y cosechan con consciencia y recolectan lo silvestre de los bosques.Enlaceshttps://relatonativo.mx/____________________________________________________________________________________________________Nine years ago, Mafer Bretón and her partner started the exploration of medicinal plants. Since then, they have been on a constant search to heal with the earth. From the use of traditional Mexican herbalism, the magic of native plants and the stories that surround them, to the dazzling power of essential oils, they have discovered a better path: the one of Nature. Everything in her is a gift for us as a species ... This Earth is a medicinal garden capable of healing our body and our soul. They decided to create Native Story (Relato Nativo), a project that bottles and jars the botanical magic of Mother Earth. Created and handcrafted in the mountains of Oaxaca in the Southern Sierra. Everything is sowed and harvested with consciousness in their ranch, and collected from the wilderness of the forests.Enlaceshttps://relatonativo.mx/

"La música y el sonido son canales poderosos para reconectar con el mundo natural. Volver a escuchar ese mundo que está ahí afuera de nosotros, en los bosques, en las selvas, en los páramos, es volver a aceptarlo y respetarlo como parte fundamental de lo que somos." ― Simón Mejía, fundador de Bomba EstéreoSimón Mejía es artista visual y productor musical. Es el fundador y músico de la banda Colombiana, Bomba Estéreo. Actualmente trabaja también en su proyecto personal Monte, que explora las relaciones entre la naturaleza, la electrónica y la música raizal . Monte tiene dos álbumes al momento, Mirla y Sonic Forest. Este último banda sonora del documental con el mismo nombre.Enlaceshttps://open.spotify.com/artist/5n9bMYfz9qss2VOW89EVs2?si=qSZDbeJwSFaKL-XvJ0AezQhttps://www.instagram.com/bombaestereo/https://www.instagram.com/simonmejia_be/https://www.instagram.com/standfortrees/____________________________________________________ENGLISH TRANSCRIPT HERE*"Music and sound are powerful vehicles to reconnect with the natural world. They help us listen to the world outside of us. To listen to the forest, the jungles, the ecosystems― and listening to them is respecting and accepting them as a fundamental part of who we are." ― Simón Mejía, founder of Bomba EstéreoSimón Mejía is a visual artist and music producer. He is the founder and musician behind Colombian band, Bomba Estéreo. His personal project, Monte, explores the relationship between nature, electronic music, and Colombian folklore. Monte has two albums, Mirala and Sonic Forest. The latter also being the soundtrack of a documentary by the same name. Resourceshttps://open.spotify.com/artist/5n9bMYfz9qss2VOW89EVs2?si=qSZDbeJwSFaKL-XvJ0AezQhttps://www.instagram.com/bombaestereo/https://www.instagram.com/simonmejia_be/https://www.instagram.com/standfortrees/

“There are a lot of stages of looking at activism as an awakening process. We come from this state of being asleep. Of being in the illusion. And then we enter the state of awakening into the reality, and there is anger. There is this righteous anger of “how can corporations be doing this? why is my neighbor not recycling?” All of this blame, victimization, and anger…which is necessary. We need this righteous anger as a motivating force out of this asleep state…but then, what do we do with that anger? How do we transmute it? How do we use it to take it to the next state so that our activism is generative?" — Melissa Howey Melissa is an Austin, Tx based psychotherapist with a theoretical orientation based in psycho-spiritual depth work and trauma informed care, eco-psychology, ancestral healing and psychedelic integration work.  Resources: https://www.melissahowey.com/https://www.instagram.com/psyche_as_soul/https://www.joannamacy.net/https://maps.org/research/mdmahttps://www.beckleyfoundation.org/

Olivia Lara Owen is a teacher and coach of the Feminine and  an Embodiment Stylist based in Paris. Olivia works with clients privately, runs online programmes, speaks publicly, writes on the internet and facilitates immersive transformational experiences. Olivia has cultivated CRAWL and STRUT as unique bodies of work unparalleled anywhere. She serves the frequency of Opulence, Divinity and Radical expression and is well known for trail-brazing truth and ruffling feathers.In this episode we speak about the relationship between doing the inner and outer work, and how living in reverence to our internal resources is key to reconnecting with our reverence for the earth. Resources https://www.instagram.com/olivialaraowen/https://kissthegroundmovie.com/

Peter David Pedersen is an expert on corporate sustainability, sustainability leadership, sustainability and innovation, and organizational resilience. He is the co-founder of and former chief executive of E-Square, one of Japan's leading sustainability think tanks and consultancies. He has worked with some of Japan's biggest corporations on integrating ecological goals into their corporate strategy. He is also the founder of NELIS, a global network of young sustainability leaders from all six continents.Resourceshttps://nelisglobal.org/https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/archive/policy_innovations/commentary/000121

After building revenue-generating algorithms into the marketing system at Ralph Lauren, Jessica Graves launched Sefleuria to tailor data science research to business outcomes in retail & luxury. She has a background commercializing machine learning technologies at Fast Forward Labs (acquired by Cloudera) and Thread Genius (acquired by Sotheby's). Her computing background began with supporting environmental science research at the University of Chicago, including a patented alternative energy solution currently scaling in Europe as Electrochaea. Following a career ranging from design at Oscar de la Renta to statistical computing at Alvanon for brands like Burberry, she speaks on Machine Intelligence & Creativity on global stages. Her movement artist practice under Internet Jessica includes performances at global black box theaters, museums, TEDx events, & concert halls; artist residencies in the UK; and electronic music performance as seen on Resident Advisor. Her academic impact includes guest lectures & research collaboration with Royal College of Art, ESCP, and King's College London. She has been featured in Texte Zur Kunst, Vogue Business, Sourcing Journal, Drapers and LOVE.Episode Linkshttps://www.sefleuria.com/http://www.electrochaea.com/

Erica is a Naturopathic Doctor, Nurse Practitioner, Reiki Master and holistic coach. She has extensive training and experience in both conventional and alternative approaches to healing and has studied with masters from various traditions around the world. She is also the founder of Experience Seven Senses, a new paradigm of care where your health and your life are not separate. Her approach is truly one of a kind. We dive into topics ranging from identity, what our emotions can teach us about ourselves and the world, as well as the relationship between our body and planet.Episode Links https://www.experiencesevensenses.com/https://www.instagram.com/experiencesevensenses/

Amer Jandali is an Environmental Futurist and Social Designer. As a former award-winning nightclub DJ, Amer performed in front of thousands and opened for artists such as Avicii, LMFAO, Tyga, and Lil John. A documentary about plastic bags shifted his trajectory to New York City where he earned a Masters Degree in Design for Social Innovation from the School of Visual Arts. Amer is the Founder of Future Meets Present, a company on a mission to bring a sustainable future to life through design. Future Meets Present's projects include: the “Braceletote”, a first-to-market, wearable tote bag designed to replace single-use plastic bags during an urban commute; and The “Marketplace of the Future”, a yearly event that brings together 50 eco-conscious start-ups to represent an immersive “snapshot” of a sustainable future. The 2019 Marketplace was the official closing ceremony for the 10th annual Climate Week NYC - the largest in the world.In addition, Amer is an “Innovator in Residence” at the Centre for Social Innovation, working to design a scalable zero-waste system that has proven to increase office waste diversion from 40% to 80%. Amer is guest faculty at Parsons teaching Creative Team Dynamics and Social design and has been invited to lecture at NYU, Glasgow University, CUNY, New Mexico State University.Episode Linkshttps://www.futuremeetspresent.com/https://www.marketplaceofthefuture.com/https://www.braceletote.co/https://www.instagram.com/amerjandali/ ReferencesAnatomy of the Spirit, Caroline MyssProject Drawdown, Paul Hawken