Announcing the “Art Ignites Change” Podcast by Mural Arts Philadelphia

Y’all, I’m very excited to announce today that I’ll be producing a brand new podcast for Mural Arts Philadelphia. We’re calling it the Art Ignites Change podcast!

As longtime followers of this blog will know, along with my sound producer Mike Mehalick I’ve been creating my own Streets Dept Podcast for three seasons now, since 2017. I can’t emphasis this enough, I love making podcasts! Podcasts offer the sort of intimate storytelling that allows listeners to tune in for extended periods of time while they walk, do the dishes, or workout. While folks might only be able to give you a few minutes to read a blog post, or even less time for social media posts including videos, 80% of podcast subscribers listen to all or most of each episode of a podcast. Best of all, 24% of the US population (that’s 68 million people) now listen to podcasts weekly, that’s up 22% from 2019! It’s a big and growing market, to say the very least. (Source: Podcast Insights)

And thanks to Mike, my guests, and my sponsors, the Streets Dept Podcast has been bananas successful. It’s literally one of the highest rated independently created podcasts to come out of Philadelphia and is to my absolute delight very often listed as one of the must-listen-to Philly-based podcasts! Its success has pushed me to wonder if I can work with non-profits and other organizations I love to help tell their stories, combining a growing interest of mine with promoting people doing great work. Mural Arts was a natural first step, so I reached out and they said yes!

I love Mural Arts for a million reasons. I mean, we live in the mural capital of the United States in large part to their leadership. I’ve also worked with them on a number of things over the years, including To the Polls, a 2018 mural exhibition I curated and produced with 10 Philly artists with the goal of exciting the electorate, a project I might add that even our Governor Tom Wolf found inspiring. And Monument Lab, a public arts project aimed at understanding and influencing the monuments we create for our public space. I’ve consulted and led tours for Mural Arts projects like Open Source. I’ve helped fundraise too, curating their annual Wall Ball two years in a row.

The Art Ignites Change podcast will work to build a greater understanding of the transformative power of creativity. To do that we’ll focus on three main areas of interest: 1) Exploring public art from a historical perspective, 2) Hosting conversations with public art makers from around the globe, and 3) Creating deep dives into past and present Mural Arts Philadelphia projects.

Our first episode dropped today, and for it I interview Mural Arts’ Founder and Executive Director Jane Golden to discuss the future of public art in the wake of COVID-19. You can listen and subscribe to the Art Ignites Change podcast here, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or on any major podcast streaming platform!

And if you run a non-profit or organization that’s looking to get into podcasting, let’s chat! I’d love to work with more likeminded people to tell the stories of great work happening here in Philly, or elsewhere.