The Earth Sea Love Podcast

Episode 081 - Ruptures, healing and reclamation with Pauline Mayers

Hey you, good to see you again. 
On this day, our fifth birthday, we are so happy to bring you our final episode of the three we are releasing on 13th July 2025. The final episode before we go off on Summer Hiatus also. Rest is needed. We've been celebrating far too hard!
In this episode, Sheree is in conversation with Pauline Mayers, a multidisciplinary artist based in Leeds.
In this episode, they talk about:
• How Pauline and Sheree first connected • Creative Methodologies, Cambridge University • Situating ourselves – living in Leeds, greenest cities in UK• Looking up is a humbling act• Ginnels, is a narrow passageway or alleyway, typically between buildings, often used as a shortcut• In a new season of healing and reclaiming • A multidisciplinary artist starting from the age of 15• Ruptures in life• Leeds is not very kind to black artists• The ebb and flow of work• The use and abuse of black artists• The lack of care and respect for black artists, refusing to be a conduit for this• Entire rupture of social network, and dad’s passing• Looking to heal in the NOW• Having autonomy of our lives• Walking journey as healing • Convincing people of our knowledges, abilities and humanity • Reclaiming the person you are right now• Touchbase with the self, right now• Acknowledging our scars• 9 times out of 10, it’s righteous anger• Rebuild my relationship with Leeds• The Nikel Boys film• Healing walking journey of 2025 – Leeds Country Way • Being with nature through all the senses• Come Outside CIC• The Kettlewell Circular • Transforming anger into reclaiming peace for the self• So much more beauty in the world than the ugliness of people• Taking pictures while out there• The journey of photography to writing • Seeking homeness a place of safety• Ingrid Pollard, Pastroal Interlude • Being in community with people who look the same, exist and be and safe• Boundaries teach people how to treat me• Zine creation for healing and reclamation • Rupture to rapture• Railing against everything as production • We refuse and nature is there to help the process• Fugitive feminism Akwago Emejulu• Walking with our ancestors• The joy of just being in nature and always be in connection with• Continue to create in community • The Earth Sea Love Podcast 5th Birthday 
 
Bio:
Pauline is a multidisciplinary theatre-maker, movement director and performer based in the North of England. She creates and curates artistic experiences that opens audiences, artists, and communities to have conversations they wouldn’t usually have.
Beginning as a Rambert trained dancer, Pauline who has appeared in stage and television since the age of 15, began her career as a dancer in repertory dance companies across the UK in a career spanning years, including Janet Smith and Dancers, Diversions Dance (Wales), The Ensemble Group (Scotland), Phoenix Dance Theatre (England) as well as being acting artistic director for Teeside Dance Initiative, leaving dance for theatre in 2010. 
Since then, Pauline has amassed a rich background as director, writer, movement director, performer, and facilitator and has collaborated with theatre and live art companies across the UK. Pauline's work as movement director and performer has seen collaborations with Selina Thompson LTD’s Twine (2024), live performance artist Paula Varjack’s Nine Sixteenths (2024), Improbable Theatre on An Improbable Musical (2022), Tell Tale Hearts Children's Theatre on Yummm! (2013), Burmantofts Stories (2013) which featured in the programme for Transform Festival that same year, working with the community of Burmantofts area in Leeds, and Red Ladder’s Promised Land (2012).
In her own work, Pauline explores themes of identity, participation, intimacy, and care. Pauline’s previous work, the critically acclaimed What If I Told You written and performed by Pauline premiered at the Leeds Playhouse (formerly the West Yorkshire Playhouse) in 2016 and toured across the UK. The show was presented at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2017), where she was a shortlisted nominee for the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award. What If I Told You returned for a second successful run at Leeds Playhouse in 2018 and was part of the inaugural programme at Brixton House, London in 2022. Pauline is the artistic director of the Mayers Ensemble, a company formed in 2022 as a vehicle for her work which has been described as ‘shaking up traditional theatre and power structures to put the audience in the picture’ (Lyn Gardner, The Guardian). In 2021, Pauline was a published contributor to the anthology, Weighted Words (Peepal Tree Press) edited by Jacob Ross.
Pauline is also a trustee at Improbable Theatre and is an Open Space facilitator.
Now in a new season of her life as well as continuing to write, Pauline enjoys walking, photography, zine-making.
Links
Links: www.paulinemayers.comSocial media: @emergentp.bsky.social

Episode O80 -Creating a wealthy future through banking our knowledge, with Maxine Greaves MBE

Welcome back to our birthday celebrations with our second episode of the three. In this episode your host, Dr. Sheree Mack gets to speak with Maxine Greaves MBE.
Their conversation covers:
• Location in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, living across from a park• Sheffield losing some trees 
• LUSH – word of the year
• Work towards it, not harder, work towards your dreams with purpose • TOC – The Outdoor Citizen• 25 years in Higher Education, creating own role in faculty • Coaching and mentoring people to get where they want to be into teaching• Serving a purpose in a particular space and place in time• High level teaching role 
• Interconnected teaching with equality leading it and how is the environment impact it also• Dr. Maxwell Apaladaga Ayamba BEM -Founder and CEO of Sheffield Environmental Movement -correct dates for award 2021, BEM 2023 
• Sheffield Envinrmantal Movement reengage people from global majority back to nature • Build their knowledge about the impact on the environment on themselves and how they can lobby to improve it • For us/ by us• Toni Morrison quote racism as distraction echoed by Maxine 
"The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.” - Toni Morrison • Childhood curiosity within an Afro-Caribbean community • Play and heightened imagination and applying yourself • Understanding of your purpose and your why for knwing your direction • The future is extremely wealthy if we contirnue to bank our knowledge to build capacity• Tina Campt quote: "The grammar of black feminist futurity is a performance of a future that hasn’t yet happened but must … It is the power to imagine beyond current fact and to envision that which is not, but must be. It’s a politics of prefiguration that involves living the future now … as a striving for the future you want to see, right now, in the present."
 
Bio:
Maxine Greaves Likes Loves
Reasoning & Research #ActsOfSelfLove, #Freedom, #StyleAndFashion, #EthicalAmbition #HoldingSpace #Climate Mary J Blige, Good Morning Gorgeous, My Life, Betty Wright, Keep Love New, NAO Lifetime, Cleo Sol Mother, There Will Be No Crying Ledisi Love You Too Aretha Franklin Day Dreaming Luther Vandross Here And Now Maxwell Ascension (Don’t Ever Wonder) Jamaican Breakfast Drinking Iced Ginger Beer, Turkish Grill Sipping Hot Chocolate Ramen thick noodles Fudge Brownie Watching Grand Designs, Chilling On The Sofa, Over The Yardarm Apple Juice And Fridge Fresh H2O, Utopia Theatre Anna Hibiscus’ Song, DATKH Theaster Gates Black Madonna, Afro-Mingei Matt Small Natasha, Kelly, Angela, Justina Claudette Johnson  Standing Figure (2015), Figure In Blue (2018) Blues Dance (2023)  Ta-Nehisi Coates The Message  Ngugi Wa Thiong’O The Language Of Languages Azeezat Johnson Beth Kamunge And Remi Joseph-Salisbury The Fire Now Malcolm Gladwell Blink, Outliers Jesmyn Ward The Let Us Descend Converse Cool Sneakers, Fenty Smell Good Look Good, Lip Gloss London, Camden Town, Brixton, Kingston Upon Thames Durban Waking Along The Golden Mile, Countryside Man Tor, Ben Nevis, And Scarfell Pike, Yvonne Battle-Felton Remembered  DJ Paulette Welcome To The Club Cebo Cambell Sky Full Of Elephants In Conversation Jeffrey Boakye (Blacklisted), Kehinde Andrews (Nobody Can Give You Freedom) MB Games Frustration; Fitbit Pilates, Peace Walk  Cycling Along The Tissington Trail, Roller Blades, Skates; Cat Ramsey My Words Purpose, Focus Lazy Day Greys Anatomy, Rewind And Come Again, all things Marvel Ramping
 
 

Episode 079 - A Daughter of the Soil, Yvonne Witter

Welcome back to The Earth Sea Love website.
We are so happy to share the first of three episodes we are dropping today to mark out fifth birthday celebrations. 
This episode is a conversation with Yvonne Witter.
Chair of Trustees for Peak District Mosaic, Yvonne and Sheree talk about:
• Situating the self – the walk home from work• Walking for mental health • Supporting patients with health and well-being one to one • Creating a caring space for people to be themselves through the grief journey • Championing the National Parks Project• Peak District Mosaic and Community Champions• Improve national parks work practice working with diverse communities• Mosaic Champion what it is? – Campaign for National Parks• Childhood in Jamaica• Volunteering time to support people outdoors • Representatives of the global majority in positions of making decisions• Legacy of the project, a turning point, providing a path way• Loss of identity when leaving the landscape• Grief, writing and walking 
Bio: 
Pioneering Peak District Community Champion, Yvonne Witter, has been well recognised for her efforts to uplift diverse communities through the Peak District national park and surrounding areas.
Her passion and duty to protect the countryside and provide accessibility for everyone are endless as she works tirelessly to introduce new training programmes, group activities and trips for diverse communities to access and explore the countryside.
Yvonne has committed her time as Chair for Peak District Mosaic and is keen to see the organisation grow and continue to meet the needs of communities in enhancing the health and wellbeing in the outdoors.
 
https://peakdistrictmosaic.org
 

Episode 078 - Welcome to our Birthday Celebration Episodes

Hey Welcome.
Welcome back to The Earth Sea Love Podcast. We're so happy that you could join us, and why not join us in celebration of our birthday.
The Earth Sea Love Podcast is five years old. 13 July 2020, we pressed the button to release three shiny new conversations into cyberspace as a means of keeping the nature connection going with ourselves and nature, and with each other far and wide. During those troubling times, your host Dr, Sheree Mack, had the honour and privilege to talk with so many wonderful people across the globe. And then share them with you, dear listener. 
We are very happy to see this birthday come around after years of precarious survival. And things are not all plain sailing now, but we recognise our achievement.  And why not come celebrate with us?
We are super excited to share three new episodes to mark our fifth anniversary. And they do not disappoint.
Episode 079 - A daughter of the soil, Yvonne Witter
Episode 080 - Creating a wealthy future through banking our knowledge, with Maxine Greaves MBE
Episode 081 - Ruptures, healing and reclamation with Pauline Mayers
 

Adriana Smith Did Not Give Birth

***Trigger warning, this episode contains swearing and is talking about death and inhumane practices. Be warned.
 
Adriana Smith did not give birth. Adriana couldn’t give birth. Adriana was unalive. Adriana died in February 2025 because she didn’t receive a life-saving medical procedure. Adriana was pronounced brain dead in February but was kept alive for a further 114 days. 114 days. Why? Because Adriana was pregnant, and the white man wanted to play GOD!
Let’s back up a bit. For me, and this isn’t about me, I find this difficult to share. It’s harrowing, horrific, cruel and downright racist. But share it I must even when it pains me, it’s much worst for Adriana’s family who had gone through a whole heap of fucking shit and continue to do so. This ‘experiment’ is triggering and is history repeating itself again and again, blatantly right in front of us. NOW. And what are we going to do about it? I’m writing and sharing it with you now as a start.
In February this year, Adriana Smith, a 30 year old nurse based in Atlanta, Georgia, went to hospital where she worked, went to her people, complaining of an intense headache. No tests were run. Adriana was sent home with pain relief. The next morning her boyfriend awoke to Adriana gurgling and struggling to breathe. Emergency services were called and Adriana was rushed to hospital. There they finally carried out a cat scan to establish that Adriana had blood clots on her brain. You have to ask why wasn’t this test carried out the day before, in time to probably save her life? I’ll tell you why, because of racism and sexism within the medical institution that results in black people, black women in particular not being listened to when we express pain. Apparently, black women don’t feel pain. We have a higher pain threshold than anyone else, so if we’re complaining about pain within our own bodies, we’re lying. The pain is that bad so just shut up and put up the practice goes. We are not given the rightful respect of being experts of our own bodies and knowing that we are in pain. Knowing that something is wrong.Read this article for more about this.
Let me continue. So the hospital calls Adriana’s mother to say they want to complete a procedure that will ease the pressure on Adriana’s brain and can they have her permission to do so. Of course her mother agrees. This procedure will save her daughter’s life. The hospital, Emory Hospital in the state of Georgia, called back not long afterwards to say they weren’t going to bother with the procedure. They couldn’t do it because Adriana was pregnant. Adriana was 8 weeks pregnant. I’m not sure if she knew she was pregnant or not before she went into hospital complaining of headaches. Adriana was pronounced brain dead soon after this. The doctors didn’t give Adriana’s family any choice, they put Adriana on a life support machine. This was against Adriana’s wishes as she had a do not resuscitate order and was against her family’s wishes also.
The hospital did not have Adriana’s or her family’s consent to follow this course of action. But the hospital acted as if they did. They disrespected Adriana in life as well as in death as they kept her alive on a ventilator, pumping her body with a cocktail of drugs all in the name of saving the foetus. The hospital kept Adriana’s body alive while she was brain dead all in the name of the law as they claimed that the law of the state would make it illegal to allow the baby to die within it’s mother. They claimed it would be an illegal termination and they could be prosecuted. Therefore they chose to go against the wishes of Adriana, taking away her personhood, autonomy, bodily rights, reproductive rights and even when she couldn’t speak for herself, her family spoke up for her rights. They were all disallowed, dismissed and Adriana was kept alive solely as a human incubator. The hospital in the state of Georgia cruelly used Adriana in a sick, warped medical experiment to find out what they needed to do in order to keep a baby alive till birth within a brain dead body. This is not a medical breakthrough or revolutionary practice, this is blatant disregard and disrespect for a black woman’s, a black mother’s wishes, as Adriana already had a 7 year old son. The state of Georgia used and abused Adriana for some sick experiment. We must realise that it won’t end here.
The media states that Adriana ‘gave birth’, or that Adriana ‘delivered’ a 32 week old baby, weighing 1 pound 13 oozes. A corpse, not being disrespectful here but a dead body, cannot birth anything or anyone. Adriana could not push out her son, her baby boy, because she was dead. To say it was a ‘C’ section it a lie as it was an autopsy. Adriana was given an autopsy and the baby was an extracted from her dead body. This was only done on 13 June because Adriana’s body was decaying. If not, no doubt they would have continued with this ‘experiment’.
Adriana’s body was decomposing because she was dead. She’d been dead for 4 months to this point of autopsy. I thought they then turned the life support machine off straight after the extraction. But that was not the case. They kept Adriana on the ventilation machine for a further 4 days, until 17 June, which happened to be her birthday. You’re telling me the hospital didn’t know that this was Adriana’s birthday? Of course they did, and this in my opinion is just another sick twisted fucking indication of their heartlessness, and disregard for Adriana’s family as well as being a performance. A performance of power and control.
Sanitise the language you use as much as you want, the hospital, Emory Hospital in the state of Georgia did wrong, a major wrong from allowing Adriana to die unnecessarily and then proceeding to keep her alive without her consent or her family’s so they could try out this experiment which with the extraction of a baby is blatant proof of their concept.
This does not end here. This is man, as it usually is man, trying to find a way to create life and bring into the world, with women having little to no participation in the process. Through using and abusing Adriana they have gathered their evidence on what they need to do to keep a baby alive to birth with a woman just as an incubator. She does not need to be alive, or give her consent. The clinician has all the power and the control. An experiment by the state of Georgia on a black woman’s body, which is nothing new. The experimentation on black women’s bodies has been going on for centuries just think of J. Marion Sims the so called ‘father of gynecology’ and his experimentation on enslaved women. This experiment on Adriana was to see how they can replace the woman in the process of creating and carrying life. How little participation from women do they need to bring about life? Be warned as I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of other brain dead women turning up pregnant.
Placing Adriana on life support to support a pregnancy from 8 weeks to 32 weeks is inhumane. This is using a black woman’s body as an incubator and not respecting or treating Adriana as a human being with rights and wishes. The hospital used the law as an excuse to perform this monstrosity but the Attorney General of Georgia came out months ago to say there is no such law that the foetus has to be kept alive if the mother is dead. The law states that the foetus dies when the mother dies. This is more proof that the hospital was running roughshod over another black woman, black mother’s life as didn’t her 7 year old son have to see his mother on the ventilation machines, pumped full of drugs not understanding what was going on, maybe thinking at some point his mother would wake up and come on home. What is this fuckery?
And I haven’t even said anything about the baby extracted from a dead body. Chance, they named him, Chance, who is now in NICU weights barely 2 pounds. What quality of life will this tortured baby have? His grandmother said, he could be blind, might to be able to walk, or talk or be mentally okay and they will have to raise him. I can’t even imagine what kind of life this child will have as he’s basically unknown territory. But I know he probably won’t have a peaceful life. If he survives you can bet that he will be monitored and poked and prodded for the rest his life, to check if he’s healthy and ‘normal’ after he came about through their experiment. They’re invested in Chance’s life now but not for good reasons. There was never any care for his mother, Adriana, and there’ll never be any care there for Chance.
This is disgusting and horrifying and makes me sick to my core as well as angry, hence sharing it here with you now. But it gets worse. Adriana’s family, who fought all this time to stop this experiment that was against their wishes as well as Adriana’s, who have been going through the legal process to get the machines switched off so they could lay Adriana to rest, are now liable to pay all the hospital bills.
I repeat Adriana, who was brain dead and kept alive as an incubator against her and her family’s wishes, her family now have to pay all these medical bills for this experiment. They did not ask for this. They did not consent to this. They fought against it. They are now being forced to pay for this. What is this kind of fuckery? This is blatant, in their faces and in public, telling the world that the hospital, the state of Georgia, these non-black professionals, do not care about black women, black people. They are not allowing Adriana to rest, then and now, as it’s all about control and power over the black woman’s body, black people again and again.
This is not about humanity and researching ways to keep life going. They stripped Adriana of her humanity a long time ago, right down to the very last breath of her body. On her birthday. It breaks my heart. It breaks my heart.
The family have set up a Go Fund Me page to help them pay for the medical bills that they shouldn’t have to pay for. The family should be receiving compensation for what they have lost and gone through. But that still wouldn’t be enough and could never replace Adriana or what she and her family have gone through and continue to suffer.
And this shit is not over yet. Adriana Smith, say her name. Remember her name. Share her name. This ‘experiment’ is going to change reproduction, reproductive rights within America, and beyond, and will have percussions for women and bodily autonomy. If they can do this to a pregnant woman, I dare not think what they can do to others and/both do next.
This is frightening and maddening and has to be talked about and shouldn’t happen again. I say this but it’s probably happening right now to some other black woman who isn’t seen as human but as a body to be experimented on, used and abused in the name of science.
They did this to Adriana because they thought they could get away with it. Nobody cares about black women, right? Black women are disposable.
Would they have done this to a white woman, I have to ask?
Fuck off I say. Get the fuck off our bodies. This could be the normalisation of necromancy.
Are you down with that?

Episode 076- How Life is Fragile and Emerging with Soraya Abdel-Hadi

Welcome back to another episode of The Earth Sea Love Podcast. It is with gratitude pleasure that we share this lovely conversation with Soraya Abdel-Hadi.
Soraya is the founder and managing director of All the Elements, as well as running her own successful coaching business, soraya earth >
In this episode, your host Dr Sheree Mack and Soraya, talk about:
situating self,  seeing nature emerging 
slowing down to notice nature
there are other ways of being in this world 
All the Elements developments since 2021, it’s a community learning about self through developments 
centring on the people, 
buying into capitalism, the grind,  the achievement and the 
allyship ‘v’ comradeship
Timber Festival, a celebratory event  and finding your people 
Rehearsals for Living by Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
The Outdoor Citizen (TOC),  what is it?
professional skills development to create change 
the anti-urgency at All the Element, a way of working
nature connection 
Grief around mums passing
creativity through Substack
creative practice and legacy 
a reminder it only takes 5 minutes to go outside 
 Bio: Soraya Abdel-Hadi is a sustainability specialist, life coach, facilitator and the founder and driving force of nature behind All the Elements, a CIC supporting leaders working on access and representation in the UK outdoor sector. She’s an energiser, a maker of change and connection.
 
Whale Song on Substack - An environmental and social change newsletter from Soraya Abdel-Hadi

Episode 075 - Quiet Disruptions with Dal Kular

Welcome back to The Earth Sea Love Podcast. We are so pleased to be back with you for another episode release, within a week of the last one. We are trying to keep to our word!
This episode, 075, in our 7th season is with our wonderful Sista Dal Kular. We are such a fan of Dal.
Talking with your host, Dr Sheree Mack, in this episode you will hear, Dal talking about:
* Situating the self in the present moment of recording * How has this season been treating Dal                                                  
* The long recovery from head injury* Walking in winter - practice and confidence and joy
* Disrupting this hard season of grief and loss* Changes after a head injury adjustments  - * Rest and planning time as part of being human* Learning how to be with a head injury and manage health and wellbeing
* Challenging ableist constructs, the interview, the exam * Black Nature In Residence programme with identity on tyne * Gusset wisdom shared* Creatives learning, freedom to create* Creating a giant journal as part of a residency* Quiet disruptions and dislodging colonial narratives * Cheap travelling to remote places* Deepen strength and honing in on creative practices * The future of nature writing 
* Embracing the extraordinaryness of the everyday
 
Bio: Dal Kular (she/her) is a writer, maker, zinester and facilitator of creative and nature-allied arts for healing, liberation and joy. She left school at 16 years old with 3 O-levels having been told she could never be a writer – returning to the power of words in her late forties – as an act of radical care and healing. Her debut poetry book (un)interrupted tongues, published by Fly on The Wall Press, emerged from a zine she created during her masters dissertation about the therapeutic and healing powers of zine-making. She loves making zines and handmade books. Dal’s latest zine is called ‘Dear Nature…’ and created during her writing residency with Peaks of Colour. She lives in Sheffield.  You can read more of her work here.
 
 

Episode 074 - Zines, AI and Nature with Nabila Cruz

New Year. New Season. 
Welcome back to The Earth Sea Love Podcast, as we celebrate our 5th year of production. 
We are so happy to be back with you all after our winter hibernation. Rest is important. Rest is a weapon. And we must use it.
Welcome back to our first episode of the season which is with our lovely guest and friend, Nabila Cruz.
Nabila Cruz is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Sheffield, specialising in critical AI studies with a focus on how generative artificial intelligence impacts trust in digital news media.
Within this episode we talk about: 
* Situating ourselves in the country and placing ourselves in nature nearby* Situating ourselves through the seasons and having plant children * Learning to let go of control* What you be/ who you be at this time? * Brazilian, Italian and Arabic mixness, and growing up in the UK, therefore British* Mess in nature, mess in life, complicated realities* PhD a source of joy and headache - generative AI affects trust in the news* Expressing ourselves with whatever tools are at our disposal* AI developments - critical study of the pros and cons* Being curious and creative* Zine making as research method* Over Here Zine Festival  * Peaks of Colour walkshop - Dal Kular facilitating * Access to nature, reclaiming it for belonging * Zine: a letter to nature from my inner child * The danger isn’t AI it’s the people behind AI* Zines in the making * Future plans/ learning * AI with a more caring face, a human touch* Self-care on the journey of the PhD* Therapy as a thru line throughout life for free * Important for more people of colour to become therapists* Mutual appreciation club
 
Bio: Nabila Cruz is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Sheffield, specialising in critical AI studies with a focus on how generative artificial intelligence impacts trust in digital news media. With a background in information science, she has worked in various roles in libraries and universities in the UK. She has taught university students, run training sessions, and organised events. She also leads creative workshops whenever possible. Born in Brazil with African and European heritage, Nabila moved to the UK as a teenager and found a sense of belonging in its diverse cultures. She writes short stories and poetry in her spare time and discovered zine-making recently. Her stories, poems and zines reflect her personal journey and act as a form of self-care. But she feels the most sense of healing in nature, when she goes for hikes or visits the sea.
 
Here are some of Nabila's zines  online:
Living with PCOS https://heyzine.com/flip-book/c84b65bda3.html
A Letter To Nature From My Inner Child https://heyzine.com/flip-book/f4276f2f18.html
Herbie is my favourite person https://heyzine.com/flip-book/3a20638e30.html
Nabila's website: www.nabilacruz.com.
 
Also mentioned in the introduction of this episode is the Over Here Zine Festival mini pop up festival in collaboration with Dal Kular and Migration Matters.  
You can find out more information about this event happening on Saturday 28 June here.
* Sheree would like to express her apologises as she incorrectly states in the introduction of this episode’s that Nabila was born on the UK. As it says on the above bio, Nabila was born in Brazil. Please accept our apologies for the mistake. 

Episode 073 - Jola Olafimihan, Creative in Northumberland National Park

We are so exited to bring you a special mini series of podcast episodes created in collaboration with identity on tyne and their Black Nature in Residence Programme. 
Created and project coordinated by your host Dr Sheree Mack, the Black Nature in Residence Programmed (BNIR) aims to offer creative opportunities within nature for the global majority.  Started in 2019, the Black Nature in Residence Programme not only offers time and space in nature for creatives, focusing on the creative process and practices rather than putting the pressure on to produce produce and produce. The process is the focus rather than the outputs and outcomes. identity on tyne believes that when you give creatives the time and space to {BE},  something magical happens in the way they see themselves and their practice. The creatives have permission to play, experiment and create on their own terms. And nature is the guide in this process.
In this episode Sheree talks to Jola Olafimihan about her residency in the Northumberland National Park. They talk about:
* Where Jola is situated
* Who she be?
* What progression has there been from BNIR to BNIA 2:0?
* Nigerian indigo dying technique Adire
* Having two homes and combining them within this residency
* Walking groups both white and global majority 
* Disconnection from nature and the consequencs
* Healing with nature 
* Black-led creative projects
* Solastalgia
* Racism and harm and self-care practices 
 
Bio: Jola Olafimihan writes as a way of understanding all that is around her. She writes as a form of mindful practise and a way to focus her mind. She’s an industrious individual with a conscientious and positive attitude towards her work, creating, and exploration of newthemes. She’s a resilient and a forward-thinking creative, who likes developing her skill set. She’s an independent thinker who takes the initiative, self-driven to achieve successon independent projects such as being writer in residence for Durham Wildlife Trust (2020- 22), where she developed original pieces of writings and artworks.

Episode 072 – Testament, Creative in The Yorkshire Dales National Park

We are so exited to bring you a special mini series of podcast episodes created in collaboration with identity on tyne and their Black Nature in Residence Programme. 
Created and project coordinated by your host Dr Sheree Mack, the Black Nature in Residence Programmed (BNIR) aims to offer creative opportunities within nature for the global majority.  Started in 2019, the Black Nature in Residence Programme not only offers time and space in nature for creatives, focusing on the creative process and practices rather than putting the pressure on to produce produce and produce. The process is the focus rather than the outputs and outcomes. identity on tyne believes that when you give creatives the time and space to {BE},  something magical happens in the way they see themselves and their practice. The creatives have permission to play, experiment and create on their own terms. And nature is the guide in this process.
In this episode Sheree talks to Testament about his residency in the Yorkshire Dales. They talk about:
* Where Testament is situated
* What he does and how he came to doing this?
* How Testament 's residency has been going?
* Testament's research and critical tabulations around the runaway slave Thomas Anson ( Apologies for using Hansen in the podcast introduction)
* Fugitive and fugitivity
* Being artists and the mycelium network
* Patterson Joseph and his 2022 debut novel The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho 
* Self-care practices 
 
Bio: Testament is an acclaimed writer, spoken word artist, playwright and rapper. He is currently based in West Yorkshire.Testament’s work has received praise from a wide range of voices including Lemn Sissay, Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, writer and graphic novelist Alan Moore (Watchmen/ V for Vendetta), actor and writer Patterson Joseph, BBC presenter Lauren Laverne and theoriginator of Hip- Hop DJ Koolherc.Testament is passionate about using words to connect communities and ideas, and in so doing challenge assumptions and start conversations. Testament has worked as a freelance artist since 2007, teaching, writing and performing nationally and internationally. As well as writing and performing, Testament has done extensive work as an educator and workshop facilitator.Before becoming a writer, as a musician in 2009 Testament released an acclaimed album No Freedom Without Sacrifice under his “Homecut” moniker featuring Grammy Winner Corinne Bailey Rae, MOBO winner Soweto Kinch and US rap legend J-Live among others.He also features on the MOBO jazz nominated album Faces by David Lyttle.