S1 E31: Co-creating Healthy Cities with Amanda Masterpaul and Mytoan Nguyen-Akbar

During this episode of Why Change? co-host Jeff M. Poulin introduces a new type of format for the podcast featuring interviews with two practitioners working towards a common goal: Amanda Masterpaul and Mytoan Nguyen-Akbar. Both Amanda and Mytoan focus pieces of their work on arts education projects with young people experiencing unstable housing. They share two perspectives, one as a teaching artist and one as a project evaluator, and encourage future dialogues about this type of work.

In this episode you’ll learn:

  1. About two arts education projects focused on mitigating the impacts of unstable housing on young people;

  2. How collaborations can benefit intersectional projects and pedagogies; and 

  3. What knowledge is gained from researching the impacts of arts education interventions.


Check out some of the things mentioned during this podcast, including: 


Please download the transcript here. 


ABOUT AMANDA MASTERPAUL

Amanda Masterpaul is a participatory theatre artist, activist, and educator dedicated to weaving social justice, cultural organizing, anti-racism, and critical consciousness into the everyday lived experience. Amanda is a Teaching Associate at Coastal Carolina University, specializing in Applied Theatre and Theatre of the Oppressed practices in addition to teaching Women's and Gender Studies. Throughout her career, she has organized alongside various civic engagement and community-centered efforts in areas such as houselessness, gender equity, sexual violence, and systemic racism. As a collaborative artist, she creates ensembles of artists and activists to deploy art, education, Theatre of the Oppressed, and collective action through interactive and intercultural experiences centered on dismantling systemic (in)justice while building communities of care. Amanda believes in the power of multi-identifying people collaborating in partnership and shared purpose to co-create visions of communal wellbeing and to co-solidify solutions for addressing the material conditions of peoples’ lives. 


ABOUT MYTOAN NGUYEN-AKBAR

Mytoan Nguyen-Akbar, PhD (she/her) is a community organizer, mother of two, and strategic researcher with an equity lens.  Currently, she is Impact and Assessment Manager for the City of Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. She began her journey into municipal arts as a Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies Public Fellow, awarded to post-doctoral fellows nationally to demonstrate the impact of the humanities outside of the academy. Dr. Nguyen-Akbar completed her PhD in Sociology at University of Madison, and has been a past US Fulbright Fellows (to Australia), American Sociological Association Minority Pre-Doctoral Fellow, and recipient of the Jane Addams Outstanding Award for Public Service in Sociology. Her work ranges from designing COVID-19 impact studies, monitoring, assessment and evaluation of racial justice and equity cultural investments, and data and storytelling capacity building for public sector and nonprofit organizations. Mytoan came to this country as a boatperson from Vietnam. 


WHERE TO FIND AMANDA AND MYTOAN:

This episode of Why Change? A Podcast for the Creative Generation was powered by Creative Generation. It was produced and edited by Daniel Stanley. Artwork by Bridget Woodbury. Music by Distant Cousins.