MAC Podcast Engagement

MAC Podcast

The MAC Podcast offers storytelling, culture and creative conversations that engage, connect and catalyze community. Listen to authentic and lively conversations that dive deep into the artistic process, methodology and origin stories of creatives and tastemakers in the Valley of the Sun and beyond.

Podcast episodes will be released monthly on the 2nd Tuesday of every month and will include audio and video format. Stream episodes on YouTube, Podbean and Spotify.

Season 1

EP 1: Daniel Bernard Roumain

In this episode we talk with Daniel Bernard Roumain, also known as DBR. "Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) is a Black, Haitian-American composer who sees composing as collaboration with artists, organizations and communities within the farming and framing of ideas. He is a prolific and endlessly collaborative composer, performer, educator and social entrepreneur."

EP 2: Miguel Angel Godoy

Miguel is a scholar of Hip Hop culture and practitioner of breaking and graffiti for over the last two decades, his work is informed by the value of storytelling and the power of building community through art. Godoy’s involvement in graffiti led him to his interest in text-based art and public art murals. As a community-based muralist, he focuses on community engaged projects and has worked on many large-scale murals in and around San Diego, CA and Phoenix, AZ. Godoy continues to use Hip Hop as a source of inspiration for his work by creating spaces wherein stories of the communities where the murals reside are shared, people feel represented, and to promote a critical awareness of the need to look at the spaces in between.

EP 3: Attacca Quartet

In this episode we speak with Two-time GRAMMY-award winning Attacca Quartet ATTACCA QUARTET, as described by The Nation, “lives in the present aesthetically, without rejecting the virtues of the musical past,” and are recognized and acclaimed as one of the most versatile and outstanding ensembles of the moment — a true quartet for modern times. Gliding through traditional classical repertoire to electronica, video game music and contemporary collaborations, they are one of the world's most innovative and respected ensembles.

Season 2

EP 1: Arianna Jones

Arianna Jones is a Poet, Marketing Specialist, Podcast Host and most importantly, just a human sharing her existence. In this episode we discuss the importance of mental and emotional wellness and how the arts can serve as a tool for said wellness.

EP 2: Dr. Sandoval

Dr. Sandoval is an Associate Teaching Professor at Barrett the Honors College in Downtown Phoenix. He is also an ASU Social Transformation Lab Fellow and a member of ASU's Chicano / Latino Faculty & Staff Association. Dr. Sandoval is currently researching the transborder holiday Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).

EP 3: Ben Venom

Ben Venom graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2007 with a Master of Fine Arts degree. His work has been shown both nationally and internationally. His exhibit (Use it or Lose it) was on display at the Mesa Contemporary Art Museum in Fall 2024. Working with repurposed materials to create textile-based pieces, Ben Venom contrasts the often menacing and aggressive counterculture components of gangs, punk/metal music, and the occult with the comforts of domesticity. This collision of traditional quilting techniques with elements tied to the fringes of society re-envisions the story of the material through a softer lens.

EP 4: Roomful Of Teeth

Roomful of Teeth is a GRAMMY-winning vocal band dedicated to reimagining the expressive potential of the human voice. By engaging collaboratively with artists, thinkers, and community leaders from around the world, the group seeks to uplift and amplify voices old and new while creating and performing meaningful and adventurous music.

EP 5: Nalini Nadkarni & John Giles

A lifelong interest and concern for trees led Nalini to an academic career to study and understand trees, and innovate activities and programs that raise awareness of the importance of trees and nature to others. In this episode we speak with Nalini Nadkarni alongside the former mayor of Mesa, John Giles, about the importance of trees with in our ecosystem.