E06 Catherine Sarah Young | Interdisciplinary Artist & Writer | Highlighting environmental issues using the intersection of science and art

Catherine Sarah Young is an award-winning artist, designer, and writer. She uses her background in molecular biology, fine art, and interaction design to create interdisciplinary and experimental artworks on the environment.

We discuss her unique approach to climate change awareness, including taking inspiration from the Egyptian Book of the Dead to produce art on the Australian bushfire crisis, as well as creating perfume and sewer soap to make the effects of climate change more tangible (because, as she points out, we all have “dying polar bear fatigue”).

Cat has collaborated with researchers, industry, and non-profit organizations all over the world, including in the Amazon rainforest, with the Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow, the University of the Underground in London*, and the Mekong Cultural Hub.

She is currently a Scientia scholar at UNSW Sydney Art and Design working on climate change and sustainability, an Obama Leader for Asia-Pacific, and part of Team HB6 of Homeward Bound for Antarctica (100 women with a background in STEMM – science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine).

Despite all the international acclaim she has received, she places more value on “milestones of resilience” and incremental improvement, drawing on her taekwondo training (she’s a second-degree black belt) to impart life lessons.

This episode is dedicated to anyone trying to approach a problem from a creative new angle, everyone going through the process of "unlearning," as well as all the interdisciplinary thinkers and martial artists out there.

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Follow Cat on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook @catherinesarahyoung

Follow Cat on Twitter @catherineyoung

Visit her website www.theperceptionalist.com to learn more about the residencies and exhibitions she has done in Austria, China, Colombia, Finland, Germany, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, the United States, Uganda, et al!

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* Edit: My voiceover referred to the University of the Underground in Amsterdam. They have outposts in both Amsterdam and London, but she collaborated with London.

Note: The full Michael Jordan quote I referenced goes, "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Photo by @rache_go

Music: “Neon Laser Horizon” by Kevin MacLeod (imcompetech.com) licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Sound Editing by franticsong

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xoxo Jo