In this episode of Art &, we speak with artist, storyteller, and Stanford alum Janani Balasubramanian and Dr. Karleen Giannitrapani, Assistant Professor of Medicine in Primary Care and Population Health at Stanford Medicine, whose research focuses on palliative care, serious illness, and supporting people through major life transitions. Together, they discuss the origins of Forever Lab, a new initiative at Stanford Medicine that brings artists, scientists, technologists, and caregivers together to address some of life's most profound transitions.

Born from a chance encounter during Janani's Denning Visiting Artist residency, Forever Lab explores how artistic practice can contribute to healthcare innovation, creating new interventions, experiences, and systems that support people through moments of vulnerability. Janani and Karleen discuss building interdisciplinary collaborations, why caregiving is a creative act, and how beauty can help reshape the future of healthcare interventions. Along the way, they reflect on the value of discomfort, the power of "curating" people across disciplines, and what becomes possible when artists are invited to participate in solving society's most complex challenges.

Featured Guests: Janani Balasubramanian & Dr. Karleen Giannitrapani

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To learn more about Forever Lab: https://www.foreverlab.org/

Host: Ellen Oh
Creator / Producer / Editor: Taylor Jones
Sound Designer & Mix Engineer: Chase Everett
Theme Song & Music: Juana Izuzquiza
Executive Producers: Ellen Oh and Anne Shulock
Artwork: Connie Ko

In this episode of Art &, we catch up with designer Char McCurdy and biochemist Aaron Straight about The Giving Tree, an upcoming Stanford IntroSem being taught this fall that will start with a single tree from campus and asks students to explore what can be made from as much of it as possible.

Developed through Stanford Arts Institute's Arts Catalyst Fellowship, the course incorporates design, organic materials, sustainability, and hands-on making. Char and Aaron discuss how their collaboration started from a chance conversation about furniture into an adventurous class about materials, climate change, biodiversity, risk-taking, and problem-solving. Along the way, they reflect on what happens when students and faculty learn directly from the natural world, embrace uncertainty, and develop the agency that comes from making from the abundant source of wonder standing all around us: trees!

Featured Guests: Char McCurdy & Aaron Straight

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Credits

Host: Ellen Oh
Creator / Producer / Editor: Taylor Jones
Sound Designer & Mix Engineer: Chase Everett
Theme Song & Music: Juana Izuzquiza
Executive Producers: Ellen Oh and Anne Shulock
Artwork: Connie Ko

In Episode 5 of Art &, we meet Erika Chong Shuch, a performance maker, director, choreographer, and 25-26 VPA Visiting Artist, and Tiffany Steinwert, Dean for Religious and Spiritual Life at Stanford. Their conversation centers on 1,000 Ways to Hold, Erika’s ceramics-based social practice project that brings people together to shape clay bowls while reflecting on what they have held, and what has held them.

Rooted in Erika’s inquiry of intimate encounters and bringing strangers together, 1,000 Ways to Hold originated from a question about isolation and the small moments that foster meaningful connection. Across campus, the project moved through classrooms, dining halls, community centers, spiritual life spaces, Stanford Hospital, and staff communities, inviting students, faculty, staff, patients, families, and neighbors to enter a shared creative process.

Erika, Tiffany, and Ellen explore how art can act as a way to usher people into deeper presence, listening, and exchange. They discuss the relationship between ritual, spirituality, and community-building, divinity as an extension of making, and how a ball of clay can create space for grief, tenderness, and profound relation.

"1,000 Ways to Hold" is on view at the Anderson Collection at Stanford University from April 2 through August 17.

Featured Guests: Erika Chong Shuch & Tiffany Steinwert

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Credits

Host: Ellen Oh
Creator / Producer / Editor: Taylor Jones
Production Support: Edi Dai
Sound Designer & Mix Engineer: Chase Everett
Theme Song & Music: Juana Izuzquiza
Executive Producers: Ellen Oh and Anne Shulock
Artwork: Connie Ko