Foment

Foment: DIY Artist Residencies

Thu, 22 Jan 2026 08:00:00 -0000

Episode Notes

In this episode, Christina and Albert share stories from the time they accidentally created an artist residency program at Mt Caz -- and imagine other ways we can DIY retreats and residencies in more creatives' lives.

Inspiration:

Mt Caz Artist Residencies
Wayward Retreats
Empty House Art Lab
Artist Residency in Motherhood
Jenny Odell Recology residency
Beth Grossman's Block by Block residencies
Piney Wood Atlas
If you want to offer Albert an artist residency, or take them up on beta-testing their dishwashing residency, email us at koanprops at gmail dot com!

If you want to support Foment the podcast, send us a tip below.

If you want to foment more artist residencies in your community, ask yourself what time/space can you share?

If you want to support Christina directly, visit patreon.com/sodelightful

If you want to support Albert directly, visit manyworld.diy

If you have questions for us, that we might answer in a future episode, email koanprops at gmail dot com.

Support Foment by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/foment

Find out more at https://foment.pinecast.co

Foment: Play

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0000

Episode Notes

In this episode, Albert and Christina talk about the importance of play, and what keeps us from play.

telepoem
katy chen mazzara money coach
LIFT economy life design
hadassah damien on fear and enough
punished by rewards by alfie kohn
teachers in play: elsa menendez / anthony rocco / lea redmond / come out and play festival
more books: pleasure activism by adrienne maree brown, joyful militancy by carla bergman and Nick Montgomery
bread and puppet
youtube video about breaking social media addiction by replacing consumption with creativity

Support Foment by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/foment

Find out more at https://foment.pinecast.co

Questioning: Philosophical frameworks for anticapitalist artists

Sun, 27 Jul 2025 04:10:48 -0000

Show Notes

In this episode, Christina and Albert toss around questions about patronage for artists and wonder about a philosophical framework for anticapitalists working under capitalism. Christina is uncertain about a lot.

We hope to do more episodes in future with more possibility models.

Some things mentioned:

LIFT's Next Economy Living course
Matthew Desmond's book Poverty, by America

To support Albert, check out their new collective endeavor Many World To support Christina, subscribe to her Patreon

Support Foment by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/foment

Find out more at https://foment.pinecast.co

Foment: Yogurt Coops (and Meal Coops and Asparagus Coops too!)

Fri, 13 Jun 2025 19:00:00 -0000

Yogurt Coops!

In this episode, Albert and Christina wax poetic about yogurt coops, and other types of microsolidarity coops such as meals coops and asparagus coops.

Shownotes:

Mid-Valley Yogurt Coop (a FAQ doc we used for recruiting)
Yogurt coop zine, including recipe! (print it double-sided, fold it in four)
Somerville Yogurt Coop
Meals Coop zine

If you have questions about cooperative housing or micro-solidarity experiments that you'd like us to answer in future podcast episodes, email them to koanprops@gmail.com!

To support our podcast, give us a tip us per episode at: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/foment

To support our collective liberation, try making your own yogurt...with friends!

Support Foment by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/foment

Find out more at https://foment.pinecast.co

Foment: Thinking aloud about why we keep trying

Fri, 16 May 2025 23:00:00 -0000

Episode Notes

In this episode, Albert and Christina discuss why they keep practicing towards liberation, and the role of hope or despair or right-sized power during these times. This one's more a meandering conversation, as we try to figure it out ourselves.

Shownotes: this episode, we mention a lot of books without going deep into them, but here are the ones mentioned in case you want to dive further in!

"We Don't Get There Without the Shared Struggle" -- Mariame Kaba and Kelly Hayes on the podcast Millennials Are Killing Capitalism talking about hope
Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira
Rebecca Solnit's books: Hope in the Dark and A Paradise Built in Hell
Everyday Anarchism podcast
World as Lover, World as Self by Joanna Macy
Fierce Vulnerability by Kazu Haga
Mutual Aid by Peter Kropotkin
"Shocks, Slides, and Shifts" framework from Movement Generation
Mid-Valley Yogurt Coop -- we'll record a full episode about yogurt coop soon, we promise!

Please send your questions about cooperative housing or micro-solidarity experiments for future podcast episodes to koanprops@gmail.com!

To support our podcast, give us a tip us per episode at: https://foment.pinecast.co/ To support our collective liberation, have a meandering conversation about what keeps you going through despair and chaos with someone in your chosen political fam.

Support Foment by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/foment

Find out more at https://foment.pinecast.co

Foment: De-G your Gmail (bonus)

Fri, 18 Apr 2025 22:00:59 -0000

Episode Notes

In this bonus mini-episode, Albert shares their experience switching away from Gmail...and chides us about resisting a little bit of friction in our lives. X'D

Show Notes

Email Debt Forgiveness Day
Kill the Newsletter (turn an email newsletter into an RSS feed)
YK Hong's "De-Google Your Life" series
2010-era digital sabbaticals

Support Foment by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/foment

Find out more at https://foment.pinecast.co

Foment: Moving Away from Big Tech

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 22:55:14 -0000

Episode Notes

In this episode, Albert and Christina talk about moving away from dependency on corporate tech platforms to more values-aligned alternatives, as a way to build resistance muscles and remember our own agency. We share our personal stories, friction points, and possibilities for de-enshittification.

Show Notes:

Cory Doctorow on 'enshittification' (original article)
Anarchist calisthenics
"The convenience you demanded is now mandatory" (meme)
YK Hong's series on "De-Googling Your Life"
Step-by-step checklist from Opt Out Project to do your own cyber cleanse in a less overwhelming way
Tech platform alternatives from progressivetech.org
"Off the Grid" podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing all their clients
Darius Kazemi's Spreadsheet Generator "Gen Gen"
Books mentioned: Dougald Hines's book At Work in the Ruins, Peter Block's The Answer to How is Yes
Email Debt Forgiveness Day (March 31st!)
Kill the Newsletter: creates an RSS reed for your email newsletters

Support Foment by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/foment

Find out more at https://foment.pinecast.co

Foment: Community Land Trusts

Tue, 18 Feb 2025 01:50:00 -0000

Christina and Albert answer a friend's question: "I was wondering if you could point me to any good resources for learning about how community land trusts work."

Notes, Links, & Resources:

Jessica Gordon Nembhard's book Collective Courage
Sustainable Economy Law Center, and their work around Permanent Real Estate Cooperatives (PRECs)
Article: "Are we diluting the mission of Community Land Trusts?"
NASCO (resources for starting coop houses)
(not mentioned in episode, but the book Creating a Life Together by Diana Leafe Christian)

If you have questions for us about radical housing alternatives like cooperatives or community land trusts, please email them to us at koanprops@gmail.com, and we'll do our best to answer in future episodes!

Foment: Mutual Aid + Revolutionary Congregations

Sun, 16 Feb 2025 00:46:00 -0000

In this episode, Albert and Christina discuss revolutionary congregations, mutual aid in the aftermath of the LA wildfires in Jan 2025, and other spaces where people can show up as their whole selves.

Shownote Links

Crimethinc's call for Festivals of Resistance in the lead-up to Trump's inauguration
"Revolutionary Congregation" by Jeremy Souza (email albert for the PDF lol)
Mutual Aid LA Network
The Lavender Collective (their 1-pager bottom liner basics)
Buddhist Peace Fellowship's Block-Build-Be framework (an inspiring adaptation from Wildseed Society)
Ayni Institute's Movement Ecology framework
Authors we reference: Kropotkin, David Graeber, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Mariame Kaba

Episode 17: Amateur Hour

Tue, 04 Feb 2020 23:47:12 -0000

In this episode, Albert, Christina, and Aranea discuss the beginner's mindset and the value of approaching things with passion and curiosity.

Get Back in the River

Wed, 15 Jan 2020 18:00:01 -0000

This week, an experiment: an audio essay for whenever you may be feeling adrift in your creative process.

Episode 16: Artists Adrift

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 18:00:07 -0000

In this episode, Christina, Aranea, and artist-in-residence Lulu look for anything to help us when we are feeling adrift in our creative process.

Happy Holidays - We're on Break!

Mon, 02 Dec 2019 04:33:20 -0000

We're on break for the month of December. See you next year!

Episode 15: Question-driven and Learner-Directed

Fri, 15 Nov 2019 08:00:19 -0000

In this episode, four non-masters question the conundrum of power, equity, and education through stores over tea.

Episode 14: Art for Healing

Fri, 01 Nov 2019 14:00:05 -0000

In this episode, Christina talks with resident artists Donna and Kaori about the process and challenges of making art for healing trauma.

Episode 13: Plenitude and Abundance

Wed, 16 Oct 2019 19:45:47 -0000

In this episode, Albert, Christina and Aranea discuss abundance and how practicing and attitude of plenty is necessary for creating community.

Episode 12: Grassroots Event Production - An Open Debrief

Thu, 19 Sep 2019 21:52:24 -0000

In this episode Aranea, Albert and Christina do a debrief of the Public Domain Variety Show, a recent event hosted at Mt. Caz. They share lessons they've learned about grassroots and amateur event production.

Episode 11: Randomly Stumbling into Unexpected Conversations

Sun, 01 Sep 2019 22:24:57 -0000

"Trust me: I’m going to send you to a random place." In this episode, Aranea, Albert, Christina, and visiting artist Danielle Baskin talk about the value of random encounters and pranks in the creative process -- with surprise guest Dori!

Episode 10: Quotidian Poetry

Fri, 16 Aug 2019 00:06:29 -0000

In this episode Albert, Christina, Aranea and artist-in-residence Will Rogers discuss poetry and the value of paying attention and finding pleasure in the quotidian (everyday things).

Episode 9: Is it Real? Does it Matter?

Thu, 01 Aug 2019 21:28:11 -0000

In this episode, Aranea, Albert, Christina, and artist-in-residence Matteo sit down for a conversation about the ethics of sharing information when creating fictional realities, and the responsibilities that designers have to their audiences.

Episode 8: "Lil Roleplay Bag"

Mon, 01 Jul 2019 07:00:15 -0000

Hop into the lil roleplay bag with us. In this episode, Laura, Brian, Albert, Michael, and Aranea discuss the spectrum of roleplaying games and the creativity involved in playing and designing them.

Episode 7: "Sharing Art is Integral to Being Human"

Sun, 02 Jun 2019 06:20:50 -0000

In this episode Nathan, Albert, Christina and Aranea talk about the "I did a thing!" feeling. That feeling of satisfaction that comes from sharing a thing in person.

Episode 6: "Finding Inspiration is a Practice"

Wed, 15 May 2019 22:42:59 -0000

In this episode Brian, Albert, Aranea and artist-in-residence Ahran discuss the relationship between motivation and inspiration, and the tribulations therein.

Episode 5: Delicate Lines

Thu, 02 May 2019 06:08:55 -0000

Follow our "book club" conversation, responding to our viewing of Meow Wolf: Origin Story, from grungy art outsiders to powerhouse installation producers.

Episode 4: "Don't Forget the Joy"

Tue, 16 Apr 2019 17:00:15 -0000

In this episode, Aranea, Christina, and artist-in-residence Ahran discuss their creative processes and the growing pains of building new ones.

Episode 3: "Your mileage may vary"

Mon, 04 Mar 2019 22:07:00 -0000

In episode 3, Alisha, Aranea, Albert, Christina, and Mt Caz artist-in-residence Alex Roberts discuss rhythms of being and escaping the cult of productivity.

Episode 2: "The Power of Naming Something Makes It Real"

Sat, 16 Feb 2019 22:31:00 -0000

In this episode, Albert, Aranea, Alisha, and Christina talk about the origins of the name 'Dispatches from Mt. Caz' and the power of language to manifest realities.

Episode 1: Introductions

Fri, 01 Feb 2019 17:00:00 -0000

In our introductory episode, we introduce ourselves and Mt. Caz. We discuss making stuff for the sake of making stuff, the catalyzing energy of creative community, and the seasons of an artist's life.