This Being Human Aga Khan Museum & TVO

Shezad Dawood is a multidisciplinary artist whose work blends stories, reality and symbolism to engage with big questions about humanity, and explore alternative futures.He speaks to AR about his latest project, Night in the Garden of Love, an immersive experience that uses virtual reality to bring visitors into a fantastical world. It's based on a science fiction novella of the same name by the late musician and polymath Yusef Lateef. Shezad talks about Lateef's unique view of the world, collaborating with an artist who he never met, and his own lifelong discomfort with choosing an artistic medium.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Marina Tabassum is a Bangladeshi architect whose work includes Bangladesh's underground Museum of Independence and the award-winning Bait Ur Rouf mosque. She talks about working with local materials, the rich landscape of Bangladesh's capital city, Dhaka, and how architects should embrace social responsibility, as with her $200 houses for displaced Bangladeshis.Marina Tabassum is the founder of Marina Tabassum Architects and the academic director of the Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes and Settlements.This episode originally aired in November, 2021.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kameelah Janan Rasheed is an artist whose work focuses on Black knowledge production, re-shaping history, and unlearning the things we think we know. Her projects, spanning photography, installations, text, sound, and more, have been shown around the globe and earned her a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship.She joins us to talk about resisting easy definitions, finding new ways to think about the marks that we leave on the world, and her lifelong engagement with emerging technologies.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ausma Malik was the first woman in a hijab to be elected to public office in Canada, and the first Muslim-identifying, hijab-wearing woman on Toronto city council. She was recently appointed Deputy Mayor of Toronto.She also happens to be the sister of This Being Human host Abdul-Rehman Malik. In this episode, A.R. asks Ausma the questions only a brother can ask. She talks about some of the pivotal moments that sent her down her current path, her reluctant entrance to politics, and how family and art shaped her values.The Museum wishes to thank The Hilary and Galen Weston Foundation for their generous support of This Being Human.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As Pakistan's first female architect, Yasmeen Lari left a major imprint on the country's visual identity, with modern buildings like the Finance and Trade Centre, the Taj Mahal Hotel in Karachi, and the Pakistan State Oil Head Office. But her career later took a turn from working for the powerful few, towards assisting the most vulnerable members of society. She now focuses on the intersection of architecture, environmental activism and social justice, working to build sustainable structures for displaced people and helping to set up self-sufficient economies. She calls her approach Barefoot Social Architecture. The Museum wishes to thank The Hilary and Galen Weston Foundation for their generous support of This Being Human.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There was a time in history when the entire world's coffee supply came from Yemen. But the industry went through a major decline, so that by 2013, when Yemeni-American Mokhtar Alkhanshali became obsessed with coffee, coffee from Yemen was hard to come across. Mokhtar spent three years in Yemen learning everything he could and started the company Port of Mokha to help revitalize the industry. These days, Yemeni coffee is coveted by connoisseurs, who pay top dollar for it. Mokhtar's life and journey was immortalized in the Dave Eggers book The Monk of Mokha. He talks to AR about this journey, which continues ten years on. The Museum wishes to thank The Hilary and Galen Weston Foundation for their generous support of This Being Human.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.