Ep 429: Eleanor & Janie Bennett | Questions I’ve Never Asked
ELEANOR BENNETT: Eleanor is an independent podcast producer and radio journalist. She was captivated by the medium while working the 6AM shift at her college radio station. From there, she moved to New York, where she covered issues of climate justice and women’s empowerment for SiriusXM Radio. She recently finished a project, interviewing hundreds of eclectic and colorful New Yorkers for an interactive audio-visual installation at the Brooklyn Museum by the photographer and street artist, JR. The exhibition, The Chronicles of New York City, is a giant mural of over one thousand New Yorkers that is accompanied by Eleanor’s audio recordings of each person’s story. Making these kinds of personal connections with a diversity of people and creating empathic spaces for them to tell their stories fuels her work. Eleanor is delighted to be back home in the Rocky Mountains producing Gen Z Tea, a new podcast – by teens for teens – from Aspen Public Radio. Each episode, local teens talk with Instagram influencers, social justice activists, mental health app creators, and even politicians on the campaign trail to get the “hottest tea” on how their generation is using social media to change the world. Her latest endeavor is Questions I’ve Never Asked, a mother-daughter podcast about the taboo conversations we rarely have with our parents, grandparents and elders. The story begins with her mother’s unorthodox childhood growing up on a vast cattle station alongside the Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal community in the remote Australian outback. As a young woman, Eleanor is determined to develop a new canon of work from the perspective of women from all walks of life. JANIE JOSELAND BENNET: With no exaggeration, Janie has lived a unique life. The daughter of an Australian film star and a rugged, pioneering cattleman, she was raised in Australia’s remote outback as the sister to three older brothers. Growing up, her primary playmates were the children of the Pitjantjatjara tribe, who lived on the vast-land with her family and whose ancient language she spoke fluently. She was destined for an unorthodox journey! Janie won an Australian equestrian championship (beating a field of men decades older), trained international polo ponies, and eventually traded in her little egg-yellow car to buy a round-the-world airline ticket. As a just-arrived 20 year-old in New York City, she landed a job with Fashion Week icon Fern Mallis. Later, in Aspen, she worked with acclaimed National Geographic photographers and launched Photographers Aspen, their international photo agency. Along the way, she was a contributing force behind the Oscar-winning film, Born Into Brothels, among other global photo projects. She has lived and raised her daughter here in Aspen alongside her husband, former Aspen mayor John Bennett. (And if you know Janie really, really well, she might give you a nip of her homemade gin or even someday take you mushrooming in the wild. ....But don't count on it!)
