0:13

Hello, beloved listeners. This

0:15

is Adrienne Marie Brown,

0:17

a luscious, black, queer,

0:19

witch, writer, auntie, an

0:22

apocalyptic, cosmic, optimist, and

0:24

a gardener of healing ideas.

0:26

I live in the land of the

0:28

Shakori, Skirure, Tuscarora,

0:31

and Lumbee peoples, also

0:33

known as Durham, North Carolina.

0:35

And this is How to Survive

0:37

the End of the World, our

0:39

podcast about learning from apocalypse with

0:42

grace, rigor, and curiosity.

0:45

You may have noticed that my sister Autumn's voice

0:47

has not come on here yet. That is because she's

0:49

having a home emergency. She

0:51

and all the people in it are fine, but

0:53

the house is kind of having things. And

0:55

so she's got to attend to it in an urgent way.

0:58

And I'm here, I'm having a pain flare

1:00

and I've been sick for a week,

1:03

but I am here and we're going to

1:05

talk about that a little bit, what

1:07

it means to keep showing up through changing

1:09

conditions. Our podcast, I

1:11

want to remind you, has no

1:13

ads. We've held that

1:15

this whole time. We are fully

1:17

listener supported. And you

1:20

can join our Patreon both to get

1:22

exclusive content and to support the work we

1:24

do in an ongoing way. It means a

1:26

lot to us that you care

1:28

enough to give a little something

1:30

back if it's doing something for

1:32

you. It really helps us to

1:34

know that. So that's my plug

1:37

for Patreon. And

1:39

I'm really excited about our guest

1:41

today, Celine Siman, who is

1:43

one of the founders of Slow Factory

1:45

and the author of a book

1:47

called A Woman is a School. Celine

1:49

is a Lebanese -American

1:52

researcher with some Canadian history that we're going

1:54

to get into, but a researcher, a

1:56

designer, public speaker, an

1:58

entrepreneur, and I am adding to

2:00

her bio that she is also

2:02

an incredible writer and storyteller. She is

2:04

the co -founder and executive director of

2:06

Slow Factory. which is

2:08

an institute and lab that transforms

2:10

socially and environmentally harmful systems

2:12

by designing models that are good

2:15

for the earth and good

2:17

for people. Welcome to

2:19

our show, Celine. Thank

2:23

you so much, Adrienne. I'm so excited

2:25

to be here. I'm really

2:27

grateful to be here with you. And

2:29

I was just

2:31

saying that I don't know

2:33

if it was an accident or just the universe

2:35

aligned, but yesterday when I, I had been getting

2:38

online very rarely lately and I got on and

2:40

the first thing I saw was a picture of

2:42

us hugging from the day that we got to

2:44

meet each other in person. So

2:46

I was like, okay, things are queued up and

2:48

I'm excited that we're going to get to connect again.

2:51

So we always just start off with

2:53

a, how are you? How are

2:55

you today right now? Oh, that's

2:57

such a loaded question these days, you

2:59

know. It is.

3:01

It's a part of me has

3:03

always been used to say,

3:05

I'm good, I'm good, I'm fine. I'm

3:09

sure everyone relates to just

3:11

putting away everything else. But

3:14

how I am, honestly, I

3:16

feel like I want to

3:18

say that I'm very, very

3:20

grateful that I am just

3:22

in a place where I

3:24

can feel this gratitude because

3:26

often I didn't. have enough bandwidth

3:28

to even feel this type

3:31

of gratitude in my heart. I

3:33

was constantly under the pressure

3:35

of immediate, you know, survival

3:37

or response. And I realized

3:39

in doing this work for so

3:41

long, in fact, decades, that

3:44

staying in that space

3:46

is practically impossible. And so

3:48

forcing myself to take moments of

3:50

joy and peace and to

3:53

really just focus on that when

3:55

I can without ignoring as much

3:57

as I can of course the

3:59

realities that I exist in but

4:01

to be able to say just

4:03

for now I'm going to focus

4:05

on this energy and just for

4:07

now I'm going to focus on this

4:09

gratitude so just for now I'm

4:11

feeling extremely grateful. I

4:14

hear the layers of

4:16

mindfulness and practice and rigor

4:18

in that answer, Celine.

4:20

Thank you. I

4:22

am, yeah, I'm doing

4:24

okay. I had this

4:27

past month, I've gotten to

4:29

spend various spring breaks with nibblings

4:31

in my life. So I got

4:33

to go with one of my besties

4:35

and her little one to visit

4:37

another bestie and just have a little

4:39

spring break time together. And

4:41

then I had my sister brought her

4:43

kids down for their spring break. And

4:45

one of them is at the age

4:47

of doing college visits now. And so

4:49

it was just this very sweet. What

4:52

is it? Nostalgic? It's just like very

4:54

tender feeling to be an auntie and

4:56

have the kids reach that precipice of

4:58

like, Oh God, you're going to go out into

5:00

the world on your own. And

5:02

it's all very tender. And

5:04

then I came home very excited

5:06

to like land home and

5:08

just get into my writing and

5:10

immediately got Very very sick

5:12

and then Coming out

5:14

of this today is the first day

5:17

that I'm not like so congested. I

5:19

can't really speak And I have a

5:21

massive pain flare happening which has been

5:23

happening more and more often and I'm

5:25

trying to figure them out but You

5:27

know, I read something about chronic pain

5:29

that was like when you live with

5:32

chronic pain you're used to just having

5:34

a level of pain that for

5:36

many people would be like, I can't go through with my

5:38

day, but you just get used to going through your

5:40

day that way. And I'm

5:42

interested in having the conversation with you

5:45

while I'm in this state, in

5:47

part because I feel like what it

5:49

is to be Lebanese, what it

5:51

is to be from the Levant, what

5:53

it is to be in this

5:55

world, in this moment with that

5:58

connection, that lineage, that

6:00

family is to be in a state

6:02

of chronic pain. of the

6:04

heart, chronic pain of the

6:06

family and to be expected

6:08

to still go through life

6:11

and be functional somehow. And

6:14

so I don't know, you know, I

6:16

don't know if it'll make sense to

6:18

anyone else, but I can see that

6:20

you're understanding what I mean with this.

6:23

And, you know, I think if

6:25

you're aware of the world

6:27

right now, then you're in a

6:29

chronic pain. if you're really

6:31

aware of it on multiple levels.

6:33

And actually the first, so

6:35

that's my how I am, which

6:37

also, I want to say

6:39

I'm also really excited to be able to speak

6:41

with you. You know, there's

6:43

all this mystery about how all these

6:45

things work, but I do feel like sometimes

6:47

we have to tell each other like, here's

6:49

what my culture says about you and here's what

6:51

your culture says about me. And when I

6:53

was. when I started reading

6:56

the Hakawati and this concept of

6:58

the storyteller, I felt so called

7:00

by it, like, oh, like, if

7:02

I knew my lineages all the way

7:04

back to the beginning, I'm sure they would

7:06

have some terminology for this. That

7:09

I do but I don't have that

7:11

right? I'm a displaced person. So

7:13

I go around like when I hear

7:15

these things I'm like, oh Wow,

7:17

it's so beautiful that there's a an

7:19

indigenous terminology for something like this

7:21

work of telling the story of the

7:23

world and telling the story of

7:26

our peoples so Before we jump into

7:28

the book and the projects and

7:30

everything else, I wanted to give you

7:32

a longer moment to speak about

7:34

your identities as a storyteller, as a

7:36

Lebanese woman, as someone who has

7:38

been in relationship with Canada, as

7:40

someone who is now an

7:42

American. What

7:45

do you want our listeners to

7:47

have a sense of that you walk

7:49

with, that you carry just by being in

7:51

the identities that you're in in this moment? Beautiful

7:55

introduction. Just hearing you gives me full

7:57

body goosebumps. I'm so honored to be

8:00

here and to be in conversation with

8:02

you. And you know, when you mentioned

8:04

about chronic pain, I, yes,

8:06

there is the emotional pain,

8:08

there is the spiritual pain, but

8:11

all of these often translate to

8:13

physical pain. And I do

8:16

also have chronic pain that comes

8:18

in on and off, on

8:20

and off in a constant way.

8:23

and sometimes I see it as

8:25

something holding me back to stop

8:27

and to sit down and to

8:29

relax and or not relax because

8:31

it's really foreign to me but

8:33

to like at least stop and

8:35

my dear friend Suleiman Khan who

8:37

is one of our fellow at

8:39

social love Suleiman. I love

8:41

Suleiman also. He often

8:43

texts me you know

8:46

you know all of the things that

8:48

I've learned about rest comes from

8:50

disability justice movements which have

8:52

so much wisdom to share about

8:54

this idea that chronic pain or not,

8:56

you know, we are pushing ourselves

8:58

too hard and we are going too

9:00

fast. We're going too fast. And

9:03

the world, if we were to

9:05

design it in a way that was

9:07

holding disabled communities at the heart

9:09

of our designs with love and compassion,

9:12

we would be designing a world that is created

9:14

for children, that is at the scale of our

9:16

children, that is in the

9:18

scale of slowness and this This

9:22

connection that is a bit more

9:24

intimate with with time, you know,

9:26

there's very little intimacy with time

9:28

that we have currently it's just

9:30

almost we don't want it because

9:32

that intimacy would mean that we

9:34

would have to unpack certain things

9:36

that hurt us spiritually and emotionally

9:38

and these things we have no

9:40

time for and When

9:43

I was growing up in Beirut, when

9:45

we returned, because I have a

9:47

past of being displaced, I'm currently displaced.

9:49

My family is displaced at the

9:51

moment. My parents, my immediate family. And

9:54

we've been on and off displaced. We've

9:56

lived a lot in our suitcases year

9:58

and there. And then we somewhere. We're

10:00

like, that's it. That's home. We're going to

10:02

make it home. And then something happens and

10:04

we go. But when I

10:06

was back in Beirut during

10:08

my teenage years, I had the

10:10

opportunity to learn from a

10:13

French artist that made Beirut her

10:15

home. And her name

10:17

was Poppy Arnold, and this is her

10:19

artist name. And also, I had learned

10:21

that you can have an artist's name, and

10:23

you can rename yourself. You can, you

10:25

know. be in that freedom of

10:27

reinventing your identity and yourself that

10:29

was very beautiful for me as a

10:31

teenager to be with her. She

10:33

noted, as someone who's French, who's lived

10:36

her whole life in France, that

10:38

living in Beirut, she

10:40

felt that, you know,

10:42

the consequences of the war

10:44

was that everything was, let's

10:47

go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go,

10:49

and in Arabic we say yalla, yalla, yalla,

10:51

yalla, yalla, and she thought, oh

10:53

my gosh, No one

10:55

has time anymore. And for

10:57

me, that was so strange coming

10:59

from her because it was in

11:01

Lebanon that I had the opportunity

11:04

to lounge, to understand lounging as

11:06

a cultural thing. If we do

11:08

a lot of lounging, we lounge,

11:10

okay? We hang out horizontally. Which

11:14

is great because we all have

11:16

back problems and chronic pain. And so

11:18

when we hang out as a

11:21

family, as a group, as a community,

11:24

We lounge we we It's it's

11:26

a culture of hangout and

11:28

chill and and just not there's

11:30

nothing to do you don't

11:32

have to do anything and that

11:35

to me was very cool

11:37

because I Didn't know this was

11:39

sort of a thing You know that

11:41

we were allowed to just be together

11:43

and not have a specific goal

11:45

for instance Going to see something a

11:47

museum or going to shop or

11:49

going to do a thing or another

11:51

was no we just hang out

11:53

you know and that was great yes

11:55

and so I understood though her

11:57

comments and her vision like just her

12:00

perception of us it was

12:02

true as well that this

12:04

trauma was still there in

12:06

terms of we feel like

12:08

we cannot linger too long in

12:10

a certain situation or another we

12:12

do go quick quick quick quick

12:14

let's do things quickly and that

12:16

sort of speed is a

12:19

way to disconnect us from these chronic

12:21

pains that we're feeling or these emotional

12:23

pains that we have. And I feel

12:25

I carry that so much within me.

12:27

Like so many people tell me you

12:29

started slow factory, but there's nothing slow

12:31

in you or in anything that you

12:33

do. And it's

12:35

so true because I

12:37

struggle with that stillness. Yeah,

12:41

that makes sense. Like all the, I mean,

12:43

yeah, if you're in an identity that's like,

12:45

I have to be on the run. it's

12:47

not my nature but like I've learned you

12:49

know it's like the nature of my people

12:51

is to be lounging and relaxing and caring

12:54

for each other feeding each other you know

12:56

like there's so many ways that we're meant

12:58

to be with each other but yeah

13:00

I've been thinking about the tyranny

13:02

of the overworker

13:05

and the entrepreneur, the

13:07

capitalist, the emperor, those who

13:09

are like we want to be

13:11

doing or producing or making others

13:13

do or produce at all times

13:15

and how it has shaped an

13:18

entire world that is in a

13:20

constant state of urgency and crisis

13:22

that is constantly being created and

13:24

how I really wish for an era

13:26

where the loungers and the lazy people

13:28

and like those who are just

13:30

like Can we sit by a stream?

13:33

You know, those who are like, I

13:35

want to read all afternoon. I

13:37

need siestas and fiestas and late nights

13:39

and sunrises and, you know, just

13:41

like a totally different relationship to time.

13:44

You know, that might be only

13:46

possible after some level of apocalypse

13:48

of what we think now is

13:50

the world, you know, but I

13:52

do think, you know, that's such

13:54

a longing I have is for

13:56

some time for. those

13:58

of us who are in chronic pain to be

14:00

able to set the pace of the world.

14:03

I think it would change so much. I

14:06

think if you'd be healing from a

14:08

world with this healing, I always

14:10

talk about that, like if we can

14:13

just shut the electricity off these

14:15

big cities just for a night, you

14:17

know, although it would create a

14:19

lot of danger for women on the

14:21

street. We have other issues to

14:23

look for when we do that, but

14:25

to just, you know, slow

14:27

down. We have to design

14:29

that kind of slowness. Yeah,

14:33

so maybe I was going to start

14:35

with the book, but maybe let's start

14:37

with Slow Factory just for a moment

14:39

because it's right there for us and

14:41

it came first. I first came

14:43

across your work as Slow Factory

14:45

and I was immediately fascinated by

14:48

it. I was like, what is

14:50

this Slow Factory? And it

14:52

feels so deeply aligned. Can

14:54

you talk about What your

14:56

intention was with co -creating slow

14:58

factory like what it was

15:00

you and your co -founders were

15:02

trying to bring into the world

15:04

and I'm particularly curious about

15:06

the online and offline balance of

15:08

what what you're up to Absolutely.

15:11

So Slow Factory, the

15:13

name came to me in

15:15

2008. I

15:18

was working for my

15:20

co -founder, who's my life

15:22

partner. He was my boss. We talk

15:24

about him. Wow. We

15:27

got the whole

15:29

package, babe. He's my

15:31

boss. He's my partner. I was a bit of a

15:33

Yoko Ono. I broke the band anyway. Listen,

15:37

everybody's got a Yoko sometimes. Literally.

15:40

we were working on a project

15:43

and it was the year after

15:45

the iPhone came to the world and

15:47

everyone wanted things fast and

15:49

Fast Company was really rising at

15:51

the time talking about technology.

15:53

I come from a, I studied

15:55

art but I became a designer

15:57

and I became a systems

15:59

designer working in the web,

16:01

working early on in the

16:04

web in access to

16:06

digital literacy, working on systems

16:08

so very strange you

16:10

know, sort of career if you will,

16:13

but very much a child of the

16:15

internet. in the

16:17

early 2000 I was 18

16:19

and was really drawn into this

16:21

new medium that allowed me

16:23

to connect with people and I

16:25

remember like just being in

16:27

Lebanon and hearing the sound of

16:29

the internet connecting you to

16:31

that kind of thing and then

16:33

you're connected to the world

16:35

and I was very depressed in

16:37

Lebanon and that connection to

16:39

the world and that connection to

16:41

knowledge really really saved me

16:43

to be able to read you

16:45

know all sorts of things

16:47

online to research and read and

16:50

to learn pulled me out

16:52

of of this really dreadful feeling

16:54

that I felt I was

16:56

lost because of just everything you

16:58

know it was really deep

17:00

what I was feeling back then

17:02

as a teenager and feeling

17:04

you know the pain of of

17:06

my people and also my

17:08

own personal pain in a way

17:10

of it all. So

17:12

this internet thing was a lifeline

17:15

and I pulled on it and

17:17

it took me places and I

17:19

learned from other people how to

17:21

design, how to work with code

17:23

and code and my world got

17:25

me into bridging art, net art,

17:28

digital art, physical art, creating spaces.

17:30

I'm an artist by at

17:32

the heart of it and creating

17:34

interactive spaces, working with sensors, connecting

17:37

them to the internet, like being

17:39

a tinkerer of a sort, all

17:41

at the same time as looking

17:43

for what identity meant to me. What

17:46

was it? Who am

17:48

I? You know who am I? I

17:50

didn't feel Lebanese because in Lebanon

17:52

I was told I'm not Lebanese

17:54

anymore or I didn't feel Canadian

17:56

but over there also I was

17:59

definitely not a Canadian talking a

18:01

lot about this lost identity. And

18:04

fast forward

18:06

to 2008, working

18:08

on a project and everyone

18:10

was like fast something. click fast

18:12

or whatever is it we

18:14

were brainstorming on the name for

18:16

someone else and i thought

18:18

slow factory how about slow factory

18:20

of course everyone is excellent

18:22

that's absolutely not what we're looking

18:24

for by slow factory and

18:26

i you know the slow factory

18:28

dot com was available so

18:30

you know we bought it. And

18:34

from 2008 to 2012, I was

18:36

fascinated with the name. I was

18:38

like, what is this that I

18:40

thought of? What could

18:42

it be? What could it

18:44

be? What kind of space

18:46

does that open for me?

18:48

And in 2011, 2012, I

18:50

went back to live in

18:52

Lebanon. I had given birth to

18:54

my first child. And in Canada,

18:56

they give you... parent to leave, we

18:58

believe it or not. So we were

19:00

able We

19:04

left Canada and we went

19:06

to Lebanon and when I was

19:08

there I was obsessed with

19:10

the slow factory. This came back

19:12

to me all the time.

19:14

I had a very tiny notebook

19:17

and in it I started

19:19

writing things that I did because

19:21

I have also a very

19:23

eclectic career. I studied, you know,

19:25

digital art, I studied the

19:28

interaction art, cyber art was

19:30

actually the name of the program, and

19:32

you know, robotics, sensors, all of

19:34

these things that were so strange has

19:36

nothing to do with this humanity

19:38

that I was so deeply involved in.

19:41

And so I started putting things that

19:43

I knew, that I that interested

19:46

me, the things that were in my

19:48

focus, climate, human rights, injustices, like

19:50

all of these things that I couldn't

19:52

get I couldn't just pretend

19:54

they didn't exist. At

19:56

the time, there was no community

19:58

that well developed, if you will,

20:00

or that I knew of that

20:02

could welcome me that said, hey,

20:04

me too, I'm feeling too much.

20:06

Join me. I

20:09

thought, you know, okay, I want

20:11

to do all of these things and

20:13

I'm going to do them under

20:16

Slow Factory and maybe we can launch

20:18

a first project and it will

20:20

be an experiment. So I didn't have

20:22

that much clarity when I first

20:24

started and at the time my partner

20:26

Colin was still working deeply in

20:28

tech and in music and he sort

20:31

of helped me you know,

20:33

code it. He coded what I wanted

20:35

to do on the Internet. I designed

20:37

it and he coded it as a

20:39

support. And he was like, okay, great,

20:41

you do that. And the first project

20:43

in the slow factory was to print

20:46

NASA images of the Earth and the

20:48

universe to get people to feel this

20:50

data. Because I was working in data,

20:52

I was working in tech, and I

20:54

wanted people to really feel this data.

20:56

How can I, the premise of this

20:58

first project, how can I make people

21:01

feel connected to this earth, to this,

21:03

you know, this data, this

21:05

universe that we are all part of. It

21:07

was, you know, I was still

21:09

in my 20s, and that's, and

21:11

I launched it. And people just

21:13

participated in it. They felt

21:15

like, I want a piece of

21:17

that. I want a piece

21:19

of that. And so this created

21:21

a first funding mechanism for

21:23

more ideas to come to life

21:25

and with the second collection

21:28

because they were collections the second

21:30

one was images of Palestine

21:32

as seen from space by an

21:34

astronaut that was roaming around

21:36

the earth because you know we

21:38

have a lot of astronauts

21:40

that are orbiting currently and taking

21:42

pictures and monitoring and of

21:44

course there's satellite images that are

21:46

doing that but satellites that

21:48

are taking pictures but at the

21:50

time this astronaut was in

21:52

the international space station and he

21:54

took a picture of Gaza

21:56

and from space Israel at the

21:58

time had cut off electricity

22:00

and all you could see from

22:02

space were the explosions and

22:04

he. tweeted that picture in high

22:06

definition and said, this is

22:09

the saddest picture I've ever taken

22:11

from space. Because usually astronauts,

22:13

when they're orbiting in the international

22:15

space station, they're on a

22:17

high. They're on something called the

22:19

overview effect, which is basically

22:21

a spiritual awakening of seeing the

22:23

Earth floating in that vast,

22:25

vast, you know. immense unknown that

22:27

is the universe right there's

22:29

only life here and as far

22:31

as our eyes could see

22:33

there's nothing else that that exists

22:35

and there's tears you know

22:37

there's an emotional. an

22:40

emotional catalyst that happens for astronauts.

22:42

They talk a lot about it

22:44

when they come back, which is

22:46

called the overview effect. So usually

22:48

in space, they're high. They're like,

22:50

wow, this is incredible. So for

22:52

him to say, this is the

22:54

saddest picture I've ever taken from

22:56

space to me that struck me.

22:59

And I immediately printed it and

23:01

downloaded it and printed it

23:03

and created this collection. And with

23:05

this collection, I called it

23:07

the the dignity collection and at

23:09

the time I was working

23:11

with refugee camps in Lebanon and

23:14

I thought we're going to

23:16

fundraise for this refugee camp and

23:18

we're going to create this

23:20

first connection that is between these

23:22

images and immediate offline work

23:24

that we were doing. I

23:27

was very scared of doing so

23:29

publicly because I was always working

23:32

in a way where this work

23:34

was not that public, if you

23:36

will, but this one was, this

23:38

collection made it so public that

23:40

we are talking about Palestine. This

23:42

was in 2014, this

23:45

first collection. And

23:47

honestly, I was surprised to

23:49

see that it was well received.

23:51

I had a couple of

23:54

comments that were negative, but that

23:56

we're from people being like

23:58

you don't understand anything, you

24:00

don't know it's complicated, you

24:03

know, we appreciated the

24:05

first collection but this one

24:07

is too political and

24:09

welcome to my life where

24:12

everything is so political

24:14

and that, you know,

24:16

I decided not to be

24:18

ashamed from it, like to

24:20

really empower myself to use

24:22

it. Yes, beautiful. I

24:25

love this and I love,

24:28

I also love the emergent nature of

24:30

how it came to be, right?

24:32

That it's like noticing the pattern of

24:34

your own passions and interests, feeling

24:37

the knocking at the door of this

24:39

slow factory project and it won't

24:41

go away. I know that feeling too,

24:43

you know? For me, when emergent

24:45

strategy showed up, it was like, it

24:48

just was suddenly all that I could think about. It

24:50

was everywhere and I was like, oh, it all fits into

24:52

this umbrella, you know? and

24:54

then one project and then one project.

24:56

And I want to ask you, this

24:58

is not on my list of questions,

25:00

but it's what's emerging. So I'm just

25:03

going to follow it, which is, you

25:05

know, I work very closely with my

25:07

sister, who I adore, and I work

25:09

with several people that I love. And

25:11

there's an art to working closely with

25:13

your beloveds. And I wonder if there's

25:15

just any wisdom that you've gotten from

25:17

the slow factory experience of working with

25:20

your life partner slash beloved, you know,

25:22

that feels like Mm -hmm. Yeah, is there any

25:24

wisdom that you're like this is some you

25:26

know because I think more and more of

25:28

us are My sense of the future

25:30

that's unfolding is it's going to be one where we

25:32

need to be able to do more and more with

25:35

those we love, more and more

25:37

of the making of our life

25:39

and the making, you know, less separation,

25:41

less going away to work and

25:43

coming back to home, but more like

25:45

home and family and community begin

25:47

to become the place where all of

25:49

our life happens. And anyway, so

25:51

you're living that in some way now.

25:53

And I wonder, yeah, if

25:55

you have wisdom there. I feel

25:57

like, you know, for me, it

25:59

was seen as a weakness

26:01

because people judged us to say

26:03

there's no separation and, you

26:05

know, you guys are going to

26:07

break up and, you know,

26:09

all sorts of things that were

26:11

seen as negative that what

26:14

we were doing was, you know,

26:16

not healthy and not professional and all of

26:18

these things. So we joke a lot

26:21

at slow factory because we became a family.

26:23

really of collaborators together

26:25

and we often

26:27

joke when something is

26:29

inappropriate. We

26:31

all say, we're going to call

26:34

HR, but we have no HR. Literally,

26:37

we are HR. But

26:41

to start with Colin, my partner

26:43

who's a musician and an engineer, at

26:46

first it was mostly me. Colin

26:49

has always been such an incredible

26:51

collaborator in helping other people. He

26:53

works on, he's a producer in

26:55

music, so he's always like the

26:57

sort of an invisible secret sauce

26:59

that just makes it happen, you

27:01

know? And I've always begged

27:03

Colin, please Colin, work with me,

27:06

drop everything and work with me. And

27:08

he would say, Céline, your project makes

27:10

no sense and it's not sustainable financially. You're

27:14

basically doing art, you know?

27:17

like emergent strategy for me when I

27:19

read it was such an eye -opener

27:21

because I was like, wow, that's

27:23

also what we are trying to do,

27:26

but we didn't, we look,

27:28

the approach is a bit

27:30

more empirical. Do you

27:32

know what I mean? Like for

27:34

me, it's coming from a

27:36

place of creativity and exploration and

27:38

imagination and experiments, really gentle

27:40

experiments, like the first collection and

27:43

see just testing how people

27:45

react even eventually in 2020 when

27:47

our work became known digitally

27:49

and to take that bridge to

27:51

working digitally it was experiments

27:53

to see how far can the

27:55

public respond to this you

27:57

know is this too much is

27:59

this good and now where

28:01

are we where are we now

28:03

that we are able to

28:05

discuss things in this in

28:07

this way of being blunt about it

28:09

let's just be blunt about certain

28:12

things you know stuff like that but

28:14

to go back to working with

28:16

your lover your family i think that

28:18

there is an important. Culture

28:21

that needs to be developed

28:23

let's say to be able to

28:25

embrace the messiness of working

28:27

with your loved ones because. To

28:30

me, I feel like I'm much

28:32

more me. And so there's

28:34

no, I'm going to be a

28:36

professional, I'm going to be Celine, you

28:38

know. So at Slow Factory, what's

28:40

why it works with certain people and

28:42

why it doesn't work with other

28:44

people is that for people that really

28:46

resonate with this type of culture,

28:49

they are looking for a place to

28:51

be in their totality, to show

28:53

up as they are. Let's say you

28:55

have a chronic pain, you're tired. you

28:58

can either take the time off, just

29:00

don't come, but most of the time people

29:02

just want to be connected with us

29:04

and with what we're doing. So you work

29:06

from bed, you work laying down, maybe

29:08

you don't work actually, you just listen. You

29:10

are able to show

29:12

up as you are, you

29:14

know, for others used

29:17

to the professionalism and the

29:19

productivity and the hierarchy

29:21

of being, it's impossible for

29:23

them to even imagine

29:25

working in a place where

29:27

It's so fluid, you know? It's

29:30

not for everyone. I love what you're

29:32

saying where it's like, you can't hide.

29:34

I think that's one of the reasons

29:36

why in every part of my work,

29:38

I love having people who are actually

29:40

truly close to me around. I just

29:42

did a hiring process and two people

29:44

who are like closest to me in

29:46

the world were the hiring committee, you

29:48

know, part of the hiring committee, because

29:50

I was like, I need y

29:52

'all, you know what I actually need.

29:54

You know, like I, we can write

29:56

a job description, but you know, the

29:58

secret sauce in between it all that

30:01

I actually need. And they, they found

30:03

me someone, you know, incredible. Um,

30:05

and, but I do think there's something

30:07

about that that I'm like, Oh, so

30:10

much of the world is asking

30:12

us to mask and to perform and

30:14

to, and in that performance to

30:16

override a lot of our natural instincts

30:18

or intuitions. And I'm so much

30:21

more interested in working with people who

30:23

are like, I'm, I'm interested

30:25

in how you actually are. I need to

30:27

know your real boundaries. I can tell

30:29

that you're out past them, you know, and,

30:31

and then give each other permission, you

30:33

know, like today with my sister where I'm

30:35

like, you are overwhelmed and I can

30:37

have a great conversation with Celine and it's

30:40

fine. And some other time she'll do

30:42

the same thing for me or she's like,

30:44

girl, you need to go sit down.

30:46

You know, so I really appreciate that wisdom

30:48

and that, and the piece around the

30:50

messiness, you know, I think this is also

30:52

like, I love

30:54

that you just said it that way

30:56

because so much of pleasure activism for

30:58

me, so much of emergent strategy is

31:00

like, humans are messy. and fluid and

31:03

ever -changing and that impermanence is actually

31:05

where the beauty and the magic happens

31:07

and we're always trying to make these

31:09

rigid structures of control and let you

31:11

know even that you said HR you

31:13

know we try to be like if

31:15

I make enough rules then people will

31:17

treat each other well and then we're

31:19

surprised because people continuously don't treat each

31:22

other well and and it's like you

31:24

need more and more rules more and

31:26

more policing and more and more external control

31:29

factors instead of embracing the messiness

31:31

and being like internally how do

31:33

we clear the channel between us

31:35

and get back to good and

31:37

internally Can we feel for whether

31:40

this works or doesn't work? You

31:42

know on the messiness I have

31:44

so much to add about messiness

31:46

because yes The messiness is where

31:48

the creativity exists right like where

31:50

we can imagine and try and

31:53

you know for instance in a

31:55

lab because we ran labs and

31:57

we, I worked a lot in

31:59

very like traditional lab spaces. There

32:02

is a place for messiness because without

32:04

putting your hands and trying things and

32:06

making a mess, you

32:08

can never discover. You

32:10

can't, you cannot discover. We

32:13

would not have been able to

32:15

progress and evolve as a

32:17

species if we didn't have these

32:19

messy spaces, this messiness. But

32:21

Saddim, Messiness is seen

32:23

as such a negative

32:25

thing, especially in the

32:27

politically correct culture, or

32:30

let's say the professional

32:32

culture, the professionalism. For

32:34

me, I always talk about

32:36

professionalism as just another arm

32:38

of colonialism. I was

32:40

just saying, I was like, it's colonialism. Yes,

32:43

it's just how you should be. What is

32:45

professional? What kind of hair

32:47

is professional? We all know that's ridiculous. The

32:50

clothing, what is professional attire when

32:52

they say business casual or whatever in

32:54

their invitations. I'm like, what do

32:57

you want me to wear? A jacket?

32:59

You know, like a, you know,

33:01

blazer? You

33:03

know what I mean? It's just

33:05

like these notes that continues

33:07

to erase these messiness that exists.

33:10

for a reason and so the

33:12

main critical thing that has

33:14

become against this space that we

33:17

created was that it's messy,

33:19

it's messy. Now it's not messy

33:21

physically as much as I

33:23

try but it's messy in the

33:25

relationships because when we have

33:27

a job description we also ask

33:30

the person what do you

33:32

love to do. What do you

33:34

love to do? So for

33:36

instance, one of my peers at

33:38

Slow Factory, a part of

33:40

the leadership collective is Paloma. Paloma.

33:42

Oh, you met Paloma at

33:45

the Baltimore. Yes, you

33:47

met Paloma and Nicole who are on the leadership. And

33:50

Paloma, when she came in,

33:52

I said, I need someone to help

33:54

me with community, someone who can read

33:56

the community, understand who's a people person

33:59

like me, who can understand what is

34:01

being said and how can we pull

34:03

patterns from so that we can rectify

34:05

or that we can respond and stuff

34:07

like that. She's absolutely, first of

34:09

all, she's an artist, just like me. Then

34:11

she said, I like to draw. I'm

34:13

like, show me what you do. And in

34:15

fact, I had met her through her drawings

34:17

online. I'm like, you know what? What do

34:19

you want to do? She said, anything you

34:21

want. And I was like, no, what do

34:23

you want to do? And she said, I

34:25

want to draw. I want to act. I

34:28

want to be on stage. I want to

34:30

sing. I want. And she

34:32

did all of these things at Slow Factory,

34:34

all of these things. And more, whatever

34:36

you want to do, I think you should

34:38

try to do because you have a

34:40

voice that is telling you to do this.

34:42

So that's just an example. So for

34:44

instance, Colin is a musician and an engineer.

34:48

Nicole came in as a

34:50

production just to do as

34:52

a producer production and one

34:54

day she said you know

34:56

my dream is to write

34:58

I said okay let's write

35:00

you write write stuff and

35:02

now Nicole is writing editing

35:04

she was published in magazines

35:06

and because of this. You

35:08

know permission you talk a lot

35:11

about permission actually whenever I listen

35:13

to you I the first time

35:15

I heard you speak in a

35:17

podcast you talked about permission and

35:19

That just opened up something for

35:21

me that was like yes This

35:23

is what we are in the

35:25

process of creating these frameworks for

35:27

permission, right? Yes, like I you

35:29

know, I I keep thinking that

35:32

When I was younger You

35:34

know, I was born into a

35:36

family, a military family. We were born

35:38

in a military family. And there

35:40

was so much about order and protocol

35:42

and rules. And so I

35:45

felt like, you know, I can

35:47

point in my life to the different.

35:50

Leaders guides mentors mostly women who gave

35:52

me permission to wild myself rewild myself

35:54

and kind of just be like it

35:56

doesn't have to be that way You

35:58

know, I remember the first time people

36:00

telling me it's all made up like

36:02

it's a story that we're all co -creating

36:05

and you can either choose to add

36:07

to the existing story or you might

36:09

want to break off and and tell

36:11

a different story or go back and

36:13

find a pre -existing story or

36:15

something like that but it was like

36:17

permission and as I get older I keep

36:19

thinking more and more like that's my

36:21

only job is to just give more and

36:23

more people permission to be themselves and

36:25

that the more people who feel they have

36:27

that permission, the revolution takes

36:29

care of itself. The changes take care

36:32

of themselves because once it opens up

36:34

in each person, each person becomes ungovernable

36:36

and each person becomes a co -creator

36:38

of something else. And that interests me,

36:40

right? It's like, I'm just gonna give

36:42

you, I'm just gonna tell you as

36:44

early as I can in your life

36:46

that you have permission to be you

36:48

and to tell your story, which perhaps

36:50

now brings us to this incredible

36:52

book that you have written. And

36:55

you know, I was interested in

36:57

the fact that in your bio, there

36:59

was nothing about being a writer

37:01

or an author and that the way

37:03

you speak about yourself as a

37:05

researcher, as someone who's looking at the

37:08

data as an artist. And so,

37:10

yeah, there's so many questions I want

37:12

to ask you about this. I

37:14

didn't feel I had permission because I

37:16

had the permission to claim any

37:19

of these things you know even

37:21

an artist it took me so long

37:23

to say or a designer because

37:25

I was like rejected from design school

37:27

and now the work that we

37:29

do at Slow Factory has informed design

37:31

in such an incredible way I'm

37:34

invited to teach design I just feel

37:36

like because of the nature of

37:38

the experimentation and the sort of empirical

37:40

approach to these things I'm an

37:42

amateur you know in my head we

37:44

think of ourselves that way right

37:46

this is the imposter syndrome it's also

37:49

the out outsized gift of colonialism

37:51

right is that so many of us

37:53

who are like oh there's you

37:55

know if you were born into an

37:57

identity of privilege people would call

37:59

you a polymath or something and just

38:01

be like oh like you're clearly

38:04

brilliant at all these different things and

38:06

you're trying and experimenting with them

38:08

but you're an innovator so you're working

38:10

at the edges of what exists

38:12

and you're experimenting into the new territory

38:14

and but if you're not born

38:16

into one of those privileged identities then

38:19

it's you're all the time like am I

38:21

making this up can I just do

38:23

this and you know I always think about

38:25

the fact that Toni Morrison I think

38:27

had published four or five books before she

38:29

felt comfortable calling herself a writer and

38:31

I think that that I know I heard

38:33

that in the case that I've had

38:35

many books published and still some days I

38:37

wake up and I'm like is this

38:39

enough like is it enough to to make

38:41

this be my offer and when I

38:43

started reading about the Haka Wati which is

38:45

the the this storyteller

38:48

of the Levant. And I'm going to ask you

38:50

to tell us about this. But when I read

38:52

that, I was like, ah, like, imagine if you

38:54

were born into a culture where the gift that

38:56

you had was one that had a name and

38:58

had respect around

39:00

it, you know, even controversy, but

39:02

controversy creates a different kind

39:04

of respect. But I

39:06

was like, yes, like, there's so many people

39:08

who are storytellers and actually the role

39:10

of the storyteller is so important in the

39:12

continuation of a people and a culture.

39:15

So I want to ask you to tell

39:17

us about what it means to live

39:19

the life of the Hakawati and how you

39:21

knew you needed to make a book

39:23

about it. When I was

39:25

writing this book, my dear, dear

39:27

friend, my bestie, Maya Mumne, who

39:29

designed the book entirely. I drew

39:31

this, but she designed the book, and

39:33

she is one of our designers at Slow Factory. We

39:36

work closely together. She's

39:38

Lebanese, she's queer, she runs

39:40

the magazine Al Hayya

39:42

magazine, which is an incredible

39:44

Arab feminist queer magazine.

39:46

She also runs Safar magazine,

39:48

also another major. magazine

39:51

in the Arab world. No, she's phenomenal.

39:53

Maya Mumne, my dear, dear, dear friend.

39:55

She was sleeping over and I was talking about the

39:57

book and she said, you know, Celine, you're

39:59

a Hakkawati. And I

40:02

said, what the hell is that? And she said,

40:04

you don't know? And I was like, no. She

40:06

said, you are a Hakkawati. You are a

40:08

storyteller. And I said, what?

40:10

She said, yes, there is a

40:12

lineage of Hakkawatis. And so

40:14

immediately I asked my mom because you

40:17

know my arabic is good but

40:19

it's not that good because i

40:21

was in out in out so

40:23

i asked my mom and i

40:26

said mom you know haqawati and

40:28

she's like yes i said am

40:30

i a haqawati she's like you

40:32

you you you talk a lot

40:34

and i was like and she

40:36

said your whole life there is

40:39

two words there is haqawati which

40:41

is Honorable and Haku wajie

40:43

which is like bla bla bla bla bla bla bla

40:45

bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla

40:47

bla bla bla bla bla

41:04

a research and excavation it was

41:06

almost an archaeological project if you

41:08

will to write a woman is

41:10

a school because this knowledge is

41:12

discredited as Toni Morrison says it's

41:14

she also gave me permission to

41:17

Octavia Butler Toni Morrison June Jordan

41:19

I always name them because they

41:21

are my. My aunties also, if

41:23

you will, because they gave me

41:25

the permission, the words in English,

41:27

because this book was written in

41:29

my third language, to write this

41:32

experience from sort of the lineage

41:34

of black liberation struggles, to be

41:36

able to have these words. You

41:38

also gave me permission and words

41:40

that I didn't know the word.

41:42

I just didn't know that word,

41:45

you know. And in Lebanon,

41:48

a lot of our knowledge is erased.

41:50

It's, you know, we are. postcolonial,

41:52

we're still under colonialism, we're

41:54

still under the boot of military

41:56

expansion. Even until today, we

41:58

are under the bombs of the

42:00

Israeli occupation. We

42:03

are still colonized. So

42:05

imagine what happens to communities

42:07

and countries that are under

42:09

colonization. The first thing

42:11

that is being bombed, as Bisan

42:13

said, Bisan, you know, Bisan Aweda,

42:15

who is one of the journalists

42:17

in Raza, she says, the first

42:19

thing that they bomb are schools,

42:21

universities, libraries, art centers, even in

42:24

Lebanon. You know, when they first started

42:26

the Nakba, Palestinian people

42:28

fled to Lebanon and

42:30

created an archive. In

42:32

1982 and in 2006,

42:34

the Israeli occupation bombed this

42:36

archive or tried to

42:38

locate where these archives are,

42:41

whether they're Palestinian, Lebanese

42:43

or Syrian. Because

42:45

before colonization, we were

42:47

one people because we are

42:49

the same genetic makeup from Palestinian

42:51

to Lebanese to Syrian,

42:53

we have the same genetic makeup.

42:56

We are the same people. We

42:58

speak the same dialect. and

43:00

the same language we have between

43:02

all of us over 14 different religions.

43:04

This is not about a thing

43:06

of a religion, you know. And so

43:08

in our culture, there's a lot

43:10

of erasure. And the thing that I

43:13

felt I was lucky and grateful,

43:15

grateful, grateful was to live in Lebanon,

43:17

to live there, to go to

43:19

school there, to hear from my elders.

43:21

That was very important for me.

43:23

That's how I was able to articulate

43:25

this book. And even as I

43:27

was pitching to write this book, the

43:29

editors were thinking, is it gonna

43:32

be a self -help book because you

43:34

survived a war, you're a war survivor?

43:36

And I thought, this

43:38

is not a self -help book

43:40

because it's not about the

43:42

three, four recipes to make

43:44

your professional life or to

43:46

understand blah, blah, blah. It's

43:48

an exploration, the

43:50

role of the haqqawati, okay? The

43:52

definition is that the haqqawati,

43:55

traditionally, the storyteller in all cultures

43:57

existed. Because what we can

43:59

uncover from one culture, it mirrors

44:01

in all the other indigenous

44:03

cultures. So you can take that

44:05

word and use it for

44:07

you because it is, it's just

44:09

human connection to the land

44:11

and to other people. The

44:13

Hakkawati was the wise of

44:15

the village. you would go

44:18

to the haqawati and tell the

44:20

haqawati your problem and then he

44:22

would tell you a story that

44:24

has nothing to do with your

44:26

problem at all, does not even

44:29

touch on the topic and somehow

44:31

you would pull from that story

44:33

wisdom that you could apply to

44:35

your problem in a sense where

44:37

this book has nothing that it

44:39

can give you immediate self -help

44:42

but it could give you nuggets

44:44

of wisdom you know exactly Exactly.

44:46

That really resonates with me and

44:48

it feels like, um, as

44:50

a way of teaching, you know,

44:52

it really resonates with me. And then

44:55

I really, I love knowing that

44:57

you didn't understand this about yourself and

44:59

the book unveiled it to you,

45:01

right? That in the process of writing

45:03

the book, you had to learn

45:05

it. You call the book both memoir

45:07

and cultural anthropological book, which I

45:09

don't think I've, I've quite heard that.

45:11

Can you explain? the

45:13

cultural anthropological part and what else

45:15

you learned in the writing

45:17

of the book. And you

45:19

can see, you can get specific if there's like

45:21

two, if there's a story or two that

45:23

you're like, this is a story I didn't know

45:26

before writing, you know, but yeah, tell us

45:28

what you, what, what you uncovered. So

45:30

all of this was oral tradition. So

45:32

that's where the anthropological study comes through because

45:34

I never thought I was going to

45:36

write this book to be honest with you.

45:39

Of course, when I was a teen

45:41

and I imagined my life, I would

45:43

be like an author and, you know,

45:45

I would be an artist or something

45:47

like that. But I never thought I

45:49

would be able to write something, especially

45:51

not in English. And then eventually, as

45:54

I was, I was able to

45:56

write this book from oral traditions.

45:59

Everything I have listened during

46:01

the coffee ceremonies in Lebanon

46:03

or during the, as I

46:05

said, we do a lot of our

46:07

living rooms are designed in a

46:10

circle like this and we sit

46:12

in front of each other and

46:14

even we sit and we do

46:16

nothing we just sit and hang

46:18

out and stare and then we

46:20

talk then we start talking and

46:23

then someone starts talking and the

46:25

other person starts talking when I

46:27

was young these moments were I

46:29

was a sponge I was just

46:31

absorbing absorbing listening listening listening to

46:33

everything later I went to the

46:36

West. When I was 18,

46:38

I went to the West. I

46:40

felt like I had always, I

46:42

was always asked to explain myself, to

46:44

translate the world that I was

46:47

coming from, to learn new languages, to

46:49

learn new words, to be able

46:51

to express myself and then I go

46:53

back to Lebanon and again I'm

46:55

listening and I'm listening and I'm listening

46:57

and I'm really absorbing and I'm

46:59

trying to reconnect with myself as much

47:02

as possible. The first

47:04

book that I was writing was called

47:06

a revolution is a school and

47:08

it was a more of a pedagogical

47:10

book about my work at slow

47:12

factory to talk about the a bit

47:14

like emergent strategy you articulated the

47:16

theories behind what you want to do.

47:18

For me it was like after

47:20

eight years or 10 years of work

47:22

at the time was after a

47:25

decade of work I looked back and

47:27

I thought it's time for me

47:29

to to make sense of this. I

47:31

want to make sense of this.

47:33

I want to write about what I'm

47:35

trying to create. And so the

47:37

first book was called A Revolution is

47:39

a School. But the word revolution

47:41

really blocked me all the time because

47:43

a war is considered a revolution. Revolutions

47:46

are not necessarily good. You know,

47:48

there were lots of revolutions that were

47:50

created to oppress nations, to silence

47:53

them, to disconnect people back from their

47:55

culture and so on and so

47:57

forth. Look at the industrial

48:00

revolution, for example. It

48:02

is a revolution, but it is one

48:04

that we count as a very negative

48:06

revolution in the context of climate, for

48:08

instance, or our dependence over fossil fuel.

48:11

So anyway, the word, I'm glad you're saying

48:13

this. I always trouble this because I'm always

48:15

like, when people say I'm a revolutionary or

48:18

something, I'm like, well, let's be precise. Like,

48:20

I'm like, Revolutionary for something,

48:22

for what? For the earth, for people's

48:24

rights, for pleasure, for these things. I'm

48:27

always like, we need to be

48:29

very clear about what we mean because

48:31

a lot of these terms are

48:33

actually neutral and we don't realize that.

48:35

Yeah, I'm really grateful you said

48:37

that. And so then the revolution as

48:39

a school was more of a, you

48:42

know, anthology of the work

48:44

and, you know, a philosophical and

48:47

theoretical understanding sort of trying

48:49

to pragmatize my approach.

48:52

And I felt a lot of,

48:54

you know, it wasn't flowing. And

48:56

I felt the need to talk

48:58

about the woman, the person, the

49:00

human, the observer, the outsider, the

49:03

misfit, the artist, the creator, behind

49:05

this notion of the slow factory,

49:07

behind, I needed to talk

49:09

about my lived experience. But every

49:11

time that I would bring it

49:13

up in an intellectual context, it

49:15

was looked down upon. It was

49:18

discredited in a way because what

49:20

I talk about in this book

49:22

is a lived experience that has

49:24

no academic value if you will

49:26

and because it has no academic

49:29

value it also questions all of

49:31

these lived experiences around the world

49:33

so for instance I often give

49:35

the example of let's say god

49:37

forbid you survived a plane crash

49:39

and you figured out a way

49:41

to rebuild the plane and to

49:43

fly it again back to safety. Will

49:46

you become a pilot? I

49:48

don't think so. Will you

49:50

be acknowledged as an incredible

49:53

genius that was able, would

49:55

you be acknowledged as an

49:57

engineer? I don't

49:59

think so because these lived experiences

50:01

don't account for much. you

50:03

know and this is theoretical

50:05

of course we can argue for

50:07

days about whether or not

50:10

you would be acknowledged as an

50:12

engineer but the point is

50:14

that all of the lived experiences

50:16

of these people in the

50:18

global south in discredited regions in

50:20

sacrificial regions as Naomi Klein

50:23

calls our region. the Middle East,

50:25

sacrificial region, why? Because this

50:27

region is by default, first of

50:29

all, called Middle and East

50:31

of nowhere in between, and it

50:34

is basically designed as a

50:36

way to extract resources and to

50:38

continuously keep this region in

50:40

complete chaos, because if it wasn't

50:42

in chaos, do you

50:44

know how much we would

50:47

be creative? Do you

50:49

know how much we would

50:51

be able to contribute to the

50:53

world in a way that

50:55

is messy and wonderful and strange?

50:57

Because the notions of decolonizing

50:59

and decolonization, decoloniality, is

51:01

to embrace plurality. And

51:03

Lebanon, Palestine, Syria,

51:05

these regions are in

51:07

a wonderful case

51:09

study for plurality. Wonderful

51:12

case study of

51:14

these different perspectives that

51:16

connect the east

51:18

with the west that

51:20

are translators. Yes,

51:22

and we were polyglots. We still

51:24

are. Not every single

51:26

Lebanese, Palestinian, and look at the Palestinians,

51:28

they're learning English like this, okay?

51:30

They're trying, like the Gazawis, like they're

51:33

trying to, they're learning their, how

51:35

can I explain? like, what do I

51:37

need to know to survive? I

51:39

will learn it. Exactly. We speak many

51:41

languages. In Lebanon, it's just mandatory.

51:43

We speak French, English, and Arabic by

51:46

default. That's just the base. And

51:48

so to be able to be

51:50

in a context where you learn

51:52

multiple languages... Obviously, obviously

51:54

you are able to open up

51:56

your mind to multiple philosophies. For

51:58

instance, to be able to work

52:00

with your partner, your peer, your

52:02

friend, your sister, your mommy, to

52:04

have family businesses, to make so

52:07

that family businesses are not only

52:09

welcome and, you know, they don't

52:11

have to be called businesses, but

52:13

that's the word. Family

52:15

organizations, family alliances,

52:17

you know, to create family

52:19

as part of this survival

52:21

is does not

52:24

have to borrow from

52:26

professionalism and structure that

52:28

could be redefined. And

52:30

maybe it's imperfect, but

52:32

that's the point is to embrace

52:34

imperfection, right? It's not to impose

52:36

this idea of perfectionism because that

52:38

is where we are, you know,

52:40

in the lineage of colonialism again.

52:43

Yes. Yes. And, you know, as you

52:45

were going through the process of

52:47

writing this book, And it's very

52:49

personal. I want to say, you know,

52:51

like I wasn't sure what I was

52:53

getting into and I was opening it.

52:56

And then I was like, Oh, it's

52:58

very personal. And right away we're with

53:00

you, you know, like we get to

53:02

go back and be young with you.

53:04

We get to go through displacement with

53:06

you. And I want to really just

53:08

shine a light on or give you,

53:10

give you praise for the fact that

53:13

you were able to take us back

53:15

into the experience of being a child,

53:17

going through these experiences, right? Like I

53:19

felt like. There was a sense of

53:21

wonder and confusion and all these things

53:23

that I'm like, Oh, right. Like there's

53:25

all these children who are going through

53:27

this right now, who are going through

53:29

displacement, violence, all this right now. And

53:32

like, what is it like to be

53:34

in that experience and how does that

53:36

shape everything that comes after, right? The

53:38

comfort with messiness, like some of that

53:40

comes from surviving the chaos that comes

53:42

from having everything. be messy for a

53:44

long time and the adults around you

53:46

trying to give you some sense of

53:49

logic or comfort, but there's nothing really

53:51

that makes sense about it other than

53:53

we are a sacrificial people, you know,

53:55

we are in a sacrificial zone. So

53:57

as you completed the book, you know,

54:00

as you were like, okay, we pivoted,

54:02

we're now, this is the book I

54:04

have to tell. It's much more personal.

54:06

Do you feel complete with that process?

54:09

Does it feel like Okay, this is

54:11

the memoir. This is it. Or now

54:13

have you unlocked a door where there's

54:15

going to be a lot more Celine

54:17

Siman books coming to us? Definitely a

54:19

lot more books for sure. But when

54:21

I read it cover to cover, I

54:23

had the galleys and I was reading

54:25

it cover to cover on my way

54:27

to Lebanon. that

54:29

summer when it came it was

54:31

I think I think the summer of

54:33

2024 because the book came out

54:35

September 2024 after my publisher had dropped

54:37

me of course as you may or

54:39

may not know after October 2023 we

54:41

received an email saying that essentially they're

54:43

shelving the book for an undetermined

54:45

time because it's not the time to

54:47

publish these stories we don't know how

54:49

the situation is going to go we

54:52

don't want to get into problems And

54:54

I thought, no, this is the

54:56

time to publish these stories because

54:58

you need a human to humanize

55:00

us. We must be humanized. By

55:02

all means, we must be humanized.

55:05

So I ended up publishing it

55:07

myself under the Slow Factory

55:09

Books for Collective Liberation. We created

55:11

an imprint. We

55:13

did it in the most

55:16

rigorous way. We had three editors,

55:18

a fact checker, a journalist

55:20

fact checker, a copy editor. and

55:23

so on and so forth.

55:26

But the point being is that

55:28

I was reading the galleys

55:30

from cover to cover on my

55:32

way to Lebanon and I

55:34

just cried and I felt a

55:36

sense of completion that I

55:38

think it calmed me down. It

55:40

calmed something down. There was

55:43

always something inside of me that

55:45

was just energetically my

55:47

energy was through the roof. I

55:49

needed people to know. I needed people

55:51

to see. I needed people to

55:53

understand me. I needed people to put

55:56

them in our shoes. You

55:58

wouldn't do this if you knew us

56:00

and this energy that's just constantly panicked, to

56:02

be honest with you. When I read

56:04

this book cover to cover on my

56:06

way to Beirut and then we land in

56:08

Beirut and I was just sitting there in

56:11

tears and in a feeling

56:13

of, I felt I aged,

56:15

I aged suddenly, I gained

56:18

some years in that moment

56:20

because I thought, okay,

56:22

now I can listen

56:25

more to other people.

56:27

I finally have more

56:29

capacity to just listen

56:31

more, listen more to

56:33

more experiences and more

56:35

people. Something in me

56:37

just expanded after this

56:39

book, And I

56:42

felt more a sense

56:44

of freedom that I

56:46

can allow myself to

56:48

write things that are,

56:51

you know, poetic and

56:53

strange if they must

56:55

be, that are not

56:57

a self -help. And,

57:00

you know, continue contributing

57:02

in a way that

57:04

is free, you know?

57:07

That's not prescribed. Like, what am I

57:09

writing? I'm writing an

57:11

anthropological book that's wrapped in a

57:13

memoir and that that is

57:15

wrapped in stories. You know,

57:18

yeah, you know, this is something that I've been.

57:21

Yeah, also throughout my writing career, like

57:23

I keep being like the genres that

57:25

you have are not the genres that

57:27

make sense for the work I want

57:29

to do. And I know other writers,

57:31

Alexis, Pauline Gums, Alexis DeVaux, other folks

57:34

who are like, no, I just. You

57:36

know, I can't wrap it into the

57:38

boxes that you want to put it into.

57:40

And even the self -help, you know, I'm like,

57:43

I think it's a transformational text. And

57:45

people who read it will be invited

57:47

to seek their own transformation and seek

57:49

the transformation of their communities and their

57:51

world. And that is across the board,

57:53

whether it's fiction, nonfiction, poetry, whatever it

57:55

is, like what I'm interested in is

57:57

the transformation I'm going through to create

57:59

it and the transformation that people go

58:01

through in order to receive it. And

58:04

I think that that's the text

58:06

you've created as well as a transformational

58:08

text where people have to really

58:10

contend with. And there's so much in

58:12

what you're saying, Celine, that it

58:14

makes me both... grateful for your courage

58:16

and your existence and also so

58:18

angry that you should have to write

58:20

anything that humanizes your people that

58:22

you should have to go through dotting

58:24

every I and crossing every T

58:26

in the publishing process to be taken

58:28

seriously and there's just so many

58:30

ways in which our dehumanization is like

58:32

written into the structure through which

58:34

we have to create and it's so

58:38

It's so frustrating and I'm so

58:40

grateful that we can throw each

58:42

other these lines and throw each

58:44

other our books and you know

58:46

hold on to each other and

58:48

be like okay but we do

58:50

see each other's humanity and and

58:52

then we are creating these talismans

58:54

and these little messages in a

58:56

bottle and these artistic objects these

58:59

projects from which people can just

59:01

touch deeper into their own humanization. which

59:03

is their decolonization. You know, I

59:05

think the two are a really one

59:07

practice, right? Reclaiming our humanity is

59:10

decolonizing, and decolonization helps

59:12

us to reclaim our sense of

59:14

being one entity on this earth.

59:18

I love this conversation with you, and I

59:20

know that we could keep talking indefinitely,

59:22

you know, time flies by. It

59:24

flies by, it flies by. Me too,

59:26

I felt that was like... a time

59:28

capsule right now. Yes, me

59:31

too. I was just like, oh, wait, we're still

59:33

having a conversation for the people. I

59:35

think that that is us. Is there

59:37

anything else that you want to tell people,

59:39

Celine? Like, where should they find you?

59:41

Or, you know, like how to follow up

59:43

if there's something that they're deeply moved

59:46

by in addition to just everyone should buy

59:48

your book in every form. Yes,

59:50

please support the book,

59:52

follow the slow factory, take

59:55

open EDU classes if

59:57

you are curious about articulating

59:59

what is collective liberation, what

1:00:02

is the idea of designing

1:00:04

possible futures. I'm giving a new

1:00:06

class now called Designing Possible

1:00:08

Futures, which is basically a design

1:00:10

fiction class where we project

1:00:12

ourselves in a near future. imagine

1:00:14

the best case scenario and then

1:00:17

retroactively build our steps back from

1:00:19

that place and what does it

1:00:21

look like culturally? What

1:00:23

does it look like systemically? Do

1:00:25

we change jobs? Are

1:00:27

governments different? And so on and

1:00:29

so forth. So this is a first experiment. I'm giving this

1:00:31

class now, but I'm going to give it again in

1:00:33

the fall. And I think that's

1:00:35

going to be potentially a second book for me. The

1:00:38

teachings behind like the designing

1:00:41

possible futures, but there are so

1:00:43

many other classes on slow

1:00:45

factories, open EDU platform, tons

1:00:47

of teachings from many different people

1:00:49

that have a lived experience, that

1:00:51

they're teaching from a lived experience.

1:00:53

Let's just put it that way.

1:00:56

There's also a new magazine that

1:00:58

we started called Everything is Political.

1:01:00

I don't know where it is,

1:01:02

but it's somewhere around here. Everything

1:01:06

is political. Everything

1:01:08

is political is

1:01:10

a periodical. It comes

1:01:12

every month -ish. Because

1:01:15

we try, it takes time to produce.

1:01:18

But it's coming often enough that

1:01:20

you would get it in your

1:01:22

inbox, in your physical mail if

1:01:24

you subscribe. But you can also

1:01:26

read it online. And these are...

1:01:28

This is a platform for... culture

1:01:31

and politics and to really demystify

1:01:33

this idea that things are too

1:01:35

political, whether they're our bodies, our

1:01:37

lived experiences, where we come from,

1:01:39

our ethnicity, or maybe sometimes

1:01:41

just bluntly political politics, and

1:01:44

to be able to discuss

1:01:46

these things with the same

1:01:48

sort of ease as we're

1:01:50

talking about poetry and whatnot,

1:01:52

because to be able to

1:01:54

have agency in our politics,

1:01:56

and even as a having

1:01:58

a critical lens over it

1:02:00

or having a way to describe

1:02:02

what is it that we

1:02:05

are looking for collectively is something

1:02:07

that we need to refine

1:02:09

in these years that we are

1:02:11

approaching massive change culturally, I

1:02:13

think. And yes, so support

1:02:15

by joining us and be a

1:02:17

part of what we do. Beautiful.

1:02:21

I love it. You are prolific.

1:02:24

You are creating so many things for

1:02:26

us, and I'm so grateful to be

1:02:28

in connection with you. Thank you. In

1:02:30

relationship with you. And I hope we

1:02:32

get more and more of it. Me

1:02:34

too. Yeah. Thank you.

1:02:36

Thank you so much. Everyone

1:02:40

who tuned in to listen today, thank

1:02:42

you so much for listening to the

1:02:44

show. We're on Instagram and into the

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1:02:51

Brown, Autumn. from Autumn Megan Brown

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to survive the end of the world is

1:03:11

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Rosen and the transcripts are in our show

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notes and on our website at into the

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show comes from bottom of the

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you. We love you. Check

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out everything we talked about today.