The Emergence Room

In this episode of The Emergence Room, I'm in conversation with Kendra-Nicole Stephens, a chef, mentor, and community-builder whose work lives at the intersection of craft, care, and purpose. Kendra joined us at the American Academy in Rome as a friend of the Academy, and what unfolded was more than a visit—it was an exchange rooted in generosity, curiosity, and deep presence. A graduate of Howard University and the Julia Child Culinary Program, and the former Executive Pastry Chef at the Kennedy Center, Kendra brings both technical excellence and expansive vision to everything she touches. Her work spans from leading high-level culinary programs to supporting community-based initiatives like the Anacostia Culinary Center Project, serving as a Cohort Advisor with the James Beard Foundation, and now contributing to the mission of Christ House. Our conversation moves between the personal and the collective. We reflect on the shift from striving toward something external to discovering a sense of purpose that feels internally aligned. We talk about food as both craft and care—what it means to make a Southern biscuit with intention, and how farming, sustainability, and access shape the future of how we nourish one another. We also explore what it means to find the right environments and communities for one's work and spirit to thrive. There's warmth in this conversation, but also clarity. Kendra speaks with a grounded sense of knowing—one that comes from experience, reflection, and a deep commitment to people. This episode is an invitation to consider where purpose lives in your own life, and how it might already be calling you into alignment.

In this episode of The Emergence Room, T.J. Dedeaux-Norris hosts a conversation with Kaaj Tshikalandand – cultural mediator and anthropological researcher. Recorded at the closing of T.J.'s exhibition Black Body: Ancient City at Murate Arts District in Florence, Italy. This marks the podcast's first-ever live episode, held in the museum with a live audience, and the first time T.J. is hosting the show on her own within the space of her own exhibition. As the exhibition comes to a close, the conversation unfolds in a space held by the work, the architecture, and the gathered audience. It reflects a shift in T.J.'s ongoing dissertation, where the work expands through dialogue, through people, and through presence. Together, they move through questions of intuition and becoming—what it means to be an oracle, to conjure, and to trust one's inner knowing. The conversation explores accepting one's gifts and living in alignment with them, while also reflecting on the importance of community—how it is built, sustained, and returned to. They speak to happiness as a practice, to care as a necessity, and to the ongoing work of refilling one's social and energetic capacity. Throughout, themes of authenticity, congruence, and integration emerge as lived processes rather than fixed states. The conversation holds a sense of resonance that lingers—an exchange that feels both grounding and expansive. This episode marks an opening in the work itself, where it continues to unfold not only in the studio, but in relationship, in voice, and in shared space.

In this episode of The Emergence Room, we sit down with Liz Glynn – a sculptor, performance artist, and current Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Known for her work navigating endurance, material transformation, and the politics of labor, Glynn has been in Rome working with wax and plaster – materials that hold memory, pressure, and impermanence, echoing her ongoing interest in how bodies, histories, and systems leave their imprint. Together, we move through a layered conversation on teaching, motherhood, and research, tracing how these roles intersect and sometimes collide within contemporary academic life. We reflect on what equity might actually require of institutions, and where accountability begins – and too often dissolves. What does it mean to sustain a practice – intellectually, creatively, physically – inside structures that are not always designed for care? Glynn, who teaches at University of California, Irvine, brings a grounded and generous perspective on navigating these tensions, offering insight into how wellness is not separate from the work, but deeply entangled within it. This episode holds space for the ongoing negotiation between making, teaching, caregiving, and becoming – and the quiet, radical insistence on doing so with integrity.

On this episode of The Emergence Room, we are joined by Aliza Wong, Director of the American Academy in Rome and a professor of history at Texas Tech University, where she has spent over two decades teaching and mentoring students. Her scholarship centers on modern Italy and the Mediterranean, with a focus on race, nation, culture, and identity—work that feels deeply connected to the kinds of conversations she fosters in the spaces she leads.   At the Academy, Aliza leads with a rare combination of humility, humor, warmth—and yes, an unmistakable sense of style. She is someone who makes an institution feel human, who holds space for both rigor and care, and who, especially in this moment, has helped shape the Academy into a place that feels like home. Our conversation moves through first-generation experience, body image, family, and the complexities of leadership. What unfolds is something tender and honest—a portrait of a leader who listens, adapts, and leads with both strength and vulnerability. Aliza embodies a way of leading that feels expansive and relational, and reflects the kind of leadership we, as co-hosts, are continuing to grow into ourselves.

In this episode of The Emergence Room, we sit with João Salema, a fellow traveler whose practice feels as fluid and transient as the way she moves through the world. Our conversation unfolds around living between places—between homes, cities, languages, and selves. We talk about what it means to build an art practice while constantly in motion, and how João makes objects appear, disappear, and reappear—both materially and emotionally. We return again and again to the idea of home: what it is, where it lives in the body, and how New York shaped her understanding of belonging, distance, and desire. João is someone who holds contradiction beautifully. She can be quiet and observant, then suddenly strong and decisive. She's generous in spirit, sharp in humor, and deeply attuned to sensibility and style. We talk about beauty—beauty in the work, beauty in the world, and the courage it takes to choose beauty as a serious artistic value. She is, without question, one of the most stylish and aesthetically generous presences at the Academy. João has transformed her living space into an extension of her practice—decorating it with her own artwork and opening her bedroom studio to others. That gesture says everything about her work: intimate and personal, yet deliberately private; inviting, but held with care. This episode is about movement, making, and the quiet power of creating worlds wherever you land.

In this episode, we are joined by Christine Sun Kim, an artist whose work rigorously examines sound, language, power, and access. Christine's practice challenges assumed hierarchies of communication and invites us to reconsider how meaning is produced, circulated, and authorized. Her work moves across drawing, installation, performance, and social engagement, often asking who systems are built for and who is required to adapt.

On this episode of The Emergence Room, we're so honored to sit down with Sean Mooney — American Academy in Rome Fellow, artist, curator, and longtime collaborator with Chuna McIntyre. This conversation unfolds around music and singing, and how sound becomes a way of holding memory, devotion, and care. We talk about what it means to live as an artist who is also a caretaker — of ideas, of objects, of people, and of shared histories. We reflect together on houses: the homes our families once lived in, the places we grew up in, and the meaning of returning to them. Jason and I share about recently buying a family home, and Sean talks about renovating his — not just as a practical act, but as a form of curating memory, tending to the past, and making space for what comes next. We talk about collaboration, about caring for objects and stories, about legacy — not as something abstract or distant, but as something shaped through daily attention, responsibility, and love. It's a conversation about keeping our house in order, in every sense of the phrase, and about how emergence often looks like showing up for one another with patience and care. We're deeply grateful for Sean's generosity, openness, and presence in this conversation. This one will stay with you long after it ends.

Okay – today's episode is one of those conversations that reminds us why we love doing this podcast. We're so excited to share this conversation with Paula Gaither – and truly, talking with Paula was such a gift. She is equal parts party, equal parts scholar, equal parts absolute bright light of a human being. Paula is a PhD candidate at Stanford and a Rome Prize Fellow here at the American Academy in Rome, and her research looks at how ancient Roman depictions of Blackness have been shaped – and misshaped – by modern scholarship and museum practices. But what makes Paula so special isn't just the rigor of her work, it's the way she moves through the world while doing it. She's the hype gal of the Academy – whether it's time to go check out an archaeological dig, show up for someone's work, or turn the energy all the way up when it's time to gather and celebrate. Paula brings curiosity, care, joy, and fire into every space she enters. In this conversation, we talk about Blackness, queerness, partnership, reclaiming narrative authority, and what it means to do research that actively breaks down patriarchy and dismantles white supremacist frameworks – without losing yourself, your joy, or your people along the way. This episode's emergence arc is from representation to reclamation – and Paula embodies that shift so beautifully. So settle in, turn the volume up, and get ready for a conversation that feels like thinking, laughing, and becoming all at once. Let's go!

Just moments before we recorded this episode of The Emergence Room, roles briefly reversed. Anita Contini – founder of Creative Time and longtime leader at Bloomberg Philanthropies – was in the midst of conducting interviews for her current research project, Origins and Outcomes. As part of that work, she interviewed T.J. while T.J. is working at the American Academy in Rome. Then we pressed record—and the conversation simply shifted direction. What followed was a grounded, generous exchange about how ambitious artistic visions meet reality: how ideas evolve once they encounter scale, funding, community engagement, and time; how some of Anita's most influential contributions began almost by accident; and how leadership often moves from individual problem to collective solution. With Anita's partner Steve quietly behind the scenes helping record, the moment itself reflected the deeper truth of the episode: meaningful work is relational, shared, and sustained by care. This conversation captures the spirit of The Emergence Room—reciprocity, curiosity, and emergence unfolding in real time. We're honored to share it with you.

We're excited to welcome Timothy Darden, also known as @blackostume, to The Emergence Room. Timothy is a filmmaker and musician currently completing his BFA in Film, and during his time as a Fellow Traveler at the American Academy in Rome, he's been immersed in cinema, sound, and study — watching Italian films, listening deeply, and learning how culture, language, and rhythm shape storytelling. In this episode, we talk about what it means to be an undergraduate artist finding your voice, how music and filmmaking inform one another, and how studying film in Rome has opened new ways of thinking about identity, translation, and authorship. We explore an emergence arc from mask to mirror — from experimenting with alter egos and creative protection to using art as a way of seeing yourself more clearly. Timothy reflects on what he's becoming, what he's unlearning, and how this moment in his education is shaping the artist he's growing into. This conversation is thoughtful, grounded, and full of curiosity — a beautiful look at creative becoming in real time.

This week in The Emergence Room, we sit down with someone whose presence feels like stepping into a poem — David Keplinger, poet, translator, teacher, and Rome Prize Fellow. David moves through the world with a quiet radiance, shaped by years of listening: to language, to silence, to the histories that live between words. Our conversation traces an emergence arc from stillness to voice, from interiority to offering, and from the private act of writing toward the communal act of being witnessed. He shares how translation has become a spiritual practice, what it means to write into the unsayable, and how Rome — with its ruins and reliquaries — is reshaping his understanding of time, artistry, and devotion. We talk about poetry as wayfinding: a method for surviving grief, cultivating presence, and returning to ourselves. His story unfolds through movements of Listening → Vulnerability → Transformation → Offering. By the end, David reminds us that creativity isn't a performance of genius — it's a practice of being porous to the world. Here's to David Keplinger, and to this tender, luminous conversation. Welcome to this week's episode of The Emergence Room. David's Website https://www.davidkeplingerpoetry.com Meditate with David  https://open.substack.com/pub/davidkeplinger?r=9buxg&utm_medium=ios    

This week we sit down with Margo Weitzman, Rome Prize Fellow and PhD candidate at Rutgers University, whose research traces a sixteenth-century merchant moving between India and Italy—translating worlds through trade, language, and desire. Margo opens up about her own emergent journey: being adopted, navigating queerness, partnership, travel, and the ongoing search for belonging. We explore how her scholarship and personal history inform one another, and how mining the histories of objects, places, and people parallels the work of assembling identity from fragments, archives, and lived experience. We also talk about the unexpected ways growth shows up in motion—and how Margo's own artistic practice threads through her research and her sense of self. She speaks beautifully about visiting churches throughout Rome as part of her inquiry into space, meaning, and ritual. Here's to hoping The Emergence Room gets to go "churching" with her soon. This episode is a thoughtful, vulnerable reflection on connection, curiosity, identity, and finding home at the intersection of the personal and the scholarly.

In this episode of The Emergence Room, we sit down with the extraordinary duo Bonnie Fisher and Boris Dramov of the ROMA Design Group—partners in life, in practice, and in purpose. This married team of architects has shaped communities, cities, and cultural memory through their work, including the iconic Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C. Our conversation moves from the foundations of architecture to the architecture of a life well-lived—exploring what it means to collaborate with intention, nurture creativity, raise a family, and stay aligned with one's values in the face of external demands. Bonnie and Boris open up about balancing client expectations with artistic integrity, making space for children to become themselves, and how partnership—both personal and professional—can deepen one's sense of purpose. They are, without question, relationship goals: tender, grounded, generous, and deeply inspiring. Their reflections remind us that building a life, a family, or a community follows the same principles as building meaningful spaces—clarity, care, flexibility, and love. A beautiful conversation with two people who truly design from the heart.

In this episode of The Emergence Room, we sit down with Pythagoras The Sage — artist, philosopher, musician, and fellow traveler at the American Academy in Rome — to explore how flow, music, and philosophy merge in a practice rooted in transformation and queerness. Pythagoras moves fluidly through electronic sound, ritual, and reflection, accessing multiple modalities and inversions of self to communicate and exist beyond fixed identity. Together we discuss culture shock, creative intuition, and the ways queerness expands what it means to think, feel, and listen. This episode moves like rhythm itself — an exploration of becoming through frequency, philosophy, and flow. Pythagoras the Sage  website: http://pythagorasthesage.com instagram: pythagorasthesage New Album "CHRONICLES"

Rick Luttmann – Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Sonoma State University – joins The Emergence Room as a Rome Fellow Traveler at the American Academy in Rome. A mathematician, public servant, and lifelong wanderer of unconventional paths, Rick brings a generosity of spirit and a catalog of stories that simply do not fit into one episode. Rick's second arc continues with the beaten-path to off-the-beaten-path to even-further off-the-beaten-path, capturing the freewheeling, curiosity-driven spirit of his adventures.

Rick Luttmann – Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Sonoma State University – joins The Emergence Room as a Rome Fellow Traveler at the American Academy in Rome. A mathematician, public servant, and lifelong wanderer of unconventional paths, Rick brings a generosity of spirit and a catalog of stories that simply do not fit into one episode. In fact, Rick's life has been so full of adventure that, for the first time in Emergence Room history, we recorded an addendum episode—a double feature dedicated entirely to him. From participating in political life and serving his community, to teaching mathematics in a prison, to driving a tour bus through wildly unexpected landscapes, Rick's experiences remind us that emergence is not linear – it's lived. His first episode's emergence arc traces Responsibility to Opportunity, reflecting his belief in civic duty, public service, and the power of voting and political engagement. His second arc continues with the beaten-path to off-the-beaten-path to even-further off-the-beaten-path, capturing the freewheeling, curiosity-driven spirit of his adventures.

In this powerful and expansive episode, we sit down with Chuna McIntyre, Founder and Director of the Nunamta Yup'ik Eskimo Singers and Dancers and current American Academy in Rome Fellow, to talk about his work with the Yup'ik Masks in the "Anima Mundi" of the Vatican Museums. Our conversation weaves together memory, ancestry, and care — from Chuna's reflections on his grandmother and the Vatican's stewardship of these sacred objects, to the deeper meanings of reciprocity, generosity, and giving without expectation. Chuna reminds us what it means to be among the real, true people, inviting us to consider who has possession — and who has responsibility — for beauty, culture, and spirit. He shares the honor of wanting his people to feel pride as the first people, speaks in his first language, and even sings a beautiful song to close the episode. Together, we explore the difference between conservation and care, and what it means to truly tend to the life within objects — not just preserve them, but allow them to breathe again. This conversation is a meditation on heritage, healing, and honesty — a reminder that generosity itself can be a form of resistance and repair.

In our third episode, co-hosts T.J. Dedeaux-Norris and Jason Šimánek finally turn the mic on themselves. Now that each of our individual episodes has dropped, we sit down together—wine in hand—for a one-of-a-kind, maybe once-in-a-lifetime Emergence Room session. We share the story behind the podcast: how it began, what inspired it, and what we've learned along the way. Expect laughter, honesty, and a few unforgettable bloopers (including the moment T.J. accidentally introduced our esteemed colleague and fellow Rome Prize Fellow Sean Mooney as Paul Mooney). In this behind-the-scenes conversation, we talk about balancing art, academia, and consciousness-based education through our respective MFA and EdD programs at Maharishi International University, and how those studies shape the way we listen, lead, and create. We also reveal our first Rome Prize Fellow interview guest—the incredible Chuna McIntyre, founder and director of the Nunamta Yup'ik Eskimo Singers and Dancers—whose episode drops this Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025. Until then, enjoy this candid, wine-filled conversation as we build camaraderie, unpack our motivation for creating The Emergence Room, and invite you deeper into our world at the American Academy in Rome. Available wherever you get your podcasts. Stay tuned for Chuna's episode next!

For our second episode, Jason Simanek turns inward to consider what it means to emerge through care and clarity. In conversation with T.J. Dedeaux-Norris, he explores the quiet strength of self-prioritization, the rhythm of restoration, and the creative tenderness that arises when we honor our own needs first.

In our first episode of The Emergence Room, artist and educator T.J. Dedeaux-Norris opens up about performing and shedding identity. In conversation with co-host Jason Simanek, T.J. explores how race, gender, and size shape leadership and self-expression, and what it means to strip away what no longer serves in order to lead from authenticity and vulnerability.