Clever with Amy Devers

Natsai Audrey Chieza spent her youth in Zimbabwe in a close-knit extended family where she and her cousins were “in each others’ pockets.” In her teenage years the national economy crashed, necessitating a family relocation to the UK, and she began learning the skill of “not belonging.” Architecture studies proved alienating so she found a way to combine them with her love of fashion (to the consternation of her professors.) Rejecting the prescribed path of a professional architect, she instead pursued a postgraduate program in Material Futures that set her on a path of designing with bacteria. Now, she’s founded Faber Futures, a biodesign studio, and Normal Phenomena of Life, an artful lifestyle and fashion brand that also functions as a working prototype of a new model bioeconomy. She’s spent her whole life quietly not doing what was expected of her, and in this space of outsiderness she’s been very busy creating new paradigms for how we might collaborate with nature and new models for the equitable stewardship of these new biotechnologies. So, in terms of cultural infrastructure, she is an architect after all!

Images and more from Natsai Audrey Chieza on our website!

Clever is hosted & produced by Amy Devers, with editing by Mark Zurawinski, production assistance from Ilana Nevins and Anouchka Stephan, and music by El Ten Eleven.

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It’s Clever’s 10th anniversary! We’re celebrating by honoring some of the amazing stories we’ve collected over the years. We’re kicking off the party with a rewind of our very first episode! Joe Doucet has continued to make meaningful contributions to the built environment since we had this conversation, be sure to subscribe to our Substack to catch up on some of his recent works!

New York-based multi-disciplinary designer, Joe Doucet, tells Amy and Jaime why he doesn’t start any project with sketching, how a pair of avant-garde headphones caught the attention of Lady Gaga, and how he cross-trains his brain.

Images and more from Joe Doucet on our website!

Special thanks to our sponsor! Wix Studio is a platform built for all web creators to design, develop, and manage exceptional web projects at scale.

Clever is hosted & produced by Amy Devers, with editing by Mark Zurawinski, production assistance from Ilana Nevins and Anouchka Stephan, and music by El Ten Eleven.

SUBSCRIBE - listen to Clever on any podcast app!
SIGN UP - for our Substack for news, bonus content, new episode alerts
VISIT - cleverpodcast.com for transcripts, images, and 200+ more episodes
SAY HI! - on Instagram & LinkedIn @cleverpodcast @amydevers
Special thanks to our sponsors!

Wix Studio is a platform built for all web creators to design, develop, and manage exceptional web projects at scale.
Sourhouse NYC - extremely delicious, chef-driven sour candy made from peak-season, single-origin fruit. Text SOUR to (718) 587-0143 or go to sourhousenyc.com to get on the list!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Curator Alyssa Velazquez grew up with theater as her first form of community—a foundation that continues to shape her curatorial work. Her current exhibition at Center for Craft, Craft-itarianism: Community Action Through Craft, explores how craft can add joy, distribute resources, and foster community among at-risk and marginalized people. Velazquez brings a unique interdisciplinary approach to her curatorial practice at Carnegie Museum of Art, pulling from past work in art preservation, acting, and scenic design. Alyssa teaches us that the act of making can form resource generation within communities that need life-affirming support, and that craft methodologies—from job training to art therapy to social enterprise—can be applied to create meaningful social change.

Images and more from Alyssa Velazquez on our website!

Special thanks to our sponsor! Wix Studio is a platform built for all web creators to design, develop, and manage exceptional web projects at scale.

Clever is hosted & produced by Amy Devers, with editing by Mark Zurawinski, production assistance from Ilana Nevins and Anouchka Stephan, and music by El Ten Eleven.

SUBSCRIBE - listen to Clever on any podcast app!
SIGN UP - for our Substack for news, bonus content, new episode alerts
VISIT - cleverpodcast.com for transcripts, images, and 200+ more episodes
SAY HI! - on Instagram & LinkedIn @cleverpodcast @amydevers
Special thanks to our sponsors!

Wix Studio is a platform built for all web creators to design, develop, and manage exceptional web projects at scale.
Sourhouse NYC - extremely delicious, chef-driven sour candy made from peak-season, single-origin fruit. Text SOUR to (718) 587-0143 or go to sourhousenyc.com to get on the list!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Julia Watson, a landscape architect, author, and educator, developed a passion for global cultures and knowledge as a child in Australia, inspired by her parents' National Geographic collection. She has since dedicated her career to exploring traditional knowledge systems and their application to contemporary design challenges like extreme weather, waste management, and population growth.

At the heart of Watson's work is a profound respect for indigenous knowledge systems and a commitment to applying Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) to climate-adaptive design. Through her work with Lo-TEK, including the recently launched Lo-TEK Office for Intercultural Urbanism, and her books, Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism and the upcoming Lo-TEK Water (November 30 release), she strives to facilitate the equitable exchange and implementation of indigenous knowledge and technology to the crucial and complex challenges of our evolving world.

Images, links and more from Julia Watson on our website!

Special thanks to our sponsor - Wix Studio is a platform built for all web creators to design, develop, and manage exceptional web projects at scale.

Clever is hosted & produced by Amy Devers, with editing by Mark Zurawinski, production assistance from Ilana Nevins and Anouchka Stephan, and music by El Ten Eleven.

SUBSCRIBE - listen to Clever on any podcast app!
SIGN UP - for our Substack for news, bonus content, new episode alerts
VISIT - cleverpodcast.com for transcripts, images, and 200+ more episodes
SAY HI! - on Instagram & LinkedIn @cleverpodcast @amydevers

Special thanks to our sponsors!

Wix Studio is a platform built for all web creators to design, develop, and manage exceptional web projects at scale.
Sourhouse NYC - extremely delicious, chef-driven sour candy made from peak-season, single-origin fruit. Text SOUR to (718) 587-0143 or go to sourhousenyc.com to get on the list!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Designer Liz Ogbu grew up in Oakland as the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, but it wasn’t until her first trip to Nigeria at 16 that she grasped the profound role place, family, and cultural context play in shaping who we are—and what we create. Drawn to the creative possibilities of architecture, she studied both architecture and engineering before traveling across Africa on a Watson Fellowship, an experience that sharpened her understanding of who her work is ultimately for: the people most impacted by design.
Today, Liz is catalyzing what design can do—in transforming informal marketplaces, helping communities heal after being fractured by freeways, and weaving practices of grief, accountability, and repair into the built environment. Her work transcends traditional architecture, centering the excavation of harm and the pursuit of more empathetic, community-rooted design at a moment when it’s needed more than ever.

Images and more from Liz Ogbu on our website!

Special thanks to our sponsor! Wix Studio is a platform built for all web creators to design, develop, and manage exceptional web projects at scale.

Clever is hosted & produced by Amy Devers, with editing by Mark Zurawinski, production assistance from Ilana Nevins and Anouchka Stephan, and music by El Ten Eleven.

SUBSCRIBE - listen to Clever on any podcast app!
SIGN UP - for our Substack for news, bonus content, new episode alerts
VISIT - cleverpodcast.com for transcripts, images, and 200+ more episodes
SAY HI! - on Instagram & LinkedIn @cleverpodcast @amydevers

Special thanks to our sponsors!

Wix Studio is a platform built for all web creators to design, develop, and manage exceptional web projects at scale.
Sourhouse NYC - extremely delicious, chef-driven sour candy made from peak-season, single-origin fruit. Text SOUR to (718) 587-0143 or go to sourhousenyc.com to get on the list!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.