IN-Q
IN-Q is a National Poetry Slam champion, award-winning poet, and multi-platinum songwriter. His groundbreaking achievements include being named to Oprah’s SuperSoul 100 list of the world’s most influential thought leaders, being the first spoken word artist to perform with Cirque Du Soleil, and being featured on A&E, ESPN, and HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. He’s inspired audiences around the world through his live performances and storytelling workshops. Many of his recent poetry videos have gone viral with over 70 million views combined.
As a songwriter, IN-Q’s hit single “Love You Like a Love Song” by Selena Gomez went multi-platinum, winning him a BMI award. He has written with renowned artists including Aloe Blacc, Miley Cyrus, Mike Posner, and Foster the People. His songs have accumulated over one billion views on YouTube alone.
Leading organizations including Nike, Instagram, Spotify, Google, Lululemon, Live Nation, Shazam, The Grammy Foundation, and many more have brought IN-Q in to motivate their teams through his keynote speeches and acclaimed storytelling workshop, a transformational bonding experience for companies who want to share their story more authentically.
Ultimately IN-Q writes to entertain, inspire, and challenge his audiences to look deeper into the human experience and ask questions about themselves, their environment, and the world at large.
3 words to describe Nature?
Beautiful. Wild. Alive.
3 things Nature taught you?
Presence
Presence
Presence
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Eden in Utah. I have spent so much time over there. It is such an integral part of my life.
Road to Hana, Maui, Hawaii. That road for me is filled with life. It is so beautiful, vibrant and alive. It feels like a neon sign for nature.
Kenya. I was recently on a safari there and I have never experienced anything like this. It is a particular nature, that is raw and truly powerful. I really felt small but also part of it.
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Relaxed
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Peaceful
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Awe
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Gratitude
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Power. Not that I feel powerful, but that I am amazed by it. The physical sensation of experiencing the hugeness of the sound all around you is breathtaking.
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Brings me back to a childhood memory.
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Forest the best, though honestly, it is the jungle that calls me.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
11
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
Well, I don’t remember much for my childhood, unfortunately. But there is indeed one memory that comes to mind. My mom and I went camping. She is really not your outdoorsy type. Anyhow, we ended up in the forest of California, somewhere up north. I was 7 I think. We set up camp and during the night, there was this insane storm, pouring rain like crazy. There were lightings and thunder. Bang and Boum! We stayed up all night. My mom was so scared that she made me sleep with my sneakers on because she thought that the rubber would protect me, not conducting the electricity in case lightning would hit us. I felt so small and so vulnerable.
Cory Trepanier
Cory Trépanier is a Canadian landscape painter and filmmaker best known for his detailed oil paintings of the Canadian wilderness. He is also the creator of five films documenting his extensive painting journeys: "A Painter’s Odyssey", "Into the Arctic", "Into the Arctic II”, "TrueWild: Kluane” and "Into the Arctic: Awakening"
Canadian Geographic named Trépanier one of Canada’s Top 100 Living Explorers. He is a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, a National Champion of the Great Trail, and a member of The Explorers Club, where he received the Canadian Chapters highest award, the Stefansson Medal.
In 2019, Cory partnered with the Canadian Geographic Education to create the INTO THE ARCTIC Film Trilogy K-12 teachers guide where his films are being made available to educators and students nationwide and beyond for free. Seven modules educate and engage about geography, environmental and social sciences, humanities, Indigenous culture, history, survival, and the arts.
In the Fall of 2020, Trépanier is set to launch a coffee table book entitled "INTO THE ARCTIC: Paintings of Canada’s Changing North" with Rocky Mountain Books. The coffee table book will feature his Arctic paintings, sketches and stories and feature a foreward by HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco.
Trépanier has been featured in media around the globe, and his documentaries broadcast internationally, sharing his passion for the wild places that he explores and paints.
3 words to describe Nature?
Beautiful. Irreplaceable. Freedom
3 things Nature taught you?
Patience
Wonder
Humility
3 most treasured Nature spots?
The forest behind my home and studio in Caledon, Ontario
Lake Superior’s Canadian coastline
The Canadian Arctic. Can that 1.5 million square kilometres of archipelago be consider a “spot”?
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel…?
Very small, but free, and curious about what lies beyond
When you see a forest, it makes you feel…?
Alive, surrounded by an endless living biodiversity, a nursery to so many forms of life
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel…?
In awe at the power of nature, and wanting to reach of for my easel some day to try and paint this stunning display from life “en plein air”
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel…?
At peace, and grateful for a new to come, another day lived, and a new world about to unfold in the night sky
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel…?
Excited for the show that is about to begin. And like a kid, reaching for a bar of soap and running outside into a rain storm for a quick shower, feeling the rain drops pelting down and stinging my skin as it washes me clean
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel…?
Awakened, as fresh air rushes into my lungs with each breath I get a sense of adventure tingling inside. I want to face into it with my eyes closed and feel it rush by.
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Being an Ontario native, I grew up more of a Forest person. My painting expeditions however — to the Arctic and other places — have deepened my appreciation for Mountains and Oceans in the last couple of decades. And even the Desert, as in the Polar Desert. I long to bring my easel to a hot desert some day, to try and capture the stunning beauty of its sandy curves and desert sun. Maybe then I will become more of a desert person too :)
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
Ten. With so much negativity and challenges in the world — especially now in these unprecedented times of a pandemic and environmental degradation — time in nature, or even just contemplating nature, reminds me that there is so much to celebrate in this world. It feeds my sense of wonder and appreciation for each breath I take, and inspires me to share this experience with others, in hopes that they too may have their lives enriched by this gift that is available for free to all.
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
I was maybe 10 or 11, and my family had moved to a farm near North Bay, Ontario: 200 hundred acres that backed onto 2,000 acres of Crown land. There was a creek behind our place, and my older brother Carl I had a small leaky dingy that we barely fit in. We got up early, dragged it through the field, and began meandering down the creek into the unexplored frontiers of our “backyard”. Chasing frogs, seeing waterfowl of all kinds, we were drawn onward by the lure of the unknown that lay beyond each bend. We carried on our quest until the sun lowered in the sky, eventually making our way back home. It was 30 years later, when my brother joined me in the Arctic for a month-long expedition to Ellesmere Island, that I realized how deeply that day from our youth, and many others like, embedded a desire for me to be in nature. A desire that would grow into a life long pursuit.
Pravin Pillay
Prav Pillay is the co-founder of Humanitas Smart Planet Fund, founder of Emergent Performance Consulting, and an artist, researcher, and educator whose creative practice explores how we locate ourselves through the politics of place, culture, and ecology. He has more than 35 years of experience as a social entrepreneur leading, developing and coaching high-performance teams and organizations working on progressive and challenging projects across private, public and not-for-profit sectors. He specializes in Progressive Tech orientation developed over almost 4 decades of involvement in mainframe operations, national data network management, new media and video streaming tech, robotics, AI, SAAS, military-grade surveillance and security, and social tech initiatives.
For several years, Prav was a co-facilitator of Media That Matters - a gathering of media change makers at Hollyhock a leading educational facility on west coast of Canada and more recently served as the Artist and Community Strategist in Residence with R.A.V.E.N. (Respecting Aboriginal Values and Environmental Needs), sessional instructor at Emily Carr University of Art and Design and also an Executive in Residence with VIATEC - a technology incubator in Victoria, BC.
Prav holds a B. Arts and Science from McMaster University, a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, an MBA from McGill University and an MFA from the University of Saskatchewan. During his MFA, Prav sought to understand the nature of systems based artworks and collaborated with engineers in Human-Computer interaction to conduct art-science experiments that played in the intersection of art, artificial intelligence, and robotics.
3 words to describe Nature?
Truth. Beauty. Goodness
3 things Nature taught you?
The meaning of Truth
Beauty
Goodness
3 most treasured Nature spots?
The seasonal waterfall in the temperate rainforest near my island home in the Pacific North West
A particular island in a glacier-fed lake in the Xeni Gwet'in territory of British Columbia, Canada
A particular mountain top in the Sinai Desert
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
At home
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
At home
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
If active - I am in awe. If dormant - pensive.
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
The beingness of the temporal moment in the vastness of time
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Alive and awake
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Clean inside
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Each biome is equally compelling. The call is towards deep wild places.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
Raising monarch butterfly caterpillars. First collecting the caterpillars and milkweed from under the bleachers of the suburban high school near my home. Then caring for the caterpillars and observing them undergo metamorphosis to chrysalid form and then to butterfly. Finally releasing the butterflies to nature.
Yancey Strickler
Yancey Strickler is a writer and entrepreneur. He is the cofounder and former CEO of Kickstarter, author of This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World, and the creator of Bentoism. Yancey has been recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People. He cofounded the artist resource The Creative Independent and the record label eMusic Selects. Yancey grew up in Clover Hollow, Virginia, and began his career as a music critic in New York City. The London Spectator called him "one of the least obnoxious tech evangelists ever."
3 words to describe Nature?
Shhhwwwwwwww (wind through the trees)
tckltckltckltckltckl (leaves on the ground)
grglgrglgrglgrgl (water falling from a rocky cave)
3 things Nature taught you?
How to hide
What it means to be healthy
The upside of death
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Canopied forests with pine needles on the ground
Any beach
The farm where I grew up
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Infinite
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Taller
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Side-eyed
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Like a George Harrison song
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Five years old
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Small
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
E) All of the above
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
Age twelve waiting for the bus when a deer, wounded by a hunter's bullet, came staggering out of the woods and collapsed across the street from me. I stayed with it and spoke with it until its eyes went blank.
Martha Weidmann
Martha Weidmann is the CEO and Co-Founder of NINE dot ARTS. She started her career with Walker Fine Art gallery in Denver, then moved on to the most prestigious art consulting firm (at the time) in the region, McGrath and Braun. She is the Executive Director of Union Hall, an emerging and established artist platform giving Denver’s vibrant arts community a dedicated position in the Union Station neighborhood, and co-founder of dotfolio, an online art selling platform. She is currently serving on the Board of the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts.
3 words to describe Nature?
Omniscient. Life-giving. Generative
3 things Nature taught you?
Humility
Beautiful decay
Connectedness
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Dauphin Island, AL, USA
Blue Lagoon, Capri, IT
Pawnee Buttes, CO, USA
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Small (in a good way)
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Alive
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Like I should look for water
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Humble
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Like I should look for shelter
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Like it's time to batten down the hatches
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Ocean
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
9
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
As a girl growing up in Georgia, I used to hide in the azalea bushes catching and releasing color-changing green anoles. Sometimes I'd collect them in my lavender purse, but they'd always find their way out and escape. I always wanted to know if they'd eventually turn lavender being surrounded by all that purple.
A girl in my class used to catch the anoles, pinch their jaws slightly and release the grip near her earlobes so that their mouths would clamp down on gently on her earlobe flesh for a temporary display of "lizard earrings". It was quite a sight, but I thought the lizards didn't like it at all.
Marc Keane
Marc Peter Keane is a landscape architect, artist and writer based in Kyoto, Japan. His work is deeply informed by Japanese aesthetics and design sense: simplicity, serendipity, off-balance balance, and naturally weathered patinas. Working in situations as divers as a 350-year-old house in Japan and a contemporary museum in the United States, he designs singular gardens that are both beautiful and contemplative. Keane is also known for his ceramic artwork and his many books on Japanese gardens and nature. (instagram)
3 words to describe Nature
Nature. Is. Everything.
3 things Nature taught you
Nothing. Is. Un-natural.
3 most treasured Nature spots
Weeds bursting through city sidewalks
Birds flying and nesting inside of Home Depot
Moss growing on shaded walls
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...
Connected to any and all things at once
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...
As if I’ve just come home
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...
Like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...
Momentarily much much bigger than I really am
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...
Depends on how many seconds after the lighting strike it comes (yes I count)
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...
Depends on where I am —
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person
I, like everyone else, am all of those
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being
The better question for our time is, on a scale of 1 to 10, how important are you to Nature’s well-being
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
Camping in the Canadian forests, a violent night storm, ending abruptly, the clouds sliding off into the distance to reveal an ink-black sky pocked by an infinity of stars. And in the darkness between those stars… wonder.
Megan Harrison
MEGAN HARRISON is an artist who works in a variety of media and exhibits her work nationally. Most recently she was included in the exhibition Geomagic at NMSU, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. Her artwork depends on images and insights from geology, architecture, astronomy and Nature. She explores the complexity of the world around her wherever she is. Watch the video, the Complexity of Scale, made by Walley Films.
3 words to describe Nature?
Compounding complexity
Transformative
Penetrating
3 things Nature taught you?
You don’t have to be lucky enough to travel to exotic places to interact with Nature. Nature is a constant and creative force that pushes itself into every aspect of our world, from the remote and distant wilderness to cracks in the sidewalk.
No matter how big, the drama and story of our individual life pales in comparison to the scale, history and complexity of the world that we belong to.
We are shaped, physically and psychology, by natural forces. Our neurological landscape mirrors that of our physical one, complete with domesticated centers, rural outposts and untouched wilderness.
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Rocky Mountains of Colorado, where I grew up.
The North-East coast of the United Stated and into Canada. Instead of sandy beaches you will find huge slabs of ancient granite facing off against a dynamic and pristine ocean.
The wilderness of northern Minnesota (minus the mosquitos). Through all of the water channels and tiny islands you can go and go and go until it feels like you are a million miles away.
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Salt water, sun kissed, wind-blown - when I look at the ocean I can sense for a brief moment the scale of the planet we live on.
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
I feel like I could spend all day there, listening to the sound of my steps, watching the light through the trees, finding a spot have a snack. I am so at home there.
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
When I see a volcano, it feels like all of my Earth Science textbooks have come to life. I can imagine the Earth’s crust, the lithosphere, the mantle and all of the tectonic plates bobbing around.
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Seeing the sunset is an experience that usually comes to you. You are moving through your day and look up, and there it is.
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
After a flash of lightning, the feeling of anticipation, waiting for that thunder to follow, is so satisfying.
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Cozy and happy to have a good roof over my head.
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Today I feel like a Forest person.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
A 10. In fact, just thinking about nature has positive effects; the idea of wilderness shapes such a large part of the human psyche.
Share with us a childhood nature memory
My dad took me on a short camping trip when I was 7 or 8. It was the first time I experienced hiking into a natural space with a pack as opposed to camping next to a car. It felt like we walked for a very long time, though it was probably less than a mile. It was just far enough to feel really surrounded by the landscape. I remember green everywhere, cold mornings, and the smell of the tent. I was amazed watching my dad; he knew all sorts of tricks - how to set up a tent, start a fire, hook a fishing line, cook outside, brush your teeth and clean dishes without running water. I would love to go find that spot again. I am curious to see how my memory has interpreted that space.