Jenny Odell on nature, art, and burnout in quarantine

5 snips

May 7, 2020

Jenny Odell, a visual artist, writer, and Stanford lecturer, dives into the profound impacts of the pandemic on society and personal well-being. She explores the tension between enforced productivity and the need for authentic rest. The conversation emphasizes the critical role of art and nature in coping with isolation, as well as the importance of interdependence and community amidst crisis. Odell also highlights the often-overlooked work of caregiving and the need to reassess societal values in a fractured world.

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ANECDOTE

Enforced Nothingness

Odell's book resonated with Illing while he was on his book tour and feeling burnt out.
The pandemic created an enforced "prison of nothingness" for many.

ANECDOTE

Essential Workers

The pandemic highlighted the importance of essential care work, previously devalued.
People now appreciate grocery store workers and delivery drivers more.

INSIGHT

Disposable Heroes

Society praises essential workers as heroes but treats them as disposable.
There's a disconnect between our revealed reality and economic priorities.

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One of my favorite episodes of this show was my conversation with Jenny Odell, just under a year ago. Odell, a visual artist, writer, and Stanford lecturer, had just released her book How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy and we had a fascinating conversation about the importance of maintenance work, the problem with ceaseless productivity, the forces vying for our attention, the comforts of nature, and so much more.

A lot has changed since then. Odell’s book became a sensation: it captured a cultural moment, made it onto Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2019 list and became, for many, a touchstone. And then, a global pandemic hit, radically altering the world in ways that made the core themes of Odell’s work more prescient, and more difficult. What happens when, instead of choosing to “do nothing,” doing nothing is forced upon you? What happens when all you have access to is nature? What happens when the work of maintenance becomes not just essential, but also dangerous?

So I asked Odell back, for a very different conversation in a very different time. This isn’t a conversation, really, about fixing the world right now. It’s about living in it, and what that feels like. It’s about the role of art in this moment, why we undervalue the most important work in our society, how to have collective sympathy in a moment of fractured suffering, where to find beauty right now, the tensions of productivity, the melting of time, our reckoning with interdependence, and much more.

And, at the end, Odell offers literally my favorite book recommendation ever on this show. And no, it’s not for my book.

References:

My previous conversation with Jenny Odell on the art of attention

"The Myth of Self-Reliance" by Jenny Odell, The Paris Review

"I tried to write an essay about productivity in quarantine. It took me a month to do it." by Constance Grady, Vox

The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman

Book recommendations:

Give People Money by Annie Lowrey

Lurking: How a Person Became a User by Joanne McNeil

What It's Like to Be a Bird by David Allen Sibley

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