Time Sensitive

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165

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Oct 2026

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About the show

Candid, revealing long-form conversations with extraordinary people about their life and work through the lens of time. Host Spencer Bailey interviews each guest about how they think about time—and how pivotal moments have shaped who they are today. Explore more at timesensitive.fm

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November 11, 20261 hr 11 min

Piet Oudolf on Writing With Plants

For more than half a century, the Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf has been reimagining what a garden can be. Known for his richly layered, naturalistic plantings, Oudolf, now 82, approaches his work much like a composer or stage director, bringing together plants of different forms, textures, and personalities to create landscapes that are at once meticulously orchestrated and seemingly wild. His gardens—from New York City’s High Line and Chicago’s Lurie Garden to Oudolf Field at Hauser & Wirth Somerset and Calder Gardens in Philadelphia—are living works of art, evolving not only through the seasons, but over years and decades. For our latest “site-specific” episode of Time Sensitive, Oudolf joined us in his new Planting Fields Foundation garden in Oyster Bay, New York. Surrounded by buzzing bees, birdsong, and the occasional overhead plane, he talks with Spencer about the delicate interplay between control and letting go, the importance of close observation, and what gardens teach us about life, mortality, and change. Special thanks to our Season 14 presenting partner, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts , supported by Van Cleef & Arpels. Show Notes: Piet Oudolf [00:53] Planting Fields [06:58] Olmsted Brothers [8:19] Calder Gardens [14:40] Oudolf Field [16:15] Iwan and Manuela Wirth [17:16] Chillida Leku [ 17:23] Il Giardino delle Vergini for the Venice Biennale (2010) [17:23] Hans Ulrich Obrist [31:02] Hummelo [35:17] Dream Plants for the Natural Garden (2000) [35:17] Henk Gerritsen [36:00] New Perennial Movement [43:29] Music for 18 Musicians: Staged Variations [43:29] Steve Reich [46:32] John Berger [46:32] Ways of Seeing (1972) [50:08] Bloomsbury Group [52:13] Peter Zumthor [52:13] Herzog & de Meuron [52:13] James Corner of Field Operations [52:13] Diller Scofidio + Renfro [55:31] Lurie Garden [55:31] The Battery [57:41] The High Line [1:00:39] 63 Oudolf Garden [1:00:47] Bart Hoes [1:01:13] Planting the Natural Garden (1992) [1:01:56] RHS Garden Wisley

October 28, 20261 hr 14 min

Mona Chalabi on Why We Should Talk More Often About Money

Candid, direct conversations about money—how much we have, where it comes from, and how it colors our day-to-day reality—are, at best, uncomfortable and, more often than not, avoided entirely. In her new book, Ten Lives: How What We Have Shapes Who We Are , the Pulitzer Prize–winning data journalist and illustrator Mona Chalabi takes this collective discomfort and holds it up to the light. Through the stories of 10 Americans across the economic spectrum, as well as her own, she explores how our financial realities collide with our identities, relationships, ambitions, fears, and deeper sense of security. The book is a natural extension of Chalabi’s vital work over the past decade, in which she’s honed a distinct ability to make complex data feel deeply human. Addressing a range of pressing issues, from human rights to the climate crisis, her hand-drawn illustrations foster greater understanding and clarity, challenging us to look more closely, to question what we think we know, and, perhaps most importantly, to feel something. On the episode, Chalabi discusses the flawed premise of the American Dream, our often incorrect assumptions about wealth and class, and what the fear of not having enough costs us in the long run. Special thanks to our Season 14 presenting partner, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts , supported by Van Cleef & Arpels. Show notes: Mona Chalabi [01:12] Ten Lives: How What We Have Shapes Who We Are (2026) [15:17] U.S. Census Bureau: Wealth of Households (2026) [18:48] Nate Silver [19:08] FiveThirtyEight [21:39] Jerry Saltz [21:19] @monachalabi [26:38] Christian Smalls [36:33] Claudia Rankine [39:37] Emma Patterson [40:28] Janet Malcolm [40:28] The Journalist and the Murderer (1990) [52:57] Jason Arday [58:30] “9 Ways to Imagine Jeff Bezos’ Wealth” (2022) [1:08:21] Roxane Gay

October 21, 20261 hr 3 min

Taryn Simon on the Limits of What We Can Know

What do we really know about the world around us? And how much of what we deem to be true is shaped by what we can—and cannot—see? These questions have animated the provocative and probing work of the artist Taryn Simon for more than 20 years. For her latest exhibition, “Father Country I Do Love You,” on view at the Guggenheim Museum in New York (through March 14, 2027), a surreal cast of characters, events, and connections emerges from the stranger-than-fiction stories of an unnamed, retired F.B.I. agent whom she interviewed for nearly a decade. Shown across the museum’s rotunda in 42 chapters, the presentation marks her most personal body of work to date. Dedicated to her father, who’s been living with Alzheimer’s since 2020, it explores how his life and stories are, in circuitous ways, entangled with those of the agent. This interplay of memory, narrative, and uncertainty has always been central to Simon’s practice. From her landmark 2003 series, “The Innocents,” focused on people wrongfully convicted in part due to the misuse of visual documentation, to her 2016 installation “An Occupation of Loss” at the Park Avenue Armory, which examined mourning rituals, her work raises fundamental questions about what we remember, what we believe, and what remains unknown. On this week’s episode, Simon discusses her Guggenheim show, the impossibility of ever fully knowing another person, and how photography can serve as an act of love in the face of time’s inevitability. Special thanks to our Season 14 presenting partner, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts , supported by Van Cleef & Arpels. Show notes: Taryn Simon [5:25] “ Father Country I Do Love You ” (2026) [6:11] Jim Thompson [17:55] Jodie Foster [17:55] Mayor Marion Barry [17:55] Valerie Plame [17:55] Karl Rove [17:55] Vince Foster [30:05] Frank Lloyd Wright [36:04] “ The Innocents ” (2003) [38:18] Innocence Project [46:49] “ A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I – XVIII ” (2008–2011) [49:38] “ An Occupation of Loss ” (2016) [52:48] Zoroastrianism [54:49] “ A Cold Hole ” (2018)

October 7, 20261 hr 37 min

Simon Critchley on Giving Up the Fantasy of Mastery

Who better to bring remarkable clarity to the density of Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time than the British philosopher and New School professor Simon Critchley? After decades spent studying and teaching the controversial German philosopher’s 1927 magnum opus, Critchley takes it on in his latest book, Heidegger Thinking: ‘Being and Time’ Explained , getting at the deceptively simple ideas at its core: Being is time. Time is finite. And to live freely is to reckon with that finitude. For Critchley, there’s a certain solace to be found in knowing our limits, giving up fantasies of total control, and more fully inhabiting the time we have. On this week’s episode, Critchley—our first-ever repeat guest on the show—discusses Heidegger’s ideas of lived and ecstatic time, the distinction between anxiety and fear, and why philosophy, at its best, helps us see the world anew. He also explores how a suspenseful sports match can warp our sense of time; the peculiar way David Bowie’s music collapses past, present, and future; and poetry’s power to make the familiar strange. Special thanks to our Season 14 presenting partner, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts , supported by Van Cleef & Arpels. Show notes: Simon Critchley [01:03] Heidegger Thinking (2026) [01:11] Heidegger [01:15] Being and Time [14:57] Walter Benjamin [14:57] The Origin of German Tragic Drama (1928) [16:17] Dasein [29:42] The Existentialist Reader: An Anthology of Key Texts (2001) [33:00] What We Think About When We Think About Soccer (2017) [33:24] Jürgen Klopp [43:36] Mysticism (2024) [58:17] Wallace Stevens [1:01:58] Things Merely Are (2005) [1:11:32] Question Everything (2022) [1:12:39] Bowie (2014) [1:16:10] Moonage Daydream (2022)

September 30, 20261 hr 14 min

Jacques Pépin on “Taste Memory” and a Life in the Kitchen

Jacques Pépin has long found beauty in simplicity—a glass of warm milk, a freshly sliced lemon, a garden-ripe tomato—and in transmitting knowledge from one hand to the next. Now 90, the French chef, author, artist, and educator has spent nearly a century immersed in the world of food, beginning as an apprentice in France at age 13 and rising through Parisian kitchens before moving to the United States in 1959. Over the decades, Pépin has become one of the most influential culinary figures in the world, authoring more than 30 cookbooks and appearing in hundreds of cooking programs. This year marks the 50th anniversary of his landmark 1976 book, La Technique , recently reimagined as an expanded edition combining 600-plus foundational skills and 160 recipes. For this “site-specific” episode of Time Sensitive, we joined Pépin at his home in Madison, Connecticut, where he has lived for more than 50 years, to discuss the relationship between technique and speed, how he’s developed what he calls his “taste memory,” and the extraordinary role of chance throughout his life. Special thanks to our Season 14 presenting partner, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts , supported by Van Cleef & Arpels. Show Notes: Jacques Pépin [09:19] La Technique (1976) [09:27] Jacques Pépin Complete Techniques 50th Anniversary Edition (2026) [14:28] The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen (2003) [11:16] Craig Claiborne [15:49] Le Répertoire de la Cuisine (1914) [15:14] Société des Cuisiniers de Paris [24:39] Charles de Gaulle [25:03] Algerian War [47:26] Julia Child [39:20] Howard Johnson [39:35] Le Pavillon [42:37] Albert Camus [42:37] Samuel Beckett [42:37] Simone de Beauvoir [43:09] Michel Foucault [46:30] Voltaire [55:30] Helen McCully [57:47] James Beard [1:09:40] A Grandfather’s Lessons (2017)

September 16, 20261 hr 19 min

Iris van Herpen on Visualizing the Invisible Through Haute Couture

Iris van Herpen’s boundary-defying, otherworldly work exists somewhere between couture, sculpture, science, technology, architecture, and nature. For nearly two decades, the Dutch fashion designer has radically expanded the possibilities of what forms haute couture can take, combining time-honored craftsmanship techniques with cutting-edge technologies and material innovations, from 3-D—and, perhaps eventually, 4-D —printing to bioluminescent algae, plasma, and even particle accelerators. While her practice boldly and unquestionably points toward the future, it’s equally invested in ancient knowledge, deep time, and what might endure. Currently, a sweeping exhibition, titled “Sculpting the Senses” and showcasing some 140 of her designs, is on view at the Brooklyn Museum through Dec. 6. On this episode of Time Sensitive—our Season 14 opener and first-ever fully filmed conversation, now available to watch on YouTube —van Herpen reflects on the significance of movement in her work the importance of carving out meditative time for creative exploration, and why going slower actually allows her to do more, with greater depth. Special thanks to our Season 14 presenting partner, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts , supported by Van Cleef & Arpels. Show notes: Iris van Herpen [33:21] “Sculpting the Senses” [51:50] Philip Beesley [51:50] Björk [35:13] “Unfolding Time” (2024) [21:41] Sonic Starquakes (2026) [22:36] Lichtenberg figure [47:54] “The Gates of Hell” (1880–1917) [48:06] Musée Rodin [49:28] “The Garden of Earthly Delights” (1490–1510) [54:18] “Hybrid Holism” (2012) [58:24] Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode

June 24, 202659 min

Dries Van Noten on the Meaning Found in Making

Dries Van Noten’s lifelong fascination with craft and making runs deep. He grew up in a multigenerational family of retailers and tailors in Antwerp, and in the 1980s, he was part of the famed avant-garde Antwerp Six group of Belgian fashion designers. From 1986 to 2024, across 38 years and 129 runway shows, Van Noten built one of fashion’s most admired independent houses. Since stepping away from the helm of his namesake label two years ago, he has turned his attention to establishing the Fondazione Dries Van Noten in Venice, Italy. Set within the 15th-century Palazzo Pisani Moretta on the Grand Canal, his newly opened foundation is dedicated to craft in its broadest sense—bringing together artists, designers, makers, and thinkers across disciplines and generations. Its debut exhibition, “The Only True Protest Is Beauty,” on view through Oct. 4, features a playful, eclectic assemblage of striking works from the worlds of haute couture, jewelry, photography, art, design, ceramics, and glass. For this “site-specific” episode of Time Sensitive, our Season 13 finale, Spencer meets up with Van Noten inside his foundation to discuss his lifelong fascination with making; beauty as an essential force in one’s life; and his conviction that, in our frenzied, fragmented world, craft offers a gateway to greater meaning and human connection. Special thanks to our Season 13 presenting partner, L'ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts . Show notes: Dries Van Noten [01:08] Fondazione Dries Van Noten [06:47] Chiara Pisani [12:41] “The Only True Protest is Beauty.” [12:41] Phil Ochs [15:11] Misha Kahn [15:11] Ettore Sottsass [15:11] Palazzo Pisani Moretta [16:50] Steven Shearer [17:50] Lionel Jadot [19:13] Christian Lacroix [19:20] Peter Buggenhout [21:25] Joris Laarman [34:59] The Antwerp Six (2026) [36:45] Claude Montana [36:45] Thierry Mugler [36:45] Jules-François Crahay [36:57] Comme des Garçons [36:57] Yohji Yamamoto [38:12] Xavier Mañosa [43:04] Azuma Makoto [44:09] Rei Kawakubo [44:12] Mitsuhiro Matsuda [45:36] Tadao Ando [51:48] David Bowie

June 17, 20261 hr 20 min

Felix Burrichter on Print’s Enduring Power in the Algorithmic Age

Through PIN–UP , the German-born, New York–based editor, curator, and founder Felix Burrichter continues to expand the possibilities of what an architecture magazine can be. He constructs intuitive bridges between creative sectors—whether art, design, and music, or fashion, film, and food—and shows how the built environment shapes and responds to larger societal and cultural forces. Amid endlessly scrollable, algorithmically controlled digital feeds, PIN–UP remains committed as ever to a print-forward, human-led approach. 2026 marks the 20th anniversary of this self-described “magazine for architectural entertainment” and the launch of its 40th issue, a special edition devoted to the notion of “Independence”—a north star for Burrichter, who has long championed slower, more intentional forms of media rooted in curiosity, discovery, and pleasure. On the episode, Burrichter reflects on why he sees magazines as intimate dinner parties; how slowness and experimentation have become his publication’s defining strengths; and why, despite our precarious present, he continues to strive toward utopia. Special thanks to our Season 13 presenting partner, L'ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts . Show notes: Felix Burrichter [00:50] PIN–UP Magazine [07:01] India Mahdavi [09:42] Alexandra Cunningham Cameron [12:50] Moriyama House by Ryue Nishizawa [18:33] PIN–UP Home [27:21] Jay Osgerby [31:10] Theaster Gates [31:10] Solange Knowles and Saint Heron [31:24] Solange’s “Losing You” (2012) [32:19] Luther Vandross’s “A House Is Not a Home” (1981) [44:14] KPF [47:53] Jop Van Bennekom and Gert Jonkers [47:53] Stephen Todd [48:41] Dylan Fracareta [48:41] Geoffrey Han [49:34] “Taking It Slow With Spencer Bailey” [49:54] Paulo Mendes da Rocha [52:28] Bijoy Jain [59:34] The Barbie Dreamhouse [59:50] “Isamu Noguchi: ‘I Am Not a Designer’” [1:02:16] Dozie Kanu [1:06:34] Ben Ganz [1:08:57] Travis Scott [1:13:27] Rana Toofanian

June 10, 202658 min

Maria Popova on the Role of Chance in Shaping Our Lives

Through her multifaceted work, the Bulgarian-born, Brooklyn-based writer, reader, and researcher Maria Popova, founder of the “free, ad-free, A.I.-free, fully human” website and newsletter The Marginalian, braids together literature, science, philosophy, poetry, and art in beautiful, alchemical ways. Traversing centuries, she approaches various ideas and thinkers, living and dead, as active references in the expansive, ongoing project of learning what it means to be human. Now, nearly 20 years since the site’s founding, she continues to cultivate a singular space on the internet—one devoted not so much to information but to illumination . Her latest book, Traversal , which links figures such as Mary Shelley and Walt Whitman, alongside other writers, poets, physicists, and philosophers, serves as an intellectual journey and an across-time meditation on creativity, consciousness, and interconnectedness. On this episode of Time Sensitive, Popova discusses the idea of “spiritual ancestors,” why today’s A.I. debates are fundamentally modern versions of age-old questions about the soul, and the mystery of being alive. Show notes: Maria Popova [03:14] Traversal (2026) [04:04] René Descartes [05:07] Aristotle [05:07] Susan Sontag [05:15] Alan Lightman [06:33] Mary Shelley [06:33] Walt Whitman [08:00] Frankenstein (1818) [12:21] Frances “Fanny” Wright [14:21] Rube Goldberg [15:34] Freeman Dyson [15:34] Maker of Patterns: An Autobiography Through Letters (2018) [20:43] Nina Simone [21:40] Dan Frank [21:40] Figuring (2019) [31:24] The Marginalian [40:18] T.S. Elliot ’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1915) [42:12] Iris Murdoch [42:33] The Universe in Verse (2024) [42:54] Patti Smith [42:54] Rebecca Elson [42:58] Vera Rubin [43:33] “Urns for Living” [51:18] Dacher Keltner ’s Awe (2023) [55:09] Sylvia Plath [55:41] Leaves of Grass (1855)

May 27, 20261 hr 4 min

Sheila Hicks on Life as a Series of Portals

For our latest “site-specific” episode of Time Sensitive, Spencer meets Sheila Hicks inside her courtyard in Paris’s Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood, where she has called home for more than 60 years. The 91-year-old Nebraska-born artist—widely known for her vibrant, sculptural textile and fiber works—resists any firm classification of what she does, as her multifarious output reflects. Currently, Hicks’s work is on view in a solo exhibition at SFMOMA through Aug. 9, and a two-person exhibition, “Material Matters: Sheila Hicks & Shi Hui,” at Shanghai’s West Bund Museum through Aug. 2. Last year, Knoll Textiles reissued her classic Altiplano collection from 1966 in an updated palette, and a major Milan retrospective, her first in Italy, will open on Nov. 16 at the Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea. On the episode, Hicks discusses her lifelong relationship with textiles, weaving, and perception through materials and environments; her formative travels in South America, Morocco, India, and Japan; and how chance encounters can shape one’s life. Show notes: Sheila Hicks [0:44] Cour de Rohan [3:04] Altiplano (1966) for Knoll Textiles [08:15] Edward Steichen [14:40] Josef Albers [13:19] Yohji Yamamoto [17:13] George Kubler [17:34] Trevor Paglen [26:15] Ford Foundation [26:15] Darren Walker [30:18] Raoul d’Harcourt [34:43] Rue de Seine [34:50] May Day [38:41] Jantar Mantar [52:03] Florence Knoll [55:00] Cristobal Zañartu [55:00] Opening the Archives [55:00] Hanging by a Thread [59:12] “Calder: Rêver en équilibre” [1:00:16] Monique Lévi-Strauss [1:02:30] Thaddeus Mosley Pierre Horay