Arts

Step inside the minds of the most innovative designers in a variety of disciplines and learn how design impacts every aspect of life. In this episode: Stage designer Es Devlin crafts evocative sets for concerts, operas, plays and runway shows using light, film, sculpture -- and even rain.

Step inside the minds of the most innovative designers in a variety of disciplines and learn how design impacts every aspect of life. In this episode: Tinker Hatfield's background in architecture and athletics sparked his game-changing shoe designs for Nike, including the iconic Air Jordan series.

At 93, there’s no stopping when it comes to the legendary artist Betye Saar.

Caneisha Edwards shows us what it takes to win a big mas costume title during Toronto's Caribbean Carnival weekend.

"Outsider artists" are those who live outside the "norm," but Gregory Blackstock's story is as much about an artist who is self-taught as it is about an artist who creates art to please himself. Through rich animation, this film showcases Gregory’s inner life and intricately detailed “list” drawings and shows how he uses his artwork to catalog and make sense of the world around him. Gregory’s cousin Dorothy Frisch ultimately helps bring his drawings to the attention of the art world, while the documentary brings his drawings to life through hand-crafted animation, bringing you deeper into the unique vision of this singular artist.

Mike Friton is a freelance shoemaker, weaver, paper sculptor and innovator with over 30 years of experience at Nike. His innovations are responsible for many elements of athletic footwear that people wear today. Each of his crafts informs one another and he is constantly exploring the fringes of his field. Mike's work is a great example of how non-traditional methods of exploring one's craft can lead to unique end results.

In 1946, 23-year-old Holocaust survivor Joseph Feingold exchanged a carton of cigarettes for a violin at a flea market in Germany. Seventy years later, Joe makes a simple decision about his violin that changes not only his life, but also the life of another young musician. Together, the two of them discover the illuminating power of a single musical instrument.

• PBS extras

Motivated by the closing of the town’s port, the loss of jobs, and effects of climate change, artist Kal Barteski invites 18 artists from around the world to paint murals around the subarctic town of Churchill, Manitoba as a way of helping the community.

• Kal Barteski's website
• Sea Walls Churchill website
• Incredible public art installations to take in all across Canada - CB

In a nondescript warehouse in the heart of Los Angeles, a dwindling handful of devoted craftspeople maintain over 80,000 student musical instruments, the largest remaining workshop in America of its kind. Meet four unforgettable characters whose broken-and-repaired lives have been dedicated to bringing so much more than music to the schoolchildren of the recording capital of the world.

about a digital redesign of New York City's iconic subway map. Filmmaker Gary Hustwit documents the process as digital agency Work & Co creates a new "live map" — one that updates in real-time — to help New Yorkers and tourists better plan their journeys. The film examines the evolution of wayfinding and user interfaces, and shows how good design and the latest digital technology can simplify one of the world's most complex transit systems.

Pioneering NYC artist, Gwyneth Leech, enters a midtown art studio only to find that her skyline view will soon be blocked by the construction of a high-rise hotel. But as the perspective out her window permanently shifts, so does the artist's point of view.

An animated documentary about the legendary journalist who changed the game for women in reporting before women even had the right to vote. The film also examines the boundaries between reporting and storytelling.

Canadian hip-hop pioneers like Maestro Fresh Wes and Michie Mee find comfort in the success of global stars such as Drake and The Weeknd.

Ex-lawyer Chuck Dickerson transforms inner-city LA by founding ICYOLA, addressing underrepresentation of Black musicians in American orchestras.

From the simple nursery rhyme–like bars of Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks" to the smooth East Coast flow of Notorious B.I.G.'s hit song "Hypnotize" to the speedy delivery of Kendrick Lamar's "Rigamortis," rhyming in rap music has not only evolved, it's gotten better.

Rebel Revolutionary follows artist Roger J. Carter as he creates complex portraits of black revolutionaries using hundreds of toy soldiers on canvas, representing the battles the marginalized face as they dismantle an established system.

According to legend, in the 27th century BCE, the Yellow Emperor of China charged his historian, Cangjie, to develop a system of writing. Sitting alongside a riverbank, Cangjie noted the imagery that surrounded him. From this, he created the first Chinese characters. So, how has Chinese evolved in the last 3,000 years? Gina Marie Elia explores the history of one of the earliest written languages.

Visible Mending reclaims the role knitting plays in many peoples’ lives; helping them face adversity, calm anxiety, and make crucial social connections. A group of knitted objects tell stories about how they have used knitting to mend themselves, even if the repair was temporary.

How Cooper Black became pop culture’s favorite font.

Mi'kmaw poet and published author Rebecca Thomas uses words for a living, but she can't speak the language stolen from her father at residential school. Words Matter follows her journey to reclaim the language while exploring the complicated past that's kept it from her.

The farm town of Torrington, Alberta longs to be frozen in time like the taxidermied gophers in its famous tourist attraction.