Outsiders: Yayoi Kusama

Womanica

Acast Creative Studios

History, Society & Culture, Education

4.3 • 920 Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Yayoi Kusama (1929 - present) is a contemporary Japanese artist working across painting, sculpture, film, and installation. She has produced a body of work formally unified by its use of repetitive dots, pumpkins, and mirrors. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan, the world's top-selling female artist, and the world's most successful living artist. Her work influenced that of her contemporaries, including Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg.

For Further Reading:

This month we're talking about Outsiders -- women who marched to the beat of their own drum and rejected stereotypes about what women "should" be. They are aesthetic pioneers, norm-benders, and often the only woman in their field.

History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn't help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.

Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we'll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.

Womanica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Grace Lynch, Maddy Foley, Brittany Martinez, Edie Allard, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, Sara Schleede, Paloma Moreno Jimenez, Luci Jones, Abbey Delk, Adrien Behn, Alyia Yates, Vanessa Handy, Melia Agudelo, and Joia Putnoi. Special thanks to Shira Atkins.

Original theme music by Brittany Martinez.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an IHeart podcast.
0:06.3	Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results.
0:12.6	But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children.
0:18.2	Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie.
0:23.2	Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success.
0:31.5	You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on IHeart True Crime Plus.
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0:39.1	Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today.
0:44.2	The Made for This Mountain Podcast exists to empower listeners to rise above their inner struggles and face the mountain in front of them.
0:52.5	So during Mental Health Awareness Month, tune into the podcast, focus on your emotional
0:56.8	well-being and then climb that mountain.
0:59.4	You will never be able to change or grow through the thing that you refuse to identify.
1:03.4	The thing that you refuse to say, hey, this is my mountain.
1:06.2	This is the struggle.
1:07.4	Listen to Made for This Mountain on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:16.7	Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica.
1:21.4	This month we're talking about outsiders, women who marched to the beat of their own drum
1:25.3	and rejected stereotypes about what women should be.
1:28.8	Their aesthetic pioneers, norm benders, and often the only woman in their field.
1:33.4	Today we're talking about an obsessive artist.
1:36.4	She defied her family, societal expectations, and artistic conventions to dedicate herself to her vision.
1:42.7	Through psychiatric challenges and countless hours of work and
	...

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