Media - Features
ROCO: Tectonal by Anthony DiLorenzo (composer) & Cynthia Wong (animation).
November 16, 2020 - Read My Lips: Cool Conversations with Creatives
akaRadioRed welcomes two creatives who help us make sense of the world. Lois Farfel Stark is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and author of The Telling Image: Shapes of Changing Times. “I’m intrigued by how shapes, shape us. To think out of the box, you have to know the box you are in…in Africa, the Middle East and around the globe, I saw how tribal cultures understood the world as a Web…in round thatched huts…Western cultures view the world as a Ladder…[as] in skyscrapers. Change your shape and you change your thinking."
October 18, 2020 - Rob Kall, Bottom-Up Show
I was interviewed by Rob Kall of the Bottom-up show on how the future is embedded in the present… to deeply see the present we need to embrace paradox, hold opposites and accept complexities with infinite causes and consequences.
October 12, 2020 - The Frankie Boyer Show
Lois was interviewed on The Frankie Boyer Show about shapes and how they impact our life throughout history. From King Arthur’s round table table to the Guggenheim Museum.
October 12, 2020 - The Angles of Lattitude Podcast
How can we cultivate creative thinking in an uncertain world? When you’re learning something new, using a circular or global way of learning to connect the dots might make more sense to utilize than a linear model.
July 27, 2020 - A Pretty Normal Podcast
Lois was interviewed by A Pretty Normal Podcast, a show that re-imagines what society considers normal.
July 19, 2020 - The Institute for Spirituality and Health
This engaging and thought provoking talk features author Lois Stark as she explores themes from her best-selling book, The Telling Image: Shapes of Changing Times.
“Only halfway through the year, 2020 is an experience of crisis layered upon crisis, coming to a head: medical, environmental, economic, racial. There can be a tendency to allow our physical isolation to grant us permission to cocoon, to draw into ourselves as if in a cloistered monastery, walled away from the cares and needs of the world. But I am always reminded of St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, who became a hermit only so that he could more potently pray for the people. That is to say, even in his physical isolation, Cuthbert was ardent and active for those he loved. And who are we to love? As Lois Stark reminds, us, our whole human family, who the coronavirus has, paradoxically, reminded us are our sisters and brothers.”
May 28, 2020 - Success Life Masters Series with Eric Reid
How do humans make sense of the world? Look at how we shape it. The shape of shelters, sacred sites, social systems reveals how a culture sees the world. Read the past and glimpse the future by watching when shapes shift.
Through this pandemic, we relearn we are part of nature. Viruses are part of us, between us, in us, connecting us. Viruses are highly adaptive. They mutate easily. Maybe they are teaching us how to evolve. One small change can affect a larger system. Just by staying home, we can save lives. Each of us has individual power to affect the larger whole. The virus had an origin and then a spread. And so can positive changes.
May 4, 2020 - The Fifth Dimension Podcast with Evan McDermod
Listen to Lois’ interview on The Fifth Dimension Podcast with Evan McDermod. How can human perception and historical progress be tracked through the years? And based on what we know about the past, can we use it to see the direction we are heading in the future. According to Lois Stark, all we need to do is look at our surroundings and see what we have constructed.Lois Stark is an Emmy Award winning producer, documentary filmmaker, and author of The Telling Image: Shapes of Changing Times. When looking at different eras of human history, we can see our perception of reality encompassed through our methods of organization. By looking at our past, we can begin to enhance our own perspective to see the interconnectedness that does exist between all humans, and in turn create a society fueled by that widened lens.
July 25, 2019 - Give it to You Straight - Buzz Magazine Feature
Houston magazine Buzz featured Lois for her recent book awards. The Telling Image won first place in non-fiction at the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, as well as gold medals from Nautilus Book Awards and the National Indie Excellence Awards.
July 25, 2019 - How Culture Shapes Your World - Houston Chronicle
Read an interview with Lois at the Houston Chronicle on her recent book awards.
February 18, 2018 - Interview with KRBE's "Around H-Town"
Lois is a Houston native and was interviewed by local radio show "Around H-Town" about her book The Telling Image: Shapes of Changing Times. Listen in:
February 14, 2018 - Kirkus Review of The Telling Image
The physical contours of technology, architecture, and settlement intertwine with humanity’s understanding of society and the universe, according to this debut photo essay.
In this lavishly illustrated coffee-table tome, Stark, a documentary filmmaker, pairs photos of highly patterned buildings, cities, tools, and diagrams with commentary on the zeitgeist that allegedly birthed them. . .
February 6, 2018 - Lois' book The Telling Image: Shapes of Changing Times is Available for Purchase!
How do humans make sense of the world? In answer to this timeless question, award winning documentary filmmaker, Lois Farfel Stark, takes the reader on a remarkable journey from tribal ceremonies in Liberia and the pyramids in Egypt, to the gravity-defying architecture of modern China. Drawing on her experience as a global explorer, Stark unveils a crucial, hidden key to understanding the universe: Shape itself.
January 30, 2018 - In the Limelight with Clarissa Burt Interview
Lois was interviewed by Clarissa Burt! Listen in:
January 22, 2018 - Fussfactory Interviews Lois for #SparkChamber
Where do ideas come from?
Ideas pack tightly in our mind, with their hands raised, waiting to be called on. They wave their hands wildly just after you wake, in a shower, driving alone, looking out the window, or when you straightforwardly ask in a polite tone for them to reveal themselves....
January 16th, 2018 - Blue Ink Review of The Telling Image: Shapes of Changing Times
Lois Farfel Stark argues in her new illustrated book, The Telling Image, that the shapes a society imposes upon its environment, in its structures and images, are indicative of the way it organizes and views the world.
Stark, a former documentary filmmaker for NBC News, was trained, she writes, “to look for the telling image – a picture that gives “the essence of the story.” She brings her keen eye to bear on her hypothesis, offering examples of how shapes reveal a society’s orientation. For instance, she notes that the circular placement of Native American teepees and the ringed perimeter of the Masai’s settlements in Kenya reflect societies influenced by the sun and moon’s cyclical patterns. The living arrangement also indicates a connection to nature and equality and reliance between tribe members...
Lois Farfel Stark’s The Telling Image is a wondrous and sweeping book that accomplishes a seemingly impossible task: making sense of the history—and future—of humanity and the universe.
By pinpointing the dominant shape of a period, Stark reveals the global mindset of a particular time and shows how it is essential to understanding, recognizing, and predicting globally shifting value systems. Four major shapes—the web, the ladder, the helix, and the torus—are at once symbolic and tangible, traceable motifs through time...
November 27th, 2018 - Interview with Nick Lawrence of Straight Talk
Lois was interviewed by Nick Lawrence of Straight Talk & WEEU Radio. Listen in!
November 8th, 2017 - Press Release: Announcing The Telling Image: Shapes of Changing Times
In her new book, The Telling Image: Shapes of Changing Times (Greenleaf, Feb. 2018), Stark unveils a stunning synthesis of her experience filming in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and Cuba as a producer and writer for NBC Network News. As Stark explains, to think out of the box, you have to know the box you are in. Illustrated with a series of captivating photos, including originals by Stark, The Telling Image takes readers on a remarkable journey through time and place, from tribal ceremonies in Liberia and the pyramids of Egypt to Dubai and China -- where a hotel built in the shape of an upright ring upends all expectations.
Desks have long been the home of the mind: an intimate space where you figure out what you think. Desk spaces have changed through the years to accommodate different styles and types of work, and the recent trend toward co-working also represents a change in the nature of the workplace...
The geography of our childhood helps shape our understanding of the world. The place where we grow up is the starting point of our identity and perception, our first context for reality..
December 13, 2016 - TEDxSMU video live on YouTube - "Shape: Hiding in Plain Sight."
How do humans make sense of the world? Look at how we shape it. The shape of shelters, sacred sites, social systems reveals how a culture sees the world. Read the past and glimpse the future by watching when shapes shift.
The transcript of Lois' TEDxSMU talk appeared at Quartz News
November 15, 2016 - Culture News interview and Podcast feature
Lois was featured on The Culture News in an interview with David Serero discussing her upcoming Ted Talk and the ideas in her forthcoming book.