CCC is on a two-week Spring Break
Use this time to tap into past episodes, share your favorites and stay connected to the community. We’ll be back next week continuing Season 2 with more depth and necessary cultural climate conversations.

Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling!

@Compost_Cotton_Cornrows

In this episode of Compost, Cotton & Cornrows, Dominique Drakeford sits in a powerful conversation with Ghanaian artist Serge Attukwei Clottey, the visionary behind Afrogallonism - a radical artistic practice transforming discarded yellow oil containers into monumental sculptures, performances, and communal rituals. Living and working in Accra, Ghana, Clottey unpacks how these everyday objects, once used to transport cooking oil from the West and later repurposed to store scarce drinking water, carry layered stories of migration, global trade, environmental degradation and survival. Through cutting, stitching, weaving, and performance, he reveals how materials dismissed as waste become cultural archives, documenting the afterlife of globalization on the African continent.

But Clottey’s work extends far beyond the gallery. Rooted deeply in the community, his practice has evolved into a living ecosystem where elders stitch, youth source materials, and entire neighborhoods participate in transforming plastic waste into art, architecture, clothing, and storytelling. What began as an artist’s intervention has become a collective act of environmental education, economic participation, and cultural reclamation. Together, Dominique and Serge explore sustainability as responsibility, the politics of global waste economies, and how tradition—from weaving to ceremonial performance can inspire contemporary solutions for a planet struggling under the weight of its own consumption.

Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling!

@Compost_Cotton_Cornrows

Episode 41 | In this episode of Compost, Cotton & Cornrows, Dominique Drakeford sits in conversation with meteorologist and climate storyteller Alesha Ray, whose journey from journalism to national broadcast weather reframes environmentalism through a lens that is both scientifically rigorous and deeply human. Together, they unpack the power of meeting people where they are, redefining sustainability beyond perfection, and challenging the narratives that make climate action feel inaccessible to the very communities most impacted. As Alesha shares, “sustainability is meeting people where they are… being resourceful, knowing what you need, and utilizing what you have to make a difference.”

From rising heat as a public health crisis to the emotional weight of climate anxiety, this conversation moves through the urgency of now while holding space for color, joy, creativity, cultural expression and of course thrifting. Dominique and Alesha explore sustainable fashion as a practice of ingenuity, the necessity of representation in science and media, and the role of storytelling in translating complex climate data into something people can actually feel, understand and act on. Also Alesha speaks about the evolution of her educational offerings merging science with accessible and stylish storytelling!

Compost, Cotton & Cornrows: the space where Black & Afro-Indigenous Vanguards are redefining sustainability through storytelling!

@Compost_Cotton_Cornrows