Letter from the Editors

June 4, 2024

Text by Nina Vichayapai, Lou Blumberg, and Clara Harlow

As the year draws to a close for us at the Art + Social Practice program, thoughts on time and its passage weave its way into our current interests, as expressed by the interviews in this issue.

For the graduating third year students, the end of their time as students brings about an interest in exploring time on a more personal, even familial, scale. Olivia DelGandio interviews their mom, Lauren DelGandio. Luz Blumenfeld interviews Hollis Blue Hawkins Wood, a 5 year-old currently growing up in the house Luz also spent significant time in throughout their childhood and life. And Gilian Rappaport meets with Midnite Seed Abioto and LaQuida Landford to learn about their work curating an exhibition of artists exploring the complex relationships that change over time between BIPOC communities and plants.

Looking back through time proves to be a generative exploration. Midori Yamanaka discusses with Amanda Larriva The Timeline, an important art installation which shares historical moments of interest in the history of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in Northeast Portland. Nina Vichayapai’s conversations with Monyee Chau explores the many ways ancestral and familial history influences their work. Meanwhile, Manfred Parrales sits down with Israa Al-Hasani to speak of the mental health impact of an immigrant’s experience of living simultaneously in the past and present.

And of course, with summer break nearing, time for friends is critical in restoring ourselves. Clara Harlow and Katie Shook discuss the importance of carving out time and space for play, rest, and connection within the capitalist grind. For friends and fellow classmates Simeen Anjum and Lou Blumberg, their interviews with one another provided a chance to deepen their friendship while also reflecting on what helps them get through difficult times as activists.

We hope you enjoy reading our reflections and find some time to clock out this season.

HAGS!

Your SoFA Journal Editors:

Nina Vichayapai, Lou Blumberg, and Clara Harlow

The Social Forms of Art (SoFA) Journal is a publication dedicated to supporting, documenting and contextualising social forms of art and its related fields and disciplines. Each issue of the Journal takes an eclectic look at the ways in which artists are engaging with communities, institutions and the public. The Journal supports and discusses projects that offer critique, commentary and context for a field that is active and expanding.

Created within the Portland State University Art & Social Practice Masters In Fine Arts. Program, SoFA Journal is now fully online.

Conversations on Everything is an expanding collection of interviews produced as part of SoFA Journal. Through the potent format of casual interviews as artistic research, insight is harvested from artists, curators, people of other fields and everyday humans. These conversations study social forms of art as a field that lives between and within both art and life.

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