Conversation Series
Friendship on Film
Rose Lewis with Dr. Zoe Bursztajn-Illingworth
“I do feel like there’s a social ideology where it’s teleological, you’re moving from friendship where you learn relational dynamics to romantic relationships. But what if it’s not that kind of linear progression, right? What if friendship can be the foreground, rather than the thing that leads to something else?” – Dr. Zoe Bursztajn-Illingworth
Friendship is the most generative site of collaboration within my own practice. Almost everything I do becomes more interesting when done with friends. Despite friendship’s primacy in my own life, we still inhabit a culture that privileges romantic connection over all else. I prize cultural depictions of other relationships, collegial, comradely, or complicated. I decided to discuss the question of friendship on film with one of my dearest friends. Note: This interview contains detailed discussion of Claudia Weill’s 1978 film Girlfriends–proceed with caution if you haven’t seen it and want to preserve the mysteries of its plot.
Rose: I think that friendship is the main form of collaboration that I have, and of course you’re one of my very dearest friends of all time.
Zoe: Well make sure that your readers know that you and I were first and foremost class friends. I am your friend who’s also an academic and teaches film. We first met in an academic context. All of those discussions were collaborative discussions about texts.
Rose: Knowing that you’re teaching the Greta Gerwig class and that a lot of your academic work is around film, you seemed like an excellent person to talk to about filmic depictions of friendship. I know we have so many depictions of romantic relationships on film andI thought it would be really interesting to talk about other kinds of relationships. And I have a couple films depicting friendships that I love, but I would love to hear what you love. What are your favorites?
Zoe: I think one of my all time favorites was Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends, from 1978. I’ll tell you all about it because I think that it would be very relevant to an art student. It’s a “woman becoming an artist” movie. [The film centers on] this woman, Susan. She is similar to the director, Claudia Weil, who was a young, Jewish woman director.
[Susan] is becoming a photographer at first, mostly specializing in shots for a rabbi, like bat mitzvahs and weddings, but then branches out into her own avant garde photography. The movie opens with her taking these photographs of her roommate and friend, Anne, while Anne is sleeping. Anne is like, “stop taking these photos of me,” and Susan is like “the light! It’s just right!”
The entire movie is their friendship and tension around Susan’s artistic ambitions taking center stage while Anne also wants to be a writer but then ends up getting married to this nothing of a man and moving to Vermont or upstate New York.
The thing about Girlfriends is “how do I keep this bond with my girl friend, who pushes me forward while also navigating the desires around love, creative expression, earning money,” right? I think one of the big tensions is that Susan makes a living through her art, while Ann doesn’t. She’s supported by her husband.
There are some ideas about collaboration and compromise–Susan wants to paint the walls of their apartment red, a very intense, bright red and Anne is like, “I don’t want to do that.” Susan gets her way and is able to paint the walls of the apartment the color she wants because Anne has moved out. But it’s very sad for her, right? The compromise would’ve been better than having this relationship become kind of estranged.
Susan seems very headstrong and sure of herself, but then also has this [process of] finding herself, grappling with being without her close friend. It was very clear that she and Anne had a really special friendship that was important, sustaining, and inspiring to both of them.
The movie ends [as] the friendship is re-formed, on the same night that Susan has her big first gallery opening. Anne’s husband comes to the opening and Susan asks “where the hell is Anne?”
The husband says, “she stayed home to do some writing and she said you would understand.” So then Susan goes out to see Anne, and it turns out that Anne has had an abortion because she had had one child and thought “to become a writer, I need to stop having these kids. I can’t be mothering and trying to pursue writing and going back to school to do the writing.”
It becomes a really nice moment, with both of them sitting together and joking around. Anne says “I think you seem like you have it all together,” And Susan says, “what are you talking about? I don’t know what I’m doing as much as anyone.”
Rose: I love hearing about movies and watching movies where abortion is not treated as some hugely tragic, traumatizing mistake that someone’s gone through, but as just a necessary and straightforward decision.
Zoe: Yeah. This is in 1978, right? Pretty cool movie! Greta Gerwig borrows a lot of parts of it for Frances Ha–really the premise of Frances Ha is Girlfriends.
I feel like what both of these movies have in common is like the [theme of] becoming an artist on your own terms. You’re mourning the seeming end of a friendship, but then it isn’t really the end, it’s actually a new stage or part of its development, which I think is interesting.
The friendships are not without their problems, but they are still sustaining and important. Each of these characters forms their identity relationally, with this other person in their twenties.
Rose: I think that there’s something really crucial in that, and I hope that young people these days still get to have the underemployed period in your twenties where you haven’t quite settled upon your great life’s career path and you get to focus on generative goofing off with your pals.
Zoe: Oh yeah, exactly. I think that that was important for both of us. And it was definitely important for [the character in] Girlfriends, you know, drifting around, taking these photos. And Frances, she’s crashing on a lot of couches at different points.
At some point she moves from being the backup dancer in the dance company’s troupe, basically kind of like Gerwig herself, right? Frances moves from dancer to choreographer, similar to how Greta Gerwig moves from actor to then screenwriter and director.
I do feel like there’s a social ideology where it’s teleological, you’re moving from friendship where you learn relational dynamics to romantic relationships. But what if it’s not that kind of linear progression, right? What if friendship can be the foreground, rather than the thing that leads to something else?
Rose: Right? Absolutely. It’s not like the more important category grows out of the other.
Zoe: Yeah, exactly. And I think that both Girlfriends and Frances Ha make that really clear.
Rose: A movie about friendship that I watched recently that I hadn’t even necessarily thought of through this lens before was The Sting. I re-watched it in memory of the maestro, Robert Redford. I think that what was so cool about that movie is that all of the characters’ motivations have to do with friendship. All of the guys that are coming together to take down the bad mobster are all doing it through their bonds of friendship. For all of the characters, their primary relationships are friendships, even though there are a few romances on screen. And I thought that was really beautiful. We’re talking so much about the male loneliness crisis these days, and what if the answer to the male loneliness crisis is that guys have got to form crime rings again?
Zoe: Speaking of the male loneliness epidemic, [Tim Robinson’s Friendship] also did a good job skewering those guys, right? Satirizing the way in which they’re like, “I am so lonely.” Really? There is nothing that you could do perhaps differently? Perhaps you’re contributing to this loneliness epidemic.
Rose: I watched that movie on a plane and it was a really bizarre experience because I think that if I had watched it with a group of friends in a theater, the comedy notes of it would’ve hit the hardest. But I think because I had just been rushing through the Chicago airport at the end of this long odyssey that I had been on, visiting a whole bunch of different friends in a whole bunch of different cities, the tragedy of it really came through. The tragedy of his marriage, the tragedy of his very off-putting personality, all the many different ways in which he hasn’t really been able to fit in throughout his life. I just thought, “this is poignant.”
Zoe: And also, who hasn’t had the experience of thinking, “man, this friend of mine, we are really tight,” and then you meet the rest of their friends and you think, “oh no.” He wants so badly to fit in with that group, but they’re into acapella. [He thinks], “Ooh. The other friends of this friend have me doubting the character of the person that I have chosen to all align myself with.”
A friendship movie that we’ve watched together and we both really like is Muriel’s Wedding. The title makes it seem like it’s going to be primarily about romantic relationships, but in fact it is about helping your wild and crazy friend when she faces hardship and disability and being like, “I wanna have my friend with me all the time.” Muriel gets married to this hunk, right? But ultimately that isn’t the thing that gives her pleasure or satisfaction.
Rose: Yes.
Zoe: Yeah. I feel like the turning point in that movie where the friend has the disabling event–oh my God, totally unexpected– shifts the course of the entire movie. These things that happened to our friends deeply affect us and absolutely shift the course of our lives as well. Friendship is just as deeply pivotal as romantic love, if not more so, for a lot of women.
Rose: And I think what’s particularly special about that movie is the way in which the friendships kind of move her personal development forward. She’s able to start developing her own sense of independence and identity through the support and strength of this much more empowered, liberated character.
Zoe: Exactly. But then she gets to actually have a caretaking role when that character becomes disabled and starts seeing the world differently. You know, she still has her spunk and spirit and such, but isn’t going out for a two-guy three-way.
Rose: Yeah. I also just really love the scene where she accidentally unzips the beanbag chair when she’s trying to fool around with that guy.
Zoe: You and I watched that movie during the time that I was in Portland following that very traumatic, difficult life event for me. And I do think it was a good reaffirmation of our friendship through this comedic work of art.
Rose: Yes! I loved our little mini film fest we did when you were staying with me. There were so many times where I would say “oh, you know, I haven’t seen this,” and then you would say, “oh, you know, I watched that recently, but here’s a related title.” I feel like one of the great pleasures of talking to you about movies is that pretty much any movie that I could name, you have seen it, and have a very cogent thought about it.
Zoe: I do love to do that for my students, my own little Zoe Criterion. If I’m teaching Cleo from Five to Seven, I can say “If you liked this more Left Bank, French New Wave, film, maybe you should watch Hiroshima Mon Amour.”
I found out recently, when teaching The 400 Blows, there’s a very tragic scene where his friend bikes away to go visit him at the juvenile detention center and then isn’t let in to visit him, and you just see the child banging on the glass. You can’t hear what’s happening, but you can see the friend being told to go and then biking away. I guess Truffaut’s friend who did the cinematography for The 400 Blows actually did that–it was semi-autobiographical. The collaborations that one has with one’s friends are definitely different, structurally and in terms of power, than the collaborations one has with one’s lover and partners.
Rose: Speaking of Truffaut, and 400 Blows, of course one of the great friendship classics is Jules et Jim.
It’s so funny. When I first watched that in high school, it blew my mind. I love it so much. I re-watched it in college and I still really loved it, but at that point I was also struck by how strange it is and the dynamic these guys have with each other and the different ways that they’re expressing themselves. And in the final moments when they’re realizing what’s happened to Catherine, the only thing they can say is, “well, there’s her car”.
Zoe: Yes, I remember seeing that, I think like at the Paramount in Austin on some French new wave double feature. And I’ve only seen it that one time, but I definitely can remember the final shot of the car wreck, and thinking [so much of the film is about] sustaining homosocial bonds, right?
Rose: Very Barbara Kruger, in that they construct intimate rituals to allow them to touch the skin of other men.
Zoe: Yes! Like [Eve Kosofsky] Sedgwick, Between Men! In teaching Girlfriends, I also contextualize it with the male buddy comedy where the viewer thinks, “this is to the exclusion of women.”
This has been such a good conversation, dude. You know I love to rant and rave about movies, so, I would do this anytime.
Rose: It’s one of my favorite things to talk to you about. I’m so happy that we got to do this. Whenever you come up in conversation with my mom, she always says, “I remember when you said, mom, I met someone who’s smarter than me.”
Zoe: Not true! I just talk really quickly, like Martin Scorsese. I just talk fast because I’m from the east coast, which in Texas is to my detriment, but elsewhere people do think it’s a smart person thing.
Rose: I definitely think it’s a smart person thing. And I love the comparison with Marty, one of the greatest. I actually got my appreciation for Martin Scorsese before I’d even seen any of his work. He was interviewed extensively in a documentary about Joe Strummer, about their friendship and how they had met when he briefly cast the Clash in as background actors in The King of Comedy.
I loved the way that he talked about his early experiences of punk and being in New York at the time that that was all happening. [He got] to know The Clash when they were first coming to America. They were obsessed with this image of New York that had partly come to them through his movies.
That was just such a beautiful basis on which to form a friendship and a collaboration. I thought that was really lovely.
Rose Lewis is an artist, musician, and general busybody based in Portland, OR. Her work is deeply rooted in the DIY tradition of the global punk community and encompasses media including drawing, printmaking, zine-making, show booking, painting in oil and watercolor, writing, electric guitar, and soup. Find her work at rose-lewis.space.
Dr. Zoe Bursztajn-Illingworth is an Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies in the Department of English at Texas State University. Prior to her arrival at Texas State, she held a Mellon grant-funded postdoctoral fellowship in digital humanities at the University of Texas where she received her PhD in 2022. Zoe’s research examines the nexus of contemporary cinema, new media, and literature, particularly poetry and theories of the lyric. Her current book project examines poetry-savvy narrative films, many of which also foreground new media forms, in the twenty-first century. The project contributes to discussions of intermediality, the lyric’s ongoing adaptability and survival, and new approaches to theorizing formalism in film and literature.
She is also interested in digital humanities projects that increase public access to archival holdings and contextualize media artifacts.
We Can’t Leave Each Other Behind
Clara Harlow with Suzy Messerole, Seniz Yargici and Sharon Mandel
“The communication that happens in the water is making me a better human being outside of the water.” – Suzy Messerole
In August of 2025, I found myself across the pond for the first time on a wedding trip of someone I didn’t know and whose wedding I didn’t attend. I learned early on that when someone invites you to come on a trip with them, you say yes and figure the rest out later. Much to my delight, there happened to be a show up at the Design Museum all about swimming. I’d been doing the bulk of my graduate work on the aesthetics and relationships of the swimming pool, so this felt like a serendipitous gift.
It was within the aqua walls of the Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style exhibition, where I first discovered the Subversive Sirens synchronized swimming team. I stood completely captivated by the imagery of all sorts of bodies in relationship to one another above and below the water’s surface in a short film made by artist Xiaolu Wang about the team. So naturally, the first thing I did when I got home from London was cold email them to learn more about what they were reenvisioning together in the pool.
The Subversive Sirens is not like any synchronized swimming team. Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the team is made up of folks of all backgrounds who have come together around their passion for swimming, activism, and how these two can intersect. They swim for Black liberation, equity in swimming and aquatic arts, radical body acceptance, and queer visibility. Every Saturday morning the team gathers in 4 lanes at the Phillips Aquatic Center, which is part of the Phillips Community Center, in the heart of Minneapolis. Although they spend this time swimming and rehearsing for the annual IGLA Aquatics Championship or the Gay Games that happen every 4 years, they see this time as a regular act of collective care and rejuvenation. This fall I had the pleasure of sitting down with Subversive Sirens members Suzy Messserole, Seniz Yargici, and Sharon Mandel to learn more about what we can do in the water that we can’t do on land and what we can do together that we can’t do alone.
Clara: As a former competitive swimmer, the pool has always held this tension for me in being both a site for competition and camaraderie. A site of individual striving and profound teamwork. I’m wondering if that friction comes up in synchronized swimming and how you make sense of that as a team?
Sharon: I haven’t competed yet, but I’m thinking about freedom and expression in the water as individuals, and how that works as a team. And that’s a really interesting thing for me. I’m the newest on the team, and I think it’s a really interesting challenge to be free and creative, and also do all the technical aspects that it takes to perform as a team. So there’s the creativity part, and then there’s the kicking someone and getting water up the nose part, so it’s a real combination of learning skills and still being creative and being yourself while doing what’s needed to create something with a team. There’s no riffing in Synchro. And our spacing is supposed to be very close together. Synchronized. So the technical aspect does outweigh creativity during the practices, I think. I don’t know if it outweighs fun, but it is a lot of hard work, too.
Clara: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I’m curious if you could talk more about how you guys are thinking about the liberatory potential of the pool space?
Sharon: I think just being there, in our bathing suits, in our bodies, which are bigger and different-shaped. That, right there, is giving maybe some hope for others that it’s okay to be in whatever suit you are, in whatever body you are, and to feel comfortable. I think a big part of our liberation politics is encouraging people to really feel okay about who they are, and to enjoy the water doing that if they wish.
Suzy: I think that’s beautiful, Sharon. I also think that our priority is the seven of us. Well, the eight of us with our coach. And, in doing so, I think we are setting an example for communal care, for setting time aside for your own rejuvenation, so that you can go out back out into the world and be a better participant in the journey to justice.
But as Sharon said, the little kids come and watch us do the routines. You know, I’m one of the white members, but most of the members are Black. Many of us are bigger-bodied and we bring the joy wherever we go. We are so happy to be together in the water, in our swimsuits, to the best of our ability.
Sharon: Two of the members of our team are directors of theater programs, too, and I think that has an influence. Signy, who’s not here, but is one of the co-founders of the team, is very vivacious with her face, with her body gestures, with how she interacts with people. It’s got a theatrical feel to it, so when the Sirens show up, it’s got a zing to it.
Seniz: That’s a vibe, for sure.
Suzy: And I also think, you know, some of the most fun I’ve had in a pool has just been something free, intergenerational, and you get a DJ in a pool.
Clara: You’re so right about that. It reminds me of going to water aerobics classes with my mom. She goes every day, so me and my sisters will go with her whenever we’re back in Omaha. And there’s just something about it. You just can’t not be smiling and joking around, and laughing. Like, it really brings me back to a feeling of being 10 years old and goofing off together. It’s fun to do that with other people in your adulthood, to witness each other in that joy at, like, 6 AM, you know?
Seniz: It’s so true. I’m a youth worker by trade, and I think the reason I love being around kids and watching them play is that it’s just, like, humanness in the purest form, and we lose that sense of play as we get older, and we actually have to work toward that play over and over again. And I do feel like water is a really fast train to feeling young again. Like being in the water is a sensory thing, right? Just poof, it brings you right back to that feeling of being a kid and freedom.
Sharon: I think too that, you know, it’s a process to accept your body in this world as anybody. It’s a process to accept yourself, and water provides a little cover for that. So, I often hear in the water aerobics class that I go to, which has you know, music, intergenerational, and swimming, that people are comfortable because you can modify your style of exercise, and people don’t even know it, because it’s covered by the water. So, everybody’s still getting exercise, the water provides for everyone. You don’t have to be in a gym with everybody looking at you. You know?
Clara: Speaking of the water providing for everyone, I’m curious if you could talk a bit about the public events y’all host for folks to get to try out these synchro techniques and skills. How do you make it accessible to a public audience?
Suzy: For Learn to Synchro we all start in the shallow end with the real basics, like just floating. And then we teach how to skull moving backwards, and then skull moving with your feet first, and then there’s a few really fun things that are easy. We always do a splash mob, that is like a flash mob, but it’s in the shallow end, so people are standing there to dance. The splash mobs are so darn fun. What were they like for you two?
Seniz: I felt really trusting that these people know what they’re doing. I mean, we all know this, all four of us here right now, what it’s like being in a pool with other people, and doing a thing together. It’s like we’re sharing an environment in a way that we normally wouldn’t. It’s like we’re being held all together in this thing, and we’re changing it and moving it, and it’s not something that we get to do often, and I think that’s what’s really special about it. It’s like, we can be artists, we can be swimmers, but creating a thing together in water just has a different vibration. You know? So I think what’s really cool about those big events is inviting people into our vibrations.
Sharon: I would also add that we always do an introduction of ourselves about how the team is connected to human rights and justice and body positivity. So that’s a big part of our events, too, and there’s a real sense of pumping up the audience to feel comfortable, to be excited, to feel good in their bodies, to feel good in their bathing suits, and to have a really good time. And then we have a good sound system, and underwater speakers that are really exciting and fun for everybody. So, that’s another component that really adds a lot of liveliness to it.
Seniz: Oh, I also think the detail of providing nose plugs and goggles for those who need them, and noodles for people, and swim caps even is important too.
Suzy: And that is really important, because there are so many people in our community that haven’t had access to pools. If they do have access to pools, they have been policed at pools, they have been harassed at pools, they don’t feel comfortable at them, you know what I mean? Like, there are a lot of people in our community that need the extra welcome, to feel even comfortable enough to walk in the door, right? Like, we are at the door welcoming people. Because this site, which is so joyful and playful and amazing for me, has been a place of oppression for other people. And Minnesota has the highest percentage of drownings for kids of color in the country.
Sharon: We practice at the Philips Aquatic Center Pool, and that pool took many years and much work to open, just for the reason that Susie was talking about. I’d like to add that the Splash Mob events also invite people of all ages who are interested in synchronized swimming, which is how I got to know about the team. I was 40-something when I heard about… well, let’s be honest, I guess I was 50-something. And I had asked lifeguards and people all over, and looked online and tried to find something, but the teams for synchronized swimming were mostly young white girls, and I couldn’t find any team that I could really fit in on. But, I found out about the Sirens through a lifeguard at another pool where elder synchronized swimmers swim, and I got to participate in a splash mob that way. It was hard to find a synchronized swim team to practice with. We are it.
Suzy: And I think, Sharon, what you said earlier about our connection to social justice and human rights is that we are much more a liberation collective than a synchronized swimming team. Like, we don’t have open auditions every year. If people are interested, we go out for coffee with them, we talk to them about their life, and then we invite them to do Saturday swims with us, and just swim with us for a while, and see if it’s a fit. Because we really are rooted in using Synchro as a communal care for activists, but also as a liberation practice. And you could be the best, most amazing, artistic swimmer, but if you’re not rooted in liberation practices, then this isn’t the formation, right?
Clara: Yeah, it seems like your values really lead. I’m curious what surprised you guys the most about being a part of this team?
Seniz: I mean, honestly, it’s the skill and athleticism required to do this kind of swimming.
Suzy: Yeah, I think one of the things that has surprised me the most is the level of communication that occurs in water, that water radiates the communication back and forth between people. You know, when you are upside down and trying to count and do all of these moves and hold your breath and keep yourself up. Keep your periphery vision open to everyone, and where you are in a form, and keep a form. It really, for me, has made me a better person in movement work because I am practicing liberation in the water, in a method in which you can’t leave anyone behind. Right? Because you’re trying to synchronize, and you are practicing being uncomfortable.
As a white activist in the Movement for Liberation, everything is built for my comfort, and being uncomfortable in the water has really helped me. My duet partner, Signe Harriday, is just a stronger swimmer than me. Like, I didn’t grow up in a town large enough to have a swim team. I didn’t compete in swimming. And so there have been duets in the past where it has taken me 3 months to learn a move that she can do. And so, it’s like, I’m gonna stick with this, I can try and stretch, I can try and grow, I can try and see if I can get this, and then if I can’t, I know that she’ll adjust. It’s hard to explain, but the communication that happens in the water is making me a better human being outside of the water.
Seniz: For sure. I feel like what you said—we can’t leave each other behind—it’s that piece of being in tight formation, trying to keep up with who we can see, and also allowing the next person to keep up with us. And I do feel like for me, and I’m not successful at this 90% of the time, but it’s a practice of continually opening that awareness and that way of remembering with all of the variables happening, which is life, right? All of the variables happening, and I’m checking in, I’m checking in, I’m checking in all around me.
Clara: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think that way of de-centering the self allows you to sort of be in relationship with each other in a different way. Being a part of a whole, moving together, making little adjustments as you go along, it can be such a transformative experience. I feel that in the classroom often too, that way of being responsive and getting to be a part of something larger together.
Seniz: Something that is worth mentioning, too, is that our bodies are so different from each other’s, and we all have different ways of moving in the water, so it’s a very physical manifestation of coming from different places, you know? And so being aware of each other’s bodies and movement, and we’re all different heights, we’re all different sizes, so we truly are all moving as one. We all have to do totally different placements for different skills to achieve the same effect, and so there’s a lot happening underwater that might be different from each other that creates an effect outside of the water that is similar.
Clara: Yeah, that’s a really powerful metaphor, I think.
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The Subversive Sirens members are Tana Hargest, Signe Harriday, Zoe Holloman, Sharon Mandel, Suzy Messerole, Roxanne Prichard, Seniz Yargici, and their coach Ana Mendoza Packham.
Suzy Messerole (she/her) is a theater artist, activist & lover of water. She is the Co-Artistic Director of Exposed Brick Theatre whose mission is to tell untold stories, center omitted narratives & create art at the intersection of identities. In theater, she works as a director, particularly for new plays, as well as an Intimacy Director. She is also a lead organizer with the Million Artist Movement, a global vision and movement that believes in the role of ART in the campaign to dismantle oppressive racist systems. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her wife & daughter.
Seniz Yargici (she/her) is a youth advocate, artist, and play-centered experience creator whose work is rooted in creativity, connection, and community. She’s a parent, a lover, and a cancer-surviving one-tit wonder. Şeniz is the founder of OYNA: Family Wellness through Play (oynatoday.com) and is currently an Experience Developer at the Minnesota Children’s Museum (MCM.org). Şeniz performs long-form narrative improv, loves to play guitar and sing, is deep into an epic D&D campaign with her junior high pals, and cherishes time with her two hilarious teenagers, magnetic partner, and extended family.
Sharon Mandel (she/her) is the newest member of the Subversive Sirens. She was adopted and grew up in the Twin Cities. She’s an educator, union organizer, tuba player, single mom, survivor of severe abuse, cancer survivor, and advocate for the homeless and all oppressed.
Clara Harlow (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist and educator interested in the question of how we can make today different than yesterday. Her work operates as an invitation into themes of celebration, exchange, and alternative ways of measuring time and value. Through unconventional parties, workshops, and interactive objects, Clara is invested in how we can turn the dilemmas of the everyday into an opportunity for experimental problem solving and collective delight. Her practice aims to create responsive public containers for unexpected joy and connection, but if she can just get you to forget about your To Do list for a little while, that’s pretty good too.
A Bounce House at the Block Party
“I’m a person who believes that making the world a better place isn’t just going to happen magically, that it takes work and effort and everyone working together to make it happen. I sometimes struggle with wondering, what is my part in that? And what can I do beyond what I’m already doing?”
With larger-scale problems feeling so hard to chip away at, the importance of knowing your neighbors comes back to me again and again. When I did anti-surveillance work in New Orleans before I moved to Portland, a lot of the older folks we would speak to about safety and surveillance would say, “We didn’t used to need cameras, but now I need a camera to feel safe, ’cause no one hangs out on their porches anymore, and we don’t know each other.” We can start to organize ourselves right where we are to make a safer, more sustainable way of life, and perhaps those small actions can give a new sense of hope. That’s why I wanted to interview my neighbor Devin Harkness, a school counselor who lives two houses down from me and often acts as a bit of a neighborhood glue. It turns out Devin’s a big believer in hope and conversations, too.
Lou: What makes you interested in conversations with people who might be different than you?
Devin: It feels like that’s the way to understanding. I feel like there’s no number of things that can happen online that will increase understanding. And that the only way for real understanding to happen is just people sitting down, face to face, talking to each other and seeing each other as human beings. There’s a dehumanization that has happened, and our salvation lies in rehumanizing everyone.
Lou: Cause you do that in your work, especially when there’s a conflict or disagreement. That’s the only way to approach it that would be effective, right?
Devin: Every day. Every day. I’m a school counselor, and I work with kids all day. Part of what I try to do is give them tools to make the world a better place and to connect with other people. A big thing I try to do is help them figure out positive ways to resolve conflicts. ‘Cause a lot of the problems we’re having right now in the world are unhealthy ways of resolving conflicts. I try to give the students the experience of sitting down with a person face to face and working things out, whatever that is, whatever that takes. Even big conflicts, like if somebody has hurt somebody physically.
Lou: What is it like to do that work?
Devin: My favorite thing is to take kids that have a conflict, sit down with them and try to help figure out what creative way of resolving the conflict we can come up with. Sometimes it’s just talking. Other times, it’s some combination of talking and doing something that actually bonds us together and reminds us that we enjoy hanging out together, like playing a game. And when they come up with something different, it’s better than anything that I could have thought of.
Lou: How did you get into school counseling? How’d you know you wanted to do that?
Devin: My dear friend Rafe, with whom I had been very close friends for a long time–we had worked together in two different jobs. He left the job where we were working together, an international student exchange program, and he went back to school to get his school counseling degree. And I was like, “That’s awesome. This sounds like so much fun. I’m going to do that too.”
Lou: It’s good to have someone to follow sometimes.
Devin: Yeah, he has kind of been my role model in many different areas of my life. He also purchased a house, and I was like, “Ooh, I can purchase a house too, I think, because you just did that.” That’s why I bought this house, because of him basically. He inspired me to do that.
Lou: Do you guys still hang out?
Devin: Oh yeah, he’s family. We met in the summer of ‘98 cause we both got hired at this day-camp in Seattle. And he was the first trans person I ever knew, and he introduced me to that world. I was definitely not identifying as straight at the time that I met him.
Lou: Seattle in the nineties. How could you be straight?
Devin: I know! But he introduced me to this queer world that I hadn’t experienced before. And I was just like, “Oh my God, I feel at home.” I’d never felt that level of acceptance before. Not that I didn’t feel acceptance, but people saw me in a whole new way that I hadn’t ever been seen in before. Nobody assumed I was straight, which was just the best feeling. I don’t even know why that feeling is so good, but it’s so good.
Lou: It’s something about being seen, right? It feels good to be seen for all your human complexity. And all the different things that make you.
Devin: There’s nothing like that. It’s a euphoric feeling.
Lou: Absolutely. It’s funny thinking about neighbor stuff. I feel like, especially nowadays, a lot of the queer and trans people that I talk to sometimes are like, “I don’t wanna talk to my neighbors ’cause what if they’re transphobic or homophobic?” And I’m like, totally, that is a risk, and it’s important to think of in the context of all your other privileges and identities, but to take that risk feels important. ‘Cause more often than not, people are accepting when you’re right in front of them.
Devin: I think so, too. I have to believe that. And you might be the first trans person they’ve ever met or talked to. Knowingly. And you might be that person who makes them go, “Maybe if my neighbor’s that cool, trans people aren’t all bad!” I don’t know.
To me, it all starts with just one person sometimes. Maybe you have a person in your family, and because of that, you learn more about their identity or politics, and you’re a little bit more open to these ideas. I have to believe that people want to connect with other people, and that’s the way forward, these single connections.
Lou: That’s something I think about a lot. I’m really curious about what makes people feel safe.
Devin: For me, it’s partly that I see human connection as our way to a better world. And also because I’m just super curious about people. Ever since I was really young, I’ve always loved just talking to people and figuring out what makes them tick and what they care about, and what their stories are like.
It started when we lived in China for a year when I was ten years old. We lived on a university campus in a dorm, and I would just go out and wander around our campus without my parents or anything like that. I’d meet security guards or people building a brick wall, and just talk to them and try to learn about them, and have conversations with people.
Then, when I was a little older, like my late teens, I started carrying around a tape recorder. And I would just interview people and talk to people. And I carried it on my travels and backpacked through Central America and interviewed people from all over the place and just talked to them. Just asked them questions and heard their stories.
So I have these archives of interviews that I’ve done with people from all over the world and all different sorts of places that I’ve never quite figured out what to do with. I want to create some kind of podcast, an interview podcast. There are all these people that I want to interview. I just can’t quite figure out what the crossover point is for all of them. Or what the focus is.
Lou: But could your curiosities be the focus, and could that be enough? I think it’s enough. Maybe it’s because that’s what I’m doing. Laughs. What kinds of people do you want to interview?
Devin: All sorts of people. Mostly people whom I respect. Or people who have done something that I think is amazing. That could be a person who’s an amazing parent, or a person who creates something that I think is really amazing or important, or just somebody whose point of view I want to hear—someone who I want to help tell their story.
I want to go around our neighborhood and interview all the people who have been here for a long time in the neighborhood, especially the families of color, the black families who are still here who have not moved away. There were so many black families on our block here in Northeast Portland when I first moved in. And now they’re all gone. Mostly—they’re almost all gone.
Lou: Gentrification and redlining are such a part of this area of Portland’s history, right?
Devin: I want to find a way to preserve that information. ‘Cause so many of these families are moving away, and then there’s just no way to get that information anymore. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.
Lou: What do you imagine you might find or discover?
Devin: No idea. I want to know, though—just the history of this place. I want to know more about it.
Lou: What do you know about this block or this neighborhood?
Devin: Not much other than just my own experience. Cause I moved into that house in 2003.
I know that the person who lived there before me was a woman who was, I think, in her seventies maybe, a white woman, who I think had a black husband who died. And she had a couple of kids, or at least one daughter, and then the grandkids lived with her because the daughter was either incarcerated or she was MIA. The kids were maybe three or five. That age. They were very young kids.
When they moved out, there was a lot of stuff left behind, including this stack of letters that had been written from the father of the children, who was in prison, to the daughter. And it just tells a story, a very common story, of families being torn apart by incarceration and the impact of that trickling down. It shows the impact that the incarceration system might have on kids–the cycles of oppression, violence, and all that stuff.
Lou: Do you still have the letters?
Devin: Yeah. I have a whole box of stuff. Artifacts that I collected from the house.
Lou: Is there anyone else on the block who you feel like you know?
Devin: I know a lot of the neighbors really well.
Lou: How’d you do that?
Devin: Just being here for a long time.
Lou: If there was one thing you could do to make the neighborhood better, what would it be?
Devin: I think getting people together, giving people opportunities to be together, spend time together, and to get to know each other. That’s the best thing I think. It takes time and it takes effort, and you have to create opportunities for people to get to know each other.
Lou: Can I ask you a deep question?
Devin: Of course.
Lou: What is your orientation towards hope right now? Do you have hope for the future, or do you struggle with that?
Devin: Definitely. I find myself constantly having to pull back into the present moment, whatever that happens to be, and just try to live there as much as possible. I’m also a person who believes that making the world a better place isn’t just going to happen magically, that it takes work and effort, and everyone working together to make it happen. I sometimes struggle with, what is my part in that? And what can I do beyond what I’m already doing?
I feel like my chosen career path is part of my hope for the future.
I have hope that we can make the world better. And I have hope that we can make things better in our country. I know everything that’s happening right now is destroying a lot of things that have taken a lot of time to build. I think that I can’t give up on the idea that things can be rebuilt and regrown and that there will be a rebound.
And because we are in this two-party system, we’re stuck here, and I don’t know what to do to get us out of that. I don’t hold that much hope that it is going to change in my lifetime.
I see a lot of kids doing really cool things, and especially queer kids. And I want them to have hope. A lot of the kids I work with are very insulated from a lot of the horrible things that are happening.
Lou: Yeah. But you get to see what’s possible when they have resources and support, or as much as they can.
Devin: My school in terms of our support for queer students, it could not really be much better. There’s always more you can do, but our queer kids feel as comfortable as I think kids are likely to feel in school. So many kids are out, and people don’t seem to be afraid to say, “I’m non-binary,” “I’m trans,” or “I’m gay,” or whatever.
There’s lots of kids still figuring it out. We had a big queer party at the end of this school year which was created by the students and my intern, who is a non-binary trans person. And they had what they called an L-G-B-B-Q at the end of the school year, the kids just latched onto this idea, I dunno who came up with it. It was just this big beautiful queer party. That was really special.
Lou: I feel like it helps a lot, being present and being with kids. I’m looking for ways to feel a little more hopeful. I feel hopeful on a small scale, like my relationships with people and the garden and things changing, the seasons continuing—but definitely less of it on a large scale.
Devin: What happens four years from now? I know that the next four years will just mean one thing after another that goes beyond my ability to predict or even sometimes comprehend of how awful and bad it is.
But after that, where is our hope?
Lou: That’s why I think it’s great that even after working in an intense job that you’re still interested in investing into the neighborhood and building a closer community. Cause those are the people that are going to have your back if something happens, like a disaster or something. But it does take effort, right? And it does take work. But I commend you for making that effort. We’ve got to celebrate each other, too, right?
Devin: I feel like part of why I want to get to know my neighbors is because—it sounds weird—but I’m a little bit lazy sometimes, and I want my friends to be like right here. I don’t want to have to go far away.
Lou: That’s a great reason. I’m psyched about the block party. I’m about to leave town for a few weeks, but then I’ll be back. Let me know if I can help.
Devin: So you’ll be here for the block party!
Lou: I wish I had a slip and slide. That could be fun.
Devin: Oh, we’ll get a bounce house like last year. That was pretty epic. Our 5-year-old would be very sad if we didn’t. And even the adults…
Lou: Yeah. When do you get to go in a bounce house as an adult?
Devin: At our block party!
Lou Blumberg is an artist, facilitator, and educator with ties to San Francisco, New Orleans, and Portland. With a belief that a better world is possible, their deeply personal practice deals with conflict and its impact on our relationships and lives; surveillance and safety; and joy in despairing times. They are part of the MFA Art and Social Practice program at Portland State University and a co-organizer of Techies 4 Reproductive Justice.
Devin Harkness is a school counselor dedicated to uplifting student voices, with a particular focus on supporting queer youth, students of color, and neurodiverse students. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his role models: his radical partner and children.
Spirit as a Portal: Death, Ghosts, and Hauntings as a Door to Other Realms of Possibility
Nina Vichayapai with Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander
“When you think about family and your place in the world, you also think about death and dying… My thought was that if visitors meditated on the finitude of their own existence, it would lead to living a more meaningful life.”
When I recently visited the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle to see Spirit House, the timing could not have been better. I had just returned from a trip back to my birth country of Thailand. While there I had begun to feel as though I were being haunted. The feeling took hold in sudden moments. Moments like when Thai words I thought I had lost came together on my tongue with ease. Or when I immediately and accurately identified smells I hadn’t encountered for several years. As bizarre as it sounds, I felt as though I were somehow being haunted by a “more Thai” version of myself.
The sudden lapse in my usual spiritual ambivalence primed me well to find resonance with the themes of Spirit House. Within the company of the exhibition’s 33 artists of Asian descent exploring the boundary between life and death, I found the language to describe the haunting I had been experiencing.
Curated by Dr. Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander, Spirit House was initially exhibited at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford in 2024. The show’s themes are deeply personal to Aleesa’s own background in which a significant part of her youth was spent living in Thailand. There, the separation between the living and the dead are blurry. Aleesa was inspired by this casual acceptance of ghosts as entities to coexist with and respect. Aleesa’s curation explores the importance of hauntings in all their forms ranging from the ordinary to the monumental. War, migration, political revolution, break ups, loss of language, and moving homes, represents just a selection of subjects that the Spirit House artists reanimate as ghosts in need of tending to through their work.
Nina: I just want to start off by saying that I really relate to a lot of your background experiences that you shared in the Spirit House catalog. I was also born in Thailand and have also struggled with sleep paralysis. You say that you’ve always had these experiences with hauntings in your life that have influenced you. I’m curious if you could talk about what some of those early experiences were?
Aleesa: The concept of the show being called Spirit House is directly tied to my earliest memories of engaging with Thai spirit houses when I was a child. Having been born there and spending a lot of my early life there, my family would go back and forth between British Columbia and Bangkok. I thought of spirit houses as magical portals that invite you to consider other realms, people who have passed on, and the spirits that live in the space around you. So for me, it was a very natural part of everyday life. My family would tell ghost stories, and it was not something that people scoffed at. The supernatural or the otherworldly was just a part of everyday life. When I moved here to the States, I found that the Western-centric point of view does not take those world views very seriously.
Nina: That’s interesting because I did initially go into Spirit House feeling like I wouldn’t resonate with the show’s themes so much since I don’t consider myself to be very spiritual. But when I was there it really made me think a lot about how this version of spirit that was being explored could relate to my immigration experience. It felt like you were presenting this expansive version of spirit. I’m curious if that was an intentional choice?
Aleesa: Oh yeah. I mean, I wanted it to be a very expansive interpretation of what we could describe as the spiritual realm. I think everybody has a different relationship to some version of spirituality. The degree varies with each person. But the show really came from many conversations I had with artists about their thoughts on intergenerational inheritance, trauma, joy, and collective memory. Then there’s the sadness, the gaps, and the narrative loss that come with migration. And for some of them, being second-generation and not knowing their mother tongue.
It all comes together in this bittersweet way. All those things haunt a lot of people in ways both agood and bad, and also just relatively neutral. So I wanted to think about it in terms of the things that people bring with them when they migrate, the memories attached to those things, the new ones they create, and how they make sense of finding themselves and their families in a new environment home. When you think about family and your place in the world, you also think about death and dying. Spirit House was also informed by a somewhat Buddhist perspective. When I was living in Thailand from eight to 11, Buddhist culture was a very big part of our lives. My thought was that if visitors meditated on the finitude of their own existence, it would lead to living a more meaningful life. Which is a pretty straightforward form of Buddhist philosophy focused on mindfulness. But also, depending on who you talk to here, many people prefer not to have direct conversations about life, death, or passing on.
Nina: That is really powerful. I feel like it’s just so different from the way we think about spirituality in the West and under a Christian colonial context. In the show there’s such an openness and curiosity to the different versions of spiritual relationships that are out there. But it was interesting for me to read that some of the artists don’t believe in ghosts. And many of them are coming from different backgrounds that are informing their approach to the theme. What was the process like in working with the artists? Was choosing the work for the show a collaborative process at all?
Aleesa: Yes. I was able to speak to almost every artist in the show, with the exception of Do Ho Suh and the late Dinh Q. LeWith everyone else, I have some kind of nice relationship with them and had been doing studio visits for many years in preparation for the show.
Some artists’ work really informed the conceptualization of the project. Like the photographer Jarod Lew and his body of work about his mother from his series In Between You and Your Shadow, which is about his mother’s relationship to Vincent Chin [a Chinese American man who was murdered by two white autoworkers]. It’s such a powerful series and really encapsulates a lot of what I was trying to explore with the project
I’ve also been slowly collecting towards the show. About a third of the works in the show are from the Cantor’s collection. I had acquired them thinking that eventually those pieces would be in this show. In other cases, I would do a studio visit with an artist, and after I had done enough to really feel like I wanted to build a checklist, I would go back to some of them to say, “I would love for you to be in the show.”
We would then have a conversation, and they might have another work that they thought was a better fit.. In certain cases, some of the artists made new works for the show. Heesoo Kwon made the only commission in the show. But she’s based in the Bay Area, so I knew that it would be easy to collaborate with her on that. Stephanie H. Shih, Cathy Lu, and Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, all made new works because they felt inspired by the theme. I was really flattered by that. Having new works created by artists who felt compelled to make them truly enriched the show.
I always endeavor to be as collaborative as I can, especially with living artists. I just think that it makes for a more meaningful and interesting project for everybody.
Nina: What has it been like for you to see the show travel from the Cantor to the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle?
Aleesa: It’s nice to be reminded that it’s still having an impact out there in the world. It initially opened over a year ago at the Cantor. I’m looking forward to going back and seeing it again in October, and to celebrating with artists, many of whom have become very close friends and important people in my life. I put every last bit of myself into that project. But what I got out of it was even more than that. I’m really pleased to hear from visitors of the Henry exhibition, including yourself, who have reached out about the show. It’s great to know visitors are having meaningful encounters there and learning about artists who will eventually become important to them.
Nina: That’s amazing. Well I’ve certainly been very moved by the work I saw and it was incredible to learn about so many artists who are new to me. I’d love to know if there’s ways you like to learn about or keep up to date with contemporary Asian artists?
Aleesa: Well at this stage in my career, I’m lucky enough, depending on how you look at it, that I receive constant emails from different galleries, artists, colleagues, and arts organizations. People know what Marci and I are doing, so they send things our way to check out. Or a gallery will reach out and ask if I will do a studio visit with an artist. I also look at biennials too, like Prospect New Orleans or the Whitney Biennial. Of course, that means I’m being sent artists at a particular stage in their career. And I don’t want to be institutional or hierarchical in that way. So, I also look at social media, like Instagram, to see who ends up just coming through on my feed.
I also do a lot of studio visits. I’ve done so many in L.A., the Bay Area, New York, and virtually. I love doing studio visits in new places I visit as well.
Nina: And could you tell me more about the Asian American Art Initiative that you organize as well?
Aleesa: The Asian American Art Initiative is the project that I co-direct at Stanford. It was co-founded by me and art history professor Marci Kwon. I started at the Cantor in 2018, and we’ve been doing it since then. We’re focused on building a preeminent collection of work by Asian American artists, among other things. I collect work that ranges from historical to contemporary. We also enjoy supporting emerging or early-career artists when possible, especially when we’re potentially the first museum to acquire their work. That can make a significant difference in their future. When I started at the Cantor, we had like 30-something objects by Asian American artists out of our collection of 41,000. And now we have something like 800 or more.
We’ve done more than ten shows related to the initiative here at the Cantor. Marci teaches courses out of my exhibitions as well.
Nina: That sounds like such an undertaking to sort of have to go back into history and sort of fill the gaps.
Aleesa: It’s fun. I like being able to do both. I like not being confined to either historical or contemporary work.
Nina: That does sound fun. I’m curious if you could talk about your time in the Pacific Northwest and what that was like for you? It was cool to learn that you had studied at Willamette University and spent a lot of time here.
Aleesa: I lived in Oregon from when I was around 12 years old to when I was 24, which is when I left for graduate school. I lived in Salem for all those years and went to Willamette University. I mean, you know, everything in life has its high points and low points. The best part of going to Willamette was that even though it’s a small liberal arts college, it has its own university art museum. So I got my first museum job working there. That is when I realized that working in museums was what I wanted to do. And specifically at a university art museum. So that’s really where I got my start.
I have great relationships with the people who are still in Salem, and I had one very beloved art history professor whom I kept in touch with until he passed away a couple of years ago. He’s one of the people I dedicated the Spirit House catalog to.
Since Oregon is predominantly white and was my first real home in the United States, I assumed the entire country was similar to Oregon. I wasn’t aware that things could be different. It was very common for me to be the only Asian American/person of color in a room. And since I’m mixed race, it’s complicated in a different way, as I am not always perceived as a person of color. That’s a separate conversation.. But I didn’t learn about any Asian American artists at Willamette. I didn’t even think to really look for it. Maybe that’s my own lack of imagination, but I think if you never see something, you don’t even think to look for it.
It wasn’t until I left that I realized that it could be different. There are places in the United States that are more diverse. I did an internship at the Art Institute of Chicago after I graduated, and it was amazing to finally be in a big city. During the last year of my PhD program, I lived in New York City. It was such a relief to finally feel like I had fulfilled that high school dream of living in such a vibrant art scene, where so many things are happening and there’s much more diversity. That was so revitalizing for me.
Living here in the Bay Area, of the things I love most about it is that it feels extremely Asian American. It’s just a part of life. It’s the food that everybody eats. Asian Americans have been here for a very long time. San Francisco was one of the most important historic ports and has the oldest Chinatown in North America. Many of my colleagues are Asian American. So we have Asian American curators, people who work in galleries, and people who work in the arts. I’m not the only one, and I love that so much. It’s part of the reason why I do the work that I do here. So it’s wildly different than when I was in Oregon. That really changed me, knowing that it could be different. But it did take leaving.
Nina: Thanks for sharing that. That’s all very relatable to me. I also had no idea it could be different until I left the Pacific Northwest for the Bay Area when I went to college. The experience of being in non-predominantly white spaces was so somatically different then what I was used to.
I’m curious about what you just shared about how working at the museum at Willamette University led you to want to work in more university museums. What is it about university museums that you like over other kinds of museums or art spaces?
Aleesa: Well, being able to support myself by working in an art museum while I was in college had a profound impact on my life. I love working with students because many don’t even understand that museums are an option in the world if you’re interested in art.
As far as the type of work I do, I feel like university art museums are allowed to do more experimental projects. Projects that have a more distinct point of view and are more critical of American or institutional history. All of the things that this current administration is trying to suppress.
The Cantor, for example, doesn’t charge admission. And that impacts the work that you do as a curator. Because at many other museums they’re concerned with revenue and ticket sales. You have to make sure the projects you do bring in droves of people. I, of course, want people to see my shows, but I think what’s more important is the impact an exhibition can have on specific individuals. And that can’t always be reflected in the number of people who come and visit the show. We make art accessible and take chances that other larger museums might have a harder time doing.
Nina: I definitely love that university museums are free. It provides so much access for people.
Aleesa: I want people to be able to just come to the Cantor even if it’s just for a few minutes. Take a break, chill, and look at something, without the commitment of spending $35 to enter a museum and feeling like you really have to stay and get everything out of it. $35 is a big entry fee. And you’re going to want to feel like you really got everything out of your visit that you could. So it kind of forces you to have a particular way of engaging with art. And I want people to have many different ways and approaches to engaging with art.
Nina: Definitely. The art museum kind of becomes a theme park at that point where you feel like you really need to get the most out of it.
Well I really just have one question left for you. Do you have a favorite ghost or ghost story?
Aleesa: Oh yeah, I was very traumatized as a child by a story of a particular ghost in many Southeast Asian cultures. Her name in Thai is Phi Krasue. The ghost is basically the floating head of a woman attached only to her viscera. She floats around and I believe she eats livestock, rotten food, whatever she can find. She would be in Thai soap operas that I would watch growing up and was the scariest thing that I could fathom. I was very afraid of horror films and ghosts growing up. Now, I love horror films. I think horror as a genre can be such a great form of subversive critique or an expression of culture.
So, I grew up being afraid of something–scary movies–that ended up becoming something that I really love as an adult. I think that’s a good way of moving through the world with the things that we are afraid of. There’s a reason for it. If you figure it out and you confront it, then maybe there’s something there for you.
Nina: Yeah, I love that. That’s a really great way to look at it. The second you started talking about Krasue I could just see it in my mind. So many movies with her. I feel like there is just something about the ghosts in Thai and Asian cultures in general. Like, they’re so scary!
Aleesa: Truly! There’s just something amazing about that, too. That they’re willing to go there. I’m also interested in horror that doesn’t rely on Christian theology and philosophy. I want different source points beyond that. So that’s also why I love Asian horror.
Nina: Yeah, it’s definitely cathartic for the culture it seems. They are willing to go there for sure. Well, thank you so much. I really, really appreciate being able to chat with you.
Dr. Aleesa Pitchamarn Alexander (she/her/hers) is the Robert M. and Ruth L. Halperin Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art and Co-Director of the Asian American Art Initiative at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. At the Cantor, she is the curator of Spirit House (2024), Livien Yin: Thirsty (2024), East of the Pacific: Making Histories of Asian American Art (2022), and The Faces of Ruth Asawa (2022 – ongoing).
https://www.instagram.com/aleesapalexander
Nina Vichayapai (she/her) makes art that explores what it means to be at the intersections of margins and peripheries. Her interdisciplinary practice includes anything from soft sculpture, public art, pie making, dog petting, and eavesdropping. She was born in Bangkok, Thailand and lives in Portland, Oregon.
Place-making
A conversation between Chariti Montez and Adela Cardona Puerta
“Here’s the ideal of what we want and over here’s the bureaucratic process to get there and I had the skills to walk between the two. Going back to being the interpreter or the translator of the two worlds: I can build this house by hand, but if it’s not legal in the place where I live, it’s vulnerable. I think that’s when I realized that I could live in both and help people navigate this bureaucracy”
I met Chariti Montez for the first time with my cohort to figure out if we (the Art + Social Practice Program) could work together to make Assembly, our event of experiential projects, workshops, and performances, with the Portland Office of Arts and Culture.
Chariti was sweet and passionate in sharing her hopes for placemaking through art in Portland in her current role as the Director of the Arts and Culture Office. That excitement and the fact that she is a Latina in a position of power in government cultural spaces made me curious to know more.
When we met for this interview, we walked to the park together and as we did, I asked her what language she would feel most comfortable speaking in: English or Spanish. The fact that she felt more comfortable speaking English prompted a personal and vulnerable conversation around the wound and baggage that language carries when you have mixed backgrounds or come from a family that has been forced to immigrate from one culture to another.
Language, therefore, became the thread to unravel just a speck of the brilliance of this woman that inhabits the borders between the US and México, and between Art and Government. I hope you too enjoy this chat with a fellow translator of worlds.
Adela: As a Colombian, who is also a descendant of Syrian-Lebanese people, that does not speak Arabic, I too understand that the feeling of inhabiting a language is a wound, a scar that sits in the place of war, displacement, and resilience. Could you tell me more about what your experience with language has been like as the daughter of Mexican and American parents?
Chariti: Absolutely. In my case, it has to do with the fact that my dad was deported when I was a kid. My mom is white: she’s an English and Scandinavian descendant, from Danish Mormon pioneers. My dad is a Mexican immigrant from Tierra Huichol, in Jalisco, in the mountains. And like everybody from his village, he came to the United States to work because that was what my grandma had done. He did so as an undocumented person, like a lot of other migrant farm workers.
When he was working on Mount St. Helens, planting pine trees, Mount St Helen started blowing ash, and they realized the trees weren’t gonna live because the ash was coming down on them. So the company stopped planting them. As his whole crew leftWashington on a Bus, crossing back over into Portland, they were detained. My dad said he was detained for a week before he was deported, and they didn’t tell us anything.
Adela: So your dad fucking disappeared for a week?
Chariti: Yeah. And then he was gone. And this is before there were cell phones; he’s from a village, a ranchería that doesn’t have running water, electricity, or roads. He’d never been to a big city, he’s never even been to Mexico City to this day.
My mom looked for him. She couldn’t find him. We just didn’t know what happened and we moved back to Portland. He came back, years later, to look for us at the house that we lived in in Salem, and nobody was there.
He had no other way of reaching us because he is from an indigenous village, he doesn’t read or write. And so he wasn’t able to find us. And we weren’t able to find him.
Adela: That is really fucked up.
Chariti: Yeah, it is. My mom speaks Spanish well. But after my dad was deported, I didn’t grow up around Spanish for a while. Until my mom remarried my stepdad who is Afro-Mexican, and who I feel I was raised by. I have two little brothers who were two and three when our parents got married, they mostly grew up in Acapulco. And they tell me that I sound like I learned Spanish in a textbook.
Adela: Oh my God. That must be like a dagger to your heart.
Chariti: Yes! So, they think that I’m fresa and I’m not.
So because of my history, I just feel that language is so confusing.
For example, I have friends who are white and don’t have any identity tied up in it, and they learn Spanish so easily. I think it’s because they don’t feel the same pressure of practicing it, hence they feel comfortable making mistakes. For them, it’s just a cool thing to get to learn. It doesn’t reflect on them and their core identity, or this part of it they are missing. And that’s just Spanish. My dad’s from an indigenous town, and we don’t speak that language. So it just keeps going. It’s a sort of wounding around language.
The one other thing that I think is fascinating is that, because I was born on this side of the border, I have a very different privilege than my siblings. Because, even though I was raised very poor, I was raised very poor in the United States. Which means I have access to things that my siblings who were born in Mexico don’t.
I eventually reunited with my dad because he got amnesty and had a new family, and I have five half-siblings from that side who all live in Nevada. To my ear, my siblings speak perfect Spanish.. But most people think ‘they sound like country bumpkins, have poor grammar and bad Spanish’.
The other difference lies in the fact that since they left as children, they haven’t been back to Mexico. I, on the other hand, because my stepfamily is also Mexican, have been traveling to Mexico for the last 20 years or more. So we have a different relationship with Mexico.
We had this moment of meeting each other as adults and trying to understand what my life was like on this side of the border and their side of the border. And since my dad was still working in the United States, they didn’t feel like they had their dad either. The border just divided everything.
Then to think that because my parents have switched countries, my mom has lived in Mexico for 20 years and my dad’s been in Nevada, our relationship with Mexico and with the United States is like two sides of the same coin. It’s messy.
Adela: It’s really convoluted. And that experience is what I got from when we first met when you were talking about placemaking. It’s clear what you have been doing all your life, because you have been put in a space where you didn’t grow up having an actual place, both spiritually and physically. Which means that you’re inhabiting the in-between,
And even though that is a very hardcore experience, it’s also something that makes you a translator of worlds in a way that is an essential part of your career in between art and government. Isn’t it?
Chariti: Exactly, I feel like that’s the part that I have leaned into from my identity: I am bisexual, I am Biracial, I am bicultural, I am only kind of bilingual, not really (laughs). In fact, until recently, I was the only biracial person in my family. Because I have half-siblings who are white, I have half-siblings who are Afro-Mexican, but both of their parents are Mexican, so they don’t feel mixed in their identity in the same way.
So whether I choose it or not, I lean into that bi-experience with my identity: I am an artist and a musician, but I’m also a bureaucrat. I represent the government, I work for the “Man”. It is an interesting place, the place of an interpreter.
Adela: Yeah, that is something that I wanted to ask you about since you are this person that inhabits different places and that creates their own third space constantly: What are the places, not just physical, but also metaphorical in terms of music, people, and food that you find belonging in?
Chariti: One thing I’ve noticed in the United States, in college, is that I felt really comfortable with other mixed-race, bicultural people, even though they didn’t have the same mix as me. And that is more intense because I grew up in Oregon and Washington, which means I did not meet a lot of folks who had one American parent and one Mexican parent who were my age.
I had a lot of friends who were Mexican nationals or Mexican immigrants. And now I see younger people, who are mixed race or have a parent from each country. But back then, I felt very isolated. When I was in elementary school, there were only two Mexican families besides my half-family in an entire elementary school. Can you imagine that?
Adela: That’s intense. I mean, you grew up in one of the most white places.
Chariti: Yeah. So I learned early on that I was really comfortable with the other kids whose families were different from the American dominant culture norm. And I felt that even more so in college, a place to finally experience our identities and meet people who were not from the same towns and cities.
Something that also makes me feel a sense of belonging is music. For me, music is not about performing or being the center of the stage. It’s about building community. I love being in a group, and playing music with other people because you are creating something outside of yourself, even though it’s ephemeral.
When you play, you learn a non-verbal language with your bandmates; you’re communicating without talking, while you are playing together. But then there’s also that mix of creating community through that music.
I first did that with the Brazilian music community in Portland. I just fell in love with Brazilian music when I was like 12 years old because I played the tenor saxophone and one of my parents’ friends gave me that album of Stan Getz.
Adela: The black and orange one? I love that one.
Chariti: Yes. And that’s how I found out what you could do with the saxophone, and it turned into a gateway for Brazilian music and these rhythms. I ended up in a Forro band, with Brazilian bandmates. Forro is from Northeastern Brazil. We started playing out and people came.
There was such a community around it, that I would see people in our audience singing, swaying, and singing along to the songs. We had folks who would tell us that they hadn’t danced like that since they left home. This is why having that third place, even though it’s in a nightclub, transcends that through culture and sharing musical knowledge.
Because I am mixed-race and ethnically ambiguous-looking, though, and I was on stage singing in Portuguese, people would be like, oh, are you Brazilian? And I kept saying, no, I’m Mexican.
Which finally led me to learning Mexican music. I started studying the Mexican Son Jarocho and working with a whole group of people in Portland to bring teachers up from Mexico to do a cultural exchange. Those became talleres and Fandango.
And even though I’m not from Veracruz (where the Son Jarocho is from), I am not Jarocha. That music has become a really important way for me and for many communities in the United States to have a connection with their culture.
Adela: Was there any specific workshop or Fandango that you remember as being especially impactful to you?
Chariti: Yeah, a few. There’s an event that’s been going on for years. It’s called the Fandango Fronterizo, there have been stories in the New York Times about it. It’s at Friendship Park at the border wall, south of San Diego and Tijuana.
And the organizers do an incredible job, they would get a permit to be in Friendship Park, which is a militarized zone on the US side, it’s so wild. With the permits, you can just be in this one area where we would put the tarimas up against the border wall, that it’s like mesh, layers of malla that you can kind of see through.
Then on the Mexico side, in Tijuana, they would do the same thing and people would be barely able to see each other through the wire but the sound traveled. So we’d be singing and playing music across the border to each other. And that in itself was so impactful. Full stop.
It would be a daytime event, but afterward, folks who could cross the border would go over to Tijuana and have a Fandango all night.
One of the things that was moving was that on the US side, a lot of the roads washed out and we had to get rides to drive back with the tarimas on the back of a border patrol vehicle. And I was talking to the border patrol agent, and he was Latino, asking ‘What is it like for you to be Latino and a border patrol agent?’ And he was like,’ No, it’s great. I get to use my skills and my community connections, and I’m able to help these people. And in my head, I was like wow, ‘how is it that that’s what you think you’re doing?’ That was fascinating to me.
And then I think that another moment that really broke my heart was on the Tijuana side. That side was just incredible, there was so much life, a stark difference: on the US side, you’re surrounded by barbed wire and there’s border patrol going up and down as well as all these lights. You have to get a permit to exist in that US space between these two countries for just a few hours.
And on exactly on the other side of the wall, in Mexico, people were painting a mural on the border wall with all the names of Mexican Americans who had fought in US wars. And then there were people doing their Quinceañera photos and having a book festival on the boardwalk. There was so much life, beachgoers, and lowriders, people were just right against the border as if the border didn’t matter. As if saying ‘We’re still living our life right up to the edge’. It was just so interesting.
I cherish that and I think about that space a lot. I mean we’re sitting in a park right now, I work for the government, for Portland. I used to work in parks. And now that I work in arts and culture, I keep that image in my head about what it looks like on the US side versus what it looks like on the Mexico side.
Later that night on the Mexico side, I wandered off down towards the water and there was a young Mexican man who had a very rural accent and had been swimming out in the middle of the night trying to get out past the wall to the US. It was heartbreaking.
And there’s border patrol right on the other side of that wall, and they were patrolling with lights and he was just getting tossed by the waves in all of his clothes. And I was like, are you okay? And he was not wanting to be seen, just trying to hide in the shadows, trying to get the strength to swim out into the ocean. Far enough to get past the wall.
Adela: Oh God.
Chariti: And I just… there are no words for it, you know?
Moments like that make me think a lot about what I look like: I’m a light-skinned person and you would never think that that border has any impact on my life. But my stepbrother and his wife tried to cross last year and got detained and I had to find them and figure out where they were and send money. They had all their documentation taken away when they were released on the Mexico side and I had to help get back home in Mexico City.
It just feels like the pain of that border doesn’t end. It hasn’t ended.
Adela: First of all, thank you for everything that you just shared. It is very vulnerable and I hold it in my heart. And secondly, I feel like you are one of those people for whom where it hurts is where you end up working your butt off to make it better.
Do you feel like this way in which you inhabit the world in the in-between made it so that you could code-switch and jester your way into change and placemaking for underrepresented people in the government from the inside?
Chariti: Yeah, actually, I decided right after college, that I was gonna have more access to power if I was on the inside, to affect change that way.
Adela: How did you come to that conclusion? It is interesting to me where people who want to make change decide to stand from and why.
Chariti: I did Sustainability Studies for my major. My focus was Earthen Architecture and natural building. I studied with a Welsh architect and with a Mexican architect in Mexico. I was ready to change the world and thought we were all gonna live in Earthen buildings, and a lot of us do in the world, and they’re beautiful.
But at some point, I realized that we have a different seismic situation in Portland and that’s not necessarily the right thing for here. I thought that just by knowledge I was gonna change how architecture and our relationship to built-in environments work; but whilst working with some of my mentors, I realized that we had codes to follow: seismic codes, engineering codes, and building codes. And I also understood that you can work through the permitting system for those codes to make what you imagine legal.
And because of that, we were able to build a straw bale house. I drew the plans for a couple with compromised immune systems in Thurston County (WA), outside of Olympia and it was permitted. I was able to work with the government people at the permit counter to have it exist legally in that space.
So that made me come to terms with the reality that here’s the ideal of what we want and over here’s the bureaucratic process to get there and I had the skills to walk between the two. Going back to being the interpreter or the translator of the two worlds: I can build this house by hand, but if it’s not legal in the place where I live, it’s vulnerable. I think that’s when I realized that I could live in both of these worlds and I could help people navigate this bureaucracy.
No wonder my first full-time job with the city of Portland was in the permitting department, where I was able to use my background in architecture to help people navigate this complex regulatory permitting system. And I never stop playing on the side.
I would be at the permit counter, during the day, and then my coworkers would see me working the door at a Club on the weekend or see my band playing at the summer concert at Sellwood Park. I kept inhabiting both places.
One of my mentors, when I first got a job in the city said: ‘Be careful Chariti, it’s like being in golden handcuffs, make sure this is really what you want and like, check in with yourself every couple of years’.
And I took that really seriously. But also that mentor came from a place of privilege that I didn’t come from. So I was, like ‘golden handcuffs to you. You have the choice not to work in a job like this, but I don’t necessarily have that choice. This is an amazing job for a poor kid who used to be unhoused…look at what I’m doing here. That feels pretty amazing’.
Adela: It does sound dreamy! How did you transition to working in parks programming and arts engagement then?
Chariti: The thread was music. My band played at the outdoor Summer Free for All Parks concerts, and I realized it was somebody’s job in the city to produce those events. And I was like, let me have thissss.
It took a few years, but I did move over to the parks department. A lot of what we do we’re producing events, but a lot of it was also helping people who wanted to produce their own events outside understand how to do it, how to navigate that process. So there’s always been this layer in my work of making awesome ephemeral places and also helping people navigate through the system.
In the events we were doing, I saw them reflected on what I experienced as a young person in Portland because the summer is beautiful here. And I was always at every outdoor free concert I could be at when I was a kid. So when I stepped into that role, I could see that community happening around the movies, the concerts, and the cultural festivals that we were creating as part of Summer Free for All.
I remember we did a concert in the park near my house and I walked out of my door towards the park and other people were walking out of their doors and they were walking towards it too. I was like, ‘These are my neighbors, and even though we don’t even talk to each other, we are all headed to the same place right now to go do this thing that it doesn’t matter if we know each other or not, or if we have the same politics or not, we are in the community right now experiencing this’. I was doing ephemeral placemaking, simply by providing the infrastructure.
We had to bring in the stage, the sound, the band and the tarima. And by making that container something really special happens and then it’s gone. And that’s part of the beauty of it. It’s a ritual that happens every year. It comes with the seasons, but it’s part of this larger cycle and I just find that so beautiful.
Adela: It’s amazing, the power of holding space for togetherness, identification, and catharsis through music is something I also hold dearly. And When you were talking about that ephemeral placemaking, I was thinking that you’re both making containers for these transient places of belonging, but you’re also being a Wayfinder because you’re helping people navigate the grants and governmental system in order to get with them where they need to be
Reading about the Summer Free World and how back in 2015 you saw that the people that attended these events were of the dominant culture. I am curious about how you have worked to make it so that people from different communities of Portland can both have a place, but also learn to navigate to become the place makers themselves. Both before and now as the Director of Arts and Culture.
Chariti: With Summer Free for All, at the movies and concerts, we slowly shifted who we partnered with. We made sure that we were partnering with culturally specific community groups so that they had a say in when, where, and what movie in the band was shown.
We also started doing movies in languages other than English. And the first movie that we did in Spanish with English subtitles, I got hate mail because people were so offended that we did that movie in their park in Spanish, even though we made sure that we played that same movie in another park in English. But the team at the city stood behind us a hundred percent. And I went to the event that night, and there were 300 smiling brown faces watching the movie.
So, we kept doing more movies in more languages, translating our schedules into 16 languages when I was working there. And we made sure that there were community members who spoke those languages to write them.
On the other hand, I’m interested in the fact that you called what I do wayfinding. I’ve never thought of it that way. But I do remember sitting with a leader in the Tongan community, helping them navigate the event production process, sitting in my office together, because we were in our second or third year of doing the Tonga Festival. That’s an immigrant community that’s been here for decades and still feels marginalized. It was so valuable to be able to provide access and help people navigate those systems.
Adela: And how have you been doing that wayfinding and place-making in the Office of Arts and Culture?
Chariti: At the Office of Arts and Culture, it’s all very new, and there’s so much change at the city government level. But, the work we’re trying to do is making sure that we’re supporting arts organizations, and cultural organizations, and not letting things fall through the cracks while we are all undergoing all of this transition that is happening.
Specifically, we have a cultural plan called Our Creative Future, and we’re working on the Portland implementation plan for that, called the Portland Action Plan. And I think that there are ways that we’re going to be engaging with the community more around that plan.
Adela: And how does that actually look at the government level? When you say that you are gonna engage with the community to make that program happen, what does that look like? Do you go to neighborhoods and town meetings? Do you make surveys?
Chariti: There are a lot of ways that we do community engagement and government. Sometimes we hold meetings in community spaces. For some of that specifically our community is also arts organizations and arts leaders. And I do my best to go to them and to see their programming and to build a relationship that way first, to understand their work. We also do lots of one-on-one conversations.
When the transition to being districts was happening, we did arts talks in each district in the community space, oftentimes the community center (parks have lots of community centers, so that’s awesome). We have been doing that combo where we are going to people’s events just to build a relationship with the community and also inviting people downtown to be with us in the Portland Building. Now that we have hybrid meetings, on Zoom, that also makes it possible for people to participate from other spaces, which wasn’t accessible before the pandemic.
My team is now building out a community engagement plan specifically for the Portland Action Plan with the cultural plan that exists with seven different jurisdictions, and multiple governments participating. The plan was led by a 21-person community steering committee that did around 50 focus groups, as well as surveys, and town halls.
And even though I don’t think we have caught our breath enough yet, there are a couple of examples that we have done with the whole team. One is that the city arts program manager who was in the program before we expanded it to the Office of Arts and Culture, worked with these federal funds and made a contract with the NAYA(Native American Youth and Family Center) because they looked at the lack of Indigenous representation in public art and wanted to do something about it.
So it contracted with the NAYA to work directly with indigenous artists to commission the pieces, which are now going off on the 42nd. There’s a piece: Raven’s Welcome that’s already unveiled and then there’s another piece on the PCC campus; those pieces will be part of the city’s permanent public art collection.
Adela: Did the NAYA choose them or did you choose them collaboratively with the Office of Arts and Culture?
Chariti: The NAYA made that selection. On the other hand, there are the pieces you all saw that are in the Portland Building. Generally, all of our public pieces are selected by a community panel of artists. And our partners at RACC (the Regional Culture Council) are the ones that invited the Indigenous artists that are on the first and second floors.
As the Arts and Culture Office, we are being intentional about public art specifically by encouraging representation of all Portland communities, with a focus on commissioning and purchasing artworks from BIPOC artists for our permanent collection.
However, we don’t just think about it as a public, physical art, we also work with school districts across the city. They receive funds from the Arts Access fund, from the arts tax, so that every elementary school in Portland has an arts teacher or music teacher.
And there is a wonderful event that Portland Public Schools has been doing for like 10 years, called the Heart of Portland that just wrapped up which showcases part of that work. They had it at the Portland Art Museum (PAM) with a visual art component, an exhibition in the gallery space, and performances.
In the past, those performances have always been in the Portland Public Schools. This year, the Office of Arts and Culture and the Arts Education Coordinator worked to bring in this idea of doing student art in our gallery on the second floor of the Portland Building. We also did student art in the Literary Arts in their bookstore, as well as an exhibition in the Goat Blocks, in a vacant building. The kids that get to exhibit are of all ages, from different school districts. So, Reynolds and David Douglas are represented.
Finally, at the Heart of Portland closing event, there are performances from youth from Park Rose and from other school districts that are a little farther away from the central city, who we’ve been working to bring into the larger Portland City arts scene, experience, and education.
I think that’s something my team –and especially the Arts Education Coordinator– has been really great at: centering youth and kids, seeing them as creative people, as artists, and as an important part of our civic community in Portland. And I’m so proud of my team for that and so happy to see those kids react to it too.
Adela: That must be amazing, to go back to the experience of you not feeling like you were being seen in art within Oregon itself. What a wonderful effect it must have on a kid to have their own fucking art on the wall.
And, speaking of youth and education, nobody teaches you how to be a living artist. I am still super intimidated by applying for grants, for example. Is that something that the Office has thought about? Making more educational opportunities to make those processes more accessible the way you have made it for people one-on-one in the past?
Chariti: We do that a lot with our partners because we can’t do everything, we are 8 people (laughs). So we work with the Regional Arts and Culture Council and the friends of IFCC and Music Oregon to do grants to individual artists. Everyone who runs a grant program for us helps people get through the process of applying for the grant.
And because we are hearing that professional development is something people want, what we are asking ourselves is: how can we find existing organizations that already work on that to invest in?
Adela: Absolutely. It’s the question of: how can you assemble with other people who have the educational capability of doing that with you since you are 8 people? I feel like that’s something that I’m hearing you’re very good at: assembling, which is also translating. Because in order to bring people together you have to use the language of one and then the language of the other, to create a common one.
This is why it is so exciting to work with you and the Office of Arts and Culture to bring forth Assembly 2025, our event of experiential projects, workshops, and performances. I can’t wait to keep finding new ways to place-make together.
Chariti: Yeah! Excited to see what we can do!
When Words Hurt
Lou Blumberg in conversation with Lo Moran
“I think what people get out of these beliefs is a sense of purpose and belonging and community that are very powerful. I think the ways to counteract that would be also building spaces of belonging and community that aren’t harmful to other people.”
Lo Moran’s name has circled my social practice orbit for a while now, both as an instructor of the study abroad program in Art and Design in Berlin and Prague that I’m lucky enough to attend this summer, and as a program alumni whose work deals often in difficult conversations. Especially in this moment of political polarization, emboldened bigotry, and heightened/visibilized state violence, I was really curious how (or if!) Lo saw conversations with those who hold different or even violent viewpoints as not only an artistic interest but a way to bridging these social divides and finding ways forward. Living in Berlin, Lo’s past and current work and conversations provide crucial insight into my perennial question: can people really change their minds? And if so, how?
Lo Moran: What else have you done for SOFA so far?
Lou Blumberg: Last fall I interviewed a security guard as part of an investigation of security in Portland. We had a conversation about how he sees his role and what safety means to him, and if people are inherently good or inherently bad.
Lo: Was it something that you felt like you agreed with or were coming from a different perspective or…?
Lou: Definitely a different perspective. Something I’m struggling with is how to avoid platforming opinions that I deeply disagree with. I would love to hear your thoughts about that, and if you’ve encountered that in other forms of your work, that tension in social practice.
Lo: Yeah, I have thoughts on this. But I also kept running into a wall with that.
Lou: I’d love to hear your thoughts and your walls.
Lo: I was just talking to my friend about this last night, who’s a radio journalist, and we might work on a short radio piece together, connected to these topics about conversations across deeply different beliefs.
I have a lot of recordings with people saying things that I find pretty harmful but I was fascinated by. I was going into it not thinking very much or having any interviewing experience — just going into it very naively, I think. It’s worrying that people would listen to it and be like, “Oh, they don’t sound so bad, they sound pretty amicable and friendly.”
When I applied to the social practice program, when I started this project that later became “Difference is a Field”, I was living in Arizona. For one of my videos in my application to the program, I interviewed this street preacher guy. I was working at the University of Arizona and he was a student and had very violent rhetoric.
I was doing the part of the application that is an interview with someone about their clothing and he had these crazy shirts that he made and stuff. I made the video and it’s just him talking, I cut my parts out. I had it on YouTube. And I realized it was getting hundreds of views. There were a few comments and stuff and I realized they were from people that agree with him. I was like, “Oh, he can use this as part of propaganda—people can watch it not from the perspective that I’m watching it from, of being critical of his views.”
And I took it down. It was my first awareness of, “Oh, this material could really be used in a different way than I intended it to be.” I’ve struggled with finding ways to work with the material, which is why I ended up doing a comic that was more based on my personal experience of the conversations I was having rather than directly quoting people and stuff.
I also didn’t have any journalism ethics. I listened to an interview with a journalist who made the point that you should never take someone’s recorded interview and then comment afterwards if you don’t agree with them. Anything that you feel about what they’re saying, you have to say to their face in the moment or else it’s not fair to them because they don’t get to respond to your opinions.
I’m not a journalist, so I don’t have to follow those ethics necessarily. There’s lots of artists that I don’t think follow those ethics at all that I can think of examples of. But it made me think. In the moment, it’s so hard to formulate a response to what people are saying. I really struggle with that.
I’ve done some stuff where I was playing with conversations and because I make noise music I would play with the audio pieces, distort some of the conversations and use them more in that way.
Lou: What got you into doing those interviews in the first place?
Lo: I’m from Connecticut originally, which is very different now. My hometown feels very conservative when I go back and I think a lot of people there really like Trump, but at the time it felt like a very liberal bubble in New England. I hadn’t really been exposed to that many people with radical far right views.
In Arizona I was encountering that everywhere. It was 2014, 2015, the build up to Trump. And there were a lot of militia groups and this street preacher, those kinds of things. I was surprised and fascinated by it, also in a naive way.
I saw this guy protesting and I was like, “I have to talk to this guy.” I felt bad for him, which was also the framing of a Vice mini-documentary about him I had seen. It was like, “Oh, this guy has no friends and everybody hates him.” And I got really obsessed with the idea of, what if you just befriend people and then they learn how to be different? I think I’ve come to different conclusions now, but that was how it started.
And then I moved to Portland after that. It was 2016 and there were the anti-Trump protests, and then there started to be the pro-Trump groups that would come in and there was a lot of violence and it was directly affecting a lot of my friends.
I was in the counter protests to the Trump rallies and there was a lot of rhetoric about “we don’t talk to fascists,” which, yeah, is very understandable, and I don’t think anyone should have to ever do that. But I was like, I want to, also because my dad voted for Trump. I wondered, what is the psychology behind this. It was a kind of confusion that was the initial curiosity.
Lou: I like to use points of my own confusion or tension as starting places for things. I wonder if that can come off a little naive, but so it goes.
Lo: The right really thinks leftists are trying to censor and silence them, but it’s more that these right wing ideas are everywhere in mainstream culture, and it’s nice to have spaces where you can have alternative ideas without them being bullied and torn apart.
Lou: I would love to hear how you got into social practice as a form. I know you had a printmaking background and drawing background.
Lo: I was doing a lot of community-based work, and I’ve worked in different programs and groups especially in disability communities for the last over 10 years now. I did an AmeriCorps program after I graduated undergrad and that was living on an anthroposophical farm.
Lou: Whoa, anthroposophical? What is that?
Lo: Anthroposophy, it actually started in Germany. It’s very much like a cult and mixes a lot of things with Christianity. This guy, Rudolf Steiner, who also did Waldorf schools, he was working with Goethe and stuff and was more in the philosophy realm.
And then he had a vision of Jesus and got into very esoteric versions of Christianity, but he invented this version of farming, and a lot of ideas about society, and got a lot of followers, and there’s still these intentional communities. And I didn’t know any of this before. I just was like, yeah, I want to teach art on a farm, what is this? It was in upstate New York. There was some stuff I was like, I don’t know if I agree with this.
I’m not religious, maybe spiritual or something, but Joseph Beuys was very influenced by Rudolf Steiner, in social sculpture. There were a lot of really beautiful rituals that were used in everyday life and in the farming. I found the philosophies and approach really interesting, and something I’d never really encountered before.
I had studied illustration but was always more interested in conceptual art. That experience really made me think about the art in everyday life and how those things can come together more, and how people can value each other in different ways. It was just really different than anything I’d ever done.
And then I went on, I moved to Tucson. I worked for another program that was the opposite, not very respectful of people. But then I started getting involved in forming a community print shop there. It made me think of how I really loved the social aspect of art making, making events and making a space together and working collectively. It made me realize that I was into those kinds of things just as much as making prints or something.
I went with my friend who was applying to UC Berkeley—we were on a road trip and I was like, I’m going to go look at something too. It was a different school that had a social practice program and I’d never heard of the term social practice before. They explained it and I was like, whoa, this is something you can study. And then I applied to pretty much all the social practice programs. I hated Portland at first. But then I ended up staying there for six years.
Lou: What did you hate about it when you got here?
Lo: Tucson was just really down to earth. I was doing a bit of border activism stuff, and the place just felt very real and in many ways very open. I remember I was about to move to Portland, and I watched Portlandia, and then I cried.
Lou: Oh, no! And what sort of stuff are you working on these days?
Lo: I’m figuring that out right now. In the fall last year I worked on a big, pretty socially engaged project that we started in May, and then the exhibition was in October. It was with this group called Sickness Affinity Group, and we created experiential workshops that we did together, and archived it in a piece called Soma Archives.
It was about archiving experiences with disability in a somatic way. It was really nice to work in a collective way with people on these topics. I love archiving and got to experiment with that kind of stuff. I mentioned my friend who’s a journalist who I met with last night, who is maybe going to invite me to make a radio piece for the public radio about Difference is a Field, and they have a lot of interesting experience with that too. Here in Berlin it’s very parallel to the US—there’s a very scary threat of the far-right getting a lot of power. The elections are coming up in a few weeks, and it’s unclear what is going to be happening with that. All the parties are being very anti-immigrant. Similar to how Democrats are in the US, all the parties took a right wing turn.
Lou: What do you feel is the role in this moment of such intense political division of talking to people who have different opinions from you? What use do you think it has now? Or maybe you’ve changed your mind about that and it doesn’t have a use.
Lo. I’m not sure! I’ve thought about this a lot, yeah. And is it politically useful or just like a personal special interest that I have?
And I don’t think you can change people’s minds. I think what people get out of these beliefs is a sense of purpose and belonging and community that are very powerful. I think the ways to counteract that would be also building spaces of belonging and community that aren’t harmful to other people. I don’t think people see leftist spaces as something that they feel welcome in, which is reasonable because a lot of their ideas are not.
I think we’re at a moment where people are really asking these questions. Maybe shaming people isn’t the right strategy for building solidarity across all different demographics and actually being for working class issues.
That means maybe not policing people as heavily, and being welcoming, but then how can you do that and make sure that people feel safe if you are vulnerable? And can you actually do all of those things?
Lou: Totally.
Lo: What do you think about this? Yeah. What are your thoughts?
Lou: It’s so hard. I don’t quite know how to say this without being a total asshole, but I want people on the left also to have a larger capacity for conflict or discomfort. Because while it is absolutely a bummer and harmful when people misgender you for example, speaking from my own experience, it’s not actual violence. There’s actual violence happening in other ways, so how can we resource ourselves to respond to those moments of discomfort? And have a larger capacity on the left for people who fuck up, and for people who say they’re wrong. More resilience, more skill building around that.
Lo: Yeah. That’s a great way to put it. Like a larger capacity for conflict. I think a lot about that also. How do we do that? A lot of people whose perspectives I don’t like and who I disagree with about other things have been saying this for a long time. We need it strategically and emotionally, so people don’t take everything in and get hurt by everything for themselves.
Lou: We all need more awareness of when we need a stronger boundary vs when we might need to dive into something and get honest.
Lo: When I was working on this project everyone was like, “I don’t know how you can talk to these people and listen to the horrible stuff,” and I don’t really know either. I don’t know why I have a fascination with it instead of horror and disgust.
And I have those things too, but it’s not like the primary emotional response.
I don’t know. I don’t know why that is.
Lou: What is your somatic experience when you’re talking to people like that?
Lo: I was really nervous, like shaking, like anxiety. That’s also why I don’t think I could counter what they are saying very easily. But that’s my experience in general when I meet new people. I always have a lot of anxiety about social things. It was like that, but just more extreme.
There was a professor at PSU that has since quit that was hosting these far right events. Peter Boghossian was his name. He was a philosophy professor—he’s like my nemesis. He was introduced to me as someone who is trying to do the same kind of project that I’m like doing, but I’ve tried to reach out to him so many times and he’s never responded. I would love to have a conversation with him. He doesn’t actually want to have conversations with people. He was like, “I want someone in the women’s studies department to debate me,” and, saying things like Black and Indigenous Studies programs shouldn’t exist. Just all this really offensive stuff.
I went to this event my friend had told me about, where Boghossian was doing these debates about stuff. But then it was like all the far right internet people there. And I had never encountered a lot of the QAnon stuff, I didn’t know that there was a reactionary bubble about genders, men and women— that was the first time I encountered stuff like that. Now it’s the law of the land, but it’s grown from a stupid, internet troll conversation in 2020. It’s crazy.
A lot of these people that were involved in this event, they’ve gone on to advising policy, they’re like helping write these laws. It is a small circle of intellectual, horrible people that have so much influence and power and they know how to use media.
There’s so much more infrastructure for their media. So much more funding, dark funding. Collecting money from all sorts of scary places. But I remember after that event there were a few interactions I had that made me feel really uncomfortable, and I went and cried in my car afterwards. It was just too much.
I think I’ve become more numb, but I was very sensitive at the time. But I’m doing it anyway. And I’ve always had a fascination with transgressive stuff too. What are these lines that people hold, not that thinking that it’s good or bad, but I’m interested in dissecting it.
Yeah. What else are you working on? Or any other projects?
Lou: Yeah, I’m hosting a sing along to the droning hum of the Lloyd Center Mall’s basement, where they have some mechanical constant tone that’s between an A sharp and a B. And with my classmate Simeen, we have a pop up song circle singing resistance songs. Some musical things to balance out some of the difficult emotional things.
Lo: That’s what I do too. I got really obsessed with karaoke, So that was my like, counter. I work at a karaoke club here, it’s really crazy, and I love when people sing revolutionary songs, and at protests people sing it too.
Lou: Are you a KJ? Is that the term?
Lo: Yeah, I somehow made my obsession into a job. It’s like this giant queer club, like I’d never worked in nightlife really before, and it’s wild. So fun.
Lou: Well, I really appreciate you taking the time.
Lo: Yeah, likewise.
BIOS
Lou Blumberg is an artist, facilitator, and educator with ties to San Francisco, New Orleans, and Portland. With a belief that a better world is possible, their deeply personal practice deals with conflict and its impact on our relationships and lives; surveillance and safety; and joy in despairing times. They are part of the MFA Art and Social Practice program at Portland State University.
Lo Moran creates interdisciplinary projects that are often socially engaged, participatory and collaborative. They aim to experiment with and question the systems we are embedded in by organizing situations of connection, openness and nonhierarchical learning, working towards accessibility and reimagined ways of being together by investigating community support and belonging. They are currently working on a comics and audio series documenting personal experiences with current political and cultural divides and live action role play (LARP) projects. Lo has also been involved in creative projects within disability communities for the last nine years. They try their best to embrace fluidity and chaos to contribute to emergent futures and radical approaches.
Living Between Worlds: A Mother-Daughter Dialogue
Text by Midori Yamanaka with R.Y., her daughter
“Little me thought dark-skinned people were just more tanned. And I assumed it just stays from some point… then, they cannot go back to the original skin color. Just like toast.”
I was born and raised in rural Japan and had never traveled abroad until I was 19. As a child, foreign countries felt like distant places—beyond the sea, beyond the TV screen, and far removed from my everyday reality.
In contrast, my daughter was born in Southern California and has lived her life moving between two countries. For a long time, she didn’t fully understand the concept of nations, perhaps because she had comfortably visited and stayed in multiple countries from a very young age, recognizing only that different lifestyles existed. But by 2024, at the age of 16, she had begun to think about and understand the complexities of nations, laws, race, and social issues.
This is a small glimpse into one of our unique, yet very ordinary, conversations at home.
Midori Yamanaka: Do you remember how you spent time when you were in preschool in California?
R.Y.: Um… kind of… Most of my memories are blurred.
Midori: Do you remember that one time for Mother’s Day, all the students made their moms’ faces with colored paper? All the moms’ faces were lined up on the wall. You had made my face with brown paper. I couldn’t find my face at first.
R: I did? Really? Haha. I don’t remember, but I probably didn’t care about your skin color.
Midori: You didn’t care about skin color?
A portrait of Midori, created by her daughter at age 4.
R: No. When I was little, I didn’t recognize skin color, but only feature differences, deeper or flatter. Haha. You know the difference between Western features and Asian features…?
But everyone has different features anyway. Some Asian people have deeper features than others, and many of my friends are of mixed races. So it also didn’t really matter to me.
For the skin color, I thought those were just suntans. I actually thought that way until quite recently. You know some people can get tan nicely, but some, like you, cannot. You just get red and leave some freckles.
Midori: That’s right. My skin cannot get tanned at all. It just burns so easily, and it’s painful.
R: Yes, and so, you always put sunscreen on to protect your skin, and you did that for me, worrying about getting sunburned when I was little. But some people can get tanned beautifully.
So little me thought dark-skinned people were just more tanned. And I assumed it just stays from some point… then, they cannot go back to the original skin color. Just like toast. Once you toast your bread, you cannot go back to the untoasted one. And because it stays, babies are born with darker skin by its genes. That’s what I thought. Haha.
Midori: When did you start understanding about race?
R: I don’t know. I don’t remember, but for sure I was not aware of the racial differences at least for the first few years in Portland…I came to Portland when I was 10 and turned 11 soon, so maybe until 13 or 14?
Midori: I also remember one incident with your Japanese friend, Karen, at preschool. You two played and talked in Japanese in school, and she was the only one who understood Japanese.
But her mother didn’t like Karen speaking Japanese to you because they spoke Japanese at home and Karen’s English was not so good. So they wanted Karen to practice English at pre-school so that she would be ready for Kindergarten afterward.
One day, her mother made her speak only English in preschool, even to you. And you were so disappointed. Do you remember that?
R: Yes, I do. And I chose playing in Japanese over her. I wanted to speak in Japanese. So I didn’t talk much to her after that.
Midori: How did you feel? What were your thoughts on the process?
RY: What’s the problem with talking in Japanese? I didn’t understand. But she was so determined, saying ‘I can’t play with you unless you speak in English.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I don’t want to speak in English.’ So I decided not to play with anyone.
Midori: Back then, did you hesitate speaking in English, even though you sort of understood?
R: I didn’t hesitate. I just felt more comfortable speaking Japanese since I spoke Japanese at home and everywhere.
I mean, English was not a problem. Little me just wanted to play while speaking Japanese. I thought if she really wanted to play and be friends with me, she would have, but she decided to do as her mother told her to. That upset me.
Midori: Yeah, her mom was very worried that she would not understand any English when she went to school after.
R: I know. But like, she had every right to not do that and speak Japanese with me. She could’ve spoken in English to others, and in Japanese with me. But she didn’t do that and decided to obey her mother. That upset me very much.
Midori: I see… For you, it might have felt a bit like heartbreak, huh?
Anyway, I’m really surprised that at just five years old, you already had this sense of rights—like, ‘Everyone has their own thoughts and feelings, but you have the right to make your own choices.’
R.Y. (she/her) is the teenage daughter and only child of Midori Yamanaka, the author of this book. Born in Southern California, she grew up between Hokkaido, Japan, and Portland, Oregon. She has a keen interest in cultural and linguistic differences, diverse perspectives, and mathematics.
Midori Yamanaka is a Japanese Social Practice Artist and Educator whose work explores what happens in between—between people, cultures, languages, and ways of knowing. Born and raised in a coastal town along the Sea of Okhotsk in northern Japan, she brings a deep sensitivity to layered histories and micro cultures that quietly shape everyday life. She holds a BFA in Graphic Design from Art Center College of Design and is currently completing her MFA in Contemporary Art and Social Practice at Portland State University, with graduation expected in Spring 2025.
Public Art is Dope
Nina Vichayapai with Elisheba Johnson
“Art should be for everyone… Public art is for everybody. It’s outside. There’s no hours. It’s so radical.”
In 2020 I had the pleasure of being introduced to the world of public art through Elisheba Johnson. At the time, Elisheba managed a free training program available to Seattle Area artists, called Public Art Bootcamp. As an artist, public arts manager, and the curator and co-founder of Seattle’s Wa Na Wari gallery, Elisheba brings a uniquely expansive approach to the field of public art. I continue to be inspired to engage with the public sphere in resourceful and community-minded ways of working, both of which were encouraged by Elisheba through Bootcamp. The following conversation was an exciting opportunity for me to return to my public art roots while also learning about the influences and experiences that shape Elisheba’s enthusiastic dedication to the public arts.
Nina Vichayapai: Could you start by giving an overview of what your experience has been from your own background as an artist, and then into public art management?
Elisheba Johnson: My dad’s a writer and there was definitely art all around me growing up. But I never thought I would be an artist. I really did think art was just for white people, you know? I started making art in my senior year of high school. My teacher introduced me to the work of Romare Bearden. It was then that everything just made sense to me. I could hear the jazz and see the movement in the work. It was culturally relevant. It was transformational.
So I went to college at Cornish in 2006 and soon after I started a gallery in Capitol Hill called Faire Gallery Cafe. The gallery was inspired by the idea of salons and experimentation. Cornish was one of the only interdisciplinary art schools west of the Mississippi. A lot of my friends were in theater or music, so I wanted a space where artists of different disciplines could work together.
But the mortgage crisis happened in 2008 and it was just a bad time for everybody. So I closed the gallery in 2012. Soon after, a job came up with the city of Seattle. I had the opportunity to work with my dear friend, Randy Engstrom. He would be my boss there. He was so different from what I saw in government, so I wanted to work for him.
Nina: What was your time there like?
Elisheba: One of the first projects I got to work on with the City of Seattle was a project called All Rise, which was in an empty lot by City Light. Construction wasn’t going to happen for a year so they decided to hire curators and to activate it. It was fucking dope. They had temporary dance performances, film screenings, all this stuff. It was also really cool because normally City Light would have had to pay security to secure that site. But instead we were able to pay artists to come in and activate it.
That really opened me up to what public art could be. I’d met public artists before who just made bronze stuff. I had never thought it could be like ALL RISE. Art should be for everyone. So when I worked with the city, I was like, oh, shit. Public art is for everybody. It’s outside. There’s no hours. It’s so radical.
So, that’s why I got into public art. I feel like it’s a really great way to represent communities. I get to support communities to have artworks that represent what’s really important to them.
Nina: Public art is so important as a way to mark time and place for communities. It’s awesome that you get to support that. How long were you with the City of Seattle? And what is your position in public art now?
Elisheba: I worked at the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture for six years. I was managing the arts commission for two and then I moved into public art. Now I am an independent public art consultant.
Nina: Something I’m curious about is how you balance it all. You’re so active in supporting public art projects, you’re an artist yourself, you started Wa Na Wari and do so much programming for that gallery too… What’s it like to manage all of that?
Elisheba: I mean I don’t feel like I have any balance. I’m not gonna lie to you. I’m so bad at self-care. I am totally transparent about that. I’ve always been a workaholic. I used to say I have small business owner’s disease. There is a certain level of busy I like to be. But since I have a chronic illness I discovered that I had developed a couple of years ago, learning to slow down is much needed. I’m still fighting it.
At work I joke around and say that I have the binder of the artists of color. So I’m the person people call when a building is getting made and the community says we should hire a person of color. I’m working with three artists of color right now for one developer and it’s all their first public artwork. So that part is cool. But being an administrator can feel like it’s all just paperwork. At the end of the day I’m writing contracts and processing invoices and checking in with the artist while they get to do the creative part.
I got into making public art when I was managing projects with the City of Seattle. I’d see projects and think about how I would be doing this or that. I thought maybe I wanted to be a public artist. I started a public art practice with a collaborator who unfortunately passed away a couple of years ago. So I’m trying to figure out how to move forward as a solo public artist.
Nina: That’s tough. And it seems like having any balance as an artist and arts worker definitely seems like a challenge across the field.
Elisheba: I think that as artists and administrators we have to figure out some type of balance because it really is soul killing to be that close to the art and not be making. I think I had told myself for a really long time that I’m not an artist. I’m a gallerist. But now I feel differently about it and I wish it didn’t take me this long to go back. So I’m trying to find ways to bring in my own practice without it feeling like it’s nepotism or something.
At Wa Na Wari almost all our staff are artists. And so, for Walk the Block, our big festival, we let everybody make artwork for it. I want to do community based public art with folks that don’t have a bunch of resources. I also want to get much more intentional about having less clients so that I can really focus on other stuff.
Nina: Definitely. I dream of someday being able to say no to an opportunity. It’s nice to have space in your life to just work on the things you find personally meaningful.
Elisheba: That’s what happened with Barbara Earl Thomas. She’s a really dope artist in Seattle and she used to be the executive director of the Northwest African American Museum. She’s always made art and had shows and stuff. But then she quit and now she’s a full time artist. I keep telling her, “I want to be like you.” I’m going to do this administrative thing and then I’m going to be a full time artist.
Also, women artists actually peak way later than men. Most of them are like 50 or 60 years old when it happens. So I got time.
Nina: You do! That’s really uplifting to hear as a woman too, sounds like something to look forward to.
What about the public art bootcamp program, when did you start that?
Elisheba: So my mentor, Marcia Iwasaki, started it 20 years ago when she saw that in the 70s and 80s there were these white guys who could self-finance making public art and they just had a lock on it. And so she created this program as a response. It was a six month program that met one day a week for several months. They went on field trips and they had meetings with fabricators and all that. The program eventually stopped running but when I learned about it I thought, wow, that’s what we really need for artists of color.
So after talking about it with Marcia and my boss Randy we decided to reinvent her program with an attention to racial equity. It was really successful. We made sure the artists in the cohort had access to getting selected for a real project. At the time, we had six community centers being remodeled that needed art. I think in a lot of ways that was the most important part. We’re not just talking about budgets and contracts and fees. There’s a real chance to actualize the learning.
I’ve seen several people who went through the early boot camp who are just straight up public artists now. The program has been expanded to Redmond, too. I’m no longer involved in it but it’s still really important to me.
Nina: It’s an amazing program. If it weren’t for that program, I’d have no idea about how to even get started making public art. And the fact that the program is free and not being provided by some kind of higher learning institution is really amazing too. It’s so important for artists to have access to that kind of specialized knowledge.
And you also have a background as a poet, is that correct?
Elisheba: I’m an artist and poet. I did my MFA in poetry. I’ve been writing poetry since I was 12.I have a text based practice.
Nina: What’s it like working as a poet in public art?
Elisheba: I have a funny story. I applied for this public art project from Vulcan. It’s on Jackson and 23rd, in the Central District of Seattle. There were eight artists they picked. They wanted traditional African symbols or something. I was trying to do that and it just didn’t feel right and it was not me. So I was like, fuck it, I’m just going to write a poem. That’s me.
So I sent it in. The project manager even checked with me to make sure it was what I meant to submit. But later it turned out that they liked it and I was selected. So if there was ever a lesson to just be yourself, that’s it!
Nina: I love that! I’ve totally felt that one of the tricky things about making public work is feeling the pressure of what others are expecting you to make. Should you do something true to yourself, or that satisfies what the board is looking for?
Elisheba: Yeah it’s hard, right? I think sometimes artists get so overwhelmed with community feedback that they lose their own voice. But when the art comes out and you’re excited about it, that is such a good feeling. I’m never going to stop loving public art. It’s dope.
Nina: So what are your hopes for the future of public art? Anything you’re excited about, anything you’re hoping to bring into it?
Elisheba: That’s a good question. I think we’re just in a weird moment. One of the problems with public art is everybody is super risk averse, right? Sometimes you put an artwork out there and the community hates it and they’re all mad at you. So I get it. Sometimes you just want to do something safe and not cause any waves. But I think there’s so much opportunity for really incredible stuff. So I think we just need to be less scared as a field. Also, most public art isn’t federally funded so we don’t need to play it safe.
I’m also interested in how we can make public art more accessible for different folks to get into. Marcia always talks about how public art in your city is like a library. You wouldn’t want the same book from the same author. You want many books from many authors. And I feel that way too.
Nina: That’s all so important. It’s cool to hear that you support artists taking risks and finding their voice on these projects. I’ve definitely felt constrained in public art projects and like I need to tone things down. But to have a working relationship with someone who supports your vision would be so rewarding.
Elisheba: I do think most project managers are artists or went to art school. So they want to do cool projects. We want to get excited. I think that there are people out there willing to support those risks in public art. And who knows, I might be one of them. I feel like my last job might be running a public art program. I could do that for like five years and then retire or something. I think it’d be fun.
Nina: Didn’t you say the golden years for women artists is 60 or 70? You could do that in your retirement!
Elisheba: Well maybe in my pre-retirement, I’ll be a full time artist by then!
Nina: That sounds like a solid plan. Well thanks so much, I learn so much every time I talk to you and this was the perfect conversation to have right now as I think about making some public art!
Nina Vichayapai makes art that explores what it means to be at intersecting margins. Her interdisciplinary work includes soft sculpture, public art, pie making, guerilla gardening, dog petting, and eavesdropping. Nina’s art has been exhibited in places such as the Bellevue Arts Museum, the Henry Art Gallery, and on telephone poles and bulletin boards. Her work can be found in the collections of the City of Seattle and in gardens across the Pacific Northwest. Nina was born in Bangkok, Thailand and graduated from the California College of Arts in 2017. She currently lives in Portland, Oregon.
Elisheba Johnson Elisheba Johnson is a curator, public artist, administrator, and disruptor. Feeling left out of the traditional art world, Johnson has dedicated her career to building bridges for artists of color to grow and thrive in our local arts community. Johnson, who has a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts, was the owner of Faire Gallery Café, a multi-use art space that held art exhibitions, music shows, poetry readings and creative gatherings. After closing Faire, Johnson went on to work at the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture on capacity building initiatives and racial equity in public art. Johnson currently co-manages Wa Na Wari, a Black art center in Seattle’s Central Area that uses the arts to build community and resist displacement. Johnson’s personal art practice examines the beauty and triumph of Black life in America through mixed media and poetry.
Tuning Back In with Mr. Ghost
April 23, 2025
Text by Sarah Luu with Lewis Alexander Geist of 90.5 KSJS
“The most amazing thing I’ve seen continuing despite all these digital changes is that radio continues to be a beacon in the community…When one discovers something that they really enjoy on the radio, it’s as if they’re entered into a club that they didn’t know existed.”- Lewis Alexander Geist
It was around 6AM and I had just finished delivering the last case of pastries for the morning. I never figured out how to play my own music in the delivery van, though I tried. After a week or so, I just gave up and turned on the radio. I flipped through various channels of static, throwback hits, and classical music until I suddenly heard the voice of Lucy Dacus on 90.5 FM. I was totally caught off guard– she was the last artist I expected to hear on air. I looked up the channel online, and there it was: “San Jose State University’s Student Run Ground Zero Radio Station.” So, being the music nerd that I am, I joined the radio station, 90.5 KSJS, in Spring 2022 and would find myself spending the last half of my undergraduate program almost entirely at the station. I became engrossed in the world of radio, immersed myself in my local scene and left as radio’s biggest advocate.
After a year in this program, I began to question how I could use my other interests in my practice. I sat down for a chat over the phone with one of the first friends I met upon joining KSJS to uncover some of his thoughts on how radio is currently evolving, how it may change for the future and what ideas he might have to push radio into becoming a more flexible tool of expression and communication.
Sarah Luu: I have a loaded list of questions for you about your experience in radio and what you think about radio as a whole. Let’s start off with an introduction.
What’s your name and story?
Lewis Alexander Geist: My story is…whatever comes out of my mouth. Frankly, I’ll say anything. I’ll say anything I can all the time if in jest or for humor, and it may not necessarily be the truth, but my name is Lewis Geist. Lewis Alexander Geist, if you want to be specific.
I’m from the Haight in San Francisco, California and I really enjoy helping people. I would say that’s my main story.
Sarah: How long have you been working for KSJS?
Lewis: Man…I got involved with KSJS back in 2012…That’s crazy.
It was the spring semester of 2012. I was learning how to become a DJ and that summer I would have my first show, which was an overnight show going from 2AM to 6AM.
Sarah: What drew you first to working in radio and what made you want to stay so long?
Lewis: What drew me is that they offered elective units toward my degree and I needed those units so I could get loans, so I could attend school. What kept me around was that the radio station at San Jose State, KSJS, had jazz as one of their music genres that they played on their station.
I grew up listening pretty exclusively to jazz and so I was really excited to have an opportunity to play jazz music in general, not only for myself on air, but also for anybody else who decided to listen in. On top of that, the station also did sports broadcasting for San Jose State Athletics, which I’m a big fan of, so I started doing sports broadcasting and got even more work in that as life moved along.
Sarah: Yeah, you’ve been running your jazz show for years since then, too. Have you ever thought about exploring other genres for a show?
Lewis: Not entirely. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the other genres that are played at KSJS, which include electronic, rock (which we call subversive rock), hip-hop R&B, and what is currently Latin, but in the past has been Alternativo en Español. Currently all those genres, with the exception of Latin, generally have plenty of DJs or folks familiar with those genres as they’re more popular with modern audiences, or today’s audiences, I should say. So, I continue to play jazz as my choice just to make sure that it’s around.
Sarah: That’s beautiful. You’ve been in radio for quite some time, then. I’m very curious to know what potential shifts you might have seen in the culture of radio in the past 10 years or so, especially with the different types of media we play and interact with as well as the technology we use?
Lewis: That’s a really good question. It’s a really important question.
As you’ve noted, our tastes have entirely shifted. Our areas where we get this service, if you will, from radio (broadcasting) has now moved to an online platform. Radio is limited by the amount of licenses that the federal government has given out, whereas we have an unfettered distribution of music, viewpoints, opinions– whatever it may be, that the people can broadcast on the internet– so that’s one way things have changed. The listener now has a multitude of options to choose from. But, something that keeps radio incredibly unique is that it’s not only the music stations that you’ll hear in English, but multiple languages, at least fortunately here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Here, I know I can turn on the radio and hear things in Spanish or Chinese. I’m sure if I go to different parts of the Bay, I’ll hear Vietnamese. A bit further out, Korean. Japanese, as well. Definitely Tagalog. I’m sure they’re all out there.
Radio can serve specialized local needs, whether that is in the political opinion sense or in the music sense. You’ll see so many folks still post online in their social media like, “Hey, my song is on the radio!”, and it’s usually starting with local radio. This is a barometer that people still want to get to or clear.
And also, there’s the news. The news on the radio hasn’t very much changed. It’s still pretty locally focused. It’s still telling you the weather and the traffic ‘cause I imagine the majority of radio listeners are still kind of car-based? Radio isn’t as ubiquitous. If we imagine in the 1940s and 50s, before television really expanded across America, people would sit around and listen to the radio! They’d look at the radio! And that was the major form of entertainment.
So obviously, in terms of its overall popularity across the populace, it has just declined with the competition that’s been out there. But now, it allows for even more hyper local abilities. Even with nationally syndicated radio, there’s still that ability to connect within your community that exists only in these places because their bandwidth only exists within their community. Their power from their stations only exists within their community. The most amazing thing I’ve seen continuing despite all these digital changes is that radio continues to be a beacon in the community.
Sarah: That’s really insightful. I’d really love to know more about these changes you brought up. When it comes to the age of digitalization, how do you think that would affect the future of radio and how that would affect live broadcasted shows?
Lewis: Digitalization of radio would not only allow us to listen wherever, but folks who are no longer present in said community can have a chance to connect back. So if you’re living in New York City, but you’ve moved away and done work for a couple months or a year in some other place, you’d be able to go online and get the feed from your favorite station, still able to feel a connection back home. This also goes for some specialty shows that are now able to attract audiences from all around.
Sarah: So I know what specialty shows are, but some people might not. Do you have any examples? Maybe within KSJS?
Lewis: At KSJS, we have an oldies show run by Bay Area Radio Hall of Famer, Dennis Terry. Shout out to Dennis, who’s legally blind, who may not have previously (as he is a bit older than us) been able to deliver his choice of content without the radio. I don’t know how he would get oldies music to the masses without it. It’s his voice and his choice, and there are people who listen all over the nation who previously would not have had the opportunity to.
Not only does it help local communities, but it also helps those in niche communities. You can talk through the DJ to the other people, via the music, and thoughts being shared. While digitalization does decrease attention span (as we’ve seen with our relationship to our phones), it can really enrich folks who want to pay attention, as they now can access their desired content live from anywhere. I think that’s really cool.
Sarah: What do you think about this circulating idea about radio “dying”? Because that’s something that we both are trying to combat, largely in support of Kimb Massey, KSJS’s faculty advisor, who is incredibly outwardly passionate about keeping radio communities visible.
Lewis: Yeah, shout out to Kimb!
There’s this music group called “Jazz is Dead”. As someone who loves jazz, the wording freaks me out in a sense ‘cause the reason why they’re saying that, is because jazz and radio really came around at the same time in terms of their popularity.
But there’s still live jazz shows all over the place. There are still jazz festivals. Do these festivals now include some acts that may not be called ‘jazz’? Yeah, absolutely, I would say that. But everything evolves. Even though we’re in this digital world, radio will evolve with it. And hey, one day the power’s gonna go out, the phone lines will be down and the only thing you’ll have is your handheld radio. Stations usually have backup generators, too, so we’ll eventually have to fall back to listening to radio in general.
Secondly, radio is also not quite a secret society, but it can feel like a secret society you’ve walked in on. Nobody is really listening to the radio and in the amounts we used to. When one discovers something that they really enjoy on the radio, it’s as if they’re entered into a club that they didn’t know existed. And it’s possible that this club grows, but I imagine as we get more digital, there will be even newer things out there to take one’s focus away from the radio.
And you know, there’s podcasts. Podcasts, I’m sure, have taken away radio listeners. But in the end, the content from the radio will have to change in order to attract people. Maybe what I see in the future is that radio will change its content in order to stay relevant within the people.
Sarah: Do you think this digital shift has affected our relationship to physical media? Do you think we’ll lose our ability to connect in the physical?
Lewis: With more digital things, we lose more physical things. There’s no doubt about it.
Music these days is generally all distributed online, so we don’t get albums with covers that we can flip over and look at the backside, and see the tracks, and see the continuation of the artist’s work on the album. There’s no longer a little insert we can take out and read things about the album that were intentionally put in place for that specific album. We can certainly go online and read a bunch of different opinions people have on the album, but maybe someone got a music critic to write about that particular album and it gives you insights that are not necessarily accessible to you anymore. So, there are things that are lost. When we switch from physical media, which we might call radio, we may lose what makes radio, radio. Things may turn away from being live, and everything will start to be pre-recorded. But I suspect that going forward people will recognize that it’s one of the outlets that can connect to anyone anywhere.
You will still have a stronger community by still having radio because of it being used by the community as opposed to a large national syndication type thing. Not that there isn’t a place for a national conversation, there always is, frankly, but we don’t want it replacing all the local ones. I hope that as we move forward into the digital age, people will remember that it’s still pretty good to use these physical mediums. And that there’s still impact to be made from radio that just can’t be matched through other mediums.
Sarah: We’ve noted in the past that many college radio stations, even in proximity to KSJS within the Bay, have decided to operate fully online and how that may take away from the physical experience of radio in itself. There is a difference between clicking a mouse to play automated playlists and interacting with a soundboard and a music library as you broadcast. What do you think about these physical experiences that are lost when stations make the shift to go on the web? Do you think stations lose some credibility or validity when they make the decision to go online?
Lewis: A lot of stations that are now online-only originally had licenses to live broadcast. It’s very likely that during the great recession from ‘07 to ‘10, maybe even a little beyond that, they had sold their licenses off, especially if they were owned by non-profits.
At the time, we were facing massive financial issues and these licenses were (and are) very valuable. The fact that they’re now online-only is just a little bit different. You need to have that internet connection and you need to make sure that you go to it. It’s not as simple as starting your car and spinning a dial ‘cause the radio is already built into it. I don’t know if anybody still has clock radios anymore, but those things still exist and it’s also not as simple as just putting the power on. You have to connect to the right station you want. Even though it’s not on the same distribution level or wavelength system, its goals are generally the same, which is to connect the community with information. The goal overall is to provide content that interests, resonates or engages.
At some point, an online-only thing has to compete with other things that are also online, which could be watching some streamer play music and discuss it live in real-time with the chat. I’ve seen it happen now in our station; they’ll go live and say “Hey, I’m doing my show. Hit me up on my stream and I’ll answer your questions.” Maybe that is the next step, and I didn’t know that until we started having this conversation and that’s right where it needs to be. Current radio will adopt what the online radio people might have experienced and tailored to their own shows.
Sarah: Thanks for sharing that, it seems like radio will continue to exist as a critical tool to connect with our communities in any shape or form, from musical interests to personal opinions. In that sense, would you see radio as a potential platform for activism or other forms of cultural work?
Lewis: I think it’s always been a form of activism. There’s certainly different causes being taken up on airwaves, depending on what portion of the country you’re in. Sometimes you’re driving along a road and you’re listening to a station and all of sudden, it becomes another station, and you don’t even have to go far sometimes. I mean, where else is one able to get content that resonates with themselves? It takes a lot of community to make that happen. Almost all the time, radio very much responds to those who’s listening now.
Fortunately in our radio community, there are non-profit stations that are able to give us things that are not necessarily demanded by the public, things we might not know we need. Those things can be worship-related, language and culture-related, politics-related, and of course, music related. So, I think it is activism as we see the community push and pull their own individual thoughts and feelings reflected in our broadcasts.
Sarah: If you could reimagine the role of the DJ as a kind of public thinker or artist, what would that look like to you?
Lewis: I wonder if I can reimagine that or if I’m already too entrenched in being a “DJ”, that I couldn’t freely think of something else. Part of what may be inhibiting my imagination of rethinking is the fact that radio generally doesn’t have any silence.* When people tune in, whether it be online or the FM/AM bandwidth (though I guess actually the internet is bandwidth, too) there is this preconceived notion that the silence isn’t good. I guess I could imagine somebody adding silence, for a little while if it was part of an artistic demonstration. I’m also imagining somebody with a trombone just playing into the microphone for no particularly good reason.
*Note: When you are on air doing a show, there must be something playing at all times– music, dialogue, etc. Silence on live air waves is known as “dead air”, and you should never have dead air. Ever.
Jokes aside, because radio licenses are provided by the government, there are constraints even with some safe harbor hours. There are even further constraints depending on the radio station you work for. But it would be fun to be able to have an unconstrained stream of consciousness broadcasted on air. A stream of Art-ism. Um, that’s not a word. Art. A stream of artistic expression. And a part of that could be curated from other sounds or individuals, inviting others to come in and communicate.
Sarah: Wasn’t there a DJ that would read his dream journal on air?
Lewis: Yes, and that was incredibly popular. People would always ask about that.
Sarah: Has KSJS as a station ever pushed the boundaries of “typical” radio content?
Lewis: We do have the opportunity to use radio as a creative outlet within some of the confines of our station. Every April Fools Day we do something that’s satirical and mocking. Most recently, we changed song lyrics to cat meows, and that went unbelievably viral, relative to anything we’ve ever experienced recently, online and within our community. Even now, a couple weeks removed from April 1st, people are still talking to me about it, wondering if they could get copies of some of those songs, and relaying stories of how they called into the station that day and the DJs on the other side of the line would just meow. So, there are still opportunities within radio today that I don’t have to reimagine, because these DJs are already doing the things that I should have imagined already…
Overall, though, DJs have the responsibility to the community to give them something. And like everything in life, it’s not always the right thing or a good thing. We all miss every once in a while or some of us miss a little more frequently, but we’re not here to judge. Sometimes, it’s just how things go. I know I certainly miss every now and then but with such a platform, we have the opportunity to be able to give and share so much, and I love giving.
Sarah: Well, that is all the questions I have for you, Lewis. Do you have any for me?
Lewis: Yeah, absolutely, How do you feel about the SOFA journal being published digitally and not distributed with physical copies?
Sarah: Hm, well where do I start? As you know, I started this program last Fall. The SOFA journals were already fully digital at that point so this system is only what I know. It does make me a bit sad. I know it’s more cost-effective but it feels so much more special to read from something you can feel. The tangible, physicality of it. I feel more connected to things when I’m not receiving it from a screen. It’s why I do zines and stuff.
Lewis: You know, I wanna bring that up and this should be noted. You introduced zines back, or maybe for the first time, to KSJS.
Sarah: I did! ‘Soundshock’ was what Allyssa and I decided to call it.
Lewis: You even printed some cool stuff for us too…
Sarah: Yeah, I mean it all stemmed from wanting to help grow a community that I finally felt were my kinds of people. I joined in Spring 2022, post-covid and the beginning of “hybrid” learning at SJSU. I struggled to find my people through Zoom and made friends with the very few people that were present when I first joined…I always mention the small number of people when I first came because it sticks out in my brain so vividly. The station has grown so much since I’ve joined.
Lewis: It has amazingly recovered.
Sarah: Yeah, amazingly! I would table for the station a lot and noticed how many people came by just for the free stickers and shit. Sometimes they grabbed flyers but most times not. People wanted things to keep and personalize, or interact with. Since I was already making zines, I decided to just do it. I teamed up with Allyssa and we made it happen. It worked because we made it worth keeping. It wasn’t just a basic flyer you glance at briefly between classes. This had everything you needed to know to be a part of the station and an invitation to know more about the San Jose music scene as a whole. We put interviews, music recommendations by genres and photographs…I mean you were there.
Lewis: It was a very fun and tactile experience. You allowed us to promote KSJS in a different medium entirely, in an outlet that welcomed everyone.
Sarah: Yeah, and that was the goal of it all. Using an accessible medium to promote an accessible radio station for students by students. It reflected what we were already saying to our community, which was basically “Whatever we’re doing here, you can do, too”.
Lewis: Well, now people are still doing zines without you being here and they’re making…not knock-off or bootleg… but individually designed KSJS apparel, as well.
Sarah: Wow, that was my goal, honestly.
Lewis: You passed the baton. No, you built it! Like those things totally weren’t existing before the pandemic. You’ve created new paths that have rebuilt the station from that time.
Sarah: That’s sweet to hear. Thank you. It was so nice chatting and catching up with you Lewis.
Lewis: You’re very welcome.
Sarah: Bye! Talk to you later.
Lewis: Bye, bye. Bye!!!
If Lewis Alexander Geist (he/him) is not actively assisting in some matter for someone else, or walking in the middle of Haight Street, then odds are good that this San Francisco native is talking. Ever the conversationalist, his humorous and engaging manner meets all folks where they are. Even on his jazz radio show he will try to have (very, very one sided) conversations with the listeners. That motormouth does get put to good use in sports broadcasting where he does all manner of work; from play-by-play and color commentary, to sideline reporting and public address (plus less talkative roles such as camera operator, technical director and broadcast coordinator).
While studying political science at San Jose University, Lewis found his way to the campus radio station KSJS, where he would eventually become the Director for the Jazz/World/Blues Department and the Sports Department. Having loved jazz and sports for as long as he can recall, KSJS allowed Lewis to immerse himself in those worlds in ways he had never imagined…
Sarah Luu (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist and writer. She gravitates towards photography, ceramics, zines and print-making. As a first generation Asian American, her work has touched on themes of her mixed Vietnamese-Chinese identity, intergenerational trauma and cultural tradition. She explores themes outside those topics by grabbing inspiration from her lived experience growing up and being raised in San Jose, California surrounded by a vibrant arts and music culture.
She holds a BA in Studio Art, Preparation for Teaching from San Jose State University and is currently studying for an MFA in the Art and Social Practice program at Portland State University. Her favorite food is her mother’s Bánh Canh and she can roller skate backwards.
Another Way to Hold Things
Simeen Anjum and Kristan Kennedy
“We don’t preserve; we work with living artists in the moment they’re making.”
Kristan Kennedy is an artist and curator currently working as the co-artistic director at the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA). In this interview, I speak with her about her artistic journey, the process of defining her core values in her profession, and how she navigates working within an institutional setting while staying true to her own principles. We explore the potential of museums and how we can reimagine these spaces to better serve their communities. Kristan, who came of age in Brooklyn in the 1980s and moved to Portland in 1995, has always been interested in examining the role of artists and creating community around art. Recently, Kristan and the PICA staff undertook a collective reorganization of the organization’s kitchen, transforming it into a more welcoming space for everyone—artists, visitors, and staff alike.
The morning of our interview, I visited Kristan at PICA just as she arrived with bags of groceries for a special event happening later that evening. Kristan and the team at PICA prepared dinner for the event, which included a Turkish tomato lentil soup. While we chopped vegetables and chatted, sitting across from each other, we dove into a conversation about our respective work, the intersection of art and community, and the importance of shared spaces.
Simeen: What were your curiosities when you were a student?
Kristan: When I was a student, my curiosity revolved around how one claims the identity of being an artist. I had always been engaged in art since I was a child. As an only child for six formative years—my sister wasn’t born until I was almost seven—my parents had to keep me occupied, and art was something I really connected with. From a young age, I was fortunate enough to have this identity of being “the kid who was good at art.”
As I moved into college, though, I started questioning what it meant to call yourself an artist. I wondered if it was just about skill, or if it was more about something deeper—maybe a way of being in the world, or a career. I wasn’t really sure, and I had my assumptions, but I wasn’t clear on what that meant for me.
Growing up in Brooklyn, I was lucky enough to be exposed to art through museums, and I even worked at one in high school. I had this idea that being an artist could be a career, and that there were different levels within the art world—maybe one of those levels involved becoming a “famous” artist who had their work in shows or magazines like Artforum. But even with these ideas, I really didn’t know what it all meant or how it would play out in reality.
Simeen: And how did you find an answer to that question?
Kristan: I am probably still doing research on the big project that is called “what does my identity as an artist have to do with my value as a person”. Ha! One way of answering this in the context of my life learning about art through, looking and making and doing especially in the context of art school is that I feel very lucky to have had the teachers I did. Leonard Bellinger my high school art teacher ( in a very small Catholic all girls school) also happened to be one of the very first artists in residence at PS1 in NY and a radical thinker who pushed me to think beyond materials into ideas of visual perception, at Alfred, I worked with Joseph Scheer and Mary Lum, Peer Bode and Ted Morgan they were all so generous and very much into art being a relational practice, one not devoid of humanity… Although they are all serious artists with long careers they also eschewed any obsession with fame or commercial success that came at the cost of their values. They shared information and knowledge, they celebrated each other’s success and were very much into process, collaboration, experimentation and questioning ( your motives, materials, methods). This helped me move towards my own philosophy that the art world should not be separate from the world world. So to be an artist is to be a human in the world who is curious and conscientious – who pushes at the sides of things and offers new perspectives. Who is creating a new language for the future, something that may not be understood in their lifetimes. It isn’t about chasing accolades or about a list of accomplishments.
Simeen: And how was your experience going to an art school? Was it competitive?
Kristan: When I first went to college, there were so many people with different experiences, which was amazing, but it also made me feel a bit lost at times. I was anxious and confused. I threw myself into my work, but I also invested a lot of energy into my relationships, especially with my friends. I think that’s partly from how I was raised, but it also directly relates to what we’re doing right now—chopping vegetables together and making food for artists. Creating a culture around art has always been interesting to me.
At art school, though, there were times when that sense of community didn’t feel as present. It was more about whether or not you did well on an assignment, and I remember feeling like, “Well, I’m not sure how I did on the project, but I do know we helped each other out.” Those kinds of values weren’t always encouraged, and they didn’t really factor into the grading system, but they were important to me.
Eventually, I found my way into the printmaking department, which allowed me to engage in a more collaborative practice. Printmaking, the way we were doing it, required you to work with others—whether you were on a press with someone or participating in group critiques. That wasn’t the case with more isolating practices like painting. Even though I now identify as a painter, my time in printmaking felt more collective, and that sense of community was something I really valued during my time in school.
Simeen: As a curator now, What are the values you bring into the culture you’re creating, both within the institution and beyond?
Kristan: Yeah, absolutely. The first thing I’d say is that I’m a curator without an MFA, and without a formal background in art history. I do have some background in social history ( which was my minor in college) , and now I teach in a graduate program, but when I first started, it was really about being an artist who knew how to work with other artists. My mentors, Kristy Edmunds and Victoria Frey, who founded PICA, were the ones who helped me understand that curating is about care. They reminded me that the word “curate” comes from the Latin word “curare,” meaning to care for. Historically, curators were people who worked in institutions like mental hospitals or zoos, caring for people or animals. So, they said to me, “Your job is to care for the artist, first and foremost—their well-being, their ideas, and helping them figure out what comes next.”
This philosophy really resonated with me, as it aligns with my values around relational practices. Even though I had to learn a lot on the job—like how to install a show—I’ve always been comfortable in relationships, asking questions, and bringing curiosity into institutional spaces. I came from a generation and art-making moment that was deeply influenced by identity politics, political work, and movements like those surrounding the AIDS crisis, Reagan’s policies, and other forms of oppression and fascism. That kind of work was very direct, sometimes didactic, and often took place in the public realm.
As practice has evolved, my interests have shifted, but I’ve always carried that questioning of systems and authority with me. That’s a big part of what I bring into my work at PICA—asking myself what kind of institution we are and what we’re doing. There are things we just can’t avoid, like being part of a capitalist system, operating within a nonprofit structure, and grappling with the effects of whiteness. When I started, we didn’t really have the language to articulate these things, but the questions were always present. I’m really fortunate to have had the mentors I did and to work with the artists I do.
Simeen: How has your experience been working with other artists and curating their work with this understanding?
Kristan: One of the key lessons I learnt was that, despite the common belief that curators are somehow “above” the artists, the value at PICA was that curators were on the same level as the artists—or sometimes even below. The core idea that was instilled in me was: follow the artist’s lead. This fundamentally shifts the role of the curator away from a top-down approach. It was really helpful to learn while in that environment. So, curating is like a mentor role for me here. It’s also about truly understanding what the artist is trying to express and where they might not be seen or understood. A good example of this is the show I did with the artist Storm Tharp, who currently has an exhibition at PDX Contemporary Art. A monograph of their work was just published—it’s an incredible catalog that took five years to complete.
When Storm and I worked together, they were facing a challenge in their practice. Storm has an incredibly diverse approach to art—they’re a talented draftsman, capable of rendering incredibly detailed garments and facial features. But they also have an interest in a variety of mediums, from making clothes to creating more abstract paintings, sculptures, and videos. This diversity in practice presented a challenge for their gallerist, who was very supportive but found it difficult to define who Storm was as an artist to collectors. To some, it seemed like seven different artists were involved in the work.
But to me, it was clear: this was all made by the same person. It was about ideas, color, and form. So when Storm and I discussed the possibility of having a show, I wanted to approach it from that perspective. I didn’t want to narrow the focus to just one aspect of their work, like the drawings, because that’s what was most commercially viable. Instead, we created a show called High House that was a more expansive representation of Storm’s practice. We moved a lot of their studio into the gallery—pedestals, plants, paint jars, and other materials—blurring the line between studio and gallery space. It also included all the forms of Storm’s work.
The exhibition was an installation that gave visitors an immersive experience of Storm’s creative world—essentially, an inside look at their mind.
Simeen: This sounds so exciting! I also just started working as a curator at Littman and White, a student-run exhibition space at Portland State. Lately, I’ve been really interested in learning and engagement in a gallery setting. A lot of times, when you go to a museum or an art show, it’s unclear what’s going on. Do you have any concerns about that when curating a show, or hosting something in this space? How do you make sure that the average person can be a part of the experience?
Kristan: Yeah, that position is always shifting depending on the project. But I’d say I try not to underestimate the audience. I’m not a fan of shows that are overly didactic. What I really hope for is to create an experience with the artist, the crew, and the entire team here that engages curiosity. This word—curiosity—is really important, it’s a core value for me. I hear it a lot here, like when we talk about who PICA is for, the answer is: curious people. That doesn’t just mean artists or people who “get” art—it’s for anyone who’s interested in things that are compelling or challenging.
Now, making a show that’s not heavily didactic can sometimes feel exclusionary, right? Because you’re not handing people a bunch of information as soon as they walk in the door. You’re not guiding them through the experience step by step. But my desire is to create an environment where people can walk in, observe, and be curious. What makes someone comfortable enough to walk through the door is a whole different question, though, and that’s what a lot of audience engagement programs are working to address.
I absolutely think about accessibility. Over the years, I’ve created more or fewer access points depending on the show, but it’s still something I’m always considering. For example, earlier this year, we had an exhibit called Policing Justice, which focused on police brutality and activism. The exhibit featured multiple artists. You might assume that a show like this would need context or explanation for visitors to understand the works, especially since much of the content was really challenging and could be triggering. There were discussions about whether we should write a statement explaining what people were going to see. But the artists were very clear—they didn’t want a statement on the wall. They said, “Nothing happening here isn’t already happening in the world.”
And that brings me back to the conversation around engagement. Nothing in an art exhibit happens in isolation from the world. Art just takes a different form and uses different materials.
I do think we want to get people in to see the work, especially those who might not have encountered these issues before, and that may require more development and understanding of the work. But for the most part, I believe that people already have the capacity for this kind of imagination and understanding. It’s about providing the space for them to connect with it in their own way.
Simeen: That’s really interesting. I have one last question. Since you mentioned that you grew up going to a lot of museums, dDo you have a favourite? And if you were to work in that museum, what event would you want to host?
Kristan: I may never work in a museum and to be honest Museum’s and the work of upholding the colonial project that most museums are is not interesting to me. PICA is not a museum. We’re intentionally a non-collecting institution. We don’t preserve; we work with living artists in the moment they’re making. If I had to pick someplace… I have always been inspired by Marsha Tucker, who founded the New Museum and I wish I could go back in time and work for her in that time and place…
As for an event, it’s very similar to what you experienced today. I think it’s essential that everyone in art spaces, regardless of their position, feels acknowledged as an important contributor to the work. That’s a tough system to break down, but I’d absolutely initiate a family meal or something centered around food. I cook for my crew, staff, and artists at PICA because it’s something I love, it calms me, and it allows for connection in a different way. Bringing food into a space that is often cold and about preservation can break down barriers between people. This isn’t a new idea, but I think it’s essential. My dream job in a museum would be to have an open kitchen, and as a curator, I’d just work in that kitchen where people could come in, talk to me, and share a meal. What we’re doing here with food is really about hospitality, and I think that kind of warmth inside an institution is so important. Not just through the education department, but from the top down. I want to see every director in every art space making someone a sandwich.
Kristan Kennedy is an artist, curator, educator and arts administrator. Kennedy is co-artistic director and curator of visual art at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA). She is based in Portland, Oregon, and has exhibited internationally, working with various media including sculpture and painting.
Simeen Anjum is an artist and curator based in Portland, Oregon. She is currently interested in exploring the possibilities of education and learning within art spaces. As a curator, she works with artists to create shows that are engaging, inclusive, and provide space for people to connect with artists about their larger practices, thoughts, and processes, rather than just viewing art as objects. As an artist, she imagines alternative modes of existence and belonging in public spaces, which often take the form of singing groups, building a nap room in a mall, hosting a sky-watching party, among many other things.