Sofa Issues
Cover
This issue’s cover captures a quiet moment during the breakfast hour of our annual program retreat. Held each fall, the retreat marks the beginning of a new school year—a time when students from across the United States and around the world gather to reconnect after summer or embark on their first steps in the program. It’s a space to share perspectives, exchange experiences, and spark the connections that will shape the year ahead.
In a time of global uncertainty, this issue’s contributors explore the steady and transformative power of daily life. Through the simple acts of waking, eating, connecting with others, and building relationships within a community, they highlight how resilience, creative exploration, and social practice give us strength.
This issue invites readers to rediscover the profound impact of creating and connecting—even in turbulent times—and reminds us of the enduring power of art and human connection to inspire meaningful change.
Letter from the Editors
Can a place be a mentor? How about a disagreement? What can we learn from a beloved daily practice like singing or swimming? This fall we kick off the school year by paying homage to our teachers, be they people, moments, movements, or dilemmas.
In this issue we meet a swim enthusiast and zine fanatic who help us see our hobbies as sites for artistic research. We reconnect with close friends and mentors both old and new who show us how their practices in music, photography, or shared cultural experiences provide a fresh lens in which to investigate this moment in time. A security guard and a cultural worker whose understandings of the world differ from many of our own invite us to clarify our own views and revision the world we want to live in.
These exchanges seem to suggest that the deepest lessons are often happening outside of the classroom altogether, in places we might least expect. So as long as we keep paying attention and asking questions, we’ll never run out of opportunities to learn more about ourselves and each other. Which then begs the question: Who taught you something today?
Your editors,
Nina Vichayapai, Lou Blumberg, Clara Harlow
Cut, Paste, Create: The Impact of Democratic Expression
“If I see something that I like, I’m gonna shout about it.”
– Kate Bingaman-Burt
Fresh out of undergrad, I knew that I wanted to continue zine making. I had discovered this communicative art form amidst the pandemic, and after completing my first issue I knew I never wanted to stop. Over the next three to four years it became more than just a form of expression, but a means of connecting and sharing. I found myself deeply intertwined with my local music scene in San Jose, California and used zine-making as a way to promote music artists and hidden venues. Through collage and zine-making workshops, I helped revive a local radio station to the way it was before COVID had greatly affected its numbers and halted operations. With my own impact in mind, I knew that I was not the only one who recognized the power of zines and utilized it for their community. I spoke with Kate Bingaman-Burt who co-runs Outlet, a “part risograph print shop, part store, part illustration studio, part workshop & pop-up event space, part community resource, and part zine library”, to further investigate how zines have impacted lives in ways beyond the publications themselves.
Sarah Luu: I just wanna start off with a simple question. How did your relationship with zines begin?
Kate Bingaman-Burt: Oh my gosh. The very first zine that I made–I don’t even think I realized I was making a zine. I was 19 years old and I was an English major– a freshly minted English major at a very tiny college in Southern Missouri. This was 1996-’97 and I had just started working as a student worker at a writing center which was great. It was the very first kind of Mac lab on campus and I really loved the other people that worked there.
My friend, Zach, who I had met on the very first day of college, also worked in the writing center, and he and I both actually had just quit our mass communications major. Both of us were like, “We’re not doing this anymore. We’re gonna be writers. We don’t need mass comm!” He had just started writing poems, and I really thought that they were great.
I wanted more people to read them. I grabbed a bunch of his poems and I told him, “We are going to make a book out of your poems. More people need to read them.”
I still remember that day. I remember the carpet on the floor. I commandeered the copy code for the business office photocopier which was upstairs from the writing center. I had just enough knowledge in layout software to put together a kind of combination of analog and digital for zine of Zach’s writing. I made 50 of them and saddle stitched it on the floor of the business office and then I had this pile of zines! It was called “3 Months with a Cult” and I spelled “February” wrong on the cover–I remember this because they were collected poems from February 1997 to April 1997. Once I sat there and looked at this pile of publications, I was like, “Well now, we have to put an event together so people can get them!” And that was my first event that I ever organized too.
I feel like that combination of making a publication and then also getting people in a space together to kind of share and celebrate that publication has been something that I’ve been doing for so many years. But that also was pretty significant for me, at least creatively, because at that stage of my young life, I didn’t really feel like I was a creative person. I really liked being around people who were doing creative things, and I loved having conversations with people that were in plays and in bands. I just loved being around people who were doing things and at that moment, when I was making that zine and organizing that event, I remember being like, “I’m doing something. I’m making something.” It felt really exciting, and it felt like something that I wanted to do again and again.
The thread that kinda ties everything together over these last 25 years or so is 1) zines and 2) the fact that I’m an enthusiast. If I see something that I like, I’m gonna shout about it.
And Zach and I are still friends!
Sarah: That’s so cool. I found that zines can really connect people in a deeper, unique way.
So, zine culture has deep roots in DIY, punk, and activist movements. How do you see your own work fitting into or even diverging from these traditions?
Kate: Well, I know that when I first started, it was definitely a platform for me to share other people’s work. I think a zine is a perfect container to showcase your ideas, your drawings, the things that you care about and get it into people’s hands. It’s a really beautiful, not gatekeepery way of expression.
I also think that it’s such a beautiful way to get in a room with people and make something tangible and physical, and then make multiples of it and share it with people. It’s one of the most democratic acts that a creative person can do. I love how accessible it is as a mode of expression.
As far as activism goes, when I opened my print shop, Outlet, in 2017, I was like, “Oh my god, okay, so it’s not a nonprofit, but we have printing presses.” One of the beautiful things about making zines, photocopies and risograph is that it’s high volume, low cost. So if we have folks that are coming to us with a one color poster for their cause that they deeply believe in or a one page zine that is going to educate and inform, it’s my responsibility to print that for them and they won’t have to pay for it and we’ll distribute it.
That’s always been something that has been part of the core value of Outlet. We want to help distribute material that you are passionate about, causes that you care for. Because again, it’s a printing press, and that’s what printing presses are for. That’s what I love about printing in general.
Sarah: We both know zines are very tangible pieces of media. How do you see zine culture evolving in the digital age?
Kate: Well, it’s funny because it’s a whole thing. I had a poster on my wall for the longest time, and it said “Zines aren’t dead”. This was probably around 2004 when there was a big debate–it’s so quaint and sweet thinking back upon it now, but we thought blogs were gonna kill zines. It was like it had to be an either-or thing where it was like, “Oh, no. The internet’s coming along and that’s gonna absolutely wipe away zine culture!” It thought it was funny, but that was a real thing.
As someone who actively participated in both zine culture and also online culture at the time, and still do, I felt like I was doing something that was a little bit radical where I would be promoting my zine on my blog and vice versa, reaching out to people. I mean, my first teaching job was at Mississippi State from 2004 to 2008, and I had started doing monthly zines. The way that I distributed my zines was just reaching out to people on the Internet and giving them this digital high five because I really just loved what they were doing and I wanted to basically share my zine with them. Instead of having a more hyperlocal distribution of a publication, I was able to put these different nodes all over and outside the U.S. by just reaching out with the Internet and having this beautiful combination of digital and analog. I feel like me feeling very nimble in both of those states has been a tremendous benefit.
And so those two things shouldn’t be either-or. They work together, and they are a powerful freaking thing when they work together.
Sarah: I love that. I feel like social media, despite its many emerging cons, is still a great tool for people to promote their work. It’s quite pessimistic to think that only one can exist without the other, you know?
Kate: Exactly. I also think too–and this is when I’m working with my students–that you can really leave a big impression. Yeah, you can do stuff online, but sending something you like or being nimble online and then sending in something following-up in the mail is way more impactful.
When I was coming up in school, it was very common for people to get mail promos. It was almost as if it was a joke, like, “Oh, no. I got another postcard from this illustrator. Big deal.” But nowadays, to get something in the mail means you care. There’s time put towards that, so it’s just so much more special and impactful.
Sarah: That’s really beautiful. I totally agree.
So your practice includes a multitude of disciplines: drawing, lettering, documenting. I’m curious about your practice of collecting–does that tie in with your zine-making?
Kate: Absolutely. That’s one of the things where whenever I start a new project, I want to be thinking: How are people going to be experiencing this kind of amorphous idea? What is the end result of these lists I’m making? What is going to be the final or one of the final deliverables for this maybe random list of words and ideas that I think are going to be this new project I’m working on? What is the word I’m looking for? Zines are a really great way to solidify and organize, and make a project feel a little bit more concrete if it’s in a publication form. It’s a container.
Then you’re able to think, okay. If I want to make a zine for this, then I’m gonna need “x” amount of drawings. If I’m working with a collection, it gives structure.
It gives control to the chaos. When there is that structure and that kind of control to more chaotic ideas, it really helps you to take that project across the finish line, too. Because then you’re like, “Okay. I’m gonna have this final object and I want to distribute it here or send it there.” It actualizes it for you, too.
Then it starts to feel more like a real thing than something that only exists in your sketchbook. That’s why for me, even if it doesn’t end up as a zine, it helps me organize my thought processes around what it is that I’m working on. For example, one of my newer projects that I’m working on right now is that I’m doing these 11×14 marker and gouache drawings of different Afghans I’ve purchased over the years. I’m just enjoying the colors and enjoying the marks.
I’ve also been enjoying trying to memorialize these different blankets that my six year old is obsessed with. It’s like a project talking about him and his emotions through blankets. Then I’m like, “Is this supposed to be a show?” No! I think I want this to be a series of prints. But then I also want to have these one color reproductions of those multicolor blankets in a zine form that would go into the back of these prints too. So overall it’s just a structure that helps me take a project over the finish line instead of having to just be a pile of drawings that don’t ever get completed or finished.
Sarah: In addition to your own practice, you also host community events within Outlet. What urged you to begin organizing workshops? Were there any unexpected outcomes?
Kate: 2006 was the first year that I was invited to do a zine workshop, and then I spent 2006 until 2017, when Outlet opened, traveling all around the country. I was giving zine workshops in London, Amsterdam, in Barcelona–the world, basically–where it was just me and my pink suitcase filled with my zine collection, my button maker, and just ridiculous zine making tools. I did that all through my thirties. And during my thirties, I got really involved with a Portland organization called Design Week Portland and we organized a lot of events that kind of goes back to me organizing that zine release event for my friend, Zach. I just like putting together events. I get great creative satisfaction from gathering people into our room and pointing, supporting and highlighting: You should learn this thing! You should meet this person!
It came along at the right time because I was 40 when Outlet opened and traveling became a lot. And then I had my kiddo, Hank, in 2018 when I was 41 and at that point I definitely didn’t travel nearly as much, and then the pandemic happened. It’s been an adventurous 7 years since opening up Outlet in 2017, but it has been really lovely to have a headquarters for workshops, my zine collection, a shop for folks to print on the risos, a space where people can reach out and see if they can utilize the space on nights we’re not open so they can have meetings for their organizations.
I just feel very lucky and privileged to be able to offer up space in the way that I do and to also, prior to opening up Outlet, have taken 20 years of trying to make spaces in other places. For instance, if I’m hosting a zine workshop in a weird classroom in a town that I’ve never been in before, I have to wonder how I can make that space feel like a welcoming one and one where people are going to want to make. Now, I can just camp out and have a space where that happens and that’s been lovely!
Over the years, it has evolved a lot. It’s now co-owned by business partner, Leland Vaughn. They were my first full-time employee that I hired in 2019, and then I offered, “Do you want half of whatever this is?” in 2022, and they said yes. So that’s been wonderful, too. They act as a full-time studio manager iin the day-to-day. I’m at Outlet all day on Wednesdays, I teach workshops on Saturdays, but I’m really at school the rest of those times.
Sarah: So I just have one last question for you. If you could collaborate on a zine with any artist, historical figure, or fictional character, who would it be and what would the zine be about?
Kate: Oh my god. Can I get back to you on that one? That’s a big question. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. There’s so many names that are going through my head right now!
Sarah: Yes! You can email or write it to me.
Fri, Oct 25, 2024 at 10:40 AM
Thank You!
Fr: Kate Bingaman
To: Sarah Luu
Hi Sarah!
okay! to answer your question:
If you could collaborate on a zine with any artist, historical figure or fictional character, who would it be and what would the zine be about?
My Dad passed away almost a year ago, and I have a ziplock bag of small items that belonged to him. I have picked it up, looked at it, and moved it around on my desk for many months to draw the items and make a zine about these items. I will eventually do this (I SWEAR), but I wish I had made a zine with him while he was still alive. I know this question is supposed to be a response about an artist, historical figure, or fictional character, but I am opting in for my dad. If your dad or mom or grandma or grandpa or another closer relative is still alive, make a zine with them!
Thanks Sarah!
KATE BINGAMAN-BURT (she/her) is a multi-disciplinary artist, illustrator, and educator based in Portland, Oregon. Kate’s teaching focuses on helping others find their creative voice and empowering people through making marks, making zines, and making prints! For her own practice, Kate mostly draws, letters, documents, and collects, but she also does a lot of other things that involve energy, conversation, and exchange. She is a full-time educator and makes illustrations for all sorts of clients all around the world including The New York Times, Hallmark, Girl Scouts of America, and Chipotle, as well as locally loved institutions like OMSI, Buy Olympia, and the Independent Publishing Resource Center. Since 2008, she has worked at Portland State and now holds the rank of Professor of Graphic Design. She is also the Associate Director of the School of Art + Design and the head of the Graphic Design program. In 2017, Kate founded the community print space Outlet which hosts workshops, pop-up events, a zine library, and a fully operational risograph print studio.
SARAH LUU (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and barista. First generation Asian-American from San Jose, California, she currently studies and lives in Portland, Oregon. She holds a BA from San Jose State and is looking forward to the next several years in the MFA Art and Social Practice program at Portland State. Sarah has published multiple zines, including 2GÜD and Sound Shock. Aside from specializing in D.I.Y publications, her work explores themes of Asian American identity, diaspora, intergenerational trauma and family lineage through ceramics, printmaking, and photography. She describes herself as “interdisciplinary in life”, having backgrounds in not only art but also dance, theater, music, community service, baking and coffee.
“Art as Connection: Embracing Community Through Social Practice”
”It’s easy to fall into that ‘never enough’ mindset, constantly questioning if you’re putting in everything you can. It’s something I’ve always struggled with as an artist, and I’m still learning to redefine my relationship with work.”
– Jeannine Shinoda
What comes to mind when you think of art? For many, traditional forms like painting or sculpture may still be the first images. Yet, art has evolved—just as medicine and technology have. Social practice often takes forms that may not be immediately recognized as art. Practitioners work across roles, acting as administrators, activists, educators, or community organizers, and sometimes even question whether they are better suited to fields like sociology or politics. Pablo Helguera describes this “discomfort” as the ideal place for this art form, challenging us to expand our ideas of what art can be.
I had known about the long-standing nonprofit Ikoi No Kai well before meeting its director, Jeannine Shinoda. For over 45 years, Ikoi No Kai has served the Japanese American community in Portland through its lunch program. They provide Japanese meals on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with mostly Asian-influenced dishes on Mondays and Fridays. All meals are prepared from scratch, often incorporating donations such as fresh salmon or garden-grown cucumbers.
I met Jeannine earlier this year at the Art and Zine Fest at Reed College when she stopped by our PSU MFA Art and Social Practice booth. I was intrigued by the idea of an artist serving as the director of a community organization supporting Japanese elders. This connection led to a collaborative event in the summer of 2024, where visiting Japanese artists and I engaged with the community at Ikoi No Kai. The collaboration was a tremendous success, and through this experience, I came to admire Jeannine’s approach and sensitivity even more.
Midori Yamanaka : First of all, how did you get started working at Ikoi No Kai? And how long have you been working here?
Jeannine Shinoda: I first discovered Ikoi No Kai in 2019 after moving back to Portland, motivated by a desire to immerse myself in the local food scene. I was curious about the types of food being celebrated here, so I attended a JACL(Japanese American Citizens League) meeting, drawn by the promise of a special bento. During the meeting, I met Setsy Sadamoto Larouche, a long-time board member of the Japanese Ancestral Society, who introduced me to Ikoi No Kai, describing it as “the best unknown restaurant in town.” Intrigued, I visited and enjoyed the experience so much that I began returning regularly, sometimes as often as once a week.
At some point, I heard they were looking for a site manager. Initially, I wasn’t interested since my main focus was fine dining and creative food work in a restaurant setting. I continued on that path, but when the pandemic hit in 2020, things changed. Partway through, Setsy reached out again, mentioning the position was still open. By then, I was in a different place in my life and open to new possibilities. Though it was a part-time role and didn’t fully align with my initial career goals, I felt it would be a rewarding experience that would bring positive energy into my life. So, I applied and began working at Ikoi No Kai, not entirely sure what to expect, but confident that it would be meaningful.
Midori: Interesting. So, you’ve been working here for almost four years now?
Jeannine: Almost—it’s been about three and a half years.
Midori: You started as a part-time site manager, but now you’re the Director in a full-time capacity. What changes have taken place over these three and a half years?
Jeannine: I began writing grants right from the start, recognizing their importance for funding as a nonprofit. Securing grants became a way to bring in resources, and once I raised enough, I proposed shifting to a full-time role. With the funding in place, I transitioned to working here full-time.
Midori: So, you essentially created your own position here!
Jeannine: Yes, in a way. I turned the role into a full-time position by securing enough funding through grants. A part-time role just wasn’t sustainable for me, so I essentially funded my own full-time position.
Midori: Impressive! You began with grant writing, but now you’re doing so much more. How did the role evolve in such a short time?
Jeannine: When I started, we were still closed due to the pandemic, so I had to relaunch nearly everything from scratch—buying supplies, finding volunteers, and managing many shifts that had occurred during the closure. Remarkably, though, everyone wanted to return—chefs and volunteers alike. We didn’t lose many people, and they all knew exactly what to do when we reopened. The existing systems were so strong and well-liked that things almost ran themselves. It was incredible to see the community’s dedication and how well everything functioned, thanks to the foundation that had been laid even before I joined.
Midori: Everyone passed down their knowledge to you, so no experience was lost even after a year and a half of closure.
Jeannine: Exactly. I started part-time, with an interim site manager who had worked here before the pandemic training me for a couple of months. From there, I thought, “This is wonderful; how can I make this work for me?” That’s when I began securing outside funding. Each grant allowed me to launch different projects, like the oral history project*, and I would write proposals for anything new I wanted to bring to life without using funds set aside for the lunch program**. If I received the grant, I’d make the project happen.
*Oral History Project records and preserves the personal histories of Japanese Americans who have lived in the Portland region for many years, capturing their stories in their own words. These recordings are available online here.
**The Lunch Program, Ikoi No Kai’s main initiative for over 45 years, provides freshly prepared Japanese and Asian-inspired meals four times a week, fostering community connections and cultural exchange.
Midori: You’re not just the site manager anymore; you’re really cultivating new initiatives and a culture here.
Jeannine: I realized I wanted to direct the program. I see myself orchestrating things and helping them happen, which led to my transition from site manager to director. It was an evolution, defining how I view myself in this role and what I wanted my title to reflect.
Midori: It sounds like you’ve really made this space your own, bringing a fresh perspective that honors the community’s roots while also encouraging growth and new ideas.
Jeannine: Yes. We have a committee here, like a board, and I approached them about officially designating myself as director. They agreed, and I took on the title. As an outsider to this community—unlike many members who have lifelong ties to Portland or whose families have been involved for generations—I saw untapped potential here. The richness of this community, along with the warmth, energy, and generosity, truly inspired me. I began envisioning what we could achieve together and felt motivated to explore new possibilities.
There’s an incredible range of talents among the people here; many have led vibrant lives and have so much to offer. I’m always open to collaboration and welcome others’ ideas, supporting them whenever I can. One of my goals is to create an inclusive, welcoming environment where we can explore and develop what the community truly wants.
Midori: It seems like this role is a great fit for you—you enjoy it so much. But I wonder, has there been any significant challenge you’ve faced in this role?
Jeannine: The biggest challenge is finding the balance between how much of myself I can give to this job and what I reserve for myself. The work here demands a lot of social energy, which I put fully into being present and engaged with the community. This means that when I’m home, I don’t have the same energy to entertain or socialize privately, which is a trade-off I’ve accepted for now. I’ve chosen to dedicate that energy here, and while I enjoy it, it’s a balance I need to manage.
Midori: I find that really interesting. Balancing personal and professional life can be so difficult, especially in nonprofit work. When I worked in a nonprofit, it was more than just a job—it was deeply personal. My daughter and I were both so involved, and I often found myself overworking without even…
Jeannine: Thinking about it?
Midori: Exactly!
Jeannine: It’s easy to give so much without realizing the toll it can take. Everything flows so naturally, especially since these projects are passion projects. But that’s the challenge for artists—knowing when to stop. Boundaries become blurred when you’re managing your passions, identity, and the extent of your investment. Where does the project end, and where do you begin?
Midori: How do you set those boundaries between your passion and maintaining a sustainable, healthy lifestyle?
Jeannine: It’s really challenging. When I first started, I was so exhausted by the job that I couldn’t do anything else. I’d be completely overwhelmed and just lay on the floor at home, too overstimulated and drained to do much. There was so much to learn and manage that all I could do was get through each day. Now, I’ve realized the importance of incorporating self-care into my routine to keep a better balance.
Midori: So now you have a routine!
Jeannine: Yes, I’ve built a lot of self-care into my routine, which has helped me gradually build more capacity. Working here provides a defined space for my work, unlike when I focused solely on my own art, which could happen anytime, anywhere. Now, even though I’m passionate about what I do, it’s designated as part of my job, and I try not to bring it home with me unless it’s an emergency. I work hard while I’m here, but I leave it here, creating boundaries that weren’t always there.
Of course, there are exceptions—like submitting a grant at midnight over the holidays. Sometimes, while visiting my family out of state, I’ll work on a project and tell them I need several hours to focus. But generally, I’m careful not to let work spill over, which has really helped me maintain a balance. Otherwise, it’s easy to fall into that “never enough” mindset, constantly questioning if you’re putting in everything you can. It’s something I’ve always struggled with as an artist, and I’m still learning to redefine my relationship with work.
Midori: In recent years, I’ve also come to truly appreciate the importance of self-care and maintaining boundaries between my work and personal life. I remember being taken aback when a friend pointed this out to me at a previous job. She was an American woman who had lived in Japan for a long time, and she said, “Japanese people often struggle to draw boundaries between work and personal life, and by the time they realize it, they’re already burned out. You should be careful, too.” Looking back, I can see I was running on adrenaline and pushing myself too hard—it was a risky way to work! (laughs)
How do you practice self-care?
Jeannine: I do yoga on Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday.
Midori: Oh, wow. Do you go to a studio, or…?
Jeannine: I do it online, but it’s through a studio. So I do that. I try to make sure I spend time in nature, and I aim to do some kind of bodywork, like acupuncture or massage, every 2 to 4 weeks. I also meditate a lot, usually twice a day, for at least half an hour, and sometimes up to two and a half hours.
Midori: Wow, that’s a lot!
Let’s talk about the zine you just released, called “Homecooked – a collaborative + intergenerational zine cookbook.” I saw the opening spread, and it’s just beautiful! How did the project come together? How did it start?
Jeannine: At Ikoi No Kai, we all share a deep appreciation for heritage and food, recognizing how they connect us to our identities and histories. The idea behind “Homecooked” was to invite people to bring their favorite dishes, creating a space where everyone could share and discuss their connections to food and culture. It’s been an evolving journey, starting with strawberries and the agricultural history of strawberry picking within the community, and now focusing on home cooking and shared recipes, highlighting everyone’s favorite dishes.
About two years ago, we organized our first “Strawberry Social” event, where people shared stories about their experiences with strawberry picking in the Portland region. It was a fantastic learning experience, incorporating screen printing, storytelling, and food. From that event, we learned a lot about what we enjoyed, what didn’t work, and what we wanted to do differently in the future.
The following year, we held our first “Homecooked” event, refining the concept to make it simpler and more engaging for both us and the attendees. We wanted something relatively easy that we were passionate about and that would resonate with the community. Participants brought their favorite home-cooked recipes and memories, creating their own spreads for the zine by hand right there at the event.
Midori: That’s amazing. It sounds like this project isn’t finished yet, and you seem to have an even bigger vision than I thought.
Jeannine: Yes! We’re currently working on a dessert cookbook, which will be coming out soon. It’ll be smaller—about 50 pages—but it follows the zine ethos of capturing whatever happened in the moment, exactly as it was, no more, no less. This wasn’t something meticulously planned or scripted; it’s simply a record of a time, place, and event. I think that’s really fun, right? Each book or chapter we create will have its own unique feel, shaped by whatever is happening at the time.
Midori: That’s so exciting! I can’t wait to see the dessert cookbook. You definitely come across as a social practice artist to me, but how do you identify yourself?
Jeannine: I’m always an artist and an architect, no matter what I do. Even though I’m the director here, that identity as an artist took a long time to claim. Who gets to call themselves an artist?
Midori: Yeah, it’s hard.
Jeannine: Exactly—who gets to make that call? I think you just have to claim it for yourself and get comfortable with that. It’s part of who I am now, and I don’t need an art exhibition to validate my artistry.
Midori: True, but you identify as an artist—always. That’s just who you are.
Jeannine: Yes, but it wasn’t always that easy. Now I do, but back in 2012, at the start of grad school, I didn’t.
Midori: When did that shift happen?
Jeannine: I’m not sure. It was gradual—eventually, you just keep saying, “I’m an artist,” until it feels natural. Over time, it became something I could claim and own.
Midori: Thank you for sharing.
Jeannine: Of course. It’s not always comfortable. All of this can feel uncomfortable.
Midori: It took me a while to call myself an artist too. Even now, it’s sometimes convenient, and sometimes it’s not, because people don’t always understand what it means to be an artist.
Jeannine: Exactly. It often requires a lot of explanation, because there are so many ways to be an artist.
Midori: True.
Jeannine: It requires explanation—if people are genuinely curious, it takes some explaining. But if they’re truly interested, it doesn’t matter whether you’re an artist or not.
Midori : So true. Thank you.
Jeannine : No, thank you!
Jeannine Shinoda (she/her) is an artist currently serving as the director of Ikoi No Kai, a nonprofit organization that has operated a community lunch program for over 45 years to foster connections within the Japanese American community and beyond. After teaching at Oregon College of Art and Craft and Woodbury University, Ms. Shinoda transitioned to freelance work focused on food, which eventually led her to Ikoi No Kai. She successfully elevated the program’s profile by securing grants and promoting it through social media, expanding her role into a full-time position. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University and an MFA in Sculpture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her deep passion for food and culture fuels her ongoing commitment to the community.
Midori Yamanaka (she/her) is an artist and educator based in Portland, Oregon, with roots in a unique Japanese town by the Okhotsk Sea. Her early life, devoid of local art museums but rich in cultural uniqueness, sparked a deep interest in community and creativity. A graduate of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, Midori has pursued a career marked by socially engaged projects and cultural exchange, leading her into the field of Art and Social Practice. Now advancing her studies at Portland State University, her work bridges cultural gaps and fosters community engagement, reflecting her ongoing exploration of art’s role in societal connection.
“My Best Friend Lives Abroad!” – Friendships in the Distance
“I’ve always believed that friends are the family we choose. For me, life would be very difficult without being accompanied. Having unconditional people is a blessing. Even though you’re far away, I know I can count on you unconditionally. People tell me I romanticize friendship, but I do it because I’ve seen how valuable it is.”
– Laura Alpizar
Friendship is a unique and intriguing bond. One day, you meet someone without any blood ties or romantic intentions, and you decide that you want to love them and keep them in your life in that special way that only friendship can offer. This bond has connected Laura and I for almost 20 years, from their idealistic adolescence in San José, Costa Rica, to adulthood, despite living in different countries.
Maintaining a long-distance friendship is not easy, and we know this well. In this interview, we reflect on friendship, distance, loneliness, and how to cultivate a relationship under these circumstances. We also explore how friendship can be an artistic theme. It is an intimate conversation about friendships in the distance, a letter of friendhood spanning from San José, Costa Rica, to Portland, Oregon.
Manfred Parrales: The last time we were together was four years ago, and today we’re here to talk about friendship. I think the best way to start is by talking about who we are and where we come from.
Laura Alpizar: Sure! I’m Laura, I’m 34 years old and I’m a Taurus, for anyone who’s interested. I’m a sociologist, but I work in digital marketing. In my free time, I like to make podcasts and write novels. And well, Manfred and I are best friends.
Manfred: We’ve been friends since our teenage years, that’s almost 20 years of friendship. We’ve been through the good, the bad, the worst, and the best. But in the last four years, we haven’t been able to be together physically, you in Costa Rica and I in the United States. How do you feel our friendship has changed over this time?
Laura: It’s been complicated, really strange. Many aspects of my life have changed, and you haven’t been there for those moments. For example, I became independent, and you’ve never seen my apartment. My little dogs passed away and you weren’t there. Birthdays that we couldn’t celebrate together, when before we would meet every week for coffee or to go out. Definitely, the dynamic has changed, but not the love. That’s still intact, even though it’s now at a distance.
Manfred: I feel the same. Amazing things have happened that I would never have experienced in Costa Rica, both good and bad, and many times I’ve felt alone, without a close friend to hug me or give me advice in person. It’s been tough, a real exercise in what long-distance friendship means. How important is friendship to you, and how do you define it?
Laura Alpizar: I’ve always believed that friends are the family we choose. For me, life would be very difficult without being accompanied. Having unconditional people is a blessing. Even though you’re far away, I know I can count on you unconditionally. People tell me I romanticize friendship, but I do it because I’ve seen how valuable it is. You’re an example of that chosen family. Knowing that you exist makes life much more bearable and enjoyable.
Manfred Parrales: How has your view of friendship changed since we’ve been apart? It’s like now we have a long-distance friendship.
Laura Alpizar: It’s been a time of reevaluation. I’ve thought a lot about the essential components of a lasting friendship. For example, is it the everyday moments that keep the bond, or is it the time spent together? Despite the distance, we’re still friends, and the love is still there. However, it’s true that friendships require maintenance, and we call each other every week to share our lives. I’ve learned to appreciate friendship in a different way, even if we don’t meet for coffee every week.
Manfred Parrales: Sometimes we have very high expectations about what maintaining a long-distance friendship means, and the reality can be different. It happened to me when I moved; I thought it would be easy, but it’s actually complicated. There have been moments when something happened, very good or really bad, and I thought, “I wish Laura were here; she’s the only one who would understand this and laugh or cry with me.”
Laura Alpizar: Yes, I understand. For me, birthdays are a clear example. We used to celebrate them together, we would organize dinners and share kind words. I miss those spontaneous conversations like when we’d meet for coffee and I’d tell you about my problems or joys of the moment.
Manfred Parrales: I also felt that lack of moments of absolute loneliness, no friends, nobody that speaks my language or when I went through a broken heart and didn’t have a friend nearby. However, the strength of our friendship in the distance was felt because I could send you a message and I knew you’d listen, even if from afar. During that time too. The memories come to mind often. I have a lot of memories of what happened in Costa Rica during those years. I think about our stories from when we were young. For example, when we were in the scouts, I always think about that time, the trips we made to international camps, and, for example, the crazy thing of going to El Salvador and staying after the camp to spend New Year’s with friends we made at the camp to celebrate the new year there.
Laura Alpizar: Yes, I think it was with some scouts from El Salvador. Ending up spending New Year’s there is a memory I still have very vividly, and that happened over 15 years ago. I keep it very present.
Manfred Parrales: Is there a memory from our friendship adventures that you always tell people about?
Laura Alpizar: Well, the one from El Salvador, for sure. That’s a big one. I also think a lot about the time when we lived together. I used to say you were so annoying because you always wanted to make pancakes on Sundays haha. I also remember our roommate days, the trips to Acapulco. There are so many beautiful memories, we met at so many stages, even when we went to university and took a few courses together. We studied completely different things, but we shared moments. We even made a short film together. Do you remember what people thought? They thought we liked each other.
Manfred Parrales: Oh, yes! I thought, “Friend, come on…” I don’t think things would work out with a girl.
Laura Alpizar: We made a short film together at that Mormon girl’s house. We’ve done so many things together, from going to the beach to camps and spending time with our families. We’ve been through the good, the bad, and the worst. I remember so well the times we went to eat rice with chicken at La Sopa Tapia in San José and then made coffee at La Sabana. For me, those were great moments.
Manfred Parrales: Yes, those were incredible moments. The good times are easy to remember, but also the bad ones, and that’s what defines a friendship. For me, one of the moments when I reaffirmed our friendship was when my family went through really terrible situations, and you were there. I really appreciate that; sometimes actions speak louder than words.
Laura Alpizar: Yes, I remember taking you to live at my house. It was a tough time, but that’s what it’s like to live with your best friend, right? Sometimes we idealize the experience, but it can be different in reality. It was difficult because you were going through grief, and I wanted to help you get through it all, but I learned that you can’t control people or speed up their healing process. The only thing I could do was be present.
Manfred Parrales: That’s true. Depression and loneliness are part of life, and we often avoid talking about them. In Costa Rica, we’re reluctant to discuss topics like mental health. How has your mental health been these years?
Laura Alpizar: I’ve always been an anxious person, but in my 30s, I’ve learned to cope with it better. I’ve tried to find peace with my anxiety. For me, it’s more about existential questions and the fear of death. How about you?
Manfred Parrales: For me, it’s been more about facing depression. I thought moving to another country would solve my problems or make me happier than ever, but it’s not like that. Sometimes, problems or sadness get bigger when you leave your home country.
Laura Alpizar: Totally. Moving to another country is like starting a new life, but emotional problems don’t disappear with the change of location.
Manfred Parrales: People here ask me if I miss Costa Rica, and what I miss isn’t the country, but those four or five people I want to see until the last of my days.
Laura Alpizar: Yes, I see it the same way. It’s not so much a nationalist thing, but the people I care about.
Manfred Parrales: If you could give advice to someone whose best friend is moving abroad, what would it be?
Laura Alpizar: I’d tell them to keep in touch, even if it’s just weekly calls. Don’t stop sharing little things, laughing together, and sharing sad moments. It’s important to keep being present in each other’s lives, even from a distance. And be honest.
Manfred Parrales: Yes, I agree. Honesty is essential. Sometimes it’s better to say, “I miss you, and I’m feeling a little sad today,” rather than pretending everything’s okay. Distance is hard, but the relationship can continue to grow if you’re honest and keep in touch.
Laura Alpizar: That’s right. Friendship is based on honesty, even when it’s uncomfortable or humiliating. I know you won’t judge me, and I wouldn’t judge you either.
Manfred Parrales: One additional question I have is whether you believe friendship can be a theme for art in its entirety.
Laura Alpizar: In the writing class that I’m taking, I told them that I’m writing my first novel. My professor, a Mexican writer who facilitates the workshop, shared something interesting.
She said that everyone, especially in creative processes, tends to have macro-themes that run through them—those big themes that shape their lives and often show up in their works. These macro-themes could be love, justice, friendship, life, death, betrayal, and so on.
I believe that friendship is one of those themes that has been written about a lot and has been represented in various forms of art. I think it’s totally worth exploring, because those who can say they have a true friend know that it’s a complete blessing.
Manfred Parrales: Is there anything you haven’t told me over all these years that you’d like to share now?
Laura Alpizar: No, I think I’ve always been honest with you. But I am thinking about returning because we know that coming back to Costa Rica after living abroad can be difficult if that’s the case.
Manfred Parrales: I’ve always thought that the friends I made in Costa Rica are the ones I want to keep until the last of my days. I hope we can see each other and share moments in person soon. The love of friendship is an act of pure and selfless love, and with you, I’ve seen that. I always remember that night at the wedding in Guanacaste of our friend Claudia, when you cried because I was leaving the country. That showed me how much you care about me. It was such an emotional moment for me. The love of friendship is different from familial or romantic love because it’s a conscious decision to love someone without expecting anything in return.
Laura Alpizar: Exactly. We decided to love each other as friends, and for me, that’s the most valuable thing.
It’s clear that distance doesn’t break a friendship. Instead, it brings new challenges and ways of nurturing the bond. Our friendship is a reminder that, even when miles apart, love, communication, and time shared in meaningful ways can keep any friendship alive and strong. From San Jose to Portland, to beyond, the commitment to maintaining a long-distance friendship is a testament to the importance of human connection.
Laura Alpizar (She/her) is A Costa Rican sociologist working in digital marketing. Taurus, for anyone who’s interested. In her free time, she likes to make podcasts and write novels.
Manfred Parrales (His/Him)
Manfred Parrales is a dynamic young Latino artist whose work spans from designer and art historian, to social practice and community building. With a multifaceted educational background, extensive professional experience, and a profound passion for art history, video languages and community engagement, Parrales views art as a collaborative endeavor, transcending individual expression.
His journey in the arts began with bachelor’s degrees in Art History and studies in Design and visual communication in Costa Rica, and currently pursuing a master’s degree in Art and Social Practice at Portland State University. His career has taken him across Latin America and the United States, where he’s gained invaluable experience in museums, education, technology, and various artistic disciplines.
Swimming Towards Each Other
“I’m not a choreographer of things, I’m a teacher. So I like to make a forum and then inside of that forum, chaos can happen. I’m interested in the unpredictable results of creating some kind of frame many people can work within.”
– Nora Almeida
I met artist and activist Nora Almeida at a workshop she was facilitating with members of the Hydrofeminist Map Collective this summer in Brooklyn, New York. During this workshop we considered what embodied water practices could look like in an urban space. We circled the same block three times while paying attention to the water of our bodies and water systems of the city around us. Individually we roamed, letting our curiosity and senses guide our pathways while simultaneously subverting the conventions of the street. We ended our investigation collectively, small drops slowly pouring into the streets, flowing around construction workers and impatient pedestrians. On Fulton Street that day, we became something powerful and fluid, everchanging together.
The looping and noticing practice of the workshop was familiar to me as a lap swimmer where each seemingly mundane lap holds new information if you let it. I’ve long been interested in the swimming pool as a site of possibility and exchange. Throughout my life the pool has been my hobby, my workplace, my obsession, my therapy, my people, and now – with the beginning of a self-initiated Artist In Residence project at my local public pool – my studio. So I was delighted to learn that Nora too was a swimmer and became eager to know more about how she brings her work into the open water. This fall we sat down to paddle through ideas around swimming as a tool for meeting your neighbors, making art, and questioning the systems at play.
Clara Harlow: I’m curious about your swimming history. Where did your swimming practice begin and how did it start to intersect with your organizing, art, and writing practices?
Nora Almeida: I grew up in Rhode Island on the bay swimming competitively. So when I went to sleep, I could hear the tide. I’m a water person, it’s like a part of my body, I guess. So I’ve been swimming for a long time and I’m really interested in public infrastructure. My background is in poetry and I’ve been a librarian now for a long time, so back in 2015 I wrote an essay about the municipal pools in New York City because I was interested in them, but I don’t think that swimming became more present in my art practice until about five years ago. I live in Gowanus [in Brooklyn, NY] in a building that floods when it rains pretty regularly, and I just became obsessed with water and started getting really involved in activism around the canal and the rezoning of this neighborhood.
So I have that historic water relationship from growing up, but swimming became a different thing to me in the pandemic because I couldn’t regularly access water. When all the pools closed, I was just like, What will I do? I swim every day. So I started swimming outside, but it was really hard because they were policing the beach at Coney [Island]. I swam a couple times anyway and just gave the cops the finger. But then I went to the National seashore, which wasn’t policed because it’s the National Parks Department and started swimming there.
So it just became this different thing to me. It became more like a way to understand an ecosystem. After being in water for 20 minutes your body actually starts to like change, like your body temperature adjusts and you start to understand the conditions of the water, like how the current is moving. It’s very meditative, like you connect with the ecosystem in different ways. There’s also a lot of fear, but in an exciting way.
Clara: Do you feel more drawn to open water swimming than swimming in a pool these days?
Nora: Yeah, I do now, but there are a lot of unpredictable elements in open water swimming too and you always feel a little bit afraid. But then when you can leave your fear around being out in the ocean, you leave all your other fears. You know what I mean? Like, I bring a lot of my fear and sadness to the ocean, and then once you’re in the water for a while you lose a lot of perspective and start to become farther away from your terrestrial self the longer that you go. I mostly swim at Brighton Beach now, and it just feels really free.
Clara: I feel so inspired by your open water practice. I grew up swimming mainly in pools and lakes in the Midwest, and it really does feel so different in the body and in the brain swimming across a lake and back versus the repetition of the lane. I’d love to open water swim with you when I’m back in New York!
Nora: Yeah, please come! I’m hoping to make it until November this year, I don’t know if I can be a polar bear plunger. I mean, I’m in neoprene already, but we’ll see how it goes.
Clara: Do you find that you’ve been able to cultivate a more organic community through the open water swimming at Brighton Beach versus swimming at a pool or community center in New York?
Nora: Yeah it’s more of a social community, because it’s the beach, so people are just hanging out and swimming. One person always brings donuts. Last weekend I had extra cyanotype, so I brought it to the beach and everyone laid on it, and we made a swimmer cyanotype and then went swimming. On the weekends, you can go there anytime between 7:30 am and 3 pm and there are people there. Or you meet someone and you’re like, Oh, we’re the same pace. Let’s go swimming together again! and you exchange numbers.
Clara: Yeah that makes sense to me, it’s such a natural gathering place. I joined St John’s community center in my neighborhood in Brooklyn earlier in the pandemic with the hopes of making some connections and getting out of my bubble a little bit, but I found people were really there to swim their laps, like clock in and clock out. It was hard to make buddies in the lanes, although I had a bit more luck in the locker room with the older women going to aqua aerobics. I was kind of surprised how much people were “staying in their lane,” as the saying goes. That’s not the community center pool culture I’m used to back in the Midwest.
Now I go to my community center in Portland pretty regularly, and for various reasons, people seem to have a softer schedule and are down to dish in the lanes and the hot tub more. That’s been a really nice shift because I agree, at the beach or lake it’s much easier to make friends. There’s something about the intensity of the swimming workout and getting your laps in that doesn’t always leave a lot of space for making connections. Which is the thing that I love the most about the pool – the community that can happen organically. Like, I love swimming too, but I’m really interested in what can happen in the container of swimming.
What’s happening in the container of swimming in your practice lately?
Nora: For the past few years I’ve been working on site specific investigations and oral histories near ecologically disturbed waterways where there’s large public housing populations. I was working in Red Hook, Brooklyn for like a year just like popping up in public parks with a sign that said, “Would you swim here?” and “What if this Park was Underwater?” and then doing interviews, talking to people about their relationship with water and swimming and that opened a lot of doors.
And then last year while I was on sabbatical, I went swimming as research. So I was in South America and in Mexico City for most of the time and I wanted to find out how people swim in other places. I tried to find a public place to swim wherever I went, if possible. I also swam in open water whenever I could and it was interesting, because all the places that I went to had different problems with water. Some places had drought, but pretty much every place I went to did not have water that was safe to drink and there were a lot of problems with the privatization and regulation of water, or the government seizing community-owned land. They don’t have government protected land in a lot of places, so if the government’s like, we want to take this land, or a rich person is like, I want to buy this land, they basically just push local people out. So I learned a lot about water and the environmental struggles kind of around that.
Clara: I love that idea of swimming as research. I always try to find a place to swim when I’m traveling too. You really can find so much information about the place in these sites of recreation and play.
How does collaboration function in your practice?
Nora: I’ve been doing some long term collaboration at Coney Island Creek. I’ve spent a couple years down there working mostly with a videographer, iki nakagawa, who’s documenting acts of care for the land, and has a dance and embodiment background, so she brings that into her videography practice. So I’ve been working with her, and we’ve been doing a lot of community events, beach cleanups, and screenprinting down there in conjunction with local organizers.
And I would say that most of my work, regardless of what it is, is about this question of urban or spatial transformation and an attempt at the ephemeral, usually. But like, to me, that can be just cleaning, you know what I mean? It’s a great way to get to know people, because people are like, Oh, are you cleaning the beach? And you’re like, Yes! and they’re like, Thank you, or they tell you about what they’re doing. But it can also be a big performance art piece.
And then there’s my Open Water project, where I do my oral histories. My friend Jordan Packer does a map, so people can map the water they see the most. That’s usually the entry point for the oral histories, like, what water do you see the most in your day to day life? And would you swim there? And then it kind of gets things going. People can mark it on the map with different color codes for fear, memories, feelings, wildlife, you know.
Then I developed this idea to do some embodied mapping with Jordan, andrea haenggi, a body-based interdisciplinary artist who I’ve done previous collaborations with, and Estephania Mompean Botais who’s doing a PhD in Switzerland and using Gowanus as a case study. Estephania’s dissertation is about the state of emergency, and she was interested in how maps are used as a land management tool, and how everyone trusts a map and sees it as truth. So we were like let’s do an embodied map, let’s do a feminist map. Let’s bring the map into the body, like transforming the space by making a human a live map, and then documenting the process of mapping as an annotation, and that being representational, so then you have this critique of what a map looks like and how it’s created. Usually it’s created by one person for economic land management purposes, so kind of like countering that.
Clara: Tell me about the mapping event the Hydrofeminist Map Collective has coming up in Gowanus.
Nora: So I basically was doing some performance artwork around the Gowanus Canal and some of the redevelopment of my neighborhood, and ecological problems that were more focused on urban activism and urban erasure and autonomy. The fact that there is a lot of regulation and lack of access to water and swimming education was part of my performance and activism work. Swimming was always my thing but they started to intersect more when I started getting interested in doing more experimental embodied work, in part because of some of my collaborators.
I’m like, Yay, people to just do stuff with. I don’t really do a lot of didactic collaboration. I’m not a choreographer of things, I’m a teacher. So I like to make a forum and then inside of that forum, chaos can happen. I’m interested in the unpredictable results of creating some kind of frame many people can work within. Same with collaboration, I think it’s interesting when people bring their practice, I learn a lot from them.
So we’re doing this live mapping in Gowanus, and asking questions around emergency and the idea of feeling water that’s erased. And thinking about water and flooding as a memory that you can connect to your own experience and memories, and thinking about all the water in your own body, and connections to waterways. With the Gowanus Canal I can’t ask the same questions. No one can swim there [because it’s so toxic], I don’t have to ask about urban development. All around us is the intrusion of high rise apartment buildings. So I was like, what’s actually the thing you need to think about in Gowanus? How can I even get people to think about this water as alive? So many people talk to me about Gowanus because it’s the grossest body of water.
Clara: Right, it’s a punchline in New York.
Nora: So how can we make people think about the water as alive, especially since now there’s no place to access it? So that’s part of what we’ve been trying to do with the Hydrofeminist MapCollective. Creating a sensory experience of connecting to the water as a living body that’s also connected to other bodies of water where things are still alive in it.
What kind of swimming projects have you been up to?
Clara: This year, I’m starting a project that functions as a self-appointed Artist In Residence of sorts at my community pool in Portland. This residency doesn’t exist already, and I haven’t worked with an institution in this way before so I’m kind of navigating whether to go a bureaucratic route or do my own thing in the space.
I love living in Portland, but it’s been really different trying to meet neighbors here. Because in New York, we live in a giant pre-war building, you know, six floors, and we have a dog, so we’re always in and out of the apartment, meeting people. But here everyone’s spread further apart in houses and we’re pretty much the only renters on our block, so the public pool has been the one place where I really have been able to meet a lot of my neighbors organically.
Nora: Yeah, it’s really hard. I mean, here [in New York] especially. The stuff we’ve been doing at Coney Island Creek has happened in this much more municipal way, in a way that is limiting to me. iki is really interested in the bureaucracy, but I’ve been a public employee for 17 years, so I like my guerilla stuff. It’s interesting to me, when you need to respect the work that’s already happening there and work in a more bureaucratic way with a permit. Next week when we do a shoreline cleanup and printing workshop, the Parks Department is there, and I have a permit, so there’s those kinds of differences in the way that you can organize.
Clara: Yeah, it’s been interesting thinking about what we can do with or without permission in public or semi-public space and how that changes whether it’s just you or you’re part of a group. That was something I was thinking about a lot when participating in your workshop this September. How does being part of a collective allow you to access public space in a way that you wouldn’t be able to on your own?
Nora: Yeah exercising urban autonomy is a big part of it, transforming space with other people. And you need other people to really do it at a large scale.
Clara: Totally, and it’s just more fun that way.
Nora Almeida is an urban swimmer, performance artist, educator, and activist based in Lenapehoking. Her art explores intersections of archiving, environmental investigation, and spatial disruption. Recent public artworks—Last Street End in Gowanus (2021), Land Use Intervention Library (2022), Creek: Two Cavities of the Heart (ongoing), and Open Water (ongoing)—focus on relationships between people and environmentally disturbed, post-industrial waterfront spaces.
Clara Harlow (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and former preschool teacher from Omaha, Nebraska. Her work operates as an invitation into themes of celebration, play, exchange, and alternative ways of measuring time and value. Through experiential events and interactive objects geared towards the public, Clara is interested in how we can turn the dilemmas of the everyday into an opportunity for experimental problem solving and collective delight. You can most likely find her at the local swimming pool in Brooklyn, New York or Portland, Oregon.
Radical Comfort
“I see a lot of films as a kind of a projection of a hopeful and wonderful world. To be able to show trans bodies existing in a loving way.”
– Amelia Morrison
I met Amelia a year ago as a classmate while taking a History of Social Practice class at Portland State University. Our friendship didn’t come to fruition until much later in the year, when we were classmates studying abroad in Italy. Soon after arriving, we realized we had both brought a paper copy of Hito Steryl’s Duty Free Art: Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War.
A unique choice for plane literature. It was then that I knew our fate as friends was sealed.
Our friendship continues to be fueled by emailing each other PDFs of our favorite essays and gossipping about whether the mysterious Claire Fontaine is leaving one star Yelp reviews in Portland. I’m deeply inspired by how Amelia voraciously reads, watches, and experiences the world around them. Through these diligent studies, Amelia extracts their unique vision for creating their liberatory work. For this interview I took time to chat more with them about their influences, pursuits of scholarly research, and the power of feminist film and image making.
Nina Vichayapai: So, I had an Amelia watch party thanks to your YouTube channel and it was wonderful. Could you start by talking a little bit about your practice and how it formed?
Amelia Morrison: I got into video making in 2018, 2019, because I was connecting with a lot of people’s stories through their vlogs. And, this is kind of corny, but I wanted to become a vlogger. I thought it was maybe a way to make money. But I also wanted to participate in this online community of people who were sharing stories. It felt very futuristic to me and it still does. An online community of people who share their lives with one another and then have the ability to travel to different places through video. I wanted to participate in that, but I also found that vlogging was really hard for me. Talking to a camera felt uncomfortable. But I have been collecting clips of things for a long time.
It wasn’t really until I got to Portland State University that I started to really invest in myself as an artist and try and discover what medium I wanted to focus on. There, I started to take my photography and video work really seriously.
Nina: Was there a specific moment, class, or professor that was part of shaping that path into video art for you?
Amelia: I took Intro to Video Art with Julie Perini and made some pieces that I was really proud of. Working with Julie also has helped me connect some experiences I had in 2020 related to protesting police violence and violence against black people in the United States. Through that, I started realizing that putting your body in front of a line of police officers as a way to protest these things wasn’t necessarily going to be a sustainable way to fight against police violence.
Making videos started to feel like the most effective way that I could be using my time and energy. I was taking a lot of video footage at that time. And I think a lot of people were experiencing this realization of how powerful it was to take pictures and film the protests, to document what was happening.
Getting to work with Julie, who also has worked in documenting police violence in Portland, was really inspiring to me. Before I returned back to school after taking a long break, a big part of my reasoning was wanting to become a more effective activist but feeling like I didn’t have the right toolkit to do that. So I wanted to go back to school and get those tools, but I didn’t really know what exactly I wanted to focus on when I started. But with video art, things just started to flow.
Nina: I’m curious about what you choose to film. Along with the work you’ve done on protests, there’s a lot of videos of your friends and loved ones captured in a tender moment, or having intimate conversations. What do you look for in deciding to film something and what is it like to have your subjects be the people around you?
Amelia: I look for deep comfort in my work and I want to feel real consent from the people around me. Like, during some of the times we were together on our trip in Italy I was like, “oh, I’m sorry I’m filming so much.” And you just go, “it’s part of your project.” That sense of understanding and support is what I look for and makes me feel like it’s a good moment to film.
But this also means that sometimes I feel kind of limited with what I can do. Things don’t happen for a long time. You’re building a relationship and building trust. That was a big part of the film, In Images, that I made, which was really about celebrating these queer relationships that I have.
As I get older, as a queer person, it’s really hard to find the kind of community that I imagined for myself. I felt like I and the people I love were all experiencing some really deep feelings of loneliness and isolation when I made In Images. So I wanted to document those relationships because they felt very precious.
Nina: While I was watching In Images I was thinking about how vulnerable it was to be seeing Sam Wrigglesworth the photographer take a photo of someone else while they were nude. So both the subject and photographer were nude. It’s pretty contradictory to the typical photographer subject relationships you see, where only the subject would be nude. That shared experience of vulnerability and intimacy seems pretty rare. You show your queer community in a really respectful way that resists voyeurism which I really admire.
I know you’re deeply inspired by the people you’re close to, like Sam or Julie, but I’m wondering where else you’re drawing from when you make your films. Could you talk about some of your influences and research?
Amelia: Sam Wrigglesworth has been a big inspiration to me. Sam is a teacher and is receiving the Tee Corrine Fellowship at Ohio State University. Tee Corrine is a famous lesbian photographer and poet. She participated in lesbian separatist communities in southern Oregon and started a workshop called the Ovulars. The focus was to put cameras in the hands of lesbians and have them photograph each other. A really beautiful book of the Ovulars came out of that called Notes on Fundamental Joy, by Carmen Winot.
So Sam has done a lot of research on the Ovulars and is directly inspired by the work of Tee Corrine, which I’m also really inspired by.
The whole idea was about women taking photos of each other while they were all naked. Not necessarily all the time. It dealt with concepts of power and who is in front of the camera and who’s behind the camera, and also documenting things in many layers where the camera becomes a part of the photograph and you see nudity on both sides, but it’s really more than nudity. It’s about sharing vulnerability as a photographic project. Both Sam and I have been really inspired by that idea. And this idea of having a friendship that is documented in a way that is loving.
The more I started to read about the idea of the apparatus, the camera as an apparatus, and the oppositional gaze in movies, I started to really see how interesting and intellectual the work of people like Tee Corrine is. Which is kind of interesting because I think as a human, as a queer person who is assigned a female gender, those things are obvious. When you’re not in an intellectual setting, it feels obvious that we should take photos of each other and have it be in this safe way based on sharing. But I think the more you study the history of cinema and photography, the more you realize how powerful and important that safety and consent is.
Through understanding the history I see that it’s much more radical than I realized when I was living it.
Nina: I know you want to pursue a PhD and do research. How does art and research come together in your practice? There’s an intensity to how you engage with both of those things and it seems like you’re equally invested in both.
Amelia: I would like to do both. I think for me right now, the emphasis on research comes from a real desire to want to understand academic conversations and engage with them on a certain level with basic ideas that feel inherent to what I already know or have always known. I want to beable to discuss those concepts in a way that is reinforced by some kind of intellectual understanding. I have a lot of ideas about intersectional feminism and queer culture and the way that we can change society through images and also through living in certain types of communities.
I’m inspired to continue to do research because I would like to learn what people have said before and also go beyond that.
Like obviously, I’m really excited by some of those concepts. And when you read about it, you can go more deeply into them, and that seems like a liberatory practice right now, because it feels like an opportunity to break out of some of the entrenched stereotypes and societal ideologies that live in your mind.
Nina: Do you feel a need to make art from the research?
Amelia: I’m always going to be an artist. I don’t really question if I’ll be an artist or continue making art because it’s inherent to the way I live my life and process my emotions and feel good about myself.
In research I really just want to know more about these topics because it feels like we’re under attack. I didn’t grow up feeling like I was a queer person under attack and now I really do. Part of that is understanding myself as a trans person and seeing that just because our nation accepts gay marriage, that isn’t equivalent to other issues like trans liberation. And understanding that globally, homophobia is being used more and more as a tool for nationalist political parties.
We’re going to need to continue to struggle. And political struggle looks different for everyone. For me, studying queer histories and feminist concepts feels like a way that I can continue to fight.
Nina: It’s interesting to me that fighting those issues can happen through contributing to research but also through art making for you. I think that is why a lot of artists make art, though. Because they have a hopeful vision and want to manifest something that they see.
Amelia: I see a lot of films as a kind of a projection of a more hopeful and wonderful world. To be able to show trans and other marginalized bodies existing in a loving way. That’s a concept from a lot of black feminist film theory that I’m inspired by as well, like Julie Dash’s 1991 film Daughters of the Dust or Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman. There’s such a power to those films. That’s how I feel about the Ovulars as well. I just think about how it’s actually so rare to see all these naked lesbians taking photos of each other. And having seen them, the images are in me, making me feel more connected to myself somehow.
I would like to continue contributing to those kinds of hopeful images based on things that I’ve experienced.
Nina: So what are some things you’re hoping to do next?
Amelia: This year I’m trying to make work that starts from a place of feeling. I have a lot of space to work on my BFA project. So instead of starting with a more intellectual or political concept, I want to use that space to follow what feels best. Which is a way of artmaking that I think I use a lot more for projects outside of school.
When you’re in an art program there’s a lot of focus on production. But I’m trying to take the time to feel my way through my next project. So I’m working on a series of photographs that will hopefully lead me into a larger image based project like a photo book or film.
A question that is guiding my work right now is, “what are the liberatory potentials for images that are made by people outside the dominant narrative? How are these images different from the plastic representations that are typically seen?”
And so for my personal artistic work I’m asking what the world looks like from my perspective. I’m finding that in a lot of the work that I’ve shared, people have read feelings of grief. I’m exploring why that might be and what that might say about my perspective and the way I experience the world. I’m realizing that trauma impacts the way that I see the world.
So I’m working on a series of portraits and a lot of the portraits are obscured in some way, which is becoming more intentional but wasn’t always. So I’m thinking about how relationships can be obscured by trauma.
I’m also thinking about my own experiences with reproductive trauma. It’s not something that I’ve talked a lot about in my art work but it’s coming from a place of personal experience.
A lot of my work, I think, will always be political, since that’s such a part of the way I live my life and the way that I put myself in the world. So I’m trying to make space in this work to find the political meaning later.
Beyond this project, I’m hoping to display my work more after I graduate and apply to grad school.
Nina: That idea of allowing the work to find political meaning naturally is really interesting. I’ve also been thinking a lot about resisting the urge to force political meaning in my work. It can be really exhausting especially as a person of color to live with that pressure. Learning to trust instead that politics will be evident in the work you do and is evident across the whole body of what you do, because it’s a part of your life, has been really freeing.
Amelia: I agree. Just the act in investing in our practices does have the potential to create the political change that we need. And I think that’s valuable.
Nina: Exactly. Sometimes when big things happen in the world, I’ll still be like “but why am I making art?” But I feel like a lot of art, especially the art you make and the way you make it, is really about care too. And that care does extend out and also creates a really empathetic image. I feel like all of those things have a really big impact.
Amelia: Yeah. And no matter what you make, you can have a humanistic practice. And I think that is also really impactful.
Nina: Definitely. Are you interested in teaching someday? Any ideas on what you’d teach?
Amelia: I would love to teach. Intersectional feminist media studies would be interesting. I would love to teach histories through the ways that people are wrongfully projected and then the way that they project themselves. Like illustrating how the idealized white woman from Hollywood in the 1940’s has been projected onto all women. And then showing how women, black feminists, and queer people have reclaimed media and made their own projections of reality.
There’s something really potent about teaching history through media studies, for me personally, because ideologies are sustained through media. A lot of fascist ideologies are being conveyed in particular. I would love to explore that concept with people and teach in a way that’s very direct and focused on being an activist or creating positive change. And also showing the agency there when you pick up a camera and create your own projection. I think that has a lot of power and can really affect people.
Nina: That sounds incredible. I would love having you as a professor!
Nina Vichayapai (she/her) is an artist whose research excavates for signs and representations of belonging in the globalized world around her. She explores what it means to belong within the American landscape for underrepresented communities. Born in Bangkok, Thailand, she graduated from the California College of the Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2017. Nina currently lives in the Pacific Northwest.
Amelia Morrison (they/them) is an artist whose work explores feminist perspectives in images and image making. Currently, they are seeking to answer this question: What new paradigms emerge when marginalized individuals are the ones crafting images? Their work is informed by the ethics of community care and a belief that a loving approach to art making is just as valuable as the product. They are a BFA student at Portland State University.
ig: @aj.morrison
Let Singing Serve the City
“Rise above all of that and ask, “How can I make the world a better place?” For me, that’s the only job we have: to make the world a better place. How you do it doesn’t matter—whether you’re teaching, singing, or picking up garbage—everything has its own value.”
– Mari Schay
Mari and I met during my summer job as a peer mentor for incoming freshman students at Portland State University. Mari was the teacher for our class, preparing these fresh-out-of-high-school students to pursue creative studies at PSU. It was a really interesting role, especially because I was not only a mentor for these students, but also lived with them in the dorms and hosted various engaging activities to help familiarize them with the campus and make them comfortable. These activities included, but were not limited to, doing henna tattoos in the dorm, playing hide-and-seek in the science building late at night, and guiding walks around downtown Portland. I showed them important tips, like how to get into the art museum for free and where to find art supplies without burning a hole in their pockets. Together with Mari, we created a fun start to their school experience—something I personally wish I could have had when I came to this school exactly one year ago.
Simeen Anjum: How did you end up here at Portland State, in Lincoln Hall, in this room?
Mari: I grew up with a musician mom and started playing classical guitar at 8. I later switched to percussion and drums. In college at Willamette University, I initially wanted to major in Russian but the teacher scared me, so then I decided to major in English, but I was in music classes, and I just kind of got more and more into playing and practicing. By the time I was in my second year of college, I was working really hard and making a lot of improvement and kind of getting a lot of recognition for the work that I was doing.
At first, I didn’t want to be a teacher, but I realized that getting a teaching license would let me stay in school and keep practicing. I went to the Cincinnati Conservatory as a graduate teaching assistant, and while I didn’t enjoy the experience overall, I discovered that teaching was the part I liked the most. That got me thinking about a career in education.
After moving to Texas, I taught middle school and then elementary school for 23 years. When a position opened at Portland State University, a former student teacher encouraged me to apply, and I ended up getting the job. So, this is my fourth year in this building, in this office, and in this role.
Simeen: You’ve spent a lot of time teaching despite not initially planning to be a teacher. What aspects of the profession drew you in and made you enjoy it?
Mari: Yeah, it definitely wasn’t my plan. From my second year of college through grad school, I practiced six to eight hours a day and rehearsed with bands for another four or five hours. I eventually hit a plateau in my progress.
I realized I didn’t want to play in an orchestra, which is what I thought I was training for. I prefer playing a variety of music, especially modern and avant-garde pieces. The idea of repeating the same works year after year just didn’t engage me, and I found myself drifting away from that world.
I started teaching classes at the conservatory, and I enjoyed it. But it wasn’t until my second full-time teaching job that I truly found my passion, especially working with special education students—kids with Down syndrome, severe autism, and other disabilities. Their pure and joyful approach to life inspired me and made me realize that music could be a wonderful way to connect with kids while teaching them.
A few years later, I became really interested in curriculum development and how to help people change what they know and what they can do. I focused on the steps and sequencing involved in that process. I became invested in helping others learn, just as I had been with my own music. Now, what drives me is finding ways to help people see their potential and feel empowered in their own learning journey.
Simeen: I think that’s really special! What do you aim to give to the students you teach?
Mari: I think it’s about agency. Everyone is a learner, and even if you don’t identify as a scholar or academic, I believe everyone is curious. Sometimes, the education system can make learning feel less enjoyable.
If we provide people with experiences that help them see their curiosity and encourage them to explore it on their own, they don’t necessarily need a teacher; they just need their own inspiration. In that way, there are really no limits to what they can accomplish. And by “accomplish,” I don’t mean just tangible things like papers or projects, but rather a meaningful way of living.
So yeah, I think the thing to give people is a belief that they can learn, but also that they have to learn.
Simeen: It makes me think about what going to college really means and what value it holds.
Mari: For many of our students, especially first-generation students, college doesn’t feel like the next natural step. There’s often a lot of self-doubt and fear about whether they’re ready for this journey.
College is broadly seen as a way to get a better job, and while that’s true, it should also be a path to discovering your passion. Ideally, your job should nourish you and prevent burnout because it’s something you love doing. I hope that for every college student, something sparks their curiosity—that feeling where you just have to pursue what excites you.
I feel lucky to have had a fulfilling life, and I want to help others find that too.
In the arts, it’s often easier to encourage this exploration because you’re already challenging societal norms that push you toward more conventional paths.
Simeen: You mentioned creating an inspiring environment for students coming to college. Do you think there are specific actions we, as students or the PSU community, can take to make this a better environment for everyone?
I feel like we often cap people by saying, “You’re good at this” or “You’re not good at this.” Sometimes, there’s an attitude that if you’re not good enough, you don’t belong here. But belonging is essential—it’s what makes you want to be part of a community and feel that you have a place in the world. Anything that doesn’t support that sense of belonging shouldn’t be part of our environment. We’re not Harvard or an elite conservatory.
There’s some confusion about what our university’s mission should be, especially behind closed doors—in the music department and, I’m sure, in the arts and other fields as well. It often feels like the message is, “You’re not good enough to even start.” I don’t understand that because you can’t know what someone is capable of until you give them the opportunity to try.
When I first got here, a teacher—who has since retired—said that if you come here and aren’t ready for it, you don’t belong. He compared it to the math department, where they don’t teach you how to add and subtract; you’re expected to know that when you arrive. Similarly, students in music are expected to already know how to read music and perform certain skills. I see it differently: we should welcome anyone who wants to try.
It’s challenging in music because there are performance levels that you’re expected to achieve right away, but we should give everyone the opportunity to learn something new. I wish we would embrace the idea of PSU’s motto “Let Knowledge Serve the City” more fully.
Simeen: Is there anything specific you intentionally incorporate into your teaching practice?
Mari: I am intentional about helping my students find a personal connection. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to foster those connections, encouraging students to engage in conversations with one another in class. This way, they can see each other as experts and relate to the concepts we’re discussing.
Simeen, you seem really capable of finding connections. I really admire how you know who’s who and who to approach for different resources. It’s impressive how you’ve come from the outside and figured out where to go for various things. You seem to truly belong here; you’ve found your sense of belonging.
Simeen: Thank you! Yes, when I first arrived, I didn’t know anything. I’m really grateful that my cohort and colleagues went out of their way to help me find that sense of belonging. They consistently encourage me and create space for me—not just cheerleading, but also providing critical feedback on my work and engaging in meaningful discussions. We’re learning together.
Mari: You’re really open, too. You’re willing to accept new ideas, and it feels like it goes both ways. You have to be open for the experience to be meaningful.
Simeen: Yeah, I’ve always believed that there’s more out there because I grew up with many boundaries and limitations surrounding my identity. Even though I didn’t know Portland existed, I believed that there was more to the world than what I was told. There are ways of being beyond those limits.
And even today, I feel like it’s an ongoing process; we’re on a journey to build a better world, no matter where life takes us.
Speaking of connections, there’s something I wanted to bring up about the act of singing together. Since you have a music background, I thought you might have some insights on this. During my university years in New Delhi, we had a strong culture of singing songs together. After long, challenging days of protesting, we would gather in a circle and sing songs historically associated with marginalized groups in India. Sharing those songs brought me so much joy and empowerment, especially because it was my first time experiencing this. I was also unaware of the stories and perspectives of working-class and marginalized people in my own country, and it opened my eyes to a whole new world.
Mari: Yeah, there’s really a lot of research around what singing together does. It even brings your heartbeats in alignment, like everybody’s heart rate slows down and matches and it releases endorphins, which are essentially the chemical equivalent of being stoned. It relaxes you, it calms you. It comes from the vibrations that people experience together, that they’re all essentially vibrating together.
So there’s great research about singing and the power of it. One of the most powerful singing experiences I’ve had, I don’t know if we can do it after COVID, but you take like a hundred people and you cram them in as close together as they’ll get and you just say, ready, set, sing.
Everybody just goes whatever pitch they want, it doesn’t matter. They’re just singing any sound and it creates this vibration that is just the weirdest, most cool feeling. then if you let it go, people will find the same pitch. Everybody will get to the same note and nobody has to say anything, people just naturally bring it into resonance. How do we make one big sound out of however many we have? So yeah, I think that this idea is really, really cool and could make a big difference.
Simeen: I feel like these songs are like stories that have the power to humanize others. We often perceive different communities as “the other,” but through my project, Songs Against Dark Times Like These, which invites people to come together and sing historical songs of resistance from various cultures, languages, and social movements, I am exploring how we can shift that perspective. I believe singing together has the potential to help us connect with people in a deeper way and feel differently about each other’s experiences.
Mari: Yeah, for sure. And especially if you have people from different countries and cultures sharing their music. There’s a lot of power in that and see that it kind of doesn’t matter where you’re from.
We all have struggles and we all need to protest. I mean, maybe there are cultures that don’t need protest, but I think things need to evolve in any culture and I think it’s the young people that tend to push that change and protest songs are one powerful way to do it.
Simeen: Have you ever sung songs like that? What’s your top song?
Mari: Well, I love spirituals. It’s a bit strange because I’m not religious at all, but I really enjoy singing them and hearing them. I used to teach a whole unit with my students about protest songs and how spirituals were used as protest songs during the abolition of slavery, even while slavery was still in place.
It was a big study I did with my kids every year. There’s this fascinating concept related to quilts—do you know what a quilt is? It’s a blanket made from sewn fabric, and different quilt patterns each have their own meanings. Some quilts were made as samplers, featuring various patterns, and the leaders within the enslaved community would teach these songs using the different patterns.
They would hang a quilt over a railing or fence, displaying a specific pattern while singing that corresponding song. It served as a way to signal to others that something was going to happen. For example, there’s a song called “Ezekiel Saw the Wheel,” and there’s a quilt pattern shaped like the spokes of a wheel. That pattern would signal that someone was coming that night to help them escape.
I think it’s really powerful how one form of art was combined with another to help people find freedom. It’s an inspiring story. What’s your top song?
Simeen: In middle school, we sang a Hindustani version of “We Shall Overcome.” Singing that song still makes me feel so nostalgic.
Mari: “We Shall Overcome” is such a powerful song on its own, and it’s amazing how you learned it as a kid and it’s been translated into a different language. It still holds that same power. We sang that song every year in my school.
I also think a song doesn’t have to technically be a protest song to be used in protests. In the 1960s in the U.S., many songs brought people together and served as forms of protest, even if they weren’t explicitly labeled as protest songs.
It’s really interesting because it depends on what you choose to draw inspiration from and where you find your values.
Simeen: I think it’s because I’m coming from a place that has very strict boundaries about who you are and what you can and cannot do based on your name. I’m really grateful that God put me outside of that structure I was originally meant to function in, so I want to use my freedom in the best ways I can think of.
Mari: That’s a perspective that most people don’t have. We often take everything for granted. I’ve never had to consider that perspective. Being a woman in America is different from being a Muslim in a country that doesn’t welcome you, and that presents another big barrier and challenge. But you seem to rise above all of that and ask, “How can I make the world a better place?” For me, that’s the only job we have: to make the world a better place. How you do it doesn’t matter—whether you’re teaching, singing, or picking up garbage—everything has its own value.
Simeen: The last thing I want to ask you is from the values you intentionally incorporate into your work, what is the one value you’d like to share with me as I continue with this project?
Mari: Community. I think of it more as connection—bringing people together.
I truly believe we’re all stronger when everyone has a role to play and when we’re all together. When we help people feel connected, it drives empowerment and allows them to succeed in whatever they want to achieve. So, yes, I think that’s something you should keep close to your heart.
Mari Schay (she/they) is a music educator who has dedicated over 23 years to teaching in elementary and middle schools. She currently inspires future music teachers at Portland State University. With a background in percussion performance, Mari loves fostering creativity and community through music. She has authored several books for music educators and frequently leads professional development sessions. Mari is working on making music education accessible and engaging for all students.
Simeen Anjum (she/her) is a social practice artist based in Portland, Oregon. Her work explores the creation of safe spaces and community in a world increasingly shaped by conflict and competition. Through collaborative projects, she seeks to foster connection and understanding in environments that encourage openness and inclusion.
Currently in her second year of the MFA program at Portland State University, Simeen is also a teaching assistant in printmaking, where she supports students in their artistic development while continuing to evolve her own practice.
Conocimiento Migrante: A plea for the humanness in us all
“I’ve always thought it’s important not to lose our humanity. It’s top of mind in my interactions with the people I hang out with or meet. That’s been something very shocking for me here in the United States: that it’s so easy to become a number or a box on a form, for people of color or BIPOC. I’m always advocating for taking it easy, for slowing down, looking into each other’s eyes, and recognizing that this is a person”
– Diana Marcela Cuartas
I met Diana when I was considering the program of Art + Social Practice two years ago. She’s a fellow Colombian who attended the program. We only met once, when I was in Portland, not at my best. But true to her Caleña upbringing, she was still welcoming and agreed to talk to me about her work. She facilitated the creation of an incredible book of Mexican stories, rituals, recipes, and calaveritas, called A donde voy, el hogar viene conmigo.
The process that brought it to life was a friendship built in the context of Diana’s work. She is a social worker who handles the cases of latino moms. Her first client, Reina, became one of her closest friends, and they embarked on the project of creating a book in which Reina and the other moms could pass down their traditions from el Dia de Muertos. From this endeavor emerged an activist collective called Conocimiento Migrante that now advocates for community spaces and the rights of latinx people in the East of PDX.
I thought this interview was going to be solely about this book, about her work, about her way of producing spaces for community storytelling. But it was so much more than that. It was about her, as a human, and her plea for humanity in us all.
This interview was conducted in Spanish, and as a personal and political statement, I decided to publish it in both languages. If you want to read the original, scroll way down and you’ll find it. We are both funnier and spicier in Spanish, as Sofia Vergara would say.
Adela: Darling Diana, I’d like to start by asking you, as another Colombian transplant, why did you end up in Portland, which is basically at the end of the world?
Diana: For love. Portland wasn’t even on my radar, but my partner, who is Colombian-American, and I were enjoying our love in Colombia, and at some point, he had to return to his planet. So, to stay together, I ended up coming to the States. First we went to Arizona, to live with his mom, which also helped us save money.
He had applied to different graduate programs, and Portland offered him the best scholarship. We visited one weekend, and it was lovely. It was spring, and sunny, and there were flowers everywhere.
Adela: That happened to me too! Sunny Portland seduces you and then throws the overcast skies on you, not unlike Bogotá’s. It pulls a fast one on you!
Diana: Totally! So when we first came here, I went to the King School Museum of Contemporary Art, and that’s how I ended up in the program, because I was looking for art, community, and public engagement. And here we are, five years later, still living here.
Adela: The universe, queen. I went to Portland for the first time in the fall of 2021, at the end of September, to visit my sister, and I fell in love with the city—it seemed divine.
But now that you’re more rooted in Portland and simultaneously have roots in Colombia, what I call, eldoblearraigo (double-rootedness), I would like to know: What Colombian rituals or traditions, from your family, do you continue practicing in Portland?
Diana: I think something fundamental for me is that my partner and I share our culture. I don’t think I could’ve ever fallen in love with a 100% gringo.
For me, the ritual is food: cooking, sitting down at the table, enjoying that moment, knowing what we’re eating. One of the things that’s been a cultural shock for me is seeing people eat a sandwich for lunch and then have a huge burger for dinner…
I think that’s why people are so messed up—those hormonal imbalances affect your mental health. How can you feel good if you’re not nourishing? You go to people’s houses and everything is canned and sugary, and people are eating at weird hours.
For me, it’s like my aunt used to say: have breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and eat dinner like a slave. But I don’t eat like a slave; I always try to eat like a queen! (laughs)
When we lived with my mother-in-law, who is super gringa, I was trying to keep up with her. But that thing of grabbing whatever for lunch and then eating real food before going to sleep—I thought, my God, ‘this can’t go on.’
So that ritual of how we eat is key for us. Because if I eat like that, I’ll feel depressed, I’ll be sad, I won’t be able to do what I do, I’ll be tired. I’m still tired, but for other reasons. (laughs)
Another thing I maintain from our culture is Joyous Sundays. For example, every Sunday morning, I always tune into a radio station called Madrigal Stereo, from Soledad, Atlántico, and they have a program called Sundays of Flavor. The music is amazing; it puts me in the mood to put myself together. That’s the day that reminds you not to let that go-go-go routine, of eating whatever and keeping it moving, take over you.
Sometimes it’s hard because we have to do what we have to do here. But it’s about putting on some music to shake off the grayness of it all.
Adela: Speaking of food, what’s a recipe that makes you feel at home?
Diana: It depends on how busy I am. If I’m short on time, I make a chicken stew that practically cooks itself. But if I have more time, I make beans.
Adela: How do you make your beans? What do you add? Because every family is a world in itself, and that translates into the kitchen. For example, once a friend added panela to her beans, and I was like, “What the heck are you doing?”
Diana: Well, I was going to say that when I have panela, I add it too. (laughs)
One of my variations is I boil them with garlic, bay leaf, and thyme. Also, separately, I make a sauté of onion and tomato; sometimes grated bell pepper and, if I have plantains, I throw in some green plantain while I’m cooking. I also make this sauté, this hogao, with cumin, thyme, whatever herbs and spices I have around, and cilantro. At the end, I like to sprinkle some grated panela. And sometimes, because it’s easy to find here, I swap the carrot for a piece of squash.
Adela: And in your house, who made the beans?
Diana: My mom and I. I’m the child of a single mother. It was my mom, my sister, and I.
Adela: I ask you about your rituals, because you made a book about the ritual of Dia de los Muertos with the moms you work with in Latino Network. And just as their rituals were important to them, I believe yours are also.
Having that in mind, if you could immortalize or pass down any ritual from your family, what would you want to pass on to your kids (or your cats if you don’t want to have children)?
Diana: Oh, I don’t know, it’s hard for me to think about immortalizing something because nothing can be immortalized. We’re all going to die. Books will disintegrate. They will rot, burn, and turn to ashes; we’re all going to end up as ashes.
I’ve always thought it’s important not to lose our humanity. It’s top of mind in my interactions with the people I hang out with or meet. That’s been something very shocking for me here in the United States: that it’s so easy to become a number or a box on a form, for people of color or BIPOC. I’m always advocating for taking it easy, for slowing down, looking into each other’s eyes, and recognizing that this is a person.
How is there such a horrible genocide happening and here people are more worried about getting the lesser evil? In the end, nobody thinks about the fact that we’re talking about people who are being killed every day. It’s frustrating.
I feel like here in Portland, it’s very easy for people to stay in their little bubble of organic coffee and tree-hugging. It’s easy for people to lose social awareness or never develop it at all. So that’s the legacy I want to leave: that the spaces I’m in, the friendships I build, don’t lose their humanity and aren’t ignorant of the context. That they have cinco centavitos de conciencia social (five cents of social awareness).
Adela: I love that because it’s a legacy you’re creating with every interaction in your life, something you’re building with every person you engage with. And since a big part of engaging with each other in our latin culture is through dance and music, I wanted to ask, do you have a playlist that makes you feel at home, but also like a la perra, la diva, la potra, la caballota?
Diana: Right now, there’s one song I’ve been playing on repeat called. Estoy Enamorada, Mi Padre No Me Entiende. It’s hilarious, from Yolanda Pérez, La Potra, and I love it because it captures the biculturalism of Mexican immigrant families in the United States. It features a teenager telling her dad, “My boyfriend called me,” and he’s like, “What do you mean you have a boyfriend?”
I relate to it because I think about the families I work with, and I’m like, “that’s the cultural gap for kids growing up here, with parents who came from rural Mexico.
And a song that embodies that feeling of ‘necesito, poder, espíritus’ is El Mapalé. For me, listening to that song is like being possessed by it. It’s a power that takes over you. It’s for when you’re feeling like “I need to get out of this funk” or “The party is amazing, let’s turn up the heat” or “I’m feeling low, let’s spice up these arepas.” You can dance to it and sweat it out: it’s total catharsis.It’s one of my favorites; I play it on my birthday and days with friends. Any excuse is good for El Mapalé.
Adela: 100%! My mom is from Cartagena, and I remember dancing to it with my cousins. I’m about to play it when we get off this call to shake off any inner demons.
And, speaking of demons, I’d love to talk about the death rituals, which were the foundation of the book you made with your first social work client from Latino Network, Reina, and the other moms. The book A donde voy, el hogar viene conmigo encompases their Día de Muertos rituals. If you had to design an altar for your family to build on the Día de Muertos, what would you tell your loved ones to put on it? El Mapalé, maybe?
Diana: When I was working on that project, I was listening to the song A la Memoria del Muerto by Piper Pimienta. It goes:
“I don’t want to hear about sorrow or suffering. I want to live my life joyful, happy, and content. The day I die, I don’t want tears or prayers. Ask them to bring a lot of aguardiente, and let everyone dance happily and sing in memory of the dead.”
And I thought, that’s what I’d want. Make it a party. If someone remembers me and says, “Let’s honor Diana’s memory,” they should play El Mapalé, enjoy good food and take time to truly feel like themselves. My altar should have plantains, guaritos, a shot of mezcal, some super coco, drawings, palm trees, tropical iconography, and Madrigal Stereo radio station.
Adela: I ask you this not only because of your book’s theme but also because I’ve been working on the topic of death from a lovely and compassionate perspective of celebration. I’ve always wanted a party. I want people to dress in red, put on some lipstick, share stories about me and dance to reggaeton until your feet hurt.
Diana: Absolutely!
Día de Los Muertos: A community is born
Adela: Talking about our death rituals is the perfect segway into your projects and processes. Specifically, the book A donde voy, el hogar viene conmigo, which I understand served as a way for the migrant women you work with, starting with Reina, to pass down their Día de Muertos traditions to their families. What happened during that process?
Diana: What happened with Reina is tied to the fact that I became a social worker—though I’m not one—but that was the job I landed because I speak decent Spanish. Like I said, I’m the daughter of a single mother. I support my mom, and I needed some cash.
So, I stumbled into this job after a long search in the arts. I thought, “surely, my ten-plus years of experience has to come in handy here.” But this opportunity felt somewhat related: even though it wasn’t about programming art or engaging the public through art; it was about engaging it through education. And Reina was my first client as a social worker case handler.
And I could have established just a client relationship, but I’m an artist, and it’s hard for me not to be one. So what ended up happening during that process was friendship. Same with the other moms.
I was doing the MFA and working at the same time, so I didn’t have a chance to be creative outside of work, you know, during that magical neutral time. Sometimes I was in class while answering work calls.
And for me, one of the failures of art is when there’s this disconnection, when it’s only aimed at a specialized audience, when people in art are just talking to other people in art about art. For me, it’s a priority and an interest to connect with everyday life and as many people as possible.
That’s what I did in my work back in Colombia. We’d have this amazing exhibition, and I’d think, “What can I come up with so that a lady who lives around the corner and has no clue about this space feels curious enough to come and see if something resonates with her?”
So, talking with Reina, I said, what do I know how to do that’s useful? I can put things together in a PDF and make it look pretty. Is that useful here in this group of people? Ah, well, yes, so let’s make a book right away.
Adela: Let’s talk about the book itself, A donde voy, el hogar viene conmingo. I found it interesting that you asked her point blank, “What kind of book do you want to make?” You put her in the center from the get-go.
Diana: Exactly. My role was more about facilitating and coordinating, making sure this person had the agency to say, “Okay, I’m getting this chance to make a book: I’ll decide how I imagine it, how I want it.”
And that’s where it all started. We invited moms from other schools where we held meetings and different workshops. That’s when some connections became stronger, and some friendships formed because COVID was just a crazy time. I mean, I spent an hour and a half on the phone with a lady, just listening to her. So I feel like that particular experience during COVID also changed the client-social worker relationship.
So we invited other moms until we ended up in a group of about six or seven. There were tons of Zoom meetings, basically just to listen: we have a platform, what do we want to include? They were all from different parts of Mexico, and were saying, “No, in my region, we do this,” “No, in Oaxaca, we do it like this,” “In Guerrero, we do it like that.” It was a really beautiful space that felt like a cultural exchange, even though they were all Mexican.
I was just trying to coordinate what I could. They’d say to me, “Oh, I remember we used to write calaveritas in school.” And I’d be like, “Would you like to write more calaveritas? I can find someone to come and teach us how to make them.”
In the end, we became a collective called El Conocimiento Migrante. The experience of making the book morphed into this platform to continue sharing. We held potlucks and chatted for hours asking “What do we need? What do we like? What interests us? What are we missing?”
Creating these deep relationships takes time. The problem is that when you’re a student, you’re on a tight schedule, and everything has to happen quickly. And I had this conflict of having to rush things to deliver. Because that was precisely a space for us to slow down and really get to know each other.
I’ve always questioned how one can just llegar en paracaidas, as we say in Colombia, and say, “I’m working with a community,” if I haven’t taken the time to connect and understand what’s going on there.
I feel horrible when people arrive and say, “Bring in Black people, latinx people, and let’s do this thing that has nothing to do with anything.” I don’t believe in those projects where people have zero agency; that’s not part of my ethics as an artist. And I think I also learned that in this space. I realized that I enjoy taking the time to be present and truly listen so that whatever I do has a relationship with the interests of these people.
Adela: And how did you create this collective with the participants with whom you formed these deep bonds?
Diana: In my work, I organize workshops for parents in the families I’m assigned to.
I started in the far East of Portland, which is a pretty unique district; it’s the poorest, the most latino. As a rookie social worker, I felt like I had arrived as a mix of Francisco, El Matemático, with the Simpsons.
There’s a predetermined framework of what you offer to the parents of the enrolled kids. But in my creative practice, I thought, “Well, I can do this other crazy thing; I’ll invent a field trip to the Portland Art Museum, or we’ll have a celebration with crafts.” Doing things that nourish our spirits.
Adela: What did you take away from this process?
Diana: I feel like I came away with reaffirmations. Especially that you can’t go through life without looking people in the eye, without recognizing each other as human beings. I also took away the recognition that this is a labor of love. I did everything because I wanted to; nobody forced me, and it was a lot of work.
But the most important thing that came from it was a group of friends that I adore—a genuine community. I also ended up feeling tired, but in a good way, like a happy kind of tired. And I left with a desire to fight—not to “fight against the world,” but to change things.
For example, right now with the Oregon Humanities Fellowship, I met with the collective again and told them there was a chance to have an article published. In the end, the conversation turned to the lack of spaces for the community, specifically in East Portland.
Adela: Speaking of building friendships and community, how did you choose or find the poet, Luna Flores, and the illustrator, Eliana Enriquez, the collaborating artists in the project?
Diana: It was also organic. In Luna’s case, she led the calaveritas writing workshop, and I met her through Pati Vázquez Gómez, a teacher from the Art + Social Practice program. For me, Pati was a lifesaver. Thanks to her, I connected with a network of latinx artists.
When I was feeling crazy, she invited me to a party. I danced after months of not dancing, and I was so happy. I spoke in Spanish. It was everything I needed, and I hadn’t realized how badly. Among those people, I connected with Luna Flores. She is also an immigrant and a mom. I asked the collective if they thought it was a good idea to bring her, and I did.
And with the illustrator, it was magical. In these programs, you work in pairs. I was responsible for connecting with parents; another person was the youth engagement specialist, who connects with the students. My partner was Eliana Enriquez, who is also an illustrator, and the moms adored her; she was a part of the family.
So, in the end, the book is the result of building community. And that community needs to be nurtured and respected. If I start inviting them to share their ideas, I can’t just leave it there. That would be disrespectful to their participation. And I appreciate the fact that they participate; I appreciate interest and willingness. They could say, “I have to cook, or take care of my husband,” and not come. And I feel that they appreciate the space for collective thinking.
Adela: And in that process, were there any moments of friction? Domenic Kim talks about the concept of “social lubrication”. Did you have to lubricate at any moment of tension?
Diana: One of the frictions was that some moms with more availability and better economic situations came in super prepared. But there were others with less availability. And I started to notice something weird. When I asked them what was going on, some indignantly told me that so-and-so “always arrives late and never brings anything of substance.”
So I sat them down and said, “This space is for all of us to participate to the best of our ability. This isn’t a job.” I told them:
“You love to cook. But not all of us are in the same situation. Neither am I. Maybe because you see me as the teacher, you don’t criticize me, but I’ve also shown up with a soda from the store. How would you feel if you were rejected because you didn’t bring something that someone else did? You have a husband. The other doesn’t have a husband. The other one works and has kids, and she gets here earlier. And she contributes in other ways. Everyone brings to the table what they have, and from that, we take what interests us and what serves us. That’s where we make the sancocho.”
Adela: The last question I want to ask you, Diana, is if you had a magical wand and all the money in the world, what’s the most beautiful version you could imagine for the collective El Conocimiento Migrante?
Diana: A huge house in a community center in East Portland with a dance floor, a projection room, a giant kitchen. Space for workshops, an art studio, y para hacer la guacahafita. It has to be over there in Rockwood, in Fairview, not here.
Diana Marcela Cuartas is a Colombian artist, educator, and cultural worker transplanted to Portland in 2019. Her work combines visual research, popular culture analysis, and participatory learning processes in publications, workshops, and curatorial projects as a framework to investigate the relationships formed between a place and those who inhabit it. With her projects, Diana is interested in cultivating spaces inviting people to slow down, think together, share questions, and have fun as a way to weave community and a sense of belonging.
Diana holds an MFA in Art and Social Practice from Portland State University and completed the Art Book Program at the Independent Publishers Resource Center. She founded The Migrant Knowledge Press, an initiative for cultural exchange and artistic experimentation among migrant communities through collective publishing exercises.
Before relocating to the US, Diana was the Head of Public Programs at Espacio Odeón in Bogotá, Colombia. She was also part of Lugar a Dudas, an organization promoting contemporary art practices with an international perspective in Cali, Colombia. As an independent researcher, she has been an artist in residence at La Usurpadora (Puerto Colombia), Bisagra (Lima), Tlatelolco Central (Mexico City), and Beta-Local (San Juan, Puerto Rico).
Adela Cardona is a “profesional en ver las maricaditas lindas de la vida” (professional in seeing the little beautiful things of life). She’s a universe made being that sometimes poses as a poet, a storyteller, a gatherer or Sustainability/ Social Impact Director. Her universe given gifts include an insane ear for music, as well as weaving words and people together. She’s now in the process of getting her MFA in Art + Social Practice at PSU, in Portland, Oregon.
As a Colombian-Lebanese, Autistic x ADHDer, Queer woman she is constantly inhabiting the borderlines and bringing her roots everywhere, to help other people flow with the rivers of their own stories. Her art touches on the themes of family, legacy, mental health, fashion, community storytelling, identity, creativity and sustainability.
The work she’s in the muddy middle of is The GrapeVine, a space to tell stories and inherit the skills of our ancestors, alive, dead or nature being. She’s also in the process of making a series about neurodivergent people and wanting to develop spaces to tackle decay and grief. She has a thousand ideas on her mind at a time.
She’s the co-founder of an Open Mic called Mujeres No Graciosas, that has held the stories of more than 2000 women and LGBTQ+ people, since 2018. She’s also the producer and host of the podcast of latinx creators, La Bombillera. She has written articles in both English and Spanish on topics ranging from Alzeheimers disease to drag culture and sustainable fashion. Her journalistic work can be seen in magazines and portals such as Bacánika, Eco-Stylist, Malpensante and her own Medium. Her poetry can be read, heard and seen at the IG: oceanasoyyo.
What Does Safety Mean to You?
“If you don’t have the actual police force on the street, but you have privatized security, that’s still having a police state. I mean, the uniform is different. The ability to do certain things or enforce certain things are different, but the emotional feeling, the response that you get in the immediate, positive or negative, from the people that are seeing it, it’s the same.”
– Damian Bunting
When I moved to Portland this fall, I was immediately struck by the number of private security guards. Outside the Burgerville, the CVS, the shops downtown–they all had their guy (usually a guy) at the front door. While doing anti-surveillance work in New Orleans for a few years, I came upon the term “security theater”, used to describe the way the guise of things like cameras, uniformed officers, and the presence of policing allegedly add to the feeling of safety in a place, if not actually reducing harm. In fact, the root of the word “security”, transitioning from Latin “se cura” to English around the 16th century, literally means the absence of anxiety – not the presence of safety. I saw security guards as another prop in the theater of safety, and I was curious how they understood their role.
While researching private security in Portland, I came across Portland security guard Damian Bunting’s YouTube channel. He recorded and posted his day-to-day interactions, handing out cigarettes and pointing people to resources while on duty. I don’t believe that more police and surveillance make people safe, yet I was intrigued by the way he seemed to be an outreach worker as well as a security guard. I reached out to Damian and he graciously agreed to discuss with me the state of private security and policing in Portland, his vision of safety, and how change happens. I felt engaged but challenged while conversing about a topic that the two of us see differently–there are many things I wish I would have asked that I felt unable to at the time, and also many points of connection and agreement. I hope to speak with him again. This interview has been compiled from two separate conversations and edited for length and clarity.
Lou Blumberg: What kind of security do you do? What are your hours?
Damian Bunting: I do all kinds, everything from retail to patrol, anything from your run of the mill security all the way to a very law enforcement-esque type of security, which is what I’m doing right now. When I worked retail downtown, the shifts were 16 hour shifts. We would start at 7am and we would get off at 11pm.
Lou: That’s wild.
Damian: Yeah. I’m currently working for a company where I’m doing 12 hour shifts, generally 6am to 6pm.
Lou: That’s still a pretty long day. I’m really curious about your YouTube channel because, as I mentioned, I’m studying art and social practice and I see your YouTube channel as a work of art, in many ways. I wonder if you see it that way. What drove you to create that? It’s such a wealth of information and it’s so prolific. It looks like you post at least a couple times a week, right? I’m curious about that and about what drove you to share your experiences.
Damian: The reason why I started it is because I really enjoy what I do. When I would talk to other security guards, especially people who are working in a completely different capacity, maybe they’re just sitting in a parking lot at some sort of shack or something or maybe they’re handing out passes or keys or something like that, they’re not doing a lot of the stuff that we’re doing here in Portland. They felt really inadequate about what they were doing, and they would say, “I’m going to try and get a job with the police department so that I can do more.” Most people were working in security because either they didn’t have anything else to do or they just needed a job at the moment and they fell into it. And I heard that and thought, what a waste! Because so many people are good at security, and here in Portland, we have 30,000 of us, we have a huge, powerful voting bloc and a powerful aspect of the workforce, but no one gives security guards a voice. No one thinks of private security guards as first responders, even though they are. No one gives any credit or credence to what we do. Most people think of security guards like Paul Blart and they make fun of them and they make fun of the industry.
I wanted people to know, what you do matters. What you bring to the table is important. And the only way to do that was to highlight it. So I’m like, I’m going to start doing that. It’s been received well. And I hope that it gives people a little bit of pride in the industry, which is ultimately the goal.
The company I’m with, we’re working on a concept for a show. We’re talking about all the stuff that you and I are talking about right now on the street. It’s almost like an episode of Cops where I’m interacting with people on the street. I think that we have a great opportunity to kind of change people’s approach to doing security.
Lou: How did you get into the security field to begin with?
Damian: I was in the military. I did six years in the Air Force, and I’ve worked in various aspects of law enforcement. But to be quite honest with you, in a nutshell, how I interact with people like you saw on my YouTube channel and why you reached out, that more compassionate approach I take…that was not something that law enforcement wanted over the last twenty years. I worked in a county jail, I worked in a state prison. In every area where I worked, I was told, “Hey, you’re not these people’s friends. You’re not here to hear about their problems. If they don’t want to listen, you make them.” Every time that I got myself involved in a law enforcement position, it didn’t feel right. Because that’s just not who I am.
I tell people private security’s like being a nurse as opposed to being a doctor. You have a direct impact. You’re the one that’s there when something happens. You’re the one that’s there in the moment that people need help. And I don’t like politics and bureaucracy when it comes to helping people. I really don’t appreciate the fact that law enforcement officers, whenever they feel that they are being slighted or that people are asking too much of them, they can withhold service. And that happens here in Portland. During the whole George Floyd situation, they just stopped responding. They didn’t like [the progressive prosecutor Mike] Schmidt, they didn’t like [progressive city commissioner Jo Ann] Hardesty, and so the police took the stance, “if you want to criticize us and not give us more resources, then we just won’t respond and we’ll see how you guys like it.” That’s why private security exploded, because ultimately the people said, “we’ll just hire a private company to come out and deal with it and we don’t have to be involved in politics.”
Lou: It’s interesting to hear you mention that private security ballooned during the beginning of the pandemic and the George Floyd protests. I wonder sometimes if private security is more palatable to people in the city than regular law enforcement because of those protests.
Damian: When the George Floyd protest started, and the calls for transparency and accountability were getting louder, we saw a lot of police departments across the country who took their ball and went home, instead of them taking that bull by the horns and saying, “let’s hit reset and let’s change the way that we’re doing things.” So when you ask the question is private security more palatable, it is. Here in Portland, there are certain places where they say, look, we have to address the homeless issue, we have to address the mental illness issue, but we don’t want people showing up with guns and dealing with that issue. They can hire a private security company and say part of our contract with you, no firearms. And the private security company goes, not a problem. Here in Portland we have 3,000 police officers and we have 30,000 security guards. [author’s note: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there are 12,800 security guards and 881 police officers in Portland.]
Lou: Wow! That’s a big difference. I wonder if you see your role as also kind of social worker or community liaison. What do you think the role of a security guard is when interfacing with the severe homeless crisis in Portland?
Damian: Portland is so specific. You have so many competing demographics. You have the nonprofit industry. You have those who are suffering from homelessness and that demographic. You have the mental illness issue. You have drug addiction. And then on top of that, you have activism and intellectualism. So there’s all of these different dynamics.
It’s much easier, with the dangers and the problems we have here, to train a security guard up to a base level of outreach than to go in the reverse and take someone who is in the mental health field and train them up to a base level of situational awareness with the violent things that happen here. I think that the company I’m working for started off like most security companies–they were more of an enforcement model. They took a special forces approach to addressing situations. In order to address a lot of the issues overseas they have a hearts and mind concept where, when you embed in a certain area, you have to understand the people that you’re dealing with. You have to understand what they’re going through, understand their religion, understand their politics. And by embedding with that demographic and having an understanding of who you’re around, you can better reach them from a more compassionate place to try and change things. And that’s the model that they created in Old Town Portland. So private security here in Portland does more than a vast majority of law enforcement agencies in middle and small town America. I was up for hire in a small town in Missouri, and it would have taken me 15 years working for that police department to see the number of homicides, overdoses, the types of mental illness and mental health crisis that we deal with on the street in Old Town. And we’re seeing that all the time here in Portland as security guards. It makes it a necessity that private security evolves and develops into something more, given the issues that people are experiencing here in Portland and how that’s connected to all of these different demographics.
Lou: So what is safety in your ideal world? What does that look like for you?
Damian: I mean, that’s kind of a hard question to answer. I don’t foresee anything getting better in terms of there being less of a need for security in Portland. I think that if anything, it’ll get more privatized and more niche, like we were talking about before, how everyone can kind of tailor their service to what they want to see. If people don’t want a more dystopian police state… if we’re being honest, you don’t have the actual police force on the street, but you have privatized security, that’s still having a police state. I mean, the uniform is different. The ability to do certain things or enforce certain things are different, but the emotional feeling, the response that you get in the immediate, positive or negative, from the people that are seeing it, it’s the same.
So, in order to get away from that, in a perfect world, a lot of things would have to change. Number one, this esoteric idealism that we have in Portland where people want to facilitate a utopian type of existence, we need to realize that’s not necessarily feasible. Because you can have the greatest of ideas; we want everyone to live together and get along and we won’t have to worry about carbon emissions and everybody’s eating clean. But you know, people have free will and it’s America and you have free choice. So it’s going to always be very difficult to get people to push in the right direction. One of the things that makes America so great is the fact that everybody can be an individual. So, I don’t know that anything would really change here. I don’t think people here want to require more accountability and responsibility from people. So I don’t really see it changing.
Lou: Yeah. I guess there’s a philosophical question here about free will and what it means to live in a society together. And I wonder, do you think it’s even possible for there to not be property crime anymore or for there not to be homeless people anymore, if everyone got their needs met? Do you feel like those are just going to be facts of life?
Damian: It’s going to be facts of life because you’re going to always have bad people. And when I say bad people, I don’t mean the homeless are bad people. I just mean in general, there’s going to always be people that have evil intentions. There’s going to always be people that take advantage of a good situation or the system. There’s going to always be the people that are self-serving. So even in a society where there’s very little crime, I mean, you could find a city where there’s almost no crime. There’s still some crime, right? But the more you take the guardrails off in society, the more open you are to crime.
So like, for instance, if you say that no matter what drug of choice you want to use, you’re free to use it. If you take that guardrail off, then the people that want to use drugs all the time are going to be in this area. But it doesn’t just stop with that because someone has to supply the drugs. So that opens up an opportunity for the cartel. Once the cartel is here, now you have people fighting over turf. That creates an opportunity for gangs. Well, someone’s got to supply the guns. So now people that supply illegal firearms are now in the mix. There’s all of these things that happen in the periphery of a decision to just take the prosecution away from drugs. And it’s the same thing with homelessness. If you say, look, a person has a right to exist how they want. And if they want to live on the street, they can. Well, there’s a lot of things that come with it. There’s going to be sex trafficking and all kinds of other issues that are on the periphery.
Lou: I have an idealist side of me that imagines that if people were well taken care of, if people could find good jobs that paid them enough and places to live that were affordable, places that they weren’t getting priced out of, that having those basic things would solve a lot of the issues that people have of feeling unsafe or the property crimes. But maybe we see differently on that.
Damian: I think that that mentality and that idealism, it’s commendable, but it doesn’t align with a lot of different things. Number one, we live in a capitalist society. In order to just make that happen, you have to have a place where the people can go. You have to have the ability to facilitate the building and the maintenance of those areas. And all of that has to be paid for by someone.
And even with that, if you could get all of that to work out, at some point someone’s ideal of what they want might exceed what they’re able to get. And when that person thinks, “I’m working a job where I’m making $25 an hour and I’m able to pay for this one bedroom apartment. And from the idealist perspective, this is good for me. But now I want more. In order for me to get more, I have to make $35 an hour.” So now that person has broken out of that idealistic environment because they have the desire to achieve more. They’re going to want to do something different. And so that’s going to cause strife or problems.
Lou: How do you know when you have enough? How do you know when you’ve “made it” or when you feel satisfied?
Damian: You know, I grew up in Arkansas. My parents went to segregated schools. They came up under Jim Crow, literally eating in the back of restaurants, riding in the back of the bus, sitting in segregated areas. So I went into the military first out of high school. I never got my college degree. From the time that I graduated high school up until say 2016, the most I had ever made per year was probably $50,000. I have a couple of friends from high school who are famous Hollywood actors. Watching their success and seeing them on the runway and talking to them and hearing about the life that they lead, I always thought to myself, “Man, I wish I had more money. If I could just make $100,000 I would feel so proud of myself and my life would change.” In 2020 I moved here and 2021 was the first year I made over $100,000. I made that hundred grand and I was so excited, and then the next year I made close to $160,000, so I was like, “I’ve made it.” Well, I bought a house which is in a really bad neighborhood, with inflation and cost of living that’s what I could get. There’s drug addicts on my street, people literally camping right outside my door. I have not had one day–and I mean this with all sincerity–I’ve not had one single solitary day of peace in my house since I moved in.
Lou: That sucks.
Damian: I was much happier when I was in Missouri. I was paying $600 a month for a 1200 square foot apartment that had two full bathrooms, two full bedrooms, and a deck. It was amazing. I was making $35-40,000 a year. My wife and I went out every weekend. We ate out almost every night. My life was so much better! I think to answer your question, it’s not about how much you make, it’s about where you live, it’s about your experiences, the people that you have around you, what kind of job you’re doing, right?
Lou: That’s super hard to achieve your dream and then be like, “actually this isn’t as great as I thought it was gonna be.” Do you ever think about moving back or doing something different?
Damian: Yeah I mean, I really like security but I definitely think that my future is not in Portland. I’m getting older. I think in a perfect world I would live somewhere down South. I’ll be 50 in four years. I want to spend the next 25 years waiting for my grandkids to be born and just being grandpa and just living and being happy. But I do think I’ve never really been happy anywhere. I have social anxiety, I have depression. I don’t know that I’ve ever or will ever find a place where I’m really content.
Lou: I hard relate to that. This kind of makes me think back to my idealism and the importance of having imagination. I’m thinking about your parents growing up in Jim Crow–could they even have imagined what was possible for you or for their grandkids? I like to believe that if we’re able to imagine something better like we can we can get there one day. My family is Jewish, so I’m descended from people who were, generations back, kicked out of their homes. I don’t know if my ancestors could have even imagined what’s happening for me today. I like to think about that in terms of what the future could look like. We might not even know what’s possible.
Damian: And you have the ability to shape that, that’s what’s so amazing. Think about what your family came from and what my family came from. Think about where we could go.
Damian Bunting (he/him) is a Portland-area armed security officer, second amendment advocate, and digital training instructor looking to educate, motivate, and influence dialogue and communication.
Lou Blumberg (they/them) 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. They’d like to mediate your next conflict.
