“It was important to me that whether it be through our softball games or these events we planned, we spread joy.” -Rose Bond
A central part of my work is exploring queer history, learning from elders, and finding and sharing stories that may otherwise be lost. So when Cayla McGrail invited me to an event they were planning meant to encourage elder lesbians in Portland to consider archiving their personal collections, I saw it as a great opportunity to make connections with a community I was interested in working with and learning from.
At the event, I met Rose, who shared that she’d been a part of the Lavender Menace softball team in the 1970s and had a large collection of material from that time in her life. I approached her later to ask if she might be interested in sharing more about that experience with me. She agreed, and invited me over to her apartment to share tea, stories, and photos.
Olivia DelGandio: Can you tell me a bit about your coming out experience?
Rose Bond: Well, I didn’t think I was gay but I did have this friendly neighbor who seemed to know everything like gay bars and gaydar. She said she could walk downtown and guess who was gay. I was like “what? how?”
Olivia: You were in this queer relationship but didn’t think you were gay?
Rose: No, I could appreciate or be attracted to people regardless of gender but I didn’t have the vocabulary. I thought I’d marry a really nice guy and be a really good parent. Maybe I wasn’t very self-reflective, but there really weren’t many women I was attracted to. I went to an all girls high school and nothing was sparked there, so, you know.
Olivia: How did you meet this woman?
Rose: I moved in next door to her during college. It was a crummy apartment down by Portland State and just randomly, our two apartments were joined by a balcony. It didn’t take very long to start.
Olivia: That’s funny, I met my partner in pretty much the same way.
Rose: And did you know you were a lesbian?
Olivia: I think I felt similarly to you. I didn’t really have any lesbian representation growing up so I didn’t know what was quite possible.
Rose: Yeah, pretty similar. At the time I was working this work study job where I’d make posters and go around and put them up on campus so I always knew what events were going on around Portland State. At some point my boss, Carol, who knew I was gay, sent me out to get this alternative newspaper but I think it was a ploy on her part. I took the paper home when I saw that the centerfold was about gay liberation and women. It was written by someone named Holly Hart. She was sharing info about a gay liberation group and threw out a bunch of names of people that were meeting next to discuss these topics. Turned out she made all of the names up just to get people interested and come to the meeting. My girlfriend said we should go and I said, “whoa, I don’t know if I’m just gay. I think I’m just having a good time with you.” So anyway, we both went over to this little house in Southeast Portland, and that was the first gay liberation meeting. There were about seven women present, none of which were the names from the article.
Olivia: That’s so funny. How did things go after that first meeting?
Rose: Well after that, we had regular meetings. We’d meet at a coffeehouse called the 9th Street Exit in
Centenary Wilbur Church. We started to really get to know each other and go out to these lesbian
centered bars. It was your typical butch femme scene. I had long black hair and I was wearing tie dye
and bellbottoms. I could play pool really well and the older dykes were sort of like “what are you?”
They didn’t know what to make of a long haired butch. Roles were so de
ned as butch or femme. I
was intent on not being put into a box. I wanted women’s identities to exist in a wider range.
Olivia: When did you finally admit that you were gay and not just having a good time with this girlfriend?
Rose: It was during that time of gay liberation and having girlfriend after girlfriend that I was like oh, there’s a gender thing happening here.
Olivia: What else was going on at that time?
Rose: We started a softball team called the Lavender Menace. [Rose shows a photo] This was our first team. We sang and made a performance out of our games. We would take pop songs and change the lyrics to make them girl friendly. I saw it as a sort of political theater.
The Lavender Menace softball team projected at one of the team member’s home, early 1970s, photo taken by Olivia DelGandio, courtesy of the team collection.
Olivia: Were the majority of you lesbians?
Rose: All of us were.
Olivia: Wow. And what year was that?
Rose: The first team started in ‘73, I think.
Olivia: How old were you at the time?
Rose: Early twenties. We would go around regionally, up to Bellingham or Mount Vernon and we were totally out, we were the only ones wearing long pants. Everybody else was wearing shorts, you know, just because that’s what girls did.
Olivia: Do you think most other teams were queer?
Rose: A lot were, but they weren’t out.
Olivia: Interesting. How did you get involved with the team in the first place?
Rose: My girlfriend at the time, Clarice, was an organizer.
Olivia: Had you played ball before?
Rose: I played in Catholic school and then I went to St Mary’s Academy where I played sports until I was a junior. After that, I became kind of anti-sports until joining the Lavender Menace.
Olivia: Were you guys good?
Rose: The first year we weren’t that good but the second year we got good. Some women felt like they couldn’t play because maybe they were married to a guy or had a job they couldn’t risk losing or a family that wouldn’t approve. But we were like a magnet, we brought so much joy to every game, every tournament. We would go out in these small towns, in places like Mount Vernon, Washington, and we would dance. And everyone there would dance with us. We spread joy.
Olivia: What did your family think?
Rose: My mom would say, “you know, I had a girlfriend, too.” She probably could hit both ways, but she also really liked men.
Olivia: That’s so funny. So your mom had to be totally fine with it because she got it.
Rose: Plus there were nine kids, so it didn’t really matter, right? They had enough to worry about.
Olivia: That’s great. So all of this came out of gay liberation and then the bar scene?
Rose: Yes. There would be one popular lesbian bar and then it would go out of business and another would open and that’s where we’d all go. There was one perennial bartender that would go from place to place with us.
Olivia: I wish I could experience that. It feels so different from the bar scene now. I feel like there are so many gay bars for men but not a lot of lesbian options. Rose: It was great and I would meet so many people that way. We did a lot of events and readings and such. I used my art experience to make the posters to advertise what we were doing. I was also part of putting together a women’s film festival. That was cool because we got to really dig into film and find the women directors, I mean we really had to dig.
Rose’s collection of posters and materials from events held during the Gay Liberation movement in Portland in the 70s, photo taken by Olivia DelGandio at Rose’s home
Olivia: When was that? Rose: That was when I was starting to make films in the early 80s. I had met women through film, most of them were straight but they were feminists and wanted to see more women represented in art so that’s how the Women’s Eye View festival started. It was important to me that whether it be through our softball games or these events we planned, we spread joy.
Rose Bond (she/her) is an animator and media artist who has been honored with numerous awards and fellowships from prestigious agencies such as the American Film Institute, The Princess Grace Foundation, Bloomberg L.P., and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2013 Bond presented her animated installation, Intra Muros, on the Media Façade of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Croatia. She is currently working on a proposed media installation for the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building.
“While when I was young I gave myself the grace to spend a lot of time alone as a way of self-discovery working and taking photographs, it is also true that there is another type of loneliness that comes with age and is hard on a different level. The older you get it is more difficult to move to a place and make friends and that is another layer to the experience of loneliness that you can experience in your life.”
-Marcus Muccianti
Midwesterner in the Northwest. This is the most accurate description of Marcus Mucciante, a former environmental scientist from Chicago who left everything behind to start a new chapter of his life in Portland through the practice of photography.
What would a person from Chicago and I, a Costa Rican person, have in common? probably not much at first glance. But with Marcus, our paths crossed to discover a story of loneliness, self-discovery, and the practice of photography as a way to connect with others and with oneself. This is about unlikely friendships and photography.
He’s now one of my best friends in America. He feels like a very serious person. Lives in Northwest Portland. I am playful and silly, while Marcus has a serious demeanor and is from a cold, windy place.
Manfred Parales: Interviewing a friend can be a fascinating experience but also wow, what did you think when I told you, Marcus, it’s time to make your story a piece of art, I’m going to interview you. What was going through your head?
Marcus Muccianti: I was wondering what this was for? What was it about? Why did you choose me? I always have my own conclusions on why somebody does what they’re doing then I tried to think of a flurry of the questions that you’re going to ask me.
Manfred: Chicago is where it all started. What was your life like there and how that shaped your personality.
Marcus: It definitely comes from my childhood so opening up has always been a hard thing for me. So, yeah, there’s gonna be a bit of a facade there.,, It took some time for me to warm up to people. I grew up in a suburb just west of Chicago called Oak Park. When I was whatever age it was, and I had enough money, I moved out to Chicago and I lived there until I moved here to Portland. I see the differences between Chicago and Portland, aesthetically it’s different, geography of the area is different. Now Chicago is a place that I can never see myself returning to, honestly. Now I do love living out in the Pacific Northwest.
Marcus and his father in the family home in the early 1980s. Photograph courtesy of Marcus Muccianti.
Manfred: I do love living out in the Pacific Northwest too. When was the first time that you heard about Portland? And why did you decide to move from Chicago to Portland?
Marcus: Honestly, the one memory I have of Portland is watching a TV show on our PBS network called Weird, it was like Weird Something, and they’d go across the country and find weird foods, and they had mentioned the donut shop Voodoo Donuts. I remember hearing about that like 10 or 15 years ago and saying I want to go out there. So, it piqued my interest about Portland but Portland wasn’t my first choice and it wasn’t the place I wanted to move to on the West coast. That was the Bay area.
I feel like I want to be a part of a gayborhood and an area that welcomed me. A place predominantly gay. You have the gay bars.I thought it’s like a very welcoming place and you don’t have to worry about being gay.
Marcus at college. mid 1990s. photography courtesy of Marcus Muccianti.
Manfred: Before coming to Portland did you try to live in any other place in the United States or abroad?
Marcus: No. Before moving to Portland I took about two weeks to visit both Portland and Seattle. And then after that I made my decision.
It made it a little bit easier because I did get a job offer here in Portland prior to moving. So I knew I had some financial stability moving here. Also I decided against Seattle because it felt a little too cosmopolitan. And I kind of wanted to get away from that, being from Chicago. So Portland had a totally different vibe than what I’m used to.
Manfred: One of the experiences when moving from one country to another, or in your case from the Midwest to the West Coast, is experiencing loneliness. How has your relationship with the experience of loneliness been when being new to a place?
Marcus: I moved here not knowing anybody. I did enjoy it in a way. I like having my solitude and exploring a new city on my own. That’s one of the reasons why I also didn’t move to Seattle. I was dating someone who lived in Seattle. I started dating him in Chicago, he moved to Seattle. When I was visiting both Portland and Seattle, he was there. I didn’t want his judgments to cloud where I wanted to move and how I felt about a city. I wanted to really kind of explore it on my own and make my own judgment calls on the city. There was a bit of loneliness in not knowing anyone but it allowed me also to explore on my own.
Self-portrait. 2020. Photography courtesy of Marcus Muccianti.
Manfred: The idea of your loneliness in a new city was something that empowered you. Was it an opportunity to bring to life a new phase of you?
Marcus: I was able to create my own experiences without somebody else clouding those for me or saying“Oh, this is what I love about this place because it reminds me of that.” I could experience those things on my own for the first time. I think I cherish those moments cause I didn’t have somebody else.
Manfred: In this process, what was something you learned, discovered or were surprised by during this new period of your life?
Marcus: Realizing how white Portland is when you’re here. I was in a restaurant in the Pearl District and I was looking out. I was eating alone. I was looking out and saw a black person walk by. That was my first understanding that Portland was a white city. That moment made me ask Why did I notice that just now? I didn’t think or know how white this city is compared to Chicago, which is more culturally and racially diverse than Portland and just now I noted. It made me wonder if instead of bringing more diversity to this city and just adding to the problem. It was a huge shock to me to find out that Portland is so white. Not as diverse as Chicago in that sense. Another thing that surprised me about Portland, in a more curious twist, was the amount of crows. The amount of crows in Portland is crazy.
Portland. 2021. Photography courtesy of Marcus Muccianti.
Manfred: Even though loneliness can be a means of empowerment there are times when it feels very heavy. How have you dealt with those moments?
Marcus: When those moments hit, that’s when I would go out in nature. Nature for me was a place where I can kind of gather my thoughts and be at peace where I was. I was particularly enjoying my new job here in Portland but it was really stressful and that was my only outlet.Getting in my car and going out into nature was something that helped me deal with that loneliness. Even though I was still physically alone in those moments I felt at peace being in nature.
Manfred: Talking about nature, there is an interesting intersection in your life where paths cross again. You studied environmental sciences but you have long dedicated yourself to photography, a path that we also share and which you have explored throughout the United States. What is the story behind that?
Marcus: My first job out of college was a contractor for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a lot of what I did was travel and do oversight for contaminated sites. These sites were kind of barren and abandoned areas typically. My photography was based on these interesting abandoned places.
Whenever I was on a job site and I was suited up with a mask or my air tank I always can visually see a photo in my mind. After I would take all of that off, I would kind of try and go back and get those photos. Photography has always excited me. It was something that I could see in my mind’s eye, a photograph.Sometimes it didn’t work but it’s something that has always been like a common thread throughout my life that I’ve really enjoyed. Wherever I am in my life, regardless if it’s happy or sad, photography is something that I can rely on. I bought my first camera in 1996 on a road trip to Toronto and I’ve been taking photos ever since. I have been taking photography for almost 30 years.
Utica, IL. 2006. Photography courtesy of Marcus Muccianti.
Manfred: Do you have any interesting stories about photography?
Marcus: Here’s an interesting fact. I was going through some of my parents’ cabinets. They have old documents from when my brother and I were kids. My mom also held on to a bunch of photos that my grandfather took. My grandfather also loved photography which I didn’t really know about until later in life.
He also visited a lot of the same places I did in Chicago, like some nature places just outside of the city. It’s nice to have that connection and maybe feel like it was some kind of artistic genetic thing. I own some of my grandfather’s cameras and Polaroids.
Manfred: After these years, what is your reflection on loneliness?
Marcus: While when I was young I gave myself the grace to spend a lot of time alone as a way of self-discovery working and taking photographs, it is also true that there is another type of loneliness that comes with age and is hard on a different level. The older you get it is more difficult to move to a place and make friends and that is another layer to the experience of loneliness that you can experience in your life.
Manfred: Speaking of expectations versus reality, what advice would you give young Marcus?
Marcus: The advice I give myself is to continue to reach out and make those connections. I think I was really flippant in thinking that the people who were reaching out were going to continue to reach out. I’ve lost those connections.Very recently I’ve started reaching back out to those people I originally made connections to, hoping to rekindle that. Understanding now that it was something I probably should have worked a little bit harder on. don’t take those moments for granted.
Washington State. 2023. Photography courtesy of Marcus Muccianti.
Manfred: If the Marcus of today could give any advice to the young Marcus 20 years ago, what advice would it be?
Marcus: Let’s start with gaining a smarter and better sense of self. I think moving away from my family lets me be who I truly am which can be scary too. After moving I lost friends in Chicago. It’s hard to keep that connection with long distance. It’s pretty difficult.
Manfred: By the way, did you ever try that place, Voodoo Donuts?
Marcus: It’s not that great. It’s probably my least favorite donut place here in Portland. I like Heavenly Donuts. I like the basics. I grew up with Dunkin Donuts so yeah, I like the basics.
Self-portrait in Oregon. 2022. Photography courtesy of Marcus Muccianti
Marcus Muccianti (his/him), a Midwesterner in the Pacific Northwest, embodies a unique convergence of scientific expertise and artistic expression. Originally from Chicago, IL, Marcus’s journey led him to Portland. With over 8 years of dedicated experience in environmental protection and remediation, Marcus has established himself as a leader in the field. His academic foundation was laid at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Earth and Environmental Sciences, providing him with a robust understanding of the complexities of our natural world.
In addition to his scientific pursuits, Marcus has developed a passion for photography, exploring diverse genres such as landscape, portrait, architecture, and conceptual art. Through his lens, he combines scientific curiosity with artistic vision.
Currently, Marcus has focused on the real estate sector while continuing to pursue his photographic endeavors. He embraces every opportunity to wander into the landscapes of Oregon accompanied by his camera, documenting his vision of Oregon and the world.”
Manfred Parrales (his/him) In his interdisciplinary practice, Manfred often moves between art history, design, and social practice rather than conforming to traditional subject matter or individual expression of art. As a young Latino creator, he envisions art as a communal endeavor, transcending individual expression. He reimagines preconceived notions of art, constantly exploring new perspectives and creative avenues in a practice that embodies the idea of art as a catalyst for community engagement. This approach allows him to become an ‘accidental educator’, which ultimately makes his art practice an integration of art and life.
“I believe that workshops have a significant element of performing arts. It’s quite challenging because it involves interaction with the audience. It’s not just about following the script; you also have to adapt to the characters of the people who come. ”
– Daiya Aida
YCAM（山口情報芸術センター）は、2003年に地域の文化振興を目指して設立されました。メディアアートを中心とした施設で、教育や社会貢献を重視し、多彩なプログラムを提供しています。例えば、議論と身体実践を繰り返して新たなスポーツをつくる「スポーツハッカソン for Kids」や、調理とおいしさを科学的な視点でとらえる「COOKHACK」、現代社会や自身の身体感覚の理解を深められるものなど、興味深い内容が並んでいいます。会田大也氏はYCAMの立ち上げ当初から関わり、現在は学芸普及課長兼アーティスティックディレクターとして活躍しています。今回は、ワークショップを通じた教育プログラムについてお話を伺いました。
Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM) was established in 2003 with the aim of promoting local culture. As a facility focused on media art, it emphasizes education and social contributions, offering a diverse range of programs. For instance, there are fascinating concepts such as a “Sports Hackathon for Kids,” where new sports are created through repeated discussions and physical practice, “COOKHACK,” which approaches cooking and taste from a scientific perspective, and others that deepen our understanding of contemporary society and our own bodily sensations. Daiya Aida has been involved with YCAM since its inception and currently serves as the Director of Education and Outreach as well as the Artistic Director. In this interview, we discussed the educational programs conducted through workshops.
Exterior of YCAM, designed by Arata Isozaki. YCAM is launched as an open collaborative community and a new art center. (Courtesy of Yamaguchi Center of Arts and Media [YCAM])
Midori : YCAMでの教育プログラムは、どのように作られてきたのでしょうか？
How have educational programs at YCAM been developed?
Like in any city, I think media art isn’t something that people are familiar with. When you say you’re going to create a facility for media art, people are like, “What’s that?” and the locals think, “Something bizarre has arrived.”
So, I took what I had studied, such as “Media History” and “The Role of Media in the History of Science and Technology” and simplified it to what you could call “Media Literacy Education” in a flat way.
Specifically, it involved designing workshops and creating participatory programs, as well as educational lectures and such. That was the job, including those elements.
Midori : 対象は地元の人ですよね。
Your target audience is the local community, right?
For us, we didn’t see any meaning in narrowing down our audience. We thought it would be fine for people who came from far away to participate. As for age, we were prepared for really anyone of any age to participate. Media is a field that has emerged within a shorter span than a human lifetime. So when it comes to new technology, whether you’re a fourth grader or 60 years old, you’re starting to interact with it at the same time. Having life experience doesn’t necessarily give you an advantage. Midori : なるほど。確かに、むしろ逆ですよね。
I see. That makes sense, actually.
YCAMで11年働いた後、場所と目的は異なるにせよ、東京大学でもプログラムを作られたんですね。
After 11 years of working at YCAM, you created a program at the University of Tokyo as well?
My task at University of Tokyo Graduate School involved teaching doctoral students the theoretical aspects of creating workshops, having them actually create one, and then evaluating the content they developed. The broader goal is to nurture leaders who can operate internationally using ICT. This aims to equip individuals who have traditionally focused their studies and research in academic settings with the ability to implement their findings in society.
In the context of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the failure of Japanese robots during the fuel debris removal project contrasted sharply with the high utility of robots developed by the American DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). This discrepancy highlighted the difference between achieving results in controlled laboratory environments and producing work that is truly valuable in real-world scenarios. It was through this example that experts in robotics began advocating for the education of researchers capable of contributing meaningfully to society.
Midori: 学生たちは、どういう枠組みでワークショップに参加するんですか。
Who actually takes these workshop classes, and how are they structured?
The workshop courses I designed targeted a diverse range of students across 9 departments and 16 to 17 majors. We had students from various backgrounds, including those involved in robotics research, pure logic and mathematics, education, and even nursing. The goal was to incorporate workshops into their research papers as a form of societal implementation. My role was to teach them the fundamental structure of workshops and how to adapt them to their research, ensuring they could handle it themselves.
It was a unique group, and it’s hard to say how successful it was. However, I believe the students learned a lot about the challenges of implementing research outside their field. It’s not enough to run workshops they’ve designed on their own. My colleagues and I will evaluate based on the design and script provided. Should the submission fail to meet the specified standards, it must be resubmitted for further review.
Perhaps, but I’ve always believed that workshops require careful planning, similar to constructing a building or writing a comedy sketch. It’s important to understand the participants’ psychological state, manage timing, and ensure information is clearly communicated. This is why we emphasize a script writing practice, to help students visualize and implement the workshop flow effectively.
Midori : スクリプトがあると、逆にやりにくくなったりしませんか？
Does having a script make it difficult to deviate?
Teaching how to balance between following and deviating from the script was part of my job. In reality, those who don’t prepare a script often struggle more.
Even if they manage to do it, they often can’t finish within the allotted time. It’s not good for a workshop planned for three hours to stretch into four or five, as participants have other commitments. Having hands-on experience allows us to insert impactful phrases at the right moments. If you run out of time to deliver your punchline, it defeats the purpose of the workshop.
Thus, time management is crucial. A script helps you adjust; if you deviate for two minutes, you need to know how to compensate later. The aim isn’t to rigidly stick to a script like a cellphone store clerk, but to have a blueprint. Even if you stray from it, you can find your way back, offering a degree of freedom. That’s the purpose of scripting, and it’s something I wanted them to understand and utilize.
I think of it like a script for a play. It’s not that a play won’t be interesting if it doesn’t follow the script exactly. But when you have a framework, you can call in support members and give them instructions on what you need in the moment. Everyone can refer to the same script.
I also think that workshops have elements of drama. Like saying, “Let’s go with this kind of vibe this time,” or “Let’s play this character here.” (laughs)
I believe that workshops have a significant element of performing arts. It’s quite challenging because it involves interaction with the audience. It’s not just about following the script; you also have to adapt to the character of the people who come. That’s why having a solid framework helps to easily accommodate a broader range of participants than anticipated.
After serving for five years at the University of Tokyo Graduate School, you returned to YCAM. Before that, just for one year, you worked at the Aichi Triennale, which is held in Aichi Prefecture every three years since 2010, and is one of the largest international art festivals in Japan. How was that experience?
My interaction with the volunteers. The roots of volunteering in Aichi Prefecture trace back to the 2005 World Exposition, which inspired many citizens to volunteer. The Aichi Triennale had about 1,200 registered volunteers in 2019, forming a massive organization. It was fascinating to teach them about Visual Thinking Strategies.
Fram Kitagawa, a well-known art director for many incredible art festivals and Triennales in Japan, mentioned “While artists, artworks, and curators in festivals change rapidly, volunteers, or rather the residents, remain constant.” Daisuke Tsuda, Artistic Director for the Aichi Triennale, has mentioned and referred to this many times during the festival’s preparation period. I also strongly agree with this sentiment.
Visual Thinking (Strategy), is an art appreciation method developed for children at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It involves sharing the experience of enjoying artwork with others without prior knowledge of art or the piece itself. This fosters imagination, critical thinking skills, and improves communication abilities.
Even without full facilitation skills, having 1,200 volunteers aware of this methodology shifts from a one-way teaching approach. I felt that this could be a way to explore the possibility of an art festival where interactive dialogues unfold everywhere.
It might sound odd coming from someone who works at a media arts center, but to be honest, I’m not particularly interested in the preservation of the media arts genre itself. Of course, when considering the scope of human society, history, and the history of civilization, I do believe that media plays a crucial role and holds significant meaning. It is through media that humans have changed their methods of remembering and altered their approaches to politics. For example, considering what the Maya civilization, which lacked a writing system, was all about and what it meant, including such aspects, I think there’s a lot to be considered. It would be ideal to be able to depict these things, but it’s not something I can achieve alone. Whether art directly benefits society is debatable; it might end up being useful, but I’m skeptical about works created with that explicit purpose in mind. That’s my candid opinion.
The issue of “freedom of expression” was highlighted at the Aichi Triennale. I believe it’s relatively rare for artists to create their works with the intention of “serving society.” In my opinion, artists often create because they are compelled to, not because they want to serve a societal purpose.
However, when integrating these works into society, there’s a notion that they need to be “useful” in order for funds and energy to flow towards them. Museums and similar institutions play a role in designing how society and art connect, and how to create context for this connection.
From the 2019 Aichi Triennale website, that Mr. Aida was involved as the curator of educational programs. The “The Inconvenience of Expression Exhibition” which dealt with various social issues including hate speech and social taboos, faced an onslaught of protests, leading to its cancellation just three days after opening, on August 3. On October 8, after measures were taken to prevent crime and chaos, the exhibition reopened and remained open until the end of the Triennale on October 14. It was covered by the New York Times and the Biennale Foundation, among others, and attracted global attention as one of the defining art scenes of 2019.
As someone who originally is an artist, I do believe that an artist’s moment of expression can indeed be twisted by societal demands or be contextually misplaced as “I didn’t say that.” However ideally, it should happen as little as possible. My stance is that we should protect the space where artists can freely express what they think, say what they want to say, and showcase their expression.
For this, funding and opportunities for exhibition are necessary. Balancing the autonomy and independence of the artist’s expression while positioning it within society is what I consider my mission.
Daiya Aida was invited as an artist to the Sapporo Snow and Light Project held in 2018. In the photo from left to right are the invited artists: Liza Maria Bickel, Domas Schwarz, Daiya Aida, and Midori Yamanaka, who served as an interpreter during the artist talk.
Daiya Aida (he/him) is an artist, curator, and educator based in Japan. For 11 years since its opening in 2003, he has been responsible for education and outreach at the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM), overseeing the development and implementation of original workshops and educational content spanning media literacy and art education. Since 2014, he has served as an assistant professor at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, specializing in the Global Creative Leaders Program in Social ICT. Following his role as the Learning Curator for the Aichi Triennale 2019, he assumed the position of Artistic Director at YCAM in 2020.
山中 緑：日本生まれ、日本育ちのソーシャルプラクティスアーティストで教育者。現在は、オレゴン州ポートランドをベースに活動中。アートとしての国際交流やコミュニティでの協働における創造性の拡大を模索。多様な社会における学び合い／育ち合いを探求している。代表作には、日本の書道をベースに相互のインタラクションを生む“What is your name?”、コーチングメソッドを活用し、会話を記録した”Art of Conversation”など。アート センター カレッジ オブ デザインでグラフィック デザインの学士号を取得。現在はポートランド州立大学大学院にて、アートアンドソーシャルプラクティスを実践・研究。 https://www.midoriyamanaka.com/
Midori Yamanaka (she/her) is a social practice artist and educator born and raised in Japan, currently living and working in Portland, Oregon. Her practice explores expanding creativity in international exchange and community based collaboration. She explores mutual learning and growth in a diverse society. Her representative works include What is your Name?, which creates mutual interaction based on Japanese calligraphy, and Art of Conversation, which records conversations using coaching methods. She holds a BFA in Graphic Design from Art Center College of Design, and currently is studying and practicing Art and Social Practice at Portland State University.
“They weren’t budging. It’s easy to say teachers should sacrifice, but when the buildings are unsafe and students are suffering due to class sizes, it becomes clear that teachers are negotiating not just for themselves but for the learning conditions of the students.”
-Sophie von Rohr
Portland Teacher Strike, 2023.
Sophie, a substitute teacher at a Portland Public School, is a mutual friend of mine. Growing up in a family where both my mother and grandmother, along with her mother, were teachers, I was deeply influenced to pursue a degree in elementary school teaching. This familial connection has instilled in me a profound appreciation for the teaching profession. To me, it’s more than just a job; it’s a calling. The prospect of a dinner invitation from my friend sparked excitement, as I looked forward to delving into numerous questions with Sophie. This interview captures my initial meeting with Sophie, covering topics ranging from the nuances of the Pacific Northwest school system, the challenges confronting teachers, the laws and systems educators are advocating for, nostalgic reflections on our childhood school experiences, the dynamic changes in sex education, and for me, trying out couscous for the first time.
Simeen Anjum: introduce yourself and tell me about the class you teach?
Sophie von Rohr: Well, as a substitute teacher, I cover various subjects. Currently, I find myself in a rather interesting role as the long-term substitute for sex education. It was a bit unexpected; they needed someone for an extended period, and knowing me from a previous long-term assignment, they reached out. So, I arrived, and they informed me it’s sex ed. Surprisingly it’s been quite enjoyable. The students are mature enough that I can engage in playful banter without them taking it too seriously. If they were in middle school, it might be a different story.
Simeen: How do the students like this class?
Sophie: They find it amusing. Honestly, I think I’m the most uncomfortable one in the room. However, I use that discomfort as a gauge – if it’s not weird for me, then it can’t be weird for them. Plus, the curriculum is excellent. Unlike some of the sex ed experiences where we were shamed out of even thinking about sex, the public school curriculum here covers a lot of ground. It delves into science, identity, gender identity, consent, and various topics that make it easy to teach and teach well. The students seem to recognize the importance of what they’re learning, treating it more like a valuable lesson compared to other subjects I’ve taught. In classes like biology some students may not see the immediate relevance, thinking, “Why do I need to learn this?” With sex education, the connection to real-life situations, relationships, and personal well-being makes it more engaging for them.
Simeen: That’s great. I wonder how you ended up being a teacher. Was this always your plan?
Sophie: Well, you know, it’s funny how life takes unexpected turns. I have tried my hand at various jobs. I have a degree in literature which, unfortunately, didn’t open up many career paths. Someone suggested, “Why don’t you become a teacher?” Initially, I thought it was just advice given to those who are unsure about their career path however, during the onset of COVID, a unique opportunity arose. The principal of the school I attended in second grade, who is a friend of my mom’s, reached out. They needed substitute teachers, and she offered to guide me through the licensing process. At that time, I was back and forth between New Mexico and Oregon, living in both places during COVID. In New Mexico, the requirements for substitute teaching were significantly different. You essentially needed a GED or high school diploma, In Oregon you usually need a full teaching license. That’s how I got into it.
I had this idealistic notion that because schools were closed due to Covid and the various societal shifts happening during the pandemic, that there would be a push to invest public money in catching kids up when schools reopened. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. The reality has been disheartening. It seemed like a logical step at the time and looking back it’s one of those situations that almost brings me to tears. What seemed like an opportune moment was, in fact, one of the toughest chapters in education.
Sophie in their classroom, 2021
Simeen: Can you tell me more about what it is like being a teacher in America? And here in Oregon?
Sophie: I don’t believe the compensation aligns with the demands, especially considering the requirement for a graduate degree. When you factor in the costs of obtaining that degree and compare it to the entry-level teaching salary it raises concerns. Admittedly, my perspective is more localized and not nationwide. Transitioning from roles like farmer, barista, and seamstress; the prospect of a teacher’s salary seemed appealing. However, reality quickly set in. Despite earning more, the expenses associated with the profession, such as insurance, taxes, and union dues, significantly reduce the take-home pay. Beyond the financial aspect, the sheer number of work hours is a major concern. In my experience, working 80 hours a week was overwhelming and led to exhaustion and burnout. While my situation might be an extreme case, it highlights the unrealistic expectations placed on teachers.
Moreover, the challenges extend beyond financial and time commitments. The expectations on teachers have become disconnected from reality with many not fully grasping the complexities of the profession. Post-COVID desocialization and the erasure of norms around school behavior have added new layers of difficulty. Issues addressed during the strike included not just pay but also the rising cost of living. The unpredictably long duration of the strike, lasting a month, has had an unbelievable impact, resulting in a significant loss of school time.
Simeen: I remember the strike. My coworker’s kids’ school was shut down because of the teachers’ protests and she would instead give them homework in the house. Instead of a traditional school timetable, she created a home school timetable for the kids that also included different chores around the house and taking the dog out. It was very creative. Can you tell me more about the strike? What was it about?
Sophie: The protest aimed to push the district into addressing various issues, such as maintaining our school buildings; ensuring they are well-maintained and safe. There’s a need for funding in different areas. For instance, we advocated for class size caps; urging the district to establish limits on the number of students in a single class. That was the ultimate thing that the district just couldn’t agree upon. That seemed like the hardest issue.
Simeen: What is the maximum class size?
Sophie: I have no idea. It’s a critical question—how many kids are they willing to cram into a classroom? The union would propose a range of potential solutions, and the district would counter with a theoretical plan that appeared outrageously expensive and impractical, creating the illusion of an impossible situation. It seemed absurd to present a solution that wasn’t feasible. I wasn’t in the room during these negotiations, but it felt like they were playing games. Part of the eye-opening aspect was witnessing their willingness to let our schools and students fail. Their lack of urgency shocked me.
They weren’t budging. It’s easy to say teachers should sacrifice. But when the buildings are unsafe and students are suffering due to class sizes it becomes clear that teachers are negotiating not just for themselves but for the learning conditions of the students.
Simeen: I am curious. What do you mean by learning conditions?
Sophie: Well it’s mainly about the old buildings that require maintenance. There are numerous issues. I recall early in the strike one of the requests which didn’t get resolved was the union asking the district to ensure school buildings are between 60 and 90 degrees. Which in itself is a huge range. If a building exceeded 90 degrees or dropped below 60 degrees, classes would have to be canceled.
The district refused to agree citing concerns about potentially having to close school buildings. The reality is if school buildings are over 90 degrees, classes should be canceled. Issues like this highlight that these buildings are not conducive to learning or working. In the middle school where I worked ceiling tiles would frequently fall down and there were issues with rats. It’s stuff that you can live with, but it’s not great. And this is just one of the many bigger issues.
Simeen: That is really an important issue. You were talking about how the students have become desocialized. Do you think about the difference between now and when you were in school? What was the relationship between you and your teachers and how are things different now in school?
Portland Teacher Strike, 2023
Sophie: It’s interesting to compare my own school experience with what my students are going through. I attended private schools and my experience in school doesn’t compare at all with what the kids I teach are dealing with. But one thing I always say is that kids nowadays will go to school and then skip class and hang out in the hall. Then when you catch them in the hall and they’re just like “I don’t care”. Like you know what I mean? When I was a kid, when kids skipped school, they would go somewhere else. We wouldn’t just stand there in front of the adults and say “Hey I’m not going to class”.
Simeen: Right, even back in my school days, if we bunked classes we would be scared of getting caught by adults.
Sophie:There’s also a noticeable amount of trauma among students today. I don’t see as much of it in Portland Public Schools due to the various avenues and opportunities available. There’s all these cultural clubs and after school programs, different opportunities for kids to be with other kids and get involved and stuff. I feel that we kind of have a big window on the world out here. Teaching in rural New Mexico exposed me to students dealing with challenges beyond what I had been trained for as a teacher. Many were dealing with issues like substance abuse, the loss of their parents or other family members and a lack of exposure to the world outside their small town. During COVID, this was really magnified as these students were already in isolated situations. I had several kids that attempted to commit suicide that year, it was just a lot. It was a lot of things.
Artworks by Sophie’s Students (7th & 8th grade), 2021
Simeen: For me, as someone still learning American values, there’s this idea of being professional, maintaining personal boundaries at work, not getting too involved. But I guess for you as a teacher, especially in situations like these, sometimes you need to break those boundaries. I am sure that it does get personal for you at times, right?
Sophie: I’m still navigating that. As a teacher, you do find yourself in situations where things get really personal. I’ve improved with practice and being in a more supportive environment. It’s not like being the sole person dealing with everything; there are support systems in place. In Portland Public Schools, despite its issues, there is a structure that provides relative safety for kids. In the rural school I worked at, the situation was more desperate due to a lack of resources. Like there would be just this one teacher who happens to be the only person there with no training as a psychologist or a crisis counselor or anything.
In this community, kids were also receiving a lot of pretty oppressive messaging about race and gender at home which can sometimes manifest in the classroom. But I don’t see kids perpetuating the same kind of hate speech and racism in Portland. It doesn’t seem like it’s “cool” to be racist in Portland. In the other school that I worked atI heard kids explicitly say that they thought racism was cool.
Simeen: That totally makes sense. Children certainly get influenced by whatever is happening in society. I recall a similar situation in India, where the current political climate is getting increasingly majoritarian and authoritarian. In the news, there are divisive narratives based on religion, normalizing hate speech and violence targeted at minorities. In his classroom he had put up a copy of the preamble of the Indian constitution which states that India is a ‘Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic’, and to his surprise he found that one day the word secular had been crossed out on the poster.
Sophie: It’s quite complex that the children in that class not only engage in hate speech but also understand the meaning of the word “secular” enough to purposefully cross it out.
Simeen: True. Because they are surrounded by discussions and debates on TV challenging the word secular in the Indian constitution and presenting secularism as something that is ‘harmful’ for the country.
Sophie: That’s also why I mentioned whether racism is perceived as ‘cool’ or not because in different communities what you hear and what you believe is acceptable to say aligns with what your friends and parents express. In some places kids might openly admit to being racist and consider it acceptable. However, in Portland, you wouldn’t hear kids saying that. It’s because of the influences kids receive from their parents, teachers, and friends are very different here
Simeen: I agree.
So, speaking about cool and uncool, if you had the superpower, what is one uncool thing that you would like to make cool for your students, and one cool thing that you really wish was uncool?
Sophie: I really wish TikTok was less cool. The trends are so addictive. I wish they would make it so much less cool. Sometimes I’ll tease my students into putting their phones away.I try to win them over by saying, “Oh I’m addicted to my phone too”. Grappling with phone addiction at school is an ongoing conversation. But if I had the superpower to make the phones less cool I definitely would.
And I wish it would be cool to be more honest and vulnerable. But I guess teenagers are just always going to probably be how they are. It’s like you can’t show your true self. Especially when I am talking about sex-ed in class, I say let’s have a conversation about this, you know? Like, what do you think? They’re just like, “I don’t care”.
Simeen: Make it cool to care?
Sophie: That’s kind of what I think. Yeah, maybe care about this for a second, see what happens, you know? That would be really cool. Make caring cool again!
Simeen’s first couscous, made and shared with Sophie after this interview. Portland, OR. 2024
Simeen is a social practice artist originally from New Delhi, India. She recently made Portland city her new home where she is pursuing her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) as a candidate in the Art+Social Practice program at Portland State University.
Sophie is a substitute teacher working for the Portland Public School district, currently doing a stint as a sex education teacher. They are interested in consent and care-based teaching and believe that the classroom is a relational experiment and a place where social transformation may actually still be possible. They are also a union socialist who is committed to creating healthy, joyful working conditions themself and all education workers!
“Everyday I’m serving 500 meals! Everybody’s gonna love the orange chicken tomorrow…”
– Ms. Ruby Sims
The school lunch calendar lived front and center on my family’s fridge when I was growing up and it was the only way to mark time that mattered to me. The school lunch calendar always gave me something to look forward to. Sure, it might be creamed turkey day today, but there was always another chicken nugget and mashed potato day right around the corner.
As a lifelong “hot lunch” kid, I remember with fondness the wafting smell of lunch preparation snaking around the hallways of my elementary school. It was a smell of anticipation and of the comfort, consistency, and community to come. I always felt school lunch got a bad reputation. In cartoons and movies, I watched in horror as characters were robotically served sludge by nameless women in an assembly line. That wasn’t the school lunch experience I knew. Lunch was the best part of the day and the cafeteria staff was a big part of that.
That’s why I was so thrilled to meet Ms. Ruby Sims, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School’s beloved lunch lady. Ms. Ruby has a warmth and playfulness that instantly makes you feel a sense of belonging within the school community. This welcoming energy meant a lot to me as I had recently moved to Portland and begun working with King School third grader LayLay Crane through the King School Museum of Contemporary Art (KSMoCA) mentorship program. On a dreary Monday morning LayLay and I sat down to chat with Ms. Ruby, but inside the Cafetorium on grilled cheese and tomato soup day it was just as cozy as I remembered.
Ms. Ruby during lunch service at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School. Portland, OR, 2024. Photo courtesy of Clara Harlow.
LayLay: What jobs have you had?
Ms. Ruby: Okay, how much time do you have? I’ve been in food service for about 30 years, but in different aspects. I’ve managed restaurants and worked at coffee shops and bakeries. I was a police officer when I was in my mid 20s in Dayton, Ohio for about three years, but then I got out of it and started pursuing my passion, which is really cooking.
LayLay: What’s your favorite food to make?
Ms. Ruby: My specialty is baked goods. I love creating cakes. My grandchildren have put me to the test making cakes. They’ll come up with a flavor and challenge me to make it, so I love doing that. I’ve been baking probably since I was like 12.
Clara Harlow: Wow, what are some of the flavors your grandkids have come up with?
Ms. Ruby: One flavor was strawberries and cream because I preserve and make my own strawberry filling. I make a silver white cake with cream cheese frosting and strawberry filling – that’s my Strawberry Queen. I have a Blackberry Dream too. That’s a good cake for a wedding or something. I start with a silver white cake and I preserve the blackberries. I cook them and then I put them through a sieve to take all the seeds out so it’s a satiny kind of feeling. Then that goes in between the cakes with cream cheese frosting because that’s my favorite. Clara: Yeah me too.
Cafetorium at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School. Portland, OR, 2024. Photo courtesy of Clara Harlow.
LayLay: What’s your favorite part about working at King School?
Ms. Ruby: My very favorite part is lunch service. I get to see all the kids coming through the line and everybody recognizes me and I can act silly if I want to, like sing along in the line or sing “Happy Birthday” if it’s a kid’s birthday. Have I sung “Happy Birthday” to you yet? When’s your birthday LayLay?
LayLay: October 19.
Ms. Ruby: Oh, I missed it, I missed it!
LayLay: Well, when I was in KSMoCA on my birthday, I did tell basically everybody in the cafeteria that it was my birthday and you said Happy birthday.
Ms. Ruby: Oh, okay.
Clara: And you know, you have a half birthday coming up.
LayLay: I do?
Clara: Yeah, in April
Ms. Ruby: Well okay, we might be doing something for that half birthday!
LayLay: Yeah, that sounds good.
Paper doll drawing of Ms. Ruby by LayLay. Portland, OR, 2024.
Ms. Ruby: Yeah I just love seeing all the kids and getting them excited about trying new vegetables. We have a new vegetable that we put out every month called the Harvest of the Month. This month we’re doing root vegetables. So we had carrots, turnips, rutabaga and sweet potatoes roasted together. I thought it was good but you know, I couldn’t get the kids to try that.
LayLay: I remember the brussel sprouts.
Ms. Ruby: Oh the brussel sprouts, those are coming.
LayLay: I like the flavor, but they were too soggy.
Ms. Ruby: Oh, were they? I like to make mine crispy, but you must have lunch later in the day, huh?
LayLay: What’s your family like?
Ms. Ruby: I’m the eighth child out of 11 children, so it’s a large family. I was born in Tennessee and then we moved to Ohio. When I was like 33 I moved out here. My family is so large I kind of needed a break. I needed to spread my wings and get away from family a little bit, but I miss them a lot. Lots of cousins. And then I have two children and I have five grandchildren.
LayLay: What did you want to be when you were a kid?
Ms. Ruby: So when I was in school, I always wanted to be a fashion designer. I wanted to go into business and have a tall fashion shop because I experienced a lot of problems with the new fashions that were coming out that were too short for me, so I started sewing. All through eighth grade and high school, I made my own clothes.
Clara: Wow that’s so cool.
Ms. Ruby: I want to get back into that with my grandchildren after I retire this year. I want to get back into some of the things that we used to love to do.
LayLay: Okay, who’s your favorite to work with in the cafeteria?
Ms. Ruby: Oh there are so many, I wish I could pick all of them!
LayLay: You could, you could pick all of them.
Ms. Ruby: I like my staff that I’m working with now, but Shavonte is my absolute favorite. She’s in there right now making grilled cheese sandwiches for us to have for lunch today. She’s the one who serves the hot foods when you come in, she’s the first one that you see. Take a look in there, she’s making sandwiches right now, and then you’ll know who Shavonte is.
[LayLay leaves to go meet Shavonte]
Clara: So you grew up in Dayton, Ohio? My dad used to go there for work when I was little. He works for the National Park Service and they had a Wright Brothers site in Dayton, Ohio. I think they grew up there.
Ms. Ruby: Let me tell you something, I was a park ranger before I was a police officer.
Clara: Oh really?
Ms. Ruby: Yes. I worked as a park ranger before I was a police officer. Then they were kind of phasing out the park rangers and that’s how I got into being a police.
Clara: Oh, you have had a lot of jobs!
Ms. Ruby: I’m not gonna be without employment. You know, I’m very creative and good at coming up with things to do.
[LayLay comes back from the lunch line]
Ms. Ruby: Did you meet her? Did you introduce yourself?
LayLay: No, I just told her you said she’s your favorite and asked if she felt special and she said a little bit.
Ms. Ruby: It’s a lot of work sometimes, so it’s hard to feel special in it. There is a lot of work, but she is the absolute best. I mean, she gets it done and we’re friends.
LayLay interviewing Ms. Ruby. Portland, OR, 2024. Photo courtesy of Clara Harlow.
LayLay: How much food do you make in a day here?
Ms. Ruby: Oh my goodness, that’s a good question. Let’s see, we serve three meals a day because we do after school meals, about 200 breakfasts, 240 lunches, and 60 after school meals. So how much is that?
LayLay: 200 plus 240, so 440.
Ms. Ruby: Plus 60 for after school.
LayLay: 500!
Ms. Ruby: So, everyday I’m serving 500 meals! Everybody’s gonna love the orange chicken tomorrow…
Clara: Is that the most popular food at the school?
Ms. Ruby: Orange chicken and popcorn chicken.
LayLay: My friend says you grab the chicken from Panda Express and put it on a plate and you make the rice.
Ms. Ruby: No, I don’t grab anything from anywhere else. I put our lasagna together and make like 10 pans of that. I don’t get anything from a restaurant, not even the pizzas. We make pizzas every Thursday. A lot of them, it takes about 30 pizzas to feed the whole school.
Ms. Ruby in action during lunch service at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School. Portland, OR, 2024. Photo courtesy of Clara Harlow.
LayLay: So who’s your favorite custodian?
Ms. Ruby Sims: I think Earl is my favorite custodian. I’ve known Earl for the longest and he’s so personable and he likes my baked goods. He’s always asking for cookies. I make treats sometimes and bring him some.
LayLay: Okay, who’s your second favorite custodian?
Ms. Ruby: Well, he’s not here anymore. You probably don’t remember him, they called him Mr. Steve and he retired. He was at King school for about 35 years.
Clara: Wow, how long have you been at King School?
Ms. Ruby: I’ve been here for 13 years.
Clara: Whoa!
Ms. Ruby: Yeah, yeah and I’m glad I’m here because I love this school.
Clara: What do you love about it?
Ms. Ruby: I love interacting with the kids, it’s just so fulfilling when they strike up a conversation with me or want to know about something and just getting to be silly with them. You know, being everybody’s grandmother.
Ms. Ruby Sims (she/her) is the Nutrition Service Lead at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School. She’s worked at King School for 13 years and will retire at the end of the 2023 – 2024 school year. She looks forward to the many more baking and sewing projects with her grandkids to come.
Malaya “LayLay” Crane (she/her) is in Ms. Moog’s 3rd grade class at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in Northeast Portland. She likes basketball, the color pink, and her favorite school lunch is orange chicken. She was Clara’s mentee at the King School of Contemporary Art in Winter 2024.
Clara Harlow (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and preschool teacher from Omaha, Nebraska. Her work operates as an invitation into themes of intimacy, play, and alternative ways of measuring time through experiential events and interactive objects. You can most likely find her at the local swimming pool or making pigs in a blanket for her next themed party.
“Archives are where our stories are created. They are how we understand our own past, how we understand and connect with each other today, and the basis for how we foresee the future.”
– Samip Mallick
My family has a sizable collection of road trip photos taken shortly after my parents immigrated to the United States in the 80’s. If ever there were a house fire, these photos would be the first thing I would grab. In these aged film photographs my Southeast Asian family are often the only people of color in sight. As I grow older, I realize that the preciousness of these photos is partly due to the rarity of seeing a family of color boldly stake their claim to leisure on the open road. Despite personal experiences with road trips that I and many other families of color share, an overwhelmingly white narrative continues to dominate the idea of who gets to freely travel America’s roads.
This disconnect between road trip reality and myth is precisely what prompted Samip Mallick to start the Road Trips Project. This archive shares submitted photos and stories of South Asian Americans on road trips. Accompanying the often sunny photos is a map of the route taken by the individual or family, along with memories of the trip. Clicking through the thoughtfully compiled archive brings me right back to the feeling I get upon looking at my own family road trip photos–a deep sense of nostalgia and hope for the road trip canon to be reframed around images like these instead of the whitewashed version of American travel familiar in the media. To understand his motivation in creating this specific and incredibly important archive, I spoke to Samip to learn about the origins of the Road Trips Project and the importance of archiving the South Asian American community.
Radhika Balakrishnan with her father, mother, cousin, and two brothers on a family road trip from Chicago to Orlando in July 1972. This image is part of SAADA’s Road Trips Project, Photo courtesy of Radhika Balakrishnan.
Nina Vichayapai: To start, could you give a background on what the South Asian American Digital Archives (SAADA) is?
Samip Malick: SAADA is an organization that works to create a space of belonging for South Asian Americans: a community of more than 6 million people that has typically been overlooked and excluded from the American story.
We do our work by collecting, preserving, and sharing stories of South Asian Americans, stories that date back for hundreds of years, and that help South Asian Americans to recognize themselves as an essential part of the American story and to write South Asian Americans into the American story as well.
Nina: One of those storytelling projects is the Road Trips Project. How did the Road Trips Project begin?
Samip: The Road Trips Project was inspired by a tragic incident that took place in 2017. Two Indian immigrants in Kansas were at a bar having a drink after work one day, and a white man walked into the bar and shot them. He killed one of them, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, and seriously injured the other, Alok Madasani. Before shooting them, he said, “Go back to your country.” That refrain, “go back to your country,” is one that many immigrants of color hear, often before some act of bigotry or violence is done against them.
The Road Trips Project works to interrogate what it means to feel othered or foreign in a country that either you’re born and brought up in, or that you made your home by choice. And it really helps to think about what it means to be able to travel across one’s own country, safely and without fear of harassment or intimidation or violence.
The Road Trips Project shares stories, joyful stories, of South Asian Americans traveling across all 50 states of the United States. In doing so, it helps to reframe an American tradition, the tradition of the road trip, which claims that Americans should be able to get in their car and drive across the country at any point, and really helps us think about what that means for communities that have been excluded from that narrative, and that have also been targeted or excluded from being able to feel safe in country they call home.
Nina: Do you have a favorite story or moment that came out of this project?
Samip: One that sticks out in my mind is a story of someone who was traveling in the American South who walked into a bar, expecting the kind of othering or response that I was describing, but ultimately found themselves incredibly welcomed in that situation. There are stories that go against the narratives or stereotypes that one might feel but that really, ultimately, are about acts of bravery—the bravery to claim this country as one’s own.
Nina: Can you explain more about what goes into managing this particular project? How are stories collected, mapped, and shared?
Samip: People submit stories and photographs of themselves traveling on road trips across the country. Typically, they’ll submit a photograph and along with that photograph, they’ll share where they started the road trip, what their destination was, where and when the photograph was taken, who they are with on the road trip, and an anecdote or a story either about that particular location or about the road trip as a whole.
These photographs are often dripping with a kind of nostalgia—they have this sepia tone or colors that are so reminiscent of the 80s and 90s. The stories are also reflective of people’s memories and their occasions with their family or their friends or even on their own. All these stories are aggregated and shared online through the Road Trips Project website.
Nina: What does the Road Trips Project mean to you? What do you think is the value in offering this project to the world?
Samip: I think the value of the Road Trips Project is to help people really think about the freedoms that they take for granted: the freedom to travel in your own country and what that means, and how that freedom is determined by things as fundamental as your gender identity, the color of your skin, where you were born, or how you speak. To think about who is excluded from those particular freedoms and about how to make them more inclusive, how to make sure that the stories that we tell about ourselves in our history are inclusive of people that are otherwise excluded from them. By creating this project, our hope was really to reframe a fundamental American mythology and tradition. When you hear about stories like Jack Kerouac’s writings about traveling across the country, or so many others, those stories are not typically of immigrant communities, communities of color, or South Asian Americans. Through offering the Road Trips Project, our effort is to help write South Asian Americans into that story.
Nina: Through the work that you’ve done over the last 15 years, can you share why archives are important to the South Asian American community?
Samip: Archives are where our stories are created. They are how we understand our own past, how we understand and connect with each other today, and the basis for how we foresee the future. For a community like the South Asian American community that hasn’t been typically reflected or represented in archives, has meant that those three things have been missing for us. I think archives have been fundamentally important for us to really see our own past, present, and future but also, more importantly than that, understand how we are a community to begin with, and how we connect with one another.
Samip Mallick (he/him) is the co-founder and executive director of the South Asian American Digital Archives (SAADA), which he has guided from its inception in 2008 to its place today as a national leader in community-based storytelling. Mallick’s background includes degrees in computer science and library and information sciences and work related to international migration and South Asia for the Social Science Research Council and University of Chicago. Mallick currently serves on the Library of Congress Connecting Communities Digital Initiative advisory board. He also previously served as an archival consultant for the Ford Foundation’s Reclaiming the Border Narrative initiative and on the Pennsylvania Governor’s Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs.
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.
Image from Adela Cardona’s interview with Limei Lai. “From her installation, Expectations. Wire and thread container, with participants crafted objects about their expectations. Courtesy of Limei Lai.“
Something that seems to connect us all as artists is our ability to bring our own personal histories and experiences into our work. This ensures that no two of our practices are the same; each is based on a unique perspectives,
This collection of interviews explores the people, places, and projects that have had an impact on our own practices.
Many of us have found our own families to be sources of knowledge and inspiration, alum and current students alike. Multiple alumni have done projects with their families over the years such as Salty Xi Jie Ng’s ongoing project, Grandparents Residency, which she describes as “Creating a myriad of experiments with grandparents as site, I explore coming-to terms with their mortality.” In the current issue, Gilian Rappaport interviews their aunt about her art practice and Luz Blumenfeld talks to their mom about the parallels between her work in psychoanalysis to their art practice and Olivia DelGandio speaks with her dad to channel her dead grandma.
Several students chose to interview artists they admire in this issue. Clara Harlow talks to artist Ross Carvill about his illustration practice and Adela Cardona interviews Limei Lai, a multidisciplinary artist and curator.
Last fall, we dedicated an entire journal issue to interviews with program alumni and even when that isn’t the case, our relationship with program alumni stays strong. This fall, Nina Vichayapai interviews alum Amanda Leigh Evans about her project, The Living School of Art.
Manfred Parrales chose to speak with another student, Midori Yamanaka about their shared experiences, and she reached out to the founder of an artist residency program in Japan. Our connections reach far and wide.
Each term, each issue of this journal, we get the opportunity to gain insight into our own practices by sharing space and time with others in the interview format. While we see many connections between interview subjects throughout the years, no two are the same. We hope you enjoy the latest issue of the Social Forms of Art Journal.
Sincerely,
Your SoFA Journal Editors: Luz Blumenfeld and Olivia DelGandio
“[Loneliness] is a crucial aspect of self-discovery and understanding others’ pain. To those experiencing loneliness, it’s okay to feel that way, and remember, you are not alone.”
-Midori Yamanaka
Two years back, I kicked off this artsy journey, saying goodbye to sunny/tropical home San José, Costa Rica, and diving into the weirdness of Portland, OR. Since then, it’s been a mix of experiences, about art and personal discoveries. In the middle of it all, I have been learning that even in intense experiences, you’re never truly alone.
Being in the Art and Social Practice program at Portland State University is not just about art lessons for me. It has been a chance to connect with cool people from all over the world, people I wouldn’t have met otherwise.
Now, I’m excited to share a chat with Midori Yamaka, a Japanese artist and coincidentally, my cohort classmate for this art journey. We’re diving into our shared experiences– from navigating life as artists and immigrants in the United States to unraveling Portland’s weirdness. Our chat touches on loneliness, the powerful impact of socially engaged art, and the quirkiness ethos “Keep Portland Weird” vibe.
This interview isn’t just a chat between a Costa Rican and a Japanese artist; it’s a journey into how Sapporo and San José found a cultural exchange in the heart of Portland, Oregon. Join us as we explore the ties between our diverse backgrounds.
Manfred Parrales: Midori, your artistic journey has taken you from Japan to Los Angeles, and now to Portland. Can you share a bit about the cultural influences that have shaped your artistic identity?
Midori Yamanaka: Hello! Indeed, my life has been a fascinating tapestry of cultural experiences. Growing up in Japan, studying in Los Angeles, and now residing in the eclectic city of Portland, have all played a significant role in shaping my artistic perspective. Each place has contributed a unique hue to the canvas of my creativity.
Midori at a workshop in Japan. 2016. Photo courtesy of Midori Yamanaka
Manfred: The transition from Japan to the United States must have brought culture shock. Could you share a specific moment that stood out during this transformative period?
Midori: Absolutely. One of the most surprising cultural shocks occurred in the restroom. In Japan, there’s a sense of privacy and discretion in such spaces. The openness in the United States, where people don’t mind the sounds, was a notable departure from the cultural norms I grew up with.
Manfred: Your practice is deeply rooted in social art. For those unfamiliar with social practice, how would you define it? How do you define your approach to art and social practice, particularly within the dynamic context of Portland?
Midori: I define art and social practice as the newest form of contemporary art that engages with ordinary and extraordinary aspects of our society and lives. Living in Portland has been incredibly inspiring for my social art practice. The city’s social awareness, progressive culture, and vibrant communities align seamlessly with my passion for cultural exchanges and education. Discovering the field of Art and Social Practice was a revelation, providing a fitting framework for my endeavors.
Midori in her second year in Portland, 2019. She was learning about creative reuse at ScrapPDX. Photo courtesy of Midori Yamanaka
Manfred: Portland is known for embracing weirdness. How has this unique aspect of the city influenced your creative process?
Midori: I adore the “Keep Portland Weird” ethos. It encourages creative freedom and self-expression. Portland’s acceptance of individuality resonates with me, fostering an environment where being true to oneself is celebrated rather than stigmatized.
Manfred: Loneliness is a universal experience, especially for international artists or immigrants in general. How did you navigate moments of loneliness, and what advice would you offer to others going through similar emotions?
Midori: Loneliness was a significant part of my early years in the US. Initially, I employed the survival skill of ignoring it, but eventually, I realized the importance of facing and overcoming it. It’s a crucial aspect of self-discovery and understanding others’ pain. To those experiencing loneliness, it’s okay to feel that way, and remember, you are not alone.
Midori with her daughter. Photo courtesy of Midori Yamanaka
Manfred: “Keep Portland Weird” is more than a slogan; it seems like a way of life here in Portland. Can you share a particularly quirky or strange encounter you’ve had in Portland?
Midori: One of the charmingly weird aspects of Portland is its unpredictability. I embrace the uniqueness of the city, where what may seem weird to others is just another thread in the colorful tapestry of Portland life.
Manfred: Let’s delve into these cross-cultural impressions further. When it comes to Japan, the association with order, pristine spaces, and a strong work ethic is vivid. The precision and dedication of Japanese art, like that of Rei Kawakubo, indeed commands great respect to me. There are generalized ideas of what we believe about other countries or cultures, what ideas come to your head when you hear Costa Rica or Latin America in a more general idea?
Midori: Believe it or not, I have had the opportunity to be in Mexico and Brazil. When I think of Latin America, I think of happy people, dancing, eating, and having friends over. It’s a very positive image.
Midori with her daughter. Photo courtesy of Midori Yamanaka
Manfred: Looking ahead, what do you envision for the future of your art practice, and what challenges do you foresee?
Midori: The future is an open canvas for me. I am currently happy with the opportunities Portland has provided, and while uncertainties exist, I’m open to change and excited about potential opportunities. The world is changing rapidly, and I look forward to embracing the shifts and evolving with them.
Midori with her daughter in Portland. 2021. Photo courtesy of Midori Yamanaka
Manfred Parrales and Midori Yamanaka on the set of this interview. 2023. Photo courtesy of Manfred Parrales
Midori Yamanaka (she/her) is a Socially Engaged Designer. Midori has been exploring who she is and how to make herself and the world better. Midori thinks that It would be great if you can come across and work together. She is excited to hear your stories and your dreams. She would be very happy to help you with your challenges and share what she has. She thinks that together, we can make our world better.
Manfred Parrales (he/him) is an artist with a passion for design, art history, and social practice. Born in San Jan Jose, Costa Rica he is pursuing MFA studies in Art and Social Practice at Portland State University.
He is a passionate art enthusiast, driven by the desire to communicate and educate through the language of art. His artistic journey involves crafting innovative solutions for art communication, immersive experiences, and multicultural dialogues. Utilizing the tools of video, photography, and art history, he shapes conversations around art as potent social instruments. His expertise extends to contributions to education and cultural institutions across the United States and Latin America. For him, the core of art lies in the ability to communicate through and by art.
“Knowledge is held in communities and in our bodies.”
-Amanda Leigh Evans
My dad has worked as a mechanic for over forty years. Growing up, it was a common sight to look out the window to see him laboring with precision and care over our many aged but well-loved and maintained cars. In addition to being a mechanic, he oil paints, cooks Thai food, and helps my mom run our family restaurant.
So when Amanda Leigh Evans said, “Knowledge is held in communities and in our bodies,” I immediately understood what she meant. Amanda was shaped by her own roots from a working class family when she set out to create a program during a five year artist residency at an East Portland apartment complex. Interested in tapping into the vast knowledge that her neighbors there possessed, Amanda started The Living School of Art to connect neighbors in the sharing of their skills with one another. There, acts of neighborliness led the way for creating community gardens, laundry room art galleries, programs for kids and adults, and so much more. In my search for models of education happening outside of traditional academia, models which recognize the knowledge held by people like my dad, I am drawn to Amanda’s work. I spoke with her to understand the myriad of influences and support that went into The Living School of Art.
Nina Vichayapai: Could you start with an overview of what The Living School of Art was?
Amanda Leigh Evans:The Living School of Art came out of this five year artist residency that I was offered in an affordable housing apartment community in East Portland. When I was in the PSU Art and Social Practice program, I had a friend who worked at Zenger Farm, which is a nonprofit community farm in East Portland. That friend, Krysta Williams, ran a teaching chef program for women who are immigrants and chefs. The women would use produce from the farm to teach workshops on recipes that they were experts on. It was a really beautiful multilingual experience. In 2015, Krysta and I wrote an application for a Precipice Fund grant through PICA (Portland Institute of Contemporary Art) to work with some of the women from the chef program to develop a series of meal-artworks about building connection across age and language and culture.
In that project, called The Global Table, Krysta and I worked with three chef collaborators. Farida from North Africa, Blanca from El Salvador, and Paula from Oaxaca in Mexico. The five of us collectively designed a series of meals over the course of several months. Each of us invited our family and friends and asked that they commit to multiple meals together. We grew as a community by sharing these meals together. The group was an intimate group of around 20 participants, which ranged from children to elders
Our very last meal was a public event during the Art and Social Practice’s annual art conference called Assembly. Lots of people came to that event who hadn’t come to the more intimate dinners. A woman named Jessica Preboski was in town for Assembly and she attended the event. She was part of a nonprofit in Southern California called Community Engagement, which worked with affordable housing communities to develop artists residency programs in Santa Ana, CA and Phoenix, AZ. I was familiar with this residency program because I had a friend who was an artist in residence at an affordable housing community in Santa Ana. I often thought about that residency program while going through my MFA and wanted to apply to it when I finished my degree. When I was young, like in middle school and high school, I dreamt of creating an art school in my community and involving my neighbors in that process. This dream is what led me to eventually become an artist.
Nina: What a serendipitous encounter. What came out of that meeting?
Amanda: Jessica came to our last dinner at Zenger Farm. She had been working with an affordable housing community in East Portland that wanted an artist residency. Zenger Farm is very close to the apartment complex where I ended up being an artist in residence. Neighbors at this apartment complex really liked gardening, food, and cooking. They were also very interested in engaging crafts-based practices, which is part of my background since I work in ceramics. After the meal, Jessica asked me to apply to be an artist in residence at the apartment complex.
Nina: What was your initial reaction to the opportunity?
Amanda: I was really excited about the possibility, but I also felt conflicted. While I do share some similar backgrounds to many of the neighbors in the apartment complex because I grew up in a diverse working class community, I am not an immigrant. And many of the neighbors in the apartment complex are immigrants or refugees. The apartment complex is composed of families primarily from Nepal, Somalia, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Mexico, Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Bosnia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and more. Additionally, there are many single, older white people who have disabilities living in the complex. What is shared among all neighbors is an income-level under which they had to qualify in order to be granted access to this affordable housing.
When Jessica invited me to apply, I thought, “Am I the right person for this work with my lack of ability to relate to those experiences?” So I originally responded to Jessica with a list of other artists that I felt could be a better great fit. And then a few months later, Jessica came back to me and she was like, “We really want you specifically to apply, will you apply?” And so I did, and the five subsequent years I spent developing The Living School of Art were some of the most beautiful and fulfilling years of my life.
When I applied to Community Engagement’s artist residency, the framework was quite loose. I was provided housing, a stipend, and a small budget for supplies. Originally, they asked me to be an artist in residence and to live and work in the apartment complex for one year, but I ended up being an artist in residence for five years total. It was very open ended. At the beginning, I asked my neighbors, “What do you want to do with this opportunity? We have a space that we can use as an art studio, we have some funding for supplies, and we have time together.” The structure for The Living School of Art emerged from the responses that the neighbors gave.
Nina: That’s fascinating. And it sounds like such a serendipitous encounter that evolved from the seed that was planted in you way prior to that meeting. I’d love to know more about what your influences were in deciding how to structure the school.
Amanda: It was definitely a combination of influences. As an undergrad, I studied sociology and community development, as well as art. I became interested in forms like Participatory Action Research and community-initiated practices. I’m also really interested in artists like Rick Lowe, who has been committed to Project Row Houses for nearly 30 years now. Rick Lowe has worked in a row house community in the third ward in Houston on artist-driven projects for many years. It’s also a collaboration with single mothers. Some of the houses are devoted to artist residencies and exhibition spaces. I admire his commitment to one place and one community for such a long time.
I’m also inspired by artists like Mierle Laderman Ukeles for that reason, because she has been committed to a specific practice and community for decades. I really admire that commitment and am interested in what happens in the slow unfolding of a relationship over decades.
However, I would say the artist who has had the biggest impact on me is Theaster Gates. For one, I can relate to his background as an urban planner through my study of sociology. I like the way that he thinks about systems like housing and architectural spaces, including affordable housing. Additionally, Theaster Gates is also a craftsperson, specifically a ceramic artist, who values beautifully-made objects. The way that he thinks about ceramics and its history and potential for social connection has also been very inspiring to me. Lastly, Theaster Gates’ dad was a roofer. I also share that blue collar background. My dad has worked in construction since he was 16 years old, and he’s still working in it today at the age of 70. The way that Gates creates works that draw from his working class roots, from his dad’s craft-adjacent manual labor job, is something that I particularly identify with.
Beyond that, I’ve also been interested in various alternative art schools and artist collectives. All of those interests swirling around led to how I developed an approach to co-creating The Living School of Art, which began with a curiosity on what knowledge was held in our community. What topics were neighbors already experts on? What do people know well that they haven’t shared with other neighbors? How can we create a system that celebrates the knowledge held by our community that allows for people to share across age, language and culture? And what community interests haven’t been explored yet? What collaborative framework can we create that allows for intuitive creative exploration?
In addition, at this apartment complex, for over a decade a woman named Tia Bennett-Tveisme has run a very successful after school program and series of annual community events. So there was a foundation that I walked into because of her work. The Living School of Art was built on the foundation of Tia’s work (by the way, this Tia is not to be confused with Tia Kramer, who is now my collaborator in Walla Walla, WA and an alum of the PSU Art and Social Practice Program).
At many apartment complexes, the annual turnover rate in rentals is quite high, but in this particular complex, there are many families who have lived there for a decade or longer. Unfortunately, some of this changed during the pandemic, but this was true when I arrived. Anyway, what that meant was there were lots of kids who grew up together, who ride the bus every day together, who go to school together, and parents who watch each other’s kids on this playground that exists in the center of the complex. I came in with all these social structures already in place, but there wasn’t a forum for neighbors to share their knowledge or to be creative.
Nina: That’s amazing. To have those structures already be part of the community and the way that they are connecting with each other and the importance of building those connections over a long time. What was it like working with your neighbors? And what kinds of things did people teach each other?
Amanda: During the first year of my artist residency, The Living School of Art didn’t have a name. The name emerged around the one-year mark of the project as a way to define what we had organically started to do. Initially, working with the kids was an easy entry point into the community because they were so eager to make art.
One of the biggest resources that we had in the apartment complex was time. In some ways, it felt like we had infinite time because it was time at home. In the summer, the kids were around all day every day. And for adults, anytime someone wasn’t at work or at school, we had some time to do things together. Because the kids were around a lot, that led to a lot of initial experimentation and spur-of-the-moment activities.
Our first major project was a community garden built in a former swimming pool in the middle of the complex. The pool was bean-shaped and all of the cedar wood raised bed garden boxes were built to fit the contours of the pool. The garden is a really charming, unusual space. I think of it like earthwork. It really feels like a living artwork.
The bean-shaped community garden at The Living School of Art. Photo courtesy of Amanda Leigh Evans, 2017 in Portland, Oregon.
We also built a beautiful greenhouse out of recycled windows covered in paintings by the kids, which neighbors use annually to sprout seeds. Every spring, it’s filled to the brim with young tomato plants, which seem to be a favorite among neighbors. There’s this charming handmade quality to that garden space that exists in stark contrast to the banal, standard-issue apartment architecture surrounding it.
In addition to children and garden programs, there was also a weekly women’s program. Each week, while the kids were at school, a different mom would lead that group and teach something based on her creative practice. A lot of amazing cooking happened in that group and sharing of recipes. One week we did eyebrow threading, another week someone led a performance art activity that expressed the daily stresses and fears of deportation. Because the community was so diverse, that all led to a really great exchange in terms of food and craft-based practices and gardening practices from around the world.
Beyond that, there were many impromptu special events. We took a camping trip once. Several times we went kayaking. We’d go to art museums and artist studios. We were invited by the Portland Children’s Museum, Third Space Gallery and National to have exhibitions, which we planned and installed collectively.
We also had eight laundry rooms in the apartment complex. Each of those laundry rooms became a rotating exhibition space. This was work made by neighbors and rotated on a quarterly or annual basis. Much of that art remains in those spaces now. Our work also led to a short-term artist residency program that was funded by a Metro Creative Placemaking grant. We put out an open call for artists who had lived experience in affordable housing or lived experiences as immigrants or children of immigrants. Some of the application questions were written by youth. Two application questions were, “What is your favorite flavor of popsicle?” and “How do you define a rainbow?” Once applications were submitted, youth in the apartment complex reviewed the applications and voted for who they wanted to invite to be an artist in residence with us. Those artists then made public, permanent artwork in collaboration with the young people at the apartment complex, which still remains there to this day.
Most importantly, The Living School of Art was successful because it was built from a serious and intentional commitment to the role of “neighbor,” as an active, accountable, and public role in community. Most people in cities have neighbors, but often a neighbor is just someone who lives near you. There is no commitment or social contract among neighbors in the United States. Within this work, I was very serious about my role as a neighbor. To me, being a neighbor is an active commitment to a place and a community. Being a neighbor is a civic responsibility. The Living School of Art was possible because of a shared commitment to being neighbors. I lived in the apartment complex and I lived actively as a neighbor. Neighborly interactions were the glue that held everything together. There was lots of sharing of tea and coffee in living rooms, driving people to doctor’s appointments, helping someone file for unemployment, little gifts from the garden left on doorsteps, evening chats in the garden, random babysitting, teaching someone how to drive, helping someone move a couch, and so on. My life, my home and my work were deeply intertwined and I felt like, for better or worse, but mostly for better, I was deeply known, and with that knowing comes responsibility. And my neighbors also showed up for me in similar ways. This neighborliness was necessary in order to build the magic that emerged during making art together.
Nina: So, how has The Living School of Art shaped your ideas about education?
Amanda: I mentioned earlier that I grew up in a working class family. I was in the first generation of people in my family to go to college. My dad works in construction and my mom worked at a beauty salon. Both of those practices require attention to craft and aesthetics, and I learned these critical artistic skills from my parents. I didn’t go to an art museum until I was in college, yet I had decided to study art. Art museums weren’t places that were familiar to me when I was a young person. I came to art through domestic art practices and through art classes in public schools.
I am very interested in how class dynamics affect access and belonging in the field of visual art. Many neighbors at The Living School of Art have similar vocations to those of my parents. They work in healthcare, construction, food service, etc. Those jobs can be very creative! What scrappiness, creative problem solving, and ingenuity can emerge when people with those skills come together to make artistic projects? Often, that artwork is so much more interesting to me than work made by artists who have received abundant financial support and artistic training since birth. When I enter conventional art spaces, I often wonder “Who is this art space for? Who is its assumed public? Who feels a sense of belonging in this space? How does this affect our perception of value and cultural capital?”
In The Living School of Art, we made art with and for ourselves. Our community defined what artwork and art practices were important to us. What could art mean if we were defining it for ourselves? Knowledge is held in communities and in our bodies.
At the same time, I now have a master’s degree. I am formally trained in visual art and I am no longer working class. Using and sharing specialized training is a public responsibility to me. At some point, I realized my neighbors expected me to share my training as an artist, especially if I was asking other people to share their knowledge. At the beginning, I was diminishing this training and wasn’t sharing it. Then at some point I realized this is why I went through school. Like, if you’re on an airplane and someone’s having a medical emergency, you would expect any random passengers with medical expertise to use their training in that situation. My neighbors expected me to share my art knowledge.
By defining The Living School of Art as an alternative art school or as an artist collective, we were using both of those terms; our framework allowed for any neighbor to be an expert and to be a teacher. This led to anywhere from five year olds teaching classes to women who were retired teaching classes on things within their realm of expertise that you might not learn in a conventional art class.
Art in the twenty-first century is driven by conceptual frameworks rather than materials or techniques. Any type of practice can become a contemporary art practice. The Living School of Art is an artwork in and of itself, which created a framework for art practices to emerge. I think about John Dewey’s Art as Experience, but perhaps more importantly I think about craftspeople working together in communities in collaboration with each other for millenia. Some of the oldest ceramic objects are Jōmon pots from Japan, and it’s believed that those pots were made by communities of women. And so, the structure of The Living School of Art is radical because it pushes against contemporary educational structures, but it is also based on ancient frameworks because it draws from craft structures that have existed for over twenty-thousand years.
Nina: It seems like a lot of your work has involved being a facilitator through connecting people to the knowledge of those around you. I’m also curious since you practice ceramics, how did that fit into The Living School of Art? Or into your ideas in social practice overall which tends to be dematerialized?
Amanda: Yes, ceramics have influenced how I think. Historically, ceramic work, unlike painting, has been made in the community. Until recently, there has been no cost-effective way to make ceramic work alone, isolated in a studio. Ceramic artists share kilns and studio spaces, and more importantly, share embodied knowledge.
I have two small kilns and a wheel that I’ve purchased used over the years. We had those resources at The Living School of Art. My apartment was next door to a shared studio space where we would hold classes and gatherings and also just have open studio time. There were several neighbors who had keys– like teens who would come in and just use the space and other folks. Especially during the pandemic lockdown, ceramics were important because it was something really special that I could share that neighbors typically wouldn’t have access to.
If you’ve never had exposure to art making and you’re making it for this perceived general audience (as we sometimes did for exhibitions at off-site locations), I think it’s critically important to also have art in your home and to be living with it.
I think socially engaged art can be a really powerful way to approach artmaking because it expands perceived audiences and methods of collaboration. But I think social practice is assumed to be very dematerialized. However, the way that I approach social practice is in relationship to objects, contexts, and experiences. There have been plenty of valid critiques from socially engaged artists about the shortcomings of static, commercial art objects in a gallery. But that doesn’t mean that art objects are inherently evil, wrong, or dead. Social practice doesn’t have to be anti-object. I fell in love with art because I like to work with my hands; I like to build things with wood and with clay, and I work in design practices too. I love making things and I love eating from ceramic objects made by people who are important to me. And the joy of creating is something that I want to share with people. Creating beautiful objects for domestic spaces can be considered elite, but it is also a working class practice and I think everyone deserves to have access to that.
Nina: That’s amazing to hear as someone who makes objects and is trying to figure out what social practice looks like for me. I’ve felt a sense of needing to put object making on hold for social practice but so much of my joy comes from making and sharing art with others just like you described. You articulated beautifully what it can mean to make an object in a socially engaged way. Do you have any advice for anyone who wants to provide educational opportunities to people or youth outside of academia or traditional institutions?
Amanda: I think about Sister Corita Kent’s 10 Rules, which include, “Find a place you trust and try trusting it for a while.” What communities are you already part of? Who can you partner with? Who has been doing similar work?
All of the work that I’ve had the chance to do over my career has been in collaboration with other people who are also doing that work. There’s nothing that I’ve built from total scratch. Find the people who share your values and interests, and create something together.
Nina Vichayapai (she/her) uses fabric as a language to reveal how surroundings embody humankind. Her work explores physical spaces as expressions of the many people who shape them. Through hand stitched textiles she addresses the important role of homemaking in establishing belonging within the American landscape.
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.
Amanda Leigh Evans (she/her) is an artist, educator and cultivator investigating social and ecological interdependence. Her work manifests as ceramic objects, gardens, books, websites, videos, sculptures, and long-term collaborative systems. Her work is rooted in design thinking, research-based inquiry, and long term collaboration, often resulting in artwork that exists outside of traditional gallery spaces. For five years (2016-21), Evans was an artist-in-residence in an affordable housing complex in East Portland, where she collaborated with her neighbors to create The Living School of Art, an intergenerational alternative art school that centered the creative practices of their multilingual community. Before that, she was a collaborator with the LA Urban Rangers (2011-13) and Play the LA River (2013-15) on projects engaging the history, politics and ecology of the LA River. Currently, Evans is a Visiting Assistant Professor teaching ceramics and socially engaged art at Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA. She and her collaborator Tia Kramer are the DeepTime Collective, an artist collective developing When The River Becomes a Cloud (2022-25), a co-authored contemporary public artwork generated through a long-term artist residency at a Pre K-12th grade public school in rural Eastern Washington. Evans holds an MFA in Art and Social Practice from Portland State University and a Post-Bacc in Ceramics from Cal State Long Beach.
The Social Forms of Art (SoFA) Journal is a publication dedicated to supporting, documenting and contextualising social forms of art and its related fields and disciplines. Each issue of the Journal takes an eclectic look at the ways in which artists are engaging with communities, institutions and the public. The Journal supports and discusses projects that offer critique, commentary and context for a field that is active and expanding.
Created within the Portland State University Art & Social Practice Masters In Fine Arts. Program, SoFA Journal is now fully online.
Conversations on Everything is an expanding collection of interviews produced as part of SoFA Journal. Through the potent format of casual interviews as artistic research, insight is harvested from artists, curators, people of other fields and everyday humans. These conversations study social forms of art as a field that lives between and within both art and life.
SoFA Journal
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