Winter 2025
Letter from the Editor
Imagination, dreaming, creating new worlds–what’s possible when we are open to new ways of being? What happens when we make the thing that doesn’t exist, because we think the world would be better with that thing in it?
Many of our interviews this term talk about the worlds we’d rather be in. Worlds of care, respect, curiosity, and spas. Worlds that allow us to heal. Worlds that honor our pasts and our family traditions and worlds that can teach us new things. In a time when so many structures of our own world continue to break apart and harm, we turn to artists, chefs, community archivists, friends, soccer team founders, and our fellow classmates. These people have made their own visions of the world possible, in small ways and large, and we all get to benefit.
As we discover how to cultivate our own imaginings for better worlds through our practices, we find guidance through these honest conversations with each other. We hope that by inviting you to step into some of the different worlds we explore in this issue, that you might also discover new and more expansive ways of being in your own.
Your editors,
Nina Vichayapai, Lou Blumberg, Clara Harlow
Copy editing by Adela Cardona Puerta, Gwen Hoeffgen, Sarah Luu, and Dom Toliver
Cover by Sarah Luu
Copyleft: Art That Belongs to the People
“I used to put people like that on a pedestal, thinking they were doing these amazing things, but then I realized that I can do this too, anyone can do it. It’s accessible, and we can all create in ways that work for us.”
Ali Cat
Ali Cat is a printmaker and artist based in Portland, Oregon, whose work beautifully blends art and activism. A cultural worker and anarchist, Ali seeks to transform the tradition of printmaking, using it not only as an art form but also as a way of sharing ideas and making those ideas accessible to a wider audience. Their practice embraces the power of reproducibility—whether through risograph prints, clothing, tapestries, buttons, or banners—allowing the work to spread, resonate, and have a tangible impact. I’ve often seen Ali’s illustrations, particularly in the form of woodcut prints and buttons, being sold at various fundraisers for Gaza aid in the city since last year. What sets Ali apart is their commitment to making art that is freely available: on their website, you’ll find a collection of downloadable graphics that anyone can use, remix, and repurpose for their own creative projects. In this conversation, we dive into Ali’s approach to art and explore how it challenges traditional notions of ownership, value, and accessibility in the art world. We’ll also consider the question: Where do we want our art to exist in the world today?
Simeen Anjum: Ali, it seems like much of your work is deeply connected to the community, especially with pieces that can be used in protests and are sold in local businesses. Can you talk more about how your work exists and interacts with the city and the world around you?
Ali Cat: I come from a punk rock background, so I was always around political prints and that kind of art growing up. When I started learning printmaking, I was creating “copyleft” and anti-copyright pieces. It made me realize I could create art for the commons—pieces that others could access and print for themselves.
It’s been a balancing act of figuring out how to support myself in a capitalist system, while also giving away work and creating pieces that are free and accessible. It’s a reciprocal process—people support your work, and in turn, you’re trying to support them.
Simeen: What is “copyleft”? I am curious how that works.
Ali: “Copyleft” is a concept where I choose not to copyright my work. Instead, it’s shared under an open license, with some limitations. Essentially, no one can sell my work for profit—so, for instance, a company like Disney couldn’t take one of my pieces and use it commercially. However, people are free to use, share, and reproduce my work for non-commercial purposes. They can print it in a free zine, use it for a flyer, or incorporate it into a community project. The goal is to make the work part of the commons—accessible to everyone and used for the collective good, without the restrictions of traditional copyright.
Simeen: That’s really interesting—being thoughtful about how we want our work to exist in the world and be more “for” the people. How does an artist go about implementing something like “copyleft” in their practice, and what has that process looked like for you?
Ali: There are websites where you can specify what you’re allowing with your work. For example, some people might allow reproduction and sharing, but not printing. Others might restrict commercial use but leave everything else open. I actually learned about this concept and got inspired by zines and punk rock culture, where “copyleft” was already being practiced in literature and ephemera. In the art world, Justseeds is a good example of this. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with them.
They were really inspiring to me when I was in art school. I even interviewed one of their members, Roger Peets, who I admired for how they worked in the art world. We later both worked at a nonprofit print studio together, and I realized, “Oh, you’re just a person.” I used to put people like that on a pedestal, thinking they were doing these amazing things, but then I realized that I can do this too, anyone can do it. It’s accessible, and we can all create in ways that work for us.
Simeen: What are your thoughts on this idea of putting artists on pedestals? There’s often this mystification of artists, where they’re seen as distant or somehow better than others. How did you decide to approach things differently?
Ali: I’m an anarchist so I’m against hierarchies. Then I went to this fancy art school, and I quickly realized it was built to make people put each other on pedestals and feel like some were more important than others.
I remember during the tours for new students, I was asked what I thought about going to art school, and I said, “I don’t think anyone needs to go to art school to be an artist.” And That’s not the answer they wanted to hear.
I had to reconcile what I was learning in art school with my own beliefs and figure out what worked for me. It’s not that you can’t go to art school or get a degree and still be a radical artist—those aren’t mutually exclusive. But it’s something you have to unlearn or call out, and then do what feels right for you.
The idea of putting people on pedestals just feels strange to me, and I try not to do it myself. I definitely get caught up in thinking, “Wow, that person seems so cool,” but then I meet them and realize they’re just a person like anyone else. Everyone’s just a regular person, and I don’t want to be around people who think they’re better than others. We all just want to support each other, share, and build community together.
Simeen: Totally. It made me think about how, in art schools, we’re often taught to market ourselves in a certain way, which ties into this hierarchy. Do you think language plays a role in that? I mean, the way we’re taught to speak about or write about our work—using certain kinds of language, sometimes complex or even pretentious jargon—does that contribute to reinforcing this hierarchy? At times, it can even make art seem impossible to understand for people outside those circles.
Ali: Language definitely plays a role, whether it’s the work being presented in English, where it’s coming from, or who’s given opportunities. We’ve been working to make spaces like white-walled galleries more accessible, not just for rich white men, as they’ve historically been. But the bigger question is: why does art even need to exist in those kinds of spaces? Sure, you can diversify it and market people as “tokens” of representation, but the real question is, who’s actually attending these spaces? Regular people don’t typically go to white-walled galleries.
Similarly, the language used in these spaces often isn’t something people can relate to or understand. That’s something I try to focus on in my work—using both imagery and text to make things clear. I don’t want it to be some vague idea where people think they understand what’s being said. For example, when I say we’re against occupation, I don’t want it to be misunderstood as just some abstract peace concept. The imagery can carry meaning, but the words also carry weight, and I try to use both together to make the message as clear as possible.
Simeen: Definitely. And thinking about what you said about galleries—they shouldn’t be the only place where art exists. What are your dreams for where you’d want your work to live, outside of typical art institutions? If it could be anywhere, what would that look like?
Ali: I’d love for my work to be in the streets, in community spaces—places where people gather, like zine libraries or third spaces, libraries or political organizations.
For example, I’m part of a stitching circle called SWANA Stitch, and we recently had a show. But it wasn’t a typical gallery show—it was in a community space. Everyone who participated in the show was actively involved in making it happen. It felt different from a gallery show, where there’s a curator and a sense of hierarchy, with the curator being the “professional” and the artists being the ones handing over their work. In our space, we gathered in a circle and asked, “What do we all think about how we display this work?” The space felt alive—there were teachings and workshops happening alongside the art.
There was art on the wall, sure, but the focus wasn’t on “fine art” or selling things. It wasn’t about wine and cheese and discussing how much something costs. It felt more like a living, breathing space where everyone was engaging with the work, not just standing behind a rope, admiring from a distance like you would in a museum. That separation, that gap between the viewer and the work—it’s something I don’t want for my art.
I know there are installations where you get to interact with the art, but even then, you’re still in a gallery, and there’s a certain behavior you’re expected to adhere to. It just doesn’t feel as alive or connected. And I don’t want my work in that kind of space.
Simeen: You’re clearly intentional about making your art more accessible, ensuring it’s easily available to those who may want or benefit from it. How do you view your work in terms of reproducibility?
Ali: I think there’s a bit of a distinction to be made. We’re living in a time where mass production is so prevalent. For example, there are websites where you can get things printed, and it raises the question—are they printed or reproduced? There’s something special about a handmade piece, even when it’s reproduced. It’s the difference between someone carefully reproducing their work, like in screen printing, versus just sending it off to a factory on the other side of the world, where it’s mass-produced and shipped back to you. While both kinds of work often end up in similar places, there’s a special quality to the process of printing it yourself. It’s just not the same as factory printing.
In printmaking, there’s this idea of assigning market value to rarity. You’ve probably seen editions, where prints are numbered to create the perception of scarcity. I’ve always pushed back against that, especially in college, because I see it as a relatively new European tradition. For example, if there are only 20 prints, they must be valuable because they’re rare, while prints with larger runs are seen as less important or cheaper. But to me, that’s a false value based on the concept of scarcity. I don’t edition my work because of that. If I run out of a print, I simply make more.
Simeen: I’m really glad we’re living in a time where art isn’t just this rare, untouchable object, but something for everyone to experience and engage with. I love that as artists, we’re starting to think differently about the role of art and how we share it.
Ali: Yeah, and with that, we also need to create our own systems. We have to be able to support artists who are supporting our communities and movements, not just by paying them. For example, when things get tough, and artists are still passionate about creating accessible art—even if that sometimes means working for free—we have to ensure they have a community safety net. They shouldn’t have to worry about being kicked out of their apartment or not being able to buy food. We need to build those kinds of support systems within our communities.
Everyone is right on the edge so often. I think it’s especially hard for artists to justify their work, to prove that it’s important and that it sustains us in different ways.
Simeen: Definitely. As an artist, you have to think about how your work sparks action and educates people. You have to be intentional about how it supports the people it is made for. For example, if you create work about Palestine, you have to think about how it is being put to use: Is it being distributed for free? Is it fundraising for material aid? Am I monetizing it, or gaining opportunities based on the movement? We have to actively think about how we are building and contributing to these systems of people and supporting the people. It’s much harder to find your place and create work that genuinely supports the community, especially when it’s tied to important causes.
Ali: It’s about being part of a community and building relationships. Often, artists can get caught up in just responding to a situation or focusing solely on the aesthetic. In my opinion, you shouldn’t create work about something you’re disconnected from without taking the time to truly understand it. For example, in our community, there’s been a lot of use of the watermelon as a symbol. But the watermelon became significant because Palestinians couldn’t fly their flag, so they used it as a substitute. We can fly a flag, so why is the flag not more commonly used in our art?
People might say, “It’s cute,” but that’s not a strong enough reason. The watermelon isn’t just a random symbol of Palestine—it has deep cultural significance, like the oranges or other foods that are tied to Palestinian heritage. The watermelon was a response to a specific circumstance. So, it’s about educating ourselves and each other, building relationships, and understanding that this process takes time. It’s not easy, but it’s necessary.
Simeen is an artist and curator based in Portland, Oregon. She is currently interested in exploring the possibilities of education and learning within art spaces. As a curator, she works with local artists to create shows that are engaging, inclusive, and provide space for people to connect with artists about their larger practices, thoughts, and processes, rather than just viewing art as objects. As an artist, she imagines alternative modes of existence and belonging in public spaces, which often take the form of singing groups, building a nap room in a mall, hosting a sky-watching party, among many other things.
Ali Cat is a printmaker, cultural worker, and steward of collective memory living in Portland, Oregon. Ali received her BFA from Pacific Northwest College of Art and has extensive experience working in various print studios. They produce their work under the name Entangled Roots Press. Their creations take the form of risograph prints, clothing, tapestries, buttons, zines, and prints on paper and fabric. Ali currently teaches and volunteers at the Independent Publishing Resource Center and also volunteers at the SWANA Rose Culture + Community Center.
Girls Just Want to Have Cool Cars and Learn About Them
“With women in automotive, so many people just can’t accept it. I feel like automotive largely goes out of its way to exclude women. I’ve had men tell me to go make them a sandwich. And to be quiet because the men are talking. They said these things while I was being top paid. So I found the door.”
Rose Brooks
Emily and Rose, 2023, Portland, Oregon, photography by James Rexroad, courtesy of Emily.
After recent car troubles sent me to an auto shop for the first time in my life, I’ve been on a search for care and comfort in automotive spaces. Growing up with a mechanic for a dad meant that I was fortunate enough to be able to turn to him every time car issues arose. But this time he was out of the country.
I took my car into a nearby garage and experienced confusing communication about the repairs I needed. It wasn’t until I pushed back by letting the shop know that my mechanic father would soon be able to take a look at the car that they relented. The cost of the repairs dropped to a fraction of the original quote.
Automotive spaces have always represented care and comfort to me because of my dad. Yet my first experience of this world without him as an interlocutor made me aware of what many other women experience: that knowledge about cars and how to fix them is largely gatekept by men.
This led me on a search to connect with and document people creating spaces of belonging in the automotive world for women. In Portland, Emily Olivia Tyler has been doing exactly that. Since 2011, Emily has run a femme-forward automotive interest group called Car Krush. Over the years, Car Krush has centered women in their many community offerings like car shows, classes, movie nights, podcasts, and more. From the start, Car Krush has been a team effort assisted by eager collaborators like Rose Brooks. A “master of everything,” Rose is a producer for the Car Krush podcast, a professional car mechanic who teaches classes for Car Krush, and a knowledgeable van enthusiast.
As I continue to explore within my practice the power that comes with centering communities at the peripheries, I asked if Emily and Rose would chat with me to share more about their experiences having collaborated on creating an inclusive world of girls and cars.
Nina Vichayapai: Emily, could you talk about how Car Krush started?
Emily Olivia Tyler: It started when I blew up the engine on my ‘89 Trans Am back in 2011. I was heartbroken. I didn’t know how to fix my car. And all of my girlfriends at the time were buying plastic cars. A lot of us didn’t really know how to fix our cars or really even know how they work.
At the time I couldn’t find classes to take to learn how to fix my car. I called around to community colleges and all of them were either ASC certified (which means that you were going to be a mechanic and working with new cars or fixing their cars) or there were “how to buy a used car” classes. I’m not ASC and I have already bought plenty of cars, so those weren’t going to work for me.
I had to figure a lot of things out myself. That basically was the catalyst of what Car Krush came from. There’s been a few different iterations since then.
I wanted Car Krush to have a slumber-party-with-wrenches vibe. Just something fun that isn’t too serious, but definitely heavy on information. At the same time I wanted to do events and car shows because I wasn’t really seeing what I wanted represented at car shows. There’s really great shows around here but I wanted a show with a more pop and street style aesthetic. And not just old dudes. I wanted there to be a lot of fashion involved. My girlfriends are just very sharp dressers.
Nina: And you also run a fantastic podcast, was that part of your plan for Car Krush from the start?
Emily: The podcast started because we wanted to talk to women about not seeing yourself represented in automotive media. We were around all these women that were buying cars and doing stuff with their cars so we started with interviewing our friends that were car enthusiasts.
Nina: I love the podcast. You have a great interview style that’s so personable. And you’ve interviewed all sorts of interesting people, including Rose here, too.
Rose: I started off as a guest, and then Emily and I started talking pretty constantly. I now have a role as a producer for the podcast. We’re also launching our own podcast soon. I’m a new character to the Car Krush scene though.
Emily: The first time that Rose and I had our interview, Lauren and I were on the phone with her for three hours for it. And then Rose and I were on zoom for an additional two hours after that. As soon as I got off the phone, I was like, “Okay, you have to learn from Rose. That’s where you have to go.” Seeking out the people you want to learn from and work with was a big lesson. After that I just wouldn’t leave her alone.
I feel really fortunate to have met Rose. It was so serendipitous. Rose is a master of everything. She’s a publisher, fabricator, and mechanic. Rose was coming through town and we decided to teach an engine class. Procuring an engine came so easily. I just found one right away. And then just next thing you know we’re doing an engine class.
Nina: That’s amazing. There’s a real range in what you offer at Car Krush. And lots of different people that you talk to. What do you look for in inviting people onto the show?
Emily: When I started I really wanted to bring in fresh, green people, so the podcast didn’t have to be super serious, you know? One girl we interviewed bought a Camaro and she didn’t know anything about it except for she thought this car was cool. It was a really interesting interview. Then we ended up branching out some more. We’ve had professional mechanics, a stunt woman, a fabricator…We recently started bringing men onto the podcast too because we want our group to be accessible for everybody. We picked the name Car Krush because it specifically didn’t have “girl” or “woman” in the name. Our group is just very feminine leaning. We wanted men to be able to get involved with the group by buying something from us or supporting us in some way.
Nina: I think that’s great, to have men supporting femme-led spaces and not seeing it as something for women only. What is it like for you both to collaborate together?
Rose: I bounce ideas off Emily and talk about things that I’ve done in the past. I’ve worked in publishing and started a magazine about vans, and worked on television shows before. Through those I learned to just keep pushing through. Emily recently took a break from the podcast and I finally had to go, ”I think you’re done. Time’s up.” Beginning of the year, you need a new episode. So she got back to it.
Emily: Yeah, it was a very worthy episode and a good interview. I just couldn’t bring myself to publish or edit it. There was burnout.
Rose: It’s easy to be burned out on stuff when it feels like nobody cares. But with a lot of creative tasks, that’s the question. When will somebody see it? Is it enough to just do it and do it and do it? Success is such a crapshoot.
So that’s my chief motivation. To be a sounding board for Emily when enough has been done in an episode and it’s ready. I try to help keep things moving. With people coming and going in Car Krush, things are just easier when you’ve got a partner.
Emily: As for working with Rose… Rose is basically the dean of education for our classes.
Rose: I was coming through town last summer and we put together the engine class to help pay for the trip. It wasn’t exactly a venture that made a lot of money. Because we spent so much energy on putting together a quality day. But it was good. And we’ve continued to do it. I mean it’s a shame. It’s the kind of thing that I wish that we could do for free, but we wind up wrangling up a lot of resources.
I do that class, and then El from Stargazer Garager is going to do one–
Emily: “How to diagnose shitbox with an untrained professional.”
Nina: That’s a great official class title!
Emily: And we’re going to do a casting class too.
Nina: I think it’s cool that the classes you offer are pretty advanced. It’s nice to have those more technical sorts of offerings.
Rose: I think it bends people’s mind on what is actually useful. It does get pretty technical pretty fast. I’m sure some might get overwhelmed. But someone else sees it as a key. It’s empowering to know that much, especially about your own car or something you’re working on. It’s why a lot of people get into it.
Nina: Definitely! So Emily, you’ve had quite a few collaborators over the years, including Rose. Who else has been part of the team?
Emily: Kristen is a designer who did the logo and the website and was in the graphic design program at PSU. Lauren, who I also hosted the podcast with, came to us of her own volition. She had a LandCruiser and was into cars and tried to go to school to be a mechanic. The instructor pulled her into his office like before school started and said,”hey, I really encourage you to go to this other program because women don’t usually finish the programs here.”
And so then she was just like, “well, fuck you, I’m not going at all.” So then she worked in a few shops here and there. Her sister told her about what we were doing so Lauren came to one of our movie nights and she was like, “sign me up!” So she started working with us. And then my friend Mandy was also working with us. That was our crew at that time. Everybody kind of volunteered to get involved.
Nina: That’s so rare. A lot of people, when they start something, get possessive about organizing it. What do you think it is about your mindset that has allowed you to feel comfortable bringing people into Car Krush? It seems like you’re really able to recognize when people have something to offer and have been generous about bringing on collaborators.
Emily: Team work is dream work. I am a control freak. And I had to learn that you can’t do everything. You have to give up control. That’s what’s going to make it human. I had to learn those lessons. I have had some people not work out. But pretty much, if anybody wanted to get involved I would be like, sure, there’s room for you. Because we had such a big vision. There was always room and there was always stuff to do.
Nina: How would you describe the community of Car Krush? The people who are part of the larger community and come to the events?
Emily: I’d say it’s girls that want to have fun. They have cool cars and they want to learn about them. They’re really sweet and open with their knowledge of anything that they have access to. They’re all spectacular dressers and very cool. What do you think, Rose?
Rose: Well, we’ve also met some guys that aren’t assholes. Some guys register for our engine classes too. A few people have asked us “this isn’t specifically just for women, is it?” Because that’s what we were known for. Car Krush is very punk rock adjacent. In a way it sorts itself out. But I mean, it’s car enthusiasts, but it is people that don’t need it to be branded a certain way or delivered to them a certain way.
Nina: What’s the experience been like for you working in the auto industry?
Rose: With women in automotive, so many people just can’t accept it. I feel like automotive largely goes out of its way to exclude women. I’ve had men tell me to go make them a sandwich. And to be quiet because the men are talking. They said these things while I was being top paid. So I found the door.
I’d been in street rod shops up until that point and I was like, “I don’t think this is a good place for me anymore.” And that person went out of his way to prove it to me.
And so that’s what Car Krush is offering, a slice of automotive that isn’t like what the other 99% of it is like.
But I think in terms of doing the classes, it does give a lot of people proximity to what it’s like to just see and touch the cars. I think that we’ve had a lot of really positive experiences with the engine class in that way. We’re showing people that there’s actually a limited number of core ingredients to an engine.
Nina: It was really amazing watching Emily take the engine apart and do it so casually. It felt really special to be able to see how it all comes together since it’s not something a lot of people know much about.
So any plans to do events in the future?
Emily working on the Car Krush class engine, 2025, Portland, Oregon, photography by Nina.
Emily: I would love to do another block party or car show. They are so fun. It takes a lot of money to throw those events. But as soon as I can, I would love to do another one. But basically right now it’s just focusing on the classes and the podcast.
Nina: Nice. The podcast is a great resource. You put a ton of work into it.
Emily: It is a lot of work. That’s the thing, I’m coming to the point where I’m starting to get serious about working more and having a more professional job. So Car Krush has to go on the backburner a little bit. I’ve given so much and have gotten a lot back as far as personal satisfaction, but it’s not paying the bills. You got to live. You do have to pay bills.
Nina: Definitely. I’m curious what that’s like for you to organize something and also make room for it to shift or change over time?
Rose: You mean the freedom to change the project without backlash, because you’re at the top of the top of the creative process? Yeah. I think that it can be confusing because sometimes if you come up with a formula, you can become a slave to the formula. You’re like, “but this is what people expect.” And I think another thing is that you have things going on inside your life, but you also have things happening outside of you in the world. We don’t have a lot of control over that.
I started doing my magazine in 2011. And I haven’t published in a couple of years now. With a world like this I thought, who needs a magazine? What are the next four days going to look, or the next four years? It’s hard but I’m saving my energy for other things. I keep thinking I might just have to jump the van up here and throw all my energy into something else because my immediate personal safety is coming up as a concern. I just had a nasty phone call with a member of someone in my van club. I’ve known him since 2009. And he wanted to ask me all these questions about me being trans. It basically devolved into the point of him accusing me of being a rapist because I go to the bathroom.
Nina: That’s just awful.
Rose: Yeah, so it’s getting to this place where I feel like I’m wasting my energy with these people because some just don’t care to understand. And then there’s others who do support you but still haven’t considered that when they invite you somewhere, it might not even be safe for me to travel there.
I used to travel cross-country every summer for Van Nationals. And there’s places where I’m just like, no, I’m not going to go there. Even if the destination seems fine. There’s a lot of gas stations in between. Passing through Wyoming the last time I did was unnerving, even though the year before it was cool. I got stalked by cops in a small town while just getting gas.
Nina: That’s really tough. What about locally, what has your experience been like with the car scene in Portland? What’s it like organizing a group like Car Krush in this town?
Rose: I think that Portland is such a ripe place to have community and art based groups and adventures. I think if anybody wants to have a space in automotive, they should be doing a zine or a podcast or figuring out how to make their own version or pocket of it. We’ve been paired up with the shop that I’m in, which is called Q-Hut. There’s a motorcycle club in the shop and they teach motorcycle maintenance classes. They told us after the fact that they were actually inspired by our engine class and started doing their own. We feed off of each other and cross-promote a lot, so it’s cool to be in a community. I think Portland just sort of makes that easy. Portland is so DIY and community based that it’s fertile ground for people to make their own communities here.
Nina: Other than your classes at Car Krush do you have any resources that you would share with someone who’s interested in getting more into fixing their own car or just cars in general?
Emily: The classes at Clackamas Community College are awesome. Lauren and I took the fix-your-own-car classes there a couple summers ago. You can pick a project and then they’ll walk you through it. They also give you access to tools and a lift. And they teach you how an actual mechanic would do things and the language used. They also teach car restoration classes where you can paint stuff. Oregon State has similar classes.
Hawthorne Auto is great for car maintenance classes. And the Oregon Tool Library is a community place where you can rent all sorts of tools.
Rose: I feel like I’m one of the rare people that likes to learn from books. You have to learn the language of something, which books can really help with. A lot of times people want to talk to an expert to learn that, so they come to us. We usually try to send people away with a book of some type to help.
Nina: So what’s next for you both?
Emily: Our new podcast, The Pile Up, is coming out. It’s pretty funny.
Rose: It’s inspired by this podcast we really like from the UK called No Such Thing as a Fish. It’s five people who are researchers on the show. They present four new facts they found each week that are always interesting. We were like, let’s do something that’s like that but with cars. Emily has a huge catalog of documentation of women that are coming up or getting established in the automotive scene.
Emily: There’s parts where we laugh so hard that we can’t stop laughing for a minute. We’ll also have some different classes coming starting in the spring including the engine class, a metal class, and we’ll see what else. I’d love to do events again in the future.
Nina: Amazing. Well thank you both so much for taking the time to talk today. And if you ever need a volunteer let me know!
Emily and Rose, 2023, Portland, Oregon, photography by James Rexroad, courtesy of Emily.
Emily Olivia Tyler lives in Portland, OR. When she’s not doing Car Krush she can be found window shopping or dancing with her friends.
She can be reached at emily@carkrush.com
Rose Brooks is a metal fabricator and artist from Portland, OR. She occasionally publishes under the moniker Custom Vanner magazine. Her bubble windows for vans are like jewelry and she always appreciates a good hair day for what is.
She can be reached at customvanner@gmail.com
Nina Vichayapai makes art that explores what it means to be at the intersections of society’s margins and peripheries. Through her practice she invites you to be neighbors with her in occupying unlikely intersections and celebrate yours too.
Intentional Community or Conceptual Art Piece?
“social practice and relational work is about what it means to be human”
Carol Zou
Social practice is a term that I use almost everyday. It’s also one that my parents probably don’t completely understand (yet!). So talking with other people who work in deep relationship with others, whose work is about understanding and uncovering the ways we live together, is a refreshing change.
I was lucky enough to talk with Carol Zou, a self-described cultural practitioner living in Los Angeles, to talk about their work and understanding of social practice and how to move in crushing times. We spoke in October of 2024, before Trump and a temporary ceasefire in Gaza, but a lot of what we discussed still resonated deeply with me when I went back to it. Even now, we need time for imagined worlds and—more importantly—spas.
Carol Zou: Thanks for reaching out. The PSU program has always been kind of a sister program to where I did my MFA. It’s nice to see that it’s still going.
Lou Blumberg: Yeah thanks for agreeing to be interviewed! Something I remember from your “Crafting the Social” article, which is how I found out about your work –
Carol: That’s so weird and silly. I literally don’t anticipate anyone reading my master’s thesis.
Lou: I won’t hold you to it because I know grad school can feel like another world! But I think you said something about how social practice is the term that describes what so many people, often people who hold oppressed identities, have been doing already to support each other and create communities of care. I wonder if you still feel that way or how you might elaborate on that.
Carol: I think this does relate to my thoughts on the institutionalization of social practice, and I feel like all radical practices, like abolition, right? Creative or not, I think there is this tension between what is legible and what is not legible. I think social practice is really just a term that makes that legible.
And I feel like, in some ways, there’s a need to create that legibility–I support social practice programs. I support field building. I support meeting other social practitioners. I think there’s value in legibility, but you just have to acknowledge that tension of legibility.
Lou: I was excited to hear you talk more about one of your current projects around spas with Queer Spa Network. I think a lot of your projects have an ethic of care in them, which is something I think a lot about in my own practice. I would love to hear you talk more about how that project is going, how it started, and how you’re thinking about it.
Carol: The spa project started because I was recovering from PTSD. That shit is real. I was working with refugees and an unhoused refugee died in one of our art spaces, which was really intense. The week after I just laid in a warm bath and ate weed gummies. The somatic is very present when we’re thinking about trauma. That’s where my interest started, but of course, spas are also a space of pleasure, pleasure activism, and all that.
I think it was nice that I could find a space to heal, but also share pleasure with others. It first began by collaborating with Carrie Marie Schneider on our love of spas, and now it’s morphed into Queer Spa Network, which has about six core group members thinking through topics centered around care, disability, and potential values-aligned public projects.
What I really appreciate is that we have astrong disability justice ethic within our group and everyone holds that, not just me. I really feel it in the way that we move—we move very slowly. We meet once a month. We’re not perfect. We’re not trying to operate at the pace of capitalism. Sometimes we just do internal culture-building stuff like pooling funds to rent out a swimming pool and sitting in a hot tub together.
I feel like this undoes some of my personal urgencies around art making. Because I feel like, in the art world, I’m like, “I have a CV. I gotta produce X amount of stuff per year. If I’m in a collective I’m still producing. What’s the artwork? What’s the output? What’s the blah, blah, blah.” The ethos of this group allows us to just slow down and internally build with each other. It feels like intentional community as much as it does a conceptual art piece.
Lou: I really appreciate that notion of slowing down and moving at the speed that makes the most sense for everyone in the collective. I see that in and of itself as a social practice: the way that you work together besides just the thing that you’re creating.
Carol: It’s felt like a good organism. Being within Queer Spa Network feels the way my body does when I’m in a spa, like I’m just slowly moving and relaxed. Because there’s this contradiction, right? I feel it too, as a social practice artist, I have a huge output, actually. And I’m very used to, like, output, output, output. So this has been a learning for me in terms of a different way of working that is a lot more aligned with values of care and healing.
Lou: That relates to another thing I wanted to ask you about. You describe yourself in your CV as a reproductive laborer. I’d love to hear you talk more about that and what reproduction means to you and what labor in that sense means.
Carol: I am very influenced by the work of Merle Lederman Ukeles, as well as Silvia Federici, the feminist economist. Once again, it’s that tension between production and output seen in the logic of capitalism, which tells us to always be producing something new, something visible. And of course, Ukeles famously questions this by saying, “actually, what if our work is cleaning? What if our work is actually the maintenance of the everyday, which is actually what leads to reproduction?”
Federici builds upon this by talking about the work of women in social reproduction and saying, well, the reason that men are able to be in the workforce is because women are doing the social reproduction work, they’re doing the child care that allows us to grow up and enter into the workforce.
I also build upon both Ukele’s and Federici’s work by thinking about queer social reproduction. To add gender diverse folks to feminist analysis, I think there’s a lot of queer ways in which we maintain the social fabric. One of my favorite roles is being an auntie. One of my favorite roles is being part of the village. I feel like within our modern social structures, we have to have these other reproductive roles because the nuclear family has in a way failed us. We have teachers who are doing so much care work. We have social workers, right? They are also part of the reproductive fabric as much as “actual” caregivers and mothers are.
Lou: I love being able to break apart the notion of the nuclear family as the central unit because that’s not how we actually exist as a species or as a community of people.
Carol: Also, the nuclear family is a structure that was encouraged by capitalism.
Lou: So much of your work seems to work towards bringing the world that we want into the now. I want to make work that not only speaks to oppressive conditions, but actually kind of tries to intervene on them. I wonder if that’s important to you, or if that’s too high a bar and instead the important part is the beauty of what imagination and speculation can do.
Carol: I think about Deepa Iyer’s graphic where she lays out the different social change roles that we play. Some of us are disruptors, some of us are visionaries, some of us are builders and weavers. I think it’s important to hold that there are a variety of change strategies out there, and it’s okay to respect people who choose a different change strategy from you, right? I think my personal change strategy is that I am a builder and I am a weaver. So I like connecting people, I like building networks. I also believe that it’s important to build institutions, or rather, build social organisms larger than the individual. And of course, this does not discount the value of any of the other social roles, right?
Lou: I think something that is constantly on my mind when thinking about our roles in social change is how this year of witnessing a live-streamed genocide has impacted us all. I’m sure it’s on your mind too, especially with a lens of disability justice, which you already talked about. I wonder what this last year has meant for you or if it’s changed anything for you and your practice.
Carol: Yeah, that is a really big question. I circle back, once again, to the limits of legibility. It’s like, do I need to be making an art project right now? Or do I just need to be donating to GoFundMes? And I don’t need to say, hey, I donated to GoFundMes and now it’s social practice, right? At some point as a social practitioner, you need to know when to stop doing social practice. Responding to the moment right now, none of it has to be legible within this professionalized field.
Something that I have been thinking about a lot is what witnessing a genocide and being complicit in committing a genocide with our tax dollars does to our understanding of what it means to be human. Because in a sense, I think that’s how the Holocaust is narrated. Like, how could this ever be humanly possible, this extreme atrocity? And of course, we’re seeing this extreme atrocity happen before our eyes right now. I think something I also return to is that social practice and relational work is about what it means to be human. It’s very much about people, it’s very much about how we engage with people, it’s very much about our ethics around relating to each other. I feel like there’s just been a really great unsettling of the foundations of what it means to be human, which is also connected to the extreme dehumanization of Palestinians, which is used to justify their genocide.
Lou: I appreciate that. Sometimes I feel like we are becoming so much less human by witnessing this violence. It’s a hard place to be because if I don’t look at this, I’m not human, because I’m not connecting it to people who are suffering on an empathetic level, but if I do look at this, that vicarious trauma is changing me and normalizing this violence.
Carol: Yeah. I think it’s a very strange time for social practice because we are obviously also seeing the limitations of art institutions, in terms of silencing folks who support Palestine even as they espouse radical politics. I think this past year has made me question a lot about what kind of art I make, or question what question needs to be asked right now.
Lou: Thanks for sharing. One other thing I wanted to ask you about is your writing practice. You’re such a prolific writer – I was enjoying reading a lot of your work in preparation for talking to you. I wonder how you think of your artistic and your writing practice together. What does the label “writer” do for you versus artist, and how do those two inform each other?
Carol: I think writing is a more introspective practice. Sometimes it can be difficult for me as someone who’s so used to dialogic or relational practice. I also feel like that is a tension I have as a social practitioner. Sometimes I’m extremely social. And then other times I need to retreat into my own world.
It’s also that negotiation of self and community, which I think we’re always negotiating. I think field building is important. I think creating mirrors for people to see each other is important. And I think that as social practitioners it’s actually really hard sometimes to see mirrors for ourselves. I get really excited when I meet other artists working in the same way, because there’s that moment of recognition. What I try to do with my writing is to field build and try to provide moments of recognition for the situations we found ourselves in. Once again, I’m shocked when people read stuff I’ve written. I’m genuinely shocked.
So what are you investigating? What are you up to? What’s exciting for you?
Lou: I’m thinking a lot about security and safety and what that means. Right now I’m doing a deep dive into Portland’s private security industry. Because there are so many private security guards here, more than any other place that I’ve ever been to, and I was super struck by that. Something I’ve been thinking about also in such a relational field is how to hold my own politics and belief in an abolitionist vision of safety while speaking with people who are engaged in something I see as the opposite of that, but who are human beings with their own life stories.
So that’s been a really insightful investigation for me, giving me a chance to feel through my own politics in that relational way. So yeah, that’s what this year is looking like so far for me.
Carol: That sounds like a really worthwhile and meaty thing to investigate, especially with Portland’s race relations and history as a sundown town, right? I mean, in L.A., the security guards are primarily people of color. I don’t know if that’s the case in Portland.
Lou: It seems like that in Portland, too, from what I’ve seen.
Carol: So then there’s also like a class and race intersection, right? People who are forced to take these jobs and maybe thinking, “what are my personal politics vis a vis my material reality?”
Lou: Yeah, and I know we all value safety, even if that might mean different things to us.
Carol: I’m also curious, what is the premise? Because, I mean, the question is safety for whom? I’m curious about the origins, even, of the words security and safety, right?
Lou: Oh, this is super juicy. Well, thank you for being willing to chat! There’s so much rich stuff to think about. Thanks for that.
Carol: Yeah, of course. Take care.
Carol Zou (b. 1988, Hepu, China) is a U.S. based community-engaged artist whose work engages themes of spatial justice, public pedagogy, and intercultural connection in multiracial neighborhoods. They engage durational, process-based collaborations with community contributors using mediums of craft, media arts, and public installation. As a counterpoint to their collaborative work, their writing and conceptual works interrogate questions of conflict and antagonism constitutive of the public sphere. Their style of multi-sector collaboration gestures to an interdisciplinary, liberatory future in which we are all hopefully a little more undisciplined.
Lou Blumberg is an artist, educator, and facilitator interested in how we make our lives more liveable. They use facilitation and mediation skills built over ten years as a sex educator and organizer to find ways to be together that strengthen our connection to each other and our capacity for conflict. Their practice stems from a belief in the connective and humanizing power of vulnerability, especially the vulnerability of trying things we aren’t perfect at. They are also a community mediator.
What If We Decide This is Something Worth Our Time?
“When was the last time you were walking on a sidewalk and didn’t step on a crack so you wouldn’t break your mama’s back? With a question you can bring us together to focus on something in our shared space that we otherwise wouldn’t see.”
Caryn Aasness
Lately, I’ve been experiencing something akin to interview fatigue. Although I’m chatty by nature and endlessly curious about the people around me, I’ve wondered what’s standing in the way of my enthusiasm for conducting formal interviews these days. Am I asking the wrong questions? Am I thinking about the container of the interview in a limiting way? What does it mean to really listen anyway? In recent years, I’ve learned to find interest in these stuck points, believing that a more informed and authentic way through is just under the surface if I listen closely enough. So when I began to notice feelings of dread around this form of exchange, I decided to turn to my favorite small talker to think more about the art of the chat.
Caryn Aasness is an artist, scavenger, and a Grade A problem solver. Lucky for me, Caryn also happens to be one of the best listeners and question askers I know. We initially connected over our love of hot dogs and our interest in finding more expansive ways to measure time. Through collaborative party planning, calendar building, and good old fashioned scheming, we’ve discovered ways to approach our daily lived experiences and art practices, with all their predicaments and pleasures, with a shared sense of playfulness and inquisition. On a rainy morning following a calendar workshop we facilitated at a local senior center, Caryn and I pondered what makes a conversation a good one and how we might invite more of them in each day.
Clara Harlow: How do you identify people you want to talk to? Are there certain people that you specifically feel drawn to having a conversation with?
Caryn Aasness: Some of that has to do with me and if I’m feeling brave enough. And some of it is if I have an interesting enough thing to say. But I think people kind of give off an attitude if they want to be engaged with or if they aren’t interested in talking to me right now, but sometimes that’s fun to challenge too.
Clara: What do you think makes us or other people open to unexpected conversation? Because I feel such a difference when I’m in New York and having unexpected conversations versus with people here in Portland. I wonder if a big piece of it is convenience. There’s a lot about time and pace cause people are moving really quickly and have a lot to do. Like if you’re on the subway people are usually down to help with directions if you ask them, but they’re not necessarily going out of their way to have a conversation.
Caryn: I have never been to New York. My sense of it is based on movies, but does it change when you’re on the street versus if you have a captive audience in the subway and you’re going to be on this ride together for at least, I don’t know, how many minutes. Are people more willing?
Clara: Right. Definitely. I think it does change. And there’s something about, like, no matter how busy you are, there are moments where you just have to turn to someone and be like, “get a load of that!” you know, where you just need to share a moment that’s so hilarious or moving or concerning and you just kind of need to be seen in that regardless. It’s such a human desire to share that with someone actually.
Caryn: I’m thinking back to what you were saying about how to know if you’re gonna talk to someone. And now I’m thinking, how often do you strike out when you try? How often do you go up to someone and try to engage and it just doesn’t work?
Clara: Yeah, I’m pretty cheeky, so I don’t really feel afraid to try, and also I don’t feel so wounded if someone’s not down. And I get it because sometimes I’m that person getting groceries and I’m so hungry and tired and blah de blah. But I feel like my days are better when I’m able to find a way to be open to that moment of exchange or acknowledgment with someone. And I think it’s a lot of just getting out of your head and your own life and all the pressures and endless to-dos that we’re all carrying, and actually just paying attention to what’s around you. Being open to some kind of unexpected little moment.
Caryn: Totally.
Clara: I will say another thing that evokes conversation for me is when you’re in an objectively absurd circumstance with others. If someone is doing something slightly out of the ordinary, like wearing a fluorescent outfit or carrying AstroTurf on the subway, I’m more likely to try to talk to them. Like you’re already disrupting this sort of social code where we’re going along with things and trying to pretend not to pay attention to each other and it feels like they’re kind of puncturing that social expectation, which can invite in some weirdness.
So I have a sort of controversial conversation question, but how do you feel about weather talk?
Caryn: I don’t know, sometimes the weather is really interesting. I think you can get to a lot of places from weather talk, so I don’t hate it. I think sometimes you have to go a little further, but also, I guess I can see that this person is trying. And like, I might wish they tried a little harder, or in a weirder way.
Clara: But it offers a jumping off point.
Caryn: But talking about weather to people who are not in the same place as you, like now that I’ve moved away from my family and we talk about, “how’s the weather there, where you are,” it feels a little different because I’m picturing what that feels like there and what they’re experiencing. It kind of gives me some flavor for whatever story they’re going to tell me next.
Clara: So if you don’t want to go the weather route, what are some other options for people who are trying to have compelling conversations with loved ones and strangers alike?
Caryn: Yeah, that’s a good question. I feel like a useful starter is a question that everyone can come up with an answer for, but they maybe haven’t necessarily thought about it before. Cause then you sort of see people working it out, like, showing their work. There was a long time where I just had a go-to question, one question I’d ask everyone. For a while it was, if your favorite sitcom dad and your least favorite sitcom dad got into a fight, who would win? And usually people are like, wait, okay. It takes a second to figure out which is which and then we kind of get to go through the fight, you know? I feel like no one’s expecting that question, but you could probably come up with something. And if you can’t, then maybe we’ll have an interesting conversation about how you grew up without TV.
Clara: Yeah, or you’re like, wait a second, why are all the dads on sitcoms bigger and the moms on sitcoms so thin? Like why is that such a trope in all American sitcoms and cartoons?
Caryn: And it often seems like there’s a dynamic in sitcom marriages of like, the dopey kind of gross dad.
Clara: A total doofus.
Caryn: A total doofus! And then there’s the mom who deserves better and is doing so much for the family.
Clara: Including the doofus! Wow, that’s a really good conversation starter. I can already feel it sort of coursing through.
Caryn: I think it’s clear right off the bat that we don’t have to work up to something. Like, we don’t have to volley it back in the exact way that it is scripted in an English textbook or something.
Clara: Yeah we’re just going there. What happens if we decide this is something worth our time and or is just fun to think through together?
Caryn: Totally, and I guess maybe that depends on where you are and how willing people are to meet you there. I also like to ask people what’s something they recommend. And it’s a good icebreaker when you have to have a formal icebreaker in a room. I think it’s nice when you ask people like, okay, what’s your favorite ice cream flavor, but usually I’m not gonna remember everybody’s favorite ice cream, but if you can recommend anything then I’m going to remember more of those, and maybe have something to talk about with this person later.
Clara: Yeah or maybe try it and then get back to them about it.
Caryn: And I like that, I like being able to see what direction people take it in, because sometimes people are like, this is a snack combo I love, and then some people will go an advice route, like today during our workshop at the senior center when people gave you recommendations on soon turning 30; slow down, don’t try to speed through certain parts of your life, because it’s going to go fast anyway. So you get a real broad range of recommendations.
Clara: Yeah, it allows people to kind of find their voice within the container. It’s not too directed, it’s an invitation.
Caryn: I think people can handle it.
Clara: Yeah, I think they can rise to the occasion, for sure. One thing I’m wondering is what you think the difference between an interview and a conversation is?
Caryn: I mean, the recording of it in some ways, and whether or not you stick to it, there’s sort of like a formality presented as like, you are the interviewer, and this person is the interviewee. I feel like even just right now, I’ve been talking a little bit differently than we would normally chat. Even like, tone of voice, maybe that’s just me.
Clara: Uh huh. Well, I am laying down for the audience at home. That might be part of it.
Caryn: Let the record show.
Clara: I’m laying on the ground.
Caryn: Is that allowed in interviews? To lay on the ground? I was thinking about one of the first interviews that I wrote for my high school newspaper, but I did it more magazine style, where I was like, “Principal Zahn leaned back in his chair and chuckled.” You know, like, “The air smelled of…. whatever.”
Clara: A real Vanity Fair intro.
Caryn: It’s interesting to think, like are you as the interviewer technically allowed to be laying down because, you know, that could be interesting in adding flavor and setting the scene.
Clara: “Caryn said as they outstretched their hand to me.”
One of my go to questions in a group of people when there’s a lull is what’s the weirdest thing that happened to you today?
Caryn: I like to ask people, what do you think is in those couch cushions? Like, if you had to guess, what would we find in there?
Clara: Or like what’s under your bed?
Caryn: That is a good question.
Clara: What’s under your bed, Caryn?
Caryn: Currently I have just a mattress stacked on the floor. I do own a bed frame, but I moved my bed into the corner for the winter.
Clara: Wait, I moved my bed into the corner for the winter!
Caryn: Yeah and how would we have known that about each other if we hadn’t done this dance.
Clara: I know, what a thrill. One thing that I’m wanting to learn is how to be a better listener. And I think that could maybe be connected to being a better interviewer as well. So I was just curious if you had any listening advice for me?
Caryn: I think of being a good listener sometimes as remembering a thing that that person said.
Clara: You do have a great memory.
Caryn: I will remember the weird little thing that you said. So maybe that’s a cheat code for listening, but I do like that when people remember something that I said, of course. Especially because I think it gives you an opportunity to relate something from the person’s life to what’s happening now. I think sometimes someone will tell you a story, and they’re like, well, I don’t want to go into all of this. They’re trying to shorten it or they think you don’t want to hear about that.
Clara: Yeah, but you always do!
Caryn: I do want to know about it. They might be like, “So my grandma, blah, blah, blah,” and then I might be like, “Oh wait, your grandma who lives in Texas?” So it becomes more of a map and I always think it’s more interesting.
Even in regular research I like to find out the context around a fact. Like if I look up a fact on Google, I’m not going to remember that. It’s kind of like the ice cream icebreaker thing. If it stands alone, it doesn’t stick with me the same way. But if I can find out why that happens, how they discovered this thing or whatever, then it’s more interesting and easier to remember. So I like building that context for myself in what somebody else tells me. And I think sometimes people are a little thrown off by it.
Clara: Yeah they’re not used to that level of detail and attention. I feel like it’s a real gift that you give people when you do that. The amount of attention that you can give someone in a conversation is so rare, actually.
Caryn: Well, I think so much of the stuff we do is not worth paying attention to or is sort of engineered to manipulate our attention? So I feel like we get used to this idea that it’s easier or better or more fun not to pay attention to things, but paying attention to the things that you’re interested in is interesting.
Clara: Right. I even find that when I’m having a really boring day or something goes wrong or is really inconvenient, like I have to go to the DMV or something, I think actually paying attention is what saves it from being a total bust. I think if you can actually really be present and look around the room and be like, “Oh, wait, what’s that sign?” Or like, “why is that upside down?” It actually adds so much delight, you know?
But it’s funny because when you’re at the DMV, all you want to do is be on your phone and not be there anymore, you know? Same with commuting anywhere. Like, it’s crazy what’s happening on the subway all the time, even the really small details. There’s this Instagram account that I love, maybe you’ve seen it, called Subway Hands, where a photographer takes photographs of zoomed in hands on the subway, holding things or doing things and they’re just totally beautiful and simple, but profound. It’s just this zooming in and paying attention to these really mundane moments that you could easily miss, but that actually tell us so much about ourselves and each other, you know?
Caryn: Yeah I feel like that is kind of connected to why certain questions work well in a group, because you’re drawing attention to the potential weirdness of a place that we all are constantly passing and might not pay any attention to. When was the last time you were walking on a sidewalk and didn’t step on a crack so you didn’t break your mama’s back? With a question you can bring us together to focus on something in our shared space that we otherwise wouldn’t see.
Clara: Yeah, I feel like it comes back to this question that my friend and mentor Dave [McKenzie] used to always say in relationship to his practice: What if it could matter? Like, what if we just decided this thing—anything—was worth paying deep attention to? And that’s how we make meaning, in our art practices and in our daily lives. I think we’re both really drawn to toying with things in the everyday that people take for granted or aren’t so curious about anymore. How can we play with the frame or contrast, so that we can disrupt expectation and begin to actually think about quotidian things like the calendar grid in different ways? What if this mundane thing actually is really fascinating, we just need to engage with it differently?
Caryn: Yeah, and I guess part of the draw towards listening is not even necessarily that people aren’t curious about it, but there’s someone out there who’s thinking about this thing so much. If I ask a bunch of people a bunch of weird questions and start weird conversations with them, I’m gonna find the person who might have a special interest in that thing.
There’s a David Sedaris essay where he’s talking about getting bored of the conversations he usually has at his book signings, and so he just started asking random questions. And he asked someone when did you last touch a monkey? And their response is, oh can you smell it on me? Because they happened to work with monkeys or have a monkey. So I feel like part of what’s interesting for me is the idea that you might find the person who’s super interested in this thing and they don’t expect to get to talk about it.
Clara: Totally, and remembering everyone has at least one of those things.
Caryn: And so find it.
Clara: Yeah, exactly. And that’s actually something that I’ve realized in recent years, that every single person has something interesting about them, if not many things. You just need enough time to find the thing.
Caryn: Totally, and sometimes maybe part of what takes time is building the trust that I’m interested in what you have to say. Like, I’m here for it. Tell me about what you’re interested in. It’s not always immediately clear that I’m actually interested in learning what you’re thinking about because we have so many mundane conversations all the time. It’s kind of like people just predict what we’re gonna say.
Clara: But I think the thing that we can do for each other is saying, take me on that journey with you. Like, let’s really go there together. And I think that’s something you’re so good at.
Caryn: Have we been on some journeys together?
Clara: Oh without a doubt.
Caryn Aasness (they/them) is a queer artist from Long Beach, California living in Portland, Oregon. Their practice is an exploration of and an outlet for their obsessive compulsive tendencies, their (often bashful) gender-fuckery, and their temptation to play with language. Working responsively to place and public, Caryn seeks to identify patterns and form connections. Their work is an invitation to stretch a category or collection to its illogical extreme. Caryn has a BFA in Fiber from California State University Long Beach, an MFA in Social Practice from Portland State University, and a snake tattoo.
Clara Harlow (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist and educator interested in the question of how we can make today different than yesterday. Her work operates as an invitation into themes of celebration, exchange, and alternative ways of measuring time and value. Through parties, workshops, and interactive objects, Clara is invested in how we can turn the dilemmas of the everyday into an opportunity for experimental problem solving and collective delight. Her practice aims to create responsive public containers for unexpected joy and connection, but if she can just get you to forget about your To Do list for a little while, that’s pretty good too.
People First
“What has been the linchpin of my practice is recognizing that these are people first before they are a book topic or exhibition material. They’re people first and foremost, they want to know that they are not just commodities, they need to feel they are valued.”
Dr. Kiara Hill
I met Dr. Kiara Hill at one of my classes for the MFA in Art + Social Practice at PSU. Her way of weaving social justice into the history of art and holding space for us to find our questions, ethics, and problematic thoughts made me feel both safe and challenged. Which is what good stories and educational experiences are all about.
We discussed her thoughts on the importance of telling complex stories, treating people as humans, not commodities, and having learning spaces that are conducive to critical thinking. Her warm demeanor, I hope, steams out of the words here recorded.
Adela: Kiara, on previous occasions, you have talked about curation as storytelling, and about the fact that we have the responsibility to think about whose stories we are telling, whose artworks are we showing, and whose stories are left out. So I wanted to start by touching on the importance of centering narratives that are usually excluded, both in your work and your personal life.
In that sense, I would love to know: what was the first exhibition, TV show, or artwork that you felt was reflecting your experience?
Kiara: Growing up, I went to a black Baptist elementary school, which I don’t even think exists anymore. And while it had its issues, especially with the Christianity portion of it, the cultural aspect was way more pronounced than any school that I went to after that. I didn’t realize at the time that everybody didn’t go to culturally specific schools where they could learn about their history as a people.
On top of that, my godmother, who has been instrumental in my life, has been collecting 20th-century African-American memorabilia and material culture since before I was born. And so I grew up with the sensibility that black culture and the narratives of black people were important.
Also, I should say that I came from a community-oriented context. I’m not religious or active in the church now, but I grew up in the black church. And I was part of various social programs of the church aimed at uplifting black achievement.
However, when I think about my time in the church, there were also questions I was raising that people could not give me answers to. One of them was: Why does it seem like women are doing all of the work, yet men get the credit and are not dealing with the same restrictions?
At the same time, I had a sensibility around queerness and saw that even within black spaces the experiences of cis hetero black men were the ones that were often being told. The Martin Luther King and Malcolm X figures were more prominent—sometimes you had Rosa Parks or Coretta Scott King mentioned, but it wasn’t the norm. So this sensibility of knowing that ‘this is not the full story’ is something that I’ve had for a while.
Fast forward to the first art exhibition I curated, which was for an African art show where there were five graduate students chosen and I was the only one who did not come from the art department. The perspective that I brought to my curation was looking at African feminine figures in relation to African cosmology and spirituality.
I should also say that I have a master’s in Women’s Studies, and because of that I had an adequate command of black feminist thought and black feminism. Learning about that was what changed my whole perspective, more than any one artwork.
When I’m thinking about the moments when I saw myself for the first time, it was while being exposed to black feminist thought in various iterations.I felt seen because it gave me the language to talk about racial issues in connection to gender, class, and sexuality. It allowed me to understand the positionality of black femmes in society; particularly how black femmehood functions within black communities.
Adela: Were there any specific texts or entry points into black feminist thought that you found impactful? And is there an example that embodies what you mean when you say ‘how black femmehood exists within the community’?
Kiara: Yeah, I think that one of the first texts that I read was Bell Hooks’ Feminism is for everybody. I also remember being impacted by the work of Patricia Hill Collins and June Jordan, who is one of my favorite Black feminist writers, period.
To go back to your other question, the ways that women were told to behave and act in a demure posture did not make sense to me.Looking at my aunts and other commanding women in my life who got shit done, but when it came to men for some reason started to shrink. I did not understand why they did that. But reading black feminist texts helped me understand structures of power.
I remember, for example, when I was in my master’s program, my thesis was about how black women relate to their sexual identity and looking at it through the lens of reality television.
But that topic came out of a conversation that I was having with my mother where she was essentially saying: ‘Ladies don’t act like that, or ladies don’t do that’. I was like,‘how did you get these ideas? Where does this come from? Because you seem to know what ladies are supposed to do, and other women seem to know what ladies are supposed to do, but I don’t. I’ve also seen examples of women not adhering to those standards and seemingly being happier.
Adela: That resonates with me, even knowing that my experience is different in the context of a white-passing Latin person. My research is about family stories, and what I realized within my family was that the women in my lineage are wild, but they married men who were not brave enough to love them as they were.
Kiara: Exactly, and connecting that with black feminist thought made me understand that experiences are a lot more complicated than history often allows. And that even though black femmes are not always allowed to be complicated in the public sphere, they are complicated beings. And they should be allowed to be complex in ways that white people are allowed to be.
I think we’re at a different moment now, to be honest, from where I was when coming up and coming to these ideas. You have way more depictions of black womanhood, black femmehood, and black queerness. I’m happy that that is the case. But I also think that there are moments where things could be pushed further, because complexity is part of what it means to be a human being.
The conversation I had with my mom about gender ignited in me the desire to tell nuanced stories where there is more at play than what you may see on the surface.
Adela: I feel like telling those nuanced stories is pervasive in everything you do. And it seems to me that it translates also into your teaching style.
Having been your student in the MFA of Art + Social Practice and reading about your experiences in KSMoCa curating alongside school students, I know the importance you bestow upon spaces of mentorship and teaching experiences of joy in art. So I would like to know: how do you see yourself as an educator? What’s your style?
Kiara: As an educator, one of the things that I strive to do, in addition to imparting the content, is to help students garner the tools to think critically about themselves, their experiences, and the world around them.
A lot of that comes through being able to talk things out. Because when you’re thinking about something, you can’t hear or recognize the contours of your own thinking because it’s so familiar to you. But when you say your thoughts out loud you’re able to see them. That’s why my approach to teaching has always been discussion-based.
Because the only way I’ve learned is by asking questions. And it’s important to me that people feel confident in their ideas and their ability to defend them. But it is also relevant that they feel emboldened to recognize when they don’t know something, that they understand that not knowing doesn’t have to be the end of the world. That they are open enough to sit with the discomfort of uncertainty, open enough to listen.
When I think about the moments that have shifted my thinking, it is the moments where I have been offered the opportunity to take in new information and I took it. I want to teach students how to do that too. Because to me, the point of college, the point of being in the university setting, isn’t just about regurgitating information. You could do that on your own. It’s about learning how to think, it’s about enjoying thinking critically.
I also model the fact that I don’t know everything. Yes, I’m a professor. Yes, I have a PhD, but I don’t know everything. I can learn some things from you too.
When you make students feel like they are valuable contributors to the classroom environment and the ongoing body of knowledge, I have found that that is how you get the best out of students.
Adela: Speaking about getting the best out of students, you curated a KSMoCa exhibition with the kids with the concept of a Happy Place. And I am curious about what space, song, person, or activity you consider your happy place.
Kiara: My apartment is a happy place for me. But also, one of my other happy places is listening to people talk about themselves, listening to them narrate their lives and experiences. It is fascinating what they choose to say or not to say, and what memories are not even on the horizon until a certain word or phrase is spoken.
Adela: Absolutely. I share that. And I want to discuss your way of doing precisely that, community storytelling and archiving the stories of black elders. What does that process look like for you?
Kiara: The artist who I’ve been working with, specifically archiving his belongings, comes from the Black Arts Movement. He is part of the visual arts collective, AfriCOBRA, which is probably one of the most prolific groups to come out of that period. I’m also currently spearheading a Black artist archival project here in Portland.
In terms of the process of doing that work, one of the things that I’m realizing is that relationships matter. I have also been taking it upon myself to be flexible in my approaches.
Before I came to Portland, when I was trying to do some research on black artists here, I essentially hit a wall. Maybe one or two links popped up—this was before the Black Artists of Oregon exhibition opened up at the Portland Art Museum.
And even though you have some of these Black Arts Movement artists who reach national and international acclaim, that was largely not the case. This was a community-oriented movement, so I ended up finding info about these less prominent figures in people’s basements and in places that were not an archive or repositories.
But for someone to feel comfortable with you coming into their house, you also have to demonstrate yourself to be somewhat trustworthy. I think doing this community storytelling work comes down to that, to being someone with manners. While at the same time recognizing your positionality with them. Because, even though I’m black and I’m interviewing black people, I’m a representative of the University.
Another important piece of it is that I pay people for their time, because nobody, especially in this economy, should ever be doing things for free. Everybody I’ve interviewed has gotten paid.
In terms of the methods in general, I do research on the person beforehand and try to be methodical about the questions, but I am more flexible now. Before, I would have like twelve questions and I would break them off into like three different categories: their early life, their practice, their career in Portland and navigating the Portland art scene as a black artist.
I also keep in mind that these narratives that I value are people’s lives. So there’s a certain kind of reverence and sensitivity that I bring to each interview because people don’t have to tell you anything.
It is interesting that one of the ways that I end up getting a lot of good information outta people though, is because at some point in time, they forget that they’re talking to a professor, now they’re just talking to someone interested in their work and life experiences.
I think too, because I’m someone who looks like a lot of people that I interview, that also helps. People see me as being just like their niece or cousin. One of my collaborators sent to me recently that they were like ‘You wouldn’t even know you had a PhD. unless you ask,’ because that’s not something I lead with.
It is about who you are as a person and what you’re bringing to your process. Because you can do the same thing that I’m doing, but if you’re someone who is not consistent, who has demonstrated yourself to be only there for what you need and you are ready to get out, then you’ll get nothing.
What has been the lynchpin of my practice is recognizing that these are people first before they are a book topic or exhibition material. They’re people first and foremost, and that is something that I am attentive to. Because they can feel when you just want something from them and don’t give a fuck about them.
I think that for me as well, it is the fact that I am so interested in the mundane, the ordinary, the quotidian. And this goes back to your earlier question about telling more complex stories; there are things that you can learn on a macro scale by looking at key figures, but I think if you’re gonna get to the minutiae of something, you gotta go to the everyday, ordinary people.
When I think about the women that I grew up around, they weren’t the who’s who of whatever. They were just women in my community who were doing the things that make a difference. And their lives are not more or less valuable than Martin Luther King’s.
If anything, the people that I’m looking to are more representative of most people. And most people don’t think their life is that important, or that experiences are that valuable. And I think making people feel like they are is necessary and important.
Adela: In this action of making people’s experiences feel valued, I think there is also the responsibility to hold their pain. How do you hold other people’s trauma and make them feel safe when you are doing this community storytelling work?
Kiara: An interview that comes to mind is one with a woman who was the niece of an artist named Charlotte Lewis. She talked about her mental health issues and her aunt’s mental health issues, about her nervous breakdown and how that breakdown came about from being in an abusive relationship.
But her niece touched on how, from that breakdown, her aunt finds her calling to become a community artist. During that time, though, her family doesn’t understand what she’s doing. Having to live with mental illness, as a black woman in the seventies and eighties where there was little to no conversation about that publicly, and the shame that comes as a result of having to deal with those situations on top of feeling misunderstood and alienated from your family, that takes a toll on people.
So as her niece was telling me the story she just broke down crying saying, ‘My family didn’t understand who she was and what she was doing and if they had only supported her, maybe the ending of her life could have been different.’ And I just stopped the interview, went up to her and hugged her and we waited until she was back at a place where she could continue the interview.
So, for me, in those moments, I respond like a human being. Maybe a professional would give them ten minutes, but as a human being if you’re breaking down crying in front of me, my instinct is to go in for the hug or to go make sure that you’re okay, and that’s what I did.
People want to know that they are not just commodities. People need to feel they are valued as people
Adela: Yeah absolutely. And in that direction, a lot of this storytelling work has to do with archiving people’s stories and experiences and giving them a valued place.
I want to learn what frameworks other people have designed to archive, because I know this can be of service to other people who do not know where to start with the belongings of their loved ones. What has that looked like for you?
Kiara: I think that archiving, like a lot of things, is more intuitive than people think. And people go to school for that, which I am not trying to disregard, but think there is part of it that is instinctual. The name of the game is preservation. It is like curating, in that sense. I did not go to school for museum studies, but I think that at the core of curating is the ability to care for the objects.
Similarly, with archiving, the objective is preservation. Now, when you talk about wanting to get those archives into certain repositories or create an index, then that’s a different situation where certain techniques are needed.
But I will say that for the archival project that I’ve been working on, I am part of a team of people and one of them is an archivist. She has helped create an inventory list, helped think about putting it together in a specific way, and what materials to use to better preserve what we found.
I have contributed to the team by knowing what I am looking for, since I have studied the Black Arts Movement in depth. Being a researcher, I also know what materials would be useful for me if I had a project to research. We all bring our strengths to the table.
But for me, in the end, the biggest objective is just the preservation aspect of it. There was a time when, since people did not move around as much, your grandma was living in the same house that she had been living in for the last fifty years, and in the basement, she kept her mom’s baby pictures. What I’m saying is people have naturally been archiving for a long time. At the core of it all is caring and preserving our history. I’m always excited about the things that we take for granted.
Adela: I am too. That is why I am shooting videos of recipes or how to do hummus for plants, passed down from my grandma and great aunts. They have never cooked with measurements and neither do we. So our recipes and their stories would otherwise get lost.
Kiara: Exactly, and I think that is so important because people take a lot of things for granted until you realize how quickly the world changes.
For example, when I was growing up, cursive was one of those things that you had to know how to write, but they don’t teach that anymore. When I was in grad school one of my classes visited a historic house and while we were there one of the preservationists mentioned that highschoolers these days don’t know how to read cursive. Many of them had a hard time analyzing some of the older documents from periods where people exclusively wrote in cursive. I never imagined that would be a thing.
Some traditions and things will just die out without preservation intervention, which is why it is so important. But there are moments when I question, ‘Man, is what I’m doing even important?’
But it is paramount because the thing about community arts is that for a lot of these people, their livelihoods were in relation to a very specific place. And their contributions shifted the culture, and if their stories aren’t preserved. It’s like they did not exist.
Adela: Thinking about place, and community, I want to know what makes you feel at home.
Kiara: You know what? I love mangos.
Adela: Yes!! There’s a mango at my window tree back home.
Kiara: Amazing. As a child, my mom used to tell me that she ate a mango and sweet potatoes when she was pregnant with me.
I also love watermelons, and how they signal the beginning of summer, a shift in the season. It also reminds me of home, of California. I only understood when I moved to the East Coast that getting good watermelon for cheap was not a thing everywhere. And so sweet watermelons are summer and home for me
Adela: Finally, if someone were archiving your home and belongings, what is one object they would find that speaks to who you are today?
Kiara: I have recently introduced the juicer in my life and I love juice but I never made it because it is not a quick task. But doing it now is fulfilling because of the effort it takes to make, it is meditative for me
Adela: I get it. It’s a simple thing you do just for you.
Kiara: Yeah exactly!
Adela Cardona is a “profesional en ver las maricaditas lindas de la vida” (professional in seeing the little beautiful things of life). She’s a universe made being that sometimes poses as a poet, a storyteller, a gatherer or Sustainability/ Social Impact Director. Her universe given gifts include an insane ear for music, as well as weaving words and people together. She’s now in the process of getting her MFA in Art + Social Practice at PSU, in Portland, Oregon.
As a Colombian-Lebanese, Autistic x ADHDer, Queer woman she is constantly inhabiting the borderlines and bringing her roots everywhere, to help other people flow with the rivers of their own stories. Her art touches on the themes of family, legacy, mental health, fashion, community storytelling, identity, creativity and sustainability.
The work she’s in the muddy middle of is The GrapeVine, a space to tell stories and inherit the skills of our ancestors, alive, dead or nature being. She’s also in the process of making a series about neurodivergent people and wanting to develop spaces to tackle decay and grief. She has a thousand ideas on her mind at a time.
She’s the co-founder of an Open Mic called Mujeres No Graciosas, that has held the stories of more than 2000 women and LGBTQ+ people, since 2018. She’s also the producer and host of the podcast of latinx creators, La Bombillera. She has written articles in both English and Spanish on topics ranging from Alzheimer’s disease to drag culture and sustainable fashion. Her journalistic work can be seen in magazines and portals such as Bacánika, Eco-Stylist, Malpensante and her own Medium. Her poetry can be read, heard and seen at the IG: oceanasoyyo.
Kiara Hill is the James DePriest Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History in the Schnitzer School of Art + Art + History + Design at Portland State University. She teaches courses on African American art and socially engaged art in the Art + Social Practice MFA Program. Hill earned her B.A. in Mass Communications at Sacramento State University, her M.A. in Women’s Studies at the University of Alabama, and recently completed her Ph.D. in Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts. Her research focuses on the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s with an emphasis on Black women artists and cultural workers. Hill is also a curator of African American visual art and culture and curator-in-residence at Dr Martin Luther King Jr School Museum of Contemporary Art (KSMoCA).
Move Up, Move Back, Make Space, and Take Space
“There are definitely moments in the performances where people bring some really big shit. And, where do you put it? Put it here. Put it in the performance, but the space will hold it. It’ll do whatever it’s gonna do. There’s a whole range of what people are bringing into it. But it tends to be perceived as quite intense, which it is and it’s also not.
I just love the absurdity– the sheer cosmic thrill of absurdity and humor, which are also so involved in the whole thing…”
Maxx Katz
Recently, I’ve been tempted by the idea of being loud. As someone who expresses themselves sometimes quietly, I think the idea of yelling and screaming may act as a cathartic release. Since this growing interest, I’ve had several colleagues and friends share with me “The Yelling Choir”, a vocal group which practices the art of yelling. I wanted to interview Maxx Katz, who founded the vocal group, and try to understand the absurd, expressive powers of yelling at the top of our lungs.
Gwen Hoeffgen: Maxx, thank you again so much for agreeing to do this interview– I’m so excited to talk to you about your work. So, as you know, I am very interested in your project, The Yelling Choir. Could you tell me how the project came together? What motivated you to create this group?
Maxx Katz: I was at an artist residency in Florida and they had a little introductory session for everybody and I’d shown just a video of me. I think I was playing the guitar and yelling and then afterwards there were 5 different women who came up to me and asked me if I could teach them how to yell. I was like, “okay, sure.” So I put together a little workshop. I figured out some things we could do, and I taught three different kinds of yells.
We did some hilarious yelling exercises. We would ask a yes or no question and respond, but we yelled our answers. We would ask, “should you dress salad?” and we would yell “NO!!!” It was hilarious and so great. It’s so interesting because there are a lot of people who don’t know if they can yell. It seems like there’s this initial barrier to get through, so it can be so exciting when people find their yelling voices. For some people it’s extraordinarily liberating.
Gwen: I totally understand that. I think that’s one of the reasons that I’m very attracted to this idea of “The Yelling Choir.” I feel like I’m a very quiet person and very timid and shy at times. It’s so interesting for me to try to understand why I feel this way, and why others in society feel this way. Are women socialized to be more timid? I feel less empowered when I feel quiet, and the thought of playing with the idea of being loud is fun for me.
Maxx: Yeah, I was also super quiet. I was the quietest kid on the planet. I would never have thought I would do vocalizing of any sort in public, much less when I was younger, and now here we are. And it is obviously often very gendered in our culture but sometimes it’s not, you know, like there are plenty of non-women who also want to learn to yell and it’s really important to them.
Gwen: After doing the original yelling workshops, do you continue to use the same kind of techniques within the Yelling Choir rehearsals?
Maxx: Occasionally I’ll do workshops and I’ll have a pretty similar structure to what I originally came up with. It’s definitely evolved. I do workshops that are just one-offs for people, but with the ongoing group, it’s different now. We’re often really focused on whatever performance we’re going to do. But also, there’s so much to the choir. It’s using the voice but it’s also using the “voice” –where it’s like creative processing, creative flow and just generating things. If we have enough time in rehearsals, that’s where a lot of the juice is. We play around with voice, with movement. A lot of the process of the Yelling Choir for me has become about creating a somatic template for belonging and community, and using that social engagement system to support people’s being in a creative flow place. It’s kind of balanced between intellectualizing and embodied subconscious processes and finding a way to get into a play zone with people and see what comes out.
Gwen: That’s the goal, isn’t it? To find a sweet spot sort of multi-brain community, that you feel supported by, and that you feel safe around, and that you’re able to make things with.
Maxx: Multi brain, yes. Multi brain, multi body. Yeah, totally.
Gwen: In the past, I worked as a dancer and the work that I do in my visual art is about the body, our movement, how people carry themselves and hold emotional experiences within the body. So I wanted to ask you about whether movement comes into your practice organically or if it’s a conscious decision to use movement in this way. I’m really fascinated right now with the link between movement, the body, and sound.
Maxx: It’s very intentional to use movement for a number of reasons. First off, moving at all helps turn the inner-critic brain off. Especially for people who aren’t trained vocalists, it can feel really vulnerable to use the voice at all. So, throwing movement in there just helps to grease the whole mechanism. I did this workshop once with Meredith Monk, and she talked a lot about the whole linking. And she had some exercises about linking movement and vocalizing. The way that she did it was almost like Qigong. There were some very gentle, specific movements along with different sounds. I wouldn’t particularly use that style myself, but it was very interesting. Anyway, I have a vision that is still obscure to me about what being fully embodied would look and feel like, especially in a performance. And of course there’s movement involved. It’s like being able to actually be fully whatever this being is, and whatever the performance space is. What is that? How do we try that out? I don’t know, there’s a lot of wiggling that I’m doing as I’m saying this that probably won’t convey in the written interview.
Gwen: Yeah, it’s very worm-like, I think–the process of trying to figure it out. I was in a class the other month and we had an artist with a background in performance who was speaking to us. And, a student asked, “how do you feel confident in your body?” It’s a really important question. How do we feel like we are actually a part of our bodies? And especially in the way that we move, and express emotions through the body. How do we do that? I think it’s connected to the way that we vocalize too. I mean, the voice is realized due to vibrations and movements.
Maxx: Yeah, the voice does something. Even just getting the vibrating going, I often just use it to get out of a freeze response. A lot of times I’m stuck in a little bit of a freeze, and I’m not alone in this. Just using the voice at all, it helps. And then if we can get into movement, that’s helpful too. But both together, that’s a power pack combo.
Gwen: And that’s true, too, you’re not alone in this. It’s one thing to vocalize and move in isolation. But it sounds like a big piece of the Yelling Choir is that it’s in communication. The group is able to be heard and to listen.
Maxx: Yes, the community piece is huge and also for me kind of difficult. I don’t often feel comfortable in groups or with people, so I wanted to create a community that I would feel comfortable in, which involves a certain amount of freedom of expression and authenticity and just liking people. But also the practices of the choir and the structure of the rehearsals– It’s mostly about check ins and snacks. We do some playing around, too. We have a shared cause, and it has become a community of people in the flavor that I like, and some other people would like. In the practices there’s these elements of embodiment, awareness, expression, like emotional processing and there’s also these practices of exchange of attention, of taking up space, so while someone’s taking up space, there’s someone else holding the space. And then you flip back and forth.
And there’s this polyvagal theory, you know, this nervous system regulation theory. And it says, as you start to speak at all, there’s this nervous system brake that has to let off. And then when you go back to being quiet, it comes back on again. So, sometimes people get stuck in one position or another. Being able to move fluidly in space– Move up, move back, make space, take space, in groups. It’s being part of it and also having a lot of others be part of it. That’s the way I think of it. It’s a crucial part of the whole practice. We’re practicing the skills to be in community together in a way that allows tolerance and inclusion.
Gwen: It’s interesting to think of what that looks like in a physical and spatial way.
Maxx: And to practice it, literally practice it, body, voice, being in space with people.
Gwen: Have you thought of ever extending the project more? I recently listened to a documentary about Bill T Jones and his survival workshops. I thought the way that he explained his relation to the workshops was so beautiful. I’ll paraphrase, but he basically said that he was just someone who needed their hand held. And for you, similarly, it seems that your community is serving an intimate need. Have you ever thought of extending the project into more public spaces?
Maxx: Yeah. Definitely, I have. I’ve written grants that I haven’t gotten for larger projects that involve a lot of people. I mean, it can be hard. You can only do so much community building in a larger group, given the scale of where we’re at here. So, I’ve been keeping workshops somewhat small and just experimenting with how many people can really be in the space. But if there’s less focus on that, like with a shorter event, with more people, I’m definitely trying to figure out what that would look like and how to make it happen.
Gwen: So how are the performances? What is it like sharing this group with a live and reactive audience?
Maxx: It can be really varied. I tend to focus a lot on space and what the context of the space is. Outdoor performances versus indoor performances are different. And then is the audience in chairs or are people free to move around? It turns out audiences tend to be a little blown away by the intensity of it.
Gwen: I can imagine.
Maxx: With yelling, people tend to bring so much of their own perceptions to what the yelling is about, so to speak. And I remember playing metal shows and I would yell just from sheer joy and power. I remember this one metal show, this guy came up to me and was like, what are you so angry about? And I was like, “I am not angry at all, motherfucker.” But yeah I think because there’s so little experience of public intensity and yelling, it can be perceived in a number of ways. There are definitely moments in the performances where people bring some really big shit. And, where do you put it? Put it here. Put it in the performance. The space will hold it. It’ll do whatever it’s gonna do. There’s a whole range of what people are bringing into it.
But it tends to be perceived as quite intense, which it is and it’s also not. I just love the absurdity– the sheer cosmic thrill of absurdity and humor, which are also so involved in the whole thing, which I feel leavens it a bit. That may or may not come across. It kind of depends on the context and the venue, really. Some people that see the show are super energized after and they feel like super in their body and just like really awake and they want to try yelling stuff. And then, some people need a break. I remember talking with some kids after a performance and they had so many great questions. They were very curious and really trying to figure it out.
Gwen: Yeah, I think the act of vocalizing can be perceived in so many different ways. I’m interested in understanding my voice and vocalizing. And I had this idea about going outside and screaming as a group. This was right when the election was happening, and you could tell on our campus, there was this collectively pent up energy. You could feel it, like it was thick. So, I said, “let’s just go to the park and scream.” And even just me saying that seemed to be perceived in different ways. I think it’s an association. To me it seems cathartic, and I think it may not be that way for everyone. And then, of course, having an audience screaming in a public setting is a little scary too, I think.
Maxx: Another interesting thing that happens with the audiences is some people kind of create their own context and some people are thinking, “Oh, they’re yelling at me.” And some people are like, “Oh, they’re yelling with me,” or, “They’re yelling for me.” People situate themselves in vastly different ways. I was teaching somebody ages ago, like before this whole yelling choir business. We were in an apartment in Brooklyn, and we were on the balcony. And we were working on some yelling out into the courtyard, and from across the way, someone yelled back, “Are you okay??”
And there was this one time at a campground I was doing a little yelling workshop with some people. But, beforehand, I went around to every campsite and was like, “We’re just gonna do a little friendly yelling down the way. Nothing to worry about. Feel free to join in.” And that just did wonders for the reception. So, just telling people in advance a little bit is helpful. But, really, I haven’t figured out how to frame it yet, honestly.
Maxx Katz is an artist, composer, and performer based in Portland, Oregon, whose work draws on vocabulary from performance art, free improvisation, jazz, contemporary classical, and heavy metal. A classically trained flutist with an M.A. in Music from the University of Virginia, Katz uses flute, electric guitar, voice, and movement as instruments of radical transformation.
Katz has been commissioned to create work for the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble and the Oregon Contemporary 2024 Artists’ Biennial, and has created work in collaboration with musicians and dancers including Tyshawn Sorey, Linda Austin, Tahni Holt and Muffie Delgado-Connelly, John Niekrasz, Julian Otis, lauren jean crow, and Eddie Bond.
They have toured extensively across the U.S., Europe, and Canada as part of various collaborative and solo projects. Katz was a resident at the 2019 Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music with Vijay Iyer and Tyshawn Sorey, and Atlantic Center for the Arts with flutist Nicole Mitchell. They compose work for ongoing ensembles including Yelling Choir and Floom.
Their Yelling Choir project has debuted compositions at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art’s Time-Based Art Festival, Oregon Contemporary 2024 Artists’ Biennial, the American Choral Directors Association NW Conference, Congress Yard Projects, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and ACRE Artist Residency. They have led Yelling Choir workshops at Banff and ACRE as well as Portland State University, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Inward Bound Mindfulness Education teen and young adult meditation retreats, and Portland Public Schools.
Gwen Hoeffgen is a visual and social practice artist who currently investigates the physicality of emotional experiences, and how those experiences live within the body waiting to be released. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in psychology, she worked as a social worker in the mental health, addiction, and cognitive health fields, and then received her MA in Drawing at Paris College of Art. Currently, as an Art and Social Practice MFA student at Portland State University, she use mediums of painting, drawing, photography, sound, and conversation to explore how we find stories within pieces, creases, breaks, and bends.
Watch Where You Point That Thing: A Talk on Ethics and Photography
“I think with socially engaged photography, or at least my approach and intent with it is a lot to consider—the ethics of making work collectively with the community instead of, of a community.”
Emily Fitzgerald
Coming from a background in street photography, I was motivated by the human experience and allowing others to tell their own stories. There was a contradiction within this as street photography usually leads you to capturing photos in a voyeuristic manner where confrontation, weird looks, and surprising conversations aren’t foreign but come with ethical implications. This conflict led me to Emily Fitzgerald, a Portland State University professor and artist who primarily works with photos. I was seeking answers on how to practice photography in a way that gets you from point A to point B with ease, with relationships leading the way. Emily’s words are simple yet transformative, they evolved my appreciation for subtle ambiguities and a photo’s capabilities. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed hearing them. Remember, always watch where you point the lens.
Domenic Toliver: Thanks for talking with me. I’ve been struggling with how to go about things, so I’m curious, what is your approach to photography within the context of social practice, especially when the focus seems to shift away from the final image and towards the process, interaction, or broader narrative the image contributes to?
Emily Fitzgerald: That’s a good question. I mean, there are so many different elements and that has been a lot of what my research has been about, the different methods and approaches in utilizing images. Collaboratively making work, making work with people as opposed to taking photos of folks. It depends on what the project is, but I think a big part of my practice is collaborative storytelling and using images as part of the process as opposed to thinking about myself as a photographer. My practice has really shifted from being a photographer who takes photos to someone who uses images collaboratively and collectively. Sometimes that looks like me shooting photos, but sometimes it looks like working with archives, working with other people who take photos or using found images, or creating structures that people can plug into that are somehow image based or text-based, and sometimes photography is not central to my practice, sometimes it’s more peripheral, just depending on what the project is. My practice often examines things like who has the agency to make images and decides what images are used. Though I’ve always been a photographer, sometimes taking pictures feels less important or it isn’t as necessary. In some ways, the camera can feel like a barrier instead of a connection. So photography sort of ebbs and flows within my practice. I think images are extremely compelling and photography has always remained a strong part of my practice, but maybe more or less central within certain projects. I often use archival photos, and writing, then sometimes I’ll kind of work as a curator, as opposed to a photographer. There are a lot of different ways of working with images, but I just really like collaboration through every stage or at least some stage within the process.
It’s always a balance. Like right now I’m thinking a lot about how to make images that I feel are aesthetically compelling and also conceptually strong, where there is a lot of agency, and that can be tricky if I’m working with folks that don’t have a background in photography.
Lately, I’ve been working a lot with students who are making their own work while I am building this photo program at PSU and right now teaching is interwoven with my art practice.
Dom: Wow. It seems like there’s a lot of space for building connections, experimenting with different ways to tell stories, and also just fun new ways to use images. Would you be able to talk a little bit about one of your projects? Maybe, Being Old, and how that process you just explained worked within that one in particular?
Emily Fitzgerald: Yeah, that project was, gosh, so long ago.That was my first work with the senior center which was called the Hollywood Senior Center, and now is called the Community for Positive Aging (CFPA). At that time, I think my grandma was still alive, but I had started working on this project with my grandma who was really a soulmate of mine. It was the last year of her life and we were collaboratively making images. My grandma was a beautician so she would tell me how to do my hair and makeup and I did a lot with her. I would curl her hair, and roll her hair in curlers. She would tell me how to roll her hair and how to put on her false eyelashes and all of this stuff. So while we were doing this I had a remote shutter release and she would press the shutter. So we were making images of ourselves collectively. It started as a documentary project of her, and when I started making it, I realized it was more about our relationship. So I started making images with her.
Then I moved to Portland and I was in grad school and I had all these friends my age, but I didn’t have relationships with older adults here yet. So I wanted to build that for myself and for others. I approached the senior center, and Amber, who is still the executive director there, and I talked. I decided to do some sort of storytelling workshop, or at least that’s how we were framing it, but I was asking myself what a photo-based social practice looks like at a senior center.
I think there was a group of about 10 or 12 folks. There were seniors and then some of my peers who were in the social practice program came with me to some of the workshops. Then Amber and I talked about what she felt the center needed. That’s another element of working with the community. Thinking about what are the needs of that community and how and if images could serve those needs. So part of it was community building and like you said, using my camera to talk to people. A lot of the seniors at the center wanted to take photos. So they took photos of each other, and they brought in family photos, and archival images from their lives. We used those images to talk about family, home, and life experience . We were using the images to learn about people and their experiences and their histories. The organization wanted them to humanize the building. Because the building was a neighborhood center, but you couldn’t tell from the outside at that point. We decided that we would utilize the photos as a large-scale installation on the front and the back of the building to just sort of bring the inside out. The participants did a lot of writing about the images as a tool to engage folks and conversate. We decided to make a publication and because the publication included so many of their words along with their images, as a group we decided we were going to do a book reading, so the seniors read their words that they had written in the publication.
Dom: That sounds awesome. It sounds like powerful work, not only for them but for you.
Emily Fitzgerald: From there I kept working with the senior center. We collaborated with Beaumont Middle School pairing each participant with someone from a different generation.
And at that point, we were thinking, oh my gosh, who rides TriMet a lot? There were a lot of seniors who couldn’t drive anymore and a lot of young people who couldn’t drive, so we decided that the installations from that collaboration would be on TriMet bus stops. Both of those installations are still in the CFPA. So the building’s very lively. A third installation that I did with the third-year MFA students and participants from the CFPA we installed in the spring.The partnership with the senior center sort of ended up being like an ongoing, self-proclaimed residency.
Dom: I didn’t realize it had gone on for so long, I just saw the first project and was instantly hooked. Older people are often disregarded or cast aside in society after a certain age and what you did seemed to bridge that connection back to the community while also allowing them to share their stories.
Emily Fitzgerald: Now I’m sort of trying to develop a more formal relationship with the Senior Center and the MFA program. I think my plan is to run a class every winter there. And maybe something in the spring if I can swing it too.
Dom: That would be dope. I would love to get in there soon and see what it’s like.
So you said you had a lot of intergenerational relationships and I guess working with that community would probably not be as tough as if you were to try to do something socially engaged with a community that you have no idea about. For example the annual Assembly, it’s pretty site-specific and I’m not from here, so I’m challenged with putting something together within a community I’m not at all familiar with. What’s the best way to approach that? In an authentic way.
Emily Fitzgerald: That’s a good point. A lot of my work is site-specific. I’ve worked on a long-term collaboration, it’s finished now, but I think it was like eight or nine years long. It’s called People’s Homes. It started as a graduate project for the MFA program. I think a lot of it stems from my own curiosity about something personal for me. My collaborator and I, Molly Sherman, were at the time both living in Northeast Portland, and we were thinking about how we’re both white, middle class, cis women, our identities as artists in this neighborhood the racist history and gentrification in N and NE and with this interest in creating intergenerational exchanges and conversation.
I was new to this area, so I didn’t know a lot, but it was my curiosity that drove me, and for that project, we paired some of the oldest homeowners who are long-time residents of the neighborhood with younger artists. Lisa Jarrett was one of the artists that we paired with this amazing woman, Thelma, who passed away many years ago. She was in her 90s at the time and had survived the Vanport Flood. Each artist responded to the homeowner’s story. It was very place-based in the sense that we were like, what’s happening in our neighborhoods, and how do we talk to our neighbors? Part of the reason the first iteration was so strong was because we spent a lot of time on it. Artists made these images in response to older residents’ experience. It could be drawing, text, photography, mixed media or whatever as long as it was responding to their stories. We turned the artist’s work into small-scale billboards that were displayed in the front of the homes. Then we made a newspaper publication that was also distributed at the homes.
The next iteration was during the pandemic and was driven by what this project could look like on a systemic level. So we worked with nonprofits and paired them with older residents.
Then the third iteration was in San Antonio, Texas, where my collaborator Molly Sherman lives. So now we were responding to a completely different place. What does that look like within the context of the framework of this project that we’ve set up? There were many collaborative decisions and discussions between Molly, the cultural organizations we partnered with, and the art space that commissioned the project, The Contemporary at Blue Star, and the residents. So I think it was kind of a fluid collaboration but I think that it is helpful that it is durational work. I often end up working on projects for a long time which helps to build the relationships and connections
Dom: Yeah I can see how developing relationships and having those conversations would help you learn more about the community and the space. It seems more authentic. It makes me think of the ethics in social practice. As a photographer, I think a lot about language. We say “take” and “capture” when asking to photograph someone. Do you ever worry about how you come across? Or do you feel like having good intentions is enough when photographing other people?
Emily Fitzgerald: It’s probably why I don’t do street photography anymore. I just feel like that reciprocity is harder to come by with street photography. I don’t think it makes sense because of the relational way that I work. I do think a lot about the ethics of work but I try to integrate different means of reciprocity within the project. So if that’s an honorarium or some sort of exchange that feels ethical. I think it’s a lot about representation and self-representation and thinking about how people want to be represented. Historically I’ve never used, at least since I’ve been thinking of myself as a socially engaged photographer, I never used an image that someone didn’t want me to use. And that’s a hard choice. Sometimes I feel like, oh my gosh, this is such a striking and stunning image, I love it and then, the person that I’m working with doesn’t want me to use it. So honoring that feels like the right choice. In my projects I’m often focused on the process as opposed to the outcome or as opposed to the aesthetics and that helps keep it about the people.
Dom: I get that. If the focus is on the people and reaching their needs, then it should just flow. I get that. You said you did street photography. I didn’t know that.
Emily Fitzgerald: I did more lifestyle but I did do some street photography and travel photography. I guess that’s what I fell in love with, I still love it, but it never had the depth I wanted. I questioned myself and the ethics of that way of working. I think people do it beautifully and brilliantly. With solid ethics, it just feels much more difficult and rare.
Dom: Yeah, I fell in love with street photography because I felt it was about the world around you, all the things going on, people living, and the random complexities of humanity. It felt like I was just showing these people telling their own stories, but then you’re also stealing something from them and not having that communication or collaboration. I’ve run into a lot of people trying to push my camera out of the way. Which is understandable.
I think that’s why I’m here now. How do I do what I like, while also using it to transform the people I’m taking photos of. It comes with the intent of changing and raising awareness, but thinking that the process and work with the people is doing that, rather than the photo being that tool itself.
Emily Fitzgerald: Yeah. I think you can do it though, and I don’t feel like I’ve done it successfully, but I think you can do documentary projects that are more socially engaged or have strong consideration of self-representation and ethics. People are doing it, but it’s harder.
Dom: Yeah, I have so many ideas for projects, but it’s all about trying to find the right way to do them. That’s kind of the hardest part for me right now. Not tugging the wrong strings. And it’s not only understanding why and how but then trying to do it for others, with others. I need to have the courage to make mistakes, but also learn, grow, and fix them.
Emily Fitzgerald: Yeah, there’s no right way. I think that’s part of it and so much is just learning as you go. Like life in general.
Dom: Learning and growing as you go, that’s true. So the last thing I wanted to ask was what are you doing right now? Anything upcoming?
Emily Fitzgerald: I’ve been working on a project with the same collaborator that I did People’s Homes, Molly Sherman, and we are both interested in the spectrum of reproductive experience, from abortion to parenting to pregnancy loss and how people undergo this as a spectrum rather than isolated events, reflecting the varied journeys many individuals face throughout their lives.
During the pandemic and when we were finishing People’s Homes I had a baby, I also had miscarriages and an abortion. This was all happening along with the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, so our project is called the People’s Clinic for Reproductive Empathy, and we’ve been doing different sorts of smaller projects under that umbrella. But the project we are working on right now is with the Flickr foundation to make a photobook about the spectrum of reproductive experience.
Dom: I’m really looking forward to seeing more! You have so much going on, it’s amazing. Thank you again for speaking with me and sharing. I feel a little more confident, and a little more ready to tackle some of these ideas.
Emily Fitzgerald is a socially engaged artist, photographer, storyteller, and educator. Through her work, she investigates what it means to collectively tell a story, equally prioritize the relational and the aesthetic, collaboratively make conceptual and visual decisions, and co-author a body of work with the ‘subject’. Her work is responsive, participatory, and site-specific. Emily brings large-scale art installations into non-traditional, public, and unexpected places in order to deepen our understanding and reframe our ways of relating to one another. She is the co-founder of MATTER Gallery and Works Progress Agency. Emily is an assistant professor in photography at the School of Art + Design at Portland State University.
Domenic Toliver is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice bridges film, photography, performance, and socially engaged art. With a background in sociology, he began his career as a behavioral analyst working with autistic children before shifting his focus to filmmaking. He earned an MA in Film and Media, pursuing directing while also acting in several films.
As a street photographer, Domenic explores themes of presence, perception, and narratives. Now pursuing an MFA in Art and Social Practice, he is particularly interested in the intersections of his practices and how storytelling can be a valuable tool in promoting social change.
Finding Propósito
“When people talk about the Bay Area, the culture is Oakland. It’s not San Francisco. The core of that culture is Oakland, California. We deserve to have world class sports organizations and hopefully Roots can play a role in that.”
Edreece Arghandiwal
Since 2020 my hometown of Oakland,California has lost its three major sports ( Raiders, Warriors and A’s). The teams played in This has left a tremendous void in the city from both an economic and cultural perspective, however that doesn’t mean people aren’t other emerging sporting organizations hoping to inspire future generations. This interview was an opportunity to learn more about the purpose-driven football club,Oakland Roots, from one of its founders ,Edreece ,who has found a way to amplify Oakland’s cultural voice through football that has long been silenced by previous sporting organizations in the Town.
More than anything else it allowed a space for two Brown Oaklanders to talk about their experience growing up in the Town and find common cause in culture, language and place.
Rafa Moraga: Tell me a little bit about what growing up in Oakland was like for you?
Edreece Arghandiwal: I was born in Oakland and lived in the Bay Area my whole life. I was a product of Afghan refugees fleeing Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion. The first place they landed was the Bay Area. My parents met each other here and got married. Some of my earliest experiences as a youth was in Oakland; particularly with the Oakland Athletics. I also was fortunate enough to see the Warriors win a championship there.These experiences shaped my identity growing up, as well as my family’s identity. Oakland is one of the most diverse places in the nation, and so to have been able to be a part of that in the early years of my life really led to the perception I have in totality.
You know, we grew up seeing baseball, basketball, football, but never soccer at the Coliseum outside of random exhibition matches that drew 30,000 – 40,000 people. I knew that our community had an appetite for it, especially considering how diverse we are, but it just never it never actualized until we asked the question why not professional soccer?. And that question led to the ultimate creation of Oakland Roots Sports Club, and here we are.
Rafa: Did you play soccer growing up? And what clubs were you following?
Edreece: Yeah of course. Football is in the bloodline. My uncle was a goalkeeper for the Afghanistan National Soccer Team. My dad managed the club in his hometown in Afghanistan. Football was everything though baseball was the first sport I played. I adopted soccer as my dying passion around 12 or 13. I grew up loving OG Ronaldo, Inter Milan was my favorite team growing up, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic played for Inter right after. I also played semi professionally at Raimondi Park in West Oakland for the Bay Area Ambassadors. Not many people even know that team was a reality, but I know because I played and I twisted my ankles on those potholes at Raimondi.
I always kind of craved and wanted a pathway to become a professional in Oakland, and that was part of the bummer. I have seen a lot of very talented Black and Brown kids not having a pathway towards professional and we asked that question. I am very proud to say that Project 510, our development platform, has developed eight Academy contracts this year, meaning we’ve been able to harness the talent of all these young 14 and 15 year olds in the 510 area code. And now you got kids from Richmond, Oakland participating in professional environments when that pathway just never existed before.
Rafa: I think the thing with Project 510 is about accessibility. I would have loved to have played football growing up.I played basketball, because that’s what was around, but I knew I was not gonna be playing in high school. I think it’s great to have this pathway because growing up there all of these elite private clubs. Kids I went to school with were playing in these elite clubs, and if you’re a working class Black or Brown kid from East Oakland or Fruitvale, it was almost impossible. So it seems to me like Project 510 helps open up that door to having more accessibility in football.
Edreece: That’s absolutely right, that’s the whole premise of Project 510. So typically, professional clubs will create this academy system where they suck the money out of the communities. It’s pay to play, and then when the player doesn’t work out they move to another club. This is just a cluster of really bad kinds of infrastructure building, and that’s led to the demise of talent developing in America. This country has 300 million people, and should be one of the best soccer playing countries in the world, but because we’ve created this pay to play blocking mechanism, it’s led to, unfortunately, the leakage of talent throughout the entire United States.
I remember bro balling with Mexican kids who would show up 10 minutes late to a game, and they would bang in six goals and leave but they never got discovered, because they just never had the infrastructure. They never had the pipeline or the proper kind of guidance. Project 510 is one of the first development platforms in the whole Bay Area, and even in the United States, that is entirely not pay to play. We have something called Roots Recognize Initiative, where we work with local youth clubs to find the best talent. The best talent at ages 14 -16 come to the Roots to train in our state of the art training environment, which was the old Oakland Raiders training grounds. We develop them, we provide them with professional resources, and we hone in on their abilities. It’s about finding real talent, then introducing them into the professional environment. This year we’ve had eight Academy contracts, which means that over the course of the past five years, eight young kids from the 510 are now playing for the first team. I would look into Athletic Bilbao in Spain as a kind of base for what we are trying to do locally, and really allow the focus and the core to be Oakland and the East Bay, and then that developing into the best talent in the world one day.
Rafa: And so you mentioned Athletic Bilbao football, are there other clubs that you pulled inspiration from?
Edreece: Yeah, we try to really focus on the model that we’re developing. It’s very easy to turn to other inspirations, but honestly, a big part of our motivation is to do it differently. Bilbao is one of the clubs that we look at as as a source of inspiration But in so much of our action, we’ve literally paved the path, whether it’s the fact that we broke the American sports history record for most raised by the community, $3.8 million now and 6000 plus investors, like that just doesn’t happen, and we’ve broke the boundaries there. The other way in which we’ve broken a boundary is our purpose work. We’re one of the first purpose-oriented pro teams in America, and that means that everything we do has a tie back to our community and in the way in which we impact it. It’s not that we’re perfect, but we’re certainly trying to be that for the community, and then that manifests in our curriculum. We’ve coached hundreds and thousands of coaches now on how to create a more inclusive game as it relates to gender and racial equity, and these are topics that teams are just not thinking about. We actually approached it as, what is Oakland doing that is inspiring, not other professional teams, and we use that as our source of inspiration.
Rafa: Going off of that, what does it mean to have local legends like Marshawn Lynch, Jason Kidd, and Gary Payton investing in the club?
Edreece: It always helps when you have buy-in from big names. It helps spread the word. There’s a sense of community. But one thing about that is that people from Oakland and from the Bay have a tremendous sense of pride of being from here, and we know that, and so working with these big names is actually a way for them to contribute back to the building of something meaningful. We’ve lost three pro teams. These pro teams were a source of inspiration. They’re a source of jobs. They’re a source of so much for the community, and the fact they’ve left, you see the impact of that. So for us, it’s really about getting the mobilizers, the galvanizers, together, and doing something positive for our community. And when you get big names involved it adds a lot of street cred. Having Marshawn, Billie Joe Armstrong, is also different in the sense that all of these people are hyper localized. They’re from here. It’s not that we’re getting people in our investment group that are not from the community; that is not Oakland, that is not East Bay.
Rafa: It’s still kind of a huge thing when you talk about the A’s, Raiders, and Warriors that gives me chills. How do you negotiate filling that sporting void and rebuilding trust within the Oakland sports community?
Edreece: Yeah, I mean, personally it sucks to lose all those teams. The A’s were my first sports experience ever, and that has a profound effect on my identity. It sucks to see that no longer be the case. And I grew up a Niners fan because when my dad came from Afghanistan, his first job was as a bank teller in San Francisco, and during one of his first gigs, he saw the championship parade with Montana, and that just stuck with him. And despite being born in Oakland, you know, I am a Niner fan. And so seeing the Raiders leave was devastating, because they actually were one of the most iconic sports brands I’ve ever seen. It’s just saddening to see that being stripped away from a community that shaped its identity so closely with the brand. The Warriors going to San Francisco is not as bad, but in my opinion, is still difficult. Playing in Oakland is different than playing in San Francisco. I respect the organization, but again, doubling down on the Town is super, super important and I take it personally, man. And that’s partially why I developed Oakland Roots. It’s to bring something back for myself personally, but also for people that are craving to see Oakland as a world class city. When people talk about the Bay Area, the culture is Oakland. It’s not San Francisco. The core of that culture is Oakland, California. We deserve to have world class sports organizations and hopefully Roots can play a role in that.
Rafa: Can you expand a little bit more on Oakland’s mentality, because a lot of people feel dissed with these teams leaving, right?
Edreece: No it definitely is the case. I think the thing we’re trying to do is move from this chip on the shoulder mentality to fully accepting that we are world class. So here’s the interesting thing about having a chip on your shoulder. It means that you haven’t accomplished something yet. It is because it insinuates that there’s a gap between the action and the reality. And what I want is to try to transition our mentality to taking Oakland to the universe because we deserve that. We are expecting anything to be given to us off of reputation we have to earn it. We have to develop the best brands and we have to develop the best product. We have to develop great experiences that are not replicable, right? Like the word always has to match the action, and that’s why I want to shift from chip on the shoulder to world class brand.It’s easier to focus on the work and to develop something that lets the work speak for itself, rather than to just be angry at the world because they don’t see you. And that’s how I’ve navigated it personally.That’s how we do it at the Roots.It’s not for everyone but if there’s a group of people that appreciate what we’re doing, there’s 8 billion people in the world. That means there’s more of those people that will like what we’re doing. You know, we sell merchandise in countries you would not even believe and it’s not that those people are from Oakland. They just rock with the idea of being who we are and connect to it.
Rafa: You’re talking about a mentality shift, right? I do think there is a stigma associated with Oakland. People would always ask me “oh you must be getting shot at all time” growing up and it develops that sense of insecurity..
Edreece: People fear what they don’t understand, man. A big part of everything in life is making a connection to people. You can’t accomplish anything in your life without human connection, period. Work life or personal life. Our obligation is to actually educate people on the reality and we try to do that with the club every day, whether it’s highlighting local restaurants, highlighting the beauty of Oakland, people don’t understand how large Oakland actually is. People don’t get that.We have an ocean, we have Redwood parks, we have literally everything you could possibly imagine in our landscape, and it is some of the best climate in the world, and so these are the stories we have to tell. And I think the media always will look to demonize whatever they can get their hands on, because that is what sells. That is what gets the clicks. I think it’s our job to create a different narrative, and we try to do that with the club. Let’s lead with love. Let’s lead with aesthetics, good design, positive experiences, winning world class football, and give no one an option but to speak positively on our community.
Rafa: What is that like now that you are moving into the Oakland Coliseum?
Edreece: I mean it’s responsibility, it’s heritage, it’s filling a void, but at the same time, it’s giving people a new experience. I take that as a tremendous responsibility, man. It’s exciting. It’s full circle. My first sporting experience of my life. Now the club I helped co-create is playing there. It’s kind of a wild trip but it also provides me with this strong sense of pride and just wanting to do whatever it takes to make it successful. So I’m excited for the home opener, and we’re looking to break a USL record for attendance. We’re going to have fireworks post game and Too Short performing at halftime. And it will be a cultural affair. It’ll be a family affair. Hopefully the Bay shows up and shows the world that Oakland never quits.
Rafa: I think about my nephew, he’s six, and was a big A’s fan. And now, my sister has to tell him the A’s are leaving the Town? So, when you think about the youth,what does that mean to you to be able to inspire the next generation with the Roots and Soul the way the A’s inspired you?
Edreece: I’ve already experienced young kids, 10 or 12 months old babies coming to a game and then a few years later I see the growth of that child at the games.It shapes their identity and their experiences. And I don’t take that lightly, either. Man, I mean I think that’s exactly what this club is here for. It’s creating a source of inspiration for people, a sense of unity and purpose too. And also like making sure that the team that’s playing looks like the community, right? Like having a Black and Brown kids see Black and Brown players perform at a high level and succeed; and to see Black and Brown men and women in positions of power within the front office and in soccer. We are one of the very few soccer teams that has a woman at the helm as president. These are all factors that contribute to the perception change and the motivation that young kids will have. So it’s a big part of it.
Rafa: So obviously you’re hitting a different level being in the Coliseum. What are some of the biggest challenges in terms of managing the growth of the club?
Edreece: Yeah, I mean, each phase of business is different, you know, there’s different needs. When we first started in 2019 It was literally three employees. Now we’re scaled to 100 employees on the game days.There’s complexities with each stage and I think the stage that we’re reaching is one that is more focused on real estate and making sure that we secure our training facility for the long term, making sure that we have an interim stadium to play, than building a stadium for the future. You know, so much of America’s Sports issues stem from infrastructure. The reason why these three teams left Oakland is because they didn’t have a pathway towards infrastructure. So we really are doubling down on that as a business, and that’s become priority one, two and three and again, “the more levels, the more devils” I think, is what LL Cool J said at some point. You just got to navigate those nuances and details and handle them.
Rafa: How do y’all manage that situation of public or private real estate investment?
Edreece: There’s so much to work through for the long term vision right now. There’s a pathway to staying at the Coliseum for several more years. I think that securing that is the number one priority, so that we can call that home and elevate Oakland Soul the professional next year, so that they have enough dates at the Coliseum. And then the business model will really start to work. We’re able to generate revenue meaningfully and the plan is to do the build of the stadium the way in which is best for this community. And I think that is the thing that most professional teams did not do. They did what’s best for the team, whether that’s public or private. That was something they couldn’t navigate properly. It’s our full intent to not get into this battle of asking people to fund our visions. That’s not a battle we want to be in as a purpose oriented professional team. So we will operate in the best way for our community. And it’s very clear that our community does not want projects at that scale funded publicly.
Rafa: So Roots are in the United Soccer League ( USL) Championship and the Soul are moving to the USL Super league? What has the transition been for the Soul?
Edreece: So right now the Soul are amateur and they’re playing at Merritt College. The elevation of professionals means that we have a women’s team at the highest level in the American soccer structure. It means that their resources become equitable to our men’s side. It means that they’ll have full access to our training facility, expanded staff, professional environment, and we’re putting the building blocks together now to make sure that that transition happens in a way that is amazing. That reflects our ambition to create an equitable platform for women. And there’s not been an equitable platform for women in American soccer so that is something that we’ve navigated very carefully to then get to a place of fruitful outcome.
Rafa: What are the goals for respective clubs this upcoming season?
Edreece: For Roots, it’s really creating world class soccer on the pitch, winning football. The goal is to really try to win a championship this year and make a gun for it, especially with us being in the Coliseum in a way that is meaningful. We want to continue to work on our real estate efforts, secure a training ground, secure our interim and long term homes. We want to meet our sponsorship goals and our ticketing goals. For the Soul it is to really develop a state of the art pathway to professional for next year. And for 510, try to develop the best possible talent pool for our first team ,and obviously try to continue to build the brand globally and make an impact.
Rafa: To wrap this up, what are some spots in town you go to decompress? Edreece: The lake. I usually go on a run every day at the lake in the evening to decompress and, you know, absorb the energy that is Oakland. There’s a lot of beauty around the lake that helps me. Redwood regional is always helpful. Going to dinner with my wife to our favorite spots, that’s key. There’s actually a new restaurant called Jaji, a modern Afghan restaurant that just opened yesterday. So if you’re ever here you should check it out. But yeah, sometimes just being in my apartment and seeing the view of downtown is enough to make me feel inspired.
Edreece Arghandiwal (he/him) is an Afghani American Oakland native. He is the co-founder and Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer for Oakland Roots, Oakland Soul, Project 51O, a purpose driven football organization founded in 2018 . https://www.oaklandrootssc.com/
Rafa-1 is an Oakland writer and performer in the MFA Art and Social Practice Program at Portland State.
