The Franklin’s Welcome to the End contemplates the spaces and mechanics of resistance through form and subject. Curated by Edra Soto, The End’s thematic strands join to form a radical vision of resistance, one where presence and memory cradle a shared power. The show’s collaborative essay states, “The end was never really the beginning, but a sentiment to welcome – just as my mother’s soft whispers echo in my head welcome my child.” This vignette of a mother welcoming her child is key in considering The End’s resistance. Such sentiment speaks of the tangled potential of loss, confusion, growth, and connection rather than the concrete trajectory implied by a clear beginning. That is to say, The End explores the malleable and ambiguous as sources of strength; under this schema self-care, play, sadness, and survival are critical modes of political resistance.

Positioned in the BACKYARD component of the Franklin, Erik Peterson’s Snow Machines reconstitute the rituals of play in urban space. Created from the public bureaucratic emblems of signposts and parking meters, Peterson’s Machines necessitate viewer interaction. Directions prompt the viewer to utilize the Machines to build snowballs and begin a multiplayer snowball fight. Through the presence of these interactions public space is transformed into a zone of laughter and connectivity instead of isolation.

However, this is not to equate isolation with failure. When confronted with the contradictions and brutality of hatred, allowing the time and space for grief is vital. Suture Blue’s rotoscope animation SINK, showing on the FLATSCREEN, features a lone figure reclined on a sofa transfixed by an unknown, inner dialogue. The figure is immobile as they begin to slowly sink into a darkened patch that has stained the sofa cushion. The nondescript world of the sitting room then melts away as color and light explode, saturating and binding the figure in silence. Colors then fade, and the sofa reappears as the cycle continues anew. Blue’s study of stillness illustrates that immobilization cannot be likened to lack or absence; there are unseen worlds of rich hues and shadows.

The memories and histories that create such worlds are dissected in the Franklin’s main structural hub. Nazafarin Lotfi’s Thingness (a soft sculptural form made of papier-mâché) rests within Jaclyn Mednicov’s April 16 – May 18, 2016 (carpet) (screen prints of found text on carpet), a tactile testament to physicality and fragmentation. Lotfi’s Thingness exudes an aura of fragility in contrast to its imposing mass and physicality. Lotfi also routinely incorporates a human element in the presentation of Thingness, having performers move the spherical form through different environments, making an allusion to the world at large almost inescapable. Mednicov’s screen prints emanate a similar subtlety as the corrugated blurring of text to carpet hints at lived snippets of the past.

Consider Welcome to the End as a defiant exploration; we are at times scared, laughing, and unsure, but we are here and our voices will be heard.

Jaclyn Mednicov, “April 16 – May 18, 2016 (carpet),” screen print on carpet, 2016 Nazafarin Lotfi, “Thingness,” papier-mache and chair, 2016.

Erik L. Peterson, “Snow Machines,” various metal, 2016.

Suture Blue, “SINK,” video, 2016.

Featured Image: “Welcome To The End” at the Franklin, 2017.

Annette LePique is a Chicago-based art historian and writer. She received her M.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Modern and Contemporary Art History. She presented her research on gender, performativity and new media at Concordia University’s 2015 Constellations Clusters Networks Conference in Montreal.

I showed up to Lyra Hill’s Ritual Workshop at the F4F space a bit later than I wanted, but still earlier than I thought I would be. The email I received prior to arriving let the participants who had registered for the workshop know that the start time would be a firm 1:00 pm and that doors would shut promptly at 1:15. It was an unusually busy Sunday for me. I was rushing down to the Pilsen from Edgewater, and sure I wouldn’t make it, luckily I got there right at 1:12.

F4F, which stands for Femme for Femme, is a community organization and dwelling space that is a host to a variety of events–all of which are curated to expand artistic and social practices within the Chicago community. All of the workshops at F4F are held in their spacious, high ceilinged attic, and all workshops have some sort of free food to nourish the participants. On the chilly January morning, I was there it was a fresh pot of delicious sweet potato soup.

There were about twelve of us at the Ritual Workshop. We sat in a circle, some of us on pillows, some of us on combination orange and tan desk-chairs. All of us had our shoes off. Lyra Hill sat at the western-most point of the circle. The first thing I noticed about Lyra was her red jumpsuit. The second thing was her confident and grounded vibe. The third thing was how these two features complimented one another.

Lyra began the workshop by telling us a little bit about her background in ritual and magic. She also opened up the conversation for us to share our own impressions and experiences with this topic. People were hesitant to speak at first. Words came out like wood over sandpaper, and the workshop was off to a slow and jolty start. But Lyra took charge and encouraged us by asking questions, and by doing so gave everyone space for processing out loud. It wasn’t long before our responses became smoother. By the second hour we spoke more like flowing water, or like delicious sweet potato soup. We were all more comfortable. More open.

While Lyra is a performer as well as an educator, it was clear from the start that the workshop at F4F wasn’t going to be a lecture, nor was it going to be a performance. We weren’t there to just watch or just listen; we were there to participate, to engage with one another, and to learn by speaking and sharing.

This was the first Ritual Workshop Lyra facilitated at the F4F space but one of the last workshops in Chicago. Lyra has recently relocated to Los Angeles. I was grateful that in the midst of her move I was able to catch up with her and ask her some questions.

Work by Layla Durrani, courtesy of the artist.

Ida Cuttler: You’ve been at this for a while now. What is the difference between the last workshop you led at F4F, and, say, the very first Ritual Workshop you led?

Lyra Hill: After doing these workshops for awhile, I realized a need for an additional solo visualization exercise within the group. At first, a lot of the exercises I did were things that I learned from other people. But the one I did at the F4F space, where we casted our own circle, I made it up based on a need that I saw in the room. That was super exciting for me as an educator and a priestess–to be like: “Oh cool, here is this thing that I do out of habit, occasionally, when I am alone, and it can solve the riddle of the tool that I need here.”

IC: Who benefits the most from learning ritual?

LH: We all benefit from it. Often people suggest this kind of learning for individuals who are in compromised situations, or feel powerless, or are going through big changes. But also, it’s a double-edged sword. Whenever you are powerless or marginalized, you need power. People outside of the mainstream seek agency. And magic has such a complicated reputation, people hold it up as either something that is totally false, or definitely true, or that the power you are going to get is to slay your enemies. And that is false. But the power that I believe to be real is a lot more subtle. It’s subtle and it’s longterm. To do this kind of work, it takes a lot of honesty, investment and patience. I try to offer a comprehensive view of it–to show people that magic and ritual is not a shortcut to empowerment, but to also not feel discouraged by it. It’s potent and important, and totally subjective.

IC: You have to hold the realistic part of your daily life, and also work on it as a craft.

LH: Right. And the material is in your mind. That’s a very mercurial thing to pin down.

Work by Layla Durrani, courtesy of the artist.

IC: In addition to leading ritual workshops at spaces like F4F, you have also lead ritual workshops at bigger institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA). What is the difference between leading this workshop in a DIY venue versus a more institutional setting?

LH: The cool thing about institutional settings is that often they have enough resources where people can come for free. I wish all my workshops could be free, that everyone could access them. But I like DIY settings because I like the ability to control the environment. I like the flexibility and the warmth of the space. Ambiance is key if I’m doing ritual structure. Sometimes the florescent lighting of these institutions is a hurtle to get past.

IC: How does magic play a role in your own life?

LH: For a long time I was a lot more private about it. I was reticent to talk about it because people came to me with false hopes. It’s a tricky situation, and I fear letting people down by being realistic about magic.

A fear that I have is being idealized in this role and of seeming like I have all the answers when, really, there are no answers. There are just suggestions. I’m really wary of people who try and seek that from me. I find putting people in a group helps mediate that concern. In groups, I can set up conversations between people and then people find out things from one another. That is what I prefer.

IC: What is it like to explore Ritual in a group setting?

LH: I think it’s essential to put these ideas in context and that can only happen in a group. Every workshop I have taught has been with a really different group of people. I had one workshop that was a group of scientists and we talked about concrete metaphors in other academic practices. I had a workshop where everyone had a Christian background and we talked about ritual in a Christian context. Everyone percolates around different moralities and assumptions. Every time I do this workshop I learn new ways to explain stuff to people and new avenues of connection.

IC: What does magic and ritual offer in today’s darker political climate?

LH: When the world gets really dark there is a lot of fodder for despair. Today, I see people who have not yet traveled through a gauntlet of hopelessness [who] are entering that for the first time now. Despair breeds complacency, which we can’t afford. Hope is a resource that is required to continue living. Magic is a really good way to mine that resource. It’s a slow process, but you also have to invest in belief. A lot of systems in our country are set up to discourage people from believing in hope, and to spread the idea that faith is not something we choose, which is something that is totally false. Every person has the capability to hold something up in their minds as beautiful or to dream up something that’s beautiful for themselves. I don’t know if ritual is the answer, but I think it’s one really good strategy. It’s a really good way to make bonds between people, which might be the best application for it right now. In order to resist oppression you have to have a lot of people who are bonded together. But people have a lot of issues. So they have to work on their own personal growth, individually, in order to then come together and cement those bonds.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

To see more of Lyra Hill’s work, visit her website. Layla Durrani’s work was chosen to accompany Lyra’s words. To see more work by artist Layla Durrani visit her website. Then, stop by F4F on Valentine’s Day, at 8pm for their next event, Jubilee!.

Featured Image: Photo of Lyra Hill, photo by Jennifer Caravello.

Ida Cuttler is a writer and performer living in Chicago, Illinois. She is an active ensemble member of the Neo-Futurists. Ida’s live lit credits include The Arrow, The Paper Machete, Write Club, The Annoyance, and Cool Shorts. Ida’s essay “How did I Happen” was published in Storyclub magazine’s online publication. Additionally, Ida frequently contributes content to the Neofuturist blog. More of Ida’s writing can be found on her Medium.

Movement Matters investigates work at the intersection of dance, performance, politics, policy and issues related to the body as the locus of these and related socio-cultural dialogues on race, gender, ability and more. For this installment, we sit down with Jamal “Bulb” Oliver, a founding member of The Era footwork crew to discuss his roots in the Juke and House scenes, coming up through various dance crews, their battles and living The Era life of today’s international renown.

Michael Workman: What was it like for you growing up as a dancer in Chicago?

James “Bulb” Oliver: I’m from out west–63^rd and Albany, right around Kedzie. I pretty much grew up over there all through childhood and high school. At least [until] my first couple years of college. Then, I broke off and moved around to the east side. I was everywhere, though, growing up. I was getting into footwork and playing basketball. Growing up around there you had sports, you had kids around the neighborhood doing kids’ stuff. I don’t know how it is now, I haven’t been over there in awhile, but then, everybody kick it in their hood together and footwork was around. When I was a shorty, I was the kid at all the family functions that knew how to dance like Usher and Michael Jackson.

Litebulb and Weezy at Shibuya crossing in Tokyo, 2014. Photo by Wills Glasspiegel.

MW: So you would dance at house parties and that sort of thing?

JBO: It was local. Everybody would go to those [parties]. But nah, I wouldn’t go to that when I was younger because I was going to school. [In school], there was house music, footwork and juke music–like they’re playing now. But I came around like in the 2000’s so, in the ’90’s there was juke music playing. When I got to high school I joined my first dance group–that was my freshman year. It was called Total Impact. That wasn’t even footwork. It was pretty much a group of guys in a band–they were upperclassmen. They knew how to sing, they actually went viral on Facebook a couple weeks ago. They’re known for singing on Jackson at the blue line. I started with these guys and they pretty much taught me dancing. After I joined a band during one show I tried footwork. It was horrible, but I [still] tried it on stage in front of everybody.  They thought it was okay. I wasn’t really in the realm of footwork, but I was just trying to see because I was known in the high school for doing it. I knew it was weak. It was weak to the people who were really doing it outside of my school.

I was like 16, almost 17 when I first tried it. I’d seen people doing footwork and if you were from Chicago that was just a thing to do. Know what I’m saying? There wasn’t really YouTube in the 90s, but [when it came around] I started looking up footwork and [teaching myself]. After the first time I got on stage, I just kept building.

My sophomore year I joined a group outside of my school, a local community dance group called Alpha and Omega. From there, I started getting into my own style. When I was older I was taking the bus everywhere and making a local name around the Englewood and Oak Lawn area.

The Era on Windy City Live, 2016. Photo by Wills Glasspiegel.

MW: Was it a situation where you had mentors out of the community or whose work was inspiring your work in specific ways?

JBO: I didn’t really have mentors. I was just doing it all myself back then. There wasn’t really anybody trying to teach me anything. I think I learned a few moves from old crews [and styles]–like house. But I was pretty much observing and doing my own thing and people respected my style. I was always energetic and was always the first one to dance–always in the circle.

I joined a larger group run by Latisha Waters. She’s like a old school footwork legend that used to be at all the parties at Union Hall and the skating rinks. She had an all-dance group called 3^rd Dimension. I joined that group. It was funny because Nicole, founder of The Era, she was in 3^rd Dimension back then but we just didn’t know or weren’t cool with each other. This was a very, very large group. Tish also had a tie to a larger group called Terra Squad and they were a battle group from back in the 2000’s that was pretty much one of the top groups that had all the legendary members from back in the day. They had made their own path. And Tish knew them. They came to a 3^rd Dimension practice one day–AG, the leader of the group, and Tyrone [Taylor] the president–and I battled them. It was pretty much the three of us versus AG and TY. At my first battle, they told me about tryouts [with Terra Squad] and went. There were so many people that came but I was one of six who made it–I was pretty much the number one pick out of those 6. There were even people that were kicked out of the group who had to tryout again. It was a crazy ordeal for me to make it like that because it was extremely hard to get in the group. But then once I got in Terra Squad that was officially my first day in the industry as a footworker in the larger industry in Chicago. I was officially in it.

That same night, we went to a party. All the way out west, we was in the 100’s, all the way out south, there was like 50 of us in the group and literally killed the whole party. I couldn’t even believe it was my first day in the industry. There were fifty people in one crowd battling during the whole party. That was one of the memorable parts of my life in terms of footwork, straight up. I went to every battle and every event, making my way up in the rankings through Terra Squad. I wasn’t really all that good, but I was getting better coming up under AG, Speedball and all the other leaders. You learned everything and was mentored by the whole T.S. and all the original members who were going through the struggles, going through the trials, going through the footwork and having to battle all across the city. We were taking the bus everywhere, still going to school, leaving school early just to go be a part of certain events. All kinds of stuff happened growing up being a footworker.

Eye of the cypher with The Era (from left counterclockwise: Chief Manny, Litebulb, P-Top, Dempsey, Steelo), 2016. Photo by Wills Glasspiegel.

MW: So that was how you came up in the Chicago industry, but then how did it make the leap to this international touring?

JBO: In my first year I was King of the Circle. That was big for me–to be a first year person, make it all the way to the finals and be competing. When I placed in the finals, it gave me a lot of respect from the community in Chicago. From there, I just needed to build my name. But at the time in Terra Squad I was one of the youngest members. They had it set up for me to take over Terra Squad and they were recruiting new members. It just so happened that they were recruiting after King of the Circle. I was trying to figure out what to do next.

Manny and Steve-O tried out for Terra Squad and they made it, too. It was funny because they were my age and everybody in Terra Squad was older than me at the time. So they were learning from everybody and me at the same time. They started doing stuff outside the group. We got cool because we were the same age and [we] started doing stuff together. They were 16 or 17 and I was 20 or 21? I was a lot older than [they were], but we got super cool inside Terra Squad. From there we just kept building.

[Around] 2010 or 2011 DJ Spin [told] me, “Man, you should get your passport and go overseas.” He had been making music, making records and [had] already been traveling and pushing the footwork culture and music outside of Chicago. Their first large tour was overseas–as far as one with a record label–and they wanted to bring footworkers. I pretty much had been asked to come but still had to do all the work to raise the money to get a passport.

Featured Image: Litebulb at MANA, 2015. Photo by Wills Glasspiegel.

Please feel free to send questions, comments or tips to Michael Workman at michael.workman1@gmail.com. Each month, as part of the Movement Matters series, a live conversation on subjects raised in the columns takes place with interviewees and experts in the field. Please join the Movement Matters Facebook page for updates, archives of Facebook Live broadcasts of these discourses, and to join in on future conversations.

Michael Workman is an artist, writer, dance, performance art and sociocultural critic, theorist, dramaturge, choreographer, reporter, poet, novelist and curator of numerous art, literary and theatrical productions over the years. In addition to his work at The Guardian US, Newcity, Sixty and elsewhere, Workman has also served as a reporter for WBEZ Chicago Public Radio, and as Chicago correspondent for Italian art magazine Flash Art. He is also Director of Bridge, a Chicago-based 501 c (3) publishing and programming organization. You can follow his daily antics on Facebook.

C’ne Rohlsen is an artist who works primarily in collage and occasionally collaborates on durational performances with her partner, James T. Green. James is an artist, designer, and audio producer who is part of the crew that created the podcast platform Postloudness. One of their first encounters was in a library at the University of St. Francis in Joliet. Years later, they planted roots in Chicago together and now are recent transplants to Brooklyn. This is their story.

On where it all started:

James: We met freshman year of college, the first day actually. It was a Core 1 class focused on speech writing and the only seat open was next to C’ne, so I sat next to her. I made a joke and then we started talking.

On one another’s process and practice:

C’ne: His process is very methodical. He has folders of every project he’s ever created in the last 10 years over multiple hard drives. His work is usually very personal, and allows viewers into the deep depths of his brain.

James: She’s like the complete opposite of me in process! She likes to experiment very quickly with a multitude of materials, but mostly paper and collage, and most recently graphic design elements. I could come home to the smell of matte medium and acetone and know she’s up to work.

On sharing space:

C’ne: With my practice I try to keep my mess in a corner, away from the order James created for himself.

James: Our studio is our extra room in our home. It’s good to at least have a bit of separation in our work.

Car packed, on their way to Brooklyn. Photo courtesy of the artists.

On collaborating with one another:

James: We used to collaborate a lot in college, particularly performance art, and we most recently collaborated in “How Did You Sleep?“, a durational piece where we performed a tug of war with a bed sheet in our mouths until exhaustion. We were interested in that push and pull in our relationship as we were about to get married in a few months, so it was like a present to ourselves.

On how their process and practice has been influenced by one another:

C’ne: He makes me way more organized and thoughtful more about the process and documenting the evidence of the work. I’m used to making things and forgetting about it and his influence resulted in me photographing the work I make, even if I’m the only one who sees it.

James: She makes me think “messier” if that makes sense. I think a lot more about the bigger picture and am open to more of the materials that I was uncomfortable with in the past, just because her quick nature of making is mesmerizing.

I’ve definitely gotten so much more adventurous in my work and subjects to explore. At the same time, I’ve been taking a much slower approach to what I do because of her. I [appreciate] her ability to take her time in thought, and be incredibly deliberate. That’s led to much thoughtful, mature work in the long run.

Cne: I’ve [also] taken more risks and I’ve dived into digital work, which once frightened me. Now, I find a challenge in intertwining collage and digital. James has a way of making pixels beautiful, and I really admire the wonder he has in what he can create on a computer screen.

This interview is part of a series. You can read more Art + Love interviews here.

To learn more about their work, visit C’ne Rohlsen’s website at cnemrohlsen.com and visit James T. Green’s website at jamestgreen.com. 

Featured Image: From the performance How Did You Sleep? at Expo Chicago, 2015. Photo by Meredith Weber. Images are courtesy of the artists.

Tempestt Hazel is a curator, writer, and founding editor of Sixty Inches From Center. Her writing has been published by Hyde Park Art Center and the Broad Museum (Lansing), in Support Networks: Chicago Social Practice History Series, Contact Sheet: Light Work Annual, Unfurling: Explorations In Art, Activism and Archiving, on Artslant, as well as various monographs of artists, including an upcoming book of work by Cecil McDonald, Jr. published by Candor Arts. For more, visit tempestthazel.com. (Photo by James T. Green.)

India Martin is a multidisciplinary artist and photographer who makes images that call out the erasure and familiar motifs in metropolitan landscapes. She also has a decade of experience working in fashion, advertising, and production for national campaigns and projects. Isis Ferguson is a leading voice in ethical economic and cultural community development through her work with Place Lab and can occasionally be caught handling a camera to capture images of the communities in which she does her work.

On where it all started:

Both: A transportation breakdown brought us together. We were both returning to Chicago from visits to our childhood homes (India from Columbia, Missouri and Isis from St. Louis, Missouri) during a long Labor Day holiday weekend. The bus India was traveling on arrived to St. Louis, near Union Station on an afternoon that was nearing 97 degrees. It was sunny, hot and humid. The bus, which had started out in Columbia, came to a stop in a mostly deserted parking lot. It slow, parked, and promptly broke down. After no info and increasing temps on the bus the passengers disembarked and those of us waiting to board stood there, confused holding our bags.

Stranded, hot and very over the mode of transportation we both elected to take back to the city we love, we struck up a conversation amidst the kind of chaos that ensues when customer service is bad, people can’t get info, and they want to be anywhere but where they are. A true range of human emotions was being acted out in front of us and we both receded to the edges of the crowd to escape (India) or take it in with curiosity and delight (Isis).

Isis: India appeared approachable and also aloof standing off from the crowd. The contradiction was intriguing. I don’t remember if I need a charge for my phone or my computer but after asking her for power for one of them, we struck up a conversation. Fairly soon we figured out we lived blocks from each other in neighboring communities, Bronzeville and Hyde Park. We talked about what we liked to do and where we liked to spend time and realized we had a shared affection for The Silver Room. India mentioned hosting an open mic performance night there I realized I had heard of the event she co-produced and curated but hadn’t visited. Our entrance into each other’s worlds happened by participating in each other’s events, experiencing first hand the artistry at play in our separate and slightly overlapping communities. One day we were going to fashion shows, the next [to] feminist villages, block parties and the Color of Violence 4 conference. It’s a great mashup of interests and passions, but with clear departures, too. I think we’ve expanded one another’s world view. I sure hope we have.

Playground at King Elementary. Photo by Isis Ferguson.

On one another’s process and practice:

India describing Isis’s process: thoughtful, passionate, intellectual, quiet, patient, political and woke. Isis is patient and passionate when it comes to her career as she works to develop community through art and culture. She’s real low key and modest about her photography but she is one of my favorite photographers.

Isis describing India’s work: instinctual, great balance of classy and current, quiet, for herself as much as it is for others. I have seen India create and work on apparel, poetry, photography, and the day in and day out of advertising and marketing. Her skills and interests are varied. While taking classes at the Hyde Park Art Center last year, India start exploring layering in her photography. Now that I’ve had the opportunity to see the work in a show and as a collection, instead of individual shots, I’ve come to understand the very real ways barrier and boundary play significant roles in how she operates. It gives me greater clarity and appreciation for a part of her I knew but I couldn’t exactly describe. The pictures and choices she made as a photography are the best description.

On sharing space:

Both: We don’t yet. We recently moved into our first house and have come a long way in the first three months making it a home–settling on a decorating style and feel, negotiating household norms that we each carry into present day from our respective upbringings. We are establishing new shared rituals, we want to continue for years to come. Making family altars that include mementos from our pasts. Part of making this home special, means making a real space for making. Not a home office but an actual studio space to create and stretch and experiment.

We’ve made a decision to turn a portion of the basement into a workspace or to build out something later in the yard where we could go, be messy and let our questions and curiosities take shape.

From the Reflections & Barriers Collection. Photo by India Martin.

Exchanges. From the Southside Collection. Photo by India Martin.

On collaborating with one another:

Both: This is a timely question as we are in the infancy of our first major project together. It could be our shared life’s work. It’s both about building something together, tapping into our related passions and rooting ourselves to a place and a community of people. Isis: I don’t have an entrepreneurial bone in my body. But India is an idea factory for personal/commercial projects. I can learn a lot from her when it comes to understanding that your late night ideas don’t need to be side projects. They can be your main thing if you give them the same attention and care you pour into your career. We just had 2 planning sessions, which is a funny thing to do when you live together-carve out dedicated time to further develop and refine ideas and plans.

On how their process and practice have been influenced by one another:

India: We inspire one another’s creativity. We care about a lot of the same things so a conversation over dinner can easily turn into a conversation about art and or culture. Those conversations often spark conceptual ideas that I bring into my work.

This interview is part of a series. You can read more Art + Love interviews here.

Featured Image: Isis Ferguson on the left and India Martin on the right. All photos courtesy of the artists. To learn more about Isis and India’s work, visit their websites. Isis’ photos and essays can be found at tumblr.com/blog/curious-mixture. India’s work is at indimcreative.com. 

Tempestt Hazel is a curator, writer, and founding editor of Sixty Inches From Center. Her writing has been published by Hyde Park Art Center and the Broad Museum (Lansing), in Support Networks: Chicago Social Practice History Series, Contact Sheet: Light Work Annual, Unfurling: Explorations In Art, Activism and Archiving, on Artslant, as well as various monographs of artists, including an upcoming book of work by Cecil McDonald, Jr. published by Candor Arts. For more, visit tempestthazel.com. (Photo by James T. Green.)

Erin Babbin and Michael Sullivan are partners in life and art-making with On The Real Film, a film company founded in 2011 that creates short films and documentaries that capture the essence and range of perspectives embedded in Chicago’s artistic arenas. With work featured in film festivals including Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, Chéries-Chéris Festival – Paris, Springfield LGBT Film Festival – Massachusetts, and CMG Film Festival – Los Angeles, together Erin and Michael put to film some of the best of what the city has to offer and exports it worldwide. This is their story.

On where it all started:

Erin: At the time, I worked for Chicago artist Tony Fitzpatrick. Tony had met Michael in Austin, Texas and offered him a job when he finished school. When Michael showed up I was like who is this farm boy?

Michael: I had never been to Chicago before I moved here to work with Tony, so it was a crash course, to say the least. Erin was already tapped into the art and film world here, so once she warmed up to me it was easy to navigate with her. Once Tony found out we were dating, he told me that if I messed this up he’d break my fucking legs. So, I didn’t mess it up.

Erin : Thanks Tony.

Still from Episode Two of On The Real Film’s Transition to Power featuring Tony Fitzpatrick, 2016.

On one another’s process and practice:

Erin: Michael is the photographer and cinematographer for our company and he has a great eye. Most of the work we do together, but Michael takes really beautiful photographs. I have nothing to do with them except I really enjoy them. He’s basically good at everything and is a really fast learner.

Michael: Erin is primarily the editor and director for On The Real Film’s work. I often say that she does the hard part of putting the story together from scratch, and I just add all the fun, shiny stuff into the mix. In documentary film the editing is the whole thing. You can have great imagery and cool design, but if the story doesn’t flow, if the audience is left with more questions than answers, then it’s no good. The editor builds the story, and that’s not easy.

Erin and Michael’s studio at Mana Contemporary, Chicago.

On sharing space:

Erin: Navigating the physical space is easy because we work in video and photo. We just sit at our own desks unless we’re on location shooting or working through an edit together. We’ve come a long way from the time we worked out of our apartment and shared a desk–quarters were a little close back then.

Michael: Working from home is fun, but not nearly as productive as having a dedicated work space. I think it’s a great improvement for our work and our collaboration to have that place to go to every day that’s exclusively for making stuff.

Erin : It also makes it less awkward for our assistant editor to not just be in our living room.

On collaborating with one another:

Michael: Basically, every project is a collaboration. For the most part Erin does the video editing, and I do the photography/cinematography, but those roles can and do switch depending on the project. I think the best part of the collaboration is when we’re nitpicking a film as we’re getting close to finishing it. I always think I have the right answer, then she changes something by three frames and it feels 100% better.

Erin: On The Real Film is our collaboration and our deal is that we’re trying to keep it real. We make a lot of documentary based video work about artists, politics, people in the margins, and people that inspire us. We also make music videos, fiction pieces, ads, and series. It’s cool to have to create solutions that appease both of us when something isn’t flowing, which makes the work better. We know when a piece is finished because it gets both of our stamps of approval on it.

Michael: Agreed, those compromises always produce better work than if either of us just made every decision on our own.

A still from the short doc 50 Shots, which follows artist Imani Amos’s photo essay “50 Shots – Humanizing America’s Most Hunted”, 2015.

Production still from the short film One Two Three Two One.

Production stills from Do You See What I See?: Art & Politics of a Modern Day Cowboy, a film about artist Michael Bryant, 2016.

On how their process and practice have been influenced by one another:

Michael: I think Erin has made me appreciate editing. I’ve improved quite a bit since I first started doing any editing for On The Real Film projects, and it’s not a skill to be overlooked. One of my biggest critiques of any work is now the edit, whereas previously I would look more at the quality of the image, composition, etc.

Erin: Michael makes my work look SO much better! [Laughs] But honestly, we’ve been working together for so many years, at this point all of it is just OUR work, not mine or his. I know he has inspired me to be louder about what I believe in politically. Being with someone who wants to make work in hopes of adding something good into the world means more to me than anything.

Michael: Also, I don’t know if I’d be doing film work if I wasn’t working with Erin. I always just wanted to make stuff. This partnership has allowed me to make work that I never thought I could do previously. So, that’s cool.

 

All photos courtesy of the artists, with featured image by David Tenorio. See more of Erin and Michael’s work on their website, ontherealfilm.com. 

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Tempestt Hazel is a curator, writer, and founding editor of Sixty Inches From Center. Her writing has been published by Hyde Park Art Center and the Broad Museum (Lansing), in Support Networks: Chicago Social Practice History Series, Contact Sheet: Light Work Annual, Unfurling: Explorations In Art, Activism and Archiving, on Artslant, as well as various monographs of artists, including an upcoming book of work by Cecil McDonald, Jr. published by Candor Arts. For more, visit tempestthazel.com. (Photo by James T. Green.)

Movement Matters investigates work at the intersection of dance, performance, politics, policy and issues related to the body as the locus of these and related socio-cultural dialogues on race, gender, ability and more. For this installment, we recap and work through editorial reflections on the recent conversation between performance artist Karen Finley and playwright Young Jean Lee at Steppenwolf’s 1700 theatre.

In the midst of a winter ushering in Chicago’s first real snow drought in decades, people gather at the communal bar outside Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theatre. It’s easy to miss, tucked away almost imperceptibly behind a narrow doorway in the rear of the square floating island dominating the front of the space, and small enough, once entered, to make visitors feel intimate while still demarcated by hierarchies of space; that is, the audience essentially get none, crammed in shoulder to shoulder, four to a seated roundtop and flanked on three sides, while the speakers sit in the midst of copious floorspace before them. It’s a sold-out crowd too, except for those twenty-six standby takers, whom all mercifully are admitted in the end (I was with my partner whom gracefully held firm out in the main room while we awaited the thankfully positive verdict). People squeeze by one another, laughing, chatting and wondering aloud when the three chairs arranged before them would be populated. Then they are.

Performance artist Karen Finley and playwright Young Jean Lee take their seats alongside moderator and cultural activist Lisa Lee, the latter seemingly officiating so many events in recent years onlookers could be forgiven thinking she was angling for the next open cultural commissioner spot. The conversation opens amiably with jokes about rejecting gender terms, and then Lee asks where their racial and gender “consciousness comes from.” Finley answers first:

I’m aware of the privileges I’ve had–that being a censored artist or being able to go to the Supreme Court, a place [where] I was recognized as a white artist [and] as an artist who grew up in Evanston, I had this space where I expected to be listened to. And I was in great shock when that was happening to me. There are so many artists, so many people who have not had the moment to be even censored because they’ve never been recognized at all. So that is something that I wish that I’d had more understanding of when I was younger.

Then, when asked why she has opted for a return to performing material from that era, including Written In Sand, derived from her reflections on AIDS at the time, Finley’s response is predictable, and moving:

Well, it’s deja vu all over again. The Muslim ban, the wall–25 years ago there were bans, visa bans for people who had HIV. There were [people] asking Congress and the Senate for people who had HIV to be incarcerated… That’s one of the reasons why I’m doing it. I miss my friends, too. So, I’m doing it for myself too. I want to share what I’ve been able to do in other cities. When I start talking about it, I go into a PTSD moment.

Similarly, Young Jean Lee then inverts the response, relating her own lack of the experience of that privilege:

I am, by nature, not a political person. I think that if I had been born a straight white male, I probably would just be completely clueless and enjoying my privilege to the maximum and exerting my will to power. So, I’m very fortunate in a way that [during] the first 18 years of my life I experienced a very extreme form of racist marginalization. I grew up in this white town that was very racist, a small town in eastern Washington State called Poland and, growing up, nobody ever wanted to date me.

Nobody wanted to be my friend. I never went to a dance. I was sort of forced by that experience to become hyperaware, constantly, of my racial identity. I think this is a thing that happens to women of color. You spend all this time being marginalized because of your race and seeing white women enjoying all these benefits that you don’t get to participate in. It makes you identify more strongly with [your] ethnicity than with [your] gender. That’s been sort of a slow process. The pain I experienced being marginalized [because I’m] Asian was so much more painful than anything I experienced over being a woman because of my particular circumstances. That situation has forced me into an awareness of injustice and marginalization.

Given all this discussion about racism and class, what emerged as perhaps most striking about the talk was a tendency for both artists to almost inherently resist acceding to the specific political exigencies of their work. Time and again, they seemed to want to push back against the perception of their work as statement-making or admitting it has ideological content, often times doing so in a direct rebuke to moderator’s solicitous efforts to tease out the political threads in the work.

Left to Right: Karen Finley, Young Jean Lee, and Lisa Lee at Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theatre. (Photo by Jonathan Mathias.)

It seemed especially pronounced, for instance, given the stature of Finley as one of the NEA Four, whose work famously came under attack by Jesse Helms in an early salvo of the culture wars in the U.S., and that led to her aforementioned Supreme Court hearings. And furthermore, of the four, Finley was the one who spearheaded that fight on behalf of them all against the “decency clause” provision that was added into the grantmaking process all the way to Supreme Court, an effort that culminated in the 1998 case National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, 524 U.S. 569. It was a challenge that was ultimately vacated in a majority argument that seems today to avoid the substance of the clause, particularly the structural anti-gay background of the changes to definitions of obscenity that resulted in its application.

Regardless, Finley’s trial was a moment of socio-cultural signification. The barium in the bloodstream of an American political system suddenly lit up in the CT scan as rotted-out with bigotry and shot through with phobias targeting not just homosexuals, but women, black and brown people, and those living with and struggling in poverty. In other words, it was the wormy business-as-usual pushing aside promises of equality that our country had forgotten.

Maybe teasing out those threads in the experience was too risky of a countenance to the PTSD, as Finley described it. But regardless of whether they were willing to embrace the larger political and ideological implications of their work, it was clear that the stakes of their art-making was personal, and that those stakes were firmly fixed in concerns of social conscience. There’s a funny moment when Jean Lee, recalling a moment in an elevator she’d had prior to the discussion, reflects on how women in American culture are “raised to hate themselves. I think everyone is raised to hate themselves to some extent, but women in-particular. I feel like there are forms of self-hatred that are particular to women and that I see in my friends, in myself and women around me. When I think about you, I don’t think about that. I think of someone who has defied that in every way. [But] I wanted to ask you if you ever had that relationship with self-hatred or [if it’s] something you just avoided?” Finley replies:

I always knew that number, 1700 Halsted Street, would be the place to address this. Actually, I think that I’ve addressed that a lot in my work and I feel that in this particular performance I’m dealing with that subject right now. Maybe I’d not use that word—self-hatred—but [rather] that you aren’t to be occupying space [and you’ll be] apologizing that [you’re] even going to be seen. Hillary [Clinton] at the debate with [then-candidate Donald Trump] hovering over her….you’re looking and you’re seeing her body language and navigating that. She knew that move before. She’d been there before and knew what was coming next. So I don’t think about that idea of self-hatred, but I think about where you have to, you know, [say] “excuse me for living.” At least in my 20+ years of analysis the self-hatred hasn’t come up.

Since I began writing about art in 2014, I’ve always had a personal rule that I would never interview a close friend for an article. Yet here I am, in 2018, breaking my own rule on new nepotism with Galia Basail and Nicholas Kinsella, two friends, artists, and curators. I spoke with each of them separately about their ideas on what it means to be a curator who curates friends and how this can help or harm a practice.

András Szántó said, “The whole art world is woven together by personal relationships and friendships of one sort or another.” But when do friendships, and climbing a career ladder, become muddy, rinsed of any merit, and leave both artist and curator questioning creative intention? In the highly criticized article, “Friends Curating Friends” published on Newcity in  2013, Pedro Vélez wrote, “I cringe every weekend when I receive invites to see exhibitions curated by my friends’ friends. I do so because the people curating my friends are my friends too. Which means I must make an effort to see my friends in their friends’ show if I don’t want to offend them or their friends.” His excuse is insipid, however, there is an underlying truth to the cyclical labyrinth of new nepotism, or friends curating friends, and it is particularly jarring when it’s seen in large scale prestigious exhibitions.

Galia Basail, “Quedaron Semillas,” 2017. Image of a grey wall, and grey sidewalk, with an overturned half of a watermelon rind on the ground. There are white illustrations on the grey wall.

The 2017 Venice Biennale and documenta 14 have similarities with sound art, performance, and music, but another linchpin is that the curators of the art events included their romantic partners into the exhibition programming. Curator Adam Syzmczyk, the artistic director of documenta 14, included his partner Alexandra Bachzetsis in the program, and Christine Macel included work of her partner Michele Ciacciofera in the central exhibition in Venice. If the two most important art events of the year utilize blatant nepotism, we can only expect that smaller DIY venues, who are just opening their doors—both as spaces and as curatorial projects—will mirror this method as well.

This isn’t to say that curating your friends and lovers is an error. In emerging arts communities, networking, curating friends, and fostering professional relationships is the key to a successful career. Basail says, “We’re helping each other out without doing favors for each other. You know, it’s like we’re investing in one another because we have a similar ideology and we just want to fucking make the world a better place. Because we’re trying so hard all the time!” Basail now lives in Mexico City but spent most of her adolescent and adult life in Chicago. She is a video and installation artist who graduated with a BFA from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design in 2014. I also consider her the first friend that I made in Chicago. 

In September, Basail’s pop-up exhibition, El Sol Sale Para Todxs was held in her grandmother’s backyard in Lincoln Park. The show consisted of a large group of artists in a back yard seeing with food, drinks, a store, and music. She says, “I don’t totally see what I did in this show as a curatorial thing, but definitely more as an organizer, right? It sort of just fell into place on its own. I just feel like what I was doing was calling attention to certain people and sitting down with them and having conversations. Just an open conversation. Then eventually I realized that there are a lot of similarities in thought process but also material process. And so I just connected those things, and then allowed the environment to be very open and inviting and for people to come over whenever they wanted to have a chat or, you know, eat some snacks, and then bring in some objects and whatever they were working on, to see how it would work with the space. And then also allowing people to collaborate with each other.”

Portrait of Galia Basail in her grandmother’s backyard. The artist is seated in front of a wooden fence with a banner. Image credit: Ryan Edmund.

In the elite art world, nepotism matters. Exhibiting artists into a show because of merit, the success of work, and significance should be the standard. For DIY shows, giving friends a platform, fleshing out their CV, and supporting one another is the key to an idealistic and strong community in Chicago art. Moreover, alternative spaces are building notoriety as well and they are going to naturally begin with what or who they know: their friends.

Where I worry is when meaning, or themes, are ignored for the sake of exhibiting friends for friends’ sake. Basail agrees: “It’s devoid of meaning if you’re just doing it as a favor. And that doesn’t really help anybody. Because that is nepotism. That totally is nepotism.”

Curators are rarely asked to explain their decision in curating a specific artist especially since art is subjective. Another interesting component to curating is that the fine art industry does not require that curators share their relationship with the artists in the exhibition. After being challenged, documenta 14 responded to the criticism of the participation of Bachzetsis. “This decision does not violate any ‘code of conduct’ of documenta gGmbH,” reads a portion of the statement which defended the inclusion of the choreographer in the programming. Obviously, this would be an impossible and unnecessary standard to suggest to monitor relationships and biased curatorial decisions as worlds are connected and communities become even smaller when diving into niche galleries, mediums, and styles; but, it does leave room for misguided programming.

The image is taken at night where a group of people are standing around the back of the Yukon.  The doors of the van are open to reveal a bright interior. Image credit: Nicholas Kinsella

“No gallerist is fully objective about who they show, no gallery is really a purified space,” says Nicholas Kinsella, a multi-media artist from Dubuque, Iowa.”Everything is affected by your experience—who’s there, what kind of food you bring, whatever, all these things. I appreciate a subjective experience where there’s transparency. I think with alternative spaces it’s just important that there’s transparency.”

He goes on to explain his opinions of curating friends: “It can get slippery when you’re working with friends and you feel a certain level of professional duty—which I do still feel, even though I don’t like all the structures of professionalism, like I still feel an obligation in a lot of ways and sometimes it gets messy. In a more established space people might feel more pressure to be responsive, timely, etc.”

Portrait of the artist in his studio. Image credit: S. Nicole Lane.

In the 2013 interview with Robert Smith and Jerry Saltz, Smith claims that it’s important thing for a critic to have a “disinterest.” She goes on to say that, “Many of our closest friends we don’t write about. You just try to keep a situation uncontaminated.” Jonathan Jones, a critic, similarly stated that he thinks that writers and artists should not be friends. He says that friendship “corrupts” judgement. During my three years as a freelance writer, and a year spent as a critic, I’ve followed the rules of not interviewing friends, specifically my artist friends. Since my circle is tightly knit, I didn’t want to blur those lines. I also felt that if I wrote about one, I would have to write about them all. However, I always felt that this rule didn’t apply to curatorial practices. The critic must remain separated, but the curator and the artist can be lovers, or friends. The art critic must detach themselves from the friendships, while curating a friend may be challenging, but never considered faulty. Perhaps I was (and still am) bitter about the set of rules—which are partially imposed on myself—for a writer but more loosely defined for a curator. 

“How is it possible to reconcile the standard which you’ve applied to critics with the standard which you’ve applied to curators?” writes Paul Germanos in his response piece, The Chicago Problem: An Open Letter in Response to Pedro Velez.

Galia Basail, “El Verde De Tus Ojos,” 2017.  A film still where a hand with chartreuse nail polish is holding a dead fish and pouring water on it.

Kinsella says “I want artists to feel that, when I’m showing them, I trust them. Because I think that things can become a lot more interesting when you really put trust in a really smart and interesting artist.” Kinsella runs Horses Two, a space located inside of his 2000 Yukon XL where he’s exhibited artists like Elise Hanson, Claire Redman, Alec Dolter, and Ross Roadruck. He says that artists have to “accept the fact that they’re not in a white cube, they’re in a white cube in a car or, you know, they’re in an experience, in a place, in time, in Chicago, in 2018. And I think that makes the art better. It’s a challenge. But it’s an opportunity for the art to be more relevant and more present and have a more real impact on people.” Kinsella is also a graduate of the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. He began exhibiting work with Horses while living in Milwaukee. “I want to platform people who need an opportunity to show their work, whose work is great, who it would be interesting for me to show, who could be seen by a new and different group of people,” he says. “I can’t always do all of those things, but it’s a balancing act.”

In the 2013 article by Pedro Velez, he discusses friends curating friends and the repetition of seeing the same names on each bill, and familiar faces at each opening. But I have to disagree as he claims that this is because Chicago’s art community is small, and that’s why we keep seeing familiar names at each show. Chicago is vast. Each neighborhood has a community of artists that have never been exhibited or featured in any projects. Moreover, each neighborhood has spaces, both commercial and alternative, that produce events and shows each weekend. If anything, Chicago artists have to trim the fat on their art shows for a Friday night—the events are boundless. We can’t attend them all. 

Nicholas Kinsella, “Design for Horses ephemera,” 2015. The image features two animated horses with one in the center and one to the far right. There is a horse head located in the top left-hand corner as well. The word “Horses” is written three times.

Germanos fiercely argues, “The competition for audience here [in Chicago] is fierce. Our schools produce more artists, and our artists produce more artwork, than we have interested curators, gallerists, collectors, and critics to engage. So efforts are made, ever more frequently, to combine artwork with food, and drink, and music, in order to appeal to a broader audience.”

There are 200 neighborhoods in Chicago, 77 community areas, and nine districts. To say that the Chicago arts community reverberates the same names in the same exhibition spaces isn’t due to our lack of artists, but our incessant habit of othering and remaining in bubbles of friends, galleries, and areas of the city.

“It is in the same conversation of giving equal opportunity and not just being incestuous and also thinking about showing an interesting or valuable spread of people, you know?” says Kinsella. “Which seems like something you should have to answer to as a curator.”

“Silent/Listen” Exhibition with Ross Roadruck. The image shows the back of the Yukon and the three walls that have small-scale paintings displayed on the walls. Image credit: Nicholas Kinsella

In a 1981 article, Who Has the Power?, Jeffrey Deitch looks at how the fraternizing of power is looked at in terms of cliques, and who gets to sit at the so-called “cool kids art table.” Curating your friends is not much of a problem until others are excluded. He claims that certain cliques often originated “in an art school and began to solidify and attract other adherents as its members moved into the grown-up art world.”

While I don’t have a substantial issue with curating friends, as my friends have helped me and vice versa, I struggle with the idea of those who are not included. Nepotism, of course, has a negative connotation as it is closely defined as favoritism, or bias, within the workforce or areas of power. Individuals who aren’t tied to the colleges in Chicago are often annexed off into their own community. This is also true for separate institutions—SAIC students support SAIC students. The University of Chicago students remain in Hyde Park. I worry that by curating friends in shows, we are missing a large part of the city—people who aren’t our friends, or friends of friends—which results in a disjointed arts community.

Basail says, “I think it’s our job to fucking stop feeling awkward about involving ourselves in certain social situations. If we’re just doing what we’re comfortable with, that means we’re only supporting people and spaces that we know personally. Who even knows if those things you’re engaging with are at all productive in the sense that they’re provoking people and educating them. I mean, essentially, they’re like bubbles.”

Nicholas explains that he won’t be opening up Horses Two to submissions. He says, “I’ve had people ask me to show their work—and I’m like, ‘Why is that interesting to show in the trunk of a car?’ Or ‘What makes this show work for my space?’” He says, “I’m focused first on showing good art and I start from people that I know because I try to know people who make good art, and I like to be friends with people who make good art. And if I see someone who makes good art that I don’t know, I try to meet them and be their friend.”

An upcoming exhibition flyer for “Mutualistic Symbiosis (1 Soul, 2 Bodies)” The flyer features an image of a dog sniffing a large lobster on a sidewalk. Image credit: Galia Basail

The impact of social media is another characteristic in the future of discovering artists. Which came first? The friend or the follow? Eventually, they both become the same. Internet friends and real-life friends are blended together and for many gallerists, the future of finding work to collect or show begins online. “Maybe a little bit more than half of the people in the show were people that I felt close with and have had history with, but there were definitely new friends,” says Basail. “I think the internet’s a great place to generate new friends, new connections, and to reach out a little bit beyond your immediate circle.”

Since artists are always jockeying for attention, social media highlights an audience and instantaneously shares work to the world. There is also a trend on artists websites where artists link their “friends,” with a hyperlink to their website. Social media and online resources are a way to expand their audience and help out their peers. Kinsella says, “Instagram is a good way to keep updated with people’s practices. I’ve definitely found and followed a lot of artists there. I mean, it’s equal parts real life versus online.”

Image of Nicholas’ studio with a close up of a handmade shirt with a horse head on it. Image credit: S. Nicole Lane.

Support of friends is obviously important, especially for emerging gallery spaces and persons making physical work—whether that’s buying their work, exhibiting a select piece, or interviewing them. For curators and artists, it’s about finding a community, becoming more active in it, and bulking up a resume or CV. It’s about networking. It’s about driving yourself to show work you love. While my answers as to whether nepotism is hurting a practice might not be answered, I believe that there is a line between creating complementary shows and incongruent shows—whether your friends are involved in the show or not is besides the point. Unbalanced exhibitions can occur regardless of the relationship to the curator. It’s their decision, and their job, to deliver a show based off of merit and off of caliber. “Just keep having good shows,” says Kinsella about his curatorial practice. “And as long as that’s the focus, it doesn’t matter if you’re showing the work of your friends, showing work of someone that platformed you. It doesn’t matter if the work’s good. Nothing else matters.”

Featured Image: Photo by S. Nicole Lane and Courtesy of Galia Basail 

S. Nicole Lane is a visual artist and writer based in the South Side. Her work can be found on Playboy, HelloFlo, Rewire News, Vice, and other corners of the internet, where she discusses sexual health, wellness, and the arts. Follow her on Twitter.

“Ladies and gentleman, gender non-conforming and trans deities, welcome to another episode of the Hoodoisie!”

It was a Saturday night, and we sat packed-in on plastic chairs in the Chicago Art Department, a Pilsen gallery. Technical issues with the sound got things off to a late start, but no one seemed to mind as they excitedly chatted with each other, embracing friends and sipping from plastic cups. When Ricardo Gamboa made the introduction, everyone cheered.

The Hoodoisie [hoo-dwa-zee, think hood plus bourgeoisie] is a live talk show that merges art, activism, and academia from what it calls  “block-optic and radical perspectives.” Now in its second year, it takes place at a different cultural space in a gentrifying neighborhood in Chicago every two weeks. Each episode begins with a round table discussion of current events, called “Teatime,” followed by a more in-depth breakdown on a specific issue and an interview with a featured guest, interspersed by a musical performance. On February 3rd the featured guest was activist and educator Page May of Assata’s Daughters. A team of videographers buzzed around with smartphones, capturing the show for a livestream hosted on the Hoodoisie’s Facebook page.

The Hoodoisie is written and hosted by Gamboa, a queer, Mexican-American, Southsider, actor, director, writer, and NYU graduate student. I reiterate that list here not to define Gamboa, but to name the nodes they operate from; as they put it, their work moves with identity, but not through it. The Hoodoisie is a new kind of project for Gamboa, who recently wrote and directed the play Meet Juan(ito) Doe [read Sixty’s profile!] and the web series Brujos. The turn to a talk show format is motivated by Gamboa’s academic work and a desire to bring that discourse into a non-academic setting, one where people don’t have to take out student loans to engage.

In addition to the lively atmosphere, the Hoodoisie team installs several elements that invite audience participation. For one, an empty chair is set up at the table, open to any audience member who wants to join the conversation. This first happened during a discussion of the shortcomings of DACA and the DREAM act, when an audience member took the chair to urge people not to make light of the significance of those legislations for the survival of the individuals who received their benefits. The second time occurred during a conversation about sexual violence inflicted on women by police officers. Each time, the chair’s tenant spoke with a vulnerability that comes with feeling compelled to speak up.

The Hoodoisie works in its contradictions: its tone is heavy and humorous; academic and vulgar; serious and festive. At the beginning of the show, Gamboa told the audience that if at any point they don’t understand a term used by a co-host, they can challenge that person to define the term within the span of the Jeopardy theme song. The show’s panelists also don’t shy away from explicit language or humor. Nothing is off the table, making it at once comfortable and uncomfortable for everyone.

Gamboa and I met up for breakfast in Pilsen on the Sunday morning after the Hoodoisie. Over chilaquiles, enchiladas, and coffee, we talked about the ideologies that base the Hoodoisie and the decisions that put them into practice. Two musicians were set up in the corner, and when they were finished playing, Gamboa walked over to ask for their card. One of the musicians shared that they’d been to the Hoodoisie before and thanked Gamboa for their work in Pilsen, saying, “We see you.”

Ricardo Gamboa, host of the Hoodoisie, poses right before the start of February 3rd’s episode at the Chicago Art Department. Gamboa wears a white button-up shirt, gold chain, and black sweater with a Hoodoisie pin. Their shadow is cast on the white wall behind them. Photo by William Camargo.

Sasha Tycko: So, what was the impetus for the Hoodoisie? What was your initial intention in starting it and how did it come together?

Ricardo Gamboa: Yeah, so I think the idea is way older than when it appeared. It was a couple of things. We’re seeing stuff like the advent of these type of news shows, right? In multiple ways. The political pundits like Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck, and Bill O’Reilly, and things like that. They are white men that are given these platforms to have these super conservative, hateful shows. And then you also had these liberal shows, like The Daily Show and Rachel Maddow and stuff like that. And you know, it was still always a certain type of – even with Jon Stewart, the discourse was still bound within this type of binary of liberal-or-conservative, Republican-and-Democrat. And it was still kind of white-centric. And so there was that going on. I also had grown up watching these talk shows like Oprah Winfrey and Ricki Lake. I grew up in the era of the talk show and the evening talk show. Like I loved David Letterman, I loved Jay Leno, I loved Arsenio Hall. You know what I mean? And, again, those are always cis-males on there. And all of that stuff means something, right? Because then what we’re saying is the authorities — the authorities on news, the authorities on what’s happening — are these bodies, right? Or this lens.

At the same time, I was in grad school. And thinking about that alongside being in grad school, where all this discourse that we’re reading is about marginalized people and how marginalized people got to — the degrees by which marginalized people can engage the authoring of that discourse varies. Right? And sometimes they’re not engaging it at all. They’re the subjects of study. And there’s a power dynamic there. And so part of me was like, you know, people are affected by discourse, right? Like, the university, those spaces — that’s where the data for stop-and-frisk comes out of, that justifies stop-and-frisk and all these things. So a big aspect of the project was, how do you get people to engage in discourse that affects their lives, from which they’re most often marginalized from participating in? So that was kind of the basis of the show. And then I thought about, you know, what does that mean in Chicago? And thought about something like gentrification. You know, that marginalizes people from their own neighborhoods, and also thinking about the show as this ambulatory, mobile thing, that’s inviting people to come — to engage in discourse, to engage in situations.

ST: So you have all these ideas and examples of what you’re trying to create an alternative to. What are some of the specific decisions that you have made in terms of the format and presentation of the show in order to create that alternative?

RG: Yeah. So. I mean, the first is me hosting it, right? Having a gender-queer, non-binary host — and like, brown host. And I think that matters, right? Because so much of the show deals with race, and what does that mean when a brown person is hosting an American show that addresses race so frequently, especially when the racial discourse in the United States is a binary discourse, right? Black and white. And so that’s intentional. I think aesthetically that’s very clear, right? I don’t deny any of these aspects about me. Not the Brujex, not the femme, not the hood. I mean, you’ll see me in my gold chains, dressed in black, and wearing a dress.

The other thing was to collectivize the format. The original co-hosts were Steven Beaudion and Lily Be. And then we’d have other guests co-host like that. But it was always to start modeling that there’s not just one person who has the authority to speak on the issues or that mediates the issues, right? That it’s a group of people that works through them. That it was this way of democratizing — I hate that word, “democratizing” — a way of generalizing, not exceptionalizing, you know, who’s supposed to speak, who gets to speak. Then, part of it was about making it a party. You know what I mean? So there’s always a DJ, there’s always a bar.

ST: What role does that aspect play?

RG: Because I think we live in a country where the famous maxim is you’re never supposed to talk about religion or politics. Right? And I don’t know anything else besides like, my soul, my heart, my redemption, and, like, the obstacles and the economy and the social and political circumstances that mitigate its transcendence or its imminent enjoyment, fulfillment, that is more important to talk about. For me, it’s like, what is our aversion to talking about politics or religion? What is our aversion to being in community and risking these discomforts? Because that’s what it is, right? You don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable.

And I think that that’s a very Mexican thing. Right? We party in our basements, we party in our backyards . . . People will walk in because they hear a DJ playing. You know what I mean? They see somebody hanging outside with a red plastic cup or whatever.

ST: Yeah. And it’s on a Saturday night, not on a Wednesday.

RG: And that was the other thing, too, right? Is that we were doing it as a weekend option. A viable, enjoyable, fun weekend thing, that allowed us to commiserate, while at the same time challenge and do these other things.

LaSaia Wade, a Hoodoisie co-host and trans activist, speaks into the microphone during “Teatime,” the round table segment. Wade wears a yellow sweater. Photo by William Camargo.

ST: What kind of things have you been learning from it? Or have been surprised by?

RG: That’s a great question. Because I was about to say, part of how I’ve been so careful is with who I curate to be on the show. So normally, how you curate these shows is like, you would pick who the big names are, in activism. And the biggest names. You’d try to get them on, and it’s Chicago, so they would come on. Right? And that’s not what I do. I’m like, “Who’s the activist that nobody knows about but should?” Like if someone isn’t more radical than me? You ain’t coming on my show. For me, “radical” isn’t, like, this dogmatic oppositionality, it’s getting to the root. And I think what’s so hard is we live in a time where people don’t have to embody their politics, they can just use these rhetorics to gain — especially social change rhetorics, right? — artists and entertainers are using it now, and they’re getting this currency in their career or being embraced as, like, the avant-garde of the movement, when they weren’t there for years and all of a sudden it’s cool to be a rapper that talks about social issues, it’s cool to be Beyoncé and dress up as a Black Panther at the Super Bowl, right? I’m not throwing the baby out with the bathwater and disregarding, like, wholesale what those things mean or what they could produce…. because it’s the difference between movement and trend. And trend, we know, is the commodification.

It’s like getting people on there that have a radical positionality and that negotiate from that space –

ST: Can you say what you mean by that — “radical positionality”?

RG: Yeah. I would say people that are actually trying to invest in revolution. Right? That are invested in the dismantlement of white supremacy wholesale. Dismantling of capitalism wholesale. Dismantling of nation-state as it operates as a tool of population management and subjectification and things like that, wholesale. But I do know that if we’re looking for a revolution as an event, that’s not going to happen in our lifetimes. Right? So finding somebody that’s also radical and revolutionary also means finding somebody that moves through the world radically and revolutionarily.

And yeah, the show is really forcing me to think about things around, you know, not just deeper about issues like race, but deeper about issues of, like, love. You know what I mean? Like what does radical love look like? What is really required to make social change? How is this not just a cute platform that gives me a certain type of public profile? You know what I mean? And then you have to ask — because I think I could have stopped there, right? I mean, we have a good time every two weeks, it’s great, people love the show. But I’m not satisfied with that. So right now, a lot of the questions I’m asking is like, “How does this really become a community?” And I mean a community is not just a group of people that occupy a time and space together, it’s also a group of people that do together, in communion. So how do I actionize it, weaponize this platform? How does it become a space that people know they can come to, for that type of…. for that trampolining? You know, boing!, that kind of spring! You know?

ST: Yeah, that seemed like a really consistent theme last night, specifically. Like, “building community” was something that Charles [Preston, a co-host] was talking about a lot and Page May [the featured guest] as well. So yeah, I was going to ask about that — how this, for you, functions as a community building project?

RG: It’s so hard, because it’s such a departure from everything that I do. And I’m learning as I go along, in a lot of ways, and I’m letting myself, like, be super malleable — in all sorts of cool ways. So an example is, one of the ideas with the show was that the roundtable would always be all these people that came off the street, things like that. But it’s hard to plan a show like that, that’s so unpredictable. And our featured guests would be like that. That was our first germination of it, when I first thought about what this could be. So the community-building and celebrating us, and centering us, has always been there. Actually, Gabriella Ibarra is one of the newest members of the Hoodoisie — she’s one of the youngest members, too. She’s a Mexican-American, woman, artist here, born and raised on the South Side. And she tweeted, last night, the Hoodoisie flyer. And she called it “misa del pueblo,” like “church of the people.” And I think that’s actually a good nexus that we’re operating at. Right? Because it doesn’t have a certain set of formal trappings and because it does feel like a sort of familiar basement party. Or like, as if you’re chilling with your homies. Part of why I think it’s such an effective community thing is that it encompasses this nexus of the social, the personal, the interpersonal, the cultural, the spiritual. So I would say that the community-building aspect, you know, part of it is modeling it.

Charles Alexander Preston, a Hoodoisie co-host and journalist, sits at the table holding a microphone. Preston wears glasses, a black sweater, and vest. Photo by William Camargo.

ST: You made this distinction between — sort of early on last night — between the kinds of politics that engage the political economy and the kinds of politics that are on the cultural level. You said something about how, like we can’t do that much about the political economy — I don’t know if that’s exactly what you meant, but we’re not passing policy, basically — but we can be on the cultural level of politics. I’m not sure that I’m characterizing that right.

RG: That’s right. You know, people have asked, especially with the advent of this show, like, “How come you’ve never ran for politics? How come you don’t do that?” Right? And one thing about representative government is the problem with representation that is inherent — bound inside of representation — that the thing you’re supposed to be representing can’t be there for representation to work.

So where do people self-represent? Where are people actually, then, engaging in politics every day that is in their own lives? In all sorts of ways, right? So, consumerism. You know, our fantasy of consumption — especially as leftists or radicals or things like that — is that people are just dumb as fuck and manipulated by the market. I don’t know anybody whose desires are not contoured by the social forces around them. I actually think people are, even through consumption, making critical choices all the time. Whether it’s like, “this is what I can afford” or “this is not what I can afford but I’m going to buy it anyway because it says this thing to me about me,” or things like that — you know, because you’re separated from the modes of production, so like the only thing you can do is critical consumption. And that’s how you make claims of what you want — what you buy and things like that. I think politics is a lot like that. To think about the Obama election — record young people, record people of color kept coming out to vote for this person. That might be a political victory — for the Democratic party, for Obama — but it is actually a cultural expression of a group of people being like, “This is the world we want to see.”

I think Page was alluding to this, too — I think the change that Page is trying to make isn’t necessarily just doing direct action, spectacle activism with our representatives, like with the “Bye Anita” campaign. It’s also working with the neighbor. And I think that’s kind of what I’m doing with this project and how most of my work works too. I’ve never oriented or pivoted towards talking to the “them”—“them” being power. I’ve always pivoted my career towards talking to us.

ST: Yeah, the way that I kind of see that with the Hoodoisie is how you emphasize — especially last night — emphasize the resistance narrative. With your intro last night, you started out by being like, “Okay, Trump just gave his State of the Union address. But let’s not talk about that. Let’s talk about Maxine Waters’s response and that narrative.” You can choose what you’re going to discuss, whether it’s the oppressive narrative or the resistance narrative.

RG: Yeah. Or the parallel universe narrative, right? Or trying to author a narrative from a whole different mouth, from a whole different locus of annunciation.

And I think what’s so important, too — circling back to that community-building question — this year, 2018, we added the chair that any audience member can come up to, and the audience kind of, like, shouts out questions and stuff like that, and that’s something that started happening in the last few shows. And that’s stuff that’s so welcome.

Actually, there was a student [named Ian] — a student of Isaac Gomez, a friend of mine, an actor on another project of mine, Brujos, who [taught] a theater class — who had to go and write papers about theater productions. And this student came to the Hoodoisie and wrote about it as a theater production. And it was great. And then one of the things that Ian said was like, “If this is a theater production, what genre is it? And if it’s promising to be this democratic thing, how that could be sewn into it more? Like maybe using Forum Theatre techniques by Boal or stuff like that.” I hate Boal, so no, I would not do that. But it forced me to reflect and be like, well, how do we incorporate that?

ST: More theater tactics, or just in democratic tactics in general?

RG: Incorporate our audience more, so that they get more of a participatory thing. Because if I want people to engage in public discourse — if I want the public to engage in discourse that shapes their life — how do I allow them to engage in discourse that shapes their life? Right? Like, how is the show set up for that? The ability to be able to have that chair there and be able to come up and join the conversation; the Jeopardy stuff, being able to call out when something is unclear.

You know, there’s this whole tradition of anti-intellectualism, and anti-academia, and this pretend split between community and academy. Right? The university is highly problematic and academics can be highly problematic; that’s not what I’m saying — but we get very little out of the idea that the academy is just this like, deterritorialized space that’s only about elitism, because the reality is that the biggest social movements of our lives and some of the greatest intellectuals we all revere found their safe spaces or emerged from the university, right? The student movements of the late 60s that got us ethnic studies programs. The Civil Rights movement was happening a lot on campuses, too. Audre Lorde, Angela Davis — Angela Davis was a student of Marcuse, from the Frankfurt School.

ST: I didn’t know that.

RG: Yeah. That’s her mentor. And the people who were in the university, those people, they were people from the hood and from the community that finally were getting access to higher education. And they’re super important contested spaces and viable spaces for change and radical change, too. That’s why they had to make them impossible to go to, or you had to be willing to go hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and qualify for those loans, so it’s a way to pacify the population, right? But the reality is, sometimes academic language can be alienating to people if it’s used, right? So then like, if that’s happening to somebody in the audience, how do we make it just like, “Yo.”

ST: What kind of action do you imagine happening outside of the Chicago Art Department, you know, when people leave that space? Like do you want people to come and then do or be a certain way?

RG: I always say, “Before we transform you, let us inform you.” I say that when we transition from the intro — after I say who the guests are going to be that night — and I say, “Before they transform you, let us inform you,” and we go into the “Teatime,” right? So, I think that’s very much the baseline. That I hope people come, they are able to access perspectives — engaged perspectives, things like that — that they might not otherwise have access to and are otherwise being given in other mainstream venues or things like that.

And I’m hoping it can be a source of movement-building that considers everything — like race, gender, sexuality, ability, right? — but that isn’t reducible to it the way that so much of our movements are. So it’s another way of thinking about social change that moves with identity, but not only through identity. So I think that’s one of the things that I’m thinking a lot about. And part of that is, how do we think alongside those questions that we need to talk about, but then also put pressure on some of our assumptions that are so easily developed and contained within identity-centered movements. Because they don’t get challenged, right? Or it’s so easy to just dismiss something.

ST: So what are some examples?

RG: I mean, I think it’s very simple. Someone could be like, “Well, you don’t get to speak on this because you’re not this.” And that type of logic came out of a really important, necessary space — sometimes people say some major fucked-up shit. But for me — you know, as a queer person, as a brown person — if a cis person or a straight person says something that I can use, then I’ll use it. You know what I mean? Or they might have an insight, right? And so I think, you know, we’re trying to create an ensemble and then an audience and performer relationship, we could say, that allows for those type of frictions to happen, and then how do we support each other through the contradictions?

ST: I want to ask about the mobility of the show. The Hoodoisie doesn’t have a home base and you don’t want to occupy stolen land — I’ve heard you say that before. Do you want to talk about the reasoning behind that?

RG: Yeah, I mean, so much of what happens is like, people do a project, a project is successful, a project gets momentum, and then people want to know how they can make that thing more and more permanent, institutionalize it more, gain more recognition, gain more success, right? And I’m not trying to do that on a show where, essentially, we’re talking about state violence and racial violence and things like that. The idea was that the show would always travel to different neighborhoods, because it’s not safe for some people to traverse across the city and through certain spaces or things like that. So we’ll bring it to you, we’ll bring the discourse to you. That’s what should be happening anyway, right? There should be a university on every block, there should be a news station on every block.

And then in somewhere like Chicago that’s highly segregated — it’s one of the most segregated cities in the country — what does it mean too, to then have this multiracial, essentially multi-generational show going around? And kind of define, like, the dictates of segregation in the city and the political economy of place in the city, and things like that. So that was a way to get and involve more people. And part of what’s happened a lot is, the will to institutionalize is the will to sediment. Right? It’s the desire to make permanent or things like that. And what does it mean to try and take up space on stolen lands, right? So I think that’s one of the things that — because I come from a different genealogy; I don’t necessarily come out of just like a Marxist, leftist genealogy that’s preoccupied with, like, class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie –

ST: By “genealogy” do you mean your own education?

RG: Yeah, my own thinking. You know, it also comes out of colonization, right? And I think that’s my larger frame. I take seriously that the United States is a settler society. Part of why the Hoodoisie is a radical platform is that we’re like, “No! This is a government that is erected on stolen land. It’s a settler society.” So we have to think about transforming it.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Featured Image: An audience of roughly 50 people sits on plastic chairs in the Chicago Art Department before the February 3rd episode of the Hoodoisie. An aisle cuts through the center of the photograph, with blue lights shining from the back of the room. Art hangs on the white walls at the edges of the photograph. Photo by William Camargo.

Starting from the proposition that art-making is world-making, Sasha Tycko combines community organizing and curatorial work with writing, music, and performance. Tycko is a founding editor of The Sick Muse zine and an administrator of the F12 Network, a DIY collective that addresses sexual violence in arts communities. Find more on IG: @t_cko and at www.nomoneynoborders.com. Photo by Julia Dratel.

“Beyond the Page” digs into the process and practice of writers and artists who work at the intersection of literary arts and other fields. In February, I was excited to speak with “rural hip-hop blues” artist Saleem Hue Penny—whose work I have long admired—about his recent poetry chapbook and its audio companion, his process for creating within and across multiple media, and his work’s relationship to place, childhood, and the natural world.

Follow @huedotart to hear about future readings, including the “Tammy Journal Takeover” at Pilsen Community Books this spring. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Marya Spont-Lemus: You call yourself a “rural hip-hop blues” artist. How did you come to that framing for you and your work and what does it mean to you?

Saleem Hue Penny: So I have traditionally used the acronym “h.u.e.”, for “hope uplifts everything.” It’s a double-play on my middle name, of Hue. My mother gave it to my little brother and me because we’re different shades in a bigger picture. And at some point I was like, “Well, what is the through-line in my work?” There’s always some sense of hope—definitely not like the idealistic, naïve, pie-in-the-sky hope that I think we are craving at this time in our country, in particular, but a slightly more cross-generational hope that, you know, it’s not going to happen tomorrow, but it will happen. So I started using “h.u.e.,” “hope uplifts everything,” around music and performance art and have it kind of encapsulate that multidisciplinary nature.

And the term “rural hip-hop blues” was quirky because in the early days of SoundCloud you used to have to pick a genre and so I started picking “blues.” At first I did hip-hop and then I was kind of like, “Hmm, what am I really feeling and what is the music that feels most timeless to me?” And it is blues. So I started using blues as all of them. And I had some people sometimes say like, “Oh, I thought you were going to be a blues artist—but it’s hip-hop.” And so I was kinda like, “Huh! Okay, so hip-hop blues.” But then something was still missing. And then I started to think about where do I write the majority of my songs—like, literally where do I write my songs? And so then it really ended up just making sense. Like, “rural hip-hop blues.” The album that I had been doing at the time, or one of the ones I’m most proud of anyhow, I was living on a farm. I did one of the songs inside of a grain silo, did one on the porch of a barn, even my first album I recorded a lot of it on the screened-in porch of a friend’s mom’s house in suburban D.C. and you hear crickets and rainstorms—so I just felt like the rural piece felt really natural. And given my family. My mom was one of the first to leave our family’s rural town, but she still made sure that every summer we had to go to the country and have that particular piece of our experience, in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. So it’s kind of a nice way to nod to the  Lowcountry; to the grandparents, that generation; hip-hop, being part of the hip-hop generation, you know, a child of the 80s; and then the blues piece—hopefully that speaking to a timeless nature, that the blues always has been, always will be relevant. Because somebody’s always going to be feeling the blues, you know? And hopefully to nod to that tradition.

The album cover for “Blanket Weather.” Courtesy of the artist.

MSL: That’s actually a great segue into my next question, which is just this observation that place has such centrality, I feel, to your work. You just sort of spoke to this—and I have more questions about it later in regards to specific pieces—and it also features heavily in your bio: “Rooted in Monck’s Corner, SC. Raised in Pisgah Forest, NC. Based in Chicago, IL.” So I’m wondering if you could talk more—to the extent that you want to—about the “rooting” and “raising” and what was it like growing up there, and also what brought you here?

SHP: For sure. And putting a verb with each of those locations was also definitely intentional. I think I first had to laugh at it when Google+ profiles were, you know…I don’t want to quite say they were popping off… [laughs]

MSL: [laughs] When it seemed like they might go somewhere?

SHP: Yeah, when everybody was like, “Oh, you need to get on this because it’s going to be the next LinkedIn” or whatever. There was a spot where you could ping on the map the different places you’ve lived, and so I literally wrote out the places. And it was so wild to see all these dots. And I mentioned it in a song, “Metal Moon,” that didn’t make the cut for “Blanket Weather.” I have a line where I say, “Almost a year has come to pass since I U-Hauled my life and I put it in bags.” And that really was the norm for a really long time—after leaving college in 2001, really until coming to Chicago in ‘09—was that, I moved. And Chicago’s the longest city I’ve been in—almost ten years, and bought a house last summer, and have three-year-old twins, so Chicago is home now. But recognizing that each of those places that I’ve sort of fallen in love with or had a heart broken or cared for somebody in—a piece of those places are with me. So it might have been a place I just lived in for three or four months, but you can put in some pretty deep roots in three or four months, if you’re giving your heart to a place. So really carrying Pisgah Forest, which is a forest in North Carolina, with me. You know, it’s special, it’s where I met my wife. I mean, we were 16, and we were friends for a decade before we ever dated. It’s where I made a lot of lifestyle choices that sort of broke me away from a path that most of my other adolescent male friends, in particular, were on, and there was a liberation of sorts that I found when going to the woods, when camping in the woods. And then, just sort of a particular wilderness that I think I still long for and search for that is pretty symbolic and Pisgah Forest really represents for me. And then South Carolina, even though I haven’t lived there since I left for college in ’97, it’s something that always still feels like home when I go back—not necessarily literally “the home” but the quirks, the Southern accents, just everything, there’s so many things. You know, you can hear a cicada up here but when you hear a cicada there you’re like, “Ohhh, right. This is a cicada.” You know, it’s like, “This is a real cicada here. It’s not one of those cicadas that migrated up.”

MSL: [laughs] I love the idea of a “real” cicada.

SHP: “A real cicada.”

MSL: And that also, like, you’re the arbiter of that.

SHP: [laughs] That I can decide which cicada’s keepin’ it real? Yeah, that’s what I do. I decide that if you’re a cicada and you’re frontin’, don’t come through. Don’t post up in my yard. But no, please post up in my yard, because I want our kids to see cicadas, too. So please post up. So I definitely think, whenever I think back to South Carolina, there’s a lot of the same issues that folks in the Great Migration thought that they were escaping, but then when they came to Chicago they found, you know, front and center. I definitely feel like in the last couple years in particular—since having kids, and since a lot of the police brutality and violence has become more covered and spoken about in mainstream journalism—I do find myself wondering like, “What would it have been like to have packed up everything, with your kids, on a train, and you roll up and you’re on the Green Line and it’s loud and this is where you are and you are promised…?”—or, at least, you had the hope of all of these things—and then you get here and it’s like, “Ohhh-key-dokey. Same policies but different accents.” You know? So I’m hoping that with the work I’m exploring now—the current project—that I can really dig into that more so than I had chosen to focus on in the past.

MSL: Yeah. And this seems like maybe a good time for me to ask about what you’re working on now in your next project? Because you’ve alluded to it.

SHP: Sure. So the current poetry project, “The Deacons,” is a series of epistles chronicling the lives of four African-American men who leave a fictive town in the Deep South to come up to Chicago to attend bible college. Each of them are at different stages age-wise, but they’re also in different stages in their faith journeys and that becomes more apparent as their different faiths are tested by living in Chicago. And so it sort of alternates between letters that they’re writing back home to their family and their loved ones and sermons that they’re writing—for class, essentially, because it’s not like any of them are pastors yet, their practice sermons.

And I’m really excited because it feels like the type of project where you could easily over-research it and make it need to become this ethnographic, you know, “1947. Let me figure out exactly what restaurant was on that corner of 63rd Street.” You know, it feels like it could go so deep down those wormholes, those rabbit holes, but I also like that it’s not. I don’t feel that need to make it so rooted in place that I lose the emotions and it kind of becomes calculated and, like, a semi-biographical work. I’m much more interested in the fact that it’s four men, that are each very different. They sort of think they’re the same—because they’re all from this little town, they all go to the same church, and they all are deacons, and they all want to go to school and figure it out—but when they get there and they’re all living together in, you know, a rental room in a motel and stuff, then they start to realize just how different they are and some of the cracks and fissures that even happened back in their hometown that they weren’t really coming to terms with. Because I’m really forcing them to be in a small space together, some of these connections to place are getting teased out in a different way.

MSL: Yeah. And it maybe sounds like an obvious thing to say, but…place is not a constant. It depends so much on, like, the specific person who’s experiencing it–

SHP: Yup. That’s really true.

MSL: –and also who they’re experiencing it with, and of course the point in time. And you said it was set in the 40s?

SHP: Yeah, 1947.

MSL: And even being set in the late 40s versus the early 40s.

SHP: Yeah! Oh, for sure, for sure.

MSL: Can I ask what inspired “The Deacons,” if you know? I know we don’t always know where ideas come from. Or even thinking back on it, are there threads that you can draw?

SHP: I think some of it is from the most recent chapbook—the 2017 chapbook. It feels really weird to say that. From “The Attic, The Basement, The Barn,” I’ve sometimes found myself daydreaming, “I wonder what happened to these characters?” You know, like the ones who were boys in the book. What did they become as they grew up? And then I found myself actually becoming more interested in the grandparents and the great-uncles that I sort of allude to in the poems. Like what happened to them when they were younger? So I found myself wanting to work backwards and think, you know, 70, 80 years before a given poem takes place, what was that granddad as a young adolescent thinking about their career or their calling or their passion or just their get up and work till sunset sort of situation? So I think some of the threads were probably brewing as I was writing but I definitely wasn’t consciously already thinking that that was going to be the next project.

I think where it sort of turned, as always—and I’m sure we’re going to talk about it—is music always plays in. And I found myself listening to more and more country blues. That’s definitely, by far, in my record collection the biggest of the crates—it’s sort of spilled out into another crate—and certain artists who you could tell were rooted in the church but started to play music that was a bit secular, but that still holds some of these call-and-response themes and still has a blues element, through and through, that sort of distinguishes it from a gospel element. I think I just started to wonder about the narratives of those musicians. Maybe they thought they were going to be a pastor and then they were just like, “Actually, I just like playing music here.” So it’s not the God piece, but it’s the connecting with everybody in this place that’s feeling this organ that I’m playing.

And so I think that those were some of the early seeds, just what I was listening to. Washington Phillips was definitely an artist that I found myself being drawn to. He’s sort of this obscure artist who made this instrument that he plays and he did a dozen or so songs and recently some archivists have pulled his collection together and that’s how I found out about it. And he has this song called “The Church Needs Good Deacons.” And I found myself getting drawn to that song, just like, “Huh.” Like, just the way he sings it. It’s kind of like he doesn’t even need you to be listening. He would just be playing because that’s what he needs to do. And I found myself wondering about the secular and the spiritual and what that would have been like on the ebb of the 50s and before– I guess before my education about Black America started, because I wasn’t really taught it until Civil Rights. It’s like slavery and then Civil Rights, and sort of just having to figure out what happened in the middle. So I think all of those were swirling together.

When I was writing my chapbook “The Attic, The Basement, The Barn,” I was listening to a lot of the Alan Lomax recordings that he made in the prisons and on the work farms—a number of his prison recordings of the work songs and the chain gangs and whatnot. And so, again, this doesn’t necessarily show up in “The Deacons,” but it’s that same sort of pondering that I kept going down of what these men’s lives might have been like. Why did they come to the church? What brought them to walk this particular path, to want to devote themselves to faith, to a church? What sorts of experiences in their past may have existed? And I just found myself being drawn to these songs that are so plaintive and are so contemplative and very mournful, but also, because you’re in there for life, chopping wood, there’s definitely some solidarity and some faith to get you through. And I just started to wonder more and more about that and wanted to challenge myself to start to capture it.

MSL: You can answer this or not—and maybe it isn’t relevant—but do you feel like you have a personal relationship with the church? Or it’s more a sort of culture or place-based connection that you have?

SHP: Yeah. I think my relationship with the church is more cultural and place-based. Definitely went to church from, my mom always says proudly, “from the time I was two weeks old in the church nursery,” you know, all the way until I left for college early, at 17. And I definitely, when I went away, it was a conscious choice to not attend any more and, you know, honestly the main thing I missed from church is just that many people who are okay sitting in silence together for a period of time. That’s one of the things I miss so much. And I don’t even mean a Quaker-style sitting in silence, but just being able to hold space together. I don’t really have that in my life and I think about how to situate that for our children’s lives without giving them a particular religious perspective. Because, for me, I look back and it wasn’t so much any particular scripture we were reading, but it was the fact that everybody was holding a book and all reading together. Everybody was connected in this communal activity and it made us part of something bigger than ourselves and kind of connected us to the millions of people before and the millions of people after who are going to sit in that same seat—or in that same space, holding that same space. Which is, again, why music, particularly with the blues, why that tradition resonates so much with me. I have a line in one of my songs where I say, “Take three small chords, build twelve tall bars” (“Iron Cast Blues”). You know, you just need three chords and anybody can at least start to engage with it as a tradition. I’ve never really compared blues and church, personally, for me, so that was actually neat to hear that even coming out loud. [laughs] It’s a fine line, maybe. Now I’ve realized.

Video of “S/KIN FOLK: An evening of poetry, recipes, essays, & raps”—a celebration for the release of Saleem Hue Penny’s chapbook “The Attic, The Basement, The Barn” and its audio companion “Blanket Weather.” The screenshot shows the author addressing the audience (seated behind the camera), with a wall of books and a “Build Coffee” sign behind him. He wears a t-shirt with Jenny Schrider’s illustration (see below) patterned across the front.

MSL: Going back to the research thing for a minute, you mentioned the role that you anticipate research may play—but also where you want to draw the line—in writing “The Deacons.” And I’d love to hear you talk about it also in relation to “The Attic, The Basement, The Barn”? Something I really love about your poetry is, I feel like it’s both very quote-unquote “readable”—like, there’s a story to it, that you can follow—but there’s also a density to it. It’s dense with references but not in a way that disrupts the storytelling. So I feel like there’s something that I maybe get out of it, but if I knew a lot more about, like, flora and fauna and landforms and weather of a particular place—or even if I knew the Latin names of things—that I might get a lot more out of it. I feel like it permeates a lot of the work in different ways. Oh, constellations, too!

SHP: Yeah. And meteor showers.

MSL: Yeah! But I guess just hearing more about where that comes from, how much research goes into your process, and what you hope the reader or different readers get out of that?

SHP: No, that’s great. One of the things I’m proud of with “The Attic, The Basement, The Barn” is that it never felt over-researched. You know, I never had more than two tabs open and usually those tabs were open because I didn’t know how to spell something. Or I wanted to make sure that the way I remembered a plant that I saw when I was 16, I wanted to actually remember, you know–

MSL: “Did it have that many leaves?”

SHP: Yeah! Precisely. It literally was those things. Of like, “Was that actually a fern or was that a flowering shrub?” Like, I remember it and I remember what it was called, or I definitely remember what it tasted like, but I don’t know if that’s actually a taste it had. And sort of letting the research not always necessarily win, because there were times where I was like, “Mmmmm…. Okay, maybe that’s what it was but that’s not how I remembered it.” So I’m going to write how I remembered it. I do think that—as far as the density and what I would hope that would accomplish—the goal first and foremost for me always is that it’s accessible. I don’t want anybody to ever pick up one of my poems and feel dumb. I don’t want anybody to ever pick one up and be like, “Crap, I don’t know what any of those words mean. This is why I hate poetry, because it’s not written for people like me.” I don’t ever want that to happen. If that happens, I’ve failed on a number of levels, you know?

MSL: And that’s so much of what kept me from poetry for so long. Just feeling like I didn’t have an access point.

SHP: It still keeps me from some poetry. Like, “I’m not smart enough to understand this.” And that’s an awful feeling to leave a reader with. So, to find a balance where somebody can still feel a little challenged—like, “Huh, I wouldn’t have thought to use that word”—but also not that they have to keep a thesaurus and Webster’s pulled up next to them for an entire poem. As far as what I would like people to take from that is, I hope it would push them a little bit to be like, “Oh, that’s interesting they used the Latin names. Huh, I wonder what the Latin name for– Oh, let me just look up the Latin name for this other thing!” And just see what it is! It’s not like, at some point, I would have just had the Latin name and left out the common name. That’s not the point. The point is that I used to be so intimately connected to some of those plants that I knew the Latin names. All the ones in here where I reference Latin names, those are all plants that I still remember the Latin names of. You know, from age 16, 17, 18. I didn’t have to go and research to be like, “What is the Latin name for dandelion?” Because, thankfully, I learned that in ‘96 and it’s 2018 right now and I still remember that. That’s pretty awesome. Like, shout-out to that teacher. [Marya laughs] Shout-out to Ted Wesemann at the Outdoor Academy of the Southern Appalachians! You know, for making sure that these plants and these birdsongs and these constellations—that these were real things that I made a meaningful connection with.

Saleem Hue Penny, his wife Katie, and their twin toddlers lying on a wooden floor. Photo by Becca Heuer Photography.

And especially now that I’m in a city where I can’t actually see the stars—and where, if I see a dandelion, I definitely can’t pick it and eat it because it’s probably been sprayed and treated with whatever was on the lawn—it’s even more important to capture some of that and hopefully encourage younger people to interface with it and start to wonder, start to ask those questions about the natural world—that’s very near us, and all around us, but unfortunately humans have become pretty good at busting it down and paving over it and sort of erasing it from their day-to-day presence. Oh, but another piece you said, if maybe you knew more about a specific type of flora or fauna or constellation, etc.? I’d like to think that if somebody knew a little more maybe, not even that they would “get” it deeper, but that they would just appreciate that decision a little bit more? But I don’t want it to be this VIP thing, like, “Oh, you definitely understand the life cycle of a salamander, so you’re definitely going to get this little reference I’m about to slip in.” But I would like the person who really knows their herbology or something to be like, “That’s interesting that he happened to pick that, and that was accurate, and huh! Okay, good stuff, let’s keep it moving.”

It’s been frustrating, at times, having to find this information out for myself—particularly frustrating as an African-American—not always having the direct link to that in my day-to-day. In spite of the fact of coming from that tradition of people that worked the land, taught other cultures how to use the land, you know, were tied to the land, were stripped of the land, figured out how to reclaim the land. You know, in spite of that, that it can still feel completely foreign. I do feel proud of those times when folks have made space that I could experience the land. Because it’s definitely not guaranteed that we get to run our hands through a garden, or through soil, or see a tomato before it’s shrink-wrapped. And those are all experiences I’ve had, and gotten to have.

MSL: Yeah. I’d love to talk more about the land and the work’s relation to the natural world, and maybe first pause to hear a bit about the work we’re talking about. So, a few months ago, you released this beautiful chapbook–

SHP: Thank you.

MSL: –“The Attic, The Basement, The Barn,” and its– Are you calling the album the “audio companion”? An “album”?

SHP: Yeah. I’m calling it an “audio companion.”

MSL: –the audio companion, “Blanket Weather”—both through Tammy Journal Chapbooks. And I guess I’d just love to hear about that project! And where that project or those projects came from? If you’ve created chapbooks, albums, audio companions, previously or previously together? How was this process different? I guess just giving us some grounding for the pieces.

SHP: Yeah. So it’s, first of all, definitely surreal to even be sitting here with a chapbook sitting in front of me that has my words in it. And I hope I never lose that sense of awe, you know? Before even talking about the process, I think part of what is really special is when you can have a publisher and editors and a press who, you know, support an author. The week that I got an offer to have the book published I actually got—the same week—offers from two different presses. And every time I think about it I’m so glad that I ended up accepting to work with Tammy. The other press I would have gotten money. There was a ton of, you know, like a contract that was multiple pages and like, “You’ll get this percentage per unit.” And it was just like, “Wow, a unit. I’m not sure if I’m ready to sell units.” You know? I want this book to be in people’s hands, and I want people to be able to engage with it, and to hopefully come away with some more beauty in their life. And to be able to work with people who are all themselves authors is a huge piece, and that they’re able to listen to the suggestions I had, to incorporate some of the direct artistic feedback, but then also for them to be able to hold strong with a particular vision they had for how the four chapbooks in the series were all going to hang together, and how they were all going to be designed and laid out, and I really respect that. They clearly had a vision, too, and I think we were able to find ways that those visions could be complementary. And just to be able to see that support extend into the release celebration that I did, with them covering the rental cost of Build Coffee where we held it. So it is small things like that that, although dollars don’t come pouring in off of a poetry chapbook, you know–

MSL: [laughs] Regardless of where you publish it.

SHP: Regardless of where it’s going, I’d still prefer to have folks in my corner who I know are going to make that other print run for me if there’s enough people who are saying that they want that, or are going to trust that if I say we should stock it in x, y, and z store they’re going to reach out to that stockist and give it a try, that they’re going to trust the author through the process. I think that’s really important. Because I think this conversation would have probably been totally different if I had gone with a more corporate or more traditional publisher at this stage in my writing. But for where I am, with my first time having my work published, I couldn’t have asked for a better publishing relationship.

As far as where this fits in the chronology of things, I’ve definitely recorded complete albums before—again, under the h.u.e., “hope uplifts everything,” moniker.

MSL: And those are on SoundCloud? Or various places in the world?

SHP: Various places. Some of them are on my Bandcamp page and a lot of them was before Bandcamp and SoundCloud.

MSL: Myspace?!

SHP: Yup! Yup, I had three tracks up on Myspace forever. It’s funny, they’re actually still there. But I do remember just burning CDs, giving them to people, handwriting the titles of the songs on it and, you know, passing them out to friends as gifts. So, I never really—partially because I didn’t trust my art to stand on its own enough to try to sell it, that imposter syndrome, you know, as a musician. Because I can’t play any one instrument, but thankfully, with technology and sampling and looping and stuff, I’m able to create pieces that I couldn’t if I had to rely on traditional instrumentation. So I think with some of that imposter syndrome, definitely not ever jumping in enough to just say like, “Hey, can you put this in the ‘local’ section of the music store?” I’m sure there probably would have people who might have, but I just didn’t feel competent enough to really do it. And so most things just released either to friends and family or just available for download.

My first album was ‘01, and that was done with my friend Jon Reid, who recorded under the moniker “jar-e.” Of course, you come out the gate big, so we came out with a double CD. You know? [laughs] Why start with ten tracks when you can start with twenty-two? Or however many we cranked over the course of a whole summer on an analogue four-track recorder, and then mixed down onto CD and then burned on an external CD drive. So there was never a computer involved in anything. We didn’t even have a computer. It was all tape to direct CD to Sharpie to a jewel-case. And so, I do think that urgency starting off and that sort of hustle spirit but not hustling to make dollars—hustling to get it to people, because we believed so strongly.

The album after it was “Transitions and Transformations.” It was my first time living on my own, right after college—well, I wasn’t on my own, I was actually a live-in nanny, but I was not in college and I was not at my mom’s house, so that’s what I mean by living on my own. That was a really important album to me. And then “The Hyper-Mellow Me” was another album that was done a year or two later—going through a pretty transitional space, just “what do I want to be when I grow up?” sort of thing. You know, you’re 22 and that pressure of—it may be different for different generations—but like, “I should probably have my life more put together by this point.” Looking back on it at this point, that’s sort of silly and absurd to say, but at the time that’s what it felt like. And I think some of that’s cultural, that pressure of, it’s a privilege to go to college—you know, from a working-class, single-parent home—and to not have the whole plan laid out and already coming to fruition in a way felt like idleness. So I feel like I captured some particular emotions during that time. And then everything else, pretty much from ’02 through ’05, was just small little singles and little collaborations. And, again, that was still before SoundCloud sort of opened up new doors.

The album cover for “Starfish Time.” Courtesy of the artist.

And then the album that I think the most people have heard, just from my Bandcamp, is called “Starfish Time,” and that was a very cohesive album. It’s just a very special album because it’s so rooted in place. That’s when I was living on a farm. It was an in-patient residential mental health facility and I was on the staff there and so that was my escape, you know, the headphones and the microphone from such high-stress residential work. But it was also such an opening point, because so many of the adults who were there were artists of some sort, and that history of creativity coming from unconventional sources and how it helped me really speak a language with a lot of adults there, through music, who weren’t being engaged in other forms. That album definitely has a lot of importance to me. Lost a close person to suicide that same year, lost my granddad, lost an uncle. So a lot of things are really in “Starfish Time.” And it’s called that just because that’s what I wanted at the time, was, you know, to have these limbs grow back that I had lost and to be able to measure time not with a clock but with loss and regrowth and to move at my own pace. And that tension, because that’s not really how time works. It just ticks forward, regardless of how many people you lose in a period of time. So “Starfish Time” was a powerful one.

And unfortunately I just stopped recording music. It was a really hard choice, and I don’t think it was a good choice, but when I started grad school I just had this idea, “I’m going to be a grad student, I’m gonna rock this, I’m gonna get these incredible grades and all these scholarships and I’m going to leave all my recording stuff and I’m going to pack it up and I’m not going to bring it with me.” And that was a painful thing to do for my soul and my spirit.

MSL: And this was when you came to Chicago, or when you went to Michigan?

SHP: This is in 2005, when I went to D.C. and prepped for going to Michigan. So it continued. ‘05, two years of grad school. Didn’t learn my lesson, for whatever reason. ‘07, continued through grad school. Until ‘09, when I came to Chicago. And in ‘09, I was like, “That’s part of the problem, why these last four years have been so far away from myself.” Because I didn’t have these inputs and these outputs. So kind of making the decision around then to really start to dive back in. And it’s funny how music still would creep in, you know? There were still collaborations. At my chapbook celebration, the first song I did, I told the anecdote about a guy that I met in a dairy barn and he had an instrumental CD and I had one of my albums and we just swapped. And I ended up writing for a full year, off and on, to his instrumentals and ended up recording them and, you know, have never been able to share them with him because I can’t find him. And it’s not like we had business cards on us and a bunch of social media links. It was just like, “This is great, this is my name,” “Oh, this is my name,” “Cool.”

Salaam Hue Penny performing at Idea Potluck in 2016. Photo courtesy of the artist.

MSL: Are those songs on “Blanket Weather”? Or those are other songs?

SHP: No. Those are other songs, that are on a project called “The Summer Sessions.” I wanted to make sure he had the credit, so it’s “Boy Plus Rocket,” which is the moniker he records under, or used to record under, and h.u.e. So yeah, all I’ve talked about so far, some of that has laid the groundwork for “Blanket Weather,” but a lot of the songs on “Blanket Weather” were the ones that never made it on any of those previous albums. They’re pieces that I had done off to the side, or are spoken word stuff from a journal entry that I ended up putting to music, or just hadn’t been on an album.

I was going through my phone a couple nights ago thinking about this conversation and I pulled up the original tracklist for “Blanket Weather.” And it’s really interesting to see the original tracklist versus the tracklist now, and to see how there are some that never changed, and that were so core, but the order of them and the presentation, that didn’t fully take shape until the chapbook was nearing completion. And the tone of the chapbook really mirrors the order and the tone of the songs. It’s not to be designed to listen to as you read it—because they’re not one for one, by any means—but it is interesting to see—because the chapbook was basically a two- or three-year process—how I thought the music was going to go in a particular direction, but then the poems ended up informing it. And then honestly, vice versa. There were times when I think a poem might have just stopped but a song sort of picked it up or let me extend an image or extend a tone a bit further in the written work. So it is really neat how they ended up really complementing each other. That’s why I call it a “companion.” Even though they are really different voices. Like my song voice, it’s almost always first-person. And the poetry, I think it can alternate between third, quite a bit more, but for songs– Oh, I think one of the songs is “he” and “she,” but basically the other songs are “I.” Because, for the most part, it’s a lot more vulnerable. Or, I’ve had a lot more experience being vulnerable when there’s music involved, is a better way to say it. So that’s sort of the genesis of “Blanket Weather.” I knew that title from the very beginning, because it’s from a line in one of the poems.

MSL: I was going to ask! Yeah. There’s a lot of symmetries.

SHP: Yeah. It’s a poem where it’s two figures—two lovers, two somebodies, two people in a relationship; it’s not exactly clear—and he says– I can just read it. I know the line.

MSL: Is it “All The Heat I Have”?

SHP: Yeah, it is in “All The Heat I Have.” Here it is. “You tremble slightly / and I breathe into you all the heat I have, / for blanket weather will soon be upon us.” So “All The Heat I Have,” I loved to have the title line of two things back-to-back. It was kind of an inside chuckle to me of like, “Nice! Title of a poem, title of the audio companion, right next to each other. That’s a couplet.” So yeah, “Blanket Weather.” So, of course, after making the original tracklist, I made a version—if the dream, which is to have it on vinyl, because why not?—of what the songs would be there. And it’s really neat, because I had to think about it differently. Because if I could get thirteen minutes per side, you know, on a 10-inch—it sort of helped me condense it. So it would have to be eleven songs. So that was part of the whittling down from the original. But it’s still interesting, even then, to look at how the last song on this version ended up being the very first song on the album, because of the poetry—I changed it—and so the first poem ended up being very urgent and opening up directly in the middle of a line. Whereas, in earlier drafts, the first poem kind of rolled and slowly ramped up and then you eventually got into the action. So it is interesting to see how the songs in some ways—their order and their urgency and their tone—were sort of changing, in flux, as the poems were changing, but I wasn’t all that aware of it until it was all done.

MSL: So, with what you just said, did you mean that—because “Sunset, Before” opens the chapbook—that the poem used to be different such that it didn’t hit right away? Not that there used to be a different poem there.

SHP: No, it didn’t hit right away at all. Yeah.

MSL: I love that poem.

SHP: Thank you.

MSL: And I do remember that there were different versions at some point, though this is so the one that’s in my mind now. And is that the poem that got nominated for a Pushcart Prize?

SHP: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

MSL: At what point did you realize or decide that these things went together? And even just to hear more about that concurrent editing process. Were you writing them around the same time? Had you written some of them before and just re-discovered them? Yeah, how did all of those things come together to be what’s sitting in front of us?

SHP: Sure. Perfect. So, as far as the process of editing them together, I usually did not listen to the songs as I was writing, because it’s weird to be writing while you’re also listening to your own voice, in a very different medium, with a different rhythm. And my songs almost always rhyme, and none of the poems in this chapbook rhyme, so it was just too discordant to be doing it at the same time. I wrote a lot of the book when our twins were infants, so I’d be up for, like, the 2 a.m. feeding and I would have each of them in a cradle and I would have each foot sort of rocking them back and forth and just writing on the laptop in the middle. And so I would have on headphones pretty often.

And one of the things that I did enjoy doing was listening to one of the “Blanket Weather” songs either at the beginning or at the end of a writing session. And I think another role that “Blanket Weather” held for me is, I kind of got into a slump with submissions at one point, where I felt like I didn’t want to change the chapbook. I worked with a great developmental editor and really had it in a nice place. Kat Don was super supportive and also tried to push me to think about unconventional forms. Because my earliest draft that I turned in to Kat, I had the lyrics to the songs and the actual poems all sort of together.

MSL: [gasps] That’s right!

SHP: Yeah. And they all sort of alternated. So it would be like a poem, song, song, song, poem. Poem, poem, poem, song, song. And it was pretty unwieldy. And then I did a version where I just took out specific lines from the songs and maybe a couplet or a chorus would be on a page. So I scaled it back from there, and then decided that the two were going to be completely different, completely separate. And I think ultimately that was a great choice. But I do know that—during this time, when I was kind of in this slump—at one point I was like, “Just go ahead. You know what it is, you know the cover art, you know the font, you can already picture what “Blanket Weather” is…. It’s done. Just put it up on Bandcamp, and just have it be there. Go ahead and say it’s going to be the audio companion for this book when you don’t even know when it’s going to be published and just speak it.” And so for like a year, it was just up there. And it was like, “Audio companion to ‘The Attic, The Basement, The Barn’!” It was like, “Whaat? Where is ‘The Attic, The Basement, The Barn’?”

MSL: “Forthcoming”!

SHP: Yeah! Exactly. It was “forthcoming” in 2016 and then it forth-camed in 2017. Not that that’s a word. So I do think that “Blanket Weather” ended up playing an interesting role in my process. Not that I would have given up on it, by any means, but at times when I felt like I was in that slump it was like, “Well, you’ve already promised it to the world. The audio companion’s already there.” And randomly somebody would click and be like, “Oh, what’s this a companion to?” Which is always cool, when a stranger finds your music in general. But then to be like, “Oh, it’s for this thing that I’m writing that maybe it will–” No. “It’s for this chapbook, that’s going to come out. Go to my website. Here’s a description of it. Even though I still don’t know how it’s all coming together, but I still know it is this thing and there are the core poems that I want to be in it and the rest is sort of up to the mercy of editors and people who happen to want to put it on paper.

All of the songs had been recorded prior to 2012, when I started digging in on the book. Or, when I had my earliest sort of glimpses of what the book might be. I hadn’t seriously started writing it yet, but I at least had ideas.

MSL: Well, it’s so interesting after seeing or hearing different versions of the poems, particularly, over the last few years. And it feels so rewarding to me to read them all together in the same place. Not only because they reward re-reading, but also because re-reading them in the book form, I noticed resonances or echoes between poems that I didn’t before—and surely they’ve also changed over time—but also, I didn’t necessarily sit and read them all at the same time. I might have read one one year, one another year; read one when you published one. And not just noticing themes, but specific words or events or characters that I started to connect across poems and songs—like little ecosystems or constellations of their own. It raised a lot more questions for me and I was doing a little, like, “Does Saleem have this grand unified theory of these things in relation to each other?” There are a couple I can call out specifically. There’s a line in “Youth Electric,” the poem, “Me, in line getting quarters at the laundromat,” and then in “In Time,” there’s the line, “it was my turn to get quarters but / somebody got shot at the laundromat.”

SHP: Yup.

MSL: And it was so interesting seeing those two together, in part because, when I read each poem separately, I read the setting differently.

SHP: Yeah, yeah! Oh, that’s awesome. Oh, I’m really happy to hear that.

MSL: But then I noticed that, when reading them near each other in the same book, I was like, “Wait! But I thought that this one was Chicago or some Northern city, and I thought that this one was North Carolina or South Carolina, and is this all in the same place? How am I reading place into the work?”

SHP: Yeah. Right, right.

MSL: And the switchbacks in “Laying Down Tracks 1” and in–

SHP: “Bringing Home the Weather.”

MSL: “Are those the same switchbacks? Is this all in the same place? Is this at the same point in time?” There’s “falling into the Green River and being nursed by a friend” in “to be continued” (the song), but then something similar happens with similar words in “In Time” (the poem). Anyway, I would just love to hear you talk about the places where the stories and the images and the themes—and even the intonation or cadence of things—mirrors or threads through.

A hand-drawn illustration by Jenny Schrider that accompanies the chapbook, “The Attic, The Basement, The Barn.” Image courtesy of Jenny Schrider.

SHP: Yeah. So it was really fun to have the laundromat reference happen. I love that it happened between two poems and between different ages of people. Right? Because I did like the idea, that I had for quite some time, of having all of the poems either take place in a world of, like, horse-drawn carriages—you know, that time period, which I recognize is weird to say, like, “the time period of horse-drawn carriages”—or the time period of subways. For me, those are extremes, but they’re two ways of moving around.

That’s why I mention moving through space and time. So do I want things to happen in a place that has the pace of, you get a letter or where you get a phone call or you get an email or a text, or you get a vapor cigarette or you get a letter? That was really interesting to me, and I feel like it sort of worked itself out as I went through the pieces. This idea that the boys from “Easter Sunday,” who were throwing the rocks outside behind the gas station, that it’s possible they could be the same boys during “In Time” who are running around the library getting in trouble. And they could be the same boys who are reminiscing on their childhood but are in this stuffy networking reception. And it’s possible they could even be the same boys who lived in the time period in the same city block as this laundromat—you know, that got shot. So I kind of liked that, if I gave myself the freedom to have these characters sort of move through space and time, it did open up a lot of possibilities. That I could tip to, these are all happening in some sort of continuum in perhaps at least the same city. But not, like, this is in ‘96 and this person is 2003. Or they could somehow be at least within the same generation, and that would be enough for me. Or one to two generations removed.

I did like the idea of, whenever the kids are back in the South—and they’re sort of in the land of skipping rocks and pants rolled up to their knees and that sort of thing—that they are a bit different from the ones who are skateboarding in the abandoned cul-de-sac and lighting mailboxes on fire, you know, to pass the time. But I still wanted it to speak to that same sort of restlessness of youth. Of just like, “Oh, they’re throwing rocks at squirrels and they’re feeding an old bird French fries.” It’s still the same screwing around with nature, with pesky animals, with your crew, and just whatever happens in your day happens in your day. Because sometimes that’s how simple it is. That’s part of the reason I wanted to make sure this book could get in the hands of young adults. Because they have their own stories of navigating wild places and of reckoning with their own freedom and their own boundaries as they move through space. That was a really important reason why I wanted to have another organization—ConTextos—be part of the release celebration, that it wasn’t just me sharing my words but to really try to amplify the voices of other young adults who are authors and are doing this work.

I do feel that that was one of the things that came off exactly as I had envisioned, that the characters move between space and that it let the reader sort of catch themselves and be like, “Wait, which poem am I reading?” Because that’s the beauty of a chapbook. You could sit down in one sitting and go through it and get transported between, “Wait, was it eight poems? Or maybe there were only five, if those were happening in the same place? That could have been the same character….” I wanted people to be able to do that and not prescribe it like, “This is Chris. This is the same Chris you read about in poem #2.” I didn’t want it to be that prescribed. I think that the most clear reference was the Green River reference, during “to be continued” (on “Blanket Weather”) and “In Time,” of the young man falling out of his canoe into the Green River and getting hypothermia. And, that did happen to me, around that age. Well, it happened twice actually, but not at the Green River. So it could have been either of those unfortunate hypothermia times. [laughs]

MSL: [laughs] More collapsings and bridgings of space and time.

SHP: Yeah! I know. “Ohhh, this happened twice on rivers in North Carolina. From canoes.”

MSL: “And I had something to do with it.”

SHP: “And I was involved both times.” Which is the common element in that, unfortunately. So I do think that that was the most obvious example from the music. If I had to draw a line, like, this song  “matches” this poem, I couldn’t do that, but I could say, “This song really supports this poem,” or “This poem really supports the tone of the song.” Like the audio companion starts off with the song 1st Time Again, and that is about two lovers who are essentially saying goodbye, in the same way that the chapbook starts off with “Sunset, Before.” Again, totally different, very different. The song is much more in the 21st century. Whereas “Sunset, Before” could be any variety of eras where the Klan or other groups could have– Actually, that’s really sad to say that. It’s 2018. So that poem still could happen. Yeah. That one isn’t so rooted in the past as I’d like to think it is, actually, now that I’m saying this out loud. But I do think there are a number of times where I could pin a song and a poem that, hopefully, each brought a different light to the other, even though they were recorded and/or written at very different times.

MSL: And I think that there’s something in the feeling or spirit of the songs and the poems that is…. I mean, the phrase that’s coming to me is like, the permanence of impermanence?

SHP: Yeah. Yeah.

MSL: Like, impermanence as a permanent condition? And I think it’s there in different ways. There’s sort of cyclical time or relative time, which we see in some of the songs, with the “passerby” and the “static observer” and these different shifting positions. And with things like what you were just saying. Or like with the example I gave earlier, where I was reading place in very particular ways on my first read-through—or when reading things separately—but when reading them together was like, “Oh. These actually maybe co-exist in a closer universe than I thought.”

SHP: Right, right.

MSL: Right? But then also this aspect of, like, generational time? And the idea that the more things change the more they stay the same, but also, what are the small changes that happen across that time? I feel like it’s a theme that is in multiple pieces across these and it’s amplified through that feeling of…I always feel like I’m in a specific time or place when I read these, but then I’m also very conscious that I’m…

SHP: Not.

MSL: That I could actually be in multiple.

SHP: Yeah! Yeahyeahyeah.

MSL: It doesn’t feel vague. It feels very specific. I just don’t know.

SHP: Right! Yeah. It’s funny, because you made me think of another one. When I thought of the cover art of “Blanket Weather”—that old farmhouse—that’s how I envisioned the farmhouse in “All the Heat I Have.” Because, again, I was like, “Ooh, can I do a “Blanket Weather” tie-in of the line from ‘All the Heat I Have’ and a photo tie-in to ‘All the Heat I Have’.” I forgot that that was definitely a nod to that poem, both by the title and by the cover art.

MSL: And speaking of different kinds of layers, I’m interviewing you in your beautiful office at Chicago Children’s Museum. How does your work with, and for, and promoting work by youth, connect with your creative work? Do you see them as the same thing? As spokes informing each other? Something else?

SHP: Yeah. So I was a chemistry major in undergrad. And I never wanted to be a chemist but I did want to be a middle-school science teacher. And I wrote a whole song actually, where I wanted to use chemistry metaphors—oh god, this is so funny, I haven’t thought about this in forever—to describe, like, a break-up. Or being right on the edge of a break-up. But within the song, I have a line where I’m talking about the triple point—and it being that point where a liquid, a solid, and a gas can all coexist, and you have to have a very specific set of pressure and everything for it to happen, but there is this one point where you can have all three of them and that can happen at the same time.

I do love when I have those, like, triple-point moments where my personal artwork, my professional museum hat, and then my community volunteer hats—when those three hats, when those three roles—align. Like, it’s magic. You know? And so the time most recently when that happened was when chatting with ConTextos—actually, at one of the conversations about planning my chapbook celebration—and we started talking about the father engagement work that I’m doing at the Chicago Children’s Museum, particularly with low-income African-American and Latino fathers. And it was this great light bulb moment for them because they’re like, “We’re doing this incredible work with the adults and getting them empowered as authors and having them be able to critically read texts and create their own autobiographies, and a lot of these men are fathers and have children and what are we doing around children’s literacy? Or around helping them amplify the stories of their children. Or having them share their newfound or newly created passion for poetry with their children.” And it was just this awesome moment where I was like, “We can do, like, a ConTextos junior.” I mean, I didn’t say that—that’s kinda cheesy—but, you know, immediately we were just like, “Yup!” Like we could have the authors come and read their poems with their kids, and their kids could create writings and art and look up to Dad as an artist, and the dads could get to think of themselves as role models in this super creative space and feel welcome and comfortable here.

So it was this great moment of all of those roles coming together—my role in the museum, as Director of Community and Educational Partnerships; role as an artist; and then role as a community-builder and as a father. I think that they’re separate only to the degree that I can’t just stop for an hour during my workday and write poetry. So, anyway, I’d say the different roles do line up quite well. And also the volunteering hat—because I volunteer at Comer Children’s Hospital doing bedside magic with Open Heart Magic. That piece is still about healing, it’s still about art, it’s still about empowering caregivers and parents, and giving them a break and helping them get to be young and feel like a kid again for that twenty minutes that I’m in their room, getting them laughing, making a card appear. It’s the same as when they’re here at the museum—you know, for that hour that they’re here on a field trip, to have them not just on the phone checked out but to have them playing and pretend-shopping and cooking in the pretend kitchen. It comes from the same place of wanting parents and caregivers to have the permission and the support to play, you know? And to be free. Because otherwise the cycles just continue, of childhood being something to hurry up and get through, and that’s not how I want childhood to be for people. I really don’t.

The artist, his wife, and their twin toddlers at play. Photo by Becca Heuer Photography.

MSL: As we close out, whose work do you find yourself turning to these days, and for what? Or what kinds of work?

SHP: Yeah. So I was in the Seminary Co-op on Sunday and one of our kids was asleep in the stroller so I got to say, “Hey, I gotta leave, this café is too loud, I’m gonna go walk her in the poetry section.” It was perfect. I haven’t done that in months. I forgot how much I just missed being in a bookstore and being quiet in a bookstore. I mean, it is fun when we take our kids to a bookstore, just because they love books, and it’s such a special feeling when they see an author or an illustrator and they know that illustrator. It does feel like, “Okay, we’ve done something right.” But it was still nice to have that quiet. And it’s so overwhelming to stand in front of a shelf and know that even if I had all the hours in the world I still could never get through these poets.

MSL: Mmm hmm. It’s like the blessing and the curse of a bookstore.

SHP: Right!

MSL: You just feel so small.

SHP: Yeah, exactly. I’m just talking the contemporary folks. I’m not even talking the canon before us, but I’m saying just looking at the folks during my lifetime and to know that I cannot get through those collections. So then what does that mean for who you select and who you surround yourself with? Especially being a newer parent, with toddlers, when the time is so limited. The pressure, I feel, is even more there. Where do you snatch those 15-minute windows, and who do you choose to fill that up with?

And I feel like, for me, I want to make sure that there’s always a blend of writers who are from the place I’m living—so, obviously in this case, Chicago—and then also making sure that I’m reading writers who are going to make me step my game up. It’s awesome when it happens to be the same, and I’m very fortunate that a lot of the people who I feel like I have read recently in Chicago have also made me want to step up my game. So I think some of the books and authors who definitely stand out—Cortney Lamar Charleston has several pieces I’ve read where I’m just like, “Oh. Man. Gotta step my game up. How am I going to do this?” Or any time I pick up “Wild Hundreds” by Nate Marshall, I want to go to each of those street corners and just like, see it through his eye, but since I know I never can the page will have to do. Eve Ewing is deservedly at the top of so many of those best-of lists. I haven’t even finished “Electric Arches” because I keep giving away copies! And then to read people who have been doing this longer than I’ve been alive, or longer than I’ve been in this, I feel is important.

And I think it’s important as a Black male to also find those voices. Especially because I’m not growing up with a father, it’s that constant search for, “What does it mean? What does manhood mean? What does fatherhood mean?” and to just find those folks. And it’s really special when you can. Like I reached out to Ishion Hutchinson and asked him if I could send a copy of my book to him and did and it was so cool that he emailed back and was like, “I received it today. It’s lovely. I look forward to reading it.” Or A. Van Jordan is another poet who I’ve always looked up to. And, similarly, I asked it I could send him a copy and he’s like, “Oh, I actually just bought it this week.” And I was like, “Oh, maaan….”

MSL: Oh my God!

SHP: Like, can I please have that quote framed and put up?

MSL: You should add that to your chapbook website where it’s like, the reviews, and his just says, “I just bought it.”

SHP: Oh! Oh, I should totally do that. “A. Van Jordan: ‘I just bought it.’” And that’s the quote. “‘I just bought it last week.’” And one other thing that has sort of happened accidentally is, I read a chapbook, “Sea Island Blues,” by Tyree Daye. I read his chapbook from 2014, just recently, in one sitting—which, I just love those. This book is incredible. But it was so neat because I hadn’t read any of his other stuff, I didn’t even follow his bio, I just saw a description of “Sea Island Blues” and bought it. I didn’t know who he was. And when I was in the bookstore, I saw his name and was like, “Oh, the guy who wrote the chapbook!” and I picked it up and it was like, “Cave Canem fellow, dadadadada, Pushcart, dadadadada, new works, other works by.” You know, three, four years later and off the chart. And that was so cool to be like, “All right. Cool. Maybe that’ll happen someday.” Like somebody will be like, “Oh, I read that thing, ‘The Attic,’ the thing with the long title, with the basement and barn and stuff!” So it was just like that nice moment, that somebody can stumble on your work at any point in your career. And so it’s just really special to know that, you know, we’re all as poets and writers sort of eking out our voice at our own paces and that any reader can step in at any point during that process and, hopefully, still come away with something unique.

The artist, his wife, and their twin toddlers sitting together. Photo by Becca Heuer Photography.

MSL: Anything you feel like we haven’t talked about that you want to talk about?

SHP: I was having a conversation with somebody who was saying that she had been sitting on a manuscript but it wasn’t getting out anywhere. Basically she was talking like, “Penguin, Random House, and HarperCollins.” Like, three, ridiculous publishers. And I was like, “What do you mean? Those are the only places you’re gonna submit a poetry manuscript?” It was kind of this moment where she was like, “Well, yeah, because I want everybody to read it.” Okay. So I was basically was like, “There’s this whole world of people who will read poetry, who aren’t going to go into Barnes & Noble and pick it up.” I hope that she got what I was saying, which was like, “Just submit it!” And don’t be so focused on, “But everybody has to see it.” Sometimes it’s just like a couple people seeing a poem that somebody takes a screenshot of and it moves them and makes them think about the world differently, and that’s what matters. If I hadn’t been fortunate enough to publish this, I was going to give myself two more months and then I was going to have it as a PDF and put it on my website. And I’m so fortunate that it’s in the physical and that people can access it, with this beautiful cover and this creative packaging. But I just hope that folks who want to get their words out recognize that there’s so many different ways to do it and that it doesn’t have to be any one particular way. It doesn’t even have to be a chapbook. It’s just that this form worked out really well for what I wanted to communicate. It can be a series of broadsides. Write it on a post-it note, snap a picture, put it on somebody’s car window. There’s so many different ways for poems to be out there.

So I think that would be one of the last things. If you’ve got something that you have to say, because it keeps coming back to you, and you wake up thinking about it, you go to bed thinking about it, that’s the poem you have to write and put it out somewhere.

Featured Image: This is a close-up photograph of the author and his toddler daughter, taken from the side. They look at each other through lightly decorated cardboard tubes that they hold up to their eyes like binoculars. Their faces are at the same height and mostly hidden, but both people are smiling. Photo by Becca Heuer Photography.

Marya Spont-Lemus (she/her/hers/Ms.) is a fiction writer, interdisciplinary artist, and educator. She lives and works on the Southwest Side of Chicago. Follow her on Twitter and Tumblr.

Call them DIY, alternative, radical, or safe, Chicago’s independent art spaces create a world without money and borders within a world defined by both. They function as community hubs and communal living spaces, providing free and affordable entertainment, hosting activism workshops and food drives, and building connections among young, emerging, and marginalized artists. “Without, Within the World” is a series of interviews that asks curators and administrators about building utopia while maintaining viable spaces.     

For this installment of “Without, Within the World,” we talked to executive director Fontaine Capel of Hume Chicago. Hume is a small gallery and artist studio space run out of a storefront in Humboldt Park. Through an open call process, Hume exhibits work by artists who are underrepresented on the gallery circuit, particularly women, queer, and immigrant artists. In addition to its gallery shows, Hume provides affordable studio spaces for artists and hosts regular events that contribute to its relaxed and friendly environment, such as movie nights and karaoke parties. Hume was established by Capel, Olive Panter, and Gita Jackson, who have since been joined by Katie Waddell, Caroline Walp, Nabil Vega, Krystal DiFronzo, and Katy Albert—most of whom are also artists themselves.

After meeting Capel at Hume, we walked across the street to the liquor store that doubles as the neighborhood bar. Capel excitedly pointed at the various regulars and traditions that make the bar an important locus of community—including the colorful ceiling tiles that have been rented and decorated by its loyal patrons. Capel, who is also a working artist and educator, grew up in Brooklyn as the child of Cuban and Argentinian immigrants. When she returned to Brooklyn after art school, the prohibitively expensive rent and studio spaces she found there propelled her toward Chicago in search of a more accessible and viable artistic community.

Over the early 2000s-era pop punk wails emanating from the jukebox, we talked about the difficulties of running a gallery that, per its mission, exhibits work that’s not guaranteed to sell well.  It’s a mission that presents obvious financial obstacles but Capel said that long-term sustainability of the space isn’t necessarily her—or the gallery’s—goal. “We’re just doing as well as we can with what we have, which is not that much,” Capel said. “And that’s fine. We just need to be honest with ourselves about it. And I’m willing to do that. I’m willing to call it quits when it’s time to call it quits.”

Hume Chicago is a storefront gallery space run by women and queer artists. Here, Katy Albert, Fontaine Capel, Caroline Walp, and Krystal DiFronzo stand together in front of framed artworks in the gallery space. Photo by Hannah Siegfried.

Sasha Tycko: You’ve talked about how Hume rose out of your own need for affordable studio  space which led to you and other artists renting the storefront together. You could have left it at that, but you opened it up as a public gallery space. Have you always had an organizing impulse?

Fontaine Capel: When I lived in New York, I was an artist assistant to this woman, Simone Leigh, who is this incredible artist, this powerhouse of a human, who was concerned about me moving to Chicago—for my career, first of all, but also, I would find myself asking her a lot of questions. One of them was like, what do I do? I’m a young artist, I just graduated from college, and I don’t know how to have a sustainable career in the arts and I don’t know what the next step is. And she was like, “Just show your work as much as possible and show your friends’ work as much as possible.” Make it happen, basically. Whatever resources you have, just use them. And don’t think twice about that. I don’t even think that she remembers that.

Once I found myself with resources, and once I found myself without a community, because I just moved to Chicago and I had no institutional affiliation here, I knew that I needed to—I just had this desperate need for community. And I think that it kind of came from that, right? And the other catalyzing thing was that I didn’t get into a residency, and I was just like, why do I need this external institutional validation? Why not make my own institution? Why not get my friends together and make our own institution? So we can kind of pull each other up and are behind each other. And it’s working!

ST: What has led to it working? There’s a lot of power that comes with just having a physical space, but it’s not just that.

FC: All of the people who started Hume are people who are underrepresented in the arts. I am a woman of color and I am a child of immigrants. People like me are not represented in a way that is egalitarian—even to our population [statistics], in the country. Olive is a woman. And Gita, although not a visual artist, is a black and Indian woman. We were like, yeah let’s use this space to show other people. If we have the storefront windows, if we have this ability, let’s show people, but let’s show people like us, basically. In this broader sense. It just seemed like the right thing to do, the only option really. We’re not a commercial space. We’re not. And I think at that point we really didn’t realize that it was even a possibility to make money selling art so that really wasn’t a consideration. And the rent was so cheap that we really didn’t need to sell anything, which was so freeing. But it was also a really tiny exhibition space, so at some point we ended up moving to a larger space with a higher rent and we had to worry more about money. At the same time we were getting more and more exposure, so more people were applying—and people who are artists who maybe are used to making money, you know? Which was totally weird.

Capel, wearing a blue denim shirt, crouches while writing the name of a recently closed show at Hume: “Feeling Pink Like My Insides” on a blackboard. Photo by Hannah Siegfried.

ST: How has your business model had to shift with the bigger space?

FC: I mean, we didn’t have a business model to start. And we still haven’t set up a business model that in any way tries to make money, which is problematic for paying rent. But when it started out the people who were running the space were paying money into the space, and only very recently have we shifted that to the people who are renting [studio] space from us who pay for half the space. And then every month we have this deficit that we try and make up through events, basically, and also through monthly donors. We actually have quite a substantial number of people in the community who are just contributing like one dollar, five dollars, ten dollars a month.

ST: Of course not having money is stressful and problematic as you said, but do you want speak a little bit more on the ways in which it’s freeing, if you still feel that way?

FC: I feel both that not having money is freeing and that it is super limiting. And I feel both of those pretty strongly. So, in one way, it’s freeing because we’re not beholden to anyone. I see that in the larger art spaces where I work, that if someone’s giving you money, they really want their interests considered. You know, major donors or whatever. We don’t have anyone who expects anything of us, which is great. So we have full oversight on every decision that we make. Except running it through our landlord who is an incredible woman who’s owned the building for forty or fifty years, and her grandson lives upstairs and helps us with everything and they’re super supportive. And then we’re just beholden to our artists, right? Doing right by them for whatever they need. And our community, also. So in that way it’s incredibly freeing: we can have really weird shit, we can have really queer, like, really strange art. Which is what we want to do.

In other ways not having money is really scary and really limiting. Because we need money, we rent out studio space which in itself is a really nice way to have a built-in community like that, but because we don’t have a budget and we don’t really ever have anything but a deficit, a very small deficit, we can’t provide a lot of the things that we’d like to provide. Just like, really good lighting, or dividers for the studios, or larger studio spaces, you know? They’re just all these little improvements to the space and to the life of the studio-mates that we wish we could enact. And also for the artists—we don’t have a budget for materials and we can’t pay them, and that’s huge. Artists and especially people who are underrepresented in traditional galleries already do so much unpaid labor and are also disproportionately not compensated for the labor that they are doing that is unpaid. So to not have monetary resources to give is really, really frustrating.

An installation view of the recently closed show at Hume, “Feeling Pink Like My Insides.” Light streams through a window covered with lettering that is part of a semi-permanent installation by Alberto Aguilar. On the walls hang works by Ari Brielle and Caroline Hicks. Photo by Hannah Siegfried.

ST: Do you have any ideas about moving forward on that? Because sometimes it can feel like there isn’t a model for sustainability, unless you’re just like, well, we’ll get closer to being a commercial gallery. But if aspects of that don’t align with what you want to do, is there another model you’ve seen work?

FC: I mean that’s the question, right?

ST: Do you have any crushes on other galleries?

FC: Yeah! It’s actually really funny. I work at the Museum of Contemporary Art right now—

[At this point, our conversation was temporarily derailed by a Distillers song coming through the jukebox in the bar. Capel: “I had it in a Walkman and I listened to it every morning on the train to school when I was, like, twelve.”] 

FC: Great. Hello. I’ve returned. I’m a professional art person. [Laughs] I wonder what I was saying—so I work at the MCA in the Design, Publishing, and New Media Department (DPNM). There’s an artist who is about to be shown at the MCA who is this incredible painter and artist, Howardena Pindell, and I’m reading a lot of her writings right now, proofreading a lot of transcription of her writings. She is a black artist and she was a black artist in New York who worked at, I believe, MoMA, as well as being a working artist in New York. So much of her writing is about racism in the arts. Something that gets mentioned a lot in her writing about racism in the arts in the seventies and eighties in New York is the fact that the alternative spaces in the U.S. are underfunded by the government and by corporations, and so frequently have to close, and those that are run by people of color and primarily show people of color close at an alarming rate because of the lack of funding. And I’m reading this and I’m being like, fuck! This is exactly what I’m experiencing—nothing has changed, there’s still no government support.

I, at the least, don’t have access to a community that’s both interested in these voices and this work and has capital. And I don’t doubt that they exist somewhere, but they’re not in Chicago, not that I’ve found. And who knows? I don’t know what a perfect model looks like as long as we have to exist in a capitalist society. As long as wealth is concentrated where it’s concentrated, and as long as I’m interested in making and showing the work that I’m interested in making and showing, I haven’t found and I haven’t seen a way to make those two facts jive. You know, I imagine the solution would be government funding for the arts, but that’s a pipe dream. I don’t know—we have been approached by so many things that just have nothing to do with our values, but that would pay a lot of money.

ST: Like exhibition proposals?

FC: Yeah, like exhibition proposals. And there’s a developer of one of those terrible condo buildings in Logan Square that approached us just being like, “We’ve heard about your gallery and we love what you do. Would do you curate some artists for our brand new high rise? Basically because we want some local flavor.” And I remember talking with some folks from Somos Logan Square about it over beers.

ST: Can you explain what Somos Logan Square is?

FC: They’re a community organizing group that fights against gentrification and displacement. And I remember talking with them about a plan that fell through of potentially accepting that offer and embedding some kind of, like, saboteur there in place. So, showing portraits that are very beautiful but having the portraits be of all the people who were displaced from the neighborhood, and from specifically the footprint of that building, and telling their stories. That fell through.

We were always interested in highlighting the voices of people who are underrepresented. And we showed an artist who is an immigrant but who is a cis white dude, which is just on the edge. We showed him because we like his work but also because he sells paintings. We sold enough paintings that we weren’t scared about paying rent that month, we just paid it without worrying or having to throw a last minute rent party. But it felt bad. Even that little—you know, that didn’t hurt anyone necessarily but that just didn’t jive with where our hearts and focus are. And it was really clarifying for that reason.

The facade of Hume Chicago, a storefront at the corner of a brick building with black metal bars over the entrance and white lettering on the windowpanes. Photo by Hannah Siegfried.

ST: Let’s switch into all the positive aspects of your work with Hume.

FC: Yeah, please!

ST: In your mission statement you make a point of emphasizing neighbors—I mean you just mentioned Somos Logan Square and gentrification stuff, but you also had a show of your own work where you recreated a domestic environment and served coffee. Do you want to talk about the ways you make Hume friendly or accessible to your neighbors and why it’s important to you?

FC: When I was selected for the 2nd Floor Rear Fest, I did a project in our space that I felt was really important to do in the space that I run where I transformed the front of the exhibition space into a simulacrum of my grandmother’s apartment where my mom and my aunt grew up, where I also grew up, and that my aunts who were still living there at the time were just being pushed out of by developers. Having a space that had very specific signifiers of a very specific Latino, but like Caribbean Latino, immigrant experience was really personally fulfilling and was really important. So people kept coming in off the street and being like, “Do you know about these crackers?” And I’d be like, “Yes, this is my art, I grew up eating these.” Like, Cuban galletas de mantequilla—butter crackers. And they were like, “Yes, do you know about them?” And I was like, “Yes, this is my art!” [Laughs] One of the motifs that I used a lot was outlets covered in layers and layers and layers of paint until they were rendered unusable, which is something that I grew up with a lot in the apartments where I grew up. And it’s kind of like a visual signifier of this really pervasive landlord neglect, super neglect, in these apartments. I had a bunch of canvases that had literal plugs that were just covered in paint until you couldn’t plug anything into them. Someone came in with his son, and I don’t think he spoke English but his son did, and he was said, “My dad was just so excited to see that, because he was like, I know that, I recognize that. That is what our outlets look like.”

I’m also interested in having, you know, really weird work that pushes boundaries, and so one week people walking by can be like, “I feel extremely comfortable in the space and I know the woman who runs it and she spoke to me in Spanish, I feel comfortable with her.” And then the next week there’s, you know, lacy underwear all over the wall with crystals growing out of it—and then maybe that same person would walk by and not feel super comfortable with that material necessarily or be confused by it but will have an association with the space that is: oh, this space is approachable, I can ask these people what’s up, I can walk in here. It’s not necessarily like the only thing that’s important is reflecting people’s experience, the people in the neighborhood’s experiences, but also exposing passersby to other lived experiences from other people who are marginalized, because that’s intersectionality, right? Common understanding of disparate experiences and their overlapping.

Hume is holding a fundraiser to help cover the cost of winter heating. Donate here. 

Featured Image: An installation view of a recently closed show at Hume Chicago, “Feeling Pink Like My Insides,” curated by Ken Folk. From left to right, work by Juanita Segovia, Sharon Akosua and Rene Matic, Alofa Gould, and Ken Folk. Sunlight floods through the barred window, casting a geometric shadow over the gallery space. Photo by Hannah Siefgried.

Starting from the proposition that art-making is world-making, Sasha Tycko combines community organizing and curatorial work with writing, music, and performance. Tycko is a founding editor of The Sick Muse zine and an administrator of the F12 Network, a DIY collective that addresses sexual violence in arts communities. Find more on IG: @t_cko and at www.nomoneynoborders.com. Photo by Julia Dratel.

On October 11, 2016, artist, writer, performer, and DJ, Juliana Huxtable, gave a lecture at the Art Institute of Chicago as part of the Visiting Artists series at SAIC. The lecture was a look into her practice and she mentioned everything from her love of Geocities, liberation theologies, and the Mesozoic era. It’s been over a year since this lecture took place and one of the echoes that has remained in my mind from that evening is Huxtable’s view on the “dance circle.”

We can see forms of dance circles in nature enacted through many processes. On the cellular level, “cooperative binding” is used to construct well-defined assemblies of cells and is used to transfer information. Possibly the greatest dancers of all, bees, take part in what is called “the waggle dance” which appears to be a method by which the direction and distance of a food source is communicated among individuals.

A scientific drawing of cooperative binding. Courtesy of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Images of sound recordings of a bee’s waggle dance. Courtesy of The Department of Zoology, University of Michigan. 

The persistence of the circle as a major mode of communication through the body is heightened in dance. As our bodies become more digitized in our current time, how are dance circles affected by this change? Huxtable noted in her lecture that “the visual economy replaced text as the primary way of transmitting information.”

Huxtable supports many nightlife projects and has one of her own called Shock Value, given DJing is a major part of her practice. She blends solemn moods with upbeat tracks that scream for revolution. Her book, Mucus in my Pineal Gland, touches on many topics that flow in and out of Huxtable’s work, including club culture. In her section NIGHT, she writes:

‘THE SOUNDTRACK WAS AN EMBLEMATIC PASTICHE OF ACID HOUSE, HOUSE OF LADOSHA, HOME-SPUN TRIP HOP, AND GENRES-DECLARATIONS-OF A MOMENT IN WHICH BLACK QUEENS HAD TAKEN THEIR RIGHTFUL PLACE AT THE THRONE OF CULTURAL PRODUCTION WITH THE SUPPLEMENTARY FACT THAT MARKY MARK, VANILLA ICE, EMINEM, AND THE NOTABLE LIST OF CAUCASOID MEN ASSUMING THE POS­TURE OF WHAT ANY 7TH GRADER MIGHT CALL A `WIGGER’ MET THEIR MATCH IN THE SLEW OF WHITE WOMEN PERFORMERS WHO WERE EQUALLY BRAZEN IN THEIR ATTEMPTS TO FIGHT THE NASAL QUAL­ITY OF THEIR OWN VOICES AND EQUALLY SHORT EXPIRATION DATES, SAVE A FEW NOTABLE MOMENTS OF PROVOCATIVE FASHION. DISSO­NANT AND ATOPAL HYBRIDS OF MILDLY DATED HIP-HOP/R&B, INDUS­TRIAL CLUB AND AMBIENT MEDITATIONS ON THE GREYER AND UN­SETTLING POTENTIALS OF DANCE MADE THEIR WAY FROM THE WEST VIA SOUNDCLOUD TO THE SPEAKERS OF THE CITY. THE DEMOCRATIC NATURE OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC PRODUCTION AND ACCESSIBILITY ATTACKED THE WHITE-WASHED LEGACY OF MISSHAPES, PITCHFORK, AND RUFF CLUB WITH A BASS-DRIVEN SIEGE FROM THE WRETCHED

OF THE EARTH, BOTH ABROAD AND WITHIN CITY LIMITS.*

*Spotify has backed out of talks to acquire Soundcloud”

Huxtable mentioned The Wretched of the Earth in her lecture as part of what informs her ideas of dance and the “dance circle.” Huxtable agrees with Frantz Fanon’s notion that “the dance circle is a permissive circle. It protects and empowers. At a fixed time and a fixed date men and women assemble in a given place, and under the solemn gaze of the tribe launch themselves into a seemingly disarticulated, but in fact extremely ritualized, pantomime where the exorcism, liberation, and expression of a community are grandiosely and spontaneously played out through shaking of the head, and back, and forward thrusts of the body.”

Orange book cover of Frantz Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth.” Courtesy of Penguin Books. 

The permissiveness of the circle is something that seems to be under siege in our current culture as our methods of meeting, interacting, and moving through spaces require more and more mediation. In response to physical and cyber brutality, there has been more of an effort to declare spaces as inclusive and “safe” for the ritual of dance but, more often than not, the circle seems to get lost as a way of upholding inclusion.

One force that is challenging the current state of the dance circle is the fluid landscape of group consciousness via performance. For example, Chez Deep, a performance group that celebrates “super futuristic androgynous performers,” is emblematic of the style that we’re seeing more and more of. Drag has been broken and what has come out of it is the performance of the nonhuman and the conceptualization of that aesthetic.

Video of “Common Visions” by Chez Deep. Courtesy of the artists. 

The cast of characters in Chez Deep involve themselves in punk, dance, writing, and more. In their performance, Common Visions, each member of the group serves face in an individualistic fashion. The space is tableau-like and it presents a salon-style reverence for poise and style to the audience.

This atmosphere is very unlike Rashaad Newsome’s performance, Shade Compositions, which links each performer visually and sonically. The chorus-like formation and syncopated rhythm of the participants’ clicks, grunts, and speech creates a miming effect as noted in The Wretched of the Earth. The book opens with a preface by Jean-Paul Sartre where he states: “The colonized, therefore, in his obsession, shuns his deep desires by inflicting on himself odd rites that monopolize him at every moment. They Dance: that keeps them occupied; it relaxes their painfully contracted muscles, and what’s more, the dance secretly mimes, often unbeknownst to them.”

These modes of vogue performativity show opposing approaches to group representation and have varying outcomes. Chez Deep’s performance uses self-narratives to portray the qualities of a group while Newsome uses a group narrative to portray the qualities of a group. The latter more concretely aligns itself with the idea of a dance circle because it supports dynamism between each participants’ body in order for the entire rhythm to be reached as opposed to selfie-ready exchanges. Both styles are needed to express the range that vogue performativity offers, but the position of the dance circle remains as a Newton’s cradle as opposed to a fulcrum.

Video of  “Shade Compositions” by Rashaad Newsome. Courtesy of SFMOMA. 

Like voguing, breakdancing has experienced a newfound relevance, and the style embraces the dance circle at its core. It is only natural since the performer gains velocity through the circle formation. The unity and centeredness of breakdancing can also be attributed to its public visibility. While performance venues can often range from indoor to outdoor spaces and its membership has opened throughout the years, it started as a predominately male practice out in the playgrounds of the Bronx.

Voguing routines are prepared by individuals for the most part and are only performed in spaces in which queer bodies can gather without persecution, which is not always guaranteed. This points to the importance of increasing the visibility of voguing outside of its nascent structures. We see efforts to reach out in performers like Leggoh, but dance cannot just live on a social media timeline, there needs to be an active exchange with IRL public space. The reason for this lack of outdoor visibility is because there are still issues to address within those nascent structures. In the resurgence of voguing and the assurance of safe spaces is the breaking of the male gaze.

A black-and-white sign from Afropunk London 2017 that reads “NO SEXISM, NO RACISM, NO ABLEISM, NO AGEISM, NO HOMOPHOBIA, NO FATPHOBIA, NO TRANSPHOBIA, NO HATEFULNESS”

We see Chicago artists contributing to the conversation of nightlife institutions such as Smartbar. I reached out to several artists to talk about the club and many did not even want to comment. One DJ, who chose to remain anonymous, said that “no one wants to go on record to criticize this place – it is the epitome of a power imbalance, and especially if you have a marginalized voice, there is a fear of punishment.”

The only person I contacted who was interested in talking about this openly was the DJ and artist, aCeb00mbaP. About a year ago, he posted a conversation thread on Twitter about how the long-standing Northside club primarily supported only white artists,

I had built up quite an internet following because of the work I did with the queer rap group, Banjee Report. Smartbar never gave me a residency, they gave me a junior residency, they were doing funny games like that, they would give me a Wednesday instead of a Friday/Saturday.

At the time, I saw them as opportunities, not realizing that the odds were stacked against me. You get this blighted opportunity, and it’s really just throwing someone a bone. I worked closely with Marea Stamper [The Black Madonna], she was the booking agent. I decided last year that my Instagram was only going to be a gallery of temporary posts. Sometimes it would last 30 seconds and I would take it down, sometimes it would last four days. I used it because of who was following me and I used it to push conversations that needed to be had.

So I went to Twitter and just demanded answers for why, in a city like Chicago, Smartbar is just constantly pushing up white artists? Whose story are you telling? The programming is not reflective of the city. We went back and forth and I wasn’t even really fighting for myself, I did not want a residency there and I still don’t but I made recommendations because they just said, ‘oh, well we’re just not knowledgeable about these things,’ and that’s a tool of the oppressor: ‘I just didn’t know.’ So I filled in that blank.

aCeb00mbaP mentioned queer favorites such as TRQPITECA and Lezbefriends. The most noticeable changes to Smartbar in the last couple years is their switch to gender-neutral bathrooms along with their Daphne series, which is a month-long program showcasing women and non-binary artists, and their recent spotlight on the Discwoman series. aCeb00mbaP added that, “I believe that they’ve operated out of trend instead of knowledge because of the simple fact that trans and woman of color are not working in the inner offices of that institution. Until that happens, until their graphic designer, their promoter, until those jobs go to the marginalized communities, we will only be used as the entertainment factor in that institution and will never really rise up.”

Huxtable depicts this reality in her book as well: “Shanika Wilson is a young black woman in need of an income. She learns of a club where white folks can experience the fantasy of a sanitized idealized version of the old slave days. However, she can make more money there in a week than she used to make in a month as a receptionist. So she signs a contract and is transported to the club where she is auctioned off to successive owners to be used as a sex slave.”

These problems have been at play in Chicago and all over the world when we go to clubs and dance in a circle with friends, neighbors, strangers. People are feeling a need for more conversation around these issues in order for our circles to be renewed, relived, and revived. Structural changes have been born from these conversations. Festivals such as Wigwood, inspired by NYC’s Bushwig, are having panel discussions about these very issues so that intentions can be set before entering the party itself.

Two show flyers that both mention cellphone use. The first one is white and purple and says “Put Your Phone Away.” The second is beige and orange and says “CELLPHONE PHOTOS SOCIAL MEDIA STRICTLY PROHIBITED.” Courtesy of h0l0 NYC and Don Christian.  

As attempts are made to be intentional in creating dance spaces, we see more parties emphasizing banned or restricted cellphone use in order to eliminate the mediating factors that are causing us to lose communication in our movement. Preservation and generation go hand in hand. The dance circle can fend off hazard if we realize that it’s about venue, mindset, and mode, and if we recognize that, through active change, we can dance these issues off, but not away.

Featured Image: Juliana Huxtable delivering her lecture at The Art Institute of Chicago. Photo by Natasha Mijares. 

Natasha Mijares is an artist, writer, curator, and teacher. She received her MFA in Writing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has been published in Container, Calamity, Vinyl Poetry, Bear Review, and has work forthcoming from Hypertext Magazine.

“Intimate Justice” looks at the intersection of art and sex and how these actions intertwine to serve as a form of resistance, activism, and dialogue in the Chicago community. For this installment, we talked to GLAMHAG (née Molly Hewitt) in the Pilsen neighborhood about compulsions, empowerment through a chosen identity, and queer sexual narratives. 

S. Nicole Lane: What does performance mean to you? Are you always in character? Who are you right now?

GLAMHAG: I guess I’ve always been compelled to perform in my work, whether that’s live performance or in my video work. I think it’s really a compulsion. I do feel that with the kind work I’m making, communicating with my body when it’s so much about my body—other bodies—and sexuality, using my body makes the most sense.

I do definitely have a compulsion to perform. And then I also do things that come along with a lot of other performers too, I definitely have exhibitionist tendencies. I like attention.

SNL: Where are you from originally?

GH: I’m from England originally, I was born in London. I moved to LA when I was thirteen, then I came to Chicago eight years ago.

SNL: And did you study performance in school?

A vertical image of a figure with long black long hair is holding several tubes with dramatic makeup on. In the background is the sky, a palm tree, and green and blue back drops. Photo by Danin Jaquay.

GH: Yeah, I did a lot of different things. I studied ceramics and fibers and some performance and video, and kind of ended up doing a mixture of all those different things.

SNL: And you still work with sculpture now, correct?

GH: Yeah, I make a lot of objects that end up being props in videos.

SNL: Okay. Can you talk about the difference in creating 3D sculptural objects compared to video and how that process is different?

GH: I actually don’t know if I really ever make anything that doesn’t end up being a prop for a video or something to be used in a performance. I feel like whenever I make something it’s with the intention of using it for something. And then it obviously exists as a prop or a piece, once it’s activated. Once it’s been used in a performance, and it’s dirty, or it’s broken, and it’s been used, then it’s more of an artifact or a relic of something.

SNL: I feel like I’ve been talking to a lot of people about relics lately. I was talking to Fran, a musician, on Sixty and she said that her songs were relics of an emotion that she may have felt years ago and now it doesn’t feel that way anymore.

GH: It’s funny, because I feel like I’ve definitely used the word artifact, but I don’t know if I’ve ever used the word relic until right now.

SNL: I recently read this article in The New York Times about monsters and their place in the queer art scene. It detailed what the Frankenstein story means for the queer art community. It got me thinking about the themes of monsters or characters, in performance, in costume, and dressing up. What archetypes sort of stick out to you in performance specifically for GLAMHAG?

GLAMHAG, still from “Cherry, Lemon, Pumpkin.” A horizontal photo with a figures head on the right side of the image. The figure is covered in pink, yellow, and white food. Their mouth is open. Image courtesy of the artist.

GH: Yeah. I definitely explore my own gender identity when I’m performing as this very, at times, neutral but very fluid person. Sometimes I do very masculine drag and sometimes it’s very feminine, but a lot of the time it just feels like I’m this grotesque monster. Or being a creature or a thing, instead of masquerading as this specific binary gender. I guess a monster  would probably be a grotesque and scary creature. It’s something that’s very much othered or not normal or considered repulsive because it’s not confining to standard beauty, or beauty standards. In that sense I really relate to being a monster. I also feel like just being perceived as a pretty girl, I get treated a certain way when I walk around the world, and so it does feel really nice to put on this mask and make myself unappealing in those ways, because then it feels really empowering for me. I actually do feel really sexy and beautiful when I’m painting on a gap tooth and gluing oatmeal to my face, right? Because it’s how I want to look. I also have had some monster characters in some of my pieces. It starts off as just something that I’m drawn to aesthetically and then afterwards it’s like, “Oh yeah this is definitely like a queer narrative.”

In my short film, “Maggie’s Problem”, the main character is cheating on her husband with a sea monster. At first I was just making a campy weird film—I’m particularly drawn to nautical aesthetics—but then I realized that it was totally about discovering your queer sexuality narrative.

GLAMHAG, still from “Maggie’s Problem.” Two figures sit down eating ice cream. The right hand figure is dressed up like a sea monster with pink lips and a green costume. Image courtesy of the artist.

SNL: Have you performed in front of other people, or is it mostly just in film?

GH: Yeah, I do perform a lot. What I do can exist in a lot of different formats. I can perform at shows with bands, or at comedy shows, or at drag shows, or performance shows. I’m always kind of slightly off, or the odd one out. I’ll alter what I’m doing to fit a little more into those categories. I think that comedy ends up working best. Or performance art shows. I think just because of the amount of attention that people are giving to the performers. My work is always funny. It’s also always fun for me because it’s a little bit too weird and uncomfortable. It’s not  stand-up or something.

SNL: Right, yeah. Can you talk about incorporating humor in your work, and where that comes from?

GH: I have always done that. I’ve never really made anything that’s just serious, that’s not funny. But I also feel that humor is the most universal language, and I think it’s the best way to communicate with people. It’s a really good way to communicate really serious and dark and upsetting things because you can access somebody quickly and get them closer to you by using humor and make them start thinking about what they’re laughing at. I think I have a lot of moments in my videos where I want people to be laughing, and then stop and be like, “Wait, what am I actually laughing at right now?”

SNL: It’s like you’re laughing at the performer and then maybe it goes on for too long, whatever the act may be, and then you kind of become worried for the performer or your mood switches and you’re like, “What’s going on? Am I supposed to be laughing at this?” But that’s what’s so great about performance. It takes you on a roller coaster.

GH: There’s that really specific timing in the cycle where it’s funny, and then it’s awkward, and then it’s funny again because of the exact amount of time that it’s been going on too long, and then it’s awkward again and then it’s funny again. It’s this cycle of a really specific amount of time that seems to be a thing.

SNL: Can you talk about film Holy Trinity a little bit? 

MH: Yeah. I’ve been writing it for a few years, and it started off more about different kinds of spiritual experiences one can have. It’s about looking at the similarities between different religions, and comparing my own experiences with things like sex, play, and drugs. And dancing and partying, and people. How that was my experience with religion and spirituality, and how that’s not really considered valid. And thinking about how Christianity kind of ruined everything and how this country was founded on such puritanical roots. It’s really stunted or altered our inherent knowledge about spirituality that I think we all have.

I wrote characters, mainly people that I’ve met in Pilsen, into the script.

It’ll be shot all over Chicago. We haven’t location scouted all of the areas yet. We’re going to be creative, like the world is going to be like Chicago in an alternate universe, or Chicago through a funhouse mirror. It’s based on my experiences in Chicago, but it’s going to be very stylized.

GLAMHAG. Still from “Holy Trinity.” A group of people dressed up in costumes are smiling at the figure on stage who is facing away from the viewer. Image courtesy of the artist.

SNL: Yeah. Can you expand on how the film will tackle how kinky/queer people are stigmatized, and maybe touch on the stigmatization of those certain things?

GH: Yeah. It’s funny because sometimes I feel like I definitely do live in a bubble, and so much my world, that I don’t consider those things weird anymore. You step outside your bubble for a second and realize that that stuff is still incredibly taboo, and even though it’s things that have been explored by people, different sexualities have always been around for decades in an open and public way, it’s still so stigmatized. I do feel like now, certain aspects of kink and BDSM have gotten trendy. But it’s still a very real thing for people, and I think the lead role, in terms of different power dynamics that we engage in, and different situations that we put ourselves in, I feel like my own performance practice, I definitely have my compulsion to perform and the things that I do and the situations that I put myself in, I don’t necessarily always know why I’m doing it. I’m fulfilling some kind of life need for whatever. I think that’s tied into sexual desires for sure. I think mainly what I want to do with this movie is have the characters be queer, trans, kinky people, but it’s not about that. It’s about them going on a spiritual journey, or them just living their lives, and they just happen to be queer people.

We’re definitely seeing more queer narratives, but it’s always about this struggle, it’s about them being queer. Even in gallery shows or screenings, it’s like, “This is a show about gender and sexuality. This is a show about exploring the non-binary blah blah blah.” How about we have a show that’s about literally anything else and then make all of the artists queer? But then not say that.

I’m telling my own story but I am also including all of these narratives that aren’t mine. And I don’t understand what it’s like to be these people and I’m not going to use their experiences, I would rather just let them [tell it]. They’re going to be collaborating and doing that part for me.

SNL: Who are you collaborating with?

GH: Imp Queen is playing Trinity’s roommate. Heather Lynn is playing Trinity’s other roommate. They’re both performers, artists living and working in Chicago and also two of my close friends. Èfren is playing the reiki practitioner. They are an actual reiki practitioner working in Chicago. I also have Laura Gonzalez who is an actual tarot reader and a witch.

GLAMHAG. Still from “Holy Trinity.” Imp Queen is seen wearing An Authentic Skid Mark’s costume. Behind the figure is a church-like set and a cross. Image courtesy of the artist.

Also I’m not sure—there’s a hundred people who will end up in the film. All of the performers that were in the drag scene church, they’re all performers, drag artists, comedians who are living and working in Chicago who I just wanted to feature.

SNL: Do you work in a studio? 

GH: Yeah. I live in an old punk house. The first floor was turned into a white wall gallery a few years ago, and we just ended up turning it into a studio. It has a basement that is now a little green screen studio. So yeah, I live in… this sinking Victorian house. It’s slanty and a little bit crusty. So I do have a pretty big studio.

I don’t think I’m ever really not working on stuff. Sometimes it’s a bit much. I do really like it, but sometimes it’s like the moment I wake up until the moment I go to sleep, and it’s a lot. But it’s also like I help people out with their stuff, so sometimes I’m working on other people’s projects too. Yeah, sometimes it’s just thinking about stuff.

SNL: Chicago’s nightlife has obviously really influenced your work. Can you talk about that influence and maybe how Chicago has really impacted the way you think about performance?

GH: Yeah! I think Chicago is really unique, in the DIY scene and the performance scene here. It’s really open and welcoming and it’s not difficult to break into it. If you want to perform, you can. People are always really willing to engage everybody and give people a fair shot at performing. I think people should get paid but there are a lot of DIY shows where the spirit is more celebrated, and the fun is in performing, and it’s not super money-oriented. I don’t know, it always seems like there’s something a little bit different and special about Chicago.

SNL: Yeah, definitely. I agree. I’ve written a lot about the Chicago nightlife in general. It’s very magical I think. We’re in between these two cities and kind of feel like the underdog, but we know that we’re also better in this way, and have all this amazing stuff going on. And everyone is so close and really intimate with one another. This column kind of started out after Trump was elected, I was thinking about how artists are coping and I was thinking about how as a writer, who primarily writes about sex, and I felt like all of a sudden my job was more important than it was before. I just felt like I needed to continue talking about it, so then I started thinking about how artists are coping, or if they view their work as a form of resistance, especially people who are making a sexually charged work, or work that deals with intimacy and desire. What are your thoughts on that, and do you view your work in that way?

Dora Hewitt and the artist are posed with in front of a red background with red dramatic makeup on. They have gaped teeth and are singing into a prop microphone. Photo by Danin Jaquay.

GH: Yeah, I agree with you, I think definitely things really changed, and it definitely became much more of this feeling of necessity and resistance. I feel like making work is going to be what keeps us afloat. Continuing to make this art to prove that we exist and to maintain visibility is super important. Just to make a lot of noise.

I really relate to what you’re saying, and I feel like it looks like the movie idea suddenly became a lot more serious. The movie that I’m making is really going to not be that crazy. It’s going to have some sex scenes in it, it’s going to be a little bit explicit, but it’s not like it’s anything people have never seen before. But I feel like we’ve gone so backwards that it’s kind of being received like it is this super radical crazy thing, but it’s really not that crazy.

Featured Image: GLAMHAG, still from on-going collaboration with artist Paula Nacifs. A figure is popped up in high heels on a checkered counter. The figure is in a kitchen, with pots, pans, an apron and a fridge. Image courtesy of the artist.

S. Nicole Lane is a visual artist and writer based in the South Side. Her work can be found on Playboy, HelloFlo, Rewire, SELF, and other corners of the internet, where she discusses sexual health, wellness, and the arts. Follow her on Twitter.

Chair or floor cushion? I decided to make myself comfortable in a chair on the corner of the stage—in the midst of the action, but removed enough to observe much of what was happening at the edges of the space. This performance of Claire Cunningham & Jess Curtis’ The Way You Look (at me) Tonight was certainly relaxed. Escorted to stage level, the audience was invited to sit directly on the stage in clusters of chairs and cushions, and prompted to make themselves at home, even remove their heavy winter boots if they were so inclined.

After explaining what to expect, Cunningham and Curtis—acclaimed international theatre and dance artists—set into motion a “collage of dance, song, and text.” For roughly 100 minutes, the audience was treated to a show pendulating between humorous yet poignant moments and more classical performance segments of dance and song. (You can see a clip here). Though classical might be the wrong word, as Cunningham and Curtis’ work itself questions what we consider classic or traditional, playing with romantic ideals, gender roles, body identity, and everything in between. Speaking directly to some of these adult perspectives and concerns is one the central ideas behind the MCA’s Relaxed Performance program.

Many Americans might be familiar with the idea of sensory-friendly performances. These are often geared towards families with children on the autism spectrum. While options like this are important to have, there’s a serious lack of programming for adults with disabilities that doesn’t infantilize the audience. To bring this type of work to the MCA Stage, the museum’s Curator of Performance Yolanda Cesta Cursach looked to the U.K., an international leader in accessible practices. The museum’s pilot relaxed performance took place during the December 2016 run of Julie Atlas Muz and Mat Fraser’s Beauty and the Beast. The show deliberately used sexuality and a “healthy dose of nudity” in order to “honor and subvert some of the social undercurrents of the eighteenth-century fairy tale.” After the initial test, the MCA Stage went from one relaxed performance in a season to four, with plans to increase these offerings in the future. (Sixty readers might recall a previous look at what goes into the interpretation services of an MCA Stage piece like Faye Driscoll’s Play).

I sat down with Cursach, as well as Curatorial Assistant, Phill Cabeen, to learn a bit more about their approach to expanding access at the MCA Stage.

Courtney Graham: Given the content, The Way You Look (at me) Tonight is very much rooted in access, but how has implementing relaxed performances differed for each show?

Phill Cabeen: The work we curate lends itself to this type of program. We think of them as collaborations; this isn’t a compromise, it’s an enhancement. In some instances, we get to introduce this concept to the artists, and they get really excited about it.

Yolanda Cesta Cursach: It’s just changing how we approach the same goal—the engaged performance.

CG: What was that initial conversation like and how did you translate that to your staff?

YCC: This is the MCA’s second season partnering with Bodies of Work. We’re privileged to have earned the trust of people like Carrie Sandahl.

PC: The disability community knows that if Bodies of Work is involved, there’s going to be a level of sincerity and investment that will lead to a welcoming experience.  Working with Carrie and Bodies of Work connects us to a community in Chicago that’s really open with their feedback. This feedback and criticism is what makes this possible at all.

YCC: You’re making a difference when people criticize you; I’m very comfortable with that.

CG: In a recent blog post on your website, the term “radical hospitality” to used to define your team’s approach to accessibility—not unlike the disability culture idea of “radical visibility.” How has this concept evolved at the MCA Stage?

YCC: Radical hospitality is a term that comes from Angela Davis, with “radical” meaning “the root of everything.” We’re asking—what does it mean to feel welcome? Who’s here? Who’s not here? I’m always so aware of who’s not in the room.

PC: Our frontline team really serves as a grassroots marketing effort to get the word out to their respective communities and make sure people know they’re welcome at the museum. There’s real energy around access, with support throughout the staff, at every level.

CG: Do you think the MCA can serve as a model for other Chicago institutions?

YCC: There’s no one way to do it, it’s more of a case study. Figuring it out as you go is a good process, otherwise nothing will ever change.

CG: What do you see as the future trajectory for the MCA stage and its “radical hospitality”?

PC: Our efforts have mostly been in explaining [what a relaxed performance is]; we’d love if the explanation could be assumed and the energy and enthusiasm could go into experiencing the work. Audiences come to the MCA to see something new. In the past that might have meant international work, now it includes things like integrated relaxed performances.

YCC: It’s not just a service; it’s a way of approaching creation of performance and the attitudes we can bring as audiences. Audiences engage on their own terms and feed the performance in that way. Anticipating how we might all respond, as a group, is exciting—it’s a heightened way to be in the room.

The next relaxed performance at the MCA Stage will be Kaneza Schaal’s Jack & on May 26.

Featured image: Claire Cunningham and Jess Curtis, The Way You Look (at me) Tonight. Using elbow crutches to assist her movement, Claire Cunningham walks on Jess Curtis’ body as he sprawls on the floor of the stage. Audience members appear around them, seated on chairs in a dimly-lit space. Image credit: Robbie Sweeny. 

Courtney Graham is a Chicago-based arts administrator, writer, and event planner. As a masters candidate in Arts Administration and Policy at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she focuses on accessibility for people with disabilities in cultural spaces. This is reflected in Courtney’s writing, which explores access and spotlights artists with disabilities. Courtney also serves as the Assistant Director of the Evening Associates at the Art Institute of Chicago. When she is not dashing from the museum to school and back, Courtney can be found embroidering, grossly over-planning for her next trip, or watching Michigan football.

I first saw ColectivoMultipolar on the dance floor where they were photographing Rosebud, a queer party at Berlin in the Boystown neighborhood. The photographer came over to me and said, “Can I take your photo?” to which I smiled and held the hand of a close friend standing nearby. Later on, we would connect again through social media, where I started to follow their practice, follow their friendships, and admire their dedication to the Chicago queer nightlife scene.

The photographer documents party’s all over the city: Daphne, TRQPITECA, Femmes Room, Ariel’s Party. Moreover, ColectivoMulitpolar brings their camera along into the city and on to the dance floor wherever they go, and agreed to meet for an interview.

A packed club with a crowd of raised hands and bodies face the stage under pink lights and a disco ball. TRQPITECA, featuring a performance by artist Liz Mputu at Juniors, Pilsen, July 2016. Photo by ColectivoMultipolar.

S. Nicole Lane: Where are you from and how did you end up in Chicago?

ColectivoMultipolar: Soy Mexicana, and there are many stories about how I ended up in Chicago—let’s talk about the happy one. I am the youngest of my five siblings. My mother was very strict with my only sister (10 years my senior), so with me I guess she was tired. Do not get me wrong, I love my mother, she is one of my biggest inspirations, she was always working and making things happen in order for us to have an education, happiness and love. She was the one who taught me that hard work and dedication create opportunities. But perhaps after a difficult marriage and raising four children, my mother had tired a bit. So, basically my sister, my two younger brothers, and my abuelita raised me. This allowed me to be out and about at a very young age.

Fast forward to my last year of high school, a lot of important events happened: I was accepted to my home state university, but I wasn’t ready for that commitment so I said no to school. I came out as lesbian (at the time I wasn’t familiar with Queer as an identity, that came later). I booked my first flight and flew to Chicago. The first time seeing the Chicago Skyline — it’s such a vivid memory to this day. The light and sea of skyscrapers was so amazing! I quickly fell in love with Chicago (my sister was here which is also one of the main reasons I chose this city). I attended my first Pride Parade — not that I liked it, but it was new to me — and I bought all the rainbow swag I could, took my first set of ESL classes, and started my second friendship with a photographer. After a year, I went back to my hometown, San Luis Potosi, Mexico, because I was ready to study at the University, or at least I believed so. Since then my relationship with Chicago has been a long one.

SNL: When did you begin taking photographs?

CM: I was in theater classes when I was around eight or nine and my final presentation was coming soon. I remember my mother was always taking photos with her non-professional Minolta and Olympus camera (a gift from her comadre who lived in Chicago), and I thought, “I need a camera,” to take photos of my artists friends in the play. I asked my abuelita if she could buy me one. She bought the one I saw at the grocery store. It was a 110-film camera, made out of plastic, I don’t remember the brand but it wasn’t a Kodak. I was so excited for “24 photos to shoot” so I took the camera and immediately began taking photos of my actors/actresses friends. However, when I developed the film it was a big disappointment, they were terribly underexposed. I still have those photos and the film; they are in a box in my house in Mexico. I don’t recall being as excited taking photos again until years later.

Now fast forward to when I was back in México and during my second semester at the university, I took a photography class and as a gift my sister sent me from Chicago a brand new SLR camera, a Nikon FM10. Since then my relationship with photography got more serious, especially after having a caring mentor, my photography teacher at that time.

A figure wearing a a blue and black outfit faces the camera with their arms are raised above their head. Artist/Designer Sky Heyn Cubacub (Rebirth Garments) photographed at Rotations, The MID. Photo by ColectivoMultipolar.

SNL: Is the club essential to your identity? Which came first, the club, or the photography?

CM: I love to dance! I love amazing sexy music coming from the best sound system possible (however, some clubs don’t have that great of a sound system). I think that came first, between the club and photography, because I do have other interests. I enjoy clubbing, going to different spaces and meeting new people. I strongly believe that clubs, festivals, and parties have to be about music and diversity, and amazing music could attract amazing people. In the Chicago Queer club scene/community there is a lot of beauty and diversity. I am fortunate to have found a home with some of the most diverse and amazing artists in the city: La Spacer (Dj/producer), Cqqchifruit (Dj/artist), Sofia Moreno (artist), Armando Lozano (artist /photographer), David Nasca (artist), Rosé Hernandez (performance artist), Jonathan Sommer (artist/curator), Amelia De Rudder (artist), and Sky Heyn Cubacub (designer/artist), to name a few.

So, yes, maybe the club is part of my identity but I did not realize it until recently. I have an Instagram where I upload the photos that I took at the club. It is a photo album with memories that bring me happiness and pride. Around a year and half ago I was hired to document more parties at different clubs and spaces.

Getting back to my story about how I end up in Chicago — in the summer of 2016, I began photo documenting the event TRQPITECA in Pilsen, which is “a cultural platform that creates a space for local and international artists working with queer and tropical aesthetics, to experiment, thrive, and celebrate life.” The creators are Natalie Murillo (LaSpacer) and Jacquelyn Carmen Guerrero (Cqqchifruit). But before TRQPITECA, I documented the party ArtSluts by artists Sofia Moreno (A$$ Pus+sy) and Rosé Hernandez (CELESTE) back in 2013, also in Pilsen; and a lot of performance art around Chicago. These experiences allowed me to interact more closely with artists in the queer nightlife in the Southside of Chicago. Photography is part of my identity; the club is a fun place to be and it has to be a safe space. I enjoy the music, lighting design, the sound system, the dance floor, the lqqks, the energy… I want to have my own club. My relationship with photography is very personal — it is a brain exercise, it is a way to keep my memories alive, an affirmation of who I am, and a constant reminder of my/our value and contribution to the community.

SNL: You said earlier that you aren’t so much photographing the club, but rather documenting your life. How often do you shoot photographs?

CM: “Documenting our story” is how I would describe my practice. Our story is about the friendship built through our love for music, art, partying/celebrating, dancing, and sometimes difficulties as queer artists. I shoot maybe three times a week — some paid gigs and others for personal interest. I do not have a studio but I have studio equipment, so I take it to places when I need to. All the gigs I have are in different places: the club, the bar, the gallery, the museum, my friends’ studios, art spaces, the street, etc., and I spend quite a bit of time with basic photo editing. I used to work on more personal ideas using photography but they were really painful pieces. I truly believe it was a therapeutic process to let go of toxic feelings. Documenting our story is an ongoing project that I have been working for the past 10 years, and I am really excited to be able to share it soon.

A group of people surround a stage as a performer wearing a green and black outfit holds their hand out to the audience. TRQPITECA’s LQQKS FASHION NIGHT featuring An Authentic Skidmark, designer Kaleigh Moynihan, and performance artist Rosé Hernández, Juniors, Pilsen, October 2016. Photo by ColectivoMultipolar.

SNL: What type of camera do you work with and what is your ideal photography situation/environment?

CM: I use the Nikon D810 and Nikon D7000 with different lenses, and a Lomo’Instant Wide. I work hard, I am a proud immigrant, and I know the value of hard work, and get paid for that. By making money is how I am able to buy new equipment and support myself.

Now regarding the ideal photography situation, as much as I like fog machines at the club, if there are no lasers making a great effect with the fog, I just can’t stand the FOG. My ideal photography situation: thoughtful club lighting, best sound system possible, amazing energy, and cuties everywhere. 

SNL: I’ve also seen you mention before that you are a bit shy. How has being a photographer in such a lively environment allowed you to break out socially?

CM: I have been out and about since I was really young — parties, clubs, quinceañeras, weddings, and parties at my house. My family New Years party was a tradition and is now a legend. Everybody was there until January 2nd. Both of my parents love to dance, one of my brothers and my sister-in-law are professional contemporary dancers, my other bothers and sister are good at dancing salsa and cumbia, and I learned from them (not quite as good). I remember going to dancing contests with my oldest brother and sister, hours of dancing, smiles and sweat. So dancing and the club or party environment are part of my memories and present experiences.  

You are making me think about how I interact with other people at these spaces. I guess by dancing and connecting through the music. I believe that you can feel the energy from the first time you meet a person, however you can’t trust just anybody. I am a Cancer. In the club scene, it is important to feel that I am welcomed in order to have the confidence to photograph strangers who might have a sort of connection with me because we are both enjoying being at the same space and time in this universe.  

How true is the idiom: “A picture is worth a thousand words’? I say this because I care about recognizing beauty and kindness and putting it in an image. So, I will stay shy and express myself through photography.

A figure stands in front of a shimmering blue and green sequined background with a drink in one hand while the other hand shields the top part of their face. Artist Sofia Moreno photographed at Fantasia, Pilsen, 2017. Photo by ColectivoMultipolar.

SNL: Do you find photographing people in an intimate dark space challenging?

CM: Yes, of course, technically, but also emotionally because I really care about the particular beauty of the person I am photographing. Nightlife photography could seem annoying for the person enjoying themselves at the club environment, that is one of the reason I try not to over do it because I like to use flash, play with my camera settings, and the lighting available. The club lighting, green lasers, purple, blue, yellow, red, etc., all the colors make me so excited because I can imagine the photo in my mind, I can see how the party people will look with that light available and my personal camera settings. Chicago Queer nightlife photo documentation is so AMAZING; this community is so talented. I am so thankful for being part of this community and being able to witness this moment because I am documenting my/our story. I hope people can see that.

A figure on stage in body paint and under a disco ball and saturated pink/red light above the audience with their hands in the air. TRQPITECA featuring performance artist Boychild at Juniors, Pilsen, July 2016. Photo by ColectivoMultipolar.

On my practice: I do not intend to photograph people drinking, smoking, getting drunk or fucked up. I believe the club is a place to dance, share the energy, have a great time, and look beautiful to the max. I love that energy when you enter a club and the sound system is blasting amazing music, lasers, different light colors, people dancing, talking, making out, wearing local fashion designers garments or their own creations, make-up, no make-up, good energy, and overall having a memorable experience. Sometimes it’s hard to always have all of this but, believe me, I have had that experience and it feels so good.

A figure faces the camera with a shirt on that reads “69.” The photographer has edited the photo to have the number “69” repeated on either side of the figure. Dj/producer La Spacer of TRQPITECA photographed in Pilsen, 2017. Photo by ColectivoMultipolar.

SNL: Can you talk about the importance of the queer community for you in Chicago?

CM: I left my house and my country for the first time when I was 17. I wasn’t familiar with the word “queer” until my visit to Chicago. The simple translation of the word “queer” in Spanish is rara/raro (weird). I don’t remember people around me using that word, but I do remember the use of pejorative words towards a lesbian: lencha, machorra, manflora, jota, tortilla, marimacha, rara, and so on. I did not have friends who were openly transgender. I knew a girl who was transsexual. I had couple of gay boys as friends and a few lesbian friends. I was the only open lesbian at the University. Therefore, my experience with a “queer community” did not exist around me. I am not saying that it didn’t exist at all, I just wasn’t part of it or I didn’t know about their existence. Before getting into the University in my hometown, I came to Chicago for the first time, and I wasn’t part of the queer community. It took me a few years coming back and forth to finally find my connection with an unique artistic community in Chicago and it happened to be really queer. I fell in love with all of them, we are still friends since 2008, and we are a community — not just queer — but an artistic queer community/family.

A figure in neon green and a black sports bra faces the camera, standing in front of a shimmering blue and green sequined backdrop. ColectivoMultipolar photographed at Fantasia, Pilsen, 2017. Photo by April Lynn.

I try to be discreet with my personal life, it takes a awhile for me to build a friendship, and I use my Instagram and Facebook to share photos of the work of local, queer, trans, LGBTQ, underground, not underground, amazing artists, friends because I believe in the representation of our community, we need to look after the younger generations and give them something to look at. Yes, it is about the party, but it is more about the bonding, visibility, respect for the other, love, support and to be conscious about our creative potential and capacity to create economic sources to financially support ourselves as artists and/or entrepreneurs.

Featured Image: A Dj spins for a crowd dancing under a disco ball, bathed in blue light. TRQPITECA’s BANG rave with dj/producer La Spacer, September 2017. Photo by ColectivoMultipolar.

S. Nicole Lane is a visual artist and writer based in the South Side. Her work can be found on Playboy, HelloFlo, Rewire, SELF, and other corners of the internet, where she discusses sexual health, wellness, and the arts. Follow her on Twitter.

“Beyond the Page” digs into the process and practice of writers and artists who work at the intersection of literary arts and other fields. In March, I was honored to interview artist and educator Carlos Matallana about the development of his ongoing Manual of Violence project, the process of creating its fictional comic installment “Brea,” and how games, childhood, dreams, and more shape his work.

Follow @tropipunk on Instagram and check out his presentation about “Brea” at the Hyde Park Art Center on Saturday, May 26, 2-4pm. This interview has been edited for length and clarity, and includes some spoilers about the book “Brea.”

Marya Spont-Lemus: I guess I’d love to start by just hearing how long you’ve been making work in Chicago and what brought you here.

Carlos Matallana: Well, I ended up in Chicago because I have old friends here in the city. But initially I moved from Bogotá to New York. I spent a couple of months, not even four months, in New York. I spent all my savings, and I tried to work, but measuring the time you need to work to live in New York, I had to take so many jobs that I couldn’t live. I was originally supposed to work with a small boutique, or ad agency. I was used to working with only the graphic design—that was fine—but then in this boutique I was supposed to talk to the client. And the jargon of design in English is different. I knew basic school English, but developing a project—more intellectual—it was tough. I just couldn’t handle it. So I decided to just work in something else, but something else was very badly paid, and I was in survival mode. Then I had family in Texas, and I went to visit them. New York was like people all over, you know, crawling out of everywhere. [both laugh] Every corner, every hole. And Dallas was empty almost. While living in Dallas, I visited Chicago, and Chicago was a perfect balance between both. So I visited some friends here and they asked me to stay, and I found a graphic design job and that was how I started working. And that’s why I’m in Chicago.

MSL: So did you study marketing or graphic design? Or was that what you were doing in Bógota that then brought you to New York?

CM: I studied classic painting.

MSL: Oh, wow!

CM: Yeah, I studied since I was…10? I started with a master, so I had to clean his brushes—like the traditional way to learn. You have to clean the brushes, then you get to maybe touch one of his paintings. Like, do the first layer. It took me a couple of years to actually paint on one of his paintings, and then he pretty much goes in to refine my strokes. So that was a process.

MSL: You started when you were 10 years old working with someone in that way?

CM: Yeah.

MSL: Is that common?

CM: It’s not. It is not. My mom always believed in education—the middle class commodity, you know, education. That was after school. So every time after school I took a bus and would go to the class. I was the youngest, I was like 10 years old, and there was somebody who was 16 years old, 18 years old, and then everyone else was, I don’t know, my parents’ age.

MSL: Wow.

CM: Yeah. It was an apprenticeship, of sorts. The guy who was older than me, Jaime Rojas, started by doing the same thing. So I was helping them both. That was how I started doing painting, and oil painting. And that lasted until I entered university.

When I was in the university, I told my painting teacher that I had apprenticed for, Roberto Rodriguez, that I was going to be doing comics. And that was a big…. He wasn’t happy. After spending all these years as an apprentice, doing color work and everything…. And he’s a classic painter, so he looks down on comics and other media, video even. It’s a very strict set of mind. Hyperrealism and all that stuff. Which is great, I learned a lot. But yeah, I told him. And that’s when I started doing comics, and I published a small zine over there. And then my goal, to get to New York, was to study film. But then it was just too crazy to live there. So I came to Chicago and then I started doing freelance gigs and did graphic design, which was my degree in Colombia when I was studying down there. And then I started just reading, and then I published some cartoons, at Contratiempo, the magazine, back in the early 2000s, when they were publishing more often.

And I always had a story about…I don’t know, I always wanted to develop a story in comic. I never had the actual subject matter.

MSL: By that you mean, you had the ambition to do something longer and that had a longer story to it but you just didn’t know quite what the story would be yet? That kind of thing?

CM: Yeah. So I guess I was always curious, and I was always reading comics. And Chicago’s pretty much the mecca in comics—there are big authors and independent authors and, you know, there are just so many people doing cool stuff. And it’s a perfect city, also, to work indoors. [laughter] Long winters. So yeah, it’s just perfect.

And then, life goes on. I painted here, I started drawings here and there, exhibitions here and there, but nothing really that moved me or motivated me enough to keep going. Until I became a parent! That’s where things started shifting gears. Life became more meaningful—not because it wasn’t meaningful before, it’s just because I was…I had it all. I had so much time that I could pretty much be going to concerts and reading comics, working here and there–

MSL: Before you had kids, you mean?

CM: Yeah. I mean, I was pretty much on a sabbatical-tenure-hiatus…something like that. [Marya laughs] It was just reading comics—which I think is learning, too. And pretty much enjoying life and enjoying myself. And then the kids came. And then you have to share not only the physical space but they have needs and everything. So it’s a great lesson—for me, specifically. That and the fact that I lost my dad, when I became a parent, so that was a very strong shift of gears, right there.

MSL: Right around the same time?

CM: Yes.

MSL: Oh, wow.

CM: Yeah, so that was a very strong shift for me. But then at the same time, my only way to exercise those—whatever feelings I was feeling—was through drawing. So I inked on paper, and I did a lot of illustrations. It was like a catharsis. And it helped me a lot. It was a hard period to learn “How I can I become a parent?” when you don’t have someone to ask, “How was that?” But then again, my mom was there. She was in the distance. I’m here by myself. All our family—our relatives—are down there in Bogotá, in Colombia. But yeah, that’s how I started savoring more life, in a sense—trying to understand it from a different perspective. That was a big shift for me. And a good…excuse. Right? To get back to work and do something that really matters, as opposed to all these years of self-indulgences. Which is great, I’m not…

MSL: Inputs are important also.

CM: Yeah! It’s just like…growth. And it was hard, but that’s how you grow. You lose things, and you gain things. And then after a while I was trying to make sense of how… I’ve experienced the most amazing things from this city. And my orientation was always, how can I offer that to my kids? Right? And how can I somehow contribute to improve that? So that’s how the questions started. How can we somehow understand violence so that we can talk about it? Or maybe tackle it. I don’t know. But that was a big thing that started back then. Or it didn’t start back then, but that was the big thing that…when you’re a parent, you’re looking toward the future—safe future. So that’s how I started growing that as a subject, not only within my life as a parent but also within my life as an artist. And how can I contribute to make it better?

Carlos Matallana. Excerpt from “Brea” (a two-page spread). 2017. Ink on paper. Speech bubbles pop up from a crowd of silhouettes, each containing a sketch of a fanciful image, including strange creatures with long necks and googly eyes. The speech bubble in the top right corner has a spider web and the phrase “this is the capital of imagination land” written in childish handwriting. Image courtesy of the artist.

MSL: As you think back on your own childhood, are there some things where you’re like, “Oh, I remember when I was a kid and this thing happened to me and how I wish an adult would have responded”? Or other ways your childhood plays into how you think about parenthood or your work?

CM: I had a very happy childhood. My parents set a high bar in that sense. And we weren’t rich. We were just middle class. But we were lucky to not be affected by the conflict in Colombia even though we had family who had. But our nuclear family, our small family, didn’t get affected directly. And my parents weren’t preachy about stuff, about anything. I remember my dad—he was a union worker—and he took me to meetings of the union. I always felt like there was this way to tell you things without telling you, like very subtly. “You belong to this.” You know? Without telling you, but inviting you and making you a part of it. And I think that was very moving for me, and was a very formative experience. So that’s one. And then also vacations. We would have vacations, where we would just go out and enjoy the countryside. We would travel around the country.

So they set that bar very high. I had a great childhood, a very happy childhood. So that was my big question: “How can I make a child happy?” To have a very similar experience. As opposed to parents that maybe didn’t get enough, and they are trying to provide whatever they didn’t have to their kids? In this case it was the opposite. They were very balanced. They were very strict, too, but I didn’t have them under my skin all the time. So how can I keep that same method? How can you keep a balance between happiness and responsibilities, too? It’s hard. That is hard. I think that was my big fear in terms of becoming a parent. Because it’s very easy to spoil someone, not only a child but other people too. I guess my parents also improvised, as I’m doing now. [laughter] So that was my big shift.

MSL: And so when did the Manual of Violence as a framing for your work come into play? Did you have a moment where all of these concerns crystallized? Were you noticing tendencies in your work that were leading to this larger umbrella? It seems that you include workshops you’ve done under it, as well as games and this book we’re going to talk about. I guess, what is the Manual of Violence to you, what is its purpose, and where does it come from?

CM: I think the shift—there’s a personal shift and an environment shift—that provoked this concern about “what’s next?” was when George W. Bush was reelected. And by then I had a very comfortable job—I worked as many hours as I wanted. So I was like, “Instead of working for this corporation, I’d rather be doing something more constructive.” Because what I noticed was a lack of education, and that ended up in the reelection of Bush—which hasn’t changed much since then, as we all know.

A friend of mine was leading a class in graphic design at Gallery 37, and she asked me if I could help her with it, to teach the students about graphic design. And I said, “Great!” So that was how I started, and then I started engaging with youth, at some point. I underestimated—because I wasn’t interacting with any young people, so I was like, “Oh these young people in the U.S. are sort of spoiled…”—but then after interacting with them, I noticed that there were a lot of things going on, when you are a teenager, a lot of changes. And everyone is trying to do their best, with the tools they have. Back then, the web was coming back, after the big crash and Y2K, so I developed a program—a curriculum—on web design. And it was the first in the city, as an after school program for teens. And they loved it. They ran it at Gallery 37 and in a couple of different high schools. And it was great. The teens developed their own content—reggaeton, hip-hop, basketball, whatever they wanted to develop. It was their own. But they had to code it. So I got more familiar with the students and kids and that generation. And that was the generation that I thought needed to be somehow prepared for the future. So that’s why my brain pretty much shifted gears from graphic design towards education.

Back then, I wasn’t a parent or anything. And then I became a parent so I tried to create…initially, it was like a guide, like a manual, “how to deal with violence.” But then after talking to different people, I realized that the “manual of violence,” the guide about how you can approach violence…it was a stance. It was my stance—as a privileged, middle-class person—telling someone who has been suffering violence all their lives, or victims of violence, “No, this is what you should do.” You know. That was the initial intention, “This is how you should deal with violence.” But I didn’t know anything about it, like I said. I had a happy childhood and I didn’t know anything about it. It’s a very, very…paternalistic approach to violence. So I got back from that approach. And when I say a privilege, I don’t mean the white privilege, I mean the middle-class privilege. The middle-class privilege that can talk about it, can philosophize about it, can actually discuss it openly—in forums and the schools and everything. There’s people who can’t even mention it. There’s people who have been suffering from it for all their lives and they don’t know how to name it, because for them it’s a way of life. You know? So that’s what I mean when I say privilege, the privilege of discussing it as a subject. So I changed my stance. I stepped back and kept reading and working on it.

And again, going back to the teens. That’s when I developed the game, “The Anger Games.” That was after the financial crisis. And people didn’t know, including me, about the financial situation…there’s not a financial culture. There’s just a spending culture, but not the knowledge or acknowledgement of how much money you can save, how much money you can spend, how you can invest. And I didn’t have that culture in my home. And here in the U.S. it’s just the credit culture. So the game, “The Anger Games,” focuses on that. So I was trying to give the teenagers—that was a high school—tools so they can explore what financial education means. By just playing with it, so they have a better understanding. And that led me to another approach of how complex things, such as finance—which is very complex—can be explained through games very easily. And that leads to power, and empowerment, and how they can challenge power by being empowered.

Carlos Matallana. Excerpt from “Brea” (inside back cover). 2017. Collage. A cartoonish figure peers through a window suspended in space to find a wealth of objects, including musical instruments, a dinner plate with silverware, and the chassis of a bus. Image courtesy of the artist.

MSL: And is the thing with games that it enables role-playing? Or that it’s calling on people to make a decision in the moment, that is asking them apply their experience in some way? What do you think it is about games that enables somebody—or you—to engage with that complexity more than another form?

CM: In this case, the role-playing was particularly motivated. There’s a group of kids who were bankers. A group of kids who might become mayor, or they might work for the city or for their district. And at some point the players themselves can pick a random card and shift to become an older lady, like 60 years old, with no insurance and no benefits or anything—and they have to play that role. Some other times they have to—it was a giant board—marry the next person over, regardless of if that was a male or female. And they are going to marry and they are going to be living as a couple in the game. So, in that sense, they may have to try to understand what are some of the challenges to same-sex marriage, to life as a same-sex couple, around the game. So role-playing was key in that element. And in the game people get sick, people get into accidents, people have to dance. Not everything is bad. It’s a game. But there are subtle, little things that maybe help them to understand someone’s stance. Which was the main goal of the game.

MSL: A couple of months ago, I participated in a live action role-playing game for the first time, and it was a really incredible experience for a lot of reasons. One, the role that I was assigned was something completely different than who I am. In this particular LARP-ing, we each got a booklet about our character that said, “this is your age, these are some of your life experiences, here’s this thing that’s going on with your body, this is your relationship with your child.” And then everybody also had assigned goals that were specific to their character. But you don’t know each other’s goals, right? You can kind of get at some of the intentions—or begin to think you understand some of the intentions through the actions that you observe or by listening to what people are saying.

But when we finished the game, we all shared out, like “this was one of my motivations” or “I was supposed to make sure that you didn’t talk to this other person.” And then you have that moment where you’ve played through all of these scenes and maybe, by the end, you feel like you know what’s going on, and you’re acting in ways that are commensurate with your understanding of what’s going on…. [Carlos laughs] But then, at the end, you’re like, “I was kind of right about that thing, but I really misread this other thing.” So it was a really incredible exercise. I can imagine how what you’re describing could unlock those kinds of experiences for people and help them discuss them.

CM: Yeah. Yeah, and the greatest part of the game was the focus group afterwards. The kids were very critical about the game. “We need to change this, we need to change that, this needs to be improved.” And that was great! That was awesome.

So that was another learning phase. And all these different aspects of workshops and forums about violence as a subject matter, the game, the discussions in regards to institutionalized violence—pretty much they’re art, or public art projects, but at the same time they served as a research phase for the book. And that’s how I intended. Instead of developing a guide of how to handle violence, I left the name because it’s sarcasm. But the idea is pretty much to deconstruct violence and all the reasons that are linked to it and just show it as it is, or instead of pretending to show a solution I’m trying to understand it and help other people understand where urban violence comes from.

Which is not all different from the similar experiences in Paris or in London. It’s just that we are embedded here, so we only experience the here and now. There can be a very myopic perspective about it. But some of the patterns are very similar—in London, Paris, and Chicago. Like, the immigrant force. The immigrant, relegated force. Or the Great Migration here in Chicago, where African-Americans were segregated into certain areas of the city. And that’s not all different from the situations for Arabs and Africans in France, in Paris. Similar to London. So it’s a very, very compelling subject. But at the same time there are patterns that I can pick up on. And that’s what I’m working on, very much. So each of these projects builds a layer, to help me understand what’s going on in a city like Chicago.

MSL: Is what you’re saying that you’re trying to understand violence in the context of Chicago but, in so doing—in creating books or games or these other experiences—the hope is that someone could experience those and further understand or talk about something that’s happening in their context, even if they’re not the exact same things that might be happening in Chicago? Or just calling on someone to pay attention to those kinds of patterns wherever they are?

CM: Well, when I mentioned the other cities, it’s just because it’s not unique to Chicago. That’s my point. In regards to the goal, it’s to understand it. It’s for me to understand it first, but at the same time to show people how, in certain positions—like the role-playing or in the forum—how they can actually talk about violence, within a classroom. Those are effective tools to start building on how to resolve the issues. They’re just basic, elemental tools. And they’re not new. I’m not proposing anything new. I’m just trying to make them work for my project. And at the same time, while I get benefit, some more people get benefit from it, because they’re open forums or workshops in regards to the same topic.

The other part of it is I was trying to highlight profiles of people who are working in the field, like on the ground, and they are just working, that’s their everyday life. They’re not working to get any acknowledgement. They’re just working because that’s their purpose in life pretty much. So there was this boxer, Rodney Wilson, who was my first profile. He’s an amazing person and he grew up nearby and he’s been traveling around and he told his story. But he’s just humble and working with the kids in the neighborhood. And he’s trying to do his best. He’s doing it. He’s great. He has the charisma, he has the strength, other things, too. And I picked him, in particular, because boxing is apparently a violent sport, but it requires a lot of discipline and it requires a lot of commitment, too. So they’re very opposite things, in relationship to violence. And then I moved on to art teachers. I have at least ten more people that I’ve interviewed, and they’re amazing—they’re amazing experiences. I learned a lot from them. I have just published three or four, but I have plenty more. I haven’t had the time to edit all the videos. So that is that.

Carlos Matallana, “Guns Down Gloves On,” a video interview with Rodney Wilson. Courtesy of the artist.

Years ago, I ran into one of the people I had interviewed. And I don’t know what he said that somehow sparked…. But I had omitted something that he wanted to be seen in the video. And I was like, “Hmm.” And that kept bugging me, because I thought it was important. So what I did is—with this book, “Brea”—try to assemble all of the experiences of the peace builders, how they grow up in Chicago and like every little piece, try to adapt it to the story of these two kids growing up in the city. And that’s how “Brea” came to life. Because I felt like I owed more to them. To this group of people that just…

MSL: Had been helping you think through these ideas for a long time.

CM: Yeah! They’re sitting with me for over an hour each, to try to understand them, and understand their position in regards to certain topics of violence. Or education, or living here in Chicago, or whatever. So this “Brea” is more for them—as pretty much my inspiration.

And then there’s fiction. There’s, of course, two kids—you never really see an adult, which is elemental. It’s very much a Peanuts/Charlie Brown sort of thing. It’s their own universe. And the only space that the kids share with adults is the street or the school. But then at some point they realize that their school doesn’t exist anymore, that they have to change schools. That’s something that I wanted to integrate. And how they do understand those changes, and they do understand whatever’s happening, within that context. But then…there are no answers.

MSL: Yeah. And I’d love to shift to talk more about this book, “Brea” [Spanish for tar or pitch], which was released in the fall?

CM: Yes.

MSL: And you call it a comic book, right? And a “fiction installment.” So it’s a fictional comic book, but it incorporates a lot of non-fiction research that you’ve been doing.

CM: Yes.

MSL: How did you come up with the idea for the story that’s at the center of the book? And for some of the things you were just alluding to—like that it’s from the perspective of children, their relationship, the arc of the book as a whole, particular scenes. Whatever you want to share about how you developed from that place into this book that’s in front of us?

CM: From the beginning, I was pretty sure that I didn’t want to tell a straight story, A to B. I wanted to interlace it with dream sequences. Just because they are a very important part of my life—I write down my dreams and I keep track of them and I understand, somehow, how they affect my decisions. But at the same time, they are my own dreams. I don’t hope for anybody to understand those dynamics. But that’s the same way I’m trying to do it here. I’m trying to imagine the character’s own dreams, how they imagine their own dreams. So it’s like there’s reality, which is very stoic and cold, and then dreams, which aren’t either happy or sad, they’re usually just bizarre and awkward. So that’s the idea. I had that in mind from the beginning.

And then, hopefully, this is only the first book. I have more sketches for two more books, with the same characters, developing. So this is part of a series. As opposed to the other, non-fiction book, which is…70 percent done? And it’s like, that’s it. I don’t want to see that any more. [both laugh] You know, it’s been years of working on that. But yeah, that’s the idea. I know there are so many questions at the end of “Brea,” and they might or they might not be resolved in the next issue. But that’s the goal. That’s an exercise.

And I think I owe this to—like I said before—to these people. I just showed up from nowhere and said “I’m interested in doing this” and they were willing to take their time and talk about their experiences and growing up in the city. You know? So this is to them. And then the other, non-fiction book is more my own perspective, my own take on that.

Carlos Matallana. Excerpt from “Brea.” 2017. Ink on paper. The silhouette of a child walks across the ground against a background of a neighborhood map. The child’s nose is stuck in a book. Image courtesy of the artist.

MSL: So with “Brea,” there are two main characters, a boy and a girl, and the boy has this project or inquiry that he does throughout the book, which is this kind of map-making. And he’s very clear—it’s not “drawing,” he’s “map-making”—which I thought was great. Could you talk about what role map-making plays for this character, and why that is the mode of inquiry? And how does that thread through the narrative as well?

CM: I didn’t come to this conclusion until I heard it from people I interviewed here—like Brenda Hernandez, and Brother Mike Hawkins, and Rodney Wilson—but they mentioned mapping. Like, “Okay, so I have to avoid this corner.” “I have to….” And I used to do it, as a city kid. But mine was to avoid dogs, angry dogs. I once saw a cartoon, from Matt Groening, who had a map like that published, which reminded me of my childhood because I was trying to avoid angry dogs around the neighborhood. We, somehow, sense danger. So we pretty much create a navigation system. Just like, the fact of going from school to our place, especially if we have to walk alone. “This is safer,” or “this has more light,” or “this has wider sidewalks,” or who knows. I think that’s an element that’s always there in city kids. I mean, I guess the same happens to countryside kids—because I spent a lot of time there—how you can get from A to B in a shorter distance, but at the same time having adventures and avoiding maybe water or angry dogs or something. I don’t know. So I think that’s a navigation system we sort of develop and then we have it. The specific elements added there are for the story and the navigation system will grow with that.

MSL: Yeah. And it was really interesting to see that from this character’s perspective because there seems to be a way that the main character becomes more aware, in a way, over the course of the story. It almost seems like he observes these things—like people’s patterns and their brea, which follows them or holds them down—before he has a name for them? And before he has that experience himself. Like he’s collecting these observations that he hasn’t quite synthesized into what’s happening around him. But he sees something.

CM: Yes. Yeah. And that’s the other element—the mystical element of it—that I guess I’m sensitive to. We’re always lured by the mystical elements of nature, but we forget the mystical elements of the city. And they are so important, too. Because the mystical is…it is attached to humans. So that’s another layer that I wanted to add there, because I know and I’m very aware of the mystical. I know there’s something out there and I don’t have a name for it—the closest I can get to is nature—but there’s something there that, somehow, moves us all. And yes, that’s there in “Brea.” And I wanted to have it be subtle. It can be resolved later, or can be explored later in the same series. It’s also in the dreams. This urban, mystical element.

Carlos Matallana. Excerpt from “Brea” (a two-page spread). 2017. Ink on paper. A line drawing of a hand slowly forms in white on a black backdrop. It shakes off the substance of its creation and reaches out to grasp the hand of another. Image courtesy of the artist.

MSL: I guess I would say, too, that one of the things I really appreciated about this book was its…embrace of abstraction? It was almost elliptical storytelling, meaning that there were notable ellipses. And with the visual language—there seemed to be two dominant approaches that alternated to some extent, one of them being what you described as the dreamlike spaces. But even in the more quote-unquote “real life” spaces, many if not all of those images seemed to suggest double-reads, or at least double-reads. Part of it, I think, is the way that you drew and framed them. The illustrations are very select and sometimes sparse and ambiguous. And, as a reader, I felt like there was a space created for me—much how abstraction can engage us in a way that sometimes realism can’t, because it allows space for that movement, that is part of that process of interpretation or something.

And it was so interesting to hear you talk earlier about the origins of the Manual of Violence and your reflections on that as, initially, a sort of prescriptive or paternalistic approach. Because this to me seemed to be really open, sort of like an offering or invitation to step in and explore…to navigate it yourself.

CM: Yeah. Yes. One of these elements that is very open is the school. The school is not portrayed as something very good or something very bad. It’s just a school. But then those memories of the school are complemented by the experiences of the people who read it, who scan the pages. And like you were saying, I want to leave a lot of space for that to be filled in, by the reader. As opposed to telling them what to feel. Like, “How can you understand this situation or this character?”

And then, also, the wandering of the streets. Which is, for me, a very amazing thing that I was able to do. And I think it’s one thing that we lost. I think it’s one thing that we need to engage or we need to improve. Like so kids can actually go to the street and just enjoy a walk, where they’re wondering about whatever. And they may be doing it. I’m suggesting it just as a way of moving, not because they lack something, but because you see them enjoying it when you see it, and wondering about their environments. Like about Amanda Williams’ pink house [Pink Oil Moisturizer from Color(ed) Theory Suite], which I heard from other kids. I was like, “This is great.”

MSL: Meaning that kids told you about it and then you went and looked at it? Or you had a sense of it and–?

CM: No, I was walking by—I don’t think it was the pink house, I think it was another house; I’ve seen a couple of her houses—and there were a couple of kids that were just talking randomly about it. And it was similar questions to those the characters ask in the book when they pass the pink house. And it’s not like they don’t get it, it’s the fact that they question about it—I think that’s one of Amanda’s goals—about this space, how they gain space, how they can start questioning space in a different way. And I think that’s great. And, of course, there’s wonder in her work, which I deeply admire.

But then space—going back to space—there’s this movement, the Situationists, in France. And it goes back to the same thing. How do you enjoy and embrace space? How is your place in the city? And how do you take advantage of it? So that’s one reason why I made the characters walk, I made them be wandering around everywhere. And I did some scouting and I used some references—so there are some streets that would seem familiar if you’re from the South Side or some spots. When I see kids walking, I just love that. I think it is great! Like a healthy environment. Right? Where you see kids walking and saying, “Look.” Carelessly. Just walking. Enjoying life. Looking for where to have an ice cream. Or going to the library or just going to the school. So I think that’s one thing that I insist—deeply—on. It’s very evident, of course.

MSL: How did you come to tell the story from a child’s point of view, and how did it feel to do that—to write as a child, as an adult?

CM: Oh, these two. They are the guilty ones of–

MSL: Your kids.

CM: Yeah. Samuel and Marcela. Because they’re always very, very inquisitive, in what they see me doing or in whatever conversation we have—with Natalia, my wife. So that’s one. I love whenever they are in the backseat and we listen to them talking about random stuff, how bizarre that gets? [Marya laughs] Like the levels of abstract conversation. We understand them because we hear the conversations from the beginning, but if someone got into that late in the conversation they would be like, “What? What’s going on?” Right? And it’s not far from a very philosophical or very academic jargonized conversation between two scientists or two philosophers—it’s no different. Because it’s just very, very abstract and very, very bizarre. And, for the same reason, that’s why I decided to have similar ages in the characters. But they live in a separate world from us, a different generation, and we as adults don’t know about that. And they drew the typography, the typeface.

MSL: Your own children did?

CM: Yes.

MSL: I was wondering if that’s what that note at the end meant.

CM: Yes. [points in book] So Marcela illustrated the girl’s. And this is his…

MSL: Did they individually hand-write each of these parts, or they wrote out A through Z and then you turned them into fonts?

CM: I turned them into fonts.

MSL: That’s amazing.

CM: Yeah. So I’d give them a template and they just did it. You can see the difference. Oh, and the kids modeled. [points to the front cover] Samuel modeled for this, [points to the back cover] Marcela modeled for that.

MSL: I was going to say! “These kids look a little familiar to me, I wonder if they’re supposed to be–”

CM: Not for all of them—because they don’t have the patience. [Marya laughs]

The back and front covers of “Brea.” On the left, the back cover, featuring the female character modeled by Matallana’s daughter Marcela. She is wearing sunglasses and is seen from the top down. On the right, the front corner, with the character modeled by Matallana’s son Samuel. He looks off into the distance with his hands making a mask around his eyes. Photo courtesy of the artist.

MSL: So the font, your kids literally created, and they modeled for a few illustrations. The inquisitiveness of the two main characters is loosely modeled off your children’s inquisitiveness—or those kinds of conversations. And you’ve obviously done all this research, so you’re synthesizing other people’s stories and some of the experiences of working with young people yourself. Were there points when making the book where, maybe once you had a draft, you had your children look at and be, like, kid consultants for it? Or that you brought back to people you had worked with earlier and said, “Here’s where I’m at”? How did that part of the process work?

CM: Yeah. Well, it wasn’t with them, specifically, but with Bea Malsky. She’s the editor. And it’s funny, because we were talking about non-fiction and I was giving her drafts of my non-fiction, and then I said, “I’ve got this one, it’s ready, so we have to publish this one.” And she said, “Okay, let me see.” And I passed her this draft and she was like, “Why are there these two kids? Why did you decide to change the thing to two kids?” Then she understood that this is a fiction installment. I mean, it has a lot of relationship with the non-fiction, but this is a different project, a different persona, a different take.

MSL: Was she an independent editor who you hired to work with you on this project? Or she was somebody who–?

CM: I’ve worked with her before.

MSL: For comics specifically?

CM: Yeah. She has followed the project from the very beginning, since the first forum discussion about violence as a subject matter that I did with teacher artists. She wrote an article for the South Side Weekly about the project. And she’s very talented and she has this very—how should I say it?—dry honesty? Which I really admire.

MSL: Mmm. Good quality in an editor, I hear. Yeah.

CM: Yeah. She’s just great. And she doesn’t mind telling me not to do things because they’re redundant or anything. So there’s excellent communication and she’s amazing. Not just because of this but because she’s done a lot more work in relationship with comics. She’s a great talent. So we went back and forth, we double-checked, we met, we interchanged final proofs, she adjusted some of the text, and then we reviewed some of them together before it was final. And my big concern was, I didn’t want “Brea” to sound preachy at all. Because that’s very risky. And she read it and said it didn’t, and I trust her. And I read it and she’s right. It doesn’t sound like that.

MSL: Yeah, it didn’t read to me as preachy either. I wonder how much taking the child’s point of view helped? Adults weren’t invisible in the story, but we see what the main character sees. And there are parts where the children saw something happening that adults didn’t see or fully understand. Early on, the boy says that teachers thought something was a shadow but he knew it was something else—and it’s before he knows what it is exactly, but he does know it’s something else. Or when the door won’t close, and the teacher says it’s because of heat and the wood frame and the boy thinks to himself, basically, “no, it’s because the brea’s blocking the door.” Those kinds of moments. Something I was thinking about a little while reading was a panel discussion I saw a while ago on YouTube, with Junot Díaz and Karen Russell, in which they talk about writing children [41:20]. And Junot Díaz says, “children haven’t built up their amnesia.”

CM: Yes.

MSL: And I think he particularly mentions racism and sexism, among other things. But there’s this way that, in writing as a child—I mean, in writing as anybody you can do this—but in children there’s a very real, like, “No, I see this thing, you can deny that it is happening, but because you deny it’s happening does not mean it’s not happening!” So there’s this real beauty to that, a clear-eyed view of injustice that one can further unlock sometimes in writing as a child.

CM: Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. I guess, going back to my childhood, I saw unjust things on TV or in the streets and I asked myself, “Oh my god, how can people not see that this is happening?” Then I’m like, “Nobody told me anything. Okay, it happened. Maybe they didn’t notice that I saw it happening.” You know, things like that. So yes. That’s true.

MSL: I also thought it was interesting that adults, in other ways, became more visible in the book towards the end. On the one hand, it seemed like the children were overtly crediting—at least partially crediting—their teachers with awakening their curiosity, in a way that didn’t make the brea completely go away, but it became spottier. So something about the teachers’ engagement with their curiosity helped…not quite helped heal them but helped them engage in something else.

CM: Yeah.

MSL: But then also there’s, within a couple pages of that, what did feel like a more overt critique of adults to me, which comes around when they read the newspaper article, right? And I thought that was an interesting choice too. Earlier on in the book, there’s this traumatic incident for the boy, which shows what I think a lot of people and media talk about when they talk about violence. But then at the end, we see this other kind, where the kids are talking about the “legislative gun” and school closure as a form of violence. And I thought that was an important inclusion as well, that really seemed to be pointing something back at adults reading.

CM: Yes. That’s intentional. Like institutionalized violence, you know? And without being repetitive—to just say it once. That’s more effective. And that’s the whole idea of it, and also how they take it. Like, they know about it.

MSL: Children do.

CM: Yeah. And in this instance, with these characters, they know about it, but then there’s nothing to do, because they don’t have the tools to fight the legal machine, right? And that’s how things are designed. Once you have the lawyers or whoever knows how to play the game, that’s what matters. And that’s the saddest thing. And that’s one of the things that I wanted to point out there.

I think we have to come as a city—not as a North-sider or as a South-sider or as a West-sider—but as a city to try to resolve those elements, those issues. As a whole. In order to make things work.

MSL: How did the process of making this book, “Brea,” change you? As a general question, but also specifically do you feel like you gained any insights through the process into things that you think maybe need to happen or could happen? Or did it raise more questions?

CM: Hmm. Yeah. I think it resolved some personal questions, but the idea is to open more questions for people. Like you were saying: with the legal, the brea, the mystical part of the urban… So that’s the idea. And I believe I accomplished that goal. But then again, this is just one element. One thing that I am sure of is that I need to keep working in order to produce more work. Somehow, to keep the story going and share people’s perspectives, people’s often unheard perspective, and their take on everything—not just on the bad things, because that’s pretty much victimizing people that I don’t have the right to. How are they actually enjoying every moment, too? As we all do, we’re trying to do our best. So that’s the goal, try to just keep working. Once “Brea” was finished, and I saw other people’s excitement with it, that propelled me to work more, on more things.

And that’s why, pretty much, I instigated the podcast project—Blok by Blok—to give kids more tools to speak more often and louder, so we can hear their perspectives. And it’s a process and it might be a long process, but I just keep pushing. You know. That’s why.

MSL: You just touched on something I loved about the kids’ relationship in the book. As we talked about, there’s a scene that happens early on, which deeply impacts the narrator, and we learn later that his friend has had a traumatic experience too. But they also go to school and for walks in the park. And in one scene the main character might comfort his friend when she’s breaking down, and in the next he’s chasing her with fake goose poop. [both laugh] Right? There’s this aspect of play and childhood that can look a lot of different ways, but that co-exists and continues with the characters through other experiences. And I thought that was not only done very well in the book, but was an important reminder that, you know, every person is a rich and complicated human being. Children as well as adults.

CM: Yeah. Thank you. And I think that’s one of the things that we learn from kids, is how they shift as a way to move on, right? From something very traumatic to humor, or do something very silly in order to avoid doing homework. You know? That’s a tool. That silliness. That’s a resource. And it’s very accessible. And it might sound cliché, but that’s one thing we adults always forget, how to be silly. When you grow up you feel like you have to be this way. But then silliness is amazing. “Whoa!” It’s a relief. [laughs] So yeah. That’s one of the things.

And then just seeing my kids interact with other kids led me to random scenes in the book. You see some scenes that are like, “What is happening here?” Just randomness. But then again, they’re very familiar to a school or to a parent or to someone who went to school. They’re awkward and tricky. One thing I remember—that’s in the book—is these girls who were pretending to break in a door with a code, and they were sneaking and trying to– Did you see that image?

MSL: Yeah, yeah.

CM: So it’s like that. It was in my kids’ school. And they were just having fun, they weren’t trying to…. Because it’s an open space, and the door is there, and there’s kids playing all around. But they were imagining they were on a secret mission. “Psst psst psst psst. Psst psst psst psst.” It was so weird! But they were in their own bubble. So I just sat there. And that’s the exercise I did, not only with them but with other kids we know. Just sit there and immerse in their realities. And it’s just in a snap and they’re like, “Vhwoom!” And they just pull someone in. And just with a word, they understand there’s this whole new world. Right? And it’s just like, wow, this is amazing. So yeah. That’s one of the things. Kids. Kids-inspired. [laughs]

Featured image: This is a photograph of three copies of the book “Brea,” against a light background. Two lie flat in the left side of the frame, front cover and spine visible, and the third is upright, with only the front cover showing. The front cover image is an ink illustration of a young boy in close-up, straight-on, showing his face, chest, and parts of his arms. He wears a long-sleeved shirt and his hands are flipped upside-down over his eyes to form goggles, of sorts, with each thumb and forefinger. Courtesy of the artist.

Marya Spont-Lemus (she/her/hers/Ms.) is a fiction writer, interdisciplinary artist, and educator focused on teen creative, leadership, and professional development. She lives and works on the Southwest Side of Chicago. Follow her on Twitter and Tumblr.

“Intimate Justice” looks at the intersection of art and sex and how these actions intertwine to serve as a form of resistance, activism, and dialogue in the Chicago community. For this installment, we talked to Jeanne Donegan in her warm apartment over wine and chocolate about pleasure as a spectrum, the mouth as a vagina, and the importance of desire. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

S. Nicole Lane: I stumbled upon your work and it was the video piece—I think it’s called “Sink,”—when I first moved to Chicago, so a few years ago, I guess.

Jeanne Donegan: Oh, cool.

SNL: And then somebody emailed me—a colleague from Sixty [Greg]—and they were like, “Hey, you should look at this artist for your column?” And I freaked out when I saw that “Sink” video because I was like, “Oh my god!” I loved this person’s work and so I’m glad it’s made it full circle. 

JD: Yeah. That’s so cool. It’s always so cool to hear when people are talking about me behind my back.

SNL: A lot of your video pieces are mostly you—you’re the subject in the piece. Can you talk about that a bit?

JD: Yeah, so I started—just to kind of go to the beginning—I started doing self-portraiture in the middle of grad school. Portraiture itself was always super interesting to me, and I was working on some projects where I was photographing men I was matched with on Tinder, so I was doing their portraits, working on some earlier ideas of flipping the male gaze, being the one with the power in the looking. But yeah, over time, I started stepping into those photographs. I would pose with them—would take images that were much more performative—and that’s what sort of led me into, one, photographing myself, stepping in front of my camera, and then also doing video work. Because the interactions that I was having with these people were much more interesting than the photo was able to convey.

Video of “Sink” by Jeanne Donegan, 2015. Courtesy of the artist.

Also things from my personal life, too. I was entering into a relationship during that time and so photographing people from Tinder was a little more tricky. [both laugh] I started getting a lot more introspective about the things I was talking about, which were like sex and intimacy, desire, pleasure. And just started thinking more internally about what those things meant and how I related to them. I started thinking about sex and my work as more of an opportunity to talk about female pleasure, and independent of another person. So that’s the series of videos that “Sink” is a part of— very much these solitary, masturbatory acts that I’m performing—that talk about pleasure in a spectrum.

SNL: Right. Yeah. And viewing them, it is very pleasurable. I was thinking about how, in a way, it’s very meditative to watch your pieces or videos—especially the one where you’re rubbing your face. It’s like you’re in this trance, watching this very slow-moving video piece. And then there’s this moment of pleasure afterwards. 

JD: That’s what I do when I watch it, too.

SNL: Yeah, it’s so great. Or with, “Sink” where it just cuts out. As the viewer, you’re pleased that this moment finally happened, but you can’t really even fully experience it, because it was just gone in a moment. Anyways. So while I was watching those pieces, I was also thinking about the sound in them and how they don’t lack a sound. I think it’s important to have the sound of your lips being rubbed. And there’s another piece with you and someone else where you’re breathing simultaneously. Could you talk about the decision to not include some sort of music or is it important to you to have that natural sound that’s coming from you?

Still from Rub, 2015. There are two images of the artist. On the left, the artist’s hands are to her mouth. In the second image to the right, the artist is looking at her hands. Image courtesy of the artist.

JD: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Those sounds are really important—those body sounds. Especially in “Rub,” the squishiness of that—that’s super important—and that piece “Milk,” sucking on that frozen ball of milk, that’s a really, really quiet piece except for the fact that you can hear my heat turning on in the background. [both laugh] But yeah, that’s a really quiet piece. But those few moments where you can hear that sucking of liquid are really important to me, especially towards the end, as this act becomes a bit more arduous, and harder and harder to do after—I think it’s a 48-minute piece—the breathing and kind of the exertion of that…all those little things for me build up that tension a lot.

I also wanted to respond to what you were saying about how “Sink” cuts really quickly. So with all those pieces they are like mouth meditations in a way. I’m using the mouth as a metaphor for the vagina a lot of the time, and so, for me, all those videos that are focused on the mouth are sort of spectrums of orgasm. What I wanted to talk about was just the complexity of female pleasure and how it doesn’t necessarily look the same as a man’s. It also doesn’t necessarily look the same every time and how I feel like our bodies are capable of lots of different types of pleasure. So with “Milk,” it’s very, very long, and slow and drawn-out. It has a really satisfying ending when I finally finish this thing that’s in front of me. That’s more of a slow, long, pleasure, meditative orgasm. But “Sink” is that one that’s like, you wait, you wait, you wait, and it just sneaks up on you.

SNL: I’ve written a few articles about “the orgasm gap” and how it takes women—well, usually if they’re with a male, specifically, a male partner—it takes them, you know, 15-20 minutes to have an orgasm.

JD: Yeah. If not way longer.

SNL: Right. [both laugh] Exactly. And for lesbian couples, it takes them roughly 7 minutes.

JD: Wow. Yeah, and I wanted to mention, too, like, when women are with a partner, it takes x amount of time, where it’s like, when you’re by yourself [snaps fingers] it’s 3 minutes. And that’s a big thing that I wanted to talk about, too, with my work. I do have a couple of those video pieces with a partner in them.

But the ones that are just alone, too, I love how those just talk about pleasure and self-pleasuring without the help of someone else. And getting to know one’s own body and one’s own likes and dislikes. I think it’s very important. I actually have just recently been trying to write some stuff—I don’t really know what I would call it—just some thoughts and responses to sex, just personally. But one of the things I’ve been thinking a ton about is how masturbation and especially female masturbation and women’s pleasure is just sooo left out of the conversation of sex ed.

I read this book last year called “Girls and Sex,” by Peggy Orenstein. Have you read it?

Video still from Milk, 2015. The image is very dark, with light hitting the artists face. She is lying down and only half of her face is revealed. In the image to the left, she is licking a white object hanging from above the frame. In the second image to the right, the white object has disappeared into her mouth. Image courtesy of the artist.

SNL: I haven’t yet. I have it on my list.

JD: It’s on my shelf. You can borrow it. But it’s really great. It’s very journalism-based. It’s journalistic. But it’s just super interesting the way she highlights this exact gap. We don’t talk about women having pleasure. And I was just thinking to myself recently, I remember talking so specifically about, “Boys are going to have wet dreams unless they masturbate. So they should masturbate.”

We talk about erections but we don’t talk about what happens to women’s bodies when they’re turned on. We don’t talk about that at all. And it’s confusing! And then you become an adult, and you enter into these sexual encounters and you barely know your own body.

SNL: Exactly. And I feel like a lot of people, when they are an adult, they’re almost too embarrassed to even research what’s going on or talk to a friend or anything. I have so many of my girlfriends still tell me, “Sorry if this is TMI,” and then they tell me this totally normal thing that we should all be comfortable talking about. And the only way we’re going to figure out if that’s normal or not is by talking about it. And it’s obviously from the lack of some sort of sex education. Yeah, and a lot of people say that porn is the new sex education. There’s so many articles circulating around right now where kids are watching porn at a much younger age, before they receive sex education, so they’re seeing sex before they’re even understanding any of it.

JD: And they’re seeing a representation of sex that is not wholly accurate and that leaves out a lot of important parts of it.

SNL: For sure. I wrote this piece about trends in porn and, you know, facials were not a thing in the ‘70s and now they are, and it’s just a trend, right? There’s nothing wrong with facials, but my point is that 14-year-olds watch it and they think that’s just the normal way to end an orgasm. And that might be not okay with your partner. And I think they don’t even know how to talk about it. Anyways, I’m going off on a tangent.

JD: No, I am too. I just wrote about this for a really long time. A lot of hours. But also, it’s one of the driving factors about the work I’m making, too. I want to be talking about pleasure, and I want to be talking about sex really openly. If I had encountered work like this when I was that age, it would have been really important to me.

Video stills of Breath, 2015. Installed at Glass Curtain Gallery, 2016. This is an installation shot of the video in a gallery space. The walls are black and some of the wood floor is showing on the bottom half of the image. There are two figures whose mouths are slightly open. Image courtesy of the artist.

SNL: Have you ever worked with another individual as the subject in the video? Just them?

JD: Yeah. I haven’t done anything particular yet with just directing someone else in a video. For me, there’s something really important about the experiencing of the act, too, that I’m filming.

SNL: It’s performative.

JD: Yeah. It’s very performative. So that feels important to me. But I’ve made some videos with a previous partner and then—prior to even starting video work, really—as I was photographing these guys that I was meeting from Tinder, I had started stepping into the photograph and doing these performative things for the photograph.

It kind of depends on where I’m at in my personal life honestly. I’m starting a new collaborative project with a friend right now. It’s a time when I’m starting to open my work back up and be more of the director, I think. 

SNL: Yeah. I think it’s interesting. I studied photography so I was always taking self-portraits. And I felt like it was a very meditative—going back to talking about meditation—it was always really meditative to be behind the camera and have that sense of you know exactly what you want, right?

JD: It’s difficult to communicate that to somebody else.

SNL: It can be, yeah. Back to the Tinder project: you’re actually taking photos of the people that you meet?

JD: I was doing that for a while.

SNL: You’re not doing that now.

Video “Looking For Love” by Jeanne Donegan, 2016. Courtesy of the artist.

JD: Tinder’s one of those things—again, reflective of my personal life at the time—but I think it’s a super fascinating photographic thing. So it’s crept into my work in various ways over the last few years. I started by photographing people I was matching with. I wasn’t dating any of those people. I was purely using it as this research study method.

But then I kind of culminated that part of that project by printing out a stack of all my matches at the time. I have this piece of a Phaser-printed ream of paper with just a tiny 2×2” photograph from their profile in the center of an 8.5×11” sheet, so as to emphasize how small this image is that we’re judging each other by. So I printed out that stack of papers—not really knowing what I was going to do with that yet, I just kind of wanted to see the physicality of this virtual method that I’m using—and to see the physical stack, to hold the weight of that, was very eye-opening for me. It just looked like a beautiful object. I placed my own profile picture on top—which was actually just the back of my head, too, because I thought it was interesting at the time. And then even last year I made a video piece that’s just my hand sitting on a table, titled “Looking for Love.” It’s super simple. It’s just my thumb, swiping back and forth, without a phone. It was interesting to come back to this subject after having made all those other video pieces—that are very gestural—and using gestures that are kind of going back and forth between casual and seductive, sexual. So that hand motion of just the swiping of the thumb started—as I was doing that without my phone in my hand—it started to look really sexual. I showed that in my artist residency show at Lillstreet this past summer and that piece was interesting in how people reacted to it. Because some people were like, “Oh, this gesture is so familiar, at this point,” but older generations were like, “I don’t really get it, I don’t really get what you’re doing there.” [Nicole laughs] And I’m like, “Don’t worry about it.”

Stack, 2014, 8.5″ x 11″ x 3.5″, 380 phaser prints documenting “matches” on the dating app Tinder over the course of a 4 month period. The image has a white background with a stack of white pieces of paper. There is a small square image on the top piece of paper featuring the artist—her head is turned away from the camera. Image courtesy of the artist.

SNL: You’re basically curating your entire personality in these, like, five or four photos. 

JD: And I love, too, the kind of irony that I have to participate in it in order to access it. So I like that there’s sort of a shared vulnerability there.

SNL: Do you see your work as a form of resistance?

JD: Yeah, definitely. It took me a while to settle into that role, of my work being greater than myself, if that makes sense. But I definitely feel I share the same sentiments, that it feels more important now than ever. I think that my practice has slowed down a bit recently as a means of kind of reflecting on, it is more important now than ever. The things I say have greater weight and they mean more, and I want to be careful about what I’m saying and what I’m spending my time saying. I’m making sure that’s adding to the conversation in a productive way, as opposed to a self-indulgent kind of way.

I feel like it’s still incredibly important to talk about sex. Sex is so influential of so many things, especially when it comes to reproductive health and assault and talking about pleasure. Especially the way we raise young girls, and the ways we treat women, valuing pleasure, valuing consent, are so vital to me. Just being autonomous as a woman feels really important. And that’s part of the reason I like to do a lot of solo video, too. That idea of getting to know yourself and your own desires is really important to me, in the way that you make decisions, you know? And making sure that what you’re doing is right for you, and services yourself.

SNL: Have you always worked with themes of pleasure and femininity?

JD: No, I haven’t always done that. I’m 27, so I’m still growing into my work—but I’ve been working with these themes, specifically, for at least four years now. And it feels really right. The moment this started happening it felt like, “This is the thing that I’ve been wanting to talk about and didn’t know how.” 

SNL: Yeah. Cool. And do you see yourself working with this forever or–?

JD: Yeah, I wouldn’t want to–

SNL: –say “forever”–

JD: – say “forever,” but I do see myself working with this subject matter for a long time. It feels broad enough. Right now I’m thinking more about love and intimacy than I am about sex specifically. I feel like that’s such a wide umbrella. I feel like over the trajectory of my life—as, you know, my life goes in and out of different changes and phases—I’ll be approaching this same subject very differently throughout my life.

Hot Wet Hole, 2017. The image has a red hue and features a figures lower portion of the face. The chin, neck, and lips are the only visible thing. There is a liquid dripping from the partially open mouth. Image courtesy of the artist.

SNL: Right. Yeah, and especially if you continue using yourself as the subject, it’ll be interesting to see how you change and how your thoughts on all this change as well.

JD: Definitely. I have some friends who I talk to who make work about intimacy and are older women, and that conversation is really important and interesting. Older women, often, in our society feel invisible, as if they don’t have sexual urges. When really, for women, our sexual desires peak much, much later. So yeah, I think that it’ll fascinate me for a long time.

SNL: Are you working on anything right now? Any new projects?

JD: Yeah, so I just started this new project with my friend Grant Gil, who’s an amazing photographer. It’s still very early, but it’s going to be really interesting, and it’s a really exciting project to work on with him, too, because we haven’t worked together before. It’s certainly in the wheel house of both of our interests, which is kind of cool.

I’ve been doing a lot of collaboration the last year, with some other artists that I’m close with, too. And I find that to be kind of interesting ground, when you can find overlaps in practices with people. I graduated from grad school a couple of years ago, and grad school’s really not a place that is very conducive to collaboration, so that’s an exciting thing to do. I’ve been trying to work on some writing recently. Writing’s not really my forte, but, especially after having spent several years intensively working and creating visual stuff, there’s just been lots of thoughts that have arisen through that, so I’m just starting to work on writing those down and thinking about the future of even making a book project, that combines a little bit of writing and some of my images over the last several years.

Featured Image: Video still from Come, 2016. Six images are displayed with three on the top and three on the bottom. Each image features a “come here” hand motion. Images courtesy of the artist.

S. Nicole Lane is a visual artist and writer based in the South Side. Her work can be found on Playboy, Broadly, Rewire, SELF, and other corners of the internet, where she discusses sexual health, wellness, and the arts. Follow her on Twitter.

Photo by Devon Lowman. 

“Intimate Justice” looks at the intersection of art and sex and how these actions intertwine to serve as a form of resistance, activism, and dialogue in the Chicago community. For this installment, we talked to Manal Kara about living in the woods, the thousands of sexes in fungi, and BDSM subculture. 

SNL: Where are you from originally? What brought you to Chicago?

MK: I was born in Pennsylvania but grew up in England and Kansas. My parents are from Morocco and the rest of my family all still live there and I have dual citizenship. I moved to Chicago on a whim 12 years ago.

SNL: Can you talk about living in Gary, Indiana? How has your art practice changed since moving there?

MK: I live in a big forest on the dunes. My relationship with non-human organisms has deepened considerably, which has had a huge influence on my artwork and my intellectual interests more generally. 

A white hand sculpture leans against the wall propping up a pink spider web. Two pink cuffs lying on the floor. Photo by Manal Kara.

SNL: You work in a variety of medium. Can you talk about your craft based work, like your ceramics?

MK: I have no formal art background or education. I’m self-taught. So for me craft was the accessible entry point into making things. With craft mediums you can watch videos on Youtube on how to make anything. Art has this kind of barrier to entry, like all these esoteric words and concepts that, as an outsider, you don’t really feel empowered to engage with. It’s really annoying because even artists who talk a big game about being anarchists or marxists will still use this willfully obtuse language that they learned in art school, even though in theory they believe in making shit accessible to everyone. I think it’s incumbent on anyone with a certain privilege to make sure their work is accessible to people without that privilege. So yeah, my use of craft mediums has largely had to do with thinking that that’s what I could do, or was allowed to do. Also, I think that I was drawn to ceramics and leather because they lend themselves well to expressing feelings of body horror, violence, and brutality.

A large curved shape piece hangs on the wall with blue flames and yellow eyes. Chains hang from the bottom of the piece. Photo by Manal Kara.

SNL: Can you discuss how your work takes aspects of sexuality and includes it in your work, whether that’s explicitly or not?

MK: I’m fascinated and confounded by what is and isn’t considered sexual in our culture. Especially since the world has reached “peak humanity,” so to speak. Sex, traditionally, is bound up with notions of reproduction, of self-preservation, of replication and proliferation. Slowly, through human history, owing to the increasing complexity of consciousness and who knows what else, humans have been able to project the impulse toward self-replication onto the arts, written history, the concept that their intellectual output might refer back to themselves in the same way that one’s offspring refer to them, point back to them. So I feel like at some point there was a splintering, because sex still means self-replication activities, but it also means these activities of exchange, of information and sensation exchange with other entities, and like, it got to the point where sexuality is this cluster of concepts that admits vagueness and internal inconsistencies. I’ve always found it fascinating, especially since my worldview has become increasingly de-anthropocentrized as a result of living in the woods.

As a queer person, and a person who has always felt extremely alienated by binary gender, it feels really validating to learn about and live among fungi who have thousands of sexes. Even plants have tons of sexual modalities compared to what is accepted in human dominant cultures. Sexuality is so all-pervasive, I feel that it’s always been a subject matter for me not necessarily because I choose it, but because I choose not to willfully exclude it.

A stool covered with black cloth is on the right hand side of the image with a ceramic mask. Two marks are hanging on the wall above it. A white piece hands on the left side of the wall. Photo by Mel Cook. Image courtesy of the Hyde Park Art Center.

SNL: Can you discuss your inclusion of BDSM subcultures in your work?

MK: Sure, I think it’s a matter of working with what I know, I’ve been involved in various kink scenes for years, helped run a couple spaces, and had my own leather gear label for a while. But besides the consensual play aspect of it, I’m also interested in the real, sometimes brutal, human tendencies that BDSM uses as a fantasy conceptual framework: hegemonic power, retribution, incarceration, cruelty, submission, erasure of the self, etc.

SNL: I’ve seen some of your work including text, or words. Can you expand on those?

MK: Yes, they’re basically little poems that I come up with, thoughts I have and write down. Sometimes they might be aleatoric poems composed from names of plants or other organisms in the order in which I encountered them. Then I situate them in physical objects with visual references that I’m feeling at the time. I always used to think text-based art was cheesy, but I’m changing my opinion now. Words are really my wheelhouse, probably as a result of being an ESL third culture kid and a gemini. 

Against a woodland backdrop, Manal Kara stands on a fallen tree balanced horizontally on another stump. Photo by Colin Oram.

SNL: And what are you working on lately? Any news or upcoming shows? 

MK: I’m working on a series of sculptures for my upcoming solo show at Hume, tentatively titled “Panty Hoes at the Dawn of the Chthulucene.” I’m also developing a series of videos entitled “Ode to Slug Body.” It takes its name from Slug Body, a conceptual benevolent inhabiting spirit that I adopted to guard against dry heat, windiness, and anxiety. It’s going to be a series of short erotic films exploring earth-based BDSM, earthbound sensuality, interspecies encounters, and deanthropocentrizing eros, among other topics. I also have a show at Fernwey coming up later this year.

Immanentizing the Eschaton, is on view through April 15 at the Shoebox at Sector 2337

Image is of Manal Kara’s exhibition “Immanentizing the Eschaton” in the Shoebox Gallery at Sector 2337. Photo by Claire Britt.

Immanentizing the Eschaton Exhibition Review By Willy Smart

Common names of plants are notoriously slippery. A given name often refers to separate species in different locales, or multiple names to a single species. Skunk cabbage here is not the same as skunk cabbage there. Latin taxonomies attempt to sidestep this indeterminacy, privileging reproducibility as the basic criterion for group identity. Though its neatness breaks down when examined, the grade-school definition of species largely holds: a group of organisms that can produce fertile offspring. However, common names of species are structured by a different logic—one that speaks less to a species’ self-perpetuation than its relational effects on its environment (which, of course, includes humans as well).

Artist Manal Kara’s small-scale installation Immanentizing the Eschaton is the first to be hosted in Sector 2337’s Shoebox Gallery, “an experimental micro gallery” situated in a street-facing, glass-faced box originally built to house a restaurant’s menu. The installation presents itself as a model—the wooden floor and white walls of the box’s small confines suggest an architectural mockup, not to mention the teleological initiative evident in the project’s title. “Model” though hangs as too technical a term for the installation’s ambitions: “spell” sits closer.

Spelling indeed is a primary element in the installation. On one wall, laser-cut acrylic letters spell out common names of plants mostly endemic to Kara’s home near the Indiana Dunes, reading: “Rattlesnake master: so called for the plant’s purported antidotal properties, or else so called for the rattling sound of its dried seedpod. Goat’s rue: so called for its poisonous effects on goats fed its root in hopes of boosting milk production. Mad dog skullcap: so called for the faith the plant might cure rabies. Destroying angel: so called for its pure whiteness, its haloed veil that encloses its stem, and the consequential effects of its ingestion.” On the other two walls, two different spells: opposite the litany of common names, “baba yaga laid an egg;” and opposite the glass window, “jupiter’s bib and other pleasures / jupiter’s bib is infinitely accessible.”

Image is of Manal Kara’s exhibition “Immanentizing the Eschaton” in the Shoebox Gallery at Sector 2337. The image zooms in on details of the exhibitions that include an image of a seashell, text that read ‘jupiter’s bib,’ a cracked open egg, and other details. Photo by Claire Britt.

Baba Yaga, the forest-dwelling being of Slavic folklore, is an ambiguous figure, serving alternatively to lend heroes magical assistance and to attempt to consume them. Ambiguous, too, at a semantic level: in Old Russian, baba means “sorceress,” “midwife,” “fortune teller” but can also serve as an appellation for nonhuman beings: mushrooms, cakes, pears. The destroying angel mushroom Kara refers to is most easily identifiable by its volva, a white, egg-like sac that encloses the stem from its base. In older specimens, the volva retreats underground and must be carefully uncovered. The house of Baba Yaga, deep within the forest, sits on chicken leg stilts. The comparative mythological studies common to the 19th and early 20th century frequently chart equivalences of mythological figures from different cultural traditions. (For instance, the Slavic god Perun equals the Roman god Jupiter; the Vedic deity Pushan a cognate of the Greek god Pan.) Baba Yaga, however, is singular: a species without a Latin name; a common name without a reproductive taxonomy.

Baba Yaga’s egg then isn’t going to be fertile, at least not in a straight sense. In Kara’s installation, the list of common plant names rendered in pastel plastics is inlaid over an egg shape that has been broken in half. The open egg says, “there’s nothing in here.” Or, “what’s in here isn’t for you.” Or, “the shape of the universe isn’t an egg.” The common names of plants read as a recipe or a roster. Like the infertile egg, they point to forms of reproduction separate from the biological forms governed by Latin names: the reproduction of fantasies. A common name speaks not to a species’ past (its genealogy) but its swerve: the relational effects of the plant on its cohabitants. Plants don’t hold the only—or even the most present—poisons in our ecosystems, but the common names of plants crystallize the more phantasmic aspects of these poisons and our imagination of our intoxications under them.

Image is a detail of the cracked egg that is inside the Shoebox Gallery the holds Manal Kara’s exhibition. The different colored text says words like ‘cat gut’ and ‘destroying angel.’ Photo by Claire Britt.

Despite this evocation of ecology, it’s clear these effects summoned are not all life-giving, creative, maternal effects—after all, this is “immanentizing the eschaton.” Hence the “devil’s shoestring,” the “queen of poisons”, the “destroying angel,”: all poisons, along with many of the other plants in the roster. Not to say though that Kara’s work is all gloom—doom, yes; gloom, no. The most prominent text in the installation says otherwise, hanging syntactically as an alternate title, a suggestion rather than a statement: “jupiter’s bib and other pleasures.” Below the line “jupiter’s bib and other pleasures” hangs a halved scallop shell. Adults don bibs when eating shellfish and cephalopods. Unlike the bib that is worn by adults when eating shellfish or cephalopods, this bib isn’t there to contain dribbles. It is there to facilitate them. These are the other pleasures. And below the scallop shell, the line, “jupiter’s bib is infinitely accessible.” The shape of the universe isn’t an egg. It’s a bib.

Kara’s installation is about time. That’s to state the obvious. The poisonous plants, the eggs, the bib open onto fantasies of coming, endings, and endtimes. The work’s materials mark this opening as well. Plastics, as we know—like the acrylic of which this installation is largely composed—entail a duration of decay beyond anything we can really reasonably comprehend. However, the installation doesn’t call on its viewers to alter their behaviors lest they hasten an anthropogenic apocalypse. No implicit imperative to recycle more, to consume less, to become more eco-friendly. The plastic of these spells ensures their persistence. That future—the slow decay of plastic and the plants that will outlive our names for them—is one of the timelines Kara wrangles here. But interwoven with this far future is another timeline: the one that is already here, in which we can’t imagine an endtime because we’re already in it; in which the name Jupiter summons not the planet nor the Roman deity, but Sailor Jupiter of Sailor Moon with her rose earrings and flower hurricane attack; in which we’ve all got tattoos of barbed wire and stylized tribal flames like those cut out of acrylic that litter the floor of the installation. A future so far off one’s relation to it can only be phantasmatic, and yet a present so close one’s relation to it can only be phantasmatic: this incongruence and overlap is what we’re living, baby, baba, yaga.

Featured Image: Photo by Boyfriends Gallery, exhibition: 100% Raw Acid House Hoes Against Empire & Capital

S. Nicole Lane is a visual artist and writer based in the South Side. Her work can be found on Playboy, HelloFlo, Rewire, SELF, Broadly and other corners of the internet, where she discusses sexual health, wellness, and the arts. Follow her on Twitter.

Willy Smart is an artist and writer who works in presentational and propositional forms. Willy makes lectures, sculpture, and publications that propose extended modes and objects of reading and recording. Willy directs the conceptual record label Fake Music (fakemusic.org)

The child is grown, and puts away childish things.

Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.

– Edna St. Vincent Millay

And the artists at Baby Blue Gallery, Traci Fowler, Alex Bach, and Carmen Chaparro are immortalizing feelings of youthful desires and fleeting moments in our memory.

Baby Blue Gallery is run by Caleb Beck and located in a warehouse space in the Pilsen neighborhood. With early beginnings in his apartment, Beck highlights young emerging artists rather than focusing on a profit-motivated commercial gallery.

When Beck first saw Carmen Chaparro’s work, he knew that he wanted to exhibit her work in a show at Baby Blue. Including Alex Bach and Traci Fowler, the exhibition, “I want to be pretty until i die” features the three-person show of  paintings, sculptures, and assemblage pieces that touch on themes of nostalgia, humor, kitsch, and summer.

The shows intention opened at the beginning of Chicago’s warm weather, when paintings like Chaparro’s pink pool toys were a soon-to-be reality for many of us who braved another cold winter. Chaparro is originally from West Palm Beach Florida where her family had a home on the beach, and where her work draws inspiration from. Her previous and older body’s of work focus on themes of privacy and vulnerability as she includes figures bathing on the beach, propped in chairs, or lounging poolside. Like a voyeur, Chaparro took these themes from her real life experiences in Florida. “We would live on these canals that would put the neighbors across the way on display. There was no privacy,” she explains.

Courtesy of Baby Blue Gallery. Piece by Carmen Chaparro. A square shaped canvas with baby pink dogs and green leafy surroundings take up the right and top side of the painting.

“In these few newer paintings it’s a bit of a derailment. I’m thinking more about objects as figures,” although she’s still thinking about her home-state when making these works. Hues of pinks, greens, and blues, make up the paintings which largely resemble inflatable pool toys or kitschy items found littered around a body of water after a hot summer day.

The lines in her work complement the steel wall sculptures of Alex Bach, whose pieces appear like wisps in the wind, or scribbles on a wall. Bach’s work is also color heavy, as his interest of hot, neon colors are similar to the work of Chaparro and Traci Fowler.

“They’re funny and slick,” says Carmen about her utilization of the dog pool toys she’s been depicting in her works. “There’s been a fair bit of material investigation which leads to the aesthetic outcome of the pieces.”

Courtesy of Baby Blue Gallery. On the left side is a painting by Carmen Chaparro which features blue abstract lines. To the right is a small steel sculpture made by Alec Bach that is green.

Anchored to the walls are the steel pieces in the show that are inspired by digital drawings that Bach has completed on his iPhone with his finger. Bach wondered, after creating pieces on his phone and how they would look as  “three-dimensional/tangible objects.” As a result, he curves and manipulates the material to mirror the digitized lines and shapes. “The powder coating process allowed me to access those bright colors produced by the phone. Along with accessing these colors I was also able to give each piece an attractive candy like finish,” he says.

Courtesy of Baby Blue Gallery. Two sculptures by Alex Bach which are made from steel. One is located on the lower portion of the wall and protrudes from the wall. There is another piece on the right upper hand side of the image that has a bright yellow shape.

For the pieces at Baby Blue, the thin lines and sliver of steel are powder coated with vibrant colors. He says that he is most attracted to hot pink and lime green at the moment.  “There is just something so satisfying to me about turning a screw pink.”

Additionally, Bach finds pleasure in taking certain materials and including them in quick and various processes to look at change and manipulation. In his time living in Chicago, he frequents the CTA which has had an enormous influence on his practice. Spending so much time on his phone, riding from destination to destination, he wanted to continue the discussion on how smartphones can be integrated into conversations about art. “I feel the Smart Phone is the symbol of the current times.”

Where Bach is working between transit stops on the CTA, Chaparro takes a considerable amount of time working on paintings. She writes, “I’m usually layering oil on acrylic and vise versa so a lot of time is needed between physical layers of paint,” which gives her the ability to think between each movement and each stroke.

Courtesy of Baby Blue Gallery. A painting by Carmen Chaparro that has a red background. A pink pool toy, loosely resembling a dog takes up the majority of the composition.

Traci Fowler, currently located in Texas, is attracted to cheap materials. “I love dollar stores and flea markets their my heaven. I like the bright colors they remind me of childhood or thrift stores or garage sales or my own attic.” For all three artists, color is a clear drive in the narrative of their work.

Chaparro incorporates color as a mechanism to translate commercial-bought items in natural landscapes. Bach’s pieces transform dull colorless building materials into vibrant movements. And Fowler’s assemblage pieces recreate memories from our rose-colored childhood.

Courtesy of Baby Blue Gallery. Works by Traci Fowler. A shelf on the lower part of the image holds a leg-like shape that is yellow and pink. On the wall is a hanging with a half-finished rainbow and sun. A small key-chain hangs that says, “U Go Girl.”

Fowler explains that in this particular exhibition, a recurring image is the “hospital sock,” which touches on themes of disability culture, chronic illness, fitness, and their childhood. Fowler explains that selected design and color are what are left up to them as an artist. “The selection of the object itself is an often quick but well thought out process for me. More often than not I choose what I’m gonna work with and it falls into place after that.”

In conjunction with the work of Chaparro—her pool toys, slick and slippery—Fowler’s work drips of nostalgia. They explain that their intention in their work is to bring to light disability. “I mean, I guess my intention with my work is to express myself, a fat, queer, genderqueer, mentally disabled and chronically ill person using humor and a little bit of kitsch. And hope that that work could possibly be important to someone else. And I think it is, which is so cool! And this is just personal opinion but that by speaking from such a specific perspective makes the work more relatable in a weird way and that’s what I want and that’s the response I’ve been getting so that’s what I’m going to keep doing.”

Courtesy of Baby Blue Gallery. Two pieces by Traci Fowler sit on a shelf. One is a yellow bell (the kind you ring on a desk) with a winky face painted on it. There are pink artificial flowers sticking inside of a Aquafoam holder with the words “See You Next Week” written on it in white.

The works in Baby Blue are a carousel of hues and shapes that nod towards youth and playfulness. Though signaling death in the exhibition title, the artists are defiantly illustrating a dreamboat of color and kitsch.

Featured image: Gallery photograph of  three walls of the exhibit. On the left wall are two small yellow and green metal sculptures. Hanging on the far wall is a pink and green painting. On the right wall is a larger pink painting with a grey streak running through the middle. Courtesy of Baby Blue Gallery.

 

 

S. Nicole Lane is a visual artist and writer based in the South Side. Her work can be found on Playboy, Broadly, Rewire, Healthline, and other corners of the internet, where she discusses sexual health, wellness, and the arts. Follow her on Twitter.

Photo by Devon Lowman. 

The dark gray-blue walls of the new exhibition at the Illinois State Museum of Chicago artist Gertrude Abercrombie’s work beckon the viewer to enter into the surreal rooms of her mind. With several standalone installations with painted furniture and a single pedestal with a column, doily, and cup Abercrombie actually used to paint the still life behind it, we are led even further into the depths of her mind.

The entrance to the Abercrombie exhibition with dark gray-blue walls, a photo of her hangs to the right, on the back wall are several of her paintings and in the center is the still life display mentioned above. Image courtesy of the Illinois State Museum.

This exhibition not only gives us a look at work by Abercrombie in a variety of media from a variety of decades, but it also gives us a look at the woman behind the work. With pictures of her with friends like Sonny Rollins and Dizzy Gillespie, pictures of her in her own home with her cat and surrounded by her work. Gertrude Abercrombie liked to think of herself as the “Queen of Chicago”, and among her circle, she surely was; hosting weekend jam sessions, evenings of revelry, and all night parties as well as being a creative spirit making work that won awards at the Art Institute of Chicago and was received fairly well in her lifetime. All this made her “the queen.” However, her life was troubled too.

On a wall adjacent to the many photographs of Abercrombie smiling with friends and beside her work there are four paintings of Abercrombie wandering down barren roads in the night away and towards herself. In the next room, we see paintings of rooms that are empty except for maybe a cat and a flower or a screen. The rooms are lonely and one must suppose that Abercrombie was too. But no one has ever said it was easy being queen. And one can only imagine how isolating it was to reign over a large group but always be above them, never by their sides.

The back wall of the Abercrombie exhibition has four paintings, each of Abercrombie walking along a moonlit path. Image courtesy of the Illinois State Museum.

This surrealism is fun though. With hidden cats with sweet, bright eyes, and little pink tongues, paintings within paintings, and subject matter that is recognizable and isn’t frightening or isolating. There are eggs and cats and keys and wishbones, but none of it leaves one in a surreal nightmare. Instead, it leads you to the mind of an artist and lets you see symbols and objects that she felt represented her and what she knew. The gloves are a piece of Abercrombie’s past, when she was illustrating advertisements. These images while not of Abercrombie’s physical form represent her, who she saw herself as in her mind and the pieces of her life which came to become her. There are several self-portraits in the exhibition as well showing her face and torso. They are full of curly hair and bright eyes, and in the largest, we see her in an almost cubist style with what struck me as an incredibly strong presence, with broad shoulders and a solid dress, she sits looking downward, taking up space.

Looking through the exhibition there is a bright blue wall with a chair, cat, image of Abercrombie and a radio playing the music of Abercrombie’s close friends Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, and others. On the surrounding walls are many more works by Abercrombie. Image courtesy of the Illinois State Museum.

In the final room of the exhibition, we are given the ability to take ourselves out of the museum and into Abercrombie’s paintings in Donna Castellanos’ installation. With doors and a cloud atop a ladder and several cats around the room, we go deeper still into Abercrombie’s mind, becoming one with it. No longer are we onlookers, we are the subjects. We can sit with a cat in our lap or become an object in one of Abercrombie’s paintings. We can even become the artist herself, donning a crown and standing under a tree with a full moon and an owl. In a museum where the kids outnumber the adults most days, it is an incredible way to get them ‘doing’ rather than looking.

The installation by Donna Castellanos has two cats to be posed, a couch and the doors, just as they can be seen in Abercrombie’s paintings. Visitors come through to take their own pictures inside the installation as if they are within one of Abercrombie’s paintings. Image courtesy of the Illinois State Museum.

The work at the Illinois State Museum was donated by Abercrombie herself to be a part of the permanent collection, and in the 1970s a large collection of work, a huge archive of photographs, and supplementary documentation was donated by Abercrombie’s daughter. In addition, Gary and Laura Maurer and Susan and Michael Weininger have lent their expansive collections of Abercrombie’s work to the museum for this show. All of this leads to a large body of work that is not only beautiful, but revealing of the woman behind the work.

The most recent retrospective of Abercrombie’s work was almost thirty years ago, so not only is this work beautiful, it’s new work to many people. I had heard her name, but had never seen her work, at least not in person and together in this way. This is exciting because now so many artists of Illinois and elsewhere can come, see her work, learn about her life, and continue to carry her story and the ideas of her work forward in their own work and lives. I know that I have been so drawn to her and that her work has become one of my favorites. Maybe that is because I love cats or I find a loneliness in my own life echoed in her work, but I think there is something there for everyone. As with any exhibition you take what you need away, but there seemed to be much that I needed in Abercrombie.

This exhibition runs through June 10th at the Illinois State Museum in Springfield, IL at 502 S. Spring St. The Museum is open Monday to Saturday from 9:30-4 and Sundays from 11-4:30.   

This article is part of Sixty Regional, an ongoing initiative by Chicago-based arts publication Sixty Inches From Center which partners with artists,  writers, and artist-run spaces throughout the Midwest and Illinois to highlight the artwork being produced across the region. This work is made possible through the support of Illinois Humanities, which is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Illinois General Assembly through the Illinois Arts Council Agency, as well as by contributions from individuals, foundations, and corporations.

Samantha recently graduated with an art history degree and a history minor from Illinois State University where she worked at University Galleries and cometogetherspace. She has also had experience at the Frye Art Museum, James Harris Gallery, and MOHAI in Seattle. She currently works at the Illinois State Museum in Springfield, Illinois as an assistant in the departments of art and decorative art.