Born out of frustration at the country’s current political state and feeling unsafe to protest, fiber and social practice artist Aram Han Sifuentes began making fabric protest banners the day after the 2016 Presidential election. During her residency at the Chicago Cultural Center, she presented the Protest Banner Lending Library where the public could make, donate and check-out protest banners at no charge. The ongoing library invites people to support movements of dissent through making something with care: dynamic banners on novelty fabric that proudly wear slogans such as “Multi Culti Cuties Unite,” “Too Cute To Be Binary,” and “The Future is Female and Brown.” Hundreds of banners later, it is still a practical resource for organizers and activists who need the assistance and encouragement. Since then, the library has been presented and activated at Alphawood Gallery in Chicago and is currently at the Pulitzer Foundation in St. Louis, where Sifuentes is an artist in residence this summer.

“Protest Banner Lending Library,” 2016–present. Installation of the “Protest Banner Lending Library” at the Chicago Cultural Center with protest banners hanging from the ceiling.
Some of the most prominent banners read: “CHAPTER ONE: LOVE YOURSELF,” “ALIENS WELCOME,” “NO WALL,” and “LOVE RESISTS.” Photo by eedahahm.

The Protest Banner Lending Library was an act of catharsis and solidarity for the artist, bringing people together during a time of confusion and unrest, but it also opens up an important question: is it the responsibility of people of color and other marginalized folks to put themselves and their bodies at risk during this fraught political time? And, what are other ways to participate in protest or demonstrate resistance? Sifuentes prods us to reconsider our positionality within entrenched systems of power.

“Protest Banner Lending Library,” 2016–present. Aram Han Sifuentes and a participant at different tables sewing at the Chicago Cultural Center with protest banners hanging above them that read “NOT MY PRESIDENT” and “STOP DEPORTATIONS.” Photo by eedahahm.

Another of Sifuentes’ ongoing work taps into samplers, which is a piece of embroidered fabric that is intended to demonstrate or test skills in needlework, typically made by women or children during the colonial period. The US Citizenship Test Sampler is a long-term embroidery project where the artist works with different communities of people to stitch the study questions and answers to the civic U.S. Naturalization Test in the form of samplers. Each question and answer is sewn on a piece of fabric that is slightly smaller than a sheet of paper, usually by one individual (although some are made collaboratively) who adds decorative stitches as well as their name and age and the year they made it. Sifuentes, who also stitches many of the samplers, then sells each one for the current the cost of taking the exam, currently $725, and works with non-citizens to fund their test.

“US Citizenship Test Sampler” (24 out of 120), 2013–present. Embroidered samplers made by non-citizens who live and work in the U.S. installed in a grid format. Photo by Hyounsang Yoo.

In producing these works, Sifuentes’ chooses to work with groups of people in recurring workshops over several weeks to help them technically learn how to stitch, which is already a time-consuming process. She works with a range of communities, including individuals who are preparing for the test themselves, and for whom these workshops become a study session. US Citizenship Test Sampler as a work exists on various levels – in its teaching, collective-making, displaying and selling – each articulating important conceptual inquiries around the role of art, artists, and art institutions within our sociopolitical systems. I first encountered part of this work in the exhibition A Matter of Conscience (2017) curated by Assistant Curator Mia Lopez at the DePaul Art Museum, which acquired the nine samplers exhibited for their collection. Here, a museum purchased works that directly assisted nine non-citizens in their pursuit to become citizens.

“US Citizenship Test Sampler” #52 Made by Lidice L., 2013–present. Embroidered sampler with the question and answer: “52. What do we show loyalty to when we say the Pledge of Alligence? The United States, the flag” stitched alongside the flag in the shape of the map of the U.S. Photo by Jayson Cheung.

The efficacy of Sifuentes’ work is layered, yet tangible. She commits to deconstructing power structures through incremental change using education and craft, two practices that are often marginalized in the contemporary art world. Through redistributing resources and knowledge, Sifuentes builds platforms for exchange and learning without glorifying participation for participation’s sake, the potential pitfall of socially engaged art and/or social practice since its the rise and formalization over the last two decades. She prioritizes empowering the Other and the disenfranchised by centering their voices and claiming space with them. And, while optimism is part of the work, it is the criticality of her practice that makes the work purposeful.

“US Citizenship Test Sampler” #53 Made by Karina, 2013–present. Embroidered sampler with the question and answer: “53. What is one promise you make when you become a United States citizen? Give up loyalty to other countries,” stitched over an appliquéd image of an abstracted woman sitting with her hands on her lap. Photo by Jayson Cheung.

Dissenting through craft and within craft is central to Sifuentes’ work. Craft is not only a formal, material, and historical vehicle for her projects but it is a lens through which she encounters the world. She challenges colonialist approaches to craft, such as relegating non-western craftspeople to the fringes of the art world and labeling them artisans and not artists, and pushes back on conceptual investigations of labor in contemporary craft from a privileged, white perspective. She asserts that just because one spends a lot of time making by hand it does not automatically make it labor. Labor necessitates a critical understanding of the market conditions in which one is afforded the time and space to hand-make in a society where everything is manufactured.

Sifuentes’ practice extends into writing and criticism within this trajectory of disrupting the white, colonial spaces and systems of craft. In her essay “Steps Towards Decolonizing Craft” for the Textile Society of America website, she writes, “the deeply rooted colonialist frameworks of craft have just begun to fracture. It is our job to break open the cracks and continue to question, reveal, and abandon the colonialist spine upon which the craft discourse is built.” The essay takes the approach of working together to deconstruct the craft field, resulting in a number of steps to rupture, become accountable, amend our language, question the lineage of power and so forth. The text is radical because it is of practical use, and it moves us toward an equitable sensibility and methodology. Sifuentes’ experience as an immigrant Woman of Color informs the way she contextualizes labor and collectivity in craft, rejecting poetic, abstract gestures of resistance. Instead, she produces systems and spaces that help us fight the white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy one step at a time, but with care and agency, which is imperative during times of social and political unrest.

Featured Image: “Protest Banner Lending Library,” 2018. Aram Han Sifuentes holding a banner that reads “TRUST BLACK WOMXN” on a rooftop. Photo by Virginia Harold. Courtesy of the Pulitzer Arts Foundation.

Lynnette Miranda is a curator and writer who focuses on the social and political role of contemporary art, critically examining social practice, contemporary craft, performance, and new media work. She is passionate about centering artists and practitioners of color, not only through representation but through building support systems and the redistribution of resources. Lynnette is the Program Manager at United States Artists and has held positions as Creative Time, ART21, and the Art Institute of Chicago. She was also the 2016-2017 Curator in Residence at Charlotte Street Foundation in Kansas City.

Her writing has been published in Hyperallergic, Pelican Bomb, American Craft Magazine, Chicago Artist Writers, KC Studio, Informality, and This is Tomorrow, Contemporary Art Magazine. She has contributed writing to the exhibition catalogs Prospect.4: The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp for Prospect New Orleans and Wanderlust: Actions, Traces, Journeys 1967–2017 published by MIT Press for the University of Buffalo Art Galleries.

Last summer on a research visit with a colleague, I entered the Special Collections Archive of the Paul V. Galvin Library at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). In this space, I was looking through visual materials produced by students in the Design School made from the 1960s to the 1980s. This gallery holds works by many artists who are not seen in the public sphere today. This essay aims to provide crucial biographical information on several of artists and the contexts from which they produce their work. I begin by exploring the works made by Jose Williams who is responding to his experiences as a Black man in Chicago’s Bronzeville context. I then turn to the work of an undernoted woman represented the archive named Valeerat Burapavong. I hope to provide contextual insights and visual analysis on the works produced by these artists. I argue that the works produced in this period (1960s-1980s) challenge notions of race, ethnicity, and gender.

Jose Williams: Constructing a Black Chicago in Serigraphy

Jose Williams. “Lake Meadows,” 1975. An old-fashioned coupe parked in front of a tall apartment building, portrayed in whites, oranges, and purples. Illinois Institute of Technology, Paul Galvin Library, Special Collections .

Featured in this archive are works by Jose Williams, a renowned artist in serigraphy and printmaking who practiced in Chicago as well as multiple parts of the USA and Caribbean. These prints are from his Master’s thesis series entitled Historical, Technical, and Manipulative Aspects of Serigraphy which depict his experiences in various spaces as a Black man. A member of the Black Arts Movement, he once told me “Black art (works by Black people) must be about one’s experiences and showcase their history.” These works provide stunning imagery of Chicago’s South Side during the 1970s. In addition, he creates scenes depicting his experiences in Rural Black USA. I included these works in an exhibition at St. Olaf College Flaten Art Museum in Minnesota called Reclamation. This exhibit sought to honor the 50th anniversary of the college’s Black student union by exploring the intersections between Chicago’s Black Art Movement and the Black Campus Movement. In doing so I saw what persons were drawn to in Williams’ work.

Amongst these serigraphs is a work depicting East 63rd street. During this time period, Chicago’s 63rd street was a developing area for Blacks and continues to be so. As a Woodlawn resident since the age of ten, I still see interesting similarities between what Williams captures and the current area. This work includes the iconic Chicago “L” tracks which are installed on the East side of the street. Another feature is a liquor store sign that is still present on the street. Arguably this scene is one of the most recognizable views of Chicago’s East Side. Persons living in this area possibly encountered this street in day to day living. Many people, especially Blacks living in Chicago, rely heavily on the “L” as a form of communication across its wide area. Williams seeks to represent an important linchpin of Black culture in the city. He also works to draw urgency around an issue which arises in Black communities at the time, liquor stores. In the 1970s, the alcohol industry began to expand in Chicago’s Black neighborhoods as more liquor stores opened up. Williams East 63rd Street attempts to capture everyday life for persons in this area. A white student who experienced this work in my exhibition felt a sense of nostalgia for as it reminded him of a section of the  “L” system in West Side Chicago. Though the student’s geography was incorrect his experience speaks to what this work is attempting to convey. The “L” is not just an important part of Black culture in Chicago as it provides many persons access to different places in the city.

Jose Williams. “East 38th Street,” 1975. A tree (in blue) stands starkly against a distant row of buildings (in yellow). Courtesy of Illinois Institute of Technology, Paul Galvin Library, Special Collections .

Another work from this series is a print depicting the home of Ms. Adalisha Safi who is credited as the first Black women to own a gallery in Chicago. From the 1970s and through the ‘90s, Safi opened her home in Lake Meadows to countless Black artists, musicians, and writers. In doing so she presented her collection of artworks by Black artists. In representing Safi’s home Williams is speaking to his experiences being in the space as an artist and peer to Safi. This work affirms Safi’s home as an important space in his history as a Black artist. Safi is a recognized member of Chicago’s Black Art scene who even today is still not noted in mainstream scholarship for her contributions. Historically, serigraphy depicting buildings in the main canon of art history captures popular architecture or important monuments. Williams reflects on this practice and brings it into his own context as a Black American artist in Chicago.

There are two final works from this thesis series by Williams, I will address. Both contemplate the legacy of Western art principles in serigraphy to reference importance spaces of Black culture in his Chicago context. East 38th Street depicts a series of greystone two-flats built in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood. Including Williams, this area was and continues to be a hub for Black artists. The homes depicted represent a common architectural trend Chicago is known for. Most of these buildings were constructed in response to a trend in the nineteenth century when there were large amounts of Polish, German, and Czech persons immigrating to Chicago in the USA. These homes speak to Chicago’s industrial and utilitarian nature as a city and sought to create organized residential areas. As European immigrants began to move westward in the city these homes came into Black ownership in the mid-twentieth century. As Black communities began to develop in Chicago during the Great Migration and after the Great depression these homes are a representation of some Blacks’ lives in Chicago during the 1970s. Williams juxtaposes the industrial and uniform forms of these homes with a tree illustrated in saturated color. This work speaks to the developments in construction occurring in Chicago during the twentieth century as the city’s image attempts to depart from nature. In the 1940s-60s there were several public housing projects erected in the city which houses mainly Black Americans. The final work I will discuss by Williams is titled The Wall and it aims to reference life in Chicago public housing. The abstract composition includes collaged images from these areas in Chicago, showcasing several indistinguishable portraits, signage, and cropped sections of the buildings. This work speaks to the social connotation of these areas during the 1970s. As many persons living in public housing were discriminated against and often generalized.

Jose Williams. “The Wall,” 1975. A collage of people’s faces and portions of buildings, in rainbow colors. Courtesy of Illinois Institute of Technology, Paul Galvin Library, Special Collections.

Historical, Technical, and Manipulative Aspects of Serigraphy is a series of works in which Williams reflects on his experiences being a Black man in multiple contexts. There are several works I did not mention which speak to his rural upbringing in Alabama. All of the prints represent important spaces to the artists and some which seek to reference a broader Black culture in Chicago.

Valeerat Burapavong: Stimulating Imagery Hidden from the Public Sphere

IIT’s archive also held many artists whose work has not been documented outside of the space. An example I choose to reference is the Thai artist Valeera Burapavong, who attended the School of Design in the late 1960s and early ‘70s. Beyond the IIT archive consisting of her theses from undergraduate and graduate study in Visual Communications, there is no record of this artist or her practice. Burapavong received a Bachelor’s of Science in Visual Communications in 1973 and when on to receive a Master’s of Science in the same field a year later. Her work explores cross-cultural issues and understanding the multiple perspectives that inhabit an urban city like Chicago and how that can be represented in printmaking. Both theses reference the history of printmaking from Durer to modern day practices, relating this history to imagery from her home country, and to the iconic architecture she encountered in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood. Her work multiple presents a layered social context and cultural identity. Her vivid oeuvre showcases her perceptions of racial relations and skin tone in urban Chicago during the 70s. I choose to analyze her work due to the lack of scholarship available on this artist.

Valeerat Burapavong. “The City” 1975. The faces of magazine models peer through a golden circle surrounded by a red square shape. Below the image are the words “Figure 4. The City.” Courtesy of Illinois Institute of Technology, Paul Galvin Library, Special Collections.

In The City from her Master’s thesis titled Experimental Visual Communication Burapavong depicts the diverse ethnic composition of Chicago as a city. In her written thesis she discusses her experiences encountering a wide range of persons from different backgrounds while in Chicago. This work constructed with a flat burgundy base with a circular white border around a collaged yellow image. The background and white space resembles a camera aperture or perhaps a piece of paper with an image cut out the center. In the center image, there are four figures composed around a fifth in the center. Towering over these figures are several large skyscrapers that are located in Chicago’s downtown. Each figure in this center image is given their own sense of agency by having them positioned to look in different directions. If we read the center as a “piece cut out of a whole” then the flat burgundy background is meant to represent Chicago as a whole. This means the yellow image can be read as a piece of the city. Burapavong writes in her thesis she plays with the notion of “meaningful image”  in everyday life. Downtown is perhaps the most notable area in Chicago and is the center of life for many persons of different backgrounds. Burapavong attempts to illustrate through the city is a shared space persons all live completely separate lives. Her subjects who are mainly women are noticeably from different ethnic backgrounds and are inhabiting the same space. By including mostly female subjects she works to make non-objectified depictions women which goes against the legacy of Western printmaking. This work attests to her exploration into the interactions between different ethnic groups in the city.

An untitled work from her undergraduate series is an example of her investigation into skin tone and her own cultural background. The background is collaged out of images from different terrains in greyscale. At the center of this work is what seems to be a life-sized Asian appearing doll-like figure dressed in “ethnic” clothing. The figure appears to be female and including ornate clothing which departs from the Western tradition could be a reference to the ethnicizing of women of color by the West. This figure is bathed in a deep maroon light making her appear ominous and mysterious. Burapavong creates a figure possibly representing the West’s fascination with Eastern culture and Thai culture’s attempt to become more white. Thailand has a history of discriminating against dark-skinned persons and Burapavong might be trying to reflect on this history. This work experiments with her depiction of skin tone as she attempts to shroud a white Asian figure in a red light which could reference her own ethnic background. During this time in the USA out of the Black Power Movement and the emergence of Ethnic Studies as a field artwork by persons of color is pushed to explore their own ethnic heritage. This work could respond to these movements occurring around Burapavong as she challenges the connotation of skin tone by placing a maroon glow on the subject to simulate skin tone. This simulated skin tone hides her white skin which was the ideal in the West and in Thai culture making the subject appear more frightening with a direct gaze at the viewer.  

Valeerat Burapavong. “Untitled,” 1973. A painting of a doll-like Asian woman in a highly ethnicized costume. Courtesy of Illinois Institute of Technology, Paul Galvin Library, Special Collections.

In another untitled work from her series, Burapavong continues to examine her ethnic heritage and this notion of meaningful image. This print portrays a Black silhouette juxtaposed from imagery that is referencing Thailand collaged together on one side. The Thai imagery includes specific species of crab and tiger which is native to Thailand, a dancer referencing Thai dance traditions, and other abstracted imagery which could have symbolic meaning. The monochromatic silhouette on the left side appears to gaze at the Thai imagery as it engulfs them. This figure might act as an “archetype” for Thai persons of whom the right side of the image might be attached to. This work presents what Burapavong sees in mass media portraying her home country. Burapavong might be questioning the way we often associate publicly presented from a region onto the culture or persons from there. In doing so she could be subverting the West’s perceptions or presentation of Thai persons and culture.

Valeerat Burapavong. “Untitled,” 1973. A silhouetted profile superimposed over a collage of images associated with Thailand, including a tiger’s face and a Thai dancer. Courtesy of Illinois Institute of Technology, Paul Galvin Library, Special Collections . Chicago, IL.

The last work I reference by Burapavong is a piece depicting two prominent pieces of Chicago Modernist Architecture. This untitled image depicts the entrance view of the S.R. Crown Hall from the IIT’s campus designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe placed in front of an older Chicago apartment building he designed. This work distorts Chicago geography by placing buildings from different areas together in a single scene. IIT is situated in an epicenter for Black culture in Chicago and serves as the academic home to several notable Black artists in the city. There is an inverted version of the image included making the bottom portion appear as a reflection of the top. S.R. Crown Hall inspires the Chicago style. Completed in 1956, S.R. Crown Hall is considered one of the most influential examples of twentieth century architecture in the United States. Burapavong places this iconic piece of Chicago architecture in front of an older building designed by the same architect. I read this work as Burapavong reflecting on the development of Mies’ style in Chicago. It puts his later work which was built on the South Side in front of his earlier work which might be seen as her presenting a progression of his style. On the left side, there is an image of an “L” train speeding on the track. This connects his architectural work to the community and further instills this idea of her showcasing developments in his style.

Valeerat Burapavong. “Untitled,” 1973. IIT’s S.R. Crown Hall and an apartment building designed by Mies van der Rohe are reflected as if in a still pool. Courtesy of Illinois Institute of Technology, Paul Galvin Library, Special Collections . Chicago, IL.

Valeerat Burapavong is but one example of the many undernoted female artists included in the archive. Until more sources come into the public sphere her biography before and beyond IIT is unknown to us. However, we can see during IIT she is creating work that responds to the city by challenging notions of place, race, and her own ethnic heritage. Her works are extremely captivating and deserve to be seen and appreciated.

Negotiating: IIT’s Archive

Both Williams and Burapavong create work which works to explore their ethnic identities in Chicago during the politically tumultuous 1970s. Their work is only a small sample of the artists recorded in the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Paul V. Galvin Library Archive. I hope to continue doing research on artists who are present in this collection. One artist I did not explore here is Black arts educator Dr. Florestee Martin Buss who was born in 1940 and attended IIT for a Master’s degree in Industrial Arts Education in 1969. Her thesis work challenges the frame African Art was studied in the twentieth century as it was approached through a Modernist lens. IIT’s archive indeed holds treasures relating to Chicago’s art history and should be explored in further. College archives can be seen as separate from a community, but this space has clear connections to the developments of Art and Design in Chicago. It holds artists who respond the vast social tone of the city and designers who are working with its changing trends. The archive serves as an example of an institutional space that has intersections with a broader community beyond the academy. Alumni from this institution’s art and design programs have direct connections to broader cultural movements in the United States as they are the artists who are responding to them. The artists who are undernoted in this space will remain so until persons begin writing about them. This essay serves as an introduction to a project to come revolving around revealing the histories of undernoted artists in Chicago who are actively responding to social issues in the city through their work.

Featured Image: Jose Williams, “East 63rd Street.” A scene from under the “L” train, printed in solid purple, blue, and orange. Courtesy of the Illinois Institute of Technology, Paul Galvin Library, Special Collections.

Projections of an opaque body of water, rippling with rays of sunlight, fill the east gallery of the Museum of Contemporary Photography’s (MoCP) newest exhibition, In Their Own Form.

This film installation Passage, by South African artist Mohau Modisakeng, is presented cinematically with echoing audio of splashing water, a ship’s bell, and docking boats. The sonic experience is enhanced by the large-scale tryptic of three black figures in motion that monumentally tower above the viewer. Each visual signifier presented — three sinking white boats, figures in antebellum-era clothing, submerged bodies contorting in distress, a clasped black whip — are shown from an aerial perspective in a manner that abstracts the components of the image into lines and shapes. Over the duration of the film, the composition of the projections shift to resemble a ticking clock, a coffin, or even a curled fetus in the womb. Whichever narrative emerges out of the viewer’s subconscious, Modisakeng’s tantric images conjure up historical references to the Atlantic slave trade by interrogating water’s relationship to black bodies.

Natural bodies of water and spacious environmental landscapes feature prominently across the photography and moving imagery on view in In Their Own Form. The exhibition’s curatorial vision pays homage to the ancestral lineages that came before our present moment in time. “Water in Afrofuturism is both life giving and erasing in terms of the Middle Passage, and in African spirituality,” said curator Sheridan Tucker Anderson, MoCP’s Curatorial Fellow for Diversity in the Arts.

Brazzaville by Teju Cole, February 2013 + 2017, archival pigment print, 20 x 24″. Photo of a boy in the daytime against the backdrop of a wave-ridden body of water. He is holding a red rail that cuts across the top third of the image. His face is under the shadow of his hands and the rail. He is wearing a white shirt and has a black glove on his left hand. He is positioned against a cement platform with a similarly-colored red edge. Image courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Photography.

Whether in front of the swirling waves in Teju Cole’s Brazzaville or along the ocean shore of Alexis Peskine’s euphoric portraits, Black subjects in the exhibition are centralized and active in their positionality to mother nature. It is as if they are metaphorically reclaiming agency within the disempowering narratives that circulate in the world’s public imagination regarding the black experience–from 21st century immigration politics for people of color to canonized American history that designates the Middle Passage as the starting point of history for African-Americans.

While In Their Own Form certainly honors 21st century understandings of Afrofuturism’s foundational aesthetics through expressions of Pan-Africanism, technocultures, and Black liberation, Anderson chooses to conceptually approach the exhibition from a unique historical perspective that harkens back to nineteenth century abolitionist Frederick Douglass—a scholar she describes as “proto-Afrofuturist.”

“I had been doing research on the history of photography, specifically as it pertains to black Americans, and I came across an essay by Henry Louis Gates where he explores Frederick Douglass’ connection to and affinity for photography,” said Anderson. According to Anderson’s curatorial research, Douglass was not only the most photographed American of his era, but also strategically used photography as a political tool to capture the humanity of black people in resistance to caricatured representations of Blackness. “[This approach] allowed for a more historic approach to the Afrofuturist movement. I wanted to emphasize that afrofuturist ideals had existed long before Dery ‘coined’ the term in 1993.”

The gesture of conceptually moving backwards in time in an effort to activate the historical memories of antebellum-era ancestors in a 21st century contemporary moment, is what makes the curatorial strategy of In Their Own Form inherently Afrofuturist. It engages with a warping of time and space that is distinctive to the Afrofuturist philosophies of seminal writers like Octavia Butler and film’s like Marvel’s Black Panther.

While Afrofuturism often appears across mediums in visual art, literature, and music in popular culture, In Their Own Form is medium specific. There is a keen attention to the ways in which the photographic medium has served as a politicized reframing device to center black subjectivity–much like Frederick Douglass did centuries ago.

From the series Alana Moons by Alexis Peskine, 2015. Two young boys on a wheel-clad platform being pulled by a horse. They appear to be on the beach, it’s a cloudy day, and they are stopped on the sand against the backdrop of a body of water. One bey is sitting at the edge on the carriage, looking into the camera. The other boy is standing, holding the reigns of the horse, and wearing a red patterned space helmet. The horse also wears a patterned mask and looks off to the right of the frame. Image courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Photography.

An image from The Prophecy, a photographic series by Fabrice Monteiro. The image shows a tall figure walking toward the left edge of the frame, standing knee-deep in dark blue and black water, among large rocks and stones near the water’s edge. The figure is tall and lean, and has long arms, one of which has elongated and pointed fingers. Around the figure’s neck is a black and white collar that wraps around the back of the neck shoulder-to-shoulder and stretches upward. In the background, against the blue sky, there is a medium-sized white boat, tilted in the distance, far behind the figure. Image courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Photography.

The exhibition is not only inspired by the plight of African-Americans in the United States, but also traditional African cultures. “The [natural bodies of] water referenced throughout the show are an intentional choice that make a nod to both traditional African spirituality and Afrofuturism,” said Anderson. This global approach successfully links contemporary manifestations of Afrofuturism to their original diasporic roots.

Alexis Peskine’s photographs on view showcase reinterpretations of Senegalese talibe children–youth who gather money on the street–by portraying them confidently wearing stylized uniforms with ready-made helmets, belts, and clothing along an ocean shore. In the photograph Aljana Moons, two boys regally sit in a horse and carriage in a manner that shows agency and pride in their environment. The horizon line behind them falls beneath the figures and fills the bottom quarter of the composition, further allowing them to dominate the natural landscape in which they are immersed. While more dystopic compared to Peskine’s work, Fabrice Monteiro’s images in the series The Prophecy reimagine present-day ecological issues in the most polluted African nations. In his image Untitled #2, for example, an elongated figure who is part detritus and part human emerges from the depths of a rocky ocean shore wearing a gown of black plastic trash bags, feathers, and cowry shells. Although his characters are made of discarded materials, they serve as superhuman creatures that have flourished despite the environmental catastrophes surrounding them.

In Their Own Form locates Afrofuturism from the perspective of reviving ancestral memory through futuristic modalities. Yet the thirty-three works on display more convincingly understand our natural world–the ocean, land masses, sand–as the connective tissues that have consistently linked both global and continental experiences of the African Diaspora.

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Featured Image: A still from Passage, a 2017 film by South African artist Mohau Modisakeng. The black-and-white image is taken from an overhead view and depicts what appears to be a woman in a black dress with white fabric showing slightly from underneath the top skirt. She is barefoot and laying flat in a small boat that has a white interior. The boat fills the center of the image, with the head of the boat pointing upward. The water is dark, and a spot of sunlight shines in the top right corner, reflecting off the water. She holds a black whip over her head with her right hand.

Sabrina Greig is an art critic in Chicago, originally hailing from New York City. She received her MA in Art History from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a focus on representations of the Black diaspora in pop culture, fine art, and gentrified urban spaces. Sabrina is a current curatorial fellow at ACRE projects located in Pilsen and has curated shows at the Haitian American Museum of Chicago as well as the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her literary work has been published in Fnewsmagazine and Bad at Sports. For more, visit her website.

“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 Amanda Joy Calobrisi about the confrontation of a body, ending war by lifting skirts, and Boudoir photographs in Amanda’s Pilsen apartment over donuts. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

S. Nicole Lane: What brought you to Chicago?

Amanda Joy Calobrisi: I went to SAIC for graduate school. So Charlie and I moved out here for that. It was a big move. It’s scary, to move states. It’s really intense, there’s something of course exciting about it but it’s also kind of scary. And my mom—I grew up with a single parent—so it also felt like I was abandoning my family. That was kind of huge. But once we got here, we were pretty excited to be out of Boston. I don’t think we realized how settled we were there, not because we wanted to be but because it was comfortable.

SNL: Yeah, and the Chicago art scene, how is that? Even specifically in Pilsen where there’s this thriving art scene here with all kinds of DJs, visual artists, performance artists living in this neighborhood, can you maybe talk a little bit about that?

AC: Yeah, when we first moved here, no one we knew lived here. It was actually refreshing to be at SAIC during the day and then get the hell out of there and come back to the neighborhood where everyone was just living their life. We had lots of parties and through having the parties people would come in off the street that also lived in the neighborhood that we didn’t know and so we started having our own little community within a community, which was really exciting. A lot of performance artists, that were either graduates from SAIC or dropouts of SAIC.

Courtesy of the artist. “Untitled,” graphite on lilac tinted paper, 12.5 x 10 inches, 2017. The image is in portrait orientation and features a figuring lying on the ground with their back against a wall, and their leg in the air. Their face is visible. They are wearing high heels and their genitalia is exposed. The paper is purple.

There was a good three or four years where I was doing a lot of portraits of performance artists and artists that live in the neighborhood. That was cool, that was a good way to sort of cross pollinate and get to know somebody and then they would invite me to do things with them, either performative things or what have you. I had a very brief phase of trying to get out of my being a painter in isolation [laughs] and I was like “Hmm.. Maybe.” I had been reading a little bit about Butoh and researching about Butoh and I realized that there was this dance organization called Blushing Poppy. I did some Butoh workshops and worked through thinking about my body in that way because I was doing a lot of self portraiture at the time and I kind of wanted to open up and make the poses more interesting and dynamic and maybe this kind of expressive dance could bring me there. And so I did that for a little while and I met a lot of performance artists and they almost all happened to live here. So there were all these sort of threads that were connecting through all kinds of things. Yeah it was a really exciting time, I don’t think it exists anymore, I don’t know why, it could just be a changing of the guard. It could be happening for somebody else in some other group now.

Courtesy of the artist. “Moon Bridge (Topsy Turvy),” graphite, gouache, acrylic on canvas,10 x 8 inches, 2016. The image is in portrait orientation and features a figure bending backwards with their hands on the ground and their feet on the ground. The viewer cannot see their face. Their dress is striped and their genitalia is exposed to the viewer. The background is colorful and appears to be floral.

Most of our friends have moved either west, or elsewhere, because the rents are getting a little bit too high. I don’t feel that same connection to the neighborhood anymore. I still love it, and we keep moving a little bit west too just to kind of stay out of the restaurant/bar traffic cause that’s not really why we moved here, we moved here for space, and there’s less and less affordable space. 

SNL: Did you say that these specific pieces I’m looking at are self-portraits? 

AC: Yeah I did say that, and I’ve been actually thinking like, how important is that to these paintings? Because really they’re poem paintings.

I went to Japan three summers ago and I started thinking a lot about feminism and how it’s maybe different in Japan than it sort of evolved over time here in the United States. I didn’t really know what that meant but it was just something I was thinking while I was there. I was observing in this really rural town this feeling that, and this could be just the town not Japan the whole country, but in this town I was feeling that there was real machismo with the men and this disregard for women. It was just a thing that I noticed, I wasn’t there that long but the community was run by these politicians that interacted with people at the residency. They seemed really sexist and I didn’t participate with a lot of the things going on at the residency because I didn’t really like being looked at like a piece of meat and I didn’t like the way they were looking at some of the more voluptuous women that were at the residency that they weren’t so used to encountering. And it made me think, what is feminism in Japan? What does that mean?

Courtesy of the artist. “Declaration of Independence (Amphora with splayed arms and feet),” acrylic on linen,14 x 12 inches, 2017. The image is in portrait orientation and the figure is lying upside down with their feet on the wall. The wall is darkly hued, with reds, blacks, greens, and blues. The figures face is looking up towards the ceiling. They are completely nude.

I headed to the library and I discovered literally on the first page of this book [laughing] that was like “Feminism in Japan.” I had to start basic because I had no idea. And so on the first page, I opened it up, there was this beautiful poem by Akiko Yosano and I was just like, “What! This feels like fate that I bumped into this poem.” Instead of really going deep into my research about feminism in Japan—I maybe read half of the book [laughs]—I learned a lot about the blue stocking movement which happened in the early 1900s that Akiko Yosano participated in up until a point. I started looking for translations of her poems which there weren’t that many of them. I bought up everything that I could get my hands on and started just researching her and reading her poetry and reading the translations.

When I went back to Japan for the second time, this past summer, I went there wanting to make paintings based on her poetry. It’s actually really hard to make a painting based on a poem. Because the poems are sort of pictures of nature and in that nature you discover something about the authors sensuality or sexuality and then you discover something about your own. It’s like, whoever’s translating this Tanka poem, which is the type of poetry she [Yosano] wrote, is imbuing it with how they’re translating the language and how they’re perceiving the poem so there were translations that were super feminist and there were translations that were super sexist [laughs] and everything in between. 

SNL: Did you work with self-portraits before this?

AC: Pretty much as a young artist, undergrad, I only did self portraits. I knew I wanted to work within the realm of womanhood and so I thought, “Well I’m not even brave enough to ask other people to pose for me because I’m still learning how to draw and paint” and so it took off the fear of failure to just use myself until after grad school.

SNL: You’re in control of the posing and how it’s executed.

Courtesy of the artist. “Self Portrait of the Artist (how to disappear yourself),” Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 52 x 36 inches, 2017. The image is in portrait orientation. There is grass on the ground with small blue flowers. The background is a very dark hue and to the right side of the image, there is a window with a curtain. The figure is in the center of the image wearing a striped dress and black stockings. Their hands are exposed and their face is covered with a bouquet of colorful flowers.

AC: You’re on your own schedule too. Once I started meeting this circle of friends and taking these Butoh classes and feeling a little bit like a different self than I was. Maybe I was a little bit more extroverted than I thought. I thought it would be a good time to start painting other people, and plus I had really become more confident about my skill as a painter, and I could decide and control what I wanted to portray, like how much likeness.

I did portraits of everybody that was around me. It was interesting too because people are so flattered to be asked to be in a painting and it sort of forms this intimate bond that’s really hard I think. Especially now because you meet so many people and are friends with them on Facebook or follow them on Instagram and there is this sense of knowing something about each other but there isn’t much intimacy. 

SNL: How  are you continuing to cope since our current political administration was elected? Do you have any thoughts about that?

AC: It’s funny because at the time I was at BOLT working on this series of paintings, some of them are on the wall, that come from photographs by this photographer who called himself Monsieur X. They’re basically Boudoir photos gone wrong [laughs], that’s the way I think about them. But he was a paying customer at this brothel in Paris in the mid ‘20s to the late ‘30s and he used his time to photograph women. I’m still currently working on paintings from these photographs and they’re really awkward and they’re not typically erotic. That’s kind of where I was, in my thinking, when it all happened.

I think my work has always taken female sexuality as matter of fact. Not as something that I want to even necessarily highlight or bring to the forefront, it’s just there. So has that amped up or something since the election? I don’t know. I think there’s maybe a slightly more sadness  in all the paintings since. This feeling of hopelessness is always an undercurrent in all the work that I’m attracted to. I think the political climate right now is stifling, you almost feel asphyxiated by the news, by talking about the news.

Courtesy of the artist. “Untitled,” graphite on yellow tinted paper, 12.5 x 10 inches, 2017. In portrait orientation, there are two figures that are standing in front of a floral background (the same background used in many of these pieces). They are wearing high heels and lifting up their dresses, exposing their genitalia. Their faces are covered by hair but they are looking down at one another’s body’s.

SNL: Yeah it’s just very overwhelming. I interviewed an artist before you, Jeanne Donegan, and she had this interesting illustration in her studio of a woman lifting up her skirt and then I guess it was supposed to be Satan or some sort of demon—

AC: —Oh yeah Balbo, that’s her name.

SNL: Yeah, an image of figures lifting up their skirts. Yeah, can you talk about what that pose means to you? 

AC: Yeah so it’s actually a very ancient pose, and it sort of changed forms over time. I’ve been learning a lot about it over the last few years but it was something that I just kind of bumped into. It’s a very ancient pose called, Anasyrma. There’s this great book called “Sacred Display” where the two writers are collecting artifacts, sculptures, ceramics, paintings, everything, from around the world that have what they call a sacred display—so this lifting of skirts—but I bumped into it on the internet. I had found this image of three women lifting their skirts, it was a Boudoir photo but there was something really hokey and wonkey and weird about it and I did a painting of it.

It kind of led me on a search of images of women lifting their skirts that weren’t quite erotic but there was something else about it. In this photograph the women looked like they were checking out each other’s pubic hair [laughs], like “Yeah that’s how you do it,” and I really liked that I thought that was kind of funny because we’re always like wondering about other people, things we can’t see on the outside, like how do you find out more. Again, I think it kind of comes back to this thing with friendship where you’re trying to create intimate relationships and it’s hard. I just wanted more images to work from that weren’t erotic in this really straight forward way, of women lifting up their skirts, and I came across this sculpture, ancient greek sculpture, and it was a woman lifting up her skirt and looking down and she had a penis. And I was like “What! This is great. Is this real? Is this an actual ancient thing?” And it is, and there are others, where they have breasts and female characteristics like long hair or whatever but they have penises. That’s when I saw the Balbo image that you’re talking about.

At that point there’s no longer this sacred quality or apotropaic kind of quality of lifting the skirt. Now they’re kind of making fun of women’s genitalia, and she’s sort of more showing her butt to the devil but it comes from ancient belief that when women lifted their skirts they could stop wars, they could protect their property, they could allow their crops to grow, they could create rain. It’s coming from that but now it’s starting to shift to women don’t have that power, it’s no longer powerful protection, it’s still keeping the devil away but there’s sort of this erotic element to it that’s saying it’s something to kind of laugh about or make fun of. 

Courtesy of the artist. “A thousand flowerettes in the sky, or just a drop in the ocean.”, acrylic on panel,10 x 8 inches, 2017. The figure’s frontal body is facing a wall. The wall is purple and blue with white circles. The body is a green and yellow shade. They are exposing their backside while lifting up their dress. Their face is partially exposed as they look directly at the viewer.

SNL: Yeah I’ve definitely seen it before and I’ve always found it really interesting.

AC: I just like how it turns everything on its head because the thing that drew me toMonsieur X is that the Boudoir photos were just so weird and not what you expect from Boudoir photographs. These women just looked bored and daydreaming or if there were more than one woman, playing with each other, making fun of the photographer. There was all of this narrative stuff in it that shouldn’t be there if it is supposed to be a Boudoir photo. That’s really interesting to me as a painter, having nudity but confusing the viewer with it, like this isn’t how I usually am confronted by a body.

SNL: Right and your work is so colorful but then that one is really haunting. Could you also talk about how vibrant your work is? And the texture, yeah especially there, they’re layered with so many different—

AC: Yeah they’re kind of chaotic right now. Simply put I guess, I worked in a vintage clothing store when I was younger in Boston and I was always attracted to color. But it sort of gelled when I was working there and the colors especially of Kimono and ‘60s mod stuff.

I think I’ve always been interested in color but I think it took a while as a painter to be able to get color to do what I wanted it to do. 

Courtesy of the artist. “Untitled,” (undraped), acrylic paint and clay, 8 x 3 x 11 inches, 2017. The ceramic piece is placed in front of window. It features a green/yellow figure, completely nude, with their legs spread open sitting on another figure who is on all fours on the ground. The figure on the ground is also nude.

SNL: You also make sculptures right? Do you want to talk about those a little bit? Like when you started working on them?

AC: The sculptures I started three years ago, so the year before I went to Japan the first time. I think they were sort of another moment where I felt like where I’m really stuck in some habitual moves in the paintings so something has to come in and shake it up to sort of reinvigorate it.

I’m always inspired when I see female figurines, ancient figurines and that might’ve given me the idea to try clay but I knew I didn’t really feel like taking a class somewhere and doing it that way. I started researching materials and found this air dry clay called Amaco air dry clay. Some of them were just like straight forward kind of reproductions of the forms and then they dried and I was like now what do I do with them? So I had some acrylic flash paint which is like a matte acrylic paint and I started painting them. Do you know Nikki St. Phalle?

SNL: No.

AC: [laughs] They look so much like her work that I was like, “Wait this isn’t really me, this is somebody else.” And they’re a little stranger and maybe kind of cutesy but they weren’t really me, because you’re just working through a new material.

They started becoming my work when I started making these unexpected mothers. I started creating these figures with babies popping out [laughs] and I called them “Unexpecting Mothers,” so some of them are in weird yoga poses and there’s a baby flying out [laughs]. So yeah, I’ve just kind of been moving forward with the sculpture.

I never really worked in the round. So now I have to think about what something looks like from all sides. Which I think has actually helped the paintings a lot, to think in the three dimensions. So when I return to the paintings I’m thinking about what it looks like from the other side and I don’t know it just kind of brought a different touch to the paintings. I have so many bodies of work happening right now, it’s kind of wild. I feel like for a while I would just work on two big paintings and that was just kind of it and now there’s sculpture, there’s the small paintings, there’s the big paintings and then there are these stretch paper paintings I’ve been doing with graphite and watercolor.

I work all the time if I can ya know, and sometimes you can’t.

Featured Image: Studio Portrait, Photo by Charles E. Robert III. The artist is standing in front of two self portraits in her studio. She is holding ”e” black and white cat (Lucien), wearing a dress, and gazing down at her other cat (Charlotte) who is sitting on a drawing bench. 

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. 

This is the first article in an ongoing series about Body Passages, a partnership between Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble and The Chicago Poetry Center. This series gives brief looks into a 10-month, interdisciplinary creative process between Body Passages poets and dancers, documenting and reflecting on aspects of that process as it happens.

Launched in 2017, Body Passages is the brainchild of co-founders Sara Maslanka (Artistic Director of Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble) and Natasha Mijares (Reading Series Curator of The Chicago Poetry Center; Natasha also writes for Sixty). This innovative, interdisciplinary partnership brings together artists of various forms—poets and dancers, ostensibly, but many with practices extending beyond those bounds—over the course of 10 months to create original, collaborative work engaging language and movement. The 2018 cohort is comprised of 14 broadly diverse artists at different points in their artistic growth, who are together interrogating this year’s theme—“Activation”—and developing new work in response. Following December auditions, their process formally began in January when selected poets and dancers were assigned into groups and will officially conclude in October with final performances at Chicago Danztheatre. Artists’ work is punctuated and prompted along the way by monthly cohort workshops and individual-group meetings, as well as “in progress” events—including several as part of a recent public-facing residency through See Chicago Dance.

From April 30 to May 4, Body Passages was in residence at the Chicago Cultural Center as part of Chicago Dance Month, thanks to See Chicago Dance. During the week-long residency, four of Body Passages’ five collaborative groups used the Cultural Center’s first-floor dance studio (a “hidden gem” new to most participants) to explore and draw inspiration from the building’s many offerings, while continuing to incubate ideas and make their creative process visible through open rehearsals and a closing discussion. Held on a Friday afternoon in the dance studio, the closing event provided a forum for participants—seven artists representing three of the groups—to reflect on their time in residence at the Cultural Center, to check in about their developing interpretations of “activation” and varying approaches (now a third of the way into the process), and to share work.

In the early moments of this intimate event, co-founder Natasha—who positioned herself and Sara as “facilitators” in an “artist-led project”—framed Body Passages itself as “both a performance series and an artist residency.” Of Body Passages’ collaborative, interdisciplinary design, Natasha shared a sentiment later underscored by several participants: “People benefit from being pushed by others in directions that you wouldn’t go sitting by yourself in a room.”

Sara expanded on the theme of “activation,” saying, “We’re really interested not only in creating work that’s inspired by this word and wherever it may lead, but also bringing the audience into the work itself…where the audience members can take part, share, and respond, and feel like the work is not just living on stage but it’s going out into the world.” The extension of the project’s duration from four months (in its 2017 iteration) to a 10-month period this year is intended to create more space for process, allowing relationships and works to evolve and multiply over time. “We really believe in giving artists the space they need,” Natasha said. “Because at the end of the day, we want this to be a springboard in whatever way artists need it.”

Natasha Mijares, co-founder of Body Passages, welcomes artists and audience members to the closing forum event. Participating artist Michelle Shafer sits to Natasha’s left. Photo by Hannah Siegfried.

What “activation” means—or will mean—is up to each group. One group reported that they were still exploring the theme, currently in terms of “love, duality, the thing that needs to go before,” as described by poet and spoken word artist Jeanette (J) Green. J’s group member, songwriter and musician Michelle Shafer, posed potentially overarching or connective questions, like “How do you move fear? How do you get beyond something that is standing in your way?” Another group referred to their own process as “organic” and “generous,” also involving exploring and generating without dwelling in any one area yet. As illustration, poets Lorraine Harrell and David Nekimken described the origins of a recent piece for which each group member contributed two words representing their individual interpretation of the theme—‘renaissance’ and ‘emergence’ (Lorraine), ‘remembrance’ and ‘forgetting’ (David), and ‘taproot’ and ‘nautilus’ (Kimberly Dixon-Mays, not present). That piece “may or may not move forward,” but David sees it as a valuable step in a larger, “evolving” process: “So we don’t know what’s going to come next for us, but we’ll figure that out—we’re already figuring things out.” On behalf of the third group present, poet Tarnynon Onumonu framed the theme in the context of a three-step process: from vibration (“all the little micro actions that happen before you actually get to your goal”), into activation (“doing the thing—whatever you’re trying to accomplish”), and then moving into actualization (“the ultimate space”). Natalia White, a dancer in the same group, located them as being in “a research space” and “the place before you make a step.”

It was evident throughout the discussion that groups used the Cultural Center in a range of ways during the week-long residency—not only as a material resource and a source of inspiration as they devised work, but also to deepen their relationships with one another. For much of their portion, Lorraine and David wandered the first-floor galleries, attending to what “grabbed” them about particular visual artworks—interpreting details, constructing stories together, productively disagreeing, and connecting the art to their own lives (their conversation is elaborated further in the next article in this series). Recalling their experience, Lorraine grinned, “We had a ball!” Another group visited (and praised) the fourth-floor exhibitions, returning to the dance studio to discuss justice and the word “just,” play follow-the-leader as an exercise in transferring power, as well as free write to words and improvise with props as a way to consider intention. Kevin Sparrow (a writer and Tarnynon and Natalia’s collaborator) talked about how helpful it was to be in a dance facility while trying to push past the text on the page, asking a question echoed by others, “How do we move from writing to embodied performance?”

During their time in the studio, Michelle and J practiced an existing draft of “Grasp” (performed at Uncommon Ground, and also later in this event), taking advantage of the spacious, mirrored room to puzzle through how dance and staging elements could amplify its themes. They also worked on a new performance piece, “Trigger.” All groups expressed gratitude for the residency opportunity, touching on the Cultural Center’s various points of stimulation (from the feeling of the building to specific exhibitions or artworks, whether engaging in general reflection or ekphrastic response) as well as eased access to resources like a movement studio in which to experiment (with one group laughing that their previous rehearsal took place in a study room at the Harold Washington Library).

Kevin Sparrow shows a Venn diagram illustrating group members’ interests. Photo by Hannah Siegfried.

Though continuously described as rewarding, the groups’ collective processes have not been without bumps and turns. Because of some flux in groups (due to life commitments and even “too many strong personalities”) and only being a few months into the overall program, group members are still getting to know each other. In a particularly delightful moment, one trio briefly presented a physical Venn diagram they made to map their distinct and overlapping interests and concerns. Groups also had to develop common language. For instance, artists initially had different levels of comfort with words like “failure,” hearing in it—and intending by it—varied meanings. Emphasizing that building trust is part of the process of building work together, Natalia said, “I think it’s easier to collaborate once you establish comfort with each other….if I’m saying where I’m at, I’m putting myself on the table.” Identifying frequent pitfalls of collaboration, David articulated the importance of both “listening to each other, as well as very clearly asserting ourselves…and as people are making suggestions, we are reevaluating.” Natalia related this to the “push and pull” of making work, whether alone or with others: “You do something, you step back and evaluate, you do something, you step back and evaluate.” Lorraine broadened the discussion with a straightforward optimism, noting, “Collaboration can be difficult, but it can also not be difficult.”

Especially compelling for me was hearing artists’ thoughtful and candid reflections about—and revelations from—learning from each other, both across and within modalities. Kevin, a writer, was reminded that dancers “draft” too, observing that, after a writing session, you might keep one line, and from a movement improvisation, you might keep one moment. A few poets indicated that they were accustomed to writing alone, but were excited to try creating collaboratively—and to figure out how to embody that language through movement. As a writer, Tarnynon is welcoming this challenge to “gain confidence to move about the stage, and express in a way that I’m not used to”—having already “embraced that discomfort” as early as the audition, an occasion structured as a microcosm of the program. While the artists recognized the vulnerability, discomfort, and even disorientation that can come with creative partnership (with anyone, much less recent strangers), they also stressed the value of such states for their own growth. Describing her usual approach to songwriting as a form of “surgery,” Michelle explained how exposure to J’s practice—who writes “in an opposite way”—helped her come to terms with “unpredictability” and be more open-minded. Before a performance of a shared work-in-progress, J’s revisions to text prompted Michelle to shift her own “strict musical structure” and improvise in the moment. Michelle resolved, “Art happens. A song’s happening. And sometimes it can’t be planned.” J echoed that while the program has been a learning experience in working with other people—also having to negotiate the idea that art “doesn’t have to be perfectly executed the first time out”—it has been an ultimately meaningful one: “You can create art alone, but it’s so much better when it’s a shared experience…. It’s community. Art is community.”

Michelle Shafer (left) and Jeanette (J) Green perform their piece “Grasp.” Photo by Hannah Siegfried.

Throughout the event, the artists expressed admiration for each other and each other’s work, reiterating words such as “generous,” “gratitude,” and “blessed.” In contemplating the journey thus far, J reflected, “I’ve been blessed to work with Michelle. I’ve also been blessed to have this venue of Body Passages and the people I’ve been around…. It spurs you on. It is incendiary. It is activation.” Tarnynon expressed appreciation for the opportunity Body Passages presented to “get closer to these resources, to get closer to more institutions who can assist us in our dance ventures and our writing, kind of give us access to spaces that would be harder to enter outside of the program,” concluding, “I’m just excited to see where it goes from here.”

In the final minutes of the closing forum—and their Cultural Center residency—members of the three groups present performed resonant and powerful works, all with a literary basis but otherwise divergent—a real highlight. Lorraine stood outside the circle of chairs to read her poem “Temple” with quiet passion and gravity; Tarnynon performed “Free Range”—a poem written independently but thematically connected—rotating from a single position to engage onlookers’ eyes; and J and Michelle shared “Grasp,” a performance piece based on a poem that J wrote, then reworked with Michelle contributing guitar and choreography. I initially interpreted the role of the music in the latter performance as accompaniment to J’s spoken words, until the piece suddenly shifted and I realized the music was more like its own character, breaking apart and motivating movement across the studio floor and—speaking from my perspective as an audience member—disrupting expectations of what poetry might be or become.

Read about Lorraine and David’s time in residence here and follow Sixty for more forthcoming documentation of this ongoing process. Body Passages’ next public event is an in progress showing at Women Made Gallery on Saturday, June 9, 12:30-2:30pm. The groups’ final creations will be performed at Chicago Danztheatre in October.

Featured image: This is a photograph of a group of people in a dance studio, sitting in a circle of chairs. Some people have their backs to the camera, and other people are shown straight-on or in profile. The two chairs nearest the camera are unoccupied, creating a window to the speaker, a man holding a microphone. Photo by Hannah Siegfried.

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.

Sun, July 8, 2018 | 12:30-2:30pm

RSVP for the Festival

Leading up to the Chicago Archives + Artists Festival: Art Design Chicago Edition at Read/Write Library on July 13th and 14th, Sixty Inches From Center will host a community archiving training session for those interested in volunteering for the festival or learning about basic archival and cataloging practices. After our session, you’re welcome to stick around and join their New Volunteer Orientation and Community Open House.

This session is a requirement for those who will be volunteering for the festival, but free and open to those who just have a curiosity for archiving.  If you’re interested in volunteering, please complete the form below and we will contact you at the end of June with more details.

The festival has the following schedule:

Friday, July 13th
1-5:30pm: Event set-up
5:30 – 9:30pm: Archive Mixer + Artist Project Reveal

Saturday, July 14th
10:30am – 2:30pm: 1st Shift for Festival Volunteers
2:30-6:30pm: 2nd Shift for Festival Volunteers
6:30pm – 9:30pm: 3rd Shift for Festival Volunteers

Sunday, July 15th
12pm – 3pm: Event Breakdown

This is the second article in an ongoing series about Body Passages, a partnership between Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble and The Chicago Poetry Center (the first is here). This series gives brief looks into a 10-month, interdisciplinary creative process between Body Passages poets and dancers, documenting and reflecting on aspects of that process as it happens.

On an afternoon in early May, I showed up to watch an “open rehearsal” at the Chicago Cultural Center’s dance studio only to find myself a participant. This opportunity became even more exciting when the people I was there to see—Lorraine Harrell and David Nekimken, two delightful and effervescent poets who were in residence through Body Passages—invited me to join them as they sought inspiration and inputs in the galleries. We spent an hour together exploring the Cultural Center’s first-floor exhibitions, as the pair shared their observations and perspectives about visual artworks, made connections to their own lives and practices, and generated ideas for a joint creative project—an interdisciplinary, in progress work, prompted by their participation in Body Passages.

A partnership between Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble and The Chicago Poetry Center, Body Passages brings together poets and dancers over a 10-month period to create original, collaborative work engaging language and movement—this year, around the theme of “Activation.” From April 30 to May 4, Body Passages—and four of its five collaborative groups—was honored with a week-long residency at the Cultural Center as part of Chicago Dance Month, thanks to See Chicago Dance. While participants used the Cultural Center residency opportunity in a range of ways—given the varying natures of their practices and processes—one common goal was to draw inspiration from the building around them as they continued to devise and develop their collective works. Final works will be performed at a concluding event in October and workshopped at public and private “in progress” showings en route. (See the first article in this series for more about the program and groups’ processes.)

A photograph of Lorraine Harrell walking through a pasture, carrying a green shawl in her outstretch arms. Photo by Stephanie Tharpe.

Along with Kimberly Dixon-Mays (not present on this day), Lorraine and David comprise one Body Passages group, both bringing with them extensive experience as poets—and artists in other respects—over many decades. Lorraine is an award-winning poet and playwright who studied with Dr. James Ragan at USC and who’s been writing poetry since childhood. The oldest of six children, she remembers being eight and writing a poem in the bathtub, “because that was the only place I could find peace.” She shared that her late mother, also a book lover, always used to say that Lorraine’s poetry began even earlier—but the memory of writing her first poem in the bathtub is what persists for Lorraine. David has been writing poetry since high school, and has gotten especially serious about it in the last 10 to 15 years. David’s passion for poetry is evidenced not least by a particular organizational tool—a spreadsheet listing more than 500 poems he has written, not including most early poems and most haiku. “If we count those too,” he said, “we have a thousand poems I’ve written in a lifetime.”

Both Lorraine and David connected to Body Passages as poets but had an interest in dance as well. Lorraine learned about the program through the e-newsletter of The Chicago Poetry Center, an organization with which she’d had “positive experiences” in the past, as a contest finalist herself and when working with youth. She said she auditioned for Body Passages as a poet, but with a history in and renewed desire to return to jazz dance, following her mother’s recent passing. David heard about Body Passages from Renaissance Court, a senior center located near the Cultural Center’s north entrance, and “immediately jumped on it.” Why? As a poet who is also “involved with movement,” David was most intrigued by “the idea of collaboration between different genres of art. They were really looking for poets who could connect with their dancers.”

A photo portrait of David Nekimken. Courtesy of the artist.

Beyond giving groups access to a dance studio in which to begin to stage and “embody” their developing works-in-progress, Body Passages’ Cultural Center residency functioned, in part, to provide groups with various stimuli and facilitate encounters that might catalyze further connections. To this end, Lorraine and David decided to spend this afternoon—their portion of the larger Body Passages residency—exploring the galleries. Their general approach was to attend first to what “grabbed” them in each artwork (a strategy David credited to the professor of “the one art course” he took in college), then drawing those visual observations into language to unpack the piece and use it as a jumping-off point for sharing their own memories, stories, and ideas. As Lorraine and David explored, they had a wide-ranging conversation—framed by and reframing each artwork—which provided an intimate glimpse into the many sparks and unknown avenues that can factor into a creative process and eventually transform into new work.

An installation shot of part of Xavier Toubes’ show, “Descriptions Without a Place.PushMoon4,” at the Chicago Cultural Center (all works low-fire clay, glazes and lustres, from 2013-present). In the foreground is “Goya Dreaming.” Photo by Marya Spont-Lemus.

Upon entering the gallery exhibiting Xavier Toubes’ show, “Descriptions Without a Place.PushMoon4” (all works low-fire clay, glazes and lustres, from 2013-present), Lorraine beelined to “Goya Dreaming,” saying, “This one’s calling my name.” I asked why.

Lorraine shaped the air around the sculpture with her hands as she spoke. “It reminds me of an urn, but a huge urn—and a fish. And when I think of the urn, I think of the heart-shaped urn that I have, of my mom who passed nine months ago…. And it’s so colorful, and she loved colors.”

Picking up on the suggestion of a fish, David pointed. “This mouth…and it’s open and it’s ready to suck you in…to pull in its prey.”

Lorraine continued. “And I saw something different from this end. Because this mouth…looks like a heart to me.” And, a moment later, repositioning herself, “And now it looks like a donut”—David laughed—“that I forbid my mom to eat. And she said ‘I’m your mother’ and I said ‘I’m the mommy this time around.’”

“What I like about this is that the colors bleed together, there’s no definition with the colors.”

Lorraine nodded and affirmed, “Yes yes yes.”

Reflecting on the colors of the piece, we discussed how the often-funerary colors of black and grey can be disjunctive with one’s memories of a loved one. For this reason, Lorraine expressed how she and many others wore bright colors to the funeral to celebrate her mother.

In my presence, Lorraine and David communicated as I’ve observed family members or long-time friends often do—in a fluid, almost nonlinear fashion, speaking in overlapping clips, sometimes seeming like they’re talking past each other. But then they circle back, weaving together their ideas and demonstrating that they were listening to each other the whole time. Just being in their company, and in that conversational rhythm with them, made me feel like an old friend, too. I asked how long they had known each other, apparently a very common question. As it turns out, they met at December’s audition, after which they talked in a coffee shop for hours, as they each awaited their next engagement. “A conversation like we had known each other for a long time,” David said, and Lorraine chipped in, “Forever! It was amazing! We just talk.” When they learned they had been placed in the same group they were thrilled, and the poets’ friendship soon extended beyond the Body Passages partnership to include their individual creative work. Lorraine invited David to join her in a challenge for December—writing a poem a day, to be sent by midnight—a project they have continued still, albeit at a slower pace. Reminiscing, Lorraine gushed, “Oh my god, it was so fun and challenging, wasn’t it?”, recalling writing David several “dissertations” of ideas for edits to his work. David said he’s found himself more receptive to Lorraine’s critique than that of others. Their friendship has been fostered further by a shared propensity for showing up to Body Passages meetings and events “way too early,” per Lorraine, laughing. “Forty-five minutes to an hour early, because that’s the way we roll.”

An installation shot of part of Xavier Toubes’ show, “Descriptions Without a Place.PushMoon4,” at the Chicago Cultural Center (all works low-fire clay, glazes and lustres, from 2013-present). In the foreground is “Lazo 018” from 2018. Photo by Marya Spont-Lemus.

Calling attention to another piece in the same gallery, “Lazo 018” (also by Toubes, 2018), David began describing it out loud, before shifting to reflect on larger themes and his own experiences: “…these snakelike figures…wrapping around…how they entwine. And it’s really about movement! It’s really about how dancers in the zone can be entwined with each other and so on.” David continued, even more enthusiastically. “Here’s the key: They’re entangled without completely losing their own identity…. You have your identity, but you can be with another person, and be entangled, without completely losing yourself.” He explained a dance project he’s involved with outside of Body Passages, called “The Five Rhythms Dance,” and how its approach to partnering is “not like in a regular dance. They’re doing their thing and you’re doing yours—you’re connecting, but you’re not losing your own dance.”

In a third sculpture, “Exquisite Nomads,” David fixated on its eyes that are “penetrating” in their absence. He noted how, as a viewer, you can peer through the empty eye sockets into darkness—while the “entity” of the sculpture has an even greater power of sight, being able to “see right through each person looking at it.”

Pausing from pointing out minutiae of the differences between the sculpture’s ears, Lorraine pushed, “But it can’t speak—it doesn’t have any lips, it doesn’t have a mouth.”

David stepped to look closer. “Well, it has the slightest hint of a mouth here. And a little bit of a nose. But it’s really the eyes that are a central part.”

We talked about how the detail that most “grabbed” David—the vacant, entrancing eyes—had not been visible from the entrance to the room. He recalled the story of “the blind men and the elephant,” reflecting on how what seems to be the “central part” depends on your angle, and we discussed the relevance of that parable for experiencing performance as well as sculpture—how you can have any seat in the house and have a completely different perspective on, and interpretation of, the work. We agreed that “Exquisite Nomads,” like the other objects in the room, rewarded continuous movement around it, as part of an ongoing process of discovery and rediscovery, and considered how such insights might apply to their own collective work.

David points out a detail of “Exquisite Nomads” by Xavier Toubes (part of Toubes’ show, “Descriptions Without a Place.PushMoon4”; all works low-fire clay, glazes and lustres, from 2013-present). Photo by Marya Spont-Lemus.

Realizing how much time we had already spent in one gallery (just two doors down from the dance studio, too), we pushed onward into the next space to find an exhibition of work by Cleveland Dean entitled “Recto/Verso – The Duality Of a Fragile Ego” (all works mixed media, 2017/18). Lorraine and David halted in front of “Mercy”—a large-scale piece on the wall—then shifted and gestured in a process of active interpretation, building on each other’s observations while contributing their own.

David swept his hand through the air a couple of feet from the work’s surface, describing, “the movement of the colors, the gradations from really white to really black and in between. It’s like it’s almost 3D and it’s actually moving…from one aspect to another.… At the bottom, it does not look flat, it looks embossed…like it’s coming off of the painting, like puffs of white that are coming off of the bottom…”

Lorraine pointed to one section, “It almost feels like a field of some kind of flowers” and, of another area, “almost a face to me, a person lying down.” They finished each other’s sentences to complete a shared thought: it was almost as if you could walk right up and pluck a “puffball” of a flower from the piece’s lower portion. Of literally seeing oneself in the work via its reflective, silver sheen, alongside its “somber” black paint, Lorraine concluded, “Someone releasing and going into the light…. There’s always hope, even in your transition. There’s always hope.”

David added, “The dark is a necessary part of the light. They’re necessary parts of the whole.”

“Yes. Yes, it is. That’s so good. Yes, it is.”

Lorraine and David discuss “Mercy,” part of Cleveland Dean’s show entitled “Recto/Verso – The Duality Of a Fragile Ego” (all works mixed media, 2017/18). Photo by Marya Spont-Lemus.

I asked if this overall approach—seeking or intentionally opening oneself up to receive inspiration in artworks—was characteristic of their writing process or if it had been adopted mostly for the occasion of the residency. Both recognized the value of such prompting, while expressing the importance of not waiting for a muse. David said, “In the midst of something like this, while I know there will be inspirational thought, I don’t necessarily seek it out to get that. Because I’ve learned”—thanks to a brown-bag poetry event a decade ago—“that I have to be open like antenna, to all around me, to hear [inspiration and ideas], to feel them, to see them. That anything can spark a poem—anything.” Against the notion of waiting to write until one is “inspired,” he asserted, “I can create the inspiration.” Lorraine echoed this belief, listing some of the many “everyday” places and experiences through which she’s found ideas for poems—buses, street signs, overheard conversations. She said she also moves around a lot when composing, “especially when I’m at the point where I feel like something is actively brewing, and I’ve actually written a whole line and I’ve said, ‘Oh! Yes,’ and I need to think more on my feet. That’s pretty much how ‘The Temple’ came” (a poem she performed in the dance studio later in the week).

The opportunity of creative community facilitated by Body Passages seems to have been productive—and impactful—for both poets. Lorraine, recalling a comment by their other group member, called it one of the most “generous” collaborations she has ever been in. Lorraine described the mutual mentorship within their trio, recounting how its members encouraged and advised each other leading up to a recent performance at Uncommon Ground, even in the mere moments before going onstage. From that iteration until October’s final performance, the group’s piece will “keep evolving,” Lorraine and David said—keeping some aspects, adding others. David reflected, “the process is almost as important as the end result, actually.”

As we walked back toward the dance studio, I asked what they thought might become of the afternoon’s explorations and conversations—how might the colors, words, images, stories, and concepts factor into that process?

“Well, I don’t know!” David enthused. “We’ll go in there and we’ll just see what happens.”

Read about the Body Passages program and other groups’ processes here and follow Sixty for more forthcoming documentation of this ongoing process. Body Passages’ next public event is an in progress showing at Women Made Gallery on Saturday, June 9, 12:30-2:30pm. The groups’ final creations will be performed at Chicago Danztheatre in October.

Featured image: This is a photograph of Lorraine Harrell (left) and David Nekimken looking at a work of art: “Goya Dreaming” by Xavier Toubes (part of Toubes’ show at the Chicago Cultural Center, “Descriptions Without a Place.PushMoon4”; all works low-fire clay, glazes and lustres, from 2013-present). Lorraine and David are on the left side of the frame, leaning to peer into an opening in the sculpture. The artwork is oblong in shape, with a colorful, textured surface, and a small whitish piece touching its side. It sits on a narrow wood table at an oblique angle to the camera. Photo by Marya Spont-Lemus.

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.

Andie Meadows (Miss Meadows) is a queer photographer in Chicago whose photographic project, “Queens Who Bathe” immediately pulled me in to their overarching work. New and familiar faces, elegant poses, and dramatic looks occupy the project’s life on Instagram. What is also notable are the descriptions and mentions in the caption that illustrate the importance of collaboration and how artists, creatives, activists, and performers make up the vibrant and growing Chicago family.

I met with Andie at the WasteShed—a resource that provides repurposed arts, crafts, and materials—where we discussed queer history, building a space in their tub, and the vulnerability involved when being photographed.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

S. Nicole Lane: You said you plan events for the Chicago History Museum?

Andie Meadows: Yeah, so it’s called “The Out Committee.” It’s a volunteer committee that’s been going for fifteen years. I’ve been on it for two. They do a season of programs, usually it’s three or four. I’m working to get them to do more throughout the year, because I am not just gay for [Pride] season. I’m gay all year round.

We’re experimenting with other things. I’m giving a walking tour on the 12th of Boystown in order to play around with doing less intensive, large-scale events. The first program I coordinated this year was on queer fashion, called “Celebrating and Contextualizing Queer Fashion,” and we brought in Gnat, Rebirth Garments, and An Authentic Skidmark for our fashion show. Then we had a panel with a historian, JoJo Baby, and Ciera McKissick to talk about queer fashion and its history. Those historical roots have a lot to do with my work as well.

Photo by Andie Meadows of Jess Laskaris. Dark water surrounds a persons face with dark purple lipstick on. Their head is tilted and their eyes are closed. Their right hand is partially seen through the water.

SNL: Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

AM: Sure! Yeah, I mean, coming from the perspective of a historian, I think about “the tub” as kind of like a blank space for folks to really explode their own personalities and also promote whatever work they’re doing. And it always amazes me that it doesn’t get repetitive or played out—everyone just totally takes over the space. Well, I build it—I build it for them. But it’s based on what I know about them, what they’re working on, and ideas that they give me. But yeah, I think of it as a snapshot of Chicago’s queer community, which is moving and shaking right now, which means that [the series] it will never end, because there will always be folks to document.

SNL: Yeah, so are most of the people in this specific project people that you know? Are they friends?

AM: It started out as friends. So I bought this condo in August, and it had a faucet tub. Abhijeet and J-for-Pay have been good friends of mine for a very long time—they’re drag queens—and they’ve both been doing a lot in the scene for making space for non-binary folks in drag and working to bring visibility to drag that isn’t just fishy and passing. So, I just had this beautiful tub with one of them in it and the shoot just went really well. It was so exciting that I wanted to do more of it. I just made a post on Instagram that folks could get in touch with me if they wanted to get in. And I was not prepared for [both laugh] the amount of response!

Photo by Andie Meadows of Sky Cubacub. To the left in the image is a black and white checkerboard fabric, and next to it is colorful fabric with several different patterns and colors. The figure is sitting perched above the water with a pink head piece on. They are holding a bath bomb above purple water. To their right is pink fabric.

SNL: Yeah! People love that.

AM: Well, yeah! And when folks see the tub and see how versatile it is you can’t help but think, like, “Oh, what would I do in there?” Like, “What would it look like for me?” And I think that’s one of the reasons why folks get really engaged with it. I’ve since started prioritizing folks who have active projects in the works that need promoting to use it as a platform that’s informative as well as beautiful and community-oriented.

SNL: Yeah, I think it’s a really great snapshot of—obviously it doesn’t include everyone in the queer scene, not at all—

AM: I’m still working! [laughs]

SNL: No, no, I know. I’m just saying that when you scroll through your feed it’s like, “Oh my gosh! There’s so-and-so and there’s so-and-so,” and it makes you realize how beautiful and intimate the queer and nightlife community are.

AM: Yeah. Intimacy is another big part of it. I prefer shooting in the bathroom to a set because sets can be—for folks who are outside of entertainment or not used to being photographed— really intimidating. You don’t know what they mean, you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. Everyone knows what a bath is and there’s this inherent comfort that you feel, and also vulnerability. I don’t know, like 80 percent of my job as a photographer is making people feel comfortable, which I think is a lot easier in a bathtub. Also, when they just walk in and I’ve built this sanctuary for them, that’s usually a really good moment. And it’s the bathroom I use every day. There’s vulnerability in that for me as well. Like, I empty my Diva Cup and pluck my chin hairs there. [both laugh] Yeah, it’s almost an even playing field of vulnerability, but obviously I do a lot of work to compensate for that on their end.

Photo by Andie Meadows. The photographer is above the subject who has a white T-shirt on and several tattoos on their arms, fingers, and hands. They are looking up at the photographer while two hands cradle their head from the top of the image.

SNL: I think it’s also really amazing how diverse the sets are. I guess maybe because I know a lot of the people, and it’s like, “Oh, of course, this makes sense for this person.” But I feel like even if I didn’t know many of the subjects in the photographs, I could gather some information about them or about what they do. Which, obviously, is important. I mean, you’re the one creating this.

AM: Yeah. I start out asking, “What would be your ideal? Like, your absolute dream?” And then I go to get as close to that as possible, which is often a lot closer than folks would imagine.

I’m always surprised—there’s been a number of drag queens who, like, really wanted to get wet. Which is awesome. And even more vulnerable, because they spend so much time and energy on their looks. That they’re willing to get that wet for me is just really, really special.

SNL: Yeah, and it’s a great way to, obviously, learn about new people. And I like that you include what the person does and what they’re involved in within each caption.

AM: Yeah. It’s all about building platforms—the documentation of our community and building platforms for them. And every time I shoot someone new, that’s a new set of viewers that I get and therefore everyone else gets. That’s just the way to build a platform, just calling in as many folks as possible.

SNL: Totally, yeah. Backtracking a little bit, what’s your background? Are you from Chicago?

AM: No, I’m from rural Maryland. My family has a farm there. It’s very conservative. But it’s also 40 minutes away from D.C. It just gets really rural really quickly. I moved to Chicago for school—I went to the School of the Art Institute. I was kind of in photography, kind of in writing, kind of in performance. The photography department was not great—to me, anyway. It’s an awesome program.

While in the [photography] program, I would show queer work that was deeply political, and we would talk about form and not concept or politics. No one was quite willing to get into queer politics. I found a lot more activism in performance and writing. My thesis was a project called “Girls in Boystown,” which was when I started doing historical research, and I would go around and document femininity or lack thereof in Boystown. And that’s kind of when I fell into drag as well because that was the only place I saw femininity being celebrated. That’s when Abhijeet and J and I started becoming close. I would shoot them getting ready and then we’d go out to Roscoe’s Drag Race every Tuesday. [both laugh] This was before Berlin started doing amateur drag shows—Roscoe’s was kind of the one, and it was very pageant-y, very competitive, and kind of catty—very old-school. And then Trannika [Rex] kind of changed everything. “Please bring us your weirdness.” That was an amazing shift to see, particularly as I was studying the area’s history and realizing that women, trans folk, and queer folk have always been there, but they just haven’t had the economic capital to have lasting power or just the city wasn’t paying as much attention to them, because it was called “Boystown.” Yeah, that’s where all my historic research came from—I just wanted to know where the name came from. It came from this article, or this column, in the Windy City Times, called “Boystown.” It was a gossip column about the area, but it stuck. And, supposedly, business owners tried for years to change it, but…it didn’t work. [both laugh]

Photo by Andie Meadows of Hannah Kate, who is the “Curator and Creator of The V Show and The Peach Party.” The image has a lavender hue to it with lavender water, and a lavender sheet hanging in the back. There are magazines on the edge of the bathtub. The figure is sitting off center to the right side where they are wearing a white slip that is wet. They are holding the shower head in their hand.

AM: On the Gerber Glass building, there was this spray painted—in my memory—it’s a mural, but it was just a tag, and it said “Lesbian Love.” I have a picture on medium-format film of that after they tried to whitewash it, or powerwash it, I guess. And you can still see it, but it’s not totally there. Like, the erasure is very clear.

I made a magazine called “Grope”—that was a play off of “GRAB,” which is a magazine that Boystown publishes—that had all my pictures of looking for girls in Boystown, in combination with the history of women in the area. And now, for a few years, I’ve been giving walking tours of the area that focuses on femme and non-cis-white-masculine narratives in the area through Chicago for Chicagoans, which are historical tours by Chicagoans for Chicagoans, and also the Chicago History Museum.

SNL: Cool. Yeah, I’d love to go on one of those tours.

AM: Yeah, there’s one on Thursday—tomorrow—but it’s supposed to rain. The one tomorrow’s going to be really awesome—I think we’re going to pick a rain date—but I’m giving it with Vitaliy Vladimirov, who is a city planner, an urban planner, and just has a lot of really awesome background on institutional gentrification and how infrastructure affects who occupies a neighborhood and what that means.

SNL: I think you mentioned this in your email, and obviously I can gather this just from talking to you, but obviously collaboration is really important. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? The importance of it or why it’s important to you?

AM: My work is about queerness, and so that’s a family, and if I’m not building platforms for my community, then I’m not doing things that are worthwhile. And everything is also just better when you’re doing it with other people and with other folks’ interests in mind.

Photo by Andie Meadows of Frida. The figure is nude on top but wearing underwear. They are looking directly at the photographer who is at an upward angle. The bathtub is filled with cranberries.

SNL: Photography is this really great medium where collaborating just kind of makes sense.

AM: For my work it can make sense, and one of the reasons I’ve slowed down on producing “Queens Who Bathe” is because I’m trying to find a lawyer to help me make some model releases—like, customized ones, because the standard free ones make it so, as a model, you kind of just sign over all of your rights to the photographer. And it doesn’t really take into account social media, account nudity, or, as a model, having agency over like, “It’s okay to put pictures of my nipples in a book, but it’s not okay to put it on your website or social media,” or whatever. I just feel like that’s so behind the times and very masculine-photographer norm, that you wouldn’t think to question. I want something a little more detailed and customizable, just like checkboxes that you can go through. Because it’s ridiculous. I shouldn’t have that kind of power over folks’ images. So that’s another element of collaboration that I’ve been thinking of, agency as a model, which is not something that folks are used to having. And folks who try to claim it get called “pushy” or then folks don’t want to work with them or something.

SNL: It becomes too “complicated” or–

AM: Exactly. Which should not be the norm. That’s a very, like, white masculine ownership over bodies, I think.

Photo by Andie Meadows of JoJo Baby. The sheet hanging behind the tub is a dark, deep blue. The water is a similar color. The figure is nude and inside of the water. They are looking at the viewer.

SNL: Have you always taken photos of people? I studied photography and I had a really difficult time actually collaborating, so it was the total opposite for me. I used myself as a subject a lot. How do you make people feel comfortable? Like, is that a relationship that you already have with the person, or–?

AM: Well, I think there’s a lot of groundwork that goes in ahead of time. Also, just talking about someone’s dreams with them gets them excited and invested, which is a really good starting point. Just constantly communicating and iterating boundaries and opening opportunities for folks to say that, because they’re not used to it. Also, just in general in the photography world, I think that we always need to be asking people before we touch them—which is not a standard practice! They don’t teach you that in school. That’s just crazy to me. Folks are always just so appreciative when you do. That’s probably one of the biggest things. There’s just a kindness and a softness and an understanding that you have to keep with people—and also a continuous dialogue and checking-in, because maybe something was okay and then it’s not. That’s allowed to change and there needs to be space for that. There’s also—working with the queer community—when I schedule shoots, I don’t schedule things after them, because folks are late, things come up, folks have feelings. And that’s just, like, no matter how professional I want to be, I think that being professional with the queer community means accommodating to that. So that understanding is something that has a lot to do with it as well, I think. And just building an environment for a person, that’s a lot of–

SNL: It’s like their space, it feels like their space.

AM: Mmm hmm. I think there’s a lot of logistical things, in terms of communicating, that happen, but the feeling of it comes from the filming space.

SNL: Yeah. Especially with other photographers it’s for their work, fully. It’s just solely for them, and so you’re just doing what they want. And your situation is totally different.

AM: Yeah, my work is nothing if I don’t have people to lift up and highlight.

SNL: What goes into creating this space?

AM: Places like this are really important. [points around The WasteShed] They always have these fabrics. I go to a lot of thrift stores looking for textiles for the drapes that go around the wall. Then usually whoever I’m photographing and I will brainstorm things that they would like in the tub or different ideas. Like, I have one on Sunday and they want to do an ice cream sort of thing. They have ice cream lids that they want to use as pasties. So that’s kind of enough for me to roll from there.

Photo by Andie Meadows “Midwest Methods is a food focused art collective of chefs and other artists working together to host pop-up dinners and parties around the Midwest.” The figure is lying down in the tub with a sharp kitchen knife in their hands lying across their chest. There are slices of grapefruit, cucumber, lemon, pepper, and onion floating around them. They are wearing a white button down shirt and smiling at the camera.

SNL: And what are some other projects you’re working on? Are you working on anything else? News you want to share?

AM: Sure. Yeah, the event at the History Museum is a big one. June 14th. It’s called Disruptive Touch: Queer Expression in Public Spaces.  And we’re also going to have a market in conjunction with that. Yeah, Lucy Stoole’s going to bring her sex toys. Gnat’s going to be vending harnesses—and Emma Alamo, and a few other people. It’s like a naughty-leaning market, but not exclusively. It’s also a really awesome opportunity for young folks to share space with their elders. The History Museum’s audience is largely folks over sixty, who are Baby Boomers, and as queer people we just have so few opportunities to be in the same room as those folks. That’s another reason why I have continued to do historical work, just because I think that so often we feel isolated—like we’re reinventing the wheel, which is not the case. We just historically haven’t been well-documented, particularly in the mainstream. So, yeah, I would encourage anyone who is queer to pay attention to what the History Museum is doing with the Out Committee, and also the walking tours. 

SNL: That’s awesome. Yeah. Does the History Museum have archives?

AM: They do. They’re not the most accessible. To go and access them I think it’s $10? There may be a student rate that is different. But, outside of that, there’s the Gerber/Hart Library up in Rogers Park, which is free, and they have archives. And it’s exclusively an LGBT library. It’s walking distance from the Leather Archives. It’s like “the Leather belt” up there. There’s the Leather Archives and the Jackhammer and also Gerber/Hart. Which, I think, they’re putting a Howard Brown into that building as well. It’s a new building that they’ve been working on for a few years.

Photo by Andie Meadows of Trannika Rex. The figure is surrounded by red fabric. They are lying in the tub with red high heels and a red dress. They are wearing a necklace and large earrings.

Featured Image: Photo by Andie Meadows of Abhijeet. The figure has on a large string of pearls around their neck. They have a towel wrapped around their head with pink hair sticking out from the top left. The image is in horizontal position and they are pointing the adjustable shower head towards their face with water spraying on their makeup. 

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. 

As a Hyde Parker, I hear about the South Side Home Movie Projects (SSHMP) frequently. I’m a hop, skip, and jump away from their front doors; I’m a short bike ride away from where their current exhibition is located. But I’m always surprised to hear that other people, in other parts of our city, are unaware of their presence, and their promising initiative to archive, collect, restore, and preserve the South side’s history. The SSHMP’s mission is to focus on the people who live here, who have lived here, and who will live here. Their process of researching and exhibiting home movies from the South side of Chicago is reinstating an untold legacy and offering access to views of life on the best side.

What follows is a Q + A interview with Candace Ming, the Project Manager and Archivist at the SSHMP.

S. Nicole Lane: When did you get into archiving? How did you end up at the the Southside Home Movie Project?

Candace Ming: After graduating from American University with a degree in film production I became interested in film archiving and began looking up programs. I attended the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation (MIAP) Program [in NYU Tisch School of the Arts] from 2009–2011, graduating with an M.A.

After graduation I worked at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and worked with a curator named Ron Magliozzi on an unreleased silent all-black cast Bert Williams film. I did a lot of the research on the cast, including the lead actress who was unknown, eventually identifying her as Odessa Warren Gray. Dr. Jacqueline Stewart [director of SSHMP, Gray Center for Arts & Inquiry, and UChicago film professor] had heard of my work and thought I would be a good fit for the project. I was excited about working with her and the mission of the project so I came aboard in 2015.

Film still from the Jay Kavanaugh Collection, featuring red paper that reads, “This is MY LIFE,” with sprocket holes from the film reel. Courtesy of the South Side Home Movie Project.

SNL: What does the Southside Home Movie Project collect?

CM: SSHMP collects 8mm, Super-8, and 16mm reel-to-reel film. At this time, we are not collecting videotapes, but we are looking into how we can.

SNL: How would someone get into the archive? Is it digitized?

CM: Our archive is digitized as collections come in so anything that we have digitized can be seen at sshmpportal.uchicago.edu.

SNL: How far back do some items in the collection go?

CM: Our oldest film, though just a fragment, is from around 1929.

The image is a dark room with a projector, taken in the Black Cinema House. On the back wall the film projection shows a figure standing, talking on the phone, and wearing a white sweater. Courtesy of Avery LaFlamme.

SNL: Can you discuss film preservation? What goes into it?

CM: There are many types of film preservation but what we do here is called a telecine transfer. Basically, the film is played through a projector like system and instead of a light shining outward, a camera captures each frame individually. This is then stitched together to create one digital file. All our transfers are done in real time and captured to a hard drive. Prior to being transferred each film is inspected for deterioration and repaired for damage. Since our machines are like projectors, they are sprocket driven, meaning the film needs to fit onto the various cogs that drive the machine. If the film is too deteriorated this can cause problems so we make sure to do thorough inspections to make sure we are not putting any film on our machines that can’t go through. 

SNL: How many films are in the collection?

CM: We have about 300 films in the collection right now, not all them digitized.

SNL: Who uses your collection?

CM: Our users include teen groups, UChicago researchers, and most often documentary producers searching for footage.

SNL: The project has films and videos presented in exhibition spaces. Can you discuss some of these events? What are some exhibitions that stand out in the past?

CM: Currently we have an exhibition up at the Arts Incubator entitled “Everyday Resistance: The Art of Black Living in Chicago.” Working with the curators there we are exploring the idea of black leisure during times of radical activism and resistance. We have several programs featured during the run and the gallery has been transformed into a 1960’s living room space.

I think one exhibition that just ended has been our coolest. We worked with the McCormick Bridgehouse Museum at Michigan and Wacker and artist/architect Mejay Gula to project home movies around and about the waterways of Chicago through one of the porthole windows which could be seen from the DuSable Bridge. It looked really cool at night and I think it’s something very different from what we’ve done previously.

SSHMP film being projected at the McCormick Bridgehouse and Chicago River Museum. On the left foreground of the image is the bridgehouse’s porthole window with a film being projected through it, and a nighttime scene of the Chicago river, the riverwalk with street lights, and a bridge in the background.  Courtesy of Mejay Gula.

SNL: How do you envision the archive acting as a tool and/or resource for creatives in Chicago, or elsewhere? What can be learned from interacting with these materials?

CM: There is so much history in our collections and material from around the world. I think that artists can find this a resource for their own creative projects either just for research or to actually include in their own works. Because our archive spans from 1930–1980, there is a wealth of material featuring not just the south side, but places around the country and the world.

“Everyday Resistance: The Art of Black Living in Chicago” is on view until July 6th. The Arts Incubator is open Wednesday through Friday, 12 – 6pm. 

Featured Image: Film still from the Gustina Steele Collection, The blue-tinted still shows an adult figure leaning down and playing with two toddlers on the sand shore of Lake Michigan. Courtesy of the South Side Home Movie Project.

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 Chicago Archives + Artists Project (CA+AP) is an initiative that highlights Chicago archives and special collections that give space to voices on the margins of history. Led by Chicago-based writers and artists, the project explores archives across the city via online features, a series of public programs and new commissioned artwork by Chicago artists. For 2018, the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation has funded a series of pilot projects pairing three artists with three archives around the city: Media Burn + Ivan Lozano, the Leather Archives & Museum + Aay Preston-Myint, and the Newberry Library’s Chicago Protest Collection + H. Melt. This series of articles will profile these featured archives and artists over the course of their collaboration, exploring the vital role of the archive in preserving and interpreting the stories of our city as well as the ways in which they can be a resource for creatives in the community. The CA+AP Festival will take place at Read/Write Library on July 13-14.

For this installment, we sat down with Mel Leverich, the archivist from the Leather Archives and Museum as well as researchers Claire Morton and Zoe Kauder Nalebuff. The LA&M makes kink, BDSM, leather and fetish accessible “through research preservation, education, and community engagement.” The following interview has been edited. 

S. Nicole Lane: How did you begin archiving? How did you get involved with the Leather Archives and Museum?

Mel Leverich: My undergrad is in humanities. From there on, I was specifically interested in digital cultural history. I went to school for archives. In every other country they are separate degrees. In the U.S., a lot of archivists go to library schools and they specialize. You go into library or you go to archives. You can do both, but it’s like doing two degrees at once. I did a bunch of random things before I ended up here. This is the kind of job I envisioned when I was a student, with the understanding that I would probably never work in an institution like this because it’s like going into law. A lot of people want to do good in the world, but in real life you end up just doing office management in a very corporatized environment. You basically have to just enjoy the work as what it is. I had kind of given up on this fantasy of working in an important quote-unquote nonprofit. But I saw this job at a time I was doing various part-time work—I had to go for it. It’s a really lucky find, it came at a good time in my life.

SNL: What kind of challenges come with working with artists?

ML: We haven’t ever had a really deliberate arts program. We have a guest artist space and about a third of the main gallery is the guest artist area. That space, for a long time, has been rotated twice a year— so, six months shows. It has been very open, so pretty much any artist who fits within our mission and community who wants to show [their work] can do so. We’ve never had a stipend or honorariums. We’ve never sought out, as far as I know, specific people. Although, there might have been certainly cases where the previous director might have asked someone. I love helping researchers in general, but it’s especially challenging and interesting. It’s someone whose coming at it from a creative arts perspective. It’s a specific aesthetic, or mood, or structure that fits into their practice. Because of the way that our archives are organized—it’s not organized by color or on the same axis that an artist might work with—it becomes much more of an exploratory and organic process. I’m thinking about what I know about the collections—working with them and exploring. We have had artists come in before who have had to be very self-led.

Image courtesy of the LA&M, donated by Scott Erickson. A figure stands with their back towards the camera, they are wearing a jean vest with round silver jewels that read, “ASMC BOSTON” with a leather jacket is underneath. A red bandana hangs out of their left hand pocket.

ML: Claire and Zoe are doing a project right now which is very self-led. We don’t know what the product is. There are two sides of it, showing the arts and also supporting exhibitions and artists as researchers. They don’t necessarily show [their work], they just come here for their own practice. I really only work on that side—the research and support side. I haven’t had much role in the gallery and exhibition side. I’m really hoping that that is something we will start to prioritize and actually develop an arts program while being really proactive. Jose [Santiago Perez] curated an exhibit called, “Material Kink” last year. It was fantastic. It was one of the biggest opening crowds that we’ve ever had because it was done by a professional artist. 

Zoe Kauder Nalebuff: We were introduced to Mel through a project at the last exhibition that was on view at the Graham Foundation with one of their fellows this year, Brendan Fernandes. The exhibition was really related to dance, ballet and mastery of the body. It was inspired, in many ways, by the sculptural forms that come out of bodily restraint and control that exist, and have existed, for a really long time in BDSM culture but not necessarily in dance. The control and the restraint in ballet is not visible to the outside eye. The artist, Brendan Fernandes, had come here to do some research. We ended up putting together a selection from the archive highlighting images from the equipment catalogues. In these catalogues, it’s really about the structures. It’s about these pieces of equipment that are being advertised and how they restrain the body. It’s this interesting place where these images aren’t sexual, they are really for you to buy what you need. In that way, they were really exactly what Brendan was thinking about in creating the structures that were in the exhibition. Claire put this catalogue together, which really gets at the heart of what the show was thinking about. To me, this feels really representative in a lot of ways of some of the questions that we are continuing to think about in this archive and that Mel has talked to us about. You know, this is material in other archives wouldn’t be accessible. It would potentially be restricted. Just because something is considered sexual in content or nature doesn’t mean it necessarily is, or that it’s just that.

ML: It’s about people. It’s about culture.

ZKN: It’s so apparent in the catalogues where it’s just people. I work at the archive at the Graham, and so it’s really about people and what people are doing. It’s exciting. It’s a different relationship with power and control and what we see everyday as well as what we see in archives. I think the word that we keep coming back to is “tension” because there is the archive as an institution of power, which is dictating what is considered valuable and not valuable. You have that same parallel with the contents of this archive. In so many ways, what Mel is actually doing is really flipping and opening up what an archive can be and how archives are generally treated. I think something that has really stuck with me is that the last time we were here, Mel was telling us the concept of restricted files in archives and how in many archives this material would be considered restricted or off-limits. But here, if there are restrictions, it’s a judgement call or a personal decision of what is not fit for the public. How can you make that judgement?

Image courtesy of LA&M, print by Mercy Van Vlack. A drawing of a figure in high heels is facing away from the camera. They are wearing backless pants. They are turned facing backwards and looking at the viewer. They have long hair and a teardrop on their cheek.

ML: Especially when you already decided and created an institution to preserve a material where the public considers that material not fit for consumption, how do you make it and how is it valid to make distinctions within that? What is okay and what is not okay? What should be restricted and what should not be restricted? At that point, you’re just applying more and more specific applications of value. That’s why I’m against institutional restrictions. This is supposed to be a radically open and accepting place.

Claire Morton: I think a lot of that was really apparent in Brendan’s project, actually, because he brought in this whole parallel between ballet and BDSM or leather practices in the sense that the relationship between master and student, or ballet master and dancer, is one of supposed consensual challenge. There is that power dynamic there. That is an art form, or a craft, that is highly valued by society in this way that there isn’t question on what that relationship is on a surface level. This project was adjacent to the exhibition; it wasn’t necessarily a part of it. It was something that we talked with Brendan about. We came here originally to find books that we thought would be good for the bibliography. Then we realized, for him, actually seeing this visual material, there were a lot of parallels between the two practices. I think that idea of evaluation of an art form or a book of a cultural practice starts to unravel when you draw these connections. For us, it’s really interesting to think about it on so many different dimensions of a power dynamic—there are so many different parallels. They are so qualitatively different, but they are interconnected in all of these different ways and we become uncomfortable thinking about them once those connections are laid bare. I think it’s really potent.

Image courtesy of the LA&M, Folsom Street East, 1997-1998. Two figures are facing towards one another. Both are dressed in black and one has sunglasses on. The figure on the right has a leash and a collar attached to them, and the figure on the left is holding the leash. There are many people in the background wearing leather kink wear.

ZKN: Yeah, I think so much of working with Mel challenges and makes apparent the questions and intentions of all archives and all institutions that hold power.

ML: Etienne, the artist, was also a ballet dancer.

ZKN: I realize we didn’t really give you context about the [Graham Foundation] exhibition [laughter]. It’s a series of sculptural devices and contraptions that a number of dancers from the Joffrey Ballet activate at various points throughout the exhibition. The sculptures essentially ask the body to enact these perfect versions of traditional ballet postures. They force the body to hold itself to attempt to achieve these postures towards mastery of the body. When the dancers are present to them, in them and using them, you see how difficult and complicated structural demands are. When the dancers aren’t there, you know that there is a body in some way that is supposed to interact with [the devices], but you don’t necessarily know how. There is an interesting void and absence of the body. You do know that there is supposed to be somebody there in some form.

ML: It makes visible the power and control of the dancer even when the dancer isn’t there.

SNL: Can anyone come and look at the archives? Obviously they have to go through you [Mel], but who comes in here?

ML: Anyone can come. The vast majority of the collection is non-restricted. Ideally, every single restriction has a time limit on it, so it becomes accessible after a certain amount of time. For the most part, it is community members who want to know—sometimes out of curiosity—information about their region or their community. They want to know stuff we have on their clubs as well as other defunct clubs, and often artists and community journalists who want to do their research. We have more academically focused cultural historians. We do have a visiting scholar program where we give an honorarium to somebody where we pay for travel costs, and then they have a year to use that funding and come whenever they want. That’s been pretty successful. Those are the major categories—academia, arts and community. Then, obviously, students, which I would categorize as academic.

Image courtesy of LA&M, print by Etienne. There is a drawing of two people facing the viewer. They are both wearing boots. The figure on the left is wearing a military outfit with their chest exposed and the figure on the right is wearing a cop uniform, helmut and sunglasses.

SNL: Is the archive digitized?

ML: Portions. They started [the archive] in 1991, and there has been an archivist for five and a half years. So only about 40 percent of the collection is what I would describe as processed. Getting it processed so people can access it is a priority. We have had a couple of digitization projects; two of them were grant funded, which are photograph collections. Right now I’m transitioning this through a collections management system, which will be [on] a public website. Right now there is no catalogue online. You can’t look online and access our collections at all— there is hardly anything. All of our article collections, art collections, posters—you wouldn’t know we necessarily have that. The best part of moving is that I am digitizing a lot, but it’s in bits and pieces. I want at least an image for every collection, mostly so that the website has visual content and so—when you’re reading a collection description—it’s not just a wall of text. But it’s patchy. Before this we didn’t really have a secure server to store digital files. We do have a new server—it’s a work in progress.

SNL: I can imagine. In terms of searchability, or how you’re organizing things, how is everything situated in here?

ML: Archival collections are organized by person. For example, you have, Fakir Musafar’s [collection], which is all of his artifacts and papers. We have a lot of artifact donations that don’t come with other stuff associated with the person. A poster from an event isn’t necessarily a personal record, so those are organized by format. So we have a poster collection, a leather collection—that is mostly how I get to things.

Courtesy of LA&M, Peter Thomas Collection, 1979. There is a figure wearing a jean vest with various pins and patches on it. They are wearing a black cowboy hat and holding a styrofoam cup. They are holding a cigarette up to their mouth and looking down. Behind the figure is an outdoor staircase.

SNL: How do you envision the archive acting as a tool and/or resource for people in Chicago or elsewhere? What can be learned from interacting with these materials?

ML: So much! It really depends on what you want to get out of them. For our creative side and our arts side, for artists who are working with sexuality and gender, contemporarily there is plenty of material to work with. But if you’re working with something that is more historical, like the 80s and representation of sexuality, then you really have to get into private material.

There are not a lot of places to go for LGBT archives and, even more specifically, sexually explicit material and material to do with kink or fetish. A lot of that didn’t really make it into LGBT archives. For example, Etienne painted these big, beautiful murals and has a massive art collection here. They couldn’t find anywhere to take it as a collection, as it was sexually explicit due to content. For people who are working with those themes, there isn’t a lot of places to go to get material where it’s been preserved and where it’s accessible. And even in more bigger institutional museums, sexually explicit material is censored, still or restricted. Sometimes it’s by the family’s request and sometimes by the institution, whereas we don’t apply any institutional restrictions like that.

Featured Image: Image courtesy of the LA&M, Mistress Syd Creighton Scrapbooks, 1993. The image show a group of people walking in the streets outside. They are wearing leather gear, hats, vests and jackets. Four central figures have one arm up in the air and are walking towards the camera. 

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.

When talking to artist Preetika Rajgariah about how she arrived at her most recent body of work, I was struck by how a lexicon of movement naturally developed. She spoke about the strategies her family used to recreate the feel, warmth, and comfort of a home that was thousands of miles and oceans away after they settled in the city of Houston. She talked about how travel and relocation punctuated significant shifts in her work. She told me how one of her most commercially successful bodies of work addresses concepts of migration and accumulation but also whispers to how, aesthetically, macro perspectives mimic the micro and cellular.

But while motion might be one of the most immediately legible themes that one can draw out of her work, it is stillness that has actually allowed her practice to move forward in substantial and  illuminating ways. Having discernment around what advice, suggestions, constructive criticisms are valid and useful and which ones counter her progression has allowed her work to bloom in ways that disrupt her original understandings of what art can be and what she ever thought she was capable of. What started off as a practice focused on large, heroic hyperrealism paintings has rapidly evolved into something far more abstract–aesthetically and conceptually–allowing space for her full self to breathe.

As she starts to count down the days leading up to a summer full of residencies, travel, and a slow return to Houston, Preetika and I spoke about the experiences and ideas that she will now take home with her. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Tempestt Hazel: When does it all start for you—this idea of being a studio artist and having a studio practice?

Preetika Rajgariah: That started a little later for me. Just being an artist as a profession was not why I went to college—I went for pre-med. I was starting my junior year and I didn’t even know that a person could be an artist as a career. I had very limited knowledge as far as what I was being exposed to but also when it comes to what I compartmentalized my life into. I was [split between] hobby and career. Art was my favorite hobby and that’s all it ever was. So, when I got to college I was able to fit a design class into my schedule. At that point I realized wait! People are art majors here?

I loved to make, I was always making art and I was a talented kid growing up. But when one of my professors asked if I’d ever considered art as a major or minor and I was like, “That’s a thing?” I didn’t even know. So, I switched majors and graduated with my BFA, fitting an entirely new major into my remaining two years.

And, honestly, I’m very appreciative of the people I got to work with, but at the same time I didn’t get a very deep, full BFA education at that point. I left a painting program not knowing who Kerry James Marshall is, or Barkley Hendricks—a lot of painters of color. I was very painting heavy and I was doing portraits. I look back and think, “Wow! I got an incomplete education!”

TH: Do you think you would have gotten that somewhere else? Would you have been taught about Kerry James Marshall or Barkley Hendricks at another school?

PR: I think if I went to an art school I would have. I went to a liberal arts school—really small, 2,500 students total, no graduate program. I think if I went to University of Texas or here [in Champaign-Urbana] with more students in the class, more faculty, more diversity…

So, I left not really knowing what it meant to be a practicing artist. My parents, of course, were like, “What is our daughter going to do with an art degree? She’s going to be a teacher! That’s what she’s got to do.” So, then I got a K-12 teaching certification. I got fully certified to be an art teacher because that’s the only thing I thought I could do with my degree. I feel like I was sheltered for a really long time—not only as a child in a very different way but also in my art career. I was in a very specific bubble.

It took a while for me to realize I didn’t like teaching K-12. Also, I didn’t make [art] for those two years and I became depressed. I also got married. My priorities were different, my life was different.

After quitting teaching I realized I wanted—although this sounds very selfish, it’s the truth—and I think artists or people who want to teach in general should be aware of this [when you feel it]…I wasn’t interested in putting my energy into teaching students and I wasn’t trying to make the next generation of artists. I realized that I wanted to put that energy into myself as an artist. So, I quit teaching and I immediately got into the summer residency at the School of Visual Arts. I got into this program and showed up not knowing what the fuck I was doing. It was a summer in New York surrounded by different levels of artists. This was in 2010.

But to answer your question, starting at this residency is when I was like, “Okay…this is what I want to do. And I have no ideas how to do it or what to make…” But at that point I had come into the residency with a very specific idea of what art was. And to me it was canvas and paint. So I got to New York, bought huge rolls of canvas and tubes of paint—I was so excited. Then, I had studio visits early on and everyone was questioning what I was doing and why I was using the medium [of paint]. Or why I was working at a giant scale. And I didn’t even know. I thought that was what you were supposed to do!

Preetika Rajgariah, “Nucleus,” 2011. Watercolor painting of a series of small, accumulated brushstrokes at the left-center of white paper that branch out to smaller accumulations in two areas near the top of the frame. The strokes are various shades along the color spectrum with more black and blue toward the center of each critical mass of strokes.

Then I thought, “You know what? I’m going to ditch all of that and think about, logistically, an easier medium to transport.” I was living in Houston and this residency was in New York—and whatever I made had to transport back [to Houston]. So I decided to do watercolor—abstract watercolor paintings. And for the first time, I started to think about where I come from. It was the first time that I thought about reflecting on my own life because [up to that point] I didn’t quite know what I was making about and I didn’t know anything other than my own story. So I let everything go and started thinking about people. And being in India.

Immediately when I think about my narrative my mind goes to India really directly, which is really strange because I’m not there regularly. I was born there and raised there for a few years as a baby and small child, and my family goes back every few years. Even so, it’s such a big presence in my upbringing and the way my parents tried to recreate India in America.

So, again, I started thinking about people and how many people are in India. I also started thinking about all these people in New York City and how it felt like being in India—all these different languages, all these people, and it was hot as fuck in the summertime. How people walk everywhere. It was everything—and that’s when I started making these layered paintings of bodies. And that’s when I started considering myself as a real, working artist because I became really connected with myself and my inspiration. I was doing these formal things but also I started painting figures that had a real narrative and a connection.

That body of work spanned five years. And throughout that time there was life stuff that happened. When I finally got to graduate school, I had a rude awakening and realized how far behind my knowledge of art was because of the knowledge I didn’t get in undergrad. For me, being an artist was such a natural thing—but I needed to catch up in the academy.

TH: I want to back up a little bit to when you realized that you didn’t want to teach and you wanted to turn your attention to your own work. Was there any guilt in that for you—realizing that teaching might not be one of your goals?

PR: I recognized that it was a selfish feeling.

TH: That’s an interesting word to use. Where does that feeling of obligation come from? Is it because that’s what you’ve been told is the logical path? Here, in Chicago, there are so many schools and programs and there are so many artists who teach—K-12 or in higher education. Although I have so much respect for teachers, I, myself, have never ever wanted to be in the classroom like that—so what you said really resonates and at the same time it feels against the grain. So it’s interesting to me that you would think of it as a selfish thing, when it’s maybe simply you identifying the best place to channel your energy at this moment in time.

PR: I think because I feel teachers are really generous people.

TH: Yes, for sure!

PR: They are the most under-appreciated people—in this country especially. Abroad it’s sometimes a different story, but here teachers are not respected while they put so much of themselves into the students. I was doing that and realized that because I was putting all of my energy into the kids, my practice was non-existent and I was becoming very depressed. I knew something had to change. I wasn’t doing anyone any favors—the kids or to myself. I got a lot of pressure with each of the decisions that I made with my life—from my mom specifically. She was concerned with how I would make a salary and why I would let teaching and, the stability that comes with it, go. So, I tried [several different jobs].

TH: Do you feel resolved now and good in your decision to go in the direction you’re going now?

PR: Yea, I really do. I realized I wasn’t the person who needed that kind of source of income. I can’t do the 9 to 5—I tried some gallery and art space jobs and I realized that it’s not for me either. But I’m happy that I like the hustle—as annoying as it is sometimes, it’s really rewarding too. I’ve come to live that way and that’s just how I roll—I’m fine with that.

TH: That’s a really great realization to have.

PR: Lots of learning.

Preetika Rajgariah, “Study, Horizon,” 2015. Watercolor painting of a series of small, accumulated brushstrokes that are various shades of red, orange, and yellow to the left and transition into blues and greens on the right. They are shaped in an arch at the center of the white paper.

TH: And a lot of listening to yourself, too, which I think is so important for longevity and happiness—and all of the things that we want in life. I want to hear more about when you realized that your work wasn’t doing what you wanted it to do, or you wanted it to do more, and you figured out that it was a way to understand yourself better.

PR: This makes me think of my surroundings at the time. I had just quit teaching and suddenly went into the artist residency. It was a mix of artists—some established, some mid-career—a range. And I was static for the first two weeks that I was there. I get insecure in places like that [because it seems like] everyone knew what they were doing there. Everyone had their practice at a time when I didn’t even know what an artistic practice was made up of. If I was to go into a residency now, I would know my materials, I would have a sense of that. At the time, I took cues from other people and had a lot of conversation. And eventually I sat with myself and thought about what made me different in that space.

It’s funny; I say that India came up then for the first time but I don’t give enough credit to my undergrad self—because it was so rushed—but my thesis for undergrad was oil paintings of myself in the nude done in classical postures from Hindu mythology, then collaged with my mother’s clothing. So, I started working with textile and the body ten years ago—and I got no real feedback one way or the other from my professors at the time. I remember thinking that these paintings represented me being a modern Indian woman because I’m naked in these paintings, in traditional poses and I’m collaging my mother’s fabric onto these canvases—which in a sense is exactly…

TH: …what you’re doing now.

PR: Literally, it took me to get here in order to have that hindsight. Really, this is what I’ve always been interested in. This is what I’ve always made work about, which makes me feel like I’m on the right path.

TH: If you were doing figurative work, what made you go to the other end of the spectrum of abstract painting? Even when it evokes a sense of the birds eye view of the collective, and there’s an individual figure in there somewhere—its extremely simplified and abstracted.

PR: I think there are a few reasons. Part of it is my nature as a maker—I’m a really impatient person…

TH: You wouldn’t know it from these pieces. There’s a lot of accumulation there!

PR: I know! Accumulation and repetition are my go-tos visually. But I’m so impatient and I wasn’t having fun [with the work I was doing before]. I was doing photorealistic portraits and was having a hard time stepping away from that. Attention to detail was my nemesis. I lost interest in that and it felt forced and limiting. It wasn’t conveying what I wanted it to—the material wasn’t right.

TH: Five years is a long time to spend in this work—doing watercolors. What made you break into the next body of work?

PR: I knew that chapter of work was pretty much done for me. I was ready to move on and challenge myself—and that’s when I applied to grad school. I wanted to get criticality [around my work]. During those five years I wasn’t getting any feedback—it was just me making and being in group shows here and there. I was selling a lot of the work and sold almost all of the paintings I ever made. I was ready to have criticality.

[With the next body of work], I started thinking about India again. I had just gotten back from my cousin’s wedding in 2011. I had just gotten divorced when I left Houston for [University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign]. So, I carried a lot of baggage—I always carry a lot of baggage around India, but specifically around being a divorced Indian woman—my family was broken at the time and still kind of is.

But I ended up here, in the Midwest, alone, which was great. I immediately noticed that it was a super different feel in Urbana-Champaign than in Houston. Making here was different than making in Houston. Going to the grocery store was different. I was the only person of color in my program—except one other third-year.

When I first came to grad school I was talking about my early paintings because it’s what I entered into school with and I went back to the place that inspires me the most. I realized that there was content in my story of being different. And I don’t get to hear my story, hardly ever—there’s power in that. I realized this is something worth sharing.

Ever since I got more into textile, which has been an ongoing interest of mine in non-art spaces and a way to connect with the women in my family, I have done a lot of unpacking over my relationship with my mother and connecting with that upbringing.

Preetika Rajgariah, “Bushy Auntie,” 2018. On the right is a wrapped, body-like figure stands upright. It is completely enclosed in colorful, magenta fabric and a bright blue fabric with black spots toward the bottom half. At the center there hangs a cluster of strange os hair-like fabric that is yellow brown and bright red, with jeweled trim toward the top. On the left is a wrapped, body-like figure stands upright. It is completely enclosed in a black, patterned fabric. Along the bottom right half, there are patches of hair-like material hanging down of all colors and various lengths.

TH: To fast forward into the textile work—I find the evolution and how you talk about where you are with you work, and how everything keeps coming back full circle so interesting. For instance, I get a similar feel from your water colors as I do from your thesis installation of the Aunties. It goes from the birds eye view to the zoomed in view. There’s a way in which space is happening in your work—whether psychologically or conceptually. You’re moving into the life-sized and up close realm whereas before things were super small and distant. That could be interpreted as a metaphor for all kinds of things but I want to know how you think about that. How, when, and why your closeness or distance from these bodies changes…

PR: The idea to make [the Aunties] is a direct relation to my old [watercolor] paintings. I’ve always been interested in transparency, layering, revealing, concealing—so visually I was interested in that but I was definitely interested in how to make a three dimensional version of the painting. It was an interesting material challenge. They started off really small and looking like I recreated one of the temples at my mom’s house like in a lot of Eastern households. Hindu households usually have a proper temple with little idols and figures. I started off making hand-sized, three-dimensional things. I’d been working on the wall for so long. My whole concept of art had been on the wall. But now I really wanted to try anything and everything I could try. I wanted to experiment and see how far I could go. What does me making sculptures look like? I went through a period of flags—2-D but off the wall—banners and flags…

Once [the Aunties] were all little and they looked like a shrine or temple, I wondered if I could make them my size. I started creating my own tribe, basically. I loved creating and thinking about these women figures. Because of the material I was using, they were definitely gendered. I began creating the Aunties I would have wanted to grow up with and didn’t. The Soft Bodies collection as a whole represented a lot to me but first and foremost it was fun. I pay attention to when I’m having a good time at the studio.

TH: That makes sense. So, the Aunties seem to have their own evolution within your practice, but then there are these other works that happen throughout this time—like the video. I’m curious about how you re-introduced yourself into your work at this point, literally. What compelled you to do that?

PR: Honestly, it was me wanting to challenge myself in grad school. There was a performance class offered at UIUC—and I can be a performer sometimes. I have this [performative] part of my personality and it intrigued me. Then, I was being introduced to a lot of performance artists. Through them I realized I had a lot of ideas about the way I could use my body in my work because, again, my work is highly inspired by my narrative. I felt it was important to use my body as the vehicle for some of the conversations I wanted to start having. I have a lot of ideas, and I wanted to expand on that. But it’s super scary—like in the way that going from 2-D to 3-D was a huge leap for me—3-D to performance is another huge, seemingly insurmountable mountain.

Preetika Rajgariah, “Quilted Auntie,” 2018. A wrapped, body-like figure stands upright. It is completely enclosed in colorful, patterned fabric with gold trim at the seams that looks like a quilt design. At the floor, spread at its base, there is a red, white, and blue banner with white stars.

TH: With your work—especially the Aunties—I love the titles. They’re sometimes so humorous. But also, there are other works I’ve seen by other artists where this accumulation of figures that are anonymous, life-sized, and hidden is used to evoke a certain kind of emotion that is definitely not humor. They’re much more moody—but how you’re doing it, there’s a way in which you disrupt the drama and moodiness that a presentation like this usually creates. Or the serious topics that are usually being tackled through approaches like this.

Once I read the titles, I felt like you were saying, “Don’t take this all so seriously.” But also, I had to check my assumptions for a second because I realized that maybe I was interpreting this as weighty simply because of the way this work is sometimes understood within a US context, which is very contested and contentious. It’s not just about the work or the work being in this art space. It’s not just about the fact that the work is beautiful and impactful. But it’s also about the realities that we live in, which are imposed upon the work. A viewer’s thoughts might wander to how this work speaks to xenophobia’s presence the country that we live in or contemporary conversations around migration and immigration—things along those lines. So, I’m curious since you were recently in this space of critique in grad school, have you noticed things that come up regularly or are imposed upon your work? Do people hit the mark sometimes, or are there unintentional interpretations of the work you do because of the era in which you’re doing it?

PR: When I first came into the program there were a lot of thoughts being projected on the paintings of masses [of people] I was doing because they have loaded titles—like one of them is called The March. At the time, things were happening globally with refugees, human movement, migrations, and crisis associated with those events was projected onto my work. That’s not necessarily what I was thinking when I made the work.

With the Aunties specifically, when I first started making them I was using darker saris because that’s what I was using to do my material studies—they were navy blue, brown, black-looking. Dark, concealed bodies in a space got a very funerary response. That wasn’t what I was going for! So, I thought to myself, “I’ve got to go rainbow! I need to queer this shit up!” I wanted to make things I was enjoying. And also, in India, the funeral colors are white, not black so…

Preetika Rajgariah, “The March,” 2015. Watercolor painting of a series of small, accumulated brushstrokes at the center of white paper. They make an irregular rectangular shape and are all different shades of red.

TH: Right—this is the impact of context…

PR: There is also the hijab read, and the burka read. And with that I struggle—I’m a South Asian woman and not a Muslim woman. When I think about people in India, a lot of times, culturally, women will take their sash and wrap it around themselves for a number of reasons—[but it can be interpreted as Muslim].

I also get critique about the facelessness of them and to that I explain that it’s not about specifics or portraiture. They are embodiments—recreated nostalgia. They are pieces of memory that create a form.

Sometimes people put a negative spin on the soft bodies—more submissive or women being contained. But I see it as containment of culture, or how, at times, I’ve felt constrained, or conversely, supported by my culture. I have a [challenging] relationship with India and my background. I think it comes out in the bodies—they are kind of confined and bound but also adorned and independent. But there’s a lot that’s gone into them. And how they are arranged in space impacts the reading and the feel. I haven’t had the space to play with them [as much as I’d like to].

A still from Preetika Rajgariah’s, “How About Now?,” 2017. The still shows the artist close-up from the shoulders up, against a grey background. Her right arm is raised above her head where she is adding a pinch of bright red sindoor powder to an already accumulating spread of the powder on her head, face, shoulders and arms. Her eyes are closed and lowered. Click image to watch the full video.

With the video “How about now?”, I get great feedback from non-art people, for instance, museum guards. Or the parents of other students [at UIUC]. Another South Asian graphic design artist who graduated with me, her parents came from India [to the MFA show]. Her mother came up to me and said the video resonated with her and asked what the piece was about. Then I asked her, “Why don’t you tell me what you think it is about, Auntie?” Auntie or Uncle are terms of respect and endearment. [She explained that] she thought it was about the violence that continues after a wedding, into a marriage. And India right now—well for a long time, really—but definitely recently has been getting negative press about how women are treated. It’s true and I’m glad that women are starting to tell their stories and be able to bring attention to this. But she brought that onto the work.

For me, the piece is about marriage—something I’ve been through. It’s about my personal experience with feeling good enough or successful enough [through marriage]. But because of the materials and the way that I handle the materials in this work and others, I’ve gotten interpretations of violence before—the burning, tearing, bleaching—these are violent acts.

TH: You mean in the textile works—the wall pieces?

PR: That’s right. Her interpretation really touched me, and made me want to say, “I hope you’re okay or I hope the people that you know are okay…” I felt like we had a conversation without saying much. It was a very interesting exchange. It made me feel like the show was a success. When people can personally connect with my work, I find that to be the greatest thing.

Preetika Rajgariah, “Commitment Issues,” 2017. An irregularly-shaped, multi-colored translucent silk hangs from the two top corners and droops down toward the center. It is mostly a deep, muted violet color with black,and gold along the bottom edge. There is a large red stain at the middle of the fabric and multi-colored threads sewn onto the bottom right corner.

TH: I find it fascinating and so important that the guards, another student’s family—that those are the people who respond most. That’s not usually your intended audience when you’re pursuing your MFA. Or that’s not who you’re expecting a response from. But when it speaks to them—and also when work speaks to children, or family—the other people moving around the work—when it resonates with them you realize that they are actually the tough audience. And it resonating with them is a different kind of success and understanding.

PR: I completely agree! As I’ve started feeling empowered in my voice and like I have something substantial to say though my work, I’ve started to understand that these are the people I hope to connect with. I’ve also made it a side-mission of mine to increase art appreciation in South Asian culture because it’s pretty low. I want to go back to Houston to work within the huge Southeast Asian community there.

TH: I really love the portraits that you do of yourself. They feel like a middle ground of your work—because they reveal things about your own relationship to India, but then also what it’s like to be Indian in this country. But then, too, it speaks to something you said earlier about needing to queer things up. These photos feel like the intersection of all of the different things you’re thinking about. I’m curious about how these photos function for you.

PR: It’s funny, I always forget about those!

TH: Really?! I find them to be jarring and beautiful.

PR: For me, they function as a sketchbook almost, or a precursor to performances. They all came from performances. I almost see them as an in-process place. I really enjoy them.

TH: Some of the things that you’ve said about the work—the oscillation between being confined but containing culture. Or the concept of wrapping something and the different ways that can be interpreted. It’s interesting that you see them as a sketch because I see them as a collision of several different things and a connection point between all of the ideas you’re working with. It’s you, and it’s pointing to the Aunties, it’s pointing to the early work with your body and your mother’s textiles. They hold a specific place in the body of your work, in my eyes.

PR: I have a hard time seeing photography as the final product of my art. Maybe it’s because it’s so related to my side hustle. Maybe it’s because it’s too quick of a process for me. I’ve never thought of it as a place where I’m connecting all of these dots.

Preetika Rajgariah, “Bandage,” 2016. A photograph of the artist wrapped in various remnants of colorful, patterned fabrics. Her face is completely covered, and her arms are partly exposed. She sits against a grey background and faces the right of the frame.

TH: Speaking of connecting dots, I find that the titling for your pieces are, in a way, excerpts or give beginning reference to your writings. The fabric wall pieces have titles that are cryptic and foreshadowing. The titles beg the question, “What’s the story there?” What I really like is how you’re able to mix the presentation of complete joy and humor with weighty commentary and discomfort. I think it’s very timely and I think art is at its best when there’s happiness and joy, but it also makes you somewhat uncomfortable. We’re in a time when we don’t know whether to laugh or throw something.

PR: We have to laugh to get past the atrocities—it’s why people make memes out of everything! But the writings are little snapshots to my memory. As people have read them, I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback because the writing offers insight and helps people connect. The stories are very honest and I think of them as comedy—a lot of my sarcasm and sense of humor comes out in them. They are short vignettes.

TH: The writings feel like title expansions to me. And the humor piece—where you bring in humor is important and—as I keep saying—very timely. All of the things in your big box of references and strategies and how you’re approaching and thinking about your work, humor plays a very important role. And that, for me, is what sets it apart from other work that is visually in conversation with yours, but the humor piece adds something different and cuts a tension that can happen in a quick read of your work. You allow for that tension to be easily broken if people dig a little deeper.

Also, I like to think about how your work would operate in different spaces with different audiences—especially since you’re working in so many different forms.

PR: I’m excited to take my work back to Houston—a big city with many diverse audiences. I look forward to re-entering the arts community as a more critically-positioned artist, which is something I was scared to do before with my paintings. This is why they had serious titles and were very subtle in that way. I think I can take charge of my work a little more now and address some topics that I am passionate about.

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Featured Image: Installation view of Preetika Rajgariah’s MFA thesis installation. In a gallery setting, there are three distinct works. To the left is a wall-sized still from “How About Now?”, in the center there is a cluster of seven Aunties, and to the right, directly on the wall, there is a floor-t0-ceiling wall painting of Preetika’s silhouette in red, with large, red painted bindi’s outlining where her face would be.

Tempestt Hazel is a curator, writer, and founding editor of Sixty Inches From Center. Her writing has been published by Hyde Park Art Center 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 Cecil McDonald, Jr.’s In the Company of Black published by Candor Arts. You can also read her writing in the upcoming Art AIDS America catalogue for Chicago and the online journal Exhibitions on the Cusp by Tremaine Foundation. Find more of her work at tempestthazel.com.

“Beyond the Page” digs into the process and practice of writers and artists who work at the intersection of literary arts and other fields. This interview is the first of three with interdisciplinary artist Udita Upadhyaya about “nevernotmusic” — a solo exhibition of scores activated by curated, collaborative performances — and her process of developing these scores into a book (read the second interview here). In early March, on the last day of her show “nevernotmusic” at Roman Susan, I met with Udita to discuss her processes of creating and “gifting” performance scores, transforming the scores into an installation, and learning from performers’ interpretations.

Follow @uditau on Twitter and Instagram and check out her book launch at TriTriangle on September 8, 2018, at 7pm. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Marya Spont-Lemus: Knowing a bit about your work, and specifically your work with language, I already wanted to talk to you for “Beyond the Page.” And then I was so excited to hear about “nevernotmusic” — the exhibition and the eventual book you’re thinking of making with the scores. So thank you for speaking with me about both!

Udita Upadhyaya: Thanks for chatting, and for being so excited about “nevernotmusic” with me! What I liked about the interview I read was that it felt like just a conversation, but because you knew the person it felt like you could get to the meat of the conversation. I want to hear about other people’s processes but nobody’s really talking about them, so that adds to the mystery. I don’t know, I was thinking about it before I started making art, because I would be like, “How do you do it?” “How do you know when a thing is done?” “How do you know when it’s a series?” “How do you know what you’re doing?” And there was nothing, or barely anything, that I would find that was generous and actually sharing what it meant to be an artist every day, for a really long period of your life. So I did appreciate the…the intimacy, that gave you the permission to do that.

Image: The front window of Roman Susan (detail), shot from inside. On the windowsill are copies of some of the performance scores for “nevernotmusic.” Photo by Esther Espino.

MSL: Well, I’m glad you read that into it, because everything you just said was a lot of my other interest in the series and what I was hoping people would get out of it. Because while I know that they are longer interviews, I think there’s a place for the five-question interview that fits in a post or on one page of a newspaper and there’s a different level of depth and detail that I myself find really useful.

UU: Yeah, the series feels like it is for artists. From the one thing that I’ve read. I’m happy to be a part of it. Ahh! [both laugh]

MSL: So I’m thinking it might be helpful – while in this space – to talk in relation to your show that’s up now, on its final day of performances, especially anticipating that we may have more conversations as the book develops.

UU: Yeah. The book was not originally part of the plan. But it would involve the same scores as this show — here they are printed. Feel free to look at them.

Image: Udita Upadhyaya, nevernotmusic performance score, 2018. This score was used for promotion of Roman Susan show. Image courtesy of the artist.

MSL: You know what, I printed them out this morning to bring with me – but I always print everything on used, one-sided paper – and I thought you might be amused to see that a couple of them accidentally got printed over double-sided content. [laughs] So here are your scores overlaid on W-9 forms and other things.

UU: Oh! I love that!

MSL: So I don’t know if you want to keep them as your own humorous record, but these are a new level of accidental score.

UU: Maybe. Yeah, actually! I do. It’s funny, there’s all of these accidents that happen. If you look up here — [points at wall] I took a picture of this and put it on Instagram the other day — it says “familiar darknesses.” But the way the “r” and the “d” meet, it looks like a half-“n” and “d,” right? And that’s actually how Hindi (the devanagari script) works. Hindi has a lot of half-alphabets. Like it just clicked for me, this is kind of partly where it’s coming from for me, without really recognizing it. My software doesn’t allow me to do Hindi the way that I would, but a lot of times in Hindi if there’s a word that has a half-sound, like a softer “n” sound or softer “t” sound, literally you write half the letter. It’s so weird and beautiful. And the “r” and “d” so close to each other on the wall look like half of that. So I’m really excited about your accidental score here because I keep finding these crazy beautiful things that I’m geeking out on. Accidental, fun things. So thank you.

MSL: Yeah. [laughs] Hopefully it feels interesting and not disrespectful of your work.

UU: No, it’s not disrespectful at all. It’s very interesting.

Image: Installation view (detail) of “nevernotmusic” exhibition. Photo by Nathan Smith.

MSL: Right before we sat down, you were starting to say a little about how you work and the periods of gestation and intensely detailed production and that sort of thing. And I guess I’m interested to hear — particularly using this show as an example — how you build your work, and who builds your work, and how it becomes this thing.

UU: Yeah! This is a great example because I think I always have thought of it as “the work builds itself,” in a way that’s both freeing and exhausting, you know?

I originally started out making scores because I was trying to give my body a break from the exhaustion of performance, especially when it’s performance in the context of my brown, female, queer, foreign body. And the scores ended up being both — at the beginning — tongue-in-cheek play on fact/fiction but also ways to see my body more than you would ever. So the score that I’m talking about, that started it out, is called “An Inventory: Remnants from a constellation of lived performances,” and it’s basically a lyrical-medical biography where it’s telling you all of these things not just about the insides of my body but both my parents’ bodies — I’m an only child. It starts out with this feeling of disinheritance and with how my mom and I felt when my dad had a heart attack — but all of these things that you won’t see if you see his body. Like you don’t know what’s going on. Similarly, I think, more importantly, it was about my body and what I get from them. Like, I have male-pattern baldness. I’m not male. I have this really weird thing that is inside of my eye that happens to 18-year-old boys that happened to me when I was 16 and is something that will eventually go away but is something I have to go to the doctor for all of the time. And in those moments I felt like race was coming in but in a more complicated way than if my body was just present and you were just seeing the outside of it. And then I also felt like I could, by recreating my body more intimately, add nuances to what-you-see-when-you-see-me versus who-I-actually-am kind of feelings that I was really struggling with early on in my Chicago life.

Image: Udita Upadhyaya, “An Inventory: Remnants from a constellation of lived performances,” printed canvas, 2016. Installed at Sullivan Galleries. The following instructions accompany the installation of the work: “The Artist invites 3 audience members to activate the work. The three performers stand in front of one panel each. They respond to the work by reading out loud. They may move if they so desire. The performers are not restricted to responding to the panel they place themselves in front of. The three must perform simultaneously, they may interact with each other. The activation ends after each of the 3 performers has finished responding. In case less than 3 performers volunteer the performance cannot occur. If more than 3 volunteer, multiple rounds of activation are welcome, but each activation must include 3 performers.” A version of the work has published for the Present Tense Pamphlets, in conjunction with the exhibition, “A Feast of Astonishments: Charlotte Moorman and the Avant-Garde, 1960s-1980s,” organized by the Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, in partnership with the Northwestern University Libraries (January 16-July 16, 2017). Image courtesy of the artist.

I found other ways to deal with that too, which is why I continued to perform. Part of working with Lindsey — my frequent collaborator, and dear friend, Lindsey Barlag Thornton — is that her work allows me to make the work that I would make if I could just be a person. [laughs] You know, and be more than an “exotic” foreign body. And I am a brown person! There’s no denying that. But I’m also a brown person with extreme privilege, and I’m not interested in hiding that privilege. I’m interested in talking about that privilege. I’m kind of annoyed by the moments where I have to push back and be like, “I have a lot of privilege. I’m from a country that’s very messed up in terms of caste, in terms of class, in terms of all of these things. My narrative is not as simple as you’re trying to make it be when I’m working with a sari in front of you.” Like, me working with a sari is very different than the person who actually wove the sari with their hands. And so the scores were trying to bring some complexity while also trying to give myself a break from being in front of an audience and being seen this way where I felt like I was losing agency. That’s a thing I think about a lot when making performance work. I need to navigate agency and how much of it I’m willing to give up and how much — that play.

Image: Udita Upadhyaya performing in “We Are A Light House” (a new live performance, 2017) at Links Hall. “We Are A Light House” was directed by Lindsey Barlag Thornton and assistant-directed by Udita Upadhyaya. The artist is kneeling on the floor of a stage, eating a cake that is balanced on a lampshade. The artist’s left arm is in a sling. Image courtesy of the artist.

So I applied to Roman Susan to do the same kind of score as “An Inventory,” but I was really excited by what happens when someone’s reading a score that is my body but their body is like a white, male, six-feet-tall, lanky body — this is a specific friend who performed here. So I wrote to them — to Nathan Smith and Kristin Abhalter Smith, who run Roman Susan — being like, “I’m going to write a score and then these four or five people are going to respond to it.” And then by the time the show started to happen, both personally and politically a lot had come to pass. There was too much shock and despair and it had been a really long year since November 2016. It feels really long. [both laugh] So I feel like I started to make work that was trying to give moments of goodness within the complexities of what it means to be in the world that we’re in. I think of it as goodness, but not glossing over the realities. It’s very much goodness despite. There’s something of grounding. So, with the scores, I was less interested in my body or my personal being at the center of it. I was more interested in gifting, and gratitude, and generosity. And then we scheduled it for the winter, so that became another layer of “oh my God, we’re going to need each other, we’re going to need hugs, we’re going to need touch, we’re going to need sun!”

MSL: Heat in the space!

Image: Installation view of “nevernotmusic” exhibition. Photo by Nathan Smith.

UU: Heat in the space! Yeah. And then over the period of the months that I was thinking of the project, the original four people, who were all still in it, became 12. Which, of course, is the part of my process that I wish I had more control over because I was like, “This is getting really big, this is getting really big, this is getting really big….” And I was really excited about all of the 12 groups, made up of 17 artists, but I did have to have a moment where I was like “12 is a good number, stop. Stop.” Making that call. And I thought that they would be scores that are very simple and fluxus — like “do this, do this, do this.” I’ve worked in that format before and it’s been really fun. But because the 12 groups that I was working with I was so excited about — and we did so many meetings together and we had conversations about “What are you thinking and feeling? What do you need right now? What’s going on?” — the scores ended up being really elaborate love letters for each person, you know? And that’s also where I feel like the work took over.

I think the first score that was finished was Corey [Smith]’s score. In a way it was the easiest because he was super busy and we hadn’t really been able to spend time together much. I just know him really well — he had just finished a big show and I knew what was going on in his life — so I was coming at it from a knowledge that was more…open? And specific. But still, at the same time, not “of” the time in the way that, for example, the second score that will be performed today. This one is very specific in what this person’s going through right now. So it was actually harder to write! So it was this weird mix of, basically, my relationships with each of these people or groups of people and varying levels of difficulty, sort of trying to do the emotional labor for each friend.

Image: Udita Upadhyaya (back left) and Falak Vasa (back right) laugh during Falak’s performance in response to the score, “Dear फलक : hum (हम).” Photo by Esther Espino.

And the one score that I’m looking for right now [sifts through the physical scores] — that was actually really lovely, the performance was really beautiful…this one — this was the one where I found that these were also love letters. Because this is for Falak [Vasa], who is ten years younger than me — we’ve collaborated a bunch — also from India, queer, non-binary, young human is how I think of them. And they were having a really hard time. And I was writing a score for them and all I wanted to do was say, “You’re beautiful and I love you!” And I was like, “How do I say that in a score? What are they going to do with it? And that’s not what they’re thinking of, that’s just what I want to say to them.” There’s literally like, [pointing to score] “You are…” Okay, it doesn’t say “beautiful.” [Marya laughs] But “You are permission and precision.” “You are a dhun unraveling.” Which is like a song, a dhun (in Hindi) is like a tune…unraveling. So it became a lot of “You’re going to be okay. I see you. I love you.” Things that — in some scores, specifically, because of what those people were going through in their lives — ended up becoming very “I see you and I love you.”

Falak’s score is called हम or “hum” but in Hindi, which makes it super layered with meaning. Yes, to hum, in English, is well within the themes of “nevernotmusic” — finding music everywhere, finding the joy and vibration of music even without looking for it, even when you are running away from it. But “hum” in Hindi is “we” or “us.” I was trying to say, “You are not alone,” “I am in this with you.” “Hum” in Hindi is also how one would use gender non-binary pronouns, something that Falak and I were talking about, annoyed with how hard it is to hold non-conformity in conversation, given grammar in our mother tongues, Hindi and Gujarati…it was an additional layer or acknowledgement.

And then there was — I think in this score — there was “Dear Ethan, you are a young old tree truth glorious sprawling…” and it rambles on with goodness. You know, all of these things that were moments of tenderness that are not score-like and not instructional at all, they’re just gifts. And then I really started enjoying it. Yeah. It was just fun.

Image: Photo of “Boundary Line (For Falak).” One of 13 scores written by Lindsey Barlag Thornton and Udita Upadhyaya as part of “In Flux” (collection of scores, 2017). Three of the 13 scores, including this version of “Boundary Line (For Falak)” — in addition to other scores by Udita Upadhyaya — are also in “Propositional Attitudes: What do we do now?” (edited by John Burtle and Elana Mann, Golden Spike Press, 2018), an anthology of recent performance scores, directions and instructions. Excerpt reproduced with permission of the editors. Photo by Caleb Neubauer.

MSL: Thank you. That’s really lovely. And about the process of these: So there are 12 physical scores, that are for individual people or performance groups or performance pairs?

UU: Yeah.

MSL: And there is the work installed on the walls all around us. I have a couple of questions and I guess I’ll say them together…because I don’t know the answer! What is the relationship between these individual pieces — or “love letters” — and the work around us? Are each of the things represented on these scores represented there on the walls, or are they completely different? I’m thinking about how the space that we’re in is very public — there’s a huge window, people can see in, they can see a lot of the show. These scores do become performances but on their own they seem more private. Were you working on these individual pieces and the room-based piece concurrently? Is all of it together one piece? I guess, what are those interrelationships like — logistically, conceptually, private-public?

UU: That’s a great question. And I think part of the reason I was excited about this space was this window! And the reason I was excited was because the scores I was writing before, at that time, were what it means to be walking down the street and to be “publicly owned” — like the public ownership of female bodies. So I was and am really interested in the public-private, but with these scores they also became so intimate, which is why we’re making it a book, right? Also because they became bigger than I set out for them to be. I was like, “These can’t just be something that’s in people’s inboxes. This needs to be a whole thing!” [both laugh]

Image: Udita Upadhyaya, “Repair Score(s),” 2016. One of a series of three scores written about the public ownership of female bodies, the work was shown at Indian Languages Festival, ILF Samanvay, New Delhi, 2016. Image courtesy of the artist.

Originally one of my thoughts was to write a score for the space as a separate, thirteenth score. There are multiple reasons why that didn’t happen, and I think it’s an example of how when I try to dictate my process, I’m often wrong, rather than when I let the process dictate itself. I can get very mathematical and be like, “So, the space and the windows is a separate score in and of itself.” And then I printed all of these scores out and was like, “I have it. Now I just need to collect what I want to reveal to people who are not necessarily the ones that are being gifted the thing.” The words on the wall are still gifts. I talk about every phrase being a gift — to the self, to the other, to collaborators, to an accidental audience. So I went in and made new documents for printing on vinyl that were sections of these scores. So this [pointing to a paper score] is a shape that you see on the wall right there. This is “shake, quiver, never conquer” [points to paper], “never concur” is right here [points to wall]. They were basically a selection of what I wanted up here, even design elements. I feel like I had to recreate it. But like, the “become become become” [points to page and wall] — because it was interacting with other things it became, like, sitting also right in front of a “beginning,” which is also “be-”. So I was doing what I do on Illustrator,  now on the walls here.

Image: Regin Igloria performs in response to the score “Dear Regin: SOAK (in silence).” Photo by Esther Espino.

MSL: Was your process for that that every single individual score must be represented somewhere in here? And is what’s on the walls only from the scores? Or were there additional layers that you added?

UU: There are no new words that are on the walls here that are not in one of these scores. But I think it’s just because what we’re seeing around us is like one-twelfth, or one-eighteenth, of what’s actually in the scores. So the walls are one-eighteenth, maybe, of what actually exists. All of the scores are in there. I mean, there were things that I loved in all of them, so I did make sure that I took things from everything.

The process to write the scores was actually really interesting, to recognize that my brain separates text and image, but it also separates Hindi and English in this way that I didn’t really recognize it does. Like with this one [picks up a score], I wrote the entire text first and then arranged the text as visual and then was like, “Oh my god, I don’t have any Hindi in this, and what’s the Hindi that I want to give Ethan [T. Parcell]?” And I knew what it was going to be so then I found it and made it a visual. So this is the English word and the Hindi of that English word is layered on top of it. Nobody can actually read that. I’m actually surprised I remember what it is, to be quite honest. But that one is a Hindi word, that’s also played with. That’s the word, but I’ve multiplied the ti-ti-ti-ti-ti r-r-r-r-r. So it’s ti-ti-ti-ti-ti r-r-r-r-r. So I’m treating the Hindi in the same way but my brain was separating everything in these three sections — English, Hindi, and image. And in this case [holds up a different score], the image came first and then the text came, and the text was really struggling to show up. So the processes for each score were all different but all of them had these three different chapters that came with their own order that they wanted to.

Image: Jasmine Jordan performs in response to the score “Dear Jasmine: (Demand) Light.” Photo by Esther Espino.

MSL: And, to back up even further, did you mention that you met with each of these performers before or as you made their scores? Did you interview them? Is it just from knowing them already that you were like, “I think they would have fun with this,” “I think this would be meaningful to them.” What was the process of figuring out the content that then becomes the score?

UU: There are a couple of performers that I didn’t know super well. Others are my closest friends. For example, since Tannaz [Motevalli] is here, I’ve known Tannaz’s practice since, like, the minute I came to Chicago. But still, Tannaz and I met a bunch of times and spoke a bunch of times, really getting at the question of “Where are you right now?” I didn’t want it to be prescriptive, even though it is instructional in some ways — like there is literally the instruction of “Cradle (youmeusthem).” But I didn’t want it to be like, “You made this work three years ago and that’s what I remember of you.” I think there were moments of that, but it was very much like, “You’re thinking about this right now, and this is something that we feel would be incredible in the space.” So I met most people in this space and then tackled, “in this space, this is the kind of work that you would want to activate, in this moment.”

Tannaz has two chapters of performance — the second Sunday and the fourth Sunday, today — so it was like, “You will have two chapters: Do you want to do two separate things or do you want to repeat the same thing a week later? Or two weeks later?” So it was specific to everyone, based on where they were at. Like Lindsey, for example — and this I know more from friendship with her — but she was just like, “I don’t know, I haven’t performed on my own in so long, I don’t know if I can do it,” and I was like, “Of course you can do it. Wait. I know when you’re going to do it!” [Marya laughs] So that ended up being more of a restriction [for Lindsey], right? Versus, for a lot of people there was no restriction. It was more like, “I know you’re thinking a lot about….”

Image: Tannaz Motevalli performs in response to the score “Dear Tannaz: Cradle (youmeusthem).” This is the first of two times Tannaz performed at Roman Susan as part of “nevernotmusic.” Photo by Nathan Smith.

[picks up score] This is the group — Connie Noyes and Beth Bradfish — that I knew the least. And Connie had mentioned that she thinks the moment of birth and death are really similar. She had had three people die in the span of a couple of months — including her husband and her dad — a few years ago. I was really fascinated by her intimacy with this thing I think about a lot and I wanted to just give her a score to basically address that in whatever way she saw fit. And it ended up becoming a lot about our conversation. Like I’m really amused that in this score it says, “laugh at me for my lack of (in)sight.” You know, because there’s an intimacy that she has with the material of death that I don’t. So, this ended up being more of a recapping of a conversation. So the scores are pretty different in that way.

Image: Tannaz Motevalli performs in response to the score “Dear Tannaz: Cradle (youmeusthem).” This is the second of two times Tannaz performed at Roman Susan as part of “nevernotmusic.” Photo by Esther Espino.

MSL: And can I ask — and I hope this doesn’t sound like a really impertinent question — but…. So, these are super personal scores, from personal conversations that become manifested in this form. And you see clips of them around the gallery but can’t necessarily look and say, “Oh, ‘a tender beginning,’ I know who that is, I know what that’s about.” And then, of course, when the performers are coming into the space and sharing themselves here, whoever’s present becomes part of that too, you know, becomes sort of the beneficiary of that intimacy and those stories in a way. I guess I’m wondering what you’re thinking about what happens when it becomes a book.

Like, when reading the scores myself, I didn’t feel like I was reading someone’s diary, necessarily, or intercepting somebody’s mail, because you shared these with me. But then also, in reading them, I felt like I was stepping into somebody else’s intimate relationship — and some of these are people that I know a little bit, but many of them I don’t, or don’t think I do. The amount of trust that people needed to have in each other in this process is really incredible and really evident, particularly in the individual scores. But it also makes me ask questions about this translation to, say, a book form, or even this interview — or to something that isn’t just the people in this space at a given time but is instead something that someone could happen upon in a bookstore or whatever you’re imagining. But, yeah, what happens to it then? As I said, I still get so much out of seeing any of these scores, maybe the same way some people love reading historical letters [laughs]. But then there’s always that really private layer to it as well.

I don’t know. I know I just said a lot, but those are some of the kinds of things that are coming to mind as I’m hearing you talk about that process and thinking about what’s happening with this work next.

Image: Connie Noyes and Beth Bradfish perform in response to the score “Dear Connie and Beth: Breathe (Fire).” Photo by Nathan Smith.

UU: Well, it’s funny. I work a lot with secrets and shame. I’ve actually been thinking about it a lot this weekend, in a way that I haven’t for a long time. And the secrets here are super worked, or maybe I mean coded. But also, everything has permission. Like Connie is very open about talking about these deaths — her practice right now is about these three moments of loss, you know? Nothing in here is something that is going to bring vulnerability that doesn’t also come with an inward shield. So I hope they are generous. I am working hard to keep them generous and not exploiting personal stories. Which I completely have done in art and all of us do anyway — simply by telling and retelling stories, but here I am taking more care, I am working to make the scores completely generous.

And to share them is the same feeling of, like, I want you to be able to insert yourself in Ethan’s place. I would never have written these words to anyone but Ethan, but that doesn’t mean they don’t also bring meaning to people that are not him. And I think if you are me or the person the score is written for, you might have a different moment with it. If Tannaz is reading Tannaz’s score and there’s a phrase in there that looks quote-unquote benign to somebody else, because of what we’ve talked about it might be like, “Oh, this is a moment of a different kind of understanding.” Like we talked about breath in a way that is not necessarily present in the word “breath” for somebody else. And I think it’s the same thing. Where they are coded, I guess, in a way.

Image: Installation view (detail) of “nevernotmusic” exhibition. Photo by Nathan Smith.

MSL: Yeah, and I didn’t mean it as a suggestion of violation of trust or anything, but it’s just that I have the feeling when reading them that if I hadn’t been invited to look at them, I would feel like I was violating trust.

UU: Yeah, and I think that is definitely something that’s interesting. I think it’s going to be present in the book form too. We’re thinking about a small edition. We don’t know exactly what number. But it’s not like you’re going to walk into whatever the version of Barnes and Noble that still exists is [both laugh] and find this book.

But at the same time I think these are things that I want people to spend time with. For me, one of the best moments was that I have a friend who knows multiple languages and is all kinds of brilliant and he was helping put up the show and he read “a tender” as “atender,” assuming it was in a different language. You know, when David is misreading the work, that’s when I’m like, “Oh, this is about literacy. This is about power” — now I’m just reading words off the wall — but this is also about power and who has the ability to never be confused with letters versus who doesn’t and how much we take that for granted. Like David or me, for example, have never struggled with being able to read and comprehend in quite the way that a lot of people do. And I think by being in this room both of us were like, “Whoa, everything feels like it is jumping off the walls, everything is confusing.” Like, I made the scores and still in the room I’d go back and be like, “I’m misreading everything now. I’m misreading the emails that are being sent to me.” And it sort of did become about access and body in a way that also caught me off-guard.

Image: Udita Upadhyaya, “The Room of My Mouth,” 2018. Installation view; ink and graphite on paper.  Part of “The Tip of The Tongue” at Weinberg/Newton Gallery, an exhibition organized in partnership with the Chicago Literacy Alliance. Image courtesy of the gallery.

MSL: And I wouldn’t necessarily say that, in reading the scores or in looking at the walls, that the way the words are presented is quote-unquote “equalizing” or anything. But as somebody who also hasn’t traditionally had difficulty reading, in English at least, it’s seeing words either stretched out (so there’s a suspension of meaning and I’m trying to fill in the gap in my mind while also trying to find the next letter) or seeing everything so collapsed (so I have to consciously look for the word-breaks) that does make me have to pay attention to reading in a way that I don’t normally have to. I imagine it might have a similar effect on other people who also haven’t traditionally had difficulty piecing letters together to identify a word or orienting themselves in a text.

So I know the performances are going to start soon, and we’ll talk more again another time, but because we’re still in the space and because you were talking about what happens with these pieces after they leave your hands, I guess I’m wondering — if you feel comfortable talking about it with performers present — what has happened with the scores so far in the space, what delighted you, what surprised you, what did you learn? What has happened with these?

Image: Nora Sharp performs in response to the score “Dear Aron: (Destroy) Armor,” under the CTA tracks in the alley next to Roman Susan. Photo by Esther Espino.

UU: Well, [looks outside] this is one of my favorite things about the space, that people will just stop as they’re passing and stare in…

MSL: [laughs] Yeah, it’s happened multiple times while we’ve been talking.

UU: Yeah, it’s a lot! Part of the show was created with that in mind. It’s been really interesting. “It’s yours now,” in a weird way. Earlier we were talking about gestation. I had the baby and had given it to someone else and I trust them. And I’m not going to interact with how they raise it or whatever. And this is kind of tangential but a lot of people — maybe, I think, all three humans in this room that are not you and me — are interested in continuing with the score. I think I can imagine Tannaz working with what she made for this piece for a long time to come. And some people have told me that. “Is it okay if I keep working with the score after the show?” And I’m like, “Yeah, it’s yours. You can come back to it.” Like Ethan has actually laminated his score. [laughs] He’s lovely. He’s also the reason the show’s called “nevernotmusic” in many ways. So this is something that in many ways is really a gift.

And in the same way there have been moments where people have not necessarily received the score at all, right? It’s been like, “What is this? I don’t get it. I was just going to show up and do what I do.” That’s been a little bit trickier, but that’s okay too. And I think that is sort of what happens when growing from four to 12 performers. It’s something I’m still negotiating with and maybe I’ll have more answers for you the next time we talk. But Corey Smith, for example, literally was sitting where we’re sitting and, like, performed his response to the score as about our relationship. He was like, “My score from Udita is ‘Unfold (into you)’” and then went on to come up with all of these things that I didn’t even realize he thought of when he thought of our relationship as friends and frequent collaborators. It was a beautiful recap of what he felt on receiving the score from me, and also mirrored what I had felt writing to him. That was a literal following of the score. Now, he’s a musician and a composer, he works with scores. That was that relationship. But there were also moments with other performers where it was like, “I don’t know, I don’t know what a score is, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, it’s intimidating.” So it’s been a tricky balance of that.

Image: Gallery guests participate during a performance by Kevin Sparrow and Will Quam, in response to one of Udita’s performance scores, “Dear Kevin and Will: Witness (youmeusthem).” Photo by Esther Espino.

One really funny story that I will tell you is that in this score — for Will [Quam] and Kevin [Sparrow], “Witness (youmeusthem)”; we had this performed last week — there’s a sentence that says…wait, let me find it [both laugh]. Well, there’s a sentence somewhere here that says, “Leave before you’re ready.” There it is. “Dear Kevin Dear Will”…“leave before you’re ready.” And as part of their performance, they did sort of a walk-around, and their last instruction to the people walking was, “Leave before you’re ready.” So that sentence became literally something that everyone — and it was very well attended last week — repeated, “I have to leave before I’m ready! I have to leave before I’m ready!” I was like, “I knew that sentence would bite me in the butt someday and there it is right now.” And ironically, we were supposed to end at four and it was like 4:45 and everyone was “leaving before they were ready” at that point. So yeah, people are using the score even literally in moments like that.

Image: Installation view (detail) of “nevernotmusic” exhibition, showing a shadow on the inside floor from the window vinyl. Photo by Nathan Smith.

MSL: Last quick question because it seems like things are starting to happen. Why Sunday afternoons?

UU: [performatively gasps] That’s a good question…. Because of the winter, I think. It needs to be daytime. The sunlight here is beautiful. Like through the course of the time that we’re here today you’ll see beautiful shadows that happen –

MSL: It puts the score on the floor.

UU: Yeah, it puts the score on the floor. We were documenting the other day and “music” was reflected on “gratitude.” We got that image and it was just like [whispers] “What…is…happening…?” [both laugh] So I think it was more that I didn’t want it to be a nighttime thing. I think Nora Sharp is going to perform outside today, these clowns [SUCROSE] are always performing outside and getting everyone else to be frozen with them. [SUCROSE laughs and agrees] Yeah, I think it was just daytime, sun, winter. Like, when Nathan and Kristin and I met we were like, “We should do it in the winter, right? It can become about the winter.”

Image: SUCROSE performs in response to the score “Dear SUCROSE: YOU (and you and you or you or you),” on the sidewalk in front of Roman Susan. This is the first of two times SUCROSE performed as part of “nevernotmusic.” Photo by Esther Espino.

MSL: Yeah, I was wondering how much it had to do with the light, and how much it had to do with a super-consistent schedule of what’s happening, rather than being like, “And this is happening on a Thursday and this is happening on a Wednesday…” and how much that has to do with ritual in the space. But also, going to an opening on a Friday night or something, it feels like everybody’s at a stop on the way to another stop. There’s something about a Sunday afternoon, which is like, if you’re coming out and going to it, it’s because you’re coming out and going to it. You know? Because you’re going to spend time there.

UU: Yeah, yeah. I do like the word ritual because it was for consistency. Initially, because I’m me, I thought, “We’ll have 6-8 events,” and then I was like, “Four’s a lot.” Because I literally at one point was like, “I will have to go to them!” [laughs] And I want to hide on the weekend too. I mean, it sometimes feels like we’re asking a lot to be here for two hours, but people have stayed and then they’ve stayed after and then they’ve come back the next week because the space is so intimate and what we’re working with is super intimate. Like, last week, there were people crying because of how Falak’s performance was and falling in love with Falak because of their performance. It was just really lovely. It kind of also feels like the “family” day or the day for community. We always have chocolate! We’ve had self-care chocolate — literally we’ve been calling it that — and have been going around with it every Sunday. It’s been cute.

MSL: Awesome. Thank you! I guess, to be continued.

UU: [whispers] To be continued…

Featured image: The photograph shows the artist at center, standing in front of one of the gallery’s internal, white walls, with performers and guests sitting or standing on either side of her. Black vinyl letters are installed directly onto the walls, in the form of words and phrases in English and Hindi. Text appears in different sizes and spatial orientations (e.g., right-side up, upside-down, diagonal, vertical, and organic shapes), with some words/phrases expanded in space, condensed, or intersecting with other text. English words/phrases shown in this image include “a tender beginning,” “offer,” and “of this winter.” A gestural drawing — also made of black vinyl — is shown on the left-hand side of the image. Photo by Esther Espino.

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.

Before Jeff Yang takes the stage, someone behind me says to a friend, “What you’re about to experience is like nothing else … it’s remarkable.” I don’t really know what I’m about to expect. I came to the event alone, my partner had to work, and I have an irrational fear of interactive events. I’m going into the night without many expectations. I received an email about a week or so in advance inviting me to In The Realm of Senses: Pictures at an Exhibition Fundraiser, and of course, I read the pamphlet — food, drinks, sense, scent, taste, music, sound — but I wasn’t sure how it would be exhibited, how the audience would be involved, and how I would react. All of the senses are familiar as simple words but existing together, and depending on one another, was something I had not experienced. I was nervous.

Behind Yang hangs the work of Maja Bosen, an installation artist, whose pieces hang delicately from the ceiling on the back and left hand side of the stage. Yang explains the beginnings of In The Realm of Senses to the audience before inviting painter Melanie Brown and composer Ryan Ingebritsen on to the stage. Ingebritsen has placed a contact mic on to Brown’s canvas where she begins to live paint. With each brush stroke, the sound and echo is amplified. Ingebritsen then manipulates the sound of Brown’s movements, he watches her movements and responds. The painting is made in real time, featuring browns and dark blues, deep reds — Brown begins to paint with her finger. Eventually, Jeff Yang steps in. Improvising, Yang plays the violin, quiet at first as he steps into the choreography of Brown’s painterly motions.

Video: Melanie Brown, Dec 9th Amplified Canvas, 2017.  This video depicts the artist painting with a contact mic. Video courtesy of Melanie Brown.

Yang, who is Chinese and lived in Taiwan for eight years, moved to the US and became a citizen at 16. He studied music and industrial engineering and is a former member of the band Mannheim Steamroller.  Yang is a current member of the Chicago Philharmonic and Access Contemporary Music and has appeared on the PBS Soundstage. Moreover, he has his own violin shop, Chicago Strings.

In between performances, we were delivered food. Yes, eatable, digestible, food. And drinks. Cocktails from Arun’s Thai, beer by Maplewood and Temperance breweries were served in a common area outside of the theatre. During the performance, there was a silent auction where works by Melanie Brown, John Gaudette, Pia Cruzalegui, Maya Bosen, Galina Shevchenko, recordings by Eighth Blackbird, and scents by Christophe Laudamiel were available for bids.

Image: Two illustrations are presented in frames on aisles at the auction at the fundraiser. They are in black and white. Photo by S. Nicole Lane.

For “Pictures at an Exhibition,” a performance by Yang and pianist Yana Reznik, lithographs by John Gaudette were projected onto a screen behind the performers. During this performance, the audience bit into a pork dumpling, spring S0-men (created by Arun’s Thai), and slurped rice noodles with a fresh garden salad. The noises and crunches (especially during the Puri Pop created by Mango Pickle) added to the atmosphere where Yang played the violin, cello, and baroque recorders. Throughout the performance, food was served to us. By this time, I had moved to the front row seat to get a better few. I wanted to be fully immersed. Biting into a “klepon” (an Indonesian rice ball with coconut shavings created by Rickshaw Republic) was probably my most pleasing experience as there was a surprise in the center, and the piece of sweetness was beautiful look at.

“Some chefs were very exact in what they decided to create. Sometimes without regard to the specific movements, but others wanted to make something for a specific movement,” says Yang. “Others wanted to just pair what they have made already without any thought of the music, then I had to take their ideas and see what will fit with the music. Each chef required a different way to realize the final pairing that made sense, some made new things on their own, some I pushed them to make something different, others just made something they thought fit the music itself.”

Yang had to instruct the audience a bit, as we weren’t sure when to eat and when not to. But this is natural when you have a crowd full of hungry participants who haven’t been exposed to such an event before. There were laughs when certain foods made certain noises and when Yang instructed us to wait before eating — sitting like children waiting for the “go ahead” in the musical composition.

Image: In the center of the photo is a plate full of green, brown, orange and white food. It is presented in a black container. In the top left, is a plastic cup full of a cocktail. Photo by S. Nicole Lane.

Yang tells me that the “food and music pairing started with the chefs listening to the orchestral version of the Mussorgky’s ‘Pictures At An Exhibition’ and getting feedback on what movements of the piece they were drawn to and what kind of feeling they had towards what they wanted to cook.”

During “Baba Yaga,” an upbeat piece, the audience was given a dark chocolate truffle with Kashmiri chili and Saigon cinnamon (created by Chocolat Uzma). Need I say more? I was sold on Yang’s project, as Yang and Reznik charmastically and emotionally closed the evening with “The Great Gate of Kiev.” A standing ovation followed as we wandered out into the common area once again, picking up leftovers and culminating over the interactive experience.

Image: A black table with five silent auction papers sits in front of four perfume bottles with different scents and labels. Photo by S. Nicole Lane.

Yang is still looking for a space to hold the event. He’s searching for a space that is between 4,000-6,000 square feet so that patrons are able to experience certain senses in isolated areas.

To the patron behind me foreshadowing the event to their friend, you’re right, this was nothing like I had ever experienced. I even struggle with explaining it in words for this piece. I wanted it to be larger, I wanted it to reach more people, I had wanted to bite into the food one more time. Yang’s project reaches, quite literally, all of the senses and although it’s still a work in progress, its thrilling presentation is lasting.

In the Realm of Senses: Pictures at an Exhibition Fundraiser took place June 16th at PianoForte in the South Loop. 

Featured Image: Photo by S. Nicole Lane. Two people are on a stage, one is playing the piano, and another is playing a stringed instrument. To the left of the stage is a brick wall and hanging artwork. Behind them is a visual projection. 

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 white fathers told us, I think therefore I am; and the black mothers in each of us-the poet- whispers in our dreams, I feel therefore I can be free” —Audre Lorde, from Poetry is Not a Luxury

I aim to write a series of poems centered on the real and imagined landscapes of Chicago. While poetry isn’t often thought of as news, poems, more than anything, describe the truth of the world around us. While truth can come out of diligent and factual reporting, it can also be revealed by a few honest words that intimately and imaginatively give language to the unseeable pain and joy present in Chicago. There is so much more to Chicago than the fact of it and its events, there are universes of feelings that come out of the landscape we live in that break the bounds of reality.

MY MOTHER SPEAKS TO CHICAGO SUMMERS

Next poem….

“Beyond the Page” digs into the process and practice of writers and artists who work at the intersection of literary arts and other fields. This interview is the second of three with interdisciplinary artist Udita Upadhyaya about “nevernotmusic” — a solo exhibition of scores activated by curated, collaborative performances — and her process of developing these scores into a book (read the first interview here). In late May, I met with Udita to discuss the book’s first mock-up, her aesthetic choices and decision-making process, and the role of intimacy, the body, and language in her work.

Follow @uditau on Twitter and Instagram and check out her book launch at TriTriangle on September 8, 2018, 7 pm. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Marya Spont-Lemus: So, you made a book!

Udita Upadhyaya: Yeah. This is not what it’s going to look like but this is the first mock-up with real pages of the scores and some of the color and stuff being decided.

MSL: Wow. Can I look through it?

UU: Yeah, and I might have some questions for you as well, as the first person other than me and Lauren Zallo from Match Books that’s seen it.

MSL: Absolutely. Well then I’d love to start by just talking through some of the details of this mock-up — decisions you’ve made so far, why these materials, what changes you’re considering making from this mock-up to the final book — and then get into some larger questions about your process and practice and how this “nevernotmusic” book relates to the exhibition and the performances. How does that sound?

UU: Sounds good.

Image: Installation view of Udita Upadhyaya’s “nevernotmusic” show — a solo exhibition of scores activated by curated, collaborative performances. Photo by Nathan Smith.

MSL: What are the scores printed on here, a vellum?

UU: Yeah. We were excited about it being vellum so that there would be more of the sort of floating in print feeling.

MSL: Yeah, I can see my hand through the score. [laughs] It’s also interesting because some of the lettering from the show was on the windows, right, not just the walls? Vellum’s like halfway between a white wall and a window? [both laugh]

UU: Initially the idea was to have the pages all be vellum, but then it’s complete chaos because you can’t read each score individually. So you read all the scores at the same time. I was like, “I think I have enough chaos in the scores themselves that I don’t want to overdo it.” And I do want the book to be more generous than the walls were. I want you to be able to read all of it. And come back to it and find [reading] “unveil the stories from the folds of your skin” — like I want you to come back to the book and find that phrase again a few months later. I think “misreading” is lower on the spectrum for this book than it was for the show because now you’re able to sit with it and really make it your own.

Image: Udita Upadhyaya, performance score used for promotion of Roman Susan show. Image courtesy of the artist.

MSL: Are these the exact scores from before?

UU: Yeah, the scores have not changed. Because this is just a mock-up, the cutting of the pages is a bit off right now. I am struggling a little with the specific size — that’s been my back and forth. I’d been pushing back to have a bigger book. And this is a really nonstandard size, and it feels a little weird in my hand. I kind of want it to be just a bit smaller.

MSL: So that each score would be more proportional to or fill the page, and not have these stripes of extra space at the top and bottom?

UU: Yeah. We did take out the date of the performance and the person it was gifted to. But now the date is gone, and the “Dear ___: ___” score title is on the opposing page and right now one of my struggles is what happens there and on the back of the page as well.

Image: Udita Upadhyaya, detail of “nevernotmusic” book mockups, showing part of a cover (right) and part of the score “Dear फलक : hum (हम).” Photo by Caleb Neubauer.

MSL: Is that because you feel like something should be there, or aesthetically you don’t like how it looks?

UU: I don’t like it aesthetically. One of the thoughts that we have is continuing the lines through the book — the visual motifs through it — because the score does privilege text. Like there’s something to decipher. Right now the scores are on vellum and the pages between each score are grey paper, and the cover is black. The grey to me feels like a blank page, versus a black page feels like a page that’s breaking the momentum. So one of the things we’re thinking is that we’ll switch the grey and the black, so the cover would be grey. And this text — like the “Dear Corey: Unfold (into you)” — will be in gold, and the stitching is going to be gold as well.

MSL: A saddle stitch? Is that what this is called?

UU: It is a saddle stitch, yeah.

MSL: Is this handmade?

UU: Yeah, they’re all going to be handmade.

MSL: Wow! But not by you. Or are you helping?

UU: By Lauren Zallo, but yes, I’m going to help.

Image: Corey Smith performs in response to the score “Dear Corey: Unfold (into you).” Photo by Nathan Smith.

MSL: That’s awesome. You know, about the page opposite each score, I do kind of like that they just have the title and are otherwise blank. I personally like not having a lot distracting me when I’m looking at the score, and feel it’s clear as-is where attention should go. Like where it says “Dear Ethan: (teach) love” — it’s both readable and kind of intimate. And even just the title’s placement on that page — in a bottom corner rather than top corner, which is where I’m more accustomed to looking for a title — reflects that. You have to look for the information a bit but it’s not hard to find. It’s close to the score but not too close.

UU: You know, I’m going to take notes as we’re talking because I need to be spending time with these decisions.

MSL: [laughs] I mean, adding other elements could work too. I guess I’m mostly trying to say that to me the title placement feels clear but also maintains intimacy and is a little bit … not hard to find but also not that far out of form. When I first saw it alone on the page, I thought it was a nice touch. It wasn’t until you said you didn’t like it that I considered it not working or needing something different.

UU: I mean, I think that was what the plan was. I think this is a bit of a tricky park of the process for me to do because I know the scores so well that I know what this is [points to score], but now this other page feels empty, so I look at that and think, “Why is this empty?” I’m almost looking at it spatially, as opposed to experientially. But if somebody hasn’t seen the scores before they’re going to be like, “Wait, what the hell is going on?” and they might need the room to breathe. Whereas I’m just like, “That’s completely comprehensible to me in one look.” I look at that and know, “That’s Ethan’s score.” You know?

Image: Installation view (detail) of “nevernotmusic” exhibition, showing a shadow on the inside floor from the window vinyl. Photo by Nathan Smith.

MSL: Yeah, even just in flipping through these first few pages together, I think I assumed that you were trying to give each score its space. So the choice rang true to me.

UU: Yeah. I think that’s where it helps to hear from other people who both know the scores and don’t know them so well. Like, as crafted as they are, there are unintentional beautiful things that have also happened in the scores. Even back in February I wanted to keep looking at them, and I would keep being like, “Oh, that’s cool,” when I would notice different aspects of them. I was still finding my subconscious creative decisions or accidents within the scores. Alternately, now some months later, I just know them so well. I’ve spent so much time with them. [laughs] And also, it helps to hear from people in an attempt to make the book be its own thing. That’s been one of the biggest things in this process. How do I succeed in making the book not just be a memoir of the show?

Image: Udita Upadhyaya at “nevernotmusic” exhibition. Photo by Esther Espino.

MSL: So, to that idea of the book being its own thing: Do you see the book as its own artwork? Do you see it as another project related to a practice that continues a particular idea or inquiry? How are you conceiving of it?

UU: I’ve been meaning to work in a book format for a very long time now, and for some reason it just has not happened yet. As for the 12 scores, I think of them as a collection of artworks — it is a collection of scores. And we’re trying to give the book an envelope cover, so that it opens to the centerfold where it’s going to say “‘nevernotmusic’ is….” This is going to be the only page that kind of explains what’s up with the project.

MSL: So it isn’t until you get to the middle of the book that it will say, “This is what you’ve been looking at!” That’s nice.

UU: Yeah. We have to figure out paperwise — I’m really attached to the gold, so that’s changing some of our size options — but we might find a way to gently nudge you to open to that page first.

MSL: Nudge you because it’s gold?

UU: No, because the book would eventually have a flap in the cover, that folds into the middle page. I really like the idea of the book, when you pick it up, being this sort of gift, like you’re opening up a parcel of some kind. I don’t know yet if that’s going to work but that’s what I’m thinking.

Image: Udita Upadhyaya, detail of “nevernotmusic” book mock-ups, showing parts of two possible covers. Photo by Caleb Neubauer.

MSL: And do you think without that packaging kind of element that the book wouldn’t feel like a gift? Or is it that you really want to make sure that idea comes across? It’s funny that you say you want it to feel like an envelope, because the motif on the front cover already almost looks like one to me, like the triangular part of an envelope.

UU: Oh, I love that! But it’s going to change. [both laugh] Because it’s actually an image taken from Regin [Igloria]’s score. I mean, this is the funny thing about communicating over email about a design. Because I basically was like, “I want this image on the cover.” And I assumed it would be this image on the front cover — except it’s this image spread across the entire book jacket. [laughs] So, I mean, that’s a completely different thing. And it’s not how I imagined the cover. Those three triangles were the first accident that I feel set these scores into motion anyway. It was the first image I made on Illustrator, back at the beginning of the year!

MSL: So to have the image divided by the binding in a way that feels like a design element just doesn’t feel true to the project’s origins.

UU: Yeah. I mean, I know what it is because I recognize it, but yeah. Right now, I think I want the back cover to be empty, except for the beautiful little Match Books’ logo. I want that just to sit there on its own.

Image: Regin Igloria performs in response to the score “Dear Regin: SOAK (in silence).” Photo by Esther Espino.

MSL: As long as we’re talking about the form of the book: So, there’s a cardstock sort of paper that alternates with the vellum. And, to my hand, the weight of the cardstock feels greater than the weight of the vellum. That’s interesting in a book that is ostensibly about the scores — or is it about the space between the scores? I guess I’m interested in what is given literal weight in the book and why.

UU: Ooh, I love that. Yeah. We went back and forth so much on what the book form would be, because I think it’s one of those things where, again, the scores are so complicated that you either want to go one way and simplify or to complicate the book as much as the scores are. And then we tried a few things with that and were just like “This is chaos!” And then it meant paring down.

I do like the vellum — the weightlessness of the vellum. I think it’s something almost about the weight of the other paper that makes me feel like it’s too empty right now. And I guess something I’m thinking about is the feeling of grounding. I mean, I like what you said about wall and window, because it does feel like these alternating pages provide the structure that is letting the scores breathe. Literally. Without the — I don’t think it’s cardstock, but the cardstock-feeling thing — the scores wouldn’t be enjoyable or as enjoyable.

Image: Udita Upadhyaya, detail of “nevernotmusic” book mock-ups, showing part of a cover (right) and part of the score “Dear फलक : hum (हम).” Photo by Caleb Neubauer.

MSL: I do I think there’s something nice about the unevenness. Just the varied physical and visual experience, from page to page.

UU: Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. If you see, I did bring these samples as well. All writing that is not the score is going to be in gold, which would add to that effect. At one point we were going to make it an accordion book and, at the back, there would be a thin gold line just running through it. [laughs] I think I’m still attached to that idea. I mean, I think what I’m struggling with is, am I just giving you too much room?

And this is a silly thing, but I studied film in college, and we always were told, “Assume your audience is stupid.” And I was like, “I don’t want to do that. …”

MSL: [laughs] That’s a very specific film school. There’s definitely another film school. …

UU: [laughs] No, I know. But I think there’s a lot of … “guide them.” And I think I’m constantly fighting that urge, which ends up taking me really far the other way, where I’m overcomplicating it and I’m just kind of trying to overdo the thing.

MSL: Yeah. Going back to your comment about film school and, basically, not trusting one’s audience — [laughs] that’s sort of what I got from that.

UU: [laughs] Yeah.

MSL: I’ll share something I learned from Rebecca Makkai, who’s an author in Chicago I took a course with a couple of years ago. She said something like, “Write for your best reader on an off day — but write for your best reader.”

UU: Hmm. I like that.

MSL: You know, maybe somebody isn’t reading a book all in one try or they’re just not fully attentive in some way — or someone’s crying in the background — and they might not get 100% of the things you’re putting on the page. But they’re still very perceptive and are going to feel spoken down to if you don’t trust them to get what you’re doing. Maybe I’m not following her advice right now. [laughs] So, I don’t know, just a potential framing that was really helpful for me and may be applicable as you think about that balance with this project.

Image: SUCROSE performs in response to the score “Dear SUCROSE: YOU (and you and you or you or you),” on the sidewalk in front of Roman Susan. This is the first of two times SUCROSE performed as part of “nevernotmusic.” Photo by Esther Espino.

UU: Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s going to really help me. Because it’s been ten years now, maybe more, since college, that I’ve been like, “I don’t want to treat my audience like they’re stupid!” That’s not what I want to do! And I think, for me, a lot of the struggle was that I was in a Hollywood-film-world-oriented program, where what I wanted was always video art! I just didn’t have the language for it. So that is a significant difference. And I feel excited about that. Thank you! That’s your gift to me for this hour.

And making the book its own thing has been an interesting process. I’m kind of glad it’s taking longer than I thought it would, because it’s helping me get over my attachment — to the scores, to the show. It’s helping me let go a little bit and letting the scores be their own things in the world. And I think the book already feels different — even when I see this mock-up I’m like, “This is a different thing.” It has the same ingredients but it’s its own thing.

One of the biggest decisions I made with the book — which I mentioned — was to move the name of the person who each score is addressed to away from the actual score. I would hope that if you read one of the scores you would assume it was speaking to you in the space. And you have a favorite. And it wouldn’t matter that it wasn’t addressed to you or that it was to a different person.

Image: Tannaz Motevalli performs in response to the score “Dear Tannaz: Cradle (youmeusthem).” This is the first of two times Tannaz performed at Roman Susan as part of “nevernotmusic.” Photo by Nathan Smith.

MSL: Well, it’s interesting that you say that because I remember saying something in our first conversation about how if I hadn’t been invited to read the scores I would have felt like I was intruding, or like I was reading somebody else’s letters or something. And — experientially with the book — it’s interesting to think how shifting the position of the title, or the name of the person who the score’s for, keeps that lineage but also makes it possible to experience the score on its own when flipping through. Like, I’m looking at “Dear Lindsey” as the title and then I see the words “Dear Lindsey” in the score, so they’re clearly connected, but I think having the actual page with the score on it not being branded with that name potentially opens it up a bit more for the reader or viewer.

UU: Yeah. And I think there are four scores out of the 12 that have the name repeated in the score. I think it’s Lindsey [Barlag Thornton], Ethan [T. Parcell], Kevin [Sparrow] and Will [Quam], and Falak [Vasa]. Falak’s is also partially in Hindi, so I feel like that already changes the access significantly. I guess the reason I’m sort of quantifying that is that I don’t want the whole feeling of the book to be “I’m reading letters that weren’t written to me.” But I do want to catch you off-guard that these were not just written for you. Like it’s not, “hey universe, rejoice in song,” it’s to this specific person who won’t let herself sing or something. You know.

Image: Lindsey Barlag Thornton performs in response to the score “Dear Lindsey: Rejoice (in slippery song).” Photo by Nathan Smith.

MSL: And to back up, quickly: Can you talk about who you are working on the book with and what that process has been since I interviewed you two or three months ago? How did your idea become this thing?

UU: Yeah, back then I didn’t have anything. In February, as I started making the scores and they weren’t like three sentences each, I realized, “This needs to be a book!” And, again, because I had thought about working in the book format for a while and — actually, mostly — because I went to the Chicago Art Book Fair in November, I just kind of was like, “This is ridiculous, this is what the scores need to be.” And I met Lauren Zallo, of Match Books, which has a very small but mighty team. I met her because she’d done a book for a friend who’s actually one of the performers — Corey Smith — who did a project called “The New Prairie School” at Links Hall. And I’d seen that book and been really excited about it and we got coffee and I said “I’ve got this book idea” and she was on board and now we are working on this. We’ve had a lot of meetings and we’ve finally sort of zeroed in on the vellum and what we want the book to look like. We met yesterday and that was when I got this first mock-up from her. So we’re still working things out. We have been going back and forth on how many copies. And now in my head I’m like, “Wait, 50 is not enough? But we have to make them with our hands!” [both laugh]

Image: Installation view (detail) of “nevernotmusic” exhibition. Photo by Esther Espino.

MSL: You’re only making 50 of these?

UU: [laughs] Yeah. Should I make more than that? I would much rather sell out than have 20 copies of the book that —

MSL: Well, just to pause: You had 12 people perform?

UU: It was actually 17 people  — 12 performers or performance groups — but yeah.

MSL: Okay, so 17 performers. So that’s already about a third of the books, if they all wanted to get one — I don’t know, not to assume they do, just thinking through it.

UU: Yeah yeah yeah. I mean, I think that we’ll maybe do an edition of 50 as the first run. It’s funny, I’ve been moving this weekend, as I was telling you earlier, and I think I struggle with creating objects in the world. I actually started out with “Let’s make 25!” and literally that would all be bought by or given to the people that were associated with the show or “nevernotmusic” in some way. So 50 feels like a lot in terms of bringing objects into the world. And I don’t know — maybe I’ll know towards the end of the process — I think there’s something nice about having a limited edition. You know, this is a humble project. Roman Susan is a small, beautiful space — run by Nathan Smith and Kristin Abhalter Smith — in which our focus really was, from the beginning, on the accidental audience. And that’s the thing I was happy to hear Nathan and Kristin say, that they had more people stop in the window than ever before. And I was like, “That’s it! We did the thing.” You know?

Something that I have been working on in my personal life is that I can’t just expect my friends to come to my shows. And for me the value of the accidental audience — that didn’t show up because of me, that showed up because of something else — is far more tender. I don’t think it’s higher in value, but there’s something about that that I am looking for, that I value.

Image: Exterior view of Roman Susan, with “nevernotmusic” exhibition visible in and through front window. Photo by Nathan Smith.

MSL: That’s interesting to think about. There are some ways in which this book is like a literal continuation of objects and experiences from the exhibition, but then, yeah, that gallery was such a public place, and right next to the El, and with all these people stopping by and looking in — that “accidental audience.” On the other hand, it feels like with a book like this there’s a very intentional audience? And especially the smaller the print-run, the more likely it is that you will, at the end of your launch party, know every single person who’s walking away with this book. And maybe you would have already known them before. [laughs] You know. So I don’t know if that’s intentional — beyond the fact that you are making these by hand — or if that was important to you.

UU: Right. Yeah. I think that’s definitely been important. The crazy person that I am, there was a moment where I was like, “I want the books ready during the run of the show” — and I’m glad that that didn’t work out, because I really was so exhausted from, like, birthing the scores. I almost worked with someone in D.C. on the book and we would have, you know, not handmade everything. Everything would have been outsourced. As it is, there will be something physical that I have done in each of the copies. Right? So there is that feeling of the gift.

Image: Lindsey Barlag Thornton offers mango slices to the audience as part of a performance in response to the score “Dear Lindsey: Rejoice (in slippery song).” Photo by Esther Espino.

A lot of the scores are birthed from what I did last year — I did a word of the day every single day. When I was writing the scores I actually went back to all my words of the day. Because I wanted to “catch” what I had been feeling. What are the words that I constantly feel? And I love that they were simple. There was only one word that I had to look up in the dictionary, and I still don’t remember what it is, like what it means, because that’s just sort of not how my making works. Like, it’s simple. It’s talking about the sun — and it was the winter when I started — and it’s talking about land, or feet, and knees, and all of these things that I find myself thinking about and feeling regularly but I never catch. So the purpose of the word of the day was to catch that, right? I think I actually did it for 3 days more than the year, so I started it on the 29th of December, 2016, and it went on until the last day of last year. But out of all of those words, I think that at least 10 or 12 days were “quiet.” And “quiet” in Hindi and English. The bilingualness of this project is very important to me. Both in the book version and the version on the walls. In a weird way, at Roman Susan it felt like a self-portrait from the windows, to have others see, “Okay, this is this person’s body.” And then maybe wonder, “Why is that an alphabet I don’t recognize?” So I’m already sort of placing myself in this way where I’m like, “I’m a marked body, marked similarly to this unrecognizable letter for you,” versus the person who sees it and is like [claps hands] “That’s an Indian body, that’s an Indian Hindi-speaking body.”

Image: Installation view (detail) of “nevernotmusic” exhibition. Photo by Nathan Smith.

Something really interesting that happened with the Hindi for me was that I invited Lise McKean to the gallery to come look at the work. She’s an anthropologist. She studied India and lived in India for a significant amount of time, and I was talking to her about Hindi and she was like, “Hold up. You are Hindi-speaking in Mumbai. That’s where you grew up.” And I sort of had forgotten in my active brain — I didn’t forget it — but in my active brain I was thinking about Hindi in the national context, where it’s, like, the privileged language. It happens to be my mother tongue but it is also the language that the state is behind, right? India has a lot of languages, but Hindi is the one that’s privileged as “the national language,” a privilege which a lot of the other states absolutely don’t get. So I have the accident of the national language being my mother tongue and of coming from a family where it was really important for me to be able to speak and read and write that language. But I also grew up in a state where the fact that that’s my mother tongue makes me sort of susceptible to being asked to “go back where I came from.” Because the financial capital is in Mumbai and the capital capital is in Delhi, and while I’m not from Delhi, Delhi and that area is Hindi-speaking and Mumbai is not.

I mean, it’s funny because I didn’t realize until I was speaking to Lise — because she was able to read the Hindi — and then she was like, “Wait, you grew up in Mumbai,” and completely brought me back to the Mumbai airport a few years ago. At the Mumbai airport somebody was checking my passport and I asked them, “How’s the weather in Mumbai been?” And he saw that my passport read “Born, New Delhi” and said, “In my Mumbai, it’s been good. I don’t know what it’s been like in your Delhi.” And my home address is also on my passport — you know, all of these little markers, all on the same document — and it’s Mumbai! I’ve lived there my whole life. So it was funny because that was a moment where I realized not only, yes, the privilege of being Hindi-speaking in the national context, but also the absence of privilege, where my family definitely is being told that they are migrants in that land and that they have taken up all the space. So the Hindi is very important to me, in the book as well. And, I’m done. Yeah.

Image: The front window of Roman Susan (detail; shot from inside) during Udita Upadhyaya’s “nevernotmusic.” Photo by Esther Espino.

MSL: I mean, hearing you share that sort of sends me back to a place where I love that it’s such a small print-run and you’re going to know everybody who’s getting it, or most people. Because then that context — and that context of and to you — becomes even more important for being any person encountering the Hindi in the book.

UU: Yeah. I mean, I think it’s funny because the system of scores for me showed up because — as somebody who was making performance-based work and lives in a female brown body, and a legibly foreign body — I found that I had very little agency over what was being taken from me when I was performing. The reason there’s so much about knees and toes and elbows in “An Inventory[: Remnants from a constellation of lived performances]” — and in general in my scores — is because initially scores were a way for me to make self-portraits in language. I think it’s hard to have a complete story of the book without talking about that piece — maybe the scores individually you could, but the book without “An Inventory” is kind of hard to do. Because that is my body in a very obvious, literal way, that gets away from my physical body. And this is the next chapter of that.

Image: Udita Upadhyaya, “An Inventory: Remnants from a constellation of lived performances” (detail), printed canvas, 2016, installed at Sullivan Galleries. The following instructions accompany the installation of the work: “The Artist invites 3 audience members to activate the work. The three performers stand in front of one panel each. They respond to the work by reading out loud. They may move if they so desire. The performers are not restricted to responding to the panel they place themselves in front of. The three must perform simultaneously, they may interact with each other. The activation ends after each of the 3 performers has finished responding. In case less than 3 performers volunteer the performance cannot occur. If more than 3 volunteer, multiple rounds of activation are welcome, but each activation must include 3 performers.” A version of the work has published for the Present Tense Pamphlets, in conjunction with the exhibition, “A Feast of Astonishments: Charlotte Moorman and the Avant-Garde, 1960s-1980s,” organized by the Mary & Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, in partnership with the Northwestern University Libraries (January 16-July 16, 2017). Image courtesy of the artist.

MSL: This “nevernotmusic” book is the next chapter of that.

UU: Yes. Because I think all of the scores are gifts to specific people but they’re also gifts that I wish I could give myself. You know? Permissions I could give myself. And they’re sort of this convoluted way of caring for someone else, or self-care through caring for someone else. Which has success and failure in its own various measures. In a weird way, the book is my body — [laughs] that sounds very Christlike — but I don’t want everyone to have it. I want there to be an intimacy. This is the kind of book that I wouldn’t be happy if it’s on Amazon or even at a Barnes and Noble, or Brookline Booksmith, which is my favorite bookstore in Boston, which maybe you know!

MSL: I have been there once!

UU: It’s so cute! Anyway, I think a lot of the scores are to combat the feeling of exhaustion. And being taken off of. To me, 50 feels like plenty. Like I kind of want it to be 40. Something like that. Where I want to hold it dear.

MSL: Mmm hmm. And I think the labor is such a real part of that, too — making them with your own hands, even if other hands are also involved, and being conscious of the labor of the process.

UU: Yeah. And the labor of the scores! I mean, I literally had an injury making the scores, a shoulder and wrist injury. And [laughs] the scores look easier to make than they are!

MSL: [laughs] I think that any artist or writer can appreciate that. Yeah. Another thing about audience.

And when you mentioned doing a “word-a-day,” you didn’t mean that you were on an email list that emailed you a word every day or something, you meant that each day — at the beginning, at the end, whenever — you thought of a word and said to yourself, “This is my word for today.”

Image: Gallery guests participate in a performance by Kevin Sparrow and Will Quam, as part of their response to “Dear Kevin and Will: Witness (youmeusthem).” Photo by Esther Espino.

UU: Yeah. I’ll show you my Twitter. I am a Gemini, sun and moon. What that means is that, since I was a kid, I’ve been told that I don’t follow through with anything. It’s mostly true. But! In December 2016, a person I know wrote on her Facebook profile something like “I’m going to write a poem! Every single day! In 2017! It might be short! It might be long! But I’m going to do it every single day!” And I was like, “Yeah, there’s no way I’m doing that.” At that point I had already been feeling like I didn’t have a daily practice. And I have this beautiful assignment that I use as a teaching artist that is like, “the Daily Art Ritual,” which I was like, “I’ve been using this for too long without actually doing it myself.”

And I realized that the thing I could do was have a word every day — and I still do this, so “brim” and “crisp” were examples of that — where I “catch” a word that’s floating around and sort of captures the feeling of some of these things that we don’t have words for. I’m really interested in things that we don’t have words for. One of the scores refers to that, too — maybe more of them have it. So I started this word-a-day thing and literally at 7 o’clock every evening my alarm would go off. Eventually it was really annoying actually — it was great for a while and then in December it was really difficult. [scrolling and reading] August 2nd was “fluster” … “grace” … “people” … “threat.” This is all on my Twitter. It started out very literal, like “word of the day” and then the meaning. And then I started getting really bored by that. Then it became phrases too and then it became basically whatever I wanted it to be. But with that feeling of “catching” something.

Image: Ink drawings from the artist’s series “Uncertain States,” 2017-ongoing. Image courtesy of the artist.

MSL: And it’s the thing that was in the air at 7 p.m. when your alarm went off? Or at 7 p.m. it was like, “What am I meditating on and catching from the day up until now?” I love this idea.

UU: Yeah, you’re welcome to do it! It was surprisingly hard. At 7 p.m. it was reflection. The alarm was just so I wouldn’t miss it. Sometimes I would just know the word at the beginning of the day. Other times the alarm would pass me by and I would just be sitting with two or three words in my head. I only missed a few times and usually when I missed it I was so bummed that the word would be about how I missed it. And “hungry hands,” for example, was something that I had been thinking about for six months. It was just that specific day that it was like, “Today’s the day that it’s coming in and I happen to be thinking about it at 7.”

Image: Udita Upadhyaya, “The Room of My Mouth” (detail), ink and graphite on paper, 2018. Image courtesy of Weinberg/Newton Gallery.

MSL: This is so lovely. So, many of your words from that long-term word-a-day process made it into the “nevernotmusic” scores — and then continued onward.

If you feel like we already covered this it’s fine, but were there any dilemmas or especially hard decisions that you encountered while you were translating or adapting the scores into book form? My understanding is that you made the scores — these rectangular, single-piece-of-paper scores — that then became excerpted and recombined and rearranged to become the works around the walls at Roman Susan, that also got activated by performers, and viewers … and then the pages of this book are again those rectangular scores. So it’s like a lovely completion of a circle. Or, in another way, “Oh, these other things happened — but this is also still the original thing.” I don’t know, but there’s something interesting happening there.

Image: Still of performance by Ethan T. Parcell (right), in response to one of Udita’s performance scores, “Dear Ethan: (teach) love.” Udita sits to Ethan’s right. Photo by Esther Espino.

UU: I like that. Yeah.

MSL: I guess a more specific question is if there were big moments when translating it or adapting it — readapting it, returning it — to this more rectangular booklike form, when you wondered about the scores’ presentation or how you would set an order to them? Because when someone enters the gallery, they might see a word by the door first, or see a word across the room first, or one of the words on the windows first. Whereas, in the book, there’s something more specifically ordered about the scores — literally in an order — whether people open to the middle or the front or somewhere else. I guess, just kind of how you thought about those things and that process?

UU: Oof, yeah. I mean, I should always do studio visits with you. [both laugh] That’s my most important thought. I’m going to go back to the question of the 50 for a second, because I think the reason the book exists is because I wasn’t happy with the scores only being seen by 12 people — like, each score only being read by the person that it was written for. So in a way 50 is the number that is coming from one. I feel like I’m still very much in the dilemma stage. I think part of the biggest problem has been, I guess, semantics — like “book” versus “collection of scores.” I’ve been hesitant to write much about the book itself, because it kind of feels like I did all the writing. [Marya laughs] It kind of feels like there’s nothing more to say, really. And that’s been a really good struggle.

But also, when you separate the scores from the world that they literally had become in the gallery, what am I missing? What happens to a person who just sees this book? I mean, maybe I need to find people who haven’t seen the show to be like, “What do you need to know about this?” Right? It’s hard. It’s like the kid that’s trying to go to college and I’m like, “But what if you took a gap year? And did something at home?” [Marya laughs] It’s identifying with its family and it’s not itself yet, and I think I’m in the middle of those issues.

Image: Still of performance by Jerry Bleem (at center, crocheting), in response to one of Udita’s performance scores, “Dear Jerry and Nick: Hold (a hand a spine a heart a whole self).” Photo by Esther Espino.

And I think a big thing has been, ironically, as flooded as the scores are, there’s also minimalism in the entire project. Which, throughout the project, has been a push and pull. I think I always have to overdo and then take out. I mean the drafts — You don’t want to see the documents from which these scores are created. They’re insane. There’s just hundreds of words in them. “But I want to put everything in there!” And I’m definitely in that stage of the book — having just seen this copy 24 hours ago — where, again, I want to include that thin line running through somewhere, and I’m like, “This is too blank!” So there’s a lot. This is still gestating and it’s still … struggling to break away from the parent. Because I do think that this book is going to be the bigger project, at the end of it, for me. Because of its longevity, because of its completion, because I want somebody to find the little moments that I feel delighted by. And speaking of the order, I know which score is related to which score. It’s almost like a call and response kind of thing in some of them. I want someone other than me to find those resonances.

Image: Udita Upadhyaya, detail of “nevernotmusic” book mock-ups, showing part of a cover (right) and part of the score “Dear फलक : hum (हम).” Photo by Caleb Neubauer.

MSL: Yeah, that’s great. And maybe this is related to the minimalism, but I think I initially assumed that the book might look something like the mock-up that’s in front of us, maybe because of how you had been talking about it. But as I was on my way here — knowing that you were bringing a mockup to our meeting — I was thinking, “Well, she also has a lot of documentation from the performances … maybe there’s going to be photos of the performers in the book, too, across from each score?” It didn’t feel like something you were going to do, but it occurred to me that that would be a way somebody might approach this project — almost more like a catalog of the show. And there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that, I just wasn’t actually expecting you to take that approach. And so it’s actually sort of nice to see the book in this form and to feel like … the root of it is still there. It’s still connected to what happened in the gallery space — and the performers who came into the gallery space to do that or to the sidewalk and alley outside to do that — but it also respects that experience by not trying to replicate it in a single photo next to a score. Maybe that contributes to how — while obviously it’s connected to the exhibition and the performances — it also feels like its own thing.

UU: I am hoping to have, at the book release, a few people perform their scores. So there is a thread. But I also think the scores don’t need performance. I think, as a human with a small attention span, maybe I do? But I don’t think that the scores do. I’m excited about people curled up in a chair reading them and, you know, cocking their head to one end to follow the shape of the words. You know, I can imagine that if I encountered something like this I would be reading by moving my head until I recognized that it’s easier to actually move the book around. Because I think the scores are so bodily in that way.

Image: Installation view (detail) of “nevernotmusic” exhibition. Photo by Esther Espino.

MSL: Yeah, that’s such a great way of putting it. I guess my last question is, as of now, how are you feeling about the book?

UU: [laughs] I think I’m still very stressed about getting it perfect, and getting these things, and getting those things, and I haven’t resolved it yet. It’s funny because when you said, “Let’s meet on the 29th of May!”, I kind of knew that I would have just gotten back from India and that I would a little bit out of touch with my life here, which is what I’m feeling.

MSL: Oh, sorry!

UU: No, it’s okay. It’s good. I feel like I’m still making the book. Like I think you had more of the feeling of “Oh, it’s a thing!” when you saw it than I had. [both laugh]

MSL: Which totally makes sense. Yeah.

UU: I think part of it is I saw the mock-up and thought, “That’s not the cover I imagined.” So it’s still sort of in trial and error. I think this conversation is really helpful for me to get the feelings about space, and weight, and gratitude that the book doesn’t have pictures from the performances. Because of course I considered that for like a second and then was like “No.”

MSL: And when it popped into my head, too, I was like, “She could do that, but I don’t think she’s going to do that.”

Image: Udita Upadhyaya (center) at “nevernotmusic” exhibition. At left, Jerry Bleem crochets as part of a performance in response to one of Udita’s scores, “Dear Jerry and Nick: Hold (a hand a spine a heart a whole self).” At right is Kristin Abhalter Smith, who co-runs Roman Susan. Photo by Esther Espino.

UU: Yeah. I think that one of the struggles is that the show itself felt so much like I was the curator. And I was! And there’s nothing wrong with that. But I had also made a lot of work. And while I love the liveness of performance — it is at the heart of my practice — sometimes it just really feels like performance is this shiny thing that’s happening and taking over because of the liveness, and the not-live component needs distance and space and its own thing to exist. And it’s not that scores didn’t have a chance to shine — they did — but I think the work didn’t get to live, to breathe. And that’s why the book exists. And, I mean, it would break my heart if this book didn’t exist. It needs to exist. Like, this is my work, in a really real way. So I’m excited about it. It just … needs to get through the semester. I don’t know why this college metaphor is what’s happening, [both laugh] but it needs to get through the high school semester to actually make it out to college. But yeah.

MSL: Yet, in another way, it’s well on its way there. So, here are my copies of your 12 scores, on 12 sheets of printer paper. This doesn’t feel like a book.

UU: Yeah.

MSL: [holds mock-up] But this feels like a book! Right? And so even there’s just something about its physical weight and the space it takes up and its togetherness that gives it presence. It gives it literal presence.

UU: Yeah. I think that’s why Lauren and I started to talk about having an envelope or book jacket. Because I actually feel like it doesn’t have enough weight yet. And part of it is that we are still trying to be minimalistic. At one point I was considering if I wanted to write something more about each score … but realistically, there’s not that much more to say. There’s just “I hope you enjoy this!” I mean, each score is “I hope you enjoy this.” “I hope you know you’re loved.” That’s basically what the scores are saying. So I don’t know. It feels superfluous to have many more words in there.

Featured image: Udita Upadhyaya, detail of “nevernotmusic” book mockup, showing part of the score “Dear Corey: Unfold (into you).” This image depicts part of a performance score, bound into a thin book. On the top page, toward its bottom-right corner, it reads “Dear Corey: Unfold (into you)” in black ink on grey paper. Across the binding, on the bottom page (the majority of the image), text, lines, arrows, and shapes appear in black ink against a whitish vellum background. Solid black abstract shapes connect and overlap, creating white space where they overlap. Lines swoop, loop, and change direction, and some end in arrowheads. Text appears in different sizes and spatial orientations (e.g., right-side up, upside-down, diagonal, vertical, and organic shapes), with some words/phrases expanded in space, condensed, or intersecting with other text. Photo by Caleb Neubauer. 

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.

“Beyond the Page” digs into the process and practice of writers and artists who work at the intersection of literary arts and other fields. Fosr this installment, I interviewed three members of Generation LatinX, a comedic ensemble of English- and Spanish-speaking Latinx performers working across improv and sketch: Mishell Livio, executive producer and creator; Maria Konopken, production director; and Jesse Pazmiño, writer and graphic designer. Toward the end of last season, Andrés Lemus-Spont and I attended a Generation LatinX show and then stayed late to talk with Mishell, Maria, and Jesse about the origins of the group, its goals (beyond being funny), the process of creating the multimedia show, and what’s coming up in Season 4.

Check out Season 4 of Generation LatinX at iO, Tuesday nights at 10pm, beginning August 21. Find @GenerationLatinX on Facebook and Instagram and @GenLatinX on Twitter. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Marya Spont-Lemus: To start, I’d love to hear in your own words, Mishell, what is Generation LatinX and how did it come to be?

Mishell Livio: Sure! Generation LatinX is an ensemble of English- and Spanish-speaking artists that believe in creating a strong Latinx presence across entertainment platforms. We strive to diversify both the content and the audiences to build an atmosphere reflective of our culture and point of view. Latinx is the non-gendered way of saying Latino or Latina, so it’s just inclusive of all people that have different Hispanic heritage.

I’ve been performing since I was a little kid. And the only Hispanic things I had seen for a very long time were in Spanish, which doesn’t include a lot of Hispanic people. That’s just not all of our culture — 2nd-, 3rd-, 4th-generation. They were excluded, which didn’t seem fair [laughs] for a diversity program, an inclusive program, to exclude a lot of people. So I wanted to create something for this generation of people that I saw. They speak English, they speak Spanish, they’re young, they’re old, they’re gay, they’re straight, they have all religions — and that’s really the point of it, is just to encompass this generation of Latinx performers and artists.

Image: Season 3 cast photo taken at Generation LatinX rehearsal at iO, spring 2018. Maria Konopken is front-row, left; Jesse Pazmiño is front-row, center; and Mishell Livio is middle-row, third from left. Photo by Blue Cloud Imagery Photography.

Marya Spont-Lemus: When you started Generation LatinX, did you have a core set of people in mind that you had seen perform and wanted to form a troupe around? Did you hold auditions? A combination?

Mishell Livio: Yeah, I had been performing at indie theaters all over town, and I had seen a bunch of different people. At first I workshopped the idea with the Hispanic performers I knew, and from that workshop I sent out audition notices and tried to contact every Hispanic person [all laugh] that I knew, that I could think of, that I had ever met, that anyone knew. It was just this network of word of mouth, really, and it grew from there. And Generation LatinX is on a quarter system, so every quarter I hold auditions and we bring in more people.

Image: Mishell Livio performing with Generation LatinX at iO stands onstage in front of a black porch screen door with two chairs set on either side. Mishell looks out into the audience while clapping. Image courtesy of iO and Generation LatinX.

Marya Spont-Lemus: When did it formally start, or when did you start thinking about it? I guess, what is the path to being here at iO, about to start Season 4?

Mishell Livio: I mean, Hispanic things have always been in my life, but just this being part of– Like, being American but not being American, but being here. Being Hispanic but not being Hispanic. I grew up in Tucson, Arizona, which is very close to Mexico, but not Mexico. And I grew up in a mariachi restaurant, but I don’t speak Spanish. [laughs] So, I would memorize Spanish not knowing what I was saying. For me, being biracial has meant that I’m too much and not enough; there’s a constant push and pull of simultaneously being and not being accepted by both cultures. It’s just always been a part of me.

And when I was in Los Angeles, I was a model on a show called “Model Latina,” on Sí TV, which was by a now-defunct company that was specifically for 2nd- and 3rd-generation Latinx people who spoke English. So it was in English, for Hispanic people. And I thought, “Oh my gosh! This is amazing! This company is so great! I love this! I want to do this!” I was 19. It was just so powerful and so empowering to see. Just, all of these different cultures are so different. And I was like, “Wow! Puerto Ricans are so different than Cubans and so different than Venezuelans….” And yet — we’re similar but we’re different. It was just beautiful. That company doesn’t exist anymore, and I’ve always just wanted to do that, do something like that. And I finally made it happen! Basically I pitched the idea and someone said yes to me. And I went, “Oh! Okay, now I have to make it happen.” [laughs] I believe I started reaching out to people and organizing in May 2017, we had our first practice in July, and our first show in August 2017.

Image: Dave Quiñones and Mishell Livio performing with Generation LatinX at iO. Dave wears a light blue button down shirt and patterned purple scarf with teal tassels. Mishell wears a bright blue floral shirt. Image courtesy of iO and Generation LatinX. 

Marya Spont-Lemus: And it’s always been here at iO?

Mishell Livio: It was at Under the Gun Theater when it started, then it moved to iO. Now this is our home — I like having a hub — but we perform different places. I would love to get involved in various educational programs, through colleges and schools and stuff.

Maria Konopken: Especially because representation matters, so you’re seeing it in places that maybe you don’t always, like theater and school. And when you see your stories told through people who look like you, it’s really relatable and then you can get involved in it. I think that’s a big part that Generation LatinX does — that people maybe aren’t at iO but they’ll see the group at another theater and be like, “How can I help grow or be a part of that?” Because representation matters, and finding people you can relate to matters, and culture’s a big thing. And while some of us in the group are Mexican, and Puerto Rican…. If it was a Venn diagram, [all laugh] there are parts of all of us that are relatable.

Mishell Livio: Yeah! It is like a Venn diagram. That’s beautiful. There are similar things and there are different things. But I think it’s important to have a hub and to have a place where people can find us. “Ooh, where can I see them?” Tuesday nights! At iO! And that’s currently where we are.

Video: “What is GLx?”: The video thumbnail shows three performers in black-and-white cut-outs against a red background. A white and green “GLx” logo is in the top left-hand corner and the superimposed title, “What is GLx?”, is displayed against a light green banner in the bottom right-hand corner. The performers look above, past, or at the camera, and the hands of the performer in the center foreground are raised. Video courtesy of Generation LatinX.

Marya Spont-Lemus: Awesome. I have a lot of questions about the ensemble and how you craft shows, but maybe we can pause and hear how each of you came to improv or to this troupe specifically, if you didn’t start it? What your roles are in it? Whatever you want to share.

Maria Konopken: So, I started my improv career — it’s so weird to say [all laugh] — in Arizona. I’m from Phoenix, and I started there. This man named Jose Gonzalez came to my work and did a workshop and everybody thought it was really lame but I was like, “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Marya Spont-Lemus: It was a professional development “teambuilding” improv thing?

Maria Konopken: Yeah. And I was like, “I gotta figure out how to do this, because I think it’s great.” [all laugh] So I got involved in a theater there.

Mishell Livio: Was it Torch?

Maria Konopken: At The Torch Theatre in Phoenix — what uup? [all laugh]

Mishell Livio: They’re great.

Maria Konopken: Yeah. It’s a tiny theater but it’s just a fun place, very family oriented. And I was reading books and articles on improv and everyone said, “You gotta go to Chicago, you gotta go to Chicago.” So I came here for a summer — I told my job like, “Oh, I’m just going to be there for a summer, pay me!” and they were like, “Uh, okay” — and took classes at iO. And any show that was playing in the summer of 2013, I saw it and I probably saw it twice. And it was so cool! But I do remember thinking, “Oh, there’s not really people that look like me…but sadly on some level I am used to that because people don’t look like me on TV.”

Then, a year later, I moved from Phoenix to Chicago and that sort of idealistic bubble got burst, because like, “Okay, now I live here, and I’m in classes and the worst of the worst that could happen is happening to me.” In Phoenix, I just had to worry about being someone’s girlfriend or wife in a scene. Here, I had to worry about being a maid, a janitor, just playing on stereotypes. Or I would try to say something that had to go with what I understood it to be, and then it got made fun of. I am left asking the question, “Why do I have to know your culture and my own?” So that was really hard for me. And then, also, there’s no representation on stage. Like I knew the five Latin performers that performed at iO — and one of them was Damian [Anaya] who performed with us tonight, so that was kind of full circle when he first performed with us. But yeah, there weren’t many.

Image: Jimmy Gribbin and Damian Anaya performing with Generation LatinX at iO. They stand in front of a black plywood wall and door. Jimmy wears a dark blue button down shirt and Damian wears a light pink button down shirt. Image courtesy of iO and Generation LatinX.

Mishell Livio: That’s why representation is just so important. Because there are a lot of us who might be the only Hispanic person, the only person of color — in a show, in the audience, in a room. And people are very quick to point out how, “Hey, you’re different.” And you go, “Oh, am I? [Andrés laughs] Well, thanks for telling me that.” Why would you need to tell someone that they’re different? But then you start internalizing that if people keep telling you. “Oh, I guess I am different.”

Maria Konopken: And that causes its own anxiety, because you’re like, “How am I supposed to perform? I don’t want to perform like that, I want to perform this way. But if I perform my way will I not get cast in anything?” I think the movement that Generation LatinX is part of — that we’re seeing the last two years in Chicago — is people creating their own. So when Mishell created her own, and she said, “I want you be a part of it,” I was like, “YES! I don’t know how, but I’m in.” [Andrés laughs] I was really excited.

Marya Spont-Lemus: It strikes me, too, even just thinking about the improv form versus, say, auditioning for a play — where things might change once you get into rehearsals, but for the most part you have a sense of what you’re auditioning for. But it does seem like, if you’re on the improv stage, somebody can just assign a role to you in a moment, where you have to then react to it immediately and in front of an audience.

Mishell Livio: Right. Which is why representation is very important. One of the biggest things of this show is, “We’re…people!” [all laugh] People are people are people are people! It doesn’t matter what language you speak. We are everything.

Maria Konopken: Right. And especially in a form like improv that’s like, “You can be anything!” and then to be put in a box it’s like, “Wait, what? I can be a dragon, I want to be a dragon, you know?” I like playing animals. [all laugh]

Marya Spont-Lemus: Or jumping out of windows, as we saw tonight.

Image: Nicole Perez, Adam Mengesha, and Elias Rios performing with Generation LatinX at iO. All are seated with their arms outstretched and hands grasping an invisible prop. Image courtesy of iO and Generation LatinX.

Maria Konopken: Exactly. In improv and in this program you get to do that. And with this program there’s people who haven’t taken improv classes before or money’s been an issue or location’s an issue — and they’ve come to the program and I’ve seen them grow from being an understudy to the star of the show that day! Or whatever. Because I think people are willing to put in the work and hone their skills, they just need the opportunity. That’s a big thing that I think Mishell’s done a really good job at, is giving people the opportunity.

Mishell Livio: And education is very important to me. Both my parents are teachers, my uncles are teachers. So it’s not just like, “Hey, you’re Hispanic! Get on the stage!”

Maria Konopken: Right.

Mishell Livio: You have to earn it. We are sitting in the biggest theater at this place, at iO Chicago! I’m not just going to put anyone on the stage. We have weekly rehearsals, you have to audition to get in, and every season you have to re-audition, so even if you made the team one season you might not make it next season. I need to know that you’re dependable! Because even though it’s fun it’s a job, right? So, I mean, you have to say yes to people’s ideas and be, like, a good, decent person. And, also, you have to go through classes! Not just through our program — not just our rehearsals — but we encourage people to go through classes here at iO and at different theaters — comedy theaters, acting schools, dance and martial arts studios, everywhere! Which is neat because people do bring different perspectives — not just their own, but educationally as well. Which is really cool.

Image: Nelson Velazquez and Nicole Perez performing with Generation LatinX at iO. Nelson is seated behind and to the left of Nicole. Nicole looks out at the audience with arms outstretched. Image courtesy of iO and Generation LatinX. 

Marya Spont-Lemus: Yeah, that’s really interesting. I think I didn’t get the full sense from the website of how much your work goes beyond the live show. I guess part of it is just everything that goes into being an “ensemble.” But also, using the word “program” or talking about understudies — which I didn’t realize improv shows had — or those structures of entry and continual training and rehearsal within Generation LatinX.

Maria Konopken: Yeah. And especially professionalism is a big thing because often — and you hear this with this group and with other groups — it’s like, “Oh, you’re getting this opportunity because you’re people of color.” Well, if you look at how those groups got started, they got started often because there wasn’t an opportunity. And, with that opportunity, they were able to not only show, “Hey, I’m talented,” but also work hard. That’s a big thing with professionalism. And when I coach, I start class on time. I tell them, “When you go to audition, this is what you need to do.” Mishell provides workshops and help on resumes. And it’s great that we have that in this insular world because it’s like, “Oh, we’re very talented and we’re having fun,” but when we go outside this world of Generation LatinX we’re a representation of that. Which is really hard, because you’re like, “Oh, I have to represent a whole culture?” Not only do you have to be good, but if you’re professional you stand out even more.

Mishell Livio: I never want anyone in my ensemble to go to an audition — to go to any other sort of job opportunity — and people to say, “Oh, you got this because you’re Hispanic.” “No, I got this because I’m great. And I work really hard. I’m on time, I’m professional.” I look at people’s resumes, like Maria said, and I’ll say, “Take this off, do this, rearrange that. What is this picture?! Get a new picture.” [all laugh] I’ve brought in photographers and I’ll get ensemble members new headshots. I want these people to succeed so badly. And you have to be great! Because there are so few slots, for us. So you’d better bring it!

Video: “Chola Wisdom”: The video thumbnail shows two performers in black-and-white cut-outs against a green background. A white and purple “GLx” logo is in the top left-hand corner and the superimposed title, “Chola Wisdom,” is displayed against a purple banner in the bottom right-hand corner. The performer in the right foreground looks down at the camera. The performer in the left background wears sunglasses. Video courtesy of Generation LatinX.

Maria Konopken: What’s also great with Generation LatinX is there’s another team for video and production. There’s an opportunity to not only learn writing but also the structure — “How can we make a video?” — and then from the production end — “What goes into making a video?”

Mishell Livio: And that’s a beast.

Maria Konopken: But it’s fun. That opportunity’s there, but you have to be willing to work for it. Because there’s other people — as this community grows — who are like, “I want that spot. I’ll work twice as hard for it.”

Marya Spont-Lemus: And how long have you been involved with the ensemble, Maria? Since the beginning?

Maria Konopken: Since it came to iO.

Mishell Livio: Yeah, you weren’t at Under the Gun.

Maria Konopken: Yeah, I had another project to do. But once we came to iO I got involved — so September 2017?

Mishell Livio: Rehearsals started in September and shows here started in October. Yeah.

Image: Dean Santiago performing with Generation LatinX at iO. Dean stands onstage in front of a black screen door with three chairs placed behind him. Image courtesy of iO and Generation LatinX.

Marya Spont-Lemus: And Jesse, how did you get into improv? How did you become part of this group?

Jesse Pazmiño: Well, I was studying architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology, as you know, and I think in the last year of school we decided to go to Second City to watch a show. I had heard of Second City many times — I knew where it was — but I had never gone. So I go there, I see the show, and I have this epiphany like, “You know what, I could do that.” [all laugh] Like, “Maybe I won’t be good at the beginning, but I think I could get up on stage and do something, and something will work out.”

Mishell Livio: “I have the ability to listen–” [all laugh]

Jesse Pazmiño: Yeah!

Maria Konopken: And make a joke.

Mishell Livio: “–and then respond!”

Jesse Pazmiño: And actually have the urge to get up there. So, when I went back to IIT, I was like, “You know what? As soon as I graduate, I’m going to go to Second City and take classes.” And that’s exactly what I did.

Marya Spont-Lemus: [laughs] You didn’t want to add it onto the studio curriculum?

Jesse Pazmiño: No. That wouldn’t have worked at all. [laughs] No, it had to be afterwards. So I did. I graduated, I went to Second City, I took classes there, and I liked it a lot. The deeper I went in it, the more I opened my eyes to this brand new world of improv and theater — that had been right there in front of me, but I had never seen it because I was, like, in architectureland. And all of a sudden I started seeing all of these parallels to what we were doing in design and what was happening in performance! The way that I think of it is, the designer is the actor and the client is the director. The designer designs something, the actor designs a character. The director or the person that’s coaching you tries to give you that feedback. To me, it’s the same process. And the iteration of that — the coaching, the mentoring — that’s all that we did in architecture school, in putting stuff up on the board, in talking about it. So it didn’t seem to me like such unfamiliar territory. It was just changing the words, but the language was the same.

Anyhow, after some time, I actually had the same question that Mishell did as I was going to these shows. “Wouldn’t it be fun to have a Hispanic team?” Or at least some element of it that would be Hispanic. Because it seemed like, in all these places, that was missing. It seemed obvious to me that that was missing. And I didn’t really think of it much, until one random day, Mishell friended me on Facebook. [all laugh]

Mishell Livio: [shrugs] It’s a thing I do.

Jesse Pazmiño: I didn’t know who she was. I was embarrassed, like, “Maybe I did talk to her but I just don’t remember…?” [all laugh]

Mishell Livio: So then he accepted…

Jesse Pazmiño: I accepted the friend request! And then was like, “Who are you?” And she told me, “I do this program, and you should come audition.” “Yes!” So I did and I became a part of it.

I’ve been with the writing team. The group is so much more than the show that we see onstage. It is a live show, it’s the video sketches that we do, it’s the writers, it’s the mentoring, it’s the friendships that happen in the ensemble itself, it’s the outreach — it’s all of those things together. So I think that, in a way, it fulfills that idea of what Mishell and Maria were saying, that it fills that gap — of representation — or it’s working towards that. But at the same time, it tries to do so much for our development as artists. I think that’s the part that’s so valuable — as a performer, as somebody who’s Hispanic, as a human being I guess — to just have somebody that’s there to support you, and to have a group of people that’s there to support you. So, I think that’s what makes it.

Image: Tawny Safieddine, Elias Rios, and Aaron Sanchez performing with Generation LatinX at iO. All stand between a black door to the left and a black screen porch door to the right. Image courtesy of iO and Generation LatinX. 

Marya Spont-Lemus: And you brought up that Mishell also, apparently, recruits people! [all laugh]

Mishell Livio: Always. Always constantly.

Marya Spont-Lemus: Add that to the list of things you said earlier. That’s really lovely. How did you hear about Jesse? Did you meet and he forgot you?

Mishell Livio: It must have been because I’m in so many different Facebook groups about improv and performance and I’m just constantly scouring, like, “Who’s a Hispanic person and performer and how can I get them to be a part of this?” Whatever skills that they have, because there’s so many facets of it.

Image: Mishell Livio performing with Generation LatinX at iO. Mishell stands in front of a black door holding a microphone as the audience watches. Image courtesy of iO and Generation LatinX.

Andrés Lemus-Spont: Mishell, I’m curious about your…like where you see this going? You seem like a very thoughtful and also strategic person. [all laugh]

Maria Konopken: All true.

Andrés Lemus-Spont: And I’m curious what the plan is.

Mishell Livio: Well, it’s interesting that this series is about writing. Because next season — Season 4 — the performance teams will be doing improv-to-sketch. So, they will be improvising at their rehearsals — they will be essentially writing a sketch — and then on Tuesdays at the show they’re going to test the sketch out. Some of them will work, some of them won’t. The ones that work, they’re going to keep, they’re going to pocket. The ones that don’t, they’ll get rid of them, maybe they’ll rework them. We’ll do that until we have a fully written sketch revue. And I think the video sketch is a great way for us to expand and become something bigger than what it currently is. Is the short answer.

Andrés Lemus-Spont: [laughs] That’s a very short answer.

Mishell Livio: Continue to grow and expand. Right now we’re doing small videos, which will become longer and longer. We’re going to start serializing things. I screen the videos in front of the live audiences — what you saw tonight hasn’t been released yet — so I look and see what works and what doesn’t. If something doesn’t work, I look at the video and I rework it, I re-edit it, and I screen it again. And I see, “Okay, will it work this time? No, still didn’t work. Take it out!” So I’m constantly testing things to make sure, before I put them out into the public, so I know what works and what doesn’t. I’m also testing to see how things work, once I release them. “Oh, they like these characters. They like this idea. Okay, let’s take that idea and write another episode of it! Maybe we can serialize that idea. Maybe this character — there’s something within that character, let’s do something more with them.”

Video: “Birthday Funeral”: The video thumbnail shows two performers in black-and-white cut-outs against a yellow background. A white and red “GLx” logo is in the top left-hand corner and the superimposed title, “Birthday Funeral,” is displayed on a red banner in the bottom right-hand corner. The eyes of the performer on the left are closed and the performer is kissing the fingertips of one hand while poising the fingers of the other in a similar way. The performer on the right looks on with raised eyebrows. Video courtesy of Generation LatinX.

I’m also paying attention to, “Oh, this writer likes doing this. This person likes doing that.” I’m just looking at everyone and seeing what people like, what people are good at. And maybe sometimes people aren’t good at things, and I’ll push them to do it more. Because you’ve got to fail, I think, to know what you like and what you don’t, what you’re good at and what you’re not. I can’t tell you, you know, “You’re really not good at this thing.” [all laugh] You’ve got to find it out for yourself. So I’m always encouraging people to try and do things.

I want to keep expanding the video and writing departments because no one’s going to write for us! I mean, how could they? They don’t really know our experiences. If we don’t tell our stories, nobody else will. So I want everybody to be encouraged to get out there and write their own stories and produce their own things and expand.

Maria Konopken: And if something’s relatable, you’re going to laugh at it more. Like, even the therapist video tonight was very funny on a larger scale. But there’s one with little house figurines–

Mishell Livio: “Nuestras Casitas.”

Maria Konopken: –and there would be little jokes that — if you get it, if it’s part of your culture — it’s even funnier. So it’s fun to see those stories told. And also, on the writing team, to see the different perspectives and different types of humor that people have, too.

Video: “Nuestras Casitas”: The video thumbnail shows two performers in black-and-white cut-outs against a blue-grey background. A white and yellow “GLx” logo is in the top left-hand corner and the superimposed title, “Casitas,” is displayed on a yellow banner in the bottom right-hand corner. Both performers look at the camera and hold small, diorama-like models of houses out toward it. Video courtesy of Generation LatinX.

Marya Spont-Lemus: Who is the writing team? Are the directors for the live stage show the same as the directors for the video sketches? How does all of that work out?

Mishell Livio: No, it’s different! The improv teams, currently, are their own thing. Usually the directors for the improv troupes have 5-10 or more years of experience. They direct the teams, they are on various house teams at iO, they’ve graduated multiple programs. Also, if somebody just tells me that they’re interested in directing, I’ll develop them as a director. Maybe I’ll have them shadow someone else.

With the video sketch, those people submitted as writers, so they submitted packets. We read through the packets. Some packets we liked and some we didn’t. Depending if those people wanted to do different roles, we may have put them on the social media team or the marketing team or the improv team or something else. That’s how the writers developed. We also have videographers. And usually the videographers are editors and directors. So it’s very intricate. It’s a very difficult thing to do because there’s a lot of moving parts.

Image: Adam Mengesha, Alex Barontini, Paul Rogers, and Devin Sanclemente performing with Generation LatinX at iO. All are seated or crouching on the stage floor. Image courtesy of iO and Generation LatinX.

Marya Spont-Lemus: What roles in that process do each of you play? And how do those roles intersect with each other? Because it seems like you all play multiple roles within the ensemble and larger frame. Are you always playing multiple at a time, do you alternate through them, are you writing material literally for yourself as a person?

Mishell Livio: Usually we write material with specific people in mind from our performance groups. We’ll sometimes write stuff for ourselves as individuals, but I’ve found messy things in that — if someone’s like, “Wellllll, I wrote, and directed, and edited, and starred in this.” [all laugh]

Marya Spont-Lemus: “Get your own YouTube channel!” [all laugh]

Mishell Livio: Right, it’s like, why do you want to be a part of an ensemble? You’re your own ensemble. [all laugh] You don’t need us, you’re your own entity. But yeah, the video sketch team, a lot of times what they’ll do is pitch ideas. So everyone pitches two ideas around the room. We talk about those ideas. The next week they come back with a draft of it written. We all read the draft, we give notes, they come back with a second draft. I have a head writer, Alex Barontini, and he will say, “Okay, of these second drafts, these 1-3 ideas I’m going to present to you.” I look at them, Maria looks at them — she’s part of my production team — and we’ll say, “Okay, these two are feasible, I can see casting these people in it, I can see producing it this way.” Let’s say Jesse wrote it. I’m probably going to put a different director on there, just so we can get a different take on it. Usually the director is the editor. Then they send those first edits — like an assembly cut — to me. I see those assembly cuts, I say do this, do that, rework it. They do another edit on it. Then they send it to me. We screen it, we do an edit, we screen it, we do an edit. [all laugh] It goes online. Jesse does all of the graphics for us, so all of the logos and all that.

Image: Posters for Generation LatinX shows, designed by Jesse Pazmiño. Displayed in a collage, one poster reads “Generation Latinx, For the fluent, the Spanglish, and those that can’t speak a lick.” Another reads “Vente al Show Tonight” and the last “Quieres funny? Tengo funny.” The color palate consists of teal, golden yellow, red and purple.  Image courtesy of Generation LatinX.

Marya Spont-Lemus: I was wondering! That’s great.

Jesse Pazmiño: Yeah. I basically design the whole brand identity for Generation LatinX, which also touches upon the video sketches or whenever we need graphic representation. I design, Mishell reviews. And that was the process with Mishell initially, too. I presented a concept, she gave feedback.

Mishell Livio: Yeah, it was a lot of, “What is this brand? What do you see? What do you like? What are some ideas?”

Jesse Pazmiño: Because at the beginning — I mean, I guess there really wasn’t one.

Mishell Livio: No. There was me! I mean, I was doing everything.

Jesse Pazmiño: So I brought it up to Mishell, “By the way, I’m a graphic designer.” [all laugh] “If you want a brand identity for Generation LatinX, I can create it. Do you want to do it?” And she said, “Go for it!” So I came up with some ideas, we started a discussion to define what the brand story actually was — because I didn’t know either. I wasn’t sure what we were trying to portray. And eventually I found a solution that I think is fun. It shows the energy and it’s also, I think, its own aesthetic. It’s not trying to be a “Hispanic” sort of brand, and I think that’s part of how it fits with us — it’s our own sort of take on what that means.

Image: Online brand identity for Generation LatinX, designed by Jesse Pazmiño. On a golden yellow background are images of a laptop, android cell phone, Iphone and tablet displaying Generation Latinx social media accounts. Image courtesy of Generation LatinX. 

Marya Spont-Lemus: I did notice that “Generation” is written in English, but then in introducing the live show people also said “Generación.” I mean, I think it’s clear no matter which language — it’s a one letter difference — but I did notice that the title wasn’t written in both languages in the logo and on the website.

Mishell Livio: Yeah. [all laugh]

Marya Spont-Lemus: I mean, maybe it’s not–

Mishell Livio: No, you’re spot-on. You’re spot-on. That is correct. [pause] It is something I have thought about too — of, like, creating a different page. It’s just about expansion. You know, it’s like “NBC,” “NBC Latino.” [all laugh] You know what I mean? If we had enough of a following and enough interest to create a fully Spanish Generación LatinX, its own entity, then it could branch off.

Marya Spont-Lemus: And I didn’t mean it as a critique or anything. I just noticed because in the show the different teams — the “English” and “Spanglish” teams — were introduced differently, in speech. And that the logo just said “Generation.”

Mishell Livio: Yeah, and I’ve had people in the group even pitch me the idea of, like, having a foreign-born team versus a U.S.-born team. Because they’re like, “We have a different perspective — we don’t only identify as ‘American’! Our perspective is different. So it might be neat to have a South American team.” And I was like, “Yeah, if you can get enough people, then that’s something we could develop and do.”

Marya Spont-Lemus: Yeah, it was really incredible to see how much of the world was represented onstage tonight.

Mishell Livio: Yeah.

Marya Spont-Lemus: And I loved, too, that when people introduced themselves, they each said something about their personal heritage. That also struck me as really different from other shows I’ve been to — I mean, I don’t go to a ton of improv — where performers might say their name at some point but that’s it. But yeah, as a white person who is not Latinx who’s coming to see the show it still meant something to me to hear that, and I imagine it might mean something even more to an audience member who is like, “Oh, my family is also from Peru!” or something. Like, for me it was, “Oh, I feel even more of this connection to you because I know something about you as a person.”

Mishell Livio: Sure!

Marya Spont-Lemus: “Before I see you take on…75 different roles in the span of two and a half minutes.” Right? So there’s something about it that also functioned like intimacy-building or something, for me as an audience member and maybe for others. I thought it was really lovely.

Image: Nicole Perez and Devin Sanclemente performing with Generation LatinX at iO. Both are seated onstage. Nicole wears a dark blue dress and Devin wears a slate button down shirt with a grey cardigan. Image courtesy of iO and Generation LatinX.

Maria Konopken: People can relate on an emotional level to anything, so if you can find something you have in common…. I mean, even beyond the countries, if someone is like, “Oh, I had a dog that would bark too” — I don’t know, whatever. [all laugh] People find the weirdest things! They’re like, “Yeah, the way you signed that check. I sign checks!” And when your focus is not on, like, “Are you guys Hispanic or Latinx?”, it’s on their characters, I think that’s a big thing.

Mishell Livio: I also think that — like another thing of “Latinx” or “white” or “Black” — it’s like, okay, but there are so many countries represented in any of those. You almost wipe away people’s individuality. It makes me upset when someone will say, “Well, I’m white.” I’m like, “Where, from Whiteland?” [all laugh] Excuse me, I’m sorry, but being Swedish is so different than being German is so different than being– Like, they are different. That’s one of the reasons I tell the ensemble, “You guys are different from each other.” Like Peruvian cultures are so different than Puerto Rican cultures are so different than Mexican cultures…. So I love that the performers do still retain their individuality, even though we are under this umbrella of Latinx.

Jesse Pazmiño: Well, you were saying how some people asked, “Can we do a South American team?” And I think that sounds great. But I also think that part of the appeal of the way it’s structured now is the fact that because everybody’s so different — this is something that sticks out to me, as somebody who grew up in South America, with one specific culture, which is Ecuadorian — those performers and writers are also exploring this new reality for us as individuals, which is being Hispanic in the United States. This U.S. pan-Latinx identity is something that didn’t always exist for us in the way it does now, and it’s something that we together are sort of creating with all team members. And I think that’s part of what you see onstage, it’s part of what we write on the sketch team, and part of what, in a way, is the new narrative that we are creating. It’s not necessarily just, “We’re going to do a Puerto Rican show” or “It’s a Mexican show.” Or, “We’re going to put in Mexican or Puerto Rican motifs to ‘make’ it a Hispanic show.” Nobody’s actually following that kind of agenda. It’s just, this is what we’re creating now because this is who we are right now in this particular place and time.

Video: “Who’s My Next Therapist?”: The video thumbnail shows five performers in black-and-white cut-outs against a green background. A white and purple “GLx” logo is in the top left-hand corner and the superimposed title, “Who’s My Next Therapist?”, is displayed on a purple banner in the bottom right-hand corner. The two performers in the center foreground hold microphones and look at the camera; one looks excited and the other pained. To the left and the right of them, three other performers, two holding microphones, look toward the center of the frame. Video courtesy of Generation LatinX.

Andrés Lemus-Spont: I mean, I feel like the connection to television seems pretty direct. And thinking of this show here at iO feels unlike what a lot of television was from when I was growing up, which was, you know, “Spanish-speakers get their channels.” But that’s where they are. They’re very few places other than that. And iO not just feeling like, you know, ABC, and then if you want to go to Univisión, you go to Pilsen or whatever. I think it’s great that this show is here at iO as opposed to somewhere separate. I don’t know how everyone in this audience got to this show, but I like to think that some people just came because they come to this place and admire the stuff that comes out of it, and you’re the next show they want to try and it’s like, “Oh, I don’t even know a lot of what they’re saying but it’s still funny.”

Maria Konopken: Right. And you’re seeing a push now, like I said before, of people creating their own, because there wasn’t that space. Two years ago, none of this existed. It’s nice to see that people are coming up, and that even more groups are coming up. It’s a very interesting time to be part of it, especially for people who may have been the only Hispanic person on their team. There’s still a lot more work to do, but it’s nice to be like, “I’m going to come to this show, Tuesdays at 10 o’clock, and I feel at home.” Maybe compared to other teams that are in this theater or other shows in the city.

Mishell Livio: Yeah. And from this ensemble, a lot of people have met and created little things outside of it. I think three or four groups have come out of this. Which is awesome!

Image: Elias Rios and Neftali Morales performing with Generation LatinX at iO. Both stand onstage as Neftali gestures above, Elias watches. Image courtesy of iO and Generation LatinX. 

Maria Konopken: Right. And then, outside of this, I’m working on a project and we needed someone of Latin descent that’s also a strong writer. So I was like, “Well, Neftali [Morales] is this amazing writer, he has this amazing idea,” and then Neftali cast people from Generation LatinX. And you see, as Mishell said, performers coming up and creating their own, but still coming back and being part of this ensemble. And maybe they can’t do it one session, but they’re still coming to the shows and showing support where they can.

Marya Spont-Lemus: And — I’m not quite sure how to point it out or draw the connection — but, Mishell, you were talking earlier about the importance of how you are helping to train performers or reviewing their resumes or telling them they need new photos or things like that, which is all really important. But then, of course, “arts and entertainment” is not only not a meritocracy, like most things aren’t, but seems particularly, like, nepotistic in a way?

Mishell Livio: It can be.

Marya Spont-Lemus: I guess it just seems like it can be the kind of thing where people cast people they know or whose work they know, to the extent that some people might just cast their friends or people they went to theater school with or even were in high school drama camp with. But also the ways that one can– I don’t necessarily want to say that you can, like, “hack” that, but just how one can insert their own networks into other systems or cycles.

Mishell Livio: I think in our case it’s just a pool. A good thing about this is, there were Hispanic people at iO before — but they were over here and over there and over here and over there. And a lot of times people will say, “Well, I mean, *tsk* I put out a casting call for Hispanic people and they didn’t respond. [shrugs] So I just whitewashed it!” [all laugh]

Marya Spont-Lemus: And that’s what I think I was trying to get at — like how you, in addition to “creating your own,” create a network that intersects with or disrupts and benefits from that.

Mishell Livio: So now, a lot of casting people will come to me! “Hey, I’m looking for a Hispanic person.” And I’ll be like, “Okay, I have an ensemble — of 75.” [Jesse laughs]

Maria Konopken: Right.

Mishell Livio: And, at least you’re then telling these 75 people, “Go tell all your friends as well.” So it’s just a concentration. I’ve built a network. Essentially. So if you are looking for a Hispanic performer you can at least come here and get the word out so that you aren’t whitewashing these things.

Image: Adam Mengesha performing with Generation LatinX at iO. Adam wears a plaid black and grey shirt and points at something offstage. Image courtesy of iO and Generation LatinX.

Maria Konopken: Right. You can come here, and then the next step is making sure that you are that professional. Because a lot of this knowledge and a lot of this trial and error — at least I’ll speak for myself — I had to figure out on my own. And maybe ask somebody, but then I was nervous, too, because, you know, people are very competitive in weird ways. What Mishell’s really doing here is, “Here’s the steps to do it. Here’s the tools. You gotta go do that.” And not holding their hand. And if you’re willing to listen, great. If you’re not? That’s on you. You know?

Mishell Livio: And there are some people who are not going to get cast because they don’t show up! Or they don’t do the work or have the training yet. They’re still green. And, like you’re saying, it’s about nepotism but also, “Well, if you’re not good enough, you’re not going to get cast.” So, like, I’ll yell at people, [all laugh] “You need to be on time! You need to show up! You need to earn these things.” People aren’t just going to give you things. You need to earn it. You need to be the best. I don’t want any of you saying, “Well, I got cast but I was token.” “No. You got cast because you were great.” Be great. Earn these things.

Maria Konopken: Mmm hmm. And I still get told that a lot. One that made me really upset was, “Oh, it’s so cool that you’re doing Generation LatinX and you got it because you’re on another POC team.” I was like, “No, I showed up, I go to the stuff, and I work hard.” Also, yeah, Mishell and I have a friendship, but Mishell can depend on me to show up–

Mishell Livio: She’s there before me! [all laugh]

Marya Spont-Lemus: “Does Mishell cast all her friends?” [all laugh]

Mishell Livio: I don’t have that many friends, I can tell you that right now! [all laugh]

Maria Konopken: But like there’s– Where was I going with this? [all laugh] Oh! So that comment made me upset. And this is by somebody outside of this whole thing who’s basically saying that I’m getting opportunities because I’m on another POC team that’s really popular in the city. So then I went — I was coaching — I went to that class and spent the first 20 minutes on why this is important, why you need to show up on time, and why these little things matter. They’re going to say it regardless, but I got a resume of seven years and hard work ethic to, like, back up my B.S. [all laugh] I do. No one can tell that to me and get away with it, basically. Yes, certain opportunities will get me seen by other people. But then it goes deeper, can you depend on me? Can I show up and do good work? And a program like this didn’t exist when I first got here, so I didn’t get to take that and run with it. I had to figure it out on my own, and that may be why I am so passionate about the work we do here and the work I do with Matt Damon Improv and on my own.

Mishell Livio: I think also, if these people are great, you won’t be pigeonholed to these token roles. Because you’re great! So you can do anything! And opportunities will be opened up to you. So that’s the point, is to go beyond stereotypes and be seen as people. Like, maybe you might get cast as some sort of stereotype because that’s what people think of first? But if you are awesome you can do anything and you can transcend these things. That’s really our goal.

Maria Konopken: And you can see the people who are doing the work, that have been an understudy and are now on the main cast. It warms my heart to see them — even tonight — blossom. Like, “Oh my god, you wouldn’t have done that six months ago!”

Image: Blad Moreno sings into a microphone and performs with Manuel Reyes, who is seated playing a guitar, as part of Season 2 of Generation LatinX at iO. Image courtesy of iO and Generation LatinX. 

Marya Spont-Lemus: Given some of what we’ve just been talking about, I’m wondering how the show has changed over time or how the structure and shape of the show changes. Especially with the video sketches, it seems like a lot of tuning and shifting and experimenting happens. And my understanding from an email from a while ago was that “English” and “Spanglish” shows happened on different weeks — I’m not sure if I understood that correctly — but tonight both happened, as different sets within the same show. I’m just wondering how the show itself has developed.

Mishell Livio: Yeah, first when I developed the show I had an opening team — because no one knew who we were or what the show was. There’s four stages here, and each stage has three or four shows a night, so it’s impossible for everyone to know about every show and group performing. So what I would do is I would have, for example, the English team perform and, opening for them, I would have a house team from iO that had at least one Hispanic member, which usually was a small percentage of the teams. So, essentially, I would get house teams to watch our shows, because they would be the opening teams, and they’d be like “Oh, this is interesting.” Because they were part of the show, they realized what we were. And then we were able to grow.

Image: Generation LatinX directors performing a guest improv set as Heraldo. From left: Orlando Lara, Mike Geraghty, Alyssa Davis, Jimmy Gribbin, and Damian Anaya. Image courtesy of iO and Generation LatinX.

Andrés Lemus-Spont: Was that also a strategy to get buy-in from other ensembles at iO? Because I think it’s clever! It’s like, “We’re going to have you be the first act — but that means you’re going to have to be here, you’re going to have to see these people, who you otherwise wouldn’t have seen perform.”

Mishell Livio: Right. Exactly. [all laugh] Essentially I was inserting our ensemble into the iO community. But also, our ensemble had the opportunity to see other ensembles and learn from them too.

And there aren’t a lot of Hispanic performers at this theater. We’ve grown in numbers over the past year, but we still aren’t really part of this! So I’m going to continue to make us part of this by inviting established teams to be in the show. There’s no separation; I’m a part of you and you’re a part of me and [claps hands together] that’s it. It is, “Hi! We’re here.” [Jesse laughs]

Maria Konopken: And, to complete that circle, the performers here as part of Generation LatinX are then taking classes at iO.

Andrés Lemus-Spont: Yeah. I think that’s a really wonderful example. It kind of transcends this idea of performance because, often, there’s this, “There isn’t a Black or brown this,” so we make our own with Black and brown people, for Black and brown people. And that’s great! But that’s also limiting because, by separating yourself from those with access and power and whatever and connections–

Mishell Livio: You’re segregating.

Andrés Lemus-Spont: –you’re doing yourself a disservice in that way.

Mishell Livio: I never wanted to be segregated. From the start, I was like, “I want to be integrated.”

Andrés Lemus-Spont: And inclusive, like you said earlier.

Mishell Livio: Absolutely. Because they won’t– We’re telling our stories but if we’re segregated, we’re telling our stories to ourselves. We already know our stories! [laughs] I want to be part of the larger entertainment community. Almost 20% of the population is Hispanic. So 20% of every theater should be Hispanic, 20% of businesses should be Hispanic. We should be!

Marya Spont-Lemus: And in Chicago it’s much higher than 20%.

Mishell Livio: It is! In Arizona it’s much higher, too.

Maria Konopken: Yeah. In Arizona 30% of the population is of Latin descent.

And the work is good, so if you come and you have a good time, whether you can relate to the story or not, the work is good. And some people see it and are like, “Oh, I want to learn about how to do that.” You know? It’s better than anything you could ask for.

Image: Devin Sanclemente performing with Generation LatinX at iO. Devin stands in front of a black porch screen door and is wearing a slate button down shirt with a grey cardigan. Image courtesy of iO and Generation LatinX.

Marya Spont-Lemus: Are there particular figures, groups, or organizations who have shaped or influenced your own work in improv or that of this ensemble? Do you have frequent collaborators within the city, or how do you engage with broader networks? Jesse mentioned the Chicago’s Diverse Comedy Community to me. Or other work that you are excited about?

Mishell Livio: One of the biggest things was that television station I mentioned, Sí TV, which was for Latinx people who speak English. I thought that was really awesome. And a lot of television I have seen recently. Like Shonda Rhimes’ things are great because there’s so many different ethnicities represented. Superstore I think is amazing.

Maria Konopken: Superstore. Jane the Virgin. And it’s great that on Superstore, America Ferrera is directing some of those episodes. On Jane the Virgin, Gina Rodriguez is directing some of those episodes.

From a Chicago standpoint, I am inspired by people like Wendy Mateo, Lily Be, and groups like B.A.P.S., PREACH!, and can I say my own group? Yes, I am inspired by the women of Matt Damon Improv. People come to these shows because we are people of color, but they spread the word because we are talented. And these groups and some of their members have opened for Generation LatinX, which is amazing and helps to build a community plus celebrate different cultures.

Mishell Livio: Yeah. In February we had predominantly Black teams open for Black History Month. Because I think their cultures are very important as well, and we have Afro-Latinx people within this group!

Maria Konopken: For opening sets we had B.A.P.S., which does a show here at iO; PREACH!, who does a show here as well, on Friday nights; EbonyEssenceJet; and Your Dark Embrace. A lot of groups came in and saw it. It’s just nice to have different stories being told. And as the show evolves, who knows what will happen?

Image: Tawny Safieddine, Dean Santiago, and Aaron Sanchez performing with Generation LatinX at iO. All are seated. Tawny looks at Dean, frowning, while Dean mimes a pen and paper with his hands. Aaron looks at the audience. Image courtesy of iO and Generation LatinX. 

Marya Spont-Lemus: So what is coming up in Season 4? Or are there other projects that are coming up — you mentioned doing outreach to colleges?

Mishell Livio: Yeah. Outreach is great. I think the more we do, the bigger we grow, the bigger and louder our voice is, the more likely it is for us to be able to get into different schools and do these outreach programs. But if we don’t have that clout, and if no one knows who we are, then they can’t hire us. So it is always a goal to get involved in these educational programs, it’s just a matter of them saying yes to us and then us doing it.

And more writing, I think. I want the show to become more and more polished. Again, with the more popularity we gain, so that when people are hearing about the show and come to it, they’re seeing a more and more polished show.

Video: “Your Forever Home”: The video thumbnail shows four performers in black-and-white cut-outs against a purple background. A white and blue-grey “GLx” logo is in the top left-hand corner and the superimposed title, “Your Forever Home,” is displayed on a blue-grey banner in the bottom right-hand corner. A performer with a terrified expression, mouth and eyes open wide, occupies half of the frame, in the foreground. Smaller behind her are three performers: two smile and look at the camera, one while brandishing a knife, and the third performer wears a homemade mask with uneven eyes cut out. Video courtesy of Generation LatinX.

Marya Spont-Lemus: My last question is — and sorry, this is kind of cheesy but it’s just coming to me — because most of you participated in this live, ephemeral show tonight, or even just from this conversation, what are a few words that you’re leaving the night with? Or something that happened onstage that you’re leaving the night with?

Jesse Pazmiño: [laughs] Jumping off a window. [all laugh]

Mishell Livio: Commitment, excitement, growth.

Maria Konopken: Commitment. And challenge too. On the stage in an improv set, I think — and this is just me personally — “My goal is to do this in the set,” just to challenge myself. My goal for the last month, in general in shows I’ve done, is to be more physical.

Marya Spont-Lemus: [laughs] You really seemed to achieve that tonight! [Jesse laughs]

Maria Konopken:  I know that on this stage I can do that and people are going to, like, “yes and” it — because that’s what you do. But yeah, there’s a commitment. And improv is fun for me in certain atmospheres and this is one of them, so I like coming to do it. If it wasn’t fun, I wouldn’t do it. [laughs] And when watching the show, I’m just laughing at them being silly and also seeing how they improve each week, which I enjoy.

Image: Dave Quiñones performing with Generation LatinX at iO. Dave’s back is to the audience and is doing a headstand onstage. Image courtesy of iO and Generation LatinX.

Mishell Livio: Yeah, I love seeing their growth. This is the end of the third season now, and I can see everyone’s growth. I’ll see little mistakes happen onstage and think “Oh no…” — and then I can see them [snaps fingers] correct. They couldn’t have corrected those things at the beginning of their career. So it’s wonderful to see them — because mistakes in improv are beautiful — it’s just seeing what you do with those mistakes and how you can turn them positively. I saw so many little mistakes tonight, and I saw so many of them turn positively. And you’ll hear a laugh and you’ll be like, “That’s the edit. And somebody’s running across the stage they found the edit it’s so great yeeeesssssssss!”

Maria Konopken: I coached first season and was screaming “edit” in classes. “Edit this.” And they’re like– But I’m like “I don’t care. Edit this. I can’t watch it anymore.”

Mishell Livio: “It’s done. It’s done! This is done!” And they did it! I just get so excited when they say yes to each other’s ideas, or they both come out and you can see the terror in, like, “Oh, I thought I was a swan, but we’re at a funeral!” [all laugh] And them just incorporating both of those ideas and figuring it out. And not panicking. Which is great!

Jesse Pazmiño: It’s exciting to see that happen because, as they keep meshing as an ensemble, they keep also showcasing themselves as performers — both as individuals and together. As a writer, that’s exciting to see. Because the writers come watch the show and, when the performers get to that point, we can see exactly how that person could be used in a sketch. You know, “Oh, yes, I can see what character Luis [Roberto Castelló] could be.” Or, “Where can I push Luis to go, since I saw him go here this week?” And that makes writing more exciting, because you know what you’re playing with and what buttons to push for the performers to perform their best. Because, as writers, we want to highlight them. So it’s kind of this cycle.

Image: Aaron Sanchez and Alexis Alvarado performing with Generation LatinX at iO. Image courtesy of iO and Generation LatinX.

Marya Spont-Lemus: Well I was saying earlier how– Who was the performer in the striped shirt?

Maria Konopken: Alexis [Alvarado].

Marya Spont-Lemus: Alexis. I was like, “I loved his characters’ darkness.”

Mishell Livio: Yeah.

Marya Spont-Lemus: You know? He had a really dark, lovely sense of humor that totally worked for me. And I was like, “Yeah. That is what I want to watch.”

Maria Konopken: And he’s one of the performers that started out as an understudy. I remember, he came to every rehearsal and I’d be like, “You’ve got it, just do it, just be weirder!” [all laugh]

Marya Spont-Lemus: It was so wonderful!

Maria Konopken: Yeah. He’s funny by himself — just what he says — but he’s definitely taken advice from each coach and Mishell, and he started taking classes at ComedySportz, so he’s making the commitment, he’s really listening. Look at what happens.

Mishell Livio: He’s a prime example of someone who has taken advantage of the opportunities and come up through the program. Like I told him, “Take more classes, do this thing.” And he’s like, “Okay!” “See more shows.” “Okay!” “Stop asking questions.” “Okay!” [all laugh]  I mean, he has grown so, so much. He’s great.

Maria Konopken: And he goes to a lot of shows. He was just at a show I performed in on Friday!

Mishell Livio: Yeah. Very supportive.

Maria Konopken: And he has this thing — that even I wish I had, where I could say something and everything I say is funny? — and he has that, already. So now, if you just work on it? Imagine where you can go with that.

Marya Spont-Lemus: Any final things anyone wants to share?

Jesse Pazmiño: I know we already covered this, but I think the special flavor that this team has is that sense of family. Because, yeah, we all have different goals, but what Mishell has created is a place where, at this moment in time, we’re all, like, holding hands. In a good way. Helping each other develop those goals and those dreams. And it’s really special! I think that that’s really what this is about, at the end of the day. And we just get to share that energy with the rest of the audience.

Featured image: Thumbnails for Generation LatinX video sketches, designed by Jesse Pazmiño. This image shows an oblique grid of parts of nine video thumbnails. Each thumbnail has the “GLx” logo in its top left-hand corner, actors in black-and-white cut out against a solid-color background, and a title (e.g., “Birthday Funeral,” “Chola Wisdom,” “Casitas,” “What is GLx?”, “Your Forever Home”). Across the images, performers have a variety of expressions, costumes, and props. Image courtesy of Generation LatinX.

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.

This fall, Art Design Chicago is illuminating the legacy of art and design that’s embedded in Chicago’s history and culture through a full calendar of exhibitions, events, and other programs across the city. As editorial partners in this effort, we’re working with them to to elevate the stories of Chicago’s lesser-known artists, designers, and creators, past and present, through comics, essays, interviews, podcasts, and videos. For the videos we’ve teamed up with On The Real Film to present short profiles that highlight the exhibitions, projects, and people who are showcasing these legacies in various ways.

The second video in this series, “Curating Chicago,” follows curators Lisa Stone and Stano Grezdo in walkthroughs of their current exhibitions Chicago Calling: Art Against the Flow at Intuit and LIONS: Founding Years of UIMA in Chicago at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, respectively. On The Real Film travelled with the two curators as they discussed the stories behind the exhibitions and what it means to be an “outsider artist” in Chicago. LIONS, co-curated by Stano Grezdo and Robin Dluzen, features selections from UIMA’s extensive collection of ephemera as well as works by the Institute’s founding artists. Chicago Calling, co-curated by Lisa Stone and Kenneth Burkhart, highlights works by 10 Chicago artists: Henry Darger, William Dawson, Lee Godie, Mr. Imagination, Aldo Piacenza, Pauline Simon, Drossos Skyllas, Dr. Charles Smith, Wesley Willis, and Joseph Yoakum.

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This video is presented in collaboration with Art Design Chicago, an initiative of the Terra Foundation for American Art exploring Chicago’s art and design legacy through more than 30 exhibitions, as well as hundreds of talks, tours and special events in 2018.  www.ArtDesignChicago.org.

Featured Image: A still from the video Curating Chicago: Exhibition Curators Lisa Stone and Stano Grezdo, courtesy of On The Real Film. The image shows two people from the waist up, facing one another and talking. They are standing in a gallery where there’s artwork hanging on the walls and small sculptures that look like buildings on pedestals just beyond them. 

On The Real Film is a Chicago based production company that loves storytelling and keeps it real. Founded in 2011 by partners Erin Babbin and Michael Sullivan, On The Real Film produces documentaries, fictional films, music videos, and artist portraits.

Tonika G. Johnson (she/her) is an Englewood photographer and activist who uses photography and digital media to explore Chicago’s racial and economic disparities. She harnesses the provocative power of photographs and moving image in her latest project Folded Map, where she looks specifically at issues of segregation and housing by juxtaposing images of streets on Chicago’s South Side with their sister addresses on the North Side. The stark difference in the care of buildings, houses, and streets between the two locations is jarring and visually unsettling. The omnipresent nature of structural racism and systemic oppression has never been clearer. But Johnson does more than show these disparities. She creates a bridge and creates space for North and South Side residents to come together and discuss how segregation impacts their lives. In doing so, Johnson urges the Chicago public to continue to have these difficult conversations.

I have been an admirer of Johnson’s work since Everyday Rituals, her multimedia project that “asserts the divinity of regular people.” She captures her community with loving precision and pride. Each image holds a special type of tenderness that’s not often associated with snap judgments or media reports about Englewood. Her work is not only a love letter to Englewood but a necessary disruption of the harmful images of Black life in Chicago.

This article was edited for length and clarity.

Ireashia Bennett: So, finally, we meet! [Tonika and Ireashia laugh] You were one of the first to come to mind in terms of using photography as a tool [and] demonstrating to the world and visualizing what segregation looks like, what systemic violence looks like in very stark ways.

Tonika G. Johnson: Oh, thank you! And you said it so eloquently. I’m like, “Oh she talks like a grant application.” [Tonika and Ireashia laugh] That is wonderful.

Ireashia: Buzzwords! [Ireashia and Tonika laugh] I’m really interested in how you came to photography. Was it your first love? Or, were there other things before photography?

Tonika: Really, it was poetry. Probably because I’d be around my mom all the time and she’s a writer and a poet. I was that kid that was dragged along to her screenwriting meeting. She was in a group that was eventually called “Black Screenwriters Association.” They met all the time talking about writing and screenplays and so I was immersed in that. So I started writing. Then, I got serious about poetry–as serious as an 8th grader can get. My friend that I was in school with told me about a program that was new–Young Chicago Authors. She was like, “You know you can get scholarships for each year of college. You should go! I’ll do it with you!” So we started Young Chicago Authors. Every Saturday, we had to go all year ’round. It was in the Young Chicago Authors program that they introduced other mediums. They offered photography.

Image: Photograph of storefronts in Englewood at night. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Ireashia: Oh, wow!

Tonika: I took the photography class because I was always interested in it. My dad was a camera fanatic. When I say “camera,” not the equipment but [he] always took pictures. So I was used to seeing myself and seeing pictures of my family members and I personally knew the value of it. I took photography the summer going into freshman year. This was ’93 and I’ve been hooked ever since.

Ireashia: What makes you stay with photography?

Tonika: Because I just see everything in photos. [Tonika laughs] I used to joke and say that if I had a camera in my eye, that would be perfect. I could blink and take a picture. I just always see photography. I always see images, I always see moments.

Even in my twenties when I was a new wife, a new mother and I had what I call [a] little sabbatical from photography. It was like, six years I didn’t take photos. I literally thought about it every day of those six years. I was bothering and annoying my husband at the time so much about not taking photos that he was like “you know what, we just need to budget for it and get you a damn camera ’cause you keep talking about it so much.” He got me a camera as a birthday gift–my first digital camera. I just started taking pictures in the neighborhood with my new camera.

I eventually met Asiaha Butler, the lead co-founder of R.A.G.E. [Resident Association of Greater Englewood], and I got really immersed in community work, which enabled me to really want to document Englewood completely. When I started doing community work my fellow community members started telling me how they valued my photography. They were the ones that [said], “No, these are valuable. These are the images we wished people would see of our community. And you have ’em!”

Image: To the top right, a Englewood Rising billboard sits above a green bush. The billboard features a young Black man with a medium-sized afro, smiling. He is wearing a plaid shirt and a black bow-tie. In his left hand, he rests his index finger on his skateboard. He is holding a plastic bag in his right hand. Beside his image in black text against lime green background reads: “This is Englewood.” On the lower left, a person with a grocery cart walks underneath the billboard. Photo courtesy of the artist.

That led to us eventually doing that Englewood billboard campaign where we raised funds to purchase five billboards in Englewood for 9-10 months. We did that project primarily for us residents to instill pride, hope–all of that. It wasn’t until the success of that billboard campaign that I was like, “Look at what art can do!” I mean, I had known it–but to experience it and be a part of it is a completely different thing. Now, I really do see photography as a huge tool to help people shift their mindset and reclaim narratives on how their communities are viewed and how others view it. It also spreads truth.

Ireashia: Yeah! Your work reminds me of the work that was happening during the Civil Rights Movement and also in the Chicano Movement when a lot of social justice organizations were actually using photography as a means to combat distorted truth. That’s what I see in your work. Especially with Everyday Rituals. I really enjoy how you turned the mundane into something that was regal and worthy of being celebrated and uplifted. It reminded me of the photography that I wanted to create when I was in college. But, there was also that outsider-insider dynamic.

Tonika: I completely understand that. It was actually during college that I kind of got discouraged to continue the kind of photography I wanted to continue–which was, and is, street photography. I was at Columbia College–

Ireashia: Ayee!

Tonika: Yes, I love them. But, back in the day, they did not have a very robust photography program. Specifically, photojournalism. I kind of created my own photography program. Because it was either you do fine art or you take a couple of classes in journalism. The responses that I got for my work was just so discouraging. It kinda just got dismissed. Or, the questions made me uncomfortable to the point that I didn’t really receive the critique well unless it was technical. I just focused on getting good technically and I did not pay attention to any of the critiques about my subjects, the context–a lot of the questions were: “What are you trying to do?” I didn’t know how to verbalize any of that at the time.

I had to get older to really understand the history of photography and visuals being used to profess African-American humanity. And, sadly, photography has always been used as propaganda to dehumanize people of color. Once the billboard campaign happened, a lot of my other friends who are well-versed in art history kind of told me what my work reminded them of. I feel really honored to have naturally fallen into that line of photography and work because it’s critical. It’s important.

Image: An older Black woman sits at a table. She is wearing a brown fur coat and a black hat with a brooch on the side. She gazes past the camera with a slight smile on her face. On the teal table in front of her is a large black Crown Royal bag and glasses with clear liquid and straws in them. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Ireashia: In your opinion, what is the role of Black photographers to reimagine and reframe the visual representation of Black Identity and culture in this socio-political and cultural moment?

Tonika: I think our role is to, first and foremost, document. Use whatever medium to document your lived experience. Because regardless of whether its art now or a photo-documentary series it is going to be the historic reference in the future. Period. I feel that art, in all of its mediums, really provides an understanding of what was going on in a specific period of time and how people responded to it in a way that can’t ever be documented in history books. I think our role is to continue documenting and continue producing our art so that we can create archives that can be accessible in the future. We’ve seen different iterations of artistic movements and I think we are at a point with technology that we can look at the past and kind of see how our voices, our art, was kind of washed away from history. We’re at a point [where] we can both document and produce the art and start archiving it in some way. Whether it’s electronically or on new platforms. Just–something.

I think our role is to be the scribes of our day and age–to continue doing what artists have done, but to make sure that we continue to create platforms [where] our work can be archived for the future and then also to create platforms for future artists of color to have a space to share their work. Because that’s also part of the problem. There are no consistent platforms for us–in whatever geographic area we’re in–to share our work with the public outside of the traditional spaces. A lot of us operate outside of galleries and museums. I think it’s important to start to tell our stories so that it can’t be misinterpreted. At least there is another perspective to challenge the dominant narrative about us.

Image: An older Black man reclines in a tan suede chair with his left elbow resting on the chair’s armrest. His metal cane rests on his right leg. Behind him is a red brick wall with markings and imperfections on it. He gazes to the right of the camera with a open-mouthed smile on his face. He is wearing beige slacks, a beige shirt and a green, white, and a beige sweater with a green hat. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Ireashia: Yeah. That’s pretty similar to how I see it. I think we are in a moment when it’s important–with whatever media, like you said–to make sure we are telling our own stories. And in the way that we want to tell it. We don’t want to leave too much room for interpretation. Because that will always get washed away, or smudged, or distorted in some way. I think a lot of young Black photographers are seeing the value in that–the importance of making sure we document the everyday life of Black people as well as these movements.

Tonika: Yeah, because it’s history. And there’s also a need for–like, an actual need for it. People don’t go to [newspapers] as their sole source of news and information. It was largely media outlets that hired photojournalists who were the ones that documented communities in urban areas. They contract photographers to cover a specific story and so the stories are always negative.

To me it’s like an urgent call for photographers who are passionate about documentation and street photography to really get out there, do the work now. This is the period of time that probably won’t be covered from an insider-perspective, because of the business model of large media outlets who produce newspapers and publications where they are right now. So you’re gonna have a gap in time where you will potentially not have Black communities or communities of color being photographed from people who are empathetic. And I would hate to see that occur.

This is what let me know that I needed to document Englewood and focus on Englewood: I Googled “Englewood, photos, Black Life.” Nothing came up. Nothing. And the only photos that can give people a historical context of communities and urban cities throughout the countries are from photojournalists. And their stuff is archived by larger media outlets because that’s who they worked for. Those are great, historic pieces now. It doesn’t take long for a photo to become a historic piece. All it takes is 15-20 years because stuff changes so quickly. I think it’s an urgent call.

Image: Photo of six Black boys sitting on their bikes. Three boys have their backs toward the camera while three are facing the camera but looking at each other. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Ireashia: Yeah! I remember being at a woman photography meet-up and there was one white woman photographer who worked at the Chicago Tribune. She was showing work that she had gotten awarded for. And one of the photos was like a photo of a Black man dead, in the grass. I was so triggered. Because I’m like why is this so important to show people [in that way]?

Tonika: Well, I got a whole issue of documentary photography. I just can’t stand it. It speaks to my larger issue with media, in general. When I was teaching photography to youth, I told them: “What you photograph, and how you photograph it, says more about you as a photographer than it does your subject. Period.”

I also hate crime reporting. Everybody grew up knowing “If it bleeds, it leads.” News has literally become reports about crime. It’s so crazy to me that we’ve gotten conditioned that the news is supposed to be a list of all the crime that’s occurred. What I tell people, to help them understand why we collectively have a problem with that–example: People were like, “Oh, Englewood is just so big on really challenging the narrative of their neighborhood that’s being reported on in the news. Why is that so critical?” And so we’re like, it’s not only because [Englewood] is perpetuated in a horrible stereotype and imagery of our community, it’s also eliminating us from an opportunity to be informed citizens of Chicago. Where do we go to get information if the news is just only talking about the crime in our community?

I, specifically, really want to help people understand that there’s a reason we feel the way we feel about the news. And it’s also eliminating us from having the information we need as residents of this city. Access to information is harder to get in neighborhoods of color as a result of the disinvestment. And that part is unfair and it’s basically disenfranchisement.

And…I did just kind of go off on a tangent [Tonika laughs].

Ireashia: No, it’s okay! It makes me wanna know more about R.A.G.E. and the types of programming you all have and what you do, and how you’re working with the city and community folks.

Tonika: Well, we are an association of residents.

Ireashia: Yes.

Tonika: We have about 300 members. And most of them are residents of Englewood or people who grew up in Englewood and no longer live here, who have family here, who go to church here, who go to work here. We have regular bi-monthly village meetings that 80-100 residents come to. We host this event series in the summertime–that’s really youth-focused but it’s intergenerational–called So Fresh Saturdays, where we activate several different parts in Englewood over the Summer, almost like every other week/weekend, with local artists that perform, free food, community resources. We kinda call it our Lil’ Englewood Coachella.

Ireashia: [laughs] I love it.

Tonika: So we do that. But, our primary programming is community engagement around whatever issue our members of the community feel is important. But, unfortunately, R.A.G.E. exists because there was no way for residents in Greater Englewood to be informed about things going on in Englewood. And issues that are relevant to Englewood. There was just no way for people to find out.

Our Englewood village meetings are the general places where we inform the community about whatever issues or information. A lot of organizations that are doing this really important, unsexy work, reach out to us so that they can do their community engagement. But, in turn, it benefits us, because now we can share that with the community. Because we can’t rely on newspapers or our aldermen. No one alderman has a large enough chunk of Englewood to take ownership of communicating with all of Englewood. We gotta do that. Because there’s no other way for us to find out about how to get city services, or how to do basic things. We just wanted to be a space where residents–regardless of what ward or address– could come to get informed.

Ireashia: That’s amazing. That’s such a heavy lift. But, it’s the work of Black women, right? The heart-labor, the emotional labor that you do to create sustainable community-oriented programs that actually inform residents and show young people that, actually, where you live is lit as fuck! [laughs]

Tonika: Yeah, it is! That’s really what So Fresh Saturdays are all about. Because our village people are older people–like, older than 30. Oftentimes when we have people who have never been to a R.A.G.E. village meeting, they’re like: “Oh, we need to have the voice of the youth in these meetings!” We don’t need, nor should we have to, liven it up to engage them when we have a completely different space for them to get engaged–which is So Fresh Saturdays. We have a set environment for youth to get engaged. They shouldn’t have to sit through a two-hour meeting that is probably boring to them when there are other ways they can be engaged to understand and get embedded in what civic engagement and community service looks like without having to sit in a meeting.

Image: Photograph of 6129 North Wolcott. In the center of the image is a two-flat house with beige panel siding, a clean porch with hanging flowers, and a flowerbed in the front of the house. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Ireashia: I’m gonna shift to Folded Maps. In many ways, it’s like a call-to-dialogue, right? It’s like an actual–like, ya’ll, look at this! And, talk about it. I’m so enamored by that. Because dialogue is kind of scary.

Tonika: It is. It’s the thing we avoid.

Ireashia: Especially honest communication and open dialogue about all the intricacies of the city, right? As you continue to explore the topic and issue of segregation and structural violence, how have your interviewees responded to your work? What have been some really interesting moments from discussions that stick with you?

Image: Photograph of 6135 South Wolcott. A two-flat house with light-blue paneling stands on the right side of the photo. Two Black women sit on the front porch. To the left of the house is an empty dirt lot with patches of grass. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Tonika: Two. Well, three, really. The first is one, me as the artist learning to eliminate myself from the conversation. You know, not interrupting what is said with my reactionary, opinionated response and just letting people have that space whatever it is they want to say in response to the question that I’m asking. So that’s been a lesson in listening. A brutal lesson. Because you have to hear people out.

Two: The question, when I ask them: “How much does your home cost?” “How much did it cost when you moved there?” Because these are residents that either live or grew up on the same street in the different neighborhoods. So that question is where it gets real. And people have their awkward responses and their reactions. Because it is the cutting through the bull result of segregation. Consistently, the South Siders, when they say how much their homes cost–it’s significantly lower than [what] the North Siders are apprehensive to say. Because everyone knows, “Oh this is where it is. This is what creates the divide.”

Ireashia: Hit ’em with the money question.

Tonika: Yeah! When you hear someone say, or when you’re the person saying–”Oh, my house, it was $60,000.” And then the person after that, “Well when I bought it in 2009–” go through the whole run-around– “It was $250.” People just sitting there, like: “Excuse me? What did you just say?” And on the flip side, it’s hard for the North Side resident to say the price.

Ireashia: Why do you think that is?

Tonika: Well, that’s also a part of the discussion. Because they feel bad. One of the resident pairs just came out and said it: “I feel guilty knowing that you don’t have access to the things that I’m so easily-accessible to.” That’s also the answer to saying how much your house cost. Because you tell the answer to people whose neighborhood and home are not nearly valued as high as yours. And that’s uncomfortable.

Also what sticks out to me is just how open people were. That there’s a lot of people really interested in wanting to contribute to help solve this issue of segregation and inequity but just feel like they can’t. For the North Side participants in Folded Map, this was an opportunity for them to do something that they felt was too large of an issue for them to tackle–when they’re not even on the disadvantaged end of it. This was a way for them to have experiential learning and really understand something that they would’ve never been able to understand otherwise. Unless they took their own initiative to come to Englewood–to do what? I don’t know!

It was really like, how do you make the bridge for people to have this conversation? For those that want to.

Ireashia: Right.

Tonika: That is what has been the most revealing and illuminating for me is to know that people on both sides of the city–even the West Side–are impacted by this. And it’s people on all of these sides who want to work together or want to address this issue. But, because of segregation, they don’t have a gathering space to discuss it because our city makes it literally so difficult–just by the geographic set up–to do that. Who is gonna wanna go 18 miles north just to talk to somebody about segregation? Who is gonna wanna come to Englewood when they’ve been told don’t?

There needs to be spaces to have these conversations so that the people who want to have them can do so. Folded Map showed me that it’s people all over who want to work towards this. And that’s what sticks with me. I did not think that before doing Folded Map.

Image: Portrait of Nanette, a Folded Map participant, standing on the front porch of her Map Twin, Wade. She is wearing a navy blue shirt with matching leggings. She gazes with a smile at the camera. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Ireashia: You do something really interesting in Folded Map. There are two portraits. One of a Black woman on a porch at a White man’s house, right? Then, one of the same White man at her house. And I’m reading the cards of each portrait and I’m like, “Wait, that’s not her house.” When I read those photos, I was like, “Okay, girl, get your money!” And then when I saw him, I was like, “gentrifier.” You know?

Tonika: Yeah. Mhmm.

Ireashia: I feel like that was trickster energy you put in there. And I really appreciate it, because you have to really look and really read. And you put a lot of onus on the audience to question their own perceptions of how they read these two photographs. I was like, “Wow! Okay.”

Tonika: You said it better than I described it to the curator! See, that’s why I have to have you to write that down for me. [laughs] The curator knew that I had those photos. And I told her: “I have to have them in the show!” Because I want the audience, whether or not they admit to it, I want them to look at these photos and make the snap judgments that Chicago forces you to make based off of the facts! And do their own stereotyping so they can understand how the environment of Chicago informs your judgment more so than your own personal objectivity. And to place the impact of Chicago’s segregation and geography on a larger scale for people to understand that segregation does more than impact our day-to-day lives. It makes us judge people. Chicago is so unique in that it makes us judge people in specific ways that transplants don’t. What made me know that I had to include this in the exhibit–because that was my intention when I took the photo–to play with stereotypes. When I showed it to my friends, they had the same exact response. How they questioned her–or applauded her–and how they questioned Wade, the White guy. My friend was like: “Why you take a picture of the landlord?” [Tonika and Ireashia laugh together]

Image: Photograph of Wade on his Map Twin Nanette’s front porch in Englewood. He is wearing khaki shorts, a bright green t-shirt with the Chicago flag on the front, and sandals. He looks at the camera with a slight smile on his face. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Ireashia: Nooo! Yo, that’s spot on, though.

Tonika: That says a lot about the power dynamic in Chicago. There is no neighborhood in Chicago where a middle-aged White man that have homes that look “run down” to other people. And if it is his house we know that it’s something that he rents out–he’s a developer or there’s something he’s fixing up. Right? And for Nanette, the response was, “What she do for a living?” [laughs] And so the ways in which we validate her or question or– we didn’t wanna know what Wade did for a living.

Ireashia: We kinda knew.

Tonika: Exactly! What you know. So the curator agreed to include that little something different in the exhibit.

Ireashia: It definitely added depth–it really brought it home for me. Because I have been in Chicago for seven years, and I have never been so judgemental.

Tonika: Chicago do that! It definitely gets you that way, especially when you start identifying people by the neighborhood that they from. Someone say Bronzeville, “Oh that nigga got money!” But, whereas ten years ago you’d probably be like “hmm…I don’t know.” Whenever I say Englewood I always get some kind of response. It’s just like… the neighborhoods determine how you choose to connect with somebody or what questions you ask them. It really informs a lot. That’s very unique to Chicago.

Ireashia: And it’s very class-based.

Tonika: Yeah. Race and class. Chicago is the perfect experiment for how race and class play out. How you connect with people. How you judge people. How you make assumptions about people. It’s the perfect environment to do something like Folded Map because it doesn’t–it exists in other places, but not so mathematical.

Image: Wade (left) and Nanette (right) sit together on Nanette’s porch and smile at the camera. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Ireashia: What are the next steps for Folded Map?

Tonika: I don’t have another location for where Folded Map will be after it leaves LUMA. I definitely wanna create a website so that it has a permanent home. I also want to create some curriculum around it. The response to [Folded Maps] helps me to envision a future for it. I had no idea that a lot of people all over the city would be ready to have this conversation or interested in engaging with it. So many students from grammar school to collegiate-level have seen Folded Map and responded to it. I definitely want to do that because I want to continue to do Map Twin interviews and I want it to be a tool to see how these two individuals–or four–through Folded Map, was guided through having conversations that we generally avoid. Eventually, I want to be able to host Folded Map dinners to invite people to a specific neighborhood to meet their geographic neighborhood twin. But, in a more communal way.

Ireashia: Keep me updated!

Tonika: I will.

Folded Map runs through October 20 at the Loyola University Museum of Art.

This article is published as part of Envisioning Justice, a 19-month initiative presented by Illinois Humanities that looks into how Chicagoans and Chicago artists respond to the impact of incarceration in local communities and how the arts and humanities are used to devise strategies for lessening this impact.

Featured Image: Portrait collage of Tonika G. Johnson smiling at the camera. She is adorned with silver hooped earrings and a multi-colored head wrap tied in a top-knot. The background is purple with a satellite map of Englewood; above the map is a transparent text that reads: “Englewood Times.” The portrait and the collage were created by Ireashia Monét.

Ireashia Monét (they/them) is a Chicago-based self-taught photographer, filmmaker, writer, and multimedia artist originally from PG County, MD.

“The white fathers told us, I think therefore I am; and the black mothers in each of us-the poet- whispers in our dreams, I feel therefore I can be free” —Audre Lorde, from Poetry is Not a Luxury

I aim to write a series of poems centered on the real and imagined landscapes of Chicago. While poetry isn’t often thought of as news, poems, more than anything, describe the truth of the world around us. While truth can come out of diligent and factual reporting, it can also be revealed by a few honest words that intimately and imaginatively give language to the unseeable pain and joy present in Chicago. There is so much more to Chicago than the fact of it and its events, there are universes of feelings that come out of the landscape we live in that break the bounds of reality.

my best friend is black and she lives in lincoln park

she comes from unsally’s beauty. from neighbors who grow shrubs to imagine she is unhere. from unsnow cone man. she is more zoo than zoo. she is it and she it. i ungo visit. i unsee her 143 bibles, picture with micelle, elevator. she unorders her favorite from jeni’s— the sea salt caramel—. may i have the almond brittle butter unblooms from my mouth.

Next poem…

Treated with fumes and mercury vapor, the silver-polished metal plate is exposed to the light of a sunny Parisian day and reveals a latent image on its mirror-like surface: the curve of a cobblestone street leads the eye down rows of various-sized structures, toward a far-off vanishing point in the cityscape. Legible in the foreground, out in front of what appears to be a residential building, we see two figures miniaturized within the sweeping panorama.

Captured by Louis Daguerre, inventor of the eponymous daguerreotype technique, this 1838 photograph, titled Boulevard du Temple, is believed to be the first picture ever created of city space and daily urban life. With its elevated perspective looking down and across this vista, Daguerre’s photo situates the viewer as an observer who is simultaneously in the city but also looking at it from some remove, as if through a window. The wide angle and sense of distance allow the viewer to consider the scene aesthetically: the contrast and quality of light, the atmosphere, the architectural forms. At the same time, the anonymous people in the lower left corner reveal something deeper: one is a shoe shiner, the other his client; this is a picture of labor, and of social relations.

Daguerre’s initial city vision set image-making on a path that continues today in depictions of daily life and the built environment. Photography often traverses urban space through avenues of poetics and politics – poetic in the sense of contemplating aesthetics amidst the rhythms of the everyday; and politics through documenting the city as a “text” in which we can read and interpret the dynamics of historical and contemporary inequality, injustice, exploitation, and unbalanced distribution of power and resources. These poetics and politics constantly meld in our lived experiences of the city. Chicago, of course, is no exception to this, bounded by both its renowned architectural history and ongoing institutional racism, segregationist urban planning, gentrification and displacement.

What follows is a brief, and in no way comprehensive, look at how juxtapositions of Chicago’s spatial poetics and politics have been documented photographically through the historic work of Yasuhiro Ishimoto and contemporary work by Clarissa Bonet, Lee Bey, Tonika Johnson, and Sebastián Hidalgo, each with their own vision of our city.

Image: Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Untitled, 1959–61, gelatin silver print. From the series Chicago, Chicago. Collection of DePaul Art Museum. A train crosses a bridge over the Chicago River, while in the upper part of the image, a segment of the city skyline is obscured by fog. Photo courtesy of the DePaul Art Museum.

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The transnational photographer Yasuhiro Ishimoto first arrived in Chicago in 1945, resettling here after he and his family were imprisoned in Colorado for three years when the U.S. government placed 120,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II. Having first experimented with photography at the Amache camp, Ishimoto enrolled at the Institute of Design here and learned from the likes of László Moholy-Nagy, Harry Callahan, and others, who encouraged him to use photography to document the city.

Immersing himself among marginalized communities in Chicago, Ishimoto witnessed the effects of racial segregation, which he sought to document through landscape images and empathetic portraits of residents. The exhibition Someday, Chicago, on view through December 16th at the DePaul Art Museum, features forty of Ishimoto’s photographs of Chicago from this period of his work in the 1950s and 1960s, including selections from a later set of over 200 images created between 1958-1961 that were produced for his book Chicago, Chicago.

The prints on view in this exhibition not only demonstrate Ishimoto’s mastery of the photographic craft, but also his expressive explorations through a keen eye for light and texture in urban spaces: the sculpted scale of glass and steel, the thin section of waning daylight that illuminates a downtown hotel’s neon facade, the crunchy detail of snowy boots on neighborhood sidewalks. In the back of the exhibition, a small set of color prints also illustrate Ishimoto’s decades-long experiments with abstract imagery assembled from multiple exposures of landscapes and architecture in various locations.

The black-and-white photos, which comprise the bulk of his work in the exhibition, contrast scenes of under-resourced neighborhoods with the glitzy structures and skyline of the downtown core being transformed by so-called “urban renewal.” While his images of the built environment tend to emphasize its formal qualities, Ishimoto maintains a subtle social commentary by giving equal weight to everyday moments such as the jubilant play of neighborhood children, or to public protests calling for desegregation, housing justice, and other civil rights.

Image: Clarissa Bonet, Perpetual Shadow, 2014, pigment print. From the series City Space. A man crosses the street and steps into an area of deep shadow, as sunlight accentuates the vertical window bays of a skyscraper in the distance. Photo courtesy of the artist.

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At first glance, Clarissa Bonet’s City Space series seems to borrow some of the modernist vocabulary of Ishimoto, Callahan, and their colleagues, as her photographs explore downtown urban space in Chicago through light, shadow, color, composition, and texture. However, whether through tiny clues or our own careful investigation, we may come to discover that these works traffic somewhere between composite images and strict representation. As reconstructions based on real events or chance encounters that the artist experienced and then later staged and re-created, Bonet’s images complicate the idea of a photograph as document.

Approaching the urban environment as both a physical space and a psychological space, Bonet’s methodology emphasizes how the city may at times feel overwhelming, imposing, mysterious, or confounding, as we navigate amongst skyscrapers, deep alleyways, canyons of light and dark, always under the watchful eye of capital and CCTV. Like high-contrast scenes that evoke the psychic drama of noir genres, here life in a city core dominated by tourism and business becomes imbued with a sense of isolation, anonymity, dread, or monotonous boredom.

Image: Lee Bey, Pullman Colonnade Apartments, from the series Chicago: A Southern Exposure, 2017. View through an archway showing some of the four curved colonnade apartment buildings in the Pullman neighborhood. At the center of the complex sits a public square which used to house the Pullman Market Hall. Photo courtesy of the artist.

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As a photographer, writer, and architecture critic, Lee Bey also directs his camera toward Chicago’s built environment, but with an important caveat: instead of the popular boat tours and exquisite vistas of the city’s legendary downtown structures, his series Chicago: A Southern Exposure draws our attention to under-appreciated architecture and design elements on the South Side – including works by famous names such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Daniel Burnham, or Eero Saarinen. A native of the South Side, Bey has created a visual survey that considers a variety of institutional, residential, and everyday structures and spaces which have been undocumented or overlooked due to racism, classism, and prejudiced conceptions about these areas.

Many of the negative portrayals and stereotypes about the South Side have been perpetuated through photography itself, in biased or misleading journalistic reporting, or the day-tripping ruin tourists seeking images of abandoned buildings and poverty that offer very selective impressions of those neighborhoods. By turning his camera toward the vibrant structures that other photographers ignore in their single-minded hunt for decay and vacancy, Bey both assembles an important counter-narrative and contributes to an ongoing record of the South Side’s cultural legacy.

Furthermore, although Bey’s images are predominantly focused on architecture, it is important to recognize that these are living spaces of circulation and daily routine for (predominantly Black) residents – as seen, for example, in the passing cyclist, the cars parked out front, or the customers coming in and out of the cleaners.

Image: Tonika Johnson, Yoshi, 81st & Laflin, 2015, archival inkjet print. From the series From the INside. A young woman in a bright pink shirt turns and smiles at the camera as she walks down the sidewalk. Photo courtesy of the artist.

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In a similar vein to Bey’s work, Tonika Johnson’s images also help construct a crucial counter-narrative to combat false characterizations of the South Side. A native of Englewood, Johnson began photographing her neighborhood in 2006 and eventually developed two complementary projects, Everyday Rituals and From the INside, which document and revere the joys and beauty in her community, encountered in spaces and social gathering spots such as sidewalks, street corners, stoops, lounges, churches, or parks. These images provide the community a chance to recognize themselves in an intimate archive of the neighborhood created by someone with direct connection to that place.

Johnson’s most recent exhibition project, Folded Map, confronts Chicago’s violent legacy of racial and residential segregation by displaying photographs of various disparities that persist between the South and North sides. Beyond the photographs, Folded Map includes a critical social and conversational component, bringing together residents from opposite south and north ends of the same street, from different neighborhoods, to get to know each other and discuss their lives.

Folded Map is currently on display through October 20th at the Loyola University Museum of Art. To read more in-depth about Tonika and her Folded Map project, check out her recent interview by Ireashia Bennett as part of Sixty’s Envisioning Justice initiative.

Image: Low-riders take up space along Pilsen’s 18th Street strip during the Mexican Independence Day Parade. Photo by Sebastián Hidalgo.

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At the time Daguerre made his famous picture in 1838, the Boulevard du Temple was an area known for its many edgy theaters, including one where he worked as a stage designer. Today very little remains of the cityscape that appeared in Daguerre’s image: between 1853–1870, under the commission of Emperor Napoleon III, Georges-Eugene Haussmann oversaw the razing and reconstruction of the majority of central Paris. Districts around the Boulevard du Temple and elsewhere were thoroughly demolished, and ethnic minorities, poor, and working-class residents were forced out to the peripheries of the city. Carried out under the auspices of “urban renewal”, this transformation of 19th-century Paris was, in some ways, a template for the gentrification and displacement we see happening in Chicago and other major cities today.

Sebastián Hidalgo is a native of Pilsen, one of the neighborhoods being most drastically affected by current waves of gentrification in Chicago. Combining aspects of documentary, journalism, and visual art as vehicles for narrative storytelling, Hidalgo has been engaged in a long-term photo essay about Pilsen entitled “The Quietest Form of Displacement in a Changing Barrio.” Growing directly from his roots in the neighborhood and his community relationships, Hidalgo’s images focus on the physical, emotional, and cultural impact of displacement, as well as the political neglect (i.e. opportunistic aldermen who side with developers and sell out the majority of their constituents) and violence that accompany gentrification.

The notion of displacement as a “quiet” process carries a lot of weight through Hidalgo’s pictures. Gentrification is a slow, insidious unfolding over decades, mostly under the surface, until it suddenly reaches a point of hypervisibility (usually of imposed whiteness and upper middle class consumer culture) and crosses a threshold where long-term POC residents begin to feel pushed out and see their neighborhood as haunted by strangeness or trauma, or a sense of isolation in a place they no longer recognize as home.

Additionally, this quiet, slow violence is epitomized in the narrative of Casa Aztlan, which Hidalgo has included in his documentation of Pilsen. Formerly a community center and major gathering space for the local Latinx community, Casa Aztlan’s exterior was adorned with some of Pilsen’s oldest murals as homage to famous artists and activists from the neighborhood. After the building was bought in 2017 by developers seeking to convert it to luxury apartments, the community erupted in protest when the owners had the murals painted over in a drab gray. In the face of such acts that threaten to erase and displace Pilsen’s identity as a Latinx barrio, Hidalgo’s work helps to preserve a record and archive of that community and its cultural footprint in the neighborhood. His images are currently on display in the group exhibition Peeling Off the Gray, through February 2019 at the National Museum of Mexican Art.

This article is presented in collaboration with Art Design Chicago, an initiative of the Terra Foundation for American Art exploring Chicago’s art and design legacy through more than 30 exhibitions, as well as hundreds of talks, tours and special events in 2018. www.ArtDesignChicago.org

Featured Image: Clarissa Bonet, Proximity, 2014, pigment print. From the series City Space. Two silhouetted people lean up against opposite sides of a tall green pillar, as they take a cigarette break outside of a reddish-pink downtown building. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Greg Ruffing is an artist, writer, organizer, and curator working on topics around the production of space at different scales – from the macro level of sociopolitical structures and architecture in the built environment, down to an emphasis on community, collaboration, and exchange on the interpersonal level. He is the Photography Editor at Sixty Inches From Center.