LaToya Ruby Frazier, born in Braddock, PA in 1982, is an American artist and current professor of photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Ruby Frazier has been recognized as one of the most powerful and unique voices in modern photography, committed to telling stories of post industrial America, environmental justice, and communal history. In a 2014 interview with the New York Times regarding her photo book on Braddock, PA, Ruby Frazier remarked, “We need longer sustained stories that reflect and tell us where the prejudices and blind spots are and continue to be in this culture and society”. “This is a race and class issue that is affecting everyone. It is not a black problem, it is an American problem, it is a global problem. Braddock is everywhere”.
In 2016 Ruby Frazier completed “Flint is Family”, a project providing visibility to the inequality and destruction of the Flint Water Crisis (selected images above). Ruby Frazier published “Flint is Family” in Elle magazine in September, 2016 in conjunction with a feature on the water crisis. Her work can be found at institutions around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art; Brooklyn Museum; Seattle Art Museum; Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh; Centre National Des Arts Plastiques, France; JP Morgan Chase Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.
For some Michigan students, January means nothing more than wind, cold, and late-night study sessions. But, for the University of Michigan fashion organization EnspiRED, this month has been leading up to a highly anticipated and impeccably curated fashion show. The theme for this year: Empyrean– a vogue take on astrology adorned with a namesake synonymous to “heaven at its highest form”.
EnspiRED shows are not something ordinary to any university campus. The entirely student-run organization executes these events every year, hosting hundreds of alumni, student, and parent spectators alike in the atrium of the Taubman Biomedical Sciences Research Building. These are not your typical fashion shows. Whereas haute couture shows at any given fashion week function in a please-hold-your-applause environment, EnspiRED offers something much different. Attendees need no permission to stand and hype-up their loved ones strutting down the catwalk. This is an event where fashion meets community, and music meets culture.
Even if you know nothing about astrology, what should be known is that it has become a mainstream movement. Beyond horoscopes, it offers a sense of individualism and comfort for its followers. Astrology has ancient roots, dating back to the days of Babylon. Symbolic figures and animals were adapted from constellations, which were given their own personalities. You have a set constellation for each ‘house’, denoted from the position of the stars in the sky during the time you were born. Empyrean encapsulated six of these houses: the Sun, the Moon, the Ascendant, Mars, Venus, and finally, Lilith (the dark moon). Each house has its own meaning, and this was well reflected on the runway.
While attendees last year saw glamorous looks with the theme “allure,” heads also turned to witness a beautiful manifestation of each individual astrological category. Still, EnspiRED doesn’t limit itself to thematically encapsulating clothing. Music was fundamentally entwined throughout the show. In fact, Music and fashion are what defines the EnspiRED creative direction, led by Vice President of Creative Design DeLorean Slaughter.
“I would like the biggest takeaway to be that… astrology is not necessarily a monolith”– DeLorean tells me while taking a quick break from rushing backstage, helping to coordinate what is unarguably one of the University of Michigan’s largest fashion events of the year. He is in charge of every single creative aspect of the event– curating the music from his own personal playlist, working closely with image consultants to assemble clothing, and even directing where to place the stage and lighting. Seamlessly, he’s merged a very unique topic within the fashion world to create Empyrean.
Executing this visuals of such an event is no easy task. Months prior to the show, DeLorean teamed up with EnspiRED’s image consultants Cameron Cox and Ritisha Ghosh to relay the concept for the production. Their job is to search for designers and clothing stores to assist in matching the vision of the theme. They take stylistic inputs and manifest them in order to make the fashion reflect the concept.
Backstage, image consultant Cameron Cox puts on finishing touches before the show.
A massive stage, extensive lighting, beautiful atmosphere, and a team of dozens of style-loving individuals are what solidified then-prospective student Jasmine Williams’ decision to study business here at U-M. Now, as the current President of EnspiRED, she recalls hearing “Pyramids” by Frank Ocean playing during a scene of the show she first attended and describes it as an experience she’ll never forget.
“The professionalism is definitely not student caliber, it’s much higher.” - Jasmine Williams, EnspiRED President
What one can find at New York Fashion Week, one can find at an EnspiRED show. As president, it’s Jasmine’s role to coordinate all bodies involved in making the show as professional as possible. For three hours every Sunday since October, she sat in a large room alongside fellow executive board members while models walked in their direction, drilling every detail meticulously. The show marks the end of a months-long journey to perfect the show, to a tee– “It’s definitely our moment. Everyone has so much involvement.”
An extension of the organization’s professionalism is easily observed when the runway clears. The show and its engagement with both campus and community is far from over. Each year, EnspiRED donates proceeds from the show to a charity of choice. The choice this year being Ann Arbor’s Ozone House, a shelter for homeless youth positioned just south of U-M’s central campus. (Check out their website here: https://bit.ly/2S47R0J)
You can get involved with EnspiRED’s fashion shows! Contact Brianna Buchanan (buchanab@umich.edu) for more information.
EnspiRED executive board presenting their donation to Ozone House during intermission.
The full-length windows in the Stenn Gallery usually allow you to see everything from the outside. Passersby can gaze through the wall to ceiling windows and observe most of what’s inside. Featured artist Mari Katayama’s exhibit, however, creates walls out of most of these windows, and allows only glimpses of her exhibit to be discerned. I sat down with Katayama and UMMA’s Curator of Asian Art Natsu Oyobe.
As we spoke, and Natsu Oyobe generously translated, a group of students formed outside, admiring what they could see of Katayama’s featured works through the front window. They were catching glimpses of what looks like a hammock filled with pillows. Had the students ventured in, they could’ve seen photos that range from frothy to surreal. In one, Katayama stands on a bridge, her own subject, sporting what looks like a long second limb that runs from her shoulder to the asphalt. Another photo looks like she has sprouted several limbs…until you see the seams on each extra arm.
Photograph: Mari Katayama
Due to trials tibial hemimelia, Katayama had part of each of her legs removed at the age of nine. She was also born with two fingers on her left hand. She often uses her body as the subject for her art. Katayama’s sewing and photography skills combined create photographs characterized by “soft sculptures” of hand-sewn pseudo-limbs. Her more recent photos, which are also featured in the Stern Gallery, are more abstract. Going into the interview, I was interested in investigating this difference.
Sam: I love everything that you’ve done here, the combination of photos and sculpture work. You talk a lot about the concept of self image, especially surrounding the issue of disability. What got you to the point that you felt so comfortable sharing your experiences in your art and outside of it?
Oyobe: (translating for Katayama): It’s a very complex process to get to exposing her body this way.
She treats her body as material, so she has a certain distance already.
When other people look at this work, and notice her body, she realizes oh, I have this body, so really for her, her body is like one of the materials.
There are two episodes [that got her to this point]. One episode was when she was growing up, still a little child, she looked at herself as the same as everyone until she looked in the mirror and [remembered] she has a different kind of body. That’s when she started thinking of body image. So she tried to behave the same as everyone else. Although she wears prosthetics, she tried to walk like other people, or she tried to hide her left hand with just two fingers so no one could see. As she began to be in the larger world outside of home or school, there are things she couldn’t really do [the same way as] “normal” people. If there is a 14-story high building, she can’t go up the stairs, she might fall, just a little bump, you know.
Then she realizes that she’s different, and that her body is different. But she also feels that where she stands as a person in society, that she’s disabled, just like being a mother, or anything else.
Photograph: Mari Katayama
Sam: So speaking on your art, especially the photos where you get really up close to elements of your body like your back, considering what your previous works look like, what made you choose this new perspective?
Oyobe: These are earlier works. [Oyobe gestures to the first wall.] She posed her body as material, and arranged it in a different way, trying to be as straight as possible with her body. When she was working this way with a little bit of distance, she didn’t think her body was very interesting. At the same time, she thought her body was convenient. Because she doesn’t have legs, she can [put herself] inside these soft sculptures that she makes that she can wear. If you have two legs and you’re standing, there is already a weight there, so you can’t really play with that. But with her body, she can play around.
Works featured in UMMA’s Stenn Gallery. Come check it out for a close look! Photographs: Mari Katayama
Oyobe: She took these pictures after she gave birth to her daughter. She was surprised [at her daughter’s behavior about her legs]. She seemed to think, “these are my dad’s feet,” but also “those are my mom’s feet.” That was a very fresh surprise. [Mari] didn’t think that way, because she thought her feet were not normal. But for her daughter, she recognizes them as legs. Because of that discovery through her daughter’s eyes, she looked closely at her own body in a very different way.
Sam: I want to talk a little bit about your older works as well, especially your sewing projects. Most of your materials are created by hand. It takes such a long time to create something–you can spend hours on [a project] and it will be really small. I wanted to know if the process is difficult for you, if it’s soothing or calming. Do you like that it takes such a long time to create the things that you put in your photos?
Oyobe: There are two reasons that she took on sewing as part of her artwork. When she was growing up, both her mother and her grandmother sewed clothes. Before she started even drawing, she started sewing. She never went to school for it, but because she grew up in that environment, it’s really soothing for her.
She thinks that with needle, thread, and fabric, you can do anything.
It’s the most powerful tool that she has. For example, if you use glue to put fabric together, it takes time, you have to wait. With needle and thread you can put fabrics together very easily, and if you stuff them with cotton, you can make a sculpture very easily too. The only weak point is that fabrics can burn, catch fire, and also that they’re not good with water.
Sam: So don’t spill tea on it, and don’t put a candle near it.
Photograph: Matri Katayama
Sam: I’d like to ask about the arrangements of your pieces, because you make all these [sewing projects], and then you place them very carefully. Many of your images, especially your older pieces, seem to have a “more is more” mentality. At the same time, your scenes don’t feel very cluttered or chaotic, because everything is so carefully chosen. How do you choose what goes into your photos, and what goes out?
“She has no plan, nothing!”
Oyobe: [Mari] doesn’t believe in any spiritual process. When she begins taking photos, something comes to her mind in that moment. [The first part of] her process is to create these soft sculptures. Sometimes when she has a hard time and no inspiration comes around, she just keeps sewing straight lines. Then she goes to sleep, and at three am something just goes ping! and she seizes the moment, she just starts making art. These 3 dimensional objects come first. Once they’re there, she starts placing them, composing them in a different way. Usually she grows the composition to fit them. [As for the photography process], with a digital camera you can check the placement. So she tries taking different poses, and then she changes [them].
Sam: It sounds like a pretty complicated process–you spend a lot of time preparing and during the moment you just think, let’s do whatever we want.
Works featured in UMMA’s Stenn Gallery. Come check it out for a close look! Photographs: Mari Katayama
Sam: My final question is about your sculpture. This is the first thing I noticed when I came in, and it’s a lot different from your earlier works. Could you explain this piece a little bit, maybe your motivations, what it means to you?
Oyobe: So this was created when she took those photos [the outdoor scenes], and it was just a net, without the stockings. When she created this piece and this net, it was on an island. There was a garbage disposal [on the island] where they burned all this garbage in a nearby facility. There was this issue of pollution in the water because of that. So she was thinking that [in theory] these nets would remove all the debris out of the water. It’s true that they are not tight nets–you can’t really catch anything in them.
Using these nets and trying to remove the garbage, that kind of action isn’t really meaningful. She really thinks that is true to Japanese culture: trying to fake it, as if doing something [meaningful].
Sam: So more of a ritual than trying to [take action].
Oyobe: Then she returned to her hometown. In her hometown there’s this river with a coppermine upstream. When she first visited the area of the copper mine, before she got pregnant, she felt so close to that pollution issue. You can’t really solve these environmental issues, so she’s not sure what to do with that. The title for this piece is “living well is the best revenge”.
Sam: I love that!
Oyobe: In this work, these cushions relate to the lives of people, and these hanging objects in the stockings refer to people’s consumption. This is the first time she showed this piece after she gave birth and she created these pieces. With her daughter’s birth, she feels more close to everyday life. When she first created this piece, she felt distant, but [after the birth of her daughter] now she feels much closer.
Works featured in UMMA’s Stenn Gallery. Come check it out for a close look! Photographs: Mari Katayama
You can see Mari Katayama’s exhibit in UMMA’s Stenn Gallery until January 26, 2020. You can also listen to the full interview below.
On November 3, 2018 artist Michelle Hartney secretly hung her own labels next to prominent works by Picasso and Gauguin at the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York. Her self-titled “Hang and Run” performance calls for museums to “separate the art from the artist,” for both Picasso and Gauguin share exploitative and chauvinistic pasts, yet continue to be venerated by museums across the world. Quoting feminist scholar Roxanne Gay and comedian Hannah Gadsby, Hartney’s labels prompt the question: “what is the responsibility of the art institution to educate viewers and turn the presentation of an artist’s work into a teaching moment?”
Though Hartney’s website has little to say about her decision to craft guerilla museum labels, this act undoubtedly hits the museum where it hurts. Museums are label-conscious. Nearly every object on display comes paired with a label (sometimes lovingly referred to as a “tombstone”), listing basic information, including the title, artist, date, medium, and inventory number of a work. Some labels offer additional content, be it a visual description of the work, an explanation of the artistic process, or other information to assist the viewer in the act of observation. In just a few lines (because who wants to read a long museum label?), they pack a lot of punch. They should address a target audience, use accessible language, engage with the object, and, perhaps, even raise a provocative question. And though you won’t find this listed among the International Council of Museums (ICOM) standards or the V&A’s ten points to writing a gallery text, I suspect museum professionals (as museum-goers themselves) also know that in the galleries—perhaps more than we’d like to admit—our eyes dart right for the label, after only a passing glance at the artwork itself. The label is our collective museum vice, but museum professionals might make it a virtue.
Egon Schiele, UMMA, and #MeToo
A recent exhibit at UMMA’s State Street entrance showcased a new acquisition of works by the Austrian expressionist and controversial figure, Egon Schiele. In preparation for the show, Associate Curator Laura De Becker studied Schiele’s career, including the allegations lodged against him for sexual misconduct in the early twentieth century. The vagaries surrounding the circumstances of the charges, however, far exceeded what De Becker would be able to recapitulate in a mere tombstone caption. Whereas the exhibit’s digital announcement cited Schiele’s problematic status, a conventional label listing the title, artist, date, and medium, was all that accompanied the featured works in the museum gallery. “We received a complaint about this,” De Becker reported, “and we decided to write that label,” referring to an additional text she penned in response to visitor feedback, titled “Curator Laura De Becker reflects upon Egon Schiele in the #MeToo era.”
Female Nude in Black Stockings, Egon Schiele
In this additional caption, De Becker contextualized the controversy surrounding Schiele, the moral panic prompted by his “pornographic” nudes, and his exhibition of work to a minor, for which he served a short prison sentence. De Becker further embedded Schiele’s polemical past within contemporary debates regarding consent and the treatment of women, invoking conversations reenergized by the #MeToo movement. “Museums are reevaluating their practice in displaying and discussing works by artists such as Schiele,” the new caption explained, reflexively gesturing to the ways in which artists are being “scrutinized anew” not only at UMMA, but in many other museums. In the 2018 exhibition Klimt and Schiele at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Boston, for example, curators revised wall texts to bring Schiele’s transgressions to light. The text, however, confined to a small series of Schiele’s early works, minimized the artist’s culpability to a specific period of his artistic career. In so doing, the MFA passed up the opportunity to, as Becker puts it, “review historical practices through the lens of evolved thinking,” be it in an ethical, moral, or legal sense.
In writing the additional caption for the Schiele exhibit at UMMA, De Becker reported, “I did not offer up any truths. This is a complicated issue, which museums are still dealing with.” Above all, she explained, “this prompted the centuries-long question: Can we disconnect art from its maker?” Using the label to prompt critical questions, De Becker embraced the politics of the label. Responding to visitorship, she mobilized the caption, not as an “objective” museal tool, but as a means to engage the public and perhaps prompt a different reading of the artwork in light of its historical past. Among a set of challenging questions contained in the new label, De Becker asked, “How do such issues affect how we look at these images now and what role does the viewer play when seeing and admiring them?”
“Race-ing through the Archive”
Shortly upon assuming her role as deputy director of curatorial affairs and curator of modern and contemporary art at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA), Vera Grant and her colleagues began a concerted “deep drive” through UMMA’s holdings. Grant calls this ongoing venture “race-ing through the archive,” for the “elusive task of digging through the [museum] archives” is at its core an assessment of the many dimensions of race, gender, and sexuality manifest in UMMA’s encyclopedic collection. Grant’s use of the word “archive” here is deliberate, as the UMMA staff considers issues of representation—who, how, and what is being represented and to whom—from level of the artwork’s subject matter down to the language of its accompanying label. The ultimate goal, Grant attests, is to “share our own dilemmas and thoughtfulness in how we address these matters.”
Though denoted as a standard museum protocol, the act of labeling is far from simple or standardized. The label is at once liberating and limiting. “It is part of a spatial grid within which we move and interact in this world,” Grant explains. As a form of categorization, the label provides a certain sense of comfort in a complex world. “It’s almost like a form of conquering and then we can move on” she adds. But by the same hand, a label is severely limiting, as Grant notes, “that’s how labels work—they don’t tell many stories, they tell one.” A strong statement on the wall might create a miscommunication or prevent engagement across cultures. Despite the serious advantages and disadvantages of the object label, one thing is clear: it is powerful. It can elicit an array of reactions, as Grant speaks from experience about the “abundance of responses to a bit of square footage on the wall.”
One initiative stemming from “race-ing through the archive” was to address “the charged and unexamined nature of lingering object captions,” Grant reports. Take, for instance UMMA’s re-examination of the uncritical, original caption paired with the charged work J. Marion Sims: Gynecological Surgeon. Both the label and illustration lionize Sims, who stands with his arms folded at the head of the hospital scene. The illustration reproduces a racist, medical gaze, as it prompts the observer to join the ranks of other visiting surgeons who ogle the patient—an Alabama slave known only by her first name, Lucy. The caption centers less on Lucy, and more on the heroic and mythical biography of James Marion Sims, the so-called “father of gynecology.” A portion of the troubling description (below) served as the illustration’s official caption since the illustration’s accession to the University collection:
Little did James Marion Sims, M.D., (1813-1883) dream, that summer day in 1845, as he prepared to examine the slave girl, Lucy, that he was launching on an international career as a gynecologic surgeon; or that he was to raise gynecology from virtually an unknown to respected medical specialty. Nor did he realize that his crude back-yard hospital in Montgomery, Alabama, would be the forerunner of the nation’s first Woman’s Hospital, which Sims helped to establish in New York in 1855. Dr. Sims, who became a leader in gynecology in Europe as well as in the United States, served as president of The American Medical Association, 1875-1876; and was honored by many nations.
Contextualizing and reframing this object and text pairing, UMMA hopes to wield the power of the label to address contemporary issues, in this instance, the entanglement of violence, slavery, and medicine. Performing an academic “hang and run” of their own, Grant and her colleagues are getting label-conscious. While “race-ing through the archive,” UMMA hopes to leverage the label as a tool for grappling with artistic limitations and interrogating the museum’s own authority. Welcoming visitors into the fold, labels solicit a public response to the same questions facing museum curators: how might we use tensions manifest in the collection to reflect on the past and present and the evolution of cultural understanding? In the galleries, the visitor’s eye might still dart right to the label, but now it talks back.
Kathryn Holihan is a doctoral candidate in German Studies at the University of Michigan, where she is also a graduate of the Museum Studies Program and a participant in the Science, Technology, and Society Program. Her dissertation project Staging the Somatic: The Popular Hygiene Exhibition in Germany, 1882 1931 examines a series of hygiene exhibitions staged in twentieth-century Germany. She investigates how a group of curators, politicians, medical officials, and artists wielded public display to produce and popularize knowledge about the body. Kathryn has taught German and History courses including the original course Unsolved Mysteries: Crime, Criminology, and the Detective in Modern Germany. Kathryn is a member of a Think Tank Act conducting research on museums and public efficacy. She is also the education and curatorial assistant at the University of Michigan Museum of Art.
on art, activism, and how much instagram fucking sucks: a conversation with curator Eva Respini
For people my age and younger, talking about the internet is like talking about gravity. Omnipresent, widely accepted– but largely impossible to understand, and absolutely inescapable. Though for myself and most of the people I know growing around it has been a part of our lives, this isn’t the case for everyone.
The museum’s exhibition of “Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today” casts a sometimes humorous, oftentimes bewildering, but mostly what I see as a withering eye at the internet’s constant assault on our everyday way of life. Its curator, Eva Respini– the chief curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, where the exhibition originated, sat down with me to talk about what motivated and inspired the exhibition and whether we all really are as doomed as it can make us feel.
Sena: Can you tell us where you’re from, and a little about your line of work?
Eva: I actually don’t have a hometown. I had a very peripatetic upbringing– I was an immigrant. I was born to an Italian father and a Norwegian mother who met in Thailand. I was born in Paris, and I’d lived in 6 different countries by the time I was twenty. I came to the United States for university, and essentially stayed. So I’ve lived my adult life in the US (though I am the only member of my family to live here) but really have come to where I am in my work and who I am as a person with a really global perspective.
Sena: As someone who’s had kind of this global upbringing, and with the internet being something that a lot of people view as pretty American, or western at least—what’s it been like to communicate how the internet has affected artists from a more global perspective in your Art in the Age of the Internet exhibition?
Eva: Well, the thing about this exhibition that was really challenging, is that so much could be included. My job and work as a curator is to select, and to give a platform to a certain number of artists. I’m bound by architecture, I’m bound by budgets, I’m bound by very real constraints of what I can show, what I can bring, what I can ship—and from a conceptual point of view there are many, many artists across the globe that would have been great, and still could be great in this topic, but I had to boil it down to what I thought was right for the context in which I work.
So the show is pretty international, I thought it was really important to have perspectives from a variety of different global points of view, and that’s to speak about how the internet is not widely available. It’s widely available in the US and most of Western Europe, but there are large regions of the world where internet access is not available for a variety of reasons…and there are certain works in the show that speak to that reality in one way or another—
Sena: Like the ‘Great Firewall’ piece.
Eva: Like ‘The Great Firewall,’ yeah— which is by a Chinese hacker, artist, activist, who made a work about those restrictive parameters around the internet in China, and made a fantastic piece which serves as almost a sort of…path to resistance against these restrictions placed by the Chinese government…But there are other artists who speak to the possibility of the freedom of the internet. For example, artists in the Middle East whose pieces speak to what happened in 2010-2011 with the Arab Spring and the uprisings there. Where different social media platforms and citizen journalism gave insight for those of us who were not on the street, allowed people to bypass traditional media outlets which were only broadcasting one point of view, and allow the world to see what was really happening.
Sena: So, building from that point—in your tour yesterday night you said that the exhibit wasn’t one of the internet, but about the internet. Can you speak a little more to how you think the internet is impacting how people engage, how we interact, how we organize—and what you think that means for where we’re headed?
Eva: I mean the internet has just fundamentally changed who we are—and everything about our culture—personal relationships, how we date, how we shop, how we eat, how we travel.. but I think also, more importantly every industry whether it’s manufacturing, research, academic work… has all been fundamentally changed by the internet.
And I think what we’re understanding now is that the internet is essentially a set of social relationships. It’s a sociopolitical construct, and that’s what I’m really thinking about with this exhibition…and that has not just changed our culture and how we live, but also how we see ourselves and how we understand ourselves in others. And I think most alarmingly recently, how we understand our reality and the truth. We’re understanding that the internet and the echo chamber bubbles that have been created by it, have far-reaching influences. Policy, politics, how people vote, or don’t vote, or aren’t able to vote. We’re understanding the more nefarious underpinnings to what—when the internet was first founded in the 1960’s, essentially was a more utopian ethos of interconnectedness and universal knowledge. Being able to share knowledge across this platform through space and time. I think we see now that this more utopic ideal certainly has not come to pass.
The flipside of that is that we also see a great deal of activism recently which has been given a platform through the internet. The #MeToo movement, Black Lives Matter—a lot of this activity was either started on or given a platform by the internet. So, in that sense it gives me a little hope too that there is still some sense of being a democratic place where anybody’s voice can be lifted.
Sena: A lot of the themes featured throughout the exhibit are centered around women—and I remember you saying that you wanted to make sure to center the work of women that have been kind of sidelined as the internet and internet culture have come to prominence through the years. Can you speak to that sidelining and how things may or may not be different now?
Eva: I don’t think it’s any secret that women and people of color in many fields, but especially in the art field have not had the due, or the visibility and platform that their white male counterparts have had. What I found in my research, is that in the mediums of video, photography, and digital media—there are a lot of women working. A lot of women working alongside men, but a lot of women also working quietly on their own, and without their due. I think there’s something about those mediums—because they’re not the traditional mediums of painting or sculpture with their long history. To do them you don’t have to go to the academy, or the art school. There’s sort of a sense that you can practice those mediums in a way that may allow for a wider variety of practitioners.
I found that there were a lot of women who have been very prescient. Judith Barry, Lynn Hershman Leeson—these are among the women who I see as very key early figures who in the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s who were making really radical work which still feels contemporary even today…and that became a kind of theme that emerged—it’s not where we started but I think the internet is a space that allowed a lot of women to come and have a voice and a platform.
Sena: Pivoting a little—one element of the exhibit is this idea of performing the identity online and self-performance…I did a little research, and you have a sort of massive Instagram following!
Eva: *laughs*
Sena: Your page is pretty awesome by the way.
Eva: Thank you.
Sena: But with you existing as this sort of public figure—and one whose profile is growing, do you think you fall victim to those same sorts of traps of identity performance? Do you think you present yourself pretty honestly online?
Eva: You know it’s funny, because recently I’ve been thinking about quitting all my social media. I quit Facebook a long time ago, I quit Twitter, and I only have Instagram. And the reason I started Instagram is because I thought it was fun, I’m a visual person, it’s a visual medium, I enjoyed looking at it. It came out of a sort of genuine, personal place, like I think it does for most people when they started social media. It was about connecting and seeing what other people were seeing, and I think especially in the beginning, it was a very creative medium and still is—but it’s become very commercialized now. It’s all ads! I feel like whatever algorithm that’s organizing my feed is one that is making me feel less and less connected to the people I sought to originally connect with. So—I think it’s still a pretty genuine expression, I think at this point if it’s no longer fun for me, I’ll just…
Sena: Call it quits.
Eva: Yeah, stop. Because it’s not for me. It’s not about advertising myself. I get paid through my job—I don’t need it for revenue—so if it’s no longer fun that’ll be it for me.
Sena: Widening that lens a little bit, what was your relationship with the internet growing up, especially having lived in all these different countries and places. What sites were you on, when did you get into it?
Eva: Well I’m old enough to remember what life was like before Google, before smartphones, before social media.
Sena: The dial-up days!
Eva: Oh, yeah. I mean that noise…
Sena: It’s like burned into your brain.
Eva: Exactly! I think I only got a cellphone when I was in college—just to give you a sense of where I fall generationally. I still have that kind of memory of not pre-internet exactly– but pre-internet in terms of the way we understand and interact with the internet now.
I was never particularly interested in technology, I was never a computer science person, I’m not a programmer. So for me the interest in the internet has always been through images and kind of social and political conversations. The social media stuff I was interested in like Friendster and MySpace, was all about “What bands are playing?” or “Who can we connect to?” It was much more about social interaction rather than coming at it from a technical background—something I do not have. And I think that’s a reflection in the show as well—that you can see my interest is, well how has this technology, how has this platform– created these kinds of social relationships that exist currently and shape who we are as a society.
*this interview has been edited for clarity and length*
–For those who haven’t seen it, the UMMA is putting on an art experience centered around the exhibit tonight at 7– there you can see more of Eva’s incredible exhibition and eat free food, so…
For eight years, the Annex has been the mainstaple for students, staff, and faculty alike to share their meditations on art, culture, social justice, identity, the list goes on– but this year marks a different approach. The opportunity to cultivate the UMMA as a space in which student voices can speak for themselves with the museum as an amplifier and grounding point is especially rare, and the two of us don’t take this responsibility lightly. We wanted to make this a mantle of sorts. Something that moulds to the students to whom its given, and a space that will be totally transformed in tone, and in vision with the people who take it on year to year.
This year the two of us have a chance to mould it, and as we grow and change with the museum throughout, we hope those who inherit it next will be reading and planning for how they will in turn make it their own.
Welcome
who we are
Sena: “In the creative state a man is taken out of himself.”-E.M. Forster
As a member of the African diaspora and the African-American community I am, and have been expected to be strong, stoic, and immovable. The unyielding rock which has withstood transport, abuse, and oppression. That is something that has been concretized chiefly by my father– a Ghanian immigrant, a stranger in this country who in many ways rejected it and its ideals. My sister and I are the only family he really has here and so her and I inherited that resentment and rejection. It made me feel really fucking small my entire childhood, and art, writing, dance, film were all like a lifeline for me. A window. As an artist, I am allowed to feel, to explore, to experience and evoke every emotion. As a man, I am a figure, but as an artist, I am human. My name’s Sena, full name Sena Kwabena Adjei-Agbai. I’m a senior at the University and to put it shortly I’m a Ghanaian-American, arts and culture enthusiast– (At risk of sounding mad pretentious) And in a way, I’ve been a lifelong spectator of high-minded cultural pursuits, and I felt that these spheres were often just beyond my reach. As a young black man in America, true access into these cultural spheres felt guarded, sheltered away from eyes like mine, deemed unqualified and undeserving. That’s what pushed me here.
Madison: I have always been my words. Growing up meant reading Shel Silverstein and Maya Angelou and playing the Thesaurus game with my mother. We’d pick a word, and then pick another, and another. I identify as a writer, and I’ve often struggled to place to this identity in the world of visual art. But, as Martin Heidegger said, “ Words and language are not wrappings in which things are packed for the commerce of those who write and speak. It is in words and language that things first come into being and are.” Visual art is a language that is never foreign, its words are universal. More often than not, visual art speaks in empathy, in experience, in the exchange of memories. I am my words, and I’d like to think that through my relationship with art that identity expands beyond English.
why we’re writing for UMMA
Madison: I believe that when we create art, we open up pieces of ourselves for others to see that we normally keep stored away. There’s a concept in filmmaking called the suspension of disbelief, where we’re willing to sit down and watch a video knowing full well that it isn’t real, but suspending that disbelief in order to better experience the art. I think this concept travels to our ability to empathize; we put up walls called opinions or predispositions for the everyday, but when we’re affected by art those opinions slip away. Those hard beliefs that were once determined only by our own experience are suspended, and we are left with more questions than so-called answers. The question is what we can do to foster spaces that allow broad audiences to be affected by art from diverse backgrounds. The fact is we’re never going to be able to fully understand each other’s experiences, but we should never stop trying.
I’m writing for this blog because I think a lot of us have stopped trying. Whether it be because of some “left brain” “right brain” cop-out, or because institutionalized “fine art” is intimidating, it isn’t okay. I see art as a route to building relationships, and I believe dialoguing as creators and appreciators is quintessential in building the foundation for a strong community. So let’s rip away those barriers, and use art as a means to restoring dialogue and community in the present.
Sena: One more quote to help me with this one: Louise Bourgeois said, “Art is a way of recognizing oneself”, as a member of certain underrepresented communities it has always been important for me to see my story, my pain and my triumphs played out in the spaces and content I frequent– but especially in the art. Therein lies the value of diverse voices in art: to inspire the next wave of artists who will fill the next volume of stories. I believe in art and culture as a preservation of history, not just in writing down names and dates in books, but collecting the experiences, spirit, and emotion of a group through the eyes of one of their own.
Often times these spheres are too politicized, gatekeepers standing at the ready in order to keep the “undeserving masses” away from museum spaces where their work can be seen and felt. At least that’s how it has always made me feel. I really want to be some small part in changing that. I want to use my voice to maybe inspire the next young black creative to pursue their dreams, or to start a blog, or to say fuck being an Economics major (like I am) I want to dance. The things I’m doing or were fearful of and will never get to. I want them to take that chance because someone looked at their work, and looked at them and said “yes”. Kind of like UMMA is saying yes to Madison and I by being insane enough to let us talk our shit on here.
what readers can expect
Madison: “I think therefore I am” Descartes used the fact that he thought as a proof to his existence. I use art, connection, and empathy every day as a testament to the fact that I’m here, and I should be, and I’m not alone. I plan to use this space to share my thoughts, and hopefully encourage others to share theirs as well. The more we talk about art, the more we engage with it, and the faster we can break down invisible barriers that keep us on the outside. The more you speak, the more you insist your voice must be heard. So let’s get talking.
Sena: Over the next year I intend to explore works that speak to me, both contemporary and traditional, as I seek to bring a grounded, appreciative, and sardonic look to the often pretentious and stuffy world of art writing. As an enthusiast and a critic, readers can expect a healthy and unapologetic infusion of self into every piece because as art imitates life, there can be no art criticism without a look into oneself. I hope if anyone actually reads this that they’ll bear with me as I not only try to crack into some of these heavier concepts underpinning art and the people and contexts that produce it, but dig into how I’ve come to some of these conclusions and how my journey has given me that perspective.
why this blog is important to us and maybe to ~you~
Sena: As Madison and I prepare to embark on this journey, I find myself growing increasingly excited to share my knowledge and use my platform to start a dialogue on things of lifelong interest to me. As an observer of somewhat historically inaccessible things like art and fashion, one can begin to feel like just that, an observer. That has always infuriated the shit out of me. I’ve always felt sidelined. As a writer for UMMA, this is a chance– even just in my campus community, to get in the game. I’m really excited to fully immerse myself and share my voice and insight, as well as evoking interaction and spawning dialogue between like-minded, or even differently-minded individuals. I’m elated that I get to pursue this opportunity with UMMA as a kind of host-body, and I hope that anyone that gives enough of a fuck to pick through any of these will feel my passion and respond in kind.
Madison: I definitely agree with Sena and have also frequently felt disengaged from the fine art world. Frankly, it has never felt like my unpolished experience could fit in the confines of what seems to be a very rehearsed ordeal. Of course, it’s good to think things through, but the artist’s statement has always felt to me like a bit of a cop-out. Ultimately it isn’t your intention that drives your work, it’s your impact. So, I’m really excited to use this space to talk to about that impact. It’s important to me that we, as a community of young artists and appreciators, declare that the art world can and should incorporate our experiences, even when those experiences aren’t packaged in the same old stuffy way. Art isn’t just for older or richer people and for God’s sake it’s okay to look at a piece and not get anything from it. Frankly, I don’t think you should be afraid to admit that. So, I hope whoever takes the time to read our words isn’t afraid to hear the unsullied truth, because I promise – that’s what you’re getting.
anyone who takes the time to pick through this– thank you in advance, and we hope you enjoy-
Tunde Olaniran’s sold out performance on Saturday, September 29, 2018 at UMMA was the second leg of a tour mostly situated in the Midwest, but the University of Michigan was one of the last venues in his home state before heading to close out in places like DC, Philadelphia, and New York. This wasn’t his first time at the University of Michigan. One of his most notable appearances being an hour-long interview and performance with Tracy Clayton and Heben Nigatu, the popular hosts of the favored podcast Another Round. Tunde’s known for his striking presence, sharp intellect, and many rave about his live performances and from what I hear—UMMA was no different.
“I wanted to set myself up to have the most fun on stage,” he reflected. After traveling through the U.S. and eventually Europe with the headliner “Namesake” from his debut album Transgressor, Tunde described understanding his music in greater context. Live performance is a core aspect of his musicality. By honing the aspects of his sound which resonated most with his diverse audiences, he was sure to craft unforgettable, captivating experience. Tunde breathed a sigh of relief as he remarked on the release of his new album Stranger. He explained the value of resisting the pressure of needing to create emotional depth in order to stay relevant to audiences. For Tunde, his passion is echoed by his commitment and the secret: enjoyment.
Tunde was invited to perform at UMMA in conjunction with the opening of the exhibition Beyond Borders: Global Africa. By blurring the map lines, the exhibit challenges our understanding of the ways in which borders are thought to dictate the exchange of cultural and artistic influence. The exhibition highlights how histories of colonization and globalization has not only impacted, but distorted the creative image of the vast continent. In the city of Detroit, Tunde calls attention to black women’s many artistic and cultural influences in the music scene, but the problematic lack of visibility of black women artists in venues. In refusing complacency, Tunde chooses resistance through visibility: honest and vulnerable.
Before the show, I had an opportunity to speak with him.
Mari:So your performance on Saturday is in conjunction with Beyond Borders: Global Africa exhibit at UMMA. I’ve had an opportunity to go and see the exhibit and one of the key themes is exploring the relationship between place and identity. And further, how power dictates an understanding or a person’s relationship to a place. Does the theme speak to you to you in your process or your artistry?
Tunde:You know I think there are so many ways you could talk about that subject. One of the things that has been on my mind is the idea as an artist: Do I belong? Do all artists belong? Do artists belong in a place where they are booked to perform, but don’t necessarily feel welcomed? Or do you live in a city and you are an artist of color, but the spaces don’t feel like they are for you? For my album release, the line-up is entirely black artists from Detroit. For me, it’s important, not like because it’s like a checklist, but I want there to be women on the bill. I want there to be trans women on the bill. And you would think that this wouldn’t even be a talking point in a city like Detroit, but it is actually rare. And so many spaces have benefited from black women’s contributions to culture in Detroit And so few bills have prioritized putting black women on them. So I’m thinking about what spaces do you take up? What spaces use your influence, but don’t need you there.
As the conversation continued, Tunde spoke to how the harmful dynamics in the minute interactions offstage can have a palpable effect on the artist. He cited his own encounters with individuals within the industry, such as sound engineers (who are largely white men), that generate discomfort for him and other artists of color. “I deserve to be here and you need to be respectful to me as an artist,” he remarked. In his process, he works to prioritize an expectation of consideration by making vocal and visible the norms that can negatively impact the performance on stage. “It makes you a better performer and you are better able to connect to the audience and I wonder how many people have had bad performances or bad shows because of [the things] that happens to them before they get on stage.” Tunde’s focus is investing in an understanding of what it means to make artists of color feel welcomed, respected, and comforted in the industry. Building an infrastructure that centers the margins.
Tunde’s growing recognition is not accidental. Enjoyment is at the core of his artistic process and Tunde’s unquestionable talent is equally matched with a fervor surrounding his work. Getting an opportunity to speak with him, for me, was a peek into his process. I’m thankful that for folks who have not had the privilege of meeting him, reading this will be an introduction to his joy: Tunde’s music.
T:“You know it is such a grind. You can get tired. You can feel like you don’t want to keep doing certain things over and over again. In my experience, a lot of artists can get into a really small clique, especially in place like Michigan, where there isn’t a huge industry. You get your circle of friends who agree that you are great. And you don’t really move beyond that or try something to do something new or breakout of that circuit. It was seeing that and you don’t want to be complacent in your art. You want to keep going, not just for financial achievement, but to be a better artist. To be a better human. And that idea spoke to me.”
Mari Longmire is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan with a degree in Linguistics, LGBTQ Studies and Intergroup Relations. While on campus, they played a leadership role with organizations like Michigan in Color, Central Student Government, SAPAC, Change It Up, the UMMA Student Engagement Council, and the Educational Theatre Company (ETC). They were also involved with Pedagogy of Action, an HIV/AIDS educational program on campus created and facilitated by the phenomenal Dr. Nesha Haniff. They spent the last year as a fellow of Health Corps (funded by Americorps), working as the Volunteer and Overnight Outreach Coordinator for HIPS, an organization that focuses on community support, empowerment, and advocacy for communities and individual engaged in or impacted by drug use or sexual exchange in Washington D.C. Mari is currently working at the University of Michigan for the Educational Theatre Company program.
The Native American Student Association (NASA) is currently accepting for artwork for the 47th Annual Dance for Mother Earth Powwow. The winning design will be featured in advertising, the program, and on t-shirts and other official merchandise.
Guidelines:
• 4 color limit
• The design should reflect the theme “Dance for Mother Earth”
• Artists may submit more than one design for consideration
• High M-resolution image files or Photoshop/Illustrator files preferred
• Send designs to nasa.exec@umich.edu no later than Friday, November 30th, 2018
All artwork will be considered. The artist whose design is selected by the powwow committee will be credited in the powwow program and will receive a $400 payment.
Any questions can be directed to the NASA powwow committee at nasa.exec@umich.edu. For more information about the event, please visitpowwow.umich.edu .
Transgender Awareness Week begins today, November 12! Join the Spectrum Center for a series of events throughout the week. These events can also be found on Happening@Michigan and Spectrum Center’sFacebook Page.
Human beings perform their identities everyday - in the classroom, on social media, on stage, in religious ceremony, even in choosing what to wear in the morning. On Sunday, November 11, from 12pm-4pm, the CWPS Student Advisory Board presents its first curated event around the theme of Performing Identity. Students are invited to engage in dialogue about social identities, participate in panel discussions about how students and/or performers across disciplines engage in performance of identity on and beyond our campus, and engage with performances by students and other local artists.
Schedule of Events for Sunday, November 11 @ East Quad (701 East University Avenue):
12pm-1pm \ Keene Theater: Welcome & Student Showcase, featuring work by Maize Mirchi, Sergio Barerra, Daniel Kumapayi and Alex Kime
1pm-2pm \ Keene Theater: Panel Discussion on Gender & Intersectionality in Electronic Music, featuring Suzi Analogue, VIKI Viktoria, khlonez (Serpahine Collective), and Veniece Session
2pm-2:40pm \ Keene Theater: PCAP Panel Discussion: Performing Re-Entry, a talk with Mary Heinen McPherson (moderator), Jen Smith Scibilia (The Sisters Within Theater Troupe at Women’s Huron Valley), Asia Johnson (The Sisters Within Theater Troupe) and Cozine Wlech Jr. (Co-Instructor for The Atonement Project)
2:45-3:15pm \ Keene Theater: Faculty Talk by Naomi Andre on her book Black Opera
3:30pm \ Keene Theater: Performance & Artist Talkback with Jamall Bufford, of hip hop duo The Black Opera
On Thursday, November 8 at 5:10pm at the Michigan Theater (603 E. Liberty Street), The Penny W. Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series presents Hetain Patel: Don’t Look at the Finger.
Hetain Patel is a conceptually driven British artist and performer who explores themes of identity and freedom with an attentive eye toward casting the widest net possible through the use of digital technologies, media, and YouTube. Humor, choreography, and pop-culture references are hallmarks of Patel’s work. Recent projects include commissions for Tate Modern and Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London; performances at the Royal Opera House in London; and building a “working-class” Transformer robot from an old Ford Fiesta (co-created with his dad).
Patel’s online video and performance works — which include his 2013 TED talk titled Who Am I? Think Again — have been watched more than 30 million times. Patel’s 2017 film, Don’t Look at the Finger, was exhibited at Chatterjee & Lal in Mumbai and the John Hansard Gallery in Southampton, England. The film takes its title from a Bruce Lee quotation about misdirection from the film Enter the Dragon (1973): “It is like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.”
