Seeing Color

Hey everyone. I hope you are all doing ok. The recent passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is bringing up a lot of complicated feelings for me, as I am sure it is for many people. Of course, we must remember the shift in power in the Supreme Court is just one of many things that has been failing over the course of US democracy. It means come this November, voting for the US elections is important, but so are all the local elections and difficult discussions about what it means to exist on this planet where we are all entangled with each other. Yeah...I just don't know. Yeah. Anyway, for this week, I am returning to an older recording I did with Vicky Truong while I was living in Berlin over a year ago. Born in Australia, raised by a half Chinese-Teochew half Vietnamese father, and a half Chinese-Teochew (ti-jiu) half Thai mother, Vicky grew up with an abundance of different cuisines and cultures. She lived in France for three years where she worked in the Fashion Industry before moving to Berlin working as a teacher, activist, and artist. I met Vicky through a few Asian diaspora centered events where I learned more about the work Vicky was doing. Vicky started Rice is Life, a project celebrating Chinese Teochew, Vietnamese, Thai and Australian foods. Vicky also leads a diversity and inclusion workshop series called Eye to Eye, which we talk about in our conversation. We also chat about her growing up in Australia, appreciating our cultural heritage, and how an unfortunate event at Berlin Art Week helped lead her to the work she does today. Listening to this brought back many memories to my time in Berlin and how far away it seems now. In any case, as always, stay safe, stay healthy, and please vote this November.

Hi everyone. I hope you are doing well wherever you are. I don't have too much new to report. But for today, I have a great episode with Almaz Wilson, an artist I met back in January while I was at Vermont Studio Center. Almaz got her BA in Biological Anthropology from the University of Maryland and an MFA from the University of Florida. I got to know Almaz during the many hours talking over meals and late at night after a long day in the studios. As a sidenote, I planned the release of this episode a bit poorly as Almaz had an exhibition of her work in New York City back in February 22. We talk about her show in the interview and I should have released our chat before then. I need to plan these releases better. I actually had a chance to see her show before it went down as I had just flown back from Asia as the world began to change from COVID-19. It was nice to see the work all hung up after doing a few studio visits with Almaz while the work was in progress. In addition to talking about how she is preparing for her exhibition, Almaz and I talk about different ways to take up space, thinking about art criticism, and building things up in order to move on. I hope you enjoy this.

Hey everyone. I hope you are doing well. I have had a lot of things on my mind lately, the future of this podcast being one of them, not to mention the futures of the myriad of other responsibilities in life. I have been taking some amazing zoom classes lately and reading some dense theory stuff that I probably understand only a small portion. Also, China opened up its visa process to Europe and parts of Asia, so maybe I'll be able to go back before classes start and can avoid the whole remote teaching while in a 12 hour time zone difference. Of course it is hard to predict the future right now and I am grateful I even have a job. I will keep you updated. For today, I have the wonderful Emily Lu, a poet I met in Vermont last January. Emily was born in Nanjing, China before she and her family moved to Canada. Emily got her B.Sc. at the University of Toronto and her M.D. at Queen's University. She is currently finishing up her residency training in psychiatry while she continues to write poetry. This tension of being both a psychiatrist and poet is one we talk about in our discussion, along with Emily's thoughts on translations, her experiences growing up in Canada, and finding confidence in the unknown. Emily ends our chat with a lovely reading of one of her poems. As always, stay safe and healthy and I hope you enjoy this.

Hey everyone. I hope all is well with y'all as this new normal of COVID-19 is settling in. I don't have too much news...still awaiting returning to China and still not sure I can be physically there by the fall semester. I have a few logistical things with my living situation in China that is causing some headaches but otherwise I am safe in the US. One small thing I am part of is this video project curated by Isaac Leung of Videotage in Hong Kong. My video is showing on Videotage's website but it is also all over public screen in the streets of Lisbon, Portugal...so I guess if you happen to be in Lisbon, you might see my video at random street corners. I'll post a link or two on instagram. Anyway. For today, I am talking with Jean-Ulrick Désert, a conceptual and visual artist born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti before his family fled to the US. Originally trained as an architect from Cooper Union and Columbia, Jean-Ulrick got drawn to art and never looked back. He left his architecture job and traveled to France before ending up in Berlin, where he has been since 2002. He most recently represented Haiti at the 2019 Venice Biennale, although the project ran into a few roadblocks keeping it from being fully realized, which we discuss in our discussions. I met Jean-Ulrick through my good friend, Yvette Robertson, who I interviewed in Episode 31. Jean-Ulrich and I chat for quite a while in this episode, but Jean-Ulrick had so many gems that I kept most of it. Our conversation includes how language can reconfigure one's brains, the function of art titles, and thinking about art as healing. I hope you enjoy it.

Hey everyone. I hope you are doing well. I am trying to enjoy the summer the best I can by avoiding groups of people. I have been doing a lot of reading these past few weeks, which has been nice. I also spoke with Tereneh last week, a previous guest on the show, who is thinking of starting her own podcast with a few friends which I am looking forward to listening to. Shoutout to Tereneh! Check out my chat with Tereneh on Episode 8, which seemed so long ago. Speaking of long ago, I have been thinking a lot about my own process in getting my episodes out since the beginning. When I started recording 2 years ago, I was in Pittsburgh for the summer and about to leave for Germany. I decided to record as much as I could before my flight to Berlin, giving me time to see what my habits were in the process of interviewing others and finding my own voice in the process. I figured if I could get around 26 interviews, I would have a year of material for a bi-weekly podcast. I ended up with 28 episodes and released my first episode on September of 2018. Of course, this meant I had a huge backlog of material that was not always current which I slowly worked through, with some episodes continually getting pushed back as I proceeded interviewing new people while in Europe. Since my classes have ended for the summer, I had the time to go deeper into my archives and listen to older interviews, one of which I am releasing this week. So for today, I am interviewing Celeste C. Smith, a co-founder and current board member of 1Hood, a collective of artists and activists who utilize art as a means of raising awareness around issues affecting oppressed people in the region and around the world. Celeste is also the current Program Officer for Arts and Culture at The Pittsburgh Foundation, a position she just started when I interviewed her. Celeste is a graduate of Chatham University and has served on the Transformative Arts Process Advisory Board at The Heinz Endowments, the Pittsburgh Symphony Community Advisory Council and the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council Equity in Arts Funding Research Committee. I visited Celeste at her office in Downtown Pittsburgh, which is located in a literal glass castle designed by Philip Johnson, who is most famous for his Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut. Celeste and I chatted about her many projects at the intersection of art and activism, self-care, building support for the youth, and knowing your self-worth. I regret it has taken this long, but after listening through, I felt Celeste's words still resonate strongly, if not more, today. I will have another older episode next time as well. Thank you Celeste for your patience. I hope everyone enjoys this.

Hey everyone. I hope you are doing well and staying safe. I don't have too much news to share these days. It seems like this whole virus situation is here to stay and I am uncertain I will be able to return to China anytime soon for work. If the EU is refusing travelers from the US, I would assume China to do the same, and for good reason. But I don't have too much to complain about as I have a roof over my head in a rural area that is OK for now in terms of ou breaks. I have been thinking more about the future direction I want to take this podcast as I normally have been interviewing friends and others I have met in person, but with the current situation, I have been thinking about expanding out. Of course, I am a bit nervous about moving forward this way. I have a number of interviews I still need to release before this happens, but the time will come soon enough. It may be for the better for this podcast. In any case, for today, I am interviewing Didier William. Originally from Port-au-prince Haiti, Didier moved to Miami as a Creole-speaking 6-year old. His interests in art blossomed there and he went on to earn his BFA in painting from The Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale University. Currently, Didier is Assistant Professor of Expanded Print at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. I first met Didier while I was at a residency in Vermont this past winter and was able to interview him around March, just as COVID's presence began being felt in the US and prior to the recent protests around the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and many others that have surfaced with each passing week. I've been thinking a lot about how I release my episodes weeks, months, and sometimes years after the initial interview and what it means in terms of relevancy. It is something I need to figure out. Anyway, for this interview, Didier and I chat about trying to find agency in stillness, the concious privileging of certain languages, and maintaining an honest conversation about social complexities. Again, stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you enjoy this.

Hey everyone. I hope y'all are hanging in there. I hope everyone is maintaining social distancing if you can and staying safe and healthy in the mind and body. It took me a bit to start back up with editing the podcasts. I took this time to deep dive back into my unreleased materials that I never got around to releasing for one reason or another and then got too embarrassed to release them so late. But better late than never. So for the next few episodes I'll be going a bit back to some older conversations I had done. Anyway, for today, I am chatting with the wonderful Sonja John, a queer first generation New York City-based artist, educator, and poet I met last January in Vermont. Sonja received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2017 and her contributions to museum education and visual art have been featured at the RISD Museum, The New Yorker, and Hyperallergic. Drawing from flora and fauna native to her parents' homelands of Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, and the Philippines, Sonja's work seeks to interrogate theories of color, belonging, contested geographic and biological bodies, and post-colonial effects on landscape and culture. We talk about these topics and so much more in our conversation. As I edited this episode, I really enjoyed listening to Sonja's laughing and her smart witty commentaries. It made my work much easier, especially since I didn't feel motivated to do edit this week. In any case, I hope you enjoy this episode and I'll be back in two weeks. Stay safe and healthy in the meantime and goodbye for now.

Hey everyone. I have a brief update to share about the show and some thoughts in light of the recent events. But before I do, I want to say loudly and clearly that Black Lives Matter. As an Asian-American, I think about the way anti-Blackness is embedded throughout Asian culture and society. I think about how this anti-Black sentiment showed itself when Asian-American communities rallied around NYPD officer Peter Liang for murdering Akai Gurley. I think about the affirmative action lawsuit against Harvard that Asians supported as being driven by the same anti-Black sentiment. And of course, there was the Hmong-American police officer standing by as George Floyd was murdered. If there is one thing that has driven me to create this podcast, it is the belief that true freedom cannot come at the expense of Black lives. I think silence in anti-Black violence will not give Asian any true place in a racist white supremacist world. The lacking of self-awareness and propagating anti-Black and anti-Brown rhetoric just so certain Asian can get ahead will not lead to a better place. My heart goes out to everyone protesting on the streets and doing the hard work to elevate Black voices and not black squares. Regarding this show, I did not release an episode last week. When I sat down to write the intro, no words came out. My podcast and voice seemed trite. I took it as a sign to not release my episode if I had to force words out when they were not ready. I also felt the voices that needed to be heard were Black voices. I then thought about this in relation to remaining silent and don’t have a clear answer. When I set out to make this podcast, I wanted to be able to confront my privilege as a Chinese-American cis male who went to college to study art and is able to travel to residencies while moving through the art world. I wanted to keep talking about race because I don’t believe one simply becomes “woke.” Talking about race is a lifelong commitment that never ends. I am forever learning and figuring out where these conversations fit within the larger picture. In lieu of a real episode, I posted on my website a list of resources for anyone interested. There is a lot out there and many of these materials are waiting to be used. Feel free to share and continue the discussion about how white supremacy and racism continues to pervade every aspect of our lives. So that’s the update. Again, thank you to everyone who has been supportive of this show as I couldn’t have gotten here without all the guests and listeners. I’ll resume my episodes starting next week. Until then, stay safe, stay healthy, and good bye for now. Image credit: @jerrygogosian https://www.instagram.com/jerrygogosian/

Hey everyone. I hope everyone is doing okay. These are really sad and frustrating times with the recent deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and the many others that did not get the coverage they deserved. And then there are all the Beckys and Karens out in the world perpetuating white supremacy at Central Park and beyond. This is the time for white allies to speak up and where being neutral is being part of the problem. The prioritization of the destruction of property over black lives is part of the problem. And forcing the celebration of our differences onto the shoulders of a select few is part of the problem. I just hope everyone including me can find it in our heart to have empathy for the situation and create meaningful change, from donating to organizations working to change the situation to joining those very organizations. I've added links in the show notes and on the website to a few resources. Of course, these recent events are simply a few in what is a long history of racist actions in a racist country that refuses to look at itself clearly. There is time to honor these lost lives, but there's also needs to go past that and call out all the complacency. I am not saying this to make it about this podcast and I don't even pretend that my podcast is helping in any real meaningful way. I am often at a loss for words at the immensity of the problems we face. In these moments, I try to just keep taking one step at a time, in hopes it is in the right direction. Anyway, for today, I am speaking with Devin Kenny, an interdisciplinary artist, writer, musician, and independent curator. Devin takes an experimental, multidisciplinary approach to analyzing the contemporary black experience. Exploring surveillance, abuses of institutional power, and gentrification, Devin balances abstract concepts with material traces of once subcultural but now quite ubiquitous forms of expression such as manga, hip-hop, and internet memes. Devin got his BFA from Cooper Union and received his MFA from the New Genres department at UCLA. Devin is also an alum of the Whitney Independent Study Program and the MFAH Core Program Houston. I first met Devin while I was in Berlin and Devin skyped in for a studio visit. We have continued our conversations online since then and I had the chance to have Devin on this podcast recently. We chat about envision ourselves in new ways, thinking about power dynamics through subcultures, and how subcultures can help guide one through the internet. As always, stay safe and stay healthy and I hope you enjoy this. Portrait by Troy Montes

Hey everyone. Summer is soon to be upon us, although the future seems slightly less joyous. I keep releasing these episodes but I do wonder what exactly they are doing in contrast to these times affected by COVID-19. I hope you as listeners are taking care of yourselves and don't feel the capitalistic need to produce in order to live, a comment made by my friend Carol Zou, who was also a previous guest of this show. So in these times, just make sure you can find some space for yourself. For today, I have an older recording with Rosalia Namsai Engchuan, a social anthropologist and filmmaker I met in Berlin. Rosalia holds an MA in Modern South and Southeast Asian Studies from Humboldt University and a BA in Asian Studies and Management from Hochschule Konstanz. Currently she is pursuing a PHD at the Max Planck Institute. Her research is concerned with the roots and becoming of the larger ecosystem of independent film communities in Indonesia, shamanism and technology on film sets, and the politics of nation building from the grassroots and its manifestation in a very particular Indonesian aesthetic. I had some free time to visit Rosalia this past winter and was able to meet her in Yogyakarta, Indonesia for a week. I didn't know Rosalia's schedule at the time and did not know if I would have the chance to interview her so I didn't bring my audio equipment. But a time did present itself and I ended up recording on my phone in a room next to a small alley, which seemed favored by some motorcyclists, and near a mosque, which had its call to prayer in the middle of our interview. So needless to say, there are a few sounds that pop up as we chat. Our conversation meanders through different forms of knowledge, the mindsets of collectivism, and anthropology 101, all through the lens of two westernized Asians. This trip was my first real introduction to Indonesia, so I apologize for my lack of prior knowledge in the country. My goal was not to try to exotify the culture and instead come from one of learning and curiosity. Of course, such lines can easily be blurred and I hope it comes across more of the latter than former. In any case, stay safe. Stay healthy. And I hope you enjoy this.

Hi everyone. I hope you are staying safe, healthy, and sane in these strange time. Today is another week of quarantining and it seems states and countries are slowly opening up but I don't know if that is the best idea without a vaccine. I guess we will have to wait and see. There's only a few more weeks of teaching in the semester for my university and after that I don't know what is happening. Things are out of my hands regarding that, as I am sure it is with everyone else. Anyway. For today, I have a special interview with Dell Marie Hamilton, an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and curator. Dell has a B.A. in journalism from Northeastern University and an MFA from Tufts University. With roots in Belize, Honduras and the Caribbean, Dell frequently draws upon the personal experiences of her family as well as the history and folkloric traditions of the region. In addition to her performances, Dell works as a curator for the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. I first encountered one of Dell's performance in late February at the Hood Museum in New Hampshire. Titled "Blues\Blank\Black", Dell's performance took inspiration from Toni Morrison's novels combined with stories of police brutality on black and brown women, all this while within the context of an art museum. I was able to connect with Dell after the performance and that is how we ending up talking for the podcast. By the time we recorded, it was just as the Covid-19 shutdown began in the US. For some reason, the internet audio quality wasn't the best and the audio skips a few times, so I apologize for that. I did my best to fix it post-production. Throughout our conversation, Dell and I talk about the tension between body and property, nationalism in museum spaces, and how oral traditions are not static. I hope you enjoy this.

Hey everyone. I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. Spring time has arrived and I've been trying to enjoy walks in the woods. Otherwise, I am teaching art classes remotely and wondering about the future, as I am sure everyone else is in this uncertain times. For today, I am interviewing Valery Estabrook, a multidisciplinary artist exploring culture and the human experience through media and time-based installations. Valery's work reveals hidden personal histories, allowing others to peer into a private psychological space, with the ultimate goal of outward connection and contributing to ongoing dialogues. She holds an MFA in Painting from Brooklyn College and a BA in Visual Art from Brown University. Valery is currently a Professor of Experimental Sound and Technology at the University of New Mexico. Our conversation occurred this past January up in rural Vermont, where we discussed growing up on an Asian pear farm, thinking about needing momentum, and processing videos in both installations and on the screen. I enjoyed chatting with Valery immensely and I hope you do as well.

Hey everyone. I hope everyone is doing well in these crazy times. I don't have too much news on my end. Every Sunday night to Tuesday morning I teach my students in China, but otherwise I've been reading a lot and spending time learning Chinese. I have also been trying to cherish the extra time I have with my parents, which is the silver lining in all of this. Trying to stay positive in all this. Speaking of positive, today I am interviewing Joy-Marie Thompson, a dancer from Pittsburgh. She graduated from SUNY Purchase with a BFA in Dance Performance and works in a variety of mediums, including photography and film. Many people told me I had to talk with Joy-Marie, so I reached out and we had a zoom session in the midst of this pandemic, both of us holed up in our homes. Before everything shut down in the US, Joy-Marie was part of Sleep No More, an immersive theater experience retelling Shakespeare's Macbeth, which we talk about in-depth, along with Joy-Marie's experiences in Europe, her many collaborations, and thinking about the exotification of black culture. I hope you enjoy this. Photography by Sherrie Nickol (@sherrienickol)

Hello everyone. I hope everyone is doubly and triply well today. The world has gone crazy and I am wishing that everyone is making it through this difficult time. China seems to be doing okay and my school was thinking of starting back up by the end of the month, but then I got an update for overseas staff to remain on standby. Many Asian countries are now preventing the Western world from entering in a strange reversal of border control as the virus has spread out west. I will most likely spend the rest of spring and early summer remaining in the US before flying back out to China. I will most likely be quarantined upon my arrival, which I am not looking forward to but is also probably the right thing for the government to do. This is a striking difference to the approach I am seeing in the US, which seems to be leaderless and unable to make a decision about how to do anything in this time of crisis. Anyway... In light of all the terrible things and distruptions happening in the world, I am trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy and try to keep releasing episodes. For today, I picked out a really fun episode I did with artist and curator, Jova Lynne. I met Jova while at Vermont Studio Center in January...which seems so long ago and long before most of us had even heard about the Coronavirus. Jova graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst, MA before heading to Detroit to pursue a Masters of Fine Arts in Photography at Cranbrook Academy of Art. Afterwards, Jova became a Ford Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit before continuing to work there as a curator ever since. Jova has the most wonderful energies to be around and we laugh our way through the interview. We talk about white fragility, learning where to feel powerful, and our thoughts on happiness and success in the art world. We also spend a bit of time discussing Jova's intersection of work as both an artist and curator. I hope everyone stays safe and I hope you enjoy this.

Hey everyone. I hope everyone is well. Not much new is going on with me. I've been just slowly adjusting my sleep schedule and teaching my students using video conferencing through the Zoom app. I had to adjust a few assignments to fit with the new format of my courses, but otherwise, it seems to be going well. I saw a wonderful performance by Dell Marie Hamilton at the Hood Museum of Art, which is the local art museum. And I made a quick trip to New York City for Armory week, where I got to catch up with a few friends and saw some art. Overall, I'm just trying to stay busy. Anyway, for today, I am interviewing Rhea Ramjohn, a writer, podcaster, and vernacular curator from Trinidad via Boston and Berlin. I met Rhea in Berlin while I was there last year and got to interview her shortly before I left for China. I met Rhea through Nine Yamamoto-Masson, who I interviewed on Episode 16. I kept running into Rhea at different meetups and events around Berlin. As I slowly got to know her, I became interested in all the various ways and strategies that Rhea works. For instance, Rhea is the founder of the empowerment group WA(i)VE, is the creator and host of Berlin’s monthly art event series Tell it! Tuesdays, and the co-host of The Poetic Groove Show. Rhea also runs two podcasts, Tanti Table and Hormonal, although at the time of the recording, Hormonal had not yet started. In this short but wonderful conversation, Rhea and I chat about the nuances in sustainability, getting over the fear of starting a podcast, and various modes of storytelling. I hope you enjoy this.