Seeing Color (Zhiwan Cheung)
Explorez tous les épisodes de Seeing Color
| Date | Titre | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Nov 2020 | Episode 55: Vulnerability Will Connect You (w/ Marcus Scott Williams) | 01:01:55 | |
Hey everyone. It has definitely been a crazy week and it seems things are turning out ok. It was four days of election news and uncertainty, but there is some sort of clarity now. I feel some kind of hope, in spite of 70 million Americans voting for an outright racist. With the bar so low, it seems the situation can more likely get better. I partially didn't release an episode last week because of the timing, but also I was in the middle of flying back into China. I was a bit stressed out with the whole ordeal of getting the all the proper documents, visas, COVID tests, and jet lag. At the moment, I am currently in Xiamen and day six of hotel quarantine. In addition to the COVID test I had to take in order to board the airline, I received another COVID test upon landing, before being directly shuttled to a hotel where will be tested for again before I leave. After that, I can travel back to Zhuhai and around China. So anyway. Enough about me. For today on the podcast, I am interviewing Marcus Scott Williams, a writer I met last winter at Vermont Studio Center. I can't believe it has been almost a whole year since that residency and right before the whole pandemic started. I spent a lot of time with Marcus that snowy January and even did my first stick and poke for him. Before our interview, I read Marcus's last book, Sparse Black Whimsy, and found it to be a smooth stream of consciousness mixed with poetic examinations that are both playful and thrilling. I've linked the book in the episode descriptions if you are interested. Marcus had a long and winding path to get to where he is today, which we chat about, along with vulnerability, questioning the need to be right all the time, and paying attention to the minor details in life. I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: | |||
| 29 Jan 2019 | Episode 12: Self-Mythologizing (w/ Carol Zou) | 01:26:13 | |
On this episode, my close friend Carol Zou visited me in Berlin and I was overjoyed to finally chat with Carol. I have known Carol since our time in undergrad and seen her develop over the years into a formidable artist, activist, and cultural worker. She is always reading and writing on top of her work and I always marvel at how Carol can juggle everything at once. For the interview, we discuss the economics of social practice, historical discontinuity in places, the performative dimensions of activism, and constructing mythologies. We are both drinking tea, so you may hear the occasional slurping. I don’t think I could adequately summarize Carol’s practice, so I’ll read from Carol’s self-mythologized description from her website bio: When Carol Zou was growing up in subsidized university housing as the child of first-generation Chinese immigrants, she read The Fledgling by Jane Langton and convinced the rest of the children in the apartment complex that if they practiced hard enough, they could collectively learn how to fly. She is currently still learning how to mobilize collective action around public space, imagination, and liberation from structural oppression. And with that, I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 30 Jun 2020 | Episode 45: The Struggle Is Continuous (w/ Sonja John) | 01:30:16 | |
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. Links Mentioned:
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| 11 Feb 2020 | Episode 36: Language and Place(w/ Diana Lee) | 01:00:18 | |
Hey everyone. I hope everyone is doing well. My life has been a bit hectic the past few weeks. I was living in Vermont finishing up my time at a residency when the whole Coronavirus became a major issue. For those not keeping up with the news in Asia, China has an outbreak with this flu-like virus. As I was mentally preparing to leave the US, I got news that the entire city of Wuhan was quarantine and flights were being cancelled left and right. My school, which originally was suppose to start on February 5th first got delayed a week, then two weeks, and now the first week of classes will be held online. My boss also told me to stay away as long as possible. I rerouted my flight from Zhuhai to Thailand to be on standby as I didn't think the situation would continue to get worse, but it might be that the entire semester will be taught online. I don't know what an online art class looks like and I am currently rewriting my syllabus to try and make it work. I am trying to figure out where to go from Thailand at this point and may go back to the US for this semester since that is as far from the virus geographically as possible. And everyone keeps telling me to leave this side of the ocean. I will keep you updated on this as the weeks go on. As for today, I have an interview with Diana Lee, a writer, translator, and current director of Dillon+Lee Gallery. I have known Diana since our times in undergrad although we didn't fully connect until after as we were both thinking about applying to grad school. Diana ended up pursuing an art criticism and writing masters at SVA before beginning work at her current gallery, where after many years, Diana became the director of the space. I had originally spoke with Diana right after the birth of her son but the audio got all messed up, so this is the second time speaking with Diana for the podcast. It was in our first interview that I spoke with Diana more about her time at the gallery and working her way to her current position, but I didn't get to that this time through as the interviews blended together. Perhaps I can delve back into that history in another interview for the future. But for this episode, Diana and I chat about a languages relationship with art, what art criticism tries to do, and what it is like running a mid-tier gallery. I hope you enjoy this. | |||
| 04 Dec 2018 | Episode 8: We Are All Cute (w/ Tereneh Idia) | 01:40:01 | |
On this episode, I had the pleasure of talking with Tereneh Idia, a designer and writer currently based in Pittsburgh, PA. Tereneh attended Drexel University before moving around Washington D.C., Baltimore, and New York City. Tereneh describes these places as once having coffee shops that just sold coffee and donuts, where you could go to a Dominican Chinese restaurant and probably not find a piece of kale anywhere. After much traveling, Tereneh received her Masters in Fashion Design at Kenyatta University in Kenya. She is a 2016 Carol R. Brown Creative Achievement Emerging Artist, which is awarded by The Heinz Endowment and The Pittsburgh Foundation. Tereneh and I had a wonderfully long and meandering conversation and we get into a few podcasts, Tereneh’s thoughts on fashion, and the never-ending story of white supremacy. I thoroughly enjoyed relistening to my conversation with Tereneh as I edited the audio, and I hope you enjoy listening to it just as much as I did! Links Mentioned:
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| 06 Oct 2020 | Episode 52: Two Years Anniversary #1 (w/ Tereneh Idia) | 01:07:07 | |
Hey everyone. I hope you are well. The news is going more crazy with each passing day, although I think we have a new definition for the words karma and irony in relation to the current US state of affairs. I finally got my mail-in-ballet, which I quickly filled out and dropped off at my local town hall, so that is out of the way. I did get information about my returning to China, although it is a national Chinese holiday this week so everyone is on vacation and the instructions for renewing work visas are still very unclear. So more waiting around, as has been the case for everyone. But for today I am doing something different to celebrate the fact that somehow I have been doing this podcast for 2 years. So for the next three episodes, which I will be releasing every week as opposed to bi-weekly, I will be revisiting three special guests from earlier episodes. For this week's episode, I will be chatting with Tereneh Idia, who I first talked to in Episode 8, which I will link in the show notes. As a quick overview, Tereneh was born and raised in Pittsburgh and is an internationally based fashion designer and founder of Idia'Dega. She also has a bi-weekly column for the Pittsburgh City Paper, which she recently won a Golden Quill award for Excellence in Written Journalism. This podcast had its most concrete beginnings in Pittsburgh and I thought it would be good to be able to chat with Tereneh about recent events in relationship to Pittsburgh, a city which I hold close to my heart. We also talk about some of current events, zoom meetings, protests, monuments, and so much more. Again, thank you to everyone who continues to listen to my rambling thoughts and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 28 Jan 2020 | [Bonus] Art People Pod | 01:21:06 | |
Hello everyone. It has been a while and I hope everyone is taking care of themselves properly this winter season. I feel bad having taken such a long break but I had been traveling quite a bit and then my computer needed some fixing. Everything is now up and running. I’ve been in Vermont the past month for a residency and it has quite productive. In spite of Vermont being overwhelmingly filled with Sallys and Beckys, I did meet a wonderful group of POC artists and writers. We bounded over not anything in particular, but as one writers described our group, we were drawn to each other kind of like a collective unconscious that was already there. Shout out to Cindy for that beautiful sentence. Anyway, I’ve been spending my time here reading, meditating, shooting a new video, and interviewing people here. I also got to give a talk in Portland, Maine about my work and the podcast. Shout out to everyone who came to see me talk and I was glad I could share my work there. I did some studio visits and met with a documentary studies class that asked me some great questions about that caused me to reflect about my podcast in new ways. I will begin releasing more episodes in two weeks. But for today, I will publish an interview I did on another podcast, Art People Pod, with Justin Favela. You may have remembered Justin from my very first episode. Justin was the person who originally inspired me to begin a podcast and I thought releasing him interviewing me for his podcast would be a good interim before starting back up again. This episode was originally recorded while Justin visited me in Berlin. We chat about artist residencies, podcasting, race, and so much more. I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: | |||
| 12 Nov 2019 | Episode 33: Information Is Liberation (w/ Femi Oyewole) | 01:07:14 | |
Hey everyone. I hope everyone is well. Classes are past the halfway point and I am starting to think about my winter plans. There are a few places I want to visit in China. This past weekend, I was happy to see my parents as they were visited Hong Kong. They came over to Zhuhai along with some relatives from Hong Kong and Shanghai. We rented a car and drove a few hours north to the Shunde District. I got to practice my terrible Mandarin and eat some amazing food. Since there were 10 of us, we got to order quite a bit and try a lot of different dishes. Some food highlights include sweet and sour shrimp and double layered milk dessert. Overall, it was a good weekend. Anyway, for this episode, I am speaking with Femi Oyewole, a multi disciplinary artist who uses any medium to create unique experiences and bring people together. Originally born in Nigeria, Femi moved to London where eventually lived and he grew up in. Femi studied at the BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology before continuing his training at London Contemporary Dance School. Since graduating Femi has had the opportunity to work with a variety of choreographers and companies, including BlueMan Group, Will Tuckett’s Faeries, Simeon Qsyea, Ivan Blackstock, DV8 Physical Theatre, Protein Dance Company, The Ongoing Project and more. Femi is also the founder and CEO of Black Brown Berlin, a website that provides information of quality events and ‘safer’ spaces for black and brown people in Berlin. Black Brown Berlin started around the same time as this podcast and we found each other through Instagram so thank you internet! I reached out to Femi as I was curious to hear how Femi started his project and how his experiences in Berlin drove him to create Black Brown Berlin. We go over Femi’s early forays into dance, how he became a Blue Man, and the importance of information as liberation. It was a fun conversation and I hope you enjoy this. Photo Info: The Freedom of Movement Links Mentioned:
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| 02 Feb 2021 | Episode 60: Reparations as Failure (w/ Ilana Harris-Babou) | 00:59:57 | |
Hi everyone. I hope you are doing ok this winter season wherever you are. The Corona virus keeps mutating and vaccines are coming in too slowly so I wish you the best in whatever situation you are in. I am currently on winter break from teaching until after the Chinese Spring Festival, which I am spending staying at home and working on some new projects. It is also Black History Month, although hopefully you are celebrating Black History Month year round and not just the month of February. It is important to remember and acknowledge our painful histories as opposed to keeping them hidden from view. This is not a one month sort of thing but a constant work against the forces of racism. I hope that is something we all keep in mind. But for today, I have a really special episode with Ilana Harris-Babou, an artist who uses music videos, cooking shows, and home improvement television as a starting point for her work. Ilana's sculptures and video installations are, in a sense, an abject exploration of the American Dream. Ilana got her BA in art from Yale University followed by an MFA from Columbia University. Afterwards, Ilana taught at Williams College while doing a string of residencies and shows. She has been featured in places such as The New Yorker, Vice, and Art in America and exhibited at Anton Kern Gallery, Jacob Lawrence Gallery, and the 2019 Whitney Biennial. Most recently, Ilana moved back to New York City and is a resident artist of Pioneer Works. I talk with Ilana about her working process in the studio, getting into the Whitney Biennial, and the troubled history of labor through reparations. Again, please stay safe both physically and mentally and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 11 May 2021 | Episode 67: Laying Down Fully (w/ Addoley Dzegede) | 00:55:58 | |
Hi everyone. Hope you are doing well. Things are okay so far on my end. School is ending soon and the temperature is getting hot and humid very quickly. My Chinese is steadily getting better and I have a few shows planned for the coming months, so I have to get back to my video editing as the deadline approaches. I also am doing a remote residency via Rogers Art Loft in Las Vegas in the coming summer, as well as a residency in Shanghai. I'll keep you updated about any upcoming events as they happen. For today, I have a really wonderful chat with Addoley Dzegede, a Ghanian-American interdisciplinary artist who grew up in South Florida and is now based in Pittsburgh. Her work has been exhibited throughout the US, Europe, and Africa, and she has been at residencies such as at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, Osei Duro in Accra, Ghana, Thread: a project of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Senegal, and many more. Addoley employs different materials, textile traditions, and notions of “authenticity” to investigates notions of belonging, migration and location, and hybrid identities. Her work is a contemplation of the forces of history, experience, and location, as well as how they work together to tell a story, essentially, of longing as a state of being. I was able to ask Addoley more about these topics, along with the different histories of the textiles she uses, the idea of getting ready for grad school, and figuring out how to work at residencies. As a side note, I was introduced to Addoley and her partner, Lyndon, through her brother, Zechariah, who I know through my undergrad. I still am amazed at how small and interconnected the world can be, not just in the arts, but on our tiny little Earth. It is my hope we all can realize this sooner than later before it is too late. Anyway, take care, stay safe, and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 02 Mar 2021 | Episode 62: Interlockingness of Stories (w/ Jen Liu) | 01:04:17 | |
Hey everyone. Hope you are doing well. The Lunar New Year came and went without much trouble and teaching started back up at my university. Over the break, I caught up on some work, cooked a bit, and read some books. I was able to finish Raven Leilani's Luster and Charles Yu's Interior Chinatown. Both were a good break from some of the more dense art theory I sometimes put myself through. I recommend you check both out. Anyway. For this episode, I am interviewing Jen Liu, an artist working in video, painting, biomaterial, sculpture, and performance on the topics of national identity, labor economy, and the reinterpretation of archival artifacts. Jen got her BA in creative writing from Oberlin College and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. She has attended residencies such as De Ateliers, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Pioneer Works, and many others. Jen has also exhibited in venues like The Whitney Museum, The New Museum, and the 2014 Shanghai Biennale. Her past awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a LACMA Art+Technology Award, and a Creative Capital grant. In our discussion, we chat about Jen's path from a writer to an artist, living and working in Europe, and how she views storytelling in the framework of time-based media. Jen thought we sounded like two cute chipmunks which I take as a compliment. In any case, stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: | |||
| 09 Nov 2021 | Episode 80: Optimist At Heart (w/ Tiffany Lin) | 00:52:55 | |
Hello everyone. How are you all doing? I am in the midst of installing my show in Zhuhai. It is mostly done and I can't wait to be able to get some rest after the opening, which by the way is this coming Saturday, November 13th at Xu Yu Huan Bian Gallery, which is near the Yangmi mall. I'll be there starting at 5pm so come by to say hi if you happen to be in the Zhuhai area. I am showing two new video installations, some lightboxes, and aluminum prints. It feels good to be able to make some work after such a long hiatus. Anyway....for this week, through the Rogers Art Loft Residency, I am speaking with Tiffany Lin, a visual artist, wordsmith, and dreamer. Tiffany got her BA in Gender & Women's Studies and Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley and an MFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Illustration Practice. Tiffany's work examines how power is expressed in the subtext of American vernacular. Utilizing both creative and sociological methods, she combines participatory action, interviews, and social theory to support her claim that desire and belonging are mediated by external politics. Tiffany and I discuss the evolution of her work, the use of words and language, finding inspiration in the US Census, and how we all self-identify our identities. Tiffany called in from her car on the side of the 10 in LA, which was a little noisy at times. I found Tiffany's energy and thoughts infectious and I hope you do as well. Until next time, stay safe and healthy wherever you are and enjoy! Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: | |||
| 25 Jun 2019 | Episode 23: I Didn't Want To Make Oriental Paintings (w/ Eugina Song) | 00:57:34 | |
Hi everyone. I hope your week is going well. I spent the past week at Art Basel in Switzerland. I got free housing with an art friend, so shout out to Felipe Castelblanco, and I got some VIP tickets from a special curator friend. Basel was stupid expensive. It simple espresso started at around 5 dollars and everything scaled up from there. Through an artist I know in Berlin, I met up with a few Singaporean collectors and hung out with them most of the time and cooked Chinese food in their apartment to avoid the overpriced Swiss food. The whole art fair was fascinating to watch as a spectacle. Felipe commented to me that the reason we artists all gone into art as kids or semi-adults no longer exists at that art fair, which was a depressing thought. I had to take a break from all the art and took a day trip to Lucerne. I took a gondola to the top of Mount Pilatus and got some really fresh air. I came back to Berlin and am soon heading off to Venice. I'm meeting up with Jose Diaz and we will be checking out the biennale while this episode is being released. A few quick announcements before we start. I wanna give a quick shoutout to Ally Ricarte and Chelsey Dulaney. They are two new monthly Patreon subscribers. They both actually subscribed right before my previous episode and I didn't have time to include it in the intro before releasing the recording of Tsohil, so here's my belated thanks to both of them. Anyway, on to the show. For today, I am speaking with Eugina Song. Eugina was born in London but grew up primarily in South Korea and the US. She received her BFA at Cornell University, where I first met Eugina, and she recently completed her MFA from Hunter College. I remember seeing Eugina's early paintings as an undergrad and can say her recent work has progress in a wonderfully different direction. She was visiting Pittsburgh last summer and I met up with Eugina for lunch before the interview. In our conversation, Eugina talks about dealing with preconceived notions attached to being an Asian woman, working through the different manifestations of the Chinese and Korean diaspora studying in the US, and adopting various strategies to fitting in a western society. And with that, I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 03 Sep 2019 | Episode 28: The Thing Is Larger Than You (w/ Accra Shepp) | 01:29:20 | |
Hey everyone. It feels like it's been a while, but I finally made it into China. It was a very long and stressful flight until I was able to settle down my bags. To give you a rundown of what happened that day, basically I didn't have an entry visa until the last minute. The paperwork for my visa took longer than expected and I missed the first part of staff orientation. The visa center in Berlin said they would give me my passport on last Tuesday at 2pm, although I wouldn't know if my visa would be approved until I got my passport back that day. I was all packed because I wanted to catch a 6pm flight out that same day. So I arrived early at the visa center and I got my visa approved at 2pm. Immediately after, I quickly went home, bought my ticket, and headed to the airport for a 17 hour flight, with a connection at Qatar. After traveling another two hours to reach Zhuhai, I finally got to my hotel. I spent the next few days looking for apartments and settling down. The second night was somewhat stressful as getting money was difficult. Most places didn't take my American credit card and many ATMs didn't take my bank card. Everyone here pays digitally with their phone, but you can't set that up without a Chinese bank account, which you can't set up without first getting a residency permit. A few kind staff members helped me out and now I am feeling ok. My initial thoughts on Zhuhai is it is very hot and tropical, weather conditions that I am not a fan of. Otherwise, food here is very good and cheap, although I am biased towards Cantonese food. I'll keep you updated on anything new once classes start. For today, I am interviewing Accra Shepp. Accra got his BA in Art History and Studio Art from Princeton University, followed by a Master's Degree in Art History from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU. He also completed a Fulbright Fellowship in Indonesia, so we have that in common. Working primarily in photography, Accra has exhibited in spaces such as MoMA, the Chicago Art Institute, and the Whitney Museum. I met Accra during my time at Anderson Ranch in the winter of 2018. Accra was invited to help jury the following year's round of residents for a few days, so I got to get to know Accra over dinner and late night drinks. Accra and I talk about the Wall Street protests, making websites, social justice in the arts, and the power of photography. Accra was actually the second person I ever interviewed. As I edited the audio, I found my younger self sounding awkward and tentative, although I'm not sure exactly how much has changed since then -- I do feel like a different person from the voice that is only a year and a half old, which I guess it means I am continually growing, hopefully in a good direction. In any case, here's our conversation and you can be the judge of that. Enjoy. Photo: Ben Timpson Links Mentioned:
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| 26 Mar 2019 | Episode 16: Diving Into Berlin’s Racist History (w/ Nine Yamamoto-Masson) | 02:18:15 | |
On this episode, I took a long look at the complicated racial history in Germany with Nine Yamamoto-Masson. I was first introduced to Nine by Carol Zou, who I interviewed on Episode 12, which I will link in the show notes. Nine is artist, practicing theorist, researcher, translator, radio maker, activist and community organizer. Growing up in southern Germany and going to France for university before ending up Berlin, Nine has a unique lens through which she views Europe through her French-Japanese identity. Throughout our conversations, Nine demystifies the idea of a liberal progressive Germany and questions the power structures embedded in an English-centric and capitalistic art world. Our discussion is long, but I thought it was necessary to setup the stage for a history that I am not familiar with as an American. As a warning, some of the topics we discussed contain intense and disturbing language. I also must apologize for my occasional coughing, as I was getting over a cold at the time of this recording. There was also some work being done in the apartment next door. I did my best to fix it all up in post-production. Lastly, for my next episode, I will be releasing it a week from now, as opposed to the usual two week increments, due to scheduling reasons. So keep an eye out for it. In any case, I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 08 Jun 2021 | Episode 69: Welcoming the Unfolding (w/ Dr. Jeffreen M. Hayes) | 01:17:31 | |
Hi everyone. I hope you are doing well wherever you are. I just started my virtual residency at Rogers Art Loft, where I will be interviewing local Las Vegas artists and cultural workers. There will be a few live events, so I'll post them as they come about. Stay tuned! But for today, I have a really special episode with Dr. Jeffreen M. Hayes, a trained art historian and curator who advocates for racial inclusion, equity, and access. Jeffreen has extensive curatorial experience and some of her projects include SILOS, Augusta Savage: Renaissance Woman, AFRICOBRA: Messages to the People, and Embracing the Lens: BlackFlorida project. Jeffreen is also the Executive Director of Threewalls, a space that intentionally develops artistic platforms with artists to help manifest the organization’s vision of art connecting segregated communities, people and experiences together. In this episode, Jeffreen was extremely generous with her time and labor as she talks about her journey through different arts organizations, from challenging racists institutions to welcoming the unfolding of the unknown. We also talk about how representation by itself is not enough, allowing for vulnerable moments, the importance of black-centered organizations, and defunding museums. Jeffreen hits so many key points more eloquently than I could ever do and I am excited to share our conversation with you. In the meantime, stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 30 Mar 2021 | Episode 64: Hmong Blues (w/ Khaty Xiong) | 01:11:52 | |
Hey everyone. I hope you are well. It has been crazy this past week with all the mass shootings that has been happening in the US. I don't have much to add other than what a previous guest of this show, Tereneh Idia, recently posted, which is that the people of the global majority needs to unite to end white supremacy, that too many have adopted white supremacy as their ideals, their love, their body, their mind, their work, their art, their heart and their soul. This is something we all have to work on as the global majority. This work never ends. Don't be afraid to find someone to talk to about these topics. These discussions needs to be out in the open. With that in mind, stay safe wherever you are. For today, I am interviewing Khaty Xiong, a poet born to Hmong refugees from Laos and is the seventh daughter of fifteen brothers and sisters. She is the author of Poor Anima, the first full-length collection of poetry published by a Hmong American woman in the United States. Most recently, Khaty was awarded a 2020 Ruth Lilly & Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship. Khaty's other honors include a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship, a Roxane Gay Fellowship in Poetry, and the Nadya Aisenberg Fellowship at MacDowell. I met Khaty over a year ago at Vermont Studio Center and we bonded over meals, late night chats, and Houdini the cat. Khaty had a very calming presence, which belies the complex thoughts she reveals in her writing. Our conversation goes deep into Khaty's family history, an important part to understanding the influences of Khaty's poetry. As Khaty describes it, her body of grief work is an ode to the inability to “return home” as a descendant of illiterate diasporans, interrogating, as well as creating, myths around mothers, death, and gardens. We also discuss being vulnerable, transparent family stories, and the acceptance of grief. Be warned that this is an intense episode. Take care, stay safe, and I hope you enjoy it. Links Mentioned:
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| 28 Sep 2021 | Episode 77: We Don’t Dance For Money (w/ Fawn Douglas) | 00:51:17 | |
Hey everyone. I hope you are all doing well as the fall comes full force. Things have been busy for me. I’ve been in the midst of completing three new video works and it is taking all my time. Mid-autumn Festival was a nice quick break and the upcoming national holiday will be some extra time for me to do my own work. Otherwise, today I have the amazing Fawn Douglas, an Indigenous American artist and enrolled member of the Las Vegas Paiute Tribe. Fawn is dedicated to the intersections of art, activism, education, identity, place, and sovereignty. Within her art-making and activism, she tells stories in order to remember the past and also to ensure that the stories of Indigenous peoples are heard in the present. Fawn is currently working on her Master of Fine Arts at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and co-curates the Vegas Institute for Contemporary Engagement (V.I.C.E), an artist team that has been the catalyst for exhibitions, podcasts, interviews, performances, and experimentation that makes space for marginalized artists in the Las Vegas community. Fawn and I had a wonderful conversation about call-out culture, cultural accessibility, and giving each other grace. It was moving listening to Fawn discuss her work as a community organizer and her experiences as an activist. As always, take care and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 19 Dec 2023 | Episode 96: Survival Kits (w/ Ali Fathollahi) | 00:50:06 | |
Hi everyone. I hope you are doing well. I want to first say my heart goes out to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas community following the tragic shooting that occurred on December 6th. Through the podcast, I had the privilege of connecting with many at UNLV and my thoughts are with you all. It's important to acknowledge that while prayers and sympathies are extended, they can only do so much in the face of the ongoing issues surrounding gun violence and the accessibility of firearms. This recent event is but one of the many somber reminders of the urgent need for meaningful change in gun control. How exactly to do this I myself am still figuring out in a country still glorifying guns. This incident ties into some of the concerns I’ll be discussing with this week's guest, Ali Fathollahi, an Iranian artist currently residing in Las Vegas. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak with Ali's wife, Nanda, and you can listen to that conversation as well. Ali holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and went to the Azad University of Art and Architecture in Tehran, Iran for his Bachelor of Arts and his first Master of Fine Arts. Ali works in a wide variety of mediums, such as sculpture, light, and performance. In recent years, his work has critically examined the contemporary obsession with "Survivalism," both as a lifestyle and an ideology, often driven by fear and nostalgia. During our conversation, we delve into topics such as the challenges of language, the use of humor as a coping mechanism, and how pop culture influences our fascination with survival kits. As always, stay safe and healthy and I hope you enjoy this. Photo by Mikayla Whitmore. Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: | |||
| 13 Oct 2020 | Episode 53: Two Years Anniversary #2 (w/ Justin Favela) | 01:25:24 | |
Hey everyone. Thanks for tuning in to round 2 of the special two-year anniversary edition where I revisit three past guest of the show. Last week, I talked with Tereneh Idia, an internationally based fashion designer, which if you haven't listened to yet, go check it out. But for this week, I am chatting with Justin Favela, an artist known for his colorful large-scale installations and sculptures that manifest his interactions with American pop culture and the Latinx experience. In 2018, Justin won the Alan Turing LGTBIQ Award. He also hosts two culture-oriented podcasts, "Latinos Who Lunch" and "The Art People Podcast." I met Justin 3 years ago and have maintained a close long-distance friendship with him since. Hopefully you can hear our familiarity with each other in our banter as we chat about José María Velasco, performance art, working for Hollywood, and finding a ranch for the future. Justin also inspired me to create this podcast, so visiting him again on the two year anniversary seemed important as we reflect on both the past and present. I have got one last special guest for next weeks episode. Until then, I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 11 Aug 2020 | Episode 48: Haiti Does Not Have The Copyright To Tragedy (w/ Jean-Ulrick Désert) | 02:24:55 | |
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. Links Mentioned:
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| 02 Jun 2020 | Episode 44: Being There There Being (w/ Devin Kenny) | 01:06:52 | |
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
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| 16 Mar 2021 | Episode 63: Professional Development (w/ Jeffrey Augustine Songco) | 01:15:12 | |
Hi everyone. As usual, I hope you are doing well wherever you are. I went to Guangzhou this past weekend and visited a few locations where my family lived. I have some new ideas jumping around in my head and maybe will start something new soon. I will keep you updated. For today, I have a wonderful chat with Jeffrey Augustine Songco, a multidisciplinary artist exploring the complexity of self-portraiture. As a gay American man of Filipino ethnicity, Jeffrey's work is a place of representation — an opportunity to playfully cast himself as the protagonist of a postcolonial queer narrative. Jeffrey got his BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. While our paths did not cross in Pittsburgh, there was a shared sense of familiarity as I talked with Jeffrey in the way we both approach our work. We discussed Jeffrey's beginnings as a child actor, the creation of his secret society, and how he ended up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: | |||
| 06 Aug 2019 | Episode 26: Activisim, Advocacy, or Advertisement (w/ D.S. Kinsel) | 00:43:26 | |
Hey y'all. Today I have a relatively short but special episode for you. I met up with Darrell Kinsel, also professionally known as D.S. Kinsel, at his project space, Boom Concepts. I first met Darrell just at the inception of Boom Concepts while they moved into their current space on Penn Ave, back in 2013. I approached Boom with this silly idea I had to curate a painting show with a group of conceptual and installation-based artists. Darrell was excited by my strange curatorial project and thats where our friendship began. Over the years, we saw each other's artistic career grow and I was happy to interview Darrell after all our shared experiences. Darrell describes himself as a “black creative entrepreneur and cultural agitator" and his work focuses on themes of escapism, space keeping, urban tradition, pop culture, hip-hop, informalism and cultural appropriation. Darrell is also the co-founder of Boom Concepts, a combination work space and creative hub that offers artist studios in auxiliary locations across Pittsburgh’s unique neighborhoods. In conjunction with these activities, Darrell also works with youth, community artists, and community partners in order to identify ways for youth to express issues of social justice through drama, dance, music, visual art, and technology. At the time of the interview, which somehow was over a full year ago in 2018, Darrell had just became a father and was a busy man. His marriage was three days away and he had a lot on his mind. Since I was leaving for Berlin at the time, Darrell was kind enough to squeeze in some time for a short interview. Darrell was taking a break with a deinstall at Boom Concepts and keeping a close eye on his daughter, Liberty. There are a few stray baby sounds and other noises in the space as a result. Hopefully they aren't too distracting. I definitely would like to chat longer with Darrell in the future. In any case, I hope you enjoy this. Photo credit: John Altdorfer Links Mentioned:
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| 07 Apr 2020 | Episode 40: No More Handshakes (w/ Joy-Marie Thompson) | 00:47:41 | |
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) Links Mentioned:
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| 08 Dec 2020 | Episode 57: Don't forget my change (w/ Angelique Scott) | 00:51:26 | |
Hey everyone. I hope you are doing well and safe. I'm doing okay. I just found a new apartment since my lease was not renewed at my last place. Everything is moved in and now I am slowly unpacking. Otherwise, I am just teaching and learning Chinese. I'm trying to start back up some new work but have been spending a lot of time just reading. I got a standing desk which helps alleviate my wrists and I hope that will motivate me to start video editing. I know these are all just excuses but you know. Anyways... For today, I am presenting the last of my interviews during my time at Vermont Studio Center from almost a year ago. I wish I could be better at getting through my interviews more timely but juggling the whole podcast project by myself does have its limits. With all that aside, I am chatting with Angelique Scott, an artist, educator, and activist who creates work about blackness as a social and cultural identity. Angelique arrived halfway through my time in Vermont for a shorter period, but we quickly got to know each other and had lots of late night studio breaks together. Angelique graduated with a BFA in Art Education and Studio Art with a focus on ceramics, a material I still have trouble working with. In addition to ceramics, we discuss hyper intentionality within one's work, craftwork as art, and writing artist statements. As usual, stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 09 Jul 2019 | Episode 24: The 360 Degree Rule (w/ Christiane Dolores) | 01:09:39 | |
Hey y'all. I hope everyone is doing well. I don't have too much new news these days, although I have a whole bunch of interesting people I have lined up to interview in the coming months. Although you may not hear them until a few months later given my slow bi-weekly releases. I sometimes wonder if I should release my podcast weekly instead of bi-weekly, but I'm not sure if I can do that much work, as I'm even finding bi-weekly somewhat difficult. Sometimes I wished I had a co-host to help spread the work. Anyway, for today, I am speaking with Christiane Dolores, a multi-disciplinary artist, writer, and musician. Her practice is driven by pursuing questions about our shared humanity as well as her personal histories as a first generation mixed-race American. Christiane also helps local Pittsburgh artists out through her work as an artist relations coordinator at the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council. Lastly, Christiane is a member of the notwhite collective, a group of bi/multi-racial women artists who investigate what identity is within and without the construct and context of white---not in skin color, but as a system of oppression. I had reached out to Christiane from her involvement in the nonwhite collective and wanted to hear her speak about how the group came about. We also meandered through her early life experiences and the many detours she took that led to the collective's formation. The release of this interview also coincides somewhat with Christiane's third solo album, The Pantry of Salt and Sugar. The album is a selection of 15 songs culled from a two-year, 500 microsong project. On July 27th, the album release party will have a live performance on a water limousine floating down Pittsburgh’s three rivers. If you happen to be in Pittsburgh and want to go, I'll link more information in the show notes. So stay cool this summer and enjoy our conversation. Hi everyone. I hope your week is going well. I spent the past week at Art Basel in Switzerland. I got free housing with an art friend, so shout out to Felipe Castelblanco, and I got some VIP tickets from a special curator friend. Basel was stupid expensive. It simple espresso started at around 5 dollars and everything scaled up from there. Through an artist I know in Berlin, I met up with a few Singaporean collectors and hung out with them most of the time and cooked Chinese food in their apartment to avoid the overpriced Swiss food. The whole art fair was fascinating to watch as a spectacle. Felipe commented to me that the reason we artists all gone into art as kids or semi-adults no longer exists at that art fair, which was a depressing thought. I had to take a break from all the art and took a day trip to Lucerne. I took a gondola to the top of Mount Pilatus and got some really fresh air. I came back to Berlin and am soon heading off to Venice. I'm meeting up with Jose Diaz and we will be checking out the biennale while this episode is being released. A few quick announcements before we start. I wanna give a quick shoutout to Ally Ricarte and Chelsey Dulaney. They are two new monthly Patreon subscribers. They both actually subscribed right before my previous episode and I didn't have time to include it in the intro before releasing the recording of Tsohil, so here's my belated thanks to both of them. Anyway, on to the show. For today, I am speaking with Eugina Song. Eugina was born in London but grew up primarily in South Korea and the US. She received her BFA at Cornell University, where I first met Eugina, and she recently completed her MFA from Hunter College. I remember seeing Eugina's early paintings as an undergrad and can say her recent work has progress in a wonderfully different direction. She was visiting Pittsburgh last summer and I met up with Eugina for lunch before the interview. In our conversation, Eugina talks about dealing with preconceived notions attached to being an Asian woman, working through the different manifestations of the Chinese and Korean diaspora studying in the US, and adopting various strategies to fitting in a western society. And with that, I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 21 Apr 2020 | Episode 41: The Space In Between (w/ Valery Jung Estabrook) | 01:18:31 | |
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. Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: | |||
| 16 Apr 2019 | Episode 18: A Clear Queer Path in The Arts (w/ José Carlos Diaz) | 01:10:01 | |
On this episode, I went to the Andy Warhol Museum to meet up with José Carlos Diaz, the Chief Curator there. We used the office meeting rooms late one summer day, just as the sun began to fall towards the horizon line. Prior to the Warhol, José was the Curator of Exhibitions at the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach, where he helped program shows with artists such as Rachel Harrison and El Anatsui. Before the Bass Museum, he worked at Tate Liverpool and on the Liverpool Biennial. José received an M.A. in Cultural History from the University of Liverpool and a B.A. in Art History from San Francisco State University. In 2016, José was listed as one of the 20 most influential young curators in the US by Artsy. José’s first saw me in the first week of his working at the Warhol. I happened to be giving a talk at the museum with Jessica Beck, also a curator at the Warhol. José and I connected shortly after over some tacos and we’ve been hanging out ever since. José’s constant hustling never ceases to amaze me and I’m surprised he somehow makes the time to hang out with little ol’ me. As you can imagine, I was quite excited to chat with José. Our conversation touches upon José’s meandering path to becoming a curator, diversity in the curatorial museum world, and the differences between Miami and Pittsburgh. In any case, I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 20 Jul 2021 | Episode 72: Establishing Existence (w/ Erica Hector Vital-Lazare) | 00:51:04 | |
Hey everyone. Happy Tuesday. We are in the midst of summer and time is going by quite quickly. I've been spending some time in the quiet suburbs of Shanghai before heading back to Zhuhai. There's a small but strong artist community here and it has been great getting to know the people here. Otherwise, I have been working on a 4-channel video and prepping for a show in the fall. I have also been recording a ton of interviews with the Las Vegas community through the Rogers Art Loft residency, through which and I am excited to share with you my chat with the amazing Erica Hector Vital-Lazare. Erica is a professor of Creative Writing and Marginalized Voices in Dystopian Literature at the College of Southern Nevada. She is also a poet, writer of fiction, and the co-producer of the photo-narrative installation Obsidian & Neon: Building Black Life and Identity in Las Vegas. Furthermore, Erica is the editor of McSweeney's Of the Diaspora, a series revisiting classic Black works in literature. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Erica as we talked about sci-fi and black futurism, reclaiming and revisiting one's past identity, and so many amazing book recommendations. As always, stay safe and healthy, both physically and mentally wherever you are, and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 19 Jan 2021 | Episode 59: What Feels Meaningful Right Now (w/ Maree ReMalia) | 01:06:14 | |
Hey everyone! Wow...what a month. Since my last episode, I had to wrap up my university classes around New Years, got a bit busy grading, and thought it would be a ho-hum sort of holidays. Instead, the underbelly of American's history reared its head for all to see right in the heart of Washington D.C. I am not sure what else there is to add to that event that hasn't already been said over and over about white supremacy in all its forms. I am still not sure what to think about Biden being president but I can only hope for something better than the status quo set by the past white liberal ideas of a melting pot. And Martin Luther King's birthday just passed yesterday, the timing of which reminds us both how much and how little has changed. We shall see. But for today, I have a really special guest, Maree ReMalia, a choreographer, performer, teaching artist, and certified Gaga instructor. An adoptee born in South Korea and raised in Ohio, movement practice and performance has supported her in an ongoing process of self-discovery, liberation, connection, expression, healing, and care. Her collaborative performance works have been commissioned by Gibney DoublePlus Festival (NY) and have been presented at venues such as American Dance Institute (MD), BAAD! Bronx Academy of Art and Dance (NY), Cleveland Public Theatre, and many more. As I edited this episode, I realized Maree had a very calming effect on me as an interviewer and we glide through many different topics, delving into Maree's experiences as a South Korean adoptee, her meandering path towards movement as a means of expression, getting groovy with Gaga, and so much more. As always, stay safe and healthy wherever you are, both mentally and physically, and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 02 Oct 2018 | Episode 2: There Are Black People In The Future (w/ Alisha Wormsley) | 00:56:00 | |
On this episode, I sit down with Alisha Wormsley, an artist based in Pittsburgh who creates photos, sculpture, sound, and time-based work based on collective memory and the synchronicity of time periods. I first came to know of Alisha through her Homewood Residency program, but more recently Alisha gained attention for one of her text-based work. To give a bit of background, Alisha was invited to exhibit a text for The Last Billboard, a project founded by the artist Jon Rubin who offered a rotating cast of artists a chance to present text on a billboard. The billboard resides in East Liberty, a quickly gentrifying neighborhood with new neighbors that include Google and freshly constructed apartment complexes and condos. Alisha presented the text, “There Are Black People In The Future.” People from the neighborhood complained and the property’s landlord removed the text. I’ve attached a Hyperallergic link on the SeeingColor website with more information. I caught up with Alisha right after she finished teaching a class and we get into the origins of the text, her decision to go to grad school, and future plans. The sound quality Links Mentioned:
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| 21 Dec 2021 | Episode 83: Queer Fan Fiction (w/ Dr. Erika Gisela Abad) | 00:47:49 | |
Hello everyone. The winter holidays and New Year's are coming up and I just hope that wherever you are, you are able to spend some time with your friends and loved ones. It can be hard these days even to do that, so cherish those moments. I have only one last episode to share with you before the end of the year, which is also the last episode from the Rogers Art Loft series that I conducted this past summer. Don't worry, I will see you all in January. So without further ado, I want to present Dr. Erika Abad, a Queer Latina poet, born and raised in Chicago. Dr. Abad received her BA in Latin American and Latina/o Studies from DePaul University and her Ph.D. in American Studies from Washington State University. Prior to her move to Las Vegas, Dr. Abad was an oral historian for the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Hunter College. Beyond Puerto Rican, Latinx, and Gender Studies, she is a well-published essayist, poet, and fiction writer, most recently writing a poem and creative reflection on the Pulse-Orlando tragedy. She is also a regular writer for Women in Higher Education. Erika and I chat about writing during difficult times, giving feedback to students without minimizing their experiences, queer fandom, and being mindful. This was a live-recorded event that was hosted by the wonderful Lance Smith of the Rogers Art Loft. Until next year, stay safe and healthy and have a wonderful winter holiday. Links Mentioned:
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| 23 Oct 2018 | Episode 5: The Myth of Sisyphus (w/ Yujin Lee) | 01:18:43 | |
On this episode, I met with Yujin Lee, an artist who works with video, drawing, and printmaking. Yujin is interested in microhistorical narratives that revisit themes such as war, globalization, and collective identity. I first met Yujin while we were both in college in a sculpture class. Yujin was born in Korea and received her BFA from Cornell University. She lived in Berlin for three years before moving to New York City to receiving her MFA at Columbia University. More recently, Yujin decided to move to Jeju, an island off the coast of Korea. I connected with Yujin before she left New York and we explore ideas about finding the right audience, repetition, and what it means to be intimate. For clarification purposes, I want to point out that Yujin refers to a person named Rirkrit, who's full name is Rirkrit Tiravanija, an artist and teacher at Columbia University. I've added a bunch of links for this particular episode on the website. I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 12 Mar 2019 | Episode 15: It’s More Than a Name (w/ Ching-chu Hu) | 01:21:27 | |
On this episode, I hung out with Ching-chu Hu, a musician, composer, and dad of four beautiful children. I first met Ching-chu in Wyoming, through the Brush Creek Art Residency. Born in Iowa City, Ching-chu grew up in a predominately white area and we bonded over our shared experience of growing up as Chinese-American. Ching-chu studied music at Yale University, followed by a Masters at the University of Iowa and a PhD at the University of Michigan. Currently, Ching-chu is a professor and Chair of Music at Denison University. While in Wyoming, Ching-chu was so kind as to help me film one of my videos with me in a dinosaur costume running around the vast open fields. After getting to know Ching-chu for a month, I knew I wanted to interview him and was excited that he agreed. Ching-chu was quite fascinated with the history of my name, so we spent quite some time talking naming, along with notions of authenticity, who gets to appropriate what, Asian representation, and the age old question of “Where are you from?” I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 20 Nov 2018 | Episode 7: Tears and Pizza (w/ Adil Mansoor) | 01:34:03 | |
On this episode, I speak with Adil Mansoor, a theatre director and educator who’s work centers around the stories of queer folk and people of color. Adil is a founding member of Pittsburgh’s Hatch Arts Collective and a member of the Heinz Endowments’ Transformative Arts Process, a grantmaking initiative supporting justice based arts education within black communities in Pittsburgh. Adil also served as the Program Director and then Artistic Director at Dreams of Hope, an LGBTQA+ youth arts organization for over 5 years. Adil is currently a Point Scholar and pursuing his MFA as a John Wells Directing Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University. I first learned about Adil through his Creative Mornings’s talk, which I have attached in the show notes. I then saw his production of Gloria by Branden Jacob-Jenkins over the summer and was very taken by the directing and the story. Adil was so kind as to find some time to sit with me and chat. Our conversation goes all over the place, from Adil’s early theater experiences, how to diversify hiring practices, and coping with the white cannon. The discussion runs on the long side, so I hope you enjoy it. Links Mentioned:
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| 22 Feb 2022 | Episode 87: Sewing as Community (w/ Aram Han Sifuentes) | 01:18:33 | |
Hi everyone. I hope you are doing well. I got a wonderful episode to share with you today as I speak with Aram Han Sifuentes, a fiber and social practice artist, writer, and educator who works to center immigrant and disenfranchised communities. Her work often revolves around skill sharing, specifically sewing techniques, to create multiethnic and intergenerational sewing circles, which become a place for empowerment, subversion, and protest. Aram got her BA in Art and Latin American Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and an MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she is currently an Associate Professor Adjunct. Aram’s energy is infectious and I found myself laughing a lot with her in our discussion as we chatted about growing up in rural California, protest banners, voting rights, and political literacy among immigrant communities. Aram also just opened with a solo show at moCa Cleveland, so go check it out if you are in the area, something I would like to be able to see before it closes in the summer. Otherwise, sit back, relax, and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 26 Oct 2021 | Episode 79: Two Matching Cups (w/ Jennifer Kleven) | 00:51:09 | |
Hi everyone. I hope you are doing well. I’ve been quite busy lately and don’t know where the time is going. Everything seems like a haze. The teaching and art are going well. Everything humming along as usual. For this week, I am releasing a live interview with Jennifer Kleven as part of the Rogers Art Loft Residency that I attended this past summer. The wonderful Lance Smith introduces both of us before our conversation and we end with a quick Q&A from the listeners. Jen is an arts administrator, artist, curator, and current grants manager for the Neon Museum in Las Vegas. Jen holds a BA in Art History and BFA in Art from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her work has been exhibited in the Las Vegas City Hall gallery, Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery, Trifecta, and CounterSpace in Las Vegas. From 2010-2013 Jen founded and operated Kleven Contemporary, a gallery exhibiting emerging artists in downtown Las Vegas. Jen shares her experiences as a curator, working at Starbucks, being part of the Gulch Collective, and juggling work and studio time. I have to admit, I was a bit nervous doing the interview live and I think it turned out ok. In any case, stay safe and healthy and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 16 Feb 2021 | Episode 61: New Neutrality (w/ Lyndon Barrois Jr.) | 01:09:52 | |
Hey everyone. Happy Lunar New Year. I wish you good luck and hope lots of fortune befalls upon you this coming year. It is the year of the ox and hopefully a lucky year for those of you born on the year of the ox. In what is normally a time for celebration, instead I hope that we can all reflect and take a breather for our physical and mental state in whatever situation we are in. It isn't clear for how long COVID is here to stay, much less the uneven distribution of vaccines and the rise of all these new virus strains. So with all that in mind, 新年快乐 and 恭喜发财! On today's episode, I am chatting with Lyndon Barrois Jr., an artist who breaks down and re-configures the language of print, design, and popular culture in order to investigate underlying ideology, ethics, and conceptions of identity. Lyndon got a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA from the Sam Fox School of Design from Washington University in St. Louis. I was put in contact with Lyndon through a series of coincidences, starting with an acquaintance of an acquaintance from my undergrad breakdance group who mentioned that his sister and her partner, Addoley and Lyndon, were artists. This was mentioned years ago but I didn't reach out to either one until last year, at which point I realized that Lyndon was just hired at my graduate program as an Assistant Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University. I remembered seeing the announcement but I didn't connect the dots until after we started chatting. There were a few other overlaps Lyndon and I had with each other and I was happy to learn more about Lyndon's work, along with Lyndon's pizza making skills, his thoughts on taking time off before grad school, and some of the difficulties he encountered while living the art residency life. I plan to talk with Addoley in the near future as well, so keep an eye out for that episode. Until then, stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 28 Jul 2020 | Episode 47: Knowing Your Self-Worth (w/ Celeste Smith) | 00:54:41 | |
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. Links Mentioned:
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| 30 Apr 2019 | Episode 19: If The Community Doesn’t Support Us We Don’t Deserve To Be Here (w/ Naomi Chambers) | 01:03:29 | |
On this episode, I biked over to The Flower House, located in Wilkinsburg, a borough right next to Pittsburgh. The Flower House is a creative space cultivated by group-centered artists who practice cooperative economics to empower women and families. Naomi Chambers, a Pittsburgh-based painter and assemblage artist, also helps run the Flower House. I first met Naomi at a dinner for an event, but I also ran into her work at her solo show at the August Wilson Center. Kilolo Luckett, the curator of that show and someone I interviewed in episode 6, also highly recommended I talk with Naomi. I’m glad I did, since Naomi was extremely generous with her time and I also got to meet her beautiful daughter, Dodi. Naomi and I discussed how she found her way to the arts, the complexity of community engaged art projects, and the development of The Flower House. Yes, I know, there are birds chirping throughout the conversation, but I didn’t notice until after and during the editing process. Hopefully, they aren’t too distracting. In any case, I hope you enjoy this. Photo Credit: Sarah Bader Links Mentioned:
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| 27 Apr 2021 | Episode 66: Asking Better Questions (w/ Dr. Yewande Pearse) | 00:48:55 | |
Hi everyone. I hope you are doing well wherever you are. The George Flyod trial finally finished up and I feel institutions are already forgetting how much more work there needs to be done. As always, the question is where do we go from here and what else can we do. Only time will tell. We shall see. But for today, I am interviewing Dr. Yewande Pearse, a neuroscientist and science communicator. Born and bred in North London, Yewande got her Ph.D. from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London, and is now a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Lundquist Institute at Harbor-UCLA. Her research interests focus on rare genetic disorders of the brain, and stem cell therapy. I first learned about Yewande through a show she curated me in at Naval LA, where she sits on the Programming Committee. I also watched some of the programming related to the exhibition, which focused on the impact of genomic studies on three aspects of identity: race, gender and politics. Yewande also hosts a few monthly radio shows and podcasts, such as Sound Science, Inside Biotech, and First Fridays for the Natural History Museum LA. On top of Yewande's prolific output as a podcaster, Yewande writes for Massive, an online science publication. For all these reasons, I was excited to finally talk with Yewande about her scientific work, her podcasting work, and her special science experiment work with John Legend. As always, stay safe and healthy and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 16 Oct 2018 | Episode 4: Cry, Baby (w/ Devan Shimoyama) | 01:12:34 | |
On this episode, I have the privilege of speaking with Devan Shimoyama, a wonderful artist and close friend. Devan grew up in Philadelphia and went to Penn State for his BFA before completing his MFA from Yale University in Painting/Printmaking in 2014. Upon graduating, Devan began teaching at Carnegie Mellon University, which is where I first met him. As an artist, Devan seeks to depict the black queer male body as something that is both desirable and desirous. Devan has shown throughout the United States and is currently represented by De Buck Gallery in New York City. In this discussion, Devan talks about his experience at Yale, fan art, barbershops, and sci-fi and fantasy novels. His debut solo museum show at The Andy Warhol Museum entitled “Cry, Baby” just opened last week and runs through until March 17, 2019. If you are in Pittsburgh and have a chance, please go and see the show. I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 08 Feb 2022 | Episode 86: Site, Context, Audience (w/ Yara El-Sherbini) | 01:12:29 | |
Hi everyone. I hope you are doing well! Today I have the lovely Yara El-Sherbini, an interdisciplinary artist who uses humor and play to create socially and politically engaged work. Yara got her BA Fine Art in Context at the University of the West Of England, Bristol and her MA Fine Art Media at Slade, University College London. She has shown in venues such as the Tate, the Venice Biennale, ZKM, and so much more. I actually had a chance to play her piece at the Venice Biennale before I knew about Yara, which was a happy coincidence. Yara was so kind as to take time out of her day to chat with me and we got to discuss how bodies interact in public spaces, pub quizzes, what does it mean to be participatory and playful, and rethinking context within an artwork. As usual, take care, stay safe, and I hope you enjoy this. Photo credit: Hugo Glendinning Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: | |||
| 01 Oct 2019 | Episode 30: Speaking to the Gaps aka One Year Anniversary Edition (w/ Billie Lee) | 01:16:22 | |
Hello everyone. Wow...so it's been a year since I launched this podcast. I am a bit shocked the podcast lasted this long. I still remember releasing my first episode with Justin Favela. I had just moved to Berlin and didn't quite know the identity of my show. I worried endlessly about how I sounded, whether I made any sense, and what the intro music will be. A year later, I'm now in China. A few things that I've noticed is my intros have gotten longer and better. I think I have a clearer idea of what it means to be a podcaster, along with the sheer amount of work that goes into it. I still wonder about the reach of this project based on the analytics of the site, although here and there I find that a few people are indeed listening and contributing to my Patreon. So again, thank you to all the listeners who have supported this podcast and everyone who has been interviewed. If you want to show your support, you can subscribe, tweet about the show using hashtag #podin, or donate to my Patreon for $2 a month. I will love you all the same no matter which is easier for you at the current moment. Again, huge thanks to you, my listeners. So today, I will be interviewing Billie Lee. Billie works at the intersection of art, pedagogy, and social change. She received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and MFA from Yale University. Billie contacted me as a listener of the podcast and wanted to talk to me for her dissertation, which examines the intersection of race, identity, and cultural politics in contemporary art and education. Billie sent me an essay to give further context on her work, which I thoroughly enjoyed and have linked that essay in the show notes. We had a preliminary chat via Skype before this actual interview to get to know each other better. I didn't quite know what to expect or whether our talk would meander toward an interesting path, but I recorded it nonetheless just in case (with Billie's consent of course). We chatted while Billie was completing a residency at Mass MOCA and as I was about to leave Berlin. The following interview delves quite a bit into my own reflections about the podcast and what I have learned from the process. We talk about our shared experiences going to art school as Asian-Americans, the politics of a model minority, and how white spaces want an endless explanation of certain types of non-white otherness. In editing the audio, I thought this would be a nice discussion to release on the anniversary of this show, given the reflective nature of Billie interviewing me. I still have a lot to learn and things I want to do and people I want to interview. Hopefully this will be one of many anniversaries. In any case, I hope you enjoy it. Links Mentioned:
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| 08 Sep 2020 | Episode 50: Pause for Feelings (w/ Almaz Wilson) | 01:10:09 | |
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. Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: | |||
| 25 Jan 2022 | Episode 85: History and Memory (w/ Rea Tajiri) | 00:55:24 | |
Hi everyone. I hope you are doing well. Today I have a wonderful conversation to share with you. I talk with Rea Tajiri, a filmmaker and visual artist born in Chicago, Illinois. Rea got her BFA and MFA from the California Institute of the Arts before moving to New York. Her work has been shown in the Whitney Biennial, The New Museum, MoMA, The Guggenheim, and many more. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Theater, Film and Media Arts at Temple University where she teaches documentary production. I first learned about Rea through her film History and Memory, an experimental video essay that dealt with the mutable nature of one's remembrance of a place and community. We talk about that, the purpose of documentation, Forensic Architecture, and what does it mean for a place to exist as fiction with cultural resonance. As usual, take care, stay safe, and I hope you enjoy this.
Links Mentioned: * History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige * Densho
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| 10 Jan 2023 | Episode 88: Making the Quesadilla of Your Dreams (w/ Teresa Flores) | 01:03:37 | |
Hi everyone. It has been a while since I last released an episode. Sorry for the long pause. I just needed a brief break to get some mental rest. It has been a crazy year with lots of changes for me both personally and professionally. After the brief pause, I got back some extra energy and will be releasing a few more episodes periodically over the next few months. I will do my best to keep up the bi-weekly schedule but I hope you understand if the episodes deviate in schedule a bit here and there. Anyway, with that out of the way, I would like to introduce my guest for today, Teresa Flores, an interdisciplinary artist whose work examines identity and wellness and often takes place in the public sphere and incorporates civic engagement. Teresa studied at CSU Fresno and Fresno City College, and holds an MFA in Public Practice from Otis College of Art and Design. Her work responds to the consumption and accessibility of food, culture, and art in suburban and urban spaces. I recorded this episode a while back right before I took a break. Teresa was so kind as to still let me release our conversation. I smiled as I listened to our discussions meander around the pronunciation of names, creating fancy quesadillas, and doing yoga in unexpected places. As always, sit back, relax, and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: | |||
| 27 May 2019 | Episode 21: You Say More Through Your Body Than Paint On A Canvas (w/ Tara Fay) | 01:13:11 | |
Hey everyone. On this episode, I have a special interview with Tara Fay. I think Tara’s instagram profile describes her best as an independent curator, performance artist, and streetwear enthusiast. Tara is also on the board of directors at Bunker Projects, an art and residency space in Pittsburgh. I first met Tara through Jose Diaz, who I also interviewed. Throughout my time in Pittsburgh, Tara has been always supportive of my work and I was happy to talk with Tara about her perspective of the art scene. Around the time of the interview, Tara moderated a public discussion with Dan Leer, the curator of photography at the Carnegie Museum of Art. Tara specifically wanted to talk about a controversy that happened with Deana Lawson, a photographer. Deana’s photographs at the Carnegie alienated a number of viewers and brought up difficult questions about who the museum’s perceived audience is. It began with a black woman filming a video of Deana’s work in the museum and expressing her thoughts, which spilled over onto Facebook. I’ve alluded to this incident in a few other episodes, but I go more in depth with Tara here. I wished I did a better job introducing it in the interview, but I’ve attached a Vice article about Deana Lawson at the Carnegie in the show notes. So we discuss that at length, along with a range of other topics, from the Adrian Piper show at the MoMA, performing for a white audience, different types of privilege, and Beyoncé. Also, the audio got slightly messed up towards the end of the interview, so I apologize for that. In any case, I hope you enjoy this. Photo credit: Sarah Huny Young Links Mentioned:
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| 05 May 2020 | Episode 42: What's More American Than Slavery (w/ Dell Marie Hamilton) | 01:05:53 | |
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. Links Mentioned:
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| 15 Jan 2019 | Episode 11: Harmony (w/ Umar Rashid) | 01:07:51 | |
Happy New Years everyone! I wish you had time for peace and reflection as we head into 2019. For this coming year, I am excited to release and share a whole batch of new interviews with you. Just as a reminder, Ariel Jackson, who I interviewed in the previous episode, has her show opening this week at Sculpture Center on Long Island City. So please go and see her show if you are in or around New York City. Moving on to today’s episode, I thought about what to release as the first episode to mark 2019 and I felt it would be a good idea to look back, as in all the way back, to the first interview I ever conducted for this podcast in February of 2018. As I edited the audio, I could hear myself still figuring out how I wanted my podcast to function and sound as I tentatively talked to my guest. At this point, I had not even made the website yet or figured out what to call my podcast. With all that aside, my first guest ever is Umar Rashid, a Los Angeles-based artist, storyteller, history buff, musician, and poet. Umar was born in 1976 in Chicago and he earned a BA at Southern Illinois University in the year 2000. Umar’s work focuses on the colonial history of the Frenglish Empire—a fictionalized empire of his creation that combines France and England. His portraits, drawings, flags, maps, battle scenes, and other artifacts continue the long history of Frengland, a project Umar has been working on since 2006. Our talk hits many different topics, ranging from why it can be important to learn about white history to philosophical questions about power and corruption. The episode feels very raw to me compared to my later episodes, so I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 21 Nov 2023 | Episode 94: Push and Pull (w/ Ashley Hairston Doughty) | 00:29:33 | |
Hey everyone. I hope you are ready for the long weekend with friends and family. Maybe catch up on sleep? I know I’m totally ready to sleep some more if I can. In the meantime, I’ve got you covered with this week’s episode as I talk with Ashley Hairston Doughty. Ashley, currently an Associate Professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, is a visual storyteller, explaining personal experiences through verbal and visual language. Ashley’s research on BIPOC design pedagogy was published in the award-winning Black, Brown + Latinx Graphic Design Educators by Princeton Architectural Press in 2021. She holds a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. We had a quick chat about how moving around the US has impacted Ashley’s work, what is visual communications, and how motherhood has affected and influenced her current project. As always, stay safe and healthy, and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: | |||
| 02 Apr 2019 | Episode 17: We Have To Want More For Ourselves (w/ Staycee Pearl) | 01:07:32 | |
On this episode, I biked over to Staycee Pearl’s house to record this wonderful conversation. Staycee is the co-artistic director of PearlArts Studios and STAYCEE PEARL dance project, where she creates dance-centered multimedia works with her husband and creative partner, Herman Pearl. Since then, the studio has produced several works including OCTAVIA, ABBEY: In the Red, and FLOWERZ. Staycee is also passionate about sharing resources and creating opportunities by initiating arts-community programs such as the PearlDiving Movement Residency and the In The Studio Series. Over the course of an hour, we exchanged ideas about collaboration, body image in dance, preventing boredom in one’s creativity, and finding happiness. There was a dog barking periodically next door, so I apologize for the random dog sounds. Also, next week on April 12-13th, Staycee will be presenting sym, an evening-length dance work in Pittsburgh at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater. sym is a deeply atmospheric dance and sound experience inspired by "Fledgling," a novel by African American Sci-Fi writer Octavia Butler. The work explores Butler's mysterious universe of vampires and humans to examine symbiosis, gender identity and race as it relates to contemporary culture. Staycee is also hosting pearlPRESENTS, a 6-day line-up of performances and movement classes with dance artists from Pittsburgh and NYC. If you are in Pittsburgh, please go and show your support. I’ve added links to the show notes for more information. In any case, I hope you enjoy this. ***sym was commissioned by the Kelly Strayhorn Theater, Pittsburgh, PA Links Mentioned:
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| 24 Nov 2020 | Episode 56: Choreography and Ghosts (w/ Yon Natalie Mik) | 01:19:16 | |
Hi everyone. I hope you are safe wherever you are. I am currently back in Zhuhai and settling down. I still have quite a lot to do such as unpacking and getting a multi-entry visa but otherwise, after four COVID nasal tests and two anti-body tests, I am out of quarantine. Life feels strangely normal and post-COVID here with China having essentially tested everyone and closed its borders to the world. I hope with all the news on the vaccine that the world can open up soon. We shall see. But for today, I am interview Yon Natalie Mik, an experimental dancer and researcher who works at the intersection of dance, performance studies, and ethnology. Natalie began her dance career studying classical ballet before branching out to other dance forms and disciplines. Currently, Natalie is pursuing her Ph.D on choreography and ghosts in contemporary transnational Asian performance. I met Natalie during my time in Berlin and even saw two of her performances, but I did not have a chance to interview her until recently over zoom. The sound quality is not the best, but hopefully it isn't too distracting. We chat quite a bit about Natalie's early life and path through dance, Asian studies in Germany, teeth blackening, and Asian squats. I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 25 Sep 2018 | Episode 1: Launching Off with a Latino Who Lunches (w/ Justin Favela) | 00:48:57 | |
On this episode, I sit down with Justin Favela, a Las Vegas based artist who also co-hosts the Latinos Who Lunch Podcast. Justin and I first met in Miami at a residency, where we bonded over pupusas, empanadas, and the movie, Get Out. I caught up with Justin while he attended a residency in Maine. I thought this would be a great first episode to start out with since Justin and I discuss some of the themes that frame my original intent to start a podcast. Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: | |||
| 13 Apr 2021 | Episode 65: Diversity and Equity (w/ Noé Gaytán) | 01:03:56 | |
Born and raised in Southern California, Noé developed his passion for art education working at the Skirball Cultural Center and Armory Center for the Arts in Los Angeles before getting a BA at UC Irvine. After, Noé completed an MFA in Public Practice at Otis College of Art and Design. Noé is also part of Michelada Think Tank, a collective of socially conscious artists, educators and activists working towards racial equity in the arts. More recently, Noé also joined Admin, a space for arts administrators to support one another, discuss pressing issues, and workshop new forms of cultural institutions. In addition to all this, Noé works as the School, Youth, and Family Programs Educator at the Brooklyn Museum. I first met Noé through my good friend, Carol Zou, a previous guest of the show. Carol and the rest of Michelada Think Tank were doing a project for Open Engagement in Pittsburgh and the whole collective stayed at my place. At the time, I was taking care of a bunny named LeBun James and coming home late to see LeBun jumping over and sitting on the sleeping Michelada crew is one of my fondest memories. Apparently, Noé remembered it as well. Throughout our conversation, we discuss finding community, diversity work at institutions, and people over objects. I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 17 Aug 2021 | Episode 74: Movement, Performance, and Amigxs (w/ Camilo Godoy) | 01:08:30 | |
Hi everyone. I hope you are well wherever you are as we are mid-way through August. Summer seems to have come and gone. At least it has for me. I have been mostly preparing for my classes in the fall and for a show I'll be having in November. Otherwise, I have nothing new to report. But for this week, I have a great artist to present to you, so let's get to the introductions. For today, I am interviewing Camilo Godoy, an artist and educator born in Bogotá, Colombia and based in New York City. His multidisciplinary projects are concerned with political histories and memories. Camilo's work engages with the intersection of history, race, gender, and sexuality and is informed by Queer, Latinx, Feminist, and Black perspectives. Camilo got his BFA at Parsons and is currently completing an MFA at Columbia University, which we discuss in greater detail the politics surrounding elite institutions and academia in the art world. We also get into how Camilo mines archival materials for his work, the role of an educator, the joy of art interviews, and his most recent solo show at OCD Chinatown. Camilo is also part of the group shows at the Leslie Lohman Museum in New York City and at Momentum 11 in Norway. I had a lot of fun talking with Camilo and I hope you appreciate what he has to say as well! In the meantime, stay safe, stay healthy, and enjoy the show. Links Mentioned:
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| 26 Feb 2019 | Episode 14: So Many Micro-Aggressions (w/ Njaimeh Njie) | 01:03:01 | |
On this episode, I spoke with Njaimeh Njie, a photographer, filmmaker, and multimedia producer. Njaimeh grew up in Pittsburgh before heading to Washington University in St. Louis to earn a B.A. in Film and Media studies. Njaimeh describes her primary focus as documenting the everyday experiences of groups whose experiences are misrepresented and erased. She recently won the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts’ Emerging Artist award and has her own video production company, Eleven Stanley Productions. I first saw Njaimeh’s Power(ed) by Grace videos and reached out to learn more about her and her work. We talk about abstraction, Spike Lee’s Blackkklansman, and thinking about how to exist in white spaces. This interview is short and sweet, so I hope you enjoy it. Links Mentioned:
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| 17 Sep 2019 | Episode 29: A Haunting of Geography (w/ Shannon Tamara Lewis) | 01:09:52 | |
Hey everyone. I hope everyone is enjoying the end of summer. Things are going well in China. There is a lot to learn about the Chinese bureaucratic system as I try to get things done. There's always a sense of community over individuality, which is interesting in the context of art and creativity and trying to be an individual. I am still trying to find my routine after the first two weeks of classes, but it is becoming more clear how to schedule my time. I have two videos I am currently editing from my time in Berlin. I hope to finish both by the end of the year. Fingers crossed! For today's episode, I get to talk and laugh with Shannon Tamara Lewis. I first met Shannon through the The Berlin Diaspora Society, a group founded by Indrani Ashe. The purpose of the group is to set up studio visits with artists working from a non-European perspective. At the time, Shannon and I were visiting another artist's studio and we hit it off. We exchanged visits and I got to go to Shannon's studio, which happens to be in the same space as Chiharu Shiota, one of my favorite artist. and I had one of the most refreshing conversations with Shannon about the Berlin art scene and really looked forward to being able to record our interactions. Shannon got her BFA from the Ontario College of Art & Design and an MFA at Goldsmiths in London. Shannon’s practice is about demanding a pleasure space that plays with primping and polishing not as an assimilation to the fashion-beauty complex; but a space of satisfying self-care and artistry. Her work hovers between wanting to desperately participate in the trappings of privilege and wanting to tear down the structures that provide them. We talk about all these topics, as well as the ghost of representation, the scrambling of identity, and putting specificity in one's work. Shannon has quite a few shows lined up this fall, so if you are in any of these places, go check them out. Shannon has as a pop up show in London on September 26, an exhibition at the Projektraum in Kunstquartier Bethanien in Berlin on October 3rd, another exhibition at Alice Yard in Trinidad and Tobago on November 13th, a group show at the Les Urbaines Festival in Lausanne, Switzerland on December 6th, and finally, a pop up exhibition at BUTCH Cut in Berlin on January 18th. I'll also add more information in the show notes and on social media as I get more information. In any case, I hope you enjoy our conversation. Photo: Min Wei Ting Links Mentioned:
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| 10 Mar 2020 | Episode 38: No Such Thing As Postcolonial (w/ Rhea Ramjohn) | 00:50:07 | |
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. Links Mentioned:
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| 23 Nov 2021 | Episode 81: Accidental Arts Administrator (w/ Ashanti McGee) | 00:46:15 | |
Hi everyone. Hope you are well. It is hard to imagine how time is flying…it has been just about over a year since I landed in China since the pandemic started. Now this past week I just had an exhibition opening which went okay. Felt kinda relieved after and was able to relaxed a bit. Now back to documenting and working on new projects. Gotta keep moving. Anyway, for this week, I have the amazing Ashanti McGee, an artist and arts advocate who has been living in Las Vegas for over 25 years. Ashanti began working in with arts institutions through grant writing and has since been part of WESTAF’s Emerging Leaders of Color program and most recently served as a district representative for Nevada Congresswoman Susie Lee, focusing on outreach for Black, Native American, and LGBTQ+ communities around arts and culture, and environment and public lands. A proud parent of four, Ashanti has committed her work to updating arts education standards for the Nevada Department of Education; serving as a board member for Cultural Alliance of Nevada; co-founding the Las Vegas Womxn of Color Arts Festival, and acting as a core member of NUWU Cultural Arts + Activism complex. She also just curated "A Common Thread" at the Barrick Museum of Art at the University of Nevada, an exhibition celebrating womxn of color textile artists. I got to talk with Ashanti about many of these amazing activities, along with the importance of finding support in the arts while finding rest for yourself. Sit back, relax, and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
* WESTAF
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| 11 Jun 2019 | Episode 22: I've Made It As A Pornstar At Least (w/ Tsohil Bhatia) | 01:09:53 | |
Hey everyone. I hope you are enjoying the coming of summer. Everyone here in Berlin seems so much more happy biking around and drinking beers along the canal, as opposed to their usual grumpy German self. The sun has been rising earlier each day, and I keep waking up at 6am with the sun. But besides that, everything is fine and dandy. Before we move on to the show, I want give a quick shoutout to Frances Cathryn for donating to this podcast through Paypal. She's the very first one! I can't stress how much that meant. So again, thank you Frances. You can follow her on instagram @wip_projects For today, I got to interview Tsohil Bhatia, an artist from India who is currently in his final year at Carnegie Mellon's MFA program. Tsohil and I did not fully overlap while there, but the art community is small and our circles intersected quite a bit. Through some fortuitous chance this past month, I ran into Tsohil at an opening in Berlin. We hung out a bit after and he excitedly agreed to be part of this non-white space podcast. It was great to get to learn more about Tsohil through our conversations and we talk a lot about the ghost of a body, cleaning as artwork, making ice cream, and the poetic act of doing nothing. I really enjoyed chatting with Tsohil and am looking forward to what he will do in the future. With that, I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 23 Jul 2019 | Episode 25: Relationships Are Complicated (w/ Christa Joo Hyun D'Angelo) | 00:59:14 | |
Hey all. In today's episode, I have a really intense conversation with the wonderful artist, Christa Joo Hyun D'Angelo. I first met Christa through Nine, who I interviewed on Episode 16. A few months after, we ran into each other as we both installed our work at an exhibition curated by a mutual friend and we remained in touch. Christa started her studies at The Maryland Institute College of Art and finished up at The Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow Poland. She moved to Berlin shortly after and has lived here ever since. Christa works in installation, sculpture, video, neon, and collage. This interview coincides with Christa's recent solo exhibition at Galerie im Turm, titled GHOSTS, and her show runs until August 18th. As a multi-media immersive installation, Christa's show looks at the extent to which shame, stigma and isolation can be transformed into strength and self-empowerment, and expanding the complex and diverse narratives relating to HIV and AIDS activism. Christa writes that her exhibition is intended as a feminist contribution to discourses addressing toxic relationships and sexually transmitted diseases, through which women, in particular women of colour, have historically been silenced and – now as then – are rendered invisible. Our conversation meanders through these topics, although I am definitely not an expert in the subject. I hope you find our conversation to be as interesting as I did in listening to Christa tell her stories. Also, on July 30th at 7pm, Christa will host an artist talk at the gallery with Alphonsine Bakambamba of Deutsche Aidshilfe. If you are in Berlin, by Frankfurter Tor 1, please swing by and show your support. This recording took place at Christa's beautiful flat, so you may hear some footsteps from her dog and the occasional wind chimes. Hopefully they aren't too much of a distraction. And with that, let's get on with the show. Links Mentioned:
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| 03 Aug 2021 | Episode 73: Black Cowboys (w/ Brent Holmes) | 00:45:32 | |
Hey everyone. Hope you are doing well. I just finalized a 4-channel video during my time in Shanghai and had a chance to exhibit it to the local art community. I am currently preparing to leave back to Zhuhai in a bit. I also just finished my time at the Rogers Art Loft residency and held the closing talk last week, so thank you to all who swung by. It was a wonderful experience and I hope to visit everyone in Las Vegas soon. I will be posting the conversations I had with the local Las Vegas Community over the next few months, interspersed with previous interviews I conducted. So stay tuned. For today, I will be talking to Brent Holmes, a multi-disciplinary artist with a deep affinity to words- historical, epistemological and ontologically themed creative projects. Holmes also seeks to create a dialogue through several culinary projects, on the nature of communication, and morality and identity. Brent holds no degrees and says he most likely never will. Being the son of an entertainer, Brent is thoroughly traveled but has never completely identified any one place as his home until moving to Las Vegas. Brent and I chat about the coming apocalypse and for whom, the construction of the American West in relation to freedom, the body within a landscape, and symbolisms in objects. It was an enjoyable chat and I hopefully you will like it as well. As always, stay safe and healthy wherever you are and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: | |||
| 11 Sep 2018 | Trailer | 00:01:16 | |
Hey everyone and welcome to my podcast, Seeing Color Pod. I am your host, Zhiwan Cheung. I am a Chinese-American artist who is still learning how to navigate a very white cubed art world. Such a journey has prompted me to try and broaden the scope of art discussions and from a perspective that art cannot always be distinct from the race of the author. I am specifically looking for a critical analysis aware of and critical towards the white canon. I also made this podcast out of a wish that my younger self could have heard and learned from the conversations I am having now. So please join me as I interview all types of artists and creative people of color in hopes that such an exploration may lead to a path forward. You can head to www.seeingcolorpod.com to find out more! I hope you enjoy this. | |||
| 12 Feb 2019 | Episode 13: All I Had To Do Was Let Go And Fall Apart (w/ John Peña) | 01:56:23 | |
On this episode, I headed over to John Peña’s house in Wilkinsburg to chat. I met John when I first arrived in Pittsburgh for graduate school and always found him to be warm and kind. John also received his MFA from Carnegie Mellon, but in 2008, well before I had even considered art as a possible career. John went to Columbia for a year before returning to Pittsburgh. From time to time, John teaches classes at Carnegie Mellon, so I always saw him running into the faculty lounge between classes. Over the four years, I slowly got to know John, from studio visits, grabbing a beer at the bar, or reading John’s comic, Daily Geology. John’s practice is vast and wide ranging, from racing clouds, sending letters to the Pacific Ocean, and constructing large-scale plaster word balloons. This conversation touches upon many topics, from trying to have control over things you have no control over, to forgetting one’s language to escape the past, and residing in a space of discomfort and disappointment. Some of the topics in our interview are intense, dealing with depression and death, so proceed with caution. John also speaks about his experiences passing as white in some spaces while being seen only as a Mexican or othered in other spaces. I also was annoyed at myself for interjecting so many “yeah yeah yeahs” and “right right rights” while John spoke. I got so interested in our conversation that I didn’t even notice myself doing it. Also, as a heads up, John requested that I beep out a few names to protect the privacy of some of his friends and family members. In any case, I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 12 Oct 2021 | Episode 78: Forgotten Cities (w/ Nathalie Sánchez) | 01:04:49 | |
Hey y'all. Good morning and evening to all my listeners. Not much new with me. Just overall working a lot and juggling many different projects in life, as all of us are. But enough about me. Let's get to this week's guest, the wonderful Nathalie Sánchez, an interdisciplinary artist, social justice arts educator, and arts advocate raised and rooted in Los Angeles. She graduated with her B.A. in Art History and Studio Arts with an emphasis in education from Loyola Marymount University and received her M.F.A. in Public Practice from Otis College of Art and Design. Nathalie has developed and led visual arts and museum education programs at ArtworxLA, Avenue 50 Studio, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (MOCA), and P.S. ARTS. In 2016, Nathalie founded the Art Education + Social Justice Book Club as a direct response to the U.S. presidential election and in the hopes of cultivating a community of thought partners and change-makers in arts education. Currently, the Art Education + Social Justice Book Club has over 350 members worldwide and continues to grow. Nathalie and I talk about all these projects, along with how to marry art and community, having advocates, holding accountability, and making friends. Nathalie was a joy to talk to and I hope you can join her in the upcoming book club meetings. Until then, stay safe and healthy and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 18 Dec 2018 | Episode 9: Grinding Work Into A Fine Hash (w/ Paul Peng) | 01:08:42 | |
On this episode, I am excited to share with you the conversation I had with Paul Peng. Paul is an artist based in Pittsburgh who I met while we were both in school. I’ve been a fan of his art for quite a while and was looking forward to talking to Paul about art and life. Paul describes his work as a picture-drawing built on cartoon figuration and formal mark-making by way of post-humanism via lurking in furry and weeaboo fandoms. Paul’s drawings have always given me a mesmerizing feeling every time I visit his studio. I enjoyed listening to Paul describe how drawing cartoons function for him, how he thinks about his drawings as his own kid, and how to find interests in one’s own work. I lost part of the audio in the middle due to technical difficulties, so the interview runs slightly shorter. Of course, this is all an excuse to interview Paul again for a later time. I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 22 Sep 2020 | Episode 51: I Am Not A Fortune Cookie (w/ Vicky Truong) | 00:47:01 | |
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. Links Mentioned:
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| 24 Mar 2020 | Episode 39: Citizenship For Paradise (w/ Jova Lynne) | 01:27:18 | |
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. Links Mentioned:
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| 22 Dec 2020 | Episode 58: Pirate Futurism (w/ Weston Teyura) | 01:19:31 | |
Hi everyone. I hope you are doing well and somewhat prepared for the new year. For me, classes are winding down and I am looking forward to spending more time editing some videos in the backlog. But as the year comes to a close, I still think about how much time has passed and what a crazy surreal year it has been. I'm sure we have all been coping through these recent events in our own ways. But wherever you are, I wish you a wonderful and merry holidays. For today, I have on the podcast Weston Teyura. Born in Hawaii, Weston received a BA in studio art and minor in Asian American Studies from Pomona College and an MFA from the California College of the Arts. Weston has curated exhibitions for Southern Exposure, Kearny Street Workshop, and the Berkeley Art Center. He is one of the core members of the Related Tactics collective, a group of artists, writers, curators, and educators of color creating projects and opportunities at the intersection of race and culture. I met Weston briefly during my time in the Bay Area and have followed his work and podcast since then. Weston's podcast, (un)making, also tackles similar topics as my podcast and I was naturally interested in learning more about his process. We also talk about how ideas of immigrant success can change from one generation to another, the visual language of development and progress, and working within a collective. It will be a new year next time I release an episode, so as always, stay safe, stay healthy, and Happy New Years. Links Mentioned:
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| 25 Oct 2023 | Episode 92: Moving Past Your Fears (w/ Quindo Miller) | 00:37:15 | |
Hi everyone. I hope you are doing well. These recent days have been shrouded in a somber tone, although perhaps it has always been. I am both saddened and angered by what is happening in the Middle East. As a method to cope through it all, I am trying to keep busy and seek solace in my daily activities. Wherever you are, I hope you are finding your own ways to navigate this insane situation. With that all said, today I am interviewing Quindo Miller. Quindo spent their formative years in Guam before moving to Las Vegas. They earned a BFA at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and explores isolation, rituals, and repetition through the medium of painting, drawing, installation, video, and sound. They have exhibited at venues such as the Goldwell Open Air Museum, 5th Wall Gallery, La Matadora Gallery, and the Las Vegas Contemporary Art Center. Our discussions lead us to empty tarot cards, musing about art residencies, the process of archiving everything, and documenting a sense of place. So please, wherever you are, be safe, take care of yourself, and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: | |||
| 25 May 2021 | Episode 68: Mother Tongue (w/ Dan S. Wang) | 01:11:17 | |
Hey everyone. I hope you are well. I got my first vaccine shot. Hoping to get my second in a few weeks. I also have been traveling through parts of southern China and trying to grasp the art scene more. My students just had their senior year exhibition which I am proud to see their work hanging. It brings back memories of my undergrad. I have have one more week of school and then a month of meetings before I head to Shanghai. Time is moving fast. Anyway. For today, I have Dan Wang, an artist, writer, and organizer. Chinese-Midwestern by birth and currently living in Southern California, Dan’s art work has been shown in several solo exhibitions and scores of group shows, and has inhabited venues ranging from museums and art centers to street demonstrations and toilet stalls. His texts have been published in books, journals, webzines, exhibition catalogues, as commissioned art projects, and in a range of artists’ publications. As a cultural organizer, Dan has also worked in several collaborative configurations, having contributed to projects and productions authored under the names Compass, Madison Mutual Drift, and Red76. He was one of eight founding keyholders of the Chicago experimental cultural space Mess Hall. I caught up with Dan recently and was excited to learn more about his family background and growing up as a Chinese-American in the midwest. We chatted about Jajangmyeon, learning Chinese, spreading ideologies, and so much more. I hope to catch up with Dan in the future after this discussion for round 2. In the meantime, stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 25 Feb 2020 | Episode 37: Poetry Under Pressure (w/ Jo Elizabeth Stewart) | 01:15:36 | |
Hey everyone. I hope everyone is staying safe. My school in China has currently moved to online teaching for the foreseeable future as no one knows how long the virus will affect China. As I mentioned in my previous episode, I rerouted my flight to Thailand to wait out the virus. I stayed in Chiang Mai and enjoyed living in warm weather and eating a lot of amazing northern Thai food, also called Lanna cuisine. I was also able to check out the Land Foundation, an art project started by Rirkrit Tiravanija. The foundation was hosting a solar panel cookout with local Lanna recipes and it interesting to see the whole event play out. I also met two other professors from Shanghai and Beijing who also left their cities and are teaching remotely. The longer I stayed in Asia, the more the news seemed to get worse and worse, so my original plan to teach remotely while traveling across Asia didn't seem too good. I left for Seoul for a week, but by the time this episode will be released, I'll be flying back to the US. For today's episode, I have Jo Elizabeth Stewart. Jo is a poet and theater maker. She uses a combination of gesture, voice, and text to make performance that investigates entrapment, borders, and freedom. Jo graduated from Reed College with a BA in English literature (2014) and continues to study poetry under the guidance of experimental poet Tracie Morris. She is a cross-disciplinary MFA candidate in the Literary Arts program at Brown University. I met Jo at a recent residency I did at Vermont in the winter break between semesters. In the residency, I met a wonderful group of artist of color and was lucky to interview a number of them. Jo was the first one I interviewed during my time there. Jo and I got to know each other by doing early morning meditations together before breakfast and on snowy walks in the woods. In our discussions, we talk about learning how to be uncomfortable, finding meaning in meaninglessness, and how to move the body in relation to the grammar of a language. I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 25 Aug 2020 | Episode 49: Festival of Air (w/ Emily Lu) | 00:50:56 | |
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. Links Mentioned:
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| 10 Oct 2023 | Episode 91: Defiant Storytelling (w/ Noelle Garcia) | 01:04:24 | |
Hello everyone. I hope you are doing well. We are on to the second episode of this fall season, this time with Noelle Garcia. Based in the Chicago area, Noelle is an artist and educator who focuses on themes of identity, family history, and recovered narratives in her work. She is an indigenous artist from the Klamath and Paiute tribes. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Noelle has earned awards and fellowships at various institutions such as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, the Nevada Arts Council, the Illinois Arts Council, and the American Indian Graduate Center. I had a good time re-listening to our conversation as we discussed how motherhood informed Noelle’s beadwork, the ownership of stories, and deciding who to sell one’s trauma to. As usual, relax and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 22 Jun 2021 | Episode 70: Anti-monuments (w/ Yvette Mayorga) | 00:48:51 | |
Hi everyone. I hope you are doing well. I have been working quite a bit the past few weeks. I did a quick virtual artist talk with my good friend, Justin Favela, for the Rogers Art Loft virtual residency I am currently part of. I have also been recording quite a number of interviews with the Las Vegas community, so keep an eye out for these episodes in the upcoming months. Also, on June 30th and July 14th at 6pm PST, I will be doing live interviews with Jennifer Kleven and Dr. Erika Abad, with a quick Q&A afterwards. I will post the links on social media as the dates get closer. I hope to see a few of you there. For today, I am interviewing my good friend and the amazing artist, Yvette Mayorga. Yvette is a multidisciplinary artist based in Chicago, Illinois who interrogates the broad effects of militarization within and beyond the US/Mexico border and intervenes in the colonial legacies of art history. She fuses confectionary labor with found images to explore the meaning of belonging. Yvette got her BFA with a Minor in Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has shown in numerous places such as the National Museum of Mexican Art, LACMA, the DePaul Art Museum, and most recently the El Museo del Barrio. I met Yvette a few years ago in Miami and we formed a special friendship that continues on to today. Yvette and I talked about Gloria Anzaldúa, the Nike Cortez, showing at art fairs, and Key Lime Pies. Stay safe and healthy, and I hope you enjoy this.
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| 15 Oct 2019 | Episode 31: So, Barack Obama (w/ Yvette Robertson) | 01:08:09 | |
Hey everyone. Time is flying by and at the same time, I no longer have a good grasp of how long I've been in China. Last week was a haze as I flew out to Chicago to see my brother get married. I got to see my family which is always a good thing. I didn't think so when I was younger but I feel I'm getting more sentimental as I get older. My internal clock got all wonky as I had to switch 13 hours backwards for a few days and then immediately switch again. The flight was 15 hours there and 17 hours back. On the way out to Chicago, I made a quick trip to Hong Kong and saw my cousin. I ate some amazing food and saw a funny exhibition about Studio Ghibli, although the entire time I was there, the city felt very tense there with smaller protests happening on the streets and flyers posted all over. Anyway, for today, I'm interviewing my very good friend, Yvette Robertson. I met Yvette through some combination of Nine Yamamoto-Masson, who I previously interviewed, and Lavender Wolf, an American artist currently living in Belgium who I never got a chance to interview before I left Europe. Yvette and I continued to run into each other and we started hanging out a lot, especially towards the end of my stay in Berlin. Nine described what Yvette does as doing the hard work few people want to do, which is to say she teaches about race and intersectionality to business professionals who largely do not have the language or, often times, interest to engage with the topic. These classes tend to be mandatory set by the administrators who want their institution to look socially aware without really understanding what that means. I attended a few of Yvettes classes to see how such a dynamic would play out and found the whole experience spooky, tiring, and fascinating. I was really happy to record our mildly drunken conversation after a very delightful Sri Lankan breakfast Yvette cooked up. We talk about power dynamics, processing white guilt, and the failure of true objectivity. I hope you enjoy this episode. Links Mentioned:
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| 20 Aug 2019 | Episode 27: What Is Our Own Narrative (w/ Vanessa Vu) | 01:27:44 | |
Hello everyone. Today I have some news to share with you followed by a very special episode. So I recently got a teaching/professorship opportunity in Zhuhai, a small city in China, to teach art. Most people don't seem to know where Zhuhai is, which is understandable as I didn't either when I first saw the job posting. But if you're curious, Zhuhai is in the middle of Macau, Hong Kong, and Shenzen, about an hour away from each city. By the time this episode is released, I will be flying over. I have about two weeks to find a place to live and figure out my syllabi once I arrive, so it will be a hectic arrival. Regarding the podcast, don't worry as I will still be releasing episodes as I have a backlog of conversations. I will be releasing these dialogues throughout the coming year as I figure out how I would like the podcast to exist within the context of China. I will keep you updated. Anyway, for today's show, I have the pleasure of interviewing Vanessa Vu, a journalist from Zeit Online. I first heard of Vanessa through Nine Yamamoto-Masson, whom I previously interviewed and seems to be connecting me to many amazing people around Berlin. I got to say hi to Vanessa shortly after at an Asian-Germany cultural event. Vanessa is a very busy person and it took me some time to schedule an interview and I was happy that it finally happened before I left Berlin. I visited Vanessa at her office and got to use a fancy sound-booth with fancy mics. I wonder if you can hear the difference. In addition to her journalist work, Vanessa hosts the podcast, Rice and shine, that deals with Asian-German issues. I have to admit that I have not been able to listen to Vanessa's show as my German isn't good enough to follow. This privileging of the English language certainly isn't lost on me, which is touched upon in this episode. Vanessa and I also discuss her growing up in Southern Germany, cultural appropriation, and yellow-facing both in the broader context and more specifically through a recent German play with yellow-facing that won critical acclaim across Germany. I had a lot of fun talking with Vanessa and I hope you do as well, so let's get on with it. Links Mentioned:
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| 23 Jun 2020 | [Bonus] Some Thoughts and Updates | 00:03:57 | |
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/ Donations to Organizations:
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Podcasts: The Nod 1619 from The New York Times Podcasts in Color Tea with Queen and J MEDIA INDIGENA: Indigenous current affairs Yo, Is This Racist? About Race with Remi Eddo-Lodge Cultura Consious There Goes the Neighborhood Follow Seeing Color: | |||
| 26 Sep 2023 | Episode 90: Leaving Las Vegas (w/ Krystal Ramirez) | 01:03:51 | |
Hey everyone. Wow, it has been a while since my last episode. Life kinda happened and I just needed another break to deal with some moving and life changes. I’m back with 10 new episodes that will be released over the course of the coming year in conjunction with local Las Vegas artists. A few things about my life since. I started doing some VR with Unreal and I was able to show it in this year's Ars Electronica. At the same time, I got to travel around a bit in Austria with my parents. Just two weeks ago, I traveled back to China for my Ph.D. in Computational Media and Arts, which I talked a bit about with my guest today, Krystal Ramirez. Krystal is an interdisciplinary artist and educator from Las Vegas, Nevada. Her practice focuses on our relationship with places of reverence and devotion. She has a BFA in Photography and Studio Art from the University of Las Vegas, Nevada and she recently received her MFA in Art Practice from Stanford University. She has shown in museums and galleries throughout the United States, including the Nevada Museum of Art (Reno, NV), Barrick Museum of Art (Las Vegas, NV), NMSU Art Museum (Las Cruces, NM), SOMArts (San Francisco, CA), and Gallery 400 (Chicago, IL.) Through our conversation, we discussed our interests in photography, the instability of language, and the possibility of working with our parents in art. As always, stay safe, and relax, and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: | |||
| 14 Jul 2020 | Episode 46: A Space Where Gravity Is Legible (w/ Didier William) | 00:55:02 | |
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. Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: | |||
| 08 Nov 2023 | Episode 93: Do I Really Know Myself? (w/ Nanda Sharif) | 00:47:21 | |
Hi everyone. I hope you are doing well wherever you are. This week I have Nanda Sharif-pour, a multi-disciplinary artist residing and working in Las Vegas, Nevada. Nanda holds a B.A. in Graphic Design and two M.F.A. degrees, one from Azad University of Art and Architecture in Tehran/Iran, and the other from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Nanda’s practice encompasses sculpture, video, and installations that explore the relationship between the modern human and nature. In our discussion, we hear Nanda’s story of coming to the US from Iran, thinking about the memories that live within us, and how plants bring peace and joy to our lives. As always, stay safe and healthy and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: Seeing Color Website | |||
| 29 Oct 2019 | Episode 32: Failing Fast (w/ Natalia Gomez) | 01:28:22 | |
Hey everyone. I hope everyone is enjoying fall. The weather in Zhuhai is finally not unbearably hot and sticky. I have been trying my best to learn Chinese and it is kicking my ass, although I notice I am easing in it a bit better than others as I was lucky to grow up listening to Cantonese and being forced by my parents to take Saturday morning Mandarin classes as a child. Thanks mom and dad. I have also been traveling quite a bit on weekends. So far, I've been to Shenzhen, Xiamen, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong. I hope to eventually make it more north to Shanghai and Beijing. Anyway, today I have a fun episode to share as I am speaking with Natalia Gomez. Natalia was born in Columbia before her parents moved to Virginia. Natalia completed her BFA at Carnegie Mellon University right before I began my graduate program, but Natalia stuck around and continued working with and within the Pittsburgh arts community. Natalia is a visual artist working primarily in sculpture and photography. Much of her work uses the visual language of basic contemporary building materials - sheetrock and pine 2x4s - to explore form, labor, and the body’s relationship to space. I've known Natalia for quite a while as she was my neighbor the whole time I lived in Pittsburgh. I still remember fondly of spending many evenings with Natalia on our buildings rooftop talking and drinking the night away. At the time of our interview, Natalia was working for the outreach and education program at the Carnegie Museum of Art but has since made a shift towards a few other areas. She recently told me she finally came to terms with keeping her day time job separate from her practice. For our conversation, we delve into what failure and success means to us individually, how one comes to accept a name, outreach in art institutions, and weddings. Our conversation goes all over the place and it reminded me of our rooftop conversations. I hope you enjoy it. Links Mentioned:
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| 26 Nov 2019 | Episode 34: Movies and Zines (w/ Sophia Zarders) | 00:50:36 | |
Hey everyone. Another two weeks has gone by and a new episode is here for you. I don't have too much new going on at the moment. Next week I'll be going on a trip to Xi'an with my Chinese class. I'm excited to see the Terracotta Army there and try northern Chinese food. I applied to a few residencies around China for the summer and I'm hoping to be able to continue to travel while making art. I'll keep you updated. For today, I am interviewing Sophia Zarders, an illustrator, comic artist, and educator from Long Beach, California. Their illustrations have been published in The Nation, Socialist Review, Shameless Magazine, and other independent publications. They graduated from California State University, Long Beach with a Bachelor's of Fine Arts in Illustration and they currently work as a freelance artist and an art instructor for adults with disabilities. Sophia was one of the first artists I met and hung out with when I arrived in Berlin in 2018. I recorded this a year ago, so a few things we talk are clearly not up to date, such as our favorite summer movies. But overall, as I listened through it, our conversation had a relaxing feel as we discuss roller coasters, comics, and 2018's summer movies. I hope you enjoy it. Links Mentioned:
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| 11 Jan 2022 | Episode 84: Community As A Lived Experience (w/ Maria Gaspar) | 01:11:41 | |
Hey everyone. Welcome to a new year and I am excited to share with you the first episode of 2022! I have with me today Maria Gaspar, an interdisciplinary artist whose work addresses issues of spatial justice to amplify, mobilize, or divert structures of power through individual and collective gestures. Maria got her BFA from Pratt Institute, an MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and is currently an Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I became aware of Maria’s striking photographic pieces before realizing her large breadth of work that existed also in installation, sound, and performance. I enjoyed our conversation where we talked about going to art school as a first-generation immigrant, performance as practice, the invisibility of jails, guides that are generative as opposed to predictive, and re-imagining new and better worlds. As always, stay safe and healthy in this new year and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned: * Maria’s Website Follow Seeing Color: * Seeing Color Website | |||
| 31 Aug 2021 | Episode 75: Poems For the Lonely Pringle (w/ Vogue Robinson) | 00:59:56 | |
Hi everyone. I hope you are well. I've been getting ready for the new semester and just saw this Netflix show called The Chair in preparation, which makes fun of academia. Obviously, there were many parts made for dramatic effect, and it was trying to tackle way too many subjects in way too little time, along with being produced by the same people from Game of Thrones gave me pause, but there were a few nice moments that felt also true that made me laugh, along with Sandra Oh's great performance. I'm not sure if that is a strong recommendation or not to see it. But anyway. This week I am returning back to the Las Vegas community through the Rogers Art Loft Residency and I am speaking with the amazing Vogue Robinson, a poet, author, mentor, and teaching artist. Originally from Perris, California, Vogue got her BA in English at San Diego State University before eventually landing in Las Vegas. Vogue was the poet laureate of Clark County, Nevada (2017-2019) and is the first Black woman to receive the Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers' Hall of Fame. Vogue has an infectious laugh and was a joy to talk to. We discussed what a poet laureate does, the croaking of frogs, Pringles, Nikki Giovanni, and so much more. As I was listening to the recording, I realized my voice was quite lethargic, even more than usual that day, and I apologize for that. I hope you can bear with it. I think Vogue brings the energy levels up every time she speaks and can't wait to visit her in Las Vegas in the near future. As always, stay safe and healthy and enjoy the show. Links Mentioned:
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| 06 Nov 2018 | Episode 6: They Can Sure Enough Pronounce My Name (w/ Kilolo Luckett) | 01:16:02 | |
Hey everyone and welcome back. For this episode, I meet up with Kilolo Luckett, an art historian, writer, cultural producer, and curator. She also works as the arts commissioner for the city of Pittsburgh and is the curator for the August Wilson Center. With over twenty years of experience in the arts, culture and community and economic development fields, she is committed to making art and culture more accessible. This past summer, I sat down with Kilolo to chat. Just before the recording, we were both caught in a sudden heavy rainstorm, but everything turned out okay as we discussed Adrian Piper, the pronunciation of non-white names, and the white lens. Kilolo’s most recent show, Familiar Boundaries. Infinite Possibilities., just opened at the August Wilson Center and runs through until March 24th, 2019. The exhibition is beautiful, so please go and check out the show. I had so much fun talking with Kilolo and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Links Mentioned:
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| 14 May 2019 | Episode 20: What Are You? (w/ Shohei Katayama) | 00:53:53 | |
On this episode, I visited Shohei Katayama’s studio in Pittsburgh. Shohei received his B.A. in Studio Art from Bellarmine University in 2010 and is currently working towards his Master of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University. His work includes line drawings, sculpture, and conceptual installation art. Shohei writes that the Great East Earthquake and subsequent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant leak and meltdown led to a major turning point in his artistic practice. His work began to examine anthropogenic impacts on the environment, including issues related to sustainability, pollution, and natural disasters. Shohei wants his work to point us towards and insert us in a world where there is still hope—and activate a future where there are still dreams. Although I graduated before Shohei began his MFA, our times did overlap as I stayed a year to teach in Pittsburgh. It has been wonderful to follow how Shohei has developed as an artist and I was excited to chat with him as he neared the end of his program. At the time of our interview, Shohei just got back from the Arctic Circle, which we talk about at length. More recently, that particular work Shohei created from that residency won the MTV RE:DEFINE Art Award, which came with a cash prize and solo exhibition in Dallas. I am looking forward to seeing where Shohei goes to next with his art. In any case, I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 05 Dec 2023 | Episode 95: Bey Times (w/ Eri King) | 01:24:22 | |
Hi everyone. I hope you are doing well. Winter is upon us. Classes are almost for me and I am looking forward to the holiday season. For this week, I had a wonderful chat with Eri King, an interdisciplinary artist working in various modes such as installation, sculpture, textiles, painting, drawing, video, sound, and performance. Born in Japan and growing up in Las Vegas, Eri fell into her art career while attending the University of Las Vegas, where she received a concentration in Studio Art and Art History, before completing her MFA at Hunter College in 2018. Eri and I had a ton of overlap within our art circles and it was great to learn more about her and her work. We discuss finding and creating art communities in affordable spaces, holding zen in Hot Cheetos, having Beyonce as Hunter College's neighbor, and secret paintings. As always, stay safe and healthy and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 24 Jan 2023 | Episode 89: Ideology of Neutrality (w/ Yamu Wang) | 00:54:11 | |
Hey everyone. Happy lunar new year. It is the year of the bunny, so to all those bunnies out there, I wish you the best and most prosperous year. I was busy these past few days transferring my visa in Hong Kong. Lots of changes happening as I will be moving north an hour to Guangzhou in a few weeks. But anyway, enough about me. I have a wonderful guest to introduce today, Yamu Wang, an artist interested in examining subjectivity and its construct, often informed by queer discourses, by using her personal experiences and found cultural materials as case studies. Yamu mainly works with language, both as media and subject matter, in part because it conditions her very being. She received a BA in Western and Chinese Literatures from the National Taiwan University and an MA in Fine Arts from Zurich University of the Arts. Yamu also served as a fellow in the Home Workspace Program from 2019-20 at Ashkal Alwan, the Lebanese Association for Plastic Art. I met Yamu through an online art residency called Artists for Artists and she was one of the many wonderful connections I made during that time. Our conversation here took many interesting turns as we explored ideas of an Asian diaspora, practice versus theory, stepping outside oneself, and why we do art. So sit back, relax, and happy new year.
Links Mentioned: * The Agony of Eros by Byung-Chul Han * Dictee by Teresa Hak Kyung Cha * Haruki Murakami - Carnaval short story * Burning * Roni Horn on politics in art
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| 14 Sep 2021 | Episode 76: Finding Meaning Afterwards (w/ Sapira Cheuk) | 00:39:55 | |
Hi everyone. I hope you are well. I’ve been feeling quite busy these past few days. Everything seems to be moving too fast. Maybe I’m just getting old. The first week of school felt intense and I'm already preparing for the following weeks. Anyway, for today, I have Sapira Cheuk, an ink painter and installation artist interested in ways of knowing through the body and how these modes of knowledge reflect or internalize external experiences. Sapira got her BA at UC Riverside and an MFA at Cal State Bernardino. She is currently teaching at UNLV, where she has found a welcoming art community in the Las Vegas area. I was connected to Sapira through the Rogers Art Loft and was glad to have learned about her practice. We also talk about Sapira moving to Hawaii from Hong Kong at a young age, Sapira hiding her art career from her parents early on, working in a collaborative project, and our unexpected connection with Zhuhai and the Shoshana Wayne Gallery. Hopefully, we will meet in Las Vegas. In the meantime, stay safe and healthy and I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: | |||
| 10 Dec 2019 | Episode 35: Asian Masculities (w/ Sarnt Utamachote) | 01:05:30 | |
Hey everyone. I hope you are doing well. The weather has changed slightly here in Zhuahi...it feels like LA at the moment, although not a dry. I've been recently falling in love with the tropical breeze here. I am still coming to terms with living in a tropical place as opposed to visiting it temporarily. The past weekend I traveled to Xi'an and learned a great deal of Chinese history given the city's long geographic and historic importance. The silk road starts there and many of China's leader came from or went through Xi'an in their beginnings. I got to see the Terracota Army, which is an 8,000 life-sized army recreated to guard the Qin Dynasty's first Emperor in the afterlife. It was massive and I temporarily made me rethink my own art. Anyway. Today, I am speaking with Sarnt Utamachote. Born in Thailand, Sarnt moved to Berlin in 2014 where he has been rediscovered himself and his ‘essence’ of Asianness within a European culture ever since. He describes himself as a filmmaker-photographer-artist-poet-writer-clubkid-culture enthusiast. Sarnt also organizes Thai film festivals around Berlin and our circles overlapped during my time there. I got to catch Sarnt before I left for China and we talked about navigating cities, k-pop, white queer German filmmakers, and Asian masculinities. I hope you enjoy this. Photo Credit: Jessica Sattabongkot
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| 19 May 2020 | Episode 43: Rhizomatic Collectivism (w/ Rosalia Namsai Engchuan) | 00:53:04 | |
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. Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: | |||
| 01 Jan 2019 | Episode 10: Rights of Opacity (w/ Ariel René Jackson) | 02:15:00 | |
Happy holidays and New Years everyone! I hope you are enjoying this much needed time with friends and family. On this particular episode, I took a brief trip to London to visit some friends and see some art. While there, I had the chance to chat with Ariel René Jackson. Ariel is currently pursuing her MFA at UT Austin, but was able to spend a semester studying in London at the Royal College of Art. Ariel and I first met while Ariel was visiting Berlin. Both of us presented a snippet of our work at Das Kapital, a bar in Neukölln. Ariel and I bonded over being the only people of color in that space, which we touch upon in our conversation. Ariel's work uses installations and videos to situate her practice into ideas of spatial matters as black matters, while understanding landscape as palimpsest, something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form. Ariel's work has been shown in spaces such as the Studio Museum in Harlem, the DePaul Art Museum in Chicago, and the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans. Ariel is also part of an upcoming exhibition at Sculpture Center in Long Island City. The title of the show is "Other Objects" and opens January 14th. Go ahead and check out her work if you are in the neighborhood. I had so much fun chatting with Ariel that I lost track of time and we ended up with a long interview. We discussed the presentation of violence, catering art for white people, and our thoughts on residencies. I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 20 Oct 2020 | Episode 54: Two Years Anniversary #3 (w/ Carol Zou) | 00:41:06 | |
Hey y'all. I hope your week is going well. This is the last episode where I revisit a previous guest to cap off my two year anniversary of this podcast. Sometimes, I wonder who I am celebrating this with and who is listening, but for those of you out there, I hope this is bringing some moments of joy. Anyway, I talked with Tereneh Idia and Justin Favela for the past two episodes and you can check those out as well if you missed them. For this week, I have my good friend, Carol Zou, someone who I have known for over a decade. Carol's work facilitates creative social change projects with a focus on racial justice, informal labor, and public space. Informing a lot of Carol's work is the belief that we are most free when we help others get free. I was able to catch up with Carol late at night and we talk over some drinks through zoom, which the sound quality leaves much to be desired. I did my best to clean it up, but hopefully you can bare with it. Our chat is informal, which is to say a bit all over the place, and we discuss motorcycles, being rooted in place, Chinese congee recipes, and how to spend your time at art residencies. I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 06 Jul 2021 | Episode 71: Duplicate Dichotomy (w/ Shahab Zargari) | 01:14:14 | |
Hi everyone. I hope you are doing well wherever you are. As I mentioned previously, I am currently part of the Rogers Art Loft residency in Las Vegas and they have been putting me in touch with the local community and helping me meet people for the podcast. I have been speaking with quite a number of wonderful artists and cultural workers and these conversations will be released throughout the summer and upcoming fall season. For today, I am excited to share with you the first one of these talks as I speak with Shahab Zargari, an Iranian-American filmmaker, record label owner, and musician. Shahab takes me through his journey from working in advertising to making his own independent films and what drives him to tell the stories that he tells. We also talk about the pronunciation of names, Iranian films, Mad Men, and how he got a shoutout from Kevin Smith. Shahab also talks about his latest short film, Oh, the Guilt, which is a coming-of-age story set in the 1990s featuring a Persian-American as the main character. The plot tackles death, loss, and survivor’s guilt, elements of the human condition that transcend age, race, and creed. Check it out if you have the chance. Again, this episode was made possible through the Rogers Art Loft residency and I want to thank them for this opportunity. I hope you all enjoy this. Links Mentioned:
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| 09 Oct 2018 | Episode 3: Who Gets To Be Called International (w/ Sarika Goulatia) | 01:26:18 | |
On this episode, I visit Sarika Goulatia in her studio, which was filled up to the ceiling with materials for her sculptures. Born in India, Sarika often works with large objects that are labor intensive to construct. Originally specializing in textiles, Sarika slowly shifted over to the art world and eventually got a Fine Arts degree at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she continues to live and work. She has exhibited in spaces such as the Mattress Factory and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. More recently, Sarika received the Carol R. Brown Emerging Artist Award and a Creative Development Grant, both given out by the Pittsburgh and Heinz Foundation. Sarika and I end up talking for quite a long time, with topics ranging from being a minority, Westernizing one’s self, and who gets the privilege to be called an international artist. Links Mentioned: Follow Seeing Color: | |||