How do you incentivize art institutions to shift away from latent, public, or systemic white supremacy and inequitable power dynamics? As Black arts leaders, how are the programs and publics of institutions, both locally and globally, considered under current political conditions? Join Art Practical and some of California’s leading Black voices in arts leadership for a panel discussion on how they influence and challenge the pre-existing structures within art institutions. Panelists: Jamillah James of ICA LA, Maria Jenson of SOMArts, and Linda Harrison of Museum of the African Diaspora, moderated by independent curator Essence Harden.

episode 29:

In this episode, I talk with New Orleans-based artist, writer, and cultural organizer Imani Jacqueline Brown. Imani manifests her work in many forms: as a core member of Occupy Museums, co-founder of Blights Out in New Orleans, Director of Programs with Antenna, co-producer of Fossil Free Fest, and as a board member of the Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative, a community land trust that built New Orleans's first permanently affordable housing. Throughout her work she consistently interrogates the underlying mechanisms of exploitation and inequity in capitalism while organizing intentional communities of resistance and mutual aid.

In our conversation, Imani explains the themes that link her many projects. She also challenges our communities to revoke the fossil fuel industry’s social license to operate and resist extractive industries, whether real estate speculation or oil. We also discuss her ambivalence toward identifying as an artist and whether that identification is useful in the work that she does.

Taking their lead from patron saint Nicki Minaj, Jay and Elena are demanding equal respect in the capital-a Art world. Taking a hard look at arts institutions, our hosts discuss the recent dismissals of women in the art world as well as highlight the space(s) being carved out by women of color, subverting white male dominance within these same institutions.

Jay and Elena also chat it up with Bay Area-bae Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle about her solo exhibition “The Retrieval” at SFAC Galleries and ask how she fights against her own erasure and finds solace in humor, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, memes, and her son the Alphabet King.

Follow:

@achinkle05

@sfac_galleries

@jamillahjames

@moad_sf

@somarts

@essenceh

@spikeleila

@artpracticalsf

@nickiminaj

episode 28: Chinatown Art Brigade

This episode features a conversation with Tomie Arai, ManSee Kong, and Betty Yu from the New York-based cultural organizing and activist collective, Chinatown Art Brigade. The three co-founded the group with the help of social justice movement building organization, CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities, who wanted to develop a culturally rooted complement to their tenant organizing work in Manhattan’s Chinatown. We talk about the genesis of their work, future projects, and the cultural context of organizing in Chinatown. Follow them at chinatownartbrigade.com, @chinatownartbrigade on Instagram, and @ctownartbrigade on Twitter.

In this episode, artist and educator, Angela Hennessy sits down with Cheryl Dericotte, MoAD’s inaugural artist from the Emerging Artist Program. Derricotte's exhibition, Ghosts/Ships, was exhibited on January 27, 2016 and closed on April 03, 2016. They discuss how Dericotte’s interdisciplinary practice is influenced by the texts she encounters in her daily life and the importance of titling work. Dericotte also generously shares songs from her playlist for creating new work, as music plays a key role in the development of her projects.

Notes from the Field: MoAD’s Emerging Artists and Critic Series is dedicated to MoAD’s Emerging Artist Program, giving the exhibiting artists an opportunity to discuss their featured exhibition at MoAD and how their art practice is in dialogue with contemporary art as it considers themes of the African Diaspora.

In this episode, we talk with multidisciplinary artist, researcher, and curator Sarah Biscarra Dilley. Sarah works expansively in collage, print, archival materials, handwork, and language; she’s a writer and academic investigating resilience, displacement, geography, and history, currently pursuing a PhD in Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis.

In our conversation, Sarah discusses maps as myth and legislation as literature to be interrogated, her research into the stories embedded in her yak tityu tityu yak tiłhini Northern Chumash familial lands, and role of intuitive image making in her practice. She also expands on the international relationships and projects she’s been developing between indigenous peoples across the Pacific that echo and continue ancestral legacies of navigation and cultural exchange, particularly through an upcoming exhibition that she is co-curating with Leuli Luna’i Eshraghi, Freja Carmichael, Tarah Hogue, and Lana Lopesi at the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane. Through that project, opening in September 2018, she is presenting the work of artist Natalie Ball.

Follow Sarah's work at sarahbiscarradilley.com and @sarahbiscarradilley on Instagram.

This month’s episode is all about sports...kind of. In the spirit of March Madness, Elena and Jay tackle the relationship between art and sports culture. Using ambivalence about the upcoming relocation of the Golden State Warriors franchise as a jumping off point, our hosts discuss contemporary artists like Pamela Council, Mark Bradford, and Hank Willis Thomas who use sports as a lens for considering race, gender, nationality, and politics.

**Special shoutout to the arts podcast Bad at Sports who inspired this month’s episode title.

Music: BroadwayMuse

https://soundcloud.com/taniesha-broadway/make-me-rich

Follow:

@hankwillisthomas

@pamelacouncil

@tabithasoren

@broadway_muse

This episode is funded in part by

the California Arts Council, a state agency.

Decolonial Strategies with Anuradha Vikram, Michelle Dizon, and Việt Lê was the first of three talks in Art Practical’s new programming series called Process Practice Progress, which is funded, in part, by the California Arts Council, a state agency. The series strives to create generative dialogue to reshape art institutions through actionable solutions and sustainable practices.

episode 26: Tyese Wortham

In this episode, I talk with cultural equity advocate, arts administrator, and dancer, Tyese Wortham. In our conversation, Tyese explains the work that she does with CAST--the Community Arts Stabilization Trust--and in particular, Keeping Space - Oakland, a technical and financial assistance initiative she runs within the organization. Tyese breaks down how CAST approaches their work and the nuances of Oakland’s cultural ecology--including hopeful examples of people self-organizing resources to hold onto their spaces. We also talk about cultural equity and creating room for yourself as an artist and creative being within institutions. For more information visit www.cast-sf.org

Notes from the Field: MoAD’s Emerging Artists and Critic Series is dedicated to MoAD’s Emerging Artist Program, giving the exhibiting artists an opportunity to discuss their featured exhibition at MoAD and how their art practice is in dialogue with contemporary art as it considers themes of the African Diaspora.

In the first episode of this mini series, Art Historian, Jacqueline Francis sits down with sculptor and designer Ebitenyefa Baralaye to discuss his history and identity as its spans from his birthplace in Nigeria, through Antigua, and currently the U.S.

For more information about MoAD visit:

www.moadsf.org

For more information about Ebitenyefa Baralaye visit: www.baralaye.com