doubleXposure Podcast

In late 2022, Seattle Art Museum welcomed audiences into its newly-reimagined American Art galleries.

SAM, like many cultural institutions, has been revamping not only how it selects and presents art to the public; it is reassessing who the "public" really is, and how to create a curatorial process that welcomes in community members who haven't had access to big museums like it.

On March 1, 2023, co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman moderated a panel that included Seattle Art Museum American art curator Theresa Papanikolas; writer and advocate Mayumi Tsutakawa; and Inye Wokoma, artist, writer, curator and co-founder of Wa Na Wari.

We recorded this wide-ranging conversation in front of a live audience.

We wrap our second season with this live recording from WaNaWari, a cultural space in the heart of Seattle's Central District.

Once upon a time, artist and WaNaWari co-founder Inye Wokoma's family lived in this house. In 2019, Wokoma and three collaborators transformed the building into art galleries. But WaNaWari is more than a destination; it houses a free food program, a community oral history project, and an on-going effort to document how Seattle's land use policies have affected the neighborhood's historically Black population.

Co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman wrapped a season-long exploration of the ties between culture and community with these interviews, taped in front of a live audience on December 14, 2022.

Kristina Clark spent years dreaming about making a space for Black literature, community and healing. This year she finally took the leap and opened the Loving Room in Seattle's Central District. 

The Loving Room is a business, but Clark says beyond that, it's a place for the Black community to gather together, to feel at home. She's proud that her new business is part of a wider movement by Black entrepreneurs to reclaim and re-establish a strong community-led business and cultural district.

Co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman talked to Clark about how she transformed her dream into reality, and what it will take to keep it alive.

Most Seattleites know Donna Moodie as the owner of the beloved restaurant Marjorie, named for her mother.

But during the pandemic, Moodie decided her restaurant could operate without her full-time presence. Now she's heading up Community Roots Housing, advocating for affordable--and dignified--housing for everyone. 

Moodie believes deeply in building community, whether that means in bricks and mortar developments, or over a dinner table. 

Join co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman for a conversation with Donna Moodie that's sure to light up your day.

Seattle's Central Area (or as some people know it, the Central District) is the historic home of the city's African American community. Although skyrocketing real estate prices have forced many to leave the neighborhood, city planners are working hard to try to restore the Central Area to its roots.

As head of Seattle's Office of Planning and Community Development architect Rico Quirindongo plays a key role in this work. Quirindongo is a Central Area native who returned to his hometown to help recreate a city that everyone, especially BIPOC residents, can call home.

When the Viaduct--Seattle's aging elevated waterfront highway--came down three years ago, it ushered in a intense, five-year redevelopment project on the shores of Elliott Bay, the ancestral home of the Coast Salish people and the historic launching pad for present-day Seattle.

In addition to a new passenger ferry terminal, a tree-lined boulevard with bicycle lanes, and pedestrian walkways from downtown Seattle to the waterfront, the redevelopment includes a 20-acre park and more than a dozen public artworks. 

Co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman invited an audience to join them at Pier 62, the heart of the new park, for a series of conversations about the waterfront's history, its cultural future, and how the new project could reshape Seattle's identity.

More than 50 years ago, in the aftermath of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, New York City Ballet dancer Arthur Mitchell found himself wondering how he, an artist, could help foster social and racial equity. 

His answer, with Karel Shook, was to found Dance Theatre of Harlem, originally a school program based in Mitchell's home neighborhood. Not long after, Mitchell and Shook expanded their vision to create a touring ballet company that could show the world that the classical art form wasn't just for white Europeans. 

Virginia Johnson was part of the original company; now Johnson is in her final season as DTH's artistic director.

She talks with co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman about DTH and the power of art to change the world.

For years Seattle residents and visitors have had a hard time getting from the downtown streets to the city's waterfront.  In November, 2019, one of the biggest impediments to access, the double decker elevated Viaduct highway, came down, making way for a new surface street, pedestrian and bicycle trails, a 20-acre park, and a slew of new public artworks.

Seattle was one of the first cities in the country to implement a law that requires one percent of public works projects to fund art to be locate at the project. In the case of the waterfront redevelopment, that money will pay for everything from art installations focused on the sea itself, to works that highlight the history and culture of the Indigenous people who have called the area home for many centuries.

Ruri Yampolsky is in charge of stewarding the creation and installation of these public artworks. She talks with Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman about what we'll see when the dust finally settles at one of the biggest redevelopment sites in Seattle history.

The City of Seattle is in the middle of a major waterfront redevelopment project, including creation of a 20-acre park. But it won't be the first urban park built on Seattle's downtown shoreline.

15 years ago, Seattle Art Museum inaugurated its Olympic Sculpture Park, an art-filled haven on Elliott Bay, just north of Seattle's downtown core. The 9-acre urban oasis includes not only a notable sculpture collection but also beach access and an all-seasons pavilion. Best of all, its open free-of-charge seven days a week.

Seattle Art Museum Director Amada Cruz talked to Vivian and Marcie about the Sculpture Park's mission, its connection to community, and what will change when the adjacent waterfront park opens in 2025.

Co-hosts Vivian Phillips and Marcie Sillman start their exploration of how culture fits into the massive redevelopment of Seattle's downtown waterfront at Pier 62. It's the first finished section of what will be a 20-acre park where a double decker highway once stood. Overseeing the park's development is the nonprofit group Friends of Waterfront Seattle. Chief Operating Officer Eldon Tam explains the vision for this new park and how the community is helping to shape it.