Seeing Color

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:

• Yewande's Website
• Yewande's Instagram
• Yewande and John Legend
• Sound Science Podcast
• Yewande at Massive Science
• Naval
• RACE, GENETICS, AND THE 0.1% with Dr. Terence Keel and Dr. Aaron Panofsky
• Batten Disease
• Sound Science interview with Dr. Shawntel Okonkwo: Black in STEM
• Dr. Jennifer Mullan of Deoclonizing Thearapy
• Evelynn Escobar's Hike Clerb Inc.

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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:

• Noé Gaytán’s website
• Admin
• Previous Episode with Carol Zou
• Armory Center for the Arts
• Skirball Cultural Center
• LACE
• Lorraine O'Grady
• Change the Museum
• Daniel Joseph Martinez
• Art Museum Staff Demographic Survey 2018
• Adjoa Jones de Almeida
• Keonna Hendrick
• CUE Art Foundation
• Open Engagement

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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:

• Khaty Xiong
• Khaty's Website
• Khaty's Twitter
• How Do I Begin?: A Hmong American Literary Anthology
• Khaty's profile at the Poetry Foundation
• More info on the Laotian Civil War
• More info on the Hmong People

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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:

• Jeffrey's Website
• Jeffrey's Instagram
• Tina Fabrique
• Stephanie Syjuco

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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:

• Jen's Website
• Michael Asher
• Charles Gaines
• Lane Relyea

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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:

• Lyndon's Website
• Lyndon's Instagram
• Young Aspirations | Young Artists
• Jana Napoli
• Amiri Baraka
• Mathias Poledna: Imitation of Life
• Imitation of Life (1959 film)
• My interview with Didier William
• Leslie Smith III

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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:

• Ilana's Website
• Ilana's Instagram
• Ilana at the Whitney
• Rujeko Hockley
• We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85
• New Yorker article
• House of Slaves
• The Black Embodiments Studio
• Ilana's recent show at The Jacob Lawrence Gallery

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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:

• Maree's Website
• Maree's Instagram
• Gaga
• A Letter Compiled From All Letters
• My interview with Staycee Pearl
• My interview with Natalia Gomez

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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:

• Weston's Website
• Weston's Instagram
• (un)making - Weston's Podcast
• Related Tactics
• 442nd Infantry Regiment
• Mari Matsuda
• Phyllis Jackson
• One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now
• Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement
• SF Grants for the Arts
• The Cultural Equity Initiatives
• Jina Valentine
• Black Lunch Table
• Recology
• Art Practical
• Weston's Essay

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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:

• Angelique's Website
• Angelique's Instagram
• Kahlil Robert Irving
• Sonya Clark
• Kehinde Wiley's Residency
• Jamea Richmond Edwards

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