Seeing Color

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:

• Jo's Website
• Denise Ferreira da Silva's On Heat
• M. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong!
• Camille T. Dungy
• Kathryn Yusoff's A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None
• Kevin Everod Quashie

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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.

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:

• Justin Favela
• Latinos Who Lunch
• Art People Pod
• Original Episode with Justin on Seeing Color

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• Seeing Color Website
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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

Links Mentioned:

* Sarnt's Website

* Sarnt's Instagram

* Yukio Mishima

* Berlinale

Follow Seeing Color:

* Seeing Color Website

* Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

* Facebook

* Twitter

* Instagram

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:

• Sophia's Website
• Sophia's Instagram
• jesusfreakcomic
• BlacKkKlansman
• Sorry to Bother You
• Lisa Hanawalt
• Democratic Socialists of America, Long Beach

Follow Seeing Color:

• Seeing Color Website
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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 ⁠
@vogueitalia @gucci⁠
⁠
Photog/vision @luisalbertorodriguezstudio styled by @marquetklee with @deividdiniz assisting ⁠
Hair and make up @the_baligans⁠

Links Mentioned:

• Black Brown Berlin
• Instagram
• Soul Sisters Strut Berlin
• Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
• AfroPolitan
• AfricAvenir
• Black Lives Matter Berlin

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• Seeing Color Website
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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:

• Natalia's Website
• Natalia's Instagram
• Do-ho Suh
• Brassero Grill
• Deanna Lawson at the CMOA
• Latinos Who Lunch

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• Seeing Color Website
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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:

• Allies Academy
• Edward T. Hall
• Geert Hofstede
• Frans Trompenaars
• Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw
• Robin J. DiAngelo
• Jane Elliott
• Mumia Abu-Jamal
• MOVE
• Race Traitor
• A quick history of German colonialism
• Each One Teach One
• Center for Intersectional Justice

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• Seeing Color Website
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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:

• Billie's Website
• Billie's paper: On Performing the Critical
• My First Podcast Episode
• Podcasts in Color
• Foundationa Prada Show in Venice
• Fluxus
• Camille Henrot's Grosse Fatigue
• Devan Shimoyama
• Latinos Who Lunch
• Tea with Queen and J
• Nancy
• Kandice Chuh's Imagine Otherwise
• Ali Wong
• Room of Silence

Follow Seeing Color:

• Seeing Color Website
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• Facebook
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• Instagram

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:

• Shannon's Website
• Shannon's Instagram
• The Golden Brown Girls
• The Berlin Diaspora Society
• Indrani Ashe
• Yinka Shonibare
• Reni Eddo-Lodge
• Leilah Weinraub
• Avery F. Gordon - Ghostly Matters
• Alice Yard Residency
• Firelei Baez
• Joiri Minaya
• Butch Cut Berlin

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• Seeing Color Website
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