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ASSEMBLY 2020

A publication for the co-authored conference from PSU’s Art + Social Practice MFA Program Table of Contents

4 Introduction

PROJECTS ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE

10 Auditing Ohio: A Textbook Audit 64 The Green New Real 116 Reflections with David Wilson Rebecca Copper and Kevin Acton Eric John Olson, Addee Kim, Roshani Thakore Carrie Brownstien, Harrell Fletcher, 18 The Portland Conservatory and Salty Xi Jie Ng 126 A Conversation with Autumn Knight Emma Duehr Zeph Fishlyn 72 Be a Local of My Life 24 Spontaneous Untrained Volunteer: Brianna Ortega, Sarah, Morgan, Everyday Disaster Response Stirling, Andrea, Sean, Neil, Will, Zeph Fishlyn Mindy, Emily, and Max EXCHANGES

30 Borrowed Tool Project Archive 80 Proyecto Bathhouse 134 Books Are a Container at the Carlisle Tool Library in Carlos Reynoso Spencer Byrne-Seres and Carlisle, Pennsylvania Roz Crews Mary Olin “Mo” Geiger 86 RECESS! Design Studio Jordan Rosenblum and 142 Learning Is Like Giving 36 Trans Boxing Kim Sutherland Roz Crews and Mo Nola Hanson, Hill Donnell, and Liv Adler 94 Afro Contemporary Art Class 148 Art + Social Practice Archive at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Lo Moran, Marti Clemmons, and 42 Performance for One Person Elementary School Rebecca Copper Tia Kramer and Sabina Rogers Artist Michael Bernard Stevenson Jr.

48 Prosperity Gardens in Jantzen 102 East Portland Art + Justice Lab Beach RV Park Roshani Thakore and O82 160 Biographies Shelbie Loomis, Butch, Jodi, Gary, Jeanie, Hannah, and Maxine 108 KSMoCA International Art 168 Portland State University MFA in Acquisition Committee Art + Social Practice 56 A Field Guide to a Crisis Illia Yakovenko, Jalene, Vito, Leilua, Justin Maxon and Aaron Ochoa Alfrid, and Ana Introduction other. It allows other people to had to be responsive to the public enter into our process and into our school closing. We no longer had a work, which generates interesting site or accessible collaborators. conversations. EO: Some people even perfectly ERIC JOHN OLSON: Over the past stacked their Assembly and MFA Since 2014, the Portland State University Art and Social Practice MFA three years there has been a big, graduate projects to be a year students have put on an annual multi-day gathering of participatory curious shift in my perspective on long collaboration with students events, discussions, and presentations highlighting our collaborative what Assembly is, what it could be, that was supposed to culminate work and inspirations. To create this gathering, students select vari- and what it’s become. I’ve been at this year’s Assembly. So for it all ous sites around Portland, OR, in which to make and cultivate proj- attending Assembly and its earlier to implode at the last minute, it’s ects through existing relationships, curiosity, and chance encounters. editions since 2013. I remember in really hard. Typically this has led us to many places around the city including a earlier iterations, it seemed more community center, city hall, a school, a panadería, a river, a senior center, like a conference with keynote ZF: It’s especially hard given the and more. speakers, panel discussions, and way we usually create this event. a couple of projects sprinkled This year is different. in. Yet by the time the five of us RT: What makes Assembly differ- started working on it three years ent from any other kind of confer- This book archives a moment in which we can’t create that in-per- ago, Assembly had shifted. Each ence or group event is that we, son live moment of collaboration. After a year of careful planning, this year we collectively choose a site the students in the program, are year’s collaboration with the King School Museum of Contemporary Art that becomes the context we are fully collaborating on this festival (KSMoCA) had to quickly shift gears due to the global pandemic and thrown into to collaborate within. In together. It’s fifteen voices. This social distancing measures. Instead, we are sharing new work that has that challenge, I have seen delight- is a very heavily collaborative emerged in this context, as well as new conversations with existing proj- ful shifts in how we work individu- process that I was new to when I ects and collaborations. ally, how we think about a site, how started the program. we think about existing commu- As a reflection of the current moment, this year the graduating cohort of nities, and how we think about TK: Roshani, I remember you saying the Portland State University Art & Social Practice MFA Program came the audience of the work. We at the beginning of this term, together for a conversation to introduce Assembly and what it means to have really challenged ourselves “This program prepared us for this them. Below is the conversation that unfolded between Artist Michael over the years to learn from what moment.” We are trained to be Bernard Stevenson Jr, Eric John Olson, Roshani Thakore, Tia Kramer, and worked and didn’t work. critical, so we know the potential Zeph Fishlyn. limitations and failures of creat- This year we were so well planned, ing site-specific socially engaged we finally had picked the site a events. But we are also trained to year in advance! be agile and respond creatively to TIA KRAMER: Let’s begin with some TK: For me, Assembly is an oppor- our contexts. This moment requires questions. What is Assembly? What tunity for all of us in the Social TK: Yes. Before covid-19 we that flexibility. is valuable about it now? Practice Program to come together, thoughtfully chose KSMoCA as a as a cohort, to create a collective context because it is a site we all ZF: This program helps me navigate ROSHANI THAKORE: I’ve always strug- experience. It’s a ritual. know well. The program, and most and catalyze social relationships gled with the meaning of Assembly. of us in it, have long-term rela- in a variety of contexts. This is a I think it’s an opportunity to create ZEPH FISHLYN: From what I’ve tionships with KSMoCA. We feel new and very complex context. It work out of your familiar context experienced since I joined the personally connected to the proj- demands committed and imagi- and with some specific param- program, Assembly provides an ects, the students, and the teachers native response on all levels. The eters including site and context annual opportunity to see all of at Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary social practice toolbox makes it specificity. our work in dialogue with each School. Then, in March that plan easier to rework my projects to rise dissolved. At the last minute we to that challenge. I so appreciate

5 4 everyone’s thoughtful feedback, and there is this deep moment of willing collaboration, and honesty joy and relief. about the heartbreak and difficul- ties. I’m inspired by all the ways I RT: Karaoke! I think it was our first see people getting creative; this year at—ah, what’s it called?? It’s book offers only a narrow window in downtown Portland. into the full range of how peoples’ practices are shifting. ARTIST MICHAEL BERNARD STEVENSON JR.: Suki’s. EO: It also acts as a framework for people to create new conversations RT: Yes, Suki’s! Major dancing around their existing projects and happening. share them with each other. EO: Oh, that was so epic. It was TK: In some ways, this year’s online after the program’s ten-year component is extra exciting, anniversary lecture. because people like our parents might show up for our projects. ZF: Oh, that was really fun. There are layers of people who might be in the room, so to speak, ROSHANI: Yes! I remember all of that would never physically come those fun things. After my first Assembly after party with karaoke to Portland for Assembly. Assembly, I remember thinking, and dancing at Suki’s Bar & Grill, whoa, I finally get what this is all Portland, Oregon, 2018. EO: I still am going to miss the about. The process of creating moment of us all coming together Assembly, the process of creat- physically. ing a public project. I remember knowing that I don’t have to worry TK: Yeah, social practice is about as much as I usually do that people relationships and coming together. are going to show up, because my Assembly creates a collective classmates are going to show up. experience for us to ask similar And I’m going to be there for my questions and struggle with similar classmates when they do their prompts. It also provides an oppor- projects. That instant showing up tunity for our individual communi- and supporting—to be trained to ties to intersect with one another, be in community with each other— both in critical discourse and also that just made so much sense to in a purely joyful social experience. me. We need each other and we need to rely on each other. And EO: I fondly remember the past this is actually a structure that celebratory aspects: singing kara- supports and trains us for that. oke, eating together, dancing, and long conversations both critical and personal. Being a distance student, you get to see everyone finish their work, the graduation party usually falls directly after,

7 6 PROJECTS

Projects from the PSU Art + Social Practice MFA Program Auditing Ohio: A: There are so many things that nice to not be rushed, being able are made from different parts of to sit in my room and concentrate A Textbook Audit science. I mean, scientists do so or do it when I like. many other things too, because Rebecca Copper in collaboration with fourth grade teacher Kevin Acton in order to do the really compli- RC: Mr. Acton and I had a conver- cated things or the science, you sation the other day. We were need to know things like math. talking about the kind of structures that are often forced on Auditing Ohio is an experimental, socially engaged art project RC: What do you think about the students in the classroom—the that I facilitated where my child goes to school—at Colonial Hills things that are used to teach you way that classrooms are set up, Elementary, located just outside Columbus, Ohio. There, I asked my like the worksheets, books, those and the way schools have to func- child’s fourth grade class to “audit” their social studies textbook, to kinds of things? tion in a particular way. We were think critically about their learning material. This idea came to me discussing how it’s different now after working several years for a major K–12 educational publishing A: I think they are all right, but that students have the freedom company, where I found many aspects of how educational products sometimes they annoy me. to work at their own pace, are are created problematic. I created newsprint copies of the fourth able to work in their own way, grade textbook and organized the students into groups of three. In RC: How do they annoy you? that maybe in the classroom their groups, the students used red pens to critique the textbook. they’re unable to. Do you feel that Together, in collaboration with their teacher, Kevin Acton, we curated A: Just the way they’re arranged way? Were there ways that the discussions to foster questioning of the content included in the or the way that they’re made. classroom functioned when you textbook, what information was not included, who was included and Sometimes, it’ll be highlighted were there in person that were represented, and who wasn’t. Students took the opportunity to write sections, or stuff like that. That difficult? what they liked and didn’t like about the textbooks which ranged from always hurts my head seeing all the content, design, images used, review questions, and more. Of like this highlighted part and A: I understand this because course, they took the opportunity to doodle, too. then there being a bunch of there’s so much to do in six different things in it. Especially hours. Wait, am I there for six

—Rebecca Copper now, because we are online. hours or eight hours? AUDITING OHIO: A TEXTBOOK AUDIT They, one of my teachers, what they have to do when they send RC: I think you are there for Students who participated from Colonial Hills Elementary: an assignment is highlight it in six hours. Idil, Jesusia, Griffin, Timothee, Okbahzghi, Eva, Adrian, Evalynn, Chris, red. One time they highlighted

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY Kyad, Gavin, Augusta, Ben, Jordan, Will, Sam, Fadumo, Colin, Greta, a bunch of it in yellow and then A: Now I only get two assignments Sharon, Shai, Sylvia, Scout, Pranish, Adwoa, and Kennedy there were these really bright in a day because they have to be highlighted red boxes that I have flexible due to the pandemic. to write answers in. The following is a conversation between artist Rebecca Copper and their RC: Do you think there’s not nine-year-old, Adrian. In the conversation, Rebecca asks Adrian about RC: Oh, that sounds like that enough time to do all the their thoughts of school and the project, Auditing Ohio. might hurt my head, too. So, work that they are required now that you’re doing school- to teach you? REBECCA COPPER: What do you RC: Is there a subject in school work from home because of the think about school? you like? pandemic, what do you think? A: Yeah. I feel like we don’t really How’s that affecting you? get enough time each day to work ADRIAN: I think school takes up A: I really like science. on the assignments that they give a lot of my time, but I think it A: I kind of enjoy being able to us. In math, sometimes, it’s hard might be worth it. RC: What do you like about be home and being able to do for certain students. They don’t science? my work. But then again, I don’t always get it done during the day. get to see my friends. But, it feels Then they have to skip the recess

11 10 to do it, like a punishment for not A: I think it’s all right. I think they what I don’t like on the copies RC: Do you know what it means to being able to do it in time. could have it set up differently. A you made of the textbook. Just think critically? lot of the classes are these big two being able to get that out, that RC: How do you feel about tests? hours of studying things to where was nice. I enjoyed that you were A: That means criticizing and we are just sitting there and rack- asking us to question because I criticizing critically, thinking crit- A: I mean, they’re not always that ing our brains. A lot of kids in my feel like there were a lot of things ically and criticizing are the same bad when I actually know how to class are saying, “Why don’t they that it didn’t really put in the thing, basically. do the work, like when it’s not a just make a test for the teachers book, like Native American history. review test. That’s when I usually to do?” RC: Well, thinking critically and feel like I’m doing pretty good. RC: By “it,” do you mean the criticizing are different things. When it is a review test before we RC: Do you think it’s fair to publishing company? They stem from the same word. learn the actual thing, for me, it measure the teacher’s capability feels like I just don’t know enough. through testing the students? A: Yeah, it leaves out a lot of A: For me, from what I think it details about what people might means is pointing out things that RC: What do you think about A: No, not really. We did take a have done. you don’t like about it. tests in general? Do you think teacher liking test to measure it’s a good tool to measure where how much we feel like our RC: For me, it was important RC: To think critically means to students are at? teacher cares about us. that you guys saw that there are think objectively, to question different perspectives that aren’t it, form your own ideas based A: Um, yeah? I think? RC: That’s interesting. included in the textbook. Do you on evidence or information you think some of the conversations have. So, like if someone tells you RC: You had to do these standard A: We do that every year, but would have happened without the sky is green, and you’re like, tests, the big state tests... no student has ever said their the textbook audit? “I don’t know if I agree with you. teacher didn’t care. Because the I see the sky is blue, so I think it’s A: We did in third grade. Yeah, school is looking at it they feel A: Based on my teacher, Mr. blue.” You looking at the sky to we’ve done that second, third, pressured to say something nice. Acton and how he works, before see that it is blue, to form your

and I think first. I don’t think you came in, he also was telling own idea of what color the sky is, AUDITING OHIO: A TEXTBOOK AUDIT we did anything like that in RC: They, meaning the student? us what was really happening. that would be critical thinking. kindergarten. A: Yeah, I mean, that’s how I RC: What do you think your One thing I discussed a bit RC: With the standard tests, I usually feel. friends thought about the with your class was how some

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY remember, we got all this paper- process of marking up these information textbooks will work saying these big important RC: Sure, that makes sense. I newsprint copies of the textbook? change from state to state— tests that were going to happen organized this textbook auditing some textbooks will be created with recommended resources project with your class where you A: Some of them thought that was for particular states. For Texas, where you could study. Do you guys looked at your social studies interesting, and then there were as an example, textbooks lean know what those tests were for? textbook. Your class was asked some others who thought, “This toward a Republican politi- to mark up copies with your is just more work, I don’t really cal stance. Textbooks made A: Those are, I’m pretty sure, so opinions. I asked you to question like it.” [Laughter] for California which is a more the state can know how well the what the book was telling you and liberal state, the content will lean school is doing. There were some to criticize it. What do you think RC: [Laughter] Do you think toward being progressive. What teachers that said, “This isn’t to about that? this project will help you think do you think about the changing measure you but it’s to measure critically about other things in of information for the political us and how well we are doing A: Um, I thought it was inter- the future? leaning of a state? teaching you.” esting at first. I mean, I still do because I get to put down my A: Yeah. A: I mean, I think they would stay RC: What do you think about that? thoughts and what I like and in business, but I don’t think

13 12 that’s very good. OK, they’re just RC: What people? “People who kind of, “we want to go this way have the experiences,” can you for this place, that way for that talk a little bit more about that? place.” It’s just a way to keep the company in business. A: Native American, like really, Native Americans who were RC: Now that you’ve criticized really there, who have a lot of that part of the textbook, and we’ve knowledge, a lot of that history. had conversations, what do you And also same with African think of textbooks? Americans. Like the people they invite to come, they need to A: I think that there’s a lot of lying change the people. happening, or leaving details out. RC: Do you mean the people that RC: How do you think textbook the publishing companies invite publishing companies should be to write the textbooks? making their textbooks? A: Mhm. A: I think they should be bringing the people in who have the experiences. AUDITING OHIO: A TEXTBOOK AUDIT ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY

Top: Edits made by Greta, Fadumo, and Bottom: Edits made by Adowa, Griffin, Adrian on a time line about people who and Gavin: “We need a compass,” “not made a difference in Ohio: “there all very clear,” “told us 1,000 times,” “not white,” “there’s only one female,” “the very helpful,” “we don’t need this.” pictures are ugly,” “I have only heard about one of these people.”

15 14 AUDITING OHIO: A TEXTBOOK AUDIT ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY

Sharon and Pranish discussing their Chris and Kennedy writing their ideas about the first chapter of their thoughts down on a newsprint copy social studies book. of their textbook.

17 16 The Portland Conservatory and open call for participants to share the narratives behind plant cuttings that have been shared throughout generations of their family. Emma Duehr These are a few examples of the plants within the collection. All plants are formally labeled in their display. Every time I receive a plant from someone, they share their relationship to the plant given to me. A custom plant stake is created that includes the date, the type Caring for plants offers self-care, self-sustainability, relational prac- of plant, and the person’s name. Plants from nurseries come with tices, and more. My relationship with plants was found as a healing those informational graphics in the pot. They are just like that, but practice that also helped create and connect with friends, family, and handwritten and custom to the exchange. Further information about strangers. I grew up planting impatiens, hostas, and laying mulch the plants’ history and relationships is archived on the website. I with my mother. After I moved from Dubuque, Iowa to Portland, also create a plant stake for every cutting I give; I share the date, care Oregon I picked up her favorite hobby as it helped me feel more instructions, and the plant’s origin. This part of the project is really connected to her from a distance. Supporting plants in their survival important to me, that way the intimate details, plant’s history, and has taught me patience and the importance of self-care. I grew more story continue growing and people can look back on it periodically. deeply connected to myself, the natural world, and individuals who Visit www.emmaduehr.com/ThePortlandConservatory and follow shared this hobby. Plants and gardening are an expensive hobby and on Instagram @theportlandconservatory to stay updated on events, the high value distracts from accessing the mental benefits. I opened opportunities, and projects. Full narratives, descriptions, and images the Portland Conservatory (TPC) in 2019 to formalize the passion, from the featured projects above are shared online. narratives, and education connected to plant collecting, care, and trading cuttings. TPC is supported through plant exchanges and plant donations to provide the benefits at no expense. The following excerpts are from conversations with various participants TPC is an art museum that presents curated collections of house- that took place over the past three years. Emma Duehr spoke with partic- plants, events, and permaculture and horticulture education. The ipants about their involvement in the project and to reflect on the origi- museum is located at my home in East Portland and is accessed by nation of the project. The interviews have been shortened and edited for appointment only. The space features a 769 square foot conservatory length and clarity and have been reviewed for accuracy by participants. upon a 7,000 square foot lot. I collect and curate plant cuttings by

organizing open calls, studio visits, and invitations, which request Conversation between Emma Duehr and Nae Dumouchelle, who is a THE PORTLAND CONSERVATORY plants that hold personal symbolism, relationships, or narratives participant in the “On Rotation” collection. specific to the individuals who submitted them. Participants range in location across the United States as the evolving collection displays EMMA DUEHR: You moved from bitter held a little sweet. Knowing galleries inside, outdoors, and online. The museum hosts public Oregon to California in January that I was leaving them with you,

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY events such as gardening classes, workshops, and plant exchanges 2019 and gave me eighteen of your a dear friend kept me feeling that invite participation through virtual platforms, through physical plants to care for. What was this grateful. I had someone I trusted events, and through the mail. experience like? to take in these little lives that I The collection at the Portland Conservatory displays the intimate had kept going and who gave me collaborations between community members and the natural world. NAE DUMOUCHELLE: Bittersweet. I life in return. “Contemporary” is an invitational collection that requests contem- was sad at first, knowing that I had porary artists to submit a cutting of a plant from their living or studio to leave my little friends behind. ED: You know that you can take spaces. The selection of artists invited to participate includes those Here is something that you have the plants back at any time right? whose practice has made a lasting impact on my own practice. “On been tending to and taking care of Rotation” is a collection of plants that are temporarily under my every day, watching them grow up ND: A smile to answer this ques- care through the Plant Sitting Project, which assists neighbors, local just a little bit taller and becoming tion. I sit here on this couch, businesses, and other community members in caring for their plants fuller. I remember sitting there hundreds of miles away and I when they are out of town or unavailable to properly care for them. looking at them all and know- allow each of them to come to “Henrys’ Rose Garden” is an outdoor collection donated by the Henrys ing I wasn’t going to be around mind. I am so much at peace on November 15, 2019. There are a total of seventeen rose bushes anymore to witness a new leaf or knowing that they are with some- consisting of over ten varieties. “Generational” is a virtual collection another sprouting. As I said, my one who would even consider

19 18 allowing me to take them back. I the avocados all as one. Tasha is HF: Sure. you know it’s the same plant gets sick, but it is also just feel so grateful. I would not take the one who gave me her plants to kind of process. You have to water a way to have a relationship with them all. That doesn’t feel right. watch over and babysit when she them, preserve them, I’ve had the natural process. I would almost want you to give moved away. She sat with me and mixed experiences with indoor them to someone else before they told me their names. We talked plants as I used to travel so much ED: I appreciate you sharing were given back to me. A different about where they came from. and when I would leave I left the the joy and benefits that plants adventure and new direction of Each one had a story. An ex-lover, responsibility to those who would bring into your life. You gave light. I am also sensitive when I a family member who had passed, be house-sitting for me and I had me a cutting from your Chinese think about how they are doing or something that she held from various houseplants die over the Money Plant in 2019, and it is in a certain space. I would never seed. There was so much honor years because of that and it made really a healthy plant. How do you want to rip them away from some- and reward that I felt knowing she me really wary of having too many respond to claiming this cutting where they were thriving. Or from was placing them in my hands plants. Now that I have intention- as a work of yours inside the someone who they were thriving and heart. six to seven years later, ally stopped traveling so much, Contemporary Collection within with. I became the one who wanted to I feel more comfortable about the museum? wander away and leave my plants bringing more plants into my ED: Are there one or two that you behind. Tasha planted that seed indoor life because I am here and HF: I am very open to the idea of miss the most? for me and knows you are holding able to really take care of them. I artists making decisions like that onto mine. think that there are lots of bene- and claiming things as a work, so it ND: The money tree. Tasha’s vine. fits, there’s aesthetic qualities, really strikes me as an interesting The avocado plants, though I see oxygen, there’s just something idea and I am happy to participate really nice about the process of in it. I don’t personally have any caring for plants. I really like it. need to do it for myself, but I am Phone conversation between Emma Duehr and Harrell Fletcher who is a I’m sad when one dies, there’s happy to support you in doing that. participating artist in the Contemporary Collection. worries that come up when a

EMMA DUEHR: Would you say that concerned about proprietary and

plants are connected with your concerned about originality, but Conversation between Emma Duehr and Lucas Mitchell, who co-owns the THE PORTLAND CONSERVATORY artistic practice? also not taking into account how I home in East Portland. was going to distribute art. People HARRELL FLETCHER: I went back are trained how to make art in art LUCAS MITCHELL: Don’t you think [Three weeks later the roses and studied organic farming after school but they aren’t trained on we should dig up the roses? They began to bloom and together they

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY graduate school and did a six how to get it to people. In farming, have a disease and they aren’t cleaned up the rose garden] month program at the University you really have to think about that producing any blooms. of Santa Cruz, and I worked on in CSA’s and farmers markets, ED: I did something a little weird. organic farms near Champoeg things like that. I applied a lot of EMMA DUEHR: Well we didn’t State Park. I did this project that that experience to my art practice properly care for them when LM: Oh? was about growing vegetables in thinking about not just the we moved here in the middle of at Southern Exposure Gallery in making of the art object but really winter. I want to at least wait a ED: I found the Henrys on social San Francisco, which was sort thinking about the distribution full season to see how they do! media, and guess what? The of a decentralized CSA. Plants and the public access to it. As a They [previous owners] left us a roses were planted in honor have popped up here and there part of my practice. guide for taking care of the roses, of her grandmother who loved in different projects. I think that the informational sheet on each roses! Look at all these pictures! the farming experience really ED: That says a lot about social variety, and tagged every single The one by the garlic she called impacted my art practice as it practice and your origins. I am rose! This rose garden was obvi- her “Dad’s Rose.” I knew they made me reevaluate a lot of things wondering now how this farming ously planted with a lot of love were special. indoctrinated into learning about experience relates to the plants and they wanted it to stay loved. contemporary art. Being really you have inside your home now? LM: They really are beautiful. Let’s go identify all of them! 21 20 Conversation between Emma Duehr and Brenda Mitchell, who participated in the Generational Collection.

BRENDA MITCHELL: I submitted began and what you have gotten historical information about a out of the experience so far? generational plant that I have. It’s a Christmas cactus whose BM: My take-away from this original scions came from my experience is the feeling of mother’s cactus, and she got her connecting to something bigger plant’s original scions in 1958 than people... feelings of curi- from a cactus that belonged to osity, wonder, and hope. And at my father’s grandmother. I do the same time they are feelings not know how my great-grand- one has when recounting fond mother acquired her Christmas and interesting memories with cactus, but do know that it is still persons who share in the same thriving. My grandma inherited interest. In this case my feelings the cactus before her mother’s include joy, contentment, senti- death in 1960, and her son and mentality, and again wonder. daughter-in-law (my uncle and This project is interesting, educa- aunt) are now the caretakers of tional, and extremely motivating! this cactus. My mother’s cactus is Thank you for creating a space to alive, which is wonderful since it share my experiences with plants. Top: The front facade was nearly gone after some deer It’s very enjoyable. of the Portland feasted on it while it was enjoy- Conservatory, 2020. ing the outside warmth three or four summers ago. My plant is Bottom: The Henrys’

thriving and happy as evidenced THE PORTLAND CONSERVATORY Rose Garden tags and by the amount of blooms it informational guides, produces from November to May 2020. every year.

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY EMMA DUEHR: Have you shared the plant with any family members since you received it?

BM: It’s really funny that you ask that. The cactus is really thriving and growing quite large, so it is now my time to trim and share. I am potting up some scions to give to my two daughters and son here shortly.

ED: That is so exciting to hear, and I’m glad it is continuing to thrive. I’m wondering where your engagement with this project

23 22 Spontaneous Untrained Volunteer: So, pre-covid-19, I proposed a collaboration with Portland State University and the city’s Office of Emergency Management. I would Everyday Disaster Response organize a series of live events that would bring people to the site and encourage both connection and readiness. I imagined many possi- Zeph Fishlyn bilities: connecting local businesses, students, and neighborhood residents with an emergency meal kit cook-off and tasting; a disaster movie marathon and dance party; “go kit” building; a musical performance based on a local seismograph readout; a discussion with The coronavirus pandemic has thrown so many artists into critical Native American faculty about long term resilience within the disaster uncertainty about their ability to pay rent, let alone make meaningful of settler-colonialism; and highlighting the survival skills of houseless work in relation to current conditions. And it is extremely clear that folks in the area. many of the most devastating impacts are not from the virus alone, A few short weeks later this vision of knitting-together was over- but from the way it is multiplying the chronic and daily disasters of taken by a once-in-a-lifetime disaster that demands the exact oppo- US-style capitalism. With essential workers working double time at site: we must stay apart. I’ve been able to participate peripherally in risky jobs, and unemployment soaring to Great Depression levels, a some of the radical and inspiring work emerging through mutual aid lot of us are asking ourselves, is this really a time to be working on networks, and a creative advocacy project focused on an affordable anything that doesn’t meet an immediate need? What exactly can we vaccine. However, I am still seeking answers to the question, how do I contribute as artists? engage as an artist in this moment? And what do I even mean by that? This is just the latest manifestation of a question I ask myself a lot. One of my immediate modes of response in this time is focused My practice as an artist and activist is driven by a sense of anxiety that on the material world, on logistics, infrastructure, and communica- our baseline support systems are on a destructive path. We cannot tions. Move tents to the outdoor distancing shelter. Move medicines sustain escalating wealth inequality, homicidal white supremacy, and to vulnerable people sheltering in place. Distribute food, disinfectant the reckless dismantling of ecosystems that sustain life. Even if social wipes, masks, and hand sanitizer. All these things are important. But movements cannot shift these patterns, the planet itself is revolting— it’s easy to get tunnel vision and start thinking that if we can meet according to the World Meteorological Organization, disasters have all these immediate needs, the situation will eventually return to a grown fivefold around the globe in the past fifty years, mostly driven desired status quo. by climate change.

Response to the existing social disasters highlighted by the EVERYDAY DISASTER RESPONSE SPONTANEOUS UNTRAINED VOLUNTEER: For the past year, I have been researching the imaginaries of disaster, pandemic demands a much more complicated engagement with from their manifestations in pop culture and individual imagination, to human structures of power, race, and economy, and a status quo that the complex infrastructures of professional emergency management, is far from desirable. Meanwhile, the usual disasters normally labeled to grassroots mutual aid networks and radical disaster training. I have as “individual problems” become systemic in a pandemic—relation- looked at (and participated in) activist approaches, design approaches,

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY ship breakdowns, overdue bills, a crisis of loneliness. and cultural approaches to existing and future crises. The accumulation of these realities is overwhelming. I, like many In particular, I got involved in an effort at Portland State University other people, have been spending too much time hunched over social to develop an outdoor sculptural installation as a community gath- media scrolling through endlessly enraging and frightening news that ering space and information hub. In the wake of a large-scale disas- I feel helpless to do anything about, while desperately wishing I could ter—most likely the major earthquake that is overdue in the Portland see my close people face-to-face. What can I do? How can I avoid the region—it would serve as a meetup point for relief organizing efforts. paralysis and isolation that are the basic building blocks of trauma? Conversations with emergency management staff made it clear that When I am thinking through the relationship between practical even well-prepared and well-intentioned government response tends

and creative action, I often look to the Center for Artistic Activism. to be limited and might take seventy-two hours to kick in. Historically, They write, “Activism moves the material world, while Art moves most victim care is rendered by “Spontaneous Untrained Volunteers,” the heart, body and soul... Creating and sustaining lasting change or “SUVs,” in emergency management lingo. Communities who fare demands a change in values, beliefs and patterns of behavior, that is: best in the wake of large-scale disasters are the communities that cultural change... Culture lays the foundation for politics. It outlines already have strong ties. And so a key component of disaster prepared- the contours of our very notions of what is desirable and undesirable, ness is that average people are connected to their neighbors and ready possible and impossible.” to respond.

25 24 This emerging project is driven by a simple question: How can we The following is condensed from a conversation on May 14, 2020, use imagination to connect in satisfying ways within the constraints between Zeph Fishlyn and Anne Williams, a long time San Franciscan of a dangerous virus? How can we address overwhelming claustropho- whose professional bio reads, “Artist, mother, yogi, student, crone. Order bia and despair in order to fuel the more practical actions we need to varies.” Williams took part in several Emergency Dance Parties and the be taking to secure our individual and community well-being? first Evacuation Routes test walk. I had been talking for months about starting a virtual Kitchen Dance Party Network to connect far-flung community who have ANNE WILLIAMS: I’ve been really cool things online that by that limited time, energy, and access for going “clubbing” but still love fortunate. I’ve had four degrees third week I was just completely to dance. So I adapted this idea to our current reality and started an or five degrees of separation overwhelmed with choices. The Emergency Dance Party Network. I got together with Ariana Jacob from anyone who is physically messages that I was supposed to in the parking lot next to KSMoCA, a contemporary art museum impacted with the illness. The be doing certain things—I was inside a public elementary school in North East Portland. We set up a sense of emergency for me has supposed to be reading certain Bluetooth speaker, and a folding chair with a laptop to bring in virtual been in how to keep my immedi- books, and I was supposed to attendees. Then we chalked out a pattern of circles to help twelve live ate community as safe as possi- be baking a certain number of partygoers practice social distancing while we danced to a playlist by a ble, to maintain our physical baked goods, and doing a certain local DJ, the Seamstress of Sound. and spiritual health. In terms of number of puzzles, and bingeing economic and lifestyle effects, it’s on a certain number of Netflix We are training to be responders in a global pandemic of paral- hit me very much more closely; I shows. I got panicky because I ysis, disorientation, dangerous leadership, and untrustworthy have had economic emergency. wasn’t doing any of it. physical and human surroundings. The first step to being a responder is to keep our bodies and spirits in motion—to get The first two weeks were tricky. ZF: Did you feel like you were connected to ourselves and others. Together we’re going to My daughter Stella was just out of obliged to go to a certain number shake out the news and the anxiety, explore our senses, and school. And we hadn’t hit a stride of dance parties? wrap ourselves in a virtual gauze of collective curiosity. on what we were supposed to do; we were definitely circling around AW: I didn’t feel obliged. I loved Subsequent Emergency Dance Parties moved to an all-virtual format in a lot of unknowns. We had doing that first one when Stella

as the scale of the pandemic peaked; I’ll soon be returning to a hybrid our routine and it got dumped and I got up on Bernal Heights EVERYDAY DISASTER RESPONSE SPONTANEOUS UNTRAINED VOLUNTEER: of live and virtual participation now that we have more clarity on the over. Then it was just like, well, [a hilltop park in San Francisco]. effectiveness of social distancing. what are we doing? How do we There was this family of two dykes, In preparation for Assembly, I have also been experimenting with get back into a routine so that we an older toddler and his sister other modes of live outdoor movement while connecting through don’t just get immobile—that who was maybe five or six. I was

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY virtual technology. This is all new to me; I am acting as a Spontaneous fight or flight thing, that little dancing, and they weren’t. This Untrained Volunteer in a crisis. Taking inspiration from guided medi- freeze from fear. little kid was just looking at me tations, other virtual meeting experiments and artists’ audio walks like crazy. And I said, it’s a dance (Janet Cardiff, in particular), I am developing Evacuation Routes: ZEPH FISHLYN: Those first two party with friends in other states! Exploring Public Space in a Pandemic, in collaboration with Shawn weeks, my body was really And the two women were both Creeden and Artist Michael Bernard Stevenson Jr. vibrating. like, cool. And he started dancing This project will take dispersed participants on a live exploration along by himself as he walked by. of the internal and external landscapes of our varied geographies. In AW: Your project has been bene- It brought other people into it, it

addition to the basic first aid of getting people in motion together, the ficial for me because it gets me was just awesome. project explores the shifting realities of public space in the context of outside. It reminds me to stay covid-19. New cultures are emerging in encounters with strangers and connected to people larger than After the Evacuation Routes walk, in our relationship to the built environment, shaped in the crossfire of my immediate small circles. And I’m still surprised at myself, that health science, behavioral norms, and the human need for sociality. it also reminds me to move my my evacuation route was not the Can we find safe zones where our bodies meet public space? Can we body because it’s so easy to just physically easiest direction from use technology to create a collective impression of the space and time sit still. It’s so easy to sit in front my house. I intuitively went up we’re in? of a computer. There are so many the hill toward the green space,

27 26 rather down the hill to where It’s fun to be a participant in a there’s a transit corridor, and it’s project that has people in differ- easy to get out of the neighbor- ent places, like, hey, we’re all hood. It’s a steep hill, so there’s feeling a little bit squirrelly. Or stairs on some blocks instead even one person, like, you’re of a street—it’s kind of safe having this experience, and how and protected and hidden. The can you draw in other people farther you get up the hill, the to help support you through streets are less paved, there are that experience? They get to be still some areas that were late to witnesses and bystanders, but be incorporated into the city. I also participants. We get to bene- love the sense of overview of the fit vicariously from helping you city, getting the big picture. get through your emergency! EVERYDAY DISASTER RESPONSE SPONTANEOUS UNTRAINED VOLUNTEER: ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY

Top: Distance Dance, live/virtual hybrid, Bottom: “Dance with something Emergency Dance Party Network. Photo red”—virtual Emergency Dance by Mack McFarland. Party Network screenshot.

29 28 Borrowed Tool Project Archive cycle of wear. My tendency toward repair, in addition to leading workshops for varied skill levels, has taught me how important material at the Carlisle Tool Library in experimentation is to problem solving. The Borrowed Tool Project Carlisle, Pennsylvania Archive acknowledges this tactile learning process, and it freezes snapshots to view along the way. Mary Olin “Mo” Geiger Getting a glimpse into the way another person interacts with their environment seems commonplace, but sometimes I forget how often I gain knowledge from this kind of observation. This archive is in a space built for collaborative learning, applying knowledge, and reimagin- Sometimes during this period of distancing, I take a break from doing ing systems. It reminds us that all kinds of interaction—material and whatever it is that I’m doing, and wonder: what are the ways in which social—can be evidenced by recording intentional acts of sharing. we know each other? I know people’s eyes, their hands, the way they walk, the sound of their voices. I know the way they laugh and the music they listen to. But what would it be like to get to know some- The following exchange takes place between two separate recollections. one by observing what they make? Or by seeing what tools they use One is shared by Jeff Adams, cofounder of the Carlisle Tool Library. The to fix things? We do this naturally to a certain extent by recognizing a other is shared by Mary Adams, Jeff’s mom, who is on the Tool Library’s friend’s loaf of bread, the jingle of their keys, or duct tape quick-fixes board and served as its treasurer for the first two years of operation. The left behind. But most of these memories are not compiled anywhere recollections were edited and compiled by Mo Geiger. other than in our minds. The Borrowed Tool Project Archive exists within a Tool Library in JEFF ADAMS: I remember a time were needed, but just trying to get south-central Pennsylvania that serves members from six adjacent when Jo and I wanted to motorize it to work was fun. counties. The space encourages an accessible sharing economy that a bike. prioritizes relationships, and I’ve worked with this organization for a MA: I am still frustrated that I little over two years. Originally, I wanted to start the archive because I MARY ADAMS: The tools of my never was taught to maintain a realized that, although tools were being checked out from the library trade when I first began were bicycle, and at this point it would and work was being done, we didn’t have any way to look back and pencil, paper, and erasers. Later require someone with great

reflect upon members’ projects. Several of our members, including they included adding machines patience to teach me. BORROWED TOOL PROJECT ARCHIVE Brionna (pictured later), sent us some wonderful documentation of and finally computers. I have not their work, and the more I asked around, the more projects I came enjoyed learning to use comput- JA: But it did stick with me, in across. The Project Archive is both a practical and imaginative solu- ers, but I have made my peace terms of just being able to tinker. tion. It is a vessel that suggests the importance of documenting work, with them. Because that was one of the first

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY while at the same time creating a way to collectively explore personal projects I ever tinkered with, and efforts. By compiling this evidence of labor, we see the people of a JA: We took a lawnmower motor a lot of it was [with] Jo’s guid- community represented by the things that they make and repair. We and tried to mount it to a bike, ance. Even though we were both celebrate the mundane and the extraordinary simultaneously! While and we rigged up this mount and kind of new to it. At the time he thinking about the ways we can interact with this documentation, I added some chains and pulleys to worked on his own truck and his dream of a space in which all things evoke wonder. the motor. dad’s motorcycle I believe. But The cycles of the natural world around me seem more visible at this was before we were sixteen. this moment in time—with the turning of a fresh, green season and MA: I presume you could also add rainfall on warmer days. These spirals show up in everyday life, in printers and copiers to this mix. MA: I have no idea when the first both built and natural environments: things activate, they change, I am often surprised with how time I repaired something was, and then they regenerate. Last week, a large rip emerged in my bed’s proficient I have become chang- as girls were not encouraged to fitted sheet. I dug through a bin of scrap fabric and found several ing ink and toner cartridges. learn to use tools when I was leftover muslin sampler pieces that I made months ago. I sewed them a child unless they were for together to make a patch and pinned it to the sheet. I sewed along the JA: And in the end, it didn’t work; cooking, cleaning, sewing, or frayed edges, strengthening the material so that it could once again we didn’t have the right align- other household chores deemed be a bedcover. It’s different now, but it works, and shows signs of that ment with some of the parts that acceptable for girls to do. None of

31 30 these interested me, and sewing control of your surroundings, is was actually something I hated. a huge plus. My eyes were so bad they put me in bifocals in second grade to see MA: I have changed tires on my if it would help, but gave up when own when stuck in remote areas, I continually tripped on steps. but I always have to jack the car Threading a needle was torture down after I jack it up, since each for me. time I forget to loosen the nuts first. I can tie basic knots, and JA: You know, when you’re with a rope is a tool, I think. I was some- group of people, or with a friend, what dangerous with a knife, but then it always makes it more I can build a wicked fire and pitch memorable—working on some- a tent or put up a tarp. thing jointly. JA: There’s something really MA: I do remember a few times powerful about just experiment- that I actually learned to use a ing with tools. Not necessarily, tool and was glad of it. you know, using it in the exact specific way that it was meant for, JA: Trying to tinker on your but there’s many tools that have own by yourself, without prior multiple uses. And learning the knowledge, is kind of like fishing ins and outs of various tools is around in the dark. just part of the fun...

MA: When I first got my driver’s MA: I do remember, however, license and asked to take the fixing more than one exhaust

car, my father said I could, after I pipe with wire hangers. I think BORROWED TOOL PROJECT ARCHIVE showed him I was proficient with I surprised Jeff and his brothers charging a battery and changing when I did that once in Bedford. I a tire. can jump-start a car with manual transmission by rolling it, and

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY JA: You don’t always know what [I] used to park on hills with you’re doing. one particular vehicle to be able to do so since the battery died MA: He showed me how to do regularly. I guess that does not both in the driveway. I used to involve tools. know which color clamp to put where on a battery, but I would JA: ... figuring out what you can have to consult a cellphone to do do with certain things. it now. Top: Emily and her mom, Patti, Bottom: Mo assists Caroline M: I think the tool I like best in an archive image, showing their with textile repairs. Archived as JA: Yeah. I think the confidence may be a good snow shovel. I finished cutting boards after a part of a Tool Library workshop that comes with being able to enjoy getting out in the cold and workshop at the Tool Library. series called “Home Sewn.” learn something new, the confi- making a neat path through the dence to learn how to be in freshly fallen snow.

33 32 BORROWED TOOL PROJECT ARCHIVE ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY

Top: Process image of a wood- Right: Images from Brionna that fired cob oven project: made are now included in the Archive. from earth, stone, sand, straw, Here [top] she is pictured with and bricks. Submitted to the her son, working on their flooring archive by Jeff. project as a surprise for his dad. Second image [bottom] shows the tools they used on the project.

35 34 Trans Boxing and embodiment, Trans Boxing classes at the Door offer a space for young people to have fun together while learning to box. In March Nola Hanson (Lead Artist), Hill Donnell (Collaborator), and Liv Adler 2020, we began offering our weekly classes on Zoom, and have opened (Collaborator) them up to all members of the LGBTQ community. Around the time the stay-at-home order was issued, I started giving out simple exercises to our mailing list. Trans Boxing Conceptual Exercises invites participants to follow instructions and submit docu- In July 2017, I came up with a title (Trans Boxing), and set up some mentation of completed exercises that formalize the rituals of boxing simple parameters: I would hold a boxing class exclusively for training. In addition to providing practical and useful instructions for trans-identified people. The class would take place in a boxing gym. at-home boxing training, the parameters of the project reclaim the There would be a trans-identified trainer. All levels of experience day-to-day experiences of the boxer and position them as conceptual would be welcome. No one would be turned away if they didn’t have artworks in and of themselves. the funds to pay the suggested donation fee. These parameters were Over the past three years, we have developed a methodology that is powerful, because they directly inverted the typical exclusions found experimental, disciplined, and responsive. Through shifting some of in boxing and sports more broadly. the parameters of our project, our approach—developed with trans At the time, I’d been training and competing consistently for two and gender variant people in mind—is made available to people from years, and a few different simultaneous life factors—including my many different experiences and backgrounds. The fact that trans decision to start medically transitioning—allowed me to rethink my and gender variant people, as well as people who don’t identify that approach and my engagement with the sport. I began to wonder how way, find value in what we do highlights the reality of inclusive and I could use my own agency and abilities to make boxing—and poten- progressive practices: they benefit everyone. tially, the benefits I’d experienced—available to other people who are not generally included. I also started to reconsider my own position, —Nola Hanson and reorientated myself to engage with boxing more intentionally as an artist. I wanted to maintain certain aspects of the existing/dominant Brooklyn-based educator and Trans Boxing collaborator Hill Donnell system of boxing—the one from which I’d benefit so profoundly— recently had a chance to talk with Kay Martinez. Martinez is a Trans

while subverting, critiquing, and tweaking other elements, in an effort Boxing participant, and gender non-conforming Afro-Latinx boxer. TRANS BOXING to expand the reach and the possibilities of the discipline, its rituals, Martinez’s professional work focuses on diversit, equity and inclusion in and the communities created through its practice. higher ed. In this interview, conducted via Zoom on May 6, 2020, Donnell Since 2017, Trans Boxing has facilitated weekly boxing classes and Martinez discuss what drew martinez to boxing, the differences exclusively for t/gn/nb people at Overthrow Boxing Club, in the Lower they’ve experienced in affirming versus toxic athletic environments,

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY East Side of Manhattan, and has partnered with local community and what it’s been like training with Trans Boxing virtually during the organizations and gyms across the country to provide workshops, pandemic. classes, and lectures. By centering trans and gender variant people, Trans Boxing critically intervenes in the rigidly gendered system of HILL DONNELL: So how did you in that way and created the space athletics, and reconceptualizes how the sport can be made available hear about Trans Boxing? for people to join. to people who have limited access. More recently, we have started to experiment with shifting the orig- KAY MARTINEZ: I saw a post on HD: Where did you train, inal parameters of the project in order to make Trans Boxing classes Instagram. I was never able initially? And what were those more accessible and inclusive. To this end, we’ve held classes in to make a session in-person. I experiences like? unconventional locations, like pride centers, art galleries, and public tried to bring Trans Boxing to parks, and offered programs to a broader set of participants. Boston before covid-19. When KM: For the past two years, I’ve In the fall of 2019, collaborator Hill Donnell initiated a weekly the shutdown happened, and been going to franchise [gyms] boxing class for members of the Door, a youth drop-in center in Lower Trans Boxing went online, I was like Title Boxing, and 9Round. Manhattan. The boxing training and facilitation provided at the Door able to join virtually. So, I’m really I’ve also checked out Overthrow, is rooted in trauma-informed care and principles of positive youth appreciative that you all pivoted and Church Street Boxing. My development. By emphasizing skill acquisition, community building experiences in all of these spaces

37 36 had been predominantly cis-het. Trans Boxing has a totally differ- KM: For me, boxing was wrapped inherently and organically, as Most of the coaches I’ve had have ent approach, which I was hoping up with PTSD, and dealing with just a part of the space. In some been cis men. I’d rarely have a for. They’ve been really great the trauma that happened. I’ve of these other spaces [I’ve trained woman who was a coach. I’ve about inclusivity and being mind- been in classes where instructors at] there’s this high intensity, never seen a trans or non-binary ful about these things. would say, “Visualize someone where it’s like, “Go really hard!” coach in any of these gyms—at you want to hit.” And for me, as “Leave it all on the floor!” and least no one who was out—so HD: When did you become inter- someone who survived a hate that can lead people to hurting pronouns were always a thing. ested in boxing? How did you crime, that is not helpful. There themselves. And it’s not smart. While I thought the coaching come to the sport, in general? have been times, especially in the and instruction was really good first couple weeks [boxing], where For me [looks over their shoulder [at these gyms] and it was a KM: In November of 2018, I was I’d be hitting the bag and I’d have at the heavy bag hanging on their good workout, did I feel safe or physically assaulted by a cis white flashbacks of what happened to porch] boxing is a fitness practice comfortable, and did I have my man at a concert in New York. me. So that’s why the language and also a mental health practice. identity recognized? Absolutely He made comments about my that instructors use is so import- It has always been, but in this not. They would say toxic things, appearance, about my gender, and ant. And you know I had to work [covid-19] context, it takes on new that I think perpetuate an un- because I’m also Afro-Latinx, race through a lot of that stuff in meaning. So I think one thing healthy relationship with food, is inherently a part of it. I never those spaces by myself. So I had specifically with Trans Boxing, and body image, and working imagined that it would turn phys- cis-het men who were coaching it’s Saturday afternoons, and for out. I’ve had some coaches say, ical or violent. He hit me several saying stuff like, “Picture you’re me—right now especially—there like, “Let’s work hard so you times and actually landed some in a fight. Picture you wanna hurt are some times where I just don’t can earn your dinner!” As if you punches on my face. Prior to that someone.” And I’m like, “That is want to do anything. I can’t do have to earn food. And, you experience, I had been active in not OK.” And you know, I had to anything. know, comments like, “Oh CrossFit, and I played basketball work through a lot of that stuff in yeah, we’re working out for our in college, but I was not prepared those spaces by myself. And so I I’m feeling sad, I’m feeling summer bodies.” for hand-to-hand combat. What really appreciate this space [Trans depressed, I’m feeling anxious, happened to me, is what happens Boxing] where I don’t have to all these things. And having

HD: Based on those experiences, to trans people of color unfortu- worry about that happening. something that was scheduled, TRANS BOXING what were your expectations of nately all the time. And I wasn’t something I can plan my day Trans Boxing, and how did that prepared for it, I never thought it HD: Has participating in classes around, and something that I compare to what you’d found would be me. After that incident, had any effect with regard to want to do that I would feel moti- elsewhere? part of the healing process was for feeling connected to yourself, vated to get up for and do. And I

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY me to learn how to box, and learn your body, and/or other trans/ don’t know that I would do that KM: In trans spaces, I think we’re how to defend myself. gnc, non-binary, and queer folks, on my own. So having that there more cognizant of how harmful especially during quarantine? really helps me. It gives me some- that kind of language can be. So, HD: I’m extremely sorry that that thing to look forward to. I was hoping that Trans Boxing happened to you. Not to say I’m KM: As I mentioned before, no would have a gender-inclusive sorry for you, but to say that I hear one in the space, none of the HD: That’s really great to hear. frame, and a healthier approach and feel that that was a painful instructors, say things that are I feel like each of us really tries to fitness and wellness, and experience for you, as it would harmful. No one says anything to bring that, because, like you they’ve absolutely had that. I be for anyone. So I’m sorry that that perpetuates toxic associ- shared, we’ve all been in other felt like Trans Boxing would be that happened. But I’m glad that ations with exercise or body athletic spaces where it’s a really different because I would have it brought you into boxing, and image. It’s really affirmative, you toxic relationship between coaches who may be trans, gender that boxing has been a way for all are cognizant of these things. trainer and athlete and it just non-conforming, or non-binary, you to work through some of that You encourage people to listen creates this really toxic environ- and would be more knowledge- experience. Were there any hesita- to their bodies, you emphasize ment. So I appreciate you high- able, and wouldn’t misgender me tions around showing up to Trans the skills and the fundamentals. lighting that, ‘cause yeah... we or assume my gender pronouns. Boxing class for the first time? I appreciate how all you do that think about it!

39 38 TRANS BOXING

Top: Heavy Breathing Presents: Trans Boxing, San Francisco Art Institute,

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY San Francisco, California, 2020.

Bottom: Trans Boxing Interview: Kay Martinez and Hill Donnell, 2020.

Top: Trans Boxing Sparring Practice. Brooklyn, New York, 2019. Photo by Ada Jane McNulty.

Bottom: Heavy Breathing Presents: Trans Boxing, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California, 2020.

41 40 Performance for One Person: him in the corner of his favorite bookstore reading passages from his favorite books. He took us on a tour of his neighborhood. We asked him A series of public encounters questions about his life and he asked us questions about ours. Guillermo’s performance began with a prelude on Wednesday, choreographed with and for individual October 30, 2019, when he received a call from his favorite bookstore residents of Walla Walla, Washington indicating that a book was waiting for him. That afternoon, he picked up the book and read it at the store in his favorite chair. On Sunday, Tia Kramer with Sabina Rogers November 3, 2019, at 3:20 pm he arrived at a bakery he frequents, early as usual. This initiated a two and a half hour encounter that unfolded at the bakery and culminated on his walk home, around 6 pm. During this interval, performers enacted pedestrian choreography that One year ago, I gave birth to my second child, Edie. My work as a transformed mundanity into moments of synchronicity, store owners social choreographer and performer centers an ethic of care, so it was wrote Guillermo notes on their sandwich boards, a pastor delivered no surprise that during the sleepless hours tending to Edie, I rumi- a sermon for him, and an empty parking lot was transformed into a nated on the unseen tending—to children, pets, homes, gardens, and constellation of lights. Fifteen community members collaborated in intimate spaces—done by friends and neighbors. The connection the making of Guillermo’s performance; some were his dear friends, between our labor and care was immediate. I felt their lives pressing others are still strangers to him. on mine. I questioned:Wwhich moments of their labors are enacted The process of making Guillermo’s performance was the catalyst with pride and which precipitate dread? What gestures do they move for this ongoing series. It continues to evolve with various collabora- through without thought? And where do they find ease? Whether this tors and individual audience members in Walla Walla, Washington. was the work of a cook at a local restaurant or our seventeen-year- At the time of this publication in May 2020, two performances are old babysitter, the postal delivery worker or a professor of Medieval complete and a third is being developed for Tia’s postal worker, Literature, I became deeply curious about the affective dimensions of Phillip. In this moment of social distancing, the intimate relational their everyday lives. practices that are at the center of this project have seeped into our Performance for One Person, a series of public encounters choreo- collective consciousness. This series continues to develop with the graphed with and for individual residents of Walla Walla, Washington intention to explore the possibilities of caring for one another in the

was devised as a mode of interruption. Each performance is face of widespread disruption. We approach performance making as PERFORMANCE FOR ONE PERSON researched in relationship with a single audience member and testimony both to the subjective state of individual bodies and to the created in collaboration with our shared communities. Woven into histories that have molded them. These performances mingle, perco- the routine of the audience member’s life, these encounters unfold late, and pour into each other. There is no single thread, but rather a over the course of hours or days and often end in one culminating meshwork of tangled narratives.

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY event. They rearrange elements of daily life—relationships, site and community—blurring the line between everyday and performance. At Dusk We Walk Home Together, Performance for Guillermo was the At Dusk We Walk Home Together, Performance for Guillermo was first performance in this series. It was developed alongside writer and created in collaboration with Guillermo and David Cosby, Tiffany Cain, performer Sabina Rogers and made with and for our mutual friend, Kathryn Padberg, Nhi Cao, Reverend Nathaniel Muhlberg, Julie Jones, Guillermo. At the onset of this project, Sabina and I had each shared a Jackie Wood, Phil Lynch, Maddy Gold, Jose Cedeno, Fields Ford, Lucy distinct and memorable space with Guillermo. I met him at a meeting Evans Rippy, and Joel Barton (listed in the order they appeared). for the Walla Walla Immigrant Rights Coalition, where we then worked together on numerous projects. Sabina lived in his apartment building, directly one story below him. Together we were struck by his deep attunement to the world around him. Guillermo holds an inquisitive disposition. He studies things closely and reflects generously. He is also a remarkable salsa dancer and a very patient teacher (Sabina can attest). After Guillermo said yes to our strange proposition, we visited him at his work and his home. He taught us the most efficient way to crack an egg, as he regularly cracks around five-hundred eggs a day. We sat with

43 42 The following is an abridged version of a conversation that took place look into your experience for how somebody playing music. And on November 25, 2019 between Guillermo and Jennifer Bayne-Lemma, to act. Maybe in your brain it’s the church is open just for me. a professor of philosophy at Walla Walla Community College. Bayne- like, “OK, I haven’t been in this Lemma sat down to talk with Guillermo about his experience with this place before.” So I really don’t So by that time I’m totally over- project. Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity by Tia know what to do. whelmed. I don’t know what to Kramer and Sabina Rogers, and reviewed for content and accuracy by do. I mean, have you ever been in Guillermo and Bayne-Lemma. JBL: Right. a sacred place? As I talk about this it makes me remember places JENNIFER BAYNE-LEMMA: Tia and and we’re gonna talk and maybe G: So OK, let’s relax. where I have been—places where Sabina have shared fragments of we’re gonna take a walk. you feel there is a presence of God your performance with me, but One of the words in the instruc- or whatever you want to call it—a I am curious to know about your Then I go there. There is a book tions that has stayed with me for presence of something that you experience. Can you walk me waiting for me and flowers in my a while is that when you don’t cannot understand. And you say, through how it began? special place. I go to my spot. know what to do, to ground “OK, I’m sorry.” “Thank you very There are instructions from Tia yourself and see. That’s what I much.” “I love you.” “Just let me GUILLERMO: This is going to be in a book. There is something did and that’s when everything pray and I’ll be out.” a little bit challenging for me. I I have to read and a map where started. haven’t talked to anybody about I’m gonna be walking. I start You know how people say, “If it. Because how—how do you reading this book that talks JBL: Is there a moment from the you had a chance to ask God a talk about this? How do I even about the ordinary. I have it here. performance that remains partic- question, what would you ask?” I have the right to talk about this? [Gestures to the table.] The book ularly vivid for you? wouldn’t even ask. Probably the It’s like giving somebody a gift is Ordinary Affects. only thing that I would be asking that you don’t know how to keep. G: I mean. It’s hard to pick. is, “Why me?” That’s it. How to talk to people about this If it’s OK, I’m not gonna go into There is this one moment. A gift that you just got? Especially detail. It will take a long time. moment where Tia and I are When I saw this, it was that for somebody that—I consider And it’s something that makes walking together. We are walking feeling. I didn’t know where to

myself very ordinary. So to talk me uncomfortable. Because it’s together, in the performance, sit, what to do. I just wanted to PERFORMANCE FOR ONE PERSON about confronting something hard for me to express. and then we get to the church. be quiet and listen to them play. ordinary with something extraor- We sit on the steps outside. We It was totally overwhelming. I dinary. How can you put that So I start reading this book. I look at the sunset. It’s the first mean, still the feeling is really together? It’s for me—it’s very, love to read. I usually go there to time I’ve looked at the sunset on hard for me to express. But it is...

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY very challenging. read. And I’m there when all of a Alder Street. And it’s beautiful. it is what it is. sudden I see Sabina crossing the I start talking with Tia and it Before the performance Tia and street. I’m talking about outside comes to mind that maybe we And so I listened to them. I didn’t Sabina already knew a lot of my, a of the bakery. She’s crossing have met before in another life. know if I needed to interact with lot of what I do. They know about the street and she’s performing them. But I had seen one of the myself, about my work, what these dance moves or expressing Then I see the doors of the performers before. The person I think, what I like. So before herself in movement. Then all of church open. First of all, this is who was playing the guitar. I had everything starts they tell me a sudden I see two other people a place that brings me a lot of seen him before and I knew that we’re going to meet at the bakery. involved. By that time I’m kind of memories. It is a very special he is a very talented musician. I don’t even remember the time. like, “OK, this is something that place. The first meeting of the And to realize that somebody so I think it was 3. I go to this bakery I wasn’t expecting.” And when Walla Walla Immigrant Rights talented is doing something for very often. Sometimes three you are—I’m a very methodical Coalition was here. It has in you—something you could never times a day. I usually sit in the person. I’m methodical and not so many ways changed my life. imagine in your life—it’s just, same spot. So I go there think- very optimistic. I don’t expect And I consider myself to be very there’s nothing to compare it to. ing that I’m gonna meet them many good things. So when good friends with Nathaniel, the So if you can, imagine this: an confronted with that you try to pastor. I see inside that there is

45 44 empty church. No lights and there this! This is the best feeling that I you are. Listening to this music. have memory of.” How can I give it to you so that you can hold it JBL: If you could say anything to in your heart? To wake it up and the community members and feel it again and tell you, “Here, friends who collaborated to create this is the most precious thing this work, what would you say? that I have.”

G: Gratitude. [Long pause.] If I could pay, I would pay everybody with that, to hold that There is nothing... I have nothing feeling of—of happiness when to pay for this. And I know that you don’t even know that you are I’m probably putting it in a very happy. Of being safe when you trivial way to say pay, but in my don’t even know that you have to life—in the way that I have been be safe. Of being loved and loving raised—if you receive something, somebody without knowing that you have to give something in you are loving and being loved. exchange. Just to say thank you. But how? How can I put that in [Silence.] I mean, there are no your hands or in your heart? words for this. This transcends all that I am, and I think all that I have no money. I am a cook. we are. If I have anything to give But anyway... [He laughs.] Then to you, I will give it. I have no words or no way to pay for it. Just the usual, “Muchas The only thing that comes to my gracias, muchas gracias.” And mind is to give you a feeling... I’m honored, I’m beyond... not

But how can I give you a feeling happy. It would be too trivial to PERFORMANCE FOR ONE PERSON or memory of my childhood? One say happy. I’m beyond—beyond that is very precious, the most grateful for all of the people who precious memory of my child- have been working on this. And hood. How can I give it to you? now that’s all I can say.

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY How can I just take it and put it in your heart and tell you, “Enjoy

Top: 150 eggs for German pancake batter. Image by Sabina Rogers.

Bottom: Parking lot on the corner of Colville Street and East Poplar Street. Image by Fields Ford.

47 46 Prosperity Gardens in in the journey. Each plant and container should have multiple uses, being light to carry or disassemble, easily stored or can be hatched Jantzen Beach RV Park down during travel. Some travelers carried plants long term but most carried the essentials to be able to create pop-up gardens if need be. Shelbie Loomis, with tours and conversations conducted in collaboration I began to see relationships between other art projects that worked with Butch and Jodi Hurtline, Gary, Jeanie, Hannah, and Maxine. with sailing and seeds. The Seed Journey by Future Farmers explored migration routes of ancient seeds by reversing the journey back to the origin with the use of sea ships and artists/sailors to carry the cargo. Through the stories and conversations of each garden, I began to envi- I became fascinated with my neighbors when I noticed how they used sion RV’ers as sailors voyaging to familiar areas they once traveled to, plants to showcase their creativity and curating their lots with visual carrying a plant back home to its origin. cues to communicate their residential status. I noticed it the moment During the summer of 2020, as traveling becomes less restrictive, we parked our rig and climbed out of the truck from our long jour- Prosperity Gardens in Jantzen Beach RV Park will be exploring home- ney. My neighbors used contouring techniques to line the outside of made, collapsible garden kits that can match the lifestyle and qualifi- their RVs with temporary and movable gardens should they need to cation of each RV resident to have their own garden regardless of their leave. However, since the national emergency, migration has been stationary status. The participants will then stay in touch via social suspended, making travelers dock for the foreseeable future. The media and other means as they document their prosperity gardens on moment created a temporary permanence in which people were meta- the road. This is an example of one of the activities that will be explored. phorically laying down roots until they felt it was safe to leave. It became important to engage in storytelling and to ask for personal garden THE PARTNERSHIP. tours, all of which showed me that archiving contemporary nomadic culture could be explored and celebrated through plants and art. Through partnership with Artist Michael Bernard Stevenson Jr., and Prosperity Gardens in Jantzen Beach RV Park is a socially engaged Kirk “Greener” Rea, I was invited to explore a larger formalization art project that activates and archives container gardening with RV of organizing people and their gardens and bringing value to the residents during the covid-19 pandemic. The project engages the resi- labor being conducted in social isolation. The Prosperity Garden dents of Jantzen Beach RV Park, a neighborhood on Hayden Island Network (PGN), sponsored by City Repair Project and Village Building

in Portland, Oregon. Through a series of garden tours, storytelling PROSPERITY GARDENS IN JANTZEN BEACH RV PARK Convergence, is a decentralized project that allows artists, commu- and art projects, the objective is to encourage hope and sustainabil- nity activists, and grassroots movements to register their gardens as a ity, and to strengthen the social fabric. Through partnership with means to cultivate land and community. The Jantzen Beach RV Park the Prosperity Garden Network, all gardens are then linked together was invited to be one of the first neighborhoods to register. What felt through a registry to provide Portland residents with solitary support important during this time was to retroactively claim citizen uprise

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY through a common labor practice. The project aims to address gardening as an artistic conduit to bring attention to the lack of govern- social issues like healthy eating, positive movements toward climate ment preparedness, support for each other through labor for our fami- change through using recycled materials, and community building lies and neighborhoods, and then be rewarded by the produce grown. exercises during social distancing. As unemployment rates reach new The registration was simple, asking basic need questions, the square and unforeseen levels, RV residents are spending more time outside footages of the areas being cultivated, and a drawing of the garden. to enjoy the sunshine and dirt, and engaging with the RV artist-in- Prosperity Gardens at Jantzen Beach RV Park has just begun, and resident’s inquisitive questions. has been scheduling events into the summertime and harvest time. During my casual visits, I asked my neighbors to share their thoughts The RV Park has been measured, and a drawing mapping out all the about the functionality of gardens when living in an RV and what quali- spots that have gardens will be registered. Throughout the upcom- fications each garden would have to serve to be able to keep one. ing months, the RV participants and I will be exploring re-creating projects like Seed Journey, gardening performance, garden tours, soil THE ISLAND WITH MANY SAILORS. and plant exchange, and a safe community dinner where all can come back together to celebrate our harvest. Just as seeds planted in the late My neighbors described their RVs like seafaring ships, justifying that springtime, the project will continue to grow and adapt to the needs each item in their RV had to meet qualifications to be able to join of the residents.

49 48 The following is a conversation between Shelbie Loomis and Gary and welcoming than to walk up to a the two big plants up front, they Jeanie, Jantzen Beach RV Park residents. They are speaking from inside motor home that has nothing on were given to Gary not too long their RV during a light spring shower. the outside. after we were married and that was many years ago. I like simple SHELBIE LOOMIS: Maybe we can J: You meet all types of people SL: With the current situation, things, simple hardy plants that start by talking about where you from all facets of life. Because what I have been thinking don’t take a lot of care like the came from up to this point? you are basically living in...not a and researching about Victory orchid I have behind you. The trailer park per se, you meet a lot Gardens and people in the 1930s one over here is perfect because JEANNIE: We had decided six years of people that are just passing when the United States was going it’s one of those where you don’t ago to transform our lives and through. We don’t really become through the Great Depression, have to water it because it’s silk. become movers and shakers of lifelong friends with them but the US government told the citi- [We all laugh together] The big this world. We wanted to travel, they are friends that we stay in zens that their civic duties were one does have some meaning to to see the different parts of the touch with via social media. So to plant Victory Gardens to help us because it was given to us by a country, I guess. It was a decision yeah, we met a lot of different create morale and to supplement dear friend many years ago and I we pondered for a couple of years types of people. Some are living rationing. You mentioned that keep cutting it back, repotting it, and just decided to go for it. We the lifestyle that we do, some that you are giving plants away to your giving them away. got rid of everything. Sold every- are full time. family, have you thought about it thing, and what we didn’t sell, as a means to feed your family? GARY: Some of the people in this we divvied up to our children. We SL: Something that has come up park have a cutting of this plant, just decided to hit the road. with some of my interviews has J: Honestly, no. What is happen- it’s over forty years old. been that a lot of times you have to ing is so surreal still to me. It’s SL: I would imagine that you select items in your life that have hard for me to wrap my head SL: When you travel do you came to that decision after you multiple uses. So people start to around... this whole thing. I am leave your plants right there? raised a family? have reasons for having plants, doing it [gardening] to give myself [Gesturing to the front of the RV what would be your reasons? an outlet, does that make sense? driver’s dashboard] J: Yes, our children were grown

and we were already grandpar- J: I like plants. I like feeling like SL: Yes, I mean I think that I feel J: No, I actually take them all out PROSPERITY GARDENS IN JANTZEN BEACH RV PARK ents by that time. And that’s I have roots, even if it’s for five that way and a lot of people feel and put them in the shower when when we traveled between or six months. It gives you that that way—that gardening and it’s a traveling day. It is the best Florida and Washington State home feeling. It makes people being outside are very therapeu- way for me to secure them and so frequently because we had a that come over feel welcomed. tic—to think about something when we stop somewhere I can

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY daughter and grandson here, and I have always had houseplants, else other than the craziness. water them. And when they are a daughter and grandchildren in and as you can see I have plants in the shower, they get the sun. Tampa, Florida... I miss having in here [gestures to the front J: Exactly, I mean I sometimes They don’t move around because a “home base” but yet when we of the RV cabin] I just recently feel like I can’t get out and do they all fit in there perfectly. Just are in Washington, we have our started putting things outside the gardening that I want to do enough plants that they fit in there daughter here and in Florida, we and if it’s still there when we are here so I will go to my daughter’s perfectly and they are secure. have our daughter there and that getting ready to leave, of course, house and do some yard work becomes my second home. And I keep my houseplants with me there. It is very therapeutic. we treat it as such. but what I would have outside, I would transfer to my daughter. SL: Tell me about some of the SL: So living in this culture, can We are doing tomato plants, plants that you have in here? you talk about the people that you we might plant more herbs and have met? veggie plants like a little garden J: Some of these plants I have or something... To me the had for many, many, many years, plants at least make it feel more and I keep cutting them. Like

51 50 Top: Gary and Jeanie’s garden, photo credit Shelbie Loomis.

Left: Portable potatoes in Home Depot buckets. Photo credit Shelbie Loomis. PROSPERITY GARDENS IN JANTZEN BEACH RV PARK ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY

53 52 PROSPERITY GARDENS IN JANTZEN BEACH RV PARK ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY

Top: Alice and Mike’s garden. Photo Top: Maxine’s garden. credit Shelbie Loomis. Photo credit Shelbie Loomis.

Bottom: Jodi sharing her rosemary. Bottom: Pansy making a home Photo credit Shelbie Loomis. between the cracks. Photo credit Shelbie Loomis.

55 54 A Field Guide to a Crisis A conversation with Justin Maxon and Aaron Ochoa. Ochoa is the local organizer who helps recruit participants, deliver supplies, provide Justin Maxon in collaboration with Aaron Ochoa, house manager at support, and ensure momentum in the project. Sage Sober Living Home. JUSTIN MAXON: How long have AO: As an addict, I would typically you been living at the Sage Sober isolate myself from others, includ- The following is the statement used to secure funding from the National Living House? ing loved ones, you know, like for Geographic Society’s covid-19 Grant. days at a time and not really go AARON OCHOA: I will be at the Sage anywhere. So that’s helped with With the covid-19 crisis, we are reshaping our collective under- house for two years this August. the social isolation that is part of standing of what crisis is. For the first time, the privileged many are the covid-19 crisis. confronted by an existential threat and questions of our own mortal- JM: And what’s your current ity. For those navigating the transition from substance use and incar- position there? JM: How does the social isolation ceration to sobriety, these are familiar lines of questioning. Before now with covid-19 compare to the coronavirus pandemic, there was already an epidemic affecting AO: I am the current male house your time when you were using? millions of people across this country: the opioid crisis. manager. A Field Guide to a Crisis replicates and subverts the institution of AO: It’s similar in that both are the “expert voice,” in the context of a crisis, within the framework of a JM: What are your responsibili- very lonely but different because “Field Guide,” by uplifting the stories of those who have prevailed in ties there? while using people that I cared their lifetime over grave inequity in their access to safety and care. The about didn’t want me around. Field Guide will activate a population of formerly incarcerated individ- AO: My responsibilities are “If you’re like this, I don’t want uals at various stages in their addiction recovery, currently residing in counseling, if people are having to see you.” Now with covid-19 sober living homes in Eureka, California, as storytellers whose experi- a hard time testing, making sure people want to be around you, ences uniquely qualify them as educated voices on grieving the loss of people do their chores on time, “I really like you, I want to see community amid crisis. Eureka is my hometown and has become home drug testing. It’s not part of my you,” but we are isolated to be again. My story of substance abuse lies here, as does my recovery. responsibilities, but I also offer cautious. Most people aren’t used

Each participant will be given the same series of weekly creative rides and help people if they need to not having people that you are A FIELD GUIDE TO A CRISIS assignments over the course of the project to serve as agents of help. close to in your life. curious investigation that will cultivate a living, nuanced, and multi- dimensional perspective that examines what state-mandated social JM: So how can you choose to take JM: Did the loneliness during distance means to a population of people whose broader commu- on that role? your abuse make you a stronger

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY nity has long imposed social distance through the form of stigma person? and state violence. The project will generate unconventional spaces AO: I chose to take on the role that will build inclusivity, community participation, and the value of because it helps me be more AO: It made me more self-reliant. person and place. accountable for my actions. And This digital archive of stories offers a space to bring together to be someone that other people AO: Being lonely in my addiction populations that before covid-19 were already physically and socially look up to. was completely different because distanced through the social and political tools of otherization. The sometimes you have those archive will be used in a public awareness campaign to generate JM: How long have you been in feelings of, “Oh, fuck them, they dialogue that uplifts their unique perspectives of how substance use that role? don’t understand, I’m all right, impacts our social and physical landscape, and to foster a more holis- it’s them that has a problem,” but tic understanding that replaces a stigmatized stereotype of substance AO: Since November 2018. then sometimes you see a loved use and user. The campaign will include a Field Guide publication one and you feel worse about distributed locally for free, posters wheat pasted on buildings and JM: How do you feel your experi- yourself.” During covid-19, you displayed on billboards, along with public service announcements. ence in recovery has prepared you don’t have those same feelings for the covid-19 crisis? involved. It’s not like they don’t —Justin Maxon want to see you because they

57 56 don’t like what you’re doing in there that aren’t abiding by these gone from I to we, our health is never relate to another outside of your life. guidelines. tied together. their own experience, now they might actually relate, they might JM: The isolation that you feel JM: Yeah. You look at all the people JM: Do you think that now see the other in themselves. now in covid-19 is nowhere near protesting or gathering en masse people on the fringes are some- compared to what you felt in your and just going out into public, as how included back into society? JM: Indeed, in our collective grief period of use? It’s small fries? if this is just a bad dream that they Like, is there an opportunity as a society, now is an opportu- will wake up from. for them to be more included in nity to include voices previously AO: Yeah, exactly. the social fabric? never admitted possessing expert JM: So, you’ve dealt with having knowledge, into the collective JM: The difference with covid-19 your life controlled, following AO: Yeah, going from I to we dialogue around how we build a is people are isolating more by procedure and guidelines estab- makes a big difference. Someone better future beyond extraction, choice, not isolating because lished for you, it’s almost become with a completely different social the I, to inclusion, the we. everyone that cares for you told second nature? status for their entire life might you you have a problem, and they don’t want to see you anymore AO: Yeah, I’ll forget sometimes until you’re not using, like my but it’s become completely *Project is in progress, approximately one month into the process. Some kids choosing not to call and me second nature to me. of the content will eventually be transformed by the participants into choosing not to see them, like me imagery that resembles the identifies of a field guide (i.e., simple hand actually avoiding them. JM: How do you see covid-19 drawings). All photographs were captured by me with the participant opening up a space for people serving as artist director. JM: You’ve done the hard work of to see each other as being being alone? The hardest? connected beyond our differ- Assignment #2: ences? We’ve gone very quickly AO: Yeah. from I to we. Part 1: Take multiple sheets of paper. Each sheet has under- gone the pressures of change from its original form. The

JM: You spoke about how your AO: An I statement would be like, piece of paper takes the place of your body. How has your A FIELD GUIDE TO A CRISIS period of substance use prepared it’s not just I wearing my mask body been impacted throughout the different traumas you you for covid-19, but what about when I go to the grocery store, it’s have experienced? Using glue and paper make a sculpture your recovery? we wearing a mask when we go showing the kinds of force that your body has endured by? to the grocery store. It really has

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY AO: Well, being in drug court put everyone at the same level no Part 2: Photograph your sculpture in a scene that best illus- during my recovery forced me matter your social status or your trates your idea: to be accountable every day, do good looks. Yeah, in some ways what they wanted me to do. So it’s leveled the playing field. in a lot of ways that prepared me—responsibility. If the best JM: How do you feel that it has remedy every time I go out, benefited people on the fringes, when I have to use a credit card like people who are substance machine, or when I pump gas, users that are normally viewed as is to use hand sanitizer or wear being not valuable to society? a mask in public, those are easy things that are our own personal AO: Maybe there is some common responsibility that we kind of ground and they feel the same as expect everyone to do. But you everyone else, maybe they don’t see sometimes a lot of people out feel like people are looking at them as much. Because we’ve

59 58 “My chest...The place in my soul where love and laughter once lived, dark and empty void, no heart, aching lonely wretched hole, my chest.” —Michelle M. Mille A FIELD GUIDE TO A CRISIS ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY

“I was homeless for four months before I had to go to jail. I went to jail for using. I was homeless because I moved from Rio Dell when my landlord sold his property. I never found another place to live because I decided to use all the time. I’ve been at Clean and Sober Living for four years and have been clean for four years.” —Stephanie Essig 61 60 A FIELD GUIDE TO A CRISIS ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY

“My scared eyes teddy bear. The gathering of “The pressures in my head.” animals excludes me because to them I’m —Aaron an outcast with dreams of being somebody someday that will be famous.” —Cecilia Langan

63 62 The Green New Real The covid-19 pandemic has revealed an incredibly broken system in every way, but has allowed a time of pause for Addee Kim, Carrie Brownstein, Eric John Olson, Harrell Fletcher, our earth and for all of us to reevaluate our structures, our and Salty Xi Jie Ng political systems, habits of living, and to be grateful for one another. I worry that once this is ‘over’ everyone will be scrambling to get back to the way things were and forget. I worry that the birds will once more be drowned out by the Created in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic and subsequent planes and cars and busyness. I worry that the sea air will fade economic shutdown, the Green New Real began as a space for gath- without notice. We need to carry this gratitude and care with ering evidence of a possible future. While we continue to collectively us. We cannot forget. grapple with the global trauma of the pandemic, we created this project to ask how we can use the insight gleaned during this time to Evelyn Frances is a musician, songwriter, and yoga teacher living in reshape our ecological imagination and the world around us. Brooklyn, New York. Our ambitious goal is for the Green New Real to be a global gathering space for news articles, data, discourse, and everyday evidence It’s complicated for a woman because so many of these good of positive changes in the natural world and people’s lives as a result environmental practices, this consciousness, dovetail with of recent global shutdowns. Climate change is a long-term issue that a kind of totally engaged domesticity that, for many of us, it affects all of our well being and, just like covid-19, it disproportion- has taken a lifetime of willpower to overcome. To assert that ately harms marginalized populations and exposes economic and the best use of me is not necessarily in the kitchen or even the racial inequalities. How can those of us with the privilege and ability home; that I might prioritize my work without being a bad to do so adapt to using fewer resources? How can we translate our mother or wife. I’ve been able to ‘do it all,’ have this career goals into legislative action? How can we encourage the institutions and be there for my child, with the help of the cleaning lady we engage with to also change? And how can we move forward with an and Amazon and food delivery and lots of other little short- approach that is more sustainable to all populations on earth? cuts that now are less quick and more dangerous—for other The everyday evidence is here: less consumption, decreased air and people and me. The point is that many of them always were, car travel, and regional food sourcing is helping improve air quality in terms of the environment. This cost was always there and

and reduce CO2 emissions, while also reminding us how much we global warming is much starker, less recoverable than this THE GREEN NEW REAL share the earth with animals. Now is the time to move forward with a pandemic. So I am muddling through these issues, as a mom, more thoughtful state of living. Together, we can build a global case feminist, full-time working artist. for the Green New Real. To start these conversations, we have invited people to participate Miranda July is a filmmaker, writer, and artist.

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY in a number of ways: Unlike covid-19 (at the time we wrote this), climate change has a vaccine now. That vaccine is a clean energy infrastruc- DISPATCHES ture. We know what it looks like—massive electrification with wind turbines, solar cells, electric vehicles, heat pumps, and We invite people in different parts of the world with a variety of a much-expanded and bidirectional electrical grid to glue it perspectives to reflect on this pandemic and how it is shifting the all together. Incredibly, if we make the commitments to elec- way we see ourselves and our relationship to the natural world. How trify our infrastructure at the scale required, we will lower the have the personal, political, economic, cultural, and environmental energy costs of all Americans, especially if we can accompany responses changed both what feels possible and what feels beyond the project with an appropriate set of financing mechanisms possibility? As the world works toward relief and recovery from this that will make the future affordable for everyone. global crisis, which changes would you like to see continue in society and in your own life? Saul Griffith is an inventor, a MacArthur Fellow, and the founder and So far, responses have been shared by comedians, students, inven- CEO of Otherlab. tors, scientists, journalists, professors, filmmakers, and historians.

65 64 ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE Build new ecologies centered around local farms and makers, which encourage bartering and discourage hoarding. People are also invited to share images and videos of anecdotal evidence of the “green new real” that they are seeing in their day-to- Be mindful when shopping to purchase products that have day lived experience. little to no packaging material.

Catalogue all the plastic bags in my home, give them names 2020 PEOPLE’S MICRO CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCES (maybe), and use them for the rest of my life. We are launching the People’s Micro Climate Change Conferences Try to convince three people a month to reduce their meat as the first in a series of prompts and participatory projects where we intake. invite people to use their creativity to address the larger contexts of climate change and the Green New Real. Close any of my credit cards that have ties to the fossil fuel In response to the cancellation of the 2020 United Nations Climate industry (i.e., divest). Change Conference as a result of the covid-19 pandemic, as well as the failure of our nations’ leaders to follow through with the Paris Power my home with only renewable energy sources. Agreement, we are calling on people from around the globe to host their own “micro climate change summits” with friends, lovers, Support national legislation to put a price on carbon. family, coworkers, and neighbors. It is our hope that these group climate agreements may serve as accessible road maps for people to Support environmental justice and indigenous organizing organize around, and as blueprints for elected officials and private efforts to shrink the fossil fuel industry. sector decision-makers to find their way toward a less carbon-heavy future for all. Be more politically active in my local government to encourage small-scale changes in my community that make big A COLLECTIVE MANIFESTO differences for the environment and the people.

In place of an interview between the project creators, we have invited Oppose with my vote and voice any business, industrial, or THE GREEN NEW REAL our friends, family members, community, and social media contacts political initiative that does not include some awareness to to respond to a call for a collective manifesto reflecting on the project reduce carbon emissions. and its questions. You too can share your declarations at: thegreennewreal.com/collective-manifesto Cancel my Amazon Prime account and attempt to shop

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY Given the context of personal or political responses to the exclusively in my local stores or direct from suppliers pandemic, complete the following sentence with something new when necessary. you plan to do that will contribute in any way to helping the climate change crisis. Drive less and spend more time appreciating walking and biking as transport. As lockdowns ease, I will... Continue to understand and promote the concept of civic Plant drought tolerant and native plant species to save water, intelligence, an active collective capacity in which people as I live in an area with low rainfall. everywhere can participate in research and action that incorporate creativity, reason, fairness, and compassion towards Encourage my employer (a large audit and consulting firm) social and environmental goals. to work with clients remotely by default and only fly to client sites as a last resort. Commit to always having a reusable tote, trying to remember to carry around reusable utensils and straws, and to use my Learn food preservation traditions from my grandma and own cup when ordering my daily coffee. build her a home garden.

67 66 Research the links between local actions and global effects and help minimize current and future negative effects on economically depressed and otherwise marginalized communities as we move forward fighting for climate and social justice.

Do my part to help create and maintain global networks in which people can share knowledge and cooperate effectively in ways that leverage our collective efforts.

Signed Addee Kim, David Jimison, Devon Midori Hale, Doug Schuler, Eric John Olson, Evelyn Frances, Evelina Miropolsky, Jessica Olson, Paul Hlava Ceballos, Peter Steller, Salty Xi Jie Ng, Sola Yoon, Zeph Fishlyn, and others who wish to remain anonymous.

The Green New Real would not be possible without the help of many, many people. Special thanks to Cleveland Leffler, Tom Leimkuhler, Sarah Minnick, Jordan Rosenblum, and all the contributors. THE GREEN NEW REAL ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY

Top: Altered image of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement celebration.

Bottom: Screenshot of the Green New Real website (thegreennewreal.com), 2020.

69 68 THE GREEN NEW REAL ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY

Collective Manifesto drawing by Lucy Freya Korn, 2020.

Anecdotal evidence by Brianna Ortega, 2020.

71 70 Be a Local of My Life The following is Oretega’s e-mail to participants detailing the artist’s personal landmarks. Brianna Ortega with participants Sarah, Morgan, Stirling, Andrea, Sean, Neil, Will, Mindy, Emily, Max 1. The grassy corner of [blank] street and [blank] street. I spent a lot of days and nights out there on the grass, sometimes just sitting in the sun, sometimes having a BBQ, some- Note: Specific town name and surf spots were eliminated from this article times talking to Neil the neighbor and I used to live at the for personal privacy and respect for locals. This town and the surf spots house there. within have a lot of localism. Being a surfer in this community, I could get in trouble for naming the exact town and spots. Not only that, but I 2. [Blank] surf spot—the house next to the public restroom. want to respect small surf communities and to protect the privacy of the This house I first went inside of in 2014 when my friend residents. The participants live in artist Brianna Ortega’s community, a Joey was friends with Travis. I then became friends with his small beach town on the Pacific Northwest coast. surfer-surgeon sister 4 years later. One night we went inside after surfing and ate food, one of which was a salad with For my project Be a Local of My Life, I sent out an e-mail to community nut dressing on it. I am allergic to nuts, so I had to grab new members inviting them to participate in a local tour to explore five lettuce out without the nuts. specific landmarks that have significance to me. Our community is situated in a small town on the Pacific Northwest Coast. In the e-mail, 3. In the ocean at this spot in the water and directly across the community members were invited to go to each of my personal from the fluorescent yellow house—a whale jumped here in landmarks and take a photo there as documentation of going to the april 2020, about 12 feet from me in the water, two times. I place from my memory. After working through the personal land- caught the whale’s wave on my surfboard both times. I tell mark tour, the community members e-mailed photos back to me, people I survived the whale of 2020. along with a written response to each memory. Once I received these responses, each community member received a certificate for being 4. [Blank] Beach—follow the trail here to the beach. Walk all a “Local of Brianna’s Life.” Inspired by both surf localism and local- the way to the highest point of the dune looking at the waves. ity, Be a Local of My Life explores what it means to be a local person This is where one time someone asked me if I had meth. I

in a community. In this project, community is defined as the people also spent many times watching sunsets here with my friends BE A LOCAL IN MY LIFE you come in contact with and have relational, verbal, social, or object and roommates on empty nights where the sky looked like a exchanges with on a recurring basis. How do intimate relationships different shade of pink each time. with a place shape a community? How can our identification as a local be shaped by memory-based knowledge instead of only site-specific 5. [Blank] Parking lot—this parking lot is only for people who

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY factual information about a place? How does power, memory, and surf [blank] surf spot. My roommate and I went here in her time influence a community member’s journey to becoming a local? car one day wearing big jackets so nobody could identify who The Assembly event centered on Be a Local of My Life will detail the we were. The surfers in the parking lot questioned us imme- project, open up discussion on what it means to be a local, with artist diately upon arrival and I told them I was from the clouds Brianna Ortega and guest feminist surf and surf localism researcher, above Astoria. You cannot go to park at the parking lot unless Dr. Rebecca Olive, fromtThe University of Queensland. you are a [blank] surf spot local.

—Brianna Ortega Neil’s replies to Brianna’s prompts.

1. I moved here in 1979, first living on the end studio in the gray building on the south side of [blank] street then into my present house January 1980. So that corner has been part of my life for four decades. Of all the people who have come and gone in the duplex on that corner you, Will, and Sarah have been the friendliest.

73 72 2. Travis and his sister April [Cockcroft] were both students couldn’t be out there. And that’s to someone’s life, you share expe- I worked with at the local high school. April still has the OK. So there were all of these riences at geographic points. How high school pole vault record at 10’ 1". Their mother, Lyndi, connections. I really liked Be a many years have you been here? spent some time working and volunteering in the counseling Local of My Life. Anything where department at the high school. you can build and dignify your BO: Honestly, I haven’t been community—that’s great. here that long—only eight years 3. Having lived here so long, I have been at [blank] surf spot surfing here total and I was in parking lot a billion times and not until this last April, did I BO: It’s cool how everything can Portland before here, so only see a whale. Maybe we saw the same one! overlap with people. So you’ve about four years. But even when been here for fifty years. Do I lived in Portland, I’d work 4. I could not begin to count the number of sunsets I have people think of you as a local at the local surf shop here in watched from the end of that trail leading to the beach. This here? the summer. In 2014 is when I goes the same with runs and walks I have started or ended at started building relationships the place. N: I think it would depend on with people in this specific who you talk to. I haven’t really community. 5. I have been to the [blank] surf spot parking lot on rare occa- thought about that. I work with sions. The surf spot here resonates with me because while one fellow in particular. He was N: So I’ve been here fifty years, staying at a hostel in Jeffreys Bay [world renowned surf spot] born and raised here, went to and you’ve been here for five guests and staff learned I was from this town we live in right the high school, and also taught years, I’m a local of your life, and now, and I was quizzed about our surf spot here. It was then here. So I guess he would be a you’re a local of my life, even with that I learned about it’s reputation. Also, sadly, of the reputa- local. You know, I don’t know. that fourty-five-year difference. tion of surfers’ hostility towards other surfers not part of the “[blank] surf spot community." BO: So do you consider yourself a BO: What makes someone a local here? local? Is it the shared memories they have in a space? Or is it The following conversations are between Brianna Ortega and partic- N: I consider this home. But a just their knowledge of the best

ipants who live in her community, a small beach town on the Pacific local? I think I’ve been here long restaurant in town, or the hike BE A LOCAL IN MY LIFE Northwest coast. enough to earn half that tag. But, over there? I’ve also been gone a lot travel- Brianna speaks with Neil, a participant of the project and a neighbor- ing and coming back. I haven’t N: Is it longevity? Is it local knowl- hood friend. They discuss what it means to be a local, localism in surfing, had anyone say that I wasn’t a edge? Is it the number of people

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY and the project, Be a Local of My Life. local—or say that I haven’t been you know? Or is it who you know? here long enough. When I came There could be a lot of definitions BRIANNA ORTEGA: How did the really salient to me in particular here, I made a commitment to to that. It isn’t important to me project go for you? You were the when you talked about going to a stay for five years. It’s been a long to be known as a local. Because first person to respond back with family’s house that I know. I parti- five years. [Neil said earlier he has wherever I am, the majority of the memories, so I ended up asking ularly like the connection when it lived here in this community for time (ninety-five percent), this is everyone else to also respond connects to people. It’s that small fifty years]. where I belong. When I’m trav- back with memories. world thing. eling and riding a motorcycle in BO: With this project, I asked, the Comoros, this is still where I NEIL: As soon as I read your It was also interesting that you “what does it mean to be a local belong. It makes all the sense in personal landmark tour, I came saw that whale out there in April. of someone’s life instead of a the world that I’m at this place. I up with a memory or experience I was sitting right out here. I place?” count my blessings and I know I immediately for each one. It saw a spout. Then a flap. Then am lucky to be able to do it. Being didn’t take me any time at all another blow. So then I walked N: Yeah, a local of someone’s life. here just seems logical. because I’ve been here so long— out to the end and the policeman And how they are a local to the fifty years now. So much was came along and told me that I community. And if you’re a local

75 74 BO: I feel the same way about the surf edict or take turns when Brianna Ortega speaks with her friend and participant Sarah, who talks here. It is my happy place. At least they catch the waves. about her feelings of participating in Be a Local of My Life. for now. Or maybe my whole life, who knows. BO: I am not a local anywhere BRIANNA ORTEGA: The corner And how you might not know the because I grew up moving a lot. of your house was a personal stories of those places and how it N: Yeah, and you can have a So with surfing, especially spots landmark of mine. How did you is along your daily path anyway. happy place and leave it. And get like that, they won’t let you surf feel about people coming to the So you could be passing that spot to another happy place. When I those types of spots if you weren’t corner of your house to take a on a regular basis, and you could travel, wherever I am, that’s my born there. picture? know that person, but you could happy place. But consistently, never put the whole story together. I can’t think of a time when I N: And it seems so strange to me. SARAH: It was interesting when So it is pretty neat when you can didn’t want to come back here. Incongruent. It’s interesting how we looked out the window and connect all those dots. It was cool Back to your project, it’s a circling people think they can own the someone was stopped and to hear about Neil’s story of going of the wagons. Who is in my ocean... nature. I think if people hopped out of their car to take to South Africa and hearing about circle? Who has these shared were more tuned in and thinking a photo of the street sign. We the surf spot in our town. experiences? outside themselves, they would thought we lived somewhere think differently. They want to famous for a second. We realized BO: How did you feel about the BO: I loved reading your memory claim a piece of the ocean. that it was just the project going certificate? about [blank] surf spot. A lot of on. So in a way, it made us feel people here who don’t surf don’t BO: It’s interesting. I can’t surf special that this street corner S: It was really nice. It was worth know about it. It is amazing you spots with an aggro vibe because was a place of significance in it to be certified as a local. I were in Africa and someone I’m so sensitive to people. So, your life, and clearly mine as enjoyed it. It was nice that it talked about the localism of going back to Be a Local of My well, as I live in your old house. was all in this neighborhood. It [blank] surf spot here. Life, did it make you think about seemed like they were uniting anything else? BO: How did the project go for features in our lives. N: Yeah, I was in Jeffreys Bay, you? What did it make you think

South Africa and they knew about N: I thought about how I could about in your life? BE A LOCAL IN MY LIFE [blank] surf spot here. That was share my own personal landmark 2012. They didn’t really talk memories with others and who S: It made me recognize the about being territorial. Of course I could share that with. I was fact that we definitely have a now there are so many surfers. I asking myself: who are my neigh- lot of overlap in the places that

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY was talking with a friend of mine bors? And how would I identify we frequent around here. It who has surfed here for a long them? It was thought provoking. made me realize that a lot of time and he used to surf [blank] It was fun. these places mean a lot to a lot spot here. He said there would of people in our lives. It was be several surfers out and it was BO: Wow, I just saw a guy get a interesting hearing stories from very territorial then. He said he good wave. Maybe it’s still good others in the same spots. It was was a knucklehead for being so out there. Maybe I’ll surf tomor- nice to find out about the connec- territorial, and now he looks back row, too. tions people have in the places on his behavior and thinks ‘that that you also connect to. wasn’t very nice.’ But now there’s N: When I was out there this so many surfers that they are morning, there were a couple overrun. He says he doesn’t go people. One on a paddleboard. He out there anymore because there rode a long wave. are so many new people that go out there and they don’t respect

77 76 Images taken by participants Neil Branson’s certificate. responding to the prompt Personal Landmark Memory: [Blank] Beach. BE A LOCAL IN MY LIFE ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY

79 78 Proyecto Bathhouse fragments, objects, photographs park, or restroom. During the content I can use to tell a story of AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and Carlos Reynoso these spaces. I am really inter- 1990s, a lot of these places shut ested in this project and have down. Most of my research for enjoyed building it and allowed the project is in the United States it to evolve. In our new reality we and my project focuses mainly Proyecto Bathhouse is a community-led archival and storytelling are living in, I feel that for two on the West Coast. Cities like project facilitated by Carlos Reynoso. Reynoso uses social media reasons. I feel that these places San Francisco, New York, and platforms like Instagram as a tool in collecting content, stories, and may be lost because of covid-19. Chicago closed down all or most objects as research in preserving bathhouse culture in the West Coast And I also feel that sometimes operational bathhouses due to in the United States. In this community-led project Reynoso works humanity is stripped from sexual- the AIDS crisis but a lot of the with participants and members of a community manifested through ity within these spaces for various bathhouses in Los Angeles stayed bathhouse culture. The project intends to is to further empower reasons like marginalization open. As a result, that allowed the community, discuss queer sexuality and intimacy, and preserve of those communities as queer bathhouse culture to evolve and bathhouse culture. Through preservation, the archive will be avail- individuals, because of the AIDS allow various queer identities able virtually and as an exhibition that can travel and be seen by the epidemic. Through storytelling in—not just cis-men. That evolu- community that helped create it. and archiving these spaces I want tion unfortunately all lives in the to bring humanity back to the CSV. pre-covvid-19 world because I don’t know how the bathhouse The following is a shortened conversation with Illia Yakovenko that took IY: Can you tell me more about will evolve post-covid-19 or if they place on a screen on my laptop yesterday in my garage. these spaces—like what kind will even exist. of significance do they have on CARLOS REYNOSO: Hello, Illia. I want to chat with you about queer and gay culture? IY: So, I have several questions. is Proyecto Bathhouse. It’s a I don’t know what to start with. ILLIA YAKOVENKO: Hey. research-based archival proj- CR: Yeah, sure, so CSVs weren’t What’s interesting to me is you ect, it’s community-led, and I built only for queer and gay also mentioned humanity has

CR: So I wanted to have a conver- consider myself a participant communities. The term that been stripped from sexuality. Can PROYECTO BATHOUSE sation with you about a project as well. The project is archiving we use in sexual health is “man you clarify that more, because I that I’ve been working on. I have Commercial Sex Venues (CSV) who has sex with man” (MSM). don’t want to make assumptions. talked about this project in class and places of sexuality. The Historically in bathhouses only multiple times and I wanted to project started with archiving masculine or you know “Cis CR: So, humanity stripped of

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY chat with you because I consider bathhouses in Los Angeles and presenting men” could utilize sexuality specifically in bath- you a part of my secondary Portland and on the West Coast. I them for having sex, building houses/CSVs. I feel that is audience. The reason why I bring was really drawn to the CSV when community, and to escape their because of the marginalization this up to you is because I really I used to work in sexual health day-to-day lives, but not all of of gay/queer communities and want to find a way to bridge the with queer communities. My role them identified as gay. The because of the AIDS epidemic. content of this project with the in these spaces was as an educa- spaces look like traditional spas Pre-AIDS epidemic and in the art community. I consider myself tor. As somebody who worked with showers and steam rooms, 1960s, there was a surge of a facilitator but also a participant with patrons of these places, I some even have like a masseuse sexual liberation within gay men with Proyecto Bathhouse. provided education on sexual you know. It looks like a conven- and I feel that during the 1960s health, and also did STI testing tional spa. Historically, before there was experimentation with IY: That sounds good but can you at bathhouses in Los Angeles. the gay rights movement, gay sexuality in general. In the 1980s, kind of describe the project a Through that experience I kinda men could be outed if having sex and post-AIDS epidemic, that all little more? started to formalize this project in public—you could lose your shifted and gay sex was some- and decided to use social media, job or be arrested. This was a thing that was feared, similar to CR: Oh, yeah, of course, so a brief mostly Instagram, as a tool for time when sex in the bathhouse how we feel today with covid-19 description of my project that research. I like collecting stories, was safer than in an alleyway, and in touching others. That’s

81 80 where I feel that humanity was sex and intimacy and apart from been presenting this project and CR: I would love to have a tradi- stripped from gay sexuality. consistency a sense of belonging I feel vulnerable because I am tional exhibition; I would like Because of marginalization, I also also is created. I feel familiar- talking about my sexuality. When to blow up images that I have feel humanity at times is stripped ity and consistency are how it’s approaching participants and received from participants and from gay and queer sexuality. manifested. collecting content for the project hang them in the exhibition Because the rejection from I am very transparent that I am space. I would also like to screen family, society, and community IY: So, you are working on an an artist and what my project short films of interviews of can evoke shame, guilt, discom- archive of these spaces and I am is about. Also, if a participant participants sharing experiences. fort, and self-hatred in meeting a interested in what your method- shares a story, experience, or I would also like to have objects, very human need that most have. ology is in creating content for image I always ask for permission like fragments from these bath- this project, you mentioned you to use it in the archive. houses. I’ve thought about having IY: Stripped away, so in response visit these places in person. What maybe like a sling from a specific to this like status quo or kind of is your methodology? IY: So, I have another question: bathhouse like from The Slammer expectation of sexuality in creat- generally archives have a specific in Los Angeles. The aesthetic ing these spaces that are used CR: It’s not just going to the aesthetic… has been shaped by the aesthetic for having sex and in building bathhouses in person. I also of the CSV I visit regularly; it community. And for those that collect stories and experiences. CR: They’re not sexy… happened organically. I didn’t have never been to these places, I use Instagram as a platform choose it, the images for the proj- it’s like not just a place to have sex and research tool in collecting IY: Yeah, yeah, right, not sexy. ect incorporate the space and are in, it’s also a community for some content for the archive—eighty- What’s the aesthetic, not sexy. sometimes gritty, overly sexual, and a safe space as well. I am also five percent of the content They’re old pictures and their and at times dirty or unkempt. I curious how this is manifested collected comes from social purpose is to archive the mate- hope that answered your question and how do these places become media. I also feel that I have an rial. My question is how do you and thank you Illia for letting me community for the patrons? Can advantage because I have been a see the aesthetic for this project? have this conversation with you. you provide some examples? part of the bathhouse community for a very long time. I don’t see IY: Of course, thank you...

CR: That’s a really good question. myself as an outsider or tour- PROYECTO BATHOUSE I think that is a really great ques- ist, I feel like I am a part of the tion but kinda tough to answer. community. Well not all CSVs have that piece, but I think having that sense of IY: How do you make sure when

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY community is important, when sharing the content for the project I think of my role in this project or showcasing the research that and when switching my role as people are comfortable, and how a patron visiting these spaces, I do you make sure you are comfort- feel I am a part of a community able in sharing this content? because it’s a physical place and because of consistency and famil- CR: That’s a really good question. iarity. You see the same people, I’ve spent a lot of time inside some you may have sex with or these spaces as a health educa- not, and you see the familiar tor. Or someone who is familiar staff that are there to keep you in approaching people that are safe—they have condoms and experiencing shame and guilt resources and a layer of safety is but also knowing that feeling created due to that consistency. firsthand when talking about Also, you go to these places and CSVs and gay sexuality. There you see others like you seeking have also been times when I have

83 82 PROYECTO BATHOUSE ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY

Carlos Reynoso, at Fantasy arcades, Anonymous blow job at Taboo, Portland, Oregon, 2020. Portland, Oregon, 2020.

85 84 RECESS! Design Studio The following is an abridged version of a conversation that took place on May 8, 2020 between Rosenblum and third-grade RECESS! designer Kim Sutherland and Jordan Rosenblum Joanna about graphic design, being a student, and how we structure classrooms. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

JORDAN ROSENBLUM: If some the same way you did at first, RECESS! Design Studio is a creative agency housed inside of a random kid, let’s say like a four- which is “design is design.” classroom in the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in year-old, came up to you on the northeast Portland. street and asked, “Joanna, what’s J: Design is kind of hard to Working with third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade designers, the studio graphic design?,” how would you explain. It’s not really a thing. serves as one part classroom, one part creative agency, and one part respond? artist project. We work as the in-house studio for the King School I don’t want to say that it’s just Museum of Contemporary Art (KSMoCA), where regular design JOANNA: I would ask him how he one thing, because there are a lot services include posters for exhibitions and lectures; signs for class- knew my name. of different ways to explain it. rooms; and promotional material for school events. The ambition of the program is to have a full-service creative JR: [laughter] You’re right. JR: I think at its most basic, what agency directed and run by elementary school students. we are saying is that it just means Since its launch in the fall of 2018, RECESS! has worked on several J: I would then ask him how he that someone thought about it, large-scale projects. In collaboration with the school administration, knew I did graphic design. and made it. school parents, and student copywriters, the studio created a set of posters championing community residents as a long-term installation JR: [laughter] Let’s say you were Let’s talk about the sign proj- in the school cafeteria. In spring of 2019, the studio collaborated with wearing a tshirt that said “ask me ect we were working on back in Adidas to explore the design of a new school brand. what graphic design is.” February. We were working on a In the classroom, RECESS! students develop classic graphic design project where we were creating skills—creating experimental typefaces, designing business cards for J: Graphic design is the way new signs for the school, and we student entrepreneurs, and learning about visual literacy and making people write, and about were asking the questions, “What

meaning through text and image. There is a lot of good old-fashioned typography, and, I guess, the would I want people to know RECESS! DESIGN STUDIO drawing in the mix, too. design of graphics. about the school?”, and “what Through project-based learning, RECESS! also explores the role don’t people know about the design plays in society—looking at the power design has in shaping JR: If we got rid of the word school?” I’m bummed because kids’ (and adults’) lives. This includes an ongoing project to create graphic and the same little four- I was personally excited about

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY interpretive signs written by student-designers that will be installed year-old asked “what’s design?,” the project... at the school. The signs interrogate the architecture, history, experi- how would you answer? ences, and culture of the school from the students’ perspectives. J: And now we can’t do it. [Due RECESS! is codirected by Kim Sutherland and me, in collaboration J: Design is just something to school closures in response to with visiting artists and designers, and RECESS! designers. someone designed. It could be the covid-19 pandemic] a drawing, or a pattern, or the —Jordan Rosenblum way someone writes. Someone JR: I hope we can soon. created it. J: So do I. JR: I agree, it can simply mean “someone created it.” I often JR: Are you hoping to get back to struggle with answering the ques- school soon? tion of what design is myself. It’s a big—and kind of weird—ques- J: Yeah, for once I want to go tion. I also might have responded to school.

87 86 JR: [laughter] One of the signs JR: I feel like there’s some kind like to be a child. If I became a JR: [laughter] Just because? you were working on said of art or design project in here. I teacher I would know how to help “Anonymous Note Wall,” and you don’t exactly know what it is. them. Other kids would proba- J: Yeah. [In goofy voice] Or yellow. wanted to install it near the teach- bly say, like, “an ice cream bar!” ers’ entrance to the school. Why Let’s go back to this imaginary I would still make it a teaching JR: One or the other? did you want to create that sign? conversation with the kid on the place. Except in a way that’s more street. How would you describe entertaining. Because right now J: No, I’d paint my hair blue, and J: [in a spooky voice] “To leave to that same child the difference it’s just… school. my body yellow. notes for teachers” between art and design? Right now, in a class, everyone JR: Nice—a classic color combo. Signs tell you something. You J: If that same child asked me gets the same assignment. But make a sign and put it some- something again, I’d say “Go find people think differently from If you could tell people one thing where, and to each person who your mom.” each other, so some students about RECESS!, what would you sees it, it can mean something don’t understand it. want them to know? different. JR: [laughter] Fair enough. Do you think there’s a difference I would design it so that each kid J: It’s fun. JR: This might be a weird between art and design? could have their own section of question. Do you think it’s ever the classroom, so they could fill It’s like we are all working on the possible that everyone under- J: I feel like art has design in the room up with their ideas and same idea, but you kind of get to stands something the same way? it and design has art in it, but what they’re thinking. do what you want with it. It’s in they’re not the same thing. the school but it doesn’t feel like J: [Pauses] No. JR: Cool, so each student “just school.” It’s like if you put two paints would have their own studio At school, you think something together. They touch each other, or something. JR: I’m glad to hear that. Will you is very clear, and then someone but they’re not together. promise to tell me if it starts to doesn’t get it. And, you think, J: Yeah, because all together feel like “just school”?

“how do they not get it?!” But they JR: I’d like to talk a little bit about you’re kind of forced to think the RECESS! DESIGN STUDIO just think differently. the classroom. What is your ideal same way. J: Well, OK, but I don’t think classroom? If you could design it will. JR: Totally. I have that your own classroom, what would JR: That would be awesome. experience too. be in it, and what would you do Even if it’s just boring school art

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY in it? If you could do anything in our I’ll still like it. Because it’s art. J: When I think that way, I tell RECESS! studio, what would you myself that they are probably J: When I’m older? do? If you had free rein... thinking the same thing about me—“How do THEY not get it?” JR: Let’s say you could do it right J: I would paint myself blue. When I think something about now. Let’s say the principal came someone, I just tell myself that to you and said, “Joanna, I’m they’re probably thinking the giving you this classroom. I want same thing about me. And it you to have whatever you need for reminds me not to judge them it, and to do whatever you want that way. in it.”

JR: That’s really beautiful. J: Well, because I’m a child, I still know what other kids feel. I J: I like to observe what other tell myself that when I’m older, I people are doing or thinking. really want to remember what it’s

89 88 RECESS! DESIGN STUDIO ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY

Top: Posters designed in RECESS! Poster for the KSMoCA lecture by visiting installed in the King School cafeteria. artist Helen Reed.

Bottom: Students survey and choose typefaces to work with on a project.

91 90 RECESS! DESIGN STUDIO

Experimental typeface developed by RECESS! Art Director Olivia. ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY

Experimental typefaces developed by RECESS! designers.

93 92 Afro Contemporary Art Class at anecdotes about what the indi- the things that was going on in vidual students are experiencing. February, all these different proj- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School Your position is also unique ects and events, including the because you’re trained as an Black Panther breakfast, that all Artist Michael Bernard Stevenson Jr. educator while I have no specific happened in February and then understanding of traditional March happened. So I feel like we pedagogies. You sit in this place had all of this great engagement where you have a vivid awareness by our community, right. So you The Afro Contemporary Art Class (ACAC) is an artist project that I of that and you practice those and your work feel like one of the teach at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in northeast things. And so while you’re not things that I really appreciated or Portland. The mission of the ACAC is to help young people of African present for the process of the felt like the project accomplished descent learn more about the histories and contemporary contexts Afro Contemporary Art Class, you was bringing together lots of that shape their lives, culture, and social realities. These ideas are are aware of its results. different facets of our school explored through the study of contemporary artists and creatives as a community into one space, and conduit to—and a lens for—thinking through a range of experiences An additional layer is that you’re which I think we’ve always strived related to the African diaspora. The investigations begin with present- not an artist, and that you are not to do. But we’ve had varying levels ing an artist’s work to the class, teasing out the underlying contexts in approaching the project from the of success with. the work, and then learning about the people, events, and outcomes lens of assessing it as an artwork. surrounding those contexts. Then we engage in discussion, the You are approaching it from the I feel like when I looked around reproduction of artworks, and embodiment of activities related to the lens of assessing it as a teaching the room on that morning in various courses of study. tool. It’s for these reasons that terms of community engagement During the course of study, the ACAC worked closely with the work of your most initial response to we saw all different folks, folks artist Emory Douglas, who oversaw the art direction and production anything is valuable to both me from our school community, of the official newspaper for the Black Panther Party. The investigation as an individual practitioner or folks from the different school of Douglas’s artworks inevitably included a lot of Black Panther collat- collaborator, and for an outside programs from our Mandarin eral. For this reason, we began to study the Black Panthers proper, audience. All in all you stand immersion program from our with an intentional gaze on their mutual aid work.

embedded in this very unique English Scholars Program. AFRO CONTEMPORARY ART CLASS We invited Kent Ford, a former Black Panther who helped create position that makes me curious There were parents there, there and facilitate the Black Panther Breakfast Program in Portland. From about your understanding and were kids there. There were just this exploration we decided to reproduce the Black Panther Breakfast perception of the project. community members that were Program at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School for students and commu- there, there were members from nity members alike. The ACAC collaborated to facilitate the event in

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY PAIGE THOMAS: Cool. KSMoCA. So I feel like all differ- February for Black History Month programming at the school. ent facets of our community MBS: A good place to start is with were really represented in that this quote from an e-mail you one space. And I think you know The following is an interview with Paige Thomas, the primary staff sent me. You said, “It’s really nice already that the event was a really member who helped facilitate ACAC programming at Dr. MLK Jr. School. to be thinking about this project powerful thing and something right now. So many things feel that I think we’re all missing right ARTIST MICHAEL BERNARD values our relationships. But in defeating right now. And thinking now is that community and trying STEVENSON JR.: So Paige, I’ve been that, I’m neither his mother or back to the work you did with the to figure out what this community thinking about how your gaze is grandmother, and so I am not kids is a reminder of what is being looks like when we’re not able to fascinating because in my work privy to a more intimate, self accomplished.” And in that one gather in that space. And I think with young people, the nature reflective rapport that young sentence it points clearly to you the other thing is, how do we of my engagement with them is people have with some adults having feelings about the project. make learning authentic for kids. limited. And that any given young in their life. And while you’ve person, let’s take the student never actually attended the class, PAIGE: Yeah, it was interesting You know, meeting kids where I mentor, for example, highly you’ve mentioned to me various because I feel like this was one of they’re at but also making the

95 94 learning meaningful and connect PT: Yeah, I think that’s the first and was working with KSMoCA. And then one of the students said, it to where they are coming from thing that popped into my head She always felt like this interest- “I learned this in class today.” and about their community. I was the shared experience. And a ing barometer for me. And also Sharing this factoid learning an feel like that’s something we’re shared reference point, I think is students from South America, instance where it was embedded trying to figure out now too and something that’s powerful about who had an educational situa- in the context we were discussing. I felt like the Afro Contemporary an event like that. tion that for them was maybe not It creates this pedagogically rele- Art Class was really successful classroom oriented. And I think vant shared experience. Putting in starting to get kids connected I think the other thing was about that even generationally, the students in touch with their to their community and to their getting everyone in the same like, for decades or centuries, you local community history and the history and connecting to things space and being able to talk with would go to the market and learn lived experience of people they they might have already known. each other, both formally and to count, you know, that kind of know and how that is embedded But at the same time it’s really informally, about their experi- highly valuable real life experi- into their experience. broadening and opening them ence. Even though I wasn’t able ence. I consider myself to be a up to things that they maybe to sit and be in that space for neurodiverse person, and for me PT: Or what was in place in order didn’t know yet and and the those conversations. But when I the structure of a school is not for that event to have happened. responses to those things artis- was in and out, I had a sense that an inherently beneficial learning And what were the long term tically by different artists that there were those more formal environment for me. The best ramifications, both positive and they certainly haven’t learned acts of sharing and speaking way for me to learn is experi- negative, that came after the about yet. I think that it’s those and then there were less formal entially and through anecdotal context, like you were saying. kinds of authentic experiences interactions happening at tables. instances. And so I think a lot of for kids that we’ve been trying All of that builds community and my work has those qualities just MBS: Yeah, exactly that! I have to figure out how to create looks builds bridges and builds shared because of who I am. begun to classify myself as an like the reproduction of the Black experiences that we want to build educator. And the reference I Panther Breakfast Program. because those build on each As I work with kids I like lean- made about being neurodiverse, other. And we can continue to ing on those things as a way of and my rejection of school as a So thinking back to how success- encourage those conversations to producing value for the young young person and as a student.

ful that was, and how we’re trying continue in those relationships person. I have no formal train- I was talking to a professor AFRO CONTEMPORARY ART CLASS to figure that out now, it feels a to continue to build and that’s ing in the traditional education recently, and they had mentioned little defeating. But it feels really what you need in order to move world. I’m not even claiming a that I’m a rule breaker. And I heartening that we were at that forward. In this work here at King high level of awareness which is kind of pushed back on that, place where we had built a system School we’re keeping the dream again why your perspective is so I said, “I think I just exist in

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY in which kids could engage in a alive, and you need those foun- interesting to me. a way that is in opposition to project like that and showcase it dational pieces in order to move rules that other people made. to their school community, it felt these aspirational goals we have I remember one day in class we I don’t think I’m intentionally really empowering. for our students. We need to have were studying Dr. Martin Luther like running through trying to strong community and strong King Jr. during Black History break the rules.” That being MBS: There’s a lot of interesting communication and and events Month and someone blurted out said, I approached this class things your response brought up like this is what is instrumental that he was assassinated on this with no certain knowledge, like, for me, especially when you were in building that community. date. At the time we were reading I didn’t have a book full of facts. talking about community engage- a comic about Kent Ford [written It was more like, I kind of know ment, all these layers that you’ve MBS: I like this inclusion of by Sarah Mirk and illustrated by about this stuff that the students specifically laid out. I’m curious informal conversations because Khris Soden.] And in the comic, have only a vague idea about. about your perspective on the I’ve always loved the term “it Kent Ford sees it on the news and Approaching the class with a kind of pedagogical value of an takes a village,” which has always was like, “oh, man,” and through bunch of questions and from a experience like the reproduction resonated with me. I remember this it was linked. It’s real-world position to just receive questions of the Black Panther Breakfast that there was a student named experience, someone’s personal from the class and seek out the Program. Aswan who was from Somalia experience of the assassination.

97 96 answer using Google or some Willis Thomas which are such curious if you have experienced were having with him and then other method on-site. big encompassing artworks. You any instances where a student with me as his teacher in class, could really see the kids moving had shared something with you being able to to reference those This has me curious about some in and out and interacting and that happened in class. conversations. And it wasn’t specific anecdotes. Do you feel around those pieces. I think me necessarily giving him that like either my positionality as that was really powerful. As you One of my own, I remember it feedback, right? So instead of a male presenting person or a mention, school is a very white was actually the last day I was that feedback coming from me as black person or an artist person, space, the structures all come at King before the closure. I ran a white woman, it was feedback if that influenced the classroom from that colonial culture, right. into one student and he excit- that a mentor had given him that container and if there’s specific So I think there’s always power edly shared “my mom said I can he was able to connect with and anecdotes that you are aware of in bringing in people that are bring my art kit to class!” And process it like, “Oh, yeah, yeah, with individual students that may not the traditional white female I was like, that’s great. And it I’ve talked with Michael about point to a correlation between voices that often dominate was interesting, because he was that, like I get, I get how I’m the class or those positionality those spaces. And I feel like we so excited about the class and showing up in this space.” And, I components to the student’s are trying to make sure that we wanted to bring this thing he feel like that was really powerful experience as a learner. elevate and lift up those voices as loved to it. Then I said, “well, for him to have another voice much as possible. And when we we’re not gonna meet this week, sharing with him about how to PT: Something that was powerful aren’t able to necessarily reflect because everything is kind of communicate and be in learning and moving for me was our field that in our teaching staff to shutting down. And then he was spaces and just spaces with other trip to the Portland Art Museum. partner with as many community like, “that’s not fair!” people generally. And when we got there, we were partners as we can that elevate greeted by Ella Ray, and we went voices that are not part of our So that was this specific anecdote to a meeting space with her. school community. of my own. where, you know I And it was really amazing to be could tell that the student was in this big art institution that MBS: The anecdote about the hyperengaged in the class and traditionally has not always been museum is interesting, and I that the class was producing

a place that has been welcoming think it’s important that people some form of specific benefit, AFRO CONTEMPORARY ART CLASS to everyone in our city, but that who have white positionality are even if it was not educational. Or this is everyone’s space. And to valuing that experience. It’s not they were not seeing it as educa- be in that meeting room where something I was thinking about tional. Yeah, so I’m curious if you everyone, other than myself, and in the moment. But it’s possible have any anecdotes of your own.

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY I maybe should have excused that Ella Ray was noticing it, or myself, but to have it be a space also maybe the students, because PT: This image comes up in my for all these young kids of color I think that is not something mind again, because I feel like being led by two successful that’s lost on people who are of you talked a lot not necessarily people of color. I was really Afro heritage. People who are only about the art or the content, moved by that and I thought that needing and wanting specifically with one student in particular it was really powerful. I don’t black spaces without fully under- about his communication and know if that’s my perspective as standing that need. interactions with others and a white woman noticing that but just talking him through how it would have been interesting to I actually didn’t spend much time that shows up in spaces. And I ask the kids if that was as impact- working with any of the students know you talked with him a lot ful for them. one-on-one. I might see them in about sharing the space and the hallways and in passing. But noticing how much airtime And then just moving through really the time that was desig- he was taking up. I remember the museum watching them nated for us to be spending time having those debriefings with you interact with the pieces by Hank was in the class structure. So I’m about those conversations you

99 98 A reproduction of a sign based on an archival photograph found of an old wooden sign promoting the Breakfast Program made by Daynna and Karmyn at the entrance to the school. AFRO CONTEMPORARY ART CLASS ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY

Promotional flier for the Black Panther Breakfast Program at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School reproduced by the Afro Contemporary Art Class featur- ing artwork by Daynna and Zemaj.

101 100 East Portland Art + Here’s an excerpt from the O82 Tenant Portrait Series with Felecia: ROSHANI THAKORE: Thanks for into this world. You shouldn’t be Justice Lab joining me, Felecia. I wanted to stressed, you shouldn’t be treated know what culture means to you? as such in this special time. Roshani Thakore in collaboration with O82

FELECIA: Culture means a lot. RT: You’re completely right and I Right now I’m creating my think it’s amazing that you trans- culture through spirituality and formed your traumatic experience The East Portland Art + Justice Lab is a transformative space that manifestation and I want to show into providing care for others. cultivates engagement, leadership, and change agents by hosting my son the world. I want him to Since covid-19, how have you programming, art-making activities, festivals, discussions, and experience different countries, I been doing? What have you been events integrating the values, knowledge, and experiences of three want him to experience different witnessing in your community? different entities: the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon languages, I want him to know How have you been supported? (APANO—a culturally specific grassroots social justice organization); that he is loved and that he can ROSE CDC—a community development corporation investing in show love and I want him to be F: I’ve been seeing a lot! ROSE affordable housing in outer southeast Portland; and new tenants able to express himself however CDC is offering free lunches every living in forty-eight units of affordable housing. These three entities he wants to. And most of it is day... folks are donating money are housed under one roof called the Orchards of 82nd. As the neigh- geared toward food, art, music, and food and just helping out... borhood gentrifies, the Lab was created as a conceptual container and language really. That’s my it’s been kind of nice. I mean it’s to intentionally develop relationships between these entities along culture I’m creating right now for sad because this whole situation with long-standing community members to create and keep cultural him and for me. Also birth work has happened, but I feel like it’s memories and the social fabric of the neighborhood intact. is a part of my culture so it’s all brought us a little closer, to be The Lab’s main site is at 8118 SE Division Street at the intersection intertwined. honest. of 82nd Avenue, across the street from a corner store on one side and Portland Community College Southeast on the other. The project was RT: How did you get into being RT: That’s really great you’re officially born in January 2020 when, at a community gathering, we a doula? seeing so much! Who’s support-

hosted a logo design contest and Mazzy, the four-year old daughter EAST PORTLAND ART + JUSTICE LAB ing you during this time and how of local artists Alex and A’misa Chiu, submitted a design that won the F: Well, my birthing experience have you supported others? most popular vote. made me become a doula. The Before covid-19, tenants could drop into the Saturday Open Art whole experience of how I was F: My family and friends have Lab Studio Hour to hang out and make some art. Since many of the treated throughout my preg- been supporting me with my

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY tenants were new to the area and to each other, we created a Tenant nancy, especially for being black, mask making and helping with Portrait Series using self-portraits of tenants and backgrounds to was crazy. At first, I knew about my son. I’m about to start a display in the gallery lobby of O82. systemic racism, especially in pregnancy support group with my Since the stay-at-home order went into place in March 2020, we hospitals and dealing with birth, Black Birth Matters project and decided to continue the Tenant Portrait Series online in an interview but I didn’t know the extent of it. I got an SE Uplift small business format. The first portrait is with Felecia, the mother of Zahmi, who is That was a rude awakening! I do grant for it so they are giving a birth and postpartum doula. She just received a SE Uplift Grant for not want anyone to feel that small me funds to give the childbirth her Black Birth Matters Project. During the stay-at-home orders, she or that their feelings don’t matter educator classes. So I’ll be start- has lost work but has been sewing masks and teaming up with her during their birth, because ing the pregnancy support group community for an online storytime for kids. it does! This is your birthing and also a child birthing class experience... you’re bringing life after I get certified. —Roshani Thakore If you’d like to support Felecia, you can check out all of her talents at genesisawh.wixsite.com. Her masks can be found on Etsy: Essence of a Goddess LLC. To watch the complete interview, go to: roshanithakore.com/projects#/east-portland-artjustice-lab/ 103 102 This year, the Lab received generous funding from the Oregon Arts Commission and through Metro Community Placemaking Grant. Along with the Tenant Portrait Series, we are designing a Curatorial Committee to cocreate and organize art events from tenants and local community members within the lobby and common spaces at O82 and an artist-in-residence fellowship with three local artists and three residents as collaborative pairings to create new works focusing on housing, transportation, and education.

PRACTICE

The East Portland Art + Justice Lab came out of my previous work, the Orchards of 82nd Art Plan, Living Culture: Past, Present, and Future. I was invited to design a conceptual framework of what the art and culture would look like for this brand-new building in East Portland. I saw it as an opportunity to center the unique social capital of that site. Located in the most multicultural area in Portland, the Lab could act as a platform that amplifies the knowledge and resources available in areas of resilience, linguistic, ethnic, and cultural diversity, and resourcefulness directly by the people themselves. As it now has a heartbeat, and as I am now an official employee at APANO, I have been using my role to take a lead in implementing these concepts with community members. It is a rare opportunity to be able to practice my practice as an employee of an organization. Because of that unique nature, I am calling my work at APANO an artist residency with the parameters of the residency to be determined by life. EAST PORTLAND ART + JUSTICE LAB To distinguish my time at the office working at the Lab, I created lab coats to wear when I was doing any work for the project. The coats have crowd-sourced Asian and Pacific Islander movement leaders silk-screened on the back to consider what one is able to do if you ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY knew your ancestors had your back. On the front, there is a handmade patch cocreated with my mother with the words: Dream -N- Scheme. Work includes outreach to the residents, meetings pertaining to the Lab, designing materials, touching up the murals, etc. It seems to be a good signifier blurring the artist/employee roles at the office and an attempt to reimagine roles and work. As I mentioned, during covid-19, I have been continuing the prac- Elisee the Mysterious’ Tenant tice from home and have developed other ways to stay connected and Portrait, 2020. to prepare and shape the future through our online portals.

105 104 EAST PORTLAND ART + JUSTICE LAB ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY

Elisee the Mysterious drawing at the Top: Aydin drawing at the Saturday Saturday Open Art Studio Lab, 2020. Open Art Studio Lab, 2020. Photo Photo credit: Roshani Thakore. credit: Roshani Thakore.

Bottom: O82 Tenant Portrait Series screenshot with Felecia and Roshani, 2020.

107 106 KSMoCA International Art The following conversation with artist and fellow student Carlos Reynoso took place over Zoom on Thursday, May 14, 2020, after Art + Social Acquisition Committee Practice class.

Illia Yakovenko in collaboration with Jalene, Vito, Leilua, Elfrid, and Ana CARLOS REYNOSO: Could you tell ensure that students enjoy the me more about KSMoCA IAAC process while learning new and and some important details that exciting things. So I came up with are not in the general description? this idea that when we learn about KSMoCA International Art Acquisition Committee (IAAC) is the an artist and their work, students group of five Dr. MLK Jr. School students—Jalene, Vito, Leilua, Elfrid, ILLIA YAKOVENKO: I think KSMoCA reproduce some of the techniques and Ana—and one Portland State University student—Illia—who IAAC has two main elements. and methodologies that the artist together participate in the expansion of the King School Museum There is the conceptual part used to create the work. Let’s say of Contemporary Art (KSMoCA) collection with international art. which is about King School if the artist makes pencil drawings Students meet twice a week over the lunch break at King School to students collectively researching then we try to do similar pencil learn about art, art institutions, and international artists, pick the international artists and encour- drawings with students. artworks they want to have at KSMoCA, and write letters to artists aging them to donate their works asking them to share their work with the museum. Priority is given to to KSMoCA’s art collection. It In my opinion, if approached artists from the countries the students’ families are originally from, includes reproduction of some right, the conceptual framework creating an opportunity for students to learn about their cultural formal institutional elements of can create opportunities to enrich heritage and history through art. The group occasionally hosts guest an international art museum, participants’ and collaborators’ advisers on international art—artists and art professionals—and research and review of artists experience and strengthen peda- visits Portland museums and art institutions. and their works, collective deci- gogical qualities of the artwork. KSMoCA IAAC kicked off in February 2020 just a month prior to the sion-making processes, exchange So I try to bridge the artists’ work temporary shutdown of the school due to the covid-19 outbreak. The of correspondence with artists, that they produce in response to committee held a number of meetings in which students were intro- curation of the museum collec- their local contexts to the reality duced to international artists and their methods of work. Students tion, work acquisition, and exhi- in Portland and the United States.

have experientially learned some of the methods by making similar bition-making. The committee As an example, right before the KSM artworks themselves. Initially the committee was supposed to orga- consists of students whose fami- lockdown, I showed students an o nize and present an art exhibition of students’ work and the donated lies have relatively recent immi- artwork by Ukrainian artist Nikita CA INTERNATIONAL ART ACQUISITION COMMITTEE international artworks at KSMoCA at the end of the school year, in gration experience so conceptu- Kadan. The work Protection of June 2020. But the pandemic has impacted the plan, rendering it ally students could deepen their Plants (2014) is a series of collages

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY impossible to continue in-person meetings. Yakovenko, as a KSMoCA knowledge of art in the places they with buildings that were affected IAAC facilitator, has outlined a plan to continue the work remotely, are culturally connected to and by the war in Eastern Ukraine. which includes delivering preassembled KSMoCA IAAC art kits to further learn about the culture, Photos of shelled and ruined students. In this plan, each art kit is dedicated to three international history, and current sociopolit- buildings were used as the back- artists and highlights their work. Students are provided with supplies ical conditions of these places. ground on top of which Kadan and prompts encouraging them to produce their own artworks in Another part is experiential. To superimposed images of various response to artists’ work. First outcomes of this exchange are going to me it’s really important that there plants. Before the school went on be presented and discussed during Assembly 2020. is an experiential component and shutdown, students and I were students can enjoy the process about to reproduce the collages —Illia Yakovenko and have fun while we learn. I using a similar technique and don’t want to impose the concep- images. But I was also curious tual framework on them and how to reproduce the meaning make everything happen solely in behind the artwork in relation favor of making the work appear to students’ own experience or conceptually solid and vivid for specific local Portland realities. the tertiary audience. I want to So in this case, I was going to

109 108 use images of gentrification their works, and places they and barriers to continue to evolve that I’ll be able to continue my (thanks, Zeph Fishlyn) or spatial the students are coming from. this project and to make sure studies next fall. All of that gets injustice in Portland caused by But I’m also responsible for the that the kids that are a part of even more difficult because of my city development and urban facilitation of the whole process. this project really understand the financial insecurity. I also keep renewal programs. I planned And I feel a certain level of uncon- connections or the methodology having other classes and working to give students images of fidence with the latter part. The that you’re trying to teach or have on assignments. And there is flooded Vanport and neighbor- way I just described KSMoCA them experience? this pressure with the Assembly hoods affected by the Southern IAAC is rather the way I imagine and this publication on top of it. Auditorium urban renewal project it, almost an ideal description IY: I think the last interaction I I hit my limits of emotional and downtown, the Emanuel Hospital of it. But in reality, because of had with them was more than productive capacity and it just expansion in Albina, and so on. the pandemic and lockdown, two months ago. I’ve come up feels like I can’t really do every- In this case, students would have I haven’t had enough time to with a plan of how I can keep thing at the same time. That’s made collages by putting plants actually implement it and build working with students in quar- why it feels very frustrating that over the images from Portland’s necessary relationships with the antine by assembling art kits instead of actually working on present and history not only students. We had an opportunity and sending them using the the project and building dialogue mechanically reproducing the to meet prior to the lockdown only mail or just dropping them off and relationship with students, technique but producing new about five or six times. I had some on their porches myself on my I have found myself in a position meaning by relating the work to time to introduce them to key bike. I even have a plan of what where I must prioritize concep- their local context. This process of ideas and artists but it just feels I will put inside the kits. Things tual packaging and representa- reproduction and production of like we haven’t spent enough time such as basic art supplies that tion of the yet-to-happen work for meaning would have been accom- together to lay the groundwork. students can work with, an the tertiary art audience. panied by conversations about It feels frustrating to publicly talk introduction letter from me, these meanings: about the war in about an artwork that involves information about three artists CR: I could see how that feels. Ukraine and about the American collaboration with other people and their artworks, prompts with This project hasn’t happened to history and present of displace- when you feel that you haven’t how to reproduce some of the the extent that you were hoping ment, racial segregation, spatial actually done much together. works and all necessary materi- that it would happen. But that

injustice, gentrification, and so on. als for doing that. So if, let’s say, doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t KSM CR: Well, I think that you’re there is a collage-based work happen. You’re handling every- o CR: What is your role in the facing a lot of areas that you then I’ll include materials that thing really well and you’re gonna CA INTERNATIONAL ART ACQUISITION COMMITTEE project? Do you see yourself as a have no control over. You know, would allow students to make get all this stuff done. You’re facilitator or a participant? You’ve with what’s going on globally collages at home. I’d also like to doing great!

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY mentioned that you are planning and with just how our reality is. ask students to write questions to invite artists from different When was the last time you had to the artists and share their cultures you’re not familiar with. an interaction with the students impression about the artists’ If an artist from Mexico or from that are part of this project? How work. Then I’ll pick up the results Central America were to come can you build those relation- on my bike. I’ll collect their work in, you’re going to sit with the ships with all of these barriers and send some of it to the artist kids and learn with them. So in in place? The artist in Ukraine together with student’s questions those instances you are learn- that you mentioned does collage and reflections. But even though ing together with the kids. It is work. And it seems this type of I have this plan outlined, I feel a powerful thing to a student an interaction where hands on like I don’t have enough energy because you’re learning as approach to these kids would to implement it. Especially now opposed to kids just assuming you have been the best and the most because of the pandemic and its are an expert who holds power. impactful. Knowing that and ripple effects. I’m dealing with being aware of that, how would maintaining my legal status in IY: For me it’s definitely an oppor- you create those connections and the United States, ability to stay tunity to learn about artists, how would you work with those here for the summer and ensure

111 110 KSM o CA INTERNATIONAL ART ACQUISITION COMMITTEE ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY

KSMoCA IAAC students in response to Nikita Kadan’s Protection of Plants, 2020, collage.

113 112 ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE

For the 2019–20 school year, the MFA Art + Social Practice cohort decided to experiment with a Guest Artist Residency. For the pilot residency, we decided on having a short-term residency with New York City-based artist Autumn Knight and a longer term relational residency with Oakland-based artist David Wilson. The following are conversations between members of the MFA corhort, and the artists-in-residence. Reflections with David Wilson you were framing it in terms of DW: Yeah. And it was cool that having a sense for what maybe you all were picking up on how the aspiration is, but not truly I consider my involvement with knowing what the form should the museum an extension of I had the chance to meet David at his studio in March (right before the be or needed to be. In some ways, the art projects that I’ve done, California shelter-in-place order) to talk art and dream up the in-person that freed me up to just think specifically centered around visit he was planning with the cohort. Since the travel was canceled, we about what would satisfy my curi- ways of communicating and a wanted to have a conversation online reflecting on this Artist Residency. osity about working with you all tone and a physicality to that and being involved with you all, communication. —Roshani Thakore and develop a working style that would be both fun to create on My greatest attention in this my end, and hopefully stimulate museum project lies in continu- ROSHANI THAKORE: Our class was forth. I happen to be in a period some conversation on your end. ing to extend invitations in the introduced to you in Berkeley, of trying to say yes more than no. So it was unique. manner that has been a personal a year ago, on our class trip tradition and pleasure through- when we visited the Berkeley And then our conversation RT: And honestly it was an experi- out all the projects that I’ve done: Art Museum and Pacific Film actually was a rare one for me in ment, because we had a different making print invitations and Archive. It’s been very interesting terms of discussing this form of structure in our previous years thinking about putting physical as an experiment to have you as art that I am exploring within the about inviting guest artists into things in people’s hands as a one of the guest artists-in-res- museum, with people who think the program to do “intensives” way to build a connection and a idence in our program after about this kind of thing a lot. I with us. A thing that I was inter- relationship. And for myself, the learning specifically how you don’t dwell too much on my role ested in is that your format of making of those print things is a were talking and thinking about and just kind of do the work that I engaging with audiences for an deep source of pleasure. your practice at the museum and am doing. So it was actually a very institution seemed very relevant how your role was specifically as a rewarding and productive feeling, for all of us in our work—specif- So yeah, that came out in our guest artist. which is a sign of being in the ically in the way that there’s a first conversation and helped me

right conversation. Sometimes personal intimacy in your prac- reflect on what feels central to REFLECTIONS WITH DAVID WILSON DAVID WILSON: What a pleasure. you find yourself saying some- tice as well. For example, the Art the museum project, translating That meeting was serendipi- thing for the first time out loud, Lab at the museum, with its very intimacy to a larger scale. And tous in a way. Larry [Rinder] had or realizing something as you’re own publicly accessible risograph rather than aiming at an audi- planned to meet with your cohort talking and like, “Oh, yeah, that is machine, is an intentional space ence or a community that I am a

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY when you visited the museum. how I feel.” So anyway, I enjoyed for visitors to have a dialogue part of directly, applying it to the And then I think the day of, he meeting everybody and it was a not only with the museum but museum’s open community of e-mailed me to say, “Actually, it sweet thing to have you reach out with other visitors participating participants and audience and might be more interesting for afterward in your own moment of in the Lab’s projects. That, you public while still trying to find them to talk to you and have a sorting out some work things and know, it’s like that touch. And a way to feel inclusive with that conversation about your involve- get to talk a little further. It was also knowing that our program touch of care and specialness that ment with the museum. Any just an extremely natural evolu- is very collaborative and how happens when you make some- chance you can make it?” Larry’s tion of a relationship with you with your project, The Possible, thing for someone. And we, you way of inviting me was very much all, which again, to me is the best you worked with a number of know, at the museum, we do a lot not as a director asking someone sign of something being the right collaborators, as the concept of of producing print invitations and to do something and much more fit, you know? the project itself. For me, I was flyers and things that get mailed of just, this could be interesting. curious how that could translate out and we have this tradition of And I agreed that I felt like it Then when I spoke with you and to fifteen people in another state sending out newsletters. would be interesting to meet you Jordan [Rosenblum] about partic- with a chance to build something all, but I kind of went back and ipating as an Artist-in-Residence, relational. So our conversation about being there was just a sweetness to how in residence got me excited about

117 116 it scaling way in, and paying I know that when I was doing residencies that are just like, a commission expectation. attention to this practice not as a the invite or the launch for the “here’s a studio and here’s time Anyway, that is a whole other means to an end, but just for the Art Plan in January, I appreci- and maybe a stipend and that’s thing to talk about. sake of itself, and to get in the mix ated your feedback and talking it.” And then there’s, you know, deeply with the fifteen people in it through with you. Creating an ways in which you are “in resi- At the museum, orienting myself your cohort as a pen pal. For me, it invitation and giving it directly dence” in terms of being some- around the idea of a residency is a great joy just to create pack- to the people highlighted an where new, or engaging within a is important to remembering ages, and then to know that they’d important aspect of the work that context outside of your studio or the creative potential of how I be opened and engaged on the I really want to be doing. That has wherever you typically work. engage my role. I think part of other end by you all was inspiring. been a huge shift. what you do in residency is you So, yeah, I haven’t done too many push yourself and try new things In the past this kind of corre- So we should probably unpack residences in general, in part and you explore, you don’t just spondence has served as a way to the concept of an artist residency because I feel good about having check the box and be done. Yeah, build collaborative conversations and artists-in-residence. It comes figured out how to structure it’s a choice to be in engage- in organizing an event and plug- up in our program a lot. At the myself around periods of focus ment mode. Being an outside ging everyone into some kind museum you were being paid or shifts of context. Like what voice is also part of the value of common space or occasion, and seen by the director of the you’re saying about quarantine of being an artist-in-residence, weaving in each person’s ideas museum as a guest artist. To have forcing a quality of focus, in a inserting yourself into a situa- and background. So there were that position at a museum I think strange way. I’ve kind of struc- tion or an institution and trying definitely moments along the was interesting. I’m just curious tured a lot of my life around that to share your work, or exercise way here where I was thinking, about your ideas and thoughts concept of giving yourself space your instincts within a new oh, maybe this will lead to doing about artist residencies, espe- and removing yourself from context and be available to have something in an event form with cially now since some artists are other things to do that. And for conversations. all of you. considering this quarantine time me, not wanting to be away from as being like an artist residency at my family or partner for too long In this case, it was similar in terms But not knowing what would home, too. is a good reason to find ways of you know, being able to just try

make sense in the end as a “goal” to incorporate residency-like and exercise my instincts within REFLECTIONS WITH DAVID WILSON kept me focused on just sending DW: Yeah, I feel like it’s good to thinking into more daily practice. the context of your program. As a these little care packages and distinguish between an artist I have done a couple residences, group, you are all deeply engaging transmissions to, you know, residency and a commission, one being a very informal thing, the kind of ideas that relate to stoke the relationships and stoke which, you know, they’re often which was basically just a week how I work in ways I haven’t even

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY the conversations. So it’s kind of mixed a bit in terms of expec- on someone’s property alone considered, so in this situation, funny and appropriate that no tations. An artist residency making drawings and swimming it’s fun to just kind of offer things “thing” could happen in the end, generally could be thought of as in a river. So that was nice. And your way and see what comes given the current state of life in a a place or situation for an artist then I’ve done a lot of self-im- back. Figuring out a format for pandemic. There was no need for to explore their work. A little posed residency periods, you myself that felt like a way that I it to be toward something else, bit open ended, perhaps a little know, just taking time out, often was excited to participate was a the communication was just a less product or result oriented. structured around a project. And really productive first step. I was reward, I guess. Often residencies do mix in some then I did the Facebook Artists excited to come and visit at the expectation of a result, which can in Residence, at the Facebook end of the semester, and was RT: Yes, I have to say just generally be a bit more on the commission headquarters in Menlo Park, excited for the potential of getting to be able to build a durational side, depending on how external which was interesting. I was to do some projects all together, time with a guest artist for a year or internal the expectations are. technically the first artist in that but I’m appreciating that my has been beneficial for all of us And again, naturally, there is a AIR program alongside another experience of this residency felt in terms of receiving and also way that those things do make person named Jay Nelson. So that substantial even without ever considering and experimenting sense to be intertwined. But you was deeply on the “new context sharing space. I felt very much like and different aspects of our work. know, there’s certainly some exploration” side of things with I was doing something with you all

119 118 throughout the year, so I don’t feel throughout this year, something putting your energy and creativity Trying to figure out how to like it was a missed experience, that I think a lot about and other and thinking about what our in continue what you were doing it was almost like the visit would people do as well. But for me, the person gathering would be. I just but inevitably there’s a lot of why, have been the icing on top. idea of scoring helps structure want to at the very least name how, when, you know? All those time to have those very rich expe- that and be appreciative of that big questions are happening, RT: Could you talk a little about riences and get into the feeling of because it does take energy to which is cool, especially with the process of how you make time a place or a time. I’ve done things adapt. We’re all trying to figure museums when generally it’s this for art to fit within your practice? like a twenty-four hour walk all this out right now in human mega train momentum where or trying something that is an forms, but also like creative every piece is moving, and it takes DW: I guess what I meant before experience that I imagine will be forms. And so I’m just curious so much to change course. So to has something to do with identi- valuable or at least, stimulating. about how you’ve been navigat- have this time, amid the tragedy fying that as an artist, in the most It can be radical just to carve out ing this pandemic. How have you and the fear, is actually radical- basic way, you are deciding how the time. I think even a very short been spending your time? Are izing. People seem to be moving you work and what that means. amount of time can be extremely you thinking about work right between thinking that there’s fulfilling when you close off now? I know that a lot of different some weirdly ecstatic and liber- And then from there, it’s up to everything else and just sink into conversations have been coming ating parts of this experience and you. I think it’s helpful to stay something. And yes, I think to up in the program about produc- then there’s the deep terror parts. connected to the authorship of choose how you work, to choose tion and pause and just kind of... that decision. For some people, ways that stimulate your work recalibrating. So yeah, I think It’s all very disorienting. You I think it’s helpful to structure regularly, is part of what it means hearing about where you are with know, I was talking to Jordan a struggle into their way of work- to be an artist. I think it’s really things would be nice. little bit about having developed ing, there’s just different ways important. And like you said, to instincts to avoid orienting proj- that people get traction. But I not feel like you’re waiting for DW: Well, it is interesting, in my ects around the digital space and had a feeling pretty early on that someone to give you permission. engagement with the museum, now, obviously, there’s such a was liberating, which was that it It’s good to check in with yourself there’s versions of the same push to just jump into it because would be nice to need as little as about what you need or want out conversations happening at all it feels like that’s what’s avail-

possible to get at the work that I of an experience, and if it’s time the scales, from individuals to able. It’s hard when the way that REFLECTIONS WITH DAVID WILSON want to do or just be able to work. and space, then you are like the institutions, they’re thinking you want to work is not available, For me, that meant pushing my holder of that currency. Right? about how to adapt and how to especially in terms of organiz- drawing instinct and practice, by You know, with this museum retain what they thought of as ing around gathering people in choosing to not work in a studio, project in some ways it’s a their work. You know, there’s person. It can leave you feeling a

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY but work outside and carry mate- process of self identifying and sixty-plus staff members who bit lost. rials and focus more on what I reaffirming for myself like, “I am used to think in one way, and love about walking and exploring an artist in residence within this now they are all running toward I think the self-compassion to hit and drawing from observation. context, it doesn’t really matter the one website person realizing the pause button is important: It helped me strip it back a little to what degree that is perceived, that the website is actually the to reflect, maybe rest, and take a bit. Because I do think that most but it does matter in connecting museum now in a way that no moment to take care of yourself people would agree that time to the feeling of experimentation one would have ever thought. But and address some of the “why” is the greatest value in working and engagement.” it brings me back to our conver- questions. Ideally so that then and just in general. So I try to sation about what a residency you can offer things from a really structure myself around ways to RT: Yes! I really liked what you is, and just trying to have a rich strong source of conviction and experience time richly, which I said about time is the most experience of the work that we’re excitement and love and not just feel is the mentality with which valuable thing. And being able to doing—to push yourself a bit. because, you know, this is what you ideally approach a residency. practice your instincts. The extreme nature of what’s you do. happening right now is pushing It’s something we talked a So thank you again for being everyone, and pushing a mirror So, anyway, with that in mind, lot about regarding scoring flexible and understanding about in front of everybody. I’ve been in a daily practice of

121 120 walking to a site in the Oakland fun to think about the tools I have Hills and working on a watercolor available, with my tiny little home page a day, coming together in photocopier which is obscenely the end as a larger piece. I had inefficient for doing an edition of set myself a time period from even two-hundred... I’ve ordered the first week of January until toner cartridges like three times basically the last week of April to already which is absurd but be working on that. So that saw feeling good. I actually think me through the first free fall into having this engagement with you quarantine, was very helpful as all helped warm me up to this a grounding force, and nice to more intimate scale and be ready just feel productive amid all the to just turn that on. You know, uncertainty. I certainly am some- communicating and sharing one who feels better when they’re and caring for the community. I productive, and there’s different mean, I really even haven’t had ways I can feel productive. But that much energy to be talking that felt good. to friends on the phone. I’ve just been hermitting. Yeah, hermit- And then the museum stuff has ting even in quarantine terms. been strange. It’s gonna play out over time—there’s already So that has felt really nice as a conversations about not having little lifeline to send out. Even any public programming through just writing people’s names down the fall for sure. So that’s enough in the address has been reward- time that there needs to be some ing, as a way of just, you know, new thinking. But again, I feel feeling connected and inspired

good that there’s this tradition of by those people who are in my REFLECTIONS WITH DAVID WILSON correspondence to work deeper world. And again, I can thank the into. It feels like it’s the time to cohort for keeping that alive. Letter from David to the MFA cohort. exist in that realm and continue to balance some of the digital think- R: Yes, that certainly resonates.

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY ing. So I’m excited about that Relating on an intimate scale potential, and to be commission- during this time. I’ve been keeping artists to contribute to mailing my life very small these past ings and do more in that format. few months since I was in San Francisco. Seems like such a long It’s funny that we’ve like, you time ago... know, been seeping our life into the internet, and then it’s just Thank you again for your time really all in. I think it’ll be espe- and energy as always, David! It’s cially nice, when so much will been a pleasure reflecting with be online, to have something you and we really enjoyed having physical to send and receive. That you as our artist-in-residence. feels affirming and, as you know, in my own community I’ve been D: Cheers! sending out a little quarantine newsletter print. Which has been

123 122 REFLECTIONS WITH DAVID WILSON

The Possible Survey, sent to cohort members. ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY

Faith, part of the We Song project.

125 124 The Gift is Hearing What’s Happening Now: who initiated the encounter, who In fall 2019 I performed at On initiated the contact. the Boards in Seattle. I asked the A Conversation with Autumn Knight curator [Rachel Cook], “Can you If you step back right away, then connect me with some black people think you don’t know people to play dominoes with what you’re doing, that you in the lobby before the perfor- The following is a conversation between Zeph Fishlyn and Autumn don’t have any authority over the mance starts?” As a gesture, as Knight on April 24, 2020. Knight is an interdisciplinary artist working project. But the people didn’t an extension of programming with performance, installation, video and text. Much of this discussion create the project, you created a work or outreach to a specific is focused on Knight’s project Sanity TV, an improvised participatory the project, right? In the perfor- demographic that I want access performance in the form of a talk show. mance space, it’s owning that to, how do I bring them into this you did create the situation, you performance space? More on Autumn Knight: autumnjoiknight.com/ did create these parameters. As a choice within that moment, Project Row Houses is known for ZEPH FISHLYN: How do you think took place in an empty lot. We you can step back and give more the founder [Rick Lowe] playing about your work in relationship made a performance of a good authority to the audience. This dominoes with people from the to social practice? time. We asked people to dress is a sharing, but this is not an neighborhood. He does it right up to hang out on what was basi- equal labor situation. I did do on the inside of the door. So it’s AUTUMN KNIGHT: The founda- cally an empty lot. more labor than you in construct- the first thing you experience tion of some of my work lies in ing this space, so I can take the when you walk into the space. principles of social practice. I’m ZF: I read a recent interview space back over when necessary. Also I grew up playing dominoes, from Houston’s Third Ward; I where you’re talking about You hopefully trust that I will do so I miss that connection. How did my first series of works at working with discomfort, push- that at a certain point, to keep do you create a social space that Project Row Houses. It really laid ing boundaries, and intimacy. it moving, and maybe for you people feel welcome in and with a the foundation for a lot of what I How do you navigate power and to feel safe. It’s better for me neutral activity? knew art to be. Many of the black your role as an artist in different as a performer to manage the artists around me in Houston situations?

moment. The dominoes game was built A CONVERSATION WITH AUTUMN KNIGHT worked with Project Row Houses. as a moment for me to be me. In I think a lot of us have that energy AK: I’m going to triangulate that ZF: Do you feel that there are still the domino players’ first inter- in our work. It was sort of a way of with the social practice realm, the elements of social practice that action with me I was just chill life also. performance realm, and what I are shaping how you’re doing and having fun. Those people learned from therapy—being in

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY performative work now? then came to the performance. I For example, we discovered a therapy school and also being a imagine that they were able to see news article listing “the 25 most client of therapy. As the therapist, AK: Sometimes I try to combine what it takes to embody another dangerous corners in America,” you are in this position of power, indirect outreach and engage- type of persona—like, “oh, that and one of them was in our whether you want it or not. ment while I’m doing some other person is performing.” neighborhood. So my husband You’re there at the service of the type of performance. If you go and I created a Sunday social client, you’re there to help them. into a space that’s not your space, ZF: You’re playing so much event on that corner [Sunday But you can’t deny this sense you try to figure out how to get in with intimacy—with physical Social]. Friends came, people of authority in the room, even touch with the people that you closeness, or challenging what nearby came and staff affiliated though you try to share it with want to be in conversation with. people are saying or what they’re with Project Row Houses also the person that’s coming to be How do you build a relationship? thinking. That also puts you in a joined us. Jimmy, who does therapized. So when I think about vulnerable position. Therapists maintenance for Project Row social practice moments and/or Sometimes I try to combine indi- have certain boundaries, like Houses, barbecued. We had a DJ performance moments, I think rect outreach and engagement OK, we’re here for fifty minutes (Zin, RIP) and we got power from about not being in denial about while I’m doing some other type and you give me the check, we a neighbor across the street. It of performance. do this really intimate powerful

127 126 work and then I step out and you ZF: You’re talking about a one-on- at you and they’re expecting persuade you. You know, how step out and then usually there’s one situation where the goal is to something of you. I try to speak do I persuade people to stay in no other contact. As a performer help that one person. It’s inter- to it because then I feel like it lets this room when I don’t know you can’t establish as clear of esting when you extrapolate that the audience off the hook a little what’s going to happen? How do a boundary, so I wonder if the out to a performance situation bit. It lets them off one hook and I convince people that I do know persona holds the boundaries. with a group. Individual people puts them on another. You are what’s going on? You can take that hat off and no are going to get lots of different part of this moment of discom- longer be that person. It creates things out of a performance, but fort, and you’re so relieved that I do want there to be some the ability to hold a space that’s some of them might feel chal- you’re not in my position. And challenge, some discomfort more concentrated and more lenged, some of them might go I need to make you an accom- in a flowy space, because I feel intensified because you have a away mad. If you’re not in a ther- plice to this feeling I’m having. like the things that are shifting certain layer of protection. apist role, you don’t actually have It requires your presence for this can’t quite shift as quickly if the the responsibility for people to dynamic to unfold. I don’t need discomfort is painful. The more AK: Yes, absolutely. There is a go away feeling better than when to pretend that I don’t have that I do performances where I’m protection of yourself, to be able they arrived. feeling. I put a message out there interacting with people, I learn so to go even further and deeper and to the audience—whatever feel- much about people and human take more risks. Sometimes I do AK: In a performance, I need to ing you’re having, just have it and nature and what things people a workshop and a performance, just put out there the challenge then move on. will accept—behavioral patterns. or studio visits and performance, and questions to make you think in the same place. In some about your own behavior. I think It’s all improv. If I feel stuck, When people come back to me instances I have had to really observing my own behavior too, then I will check in in the “here later and remember moments delineate the role I’m in, as a in the moment, is impactful and now” with myself and then from the performance, that feels person leading the workshop or sometimes—to notice how I’m other people. In curiosity mode or successful to me. It burrowed the person visiting your studio. responding to the room. I feel appreciation mode. I try to leave deep into the memory. They kept cornered, or I feel nervous, or this it as improvisational and open as a piece of it with them. They’re I constantly think about what is hard to try to perform for all possible, because the gift is hear- turning it around and using it

people expect socially. What they of you. This is very difficult. I’m ing what’s happening now. It’s the for something. I think that’s A CONVERSATION WITH AUTUMN KNIGHT want, and how they act when they going to go ahead anyway. It may one thing that can’t be replicated. why discomfort is such a tool for can’t get it. What do people really make you feel disappointed that me—not pain, but discomfort. need? You know? I love watching you came, but let’s work through Part of it is an experiment in Play as a way to distract—this people. Often if I’m going to a that together. Because maybe authority—can I influence the deep, deep work can happen

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY place where there’s lots of new I’m disappointed in you too. You thing to happen based on how I while you are playing. people, I’m really comfortable could love me more, or act like perform my absolute desire for sitting in a corner of a room and it. You could applaud more. So the thing to happen, or knowing watching everybody. we’re both in this predicament how it should happen? What if of needing more love and atten- I’m very direct in how I commu- If I listen well enough, then tion and forgiveness for being nicate? If the thing still doesn’t the thing that I say can push disappointing. happen, is it in part because the right place, and that will let people don’t want to take direc- them know that I was listening. I often say, “I’m stuck!” or tions from a person like me? As Acknowledging that, in part, a “It’s not going like I thought it a performer, people came to see person wants you to hear exactly was gonna go!” Let’s see what how much authority I have in this what they just said. They think happens! Working with it. space. that’s what they said, but if you’re Because if I’m really feeling these listening, you hear the five layers things, people notice. The larger There’s a dance that you do; underneath that. the audience gets, you feel all there’s some creativity inher- their eyes on you. They’re looking ent in finding what would

129 128 TAKEAWAYS FROM KNIGHT’S RESIDENCY

As part of Autumn Knight’s AIR with our program, she virtually met with “Just finish.” each student in the middle of spring term to discuss our projects and prac- —Roshani tice. Students were asked to share a core learning from their meeting. We explored many different ideas and forms for the Prosperity Garden Autumn offered great insight on the Portland Conservatory as we Network, specifically in relationship to the RV park. We talked about discussed different methods and techniques that art museums use the temporary and nomadic nature of the lifestyle, and to think about for community outreach and presentation. We also workshopped the plant exchange that I am facilitating to have the same qualities her own relationship to her plants and what that says about her life such as thinking about the containers and how easy it would be to and others. Due to this conversation, I am now focusing on creating a pick up and go with them. workshop that explores ones’ relationships with plants. —Shelbie —Emma Knowledge is performative. Knowledge is performance. Autumn was deeply thoughtful, articulate, present, reflective and gener- —Jordan ous! I feel so completely grateful to have had her insight at this moment when all of us are looking for wisdom in ourselves and each other. She helped me consider the value of being present as a storyteller —Tia within my virtual walking project. What can I share about my own specific experience that could provide a compelling thread to follow I should evangelize my message. Repackage the project up for privi- for someone walking in a totally different neighborhood? leged arts administrators and academics and sugarcoat it in a self-care —Zeph package to dismantle the future uncertainty driven by white supremacy. —Eric A takeaway I have from my conversation with Autumn is that my individual perspective is important—a unique story that needs to be She reminded me to think creatively about using forms that I heard. That escapism, dreaming, thinking about intangible things are

already employ—in new contexts and in new ways—without starting important for survival. A CONVERSATION WITH AUTUMN KNIGHT completely from scratch. —Becca —Mo

I felt both seen and validated in my unique experience as the only

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY black student in the program and was encouraged to set intentional and strong boundaries with myself, others, and the art world at large. Much gratitude and appreciation for the insight. —Michael

What is the danger of the memory? Is it about being a local or is it about power? Who controls the sea—cargo, ships, Atlantic slave trade, etc.? —Brianna

Autumn observed that folks racialized as white unpacking whiteness is both novel and needed, especially as it relates to performance art. Autumn also observed that BIPOC have been discussing the white gaze for a long time. So what next? How can the work move that Zeph (lower left) discourse another step. interviews Autumn. —Justin

131 130 EXCHANGES

Conversations with other contributors to Assembly and the PSU Art + Social Practice MFA Program. Books are a Container to have visibility, the need to while drinking coffee, or a casual have “distribution.” And in this space from which to observe and case, the need to substitute being think about the world around in person together and talking us. I think I talk about the book- A conversation between Spencer Byrne-Seres and Roz Crews, co-founders about the work that we do as store so much because it seems of Sunday Painter Press. Crews is a faculty member in the Art + Social socially engaged artists. like this elusive, impossible Practice Program, where she teaches the third-year publication class; thing. How can any bookstore Byrne-Seres is the founding editor of the Social Forms of Art Journal, the Sunday Painter Press is a casual sell hundreds (or thousands) of Social Practice Program’s biannual publication. They’re both graduates imprint that you and I started books a month to people who of the program. This dialogue started with a question in an e-mail from as an outlet for the publications walk in with cash? Who are these Crews to Byrne-Seres while they were quarantined under the same roof we make. Its name came out of people that buy the books? Artists during the global pandemic. They went back and forth until it ended with one of our past projects—Sunday are so mixed up in personal a question. Painters Group—which was a sort economics that it’s quite confus- of conceptual art club that took ing to unravel what you are sell- ROZ CREWS: I’m looking forward further, can you answer four-ish place around the city. Each week, ing from what you are as human. to reading your thoughts about questions? a different member of the group For example, I have a domain the powers of publications. would lead the rest in an assign- name that is my name with a What is Sunday Painter Press and ment that emphasized site spec- button that says “shop,” and you Ever since we started Sunday why does it exist? ificity, resourcefulness, and play. can go there and buy “pieces of Painter Press in 2016, I’ve occa- We would meet under bridges, me.” So in a way, the book store is sionally caught myself staring into Why do you always say that your in plant nurseries, at supermar- kind of like a thought exercise for computer screens until the pixels dream is to own a bookstore? kets, and even at the beach. It thinking about my own personal start to melt, thinking about the What is the bookstore like in was seriously casual practice, as economy and what I do and don’t purpose of a publication. Who your dream? much a social context as it was a make, and how I can envision is it for? Where does it go? How context for meaningful artistic future economic selves. That do I make it beautiful, but more SPENCER BYRNE-SERES: Thanks experience. And the spirit of that being said, all of these futures

importantly, interesting? Do for initiating this conversation, project was kind of embodied the are unrealized, and my own BOOKS ARE A CONTAINER I have ideas worth spreading? and for bringing up these import- press, under which we continue monetized labor exists within the Why would I write it all down and ant questions. I wanted to start to publish our publications. In realms of art nonprofits and the send it off, when my thoughts are by foregrounding this dialogue itself it’s kind of a conceptual university. perfectly safe and protected in in the context in which it will art project, too. We just made a

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY my own head? Through time and be printed. A publication that is name, a logo, and a website and That goes back to this idea of communities, who publishes? attempting to replace an in- put some things we were already audience and publications. I And how? And WHY? person event—Assembly—which doing inside of that container, don’t sell many of the publica- has been canceled due to the and it just stuck. I’m curious how tions I make, so I wonder who, I’ve told you before, and I’ll tell global pandemic caused by covid- it functions for you, and what beyond the direct participants you again—I’m not a big reader! 19. In thinking about publi- your relationship is to it? in the project, are the intended So why do I want to make books? cations, I really want to circle audiences for a lot of the books Where does the impulse come around the idea of need. I feel Oh, and the bookstore! Ahhh the we make? from? Making my own publi- like publications are often the bookstore. I think the bookstore cations has been a way to teach product of need—the need to put is a question. It’s a question RC: I never knew you thought of myself how to read and write words down, the need to share about economy, and space, and yourself as a bookstore. better. Editing other people’s ideas, the need to show docu- audience, and livelihood. I don’t work has helped, too, and I think mentation, the need to collect a know if I want to own a bookstore I like to reference Sunday Painter your editing style has influenced bunch of things together that are as much as I want to be a book- Press casually when I describe me a lot. Before we go much hard to contain in one place, the store. I want to be a comfortable my practice because it does feel need to have authority, the need space with things to think about like a comfortable, pseudo-real

135 134 container to house our artist Next I made a book for my mom interested in socially-engaged art. need to make “orphans.” They projects, but at the same time, I (and my dad!), How do you get rid I like that the work forms its own were referring to an idea that a wish it was more than that. I love of a 40 year old bottle of perfume? community once it’s alive, but as person should be able to make putting our spiral logo on the (2016): an essay as a portrait of part of my process, I like to know objects that can exist in the world publications I design because it my family with a collection of at least some places where it will without them. I don’t love the helps me feel like I’m contrib- drawings she made on envelopes, land when it’s first born. It gives analogy, but I do think books let uting to a collection, instead of credit card statements, and me a sense of relief and reassur- us do this for socially engaged just making individual, amateur- receipts. ance that my time and energy projects once they are finished. ishly designed objects. Having isn’t being poured into a gaping So often we need to have lunch the press has pushed me toward Can art inspire me to think criti- hole that will just be filled with with someone, and make draw- learning how to make it feel more cally about...? (2017): a reflection dirty concrete as soon as it opens. ings, and show a video and talk real, more legible as an actual of the graduate school attempts to three other people in order to press that could release other I made at trying to integrate art I like the way you alluded to it convey what our socially engaged artists’ books. I often wonder education into first-year liberal already, but can you expand project actually is. Books are, as what the economy of that would arts college curriculum as the on why you think artists want you like to put it, a type of punc- be—how would we fund printing artist-in-residence at Portland to make books? I’m especially tuation mark on a project that other people’s projects when State University’s Housing interested in “the need to have allows us to encapsulate a certain we can barely figure out how and Residence Life (UHRL) authority." form or part of a process. to fund our own? When would Department. It features assign- we learn how to perfect-bind? ments I cowrote with nonart SBS: Totally. Those are great The authority bit comes from this Who would read the editions we faculty, plus their student work examples and ways of thinking idea that by binding something, would make? This brings me to addressing those assignments about audience. One time I made making it available on a book- your second question: who is the as well as essays by influential a book for a fish. The fish’s name shelf in a store, or in some online audience? socially engaged artists and is Herman, and it’s a seventy- shop, somehow gives it a sense educators attempting to answer five-year-old sturgeon that lives of “official-ness” that is different Each of my publications has a my questions about how art fits at the Bonneville Fish Hatchery. from, say, zine culture. It’s not

different primary audience, and into our broader shared society. I realize now that the book really that I think that zines are any less BOOKS ARE A CONTAINER maybe they all have the same This book was paid for by the was for Herman. It’s a series respectable than something you secondary and tertiary audi- UHRL department that spon- of Yelp! reviews that mention can order off of Amazon—a lot of ence... a few examples: sored my residency, so I was the fish, and I thought it would essential, suppressed, and hard able to give a free copy to every be interesting to collect them to access information has been

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY Some things people thought student, teacher, administrator, together. I didn’t know quite how made accessible through zines were weird (2016): a participatory artist, and curator who partici- to distribute it beyond that, and and their distributed networks. drawing project where I asked pated in the project (somewhere finally I just took a copy to the But bound books have a type people to tell me one weird thing around one-hundred). They were gift store at the hatchery where of widespread cultural value that happened to them that day, the primary audience, and the he lives to see if they would be and importance that we can tap and then I drew their story on book served as a document of our interested. They were and bought into as artists, in order to lever- whatever was closest to me at the experience together. thirty copies on the spot to sell age, subvert, or otherwise play time. I used the format of a book there. It created this closed loop with people’s expectations. Just to make an exhibition of those For each of these, I determined that I really like—the shop has yesterday I was reading about drawings, and then I gave each a specific audience as I designed become the steward of this idea the “bookshelf background,” the person who contributed a story the publication and its contents, in the form of an object. It’s the preferred at-home Zoom back- their own copy of the book. The but once the finished books were only place you can buy it, and to drop for TV hosts, pundits, and participants were the primary released into the world, they really understand the book, you others. This trope comes, I think, audience. found new audiences—primarily need to go there. Somebody once from those lawyer billboards they fell into the hands of artists, said to someone who then said it where they are standing in front art appreciators, and students to me about making art that you of a wall of law books saying

137 136 they can make you millions conversation or the paragraph— SBS: I think books can be exhibi- different stories behind how they off your car accident. They are when it happened, it could have tions. Books are a type of physical came into our lives. Maybe one is evidence of how large books been a publication of documen- space, and just like any physical more likely to get tossed into a bag loom in our psyche. tation that would repeat exactly space, you can put stuff in it and and read in a park, or picked as what she said, and I could absorb show it to other people. I think the solo journeyer on a road trip I’ve been thinking, too, about it now in a new way. Instead, I you can also experience a book (which I never wind up reading). what books are actually good only have my memory to go off the same way you experience an for. We used to say about our old which doesn’t always provide a exhibition. You can RSVP for a I also think about how books office at the Portland Institute clear or concise delivery of past book. You can pay “admission” require maintenance. Just like for Contemporary Art (PICA) experiences. I guess that’s a value to receive a book. You can get buildings, from the moment they that the space wasn’t great for of publication—the opportunity tired and need to sit down while are finished being produced, any one thing, but it was kind to return to something concrete. reading the book, or try and find they begin to degrade, and we are of good at many things (events, the bathroom after you finish responsible for how the process meetings, exhibitions, concerts). I think books are precious. At that one chapter. Someone can unfolds. Do we cover them in I think about books the same first when I wrote that sentence, tell you not to touch the book, shrink wrap? Keep them out of way. They can have photos, but I wasn’t talking about mass- or to only get so close to it. They the sun? Or do we dog ear them, you will never get the quality of a produced paperback novels, can tell you more about the book, crack the spines, and write notes gelatin silver print. They can have and I was thinking more about its history, provenance, and fun in the margins? The great thing is dialogue, but they can’t always “special” books that preserve facts about the author. that we can do all of the above! convey affect and nonverbal an artist’s work or thoughts communication. They can have with expensive paper, delicately But unlike many books, exhibi- In my own practice, I feel like diagrams and maps, but they placed type, linen, and foil. tions are something that by and books are a container into which can’t [really] convey space. They Though now on reflection, those large are disposable. They are I can squeeze a lot of different tend to imply narrative, hierar- mass-produced paperbacks, that temporary. They almost always things. Like I was saying before, chy, authorial legitimacy—which seemed so disposable a moment have end dates. So it’s interesting I can have the photo, and the we sometimes need to undo with ago, offer a kind of time travel, to think about the publication essay, and the conversation, and

our editor’s notes and prefaces. totally invaluable. They move as a kind of permanent exhibi- the map and diagram and credits BOOKS ARE A CONTAINER But they can kinda do all these from person to person via thrift tion. Like you were saying, they and disclaimers all in a single things, so they are totally useful. stores and free piles, and each are concrete things that can be object that can get shared and person has a new and probably looked back on and referenced. passed around. They are also a Do you think books are precious indescribable feeling based The things we normally forget, way to illustrate an idea and to

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY or disposable? on reading them. The fact that or amplify in the memory of an formalize it. The Herman the everyone has a different expe- exhibition, we can corroborate or Sturgeon book was a concep- RC: I do like books as a punctu- rience with a book makes each double check through a publica- tual art project, and the way it ation mark to put a pause in a one precious in its own way. It tion. That excellent photograph, was formalized was through project or series of projects, a seems like the content and the or quote or caption stays put and the creation of a bound book. time to reflect, present, conclude, object, and everything they can we can consult it at a later date. There are other ways to do that— etc. That idea came from a do together makes books very That name that gets misspelled rumors, events, conversations, conversation with Julie Ault, non-disposable. stays misspelled, and we’re forced photographs, paintings, essays, or maybe I read it in a text she to remember how stressed we etc.—but the book was the wrote. I remember her describing Do you think a book can function were to meet our deadline and strategy I chose for that specific the value of having a chance to like a portable art exhibition? didn’t have time to do a proper project. pause and think about a project Why or why not? What else can it proofread. Books are portable, in a new way by collecting all its function as in the context of an and they are affected by different What are your thoughts on this elements and putting them into artist’s practice? contexts. The book we find in idea of a book as exhibition? a publication. If I had made a the free pile and the book we buy What are some of the other uses note about that moment—the at the museum gift store have for books? Maybe in circling

139 138 back, how can a small press or If we were to make Sunday bookstore function and facilitate Painter Press function in a more an artists practice, or support serious way, working with other the creation of socially engaged artists to produce their books, art books? I’d like to focus on the expanded possibilities beyond poetic, essay, RC: I like your ideas about a book photograph, table of contents, as an exhibition, and I think paper, binding. I’d really like to some of the first exhibitions I know what else a publication can attended were books. Like I said be, how spreading ideas can be in the beginning, I don’t love to more accessible to folks whose read the way many other people primary mode of communication in my life do, but I do really like isn’t the written word [but still in looking at photographs. I like the form of a publication]. What books as frames for photography other kinds of books are there? because I can take the photos with me like a memory. It makes Anyway, we should probably wind me think of wallets where people down this little conversation. I used to carry photos of people love you very much. they love. Kind of like a mini book, the wallet opens up and SBS: I love you, too. there I am as a baby between the records of my dad’s identity. Top, left: A publication created by Roz Crews that looks at the role of art and critical thinking in nonart based

university classes through a collection BOOKS ARE A CONTAINER of essays by artists and educators. Published by Sunday Painter Press.

Top, right: Social Practice Definitions is

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY an ongoing collection of pocket-sized publications, each one of which contains an essay about a term used within the Social Practice Program, written by students in the program and based on a list compiled by Program Director Harrell Fletcher.

141 140 Learning Is Like Giving In this conversation, Roz Crews (b. 1990), a program manager at KSMoCA, tries to explain Learning Outside the Lines (LOTL) to her Learning Outside the Lines (LOTL) is a new project hosted by mentee Moe (b. 2012), a second grader at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. the King School Museum of Contemporary Art (KSMoCA). School, over Zoom.

ROZ CREWS: When the other M: Yeah. I don’t get to do photog- people that work at KSMoCA and raphy class anymore! KSMoCA is a museum-as-artwork project within the walls of a func- I were suddenly stuck at home tioning pre-K to fifth grade public school in northeast Portland, without access to visiting the RC: I know. But we get to do Oregon. It was founded by Lisa Jarrett and Harrell Fletcher who school or seeing anyone at all, other stuff together still—like work alongside students, teachers, and administrators from Dr. we started thinking about the our drawing class! Twice a week MLK Jr. School and Portland State University’s College of the Arts. different ways that we’ve learned instead of just once. What do you The project reimagines how museums, public schools, and univer- throughout our lives. We thought think learning is? sities shape people, culture, and perspectives by cultivating space about times when we were your for art to educate within and beyond the classroom through mutual age and unusual learning experi- M: Learning is like giving... exchange. Internationally renowned artists collaborate with students ences happened to us at school, someone teaching you a bunch on site-specific projects, exhibitions and workshops. In turn, students and we decided to collect stories of knowledge. Someone teaching learn about museum careers as they practice the roles of curator, about other people’s experiences. you knowledge or you teaching preparator, publicist, artist, copywriter, registrar, and docent. You and I are having this conver- yourself knowledge is what I sation now because Amanda, think is learning. LOTL originated as a conversation between Harrell Fletcher, Molly Harrell, and Lisa said, “What if Sherman, and Michelle Swinehart, and it has more recently devel- you explained the project to Moe? RC: What’s the difference oped into a public, participatory work organized by the KSMoCA team Then Moe, with all the amazing between somebody teaching including Jarrett, Fletcher, Roz Crews, and Amanda Leigh Evans. We questions that he has, can ask you you knowledge and you teaching are collecting stories-as-artworks from people about early educational questions about it.” We’re really yourself knowledge? experiences that deviated from their normal K to eighth grade curricu- curious to know what you think.

lum, in order to highlight unorthodox ways of learning. M: The difference is that you are LEARNING IS LIKE GIVING MOE: OK. Roz, how do you do the teaching yourself and somebody, Anyone can contribute a story-as-artwork to the project, and these chat feature? if you’re in a classroom or you’re artworks focus on learners’ perspectives rather than teachers’ in homeschool, there’s always perspectives. Within LOTL, the person telling the story is an artist RC: The chat feature? We’re not someone that’s going to teach

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY pointing to a particularly influential experience and claiming that going to use the chat feature right you something. It’s like person- memory as an artwork in this present moment. We’re thinking of each now, but I’ll show you at the end. to-person contact, not self-to -self learner’s story as an artwork and are asking each participant to claim OK? contact. the experience as an artwork. M: OK. RC: I like the idea of self-to-self Submit your story here: contact as a form of learning. www.ksmoca.com/learning-outside-the-lines RC: Moe, I have a question for Like you’re attracting the kinds you. Do you miss school at all? of information that you want and not just accepting whatev- M: I miss school a little bit. I miss er’s been laid out for you as your seeing my friends every day, my education that you get, you’re teachers. deciding for yourself. Do you want me to tell you about the RC: Do you miss KSMoCA? KSMoCA project?

M: Yeah.

143 142 RC: It’s called, Learning Outside RC: [laughing] What do you do through something like this: one M: That can be possible. the Lines (LOTL) [Moe holds up a in class? phone plus one pillow equals sketch of the logo he’s working a phone pillow [gesturing with RC: That’s something that on for the project in front of the M: I do MATTHHHHHH. I have a objects from the room]? happened to me when I was computer camera], and it’s a question—Do you like math or do in second grade, my… [Moe collection of artworks-as-stories you not like math? M: Oh, yeah. It’s like: suit jacket gets really excited, pointing at written by people reflecting on plus human equals human in suit himself]. Yeah, I know, you’re in experiences from when they were RC: I like math. jacket. second grade now! My teacher between five and fourteen years decided that we were all going to old. The artworks are about times M: I love math. RC: Maybe that equation also make videos of ourselves reading in their school where something equals fancy human or business- books, but we were first going unique happened and it was RC: Yeah, math is cool. How do oriented human. It’s different to dress up in costumes that we really different from the rest of you learn math? from just the sum of its parts. made out of scraps of paper and their school education. And it You look so dapper, Moe. fabric and donated clothes that stuck out to them as important in M: You can teach yourself math people’s parents brought to the shaping themselves and who they and you can be taught math. M: Human in suit jacket. school. We dressed up like a char- are now as adults. We’re thinking acter in our book. And then the of those moments as artworks. RC: What happens at school when RC: This project is about pointing teacher video recorded us read- Does that make sense? you’re learning math? out different times in our lives ing from our story and it was like when the thing that’s normal, a new way to think about reading. M: Yes, it does. Here’s something M: I’m taught math. like listening to the teacher tell It got me excited about reading, that actually stuck out to me us about math is suddenly differ- because I didn’t have to just sit in once. I haven’t learned that there’s RC: Do you sit in a chair? ent. Something other than the the classroom at my desk read- a lock-in, but I do know there’s a usual thing happens. Does that ing the book, you know? Can you lockout, not a lock-in. That’s what M: Yes. make sense? relate to that? was really weird about it when the

creepy ladies came. RC: What else happens? M: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. M: It was like, dressing as LEARNING IS LIKE GIVING Superman. Dressing up as RC: At school? M: We sit in chairs and then we RC: And so, like you said, some- Superman in his clothes and all listen and some people will only thing unusual that happened was that, blah, blah, blah. M: Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Two hear: “Blah, plus blah, equals that these two strangers came to

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY creepy ladies. plus, plus, plus, plus, plus blah, the school, right? RC: It was like a new way to under- blah, plus blah, blah, blah, blah, stand the act of reading and it RC: What did that teach you blah, blah, blah.” M: Two creepy ladies. was very focused on my experi- whenever it happened? ence in the class. Have you ever RC: What do other people hear? RC: Two creepy ladies came and had anything like that? M: It taught me if someone comes that taught you that you should to you and says, “Do you want M: One plus 500 equals 501. stay away from strangers, right? M: Nope. candy?” you run the other way!!!! Well, what do you think about RC: Do you think there’s any other doing an art project to teach you RC: I probably wouldn’t have RC: Well, yeah, that’s a really good ways to learn math besides just about reading? known when I was in second thing to learn. In your school, listening? grade how impactful that what does a normal day look like? M: Well, OK. That sounds really moment was. We like thinking M: Teaching yourself math? weird. about KSMoCA as an unusual M: Daily, probably between thing that happens in your day, cloudy and sunny. RC: Have you ever done any activ- RC: Do you think it’s possible? where you get to do something ities where you learn about math different from your normal stuff

145 144 at school. Do you think the hallway when he was being helps you learn, because it gives R: That’s really good. I’ve fallen that’s true? silly. I’m trying to remember a you a long time. A long time. off my bike a lot, too. During moment and then saying, “That’s the pandemic, are you getting M: Yeah. Even though I’ve done it an art project.” What do you RC: One of the ways I learn stuff more opportunities to learn for about two years now. think about that? is through trying to do the thing stuff in different ways than you I want to learn about. If I want to normally do? RC: It’s pretty normal to you at M: I like it. learn how to bake a blueberry pie, this point, but it’s also differ- then I’ll just try to bake a blue- M: Yup. ent because every day we do RC: You do? What do you like berry pie. Do you ever do that? something new. Like instead about it? RC: What’s an example? of photography, sometimes we M: No. dance in the copy-machine room. M: I like that it’s very cool. M: ARTTTT! RC: How’d you learn to ride a M: The papery copier roomy. RC: Do you like learning stories bike? about people’s lives? RC: Do you get to do that as part M: Tried and tried and tried and of regular school? M: Yes. tried and tried and tried and tried. A few days ago, I actually M: No. No! RC: Do you think that learning is hurt myself on this finger, this important? finger, my elbow and my knee, RC: Our mentor hour is a new this knee. opportunity each week. And it’s M: Yes. Yes. Yessss. Yess. Yess. Yes! fun. And it’s mostly about what RC: Really? Oh, no. Did you fall off you want to spend your time RC: Why? your bike? I’m sorry Moe. doing, right? M: Because if you don’t learn, M: But at least that one is

M: Yeah. Wait, I have a good idea. you’ll become very, very, very, very healed on the side, sort of LEARNING IS LIKE GIVING Do you want to do dance class not smart. healing right now. after this? RC: You think so? What are some RC: We could do a little bit of different ways you can learn

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY dance class after this. stuff? You’ve identified that you can learn from a teacher or you What do you think about me can learn by yourself… saying that the time when I was in second grade doing a class M: And you can learn from your assignment is an art project. parents or an app. I’m thinking about that experience now, looking back, and RC: What else? I’m capturing that moment with my brain. I think that is a bit M: God. Time. like capturing a moment with a camera. I’m pointing to some- RC: Time. How can you learn thing the way you pointed at Mr. from time? Monty with your camera to take a photo of him to remember that M: Time. You can think about hilarious face he was making in it for a long time. Time actually

147 146 Art + Social The conversation that follows between Marti Clemmons, Rebecca Copper and Lo Moran is the first published document discussing the Art + Social Practice Archive Practice Archive as we are in the process of establishing it as a project in itself, and touches on ways of thinking about the canon of social prac- Lo Moran, Marti Clemmons, and Rebecca Copper tice, nontraditional approaches to archiving, and archives-as-artworks. We’ve been working on growing an archive that tells stories of socially engaged artwork, while also organizing programming connected to the archive and imagining new ways for supporting and cultivating public, The Art + Social Practice Archive was founded in 2018 by Shoshana artistic and academic research in socially engaged art, and this conver- Gugenheim Kedem, Roshani Thakore, Harrell Fletcher, and me, sation captures our emerging visions. with the help of Cristine Paschild, the Head of Special Collections & University Archives. The archive was founded in honor of the PSU MARTI CLEMMONS: Do you want people are working under, which Art + Social Practice MFA program’s ten-year anniversary. During to start, maybe not with the I find exciting. the 2019–20 school year we decided to keep developing the project archive questions, but maybe further. I reconnected with Marti Clemmons, the archive’s primary with social practice? MC: I completely agree. I have a archivist, and Rebecca Copper has joined as an additional collabora- hard time when people ask what tor on the project. Student interns Eniko Banyasz, Bri Graw, Jason Le, REBECCA COPPER: Yeah, I think I’m working on and I attempt Emily Pappas, and E French have worked with different aspects of the that’s great. What is art and to describe what Art + Social archive, including collections, digital archiving, and social media. social practice? Practice is. Looking back at the original writing about our archive, we started with the intention to “expand to include socially engaged artists and MC: Yeah, exactly. LM: How do you describe it to projects from all over the world.” This made sense as a road map people? forward; if we are going to collect ephemera from artists and proj- RC: I think it’s hard to define art ects all over the world we should also make the archive accessible and social practice, because it’s MC: It’s always different. To me, from anywhere in the world as a resource. That being said, before the not a specific medium where it’s artists creating art for social covid-19 pandemic hit, we were working toward launching the digi- you can say, “I paint landscapes, change. I don’t know if that’s

tal portion of the archive. Now, with our remote world and Assembly or I do photography, or fashion necessarily true, but a lot of the ART + SOCIAL PRACTICE ARCHIVE happening online for the first time this year, establishing the digital photography.” It’s not necessarily art that I see in the archive is just archive feels more relevant and important than ever. a medium, it’s a contemporary so inspiring. It’s hard because I art practice that is a way of creat- follow a structure within a lot of —Lo Moran ing art rather than what material the other different collections in

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY you’re using. And there’s so many the archive. This one’s like this different ways that social practice cloud that’s floating and ideas is used. So I feel it’s really hard come and go within it when I to say, “this is what art and social try to explain it to people. I was practice is." hoping that you both could give me a definition. LO MORAN: That’s one thing I like about social practice—it’s RC: Yeah, I feel like the social this emerging field that people change aspect or the activist are still forming the discourse aspect of socially engaged art is a around. What is and isn’t social big component. But, I don’t think practice is something that’s still it’s always an element. I don’t being discussed and there are think that all socially engaged a huge range of practices. It’s a artists consider themselves activ- big decentralized umbrella that ists. One thing that is happening now, is defining what isn’t

149 148 socially engaged. For example, a MC: How do you define your- calling myself an artist, and I’m art are you interested in making? friend of mine does a lot of work selves? Do you just call yourselves now in this master’s program, And they said, “social practice”. with questioning the relation- artists? Or is there a little tag to it, will I feel differently after I grad- They were the first first-year ships of humans to animals. They like a “social practice artist”? uate? Who knows. But, is that student that has said that to work with farm animals, cows, necessary? me! In general, Portland has a horses, etc. They consider them- LM: I realized in my bio, I don’t culture for community-based selves socially engaged artists use the words “social practice”, LM: No, I don’t think so. It’s inter- art and social practice, and the while some people disagree. but I say “interdisciplinary” and esting to think about how we let undergrad students seem inter- That’s a conversation that I think “socially engaged art.” I do say institutions define those kinds of ested. I think especially now as is interesting, that’s happening it when describing my work to things for us. I see the Art + Social we’re trying to find ways to stay right now where people have very people along with explanatory Practice program as a coming connected remotely, strategies different opinions on what can phrases like “community-based”, together point for all different of socially engaged art are be included. or “I make art with people.” I see communities of people. People incredibly relevant. a lot of the terms as interchange- discuss the institutionalization of LM: I wonder about the inher- able or sometimes different for social practice; there are museum MC: I think one of those ques- ent political nature of working each project. I could do a social exhibitions, MFA programs tions can tie into this, talking in collaboration with people to practice project that’s not neces- focused on it, conferences, and about academic versus nonac- make art that directly engages sarily community-based. there are archives forming! So ademic and how we view with systems of power. With what does that mean? It’s a varied ourselves, is the question about some of the projects, even if RC: I still feel uncomfortable with field where some people come unconventional archiving. That’s they’re not activism, the fact of calling myself an artist, to be from DIY backgrounds, some of a whole thing right now, ques- bringing people together feels quite honest. [Laughter] the roots are in activism, some tioning the idea of who’s an like a kind of activism. I think come from more institutional/ archivist. If you call yourself an about what social change looks LM: I was there, my first year in academic and conceptual art archivist, how do you define that? like in different fields. Social the MFA program. I was so fasci- roots. But if I think, “do I wish I think we see that a lot lately with practice also holds a lot of insti- nated with that, and now I feel there were more art education community archives.

tutional critique: thinking about like an artist. [Laughter] programs where people were ART + SOCIAL PRACTICE ARCHIVE what the art world looks like or coming together and doing the LM: Can you say more about that? the larger world, and proposing MC: [Laughter] Yay, congratula- kind of work that we’re doing ways for how we would want to tions! I feel the same way, I still in our MFA program?” I would MC: As you said, with the artists, change it with different projects have a hard time calling myself want more of those things to be there are non-academic view-

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY that create moments we want to an archivist. I mean, there are happening. points, nontraditional viewpoints see rather than what we regularly reasons for that. One is that about the archive. Either that or experience. Even if a person is I don’t have my masters. I’ve RC: I can understand wanting people are very anti-institutional doing a project about cooking, been in the field for nine years, I social practice to be a more about having their archives in an that can feel like social change to have the experience. I have lots widespread offering in different institution, so they create their me in a variety of contexts. of experience, but I still have a academic programs. But then, own archives for more control. hard time defining myself as an at the same time, in that ideal And, also defining their own ways RC: Then there’s the ethical piece, archivist. setting where Art + Social Practice of access instead of having to deal too. If you’re a social practice educational MFA programs or with other people’s restrictions, artist, you have to think about RC: That’s interesting though, even undergrad programs are just like preserving their own ethics because you are dealing like you were saying that you expansive, I would imagine that records for their community. with people, right? Or, if you feel don’t have a master’s degree, this academic settings would be more like that’s something you are fact that these institutions give accessible than what they are. LM: Do you come upon people responsible for when interacting this kind of accreditation or vali- that don’t want to put their stuff with people, then there’s a politi- dation. Should that really matter? LM: I just met with a first-year in a public archive? cal stance that’s taken. So, I don’t feel comfortable student, I was like, “what kind of

151 150 MC: Yeah, it’s common—but also can we invite in, and who do we MC: Also, the art items that we that everybody is included, given what is common is people just want it to be accessible to? have in the archive, because the credited or named. don’t feel welcome in certain audience and the community archives. That’s a very broad way MC: Yeah, I think those are really is such a huge factor of those LM: It’s interesting to think about of saying it. But you know, having important questions. pieces. But that’s not actually the how archives are kind of for the to show your ID when you go into side of it that’s collected in the future. We’re saying right now certain archives, having to sign LM: Is it for community members archive. that this stuff is really important a form. It just seems a little too who participated in the projects? to keep, to collect. It’s in anticipa- much for a lot of people, a lot of Is it for artists? Is it for academic LM: Yeah, just the tion of people wanting to access it. marginalized communities. researchers? How can it be for all documentation. different groups of people? MC: It’s totally out there. I think RC: To jump off of what you’re RC: And normally the documen- about a black-and-white photo- saying, Cassie Patterson from the RC: One way to think about the tation is what is presented to graph that I find and there’s no Ohio State University Folklore audience is the language that’s this art audience. But we don’t name or date or anything. It’s just Archive was mentioning almost being used. So, as we’re here actually have the reception, how like, “Come on, just a name or the exact same thing that you talking about what social practice the participants received the proj- date!” Someone could have just are talking about. Because it’s is or socially engaged art is, what ects. Is that what you’re saying? written something down on that folklore that is coming from does this mean to someone who is photograph. I think creating this the Appalachian region, Cassie actually participating in a collab- MC: Yeah, totally. archive, you have to think a lot was explaining how the archive orative project? A lot of times I feel about the future and what that focuses on the Appalachian like community members are LM: That’s interesting to think looks like, not only the depart- community as their audience. the ones participating, but then about for future projects. ment, but, you know, as Becca And, even though it’s housed there’s this language that’s devel- said, somebody’s grandchild within OSU, it has different oped for art world audiences at MC: I don’t know if there’s an in the future. I think that’d be access points. There is an access the same time. answer because it is an art based really cool. point within what she called the archive. It’s just that this place,

“forest,” in the town nearby in LM: I feel like this is a really good this thing happened, and it was LM: Has that ever happened to ART + SOCIAL PRACTICE ARCHIVE the Appalachian region where thing to think about at this stage recent. It’s a current thing. And you where someone is coming to she lives, and the OSU space is of developing things—how can people had a response to it. the archives in that way? just kind of like the reserve or we invite different people in? the framework, but it’s being What does that look like at the RC: I wonder, though, and this MC: Yeah. All the time. It’s a lot

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY accessed outside of the univer- archive, Marti? may be totally unrealistic, but of ancestry but like in terms of sity. The audience isn’t the let’s say there was an art proj- ancestry and you know, “oh, I university students or people MC: Yeah, the whole community ect that involved community want to look up the house that within academic spaces. It’s aspect is something that is miss- members and that the archive I used to live in," we direct that actually the people living in ing from the Art + Social Practice listed all of the names of those to the Portland City Archives. rural Appalachia. So I mean, just Archive. Like the response, the community members. Then, That’s more their thing. Usually hitting on what you’re saying, reaction of the participation, so further down the line, a grand- our collections are neighborhood Marti. It connects. Definitely. I don’t know how that could be child of said community member community based, but there’s included or knows that their grandparent was also like a lot of connections to MC: That’s beautiful. I love that. if that’s even a question to have in this art project. They’re like, Portland State alumni and a lot an answer. “Let me look up my grandfather, of the grandparent questions LM: That’s really cool. I’m John Doe,” or whoever. Then they are, “my grandfather was a music wondering about who our archive LM: Oh, like, how is the could access it in that way. Is that professor in 1965 or some- is for. It’s still at the beginning community present or connected a possibility? Then that also goes thing...” So, it’s a lot of that. stages, but that’s a good way to to the archives? to crediting. We need to ensure think about it. Who is it for, who LM: Cool.

153 152 RC: I was thinking about when MC: In terms of our archive? It’s it?” You both said, “Yeah, LM: I just had an idea about you were mentioning how it’s the only collection like it. come on!” It felt accessible different archives that people kind of weird to think about the and inviting. have in their homes. It’d be great archive existing in the future and LM: What do we hope people get to do a project where you docu- people retroactively looking back. from accessing the Art + Social LM: I want that to carry through ment people’s various archives. I wonder, what are your thoughts Practice archive? in all parts of the project. How Maybe they don’t want their on this idea of an archive as a to break down that institutional archive to be in an institution, living thing? RC: I think each audience will barrier that people might feel. I but there could be some sort of have different expectations of think about truly public archiving reference sheet where you could MC: Yeah, no, completely. When what they want to get out of it. and community archiving. I’m contact this person to go see their you think of an archive, the still thinking about how that all archive if you wanted. number one answer is dust, MC: Yeah, it depends on who it is. can fit into this. I was excited to damp, something hidden away. I know a lot of the people that are create student internship oppor- RC: That sounds like a great idea. But no, it’s absolutely living. accessing it right now are profes- tunities to invite more people There are always records in the sors or faculty. Zeph Fishlyn, they into the project as a learning MC: Love that. I like the idea of collection where we are asking, came in quite often last semes- experience and to help shape it. following a map around. “how are they relating to each ter. Students from classes came other?” And then someone in a few times. There were a few MC: That’s something we’re LM: A walking tour of Portland’s comes into the archive and asks a weeks where it was the most used always consistently trying to do secret archive. question that brings them to life collection in the archive. is to get people’s perspectives in a different way every time. of our archives to change. It’s MC: Oh my gosh, there’s some- LM: That’s the exciting mystery definitely like, “I don’t know if I thing here, run with it! Run! LM: These things are waiting of still being at the beginning feel like I belong there, I have to for people to bring them to life of this project—how will people have my ID, there’s a dress code, LM: This can be a whole section in the present. I had a similar use it? I have imaginations of etc.” All these weird things we’ve of our archive. A section for question, what does an active what it would look like to have an heard from students of all ages. archive-related, socially engaged

archive look like? The field of Art artist-in-residence work with the Trying to change that I think is art projects. That’s a dream I have. ART + SOCIAL PRACTICE ARCHIVE + Social Practice, like growing archive and create a project. I’m really important. The archives are and continuing, it’s like we have thinking about ways of inviting for you, it’s for the general public, RC: I think that brings up a good to keep up with that in some way, different people to use it. Even it’s for students, and trying to get point about archiving as an the living archive part of it. with these student interns, just that across has always been our artistic practice. I know, Marti,

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY talking to them and hearing their main goal. we were talking about what we MC: Yeah, I’m questioning perspective on it. There aren’t label ourselves as, whether it’s an constantly because the social that many opportunities for LM: That’s such a parallel with archivist or an artist. What if you practice archive is something folks to work on an art archive. It social practice and trying to break call yourself an artist rather than that’s completely different from made me realize how much of a down the barriers that people an archivist or an archiving artist what we have in our archives. learning tool or an access point it have to experiencing art, or going or something like that? What do It’s one accession or two acces- could be. to an art museum or a gallery. It’s you think about archiving as an sions of records that come in, as a similar barrier where people art form? opposed to the social practice RC: Yeah, even for myself. When don’t feel welcome or don’t feel archive where it’s consistently you think of an archive, an like it’s for them or that concep- MC: That’s something I’m really moving and generating stuff. archive can sound very presti- tual art can be intimidating. having a hard time conceptualiz- gious and almost intimidating, That’s a cool parallel actually. ing. You know, when you think of LM: Is this the only archive that but having the conversations with the archiving degree, the MLIS, works like this in the collection? you, Lo and Marti, when I first MC: It is. I like thinking it’s a Master Library Information said, “Hey, this is something I’m about that. Sciences, science is attached to it. interested in, can I be a part of So what else could it be besides

155 154 science? But I think working standards of archiving. Which with the Art + Social Practice is great because I’m totally like, Archive has really twisted my “if there’s a riot on the street, set-in-stone archiving brain and I’m out there.” It’s kind of more how I approach things; how I along the lines of how I think approach different collections, already. It’s relatable to me. now. It’s given me different ways of thinking about collec- LM: It’s been cool to work with tions and the archive process. So you on this, it’s nice to have that I think, in terms of that, it is an affinity. I sensed that you were artistic practice. open. Thanks for being open. [Laughter] LM: In what way has it made you think differently, or what’s MC: You’re welcome. Thank you an example? for being accepting [Laughter]. I think because [art and social MC: Well, the main thing really is practice] is such a new practice, just how art has come in. That’s that’s something to think about. something that’s completely I guess we’ll witness in the future new. The collection itself is how many Art + Social Practice constantly changing, because archives in a university format new items are coming in. It’s how exist and will pop up in the future? we want to format the archive, is it by an artist? Is that by theme? LM: I want ours to be the best one! Is it by title? It’s those types of [Laughter] questions. Because as new items

come in, and some of those MC: Don’t we all? [Laughter] ART + SOCIAL PRACTICE ARCHIVE items belong to a certain artist that’s already in the archive, it’s LM: No, they can all connect to thinking about things differ- each other and then it’ll be a ently as opposed to just, “here’s great resource for everyone. It’s

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY a collection: what’s in it, what’s not a competition. It’s the oppo- the provenance and in the site. Really, it’s wanting to share original order, and how do they everything with everyone. relate to each other and go from there.” It’s made me rethink the

Archiving a Socially Engaged Practice: A Best Practices Workbook that was created by Lexa Walsh and is in the Art + Social Practice Archive.

157 156 Digital Launch

The Art + Social Practice Archive is now Our acquisitions are ongoing hosted on PDXScholar through the and you can submit digital materials Portland State University Library Special to the archive through this link: tinyurl.com/asparchive-submit Collections and University Archives! Explore our collection so far: View the archive: tinyurl.com/asparchive-drive

ASSEMBLY 2020 ASSEMBLY pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/archives We look forward to growing an archive that can be accessed by everyone everywhere!

Email us with any questions at: [email protected] Public Apology by the artist group Weird Allan Kaprow in the archive files.

158 Biographies as personal archivist to experimental runs through the small spot of woods and documentary filmmaker Julie in his backyard, and his favorite color Perini. Clemmons is deeply inter- is purple. Adrian has received awards Jeff Adams is a carpenter by trade, Carrie Brownstein is a writer, director, ested in highlighting queer lives such as getting first place in the a tinkerer by nature, and a natural and musician. She lives in Portland, within archives and, in 2019, led derby race through the local scouts builder at heart. If he’s not working Oregon. her first Queer Walking Tour around group in second grade and recently on his own projects at home, you’ll Old Town/Downtown Portland. received second place in the film find him at the Carlisle Tool Library Spencer Byrne-Seres is an artist Using photographs, advertisements, category of a local community art working in the shop. and culture worker based in and personal ads from numerous competition. Portland, Oregon. Byrne-Seres is local archives and collections, she Mary Adams owns and operates the lead artist for Columbia River focused on establishments and Roz Crews is an artist who makes Waymaker Company, an accounting Creative Initiatives, an ongoing gathering places that fostered the work about education, friendship, and real estate management firm in series of projects based within a queer community of Portland in the and community formation. She Carlisle, Pennsylvania. minimum security men’s prison in twentieth century. teaches research and social practice Northeast Portland. Byrne-Seres also classes at Portland State University, Liv Adler (Collaborator) is a native works at the Portland Institute for Rebecca Copper (b. 1989, pronouns: and during covid-19 quarantine, New Yorker, amateur boxer, and Contemporary Art, where he serves she/her) often reflects on lived she’s teaching an intergenerational renowned trainer with over ten years as the exhibitions director, support- experiences through projects that drawing class on Zoom. She’s a of competitive boxing experience. ing the design and production of range from socially engaged art to program manager at the King School They have trained and worked at large-scale installations, exhibi- modes of individual creation through Museum of Contemporary Art, a various gyms throughout the city, tions, and curates the Food Program film photography and video. Copper museum inside a functioning K to including Church Street, Gleason’s, for PICA’s annual Time Based Art is interested in the different ways fifth grade public school, where she and Everybody Fights. In addition Festival. of knowing, experiential knowledge, organizes a public lecture series, to serving as the lead instructor for and how people are influenced in edits publications, and organizes weekly Trans Boxing classes, Adler Daynna Chandradas (a Spanish mediated ways. She is motivated exhibitions with the Student provides sliding scale private train- name) is excited to learn and to draw by phenomenology, ontology, Curatorial Committee made up of ing for a number of trans/gnc/nb stuff (draws like an angel). and theories around collective fourth and fifth graders. adults and youth, in order to further consciousness. Copper is currently increase accessibility of high level Karmyn Chandradas (a Spanish an MFA candidate through Portland Hillary Donnell was born in Torino, training and competition. name) (goes by KK) is excited to draw. State University’s Contemporary Italy, and raised on the Southern Gulf Art Practice, Art + Social Practice Coast. Donnell has spent ten years Jennifer Bayne-Lemma is an instruc- Marti Clemmons is an archives tech- Program and recently finished engaging at the intersections of tor of philosophy at Walla Walla nician at Portland State’s Special a fellowship with the Columbus critical pedagogy, trauma-informed Community College. She earned her Collections and University Archives. Printed Arts Center in Ohio. She care, and youth work. Their teach- MA in philosophy from All Hallow’s She processes collections, creates is currently serving as a research ing and facilitation practice uses College in Dublin, Ireland, where finding aids, and assists patrons assistant for the Art + Social Practice nontraditional teaching methods she wrote her thesis: “Language and students with their research Archive which is housed within to engage perspectives on embod- Acquisition, Ethical Development process. She also curates exhibits for PSU’s special collections. iment, community building, and and Motherhood: Possibilities the library, most recently curating A participatory governance. Donnell and Restrictions for A Productive Defined Presence: 50 Years of Black Adrian (b. 2010, pronouns: he/him) began began working with Trans Dialogue.” Bayne-Lemmais a current Studies at Portland State. Previously, is a nine-year-old living in Ohio with Boxing shortly after moving to New Ph.D. candidate at Staffordshire Clemmons worked as the archivist his mother, artist Rebecca Copper. York in 2017. Donnell holds an MA in University in Stafford, England. She at Portland Community Radio Station Adrian enjoys playing the video game public policy from the CUNY Graduate has also taught at the Washington KBOO-FM, where she managed Zelda, riding his bike, hunting for Center. Donnell holds weekly boxing State Penitentiary and Whitman and preserved over 7,000 items of morels, and reading in his hammock. classes at the Door, a youth drop-in College and is an active member of historic audio, and assisted in curat- Adrian has an affinity for collecting center in Lower Manhattan. the Walla Walla Immigrant Rights ing 50 Years of KBOO at the Oregon things in small containers and often Coalition. Historical Society. She also worked 161 160 Emma Duehr (b. 1995) is a proj- explores absurdity, embodiment, Mekhi Alan Kent-Thomas is excited Federation of Teachers and American ect-based artist, educator, and cura- intimacy, and playfulness as sources to eat the cookies. Association of University Professors. tor living and working in Portland, of resilience and creative subterfuge. She is based in Portland, Oregon. Oregon. Her work is invested in Fishlyn is also a serial collaborator Addee Kim is a student, farmer, and social engagement, storytelling, and with grassroots groups focused on filmmaker from New York. They are Kay Martinez, MA (pronouns: they/ material specificity. Her art practice social and economic justice and currently living in San Diego. them/theirs) is an Afro-Latinx facilitates discussions about domes- LGBTQ liberation. gender-non conformer. Martinez ticity, intimacy, and empowerment Tia Kramer (tiakramer.com) is a has over a decade of professional through gardening, craft, and mail. Harrell Fletcher is an artist and social choreographer, site-specific experience directing diversity, Using the Web, educational settings, educator. He is the founder and performance artist, and educator equity, and inclusion initiatives in and urban environments, her work director of the Portland State interested in everyday gestures of universities and most recently as a has attained international participa- University MFA in Art + Social human connection. Through her proj- consultant partnering with leading tion across the UK, Africa, Canada, Practice. ects she creates experiences that tech, corporate, and nonprofit clients. Italy, Spain, and the United States. interrupt the ordinary and engage As a writer, they have published She is the founder and curator at Mary Olin Geiger (Mo) makes participants in acts of collective research and op-eds on the political the Portland Conservatory, artist collaborative artworks, theater, imagination. Kramer’s work has climate for Queer Trans BIPOC (Black mentor at KSMoCA, a part-time performance, and the materials that been supported by the Seattle Art Indigenous People of Color) in the faculty member within Portland live within those worlds and at their Museum OSP Residency, Andrew United States at the intersections State University’s School of Art and intersections. She is an MFA candi- W. Mellon Foundation, Henry Art of race, gender, and sexuality. They Design, and the founder and creator date in Portland State University’s Art Gallery, 4Culture, Artist Trust, and the have a MA in higher education from of Talking Tushies. She is a MFA + Social Practice Program. For more Eichholz Foundation but her biggest Boston College. They are currently Candidate in the Art + Social Practice information, visit mogeiger.com. accomplishment to date is when her the associate director, Office of Program at Portland State University. five-year-old son said “I’m already Diversity, Equity and Inclusion & View her work at emmaduehr.com. Guillermo is a close reader of books, an artist, just like my mama.” Kramer Adjunct Faculty at Massachusetts people, and place. He is an orga- lives in Walla Walla, Washington, a General Hospital Institute of Health Nae Dumouchelle is based in San nizer with the Walla Walla Immigrant vibrant community nestled among Professions. Luis Obispo, California. Rights Coalition and the only expansive agricultural fields and the member to date who has served on Blue Mountains. Justin Maxon (b. 1983) is an arts Olivia Rose Edwards-El is excited every committee. Guillermo is also a educator, award-winning visual to draw. beloved uncle, a cook, a salsa dancer, Shelbie Loomis (b. 1992) is a multi- storyteller, journalist, and aspiring and a soccer player. He lives in Walla disciplinary artist and self-pro- social practice artist. His work has Gracie Allure Edwards-El is excited Walla, Washington. claimed economist who explores been supported by the Magnum to draw. issues of class, labor/housing/ Foundation, the Alexia Foundation Nola Hanson (b. 1991) is an artist food rights and critiquing economic for World Peace, the Aaron Siskind Israel Ramone Idongesit Elijah is based in Brooklyn, New York. systems of indentured servitude. Foundation, the National Geographic interested in clay and drawing. Their practice includes indepen- She explores these issues through Society, Visura, and the Humboldt dent work as well as collaborative the use of storytelling, archiving, Area Foundation. Zeph Fishlyn (pronouns they/them) socially engaged projects. Hanson drawing, and social organizing. is a multidisciplinary visual artist is the founder of Trans Boxing, an Loomis’s socially engaged projects Brenda Mitchell is an educator, dedicated to personal and collec- art project in the form of a boxing explore grassroots movements of gardener, and family member from tive storytelling as nonlinear tools club that centers trans and gender social exchange, nomadic lifestyles Soiux City, Iowa. She is now living in for reinventing our world. Fishlyn’s variant participants. They are an MFA through RVing, temporary housing, Westwood, Iowa. participatory projects, drawings, candidate in the Art + Social Practice and self-sustainability through the objects, and installations nurture program at Portland State University, growth of food. Loomis sits on the Lucas Mitchell is a writer, theatrical alternative narratives by questioning, and the 2020 Artist-in-Residence at Executive Board of Portland State performer, and jazz enthusiast based dreaming, distorting, celebrating, and More Art, an NYC nonprofit organiza- University’s Graduate Employees in Portland, Oregon. demanding. Their most recent work tion that supports public art projects. Union and works with Oregon American

163 162 Zemaj-Dwayne-Mitchell-Johnson fluidity and chaos. Moran has Practice program at PSU. She is the use add film and publications to (Mr. Mitchell or Mr. Johnson) is look- recently presented work at Institüt Founder and director of Sea Together showcase the content collected by ing forward to being a movie director for Alles Mögliche (Berlin Germany), Magazine, a global project exploring participants. and helping create the movie. Fusion Festival (Lärz Germany), as women’s surfing. She has shown and part of the Arlene Schnitzer Visual facilitated her work in Italy, Portland, Sabina Rogers is a writer, baker, and Moe... In my life I have seen a bunch Art Prize exhibition at Portland SDAI (San Diego Art Institute) in San performer based in Minneapolis, of hating and violence and punching, State University (Portland, OR), the Diego, CBAA in Cannon Beach, and Minnesota. Her work has been and I don’t think that’s very pleas- Columbia Center for the Arts (Hood with Aoka Surf Studio in New Zealand, supported by Printed Matter Inc., the ing to people. I’ve seen that happen River, OR), King School Museum of among other places. See more at Michael Chekhov Association, and to young children getting bullied, Contemporary Art (Portland, OR), briandthesea.com. the American Comparative Literature like myself—I was bullied, so I want Portland Art Museum (Portland, Association. She holds a BA in people to know that just because of OR), a series of neighborhood block Carlos Reynoso He, Him, His (b. critical race studies from Whitman your gender or skin color, it doesn’t parties (Portland, OR), Greensboro 1984) is a second year in the Art College and spends a lot of time mean you’re different, or not the Project Space (Greensboro, NC), + Social Practice MFA Program at figuring out what her neighbors are same, or you can’t play with them Art in Odd Places (New York, NY), Portland State University. Reynoso eating for dinner. just because of those things. That Disjecta (Portland, OR), Port City uses social media platforms like isn’t fair. Why not let other people Gallery (Portland, OR), and the El Instagram as introduction devices Jordan Rosenblum is an artist, play with you just because they’re Paso Museum of Art (El Paso, TX). and tools in collecting stories and designer, and educator based in white or black or a boy or a girl or research for his practice, which Portland, Oregon. His projects both? I’m from Portland, Oregon, and A Salty Xi Jie Ng (saltythunder.net) consists of collected stories from engage land use, climate change, that’s where I grew up. I have a new is an artist from Singapore living individuals who are followers of and agriculture, human relation- dad who makes music, and he’s one between the tropics and the United Instagram handles set up specifi- ships to time, and how structures of my favorite people in my life. My States. cally to promote various projects. of power function through design. mom is an artist who volunteers with Stories collected by Reynoso focus Rosenblum’s socially engaged KSMoCA here at Dr. MLK Jr. School. zariah Nsikak Abasi Nathaniel Elijah on cultural preservation of queer- work includes exhibitions, publica- (Leonardo aka Brave Lion) is excited ness, brownness, and belonging. tions, and curriculum. He teaches Lo Moran creates interdisciplinary to draw and learn. He also creates installations using at Portland State University, and projects that are often participatory, objects that are symbolic to his codirects the RECESS! Design Studio collaborative, and coauthored. They Eric John Olson (ericolson.xyz) is an intersectional identity as a Mexican (in affiliation with the King School aim to experiment with and ques- artist, organizer, and technologist. immigrant and queer individual. Museum of Contemporary Art), an tion the systems we are all embed- His work explores systems of power With Mis Tacones (2016–present) a artist project that explores design ded in by organizing situations of through socially engaged art prac- food-based socially engaged project with elementary school students. connection, openness and nonhier- tices. Recent work examines cooper- Reynoso uses kitsch and symbolic archical learning. Moran desires to ative responses to uncertain futures. objects he has collected to represent Artist Michael Bernard Stevenson develop sites for accessibility, and fragments of stories relating to his Jr. is black, nonbianary, and prac- reimagined ways of being together. Brianna (Bri) Ortega (b. 1993) is an family home and urban settings from tices primarily in America. The Artist A graduate of the Art + Social artist based on the Pacific Northwest Mexico and Los Angeles. Reynoso is collaborates with people to make Practice program at Portland State rainforest coast. Through embed- also involved in advocacy work with artwork for the people. University, they spent 2018–19 as ding herself in surf culture, she uses sexual health, specifically with queer Artist in Residence at the University art as a tool to explore the relation- brown communities. These experi- of Massachusetts Dartmouth, ship between identity and place ences inspired Proyecto Bathhouse where they researched concepts of through questioning power in social (2018–present) a Instagram-based community. Moran is also a member constructs and physical spaces. Her community storytelling project that of the collective Public Annex, and work is multidisciplinary, spanning archives experiences and stories performs experimental music as soft across performance, publishing, of bathhouses and commercial sex fantasy. They take karaoke seri- organizing, video and facilitation. She venues on the West Coast. As the ously and try their best to embrace is a candidate in the MFA Art + Social project evolves Reynoso hopes to

165 164 Kimberly Sutherland is a designer, Living Archive. She is a 2020 gradu- artist, and educator. Her projects ate of the Art + Social Practice MFA range from client-based design work program. More information about her to an art practice exploring the inter- work is at roshanithakore.com connections between humans and nature by examining our relation- Paige Thomas received her master of ships to place. She teaches design arts in teaching from the University and typography at Portland State of Portland in 2010. She has spent University and is interested in decol- the last five years of her career onizing design practices. Sutherland teaching and learning at Dr. Martin is currently the design director Luther King Jr. School in northeast of the King School Museum of Portland. This year she is leading a Contemporary Art in Portland, Oregon cohort of teachers on the school’s and has worked at the New York CARE Team. This team focuses on Times Magazine, Nike, Apple, and teachers examining their practice Project Projects with clients ranging through a racial lens in the hopes from the Museum of Modern Art, of interrupting the achievement Artists Space, and Gagosian Gallery. gap present for students of color Her work has been shown in group in Portland Public Schools. It also exhibitions at Disjecta Contemporary consists of planning and teaching Art Center in Portland, Oregon, units through a social justice frame- the Institut für Alles Mögliche in work—this year teachers are exam- Berlin, Germany, and Greensboro ining themes of identity, diversity, Project Space in Greensboro, North justice, and action. Carolina. She holds an MFA in Art + Social Practice from Portland State David Wilson is an artist based in University and a bachelor of design Oakland, California, creating obser- from Emily Carr University of Art + vational drawings in the landscape Design. Raised among the Canadian and organizing things. Currently he Cascades, Sutherland currently lives is involved as a guest artist at the and works in Portland, Oregon. Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Send something to: Roshani Thakore uses art to BAMPFA Art Lab 2120 Oxford Street, broaden an understanding of place, Berkeley, CA 94720 and you will start uncover histories, elevate voices, to receive print projects in the mail. and expand a sense of belonging, all with the hope of shifting power. Illia Yakovenko is a precarious Since 2019 she has been the Artist- cultural worker, a self-proclaimed in-Residence at the Asian Pacific artist, curator, poet, and spectator, an Network of Oregon, a statewide, unrecognized cultural embassador, grassroots organization, uniting and a failed individual. Yakovenko Asians and Pacific Islanders to is an MFA student in Art + Social achieve social justice. Prior to this Practice at Portland State University residency, she received funding who came to study in the United from the Division Midway Alliance States from Kyiv, Ukraine, and is Creative Placemaking Projects Grant currently sheltering in a communal with her project 82nd + Beyond: A house in southeast Portland.

166 Portland State University MFA in Art + Social Practice

PSU’s Art + Social Practice MFA is a three-year, flexible residency program that combines individual research, group work, and experiential learning. The program’s blend of critical and professional practice, progressive pedagogy, collaborative social engagement, and transdisciplinary exploration produces an immersive educational environment.

The ninety credit, three-year course encourages students to shape the direction of their own education and continually develop the program as a whole. Students connect their art practice to research in the field of social practice through elec- tives and community partnerships, promoting cross-disciplinary engagement. Graduating students each produce a public graduate project, an in-depth written text exploring a relevant connection to their practice, and a public artist lecture that surveys their work in the program.

The program accepts approximately five students annually. The deadline for applying is January. Interested persons are encouraged to make arrangements to visit the program. Assembly 2020

Organized by the Portland State University Art + Social Practice MFA Program psusocialpractice.org/assembly

Published in May 2020

Designed by Ariel Fogden and Jordan Rosenblum, Editorial work by Spencer Byrne-Seres and Jordan Rosenblum A publication for the co-authored psusocialpractice.org/assembly conference from PSU’s Art + Social Practice MFA Program