This video transcript is formatted to comply with PDF/UA standards. Indisposable: Chapter 2

In Indisposable: Structures of Support After the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), a Ford Foundation Gallery exhibition curated by Jessica A. Cooley and Ann M. Fox, leading artists and scholars address the lived experience of disability today and the urgent questions of this moment where pandemic and demands for racial justice intersect. This video transcript captures #QuarantineLooks: Embracing the Fabulously Mundane, an event that took place on November 18, 2020, featuring Sami Schalk and Jina B. Kim, and hosted by Ford Foundation Gallery director Lisa Kim.

Transcript begins.

LISA KIM: Good afternoon. My name is Lisa Kim. I am a Korean American woman with shoulder-length, straight black hair. I’m wearing pink glasses, a cream-colored shirt, and a white, ceramic-bead necklace. I’m coming to you today from the in , on land that is the ancestral home of the and Munsee Lenape.

Welcome to the second installment of our multipart, online exhibition, Indisposable: Structures of Support after the ADA. This exhibition was curated by Jessica Cooley and Ann Fox, who are behind the scenes with us today. You can meet Jessica and Ann on the home page of our exhibition on our website and hear their exhibition explanation and hear a hello from them.

Our shift from gallery to online programming for this exhibition gave us the opportunity to invite artists, writers, scholars, and performers to envision and create new work— work intended to be shown in this space and shared and broadcast to your screens. We kicked off the exhibition series in September with the beautiful film by Alex Dolores Salerno, examining the intertwined commodification of youth and wellness and the disabling effects of colonialism.

For today’s event, we bring you joy—joy in the time of quarantine and lockdown as shared by Sami Schalk, how pleasure, agency, pride, and joy can spread more joy.

In this spirit, I’m happy to have MK Czerwiec the “Comic Nurse,” join us today to live- illustrate the event. You’ll have a peek at her progress during a comfort break later on in this hour, and after the event all of MK’s illustrations will be available to you to download.

We also want to celebrate your quarantine looks and hope that you will join us at the end of the event by turning on your cameras and joining the short Zoom screen party.

We’ll be rolling out the next series of online events and projects over the first half of 2021, so please stay connected with us for future events.

1 A critical component of this and all of our events is access. Access exists as a form of radical care interwoven into the production and conceptual workings of the art selected for this exhibition and how we work within this technology. We invite you to attend from a space that makes your body feel the most comfortable and receptive to the central idea of the event: that joy begets joy begets joy.

If you cannot stay with us for the full hour, please know that the event is being recorded and will be posted on our website. To aid in your viewing experience today, if you are on a computer, we recommend watching in “Gallery View” mode so you can see all of the speakers, the visuals, and American Sign Language interpreters. Our ASL interpreters today are Gloria Vargas and Michael Barrios. We also have real-time live closed- captioning. For live closed-captioning, click on the “Closed Captions” button at the bottom of your screen. We also have David Linton providing audio descriptions to MK’s illustrations. To access audio descriptions, click on the “Interpretation” button at the bottom of your screen and choose the “English” channel. Please feel free to comment and communicate with us through the Q&A and chat box functions at the bottom of your screen. And for any technical questions, please email [email protected].

Now, to give you a little roadmap for the hour, we’ll have introductory remarks by Jina B. Kim followed by a screening of Sami Schalk’s video essay #QuarantineLooks: Embracing the Fabulously Mundane, followed by a conversation between Sami and Jina, during which we’ll have a five-minute comfort break and then we’ll come back to conversation and have time for Q&A, then our closing party.

Our event moderator and emcee today is Jina B. Kim. Jina is an assistant professor of English language and literature and of the study of women and gender at Smith College. She specializes in feminist disability studies, women-of-color feminisms, queer- of-color critique, and contemporary ethnic US literatures, with an emphasis on feminist- of-color writing and cultural expression post-1968. Prior to joining Smith College, she was a Consortium for Faculty Diversity postdoctoral fellow at Mount Holyoke College in the program in Critical Social Thought. She is currently at work on a manuscript tentatively titled Dreaming of Infrastructure: Crip-of-Color Imaginaries after the 1996 US Welfare State, which examines political and aesthetic engagements with public- dependency discourse in the literary-cultural afterlife of US welfare reform. I’m so pleased to have Jina take us on this journey with Sami and #QuarantineLooks for the next 45 minutes or so. Thank you all for joining us online and enjoy the show.

JINA B. KIM: Thank you, Lisa. So, my name is Jina B. Kim, and I am a Korean American woman with a mullet. I’m wearing big, wire-rim glasses, white, plastic chain earrings, a white mesh turtleneck with an eye pattern all over it, and a rust-colored, cropped cardigan with the same eye motif. I’m Zooming with you from and Pocomtuc land, also known as Northampton, .

And it is my greatest pleasure to introduce Dr. Sami Schalk, a brilliant queer feminist scholar and someone who I am also very lucky to call my friend. I’m going to start with Sami’s official bio, talk a little about our personal connection, and introduce the amazing video that Sami created for this occasion.

2 Dr. Sami Schalk is an associate professor in the department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on disability, race, and gender in contemporary American literature and culture, especially African American and women’s texts. Dr. Schalk’s first book, Bodyminds Reimagined: (Dis)ability, Race, and Gender in Black Women’s Speculative Fiction, was published by Duke University Press in 2018. Dr. Schalk’s work has also appeared in a variety of journals, such as Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, Journal of Modern Literature, Journal of Popular Culture, Girlhood Studies, and African American Review.

So, I first met Sami at the 2015 Society for Disability Studies conference, where she saw me give a paper and she asked a fabulous question that instantly cemented our friendship. Over the years, we have been co-conspirators and collaborators in our intellectual lives and have also very much connected over our shared love of fashion as well as our commitments to joy and pleasure, even in the midst of crisis. We are co- authors, with an article titled “Integrating Race Transforming Feminist Disability Studies,” out in the latest issue of Signs.

At conferences, back when those were actually a thing, we always found the nearest hot tub-pool combo, went out of our way for delicious meals and cocktails, and modeled our conference looks for each other before going out to slay the general public. Under pandemic times, we always boost up each other’s quarantine looks across all social media platforms. Dr. Schalk teaches me every day that being fabulous is a discipline and one that we need to exercise on a regular basis. Given our friendship, it was, of course, such a pleasure to watch this video, QuarantineLooks—hashtag QuarantineLooks—excuse me—Embracing the Fabulously Mundane.

The following video essay by Sami Schalk is a slideshow of Sami’s social media posts, documenting her colorful clothing, hair, and makeup. We joined Sami on a photo shoot of her #QuarantineLooks, dressing up in floor-length gowns and sparkling face masks while tackling everyday tasks, such as taking out the garbage or going to the supermarket. We’re also lucky to see some of the many glittery Doc Marten pairs that Dr. Schalk collects.

So, without further ado, I would love to start the video, #QuarantineLooks: Embracing the Fabulously Mundane.

[The video begins with synthesized drum beats from the song “Homebody” by Miss Eaves, which plays in the background throughout the video.]

SAMI SCHALK [voice-over]: #QuarantineLooks: Embracing the Fabulously Mundane. In March 2020, facing lockdown alone in Madison, Wisconsin, I was isolated and deeply depressed. To combat my depression, I began creating daily hair, makeup, and outfit looks that I posted on my social media accounts under the hashtag #QuarantineLooks. As friends and followers commented on how seeing my daily looks brightened their day during a difficult and scary time for many people, I realized that the looks were not only about making myself feel good but also about connecting with people during a time where I was very isolated and at times quite unwell emotionally.

3 I mostly took the photos using my phone, a Bluetooth clicker, and a tripod. But twice during the lockdown, I worked with local, disabled, queer photographer Sam Waldron to do FaceTime photo shoots, as well. For these photos, I would set up my phone on a tripod and pose with Sam’s direction while she took screenshots that she edited into beautiful images. For this current project, I reconnected with Sam to do a professional photo shoot at various locations in and around my condo building and neighborhood for what I call #QuarantineLooks: Embracing the Fabulously Mundane.

This video essay documents the project and discusses the disability and pleasure politics that undergird it. Embracing the fabulously mundane means incorporating fabulousness, extravagance, style, sparkle, color, and shine into everyday acts, refusing to reserve a full face of makeup, your favorite outfit, or that new dress for a special occasion, but rather making any day and every day as spectacular as you want it to be. For me, embracing the fabulously mundane engages a disability politic of challenging what it means to look well or unwell.

As a disabled femme with mental disabilities and chronic pain, dressing up, temporarily dyeing my hair, and wearing shiny makeup is one of the ways I tend to my mental health. I turn on music that makes me feel good and immerse myself in sparkles and color, which bring me joy, even in the midst of a depressive episode.

People with mental and psychological disabilities are often disbelieved about the reality or severity of our disabilities because they are not readily apparent on our bodies. Some disabled folks feel the need to over-perform disability when seeking accommodations or health care because when you look “sick” in the way people expect you to look sick they are more likely to help you.

Fuck looking sick. Fuck looking depressed. When I am already sad and struggling to work or eat, properly, putting on a fabulous look makes me feel a little better and encourages me to do bare-minimum self-care, get out of bed, take a shower, put on clean clothes. And for my quarantine looks, it also meant that I left my condo to go outside, get fresh air, and move my body, even if only to twerk for a video. Later, when I was back in my bed or on my couch, I would look at the photos and videos I had already posted to bring a little joy back to myself again. I needed frequent reminders that joy was possible for me, because when I’m depressed I tend to forget that.

I also consider my quarantine looks an act of pleasure activism. “Pleasure activism” is a term I draw from the work of adrienne maree brown. Pleasure activism argues both that we ought to make activism and movement work pleasurable and that pleasure is inherently political because those who are marginalized are most denied pleasure and policed in our expressions of pleasure. Pleasure activism invites us to understand all forms of pleasure—sexual, sensual, aesthetic, and emotional—as part of our liberation.

As a fat, Black femme, I often look different than the people around me. I used to try to hide, to blend in, to be normal, and I was miserable. I was afraid that embracing my size with my own style, my own way of being in the world would mean that I wouldn’t be respected, that I wouldn’t be considered serious or dedicated as an activist or

4 academic. Quarantine looks helped me see that being my full self publicly was not a detriment to my work but the whole point. Why fight for liberation if I myself cannot be free, if I cannot care for, love, celebrate, adorn, and move my body in the way I want to in the world?

I slowed the pace of my quarantine looks when lockdown was lifted in late May, and shortly after the uprisings began in Madison. I started showing up to protests in my fabulous looks—sparkly masks, colorful outfits, even wings. I was often distributing food and water at events, and I found that people were really delighted by the aesthetic pleasure of my presence along with the free sustenance. Joy begets joy begets joy.

Embracing the fabulously mundane during lockdown and after allowed me to enact my particular disability and pleasure politics in ways that were healing, powerful, and connective. I encourage more people to wear what you want to wear whenever and wherever you want to wear it. One of the many things the pandemic has taught me is that nothing is guaranteed and that I should take as much pleasure from every single day as I can manage and, when I want, share that pleasure with the world.

[“Homebody” plays as the video production credits roll. A full list of production credits is available at the end of this transcript.]

MISS EAVES [singing]: A homebody A homebody A homebody A homebody Yeah!

A homebody A homebody A homebody A homebody Yeah!

Oh no I’m not leaving My apartment this evening Introverted I’m needing Some me time, I’ll be reading

While you’re out at the club I’m in my pajamas Twerking in the mirror Eating peanut butter

A homebody A homebody A homebody A homebody

5 Yeah!

Not goin’ out tonight Not goin’ out tonight

A homebody A homebody A homebody A homebody Yeah!

Not goin’ out tonight Not goin’ out tonight

Don’t hit me up Cause I won’t answer ya On my back on the rug I’m all in my feelings

But everything’s good On my couch in my hoodie Kondo in my queue Bingeing on solitude

A homebody A homebody A homebody A homebody Yeah!

Unh-unh, I’m not leaving Unh-unh, I’m not leaving

A homebody A homebody A homebody A homebody Yeah!

Unh-unh, I’m not—

[Video ends.]

SAMI: Hello.

JINA: Hey.

SAMI: [laughs]

6 JINA: How it’s going? Do you want to introduce your outfit?

SAMI: Yeah. Hi. So, this is my outfit. This is a blue romper with mesh sleeves and I’m wearing a necklace that says, “You coulda had a bad bitch,” and my earrings are pink floggers. And I am a Black woman with glasses and curly hair and my hair currently has some temporary hair dye and hair glitter in, as well.

JINA: I did a costume change. So now I’m wearing a fake-fur cropped jacket with a black turtleneck and hoop earrings that say, “Girl Gang” in them. And if you’re wondering, yes, we did model our outfits for each other prior to this event.

SAMI: There had to be coordination.

JINA: Yes, yes. So, Sami, I mean, I love and adore this video, as I’m seeing many people in the Q&A are also responding very joyfully to it. And it’s just gotten so many wheels in my head turning. And I guess one question I would love to ask you is, you know, what does it mean to talk openly about depression as a queer Black femme scholar? I mean, I’m reminded of the fact that Audre Lorde’s Cancer Journals and A Burst of Lights are the first public meditations on illness and disability by an African American woman, an African American lesbian, right? And I feel like that’s important context to kind of, you know, consider this video. So, yeah, if you could talk a little bit about that, I would love it.

SAMI: Yeah. I have not talked publicly about depression for a long time. Like, I’ve been—I’ve had depression for, you know, the majority of my life and in and out of therapy the majority of my life, so I’ve lived this kind of split understanding of myself where I have the ability to talk about it quite coherently inside of the context of therapy, and outside of it I might say that I have depression but not really talk about what that means. And as a person who has, like, a generally sunny disposition and is, like, a femme, I think that folks don’t quite understand how somebody who generally lives in the public as this, like, bright and sunny person could also be experiencing depression.

And for me, my experiences of depression are, like, this—really an inability to feel and to like—to feel like there’s a reason to do anything. So I just have these days that will be periods of time where I’m just like, “I don’t know why I would do ... anything?” Like, I just don’t know why. I lose all kind of, like, zest for living. Then I’m just like, “Uh, maybe I just sleep for four weeks. I don’t know.”

And it’s really hard to explain that to people and it was a thing that by not talking about it, I realized I wasn’t letting people into my life. So, that was one thing. I think it was damaging the way that I was connecting with people by not being as open about my depression. But also, as a disability studies scholar, it was wild that it took me as long as it did to really, like, be open. So, for folks who have, like, read my work before, in my early work I talk about being nondisabled because even as someone who worked in disability studies, I still could not quite understand my depression as disability because it wasn’t incapacitating for the most part. I don’t use medication. And so there were all these things that I kept justifying that I wasn’t disabled enough, essentially, for myself.

7 And so it was also a process of coming into my disability identity as someone who has been in the field for a long time, for a long time.

JINA: Oh, my gosh. I totally—I totally feel that, you know, this idea that even as disability studies scholars it can be difficult to name and be public about our own mental health struggles of which I also have, you know? I see in the chat that Margaret Price says the femme intervention is key here and I really want to talk about a femme intervention. And so that kind of brings me to my next question, which is the relationship of quarantine looks to your work with the Madison protests and uprisings. I mean, this feels really significant for me because of the many ways in which femme labor and femme activism has not been seen as “real” activism, right? And I think Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha does a really beautiful job of analyzing this in Care Work. And I feel like the quarantine looks are yet kind of another example of femme activism. So, yeah, can you talk a little bit about your quarantine looks in relationship to the struggle in the streets and what is often considered to be “more legitimate” activism?

SAMI: Yeah. So, I love Care Work. I definitely recommend that folks who are interested in thinking through these issues read that book for sure. And Leah and I are going to be having a conversation later tonight, so if you want to come to that event we’ll also be there. But, yeah, quarantine looks as like, femme activism—I think that one of the things that as someone who’s been trying to get more into on-the-ground organizing work because I’ve been doing research on Black activists and I feel like it was just a necessary part of doing my own research, was to be more involved in the work that’s happening right now. I think I just had this notion that caring about my appearance made me less serious about the struggle, you know? Like, how do you have a critique of capitalism but then also, like, really want to buy some clothes? It’s hard. It’s hard. So, like, I’m trying to learn how to, like, meld this, but I think that recognizing the way that what makes me feel most myself and most powerful is when I have some, like, colorful clothes on and some good lipstick and that is when I am most ready to go face the world. And so if that is—that’s how I need—that is how I want to be and need to be in the world, but that doesn’t diminish my capacity to be an activist.

And when I was doing on-the-ground work during the uprising here, I was wearing shiny masks cause those were all the masks I own—I don’t own boring masks I only own shiny, bright masks—and wearing you know, shiny leggings and things out, people—it made people happy, right? Like, and I don’t see that that’s a problem—to make some people happy while you’re out in the world. And it made me recognizable, so people knew that, like, I had water bottles and I had food and I had extra masks, so it wasn’t hard to be like, “Go find the big, Black woman in a neon-yellow dress.” Like, you can find that person. That’s a recognizable human being. So, yeah, it just made me a little more recognizable in the space, but it didn’t change the work that I was doing. It just made it more fun for me.

And, you know, that is one of the principles of doing pleasure activism is to make the movement—make movement work irresistible. And if we can be and feel beautiful and whatever that means for you, whatever makes you feel powerful when you’re walking in the streets. I mean, I put on those Doc Martens but my Doc Martens are shiny and

8 beautiful. But they’re still boots that I’m going to stomp around in. So, yeah, that’s some of the ways that it plays into work. And I think that, yeah, too many friends get kind of dismissed as not being leaders too often. So, it’s really—it’s an honor for me to work with Freedom, Inc., here in Madison, Wisconsin, because it is—it is a feminist and queer organization. It is led by women and femmes of all sorts and so that’s an organization where I felt like I could be my femme self there.

JINA: So—I mean, yes, so many yeses to all of this. I totally relate, as you know. You know, there were—there was a long period of time where I was hesitant to participate openly in radical and revolutionary politics because of my experiences within movement spaces of being dismissed or not taken seriously or, you know this feeling that I had to wear, like, burlap in order to be taken seriously. And I really feel like you’re this kind of, like, bright, shiny example of how all of, like, femme fierceness and cutting, incisive, radical critique can coexist. Like, these are not oppositional. And I know we’re coming close to the break but I kind of want to know—what does—what does femme mean for you?

SAMI: Femme is, like ... color and energy. It’s a vibe. Like, it’s not—it’s not tied to body, it’s not tied to any particular kind of appearance. It’s, like—it’s adornment. Like, I feel like femme-ness is adornment, like, and that can be all kinds of things, whatever you’re putting, whether it’s, like tattoos as adornment, jewelry as adornment, all kind of things. But, yeah, I ... I know a femme when I see a femme. And it’s, like, there’s—there’s nothing that I can, like, fully define—I don’t know. But, yeah, there’s just a vibe about femme-ness that, to me, is so important and it’s more important than an understanding of, like, womanhood. Like, femme as—as a queered kind of gender identity is important to me because I don’t want to adhere to most kind of norms of womanhood, but I love feeling pretty. I fucking love feeling pretty. So, I don’t know. That’s just what it is.

JINA: And you’re amazing at pretty, I just have to say.

SAMI: I’m very cute.

JINA: You’re so cute! You know, we spend a lot of time just telling each other we’re cute. And I think that is a cornerstone of our friendship and femmeship. I heard this really great understanding of femme-ness from another close femme friend of mine, a best femme friend of mine, Britt Rusert—shout-out to Britt—that femme means intention, right, so being deliberate about adornment and about gender and about embracing what to many people may seem excessive and ridiculous and, you know, hyperbolic. Yeah. I mean, I’m a Southerner—I’m from Georgia—so I feel like a lot of my gender expression is very much linked to Southern femininity, which is always sort of larger-than-life, you know? I’m thinking of, like, the B-52s, Dolly Parton, you know? These are, like, key femme icons in my repertoire.

And so I know we’re getting close to the comfort break and I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit about your own femme fashion icons.

9 SAMI: Oh, gosh. So, I mean, currently, I ... I adore Lizzo right now just in terms of—I mean, half the time she’s mostly naked. There’s so much booty. So, booty as fashion is, like, something that really attracts me. I grew up in small-town Kentucky so there was, like, a pushing away of adornment, so I think that’s also partially my—it’s my response to that. But I have always had, like, an attraction to Dolly Parton, which, you know, I grew up with country music. And there was something about her. And, honestly, like, growing up I had—my mom’s best friend was, like, a woman who liked to shop and dress up and she always had makeup on and that was, like, not my mom’s jam. And so there was always something about her that I think she just seemed to live this glamorous life. Like, she went to Hawaii, you know? I’m like, “Ooh, I want to go to Hawaii.” So, I think there was just this—yeah glamorousness was something that I was really attracted to. So, it was, like, people in my life and people on TV or, like, that I saw in other ways. And then my partner, Jess Waggoner, is also a femme icon so, you know, also very much inspires some looks. Like, Jess taught me that I was allowed to wear crop tops. I didn’t know. I didn’t know I was allowed to wear a crop top as a fat person. So, also, like, fat femmes is a particular genre for me.

JINA: And Jess and I do have matching crop tops, just to know. We love—this is a crop top—in this family, we wear crop tops, you know?

SAMI: Yes.

JINA: So, I think we’re at the time to take our comfort break, so let’s do that. You know, we have a costume change to attend to so we will be back in five minutes.

SAMI: All right.

[The digital illustration that MK Czerwiec the “Comic Nurse” has been creating appears on screen, depicting Jina and Sami in their colorful outfits and jewelry surrounded by thought bubbles with highlights from the conversation: “I had to come into my disability identity,” “Femme is a vibe of color and energy and adornment.” Stars with smiley faces and hints of the speakers’ Zoom backgrounds are sketched in—a bookcase behind Jina and a plant behind Sami.]

SAMI: Well, hello.

JINA: Hello. We’re back. We’re back. Okay. So, clearly we need to take a few minutes to describe our new outfits.

SAMI: Yes. Would you like to go first, Jina?

JINA: So, yes, and I want to say that, yes, we did coordinate the poms. If you were wondering, that was on purpose. So, I am wearing now these multicolored pompom earrings. They’re peach, yellow, and peach. And then I’m also wearing my favorite dog- themed dress. It has a kind of wacky kind of Rocko’s Modern Life-style pattern in the background and then there’s line drawings of various dogs like a Great Dane and a ... I don’t know, a bloodhound. So, that’s my look right now. Sami, your look?

10 SAMI: Yes. So, I also changed my clothes. I’m going to stand up first. So, I have on some really shiny, like, oil-slick leggings, as well as—ooh, ooh, ooh, there we go—some sequined UGGs that I just got that I really love. Thanks to Dana, who’s here, for recommending UGGs. I’m also wearing a blue crop top and then a cropped, pink-fur coat with a matching blue lining and then my pom earrings are just two earrings that are coordinated with the color of the jackets. And I’ve added a significant amount of glitter onto my face.

JINA: We needed that glitter.

SAMI: That’s my new look.

JINA: Yes.

SAMI: So much glitter.

JINA: We need no less than a significant amount of glitter.

SAMI: Yeah, I mean if you’re going to go for it, you might as well just put it all over.

JINA: Yes. Absolutely. So, I want to know more about your process of putting together the quarantine looks. And also, you know, what do you look for when shopping? What are some thematics in your wardrobe?

SAMI: Yeah. I mean, what I’m interested in changes constantly, so I will go through phases where I want, like, nothing but jumpsuits. I’m really into, like, furry jackets right now, so I might have bought like four in the past couple of weeks, really. So I go through these phases. But the way that I was putting together the quarantine looks was, basically, I would choose one thing in my wardrobe that I hadn’t worn in a while and then try to build an outfit entirely around that one piece. So sometimes that would be, like, a pair of earrings that I hadn’t worn in a long time that I really liked, you know, like, ones that are kind of weird or, like, aren’t “work appropriate.” So I would pull those out and try to build outfits around that.

So, it was—for me, during lockdown, it was a way of having something to plan my day around, particularly—for me, at the time of the lockdown in the spring, I was not teaching. I was on leave, and I had just kind of finished some work on a book, so I had very little, like, work to do, so I really needed something to structure my day. So, yeah, I would structure my day around putting together a look.

I’m, like, myself distracted right now by how much glitter’s on my face. It’s really fun.

So, yeah. And I shop mostly online. As a fat person, it’s really hard to shop in a general kind of store which ... who’s shopping in stores anyway? Everybody’s shopping online. A couple ... I’m bored, and that’s how I start to pick things out. But I’m always looking for bright colors. I’m looking for something, yeah, shiny and—and ridiculous, honestly. This, like—I want something that people are going to look and be like, “What’s that? What’s happening?” Be, like, a little confused at first. “Did you just come from something? Are

11 you going somewhere?” And I’m like, “I’m going right here, sir, just right to this grocery store. That’s what I’m doing. Sure am.” So, that’s what I want. I want people to just be a little confused by me.

JINA: Mm. Oh, my God.

SAMI: Delighted and confused.

JINA: I so feel that. Yes. Yes. I’m just delighted, if I’m being honest. Yeah, and then I also really structured my day around my outfits and, honestly, continue to structure my day. For some reason, just, like, taking a long shower and playing my favorite songs while getting ready and putting a lot of care into my outfits and then taking photos of those outfits has been a real key part of surviving this quarantine which—I do just want to make space for the fact that it is—it has been a huge struggle, right, that these are ways in which we survive and we still try to bring joy into the moment but, you know, I’m not trying to sit here and pretend that, you know this hasn’t been, like a mental health challenge for me, right?

SAMI: Yeah. And both of us live alone and I think that that’s a—yeah, I think living alone through this has been—it’s just its own kind of experience. I think, you know, living with somebody or having—it’s all—but living alone through the pandemic and through lockdown, it’s a particular kind of isolation that—yeah, I had moments early on in the depressive episode that happened right at the beginning of the lockdown where I was like, “So if I die in my house, like, how long before someone will know? Like, how long?”

At the time, like, my partner was not here yet. Jess is now in Madison so that makes things a little—I won’t die alone in my house, hopefully. But, you know, I just—there was so much fear and so much unknown. And then to also be so isolated ... Yeah, it was incredibly difficult. And so being able to put together a look and send it to a friend and bring a little happiness to them but also get some affirmation to be seen, like, literally to be seen to be witnessed, to be, like, “I am still here today,” was important. It was incredibly important.

JINA: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I mean, same, same, same. I was also, and continue to be, a huge fan of the costume change to go to the living room. You know what I mean? Just, like, trying to still infuse playfulness and joy into the moment.

So, it is now time for us to begin the Q&A portion of this event.

SAMI: Excellent.

JINA: So, there’s—there are a lot of questions. Let’s see. Where should we start? Okay, so, “I took a lot of complex power away from the pairing of joy and mundanity that you shine a light on with this video, Dr. Schalk, and then how that moved into something less mundane during the protests this summer. Was the pairing of mundane plus joy something you saw as you put together the looks or did that emerge thematically after the fact? Either way, thank you for this video and this event.”

12 SAMI: So, the term “fabulously mundane” I first started using with Jess to talk about how, when they got here we were just going to go grocery-store shopping like we used to do in grad school, but we would just, like, dress up with each other cause that’s—we enjoy spending some time just putting together outfits. And I also have another friend who said that we should normalize being fabulous because every time we get fabulous people, like, want to make a big deal out of it and it should be a little more normal to be—to look great and to look however you want to look. So, that’s one of the ways that it started.

But also there—I think the emphasis on the mundane for me is that we don’t have to justify this. Like, I don’t need to justify wearing this outfit. I don’t need to justify putting on glitter. I think that’s the thing that I notice is that I would dress up and people would ask me like, “Where are you going?” or “What are you doing?” And I’m like “I’m not doing anything in particular. This is just the way I want to be in the world.” And so I want to make that—I want to normalize that a little bit more. Like, if this is the way you want to be in the world, be in the world in this way.

And so I could also take that into the protest space to be like “I want to take—I want to be fully me and fully me is, like, dressed up. Me feeling powerful is dressed up and so that’s what I’m going to do when I show up to a protest.” And other folks may wear other things and that’s great. And, yeah, I probably don’t have the most practical protest gear, but I was not trying to stay out there when people were running from the cops. That was—I went home after dark and then I supported from afar. I—yeah, I make choices about the way that I engage for my own safety, so I was at daytime protests for the most part. But that didn’t mean that I couldn’t hold it down fabulously.

JINA: Mm. Oh, my gosh. You definitely hold it down fabulously. Another question we have is do we have any trans/gender-nonconforming fashion heroes and icons?

SAMI: I mean—well, so my partner is one. And then, I mean, Janelle Monáe has recently come out as nonbinary, as well. But Janelle Monáe has long been a fashion icon for me. Even as someone who doesn’t lean into masculine looks, as well, there’s a fluidity of Janelle Monáe that I, like, deeply admire and am attracted to, even as it’s not—like, her style is not exactly my style. She’s, like, the tiniest human. I saw her perform and I was like, “I didn’t know she was so short. She’s real little.” Yeah.

JINA: Yeah, and for me—if I can also answer this question—I draw a lot of inspiration from ... I love Alok Vaid-Menon’s looks. I follow their Instagram maybe exclusively for the fashion. I also love Christine from Christine and the Queens. And Dorian Electra is someone who I’ve really been enjoying these days both music-wise and fashion-wise. So, these are other kind of, yeah, trans and gender-nonconforming icons that we—that we look up to.

Do we have time for one more question? Let’s see. So, “Wondering about how you might navigate adornment on difficult days. As a person with chronic pain and neurodivergence plus mental health issues, I often find it hard to figure out the line between self-care and self-destructive behavior. I’ve been mostly in pajamas since

13 March and had thought that this was the care I needed after burnout from working beyond my capacity. Thank you for framing joy as much-needed self- and community care.” So, how, yeah, how do we—or how do you navigate adornment on days that are just hard?

SAMI: I have recently gotten into onesies. Torrid—if you’re a fat person, Torrid has these onesies that they came out with for Halloween. I now have five of them. They’re super comfortable and soft and easy. I can zip it on and off. I can wear nothing under it if I don’t want to. And it still is, like, the silliest thing. I mean, it’s—one of them is—it’s the Cheshire Cat. Another one is Sully from Monsters, Inc. I have one that’s, like, all leopard print. They’re so silly. The Cheshire Cat one has a tail so I’ll just, like, be looking in the mirror and be like, “Oh, yeah, I have a tail right now. What a dumb thing. Why do I have a tail?”

So, even things—it doesn’t—I think that adornment doesn’t have to mean like, complicated. You know, there are times I’m like, “I can’t handle doing hair and makeup right now, but I still want to just feel good.” And then often—like I said, I’ve been into these fuzzy jackets, like, just putting on a jacket that feels comfortable. So, I don’t think that, like, femme—femme and comfort can still come together and fabulous doesn’t have to just mean—yeah, it can mean whatever you want. Like, this is about bringing yourself joy.

So, it might be, for you, silly things. Like, it might be a bunch of onesies. So, that’s how I handle it on days where I just don’t feel physically or emotionally capable of putting something on, cause I’m not trying to be uncomfortable. I want to be comfortable. So, I mean, that’s the other thing about the quarantine looks. Half the time, I would put together an outfit, take a whole bunch of pictures and then immediately take all my clothes off, immediately take all my clothes off and be right on back into whatever. Like, I just wanted to put it together and look at myself and then mostly take it off. So, that was another benefit of lockdown was that I could wear it for an hour and then just be done with that whole thing.

JINA: Okay. So, thank—oh, my gosh. There are so many other questions and, honestly, so little time. So, now, I believe we are going to wrap. And we want to invite you all to turn on your cameras and show us, if you feel comfortable, your own quarantine looks. And we’re going to play a little jam to accompany that.

SAMI: [singsong] Yay!

JINA: [singsong] Yay! Thank you all so, so, so much. This was so fun.

[As the Zoom party begins, the screen fills with a grid of audience members, waving, smiling, dancing, blowing kisses, and showing off their quarantine looks—one person wears a white feather boa, another a wide-brimmed hat, and another a black T-shirt that reads, “I *heart* Being Trans.” The song “Homebody” plays throughout the party.]

SAMI: Hello! Hi! Steph!

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MISS EAVES [singing]: A homebody Yeah!

A homebody A homebody …

SAMI: Hi, Britt. Hi, Anna.

MISS EAVES [singing]: Oh no I’m not leaving My apartment this evening Introverted I’m needing Some me time, I’ll be reading

While you’re out at the club I’m in my pajamas Twerking in the mirror Eating peanut butter

A homebody A homebody A homebody A homebody Yeah!

Not goin’ out tonight Not goin’ out tonight …

SAMI: Molly, you put on lipstick. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear lipstick!

MISS EAVES [singing]: Not goin’ out tonight

Don’t hit me up Cause I won’t answer ya ...

MOLLY: Epic quarantine look.

MISS EAVES [singing]: I’m all in my feelings

But everything’s good On my couch in my hoodie ...

SAMI: Hi, Dana.

15 MISS EAVES [singing]: Bingeing on solitude

A homebody A homebody …

SAMI: Leah!

MISS EAVES [singing]: Unh-unh, I’m not leaving Unh-unh, I’m not leaving

A homebody A homebody A homebody A homebody Yeah!

Unh-unh, I’m not leaving Unh-unh, I’m not leaving …

SAMI: Yay! So many faces.

MISS EAVES [singing]: All alone in my room Nutella on my spoon ...

SAMI: Jess!

MISS EAVES [singing]: Cooking up something new

My ideas come at night I sketch and I free write Deep diving in my mind All alone I’m alive

A homebody A homebody A homebody A homebody Yeah!

Par-ty of one Par-ty of one

A homebody A homebody

16 A homebody A homebody Yeah!

Par-ty of one Par-ty of one …

SAMI: I like that hat down there, JP.

MISS EAVES [singing]: Par-ty of one

A homebody A homebody A homebody A homebody Yeah!

Get a good book Get a good book Get a good book Get a good book Get a good book ...

SAMI: Yes! Is this a jacket? What is this white fabulousness down there? You did it!

MISS EAVES [singing]: Get a good book Get a good book Get a good book Get a good book Get a good book Get a good book Get a good book Get a good book Get a good book Get a good book Get a good book Get a good book Get a good book Get a good book Get a good book Get a good book

[A digital illustration by MK appears on screen with smiley-face stars saying, “Joy begets joy!” and “Yay!” in speech bubbles. Handwritten text reads, “Thank you for joining us! Please stay in touch for information on future events: fordfoundation.org/gallery and @fordfoundationgallery]

17 LISA: Brava, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today and for a really, truly joyful afternoon Jina, for your masterful timekeeping and seeing Sami for everything that you bring and wear and show us today. Thank you. To Ann and Jessica, thank you.

SAMI: Thank you all so much. Thank you for coming.

JINA: Bye, all! Thank you.

End of transcript.

PRODUCTION CREDITS for #QuarantineLooks: Embracing the Fabulously Mundane

Essay, Voice-over, Styling & Modeling Dr. Sami Schalk

Professional Photography & Videography Samantha Waldron & Dutcher Photography

Video Editing & Production Hinckley Productions

Dog Modeling Tempeh Roxanne Lutzow

Sequin Masks Kandra Shefchik (Universal Friend Clothing)

Background Music “Homebody” by Miss Eaves

Special thanks Jessica Cooley, Ann Fox Ford Foundation Gallery

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