07. Care is Human Nature (Community Care Conversations)

Today we are joined by three amazing artists; JeeYeun Lee, Abena Motaboli, and our very own Lucia Calderon Arrieta! Join us for a conversation on care, human nature, lemon cookies, and more!

Learn more about today's artists!

• https://www.luciacalderonarrieta.com/

• https://www.jeeyeunlee.com/

• https://www.abenaart.com/

Join our brand new membership, The Play Portal!

https://www.reccenter.space/membership

How to connect with us?

Find us on Instagram at…https://www.instagram.com/rec__center/

@rec__center

Brought to you with the support of https://www.softersounds.studio/

Welcome to Plays Well With Others, the podcast where we discuss all things creative, from the silly to the sensitive, but most importantly, we will discuss PLAY!

Brought to you by Podcast Host and Rec Center Founder, Alex B. Arnopol

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT (please pardon any weird typos- our transcript system isn’t perfect :) )

16:09:25 Alright, the next thing is something really important to I think everyone in the room here which is the land acknowledgement of rec center Rec Center is a primarily digital kind of a.
16:09:38 Non, non centralized locally.
16:09:43 Non, non centralized organization, but we are digitally as many places as we possibly can be. And that carries its own unique land acknowledgement needs.
16:09:53 The people part of Rec Center are me Luciana caldron, and I am residing in the traditional unseated lands of the patois Tell me Peoria, Miami Kickapoo Oglala Sioux, and I'm sure many other indigenous stewards of land whose names we may not know, or his
16:10:12 names may have been erased through the violence of genocidal colonization. So I want to call in that that is the place that I am residing from and coming to you from the other main human of rec center is the doubts are Nepal and they are the founder and
16:10:27 the director and they reside on Tongva land, now known as La, the place that I reside on is now known as Chicago.
16:10:37 Speaking of the digital nature of rec center I also want to honor the vast unseated lands that are occupied by the physical infrastructure that undergird our access to digital community.
16:10:47 And by that I mean literally the cities where there are hidden towers of water coolers for mainframes all of the, you know, the transnational and almost even international cables that are the physical infrastructure of what we call the internet, which
16:11:04 can have, I think, a really deceptively calls, almost disembodied footprint.
16:11:10 But I think that it is important for me, as a human who uses the internet to always bring that into the room.
16:11:17 And this is something that I'm hoping to do more research on so that I can be more specific in future land acknowledgments.
16:11:25 And the reason to start with that is to state that, you know, this is the lift fact of the conditions that we're in right now as humans, and also to just state that this is the lived fact fact of whatever work we're doing is on land that is been, I would
16:11:46 argue kidnapped from its indigenous stewards, and I think that, knowing that really informs kind of the heartfelt center of where our work to rejoin ourselves to the stewards and to rejoin ourselves to a larger project of adjust way of living with the
16:12:07 world.
16:12:10 I think that this is important to states to contextualize the work that we do as individuals and the work that we do as individuals who are part of community, and especially since today the conversation that we're having is about community care, and the
16:12:26 artists that I'm so thrilled to be speaking with and sharing with you all are so knowledgeable invested and curious about constantly questioning. These contextualizing ruptures, and through, not just their art practice but their lives have really become
16:12:47 really great examples for me as a human, of how I can use my curiosity to be better aligned with creating a better future for everybody.
16:13:29 Alright, gonna start the recording, again.
16:13:34 Sweet. So, what I can do is share these questions on the screen just that folks can see them and also.
16:13:44 I know with my ADHD brain it's really helpful for me to like have a visible outline to help me say, not necessarily on task but to have a scaffold from which I can deviate want to make that available to everybody else do so you can see we have.
16:14:00 Next up is intros and I would just love to give gn and Urbana, the chance to introduce themselves with their names their pronouns, and what land they're coming from.
16:14:10 I don't want to put pressure on y'all to tell the whole spiel of like who you are and what you do if you want to give us like the hoarder version of that, please feel free but we have this whole time together to really get into the meat of what y'all
16:14:22 do. So I'll pass it to gn.
16:14:27 Thank you. Thanks so much. We'll see you then. Thank you to the Rec Center for inviting me I'm really looking forward to this conversation. My name is gn Lee, and I use she her pronouns.
16:14:41 I live on how to automate homelands, now known as Chicago.
16:14:50 A place where many people have lived over the years. And,
16:14:55 yeah, I consider this place my adopted hometown, my family I moved here with my family when I was nine years old, and I was actually born in Korea, but I am of.
16:15:11 I was born in Japan but I am of Korean descent, and it's great to be here.
16:15:16 Thank you so much, passing it to Havana.
16:15:20 First of all, thank you so much for having me I'm so excited I really admire what you guys are doing, as well as GM the really admire your work as well.
16:15:29 I'm also joining from Chicago, and I acknowledge that we're currently occupying the ancestral lands with the Council of three fires so cheap way to me, as well as over a dozen types that call this land home.
16:15:43 I'm an interdisciplinary artist, I grew up in a tiny country called me soo to which is in the middle of South Africa, my mom's from Ghana, but I've been in the States since I was 18 which was back in 2012.
16:15:56 And I consider myself an interdisciplinary artist so I do everything from performance to sound to drawing to painting to writing whatever is like my medium or choice, or what I'm feeling.
16:16:09 Thank you so much. I'm really excited that in this room we have such inter everything like I am also, like, not an immigrant myself but definitely contextualize by having an immigrant experience in my parents and so I think that this inter everything
16:16:28 point of view that we all share is going to really push spring forth and the way that we talk here and I'm very excited to make space for that. So just to just to check in with you all.
16:16:37 I would love to know if y'all have eaten anything yummy recently gnn Aveda I'll start with a beta this time.
16:16:44 Yes, I just made lemon Cardamom cookies, because I've been like my go to all winter because the whole reason wintertime just makes me want to cook food and get to know more about like what's at home so we're all just stuck inside because it's so cool.
16:16:59 So that was what I was wanting right before I got studying gn Have you had to something tasty to eat recently. What I was eating right before is meatloaf.
16:17:25 I have mostly been eating vegan and home for most of this past year, but I ended up with ground beef, and I love meatloaf. Yeah, so comforting.
16:17:29 It's so comforting. Actually our bodies are just like it's time to really tend to hibernate and nest.
16:17:34 I really feel it too. I got so lucky. My partner has this really yummy recipe for a goat cheese pasta and so I had that last night's.
16:17:46 And that was really delicious.
16:17:49 Jen, if you would like to please feel free to share anything yummy that you have been munching on recently.
16:17:55 Um, I it's weird the past couple days I've just not been hungry, which is very odd for me.
16:18:02 But I did make myself much a latte.
16:18:06 Right before this so that I could be wake myself up a little bit, the lack of light is, it's been challenging, so real.
16:18:16 Yes, lots of fans in the in the audience.
16:18:22 I want to have meatloaf for dinner and I want to have. But you said lemon part of them cookies.
16:18:27 Good, I want that for dessert recipe you better drop it.
16:18:33 When we send the recording to
16:18:37 cool so I would love to, again, like my ADHD brain is constantly racing so breathing is a really great practice for me to be centered. I would love to invite us all to start the Convo with just three deep breaths.
16:18:50 So let's go back a little bit.
16:18:54 If we can all breathe in for three
16:19:05 wiggling our shoulders. If we're feeling our feet on the ground.
16:19:10 Let's take another breath or three.
16:19:20 Some I noticed my mouth opening and my shoulders moving away from my ears, Julie lovely. And one more breath.
16:19:35 Yes Let it all out some yawning. Some clicking some feeling.
16:19:41 And, yeah, I would love to start with my first big question which is definitely a big foundational question.
16:19:50 Um, and I'll toss it to gn first and then a banner, which is, you know, what does Community Care mean to you.
16:20:00 Oh dear, I was hoping you would worse.
16:20:06 I'll offer something for things to build on how about yes literally that.
16:20:11 Yeah, yeah.
16:20:17 I think, you know, I do think that are inherent human state is care, like we are a species that is born, completely helpless.
16:20:38 It's really, I find it sort of mind blowing how helpless you are when you're a baby You can't even lift your head, let alone like feed yourself how, you know, shell to yourself like even, you can even offer.
16:20:48 So, like, as a species we have evolved such that you need care from the very first moments of your life.
16:20:57 And, Yeah, so I think that, you know, obviously.
16:21:05 Most many of our human societies have, you know, evolved to the point where care isn't necessarily the central organizing principle.
16:21:16 But, but it's still there, right, or else we would not even have gotten to this point as a species so yeah so that's what I'm sort of jumping to the end but like that's sort of what I'm interested in is how do we recuperate the care that is there are
16:21:35 inherent instincts towards care.
16:21:39 I don't think it's necessarily useful to think of humans as a you know inherently like violent and competitive species like that, you know, you can, you could make that assumption, but I think I don't think the conclusions are that interesting.
16:21:55 Because if because of the assumption is that we are species evolved around care, then the question becomes how do we find a way back to it, what are the mechanisms avenues for for healing towards being able to organize ourselves, our relationships our
16:22:16 societies around care.
16:22:20 Oh my god god you're amazing. I love. So the reason I like to start with this absolute like giant question is because there's so many ways to respond to it and I love, you know, just seeing your mind work and being like, because I know that how you know
16:22:36 I know your practice is so specific and research based and it's also I feel like it's coming through and like this almost like sociological viewpoint that you've taken with regards to care which I'm sure is only also just one facet of how you think about
16:22:48 it, so definitely no pressure to feel like this first question is the only way we're going to be thinking about it may not what's coming up for you.
16:22:56 That is a huge question.
16:22:59 I agree with everything that GM just said.
16:23:03 I think when I think about community care. The first thing I'm thinking about is care so what is care for me and when I think about that I think about like the upbringing that I had so I grew up in a country where people were very community oriented like
16:23:17 that's something that was such a shock coming to this country, and how it almost seems like society here has like taking people away from that sense of like community accountability Community Care just caring for each other on a human level.
16:23:34 And I can see that just sort of being part of like the work systems, it's in everything and I feel like that is so sad.
16:23:43 But I think when you, when you think about Carrie, I think, oh wow I had a really lovely upbringing. Just thinking about my mom making me to you or making me a su for making me something that says I love you.
16:23:56 And then for some reason my grandmother comes up, I think she was someone who was so pivotal in just my journey. And so she lived 204 years old and she did everything on her own and lived in a little village, and I'm just thinking about the way that everybody
16:24:13 treated each other and was just there for each other, you know, and it's not just your immediate family or your immediate relative but everyone in the community that has entered and caring for you.
16:24:26 And I see that to emulated with indigenous peoples in this country so just thinking about in my own practice I'm very intrigued with plants and building reciprocal relationships with them and seeing that if you care for the earth it will care back for
16:24:43 you and that is beautiful.
16:24:46 And I know we will dig further into this, as we continue talking. Yeah, I saw gn nodding nodding her head So was there anything that like really resonated with you there that you want to be like, Yeah, totally.
16:24:59 Oh well yeah totally I too had a grandmother, who cared for me. And I think that's a really both the the grandmother piece of it. I heard.
16:25:10 Oh gosh.
16:25:13 A native woman, I can't remember who it was, it was sort of an offhand comment.
16:25:19 While she was talking about something else.
16:25:21 But she was saying she was talking about the importance of grandmothers, and that there are scientific studies that have been done.
16:25:28 That's that talks about how the wellness of a person, you can measure based on their physical literal distance from their grandmother growing up.
16:25:40 Like if they were closer like, you know, how far apart you lived from your grandmother is is an indicator of how well you do later on in life.
16:25:51 It's not fascinating.
16:25:52 But it doesn't make sense it totally makes sense because it takes more than, you know, one adult or two adults, it takes, you know, I don't want to say, I'm not gonna say but like it takes a lot of adults.
16:26:10 A lot of adults with differing ways of being able to think about young people to really care. I think for the well being of young people and I think it's interesting that the three of us
16:26:28 are talking about community care because I think it makes it, it makes a big difference to have a perspective from outside of the US.
16:26:35 We each have contacts to varying degrees, and sort of a foundation and authors that are not based in the US not based in white glow us mainstream culture, and to be.
16:26:52 I think those of us who grew up in those cultures have a sense of what it means to be connected in a way that I think especially white people assimilated into dominant us culture like, I don't think they even really know what that means, I think, Oh,
16:27:11 yeah, totally. that's really resonating with me because I think about how you know as much as colonization has very much whitewashed, the way that my family improve lives.
16:27:27 There's still such importance with the family and I literally remember my dad being like, the United States doesn't have the sense of loss of them us which means, you know, Lots of them us, I think, means a couple of things, those around you everyone
16:27:54 not you everyone who's in your community who's not you and then also lots of them asked, something about like those of the more I really like thinking about it in terms of that I'm one part of the bigger of the more. And again, I want to give you a second
16:27:55 to to also respond to that for you hop on to the next question. Yeah, this is like already so beautiful, I'm thinking so much about just like ancestral lines about matriarchal societies about women.
16:28:10 and the care that women have for each other.
16:28:12 Even just sort of like you know a child is born a baby's born and you have like mom or the female a woman figure like washing the baby and taking care Let's read you for this baby you can do anything on their own.
16:28:27 So I'm thinking of how beautiful that is.
16:28:30 And I know my mom's side of the family they come from Ghana so I grew up with in Lisa to which is my dad's side of the family, but I got a chance to go to Ghana in 2019 for a month and I sold my only remaining grandmother who's alive and she's 95 years
16:28:45 old, which was amazing.
16:28:48 But just thinking about the amount of care that everyone in that society you have for each other and just this feeling of, oh my gosh these humans love me so much and I don't even know you.
16:29:00 But there's just that understanding and it's reciprocal it's like back and forth that's yes I love YouTube because you're human and I understand that we are here together.
16:29:11 So I'm thinking a lot about that.
16:29:15 And then, just in line with like workshops and such I did a workshop on soil the other day so I'm just learning so much about the soils and all this stuff about it which is very exciting.
16:29:29 But I really want to dig deeper into the indigenous practices and knowledge of the soil which is part of why I'm excited for this conversation.
16:29:36 But one of the things that they did say was that you know we're all stewards of our land and the more that we're able to learn about the land in a way that is human.
16:29:51 And for me, connections with plants and nature which is something I have back home and promote that over here then the more that we're able to have relationships and see these as living being creatures that we can care for and will in turn care for us
16:30:01 back.
16:30:02 Oh that's so beautiful. I really echo that I'm already being so nourished by hearing your thoughts, I want to hop into the next question which I think that was a beautiful segue to which is.
16:30:13 So, this podcast that I love called unlocking us with Renee Brown, the question she always asks her, her guests is like Tell me your story. And it begins very young, like before like the professional story of like well I'm a blah blah blah who does blah
16:30:28 blah blah. So I want to ask you all my version of that which is, you know, tell me the story of how your art practice began. And when it began to intersect with your care for community and really excited to hear from both of y'all have energy and do you
16:30:42 feel called to answer first.
16:30:48 I can go.
16:30:50 Go for it. It was such a hard question.
16:30:53 Honestly, I want to say no one we are effective started but I'll start with I don't know, because that's also very valid answer.
16:31:02 So I mean what I like to tell everyone is I've always known that I've loved art I have like my first piece of work when I was in grade two and wherever your elementary school shown in the green six exhibition and I was just like, oh my gosh like cares
16:31:15 about my work and it's going to be shown in this exhibition and I think that was really like the confidence boost that I needed and having an adult in my life that was like wow you do, like you're making amazing work, that's really powerful and that's
16:31:30 something I try to remember as a facilitator when I work with you.
16:31:34 So I'd be like, in my head my perfect story that's how I feel like we're practice began. And then from then on my parents just like my dad put us in drawing classes and just sort of harness this with me and my sister.
16:31:51 Growing up so something I've always had around, I definitely didn't think I would get to be an artist just knowing where we were from but moving to this country is let me do that or somehow in my mind it's more acceptable in community to be an artist,
16:32:05 right here.
16:32:06 There's a lot of cultural stuff that comes with that back home.
16:32:11 But we're doing this activity one of my workplaces, the other day and it was just a free write about things that reminded you of home, and I did one on marigolds and
16:32:25 I think I've been walking with miracles for the past couple of months just learning about them. They're so cool there's so much about them that I still am excited to learn.
16:32:35 But what it made me think of was just like growing back up. Growing up back home we had a garden and we had marigolds and I remember my mom teaching me things about the marigolds and how they chased certain insects away and to keep the garden safe in
16:32:49 all parts of it are edible, and just this really exciting knowledge which at the time I was just like, Okay Mom, why are you telling me this
16:32:58 cool it's the garden.
16:33:00 But, but looking at it, looking back at it right now I'm sort of just like, Oh wow, those were lessons my mom taught me in the garden and in an odd way it's those things that I feel like I've been weaving into my art practice and such a beautiful organic
16:33:18 way. So I'm still finding out about the journey but it's been a pretty beautiful open story I guess yeah I think this might be a good time for me to ask just Can you tell us a couple, like, not, not an artist statement of what your art practices but like,
16:33:32 what do you what do you like to play with in your studio what kind of wasting teach about art. Yeah, I use a lot of dirt. I love the earth.
16:33:42 A lot of tea a lot of coffee, basically whatever I can find. And this is just sort of commenting on like back home people make anything out of like garbage or whatever you can find or like footballs out of use plastic bags like people are innovative and
16:33:57 I'm sure you guys are familiar with just making from what you have.
16:34:02 And then the other thing I started using tea bag and Columbia College. Since 20 2012 2013 I think.
16:34:10 And I was just looking for something that reminded me of home and I remembered all of the numerous visitors and tease, we would have with people. And so spilled some tea on my canvas and I was like, wow, I love the way that looks.
16:34:25 This is it, but also just connecting back to home and talking about colonialism and tracing the route of that through plants, which is like tea.
16:34:35 Yeah, so I can tell you that Obinna makes a lot of really beautiful.
16:34:41 I would describe them almost as like watercolor paintings, using pigments from coffees teas and other textures and inks that of Anna is able to process from a lot of natural, and even ephemeral few what's called fugitive di stuffs.
16:34:58 And then a banner also has a really strong practice in the different communities in Chicago in helping people facilitate, kind of like a closer relationship to how nature can kind of spark your creativity, and I think that's not just by the tools or the
16:35:25 materials that come from nature but also by, like you do a lot of work like literally in the parks here in Chicago. So I think that
16:35:25 for some reason, this is I was describing to someone I was like a banner is like this amazing artists, but when you put her in nature. It's like a deity has found their attribute, like it's like it's very it unlocks a lot of there.
16:35:39 So I just wanted to give a little bit of my version of what you do. Also, so that you don't have to be like here's the professional side.
16:35:48 Yeah, I'm gn the same question to you. Tell me the story of how your art practice began. And when it began to intersect with your care for community.
16:36:03 Hmm. I think it's sort of the other way around. For me, so I yeah I, I've always made things.
16:36:15 And both my mother's mother and then my mother did a lot of sewing. So I grew up around that and just like making things.
16:36:39 know.
16:36:48 Shocking like never thought. And, yeah, I think.
16:36:52 I think currently,
16:36:55 as, as a female being raised a girl, and being from an immigrant family, and being the oldest in my, in my family of my siblings.
16:37:07 There are lots of and, and, and being Catholic, there were lots of ways that I was raised to serve others. And so, for a very long time it was hard to know what I wanted for myself, and it's still a journey of becoming more clear about what that means,
16:37:29 at any given moment, about what I want.
16:37:33 And so, When I left. When I graduated from college.
16:37:41 I didn't really have a clear sense of what I wanted to do.
16:37:47 And, but but I knew I wanted to find a place where I could sort of have affirmed and learn more about why things are messed up in the world.
16:38:04 And so I started that journey with an internship at ms magazine and then I started a PhD program and ethnic studies, and then I realized that I did not want to be an academic and then that's when I started working in nonprofits.
16:38:22 Doing fundraising and then sort of program coordinating and, and in that time I moved from the barrier back to Chicago. And, yeah, so I really, I had a whole career in nonprofit work, both on the program side as well as management as well as fundraising.
16:38:50 And in, in places that worked on immigrant rights and Asian American civil rights.
16:38:59 And I was on the board of a domestic violence agency.
16:39:03 And then, in my mid 30s. I thought, Hmm, this isn't for somewhere in my mind I thought I would like to, I would like to do more art.
16:39:19 And, and so I got a job, which I will tell everybody who's listening.
16:39:24 I got a job at Columbia College because one of the perks was you get to take free classes. As an undergrad, for undergrad classes.
16:39:35 And, and I use the professional skills I had which is grant writing, and fundraising.
16:39:42 To do that kind of work at Columbia College while I took classes.
16:39:47 And, and then over the course of, and it was there were so many great things about that, and you know I love the people I love.
16:39:55 That was the first time I had a job that was where the content of the work was around, arts and arts education.
16:40:03 So I got to kind of see different parts of the art world in Chicago from an arts administration point of view, and end.
16:40:18 And I got to be my, my position was part of the bargaining unit for the staff union. Yes, though I got to be part of the union and on the leadership for the Union for a number of years while I was there, which was which was fantastic.
16:40:36 It was such a great learning experience and growth experience for me and I met really great people and I still cheer them on their.
16:40:46 Absolutely. I'm currently negotiating again for another contract.
16:40:53 So, yeah, and and then at some point I just accumulated enough work from the classes I was taking to sort of take, you know, to jump off the, the, the diving board.
16:41:09 And I feel very lucky to have figured out that route, and and so then I went into an MFA program
16:41:21 at Cranbrook, which is how I know you must be yeah I'll told me hop in here and be like, just to let you know.
16:41:29 So, in order to give you a, give, give our listeners and our audience a little bit more concrete knowledge about what gn does. I got to meet gn at Cranbrook Academy of Art, where I was getting my MFA in fiber art, And I was just immediately struck because
16:41:47 I was doing a lot of work around identity and politics and I felt like gn was doing it too, in a way that was really interesting innovative and unexpected because I was doing a lot of work based on just processing the fact that I'm the sort of immigrants
16:42:04 I'm trying to figure out what my body means politically I'm trying to figure out like what is an authentic identity and the work that I saw you doing gn was about, I think, Really, researching and honoring through procession and performance.
16:42:21 The indigenous stewards of the land that we were occupying currently at Cranbrook.
16:42:26 And that felt like a really important facet of the conversation around political art that wasn't being done by other people there at the time, and I think it's still something that I think it would be easy to say that it sets you apart as an artist but
16:42:42 it doesn't.
16:42:43 If that it certainly does that. But it feels like it's coming from such a sincere and earnest place of genuinely wanting to know and understand that it's not a posture or a tactic to set yourself apart it's you genuinely following your curiosity and the
16:42:57 same way that a banana is like, I'm really curious about this plant to know it deeply at that means knowing, everyone.
16:43:05 Not everyone because that's impossible but like as many things as possible that are associated with the care and the reach that this plant has had.
16:43:14 Um, so, I guess. Let me see I'm squatting down.
16:43:21 So, I guess. Let me see I'm squinting down. The question I want to ask is, just to give God and Amina just a bit more of a chance to talk about like your recent work gn you recently did this amazing procession called who's lakefront and I was wondering
16:43:35 if you could tell us a little bit about that and how that is part of just like community care in general. And then again, if you can talk a little about the warp residency afterwards.
16:43:46 Yeah.
16:43:49 Yeah, so I'll just add on to what you were saying about.
16:43:53 So, I've.
16:43:57 Yeah, so what one great thing about art in the contemporary period that I that I discovered is that art can be whatever you want it to be. And that you really can like follow your curiosity and do some, you know, crazy stuff and then and then call it
16:44:14 Oh, I didn't know that. So, so I feel, I feel, I feel very lucky to be alive at this particular moment and getting to call myself an artist or you know whatever it takes to follow my curiosity like this.
16:44:31 And probably because of all the moving around I did as a young person and arriving in the US when I was nine.
16:44:39 You know, now you're not completely young, right, but you're not completely old either so it was a very.
16:44:47 You can feel things, all the, all the things that people are not telling you.
16:44:52 And so, I feel very lucky to have figured out like this is a way that I can satisfy my curiosity to try and figure out like what the heck happened here that set us up like this.
16:45:05 And a lot of it is motivated by seeing the conditions of the mostly urban spaces and I've lived in, where it's racially segregated segregated by income and class segregated across all kinds of wines, then divided and really wanting to try and understand
16:45:24 the, the setup that God is here. And so the who's lakefront project. Oh, so using walking, as a way to witness the history both learned about it, and using walking both as a way to witness as well as part of the research process itself as a way to just
16:45:44 be in a place and and gather data in that, in that way.
16:45:51 And so I've done solo walking projects, and then group walking projects and who's lakefront ended up being a group walking project, sort of inadvertently.
16:46:02 It really was based on the fact that most of the Chicago lakefront is landfill. I don't know folks know that. and a lot of residents of Chicago are all very proud of this amazing civic asset that you know the public has access to.
16:46:26 And because it was land that was created after the last treaties were signed, which ceded land up to the shoreline, all of the landfill that's been built since then out beyond the shoreline is technically unseeded territory.
16:46:36 And when I learned about it from a book written by john Lau, who was a member of the poking and Ben of pot of water me.
16:46:43 I just thought, I didn't know this I grew, you know, I went to Chicago public schools and high school in the suburbs and I didn't know that and other people should know that.
16:46:54 So I conceived the idea of drawing a line at that boundary which downtown runs pretty much right down Michigan Avenue. And so to mark unseated native territory in the heart of what people think of as,
16:47:15 as this, this idea of what Chicago is that the story left over tells about itself.
16:47:25 And, and the two big aspects of the project for me we're trying to figure out how to navigate the law, you know like, who who's going to give me permission to do this on the sidewalk who who controls the sidewalk.
16:47:42 And then, and then relationships and trying to think about what it means to someone said it was like, what it means to work with, with native folks in solidarity.
16:47:57 And I was very fortunate to have a number of native folks both in Chicago and from the cooking and part of water me agree to work on the planning committee, they were all incredibly generous.
16:48:14 and it was this interesting thing to negotiate.
16:48:18 Someone said it's sort of like, like driving and sitting in the backseat at the same time.
16:48:25 How do I make sure that they get to make the big decisions, but not put too much work or expectation of labor on them for the, you know, for the tiny honorarium that I was able to offer.
16:48:39 So, but I think it went and these are actually, I just. I've been looking through some of the photo documentation to show in an upcoming as part of an upcoming exhibition at the Hyde Park Art Center and the, the, The native folks involved, said that it
16:49:01 was good for them. So, I feel like that that's that's the goal that was. And so when, when you talk about the intersection of like your creative practice, as well as community care.
16:49:15 I feel like that's what I'm motivated in even if there aren't other people involved.
16:49:21 Like my goal is to, like, you know, shine a light on the hard things that have created the environment, the liberal environments and the situation that we're in now.
16:49:36 Just as a starting place place for for healing. I, so I'm I'm a city girl.
16:49:44 And in thinking about place I'm trying to find my way back actually to like Earth and dirt and water and plants.
16:49:53 So like where you are a beginner I feel like I'm making my way there right now I'm still stuck on like roads buildings and zoning, which you know which go together.
16:50:07 But yeah, that's something that I look forward to.
16:50:11 Diving more into the having that be part of who I am and what I relate to. Yeah.
16:50:19 Oh that's so beautiful. What a beautiful connection.
16:50:22 Okay, a Veena, the floor is yours. Tell us about, you know, the word presidency was just the first thing I could think of, but like whatever comes up right now.
16:50:29 Oh my gosh, I'm so moved by what GM was just saying just thinking about connection to land and soil, and everything. I remember the first installation I did when I got to Columbia College I was doing an installation where I needed dirt and I put them
16:50:45 in little cellophane balls and I installed this giant plastic kind of tarp thing that I turned holes in, I still have those plastics with me they come to every show.
16:51:01 You and I have become so sentimental about them, but also just talking about reuse and sustainability and that sort of thing.
16:51:04 But I remember just like being downtown the studios are right by Grand Park and I was like okay I'm going to go to Grand Park and and get some dirt and I went to get the dirt and the security guard comes over and he's like you know you can be arrested
16:51:18 for stealing, you know, soil that doesn't belong to you this was.
16:51:24 I was scandalized I was like an Africa dirt is free, you know like, It's like the air This doesn't make any sense.
16:51:35 And I think that's an experience that I will I will carry it with me forever. Just in that it was so shocking.
16:51:42 But it also made me think about just like access to land and who has access to land and why is it so hard for me to have access to soil or dirt or twigs or flowers or nature.
16:51:57 So just sort of seeing that separation from something that was always such a big part of my life, but also like you know growing up around nature not really realizing how beautiful it was until I came here and I was like, Oh, this thing that my body is
16:52:13 so connected with is gone.
16:52:13 So I think, moving through that.
16:52:17 I've just been really interested in the soil and returned back to nature and then also just seeing so much synergy between indigenous peoples here and people back home because my ancestors have been living in the same way for centuries.
16:52:33 And so similar to what Jim was saying earlier it's sort of like you know how did we get here,
16:52:39 which is a huge questions ask.
16:52:43 Oh my gosh is so many things.
16:52:46 So with the work that I do with the Chicago Park District I've been working with them since 2018 but it's mostly nature based programming we're across the city, with a focus on like social and environmental justice.
16:52:59 So gn you are actually one of the artists we looked at for our reparations for the earth curriculum.
16:53:06 What are you thinking about just artists who put indigenous practices and really take that and share in a way that is radical, which is very exciting.
16:53:17 And, I mean, I feel like artists have so many gigs but in the things that have been doing around the city and with the Garfield Park conservatory and nearly every thing that I tried to involve myself with have been promoting just like nature and working
16:53:34 with youth in nature and seeing how exciting it is to paint with dirt or tea and learn about it and develop the connection.
16:53:44 And I think I get excited because you are so excited about it like I did a class the other day for kindergarten CPS class and we just use T and found material and so much fun I was just like, Yes.
16:53:58 Can I show this agenda was like one word group of people, you know.
16:54:21 this country I think it's the Soil Science Society of America that was in charge of distributing land to agricultural farms and just thinking about the way farming in this country is not done in the way that it should be.
16:54:34 And of course that's because it's separated into like animals, and then farms farming like one specific crop corn or soy, or whatever it is, which is not good for the soil.
16:54:46 And then you think well hey if they can get the animals back on the farms well then that would be more regenerative but because capitalism, the way this country works it's so challenging challenging to even think of that happening.
16:55:00 So thinking about a lot is like the biggest thing on my mind right now.
16:55:07 And then I just did the residency at the weaving mill and they had a really lovely day garden.
16:55:14 So I got to work with their diet garden for six weeks. It's never enough time.
16:55:19 I know that's so short.
16:55:20 But it was really beautiful and it just came from a place of me wondering like why is it so hard to have access to just flowers, you know, or plants, and so I looked for us since he got him.
16:55:41 with their essence over there and just learn about these plants. I did a lot of poetry and spend mornings just writing.
16:55:47 It was very nourishing and lovely and wonderful, and I'm hoping to write out a plant gratitude publication which I should have in the springtime. Yes, retreat and drawings and that sort of thing.
16:56:06 But also yeah i think i'm just constantly trying to deepen my knowledge and, you know, I think it is so important to learn about indigenous peoples here and to highlight that work whether it's through art or whatever it is, you know, that's really important.
16:56:22 So beautiful. Thank you so much.
16:56:28 Awesome.
16:56:29 So I want to be really respectful of the time of the special of time, and I want to make space. and just in case anyone.
16:56:40 Jen, specifically since you're our, our Primo AUDIENCE MEMBER if you have any questions that you would like to share or ask or any, you know, responses to what has been spoken over this far.
16:56:54 Um.
16:56:56 Wow, just a lot of like processing happening.
16:57:02 I'm trying to think, when you were like around the first question, and I guess I can be like the resident white girl here, who has like an Eastern European background but because of to has been sort of cut out cut off from my lineage a little bit.
16:57:23 And then hearing, I guess the thing that came to mind around like care from generations or from a, like a, like the community that you're living in is how can we, in our present moment, change some of our like the self imposed limitations that we have
16:57:45 around caring for one another. So like, I think that there's a lot of
16:57:52 social mores around. You know what, what we owe each other or don't know each other, or what you know like just in friendships, or in professional relationships like you know if you work I work at a nine to five job and spend most of my waking hours with
16:58:11 this group of people, but like, we don't have a kind of sense of, like, yeah, a sense of like reciprocity and a sense of
16:58:25 knowing each other any kind of care.
16:58:29 Any means it's just like how do we kind of thinking about like how in this you know like toxic I should say I'm, I'm based in Hamilton, Ontario and Canada.
16:58:40 But I know that we have a lot of shared, kind of like North American cultural values. So, and just the, and especially with I've been working from home since March 2020 and just got the notice today or yesterday that we are going to probably be going
16:58:56 back to the office in January so it's like okay when we return, like, how can we read.
16:59:04 Yeah, you can figure some of those relationships are sense of of care for one another or like enhanced empathy or whatever else but even yeah just thinking about within like community, and within friendship communities and stuff, how to get rid of some
16:59:20 of those sense of like, Okay, well you're not my family so it would be weird if I cared for you in this way or, or if I if that was sort of a broader expectation and I think the pandemic we've been breaking down some of that stuff but I still think we
16:59:35 have a long way to go before like Community Care could be like a norm.
16:59:42 Yeah, absolutely. That's why one of my like 10 thought so.
16:59:48 The first one so I'll stop there.
16:59:52 That's a really good one. So, I'm just thinking like that is so real because it's you know in in the word community. It would be like moving from like a situation that's very like transactional of like I go here to sell labor and receive a paycheck, and
17:00:08 everyone here is kind of here based on that condition, not based on one week, not based on like people kind of choosing each other for like the shared vibes, right, like, yo, in my work experience it's been like these people have all been chosen to provide
17:00:23 a service to the company which wants to make money as opposed to do I get along with the person that I'm working with because if we work together, and we get along, we could actually do something transformative.
17:00:37 So that's what's really sitting on my mind gn and Aveda I don't know if you want to like give a two minute response really quick to this broad wondering question.
17:00:48 Yeah, that's it. There's so much in that question. My immediate thought is, is that it's very challenging to find workplaces, but we're radical care is promoted I feel very lucky that I work with in spaces where people do care for each other in that way.
17:01:03 But it is challenging and it is difficult and it's sort of when you're in one of them you're kind of like well, are there any other more like organizations that feel like this.
17:01:12 But I think just thinking about the works of like Adrian Ray brown and like emergent strategy and if we're able to create organizations where they are built on trust moving at the speed of trust and being able to you know get on that level with people
17:01:24 before or as you develop relationships, then that's an organization that I would want to work in. So it's like if I'm looking for a place I'm looking for those people in organizations that are already moving in that direction, something that's very exciting,
17:01:39 through the pandemic like I was asked a bunch of times to come facilitate like conversations or like team building based around like self care or like restorative work and I think that there are organizations that are trying to do that but they usually
17:01:53 need people within those organizations to lobby for that and to get them paid for doing that. But I think that that's so necessary because you know otherwise who else is going to take care of us, you know like we take care of each other.
17:02:10 Mm hmm yeah gn.
17:02:14 Yeah gn. Let's see. I don't know if I have anything.
17:02:19 I think for me personally.
17:02:26 What can I say that's actually useful here.
17:02:36 Labor organizer, I think, I think we each get to model, my, you know, each of us and our worlds around us is creating the world we want.
17:02:50 So, yeah, I think we get to model the, what we're what we're trying to go for, while also being able to protect ourselves as we need to. So, yeah. Yeah, totally.
17:03:12 Mm hmm. I think what both of you are touching on something that I've been thinking about a lot lately, like literally over the last two days have been mired specifically emergent strategy and and keeping things like starting really small, like starting
17:03:29 with immediate relationships, and I work for the City of Hamilton. I work in tourism and culture I work in public art specifically, but it is like a giant machine it's a giant corporation, and it's very like entrenched and toxic and all kinds of ways
17:03:47 so I always just, I'm trying to really readjust those expectations around, changing like the larger system and work more within my small team or, you know, within my friendships or my immediate community.
17:04:06 And even in like thinking about community based projects. I just yesterday. I've been doing a lot of like thinking through just dancing like putting on loud music and smoky give it a pie.
17:04:20 Having like just breakthrough thoughts, and it's the only way I seem to be able to think these days and, it, it, that's just what came to mind last night, I was just like, I have to stop that because I've been on hiatus a bit been doing community projects
17:04:34 and I'm like, how do I want to re enter this, and it's through rather than serving like a large community, thinking about how can I, like, yeah, model in that small way or, like, how, how can I work with the people in my immediate community to like start
17:04:52 adjusting some of these relational standards that we have and then there's that kind of reverberation that happens from that. So, the flop in the wings.
17:05:04 Oh my god, it's so much for sharing that is so beautiful. Yeah, so it's such I saw this event post like about, I don't know, an hour before.
17:05:15 So it's pretty cool. And I have like a bit of a textile background so there's like so many threads here that are and I worked with like a natural, I did some natural meditation workshops through the pandemic like I, I, coordinated some and there's so
17:05:31 many like you know I'm so glad to have dropped into this randomly, because they're there are so many threads and I'm learning so much so thank you so much, everybody.
17:05:41 Thank you so much to I feel like I could tell from your from your little pic like the jacket you're saying you're wearing is like okay this is someone who thinks about textiles,
17:05:52 all day every day. Yes.
17:05:56 Cool, thank you all so so so much for your time and energy to be here. I would love to do just a one word check out of, you know how we're feeling at the end of this, of this time together.
17:06:09 And I can go ahead and start, I think that I feel I'm gonna make my role I'm going to do three.
17:06:16 I'm going to do. I feel sparkly grateful and nourished for everyone.
17:06:22 I'm gn Would you like to go next.
17:06:29 gn Would you like to go next.
17:06:33 Thankful pass to Urbana
17:06:44 I'm excited Norrish.
17:06:49 I'm going to break the rule but I really want to continue this conversation. Yes, absolutely. We'll have to have everyone back and Jen that includes you will you're totally invited to come back with us do.
17:06:53 Thank you. Sorry I my internet connection cut out so I apologize if I miss something there.
17:07:00 We were just doing a one word checkout Would you like to share like a 123 word, check out of how you're feeling now.
17:07:07 Um, I would say, like, a first maybe just like in some of the things that I've been thinking about.
17:07:16 And also, gn you said something about how, like you didn't realize how r was, you could just do something weird and call it art and that is really encouraging for me because I'm sort of an arts administrator and I've always been a facilitator of artists,
17:07:31 but I know that I have an artist in me.
17:07:35 That's the thread that's the thread, just do something weird a call it are and that's going to be, it's you know it's going to be relational it's going to be something.
17:07:44 Yeah.
17:07:46 But, Yeah, so thank you for yeah lots of inspiration today, I feel inspired for sure.
17:07:53 Oh my gosh. Well thank you so much for those of you who are listening thank you so much for taking the time and energy to sit with us and listen now and at a later date.
17:08:02 And we will, I'll be looking forward to.