Being There

by Diana Marcela Cuartas, Harrell Fletcher (Preface)

The conversations in this book focus on communities and places in dialogue through art. Guided by the conditions and circumstances of their particular histories and sociopolitical contexts, the artists and projects featured in these interviews bring a perspective from which art-making is correlated with the place where it occurs. The team of Espacio Odeón , an interdisciplinary art space in Bogotá, Colombia, consider the challenges of shifting from conventional exhibition projects to socially engaged art practices and other forms of public engagement amidst violent political repression. Taravat Talepasand , art practice professor at Portland State University, reflects on her experience as the daughter of an Iranian immigrant family and how this has informed her practice and vision of the classroom and the role of the teacher. Moe Ali Hassan and Nikki Hall , a family participating in the King School Museum of Contemporary Art (KSMoCA), an ongoing social practice project in partnership with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, share their experience with this art project and the impact on Moe's education. Illia Yakovenko , Ukrainian artist and alumnus of the Art and Social Practice MFA program at Portland State University, narrates how his approach to art shifted from politically charged activist art-making to a method focused on experiences and emotions to foster connection and a sense of belonging. The Puerto Rican artists Jesús “Bubu” Negrón and Chemi Rosado-Seijo , describe the methodologies behind their work with communities and the commitment to addressing colonialism through their practices. Building off each other, these two interviews showcase inspiring examples of socially engaged art while simultaneously questioning the potential and contradictions of this practice inside the larger art world. Yolanda Chois and Michelle Szejner discuss Jardines en Balsas (Gardens in Canoes), an interdisciplinary project combining art, ethnobotany, and participatory research to safeguard ancestral knowledge and food sovereignty in the coastal communities of the Darién region of Panamá. Directly and indirectly addressing aspects of social practice, these artists and projects meet around a shared interest in cultivating affective networks of knowledge and care through artistic practices. Woven through these interviews is an analysis of diverse notions of community, sustainability, horizontality, transparency, place, time, and social consciousness. This publication is meant to serve as a window into ways of thinking, doing, and artistically engaging with society by listening to a place and being there.

200 pages, Paperback

Published May 24, 2023