CO-EDITORS
Caroline Turner, Nathan Alexander Ward
INTERVIEWERS
Sajad Amini
Eden Evans
Liam Maher
Ian Sherlock Molloy
Tannon Reckling
Caroline Turner
Doran Asher Walot
Nathan Alexander Ward
Carol Yahner
Kevin Yatsu
DESIGN & TYPOGRAPHY
FISK, Bijan Berahimi + Cole Johnson
 
PRINTING
FISK Library
SPECIAL THANKS
Charlene Liu
Department Head, Associate Professor
Tannasz Farsi
Director of Graduate Studies, Associate Professor
Christopher Michlig
Associate Professor
Wendy Heldmann
School of Art + Design Project Manager
Brian Gillis
CFAR Director, Professor
Published by the Center for Art Research, University of Oregon
art.uoregon.edu
fivemin.org
centerforartresearch.uoregon.edu
College of Design
Department of Art
5232 University of Oregon
Eugene OR 97403-5232
INTERVIEWS WITH
ARTISTS BY MFA 
CANDIDATES
FIVE
MINUTES
2018-2019
EDITORS’
INTRO
4
5 Minutes is a limited-run publication featuring interviews between 
MFA candidates and artists invited to the University of Oregon 
through the Department of Art’s Visiting Artist Lecture Series. 
In this series, artists from widely varying geographies, disciplines, 
and methodologies lecture on their work, histories, and ideas, 
providing insight into their lives and practices.
5 Minutes is a platform to aggregate the casual, short-format 
interviews conducted throughout each academic year into a 
tangible, printed-document that gives form to the otherwise 
ephemeral interactions. With a few exceptions, these interviews 
took place just before the visiting artists presented their lecture; 
the interviewer and an editor met the visiting artist near campus 
and walked with them—sometimes quite frantically to stay on 
schedule—to Lawrence Hall where they would speak. As suggested 
by the title 5 Minutes, these encounters were brief, but they were 
also spirited. Each of the following interviews offers a meaningful 
glimpse into the individuals on either side of the conversation.
5 Minutes began with Christopher Michlig and Wendy Heldmann’s 
vision to provide an opportunity for artists to share an experience 
and as a project to support print media: this publication marks its 
fifth year and is reason to celebrate. We hope that you enjoy.
Sincerely,
The Editors
5
Tuan Andrew Nguyen graduated from the Fine Arts program at the University of California, Irvine in 
1999 and received his Masters of Fine Arts from The California Institute of the Arts in 2004. 
His work explores strategies of political resistance through ritual, the making of objects [both as 
testimony and as devotion], supernaturalism and the impact of mass media on these moments of 
resistance. In his continual attempts at reworking the power dynamics of public space and mass 
media in general, he initiated The Propeller Group in 2006, a platform for collectivity
that situates itself between an art collective and an advertising company.
He was also a co-founder and board member of Sàn Art, an artist-initiated exhibition space and 
educational program in Sai Gon, Viet Nam.
tuanandrewnguyen.com
the-propeller-group.com
6
KEVIN YATSU IN CONVERSATION WITH
TUAN
ANDREW
NGUYEN
7
Kevin Yatsu: What are kids in Viet Nam listening to? We describe Viet Nam The World Tour as a “rogue-
nation-unbranding” campaign. As we were doing a 
Tuan Andrew Nguyen: The kids that I have a lot of project called Television Commercial for Communism 
interaction with are listening to underground rap. I’ve been in late 2011, we started to get interested in how national 
working with this rapper by the name of Wowy, I met him identities, governments, would hire adverting agencies 
when he was sixteen or seventeen, he’s in his late-twenties to rebrand their nation. It’s obvious now but back then 
now and has become one of the biggest rap artists out we didn’t know that politicians would hire advertising 
there. Amid a lot of censorship in Viet Nam, what kids are up agencies to help them with their image and to sell that 
to and what they’re talking about is a very fascinating topic image; so for us, having been very un-savvy to how the 
for me. They’re all so savvy on the internet. Viet Nam is one media worked, it gave us a different take on history and 
of the largest consumers of online videos in the world, so how it’s made. We took this national identity called “Viet 
the online video has become such a powerful thing. Nam”—the American war in Viet Nam made it one of the 
most mediatized identities in the world—because of how 
From looking at some of your earlier works, you seem to media in the 60s and 70s kind of branded it. When you do an 
address dualities in Viet Nam, like with your documentaries internet search for “Viet Nam” you see all of these images 
of street art or collaboration with Wowy, and the of the Viet Nam War, we were interested in that relationship 
advertising components of The Propeller Group… between a national identity and the media. So, Viet Nam 
The World Tour isn’t really about Viet Nam, it is more about 
I like pop-culture, I think that’s something that we have… taking the national identity known as “Viet Nam” and kind 
let me rephrase that: I don’t like pop-culture, but I look at of switching it around to become something else.
it as a very powerful mode of distribution, one that effects 
large amounts of people. I think that when I founded The A moment that we’ve referenced and were inspired by was 
Propeller Group it was to look at the media in a country that in 2012 when the Russian all-girl punk band, Pussy Riot, 
has been closed to the outside world and then suddenly did a performance which was a remark against Putin; you 
opened up, and how the media kind of takes over. We would do an internet search of “Putin” and would see all of 
saw the media as something very much in conflict with these images of him trying to be this heroic, boss kind of 
the political context of that time; so, we were looking male-figure, and then after the performance you would do 
at communism—Viet Nam is one of the five remaining a search and Pussy Riot would come up—we thought that 
communist countries in the world—and how remarkably was an amazing kind of intervention in the internet, which 
different advertising was within that context. Advertising is kind of like our archives now. For an artist group to make 
for us was the epitome of capitalism, if communism had a shift like that was remarkable and that was one of the 
propaganda then capitalism had advertising. After Viet motivations behind Viet Nam The World Tour, taking this 
Nam opened its doors and started welcoming international idea of nation branding and trying to flip it on its head. We 
brands into the economy, all of these large advertising worked with graffiti artists who had large followings online 
companies came in and suddenly you would see very old- and asked them to do murals and tag “Viet Nam The World 
school communist propaganda right next to very slick Tour” so that when people would look up Viet Nam, we 
advertisements selling Coca-Cola or Pepsi, Kentucky would hope that Viet Nam The World Tour would come up.
Fried Chicken, and that was very fascinating for us. That’s 
where we thought that our practice could kind of wedge Alright, well, wrapping up: what are you listening to now?
itself in-between, those polarities, and to see what kinds of 
contradictions could come out of that. What am I listening to? Wow…I’ve just rediscovered an 
album called The Afro-Eurasian Eclipse by Duke Ellington, 
Where do you situate Viet Nam The World Tour within that? it’s a really crazy album.
Since it’s not on the ground in Viet Nam.
8
“Advertising for us 
was the epitome of 
capitalism, if communism 
had propaganda then 
capitalism had advertising.”
9
Shana Moulton is a California born and based artist who works in video, performance, and 
installation. In 2002, she began the video series Whispering Pines, in which she performs as 
Cynthia, both an alter-ego and an avatar for the artist when she is alone. Moulton has had solo 
exhibitions at the Palais De Tokyo, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Fondazione Morra Greco, 
Kunsthaus Glarus, and a retrospective of work at The Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg.
She has performed and screened videos at MoMA, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 
Performa 2009, The Kitchen, Art in General, The Andy Warhol Museum, SFMOMA, The Hammer 
Museum and Cricoteka, among many others. Her work is distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix 
and she is a featured artist on Art21’s New York Close Up.
shanamoulton.info
10
CAROLINE TURNER IN CONVERSATION WITH 
SHANA
MOULTON
11
Caroline Turner: So, I’ll start out with an easy question, other female relatives in my family. I just can’t do these as 
how do you take your coffee? myself, for some reason I need this layer of distance. I sort 
of fell into it and it ended up being a generative way for me 
Shana Moulton: I take my coffee with milk, usually whole to work—and maybe “organic” is an even better way to 
milk at home. My partner is lactose intolerant so usually describe it. It’s not that I was thinking about these things 
we buy organic, whole lactose intolerant milk. in particular, but I would be at a thrift store shopping 
or see something online, you know, some media that 
Interesting, I feel like you can learn a lot about a person by I wanted to work with and interpret and the alter ego 
how they take their coffee. was the best way for me to string these disparate things 
together; she could always be the connection between all 
Yes, yes. these things that I was dealing with. And they were more 
things than themes. It was like I really wanted to make 
Okay, so watching some of your lectures you mention in a video about this massage tool and the show Antiques 
the beginning often that some of your undergraduate Roadshow, you know, and I really wanted to string these 
research as a dual major in anthropology and fine arts together—not that art really has to string things together 
stems from how and why humans became bipedal and in a narrative way—but for me, there was a desire to make 
how that affects consciousness, does this still thread a narrative out of those connections.
into your research at all? It seems that certain research 
communities believe that the rest of our bodies never In a perfect world, what is an ideal setting to display your works?
caught up evolutionarily speaking and that we’re always 
in pain because of this. I’m curious if this is something Oh, um, I think one of the most successful...oh this is 
that continues to inform your work? hard, because there’s two things that I like to do. One, is to 
screen a lot of videos, maybe 45 minutes of video, which 
Well, I think in an indirect way, yes; I’m not directly ends up being four or five shorts from the Whispering 
thinking about that anymore. That was one of the main Pines series; then, without any break, to come out into the 
reasons I wanted to major in physical anthropology. I space so that Cynthia comes out of the screen and comes 
probably said this in whatever you watched, but I think to life, the audience gets the chance to see her through 
the way that gravity affects our bodies as we age is the narrative, montaged video and then suddenly, she’s 
largely related to this. So, when I was thinking about this in this different sort of time-space in the performance. 
more, I was making a walker dress to stay upright and a That, I think, has been really successful.
neck brace dress. I was also experiencing carpal tunnel 
and a bad strain injury from bad posture at the computer So not necessarily an institutional gallery or museum?
and so that was coming into it as well.
My other ideal is a way to show video in an installation that 
Also, in your work, Cynthia is of course this alter ego of brings out the tactile nature of things and allows people 
yours, but also perhaps a metanarrative that allows you to to wander around. I get the feeling of being trapped by 
discuss themes such as consumerism and the absurdity black box gallery situations, so I prefer to have ins and 
of modern life in a way that feels organic and not so outs. Even though there’s a beginning and an end in my 
didactic. Can you speak to this relationship? Is an alter videos, people can come out and stay for however long 
ego an effective way to ask big questions? they want and experience the objects from the videos
in real life.
Yeah! I love how you just put that, I never thought of the 
term metanarrative to discuss the use of the alter ego. It’s Oh, interesting, yeah.
me, but there’s also some distance with the wig and the 
makeup and maybe she’s me in combination with some Yeah, just for me to be able to make the experience 
12
“Even though there’s a 
beginning and an end in my 
videos, people can come out 
and stay for however long
they want...”
physical is important.
Okay, so I’ll ask one more question, which is also a fun 
question, I think. What is your favorite hike?
Oh! That’s hard! Oh, okay, what is my favorite hike...
Do we need to narrow it to just the West Coast maybe?
Well, I think they’re all on the West Coast, just because 
I never got to really hike on the East Coast. I would have 
to say...Uh, it’s hard! I think, because it’s tied up with my 
favorite place is—which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s my 
favorite hike—I would have to say Dipsea, north of San 
Francisco. The cabins there are my favorite place in the 
world, and you get mega views of the bay, I think that 
would have to be it. I mean, living near Yosemite, I feel 
bad not picking somewhere around there.
It seems like you’ve lived a lot of places with beautiful 
nature.
 I’ve been lucky that way, yeah definitely.
 
CT: Okay cool, well, it was really nice talking to you.
Yeah, likewise. That was fun.
13
Daniel Canty is a writer, director and artist living in Montréal, Québec. He started producing works 
on the cusp of the new century. His directorial debut was an online adaptation of Alan Lightman’s 
fiction,  Einstein’s Dreams, his first book, a history of automata in 19th century American literature. 
Since then, he has been creating a host of living forms, working at the crossroads of literature 
and bookmaking, film and theatre, the visual arts and design. His practice, which stems from the 
poetics of writing, and the ethics of directing, extends the written word’s wavelength to encompass 
a vast range of possibilities. He is fond of works that invent their own form. Over the years, he 
has written and devised an astonishing array of books and films, interfaces and exhibitions, and 
collaborated on such improbabilities as “transfrontier odysseys” or librettos for automata. He is 
steadfastly mapping a universe where the enchantments of language 
assert their import in the weave of time.
danielcanty.com
14
NATHAN ALEXANDER WARD IN CONVERSATION WITH
DANIEL
CANTY
15
Nathan Alexander Ward: The first thing that I want to that sticks to me. A photographer that I know, who works 
bring up, because I noticed that you do translation work solely with photography, said to me that I really look like 
and because your website’s text is in French, is that my a writer.
first experience of your work was through a Google 
translation—what do you think about that? Somebody told me yesterday that I look like an artist. I 
was surprised, a gray sweatshirt and black jeans are 
Daniel Canty: I don’t think that machine translation is up pretty neutral.
to par just yet. I’m sure that these tools will learn to learn 
but it’s not the same thing, it doesn’t have the same kind You can always recognize people who go to art school, 
of fluidity. Playing a language, it’s a cliché, but it’s a little there’s just this consciousness, I guess. It happens in 
bit like playing an instrument I suppose; you have to be other disciplines of course, business people often look 
able to bring a delicacy to it, a point of view that’s your like business people.
own, and that’s not a norm or a statistic. Of course, there 
are also surprises with automated translating systems I’ve often heard people say that you can always pick out 
that sometimes can get poetic, in the sense that errors an engineering student.
will happen, and something will be suggested. But for 
me, I think that it’s a tool in understanding languages But there’s always the wild one; sometimes the ones with 
that I don’t understand. I make up words sometimes the brightest and most active minds don’t look the part at 
with Google Translate—like if I want something to sound all. The image is a power but it’s always a facade, you have 
Icelandic, and I don’t know Finnish, and let’s put in some to see which images are truly alive in a sense.
Hungarian—I’ll use the tool to help me and then I’ll look at 
what I recognize and make up something else. So, I guess It’s a visual language. I’ve read about your translation 
that the machine is making up a fiction of its own with process, how you use various colors and different kinds 
what I’m saying in natural language and I’m making up a of media to make marks in the margins around text, 
fiction with what the machine is saying to me after. dealing with things in a very visual sense.
That’s an interesting kind of interface. I wondered to I also like to make the books in the end with the designers, 
what extent that you may be using machine translation, working kind of like a director. It’s about the language of 
because from what I understand, you place a lot of collaboration, understanding the language of the people 
emphasis on the individual doing a translation. So, how who are working with you, your colleagues, people 
does your work doing translation fit in with your work as that you want to shape an object with. I often work in 
a visual artist? collaboration, I work with teams, it’s kind of a film model.
It’s all about writing. It sounds funny, on my business I get that sense, from the amount of output and how 
card it says, “Écrivain, etc.” or “Writer, etc.” but when interdisciplinary that output is, some of your efforts 
my work is covered somewhere, they always have me seem to have been necessarily collaborative, they aren’t 
as a multidisciplinary artist—I think that it’s kind of a one-person jobs. Has that always been the case?
misnomer because most artists, in one way or another 
in this day and age, are multidisciplinary. For me, it’s There are things that I do alone. I haven’t done a film for 
more about purview; my first tool is language; poetry, six years now, I remade a film into an installation last year, 
story making, this idea of shaping language and having it but that one I shot myself. But in post-production I’m not 
interface with other media. I’m always going to consider doing it all alone, and I like that. Like any community, 
myself a writer. Often when I do something in other you want to get people together to see what is the best 
media, like an installation or a film, I’m like the writer that they can offer. When I recognize a person whose 
doing the installation or doing the film, it’s a persona language speaks to me, then I want to create a context 
16
“It’s about the language of
collaboration...” 
where we’ll be able to create something together. system, the geometry of continuous transformation. In 
a way, you’re trying to recognize what keeps happening, 
Yeah, getting people around you that you believe will what shapes keep appearing, how the living system 
surprise you but that you know have the capacity to deal carries within itself certain vectors, certain invariance. To 
with your ideas... me, that is often the beginning point for a lot of my projects.
...and to propose their ideas as well. You just have to In my lecture, I’m going to present a book that I did about 
set up a system to shape the thing that you’re trying to sleep with the design studio Feed, some other artists, and 
shape and to get the result—but you don’t know it in 24 writers. It’s like a clock: there’s a series of systems that 
advance, it’s a way of setting up a time-based situation are active in shaping the book and even if you don’t get 
where you’re trying to carry some energy and see where it at first, they’re there, coursing through the structure. 
it’s going and to get the best result possible. Especially It’s kind of like editing a film, sometimes you edit a film 
with books. It’s funny, because everybody is claiming the to a piece of music that’s not going to be in the film: there 
death of film and everybody is claiming the death of the will be a ghost that’s left in the structure and I like these 
book—these are the best times because the terrain opens ghosts, these scaffoldings, these systems.
up, it’s like you’re not supposed to be doing it so you’re 
almost more free. And the work is never just about the system, it’s about 
putting the system in motion and seeing where it leads 
That’s postmodernism in general: you pull the rug out you—and hopefully it leads you out of itself. I think that 
or hit rock bottom, level everything, and all the rules are a lot system-based art is a trap because you start to 
gone—all you have is freedom. illustrate the tool; we can see it with bad architecture 
where what you see is software based, vector based, and 
That’s good, let’s pretend I said that. it feels like you’re walking within a computer graphic, 
which personally doesn’t make me feel all that great. For 
Okay, so, we’re running out of time, but I wanted to me, it has to be about the gesture that will let the system 
bring up a quote that I’ve been thinking about, it’s from escape from itself and let you see why you wanted to 
a French mathematician, Henri Poincaré, he said that, create the system.
“Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to 
different things.” [A leaf from a nearby tree falls between us]
Yeah, it’s a good quote. I think that it’s about structure You see, the leaf is escaping the system of the tree.
and I think that this is one of the dimensions where I’m 
most active in the shaping process; I have an interest in 
building structures that add to what language is saying, 
what images are saying, the intermediary dimension. 
Poincaré is talking about invariance, about things that 
you can name, things that are happening in a living 
17
Shannon R. Stratton is the William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and 
Design in New York. She has worked in the visual arts as an artist, writer, curator, professor, publisher 
and arts administrator with an emphasis on artist-run initiatives and concepts in contemporary 
craft. After completing her MFA in 2003 she co-founded the artist-run organization, Threewalls 
(Chicago), where she was artistic and then executive director for 12 years. At Threewalls, she 
organized exhibitions with over 100 artists; created The Propeller Fund award in collaboration 
with Gallery 400 for artist’s self-organizing; conceived and published 4 volumes of PHONEBOOK, 
a national guide to grass-roots andartist-run organizations across the US; and co-organized the 
first Hand-in-Glove conference which would lead to the founding of Common Field, a national 
organization in support of artist-focused organizations. In 2015 she left Threewalls to assume the 
role of Chief Curator at The Museum of Arts and Design in New York and pursue her interest in the 
future of craft. At MAD she has reimagined the artistic vision of the institution, programming the 
exhibition calendar, including curating eight exhibitions, from fall 2015 until present. She continues 
to organize exhibitions independently, with a particular research interest in expanded concepts of 
the self-taught and grass-roots cultural production.
shannonraestratton.com
18
DORAN ASHER WALOT IN CONVERSATION WITH
SHANNON R.
STRATTON
19
“When you came into our 
gallery you were just like,
‘What the fuck is this?’”
Doran Asher Walot: So, one of the most asked questions with likeminded colleagues—so why couldn’t you just 
in this format: What’s your favorite studio snack? assemble that experience that you wanted to have and 
not have the burden of student loan debt?
Shannon R. Stratton: These are the best questions! Right 
now, I’m really enjoying these Blue Diamond almonds Nice. My next question for you: in your time with 
that are covered in this powered cocoa, but it will be Threewalls, what was your favorite project that you were 
different next year after I find a new favorite snack. not directly involved in?
Sweet and salty. It’s kind of hard to say, because in some ways I feel like 
I was directly involved in everything...but also not in 
Sweet and salty. anything because Threewalls was set up so there was a 
certain amount of content that we curated in terms of 
I’ve seen reference to a paper you wrote about DIY MFAs, group shows and exchanges with other arts organizations 
but I couldn’t find it, so I wondered if you wouldn’t mind but our solo shows were an open application process 
telling me a bit about it. and we had a jury of peers from the arts community that 
reviewed those applications and recommendations; it 
Yeah, I had a conversation with some colleagues about was set up so there was no singular authority but then I 
the cost of MFA programs, particularly in the US, and we would work with the artists to get what they wanted. So, in 
were really just reflecting on the number of artist-run a way I was in all of it and in none of it.
residency programs and spaces in the country—so why 
couldn’t you just construct your own MFA experience? I I’m just saying that so that I can come up with the answer 
did the math on it for a certain scale of people, not very that’s right because it’s like picking your favorite child. 
many, maybe ten, that could spend way less money on I’m just going to say what one of my favorite things was, 
an MFA if they got together and created their own low- no...two, because one was at the very beginning and the 
residency program. They could borrow an artist-run other was towards the end of my tenure doing that.
space or use a family home or even just rent a motel 
somewhere and could assemble an MFA experience At the very beginning, when we starting doing that 
for less than they would spend going to school. Among space, one of the first projects that happened was with 
themselves they could agree on people to pay to come a resident artist named Kyla Mallett; she set up a hotline 
and do studio visits. I can’t quite remember the exact and put out classified ads to collect local gossip and 
math, but I’d be happy to send it if anybody cared. But then re-recorded performances of what she collected, 
the basic conclusion was that the thing that you get out she then had the sound embedded into the walls of the 
of an MFA is studio visits, studio time, and spending time gallery, there was no art on the walls, so you would have 
20
to come in to the gallery and try to find a sweet spot to 
kind of eavesdrop on this gossip. I loved it, because it 
was one of the first things that we did as a gallery and 
we didn’t have anything in the gallery which was in a 
very commercial gallery district. It was a nice intention 
because in this neighborhood there was a bunch of stuff 
for sale and when you came into our gallery you were just 
like, “What the fuck is this?” Because we were new and 
nobody knew what we were yet, we’d get these folks out 
looking in the commercial galleries and they’d stumble in 
and either be pleasantly surprised or deeply frustrated.
Towards the end of being there we had a long-term 
relationship with an artist, Cauleen Smith, who came to 
Chicago for a short residency and then we supported 
her in coming back and she ended up living in Chicago 
for quite some time. She was doing a project on Sun Ra 
where different high schools in the south side of Chicago 
would do a kind of flash mob marching band, they’d get 
off a bus someplace and play something like “Space is 
the Place” and then get back on the bus and drive away, 
and I mean, that’s amazing. So, I invited her there, but I 
couldn’t orchestrate something like that.
So that’s a safe answer.
Alright, last question: As a Canadian, what is your favorite 
piece of CanCon?
Oh my god, what is my favorite Canadian content?
...Trailer Park Boys.
Good answer.
21
Ebitenyefa Baralaye is a ceramist, sculptor, and designer. His work explores cultural, spiritual, and 
material translations in form/objects, text, and symbols interpreted through a diaspora lens and 
abstracted around the aesthetics of craft and design. Baralaye received a BFA in Ceramics from 
the Rhode Island School of Design and a MFA in Ceramics from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. 
Baralaye was an Emerging Artists Program recipient at the Museum of the African Diaspora in 2017 
and recently an AICAD Teaching Fellow at the San Francisco Art Institute.
 baralaye.com
22
CAROL YAHNER IN CONVERSATION WITH
EBITENYEFA
BARALAYE
23
“I still believed; I was totally 
convinced that there was a 
horse in that tangle of lines.”
Carol Yahner: I’m curious, at what point in your life did life, at college, in one particular medium, I wanted it to be 
you know, or have a sense, that you’d like to pursue art or clay. So, I ended up transferring out of furniture design 
to be an artist? after a semester to go into ceramics.
Ebitenyefa Baralaye: I remember when I was a child, I Looking at your work and reading your artist’s statement, 
think that I was in kindergarten, I scribbled on a piece of you mention your migration from Nigeria, to the 
paper and inside the scribbles I saw a horse, and I turned Caribbean, and then to the US, could you expand on this 
to one of my class mates and said, “Hey there’s a horse narrative of migration and how it informs your work?
in there,” and she just looked at me very perplexed and 
probably responded to the effect of, “No there isn’t.” I I was born in Nigeria, but I moved—before I could have 
still believed; I was totally convinced that there was a any recollection of being in Nigeria–to the Caribbean, 
horse in that tangle of lines. That’s when it struck me that to Antigua, which was a very beautiful place, a kind of 
I saw things differently and it mattered to me—to not only magical place to grow up in as a child; I remember there 
see things differently, but to create. being so many stars in the sky, and then the contrast 
when I moved to the States of hardly being able to see any 
Wow, in kindergarten, what a gift. So, when you were stars at all. I settled on the East Coast, New York mainly, 
starting out in art school, did a particular medium but also Georgia and Connecticut, before going off to 
stick out to you or have you always worked in a RISD, and then to Michigan and then San Francisco; so 
multidisciplinary way? I guess that I would say that all of the journeys that I’ve 
been on, all the transitions that I’ve been through—I’m 
 I really fell for the nature of clay; I started working in clay not a fan of moving anymore—have had an effect on the 
during high school, in an AP sculpture class it was the way that I see and think about context. As somebody 
material that we were given to work with, and I just took who came to an appreciation of art at an early age and it 
to it right away. I would take it home with me and make a being something that I wanted to do with my life, it was 
mess of our dining room table, thankfully my mom was the one thing that was consistent throughout all of those 
pretty supportive. When I went off to college at RISD, I transitions. And I realized that those transitions actually 
figured that I would move on to other materials like wood caused me to lean into my art practice more because it 
or metal and I actually ended up majoring in furniture was something that I was in control of.
design because I wanted to have a combination of fine art 
and design; I was really drawn to the inclusion of drawing So, what is a typical day like in your studio?
and CAD as a part of the curriculum. But I kept on taking 
ceramics classes and found that I really enjoyed working That’s a hard one. I’m asking myself if there is a typical 
with the material. If I was going to invest this time in my day...if I were to take the sum of all of my studio days 
24
over the past year I would say that my time generally 
looks like: Arriving at the studio and dealing with all the 
administrative elements that go along with being an art 
teacher, planning what it is that I need to do—which I 
find myself doing more and more, breaking things down 
into steps—and then diving headlong into whatever 
task is in front of me, whether that’s working on a piece 
or doing some modeling or drawing to develop a piece; 
and while I’m working I’ll generally be listening to some 
music, stand-up comedy, or an audio-book, and I’ll kind 
of bounce in and out of intense or passive states of focus 
depending on whether or not the processes that I’m 
working on are very involved or more repetitive; and then 
at some point I’ll bounce out of that for lunch, or I’ll hit 
some wonderful epiphany, or some very low point and 
just decide to call it a day.
Have to love the epiphanies and low points. Alright, last 
question: What advice would you offer art students that 
are just starting out?
Always maintain your studio practice. No matter where 
you are or what situation you are in, find a way to keep 
making your art but also to continue sharing your work 
and to be a part of the contemporary art conversation that 
is around you. You might have to be pretty creative about 
this, you might potentially even need to shift materials 
based on certain seasons that you find yourself in, but 
I would say to look at those obstacles as an opportunity 
to grow in distinct ways and to allow obstacles to be 
launching points for new ways of looking at things. And 
take care of yourself, make time for things that refresh 
you outside of your studio.
25
Alexandria Eregbu is a visual artist and independent curator. At her core, Alexandria is most 
passionate about re-imagining 21st century possibilities for creative practice through service 
and support structures that promote sustainability and accessibility for artists and communities 
engaging the arts. As an artist, her practice has illuminated pathways globally, nationally, and 
throughout the Midwest. She has held fellowships with ACRE (Steuben, WI); HATCH Projects, 
Stony Island Arts Bank, (Chicago, IL); The Center for Afrofuturist Studies (Iowa City, IA), 
Independent Curators International (New Orleans, New York City, Martinique); and The Camargo 
Foundation/3Arts Residency (France).Among her curatorial projects includes “du monde noir,” 
an artistically run collective which seeks to identify contemporary evidences of Surrealist activity 
produced by visual artists and writers of the African diaspora in the U.S. and abroad. Forthcoming 
projects include O h, Heavenly Father, Mother Ocean, and Cosmic Seed...! her solo show at Ditch 
Projects in Eugene, OR.
alexandriaeregbu.com
26
EDEN EVANS IN CONVERSATION WITH
ALEXANDRIA
EREGBU
27
Eden Evans: Your work involves a wide array of media; form of inscribing and speaking that which we imagine in 
photographs, textiles, sculpture, and installation. How to existence. And so, while I don’t necessarily consider 
do you navigate these media when conjuring a new piece myself a poet or even a writer quite yet, these things have 
or beginning your research? always been something that have been really important. 
And yeah, another source of building meaning. 
Alexandria Eregbu: I’m a feeler. So, I definitely work I definitely try to use words that make sense as a source of 
towards things that initially draw me in. I’ve found over manifestation and a source of inspiration. These are the 
the years that when I work from that sense of curiosity that things I get excited about.
there’s meaning behind the materials that I incorporate 
into the work of art, which kind of creates a history and a I think we have time for one last question. Usually, when 
narrative of its own. I always start with just curiosity on its you hear the word sustainability these days, we think 
own and what I’m trying to communicate. climate change and reuse, but I think these words hold 
a broader meaning in your biography. Can you tell me 
Your work seems to have a strong relationship with about your motives and plans for building and holding art 
research and familial history, but perhaps also extols a systems that promote sustainability and accessibility?
sense of nostalgia and longing. Can you talk about the 
emotion in your work? You kind of touched on it just now, Yeah, I think that definitely comes through in my 
but maybe more specifically. curatorial practice. I’m part of a collective called du 
monde noir, which stands for black people of the world. 
I think the best way I can really answer that question is by Our work really looks at contemporary evidences of 
addressing the fact that I’m a triple water sign; if you’re Surrealist practice from the African diaspora as a means 
not familiar with—wait, no, we were talking about the to work, to use that trajectory of imagination, ritual, 
elements and all that... and play to sustain or imagine a continuation of those 
traditions that are integral to our being and our daily lives 
Yeah! and existence. Through that collective we’ve been able to 
touch base with new folks who are interested in the work. 
 ...yeah, like I said, I’m kind of a feeler, deeply emotional, I’m also working through Illinois Humanities right now 
everything I read about and my being has kind of been toward this initiative titled “Envisioning Justice,” which 
centered on trying to control or manage my emotions. amplifies the voices of seven organizations and partners 
I’m also a black woman, a descendent of slaves, people who have been working with incarceration and justice.
that survived but have a kind of trauma and violence 
embedded in their DNA. I think that my sensitivity comes Wow, thank you so much.
from there, but my power as well. So, I definitely view my 
art practice as a means of working through some of my You’re welcome! Thank you.
emotional sensitivity that I have to the world.
Yeah, I definitely identify with that.
[Laughter]
While your work itself is poetic and intimate feeling, you 
also incorporate the written word into your practice, can 
you discuss that?
Our words are power. They’re a form of magic. They’re a 
28
“I think the best way I can 
really answer that question 
is by addressing the fact 
that I’m a triple water sign.”
29
Julia Bryan-Wilson is the Doris and Clarence Malo Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at 
the University of California, Berkeley; she is also the Director of the UC Berkeley Arts Research 
Center. She is the author of A rt Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era (2009);  Art in the 
Making: Artists and Their Materials from the Studio to Crowdsourcing (2016); and F ray: Art and 
Textile Politics (2017), which was awarded the 2018 Robert Motherwell Book Prize.
 Bryan-Wilson’s influential writings on feminist and queer theory, craft histories, and contemporary 
art in the Americas have been widely published in venues that include  Afterall, Artforum,  Art 
Bulletin,  Bookforum,  differences,  Grey Room,  October,  Oxford Art Journal , and Parkett, and she is 
the cocurator of the traveling exhibition C ecilia Vicuña: About to Happen. 
30
TANNON RECKLING AND LIAM MAHER IN CONVERSATION WITH
JULIA
BRYAN-
WILSON
31
Tannon Reckling: To start off pretty easy: What’s your The Jewish Museum, I just saw this great show about 
favorite color? the radical revolutionary art school that Marc Chagall 
founded in 1918, he brought in Malevich and Lissitzky 
Julia Bryan-Wilson: My favorite color is gray. Gray is a very to be teachers. It’s amazing to think about all of those 
beautiful color, there’s many types and moods indicated people coinciding at the same time and space and having 
by it...very evocative of sea and sky and metal. an aesthetic program for the Russian Revolution.
Liam Maher: I like how you had that right off that bat, I LM: Wow, I didn’t even know that existed.
usually takes ages.
JBW: It’s a good thing to know.
JBW: I saw that that was the first question. Sometimes I say 
orange, its actually quite variable, but today I’ll say gray. TR: That kind of leads into a future question...But, were 
there any art pieces or theories that you believe were 
TR: It matches the weather. I always like the response to formative in leading up to this Bruce Nauman talk?
that question because sometimes artists will just say that 
that is a stupid question, but I like that response because JBW: So, is this a question about formative art? Or is it 
it seems like such an easy question to ask artists. about Bruce Nauman?
JBW: I mean, I feel like they’re all good, all colors are TR: Let’s do formative art.
good, but I do think that gray has many stories that it tells.
JBW: Okay, yeah, so many. I went to a public arts high 
Okay, so next question: Why Bruce Nauman? For this school in Houston, Texas and for a lot of idiosyncratic 
lecture tonight. reasons, it was a quite advanced art school given that it was 
in Texas and was public; the people that we were exposed 
JBW: Well, sometimes talks and the topics are just a to were people that I still think about, you know, like, my 
matter of what is fresh on your plate. I was invited to give favorite artist when I was 16 was Hans Haacke—
a talk at the Schaulager recently, for which I had to write a which is kind of an unusual...
new talk, so this is what I have. It’s the talk that I’m working 
on and actually revising so it’s useful to get feedback LM: Gosh, I love that.
because it hasn’t been published and I’m still 
tinkering with ideas. JBW:  ... there were people there who were not interested 
in pushing a straight forward narrative on us, so I think 
LM: And are you looking to publish this in some capacity? that it’s interesting that certain people that I was exposed 
to very early, in my teens, I can come back to again and 
JBW: Yeah definitely, not a book, just an article. again. And also, like, Jenny Holzer, I was really into 
feminist conceptual art...
TR: What are some recent exhibitions that have excited 
you in the past year or so? LM: Ah, brilliant.
JBW: Hmm, so many. I was just in New York and I saw the [Laughter]
Hilma af Klint show, the Swedish mystic, and that was 
great. I wrote a piece in book form about the catalog, but JBW: ...I mean, there’s also stuff that I’m not so crazy 
the show was a knock out; actually seeing all of the work about anymore, but still, it was wonderful.
was pretty exhausting though, I find the Guggenheim 
very exhausting by the time you get to the top. Also, at TR: What are your thoughts—and this is a selfish 
32
question—on things that you’ve seen recently that me anyway, because I had a feminist mom, an actively 
maybe connect the ideas of queerness, feminism, and feminist mom.
the internet?
JBW: Yeah...queerness, feminism, and the internet...I 
JBW: Oh gosh, okay, that is a big question. I’m going don’t know.
to have to think about that for a second...queerness, 
feminism, and the internet...in terms of art or in terms of TR: Thank you for sharing your coming out story. I’m 
anything? interested in the access to information and that aspect of 
a community. I think that’s changing, as far as the internet 
TR: Anything, no right answer, just curious about your goes, in places where it wasn’t available previously, like 
thoughts when those words are mentioned, what pops Texas or Nebraska.
in to your head.
LM: Yeah, coming out in Indiana was crazy, I didn’t come out 
JBW: I want to hear what you have to say about that, I’m until college. Looking back, you know, it’s so interesting 
kind of more interested in what you have to say about because I grew up in a very conservative Catholic 
it. I don’t know, I’m so conflicted about the internet family, so I didn’t even know queerness was a thing until 
I guess; It’s many things, it’s not monolithic...I feel I went to college and experienced a wider world. It’s
the coerciveness of it more than I feel the liberational interesting how the access to information can change so 
potential, and I don’t know what it would have been much and potentially...
like to come out—which I did when I was 15, in Houston, 
Texas, in the 80s—what that would have felt like had I had JBW: Yeah, potentially. When I was 15 there was no 
something like the internet. I’m sure that it would have internet, but there were other things you know, there 
been a lot less isolating and scary and shameful and were women’s bookstores and travel guides and gay 
all the things that I felt as then. For me, it was all about pride parades that existed in Houston, which has a really 
discovering something in the library, finding a story that big queer community actually. So, the awareness was 
I could relate to; there were so few glimpses that my life there.
would be possible really, so little culture representation, 
so little. I had a very early sense of butchness, I guess, TR: Cool, well, I think that’s it for me but did you...
like a radar for it, an attraction and desire; very early, 
like when I was child, I can remember being attracted LM: Yeah, so the Whitney is having that big Andy Warhol 
to a certain female masculinity—but no sense that there exhibition and I wanted to pick your brain about that 
might be a whole world out there with people like me. So, because there’s not a whole lot about his queerness; I 
I’m sure that the internet has helped but at the same time, think, for Andy Warhol, it’s a very big part of his work so...
of course, I can only think about Cambridge Analytica 
and Alt-Right and Fake News, right now it just feels so JBW: Right, it just opened and I haven’t seen it yet but—
destructive. there is also another Warhol show that’s very important 
that’s curated by Richard Meyer and Peggy Phelan at the 
JBW: I did find my own way, but there is so much suffering Cantor Arts Center; there’s always a few Warhol shows 
and suicide and it’s still hard, of course; I guess that I feel going on around the world— you know, Warhol is so 
very ambivalent about queerness and the internet. And saturated in how we think about art in the 20th century, 
feminism the same: I think that, similarly, I was looking there is no question that he is the most important, in my 
for a feminism path for myself and I wonder what that option anyway, I shouldn’t say there’s no question, but in 
could look like...maybe the internet would have help my opinion he was the most important artist in the 20th 
me find a community of activists—but I found that any century. His legacy is central to everything, so prescient 
way, the feminism part was a lot easier, more visible, for in terms of the market and commercialization and self-
33
branding and all of those things. I’m surprised to hear that kind of at the center of queer-color critique in art history. 
queerness isn’t a big part of that show because it’s seems So those two for sure.
that that’s been a really accepted part of the narrative for 
quite a while. There was even a book, a really important LM: Oh! And, last thing, the Met Gala and the “Camp” 
early book about queer art history, that was called Pop theme—how could I forget—they’re doing that, and I just 
Out about queer Warhol, and so I’m curious to see how don’t know, it’s giving me vibes of appropriation.
it’s dealt with. I mean, maybe it’s just so accepted that it’s 
taken for granted. JBW: Yeah, we’ll just have to see, I mean “Camp” is such a 
capacious rubric that it could hold many things, but often 
LM: That’s a good point, I didn’t think about that. is in the in the eye of the beholder so...
JBW: I teach classes on contemporary art and, you know, LM: All I’ve heard about it just seems to be buzz words. 
it’s a contested origin moment—where do we start with 
the contemporary? But I really feel like Warhol has to JBW: It’s an interesting idea.
be in the mix, you cannot understand contemporary art 
without some exposure to Warhol. LM: I hope it goes well.
JBW: I’ve seen Warhol shows at the Whitney before, this is JBW: It could be, really, appalling—but maybe not! 
not the first time; there was a retrospective where they, in 
a kind of fetishistic way, had his stuff on display that was [Laughter]
like, from his bathroom...
LM: They said that there was a lot stuff that they’re 
bringing out from his archive.
JBW: Well, that archive is bottomless.
LM: As an art historian who is interested in queer theory 
and art, I struggle to find other art historians or queer 
theorists that talk about art in a way that feels accurate 
and up to date—not to say that what is out there is 
unsuccessful—so I wonder if you have like a top three that 
people should really know about?
JBW: Richard Meyer, Outlaw Representation is a really 
important book about homosexuality and censorship, 
kind of looking at the sweep of 20th century American 
art, that book is great, is still a really important wonderful 
book. A lot of the queer theorists that write about art are 
not art historians, which is interesting. Another one that 
I should say is C. Ondine Chavoya who is a curator and 
art historian who teaches at Williams; he curated that 
big Asco show that was at LACMA during the first round 
of PST in 2011, and also curated Axis Mundo which was 
about queer-chicana networks in LA, and that was also 
34
“The feminism part was a
lot easier, more visible, for 
me anyway, because I had a
feminist mom, an actively
feminist mom.”
35
Megan Foster’s work suggests a narrative by presenting a frozen moment in time. She aims to 
preserve and give authority to the everyday experience through a mix of art, architecture, design 
and science. Using appropriated images, film stills, magazine clippings and staged photographs 
as a starting point, she depicts banal scenes that have the potential to be spectacular and fantastic. 
She portrays often-overinflated expectations of the way we live and how we try to better ourselves 
from previous generations.
Megan Foster earned her BFA from RISD and her MFA from Columbia University. Her work has been 
included in exhibitions at Black and White Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Mixed Greens Gallery, NYC; PS1 
Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, NY; Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing, China; and the San 
Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA, among other venues. Before joining the faculty at RISD in the 
fall of 2016, Foster taught at The City College of New York where she was the head of Printmaking 
and director of the MFA program. She was also master printer at the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print 
Studies and is the co-founder of Moonlight Editions. 
meganfoster.net
36
NATHAN ALEXANDER WARD IN CONVERSATION WITH
MEGAN
FOSTER
37
“Like, I’m thinking, what if 
there is a glow-in-the-dark 
bear that becomes a lamp
through taxidermy.”
38
Nathan Alexander Ward: Well, as an icebreaker: There are really wanted to have a drawing practice, to have some 
a lot of animals in your work... sketches or whatever; I bought all these fancy pens and 
markers and it just didn’t work for me. When I was trying 
Megan Foster: Oh, this will give me a good little warm up to figure out the space for those backyard pieces, I was 
for the talk... struggling. I went to London and there was a Muybridge 
show, I saw his pictures of Yosemite and felt like that was 
Great, so then, the animals? the space that I wanted and so I bought a catalog just 
to tear it up—that was my new way ofsketching. I didn’t 
It’s weird because I never did much with the outdoors— intend to show that stuff initially, I was just scanning them 
it was always domestic spaces, interiors, architectural and doing what I would do with my own photographs, 
sort of images—but at some point I became interested breaking them up. Now I have like 250 catalog pages and 
in the kind of absurd things that people buy, “As Seen about 500 postcards...
On TV” kind of junk, which led me to the backyard. I was 
going to do this grand project of outdoing a neighbor There was a particular postcard that you used along with 
with this sort of junk in the backyard; so, I slowly made it all of those landscapes, of a marble bust or something, 
outside, but it was still domestic space. When I was trying that threw me because it was kind of a lone figure among 
to make that series, I was basically photographing my all of the grand Yosemite-looking spaces.
brother’s backyard and other places trying to come up 
with something and then I realized that I needed more MF: You’ll see that image come up in my talk. When I tore 
spectacle, I needed a grand space. So, I was taking trips through that Muybridge catalog, I thought that I needed 
to Yosemite and...long tangent—I basically ended up to go to Yosemite and take my own pictures, it felt sort of, 
looking at technology and nature together and coming I was using it too...
up with kinds of hybrid animals, based on the absurd 
technology of the “As Seen On TV” junk and designer pets You were inheriting a lot with them?
and taxidermy. Like, I’m thinking, what if there is a glow-
in-the-dark bear that becomes a lamp through taxidermy. ...yeah, I needed to make it my own, they were too perfect 
I was kind of just making up my own pseudo-science. and beautiful. I needed to photograph it myself, which 
is something that I’ve always had to do whether it’s a 
It’s funny, I saw the painting of that bear and I didn’t think film still or whatever, I have to restage it myself. I went to 
about it as a glow-in-the-dark bear. But hearing you talk Yosemite and wanted to photograph it, but I also wanted 
about it in that way, it makes me think that you’re not to collect ephemera and get more catalogs and posters, 
really making images of animals, you’re making images but surprisingly there wasn’t much there. I go in the gift 
of a kind of secondary-representation of animals. Since shop and get a few postcards but I really wanted to come 
you brought up doing those photographs: Looking back with a bulk of stuff to work on—I joke that I was 
through your work, whether it’s painting or printmaking taking these long hikes there just to get to the gift shop—
or whatever, I notice a lot of photographic qualities but I ended up with stuff that wasn’t really my style, they 
in it. With the works on paper you’re working on top of were blown up and had super-saturated color, and they 
photographs, but even in your paintings I still sense ended up just sitting in my studio for a long time. When I 
something photographic about them. So, I’m wondering started to get bored with the older black and white ones, 
about the use of photography in your work. well I had been staring at these super colorful ones for 
a long time and so I started to work on them; I had been 
I’ve always photographed every stage of my paintings. I trying to suggest a kind of waiting for the supernatural or 
would use photographs as a way to construct the image, sublime but then I just wanted to actually show a bit more 
use Photoshop to break up the colors, but it was never of that, so these colorful ones helped bring that to my 
really part of the end-result. For the longest time, I paintings...another long tangent, I just figured out that I 
39
could use everything, so every time that I’d go on a trip I’d I wanted the more saturated colors that would show 
collect tons of postcards and would envision how it could the spectacle or supernatural that I had been trying to 
all become a setup for some hypothetical spectacle. suggest. I wanted it to be there more. So, I’d go back and 
forth, do a series of paintings and struggle with them, so 
That just made me think about the two nearly-identical then do a few postcards or a few prints, just to balance.
paintings that you made of a hummingbird. I’m thinking 
about repetition and seriality, and with all of this about So, you’re not really switching modes, it’s more of a 
your use of photographs, I can’t help but see those juggling act?
paintings in photographic terms—or as products of 
mechanistic processes. And when you mentioned Yeah. That image: the painting was handmade with 
the taxidermy animals...it all seems to come down to acrylic, but the print was much simpler, I just screen-
processing nature, processing animals. printed the black on top of a giant piece of holographic 
vinyl. I just wanted to stop suggesting and alluding to 
People are sometimes surprised that my paintings are spectacle and instead just show it.
paintings because I have a background in printmaking. 
It’s just the quality that I know, the lines and the Do you think that the previous iteration, the painting, is 
flatness. Those hummingbird ones are actually of solar- made obsolete then? If it doesn’t have that spectacle?
hummingbirds, like that are in gardens and that change 
colors every five minutes or something. Fortunately, It’s weird, you know, because the prints were shown with 
or unfortunately, my brother owns a lot of that stuff. I the paintings—not the same iteration, I made eight or 
made those before I started doing the taxidermy ones. so—and I felt like the prints couldn’t work at the scale of 
It’s always been about life and technology and how they the paintings; so I just try to find balance now, between 
influence each other. the paintings and another element, try to have it
all there in pieces.
Who would want that stuff?
Showing them together, they kind of color each other 
A lot of people. then, and emphasize the anticipation of the spectacle. 
Where it is obvious in the print, it is more of something to 
I know! There is a huge market for it. be anticipated in the painting.
I actually made three of those paintings, there was I feel like nature is the backdrop, you know? You’re sitting 
a green one, but it didn’t work as well as I wanted it to. around all afternoon waiting for fireworks...so I’m okay 
People think it’s funny that I’ll spend the time to make the with the paintings being that. And then you have the 
same painting in a different color, but I like the seriality spectacle for an hour.
of it.
There was a landscape image that you worked with 
across mediums that I’m thinking about now as well. 
What motivates you to return to an image with a different 
medium?
That was actually a sort of turning point with the 
backyard, grand landscape stuff. At first, I wanted to 
keep things kind of neutral, suggestive, just adding some 
color in with the black and white photographs; but then 
40
41
With a 20-year history of picture making, Whitney Hubbs explores both straightforward and 
uncertain modes of image production. Educated as a traditional documentary photographer and 
as a conceptual artist examining the role of photographs, Hubbs brings a rigorous approach to her 
work. Her subject matter has included staged poems to the landscape, the figure in the landscape, 
self-portraits, and literal and abstract examinations of the female body.
Born and raised in Southern California with a brief stint in Portland, Oregon, Whitney Hubbs 
was involved in the punk rock riot grrrl community from a young age, where she made fanzines, 
organized art shows, participated in performances and worked as an activist. She later received 
her BFA from the California College of Arts in 2005 and an MFA at UCLA in 2009.
Hubbs has participated in group exhibitions at The J. Paul Getty Museum, Gallery Luisotti, and 
Shulamit Nazarian Gallery in Los Angeles, CA; The California Museum of Photography, Riverside, 
CA; Ballroom Marfa, Marfa, TX; Yancey Richardson Gallery, Fresh Window Gallery, and Situations 
Gallery in New York City, NY. Her book, Body Doubles, was published by Hesse Press (Los Angeles) 
in 2016, and in 2019 she will publish a book with Self Publish Be Happy. Hubbs is represented by M+B 
Gallery in Los Angeles and Situations Gallery in New York City. Hubbs is an Assistant Professor of 
Photography at Alfred University, Alfred, New York and lives and works in New York State.
whitneyhubbs.com
42
IAN SHERLOCK MOLLOY IN CONVERSATION WITH
WHITNEY
HUBBS
43
“I’m choosing to be an artist 
and the lifestyle of an artist.”
Ian Sherlock Molloy: Hello.  high school years. We have a wide community around the 
country, and I keep in touch with people, we make zines 
Whitney Hubbs: Hello, it’s nice to meet you. and write letters to each other, it still plays out that way. 
As far as my work goes, I’m not too sure if it’s punk—but 
ISM: It’s good to meet you too. it’s emotional and so it’s punk.
In an interview with Self Publish, Be Happy you say, “In I like that, I need to use that. Does that also influence why 
a parallel world, I’m a film director.” How does outside you teach?
media influence your work and how does the role of a 
director influence your work? Yeah, because I’m giving back. I went to CCA for 
undergrad, all of my teachers were amazing, but I had 
I’m going to talk about this in the lecture, but I was raised two mentors, Larry Sultan and Jim Goldberg, that really 
on film sets. My dad was a cinematographer or a director informed me about what a teacher can do. That’s why I 
of photography, my mom worked on film sets, my step- teach, to give back to youth.
mom did, so I would hang out on sets with all the crew—so 
it’s been in me from a very young age, to direct and to I also noticed in your bio that you acknowledge your high 
control the frame. But I don’t like working collaboratively, school photography teacher.
I never have. Photography is a way to direct without 
having to collaborate. Yes, yes.
Film plays a huge part in my work, more so than That’s refreshing to see.
photography. Like, when I was younger, I would go to 
movies and it was like church to me; I would go alone Yeah, I took photography in ninth grade and it was an 
and sit in the theater on a weekly basis, so watching films accident because the painting class was closed; he took 
and watching my dad work was a huge influence on me me under his wing and let me be a lab person and I was on 
and still is. the yearbook—but I was punk, which was kind of funny—
but yeah, he was very influential and told me that I should 
Cool. So, sort of changing directions slightly, in your bio just keep with it.
on your website you acknowledge the influence of punk 
and riot grrrl music, in what way does that still appear in On your website you have “Photographs” at the top 
your work? of your navigation, I assume that’s because that’s 
your most consistent practice, but underneath it you 
I’m choosing to be an artist and the lifestyle of an artist; have “Video Sketches”; could you unpack the use of 
I mean, I have a safe job and I know where I get my “sketches” for me?
paycheck every month, but choosing my own path is very 
punk and very feminist. My community is very important Because they are unresolved to me. I have the knowledge 
to me, I learned that through riot grrrl and punk in my and experience of selecting images to go into a book or 
44
a show, and thus translate onto a website; I don’t have and consistent income and still permeate every facet of 
the experience to do that so much with video, as much as your life.
photography. I don’t even know why I put them up there, 
honestly, because I like them, but they are unresolved. Thinking back to your first questions, I’m trying to think 
Gesture is really important to me and having a film about how I can tie it all in.
background—growing up on film sets, not an educational 
background—I feel tied to cinema and movement more In terms of directing?
than photography...but what I do is photography.
Yeah. In grad school I had this professor, Charles Ray, and 
Do you have photographic sketches as well then? That he’s like, “It’s like you’re a director sitting in a chair and 
don’t make it online? screaming ‘Action!’ at a plant” and I loved that.
Yeah, and you’ll see that tonight in the lecture. Was that intended to be a compliment?
That’s interesting that you have the impulse to put Yes! I mean, how could you not take that as a compliment? 
these unresolved video works out there but not the Like, you’re screaming at a thing that doesn’t move but 
photographs. you made it move or do something...
I know, I don’t know why that is...maybe because the I would totally have gone to film school if I had known that 
unresolved photographs I’m just more private about you could. I didn’t know that you could at that time.
because it is my primary practice. But something that 
I’m just playing around with, that’s not my medium, I So, does photography just take that place? Or is it 
feel more comfortable putting it out in the world. If I something totally different?
painted, I’d probably put painting sketches out just for 
fun. Also, it kind of gives people and idea about what else Yeah, people say that you can do anything and that 
is interesting to me. you could make a film...but like I said, I don’t want to 
collaborate with a crew. If I could I would be a landscape 
Yeah, you have a sketchbook and you’re illustrating a photographer all the time.
process. I think that’s really important and that more 
transparency is something that we are seeing more of. It’s Well, thank you, that was really insightful.
refreshing to see that. Can a sketch be a finished work...
I’ve shown some of the videos, people have wanted me 
to show them, but I wouldn’t say that they are finished. 
I mean, I don’t really know how to edit video. I think that 
putting sketches or works in-progress out in general 
makes it less professional and more human.
And you could argue that it brings back that punk 
ideology or aesthetic.
Yeah, exactly.
Cool, that’s a great evolution of punk within a short 
interview: how it can still come into play with a stable job 
45
Amy Franceschini (b. 1970 Patterson, CA, US) lives and works in San Francisco and Gent, Belgium 
and is the founder of Futurefarmers. Amy received her BFA from San Francisco State University 
in 1992 and her MFA from Stanford University in 2002. Amy has taught as an adjunct and visiting 
professor in the graduate programs in art at California College for the Arts, Stanford University and 
San Francisco Art Institute since 2003. Her work has been exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum 
in New York, the Whitney Biennial in New York, MOMA, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The 
Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal, the 2014 Venice Architectural Biennale, the 2017 
Sharjah Biennale, the 2018 Taipei Biennale and she is the
  
recipient of a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship, 2017 Herb Alpert Award for Visual Arts and a 2019 
Rome Prize Fellow in Design.
futurefarmers.com
46
CAROLINE TURNER IN CONVERSATION WITH
AMY
FRANCESCHINI
47
Caroline Turner: Futurefarmers was founded in 1995, I’m to people in this really embodied way. I wonder, do you 
curious to hear what spurred the initial collaboration or see this format having the potential to augment other 
the root idea to begin. Was there a specific catalyzing disciplines? For instance: anthropologists do ethnogra-
force in that place, that time? phies, architects make site visits. Is that a consideration 
for you?
Amy Franceschini: So, Futurefarmers was started as kind 
of a hiding place from this other collaborative group I reflect by being so embedded and physically present 
called Atlas, we were gaining a lot of attention and I in that situation and that’s demanded other people to do 
wanted a space to work where I didn’t have any stakes that too. So, for instance, this large-scale commission 
at hand. So, I just started working with people that had we did in Norway—which I’ll talk about more tonight—
different skill sets than me to try to expand my own. We we were often meeting in the 16th floor of this executive 
started to get projects and we had to have a name to get office and looking at the site as a 3D model on a desktop. 
a bank account and I want to live on a farm in the future, We wanted to meet on the site, but that’s very vulnera-
so that’s why we called it Futurefarmers. At the time it ble and transparent for commissioners because every-
was just three of us and we started to make money doing one is privy to what the conversation is; so we said that 
design projects and we began an artist residency pro- if they can’t do that then we don’t to participate. That 
gram to continue building this network of people with translated into their other public art commissions and 
other skill sets. I’ve never been comfortable with the in- their development of the space being a more transparent 
dividual artist practice, it’s not interesting to me, but it’s process because they were imagining these spaces with 
always interesting to try to meet people through making. no people in them. They were creating a new urban area 
All my friends are Futurefarmers, so there’s an intimacy of the city, but they weren’t imagining how people were 
and a common interest in stretching our skill sets through really going to use it. So, to see people actually as a part 
collaborating with new people and configurations. That’s of the process translated to a new way, at least in Oslo, of 
where the interest came from. how they plan their cities.
When I ask this, I’m thinking specifically about the S oil Does one of these have more merit: subverting a system 
Kitchen project in Philadelphia—but feel free to bring up from within or creating a new system within which to 
other projects as well—What are the best strategies that exist?
you’ve learned from Futurefarmers for going to a place 
to enact a project? What are your first steps when ap- Both.
proaching unfamiliar methodologies, places, subjects, [Laughter]
or processes?
I think there is no one way. I think it’s just demonstrat-
I don’t think that any of us think in terms of methodolo- ing on a small scale what you want to see, and then it be-
gies. But from several projects and experiences now, I comes so infectious that it contaminates, or it collapses 
think it’s been fun to work with local people who are em- because it’s only interesting to yourself. We don’t start 
bedded deeply in the local situation that we’re invited at the onset saying that we’re going to demonstrate 
into. It’s not just a place, it’s a moment in that place, it’s a something in any given way, it’s just an organic process 
socio-economic reality, it’s a political reality, an environ- of listening to what needs are in a certain situation and 
mental reality, so we try to find partners that know that reflecting that or amplifying that through our tools or our 
situation really in depth. For us, trying to make a project means—means being, maybe, money from a commis-
that is durable and lasting, you need those partners be- sioner, redistributing it, and demonstrating another way 
cause otherwise...for us, that’s just how we work. of being. Seeing what that looks like and having the flexi-
bility as an artist group to do that, in the position of being 
In a lot of your projects, you’re on the ground and talking invited to do something, you do have some malleability.
48
“I think it’s been fun to work 
with local people who are 
embedded deeply in the 
local situation that we’re 
invited into.”
49
Shadi Harouni is an artist based in New York and Tehran. Harouni’s practice ranges from site-
specific interventions and sculptures, to printmaking, photography and film. Her research is 
centered on disavowed and marginalized histories of dissent and resistance, chiefly in the Middle 
East. Harouni’s projects have been exhibited at Queens Museum (NY), Kunstmuseum Bonn (DE), 
Prague City Gallery (CZ), University of Toronto (CA), Fondazione Ratti (IT), Elizabeth Foundation for 
the Arts (NY). Her work has been featured in Art Forum, The New York Times, The Guardian, Flash 
Art and Mousse, among others. She has been awarded a Gattuso Prize for Outstanding Exhibition, 
Harpo Foundation Grant for Artists, AIR Fellowship, residencies at Skowhegan (ME), SOMA (MX), 
LES Printshop (NY). Harouni holds an MFA from NYU (2011) and a BA from University of Southern 
California (2007). She serves as Visiting Assistant Professor and Director of the Undergraduate 
Program in Studio Art at New York University, Steinhardt.
50
SAJAD AMINI IN CONVERSATION WITH
SHADI
HAROUNI
51
SA: I know that you’ll be speaking specifically about I didn’t grow up religiously. I didn’t even know what 
your works specifically during your talk later, so let’s talk I was until it was made clear by force. I grew up with a 
about the concepts and ideas behind them. There is a very Marxist father, so I grew up more with the history of 
future and a hope that you talk about in your statement, dissent than I did with the history of religion. Of course, 
which I feel is kind of related to religion, can you explain there is oppression, there is everywhere in the world; 
how this is related to your work? probably the Islamic republic oppresses Shia Muslims 
more than it does any Jewish individual, so I never really 
Shadi Harouni: Well, you know, if you’re making work experienced it as such. There are ways to go back into the 
that has to do with yourself and your history or has to history of the Jewish people and to consider hope within 
with oppression and resistance to that oppression, it that history in general, in that very disparate, difficult, 
can get pretty depressing; it becomes really important never uniform history, perhaps the thing that actually ties 
to actually locate hope. For myself, there are a lot of all these different people from around the world together 
questions: Why make art? Why look at this? Why engage is that positioning of hope, somehow it is defined 
with history or histories? Why go searching for histories similarly. But of course, it is a metaphysical concept and 
that have been erased or pushed into margins? When I it exists in spite of religion, it’s the spirituality of religion, 
use the word hope, I’m not exactly sure that I understand it’s the stuff of poets.
it; it’s a proposal in some ways, it describes more the 
process of what I do, than the product. I’m not convinced Can you explain a little bit, about these metaphysical, 
that anything that I make somehow gives another intangible things? As a person living in western culture for 
individual more hope, it’s really not about that, but the twenty years, do you think that you’re feeling that now?
process has to do with being able to locate it. Can you 
locate hope in dead bodies, in forbidden objects or It’s related to history and its related to what we as Iranians 
spaces, in spaces of lethargy or silence? And so, when are exposed to. I think that some of the most significant 
I’m looking at the history of resistance, for example, I’m spatial experiences I’ve had have been in mosques and 
really looking at the process of resistance, and I think that there is a direct line from that to my practice as a sculptor, 
it is hinged on hope—that’s what I’m looking for. there’s a direct line from reading text in relation to space 
and metaphysics and politics and poetry. It’s history 
Early on, a lot of the work that I did had to do with hiding and also research, it’s what I engage with. I’m drawing 
and retrieval and narratives of hiding and retrieval. That from a very long history of the sacred in architecture, 
work was really out of this world, exaggerated in every and painting and text. It doesn’t necessarily only come 
way. How do you hide an object? Asking that question from Iran, I’m looking at abstract Tantric paintings 
and coming up with narratives that are complex, from India, looking at practices from around the world, 
exaggerated, over the top. And in every one of them there and I’m trying to understand the relationship with 
was the hope for retrieval but never an actual retrieval; abstraction, as we know it, to all of these practices. And 
no one ever goes back and finds the things that they’ve also, the relationship with text, I’m looking at illuminated 
hidden in the foundations of a building that is probably manuscripts from Europe and from elsewhere—I think 
too big to be destroyed anyway. But there is hope in that those connections are very clear. I have a very Western 
act and that’s really what I’m looking at. So, the word is a education and probably the only kind of sculpture that I 
way to position myself or to describe the process. was introduced to in school was Minimalist sculpture, but 
if you open up the Western education, there’s so much 
Is it related to religion? You said that you came to the there. I’m of a generation that has also been able to have 
United States twenty years ago—as an immigrant you access to all of these other traditions.
from Iran, we know that there is oppression toward 
certain religions—so how do you think that this hope I saw that you had an article about the Iranian art situation, 
relates to your background in that culture? I saw the text related to modern art in Iran. There is such 
52
“ ...no one ever
goes back and finds the 
things that they’ve hidden 
in the foundations of a 
building that is probably too 
big to be destroyed anyway.”
a difference between the ‘79 revolution and right now. I’m not saying that that is the state of things, just
What do you think about contemporary art in Iran? one possible state.
I think that in Iran, contemporary or not just 
contemporary, we all have a sense of the significance of 
poetry, as the art form. As the art form that can be both 
spiritual and political at the same. We all understand it 
and have a relationship to it, every individual: religious 
or not, traditional, modern. I that think because of that 
relationship, as public or as practitioners, we all want to 
locate that in whatever is called contemporary art. And 
that is almost impossible, it’s impossible to compete 
with the history, but I think that the project of trying is 
very beautiful, it’s a deep human endeavor; I think that 
there are a lot of people, especially of the younger 
generation, that are considering contemporary art in 
that way, and that is a beautiful thing. I think that Iranian 
artist are extremely informed about the world, they read 
and look at everything and there is a great curiosity. But 
there is a problem of trying to copy what one thinks is 
happening in the West and what that does is erase the 
other approaches to making art—that are grand and 
hopeful and not at cynical, and that I enjoy very much.
53
Pope.L (b. 1955, Newark) is a visual artist and educator whose multidisciplinary practice uses 
binaries, contraries and preconceived notions embedded within contemporary culture to 
create art works in various formats, for example, writing, painting, performance, installation, 
video and sculpture. Building upon his long history of enacting arduous, provocative, absurdist 
performances and interventions in public spaces, Pope.L applies some of the same social, formal 
and performative strategies to his interests in language, system, gender, race and community. The 
goals for his work are several: joy, money and uncertainty— not necessarily in that order.
54
EDEN EVANS IN CONVERSATION WITH
POPE.L
55
Eden Evans: Thinking back to your time in grad school, Can you elaborate on that?
was there something that was said to you, or a moment 
that you experienced, that you look back on now as being Yes, I mean, I think that this really clear when you direct 
particularly significant? something, and you break it down. I know that I have 
one action that’s happening in the foreground, another 
Pope.L: Yeah, I was in the Whitney Independent Study action that’s happening in the background, maybe 
program when I was 19—or was it 20, whatever—and I something off-screen that is happening in terms of audio, 
had a meeting with Yvonne Rainer, she came to my studio but I can’t work on all of them at the same time very well, 
to do a visit. There were a number of things that were in I have to work with them compartmentally; even though 
the studio before I got there and I had just built these they will be experienced at the same time, I’m working 
structures with them, and so she looks at what I had going one thing after another.
and she says, “What has this to do with anything?”
That makes perfect sense, thanks. You have this sort of 
[Laughter] clear connection to material and material metaphor in 
you work; I’m wondering how you find balance between 
And that led you think about it more? What the content… metaphor, narrative, and absurdity?
No, I just thought about what an asshole she was, she’s tough. I think that the central place to be is where there is no 
difference, that’s what I want, and it’s just making 
So, you wrote plays in grad school asking your performers enough—not mistakes, but you know, I’ll get the 
to read directly from the script instead of reciting from absurdity right but not the tone, or I’ll have to the tone 
memory, and I’m wondering what it is about the live read and the absurdity is off. It’s funny but it’s not absurd, so 
that continually commands your attention? How has this maybe people laugh but there’s nothing underneath it. 
affinity influenced, or infiltrated, your performance work? It’s really about getting the recipe right, and once I’ve 
done it, then I have to ask myself if I can do it again. And 
I think that it was just something that I needed to do, to getting it again gives confidence and also knowledge 
have people read from the page. But there were problems about how to go on. Some subject matters can get you 
with that. Sometimes, I had very good performers there sooner than others, I know that, and some are more 
who, if they hadn’t been doing that, could have really resistant. So, I guess that it’s a lot like cooking.
blossomed—but I wasn’t strong enough as a director to 
know that that was a gimmick. Even though it got me to Okay, yeah, I was going to ask how you know, but it sounds 
a certain place, conceptually, if I had let go of it, I could like you would just instantly know if the recipe were off.
have done more. It was a good idea, but I held on to it for 
too long. I think that one way to know is to do something in a 
process that goes against the process, and to be very 
Interesting, I think that we’ve all felt that at one time. attentive. There was a teacher that I had, her big motto 
was that it had to be bad in the beginning—if it’s too 
[Laughter] good in the beginning, and this has happened to me, 
then you’ll lose it and won’t be able to get it back. You 
Okay, moving on. All of your work has some relationship to have to be patient, to see what you’ve been given, and 
time and duration; how do you define your understanding you can’t brush that. You will have more appreciation and 
of time, how it functions in your work? understanding of the thing that you eventually do arrive 
at or that arrives at you.
I guess it’s the idea of everything at once, or one thing 
after another…both at the same time.
56
“It’s really about getting the 
recipe right, and once I’ve 
done it, then I have to ask 
myself if  I can do it again.”
I would have cases where a scene was working perfectly in five years—and that’s great advice, it settled me in a 
well, and then it would just dry up or I couldn’t carry it to way. I didn’t have the pressure to make it happen so soon. 
the next scene. I don’t know…it was almost too good, it And you now, you read these stories about, say, Jasper 
would block my ability to keep it up, I’d be so unhappy Johns in the Museum of Modern Art when he’s 25, and shit 
that I couldn’t get it that it would stop me from learning like that. It’s even more the case now that people have 
from it. It’s kind of weird, you know; success too soon can that happen to them. But he actually succeeded, I mean, 
really fuck up your ability to see the whole. he actually continued—his success didn’t diminish his 
ability to work and I think that he’s unusual in that way, 
I think that happens a lot  with artists, you see someone very unusual in that way. So, I remember my teacher 
blossoming really early and then they can’t live up to the telling me that, he wasn’t trying to be negative, he wanted 
hype or something. to save me from myself or the market or from those forces 
that kill young artists in terms of their talent.
So, let’s take it down a little bit: What advice would you give 
to a MFA student now that you wish you would have had? That’s so thoughtful.
That’s taking it down? Last thing: when you’re in the studio, do you have a snack 
that you like to have?
A little?
[Laughter]
[Laughter]
No. No, my assistants…I eat my assistants.
A little bit. Hmm, what advice? I’d say to not try to be so 
smart, and to listen to what you’re being given by your 
situation. Try to play against what’s expected. Listen to 
that which is being offered to you by the circumstance 
that you create and to not be so impatient about 
something working right away.
When I went to New York, a teach from my undergrad said 
not to expect to go to New York and expect to be famous 
57
THE CENTER FOR ART RESEARCH MISSION
The Center for Art Research (CFAR) is a collaborative artist-run 
platform for experimentation and exchange rooted in art making. 
The Center cultivates diverse modes of engagement related to 
the practices of artists at the University of Oregon by supporting 
speculative Research, Discourse, Exhibition, and Publication. CFAR 
is directed by the faculty in the University of Oregon’s Department 
of Art and is sustained by the contributions of individuals and 
institutions from around the world.
RESEARCH
CFAR brings together artists and scholars from around the world 
to catalyze unexpected connections and outcomes related to the 
practice-led research of affiliated artists. CFAR takes an expanded 
view of art research by supporting individual and collaborative 
projects, residencies, and a variety of initiatives that happen within 
and outside of studio practice. CFAR research responds fluidly to 
dynamic currents in society and culture that are relevant to a range of 
people and communities.
DISCOURSE
CFAR challenges, synthesizes, and expands engagement with 
contemporary art through diverse approaches that include studio 
dialogue, public lectures and symposia, experimental gatherings, 
and more focused seminars and workshops. By approaching art 
practice as a catalytic mode of inquiry, center affiliates also work 
with colleagues from adjacent fields to develop transdisciplinary 
discourse that is relevant to broad constituencies.
 
EXHIBITION
CFAR makes visible the work of contemporary artists through the 
Center and with partners by facilitating exhibitions and alternative 
forms of public display in local, national, and international 
spheres. Activities range from gallery exhibitions and site-
responsive installations to experimental screenings, performances, 
and social actions.
Publication: CFAR publications vary in form and content, 
proliferating art thinking related to the experiences and conditions 
of contemporary life. Publications, authored by center affiliates 
and others, are both printed and web-based, and include essays, 
monographs, periodicals, public archives, editioned art multiples, 
and other experimental forms.
58
59
INTRO .................................................. 04
TUAN ANDREW NGUYEN ................06
SHANA MOULTON ............................ 10
DANIEL CANTY .................................. 14
SHANNON R. STRATTON ................ 18
EBITENYEF A BARALAYE ................ 22
ALEXANDRIA EREGBU .................... 26
JULIA BRYAN-WILSON ..................... 30
MEGAN FOSTER ................................ 36
WHITNEY HUBBS ............................. 42
AMY FRANCESCHINI .......................46
SHADI HAROUNI ............................... 50
POPE.L ................................................ 54
60