GIRLS MAGAZINE
STATES OF BEING
DECEMBER 2020
VOLUME 1, ISSUE 8
ISSUE 8, DECEMBER 2020
GIRLS MAGAZINE STATES OF BEING Letter from the Editor, Page 3 Mindy Seu, Page 5 Katherin Canton, Page 11 Rujeko Hockley, Page 16 Kija Lucas, Page 22 Katie Geha, Page 25
GIRLS MISSION STATEMENT GIRLS is a revised portfolio of interviews from a nationwide community of real, strong womxn. It's a magazine that is 100% all womxn, which is beautiful in its rarity - the magazine is a safe space FOR womxn ABOUT womxn. Created by Adrianne Ramsey, it serves as a content destination for millennial womxn. Read on for an engagement of feminist voices and a collaborative community for independent girls to discover, share, and connect.
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: BREATHE BY ADRIANNE RAMSEY Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did it. They really, really did it. They WON. On Saturday, November 7, after days of waiting as mail-in and absentee ballots were counted in six critical swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were declared the winners of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. My family and I woke up to the news on that glorious morning, shouting in joy and hugging one another in celebration. While I opted to stay at home due to the pandemic, I gleefully watched celebrations and partying across the country and erupted in laughter when pro-Biden supporters yelled “LOSER!” at Trump and flipped off his motorcade as he returned to the White House from golfing. Biden and Harris secured over 81M votes, an astonishing achievement, as well as 51% of the popular vote. As the record shows, Black people came out and voted in the highest rates for Biden, ultimately securing his win. Navajo Nation had an 89% turnout in Arizona (76,000 people) with overwhelming Biden support. But what disturbs me is that Trump received 73M votes and 47% of the popular vote, and majority of the people who voted for him are white. Not surprisingly, Trump has refused to concede, falsely declared victory, and started a widespread legal campaign to block election certification in the aforementioned six swing states. This effort has completely failed, with states finishing up certification (the Electoral College will vote on December 14), but the fact that this is even happening is such an embarrassment for our country and a disturbing attempt to override democracy. Emily Murphy, the Administrator of General Services, delayed the ascertainment of the presidential transition by a little over two weeks, which was entirely ridiculous. For Trump to invite GOP legislative members from Michigan and Pennsylvania to the White House in order to convince them to delay certification and overturn the votes of millions of people is election tampering and sedition. It’s also just plain wrong. The fact that just in 4 years the Republican Party has evolved into a Trump cult is extremely concerning. I am tired of the Democrat bashing going on. I could list hundreds, probably thousands, of instances over my entire life where Republicans did something egregious. The false narrative of "these evil Democrats are doing nasty things to these honest, hardworking Republicans and stole this election" that Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, and so many other Republican legislative figures and lawmakers are pushing is dangerous and tired. The COVID-19 pandemic has only gotten worse and we are in for a long winter. Temporary stay-at-home orders are being re-imposed and states that refused to authorize masking and social distancing requirements are being forced to due to an alarming surge. At the time of this writing, the United States has 14M confirmed cases of coronavirus and nearly 275,000 deaths. (Continued)
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: BREATHE BY ADRIANNE RAMSEY (Continued) Two weeks after I published GIRLS 7, Donald and Melania Trump were diagnosed with coronavirus, as well as several other Trump administration employees and attendees at the Amy Coney Barrett nomination ceremony. In addition, several attendees of Trump’s various election rallies and his Election Night party at the White House have fallen ill with coronavirus. I’m not surprised by any means – seating is not socially distanced at these events and participants are mostly unmasked. These piss poor examples of leadership are extremely disappointing to witness. To make matters worse, at the time of this writing Congress is still in a stalemate over a second stimulus bill. We have been facing this pandemic for almost 9 months, and the government really never cancelled, froze, or forgave rent, and gave people a one-time $1,200 check – one that so many, including myself, have not yet received – and said “good luck.” The day after I released GIRLS 7, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and a month later, Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to the Supreme Court. When Senate Republicans want to put their minds to something, they get it done. They chose furthering a conservative majority on the Supreme Court over supplying funds that would save hundreds of thousands of lives and business. The fact that Trump will be leaving office in a little under two months brings me great joy. I remember when I began this magazine, 3 ½ years ago in April 2017. Trump had been inaugurated a couple of months before and while I was fired up and ready to resist, I had a sinking feeling of hopelessness. How could we possibly survive four whole years of Trump? I am so grateful that we are nearing the end of his time in office, although the damage that he and the Republican Party have inflicted on not just the country, but also the world, will take years to undo, especially because his supporters range far and wide, from members of Congress to everyday people. We should celebrate Trump losing the election and allow ourselves to feel relieved, but we need to remember that this win does not mean the work is over. Capitalism and imperialism still fuels the U.S. Empire. The military, prison, medical, and development industrial complexes will still exist and get stronger. We cannot only be activists during election years in attempts to get people to vote. The work must continue on the ground. GIRLS 8: States of Being is an exciting issue that encapsulates the current moment of celebration, continued action, and calls for accountability. It is also the last issue in the first volume of GIRLS, which I am so proud to have completed. Five womxn who are heavily involved in the art world, either as practicing artists, curators, researchers, and/or art administrators, participated in this issue. I can’t thank them enough for having these insightful and colloquial conversations with me. As the pandemic continues to rage on, it’s so important to continue connecting with one another. The first issues of Volume 2 will be released after Biden’s inauguration in January 2021, and I am so excited to continue production of GIRLS Magazine. While this is an anti-Trump magazine, it would be so hypocritical for me to discontinue it just because Biden won the election. There is still so much work to be done!
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MINDY SEU
Courtesy of Philip Zhou
Mindy Seu is a designer and researcher. She holds an M.Des from Harvard's Graduate School of Design and a B.A. in Design Media Arts from University of California, Los Angeles. As a fellow at the Harvard Law School's Berkman Klein Center for the Internet & Society, she began an archive of global cyberfeminism spanning three decades. She has also been a fellow at the Internet Archive, co-organizing the Arts Track of the inaugural Decentralized Web Summit. Formerly she was a designer on 2×4's Interactive Media team and the Museum of Modern Art’s in-house design studio. She has given lectures and workshops at Barbican Center, CalArts, Parsons, Pratt, RISD, Berkeley Art Museum, and A-B-Z-TXT, among others. Seu joined the faculty of California College of the Arts in 2016, and Rutger’s Mason Gross School of the Arts and Yale’s School of Art in 2019.
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MINDY SEU GM: Who did you vote for in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election and why? MS: I voted for Biden because Trump uses a certain rhetoric that is very destructive to the larger ethos of what the United States is trying to promote. Even though Biden is not the perfect candidate, I do think that he is more representative of what a more progressive U.S. citizen might desire. It does seem like a “lesser of two evils” because Biden does have a lot of principles that are quite problematic. But ultimately, he prioritizes the pandemic and marginalized demographics; two areas that Trump doesn’t even consider. In addition, the word “activist” has
become a conflated term that everyone uses. But to even claim that term, you need to be activated in some way. Typically, marginalized communities become activated quite early because they see a lot of discrepancies in how we move throughout the world. These types of misgivings or imbalances won’t change unless the majority group can see these problems as their own problems, not other people’s problems that they should empathize with. Both of these concepts are being highlighted right now, and I hope that will lead to ongoing change rather than a blithe in the system. GM: What was your reaction to the eventual call that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the election? MS: It was so interesting! The results were very drawn out, with everyone following the same news feed and experiencing a rollercoaster of emotions where at one point you weren’t sure who would win. I don’t think it became clear until the last day and a half. I’m currently in upstate New York, and the day that Biden won I traveled downstate to New York City. When I got off at Penn Station, people were so congratulatory, excited, and celebrating with strangers. I then took the subway down to Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and people were partying in the street. This group celebration of sorts made it feel more real because you could see how many people were affected by this change and what it meant to them. But then there are other questions surrounding how we celebrate during a pandemic. […] The election also brought up an interesting point about how we can make absentee and mail-in ballots an integral part of our voting system moving forward. Florida was able to count so quickly because they had a system in place for counting mail-in ballots that wasn’t challenged by the Republican Party. If [voting by mail] continues to be a factor in upcoming elections, no matter whom the candidates are, this should streamline the voting process.
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MINDY SEU GM: I underestimated how long the mail-in ballots would take to count. I’d kept track of the U.S. Postal Service crisis and how the GOP was specifically trying to stop mail-in ballots in swing states. I found it interesting how no one even cared or noticed that similar to Pennsylvania, Alaska also took a week to count their mail-in ballots. But because Alaska is regarded as a red state, Republicans didn’t care. It’s interesting how they picked and chose which areas to spread misinformation about. I don’t know if the public realizes how much strategy went into the “we can’t trust the mail” situation. This leads me to the next question – what is your reaction to Trump falsely alleging election and voter fraud? MS: This is also a form of rhetoric to instill distrust in the voting process. It’s along the same exact lines of voter disenfranchisement and trying to make sure only certain people are able to vote. I hope we can eventually move past these regulations that prevent people from voting and the Electoral College as a whole. The primary goal should be making sure more people can vote and that each vote is counted equally. GM: How has your practice and the art world been affected by the political climate? MS: There’s always a conversation between art and policy and how those things are intersected. I do think there’s been a number of works that respond to the political climate. It makes me think of this work by American Artist, who made a piece for the Whitney’s artport site that only appears from sunset to sunrise. In their work, titled “Looted” (2020), all of the images on the website are covered by an image of wood, as if they have been looted. This is in direct commentary to the Black Lives Matter protests that happened earlier this year. So I do think that in many ways, there’s a much clearer tie between how artists might use
Mindy Seu, "The Cyberfeminism Catalogue", 2019
some of their publicity to inform a lot of public opinion about political events.
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MINDY SEU GM: Absolutely. There’s been a lot of beautiful, amazing work that has come out of the last 4-5 years. How has the last 4 years specifically affected your activism? I really like what you said earlier about how a lot of people co-opting the term “activism”. It reminded me of a tweet I saw that said, “People like to overuse certain terms, like I’m a “curator” or an “architect of blank””, when that’s an actual job position that you have to be qualified for. MS: I do think that there should be easier access for people adopting these terms, or feeling that they are able to curate or actively participate in something. These educational programs that help one gain that job title also have forms of gatekeeping. So I do like when “untrained people” are able to use these terms and gain a sense of power, or redefine what those roles might mean. This relates to your earlier question about the political climate affecting the art world. A lot of archivists are attending protests and gathering signage as ephemera for the future. As a whole, these pieces can be seen as artworks, even if they were created with very limited resources during a certain time period and without artistic training. And I do think this also points to how my work has changed over the past several years. “Cyberfeminism Index” tries to break out of this canon of what is considered legitimate, as well as putting these concepts on the same hierarchy, such as an academic article versus some hacktivist or net activist artwork. So for me, I’ve tried to break down this public opinion surrounding the preciousness of these terms.
In contrast, I do agree with what you’re saying – if conflated, these terms start becoming really empty. So I wonder how we can be empowering but also not reductive, and maybe that just means expanding the definitions.
GM: What do you think of 55% of white women voting for Trump, which is 2% higher than those who voted for him in the 2016 election? MS: White feminism is so prevalent because when one equates the injustices or oppressions that they face as the primary or sole oppression, it’s hard for them to see anything beyond that. So once those oppressions are then superseded, one feels so much change has been made, when that’s actually not a form of allyship. How does one be an ally, how does one emphasize, and then take ownership of problems that don’t necessarily affect you directly, instead seeing them as basic human rights?
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MINDY SEU GM: What does Kamala Harris being elected as the first female Vice President mean to you? MS: I used to live in California and remember that people were so excited when she was elected as a Senator in 2016. Seeing how she’s been able to climb so quickly up the ladder has also been really affirming. If anything, I still wonder why Bernie [Sanders] didn’t outright say he would nominate a woman as Vice President during the Democratic debates, while Biden immediately said he would. While I don’t necessarily agree with all of her politics, the idea that she is the first woman, first Black person, and first South Asian person to be Vice President is huge. That representation is very valuable for a lot of young people growing up and looking at this, as well as people who are older and thought they might never see this. GM: Can you name an issue that you hope Joe Biden addresses during his first 100 days in office? MS: Definitely the pandemic; he’s already put a [COVID] task force in place. Having some clear instructions from the federal level that would be implemented across the United States is really important, as well as having a clear message. From the beginning, we got so many mixed messages with different protocols. I hope he’s able to really push that forward, especially since public health officials are expecting the virus to peak in New York in January and February, so that’s going to be a key time. In addition, I hope the U.S. rejoins the Paris Agreement immediately! GM: Could you talk about your project, “Cyberfeminism Catalogue”? MS: I graduated from the M.Des program at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and created “Cyberfeminism Catalogue” in May 2019 as my thesis project. I didn’t enter the program with this particular topic; I was more interested in archival and citation politics. I was doing a fellowship at the Berkman Klein Center for the Internet & Society, which is an internet policy wing in Harvard's Law School. I’m very connected to the art and design field, so bridging that with policy and activism and manifesting an archive seemed natural. [The project] later evolved into an online database called “Cyberfeminism Index”, which was launched by the New Museum in October. One of the primary goals for the index is to get a lot of submissions & crowd-sourced information and be as malleable and permeable as possible. The index itself really tries to show an alternate history of the internet, so it brings in a lot of global examples about women using technology while being critical of technology, and showing how marginalized people use the internet in alternative ways. (Continued on next page)
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MINDY SEU
Inside view of "The Cyberfeminism Catalogue" by Mindy Seu, 2019
(Continued) I want to make the term “Cyberfeminism” more visible to other people and also try to paint an alternate history of it. As an internet studies researcher and designer, I think it’s really important for me to think about how the different ways the internet is applied or used, rather than purely built or engineered. We’re currently using the online database to gather as many new entries as possible, and that will always be open access. The upcoming publication is more for posterity. I’m currently editing the manuscript and hope to be done with that by June 2021, and then there will be a few months of further editing and design, and then the final version should be released in 2022. GM: Are there any plans to debut this project as an exhibition, either in person or digitally? MS: That could definitely be an option because there are so many interesting objects in the index, so being able to gather all of them, even if they’re in a reading room or library, could be a natural next step for this project. It could also be paired with performative readings so we could also showcase the contents of the book. But that hasn’t been fleshed out because the project is in very early stages. GM: Moving forward, what changes do you hope we make as a country now that we have new, incoming leadership? MS: Biden always says that he’s not a president for Democrats, but a president for both sides. I do think that if there’s a way to create more conversation with people with opposing views, not in an interrogative way but a productive way, that’s something we could all hope for. My parents are very conservative, so having these conversations with them is always really difficult. And due to cancel culture, people are afraid to make mistakes in certain areas. So what can we do to make conversation feel possible, and not immediately shut down other opinions? Trump didn’t create a bunch of racists; he basically gave them permission to come out from the woodwork and gave them a platform so they could feel some pride. I’m just not quite sure how to bring this conversation to a head because there’s such a large majority of people [that voted for him], so I do think that drastic changes need to be made.
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KATHERIN CANTON
Courtesy of Katherin Canton
Katherin Canton (they/them/theirs), based in Huichin (occupied Chochenyo Ohlone land/Oakland), is a GuateMayan weaver, healer, cultural organizer, 3rd generation renter, and facilitator raised on Yelamu (occupied Ramaytush Ohlone land - San Francisco) and Huichin. Benefiting from California’s commitment to community arts education, after being a youth leader with Bay Area arts groups they co-founded the Oakland Creative Neighborhoods Coalition, co-directed Emerging Arts Professionals SF Bay Area; cooordinated the Keeping Space Oakland Cultural Ambassador Program of the Community Arts Stabilization Trust; served as an organizer with Arts for a Better Bay Area; became administrative director at the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco and the first Western regional organizer of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture; and was the cultural equity policy director of Peacock Rebellion and the founding Program Manager of Oakland’s Just City Cultural Fund. As the CAC's Race and Equity Manager, they continue a lifelong journey of learning how to be in right relationship with themselves, neighbors, the land, and ancestors, particularly to queer and trans Black, Indigenous, communities of color.
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KATHERIN CANTON GM: Who did you vote for in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election and why? KC: I am lucky to have the right and responsibility to be able vote in our elections, so I vote every chance I can. I voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. I am not under the illusion that the U.S. is a great republic, I know that there are lots of issues with the Democratic Party and having a two party system period. Me participating in voting is participating in capitalism and a white supremacist system. But voting is a right and a responsibility that people from the African diaspora and Native communities, among others, have fought and died for. Knowing all of the complications, there’s no way that I would ever vote for Trump. He has escalated the level of violence and fear in my friend’s, my family’s, and communities’ lives that is really unnecessary and done out of malice and selfishness. Joe Biden and Kamala are pretty moderate within progressive standards, but they are about 1,000 times better than Trump and any Republican I have lived through. GM: What was your reaction to the eventual call that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the election? KC: By Friday I thought that we weren’t going to know until maybe Monday or Wednesday, so it was honestly a surprise and it was a mix of emotions! I was in disbelief because I was so happy, because it felt like love won. I went back and forth between trying to hide that I was crying and trying to just live in this reality. Honestly, a sense of relief came over me because I wasn’t sure what a world would look like with Trump as president for another 4 years. The level of fear and hatred that has been escalating – I’m thinking, how much longer can we take this?
GM: What is your reaction to Trump alleging voter and election fraud? KC: I mean, we all knew that he was going to try to stall [the results] and do something unprecedented, un-presidential, and unethical. He’s been fear mongering surrounding voting by mail. That’s why a lot of states that, during the [COVID] pandemic, could have enacted a vote by mail system didn’t, because there was all this rhetoric from him around voter fraud, when his claims had never been proven. I heard on the radio last week that his lawyers had filed 24 lawsuits and had lost all of them, which just feels like par for the course.
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KATHERIN CANTON GM: How has your practice and the art world been affected by the current political climate? KC: I’ve been thinking about accountability to Black people and the African diaspora as an arts worker. Because the national landscape is so violent, angry, and isolated, that just exasperates local community context. And in the arts, it’s been interesting to see this call for accountability, which is really exciting to be a part of. It’s also been interesting to see various call-outs to institutions that have an equity or justice statement yet don’t really make any internal or external changes. I see the connection between the national fear mongering and those really desiring accountability. I think that’s why we voted for Biden and Kamala, because we’re tired of someone acting as if there are no repercussions for any of their behaviors or language. It’s actually unacceptable. So yes, accountability for Black lives and really supporting Black artists, Black culture makers, and Black-led institutions locally and regionally, is vital. GM: How has the last 4 years affected your activism? KC: I feel like my scale has gotten wider. I realized that I wanted to make or be apart of policy level decisions due to having seen my mother struggle, my own lived experience, and my colleagues lived experiences. I realized that I was already tired, before Trump even took office. We were tired as a community and we’re always fighting. As a non-Black, non-indigenous person, my personal commitment to Black people, people of the African diaspora, indigenous people, trans folks, has gotten clearer. I’m trying to develop that and figure out what my role is in movements for justice. I’ve also expanded my activism to a larger geographic scope.
Katherin Canton, "The place of creation and healing - Uteruses", 2020
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KATHERIN CANTON GM: What do you think about 55% of white women voting for Trump, which is 2% higher than those who voted for him in the 2016 election? KC: I didn’t realize that [the statistic] had gone up. Fuck, half of this country really hates us! Honestly, it’s not surprising that there was an increase in white women voting for Trump from 2016. There’s also a parallel in the arts where there’s this really interesting set of behaviors that happens when you’re so close to power. The system is set up for hetero white men to have power and be our example of what power is. And right next to that are white women. artEquity shared an analysis of the original PWI (predominantly white institution) being the plantation and how non-profit management derives from that. White women played a very significant role in plantation management. The most egregious micro aggressions, outright racism, homophobia, and ableism comes from “liberal” white women. There’s something about their proximity to power and to patriarchy that they’re not able to see yet. GM: What does Kamala Harris being elected as the first female Vice President mean to you? KC: I grew up in San Francisco and Oakland, so I have more of a localized knowledge of her politics. It makes sense that she would be chosen for this position, as it’s a really important role. I’m glad that I was able to hear more from her in preparation for the election. I’m also thinking about the fact that she’s also holding this burden of exemplary multiculturalism by sharing the experience of being a biracial Black woman on a national stage, being in this position, and being the first in a white institution. I’m cautiously optimistic; I hope that she recognizes her power and is able to actually live in that power, because she is more on the moderate stance. But I think she’ll do a great job of stabilizing with Joe. This is a really important marker for us and I hope we continue to have more diversity. There’s a difference between racial justice and diversity, and still it’s important to have diversity in high levels of government. GM: Name a pressing issue that you hope Joe Biden addresses his first 100 days in office. KC: He’s already been doing this so that makes me feel good, but the national strategy of the pandemic and how it’s disproportionately impacting communities of color at a higher rate. So I want to see that level of strategy and collaboration across the country because it’s disappointing, embarrassing, and deadly how we’ve handled the pandemic. The stalemate over the stimulus bill is showing us how racist our country is, but it’s taking up so much energy that we are working on surviving versus moving forward. It’s important for a national strategy for the pandemic to be addressed first.
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KATHERIN CANTON
Katherin Canton, "Digital Community Altar", 2020
GM: Please talk about an achievement you’ve accomplished in your practice in the last 4 years. KC: I have a new [job] position! As of three months ago, I’m the first Race and Equity Manager at the California Arts Council. That’s huge and I’ve been leading up to this for the last 15 years. I’ve had so much help from my formal and informal mentors, my family and friends, and colleagues. When I got the call that I was being offered this position, I was proud of myself, which I don’t let myself feel very often. GM: What changes do you hope we make as a country now that we have a new administration? KC: I hope that we can learn to apologize and tell the stories that are actually historical. We need to make amends for the genocide of Native people and participating in the enslavement of African people. [Doing] that would actually get us really far. We also need to continue reparation conversations on a national scale; they were started and have been progressing, but we have to get serious and move towards action. This is the age of asking for forgiveness and saying that we are sorry, we caused so much harm, and we are paying for that harm everyday. This interview was conducted in a personal capacity and the views expressed here are my own.
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RUJEKO HOCKLEY
Courtesy of Jody Rogac
Rujeko Hockley is an assistant curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She is the curator of the upcoming retrospective Julie Mehretu, opening in March 2021, and cocurated the 2019 Whitney Biennial. Additional projects at the Whitney include Toyin Ojih Odutola: To Wander Determined (2017) and An Incomplete History of Protest: Selections from the Whitney’s Collection, 1940-2017 (2017). Previously, she was Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum, where she co-curated Crossing Brooklyn: Art from Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and Beyond (2014) and was involved in exhibitions highlighting the permanent collection as well as artists LaToya Ruby Frazier, The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Kehinde Wiley, Tom Sachs, and others. She is the co-curator of We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-85 (2017), which originated at the Brooklyn Museum and travelled to three U.S. venues in 2017-18. She serves on the Board of Art Matters, as well as the Advisory Board of Recess.
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RUJEKO HOCKLEY GM: Who did you vote for in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election and why? RH: I voted for Biden because there’s literally no other choice due to the system we have. The other one is not a choice for me. GM: What was your reaction to the eventual call that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the election? RH: It was actually really beautiful. I live in Brooklyn and was walking in Prospect Park with my husband; my parents live on the other side of the park from where we live. We were going to pick our daughter up because she had spent the night with them. So we’re just walking and a Black woman runs by, pumping her arms and screaming, and we were like, “What’s happening?!” And then the whole park just erupted in cheers and celebration and it was a really beautiful collective way to find out. Just to be out on the street and literally find out from people passing by and only then looking on the phone to see what CNN reported. I was surprised at how emotional I was. It was my first time voting in a presidential election. I became a naturalized citizen in 2019, almost two years ago. It was meaningful on multiple levels, first because of what we’ve all been through these last 4 years, but then also just for myself personally feeling like this is insane and meaningful. I was sad that I didn’t get to vote for Obama, but I do feel in a way it’s more meaningful to have voted in this moment where it feels so incredibly important. The entire day was just a full-on street party, all over New York. GM: What is your reaction to Trump alleging election and voter fraud? RH: The “allegations” are not true. There is no evidence; every single person that has looked at it has said that [fraud] didn’t happen. It’s very transparent that it's directed towards specific communities; it’s no surprise that [Trump] is trying to disenfranchise Black and Brown voters. I heard that in Wayne County, Detroit they were trying to cut ⅗ of the vote – unbelievable. They know what they’re doing. It's intentional, aggressive, and violent, and meant to scare Black and Brown people. It’s insane that literally yesterday [Emily Murphy] finally began the [presidential] transition. It’s an abuse of power. At this point I can’t believe it's not overt, purposeful, and done with mal-intent.
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RUJEKO HOCKLEY GM: How has your curatorial practice and the art world been affected by the political climate? RH: Let’s remember that we’re not just talking about the election, but COVID. I haven’t been inside any museum since March, not even the one I work at. We’re still working remotely. I have a young child, my parents are in their 60’s, my in-laws are in their 70’s, and they each see her at least once a week. I’d love to go to a museum and see art, but not at the risk of my family. No matter how much I miss it! I’ve been planning the Julie Mehretu retrospective; it was supposed to open at the Whitney this June and close in September. It just opened at the High Museum in Atlanta, which was actually supposed to be the venue after the Whitney but due to COVID the tour schedule got switched around. It’s now opening at the Whitney next March, but here we are, entering a second wave [of coronavirus], and I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t think anyone does, frankly. Museums are closing again all over the country. It’s interesting to be an institutional curator right now; it’s not that our work can’t continue, but it’s different. I’ve done a lot of Zoom presentations, talks with Julie, and studio visits; we all adapt but it’s obviously not the same, not even close. GM: How has the last 4 years specifically affected your activism? RH: I used to be more tolerant of the idea that even if people have different ideological views, that doesn’t mean we can’t find common ground or have a conversation. But the Trump era has made it really hard to continue to practice that, because as a Black woman married to a Black man with a Black child, how do you talk to someone that literally thought, “Nah, this person is okay, and he’s so okay that even though we’re in a pandemic where hundreds of thousands of people have died, with people of color disproportionately impacted, and everything is in tatters, and we’re going to vote for him again.” I struggle with what to even say to that. We can’t deny that a vote for him and that way of thinking is a vote against civil rights and the very lives of so-called marginalized people, who are all of my best friends and loved ones! In terms of how my activism has changed, I don’t think I’ve become less tolerant per se, but instead more clear about my boundaries and what’s an acceptable level of debate and what isn’t a conversation. My life and the lives of my loved ones are not theoretical; they’re not up for debate. Personally, I’m on a case-by-case basis in terms of having those conversations. Everybody’s capacity level is different though and I’m equally thrilled for people who feel like they have the capacity to take it on as for those who don’t. In general, I am more outspoken now about everything – my opinions, my needs, my boundaries, my priorities.
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RUJEKO HOCKLEY GM: What do you think of 55% of white women voting for Trump, which is 2% higher than those who voted for him in the 2016 election? RH: It’s indicative to me of how little things have changed in certain areas and how deep the siren call of white supremacy is. It’s a hell of a drug. I’m not trying to remove agency or accountability from people who made that decision, but what’s so interesting to me is seeing people who are not deemed “essential” make it. We see large numbers of women leaving the work force because of COVID, but we know that’s about patriarchy and the division of labor in homes, especially in heterosexual partnerships. I don’t know which ship white women think is coming to save them, and I don’t know what to say to them. It’s a big issue and something we all need to be aware of. But I also feel like if those are your people, go get them and think long and hard about why [Trump] is appealing to them. There are a lot of well meaning, liberal, conscientious white women who did not vote for Trump that are appalled, pained, and shocked and crying to their friends of color about how they can’t believe it and I’m like, “I can!” It’s surprising after everything, but I can believe it. There’s a long history of white women privileging racial solidarity over all, no matter who gets hurt in the process. When we think about things in silos, like this election only in relation to the last one, or these last four years only in relation to the Obama years, we do ourselves a disservice. I think of a show I co-curated at the Brooklyn Museum in 2017, We Wanted A Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-85, and the emergence of second-wave feminism and conversations in that period around race, gender, and privilege. There are so many examples of white women weaponizing their gender in relation to their race that have been violent and dangerous to the Black and Brown people they encounter. Go back to the Suffragette movement and how white women were furious that Black men got the right to vote before them, but didn’t think for a second about Black women, who didn’t get the right to vote freely until 1965. None of this is new. We have to look at that statistic in a historical continuum.
Installation view of "We Wanted A Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-85" at the Brooklyn Museum, 2017. Photo by Jonathan Dorado
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RUJEKO HOCKLEY
Installation view of "2019 Whitney Biennial" at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 2019. Photo by Ron Amstutz
GM: Please talk about an achievement you’ve accomplished in your practice in the last 4 years. RH: Definitely the [2019] Whitney Biennial – professionally it stands out the most. But I also had a baby two years ago. My daughter and the Biennial are paired in my mind because she was born in early February and the Biennial opened in mid May. I was about 1,000 weeks pregnant, still working; my last day of work was a week before she was born and we were tinkering in the model, working on our layout. My co-curator Jane [Panetta] and I traveled all around the country throughout my pregnancy. I really can’t think of the Biennial and what we did without thinking about being pregnant and bringing a new life into this world. GM: What does Kamala Harris being elected as the first female vice-president mean to you? RH: It’s really meaningful, though I’m not a total gaga Kamala fan. I know that she’s pro-cop and that she’s had some problematic moments in her own professional history in California, but I also know that we never know the whole story on someone and why they’ve made the decisions they made. I have a lot of respect for her as someone who is incredibly talented, thoughtful, and hardworking, all of which really shine through in how she carries herself. I would love to get to a point where we are past someone being the “first”, but frankly we’re not. And if there’s been a first, but hasn’t been a second, third, fourth, or fifth, then we’re not even close to where we need to be. It’s crazy that she is all three of those firsts – first South Asian, first person from the African diaspora, first woman – at this stage. It’s 2020! That’s a lot to shoulder and she does it with incredible grace. My mom always says that “perfect is the enemy of good” and I believe in that strongly. If we waited for the perfect candidates, we would be stuck with Trump. I’m down to jump into the flawed and even problematic option because it’s a step towards where we want to be.
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RUJEKO HOCKLEY GM: What’s an issue that you hope Joe Biden addresses during his first 100 days in office? RH: I have COVID very much on my mind, but outside of that I would say climate change. Several of my dearest friends are either from or live in the Bay Area and have small children, and they couldn’t leave the house for weeks on end because of the fires. Couldn’t even go in their backyards, and this is all during COVID. There are so many intersecting issues and climate justice touches on all of them, whether that be racial or gender justice, food and economic security, immigration policies, etc. It just touches every single thing. We can try to fix all those other things, but if we don’t address climate change? Not going to fucking matter. GM: Moving forward, what changes do you hope we make as a country now that we have new, incoming leadership? RH: I hope that we can accept that Black lives matter, period, as a basic truth and act accordingly. I hope that we can think about how there’s no safety net in place for families. Women are the safety net and that cuts across economic lines, racial lines, across all demographics. It’s neither right, nor sustainable. It doesn’t make any kind of sense by any metric, whether that be pure equity, the economy, or innovation in society. I hope that we really see the value and necessity of early childhood education, subsidized childcare, and teachers. I don’t know a single person who has children that is not at some level losing their shit, regardless of whether we are talking about single-parent households, two working-parent households, queer people, straight people, any race, ethnicity, profession, or location across the country. In 9 months of pandemic life, we have made no changes in the way we think about families. It’s shocking. There’s still this mentality of “children are a choice and it’s up to you, and you only, to take care of that choice,” but where do we think the people that make up society came from? Everyone was a child at one point. Children have to be nurtured, educated, and cared for in order to become the people that create the world we all want to see. We’re expected to catch ourselves, and by “catch” I mean try not to get too smashed up by the boulder that’s thrown off the top of a cliff. Third, I would say we need to reassess how we accord value in a capitalist society, especially where the contributions of artists and other creative people are concerned. If we’ve seen anything in the course of this pandemic, it’s that even in such dire, difficult, painful, and deeply desperate situations, people have kept themselves going through art, through something a creative person put into the world - movies, TV, books, poetry, music, dance, etc. Artists are really struggling and the future of art spaces is shaky, but I’ve seen so many incredible new ideas, particularly around mutual aid. It’s really innovative. People are creating new models, and often funding them out of their own pockets! Imagine if we had more overall respect and understanding of the value of artists and their contributions. We would have a different society.
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KIJA LUCAS
Courtesy of Kija Lucas
Kija Lucas is an artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She uses photography to explore ideas of home, heritage and inheritance. She is interested in how ideas are passed down and seemingly inconsequential moments create changes that last generations. Her work has been exhibited at Oakland Museum of California, Anglim Gilbert Gallery, Headlands Center for the Arts, San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries, California Institute of Integral Studies, Palo Alto Arts Center, Intersection for the Arts, Mission Cultural Center, and Root Division, as well as Venice Arts in Los Angeles, CA, La Sala d’Ercole/Hercules Hall in Bologna Italy, and Casa Escorsa in Guadalajara, Mexico. Lucas has been an Artist in Residence at Montalvo Center for the Arts, Grin City Collective, and The Wassaic Artist Residency. She is a member of 3.9 Art Collective and the Curatorial Council at Southern Exposure. Lucas received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and her MFA from Mills College.
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KIJA LUCAS GM: Who did you vote for in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election and why? KL: I voted for Biden/Harris because Trump is terrible at his job and I wanted him out of office. GM: What was your reaction to the eventual call that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the election? KL: I was working in my brother’s cafe that [Saturday] morning, and one of the customers came in and told us the election had been called. I felt a sense of relief, probably more than I expected. It was nice to see the celebrations happening in the street outside of the cafe, people walking with their lawn signs, and driving down the street banging pots and pans. We still have so much work to do. This election won’t fix it. But the relief was palpable. GM: What is your reaction to Trump alleging election fraud? KL: It was expected. He alleged election fraud back in 2016 before the election. It seems he has never been allowed to feel loss, and so he sets it up so he won’t have to admit defeat. It’s frightening to me how many people still voted for him and how many believe that there is election fraud, or at least are willing to say they believe it.
GM: How has your practice been affected by the political climate? KL: I have been working on the same bodies of work for quite a while, so I’m not sure if what comes out of my studio has changed much. My work is always talking about the ways that ideas are handed down through generations and how we come to believe something to be true. I think that this political climate highlights those things further. GM: How has the last 4 years affected your activism? KL: I won’t call myself an activist. I see the important work that real activists do and I wouldn’t want to claim that. Something that has happened [to me] is that I understand our government and the systems we are working in a lot more. The more I understand, the further left my politics move. I have donated a lot more of what little money I have to causes in the past four years than ever before.
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KIJA LUCAS GM: What do you think of 55% of white women voting for Trump, which is 2% higher than those who voted for him in the 2016 election? KL: I am sad and angry at how much of the electorate has voted for Trump. It just shows that when folks benefit from a white supremacist patriarchy, they are willing to sell folks out for their own gain. GM: What does Kamala Harris being elected as the first female Vice President mean to you? KL: It’s long overdue for us to have a woman in the vice presidency, for us to have a woman as president, for us to have a Black woman in the vice presidency, and for us to have a Black woman as president. It is exciting to have a Black woman, a bi-racial/bi-cultural woman as vice president. GM: Name one pressing issue that you hope Joe Biden addresses during his first 100 days in office . KL: Getting this pandemic under control would be the most pressing thing, and with that, creating equitable access to healthcare.
GM: What’s a recent accomplishment you’ve made through your practice that you’re proud of? KL: Still having a practice and deciding to be an artist every day. Working through failures and through radio silence, as well as supporting other artists. Those are my biggest accomplishments recently and for the past 20 years. GM: Moving forward, what changes do you hope we make as a country? KL: We need a new foundation to build from. I’m
Kija Lucas, "Collections from Sundown", 2017
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not sure how that will be done, but it’s what needs to happen.
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KATIE GEHA
Courtesy of Jaime Bull
Dr. Katie Geha is a writer, curator, and art historian. She is Director of the Galleries in the Lamar Dodd School of Art and regularly teaches modern and contemporary art history seminars on artists’ writing. She received her PhD from the University of Texas, Austin and her MA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Geha's research is focused on American art from the 1960s to the present. She examines technology, science, mysticism, gender, and poetics as principles within the art of this period. Most recently, her work has focused on expanding notions of conceptual art by reintroducing and emphasizing systems as forms of representation within the art of 1960s and 1970s. In Like Life: Data, Process, Change 1967–1976, Geha studies the work of artists Lee Lozano, Vija Celmins, and Beryl Korot and argues that these underrepresented female artists used new technologies to develop relationships between mediums and the ordinary — elements of daily experience that form more of a chronicle than a narrative. Geha was formerly the Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Ulrich Museum of Art and her writing has appeared in numerous publications including The Poetry Foundation, Artforum.com, Glasstire.com, and The Huffington Post.
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KATIE GEHA GM: Who did you vote for in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election and why? KG: I voted for Biden / Harris because the thought of having four more years of our current president was far, far too much to stomach. Biden would not have been my first pick, but I’m excited about having a female vice-president and Biden will do just fine. GM: What was your reaction to the eventual call that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the election? KG: I was ecstatic. I was at the High Museum of Art with my two best girlfriends looking at the Julie Mehretu exhibition. All of a sudden everyone in the galleries started hooting, hollering, and clapping. It was a really amazing moment and I immediately burst into tears. The fact that Georgia turned blue was just incredible. We drove around Atlanta, and everyone was in the streets dancing and folks were honking their car horns. It all felt very joyous, very cathartic. GM: What is your reaction to Trump alleging election fraud? KG: Just an eye roll – I can’t give that man anymore thought. I’m exhausted. GM: How has your practice been affected by the political climate? KG: Certainly I am more aware of making a more diverse program at the [Dodd] Galleries. While I have always strived to bring in all kinds of people who make all kinds of art, the imperative to show artists of color feels more pressing than ever. In terms of teaching art history, I’ve also spent a great deal of time rethinking the canon. I’m teaching the contemporary art survey in the spring and I’m still mulling over, thinking, “Whom do I start this story with?” I used to start with Pollock, and then switched to Lee Krasner, but now, I’m not certain. Maybe I’ll start discussing Modernism through Jazz and then lead into Ab-Ex. It’s been very challenging for me to move out from under the art historical narrative that was drilled into me for so long. But it’s important that we reframe these stories so they are massively more inclusive. GM: How has the last 4 years affected your activism? KG: I know so much more about government than I used to! I also take part more – I found out early in the Trump administration that if you call your senator, it’s worth it. I also went door-to-door for Stacey Abrams and Raphael Warnock. Now I’m phone banking to flip the Senate – we must flip the Senate!
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KATIE GEHA GM: What do you think of 55% of white women voting for Trump, which is 2% higher than those who voted for him in the 2016 election? KG: The patriarchy is so insidious in so many ways. Ultimately, and it pains me to write this, white women are as much a part of the problem as white men. GM: What does Kamala Harris being elected as the first female Vice President mean to you? KG: It’s amazing! I’m also sad that she’s not president and we’re still voting for very, very old white men. But it’s progress. My hope is that Biden won’t run again, Harris will and, viola! We finally have our first female president. Of course she would have to do it through the side door. I don’t care what the door is though, it’s time! GM: Name one pressing issue that you hope Joe Biden addresses during his first 100 days in office KG: I hope he reunites every single migrant child in a detention center with their parents. GM: What’s a recent accomplishment you’ve made through your practice that you’re proud of? KG: Just getting through this semester was a major accomplishment. We still continued to put exhibitions up at the [Dodd] Galleries and I taught my classes. My students attended dutifully and took part in important conversations. Over the summer I wrote an essay for an anthology, and it amazes me that I was able to sink my brain into anything other than reading the news. It was incredible that we were able to do any of this. Even very small projects felt like slaying a behemoth. I really hope it gets easier.
GM: Moving forward, what changes do you hope we make as a country? KG: I hope Trump becomes some weird bad dream that we all can agree was bad for all of us. I hope we can reconnect with one another and feel united, even in very small ways. I was living in New York right after September 11th and the kindness and “in this together” feeling everyone exuded was palpable. I hope we can begin to feel that way towards this virus and that we can find ways to be kind and generous toward one another because everyone is struggling
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Installation view of "Fountain: Melissa Brown & Jaime Bull" at Dodd Galleries, 2019. Courtesy of the Lamar Dodd School of Art Galleries
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GIRLS MAGAZINE
STATES OF BEING
DECEMBER 2020
VOLUME 1, ISSUE 8