In Conversation: Tavarus Blackmon with Summer Ventis

In Conversation: Conversation:

Tavarus Blackmon Summer Ventis

Tavarus I’m curious, what has it been like as an artist with a practice making work in isolation? And what are your hopes for the coming months, as we transition to a more manageable space for each other?

Summer Yeah, that’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot, that idea of transitioning back out of isolation. And I think, because of my father’s illness so early in the pandemic, I have been even more intensely isolated than a lot of people. I have taken isolation very seriously. And so, yeah, it feels a little scary, thinking about going back to contact with other people. It feels exciting and scary.

And thinking about making work during this time, I’m thinking back to almost this exact time last year, as we were kind of in the beginning of lockdown here in California. As my father was going into the hospital with COVID, I felt this real urgency to make things, and I made that Zine, Alternative Greetings, Alternative Meanings. And

that might have seemed absurd, but that seemed like the urgent thing to do at that time. It felt really meaningful to me. It really helped me to process that transition into isolation. And so now, I feel like I need to find that thing to help me process slowly coming out of isolation.

Tavarus I’m curious about—I guess the buzzword for me for this period has been “pivot”— how artists and arts organizations and businesses have had to pivot infrastructure and operations just to maintain or achieve sustainability. And that’s something that we are thinking about with Axis Gallery. Have there been any pivots or shifts in your thought process or practice during this time?

Summer In terms of my own work, I think of the idea of boundaries and barriers as kind of meeting points—as these kinds of permeable membranes that actually facilitate interaction with other people and with our environments, as opposed to preventing it. That is an idea that’s always been an important part of my practice, but it has really come to the forefront for me during this time. I think that the main change, just in terms of the content of my work, is that specific aspect which has really emerged as more important—as opposed to more general thoughts about landscape and climate change, which of course are still important in the work—but have kind of receded a little bit during this time in favor of that idea of boundaries and barriers as ways that we protect each other. That’s a big part of what we’re all experiencing now—the idea of boundaries and barriers as ways of showing care, rather than ways of shutting others out. And I have come to hate the word “pivot,” as I think many of us have, along with “unprecedented.” Tavarus You use many mediums, different interdisciplinary approaches to art making, and your work is concerned with the ecosystem, climate change, the natural environment, interventions and engagement with the natural spaces around us. Now that technology seems to be so ingrained in our professional lives and also our personal ones— with things like Zoom birthday parties being part of our experience recently—do you see technology or these methods of communication filtering into your practice more in the future?

Summer Sure. I think that certainly has happened in some ways and will continue to happen. But also, I think that our extreme reliance on technology and existence within it has made me feel even more of a commitment to making things that really need to be experienced in space. I mean, so much now is about how a work photographs. And I tend to make things that are very hard to photograph and don’t always photograph well. Because they’re kind of subtle visually. Not always, but a lot of the things that I have done recently are either almost or completely achromatic. They’re reflective surfaces. And those kinds of shifting, subtle experiences that really have to be encountered in person, for me, have become even more important during this time. I always think about just the idea of an encounter with an artwork as kind of the most important aspect of experiencing the work—that kind of moment of encountering it in space. And so, with all of the shifts in the ways that we encounter each other, I think it’s important to focus on those encounters in real space and time and to think about possibilities for these other modes of encountering—like the digital modes that we are relying on more now.