Speaker 1 (00:00:00): Coming up on Art Palace, Speaker 2 (00:00:03): Making change involves having lots of coffees and tea and dinner and breakfasts and talking. Speaker 1 (00:00:21): Welcome to Art Palace, produced by Cincinnati Art Museum. This is your host, Russell eig. Here at the Art Palace, we meet cool people and then talk to them about art. Today we have a live recording of our Women Breaking Boundaries Panel discussion that took place on Saturday, October 12th, 2019. The discussion was led by Ainsley Cameron, our curator of South Asian Art, Islamic art and Antiquities. The panel included Catherine Garett, TT Stern Zi, Amanda Carreri, and Meg Rotel. I do want to apologize that the audio quality is a bit sketchy in some parts, but I hope you'll forgive that because the conversation was really fascinating. I also wanted to warn you that there is some uncensored strong language towards the end of the episode. Speaker 3 (00:01:18): Welcome. Thank you so much for coming. It's a pleasure to see everyone here on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon. I'm honored that you came inside. We are here today for the Women Breaking Boundaries Community opening. So this is the opening of this exhibition technically opened yesterday, but here today to really experience with all of you. And I'm honored to be here standing here with this wonderful panel of people to continue the conversation and some of the dialogues that I overheard happening in the gallery itself. So I'm really excited to have this opportunity. This exhibition is in honor of a hundred years of women's suffrage in 2020. So it's loosely defined as this idea of how do we champion this idea? How do we celebrate this idea, but also how do we think about it in a museum setting in 2019? And we as a museum decided to look inward, to look at our own collection, our own collecting practices. Speaker 3 (00:02:11): So what we have is a collection show. It speaks volumes about the curator's past and present who've worked here, but it also speaks to the representation or the lack thereof of women artists in museum collections with ours as sort of the focal point. But it's a national and an international dialogue that a lot of institutions are having. So it provided us the opportunity to bring together a group of artists who were really change makers, who were innovators in their field. And that's where this idea of breaking boundaries comes from, that artists who had to push a boulder uphill who had to do things significantly differently than others, and who broke boundaries, whether it was through their biography or the works that they created. So I want all of you, when you're in the exhibition and thinking about it, to think critically about the works on display, to think about the conversations that you see across. Speaker 3 (00:02:59): So we have historic and contemporary works together. I kept on referring to it as juxtapositions before I hung the show. And then when I'm in there, I'm like, no, these are conversations. These are actually speaking so much more than I could have ever dreamed that they would. So it's wonderful to see that come together. It's part of a larger initiative. Artway is power of her. So in collaboration with many arts organizations in the greater Cincinnati region, many organizations have championed the role of women in the arts for this year. So it's wonderful to be a part of that. Today's panel provides a forum, as I said, to delve into some of these ideas. So I'm going to give very, very brief introductions and then go take my seat and ask maybe one, two questions. And I think they're just going to take it over because since they've met at the back, they haven't stopped talking. Speaker 3 (00:03:45): So we're cool to start. Catherine Garett in the center here. I dunno if you can raise your hand. Catherine Garett is a 21st century renaissance woman. She's hospitable, artistic, and civic. She's an accomplished entrepreneur or versatile performing and craft artist and a fifth generation needle crafter. Catherine is a proud and active resident of Walnut Hills, so our neighborhood here at the museum as well. She's the past board chair of the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation and the past and current president of the Walnut Hills Area Council, Amanda Carreri. So our next panelist is an artist and educator currently living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her interdisciplinary practice aims to create conversations between artworks viewers and within actual and constructed feminist radical and queer hyster ies. She's a visiting artist at the University of New Mexico for this academic year, as well as assistant professor of interdisciplinary art at dap, her participatory project, the Women's Suffrage Mobile Garment Rack is on view in the exhibition upstairs. Speaker 3 (00:04:50): And I hope all of you got a chance to experience that. Meg Ruel sitting here is a curator and producer of exhibitions, artist projects and public programmings. In the research university context. She approaches her work within institutions as both an artist and collaborator. Meg currently oversees arts initiatives at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University where she organizes contemporary art projects and exhibitions. Our final panelist, TT Stern NZ, is a Cincinnati based film critic and artistic director of the Over the Rhine International Film Festival. Held earlier this month, the 2019 O T R Film Festival, featured more than 79 films across 15 venues in the city's downtown core. His work as an arts programmer seeks to create space for broader dialogues when thinking about diversity and inclusion, dealing with gender and race, but also disability and questioning bias. The film festival has committed to become 50 50 in 2020, pardon me, as I awkwardly walk across the stage. Speaker 3 (00:05:53): So the panel discussion today, I needed to give it a title before I'd really thought through what I was going to do. So I called it How can we champion the role of Women in the arts? And that's big. That's really big, and I know that. So there's a lot of different avenues we can come to it. But I want to start talking about education. And Catherine, I'm going to start with you. I think you and I talked briefly in advance about how we need to change the conversation when it comes to teaching the arts in school. And I think that's a really great starting point for this talk. Speaker 2 (00:06:23): There's two ways that the arts are looked, the arts looked at for the sake of arts and art for the sake of education. And I think that they are all intertwined, that they mold Speaker 3 (00:06:35): Who people are. Speaker 2 (00:06:36): So the arts gives you the ability to find your voice, whether that voice is, and in my case, doing needle work or the painters or a sculptor, that it's your voice that you get to express. And if we aren't looking at it from an educational perspective, then we are doing ourselves a disservice to the future generation, such as, I personally believe that the lack of arts in our schools from a young age is that we know that Maria Montessori taught needlepoint as a way for hand-eye coordination. We know that cursive, which if you think of calligraphers, that is a way that the critical thinking is missed from that. So the arts are used in so many different ways to be fundamentally who we are as adults being successful in the world. Speaker 3 (00:07:22): Great. And then from a university standpoint, either Amanda or Meg, could you guys talk about this idea of how to champion that, the education of, Speaker 2 (00:07:29): I mean, that's the struggle, especially in contemporary capitalism, speaking from a university Speaker 3 (00:07:35): Sort Speaker 2 (00:07:35): Of centered experience for myself, Megan and I were briefly talking though about what one does under an umbrella and just, yeah, there are the power structures and there are the sort of restrictions, but what we can do, would you guys indulge me? Can we Speaker 3 (00:07:56): Just hold hands Speaker 2 (00:07:57): Literally in a moment, changing a dialogue or looking at people Speaker 3 (00:08:01): In the eyes Speaker 2 (00:08:02): And what you can do in a classroom that it only makes sense for me to start from grassroots solutions and making friendships, making neighbors, and it sounds simple, but it actually is difficult and I'm really excited starting there. There's way more complex ways of speaking about education. I'm interested in radical pedagogy and this fits right into that. And how we use language and teaching students to bring their own idiosyncratic languages, ancestral languages into the classroom. And so we can bring identity into the conversation while we understand the worlds around us. And for me, art is a part of that. Art is a way of knowing the world. Art is a form of communication. So thinking about how it might be understood outside of artistic practitioners like Spanish, like French, like an actual tool and methodology for making meaning for communicating across differences, similarities and towards new freedom. And I can speak to that Speaker 4 (00:09:08): In some ways too, in that the work that I do has always been in the research university, now currently at Harvard and before that at M I t. And the work that I do with artists is often not within where I try to make artists come together with scientists or social scientists or different disciplines. And approaching an artwork is in some ways a beautiful way to do what you're talking about, which is people coming together and allows for discovery and shared space in a way that having a mathematician speak with a humanist can sometimes be very complicated. And oftentimes my role is actually to be a host and to be kind of a bridge, and it's a really special and privileged place to be, but I could not do that unless there wasn't artwork or an object to hold everybody's gaze together. And also, I feel like art is mysterious and allows for many, many interpretations. And so that mysteriousness actually holds, I work with very high level academics and it allows them to understand that they in fact don't know Speaker 2 (00:10:32): All of the world Speaker 4 (00:10:34): And that there is a moment where the rest of the world can rush in. And I think that that is really a special Speaker 2 (00:10:43): Thing Speaker 4 (00:10:44): And that there needs to be space for that. It Speaker 2 (00:10:46): Needs to Speaker 4 (00:10:46): Be more of that. Yes, Speaker 2 (00:10:49): Interesting hearing everyone else kind Speaker 5 (00:10:50): Of talk about this because I, as a film critic, not necessarily as a programmer, but as a critic, I have spent the last five or six years going on the classrooms doing afterschool programming, working with sixth, seventh, eighth grade, which at first I was a little concerned about going into classrooms with kids that age because I was kind of like, well, am I going to have interesting conversations with 'em? I kind of wanted to go to high school. I thought they would be more mature approaches to things. But what I've learned and what's really kind of fun, it's the idea that when you catch those sixth graders before they have built up their walls and they're concern about being cool and worrying about what they're going to say and whether other people in the room are going to judge them for what they say, that's when you catch them when they're speaking freely and are in touch with themselves and their feelings about what they're seeing. So I come in and I bring films, whether they're short films or longer pieces or commercials or whatever we're working on that day. And there's an openness and also an understanding because again, we live in a world now where we all are walking around with smartphones. We have computers and iPads and all of these screens and things streaming at us, which means that kids are more familiar, especially with film as an art form, Speaker 5 (00:12:10): Because I mean, I feel weird saying this in this space, but the reason why I'm here to a certain extent is because I believe film is the most democratic art form that we have accessibility and the way that we can come to it without necessarily having to be as prepared Speaker 5 (00:12:28): And educate it. So you can come watch something and you can respond to what you're seeing and kind of do that on your own. So I'm just giving students a greater opportunity to express their own feelings about it. And yeah, we need more of that because in the same way, and I tell students all the time, if you can break down a film and your reaction to that film, the same skills and techniques that you're using for that you're going to use to solve a quadratic equation or look at a chemical compound or evaluate history, which yes, that means that the fact that we don't have that on an ongoing daily basis in schools is a huge problem that we are creating for ourselves and for that next generation. And Speaker 3 (00:13:10): That you're doing it in after school, not during the school day, Speaker 6 (00:13:13): Which I think sends message, which is the other issue when it comes to arts education today is that yes, you can do art in the school, but it has to be before school or after school, but not during the school day when we know that the arts certainly can, and there are many that I know in this room that when there's the opportunity to go in during the day that you are teaching math, that you are teaching science, that you are teaching language arts, that you're giving vocabulary, all the skills that you need to be a person being productive in the world you are doing, we get to do that through the arts. Speaker 3 (00:13:52): Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think a lot of these ideas, these critical skills, the development of critical skills, communication, creating communication and dialogue and teaching people how to do that, and I think a lot of those things, discovery through film, through different arts, a lot of them are sort of embodied in your work, Amanda too in the gallery, this idea of we have these great grand ideas written through traditional museum interpretive avenues. We've got our labels, we've got our placement, we've got all this stuff, and then we have a piece that's trying to disrupt that. So how can we use that to our favor and how can we think about the museum's role in this and this idea of championing the arts and what can the museum as the institution be doing a lot? I know, and I'm still a few bumps back in the conversation wanting to add, you brought up everyone's sort of building a vibrant, pulsing Speaker 6 (00:14:47): Idea of Speaker 3 (00:14:48): What art Speaker 6 (00:14:49): Is Speaker 2 (00:14:49): For our youth or for our culture, but also something I think is really important that we haven't touched on. It so often just gets left out because it's not as brain oriented though. It's neurological is spirit and touch and senses. And when we have a president that is so racist and inciting violence every day, what other value than bringing people together to Speaker 4 (00:15:20): Connect Speaker 2 (00:15:20): To your heart and to the feelings that we can't quite deal with alone? So sometimes if you're invited in public, I want to just state that together, right? Violence is in our life and art can address it. I don't know that art can fix it and I don't want to even get into that quagmire of a conversation, but it can help us feel and connect. And so then even to understand the experience. And historically, that's the largest thing that cultures asked for. It asked from it, right? Sacral art and spiritual art. And then schools today are forgetting it or leaving it out. But I think people know that that is still a core value of it. It Speaker 4 (00:16:06): Truly is. I feel the deepest expression of humanity and our particular ability as human animals to process, but also to almost manifest love. And that may be something in an object that may be painful or hold, that sort of thing. But I really, really believe that. And there has been times throughout my career where I'm like, art, huh? Why? It's not useful. And the more that I get into what this administration is doing, the more I realize how use is one thing over here, but humanity is what Speaker 2 (00:16:48): It Speaker 4 (00:16:48): Is. It's a manifestation of our humanity, and we should have children participating in that and knowing that from the beginning of their lives that this is a way Speaker 2 (00:17:00): Through Speaker 4 (00:17:01): And a way of being human. Speaker 2 (00:17:04): So maybe to bring it to museums Speaker 2 (00:17:08): Even that seems significant to me. If I'm invited to take up space in an institution, it's a privilege. I sort of survey what do I personally need and then what does this space, what's missing? What does it need? Where am I aligned with that stuff? And so touch that. The garment piece up there is inviting you to use these senses and hopefully it then somebody next to you sees you sport in a jacket and Oh, you look good. What is that? So then it involves just senses of neighborliness friendship. I'm not speaking so strategically to your question about museums, but just off of this Speaker 3 (00:17:48): Topic, no, and I think it's all coming down to this idea of readdressing, how we're defining these ideas of how we're defining the arts and how we're defining our engagement with them and how we're defining how we're teaching about them. And that I think we're all sort of talking this idea of connection as being a really, really important part of it. And maybe that's being removed to a certain extent. I mean, it's removed. Even when you're taught the arts at different levels in university careers or school careers, you're taught from an academic standpoint, you're saying that this is what's good, this is what's not, and this is what you will never hear about because it's not in the book already. So we're already creating so many limits and boundaries on the way that we're approaching it. Maybe that's where we need to start breaking it up is breaking up the idea of what is art? What is it that we're going to engage with and how we're going to approach it. Speaker 4 (00:18:34): But art can be anything Speaker 3 (00:18:35): Or many things for all of us. So then Speaker 2 (00:18:38): What's Speaker 3 (00:18:38): Value, what's valuable? And capitalism Speaker 2 (00:18:41): Thinks of it one way, but what's value? Speaker 3 (00:18:44): And then I think that's like you've already spoken to that with film. You're like, it's democratic. And then Speaker 2 (00:18:50): We each can bring value into an institution where it's lacking though institutions are these Speaker 4 (00:18:56): Visionary Speaker 2 (00:18:57): Cultural Speaker 3 (00:18:58): Things Speaker 2 (00:18:59): That are Speaker 4 (00:19:00): Empty for Speaker 2 (00:19:01): The people that are living right now to Speaker 4 (00:19:03): Reassess value, right? Speaker 2 (00:19:05): Libraries, schools, Speaker 3 (00:19:07): Museums can be good Speaker 4 (00:19:10): If the Speaker 2 (00:19:10): People Speaker 3 (00:19:11): Take them to task. Speaker 4 (00:19:12): I really, so when I organized an exhibition with an artist, because I come from being an artist and my father was an artist, and this really resonates with me is like, how am I able to even have these ideas? And it's because I was a kid and I always had just the stuff around the house to do the thing, and I always did the thing. And then I went to art school and continued doing the thing. And so the practice got bigger and bigger, but there had never been a break about in thank heavens. And my father was also an art teacher. And so my experience of being an artist has just gotten more and more bigger and bigger. And then I suddenly got an opportunity to curate. And when I started curating, I basically was like, well, here's this box. Let me support you putting whatever you want to do in there with the institutional constraints. And now I think of my work in fact as institution building because if I have, even though it's a teeny piece, my job is within an institute of advanced study. It's not an art, art-focused institution. But then here's comes a gallery that is in the archive called the Lesinger Archive of Women in America. And I'm like, oh, here's another Speaker 4 (00:20:25): Little piece that I can influence in my small way, and that the institution that I work in is enormous and very old for an American institution and has all of the troubles inside of it. But there are these places that I can build institutionally. Where's the budget going to go for? Who is going to make the decision on the color that we're going to use in the gallery? What kind of text materials are we going to do? These are very, in some ways could be very boring things to do, but if you have the opportunity to see yourself as an institution builder, it's like, I wouldn't say what I'm doing is radical in any way. It's just shifting the view from being Harvard to being like, what is the way that we can push these needles in our decision making? And I asked you, Titi, how did you go into the work that you were doing with a film festival in order to do more inclusion in your, because I wanted to see what choices you could make. And you said that you had gone towards being with somebody who's in a wheelchair and watching them use the spaces, Speaker 5 (00:21:44): Right? I mean, Speaker 4 (00:21:45): And that's just a tiny piece, Speaker 5 (00:21:48): But for me it actually goes even further back than that. Again, it goes back to this idea of defining art because as a critic, I've been writing for City Beat for 20 years now. I've been here for 20 years. So I've been writing for City Beat the whole time I've been here, which is mind boggling me that and doing it. But I never saw what I did as a critic, as artistic. It was sort of an evaluation of someone else's work. It took, I guess about six years ago getting an Ohio Arts Council grant for one of their individual excellence awards and criticism for me to stop to think, well, wait a minute. As a critic, you can be an artist too. And I kind of had to figure out and define that for myself. And what I did was said, okay, well, I look at criticism kind of like hip hop producers, look at what they're doing. I'm able to take that piece in front of me and my reaction to it and say, well, wait a minute. That piece may remind me of Hitchcock over here, or F Scott Fitzgerald or Jean-Michel Basquiat. Then as I'm sort of weaving all of those pieces together in order to talk about this thing in front of me, I'm creating another thing. Speaker 4 (00:23:10): Yeah, new narratives Speaker 5 (00:23:11): Out of that. So that comes you using form this piece. But the great thing is then I could take that and show that to kids in the classroom and say, Hey, this is what you can do Speaker 4 (00:23:20): With Speaker 5 (00:23:21): Words and with ideas and with all these things that you're experiencing. So it doesn't have to just limit you to just the piece in front of you. Speaker 4 (00:23:28): That Speaker 5 (00:23:28): Piece in front of you is just the starting point for you to then kind of dance around it and pick and play and figure out what it is. So that became criticism and how I approached and could teach criticism to students. But in the same way, it's also, I work as a curator now too. I'm looking at the schedule as a whole and sort of saying, well, what am I piecing together? What kinds of conversations do I want to start? Where is this going to go? Who are we going to expose or a spotlight or open up the opportunity for an audience to look at and see a different reflection of themselves in that piece? And you're right, yeah, it did start last year at the beginning, sort of that first phase of the first year of this rebranding of the festival to go around with the person in a wheelchair to understand what the spaces were going to be like. How are we going to make sure that everyone was going to have an accessible space that they could come into? Because if you can do that, or I guess in theory if you can't do that, then you can't even get to the reflection that I'm hoping to provide. Oh, Speaker 3 (00:24:39): Yes, absolutely. Speaker 5 (00:24:40): So you do. You have to open the space up. But once, Speaker 3 (00:24:42): And that happens in these museums in ways that are so implicit that many of us know in different ways. Speaker 5 (00:24:49): I didn't Speaker 3 (00:24:49): Mean to interrupt. Speaker 5 (00:24:50): I Speaker 3 (00:24:50): Just got excited. Speaker 5 (00:24:51): That is Then again, once I recognized that, then the rest of the programming got easier. Speaker 3 (00:24:58): That representation in your programming needs to be exactly at the same as resourcing for that the museum, and you have to provide the resources. You can't just put on the program and then the resourcing has to remain as constant. You can't just be like, okay, we took care of that through representation. We took care of that resourcing. That just does not Speaker 6 (00:25:23): Work. That's inauthentic Speaker 3 (00:25:25): And it doesn't serve anybody, and it doesn't push forward probably the mission of your institution. Speaker 6 (00:25:32): I'll speak to going back to this institution, my work isn't considered fine art. Speaker 3 (00:25:39): And when it's not considered similar, Speaker 6 (00:25:41): When it's not considered fine art, then does it belong in the museum and who's making these choices and why? It's common, it's everyday usage, and yet some of the most beautiful historical traditions are the textile traditions that are museum worthy pieces around the world. Speaker 3 (00:26:04): Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that's so important too, is this idea of redefinition of art itself, but also of museum collections and where resources are going. Absolutely. And we were talking earlier about in the exhibition how we have the sampler next to the Carrie Mary Weems photography next to the Coco Chanel and how there's this tactile quality that's coming to the surface because we're having these things in conversation with each other, things that wouldn't typically be in conversation, be in the same room or always in Speaker 6 (00:26:30): Museum settings. Speaker 3 (00:26:31): So we're having all of those conversations Speaker 6 (00:26:33): At once, which Speaker 3 (00:26:33): Is great, and by not defining it as fine art, the work that you do, but also the traditions that you come from are sublimated. It's not right. Speaker 6 (00:26:47): But I'll tell you, I wear the symbolist civic responsibility every day Speaker 3 (00:26:52): Because Speaker 6 (00:26:52): Of our Speaker 3 (00:26:53): Young man at Speaker 6 (00:26:55): 1600 because it's important. The symbolism of traditional societies have purpose. They are not just symbols for the sake of symbols. There is a meaning there that has an impact on culture, on the soul of people when you Speaker 3 (00:27:13): Have Speaker 6 (00:27:13): It there. Speaker 3 (00:27:15): So I'm both excited and depressed in some ways. We've gotten really far away from gender and representation and self-identified women artists, and that's exciting to me because it says this is a huge conversation and we can't be having them in isolation. That's really important. That's something that I want to push forward with this show is that it's not one identity replacing another, it's everyone in conversation with each other. So we're starting that, but the depression kicks in. When I think about is the system so broken that we actually have to start from redefining everything of what art is and how it gets functioned? Or is it a good thing? I'm just ask questions. You can, I feel you need to pat on the back. Speaker 7 (00:28:05): You're doing it well, actually, Speaker 3 (00:28:08): I'm inspired by you because you are doing it because as far as I could tell about the internet that you had, Speaker 7 (00:28:16): That you are collecting Speaker 3 (00:28:18): Actively towards that Speaker 7 (00:28:21): Deficit. Speaker 3 (00:28:22): Yes. And that Speaker 7 (00:28:24): You are dreaming into that deficit and you are using your institutional, the Speaker 3 (00:28:29): Things that you are allowed Speaker 7 (00:28:30): To, you Speaker 3 (00:28:31): Can touch. You are dreaming into Speaker 7 (00:28:33): That and then making that a reality. Speaker 3 (00:28:35): So yes, depressing on a whole, but no, Speaker 3 (00:28:40): Because you have provided an example that has inspired me, that makes me think, okay, I'm going to keep working on my paint colors and my texts. That is what it requires. I think, yes, those, that incremental movements forward, that institutions have been made over time and they do carry their colonialist histories, but they're also not organisms themselves. They are something that we make every day and that in the ways that we can, we well, but we need those pipelines. We need the education. We need to create the civic body that can or sustain a civic body that can allow for those openings. Speaking of openings, any question? We have a hand mic. We'll bring it around. Speaker 7 (00:29:30): I wonder if each of you could talk about language that's used, especially with children commenting on their clothing, their work of art, their hair, instead of saying, oh, I like that. No, there are many more ways of talking about the process. Oh, you really were concentrating. I could see you were taking time to pick colors you really like, can you talk about that Speaker 5 (00:30:11): Language children? I was going to say, I guess I can sort of start with that, and again, it's a little different in some ways because what I do is all about language, but I approach it in a slightly different way because again, criticism to me there is definitely a need to evaluate the technique that you're seeing before you, but necessarily, I don't really want sixth, seventh, and eighth graders to get so focused on film technique. Speaker 5 (00:30:48): Again, for me, it's more kind of like how are you feeling or understanding what you're seeing and what it's doing to you, how it's affecting you. And in that way, one of the things that I focus on with, I guess it's language, but also just again, your sense of how the work is moving you is, and I'm kind of weird to admit this, but I've always been sort of a geeky film guy. I was raised by a single parent. My mother took me to movies a lot when I was a kid. So I started out going to the movies with my mother and finding friends who were interested in film too, and that became the community that I was in. But we also played Dungeons and Dragons. I'm basically Stranger Things is kind of like my life in the eighties. So I've got all of that stuff going on, and when I step in front of a classroom full of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders who again, are not worried about impressing each other or anyone else in the room, oddly enough, they're worried about trying to impress me. Speaker 5 (00:32:06): And I always tell 'em like, Hey, you know what? You've already impressed me because you're in the room in the first place. You were here. You were committed to this idea of wanting to explore this stuff that I'm going to throw up on the screen that you're going to watch and you're going to talk about. So it, you've won me over already, so let's just do this together. I let them understand that they can be as geeky and excited about this as I am. When you do it at that level, then I don't have to worry about the rest of the language because again, it just opens up a forum where they feel comfortable sort of saying, well, here's what I see in this. Here's what I'm feeling about it. And we just let all those thoughts and visions and feelings kind of live together. And maybe I've been really lucky, but that's been enough to get a good start and I'm proud of them for going on that journey with me. Speaker 2 (00:33:12): I wrote, oh, Speaker 4 (00:33:13): I might respond really Speaker 2 (00:33:14): Briefly to that. Sure. And then Russell, Speaker 4 (00:33:16): Our next question is here in the front row as well. In the red, Speaker 2 (00:33:19): I wrote down sort of language. You said language, language is like a key towards freedom, how we use it, how we rearrange it. Then structure is part of language and rules are part of language. And I know you're speaking about children, but I thought, oh, I've learned from other teachers traditions of teaching to lead with questions with children. Speaker 2 (00:33:43): And sometimes as adults, we look, children are distance away from our adult selves, and so we can learn from talking about children, but we need to apply this to ourselves as adults as well. Anything we talk about. But so structure rules lead to language. Language is just a set of agreements that we rearrange poetry. It is pretty easy to think about. There were rules that were passed on from ages and different rules and different cultures, but it gets exciting when you break rules, when you rearrange them. And James Baldwin kind of would lead his public addresses in the sixties and seventies, often as propositions. He, I'm interested in looking at Speaker 4 (00:34:32): How Speaker 2 (00:34:34): Evocative communicators work, what their structures are and how they work. So his structures were about propositions. He'd be like, what if Speaker 4 (00:34:47): We Speaker 2 (00:34:47): Today think this through? What if it's different than what you're saying, but I responded to with children, I find it super effective to deal in questions. Then you get this world. Don't say, what is Speaker 4 (00:35:01): That? Right? Speaker 2 (00:35:03): But also what is that Speaker 4 (00:35:06): Communication is more than the words. It's gesture. Yeah, I use, what do you see and what makes you say that? Which is a typical museum educator prompt. Speaker 2 (00:35:16): But I started Speaker 4 (00:35:17): Using that at all moments for all people, and I was like, Ooh, same. Everybody turned into a child and I'm comfortable with hanging out with, I got one. I'm a partner in wonder. There's no expertise here. What do you see and what makes you say that? And then follow a Speaker 6 (00:35:37): Conversation Speaker 8 (00:35:38): Versus Speaker 6 (00:35:39): This is what this thing is. I'd say that everything that's been said is true, but it's being authentic. If you show up inauthentic when you are looking at a young person, they're going to sense that immediately. So whatever follows after that is going to be dismissed. It's being true to who you are and authentic. When you're having a conversation with a child, even as it is true, as an adult, Speaker 2 (00:36:06): You could play music and response. You could dance in response to what you see Speaker 6 (00:36:10): A child do. That's the best art that Speaker 2 (00:36:12): Makes you dance in front of it. Questions that they have to explain Speaker 6 (00:36:18): Themselves. Well, the questions don't necessarily mean that they're explaining themselves. It can be that they are interpreting an interpretation and explaining are two different things. You can ask a question about that glass of water, and all of us could have a different perspective because they're looking at this classroom here, they're looking at that glass from there. So it could be the same question with hundreds of different answers. Speaker 8 (00:36:46): Hi, have my child also here. I just want to say thank you for y'all showing up today. My question goes back to the, you said institution builder, I believe, in regards to roles with women. I guess how do you address the juxtaposition of being an institution builder, but understanding that the institutions that we're working within are often oppressive? Because if you want to be an institution builder, is it that institutions are inherently oppressive or can, like you said, do we have to start at the bottom again and redefine in order to build up? But how is women, how do you all take on that role and resolve that conflict? Speaker 2 (00:37:32): This Speaker 6 (00:37:32): Is a really good Yep. Question. Thank you for it. Go. A woman not working in an institution Speaker 2 (00:37:46): I can throw down, Speaker 6 (00:37:50): It's having people within institutions that are not afraid of being disruptors. When we think of big business today, it's the disruptors that are causing the businesses to have great fights. And it's going to be the same in the institutions like yourself who are disrupting the norm. And sometimes disruptors are in front and in your face, and sometimes the disruptors are very quiet. And it's not until you know that it's happened that you go, wait, when did that happen? Yeah. So both, there is no one right way to be a disruptor, Speaker 2 (00:38:31): And we're not alone either in that sort of struggle. So it's finding your people and finding new people. There's this great book, I've got my students reading it and chewing on it. It's called the Under Commons Fred Moten critical black theorist poet. And he is taking on the university system, but from within, right? If you're naturally inclined towards education and learning, it doesn't mean you can't got to leave. Where that beautiful thing happens, you just find the other people in it. And there are arguments is at the threshold of self-explanatory, the under commons. There are many lives within institutions, and I don't know, sometimes things are private as a queer feminist, queer histories are not all public. Some of our stories are here and some are here, and there's strength in that. And so this idea of the under commons though is connecting the misfits in the institutions that are ready to do work and take on this idea of debt also in this country and in universities, both in Speaker 4 (00:39:53): Terms Speaker 2 (00:39:54): Of racism and slavery Speaker 4 (00:39:56): That can't be Speaker 2 (00:39:56): Repaid. And then so how do we all come together educated in the face of that? I don't know, right? Speaker 4 (00:40:05): Sorry for speaking over you, but I also want to acknowledge how hard it is to actually even get a footing in an institution. I realize that I have a lot of privilege to be able to get in there, but I'm in these really, really big institutions, and I didn't come from there and I didn't have some of the privileges. But then I really definitely do have particular privileges. And that creating the people who are inside have to create a mentorship structure, I believe. And I think that this is different than if we're speaking about gender different than a patriarchal structure, but one that is a feminist mentorship and opening lines is very much required because that understory, I think that cannot happen anymore. We cannot have these two things coexisting that we have to actually push through that patriarchal problem. It's not enough. It's not enough. And I also very much appreciate this disruptors idea, but we cannot just use understory and disruption. We have to bring those two things together in order to make institutions truly representative Speaker 2 (00:41:33): Of the people. And it's hard for Speaker 3 (00:41:37): So many reasons. It's hard Speaker 2 (00:41:40): And painful. It's literally, yes. Speaker 3 (00:41:42): Yeah. Speaker 9 (00:41:43): In terms of museums relating to the public, what is the museum doing to support local living, female artists and underrepresented artists locally? And is the museum collecting locally? Speaker 3 (00:42:02): Absolutely. I mean, so this institution in particular, we are collecting local artists. We are collecting female artists, minority artists, probably not in the numbers that we should, of course, but speaking to this idea of disruption, this idea of working within the institution, this exhibition is an opportunity to be transparent about that, right? I've got the numbers on the wall and our percentages of female artists, and I feel like this is the catalyst for change. This is the moment where we are disrupting that narrative and then building upon it is the dream and hope and everything. But yeah, I mean, museums move at a glacial pace and we're not where we should be, and we are not as nimble and responsive as we should be to our local community or our national communities. And that's something that we really need to process and deal with. My own areas are very specific, right? I'm collecting the realms of South Asian and Islamic art, so I've got minorities, I got that for you, but they're not always local. So I feel like we are making strides and we need to be really transparent and clear and continue doing those. I'm not going to say we're there yet. Can I speak to Ainsley's Speaker 2 (00:43:18): Openness Speaker 3 (00:43:19): And Speaker 2 (00:43:21): Engagement with our partnership in one of maybe Are there other local artists in this show? In the show? I'm one of the local artists in the show. It's Speaker 3 (00:43:32): A Speaker 2 (00:43:33): New work. It's not in the collection, and we invented a way to do that that was pretty strategic, Speaker 3 (00:43:39): And Speaker 2 (00:43:43): It is an engagement tool. So I think it's not Speaker 3 (00:43:47): A Speaker 2 (00:43:48): Collected artwork, it's not sitting in the collection, but how do you have what you're talking about? And we thought about that and talked about that Speaker 3 (00:43:54): And Speaker 2 (00:43:55): Had to problematize how to make it happen. And this was one of the moves you Speaker 3 (00:44:00): Made Speaker 2 (00:44:00): Was to have many conversations. We sort of spoke about this too, this work. I think one of the things you kind of sign off on is having just extra conversations, like making change involves having lots of coffees and tea and dinner and breakfast and talking. So we had a lot of meeting and talking and brought in some other budget areas that are invested in the same ideas, but weren't just explicitly about women Speaker 6 (00:44:32): And Speaker 2 (00:44:34): The collection, preexisting collection. Is that okay to talk about that? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I don't think things happen if you just go through echoing sort of proper channels, Speaker 6 (00:44:48): Invent stuff. I will also say that when Ainsley was introducing, she said, this museum is located in Walnut Hills. That itself is a change for this museum because there is a ism about being from Walnut Hills, even though this is up on the hill. And in many times in the past when I've been in this facility, it would be that we're part of Mount Adams. No, you're not. You're part of Wanted Hills. And so for the museum to consciously make that change is a change of move and recognition. Speaker 2 (00:45:27): Don't give up on us yet. Speaker 6 (00:45:30): Yes. Speaker 10 (00:45:31): I had a question that I felt wasn't really addressed from the educational point of view. And how does nature play a role in terms of education? We talk a lot about the concrete jungle, our connection to ourselves and cultures, but if you look at art that goes way back, there was that intrinsic technology, the connection between plants, earth, water, taking kids out in nature and having them create in that environment. I mean, it goes way back through our ancestral lines. How important do you think that is? I guess that's my question. So if you Speaker 6 (00:46:06): Follow me on Facebook, you find me stitching in public a lot because I do believe that it's important that you do that, that you get out and not only for the sake of not being in your traditional place, but also it's a way for others to become curious as to what your art form is. I know Ainsley would speak to us, but part of the construction that's going on in the museum is actually the art cubes that will be on the hill that is there. I know at our local school, neighborhood school at Douglas, we have a garden that's right across the street from the school. And the kids, not only are they gardening, but they're also doing their science in the garden and the art teacher takes them out into the garden. Oh, that's great. Speaker 10 (00:47:01): I believe that's one way to kind of leeway into your authentic voice. If we are really talking about art being about authenticity, it's also sacred. There are sacred roots that go way back and we tap into those, whether we're aware of it or not, on an unconscious level. I just wanted a question about that. What I thought was very interesting when we were talking about working with children, one of, I think the big things to remember is Speaker 11 (00:47:30): That no answer is wrong. I think that's very, very important because I think sometimes when adults ask children leading questions, they're really expecting sometimes to hear what they want to hear back and not necessarily where the child is, is thinking or feeling, and it shuts the kid down, it shuts the kids down. I've seen that often. It's happened with my daughter who was an artist, and it shut her down and she backed away from doing Speaker 2 (00:47:59): That. I will, I agree 90% of the time, but I know that you're a dancer answer. Speaker 11 (00:48:06): I'm also a writer, Speaker 2 (00:48:07): And there are, I'm going to speak to the dance aspect of it, that there are certain art forms that it will be a AA for thousands of years because that is the history of it. When I think of, I'm a percussionist as well, and the percussion that we do comes from Africa, Brazil, and the Caribbean. And if we are not teaching those rhythms, then we are not being true to the foundation. So while you can be creative when you're doing your improvisational, the foundation at times must be exactly what it is at all times. And that goes back to your question about language structure and rules and choosing and knowing how to be a practitioner. Yeah. Speaker 12 (00:48:54): Yes. As an educator, I'm concerned about the scarcity of images of women making art. I taught an intro to art history class textbook of about a thousand pages and maybe half a dozen women. And a lot of the institutions like Harvard University Press and Yale University Press are all male institutions. And so they only tell his story. It's not an accident that it's his story, not her history. So I'm wondering what we can do to address that because women need role models. They need to see that there's a long history of women who have made art. Speaker 2 (00:49:31): There is a crew of new art historians coming up that are redoing those books. They're out, they're in stores, in libraries. So just look or ask other teachers. It is changing and people are doing a lot of work and have been doing work for generations to make these books happen. But they're hitting and it's already making a difference where students are telling teachers to learn their shit. So it's changing. It is terrible, but people have been on it and the repercussions are being seen and yeah, I'm psyched about that, obviously. So who's publishing these books? I mean, get me going, but initially it's independent publishers, right? Because you don't need a team of finances or, so it starts in magazines. Your radical are showing up as low paid critics and then going through programs. And it also happens in curation. If we look at the new museum in New York, it was started by Marsha Tucker, who's this radical woman dancer curator, but she got kicked out of the, Whitney started her own museum because of the problems you're bringing up and has influenced the Bard curatorial program infinitely to create all of these new different types of curators. Speaker 2 (00:51:01): Steven Matisia was from that program, the form of c a c curator and write independent publishing shows, the catalogs for the shows, and then people catch on because it's not a bad idea. Everybody has a mom. Speaker 3 (00:51:20): And then, Speaker 2 (00:51:20): Yeah, I don't know, but it's independent publishing, independent financing, finding the people that will support change. Speaker 3 (00:51:28): I really feel like it's coming up now Speaker 2 (00:51:31): And Speaker 3 (00:51:31): Then it's taking a long time for those Speaker 2 (00:51:35): Older Speaker 3 (00:51:35): Publications to either go away or for us to pay attention to Speaker 2 (00:51:41): These Speaker 3 (00:51:42): Women who are coming up. There's a book in our gift shop that I sourced for the show, and I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember it exactly, but it's called, I think the big Book of Art Now with Women, it's Happening. Speaker 5 (00:51:58): I would also add even on the curation side, in terms of festivals you mentioned from the start, I mean, our managing director literally at the start of this year's prep for the 2019 festival when most of the other major festivals were starting to sign on to the idea of making sure that we were all 50 50 by 2020, we signed up for that as well. And I think part of what has to happen on this side of things in terms of exhibition and festivals is just you set up more opportunities for a director series, a writer series, producer series. There are so many ways and places where we've had voices that have not been recognized at all that are now going to have those opportunities to be introduced to audiences in different ways. And I'm actually kind of excited too, and this is a small, intimate enough group that we can hopefully all keep this to ourselves. But one of the things that I want to do for Speaker 5 (00:53:10): The film festival for 2020, besides all of these initiatives that I've just mentioned, is I've already started talking to an artist in Toronto. I go to the Toronto Film Festival every year. I've spoken with her. She's had her work featured in films. She actually, instead of using music, sometimes when she's working, she actually plays films that she uses as inspiration for her work. And I want her to come in as a juror, but not only come in as a juror for our film festival. I want to make sure that we find a gallery or a museum here that's willing to say, well, hey, since you're coming in for the film festival, let's bring some of your work in too. And again, she's not a filmmaker, but there are going to be different ways that we can connect with artists across the spectrum Speaker 2 (00:54:04): That's cool. Speaker 5 (00:54:05): And have those connections come in a meaningful way so that we can all kind of participate and experience that. So again, that's kind of one of those exciting pieces that I see so many festivals that are thinking about this in the right way. And yet unfortunately, I see so many that are not either thinking about making these kinds of pledges, or to be quite honest, not even all that concerned about the representation and what that might mean. They are simply still kind of saying, well, we're going to do things the way we've been doing and it's worked for us for 50, 60, 70 years. It'll be fine. It'll continue. And I think there's a responsibility not just on this side, but there's a responsibility for the audience too. Speaker 2 (00:54:57): I'm glad you're there. Speaker 5 (00:54:58): You as an audience, you have just as much power to be able to say, well, I'm not going to go check that out. I don't feel that I'm seeing myself in that way. Or you can go check it out and see that you're not represented in that way. And you can go to the organizers and say, why am I not represented? Speaker 2 (00:55:16): And it helps that your neighbor, it helps the next person. It helps you, whether it's wage equity, representation, all of it. And if we all say something and do something or don't say no where you have to commit to each other Speaker 5 (00:55:35): To Speaker 2 (00:55:36): Also do that because sort of my action of saying no to a certain thing falls flat if three other people say yes. Right? So I love that you brought that up. Speaker 5 (00:55:46): And it's meaningful too. And again, like I said, our festival did not have a problem at all with the idea of signing on to 50 50 by 2020, but literally last week after our festival, we've already started talking about 2020. Anyway, I was hoping we were going to have more time to rest and clear our heads and whatever. But you start moving right away. And one of the issues that I personally see is, again, because our festival started out as real abilities, we still have a real strong need to represent that community as well. And we are still, in terms of marginalized groups, women, people of color, the L G B T Q community, we're all somewhere at a particular stage of breaking through and letting people understand that we want to be represented. We want to be able to tell our own stories, but unfortunately, the disability community is still much further behind in trying to figure that out. So there's still a lot more work that has to be done that I'm still kind of like, well, 50 by 50, 50 by 2020 is great, but how can we make sure that we don't leave other groups behind as we're making those pushes? Speaker 5 (00:57:08): How can we make sure that we are all kind of allied together to make sure that we bring everyone up Speaker 13 (00:57:16): At the Speaker 5 (00:57:16): Same time? And again, Speaker 13 (00:57:19): That's the Speaker 5 (00:57:19): Opportunity. As a black man sitting here now, I'm kind of like, yeah, I struggle with how can I be the best ally I can be across the board Being here today hopefully is part of that, making sure that our spaces are accessible as a part of that, thinking about language and how we deal with identity across the board as a part of that. But again, we just all need to make sure that we understand that we all have a particular place where we all start from. But yeah, you have to make sure that you're catching up with everybody else too, and that we're all kind of making those moves together. Speaker 14 (00:58:07): Thank you. I had a whole bunch of thoughts, which I'm going to let them all go by except for one. I thought it was really interesting that in a conversation titled, how Do We Champion the Role of Women in the Arts? Gender didn't get raised really until a question raised it, and it meant that you were all talking about art and perception and responsibility and language and stuff. And maybe that was a kind of step forward where it wasn't foremost in the discussion, but it was underlined the discussion all the time. But what I do want to say is when I heard that the show was going to be pulled from the collection, I didn't have the highest expectations for it because I thought it might reveal more absence than presence in some ways. And I was really pleased. I think it's an really excellent exhibition. You did a great job, and I certainly learned some stuff that I didn't know, and that was really, that's always good when that happens. Speaker 13 (00:59:18): That's the dream. Yeah. Speaker 14 (00:59:19): Thank you. Speaker 13 (00:59:20): Thank you Speaker 2 (00:59:26): For one last question. I just need to say, I have encountered people saying, oh, we're post gender, we're post race. And I just want to say in that moment, I don't mean to misinterpret what you're saying, but we are not fucking post anything. And I've been asked many times to be on panels that talk about women's exclusion, and so it's sort of an eye roll, and I live feminism and I want to talk about it and throw it down, but I think there is a natural explanation why you get these people up here and we want to get into each other's brains and each other's practices and the whole person. Yeah. So that's a practice is what we're doing here. Also in that moment, I'm just interjecting for us all the whole, Speaker 15 (01:00:24): I wasn't trying to talk. Speaker 2 (01:00:25): No. Yeah. It's more for all of us, I'm saying, wasn't Speaker 15 (01:00:28): Trying to talk about being closed as much as I was suggesting that there's also something free going on. Speaker 2 (01:00:35): Awesome. I hope So. Speaker 16 (01:00:37): My question is, what would you say would have to be erased from the female artist's mind in order to overcome the supposed barriers or the barriers that we've heard about or the barriers that we feel in arts organizations? I mean, what is it that we have to erase that we're less than Speaker 2 (01:01:01): That? Our whole Speaker 16 (01:01:02): Experience is a benefit to our Speaker 2 (01:01:07): Practice also. Yeah. What we would have to erase the idea. Sometimes there's value in difference, there's infinite value in difference, and it's like the boundaries where we see our difference and the beauty of it. But your question's making me think about how it's productive for me to not just think about the binary of women, male, female, the queer idea of all bodies holding a range of gender identities and learning more about that from different people's expression of that and the freedom that comes from that. Because the cultural understanding of that is changing rapidly, and it, I think has a lot to teach everyone about the limitations of that binary, like male roles, female roles, et cetera. Right? So that's where I went with your question. But Speaker 15 (01:02:11): You've been told that there's been, there's boundaries Speaker 2 (01:02:14): That there's oh hell Speaker 16 (01:02:15): To get into, whatever, and they're in there. So you've got to get rid of that in order just to stand up and go do it or see it, Speaker 6 (01:02:25): Witness it. Speaker 16 (01:02:26): You can't beat yourself Speaker 6 (01:02:27): Up. You got to just see yourself Speaker 16 (01:02:30): And make room for change. Don't believe there's a glass ceiling. Speaker 7 (01:02:34): I mean it, is it a race Speaker 16 (01:02:36): Or is it confront? I don't know if a racing is really what we need to do, but we need to confront, we need to Speaker 7 (01:02:42): Address, Speaker 16 (01:02:42): We need to be transparent, we need to disrupt. Speaker 7 (01:02:45): And that's where Speaker 16 (01:02:45): I sort of see it as that we need to Speaker 7 (01:02:47): Face things. Speaker 6 (01:02:48): For me, one of the best things that was said to me was from my grandfather, and he said, everybody puts their pants on the same way. Everybody, whether you're the c e o of the Fortune 500 company or you're the empty, the garbage can man, everybody puts their pants on the same way. And that's made an impact on me all 58 years. I've been around. Speaker 16 (01:03:25): We have one more question is should this be our actual final question? Okay. This is the real final question. I want to see any other hands up. Okay. Speaker 7 (01:03:33): This is not a question. It's a comment. I've been sitting here and really, really, really enjoying this. But the gentleman's comment, I don't know whether it was really, really, really courageous as I listened to it or really, really, really ignorant because when I heard it, I found it a bit offensive because I wondered whether he really understood the long, long history of how powerful women's art has been for centuries. And to think that he was coming and may not have really seen something and heard something absolutely wonderful. So he was giving a compliment. I mean, I really was shocked by the comment. It was kind of a backhanded compliment, but was it really a bit offensive? I don't know whether I was complimented or offended. Speaker 6 (01:04:45): So I hope that you and he, it's Speaker 7 (01:04:48): Just have a conversation. It's just a thought. I mean, it really increased my blood pressure and my blood pressure was normal when I came. It's just a comment. Speaker 6 (01:05:01): Yet what it has happened is that it's given an opportunity for conversation. For that is when we have conversations and statements are made to us, that hit us a certain way, it hits us a certain way because of our history and the way for us to understand the other perspective is to actually look the other person in the eye, eye to eye and see what that conversation really is. Because you can look disagree with people 99.9% of the time, but there's still that humanity that you get when you look at someone eye to eye. I want to end on that. We're good. Thank you all so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Speaker 1 (01:06:06): Thank you for listening to Art Palace. We hope you'll be inspired to come visit the Cincinnati Art Museum and have conversations about the art yourself. General admission to the museum is always free, and we also offer free parking. Special exhibitions include the Levy, a photographer in the American South, women Breaking Boundaries, and opening October 25th Treasures of the Spanish World. For program reservations and more information, visit cincinnati art museum.org. You can follow the museum on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and also join our Art Palace Facebook group. Our theme song is Fra Mu by Balal, and as always, please rate and review us to help others find the show. I'm Russell, and this has been Art Palace, produced by the Cincinnati Art Museum.