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In this episode we talk about manifestations of Black energy with writer-artist Kristina Kay Robinson and writer-curator Erica Vital-Lazare.
Go behind the scenes in an art museum. Join the crew from the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art as we chat with artists, curators, and everyone else who helps us bring our galleries to life. New episodes will be posted in selected months after the program has aired on KUNV 91.5.
The Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art is located on the campus of one of the most racially diverse universities in the United States, we strive to create a nourishing environment for those who continue to be neglected by contemporary art museums, including BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ groups. As the only art museum in the city of Las Vegas, we commit ourselves to leveling barriers that limit access to the arts, especially for first-time visitors. To facilitate access for low-income guests we provide free entry to all our exhibitions, workshops, lectures, and community activities. Our collection of artworks offers an opportunity for researchers and scholars to develop a more extensive knowledge of contemporary art in Southern Nevada. The Barrick Museum is part of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV).
LeiAnn Huddleston 0:00
Hello, my name is LeiAnn Huddleston. I'm the programming manager at the Barrick Museum of Art.
D.K. Sole 0:05
And I'm Deanne or D.K. Sole and I work in communications at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art.
LH 0:11
Thank you all for joining us today. We're here to talk about the Notes for Tomorrow exhibition on view at the Barrick Museum of Art until January 28, 2023. This exhibition was conceived in 2020 by the New York-based curatorial organization Independent Curators International or ICI. The exhibition, which features artwork selected by thirty curators based in twenty-five countries around the world, reflects on a new global reality ushered in by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this cultural moment of transition, each work is a source of inspiration from the recent past and a guiding perspective for the future. We are joined today by artists Kristina Kay Robinson, and writer Erica Vital-Lazare. Would you two like to say hello, and tell us a bit about yourself before we get started today?
[crosstalk]
Erica Vital-Lazare 1:01
Sure, sure, Kristina. Yeah.
Kristina Kay Robinson 1:04
Hi, everybody. I'm back. Sorry. It's really nice to talk to you all. Thanks for having us, nice to talk to Erica, again. I am a writer and a artist based in New Orleans, Louisiana and I'm really excited to be able to talk to you all today.
EVL 1:27
And I'm Erica, Erica Vital-Lazare. Kristina, I wish I could be there with you. Because I feel like I've gotten to know you. And just cherish the conversations that we've had. And we have so much in common as writers, poets, thinkers about Black space. I'm a Professor of Creative Writing at CSN here in Las Vegas, you're all the way out New Orleans, a dream space for me, and I'm coming. So get that extra room.
KKR 2:00
Yeah, looking forward to it. I think there'll be so much — I don't know, just so much more, even more, to discuss in person and in this landscape, and that's one thing I've appreciated about our conversations. I've thought about the different landscapes, you know, the swamp and the desert, and the connectivity, even though it’s so different, you know, physically, topographically, but this idea in Black space, the way they — there's a relationship there. It's one thing that I've appreciated thinking about when you talk.
DKS 2:43
Beautiful. Kristina, your work is part of Notes for Tomorrow, and Erica, as she said, is located here in Las Vegas; you're very far apart. Could you talk a little bit about how the two of you encountered one another? How did you meet?
KKR 3:02
So we met at the suggestion from the Marjorie Barrick, like, you know, this would be a good person for you to talk to, and possibly collaborate. And it worked out really, really well. I was just so appreciative of the connection across distance that I felt both personally and in my own work. And I thought that that is such a story of Black space and the Black experience, or the diasporic experience in general, just maintaining and developing connections across distances. And what are the things that create a bridge across time and space, which is a theme in my work, as well to these connecting threads and what they are.
DKS 4:04
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, that's definitely clear. When I see and I hear your work in Notes for Tomorrow, that idea of time and space and connection and history and the future permeates it so much. It's so strong. Could you talk about what Black space — and Erica as well. What does that mean to you? How is it important that you two connected over that?
EVL 4:31
That is such a —. That question has layers to it, and it takes me back, I think, to what thinkers such as Dionne Brand and Paul Gilroy — really takes us back to that Black Atlantic experience, that formative and very horrific experience of crossing water, being dispersed. I think born out of it is a need to coalesce, reform, reconstitute that central core of us, which, you know, it finds its beginnings on the continent, but I think is born of that water. And I think that's a passage that we recross in real time every day with every breath. And when we have another person, another sister, another brother, another two-spirited being with Black at their core, we have to cross over to each other, and with each other, and alongside each other. That connection, when it's true, is so very real, and I feel that with Kristina Kay. So, yeah, this has been, and will be one of the great, I know, artistic, and personal relationships that I will develop in the course of the coming future.
KKR 6:11
I agree. Black space is so interesting, like Erica was saying, it’s very layered, of this world and of the world before us and the world after us. I think a lot about how relationship to space, you know, what relationship, the Blackness changes over the course of time, changes based on where it's rooted, similarly to what Erica has been thinking about, its genesis on the continent, and then this sort of transformative experience, of crossing the water, and that relationship and tension that is both —. There's a sublimity to it, there's a pleasure and a terror in the greatness of the story of yourself. It's something that I think about a lot. Particularly living where I live. It's a place that many people, or most of the people here, have been here multiple, multiple generations. So they have relationships here that existed on the continent as well. And that is something I explore a little bit in my work with my character as well, you know, that there are familial, and friendship connections in this part of the country, that sometimes pre-date people's arrival here, just based on the practices of the French, taking people from the same place over and over and over again, because you know, European powers are fighting for this territory where they're taking people so you can, you know, the French only had access to where they had access to. And so it's just so interesting. Just thinking about the complexity of people’s relationships on both sides of the water.
DKS 8:25
And could you talk about the way you manifest that in your work, because I can hear or sense some of that when I do encounter your work, and when I listen to the work that you've made with Erica this year. What do you do with your materials to try and get across to everybody who doesn't share that, that idea of character and past and future and genesis and so on?
KKR 8:47
On the visual level, I — Since the project, Republica: Temple of Color and Sound, is guided by a protagonist of a story, thinking about it as a visual sound medium, or using a visual and sound medium to tell a story that would maybe typically happen within a novel or within an epic poem; the character Maryam de Capita, she began as a persona in my poetry before she had a living animated version, but I tried to connote it visually with different representations, aesthetically, of the character, so she traverses time. I presented this character with an aesthetic appearance that's more rooted in the past. She appears in the present day and the contemporary as a very different but same character, in the sense that in the 1800s she may have been a participant in a rebellion, in the 2000s she's a musician. She may have been a musician in the 1800s, but there are different avenues and ways that that same impetus in a person would play out in different periods of time. So I try to take this sort of everyman, almost, approach to her, from a very particular lens, which is the story of a woman from the mouth of the Mississippi River, who grew up in a legacy of freedom. Which in some ways mirrors some people's contemporary story in Louisiana as well, in terms of us having high populations of free people at different periods of time. To try to bend reality I use a lot of anachronism. To show the continuities between people. I used to teach, and when I taught, I taught ancient literature, and I always would try to talk to the people I was teaching about people being, at their core, the same, you know, as a hump to get over. Oh, this is old, how will I relate to it? So showing that the same energy in this woman has been present since ancient times, the different iterations of what Blackness meant in the world? Yeah.
DKS 12:00
And, Erica, how does this connect to what you do, because you're also obviously extremely connected to literature: writing it, teaching it, reading it.
EVL
I think for me, even as, you know, my education, as much of our education is made up of a Western canon, dominated by white male figures who gave us our early parameters of what the world is and what it should be. And so there's always this mix, as a professor, of what must be attended to in that foundation in order to create students who can navigate that space that is dominated by a white male Westernized vision. However, at my core, I am undeniably a Black being, a Black woman in particular, and so my sensibility has always been shaped by that experience, and very much by what Kristina was … what she explores, with Maryam de Capita is that folding over of identities and space, and Western knowledge with root knowledge, and ideas of futurism and ideas of presentism and what it means to live in the world, but not be of the world; be of several worlds at once. So I think that's where we intersect. Kristina and I evolved, we’re pretty much time travelers, like, who are we today that we would have been in 1619, one of the first twenty rockin’ across those waters, who will we be in 2050, and in 2150, like, the core of us will always be rooted in our Black selves. That Atlantic passage, I think, will still reside in us, when we are among the stars as Butler, you know, foresees us taking root there, returning there. And I think Kristina and I both see a return there. So, this is over in that geographic extreme of desert and swampland. I think that similarity, that core is there, and I think Kristina and I both see a similarity in the water and in space, that those are also rooted in us, there at the core of Black being, those two geographies, topographies, possibilities.
DKS 14:48
And how did you bring your two worlds together? How did you start to collaborate on what you created?
[crosstalk between EVL and KKR] You know, we'd have … how did we …
KKR 15:02
I was thinking about the conversation that we had. We exchanged a lot, and then gave each other the space to write. And then shared that writing together. It was very interesting how, when I first read Erica's piece, how I immediately heard a sound in it, you know? And it was very, I don't know, it was like a bass, it was like a deep bass. And it was just there, you know, it helped me think about how to answer that call that she had put out to me in her poetry. I thought it was just amazing. Very inspiring.
[crosstalk]
DKS 16:12
I was going to ask if the original, those things you were originally writing to each other, if any of that showed up in the end result sound file — I mean, it won't be the end result end result, because I know you're going to keep working together. But the sound files that you sent to us in late August, I think, mid-August, because I know your collaboration mainly through listening to those. So Erica, if you want to talk about whatever you were about to talk about, please do. But that was going to be my question.
EVL 16:50
No, I just think it's so lovely, the way that Kristina kind of phrased answering, and I think it was very much a call and response, which is a deeply-rooted Black church tradition, and before that, very African tradition of answer and call. And I think we both provided that for one another and the way that it opened up, I think an invitation comes from us both, from the first line, inviting one another, inviting the ancestors, inviting those within hearing, into this space we're weaving together and the space that we are imagining together. Kristina's music, the sound, is an opening up. And Kristina you’re in a space, in New Orleans, where that invitation is everywhere. The call of the drums is always an invitation, showing you the pathway, the door to move between worlds. And that's what I feel in the soundscape that you created.
KKR 18:09
I really appreciate that. It's so interesting, like, music is such an endemic part of culture, and then the daily landscape. And there's a tradition of practice, of being good at it, that — it's really interesting, because, to an extent, you know, it's taken me a while to really, really open up that part of my practice; it’s obviously something I practice. But it's just interesting, because it is such a part of the environment. There's a high standard, you know, so to an extent, it can make you a little bit hesitant sometimes. And so this was really great, because it was such an invitation to open it up and go further with it and think about how you contribute to the tradition that you're a part of, especially if maybe you're working in a different medium, in a sense? Like not using necessarily the traditional structure of the music, but I think you can hear it in it.
So it was just such a opportunity to explore that part of oneself and really commune with that part. And give yourself permission and know that you do know what you know at this point, from having studied and practiced. And so I just really appreciate it, to have the opportunity to explore. It is such a part of our landscape that you could be a little bit intimidated to offer your contribution to the culture here. It's a coming of age, in a sense, a lot of times in New Orleans like at the point that you decide, I'm ready to join, or join as an adult member, of traditions; it’s a kind of rite of passage in some senses. Erica's poem is so — the opening is so cinematic, which is just the beauty of poetry, its images, it's like, I could see it and because I can see it, I could hear it. And that was a really, really great experience.
DKS 20:56
That's fascinating that you're thinking of those two things together. Because yeah, the piece — again, I keep going back to Notes for Tomorrow — but the piece in Notes for Tomorrow is so very much moving image and also sound and anybody looking at it does experience those two things together. It's fascinating to hear that the artist herself had that encounter with those two things happening at the same time, rather than creating them in isolation, and then trying to find a place where they both have met. How do you go about creating your music? Because it's a very particular kind, and it creates, to me anyway, a very particular kind of mental space when I listen to it.
KKR 21:46
So the image, definitely. I think a lot about, like, I do a lot of walking. I don't drive, I walk. I do a lot of thinking while I walk. And so much of, like, diasporic experience, Black Atlantic experience, is just about that one foot in front of the other, the keeping going, and what people did to keep going, you know, just the relationship between lots of practices, mantras, chanting, the rosary, all of these things that make you repeat things. So I'm really fascinated by repetition. Even in Islam, you know, there, there are prayers that you say in repetition. I'm really fascinated by repetition in general, and the rhythm that it creates. I feel or hear a tone and kind of like, repeat, and repeat and repeat and repeat until I feel what that takes me to next. And so it's supposed to be about almost a trance, or like a more lucid trance state. And so how you can have a place in your mind that is steady and is stable. So that the things that happen around you don't compromise that. And I had a teacher at one time, who used to talk about, like, it was kind of a joke, but not a joke, he would just say, you know, wherever you go, you have to have the cane fields, with Louisiana, like the cane fields is both the place where people were made to labor, but it's also the place where they plotted on freedom. And so, if you always have that place with you, you can respond to many different stimuli. So in terms of the music making, it was thinking about, well, what does it mean to be in a productive trance? You know, a trance that allows me to live and experience the whole 360 of humanity even while I'm in a situation that negates my humanity. To create another dimension or another place where you exist outside of, as Erica said, in the world and not of it. So that's my creative process around music, wanting to explore repetition and what repetition can do.
DKS 24:51
That's fascinating. Sorry, apologize if I interrupted. The fact that you mentioned Islam makes me think of a qawwāl or something like that, which is not something I'd associated with your music before. But now that you articulate it, I think, yeah, that idea of circling and swirling and returning and adjusting and doing something else and returning and adjusting and adjusting and adjusting. That's very enlightening. Thank you.
LH 25:24
So we are approaching the end of our little session. And I wondered if there was any closing thoughts that you wanted to leave the listeners, before we close out the session, Kristina or Erica? Is there anything you want to say before we head out?
DKS
In about five minutes, I think.
LH
Yeah.
EVL 25:49
I just wanted to say that the work of liberation, I think, is work that can be found in these collaborations. And it has always been collaborative work, how we liberate ourselves, and one another. And it's so important for all of us, in all our forms of humanity. And as Black women, Black femmes, I think we've often been tasked with doing such work for other bodies. And I think Kristina, I want to say it's just so very, very clear that your work is yes, human work. Right? And at its center, it is also very much the work of free Black women, Black femmes, Black bodies, that comes through.
KKR 26:47
For sure, for sure, for sure. No, I'm just really appreciative of being able to develop this project in this conversation. And appreciative of you all wanting to explore the thematics I'm happy y'all got it. You know, there's so much you’re like, “Hmm, it doesn't make any sense!” And so I'm just happy when it reaches people, and they find themselves and their place within the story. You know, you find the sound that you gravitate towards, in the composition. I’m just really pleased that, you know, how this has developed.
DKS 27:43
I think we, just before we do wrap up, I do have a question, Kristina, how do you imagine your ideal audience receiving what you make. What would be the perfect response to one of your pieces?
KKR 28:03
Because it incorporates sound, text, and the visuals, I think the perfect reception is, you know, the viewer that gravitates to the part that appeals to them the most, you know, some people love visuals, some prefer sound to text . But engaging the possibility of Maryam's existence is really important to me. So the idea, this sort of, you know, a different kind of heroine figure, someone from a small place, a place you’re not always so familiar with and accepting that that person has things to offer, you know, and then that reciprocal process happens, where there's the author's exchange rather than the one-sided consumerist relationship that’s set up, like the Western consumption of art. So I love when it feels like an exchange. That's the ideal for me.
LH 29:29
Well, I want to close and I want to thank you, thank you so so much to you both to spending the time with us to tell us about your collaboration and about your work. It's been wonderful to listen to and it's been such a great opportunity to have you both talk about it. But as a reminder to those listening, Notes for Tomorrow, where you can view Kristina's piece, will be on view until January 28 of 2023 at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art in our East Gallery, and hopefully keep an eye out for any updates on when we can see the collaborative piece between Kristina and Erica — hopefully very soon. Well, thank you all. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and we'll talk to you later.
KKR
Okay, thank you all.
DKS 30:16
Thanks so much. Thank you