S4 Ep_033 Advocacy How-To When Cultural Short-Sightedness is Built into the Architecture & Operations of Public Space, with Cultural ReProducers Christa Donner & Selina Trepp, Pt.3
In this final episode of our interview with US-based artists Christa Donner and Selina Trepp, we discuss if cultural short-sightedness is a factor in architectural design and the operation of public space?
The greater significance and meaning of the perspective of parents;
Why the inclusion of children is both a cultural and a political position that positively impacts everyone;
Why archives are an important component in social change;
Structural and architectural changes we should be prioritizing;
Practical advice on effective advocacy in our own spaces and communities.
Bios:
Christa Donner is an artist, writer, and organizer who investigates the human/animal body and its metaphors. Her practice combines material exploration and social exchange to propose speculative models that move between the emotional architecture of our own bodies and the layered histories of the world we inhabit. Donner's work is exhibited widely internationally and throughout the United States.
In 2012, when her child was one year old, Donner initiated Cultural ReProducers, an evolving creative platform for and about cultural workers who are also working it out as parents.
Donner's practice extends to her role as a curator and educator. She has taught across nine colleges, including fifteen years at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), and currently teaches courses in creative research, drawing, and multisensory making through the Five College Consortium in Western Massachusetts.
Selina Trepp (Swiss/American b.1973) is an artist researching economy and improvisation.
Finding a balance between the intuitive and conceptual is a goal, living a life of adventure is a way, new perspectives are a result.
She works across media and space; combining performance, installation, painting, and sculpture to create intricate setups that result in photos, drawings and animations.
In addition to the studio-based work, Selina is active in the experimental music scene. In this context she sings and plays the videolah, her midi controlled video synthesizer, creating projected animations in real-time as visual music. She performs with a varying cast of collaborators and as one half of Spectralina.
“
…I think, culturally, there's just a lot of not thinking about the longer term effects of anything that is incredibly frustrating.
And that I think became much more visible once I became a parent, because then it's like all of a sudden you have this window into… you're thinking about specific people who will outlive you and the impacts of what you're doing in a different way. And it shouldn't take becoming a parent to do that, but it does…
”
-Christa Donner
Transcript
Season 4, Episode 33 (Pt. 3 of 3) Advocacy How-To When Cultural Short-Sightedness is Built into the Architecture & Operations of Public Space, with Cultural ReProducers Christa Donner & Selina Trepp
Christa Donner:
So, parents are the people who are raising the future. <laughing> The future depends on the work of parents, and of teachers, who are also underpaid, and childcare workers, who are also underpaid, grossly underpaid.
And there's also, of course, a shortsightedness when it comes to anything that's beyond, maybe, beyond our own lifespan, hence climate change. I think, culturally, there's just a lot of not thinking about the longer term effects of anything that is incredibly frustrating.
And that I think became much more visible once I became a parent, because then it's like all of a sudden you have this window into… you're thinking about specific people who will outlive you and the impacts of what you're doing in a different way. And it shouldn't take becoming a parent to do that, but it does. It just reframes things in a certain kind of way.
And that's why it's important to see our art. <laughing> Right?
[Rhythmic sounds of electric train pulling into station]
[Subway chimes arpeggio played on mandolin]
Cevan Castle, host:
Welcome to Towards a Kinder Public, a podcast dedicated to designing kinder public space that better meets our interconnected needs. I’m Cevan Castle, and along with Annie Chen, we are Kinderpublic.
Welcome to the 4th Season of this podcast, which is dedicated to a close look at the interweaving of social, spatial, and organizational exclusion.
This is the last of 3 episodes with Christa Donner and Selina Trepp, two highly accomplished US-based artists.
Christa Donner is an “artist, writer, and organizer,” who “combines material exploration and social exchange to propose speculative models.” Her work has been exhibited widely, including international institutions and throughout the United States. In 2012, when her child was one year old, Christa initiated Cultural ReProducers, an evolving creative platform for and about cultural workers who are also parents.
Selina Trepp is a “Swiss/American artist… researching economy and improvisation,” who works across media and space; combining performance, installation, painting, and sculpture to create intricate setups that result in photos, drawings and animations.” Selina is also “active in the experimental music scene,” and “performs with a varying cast of collaborators and as one half of Spectralina.”
Christa and Selina continue the conversation on improved accessibility of professional space for parents, and how we do not successfully factor children into conversations about workplace accessibility. So they are, as Selina puts it, consciously taking a political and cultural position on the inclusion of children. The relevance of this position goes far beyond the art world, and beyond even the issue of parenthood. Their work reveals a cultural shortsightedness around caregiving which will sound familiar to individuals performing the work in different contexts, including the support of aging family members.
We’ll speak more on the importance of developing alternative models, archiving the knowledge so that others may find it, and what they hope Cultural ReProducers and allied groups ultimately contribute to the future. But there is much work still to be done, and Christa and Selina finish the interview by sharing their expertise on how we can work as advocates in our own spaces.
This episode will close with an audio clip of Spectralina’s audio-visual concert for the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago from July 15, 2020. A link to this and other Spectralina performances will be shared in our episode notes, so that you can view Selina Trepp’s immersive projected drawings.
Thank you for joining us for Part 3 and the conclusion of this interview, with Christa Donner, Selina Trepp, on the creative platform Cultural ReProducers.
[Subway chimes arpeggio played on mandolin]
Christa Donner:
It feels so weird that we're still stuck in this gender loop right now. I just don't even, we're in a time where I'm like, is it okay to say men and women anymore? But it's still so much, it affects so many things. It affects so much of the power dynamic there.
Cevan:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
You've both written about your work as a political position and the need to push for a larger cultural shift. You share ways that this can be done both as collective efforts and as actions performed by individual artists. Christa wrote an insightful piece about overall poor inclusion in the arts titled, “Who Cares For Whom? Parenthood in the Creative Community,” which includes a number of strategies to improve access.
Selina, would you read, if you don't mind, or I can read it, this paragraph from Spectralina (which is your performative partnership with Dan Bitney) which is featured in the essay and is included by yourselves on grant proposals.
Selina Trepp:
“We are committed to being creative and engaged with the world, while making sure that this includes our daughter. Having her in our life influences our outlook, and thus also our creative output. Our art is inspired by our reality, as most art is. We see her inclusion in our creative life as a cultural and political position. It is important that what is represented in the culture industry isn't limited to the experience of single people, or to people who can afford and want a nanny, or to men who have wives who take care of their kids in the background. Art should be at the forefront of social change, and in that capacity it should offer models which allow for artist families to be visible and supported.”
Cevan:
I immediately see in that essay, and also in the Cultural ReProducers Manifesto, which you describe as a work in progress, and I love that it is evolving, an economic position, an equity position, a diversity position, and as with all your work, a proposal or suggested process for remedy.
Could you talk about the political positions of your cultural work? Are there any things we haven't touched on that you would like to elaborate?
Christa Donner:
Gosh, I have to think about that. I don't know if this is an answer to that, but I was thinking about something that has come up more recently that I didn't foresee, that is both troubling and also hilarious, which is that this work at the time felt…. this wasn't happening at the time when Cultural ReProducers started. It was… our kids were both, what, 1-year-old? I think at the time it was 2012. And so, we were really trying to make what we weren't seeing addressed in the art world, in the world.
And more recently, I've been invited to speak on it in a number of contexts, and I was talking to a young woman who's not a parent so far, and she was like, “Oh, I think Cultural ReProducers is so inspiring, now I don't feel worried at all about having a kid and an art practice. It seems like now it's just going to be so easy.”
And I was like, wow, that is not the message that I'm trying to get across here.
I don't think that, I mean, this work is not done. I will say it's been really interesting. One of the reasons that I think I've stepped back a lot and that Cultural ReProducers has slowed down in a certain way, is because so many other groups have started up to address similar issues that I'm kind of like, wow, I am going to let them run with this. That's really exciting to me, that these different communities all over the world are kind of popping up and expressing frustration and trying to solve problems in their specific community, all over the place.
So I think that's been really great to see, and that continues to go on. I do hope that… I know that as Cultural ReProducers grew, I became aware of more groups that had been doing this. In the UK for instance, there are a lot of really great groups doing things there, and I connected with groups in the Netherlands and a few other places as well, and I wish there was some kind of hub for that knowledge, that collective knowledge. I think Cultural ReProducers, we aim to do that at some point. I have this resources page that's become really unwieldy; I'm an obsessive researcher, resource sharer, librarian of things that I'm interested in.
But I hope that in the collective passion around these issues that the history of that doesn't get lost, because it is certainly like I'm standing on the shoulders of so many other mothers that have done this kind of work, pre-internet, right, that I didn't find out about until later. Like Mother Art, and there's one in the UK that was really interesting…
Cevan Castle:
The Enemies of Good Art? <laughing>
Christa Donner:
Well, The Enemies of Good Art was happening around the same time as Cultural ReProducers.
Cevan:
Oh, okay. Mm-hmm.
Christa Donner:
So I was actually really excited to meet them- Martina Mullaney, I met- at a motherhood conference in London and I was like, “Oh my God, I'm so excited to meet you.” I found out about that work right around the time when we were starting up things in Chicago.
But yeah, no, I mean there were groups doing really interesting things in the seventies, but it's harder to find, it's harder to find that work, because it's not online in the same kind of way.
Selina Trepp:
It's funny. I just realized, I was like, well, those are the people who raised me, right? I mean, I remember I was raised in a Marxist-Feminist commune in Switzerland in the seventies, so it was like, which I think was part of why it was so obvious to be that it could be different, it had to be different. But also that it's about modeling it, and I think that's what you're saying too, of just creating models out there, because running something is hard, so you have to sort of convince more people to just take it on.
Which I would say, as an answer to your question also, I think that is the main thing that I realized, is that the important thing is that within each and every one of our own actions, we are somehow trying to stay as true as possible to the ideas that we hold. So, that it is important that you don't.. or, that you ask for these things, or that you model a certain type of family and don't fall into patterns that are easier, because the structure makes them easier- that you take that on and say like, “okay, well, it is definitely hard.”
And I think it is harder, to do a 50-50 sharing, or it is harder to have spaces in which children can exist with parents and in which everybody's cool with that, because it requires a certain kind of tolerance or whatever it is that it requires in that moment. But to say that, it's good to do the harder thing because it will lead us to the better thing. And I think people will only do that when they're shown that. And I think we did that with that lecture series, we did a little bit of that, and then with the website, I think there's a lot of that.
I just actually referred somebody to the Cultural ReProducer's website the other day, which was funny, I hadn't done that in a while. But they just had a kid, and I was like, you should really look at that website. It's helpful.
Christa Donner:
Thanks!
And I actually was like, oh, I'm trying to remember the name of this group, which is, by the way, the Hackney Flashers. Oh, right. So the Hackney flashers, and I was like, “oh, where would I find that?” You know what I did? I went to the Cultural ReProducers resources page and it's under parenting artist history/herstory under that section. So I did a good job. I was able to find what I was looking for there.
Cevan:
It's so important to have those things too, and I really appreciate your work in doing that and making that part of your practice because like you said, Selina, it's hard to be trying to live an alternative and to maintain that path when things keep kind of pushing you back onto a more conventional path.
And even if you aren't able to find people, in person, to kind of be in friendship with and share space with, you have this resource that lets you know that many people have been here before and continue to look for other ways of doing things. And it's like validating your feelings and your experiences, you know.
Also on your website, the Cultural ReProducers Manifesto is wonderful, and we'll include links to all of these writings in our episode notes. There are two manifesto points (or are they demands?) Christa, where I think you summarize the stakes for public space with amazing insight. Would you read them? Or I can read them if you prefer.
Christa Donner:
Sure. Let's see here. And, I print everything out, so I'm going to try and not crinkle papers too much.
Cevan:
It's fine… <laughing>
Christa Donner:
“The art world doesn't know what to do with artist parents or their children. This both reflects and affects all of culture. What is made, what is visible, what is curated, written about and included in the conversation to include our voices is to look critically and creatively toward care, complexity and the world that future generations will inherit.”
And also, “instead of isolation, we seek networks of support, visibility, and dialogue. By working together to realize our collective needs and desires, we will expand the field to make possible new forms and ideas.”
Cevan:
So, public space is a kind of host, and exhibits characteristics of care and hospitality. And I love that you are calling for the possibility of new forms and ideas through the realization of our collective needs and desires.
And part of the premise of Kinderpublic is to more responsibly use the embodied energy of our architecture by building- sorry, my little guy is destroying the bathroom while I…- <laughing, restarting> So, part of the premise of Kinder public is to more responsibly use the embodied the energy of our architecture by building beyond the limits of cultural convention.
Public bathrooms tend to be one spectacular example of uncritical design.
What ideas and forms do you find interesting, and what areas for innovation are meaningful to you?
Selina Trepp:
I agree with public bathrooms. At least when Max was a baby, we went, for example, to the contemporary art museum in Boston. What's it called? I don't know what it's called, but it was brand new at the time, and shockingly, only the women's bathroom had a changing table. And I was like, well, that… I don't know. Must've been around 2011, 12, that we needed a changing table still… and I thought that was really strange, because there's an assumption there that whoever has the baby. What if a dad goes to the museum alone with the baby and needs to change? What do you do? So yeah, that's one.
Christa Donner:
Yeah, and we do see that changing right now. There are these family bathrooms here and there, but still it's remarkable that hasn't been fully resolved yet anywhere, or most places. I mean, it's funny. This is a question that I always ask people, and now things are just changing around so much, I weirdly don't have an answer at the top of my head.
Selina Trepp:
Universal healthcare.
Christa Donner:
Yeah.
Selina Trepp:
That's a huge one…
Cevan:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Selina Trepp:
…Because that has everything to do with everything, ultimately
Christa Donner:
Yeah. Universal healthcare, and I think just paid family leave, and high quality childcare being accessible to all people, right? Like, these are not things that are specific to the art world, they're just specific to humanity.
And there are things that exist in lots of other places.
One thing that was interesting when I did a workshop with artist-mothers in the Netherlands, was that they were coming at it from such a different perspective, because they were really angry that there was this expectation that you would put your kids into the subsidized childcare when they were a certain age. And so then you couldn't make art and be with them, because there was this expectation that they would just go straight into daycare.
And I was like, “Oh, it would just be so nice to be able to afford daycare. We just don't even have that option here.”
It was like we were in alternate universes there. But I think in the US, specifically, having affordable healthcare for humans of all ages, and having childcare- high quality childcare that's accessible to everyone- are things that we have a long way to go on. We have a long way to go.
Cevan:
Mm-hmm.
Selina Trepp:
And I think that goes back to also really thinking about how to create a conscience and a culture of thinking more communally, ultimately. Because all those demands are really demands of giving an understanding that the community does better if everybody does better, and that children are important for all of us.
So, the fact that you have children isn't a private luxury thing. It is actually going to be what is going to pay social security and going to ensure our care when we're old. And really acknowledging that, and acknowledging that it's not just the productive person that's important, but either end of life is very important, and really starting to think about… I'm currently also starting to really think about end of life stuff, as my parents and in-laws are becoming older, and we ourselves are getting older, and really thinking about very similar problems happen then again. And thinking how it really is all about our lack of care for the nonproductive, ultimately.
I also find it really interesting that in America, the conversation is so much about self-care, which sounds kind of nice, but is also kind of strange! Because it really is this responsibility that everyone individualized has for themself, as opposed to thinking about, well, what is it in our life that requires so much self-care in this conscious way, that our world around us is obviously so hostile?
Christa Donner:
Yeah, no one's caring for anyone.
So, of course self-care is the only option we have.
But yeah, I mean, it feels so shortsighted to be thinking about, right, like parents are the people who are raising the next generation, the people who will be the presidents, and you know, the people who will be shaping the future. And I think…
Selina Trepp:
Not only the presidents, I mean, I think it's important to also say, not just the best and the smartest, and it's just humanity, right, like the whole sort of…
Christa Donner:
Everything.
Selina Trepp:
Yeah.
Christa Donner:
Right, so parents are the people who are raising the future. <laughing> The future depends on the work of parents, and of teachers, who are also underpaid, and childcare workers, who are also underpaid, grossly underpaid.
And there's also, of course, a shortsightedness when it comes to anything that's beyond, maybe, beyond our own lifespan, hence climate change. I think, culturally, there's just a lot of not thinking about the longer term effects of anything that is incredibly frustrating.
And that I think became much more visible once I became a parent, because then it's like all of a sudden you have this window into… you're thinking about specific people who will outlive you and the impacts of what you're doing in a different way. And it shouldn't take becoming a parent to do that, but it does. It just reframes things in a certain kind of way.
And that's why it's important to see our art. <laughing> Right?
Cevan:
<laughing> Right.
Christa Donner:
Not everybody's thinking about…
Cevan:
In your event work, you have been altering physical spaces, finding ways to make additional support available and rethinking event time among other things. It's not an overstatement to say that you are innovators of inclusion for all, and I can think of many communities that would be positively impacted by your modifications.
On a personal note, although I was never able to participate in your childcare supported events myself, I found your work very impactful when I was navigating life with a preschooler and an infant. In addition to any barriers for participation in the art community, my family has very specific requirements from public space, as we encompass individuals with differences. And I'm more adamant than ever that your explorations can make such a meaningful difference to a wider ability for inclusion and participation in public space.
How do you encourage people to begin their own investigations, experiments, and alterations? Do you have any suggestions for people to effectively voice or visualize their needs? Any tips that you would like to share for individual or collective action?
Selina Trepp:
I think it's really important to look at the problem that you have in sort of a distant way, like to not be inside of it, but really step out, and then really think about all the stakeholders.
So one of the things that I think was successful for us was, that we did go to the institutions with a very clear plan and understanding of what they might want to do, and how it would be beneficial to them. So, really trying to think about how do you convince somebody to do something? What are the reasons why they might want to do it, right? And sort of approach it from there. So, always really thinking about it strategically, I guess.
I think these are mostly very emotional things, usually where we're angry or sad or upset that we even get into the mode of wanting to change something. But then to be able to step back and really think about, how do you get somebody to change something, you need to find the thing that will be beneficial to them in there, or makes sense to them, and then go from there. So I think sometimes, or no, always being strategic is really good to push down the wall, but think about where do you push to get it going?
Christa Donner:
Yeah. And I was thinking about when we started doing these workshops, which are called “making it what you need… “Making It What We Need” workshops. Thanks, Selina, for that title. We were in part responding to whenever we would get together with folks, whether it was officially or unofficially, I think early on, we opened up the conversation around what's not working for you or what do you wish would change? What do you see that needs to be fixed?
And at one event that we had, it really snowballed and it ended up being, no one had time to circle back and think about solutions. People were just like, “yeah, and this is really messed up and this is horrible…” And it got so overwhelming, people just felt so defeated by the end because we had to keep a certain timeframe and everyone, the complaints kept piling on top of each other and no one could figure out what to do about them.
And so we came up with the system where we had worksheets and people would write down their key frustrating… the key things that were really holding them back, or the key obstacles they would find, and as Selina would put it, the key prompts to jump off from, in terms of making something that would be so much better than that, right?
And I think that that's such a good place to start, is to write it all down, not necessarily get caught up in a whole conversation that could go on forever and ever and ever, because there are many things that need to be addressed in the world.
But then to just choose to circle maybe two of those things that feel the most pressing, and sit down with a person, or sit down with a small group of people, put your key things together, and then brainstorm as the small group or just on your own. But see, like, “okay, which one of these things is going to be a creative prompt that I can push against, that I can shape something new around? What would that look like if money was no object, if I didn't have these limitations, what would that look like? And who do I know that might be able to help with that?” Or, “who might be able to put me in contact with someone who knows more about that than I do?” So that it's not all on one person, but you also don't get stuck in this cycle of feeling defeated.
Selina Trepp:
Absolutely. And also, I think very importantly, to change perspective of power situations. I think very often going from the defeated, I think we very often start from the point of feeling disempowered, but trying to really see our position and our experience as something that is very desirable, and as soon as you start thinking of it in that way, you also start addressing things from that perspective, which can be very convincing actually. Just having that, knowing that understanding, that being like, no, this is not, if somebody says, but you're just a parent. You're like, yeah, well, that's why I know all these things. Or, this is really sort of turning it around and starting to really think about it as strengths.
That's why also, really, problems are a very interesting thing to have, and seeing the world as not a static place, but a place which is constantly in flux and that we are always shaping, and that we can be much more active in shaping by not doing the things that we don't like.
That was actually something that I really learned also from parenting, was like, this idea of it's not just about participation, it’s also about attention and what you choose to give attention to and what you choose not to give attention to. And that is also actually a great big power.
Christa Donner:
Yeah. Selina has made some great diagrams about this. Have you seen that one? The diagram that's in, it's the, I should stop advertising the cultural producer zine because it's technically out of print, but you can get a PDF of it online.
But she made a really great diagram called “How Motherhood Is Affecting My Art”. That's sort of a flow chart, a mind map. It's a mind map. But it includes everything from sleep deprivation, all of the immediate things, sleep deprivation, more walking, less money, less studio time, knowing absolute love, where someone… my favorite one is ‘zero tolerance for bullshit’, which I think has led to many things, right? But less money leads to cheaper materials and better research. Less studio time leads to better work ethic and less work made, more intuitive decisions. All of these things that we're framing as things that are holding us back could actually be superpowers, depending on how we're looking at them.
And sometimes it takes another person to see it from that other angle, or to add another direction, or another necessary resource to activate that.
Cevan:
I think we're looking clearly at this moment in time and the many challenges that we face collectively, those are really superpowers. They really are timely and necessary skills and outlooks, so that's really amazing.
How can our listeners find you online, follow your important work and support what you are doing?
Christa Donner:
Culturalreproducers.org, is always there. There's even a little subscription button, although again, I, for a while was really beating myself up, because I was just like, oh, I see the pace of social media now and people are posting every… multiple times a day. I'm not very good at Instagram, so I'm just really not active on that.
But then, I also was realizing, I can't keep up with what everyone's posting. Maybe it's fine to just post something every few months, right? There's this sort of expectation that we will produce and produce, and people will consume and consume, but I think we all know, right, like, how exhausting it is, and how backlogged we are on shows that we will never have time to watch, or podcasts we will never have time to listen to all the episodes we want, or the books that we still want to read. So anyway… but Cultural ReProducers website is out there, and our individual websites are our names. Yes, christadonner.com and Selinatrepp.info.
Selina Trepp:
Yeah, Selinatrepp.info. And unlike Christa, I am totally active on Instagram, so I'm fun to follow, which is @SelinaTrepp at Instagram.
Cevan:
That's great. I really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much.
Christa Donner:
Thank you.
Selina Trepp:
Thank you for having us.
Christa Donner:
Thanks for what you do.
Cevan:
Thanks for what you do. <laughing>
[Audio clip from Spectralina Quarantine Concert fades in]
Cevan:
Thanks for joining us. Be sure to check out our website, kinderpublic.com, for links and more information about our guests and the topic.
A full transcript of the conversation can be found on Kinderpublic’s podcast page. Captioned episodes of all of our interviews are also available on our Youtube channel, where we are @kinderpublic.
We are also on instagram, facebook, and twitter! We’d love to hear from you there.
Please share the episode, subscribe to the podcast, and leave us a rating and a review. This helps us make our message more visible and we really appreciate your support.
I’m Cevan Castle, and my guests have been Christa Donner and Selina Trepp.
Here is a clip from Spectralina’s Quarantine Concert for the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago from July 15th 2020. Please follow the link in our episode notes to view the entire audio-visual performance!
Please take extra care, we’ll meet you back here next week!
[Spectralina Quaratine Concert fades out]
Referenced in this episode:
Spectralina Quarantine Concert for ESS.org, July 15th 2020
Cultural ReProducers Resources (Library/Archive)
Selina Trepp, “How Motherhood is Affecting My Art”
Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston
Works Cited in this episode:
Cultural ReProducers: Cultural ReProducers: Propositions, Manifestos, and Experiments
Cultural ReProducers: Who Cares for Whom? Parenthood in the Creative Community