[episode description goes here]
Listen to the full episode here [link] and check out the show notes below.
Show Notes
Get to know Joelle Wellansa Sandfort
Follow Joelle’s artist page on Instagram to see her amazing work: @stack.of.bricks
Check out the Fleabane Gallery (@fleabane_gallery) that Joelle runs and curates out of her garage in Omaha.
Learn more about the Naturalist School and the Poetics of the Wild workshop series that Joelle helps facilitate.
Tune into this upcoming Amplify Arts panel discussion where Joelle will talk about her experiences curating DIY art spaces.
Learn more from this episode
Learn more about Joelle’s artistic influences, including Ethiopian artist Elias Sime.
View photos of the incredible Zoma Museum in Addis Ababa, founded by Elias Sime and Meskerem Assegued.
Dig into the history of the Black Arts Movement and works by poet Imamu Amiri Baraka.
Read this article about El Anatsui, a Ghanaian sculptor known for using found and recycled materials.
Support the Black IDs Podcast and Kat’s artistic practice by contributing on Patreon! Share this episode with your friends and family and follow Kat on Instagram (@katharen.wiese) for more updates. Got feedback for Kat? Let her know at katharen.wiese@gmail.com. Stay tuned for Kat’s upcoming solo exhibit at Kiechel Fine Art, opening April 1, 2022, featuring works inspired by the people interviewed in this podcast.
Read the full episode transcript below.
Transcript
[0:02] Kat: My name is Katharen Wiese. And you are listening to the Black IDs Podcast, a mini series exploring who we are, why we are, how we are.
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[0:22] Kat: This series is a part of my broader artistic practice as a visual artist. I started interviewing folks who I'm depicting as a way to bring agency back to the subjects represented in my work. I'm tired of seeing Black figures used as political propaganda or objects. And so this series is a way of refocusing on individual experiences and expressions among Black diasporic people. All of the interviews in this podcast correspond directly with art I'm generating from these conversations and the relationships I have with the people themselves. Work from the series will be in my first large scale solo show at Kiechel Fine Art in Lincoln, Nebraska, on April 1, 2022. I would love to see you there. If you want to get a sneak peek of some of the things I'm working on for the show, and photographs of folks from the podcast, you can follow me on Instagram at @katharen.wiese. My first name is spelled a little weird. It's K-A-T-H-A-R-E-N. My last name is W-I-E-S-E. You can also find my handle, website (katwiese.com), and transcripts for the podcast in the show notes.
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[1:33] Kat: This week, I'm excited to share a conversation I had with Joelle Wellansa Sandfort. Joelle is a biracial interdisciplinary artist currently living in Omaha, Nebraska. She makes assemblages and installations that explore themes of alienation in connection. Her practice begins with walking, noticing and sometimes collecting found things like trash or natural debris that are often overlooked. She aims to reveal the value of these overlooked things by uniting them through assemblage. This practice of walking and artmaking allows for a deeper connection with the places she occupies in the encounters she finds in those spaces. As a naturalist, she believes that paying attention to the natural world is essential for learning how to better care for living things, non-living things and the earth. Through her work, she hopes to address the isolation that she often feels in both natural and social work worlds in order to develop a sense of belonging to them. I can't tell you how grossly I was mispronouncing the word assemblage before having Google announce it to me. I was saying “assemblage.” Like how pretentious do I sound? But there's that. I also wanted to give a little disclaimer, this episode does contain some curse words. So if you need to be aware of that, you've been warned.
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[2:56] Kat: I'm here with Joelle Wellansa Sandfort. She's an artist, organizer and educator here in Lincoln, Nebraska. Do you want to just introduce yourself and give us a little background?
[3:06] Joelle: Yeah, sure. A little bit about me. I was born in Seattle, to my parents, Glenn and Sophia. My mom is from Ethiopia. My dad grew up here in Nebraska. They met when he was doing missionary work in Ethiopia. And then they moved here to Nebraska. And I've been here since I was about four years old. And I went to Nebraska Wesleyan for art education. And then I taught high school art for two years at Northeast. And I'm right now kind of taking a break from teaching in a public school setting and just trying to focus on my own artistic practice and learning and educating myself kind of outside of that kind of public school or institutional system. So yeah, that's a little bit about me. [laughs]
[4:05] Kat: Cool. I had no idea your dad was like a missionary in Ethiopia. There's so many people I know, I think especially in the Midwest, that have a Christian background or upbringing.
Joelle: Mmhmm.
Kat: And you didn't mention that as something that's important to you now.
Joelle: Right.
Kat: But like, was that a part of your identity growing up? Or what's your relationship to your... Do you have a faith relationship?
[4:29] Joelle: Yeah, I do have a faith relationship. And I think growing up Christian, it's very part of my roots and part of who I am. I think that a lot of those beliefs have evolved and changed over time. And they've kind of grown. My spirituality, I think, is like not necessarily confined by Christianity, but it is influenced by it for sure.
[4:54] Kat: Do you okay, do you care if I ask you more questions about your faith because now I'm really curious.
[5:00] Joelle: Oh, I'm an open book. This is just ask, ask away. [laughs]
[5:06] Kat: How does your faith manifest itself in your life right now?
[5:11] Joelle: That's a good question. I think for me, I'm really interested in contemplation. I'm interested in intention, and presence and connection. And so I think, for me, I'm trying to use my faith as a tool to learn more about the world. And to learn more about others. Something that is really important to me and has been in the last few years in my spiritual journey is spending a lot of time in nature. And just like that, the otherness of these...just like spending time with like plants and animals that I can't necessarily directly communicate with, but just learning and gaining a sense of creativity and connection from that. And then there's almost like a restorative aspect to that process, which makes it easier for me to connect with other people, because I'm an introvert. And so it's really hard for me to have that energy to connect with others. But so it's almost this like well that I can draw from to like, to have this like sense. I know that there's like a sense of peace, like underlying everything in that sense. I don't know if that makes sense. [laughs] I think sometimes when I talk about spirituality, I’m like, wooh, just like goes. [laughs]
[6:26] Kat: That absolutely makes sense.
[6:27] Joelle: Yeah.
[6:28] Kat: So do you think there's a relationship between your creative practice and your spiritual practice?
[6:34] Joelle: Definitely. I think for me, the act of creativity is a spiritual practice. I mean, even looking at like, you know, a lot of like the creation stories, the world is in this continual process of creation. And as we are created, and we come into the world, we also have this drive to create, and to have something come through us out into the world and manifest itself. And so I think that creation itself is kind of spiritual.
[7:05] Kat: I'm really interested in people's spiritual backgrounds and lives, because it's such a defining part of our humanity. And it's an invisible part of our humanity in many ways. It's like, I get really excited about making art. And it's particularly about this body of work, because it's like we can, through art, maybe we can make some of that invisible life visible. So like, I was like, that's what I wanted to, like, I'm not just gonna let you throw that out there and not ask you more about it. [laughs]
[7:34] Joelle: Yeah, yeah, thanks. [laughs]
[7:36] Kat: We might just like jump to the second topic that you had brought up, which was creativity and culture. So how do you think your art has been related to you kind of navigating your own personhood or your own identity? Or has your own processing of that manifested itself in your work and how?
[7:58] Joelle: Oh I think a lot of different ways. I think I really struggled to know the balance of I feel his drive sometimes to make art that is identity driven. But also, when I was in college, I think there was this pressure to not go that route from professors and kind of like underlying tone of you shouldn't do that. And also, I think, my own fear, in some senses of bringing up these really politicized potentially topics through my work, there's part of me that just wants to have that freedom to just make whatever feels good and not have to focus on that. But the last couple years, I've been having more ideas that are centered on my heritage, and just trying to explore that through the creative process. So I have some ideas for some performance pieces that I'd like to be doing in the future, that kind of integrate this feeling of the in between spaces I guess that I experienced a lot in my life more directly. But I do think a lot of my processes kind of mimic that I do a lot of assemblage and collage and sewing and weaving. So everything that I do is taking separate things and putting them together, which is how my identity is very much that. Taking these separate parts of myself that feel like completely opposite and incongruent and trying to fit them together. And so I think that manifests in my work and kind of always has.
[9:35] Kat: Mmmm. I'm really curious about even that material process of almost collaging, these disparate things that come from different sources, because I do that in my work as well. I wonder if that's a whole thing. Somebody could probably write a research paper about identity formation and collage. But that's really interesting what you said about receiving pushback to make work about related to your heritage or being concerned about that exploration being politicized in some way. Can you talk about what kind of pushback did you receive? Or what kind of obstacles, whether they were just like internal or external, did you face and trying to process that through your art?
[10:21] Joelle: Mhmm. I think for me, a lot of it was more personal and internal than it was external. I think for me, little things that people would say that would make me think, Oh, I'm not supposed to make art about that. Being young and impressionable as a college student, like, I didn’t know what I was doing anyways with my practice anyways. And I still don't in some ways, I still don’t. But just wanting to make art that is good, and that other people think is good. For example, like I had a professor wants to tell me oh, like, “I'm glad that you chose this white material.” And because like we had a very strict assignment, it was like, we could choose to either use white wax or brown wax. And the piece that I made, I only used white wax for it, because I liked the translucency of the material. And during the critique, he just brought up “Oh, like, I’m glad you didn't do a mix of both the white and the brown, because then I think this piece would become more about race instead of just what it is.” In the moment, I didn't really know how to respond. And years later, looking back, I'm just that was kind of a really uncalled for thing to say, because if I was a white student doing that, and wasn't obviously mixed, he wouldn't have even brought that up, you know? He wouldn't have or maybe he would have. But I don't know if that makes sense. But just things like that. Or saying that, like I've been interested in. I took a non-Western art history class. And we've spent a very small amount of time on the whole continent of Africa. And I had this desire to really do research on Ethiopian art, but the space and the time just didn't exist in the classroom context. And since college, I've been doing a lot more research and digging into that, but the support I feel for those interests wasn't really there.
[12:17] Kat: Yeah. Damn, that's some real shit there, right there. Also, well, I feel like most I don't know if this is true, but that was my experience at UNL, as well was it was very much the conversation around Black art or African art was relegated to “this is the chapter on Black art and Black artists. And whether you're Lorna Simpson, or Kerry James Marshall, or Adrian Piper, or whatever, it's a part of the Black Arts Movement.” Which was actually only taking place during a very specific period of time. You know? I think it was like the 80s and the 70s, maybe a little bit of a 60s. But that's how I was taught about Black art was a part of the Black Art Movement. Lorna Simpson was not even making art that time. Half of her work has to do with gender.
Joelle: Right.
Kat: But there's this box we put the work in.
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Kat: Just a little clarifying info. So the Black Arts Movement was from 1965 to 1975. And I got a great definition for the movement and its components from theblackpast.org. And it defines the Black Arts Movement as, “The name given to a group of politically motivated Black poets, artists, dramatists, musicians and writers who emerged in the wake of the Black Power movement. The poet Imamu Amiri Baraka is widely considered to be the father of the Black Arts Movement, which began in 1965 and ended in 1975.” They also talk a lot about New York and the Black Repertory Theater, and all these other things. If you want to learn more about it, it's in the show notes.
[13:59] Kat: That whole situation you just described about the wax. Oh my god, like that's a whole situation. That whole experience too, just hearing you talk about that, makes me think about this way in which we say the color of your skin determines your capacity to explore or talk about your own Blackness. It determines your own capacity to explore your own identity. And who's telling you that too? Like, that's a white man telling you putting limitations on your ability to explore yourself.
[14:31] Joelle: Yeah, and it's also hard because I don't want to be shaming him or anything because he was really important. I learned a lot from him. And I still think of him as a really impactful professor, but it's just, it's those moments of disappointment where you're just like, damn, like, did you really say that? Did you really have to do that? You know?
[14:53] Kat: And I think it's because you do exist in this… I hate the word liminal because I don't truly know what it means. But you exist in this liminal space, or at least this in-between space where he identifies with you enough.
Joelle: Yeah, mhmm.
Kat: He identifies with your whiteness enough to feel like he has the authority to do that right.
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[15:14] Kat: So I wanted to define liminal space for people like me who are only like 85% confident of the meaning of the words they use. So, full disclaimer. But Merriam Webster defines liminal as relating to or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition in between, transitional. So I do know what it means, good for me. I also found a great brief definition more deeply related to the way we use the term liminal space today, taken from an article by Isabel Berenguer Asuncion on Business Inquire about architecture. So I quote, “The term liminality from the Latin word “leeman,” which translates literally to “threshold,” was first coined in the early 1900s by Arnold van Gennep in the book, “Les Rites de Passage”. Here, he spoke of that space as being the second phase of the rites of passage, the transition phase midway between one identity and the next. Being in the liminal space is like standing on the threshold, or being on the verge or being on the brink of.” End quote. I just love that definition. I thought it speaks a lot to my own understanding of Black identity, and it's definitely a word I'm going to use a lot, so.
[16:35] Kat: But then I'm really curious too just about this topic of being in proximity to whiteness. And, you know, I think when I talked to you last year, you told me, I identify as white because I walked through the world with most of the privileges of white people. And I don't know if that's where you are currently. But can you just talk about how being in proximity to whiteness, or... I have so many questions, girl, it's like, they're all in my head. [both laugh] Yeah, I sort of see two things happening. It's like you're in proximity to whiteness, and then in searching for yourself, you're like, not finding those people that feel like you or look like you. So can you just talk about that?
[17:14] Joelle: It's hard, because I sometimes see myself as white because I'm treated as a white person by a lot of people. But also, there's a part of me that feels fundamentally Black. It's like, I look at my mom, and I will see herself in me. That's just part of who I am also. And so it's just really, it's honestly really confusing. I'm starting to get to the point where it's not as much focused on critiquing myself or figuring out myself, it's like, what is this structure that isn't defining me? Why are these my only options? You know, like, it doesn't… I think it's like one of those things that I'm still in the process of discovering for myself, but this is reminding me of a story. So I was hanging out with one of my friends last summer, kind of after all of the protests over George Floyd's murder happened. And I think during that time, a lot of my white friends all of a sudden became aware of my Blackness. And were trying to actually talk to me about it now that it was a hot thing that people were talking about in the culture. And I also felt this need to be explaining myself, this is so kind of fucked up. Sorry, it's kind of messed up how I have to explain myself when I'm not seeing any of my white friends just explaining their whiteness, you know? And it just, it was like a lot of pressure. I don't know how to talk about these things. Because I haven't been afforded the space to do so my entire life. And now all of sudden, this one event happens. And I'm supposed to know exactly who I am and how I fit into this and what my role is, and I honestly don't know. And I was having a conversation with this friend, a white man. And he asked me, he was like, “do you consider yourself Black?” And at that time, it's just I'm like, so back and forth. I'm like, I don't understand, am I, am I not? And so I was like, “Well, yes, like, I am Black.” And then he's like, “but you're not like really Black. Like, you don't really face the oppression that Black men face.” And like, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that I do face that oppression. But I'm saying I am Black, and that I acknowledge my privilege as someone who's white passing. But it was really odd to me that this white man is sitting here telling me that I need to acknowledge my white privilege as a mixed person. And I'm just like, why aren't you sitting here acknowledging your white privilege? And then I felt attacked and defensive and it was just this weird experience. I still don't understand if I'm white, or Black, or I just feel like who I am. And it feels like a mix of both. It's like I do have like, I am both. I can't like get away from that.
[20:03] Kat: Yeah, yeah. When I was talking to Addis last week, so she's Ethiopian and she was adopted by a white family.
Joelle: Mhmm, yeah.
Kat: And she was, yeah, grew up in predominantly white spaces. And like many Black people in the Midwest, there's this narrative of, “you're like the whitest Black person I know," or, in what you said that, "you're not really Black." And there's this, it's like, so toxic. The way that white people feel that they have the authority to name you in that way.
Joelle: Mhmm.
Kat: When I was talking to Addis, we were talking about that privilege of being in proximity to white ness, that's a very real privilege. And I'm super light skinned, you're super light skinned, we both know, there's a very real light skinned privilege.
Joelle: Yeah.
Kat: The likelihood of me being stopped by a cop, because of the color of my skin, it's super, super low, I don't face that sort of anxiety,
Joelle: Right. Yeah.
Kat: And that's a real privilege. But it's also vital to acknowledge the sort of violence that exists as a Black person, or a person of color, in proximity to whiteness, and in predominantly white spaces where you're constantly having your culture erased and undervalued. And you are regularly unable to see yourself or people that look like you, or that you can relate to. That is a very real, that's a very real violence, and it doesn't feel good. So it's like, I'm trying to hold those two things simultaneously. The privilege is very real, but the violence is also very real. So we have to just hold them both at the same time. Yeah.
[21:46] Joelle: Right. Yeah, definitely. I totally feel that.
[21:51] Kat: Okay, I'm still processing your fucking professor. Like with that whole situation. But that also makes me think about what you were saying about your friend kind of waking up to like racism and being like, “Oh, Joelle's Black, we should talk about it.” You know, and this way, like, so often, people don't want to talk about race, or they don't want to acknowledge it, to the extent thinking about your sculpture with the wax. They're like, “Oh, I'm so glad you avoided that topic altogether. So I don't have to deal with it.” You know what I mean?
Joelle: Right, yeah.
Kat: But the responsibility to process race and what it means to be American, we put that work on people of color. I think it's like a way of disowning responsibility, in a way. I think multiracial people, white people, people color, like everybody has a responsibility of figuring out what is this thing? So yeah.
Joelle: Yeah, totally.
Kat: Yeah, now I'm just talking. Sorry. I'm gonna stop talking. [laughs]
[22:50] Joelle No, I love it. It makes me feel more comfortable. [both laugh]
[22:54] Kat: So yeah, I think going to interviews where they're just like drilling you and you're like, Okay, thanks for listening. Like, yeah, okay. I really love this quote that you have from Solange Knowles, where it says, “I can't be a singular expression of myself. There's too many parts, too many spaces, too many manifestations, too many lines. Too many curves. Too many troubles, too many journeys. Too many mountains, too many rivers, so many.” I really like the way it articulates of course multiracialness, but it also articulates this sort of spiritual aspect of being a human being and navigating that.
[23:31] Joelle: Right. Well, I think everyone has that level of complexity to them, you know, or it's just, whenever we have an interaction with someone, we're just getting a little scratch off, like the top of the surface of who they are. And I think for me, I feel like I hardly even know myself completely. Like, there's just like, so much intricacy and complexity. And I feel it's just almost like life's like a life's journey, or a life's work of really getting to know all these parts of myself.
[24:02] Kat: Yeah, I don't think you have to have an answer about what camp you're in, or that you have to choose a camp, or that camp exists, you know, like you can, you can do what you want.
[24:15] Joelle: Yeah, totally.
[24:17] Kat: I think I want to ask you about this. So you used to organize a space called the Mez Collective. And it was like this really cool space. That's like a mixture between music and visual art and it's substance free, and it was really focusing on helping people connect with the art period. Do you want to talk a little bit about that space? And who was it for? What was it for?
[24:41] Joelle: Yeah, I think that's, that was so it feels like so long ago. Sometimes I even forget that Gabs and I did that. I mean, the reason it we kind of got it started was I mean, we were both in college and we were we were talking about what we were passionate about and what we were hoping for, for our futures after we graduated. And I remember going to First Fridays at the time and just feeling like when I went to those spaces, I wanted a chance to connect with the art in a deeper way. Because I felt a lot of times it was more just, it felt like a big party. And there's nothing wrong with that like social aspect of it. I think that's a really huge part. But I wanted to, like hear more from like the artists and have more of a direct engagement in the art spaces that were available. And I remember going to like Parallel Visions, which that studio and realizing oh, like I know, these people, and they like they started this space, this is something that's possible for me to do, too. So it kind of started out as okay, maybe I want to have, I want to create space for the people that I'm connected with to show their work, because it doesn't really feel like that's much of an option, because I was kind of like disconnected from these older people who are running these gallery spaces at the time. So yeah, it was just Gabs and I were talking, we lived together at the time. And we just decided to just do it and see what happened. And I think it was just a really, it was a really interesting experience. For me, you had a show there with the mannequin heads and the different skin tone colors of paint, and just having those interactive elements I think were really cool. There was definitely some flaws with it. I think, you know, if I were to do it again… it was kind of hard to balance going to school, working full time and running the space, I guess. So it was just, it was a lot. It didn't completely turn out like the way I guess I didn't like fully realize its potential for me at the time in terms of what I was hoping for. I think at one point, we did an interview with Casey Callahan. She had a show there. And that to me was doing this thing of kind of engaging more directly with the artists giving them a platform to like talk about their work. So we started to go in that direction. But then it just ended up being kind of a lot to juggle with school and work. So Levi Hagan I think took over the space a couple of years, a year ago or so. So it's still functioning, which is really awesome that it kind of like became its own thing. I love that about it.
[27:26] Kat: That's cool. I totally relate to that activity of space making where you see something and you're like, we need a thing like this, maybe we should do it. Maybe we should build this thing that we're looking for.
Joelle: Yeah. Mhmm.
Kat: Also, I think about your organizing. And that event we had last summer was so fun, it was so good for my soul.
Joelle: It was. Mhmm.
Kat: So like it was so yourself, Kieran Wilson. I feel like there was a ton of people involved to weave through the Fourth of July art rally. And my co workers in South of Downtown registered people who vote, you organized a bunch of slam poets from UNL, a bunch of Indigenous speakers, dancers, and it was just really cool. And so I see you as somebody who is regularly making spaces for conversations or for people to express things that might not otherwise have an opportunity to do that.
Joelle: Mmm, mhmm.
Kat: So I'm curious if there's a relationship because when I think about my own, my own, like impulse to do that, too. I think it's also related to this way, in Nebraska. I like being here. Like, I don't hate being here. But I often don't see resources for people like me. And Parallel Visions was the art space for people of color by people of color. And so we were responding to this lack of representation in a way. We were responding to our own need to see ourselves and to see people that look like us. So do you find that relationship in the space making you're doing is like it's sort of this relationship between wanting to make space for other people, but also just wanting to see represented yourself and the concerns you have?
[29:12] Joelle: Yeah, I mean definitely. I have an interest in helping to like earn and being someone who lifts like other people up. There's just so much disparity and I want to see more equity in our world. And it's hard to know where to start. I think because I have a decent amount of like connections in this world, in art and in the creative scene here in Lincoln and Omaha, to me it just makes sense to use those skills in that area. And there's so much that just gets missed out on because a lot of the spaces that get a lot of traction, I think they tend to focus on showing work of people who are already popular, who are already getting attention. But then I look and see all these other people who are making really beautiful, interesting, engaging work or just expressing themselves or working through really important cultural issues. And I think it's really important that we turn towards that group of people too and give them space.
[30:23] Kat: Yeah. I’m like just looking through my questions here. Elias Sime is an Ethiopian artist who is making these really beautiful abstract pieces. They almost look like mosaics made out of disassembled computers. They're fascinating. They're super, super cool. The texture of them is stunning. I really want to see them in person. Can you just talk about towers, the presence of relatable figures such as Elias Sime change your capacity to relate with your cultural background as an Ethiopian person? How has it changed your creative practice? What does he mean to you, talk about it.
[31:07] Joelle: Yeah, sure. I think well, okay. So, I mean, I've grown up seeing images of Ethiopian artwork, my mom has our artifacts in our home. And a lot of it is more of the Coptic art. Its orthodox paintings. It's all very, like religious, and they're really beautiful. It's a really beautiful style. And I think like in college, I was like, oh, like, so I love this style. And it's part of my heritage. And I was trying to integrate it into my drawing. But then also, part of my practice is using found objects and kind of making more wacky and like imaginative and abstract pieces. And there's something that's so narrative about the traditional style of Ethiopian painting that I wasn't quite connecting to at the time. And so I was like, I want to be able to have influences, I wouldn't be able to have Ethiopian artists as influences in my work. But I've just really kind of struggled to find that. Because if you like if you try and like search for Ethiopian contemporary artists, and you'll search that, there's just bunches of paintings of women holding baskets, or spinning wool. It's like folk art, very traditional painting, which is cool. Like I'm interested in, how do we engage with materials? How do we engage and relate to objects in the world. And I think looking at what Elias Sime does that's really awesome, is he's using these materials, like buttons and electrical wires and computer boards, things that we have a direct relationship to, it's they're almost as important to our bodies as, as the food that we eat. He's really showing that paint isn't the only option for meaningful materials. And I think I really, I love that connection that he has with those materials. And so I find it refreshing to see an Ethiopian artist who is kind of expanding like what art can mean and what it can do. And yeah, he's the director of The Zoma Museum in Addis. And it's this really, I haven't been there yet, but my parents went a couple of years ago. And it's just this beautiful space with all of these cob structures, beautiful architecture, a lot of reclaimed materials and gardens, he kind of takes his artistic practice to this new level of he's not only just making these beautiful collages, but he's also creating a beautiful space in a city. It's just, it's kind of the way my parents described it as, it's like a pretty worn down area of town. And then there's just all these gardens and just beautiful buildings, and it used to be a trash heap. And he is just inspiring to me for that reason I think.
[33:55] Kat: That's so cool. Ah, I feel just hearing that I'm gonna need to do some crazy material stuff for your piece. [both laugh] I love that. That's part of why I’m having so much fun talking to people as it makes me consider ways of making and creating that I otherwise never would. He has like a probably 100 foot long installation of these computer boards in things in this mosaic type effect. And it's absolutely gorgeous. But it's one of the things I instantly thought of because I'm an American, I guess. I was like, Wow, that must be so expensive to make. But he very well could be using discarded objects, but it definitely makes you think about the value of things, too. And the material. Yeah, I love the way he's using materials and it makes the work have all these, there's the visible level of what you're seeing aesthetically. And then there's the sort of questions behind why this material and what does that mean it's making me think about all this all this stuff. So yeah, it's exciting.
[34:59] Joelle: Yeah, yeah. There's a market there where old computer parts are kind of broken apart and for sale so he does like salvage all of these materials, which to me is so cool.
[35:10] Kat: Yeah, yeah. Mmm. There's an African artist who I really love and his name is leaving me right now. But he uses discarded cigar wrappers. And him and people in his city, they weave together the cigar wrappers into these giant fabrics. Oh, it's killing me, I know his name. [music comes up] I'm referring to El Anatsui, a Ghanaian sculptor known for using aluminum liquor bottle caps and wire to make giant fabric like installations. If you want to see his amazing work, you can check it out in the show notes. [music fades out]
Kat: It's exciting to see the way... I know multiple African artists that are using materials in this sort of grand scale, immersive kind of discarded thing becomes like incredibly valuable and overwhelmingly majestic. So what sort of educational experiences did you have growing up that really made you love education? Did you feel represented when you went to school? I don't know. Just talk to me about it. [both laugh]
[36:20] Joelle: Yeah, sure. I think for me, well, so like my parents are, they're really religious. And I wouldn't say that they were like super strict on what content and what information I was exposed to, but they were very careful about making sure that I wasn't learning a lot about the secular world. I wasn't allowed to read the Harry Potter books, I had to go behind their back and read it. And then we had like this huge discussion about, you know, if it was godly, or not to read Harry Potter. So for me, I think there was almost a feeling of constraint or limitation and the knowledge that was available in my house and going to school and learning about all these different perspectives. Being around just people with different backgrounds was really exciting to me. So I was like, Okay, I'm not really connecting or clicking in with, like, the knowledge that I'm learning at home necessarily. So there's just a whole world out there. And so I think, for me, it was this symbol of freedom in a sense, of like, I can learn anything, anything's possible. I was pretty lucky. In high school, I had a really diverse group of friends, from like a lot of different religious and cultural backgrounds. We were like, we were kind of like the ethnic group of friends. [laughs] And then there's everyone else is like white. And we're all just like, from the Middle East, or African. It was just like, kind of cool to me to find solidarity amongst all these white people with a group of people of color. And so I think that was really important to me. But like in elementary school and middle school, I went to predominantly white schools where it was just like one or two other non white people in the class. And so it just wasn't really something that I thought of a lot, I guess. Because I passed as white, people assumed I was white. It would only get confusing for me, because of my privilege, where if my mom were to come to a school event, and then I'm like, “Oh, no one else has a parent whose mom is a different color than them.” It would get kind of confusing for me. But I guess like with education. Hmm. Sorry, I'm kind of just like rambling all over the place now.
[38:39] Kat: I asked you a really complicated question, so. [laughs]
Joelle: Yeah, it really is. Yeah, I think I have a hard time knowing exactly what I want to say. So I do this thing where it's meander and I like circle into a point. So it's like, if you can hold on while I'm just spatting random shit, like we might get to something cool in the end. Who knows? [both laugh] We might not. I'll just go back. I think for me, education is just really important because it symbolizes how much knowledge there is in the world, and how much also that we don't know. And just that pursue of getting closer to some sort of individual truth. I think for me is really important. Yeah, there's like a quote that I heard a couple years ago. “No one knows everything, but everyone knows something.” Yeah, I'm just interested in learning about what other people know. Because I don't know everything. Yeah.
[39:34] Kat: Yeah. Mmmm. There's a lot in there.
Joelle: Yeah. [laughs]
Kat: You’re extremely humble. You strike me as somebody who's extremely humble. It feels, it seems like you're really comfortable with this gray space that you occupy. This sense of like, even what you were saying about you think you're going to not know who you are for a long time, and you're excited about just living your life trying to figure out who is Joelle.
Joelle: Mhmm.
Kat: I love that. I think there's a lot of beauty in that. In this idea that none of us know the singular truth, but we can all kind of collectivise to get a little bit closer to it. So yeah, it's good.
Joelle: Mhmm.
[40:17] Kat: Yeah. So being a teacher in a public school setting, what did that teach you about, what did that teach you?
[40:24] Joelle: Well okay so, when I was a student, I was like one of those… I was pretty nerdy. Like I said, I would run to school when I was in elementary school because I was so excited to be there. [laughs] And I just really cared about my grades, and it was definitely a huge focus of mine. And i think when I started teaching, I realized that maybe I was in a very privileged group. I was in a very small group of students who actually really enjoyed school. Because I was noticing that most of my students didn’t want to be there. And to me I was like, oh, I was able to fit into the system somehow for some reason, or for a lot of reasons. My parents were well off and were just really supportive. And they really helped me value school, I didn’t have an option to not. Well, I want to be careful about how I’m talking about this. Just what I’m saying is I realize that the school system is only working for the people who it’s designed to work for, which is white people and rich people. And I think I was really disappointed because I wanted to offer my students more, but wasn’t sure how to because I had grown up learning in that same system and it had worked for me, and I had enjoyed it. So I just really didn’t know what to do to fix things to make it work for them. So I think that’s one thing that I learned about myself when I was teaching was just that I think school is actually not a good place for a lot of people. And I think it could really be restructured and redone to help people be happier and to help students learn about the world in a way that they can actually connect to.
[42:20] Kat: Mmm. Yeah. One thing that’s really interesting about what you said earlier too, was that you were very sheltered in a way.
Joelle: Mhmm.
Kat: I had the same experience. Like my family is really religious. My mom wouldn’t let us watch Scooby Doo, Pokemon, or Yugio.
Joelle: Same. [laughs]
Kat: We couldn’t read Harry Potter until we were 15. It was like a whole thing.
Joelle: Yeah. [both laugh]
[42:44] Kat: So I feel like the Christian kids were like I see you girl, I was deprived of a lot. And then you go to school and there’s this whole other world that you’re exposed to. And I think that’s the reality for every student is that there’s your home life and then you go to school and there’s this whole other world. For some students, the world that you’re introduced to isn’t the space of freedom, like what you said for you, it felt like you were offered so much freedom to learn and to be exposed to new things. But that’s not the reality for all students. Not all students are assumed to be intelligent. And gifted students are gifted because their parents are paying lots of money to take these tests all the time. There’s all this sort of white supremacy embedded in it. I’m learning that more and more just like collaborating with teachers through my work.
Joelle: Yeah.
Kat: I’m like oh man, this is real fucked up. What sort of like, what do you want to see happen, or are there things you’re excited about in the educational space?
[43:50] Joelle: I’m definitely still learning and I'm not super knowledgeable, so. But I think there is kind of this newer push toward self directed learning, so students can actually choose what they’re learning about. They’re set up in a way where they can learn according to their interests. That’s something that really excites me. I’m also interested in decolonizing education, and expanding what we learn about and the perspectives that we learn about history from. I think those are really necessary. But honestly it’s one of those things like I was saying, I was taught under that system and the knowledge that I’ve gained is still very much embedded in that. And I feel like it just runs so deep in me, like I have so much work of untethering myself from it before I could even imagine what a new structure would look like for education. And I think that’s part of the reason I stopped teaching currently is because I just really want to rethink and be intentional and learn from people who are already doing this work before I fuck anyone else up. [laughs] You know? I don’t want to do any harm by teaching in ways that are harmful. So I think I had to withdraw from that because I wasn’t sure how to do it.
[45:09] Kat: That’s wholesome. [laughs] That takes a lot.
Joelle: I don’t know, I’m like maybe it’s just kind of lazy. I don’t know. [laughs] I’m still trying to figure it out.
[45:20] Kat: No, it takes a lot of self awareness to even be able to say I need to decolonize my mind before I come back to this. You know? [laughs]
Joelle: Yeah. [laughs]
Kat: It takes awareness. It takes humility. It takes courage to just say, I’m gonna go decolonize my mind, I’ll be back later, maybe. I’ll figure this shits out. [both laugh] It’s a lot. It’s a lot. There’s certain things I myself am like, I don’t want to take on the responsibility of this, and like that’s okay. Being a teacher is a huge amount of responsibility. Yeah.
[45:52] Joelle: Yeah. I imagine going back to it when I’m 40 years old and have real… Yeah, I think another reason is, I mean, I literally was in school since the time I was like five years old until the time I stopped teaching. I was in a school building almost every day of my life. And so that is just such a limited amount of what you can learn in the world. And I feel like now that I’m an adult and have been learning outside of that system, I think where we really learn is by directly engaging with the world outside of this little pod of, “this is what the world is like.” It’s all theory and there’s no practical application,I feel like. Or not no practical application, but very little application. Just the idea of a school building is such a prison to me when there’s a whole world out there. I learn a lot more going on a walk in the woods for 30 minutes than I do in a day in a school building. I think that’s part of the reason why a lot of students aren’t learning is because the environment itself isn’t how we engage, how we’ve been biologically. We’ve been biolically evolving with the earth, with the land, and then all of a sudden we’re just learning in a white box without windows. We’re not actually learning about anything. We’re just learning about ideas and not connecting with our bodies. We need to start our education system from a place where it comes from the body. Are my needs getting met? Are we learning how to be compassionate and empathetic? And then after all of that stuff is the foundation, then we can move onto like okay, how do we add, and how do we read. I think they can also be integrated into that too. But I don’t know, I just think when you can only go to the bathroom twice a day, and you get 15 minutes to eat lunch, it’s just like we’re pretending to be robots when we’re actually humans. You know, it’s just not, I don’t think it’s healthy for us to live that way.
[47:58] Kat: Yeah. I could talk to you for a minute. This has been super fun. And I think one thing, I wish I had more time to talk to you because I really want to know more about you being in nature. Like where do you go? What do you do? Because I think that could be, maybe that’s a cool space to have a photoshoot. Or the last thing you said I’m like damn, that’s a whole other interview.
Joelle: Yeah. [both laugh]
Kat: I might try to follow up with you for real, because I’m really curious about that. But for now, what are you doing now, and how can people connect with you and what you’re doing?
[48:36] Joelle: Right now am I taking almost like a sabbatical I would say, where I’m just really working on my studio practice. And just really trying to be, just taking it easy, just taking it easy. And trying to do a lot less. If people want to get connected with me, I have Instagram. My art Instagram is @stack.of.bricks with periods between the words. And I’ve been doing some workshops with a naturalist school group here in Omaha. And we have a couple of events coming up in May depending on how things are going with the pandemic. So if anyone is interested in going on a walk, and reading and writing some poetry, that’s something that’s coming up potentially.
Kat: That’s so cool. Amazing. I want to come, I want to go to that. Okay, well I’m going to, thanks everyone for listening. I’m going to stop recording now.
[music comes up]
[49:46] Kat: Joelle and I just had a photoshoot in a wooded trail near Wabansi State Park in Iowa. It was hot. I learned about things because it’s one of the spots where Joelle does naturalist education. If you want to connect with Joelle and her artistic practice, you can get all her handles in the show notes, as well as a lot of content related to this episode including links to works of some of the amazing African artists we mentioned earlier in the episode.
Kat: Some credits: Music for this podcast was produced by Spazz Cardigan and the song is called “Garden.” Show notes and transcriptions were provided by Gabriella Parsons. Samuel Segrist did the audio mastering for this episode. And the podcast was produced and edited by me with help from my studio assistant and friend Kossi Kouakou. Support the podcast and my artistic practice by contributing on Patreon. You can also get a yearly gift of original prints, stickers, early access to merchandise and more. Just click the show notes and it’ll all be there. Thanks for listening, and you’ll hear from me soon. [music fades out]