Seeing Color

On this episode, I biked over to Staycee Pearl’s house to record this wonderful conversation. Staycee is the co-artistic director of PearlArts Studios and STAYCEE PEARL dance project, where she creates dance-centered multimedia works with her husband and creative partner, Herman Pearl. Since then, the studio has produced several works including OCTAVIA, ABBEY: In the Red, and FLOWERZ. Staycee is also passionate about sharing resources and creating opportunities by initiating arts-community programs such as the PearlDiving Movement Residency and the In The Studio Series. Over the course of an hour, we exchanged ideas about collaboration, body image in dance, preventing boredom in one’s creativity, and finding happiness. There was a dog barking periodically next door, so I apologize for the random dog sounds. Also, next week on April 12-13th, Staycee will be presenting sym, an evening-length dance work in Pittsburgh at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater. sym is a deeply atmospheric dance and sound experience inspired

On this episode, I took a long look at the complicated racial history in Germany with Nine Yamamoto-Masson. I was first introduced to Nine by Carol Zou, who I interviewed on Episode 12, which I will link in the show notes. Nine is artist, practicing theorist, researcher, translator, radio maker, activist and community organizer. Growing up in southern Germany and going to France for university before ending up Berlin, Nine has a unique lens through which she views Europe through her French-Japanese identity. Throughout our conversations, Nine demystifies the idea of a liberal progressive Germany and questions the power structures embedded in an English-centric and capitalistic art world. Our discussion is long, but I thought it was necessary to setup the stage for a history that I am not familiar with as an American. As a warning, some of the topics we discussed contain intense and disturbing language. I also must apologize for my occasional coughing, as I was getting over a cold at the time of this recording

On this episode, I hung out with Ching-chu Hu, a musician, composer, and dad of four beautiful children. I first met Ching-chu in Wyoming, through the Brush Creek Art Residency. Born in Iowa City, Ching-chu grew up in a predominately white area and we bonded over our shared experience of growing up as Chinese-American. Ching-chu studied music at Yale University, followed by a Masters at the University of Iowa and a PhD at the University of Michigan. Currently, Ching-chu is a professor and Chair of Music at Denison University. While in Wyoming, Ching-chu was so kind as to help me film one of my videos with me in a dinosaur costume running around the vast open fields. After getting to know Ching-chu for a month, I knew I wanted to interview him and was excited that he agreed. Ching-chu was quite fascinated with the history of my name, so we spent quite some time talking naming, along with notions of authenticity, who gets to appropriate what, Asian representation, and the age old question of “Where are you from

On this episode, I spoke with Njaimeh Njie, a photographer, filmmaker, and multimedia producer. Njaimeh grew up in Pittsburgh before heading to Washington University in St. Louis to earn a B.A. in Film and Media studies. Njaimeh describes her primary focus as documenting the everyday experiences of groups whose experiences are misrepresented and erased. She recently won the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts’ Emerging Artist award and has her own video production company, Eleven Stanley Productions. I first saw Njaimeh’s Power(ed) by Grace videos and reached out to learn more about her and her work. We talk about abstraction, Spike Lee’s Blackkklansman, and thinking about how to exist in white spaces. This interview is short and sweet, so I hope you enjoy it. Links Mentioned: Njaimeh’s Website Njaimeh’s Instagram Eleven Stanley Productions Njaimeh’s group show at Future Tenant Most Wanted Fine Art Advancing Black Arts in Pittsburgh Njaimeh’s Power(ed) by Grace videos Gordon Parks Teenie Harris Lorna Simpson Car

On this episode, I headed over to John Peña’s house in Wilkinsburg to chat. I met John when I first arrived in Pittsburgh for graduate school and always found him to be warm and kind. John also received his MFA from Carnegie Mellon, but in 2008, well before I had even considered art as a possible career. John went to Columbia for a year before returning to Pittsburgh. From time to time, John teaches classes at Carnegie Mellon, so I always saw him running into the faculty lounge between classes. Over the four years, I slowly got to know John, from studio visits, grabbing a beer at the bar, or reading John’s comic, Daily Geology. John’s practice is vast and wide ranging, from racing clouds, sending letters to the Pacific Ocean, and constructing large-scale plaster word balloons. This conversation touches upon many topics, from trying to have control over things you have no control over, to forgetting one’s language to escape the past, and residing in a space of discomfort and disappointment. Some of the topics

On this episode, my close friend Carol Zou visited me in Berlin and I was overjoyed to finally chat with Carol. I have known Carol since our time in undergrad and seen her develop over the years into a formidable artist, activist, and cultural worker. She is always reading and writing on top of her work and I always marvel at how Carol can juggle everything at once. For the interview, we discuss the economics of social practice, historical discontinuity in places, the performative dimensions of activism, and constructing mythologies. We are both drinking tea, so you may hear the occasional slurping. I don’t think I could adequately summarize Carol’s practice, so I’ll read from Carol’s self-mythologized description from her website bio: When Carol Zou was growing up in subsidized university housing as the child of first-generation Chinese immigrants, she read The Fledgling by Jane Langton and convinced the rest of the children in the apartment complex that if they practiced hard enough, they could collectively

Happy New Years everyone! I wish you had time for peace and reflection as we head into 2019. For this coming year, I am excited to release and share a whole batch of new interviews with you. Just as a reminder, Ariel Jackson, who I interviewed in the previous episode, has her show opening this week at Sculpture Center on Long Island City. So please go and see her show if you are in or around New York City. Moving on to today’s episode, I thought about what to release as the first episode to mark 2019 and I felt it would be a good idea to look back, as in all the way back, to the first interview I ever conducted for this podcast in February of 2018. As I edited the audio, I could hear myself still figuring out how I wanted my podcast to function and sound as I tentatively talked to my guest. At this point, I had not even made the website yet or figured out what to call my podcast. With all that aside, my first guest ever is Umar Rashid, a Los Angeles-based artist, storyteller, history buff, musician, and poet.

Happy holidays and New Years everyone! I hope you are enjoying this much needed time with friends and family. On this particular episode, I took a brief trip to London to visit some friends and see some art. While there, I had the chance to chat with Ariel René Jackson. Ariel is currently pursuing her MFA at UT Austin, but was able to spend a semester studying in London at the Royal College of Art. Ariel and I first met while Ariel was visiting Berlin. Both of us presented a snippet of our work at Das Kapital, a bar in Neukölln. Ariel and I bonded over being the only people of color in that space, which we touch upon in our conversation. Ariel's work uses installations and videos to situate her practice into ideas of spatial matters as black matters, while understanding landscape as palimpsest, something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form. Ariel's work has been shown in spaces such as the Studio Museum in Harlem, the DePaul Art Museum in Chicago, and the Contemporary Art Ce

On this episode, I am excited to share with you the conversation I had with Paul Peng. Paul is an artist based in Pittsburgh who I met while we were both in school. I’ve been a fan of his art for quite a while and was looking forward to talking to Paul about art and life. Paul describes his work as a picture-drawing built on cartoon figuration and formal mark-making by way of post-humanism via lurking in furry and weeaboo fandoms. Paul’s drawings have always given me a mesmerizing feeling every time I visit his studio. I enjoyed listening to Paul describe how drawing cartoons function for him, how he thinks about his drawings as his own kid, and how to find interests in one’s own work. I lost part of the audio in the middle due to technical difficulties, so the interview runs slightly shorter. Of course, this is all an excuse to interview Paul again for a later time. I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned: Paul’s Website Paul’s Tumblr Paul’s Instagram Petra Cortwright Alfred North Whitehead’s Process and Rea

On this episode, I had the pleasure of talking with Tereneh Idia, a designer and writer currently based in Pittsburgh, PA. Tereneh attended Drexel University before moving around Washington D.C., Baltimore, and New York City. Tereneh describes these places as once having coffee shops that just sold coffee and donuts, where you could go to a Dominican Chinese restaurant and probably not find a piece of kale anywhere. After much traveling, Tereneh received her Masters in Fashion Design at Kenyatta University in Kenya. She is a 2016 Carol R. Brown Creative Achievement Emerging Artist, which is awarded by The Heinz Endowment and The Pittsburgh Foundation. Tereneh and I had a wonderfully long and meandering conversation and we get into a few podcasts, Tereneh’s thoughts on fashion, and the never-ending story of white supremacy. I thoroughly enjoyed relistening to my conversation with Tereneh as I edited the audio, and I hope you enjoy listening to it just as much as I did! Links Mentioned: Tereneh’s Website Idia

On this episode, I speak with Adil Mansoor, a theatre director and educator who’s work centers around the stories of queer folk and people of color. Adil is a founding member of Pittsburgh’s Hatch Arts Collective and a member of the Heinz Endowments’ Transformative Arts Process, a grantmaking initiative supporting justice based arts education within black communities in Pittsburgh. Adil also served as the Program Director and then Artistic Director at Dreams of Hope, an LGBTQA+ youth arts organization for over 5 years. Adil is currently a Point Scholar and pursuing his MFA as a John Wells Directing Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University. I first learned about Adil through his Creative Mornings’s talk, which I have attached in the show notes. I then saw his production of Gloria by Branden Jacob-Jenkins over the summer and was very taken by the directing and the story. Adil was so kind as to find some time to sit with me and chat. Our conversation goes all over the place, from Adil’s early theater experiences, ho

Hey everyone and welcome back. For this episode, I meet up with Kilolo Luckett, an art historian, writer, cultural producer, and curator. She also works as the arts commissioner for the city of Pittsburgh and is the curator for the August Wilson Center. With over twenty years of experience in the arts, culture and community and economic development fields, she is committed to making art and culture more accessible. This past summer, I sat down with Kilolo to chat. Just before the recording, we were both caught in a sudden heavy rainstorm, but everything turned out okay as we discussed Adrian Piper, the pronunciation of non-white names, and the white lens. Kilolo’s most recent show, Familiar Boundaries. Infinite Possibilities., just opened at the August Wilson Center and runs through until March 24th, 2019. The exhibition is beautiful, so please go and check out the show. I had so much fun talking with Kilolo and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Links Mentioned: Instagram Adrian Piper’s MoMA Show The Pit

On this episode, I met with Yujin Lee, an artist who works with video, drawing, and printmaking. Yujin is interested in microhistorical narratives that revisit themes such as war, globalization, and collective identity. I first met Yujin while we were both in college in a sculpture class. Yujin was born in Korea and received her BFA from Cornell University. She lived in Berlin for three years before moving to New York City to receiving her MFA at Columbia University. More recently, Yujin decided to move to Jeju, an island off the coast of Korea. I connected with Yujin before she left New York and we explore ideas about finding the right audience, repetition, and what it means to be intimate. For clarification purposes, I want to point out that Yujin refers to a person named Rirkrit, who's full name is Rirkrit Tiravanija, an artist and teacher at Columbia University. I've added a bunch of links for this particular episode on the website. I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned: Yujin's Website Yujin's Instagra

On this episode, I have the privilege of speaking with Devan Shimoyama, a wonderful artist and close friend. Devan grew up in Philadelphia and went to Penn State for his BFA before completing his MFA from Yale University in Painting/Printmaking in 2014. Upon graduating, Devan began teaching at Carnegie Mellon University, which is where I first met him. As an artist, Devan seeks to depict the black queer male body as something that is both desirable and desirous. Devan has shown throughout the United States and is currently represented by De Buck Gallery in New York City. In this discussion, Devan talks about his experience at Yale, fan art, barbershops, and sci-fi and fantasy novels. His debut solo museum show at The Andy Warhol Museum entitled “Cry, Baby” just opened last week and runs through until March 17, 2019. If you are in Pittsburgh and have a chance, please go and see the show. I hope you enjoy this. Links Mentioned: Devan's Website Devan's Andy Warhol Solo Show Devan's Instagram Samuel R. Delany Au

On this episode, I visit Sarika Goulatia in her studio, which was filled up to the ceiling with materials for her sculptures. Born in India, Sarika often works with large objects that are labor intensive to construct. Originally specializing in textiles, Sarika slowly shifted over to the art world and eventually got a Fine Arts degree at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she continues to live and work. She has exhibited in spaces such as the Mattress Factory and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. More recently, Sarika received the Carol R. Brown Emerging Artist Award and a Creative Development Grant, both given out by the Pittsburgh and Heinz Foundation. Sarika and I end up talking for quite a long time, with topics ranging from being a minority, Westernizing one’s self, and who gets the privilege to be called an international artist. Links Mentioned: Sarika's Website Sarika's Instagram Follow Seeing Color: Seeing Color Website Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Facebook Twitter Insta

On this episode, I sit down with Alisha Wormsley, an artist based in Pittsburgh who creates photos, sculpture, sound, and time-based work based on collective memory and the synchronicity of time periods. I first came to know of Alisha through her Homewood Residency program, but more recently Alisha gained attention for one of her text-based work. To give a bit of background, Alisha was invited to exhibit a text for The Last Billboard, a project founded by the artist Jon Rubin who offered a rotating cast of artists a chance to present text on a billboard. The billboard resides in East Liberty, a quickly gentrifying neighborhood with new neighbors that include Google and freshly constructed apartment complexes and condos. Alisha presented the text, “There Are Black People In The Future.” People from the neighborhood complained and the property’s landlord removed the text. I’ve attached a Hyperallergic link on the SeeingColor website with more information. I caught up with Alisha right after she finished teachin

On this episode, I sit down with Justin Favela, a Las Vegas based artist who also co-hosts the Latinos Who Lunch Podcast. Justin and I first met in Miami at a residency, where we bonded over pupusas, empanadas, and the movie, Get Out. I caught up with Justin while he attended a residency in Maine. I thought this would be a great first episode to start out with since Justin and I discuss some of the themes that frame my original intent to start a podcast. Links Mentioned: Justin's Website Latinos Who Lunch Justin's Instagram Follow Seeing Color: Seeing Color Website Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Facebook Twitter Instagram

Hey everyone and welcome to my podcast, Seeing Color Pod. I am your host, Zhiwan Cheung. I am a Chinese-American artist who is still learning how to navigate a very white cubed art world. Such a journey has prompted me to try and broaden the scope of art discussions and from a perspective that art cannot always be distinct from the race of the author. I am specifically looking for a critical analysis aware of and critical towards the white canon. I also made this podcast out of a wish that my younger self could have heard and learned from the conversations I am having now. So please join me as I interview all types of artists and creative people of color in hopes that such an exploration may lead to a path forward. You can head to www.seeingcolorpod.com to find out more! I hope you enjoy this.