On The Other Side Of Time: Conversation with Evan Starling-Davis

In this episode we hear from New York-based narrative artist, producer, and curator Evan Starling-Davis who excavates the everyday stories pushed beneath the margins of our society. Navigating his lens as a Black and queer digital-age griot, Evan’s work breaches the hard facts, personal truths, and surreal realities we bury ourselves in. His artistic practice is situated within art immersion, mindfulness pedagogy, and experiential technology, and is heavily guided by the Black Speculative Arts Movement (Afrosurrealism and Afrofuturism specifically). 

Evan Starling-Davis is in conversation with artist Cannupa Hanska Luger who is a recurring host with Broken Boxes and who often accesses speculative fiction in his practice from the perspective of an Indigenous person of the Great Plains of North America. This episode was recorded at Colgate University in Hamilton New York as a part of a recent  artist residency. Special thanks to Nick West, Curator of Picker Art Gallery for the introductions to Evan Starling-Davis and for organizing a studio on campus to record this conversation. 

Evan Starling-Davis is a New York-based narrative artist, producer, and curator, excavating the everyday stories pushed beneath the margins of our society. Navigating his lens as a Black and queer digital-age griot, Evan’s work breaches the hard facts, personal truths, and surreal realities we bury ourselves in. A doctoral candidate of Literacy Education at Syracuse University with a focus in extended reality (XR) technology, Starling-Davis researches and facilitates arts-based literacy and social justice projects and interventions for Black communities in the US. His artistic practice is situated within art immersion, mindfulness pedagogy, and experiential technology, and is heavily guided by the Black Speculative Arts Movement (Afrosurrealism and Afrofuturism specifically). To create new pathways for Black imagination and media literacy to flourish, Evan combines motivational design, multimedia arts, and immersive technology in striking new ways. Exploring immersive technologies as tools of healing (such as virtual, augmented, and mixed-reality) his most recent project, Hidden Fragments Breathing, models the radical potential immersive art exposure has to transform literacy in Black communities across the Rust Belt. As a curator with meticulous attention-to-detail, Starling-Davis has managed public humanities projects and community-based art experiences from conception to completion. His interdisciplinary projects have been featured in art galleries, museums, and theaters internationally. More recently, he has been selected as a 2020-2021 Humanities NY Public Humanities Fellow, a 2019-2020 Louise B. and Bernard G. Palitz Art Scholar, and a 2018-2019 Syracuse University McKean Scholar. 

Music Featured: Saffron by MF DOOM from Metal Fingers Presents: Special Herbs Vol. 1 & 2 

Brown Skin, Black Music, White Institutions: Conversation with Mario Ybarra, Jr.

Mario Ybarra, Jr., is a visual and performance artist, an educator and an activist who combines street culture with fine art in order to produce what he calls “contemporary art that is filtered through a Mexican American experience in Los Angeles.” 

Mario has exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, ICA Boston, LACMA, MOCA Detroit, the Tate and the Whitney Biennial, among others. He was a featured speaker at the Creative Summit in New York, and Art Pace San Antonio and has taught at Williams College, UCLA, Otis, CalArts, Skowhegan and the Alternative School. 

His work with Slanguage studio, a project Mario founded with his partner Karla Diaz 20 years  ago, has been an influential and oftentimes the sole provider of arts in his community. Slanguage has been based out of an old bakery shop in Wilmington Ca, out of a warehouse in  Long beach Ca, out of LAX art in Hollywood, and has seen many changes and iterations. What does not change is a lifetime commitment to their community with contribution to the careers of many young artists, curators and organizers practicing in the artworld and affecting change today.

This conversation is presented by artist Cannupa Hanska Luger, a recurring host who is leading the Spring/Summer sessions of the podcast for 2022. This episode was produced by Ginger Dunnill for Broken Boxes Podcast. 

Follow Mario’s work on IG @mario_ybarra_jr and Slanguage Studio @slanguagestudio
Music featured: Young, Gifted and Brown by Joe Bataan

To Witness: Conversation with Dr. Chip Thomas aka jetsonorama

This episode of Broken Boxes presents a conversation with Chip Thomas, hosted by Cannupa Hanska Luger. 

Chip Thomas, aka jetsonorama, is a photographer, public artist and physician who has been working in a small clinic on the Navajo Nation since 1987. There he coordinates the Painted Desert Project which he describes as a community building dialog which manifests as a constellation of murals painted by artists from the Navajo Nation as well as from around the World.

jetonorama photograph paste up on Navajo Nation, Tsegi Canyon near Kayenta. Photo by Broken Boxes, 2021

Thomas’ own public artwork consists of enlarged black and white photographs pasted onto structures along the roadside primarily on the Navajo Nation. His motivation is to reflect back to the community and the love they’ve shared with him over the years.

Thomas was a 2018 Kindle Project gift recipient and in 2020 he was one of a handful of artists chosen by the UN to recognize the 75th anniversary of the UN’s founding. Selected artists are to generate work that contributes to the envisioning and shaping of a more resilient and sustainable future. The UN writes “…Right now we are facing the greatest health challenge to the human race in a century. COVID-19 has revealed that a virus can affect not only our physical health but also our ability to cope with the psychological impact in its wake.” Thomas spent 2021 working collaboratively to create art that is a community based response to the pandemic.

Find out more about Chip’s work on his website on social media @jetsonorama 
Music featured: "To Never Forget the Source" by Sons of Kemet

For Generations PART III: Kathy Elkwoman Whitman speaks with Cannupa Hanska Luger

This is the final episode of a 3 part interview series featuring artist Kathy Elkwoman Whitman reflecting on her life and art in conversation with her son, artist Cannupa Hanska Luger. 

Kathy Elkwoman Whitman is a fearless artist who over the course of her life has continually taken creative risks and pushed conceptual boundaries in the Native Artworld. A true multidisciplinary artist and an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold, Elkwoman is a master stone and metal sculptor, a painter, a jeweler, and a fashion designer. Over the course of her career, Elkwoman has been honored with many prestigious awards and participated in numerous exhibitions around the world. She is a member of the Indigenous Sculptor Society and continues to lead art workshops and participate in artist residences throughout the United States. Her artwork is in many public collections and she continues to be acknowledged in the Indigenous Artworld as a groundbreaking artist of her generation. When asked about her life as an artist, Elkwoman reflects that what she truly loves and appreciates about her life is the ability to continue to create and impact the world with her artwork.

Cannupa Hanska Luger is a multidisciplinary artist and an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold and Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara and Lakota descent. Through monumental installations, performance and social collaboration, Luger activates speculative fiction and communicates stories about 21st Century Indigeneity, combining critical cultural analysis with dedication and respect for the diverse materials, environments, and communities he engages. He lectures and produces large-scale projects around the globe.

This is a three session chronological broadcast series and it is recommended to listen to it in order.

Music featured in this episode: Why Did You Separate Me From The Earth by Anohni

This conversation was hosted by Cannupa Hanska Luger of Broken Boxes Podcast

For Generations PART II: Kathy Elkwoman Whitman speaks with Cannupa Hanska Luger

This is the second episode of a 3 part interview series featuring artist Kathy Elkwoman Whitman reflecting on her life and art in conversation with her son, artist Cannupa Hanska Luger. 

Kathy Elkwoman Whitman is a fearless artist who over the course of her life has continually taken creative risks and pushed conceptual boundaries in the Native Artworld. A true multidisciplinary artist and an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold, Elkwoman is a master stone and metal sculptor, a painter, a jeweler, and a fashion designer. Over the course of her career, Elkwoman has been honored with many prestigious awards and participated in numerous exhibitions around the world. She is a member of the Indigenous Sculptor Society and continues to lead art workshops and participate in artist residences throughout the United States. Her artwork is in many public collections and she continues to be acknowledged in the Indigenous Artworld as a groundbreaking artist of her generation. When asked about her life as an artist, Elkwoman reflects that what she truly loves and appreciates about her life is the ability to continue to create and impact the world with her artwork.

Cannupa Hanska Luger is a multidisciplinary artist and an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold and Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara and Lakota descent. Through monumental installations, performance and social collaboration, Luger activates speculative fiction and communicates stories about 21st Century Indigeneity, combining critical cultural analysis with dedication and respect for the diverse materials, environments, and communities he engages. He lectures and produces large-scale projects around the globe.

This is a three session chronological broadcast series and it is recommended to listen to it in order.

Music featured in this episode: Woman Song by Sissy Goodhouse

This conversation was hosted by Cannupa Hanska Luger of Broken Boxes Podcast