The Astral Sea: Conversation with Tsedaye Makonnen

In this episode of Broken Boxes Podcast we hear from Tsedaye Makonnen, a multidisciplinary artist, curator, researcher and cultural producer. Tsedaye’s practice is driven by Black feminist theory, firsthand site-specific research, and ethical social practice techniques, which become solo and collaborative site sensitive performances, objects, installations, and films. In our conversation Tsedaye shares with us about her experiences in building and sustaining her art practice which focuses primarily on intersectional feminism, reproductive health and migration. She shares how her personal history as a mother, the daughter of Ethiopian refugees, a doula and a sanctuary builder nourish and guide her creative expression. 

“I want to be as expansive and imaginative as possible - to me that is freedom. I am Building worlds that have not existed yet, for myself and for others.” - Tsedaye Makonnen

---

Tsedaye Makonnen is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, researcher and cultural producer. Tsedaye’s practice is driven by Black feminist theory, firsthand site-specific research, and ethical social practice techniques, which become solo and collaborative site sensitive performances, objects, installations, and films. Her studio primarily focuses on intersectional feminism, reproductive health and migration. Tsedaye’s personal history is as a mother, the daughter of Ethiopian refugees, a doula and a sanctuary builder. 

In 2019 she was the recipient of a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. In 2021 her light sculptures were acquired by the Smithsonian NMAFA for their permanent collection, she has also exhibited these light sculptures at the National Gallery of Art and UNTITLED Art Fair. In 2023, she will be showing these light installations in traveling exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bard Graduate Center and the Walters Art Museum. 

She is the current recipient of the large-scale Landmark Public Art Commission for Providence, RI where she will create a permanent installation of her renowned light sculptures. In the Fall 2022 she performed at the Venice Biennale for Simone Leigh’s ‘Loophole of Retreat’ and was the Clark Art Institute’s Futures Fellow. 

In 2021 she published a book with Washington Project for the Arts titled ‘Black Women as/and the Living Archive’ based on Alisha B. Wormsley’s ‘Children of Nan’. In 2021, she exhibited at Photoville & NYU’s Tisch, the Walters Art Museum as a Sondheim Prize Finalist, CFHill gallery in Stockholm, Sweden and 1:54 in London.  In 2022 she exhibited at Artspace New Haven in CT and The Mattress Factory and much more. Other exhibitions include Park Avenue Armory, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Art Dubai, and more. 

She has performed at the Venice Biennale, Art Basel Miami, Art on the Vine (Martha's Vineyard), Chale Wote Street Art Festival (Ghana), El Museo del Barrio, Fendika Cultural Center (Ethiopia), Festival International d'Art Performance (Martinique), Queens Museum, the Smithsonian's, The Momentary and more. 

Her work has been featured in Artsy, NYTimes, Vogue, BOMB, Hyperallergic, American Quarterly, Gagosian Quarterly and Transition Magazine. She is represented by Addis Fine Art and currently lives between DC and London.

TSEDAYE'S WEBSITE
Music: Tew Ante Sew by GIGI
Broken Boxes opening song by India Sky
Photograph of Tsedaye Makonnen taken by performance artist Ayana Evan

Come With Me! - Conversation with Natalie Ball

In this episode we hear from artist Natalie Ball who dives right in sharing critical artworld survival insight gleaned from a life changing studio visit by artist Willie T. Williams while she was attending Yale School of Art. Among a long list of support tactics Willie imparted, the artist emplored Natalie to find a means to sustain a studio practice beyond sales, and as an artist, to always be in control of your work and process. Natalie also shares vulnerable truths from her experience as a Black Indigenous artist navigating both the Native artworld and the larger contemporary artworld. We chat about higher education and how it has been as a pathway of respite as Natalie navigated motherhood from a young age. We talk about the journey Natalie experienced having a child with a chronic illness and how she took a 5 year hiatus from art, stepping into a focused world of love and care for family back home on her territory. We talk about this current moment in time for Natalie - unpacking the need for administrative support in order to create the time to make the work and how art school does not always provide the tangible insight on how an artist can build this support into their career. Material and place informs Natalie’s work most - from her studio practice to motherhood to work on her territory - everything is connected. She uplifts play and joy as critical components to her practice, noting the courage and intention it takes to create this response to a harsh world. Through her work and life, Natalie asserts that art is power and holds the ability to transform our way of thinking. In her practice she boldly asks her audience to open their hearts and minds to new ways of seeing, presenting a call to “Come with me!”.

Natalie Ball was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. She has a Bachelor’s degree with a double major in Indigenous, Race & Ethnic Studies & Art from the University of Oregon. She furthered her education in Aotearoa (NZ) at Massey University where she attained her Master’s degree with a focus on Indigenous contemporary art. Ball then relocated to her ancestral Homelands in Southern Oregon/Northern California to raise her three children. In 2018, Natalie earned her M.F.A. degree in Painting & Printmaking at Yale School of Art. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally. She is the recipient of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation’s Oregon Native Arts Fellowship 2021, the Ford Family Foundation’s Hallie Ford Foundation Fellow 2020, the Joan Mitchell Painters & Sculptors Grant 2020, Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant 2019, and the Seattle Art Museum’s Betty Bowen Award 2018. Natalie Ball is now an elected official serving on the Klamath Tribes Tribal Council.

Artist Website: www.natalieball.com

Music Featured: Damn Right by Snotty Nose Rez Kids
Broken Boxes intro track by India Sky

Harsh Noise: Conversation with Autumn Chacon

In this episode we hear from Diné and Xicana sound artist Autumn Chacon who uses her activism, art practice and community involvement to communicate as a contemporary storyteller both locally and internationally. Autumn starts the conversation with reflection on the term Artist and how claiming this identity allows for a breaking of the rules institutional working environments do not allow. We talk about sound and noise art, the complications of being a conceptual artist, and Anarchism as a way to force understanding. We learn how Autumn became an activist at a young age, informed by her parents and their generations' advocacy and frontline work. Autumn shares her cultural relationship to sound and waveforms and how she has committed her life's work to the deconstruction of ownership and forced regulations - which she carries out in all facets of her artistic practice. We look at the global solidarity that was formed at Standing Rock during the NODAPL action and Autumn reflects on her time in the movement. Autumn breaks down a global performative action she organized with other Indigenous women in order to block funding for extractive industry and which has been formatted and used in actions globally. We end our conversation with Autumn's work as a pirate radio engineer and we learn how broadcast transmission plays an important role in her art practice - breaking the boundaries of how art is accessed in institutional spaces. She pays homage to the long lineage and power of “illegal” broadcasting and reflects how pirate radio forces us to ask an important question: ‘Who do you ask permission to, and why?’ Autumn’s sovereign communication tactics and long standing work as a sound artist and broadcast engineer continues on from a long line of activists who have used waveform as a critical tool for survival and communication during resistance. Autumn urges us to bring front and center an awareness of an ongoing silent struggle for our rights - reminding us to pay attention. 

End track: Glory Horse by Tenderizor
Broken Boxes Podcast intro music by India Sky

Multiplicity Of Truths: Conversation with CASSILS

In this episode of Broken Boxes we hear recurring host and artist Cannupa Hanska Luger in conversation with Cassils, a transgender artist who makes their own body the material and protagonist of their performances. Cassils’s art contemplates the history(s) of LGBTQI+ violence, representation, struggle and survival. For Cassils, performance is a form of social sculpture: Drawing from the idea that bodies are formed in relation to forces of power and social expectations, Cassils’s work investigates historical contexts to examine the present moment.

In the conversation, Cassils speaks to recent and landmark projects including Monument Push, a multi pronged experiential work and reaction to Trans violence, and In Plain Sight, a national activation responding to policed migration and created in collaboration with dozens of artists across the nation. They speak to the larger ideas that shape their practice, including how their work explores the violence, resilience, strength and vulnerability of the body. They unpack the ethos behind their collaboration with other community members, how the audience becomes archive in their practice, and the importance of restructuring systems of care in large projects to actively dismantle the notion that those directly impacted should shoulder the burden alone. They see a desperate need to uplift complexity and productive disagreement to move us forward collectively and share how they exercise this communication model as an educator. Cassils reminds us of the potential of art, that within the space of making, our agency cannot be taken. Cassils ends the conversation reading an excerpt from a powerful essay by James Baldwin regarding the artist's responsibility to ”...drive to the heart of every answer and expose the question that the answer hides.”

Cassils has had recent solo exhibitions at HOME Manchester, Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Perth Institute for Contemporary Arts, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, NYC; Institute for Contemporary Art, AU; Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts; Bemis Center, Omaha; MU Eindhoven, Netherlands.They are the recipient of the National Creation Fund, a 2020 Fleck Residency from the Banff Center for the Arts, a Princeton Lewis Artist Fellowship finalist, a Villa Bellagio Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, a United States Artist Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Creative Capital Award. Cassils is an Associate Professor in Sculpture and Integrated Practices at PRATT Institute.

CASSILS WEBSITE
Featured Song: Yoko Ono "Walking On Thin Ice" Dj's Transition Edit

Origin Story: Ginger Dunnill interviewed by Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski to celebrate 9 Years of Broken Boxes Podcast

This episode marks 9 years of the independently produced archival broadcasting project Broken Boxes. For this special anniversary episode, creator and producer Ginger Dunnill is interviewed by Artist and friend Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski. This is the first time Ginger has ever been interviewed on the project and the conversation provides a deeper look into the intentions of Broken Boxes, Ginger’s journey as an artist and her reflections on the very ideas she often draws out from those who participate in the project. In celebration of Broken Boxes 9 year trajectory, recently featured artist and friend India Sky composed new intro music for the podcast to carry us into the next year. Following the conversation is an excerpt from a DJ mix created by Miss Ginger from a recent Southwest tour. Gratitude to Amaryllis for making space for us to turn the tables on the conversation. 

Launched in 2014 by Artist Ginger Dunnill, Broken Boxes was created to transmit ideas between working Artists. The project shares the lived experiences and world building strategies of contemporary Artists in order to archive collective strength while considering how Art and imagining may unbind us from collective social trauma. This long-form interview podcast reflects the vulnerability and strength of the Artist while acknowledging the many variations of an Artist's practiced values including those of the activist, advocate, disruptor or culture activator.

Broken Boxes maintains that complexity is resilience. By actively practicing long term alliance through communication strategy, this work amplifies Artists at the forefront of global and regional impact who are creating new ways to see our existence through Art, organizing and advocacy. This project promotes deeper understanding, healing and solidarity as we move collectively towards witnessing each other and the world in new ways.

“I strive in all I do to build a living archive in celebration of our interconnection as complex and vibrant humans working together to witness each other heal and thrive as we activate the Artworld. I am inspired to create work and amplify artists' stories which center intersection and complexity within the human experience. Throughout my practice I am committed to sharing and learning with my peers how our stories intersect, how we can maintain solidarity for one another and how we can practice tangible acts of care and respect while acknowledging there are many expansive community values existing in tandem.” - Ginger Dunnill, Broken Boxes Podcast

Broken Boxes creator and Artist Ginger Dunnill centers human complexity and intersection through sound composition, performance, broadcasting and advocacy driven communication efforts in order to create a living archive of solidarity. For over two decades she has produced experiential artwork and organized numerous exhibitions and social engagement projects globally, activating transformative justice practices through long term acts of respect, relationship building and accountability in the Arts. As a practicing artist, Ginger has exhibited internationally at institutions such as The Whitney Museum of American Art, Smack Mellon, Washington Project for the Arts and Io Deposito in Italy, among others. She is currently touring as a DJ and continues to produce large scale projects in collaboration with other artists. 

Ginger is interviewed by Amaryllis DeJesus Moleski. Amaryllis is a Queer Puerto Rican American artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Raised between multiple cities and rural communities across America in a constantly shifting landscape, her practice explores themes of hybridity, mythology and sexuality. Utilizing drawings, video, sculpture, performance and installation, her work is a visual language paying attention to the spaces in-between categories, and revering those that know the trouble and pleasure there. Amaryllis has exhibited both nationally and internationally and earned an MFA from the Yale School of Art, a BFA from California College of Arts and Crafts, she is a Joan Mitchell Fellow and a Creative Capital Awardee.