 Thank you for being here for anger, appetite, ambition, art, a symposium on women innovators in the arts. Let me begin by providing some context for why we're here today. Too often, those who refer to themselves as cultural warriors or workers do not openly admit that the performing arts are fields that are fraught with the same gender discrimination homophobia, misogyny, racism, sexism that is a reflection of our larger society. These circumstances impact the creativity of women as they do the internal forces that author Claire Massoud identifies as, quote, worthy of the most serious examination, end quote. This discourse today is directly related to questions of which artists are invisible and why, whose art gets produced, heard, and seen, how artists make their own opportunities to be accepted, validated, welcomed in various art worlds. Moreover, as Massoud declares, quote, women aren't supposed to want stuff. But there's no shame in appetite. There should be no shame in anger. There should be no shame in love. There should be no shame in wanting things, end quote. Indeed, all art makers, regardless of the domain, are driven by appetite, by wanting, by ambition, and by love. It is our hope that such appetite, ambition, and love will fuel today's conversations and tomorrow's action for change. You'll notice inside your symposium booklet that there are selected quotations from women across a variety of contexts and disciplines. We're hopeful that should you remain with us throughout lunch at 11.45, such quotations will inspire your mealtime conversations. Additionally, the last two pages of your booklets contain notes pages. Please jot down your thinking and your questions as we will leave ample time to discuss the issues raised by today's speakers. Before I make a very important introduction, a few thank yous are in order. To the Office of Arts and Cultural Programming and to everyone at Peak Performances, you are just simply amazing. Thank you to professors Laura Dulp and Dorothy Rogers for writing the beautiful essays included in your booklets. Also great appreciation goes to Jed Wheeler for organizing an entire year's season of inspired art produced by women and for opening up the space for today's conversation. To ACP's Cultural Engagement Director Carrie Urbanek and Cultural Engagement Assistant Hannah Rolfs, these two women were integral as collaborators and inspirational leaders. And of course, to the women who you will meet today on stage and to all women warriors, rock on. One last thank you is in order to today's co-curator, Baraka Saleh. Never in my life have I met anyone with such an infectious optimism and spirited feminism. I am, I can honestly say, a better version of myself for having met Baraka. So with that, let me welcome today's co-curator, Baraka Saleh. Good morning. Good morning. Okay, I'm going to ask you to do a little bit better than that. Good morning. Good morning. Oh good, good, good, good. So first of all, even though Marissa has already thanked them and thank you for your introduction Marissa, I also want to thank Jed Wheeler, amazing visionary and a long time colleague. I cannot tell you how far back Jed and I go. An amazing thank you to Marissa and as she mentioned to Carrie Urbannik, Hannah Rolfs, Amy Estes and the entire staff of Peak Performances and even here at the conference center. I'm so very grateful to have been given this opportunity. I have a question before we get started. How many folks do we have in the audience in their 20s? How many folks in their 30s? How many folks in their 40s? Right, how many folks in their 50s? Yes. And for those who are willing to admit, how many in their 60s? Yes. And any folks in their 70s? Sandra, girl, you are such a cute 70. All right. The reason why I mentioned or ask you that question, how many of you know the name of Bernice Johnson Reagan? Oh, a good many of you. Well, for those of you who don't know, she's an artist, an author, a scholar, founder of the fabulous vocal group Sweet Honey in the Rock. Like Carrie May Weems, she's also a MacArthur fellow. And indeed, she's a former artist in residence here at Peak Performances at Montclair State University. I call upon her name and her wisdom because one of the things that she taught me was that to truly have an informative, meaningful, productive conversation, there needs to be at least four generations in the room. I want you to remember that and take that away. There need to be at least four generations in the room. So I want to say welcome to the millennials. Welcome to the middle aged. Welcome to those who call themselves elders, although I call myself evolved. And so now I have the pleasure of introducing another evolved woman. I have the pleasure of introducing an exemplary artist. As I already mentioned, she's a MacArthur genius fellow. She was a genius before they gave her the fellowship. She is a cultural phenomenon. She is a creative and revolutionary thinker. And I'm also very honored to call her a colleague and a friend. It still is amazing to me that just two years ago, she was the first African American woman, no, the first African American person, period, to have a retrospective at the Guggenheim. In the 21st century, we're still having to talk about African American first, but she was worthy and so honored. For those of you who missed it, you missed it. So if you ever see Carrie Mae Wings books, presentations, lectures, exhibitions anywhere on the planet, you need to go. And now my friend and the inimitable Carrie Mae Wings. That's a bright light. Woohoo. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the invitation to join you. Baraka, thank you so much. Baraka, Salie, and I have known each other for so many years, and she's been doing this work for so many years for all kinds of organizations for so many years. I mean, doing this hard work for so many years. You know, I'm deeply aware of the fact that nobody can pay you to think creatively. Nobody can pay you to think broadly. Nobody can pay you to move outside of, you know, to be curious. You are either that or you're not. You're either invested and you care and you're committed or you're not. And if you are, if you care and you are committed and you understand what you're committed to, then you can soar, I think, in really sort of extraordinary ways. And it's one of the things that Baraka has shown me, right? That this work, that this work that we're doing comes from deep, deep within. It's not an agenda and it's not a day. It's a life lived. It's a life lived. Sandra, it's a life lived. Our fabulous choreographer, dancer, has been doing amazing things for years. And I know that there are many of you out here that have also worked. I do find it remarkable, remarkably disappointing that we are doing this today. I have so many other things that I would rather be doing with my time. So we've been lost. We've been lost for a time and we've stumbled into this new century, looking back over our shoulders with fingers crossed. Recently, I'm going to do a couple of things today with you because I think it's important. Maybe, maybe it's important. I want to talk about men. I want to talk about men in a certain way in this conference. And we're going to sort of shift in that in a moment. But there's something that I want to sort of say first. I've always loved men. I've always loved men and I always loved hanging out with the boys. I thought that I was one of them, right? This day I'll listen to music, get drunk in the middle of the night. I mean, I just love hanging out with boys. Always have. And then recently I had to like face this really intense and brutal fact. They didn't like me. I called Barack and I said, what should I? She said, I want you to talk about something that might embarrass you. We are always culpable in what happens to us to some degree. Self-responsibility, absolutely key, right? I always thought that I knew stuff. And I've always thought of myself as really being the exception to the rule. Right? I really have. I'm the exception to the rule. And so a few, only a few weeks ago, in the deepest way, only a few weeks ago, I was lying in bed thinking about my situation. Thinking about the way that I have been treated and supported or not over the 45 years of my career. And I had to face this cold, hard fact that I wasn't unique and that I wasn't different really in the eyes of most men. That most men have looked at me and smiled at me and invited me to meetings. And I have talked until I was blue in the face. And I think of myself as being pretty damn smart and fairly articulate. And I realized that none of them had ever supported me. That very, with the exception of a handful that I can literally count on one hand, they never supported me. They would hear me out theoretically, but they never supported me. When I looked at that fact just a couple of weeks ago, I sat in my bed and just cried. That I had overestimated these men. Some of the people that I have loved and I realized that they had never invited me to a single thing, to participate with them in a single way. I do all kind of shit, right? I like organized conferences and concerts and I make these platforms, these huge platforms for people to sort of function on, right? For there was the Guggenheim and pulling together a five-day convening. Five-day convening, like an amazing convening of people, men, women, artists, black, I mean, I'm just working, right? Just recently did an amazing gathering at the Park Avenue Army. Fabulous, threw down, I knew it, right? I mean, it was a really, really interesting thing. And I've always been interested in sort of moving into institutions and trying to sort of crack them open, of giving them a sense of what possibilities are. And here are all the artists that are doing serious work that you have like the possibility of drawing on, right? And I realized that none of the men that I have ever invited to participate and none of the men that I had opened all of this space for had ever invited me to do a thing. It's shocking. It's shocking. But I still love them. And I even forgive them. Maybe, maybe in some ways, they just don't know. I've always wanted to be a man for a day. So I can sort of feel that energy, just kind of feel that energy and sort of know that stuff. So there are a couple of things that I want to sort of talk about. And then I'm going to, I think, maybe show you a short video because I think that it's important. So we are here and we're trying to sort of figure out some things about, about who we are. And I've been thinking about this idea of how do you measure a life? How do you measure your life? By what means and by what measure? Do you measure it inch by inch or step by step or crawl by crawl? I'm constantly asking myself this question of how do I measure my life and do I measure it according to success or according to failure? Do we measure it in relationship to the valleys explored where the mountains climbed? Do we measure it over success or failure? Do we measure it day by day or year by year or by yesterday or by today? Do you measure it in terms of the miles walked or the mountains climbed or the valleys explored? Do you measure it by the dreams imagined or by the hopes that have been dashed? By wisdom of wise words spoken or by the sorrow of silence? By the wealth accumulated or by the amount spent? By the monuments built or by the walls that have been scaled? By defeats and victories large or small? Do you measure it over the forgotten or over the remembered? By all the near misses by the exhaustion or by the ability to simply endure? How? How do you measure your life? Do you measure it against the fighting tied? Against fighting against all traditions? Against fighting against family and friends? How do you measure it? Do you measure it by the suffering of friends and enemies alike? Or by the beginning or by the end? Or by those who walk with you as far as they can? Do you measure it by the friends that have gathered around you over the course of a lifetime? Or by the support that you've been offered? How? The one thing that I know is that we're only here for a minute and I'm considering this question profoundly and deeply. To the question that I think brings us here of how do we measure ourselves against the tide, against family and against tradition? Because tradition, this construct that molds us, that we are trapped in I think is really important. Of all of the exhibitions, all of the solo exhibitions given for instance at the Whitney Museum since 2007, 29% of those went to women. To minorities, people of color, far less, 4%. The Guggenheim solo exhibition exhibitions up in 2000 had zero exhibitions by women. In 2014 it went up to 14% of solo exhibitions. In 2014 I was the only African American that had ever been given a solo exhibition at the Whitney or at the Guggenheim at all, sort of extraordinary. And all of this stuff I think is really sort of interesting because it has to do with how the work is seen and how the work is valued, right? So at auction, things about money are important because we as artists, you know, we need to make some money, we need to make dough. At auction the highest price ever paid for a living woman artist, for a living woman artist, for a living woman artist is $7 million. That's the highest price paid for a living artist. The highest price paid, this is several years ago, I need to double check my fax, the highest price paid for a male happens to be Jeff Kuhn's and that was $58 million, basically a $51 million gap. Do you hear me? A $51 million gap. The most ever paid for a work by a deceased woman was $44 million and that was to Georgia O'Keeffe. Frances Bacon was $142 million. Georgia O'Keeffe said, she said, you know, really, men like to put me down as the best woman painter. But frankly, I'm the best painter. The highest price paid for a female artist, living artist, living artist, living artist, living artist, the highest price paid for a living artist was $11 million and of course the highest price paid for a work at all and recently it was for Picasso at $179 million and then it shifted to Leonardo da Vinci for a work that sold for $350 billion, $350 billion. So the difference between these millions of dollars, the sort of stretch between how women are thought of and how African Americans are thought of and people of color are thought of, has, you know, really tremendous, tremendous impact. This is tremendous impact. This is tremendous, this is not like light. This is not, this is enormous, this is enormous and so then the way in which we are understood and the way in which we're valued in the country, right, it has a great deal to do with the ways in which we're valued generally, right? It reflects really the ways in which we are socially valued and to that extent then if we are existing outside of that if we're going along, we're moving along with notions of tradition then that's where we are, right? There's a way in which the work of women and the work of minorities have been historically valued. Now this becomes even increasingly more interesting, right, you know, because we're dealing with all of these institutions whether it's Montclair State or it's, you know, the Whitney Museum or the Guggenheim or the vast majority of institutions within the country, for the most part these are represented and they employ Anglo-Americans. Black Americans don't exist in that world. Half the time I move through space realizing that I am the only sister at any serious event in New York City. Whether it's, you know, whether it's, I mean, it could be 500 people in the room or 50 people in the room. I am the only, often the only African-American in that space. I think that this is really important and it's even more so important when we realize that, you know, there's this huge demographic shift that's taking place within the country, gigantic. We are moving from an Anglo-American nation to a brown nation and this shit is happening rapidly, right, rapidly. So in the next, by the next 15 years, this will be a majority minority country. So that institutions now have to really deal with this fact. Now the first time that I heard this fact was probably about 1982 or 84. I've been thinking about it for years. I've been talking about it for years, demographic shifts for years, right, for years. I first heard it about it from the President of Bank of America who was giving the commencement address at San Francisco State, right? And his question was, what are we going to do about it? So that we are engaged in this profound cultural shift that is taking place even as the powers that be remain in power. They remain in power. And the sort of question about that I think is really interesting. Of course, Donald Trump's rise is deeply connected to this demographic shift, right? And to the shifting traditions that white men, primarily are deeply afraid that they are going to lose out. That they're going to lose out and that ultimately they'll be treated in the same way that they have treated everybody else. That's their greatest fear. And Donald Trump, of course, exemplifies this and I think in really profound ways. What I wanna do in this sort of as we sort of think about this, I'm also thinking about, and I talked about this yesterday, and I've started working on a project called Grace Notes. Can I see just a couple of my slides? I started working on a project called Grace Notes Reflections for Now. And I made Grace Notes Reflections for Now because I really wanted to think about what was going on with all of the killings around these young black men. It's sort of massive onslaught, right? Every day, every day, every day, every day, every day. Every day, not every other day, but damn near every day a brother is going down every day. Now this interests me in a whole for a bunch of reasons. What's your name again? Marissa, excuse me, Marissa. Marissa was talking, we were talking about this convening and what she hoped to come out of the day. This idea about action I think is really important, right? Action, how do you take action? How do you live your life? How do you measure it, right? In real terms, right? What are the things and the questions that you ask and then what do you do in relationship to what happens to you, right? How do you negotiate it? How do you negotiate it? And it occurred to me that in large measure, one of the reasons that this ongoing murder of black men continues to happen, which has serious consequences for women, for families, for the raising of children, and the raising of black boys in particular, is that there have been no mass protests. We have not as a systematic group, young old Baraka as those four generations that you've talked about, we have not as a systematic group, marched in the streets and marched consistently on Washington to demand, to demand that this cease. But of course, we were in the arm of the state. In the arms of the state, men, black men in particular, are not respected. Never have been, never will be. Not as long as those powers that we are in play. So there's a fascinating study that just came out that if black men and white men, the binary start in the same positions, let's say in a wealthy family, well-to-do family, upper middle-class family, that there are great, great, great odds that the white man will continue to earn and will raise and rise in status. The inverse is true for black men, percentage-wise. They will fall and they will sink closer and closer and closer and closer to the bottom. The same thing is not true for white women and black women. White women and black women, because of the ways that we are also valued, the way in which women are valued, kind of run neck and neck and neck, right? Economically, in economic terms. Unless the white woman marries a white man. If she marries a white man, and there's a greater chance that her income, her social mobility, all of that will rise. For black women, it goes down. I mean, these are really interesting things. So talking about men at a women's conference, it's important, right? Even when I'm mad at these motherfuckers for not including me in their shit, right? I'm still thinking about them. Now this study, of course, I didn't really need to read this study to know that it was true because I have my father and I have my brothers and I have my uncles and I have my friends to sort of lay testimony to this. I have witnessed this with my eyes, my ears, my life. I've seen what happens to brothers. I have seen my boyfriend afraid to go out at night. I've seen him afraid to be stopped by the police. I've seen it over and over and over. And so that's what we're sort of up against. And so I really wanted to sort of take a minute to think about a work that I've made, that I have been sort of moving around in this performance. That's a slide. Moving around in this performance and sort of looking at these murders and what they have meant and how they've meant to me. And thinking about it also is a kind of my way of a call to action. A way of presenting the information sort of in a sustained way. No matter where I go to talk about these kinds of issues that I think are really important. And again, this way in which all of this has affected us. Let's go quickly to people of a darker hue and I think that it's all queued up and is there any possible way to turn some of these lights down? Is that just impossible? Is it impossible? Okay, because I'd like to be able to see things clearly and for the audience to see things clearly as well. And so we're gonna go to the people of a darker hue. These are some of the photographs from this piece that we've made. And it's been kind of wonderful to think about and I'm always sort of thinking about strategies. I'm a strategic thinker. You know, how do I move materials into the world? What vehicles do I need to do that? And how do I need to think about it? Do I use social media? How do I use social media in order to get material out? I think we need to increase the volume a little bit more. Do I go up any higher? The volume? Oh, thank you. So you can hear perfectly differently out there than I can. Can you hear the music here? So of course, I've been thinking a great deal about what's happened to our young black men and the implications of this, this way in which white men are determined to control black bodies and black men in particular. State, primary, the police represent the arm of the state. They are the reflection of how black men are fought of generally and their need to be controlled. This, I think, is absolutely important. And this impact that it has on black families has been extraordinary. That it has crippled us in great many ways. And that you have to contend with this on a daily basis of trying to maintain your dignity in the face of this onslaught. I think it's an extraordinary thing. And that we offer our generosity yet instilled to others, that we offer up our humanity yet instilled to others, even in the face of this humanity, of this inhumane treatment. I think it's really a testament to our extraordinary ability and our amazing grace. For me, it is the anchor of grace. In the face of all of this, you continue to offer the best of what you are and the best of what you have to give to others. I recognize your humanity at a step on it. That's an amazing accomplishment marked by a darker hue. And the numbers tell the story. The numbers tell the story of what has happened to all of these people. The man was rejected and the woman was denied. A man was killed and the body lay in the open, uncovered and exposed. And women wept. Your cousin, your friend, your partner, your enemy. He was 31. He was 45. It's 18. 12. Exposed. Uncovered. And women welled in minimum. And even the gods turned their heads. For reasons unknown, I saw him running. I saw him stop. I saw him turn with raised hands. I heard a shot and I saw him fall. And for reasons unknown, I refused to believe that any of this was really possible. And so the people said little. And they did even less. He was trying to get out his arm. And the officer just shot him in his arm. We're waiting for that. I will, sir, no worries. I will. He just shot his arm off. Told him not to reach for it. I told him to get his hand off. You told him to get his ID, sir. His driver's license. Oh, my God. Please don't tell me he did. Please don't tell me my boyfriend just went like that. Yes, I will, sir. I'll keep my hands where they are. Please don't tell me that you did. Please don't tell me that you did. Please officer, don't tell me that you did. For us of the people, no. That's deep. I don't know if I could do that. I don't know if I could do what she did. We need to thank her. So this is what we are all against. And it's real. And it's not imaginary. And every day, you have to struggle to maintain your dignity and some sense of your humanity in the ways in which you conduct your lives and to offer that gift to strangers, to those that you don't know, to offer the gift of recognizing their humanity is just an amazing thing. The source of our grace. So imagine you're always stopped and always charged and always convicted. Imagine that your child is living in a constant state of constant pressure and constant suspicion. The only mass shooting really in this country have been young white boys. The difference in how they're treated and how they are imagined. So imagine this ongoing history of violence. Unmultiply. Or time and time again, your encounter with those or meant to serve ends in death. And so we saw him running. We saw him stop. We saw him turn with raised hands. We shot. We saw him fall. For reasons unknown, I refuse to believe that any of this was truly possible. And so the people said little and they did even less. What are we gonna do now? Oh, okay. It's a hard way to start your morning. I know. No. But I start my morning this way every morning. So... Uh-uh. It's a blessed way to start the morning. I feel blessed. I feel blessed. So we're gonna... Marissa and I are gonna ask carry a few questions and then we're gonna open it up. Is the creative writing class still with us? Did they have to leave? Are you here? Y'all don't speak. Is the creative writing class still here? Okay, thank you. Oh, it's writing studies. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, writing studies. Okay, so I have your teenagers. And that means what? Thank you. All right. How many folks in there? Teenagers. Wow. Thank you for pointing that out. Excellent, excellent. Okay, so I thought it was a creative writing class but I'm still wondering, you may have noticed class that we use the scarlet or red letter A. I just gave it away. Yes, you did. You emphasize the anger, appetite, ambition, art. Do you know the history of that letter? Anyone? Just speak up, shout out. You're not a 18-year-old in the writing studies class. There's something that is echoing. That's buzzing. I'm not sure if it's you or me. But every time, I think it's yours. Move it up just a little bit more. Is that better? Okay. Okay, so yeah, someone said it. Nathaniel Hawthorne scarlet letter. And what did that scarlet letter symbolize? Adultery and shame. Yes. And the reason I bring that up is because one of the things that we don't often talk about is our own internal shame. As Carrie mentioned, it's so sad that we're still, once again, in the 21st century having the same conversations because obviously bias, prejudice, gender discrimination is not a new conversation. But what I really appreciated about her opening was how she taught about the thing we don't often talk about. And that is our internal conversations and what we cry about in our beds in the morning. You know, I was like Carrie Mae growing up. I was raised on a 28-acre farm. All I did was hang out with the boys. I was able to out-ride, out-hunt, out-shoot any man I knew and that is not a boast or an exaggeration. And so what was wonderful about meeting Carrie Mae, because I was also like her, I found myself often in rooms with men, white men, often in rooms where I was the only person of color. And when I met Carrie Mae, after we got to know each other, Baraka, the reason why you're my friend, the reason why I love you, which I think was a very brave statement, is because unlike the relationships I have with other women, I don't feel like we have to compete. I don't feel like we have to be jealous of one another. She said, so many women in my life can't appreciate my accomplishments and where I'm going in my life. I love a badass woman. I keep me some badass women in my circle, in my family, in my life and I just want to thank you for being in your life. You can applaud for that. So I'm going to put Marisa on the spot. She went there. So we were talking about Marisa and I in preparation for this, we're talking about all these issues. Shame, guilt, self-doubt, etc. And so when we talked about who would ask Carrie the first question, she said, oh, you should ask her. And I was like, why should I ask her the first question? For one thing, you represent the institution, Montclair State University and she said, I couldn't believe this came out of her mouth. She's going to be mad at me for revealing it, talking about revealing our inner conversations and our inner fears. She said, I don't want Carrie Mae Weems to shame me. That's a quote. Because we think she's so smart or we think she's so intellectual or we think she's so brilliant that I might ask an unintelligent or stupid question. I was like, you can't ask Carrie Mae an unintelligent or stupid question. There's no such thing in her vocabulary. Well, maybe from some people they are. So I'm going to start off with the first question. Thank you. Oh, this is not right. So in the kind of dialogue that you had with yourself in your bed about men not loving you and supporting you, and if you're a woman, everyone in here has one of those stories. I don't care what gender identity or sexuality you have somewhere along the way. Unless I'm crazy, a man has hurt you. Men have certainly hurt me. Could you talk about Carrie Mae like some of those internal conversations and yet what has given you courage in periods of self-doubt and internal questions? I mean, you know, I'm disappointed in men often. I'm disappointed rather I should say in the way that I've come to realize that I'm not an easy person for men to be around and for whatever reason. But, you know, I have work to do. I still have a lot of work to do. I just have work to do, you know, and figuring out how to do that work I think is just really important. And so there are always obstacles, right? There are just all these obstacles. Tradition is an obstacle. We're dealing with traditions. We're dealing with, you know, this is simply the way it is all around the world, right? So we're dealing with these kinds of traditions and so making your way around the obstacles I think is the thing that's really, you know, sort of exciting and dynamic and motivating. It sort of keeps me motivated, right? That I have this work to do, that I love doing my work and that I have to figure out my way around the obstacles regardless of what those obstacles are and I continue to engage with my brothers and inviting them to all kinds of projects that I think they need to be a part of. You just keep working, you just keep doing the work. You just keep doing the work. You just keep doing the work. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to be okay and that's good. So because you're speaking a lot about the willingness to put yourself out there and to work regardless of the hurdles and the obstacles and the traditions that can tend to get in your way, how do you protest through art making when you're curated by somebody who has values antithetical to yours? Well, I make pieces like this and either they're shown or they're not. Right? You continue to make the work and people that are not going to invite you so you have to find the people that are going to invite you and you roll with them. So these obstacles, yes, are there but the most important thing, again, I think is to really if you allow yourself to really focus on the snatching of your humanity, then you can't get your work done. Right? We're just why we're sitting here having this conversation and men out there kicking ass. They're out there ruling the world. You know what I mean? And we're still trying to figure out how do we have a conversation about being a woman and moving I mean, this is really interesting and the same thing is true really around the questions of race. So, you know, in these rooms, struggling to figure out how do we negotiate power, these men are going to be in power. Period. Period. Right? In our lifetime. Right? So, the only thing that you can really do is to be imaginative, to be creative and to really focus on the work and to be able to critique what it is that you're doing. I mean, that's the thing that's really interesting for me is like no matter what, there's always a critique that's embedded in the work. There's always that critique. And that is a thing that sort of keeps me focused. It keeps me grounded. Right? I know what the powers are. I know that I'm negotiating power. Right? And yet, and that's embedded in the work along with you know, the cultural production that is also, that the work is also about. Right? So, that's the thing that I think is really interesting about the work that I make. You know? And I really think that it's interesting about the work that I make. And I'm always surprised by the work that I make, actually. Right? It's like, oh, that's kind of interesting. That's not bad. That's not bad. Right? This piece, this piece, you know, marked by a darker hue. It's just it's like an amazing little piece of work. And in lectures, maybe one institution, one institution might own it. One institution might own it. So then, since I know that only one institution might own it, it's really important for me to sort of figure out strategies of work. And so those strategies, I think, are really interesting. Do you show it in exhibition? Do you show it in public forms? Do you try to figure out how to get it on public TV? Right? You know, do you show it on social media? You know, how do you show it? And so I'm always thinking about that. And so what I'm thinking about is how to have like, you know, dialogues with people like Google and Facebook and Twitter to use their platforms and to help them to help to asking for their support in helping me shape this material to move it into the public sphere. Right? That's what I'm trying to do with the work. And so that's been really sort of interesting. So you can show it to 100 people or hopefully you can show it to like, you know, half a million people. You know, sort of scale. If I could just ask you one more follow-up question. Of course, you can ask me anything. So one of the quotations that you'll see in your booklet is by Audrey Lord and she says that the master's tools will never take down the master. Yet what you're talking about is essentially the opposite of that. You're using quote-unquote a master's tools, the Internet Facebook social media platforms and you're subverting it in a way in order to get you and what you believe in and what you believe to be true and beautiful to the world. So could you speak a little bit more about how you can take down establishments and institutions by using the very mechanisms that those institutions maintain? Well this is sort of, I think, a deep and complicated question because we're sort of talking about two different things. On the one hand I'm steeply aware that for instance, if we're talking about what's happened around the sort of sustained violence against the black body you know socially organized state directed onslaught against black people in this country in particular black men this idea that our protest that our protest has not been deeply engaged is a serious issue. It's a serious problem it's a serious problem. We should be out in the street every single day dealing with this issue in mass. So these sort of questions of power I don't think that I'm taking down the system but what I am doing is examining the system and critiquing the system that I'm a part of and to the extent you see to the extent that you can use social media those sort of platforms to have larger dialogue larger engagement I think is the thing that's really interesting. Basically Facebook many of these technologies have been developed by antisocial people. Social media has been advanced by antisocial entities it's sort of an extraordinary fact and so as they struggle to figure out where they are within this power structure Mark Zuckerberg didn't come into the world thinking that he was dealing with power but he's landed there right he's landed there you know in this sort of way in which we're dealing with sort of new technologies it's pretty amazing but within each of these organizations and I think that this is important for those people that are thinking about this across many many different platforms all of these organizations trying to figure out how they are going to sustain themselves as this country becomes more brown all of them and none of them have any brown people working primarily in their organizations not one of them some deep shit right so how do you use those moments those fractures that are opening up to sort of push through right but then I think you have to simply be then then it becomes your responsibility to be deeply engaged deeply curious and always looking and thinking strategically about how you move the work forward right how you move it forward this is an amazing moment that we're in right now for you young people that are out there it is going to be what your world would be in ten years is going to just be amazing right same moment of course we understand that we're dealing with this profound shift and that we can really make something of it we can use this I think in some dynamic ways and how you use it how you respond to this social moment I think is really important what are the kinds of questions that you need to be asking what are your strategies what is it that you want not everybody really wants to change the world they really want to have greater presence for themselves in the world but they're not really interested in changing the world right and so a part of it is that what do you want to see right what do you want to see in your lifetime socially right traditionally or traditions what do you want to see what do you want to advance and then how do you advance that and this is so critical oh no no no this is so critical because every time I moderate a conversation and I've moderated a lot of them and this is actually also for the students who are getting ready to leave give me three more minutes number one every time I moderate a conversation somebody always says well we keep having the same old conversations and for a while especially once you get to be 60 or 70 you think that's true until like a 19 or 20 year old got up at a conference and protested and said I'm sorry I've never heard these conversations before and then I said aha this is important and number two to keep having what we think are some of the same conversations and number two I think also it's important people are always saying to me oh well you know you're preaching to the choir it was like well wait a minute I grew up in a black church I don't know about the rest of you and preaching to the choir was the best thing that you could do because it was then the preaching to the choir that sent those folks off those were the ushers those were the choir became the ushers they were the women's guild they were the missionaries they were the like the choir did everything the choir rolled up the sleeves and got the work done so I don't have people always saying well you know we talk talk talk talk talk talk what's the action and Kerry May has just said you keep moving past the obstacles those are the actions but people always say that to me and they don't use the word that Kerry just used people always say to me what can we do how can we act and I'm saying before you need to think about action you need to think about strategy what's your strategy where you're trying to go what are you trying to get to you need no need to walk out I want you to take those red letters the scarlet letters I want you to think about shame and I hope that you will be given an assignment about how we can alleviate and overcome shame either in our own lives our own families our own communities and I'd like to recommend a book to you fabulous book it's called Daring Greatly mm-hmm Briney Brown she's a research professor at the University of Houston and this book is all about overcoming shame and what are the not just the actions to do that but what are the strategies to do that again Daring Greatly Briney B-R-E-N-E Brown research professor at the University of Houston and I just want to thank those who came from the writers class we're going to now open it up to the audience to be able to ask questions there's Mike here and Mike here and as people come up you know I want to say something um, Haraka I have no idea what anybody believes yes so this idea that you're speaking to the choir I have no idea what you believe I have no idea what you want but it's very different than what I want I'm a socialist I'm a socialist you may be a capitalist and trying to anchor yourself within the thing that already exists you might be social or you might be for you for yourself the work that I'm trying to do and I always think about this we were talking about this again sort of yesterday in the social I'm deeply interested in figuring out how do you move things forward and I'm deeply interested in the questions to be asked what are the questions to be asked of yourself and the questions to be asked of the society in which you live what are the questions not all of us even have the questions let alone the answer we don't have the question so what are the questions that would be very different than my own I think that this is really important so this idea about speaking to the choir is that we don't need to have a discussion I think it's really problematic we do not have the same ideas about what progress is and what moving forward even means that's the point so I think that these are sort of interesting things to sort of negotiate yeah are there any questions let's go to the right and then to the left thank you good morning everyone I'd like to comment on Audre Lorde's master's tools will never dismantle the master's house that's appears in a collection of essays and sister outsider and I have a very different interpretation of the master's house and the master's tools and the one that you mentioned I understand from not only that particular essay in her book but also the others that the master's house really represents capitalist patriarchy and that the master's tools are not the literal kinds of things like the internet but rather racism and sexism and all the isms that are used to divide and conquer the commodification the individualism the materialism the ways in which our society as a capitalist patriarchy and others like it intentionally marginalize people intentionally divide people so that we're not focused on power and who really is in power as Ms. Weems mentioned and I think that when she says the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house we can't use racism she was directing her comments to to the conference organizers at a feminist conference where there were only two black women invited, she being one of them at a conference on difference and diversity and so she was saying you can't use racism and tokenism those are the master's tools you can't use these tools to dismantle the master's house thank you just a quick comment on that I was only using that quotation in relationship to what Carrie May was speaking about and I was using it as an opportunity to probe her thinking further of course thank you very much for painting a much broader brush towards work I in no way meant to belittle any of the things that she was trying to say but let me clarify yes I also appreciate the broader brush strokes and the bigger picture but I also have to say let's be very clear at least I'm speaking from a perspective of a black woman the master's tools are insidious and subtle they are not always the obvious and blatant racism they're not always the obvious and accepted textbook codified weapons of racism they can be subtle they can be a movie I'm a member of what's called the Shrines of the Black Madonna Church and I have been since a young woman back in Detroit and the person who founded that church used to regularly on Sundays take us to the movies because he said I want you to pay attention and I'm going to be very blunt at how he put it he said white people will always tell you what they're getting ready to do in their movies pay attention and so one of the conversations that's been happening around the very popular movie Black Panther is that for decades black people didn't see themselves in futuristic movies black people weren't portrayed in the future black people weren't seen in outer space now who's planning to go to outer space and leave all the rest of the people behind was the question so the tools of the master can be all kinds of tools and I would dare say sometimes we don't even know what those weapons are so be very careful be vigilant be on top of your game Karen may it's pleasure to be here listening to you and seeing your work it's a pleasure to be with everyone today you talked about your work ending in critique and I took that to mean the critique outside of yourself the critique the institutional critique so I'd like to hear as an artist how you negotiate that inner critique that artist demon that's in all of us artists and find the balance well I don't know I'm not sure do you have demons? I'll have many I mean you know the critique of course is always of yourself in relationship to the thing that you're critiquing that is the balance there is the balance you understand what I'm saying you are critiquing yourself as you critique the world in which you're situated that becomes the balance this idea that you know that you can really look at the ways in which you that you acquiesce that you go along that you play the game whatever whatever whatever that thing is for you to be able to call it and to attempt to name it you can't always name it you don't always know it but I think that there's always a sort of ways in which we are self-reflective examining and questioning and probing of the self and it's certainly something that I'm hoping that I'm doing in the work and through the work and it allows me to get I think closer to the bone closer to the meaning of things by engaging with the work through this interpersonal dynamic it's a thing that gives the work its power it's a thing that gives the work its elegance it's things that that allows the work to be larger than me right because ultimately it's all coming through you it's all moving through you but hopefully my project is to make the work larger than me so that it's in conversation with in context with other artists with other people with my audience and so forth yes ma'am hi I'm a writer and that piece was so powerful I've seen your work I was at the Guggenheim and I'm just so moved so what you were just saying about the sort of doing your inner work with our demons because that's what we do as creative people but the world is with us so when I see that when I read that study I have a 17 year old black son who is we are of means but it doesn't really matter I struggle with pushing that the world out in order to create how do you do that that's so interesting well I have a very different response I am always trying to figure out how to bring all of it in and then how to process it in relationship to my needs and my wants and my desires how to bend it all to my will because you can't keep it out you can't keep it out but I don't want to I really want to bring it in this morning I threw away my last Sunday's newspaper I've been traveling for a week and I read every page and I mark it I mark it I need to remember that fact and then I put it in my computer I'm really interested in really processing the stuff and then trying to figure out how do you bend it to your needs in order for it to be bigger than yourself and so it's just this process that I'm deeply, deeply engaged in and so I am very interested in the world around me and trying to figure out how to sort of process it how to negotiate it so that you're not overwhelmed by this is the question so that you're not overwhelmed by it but my sense is that if you're working from that sort of critical edge if you're working from the critical edge and you have a system like a serious idea of what you're really up against because you're always looking at it in relationship to systems to systems then it's easier to negotiate if you don't know what the forces are then it's really terrifying and you don't know how to bring this material close to you and unpack it it's just a suitcase it needs to be unpacked so that's I think for me the important part about being critical and observant and trying to figure out how to situate all of this in relationship to the system that you live in and under so this idea about Black Panther is really sort of interesting it's just a matter about the future the future of what others might do but rather much more related to this profound economic shift that's taking place in the country so that for the first time because I love popular culture love movies love movies love movies and TV and TV I love TV for the last five years and I've actually made a piece about this from Empire and from Sandra Reem's Rhymes and her first Grey's Anatomy to how to get away with murder to scandal all on Network TV all on Network TV there's a sense that like Twitter Twitter was used primarily by Black people for a really long time it was their primary primary way of communicating through the social network they were not on email they were not on Facebook they were on Twitter Network TV is like that Network TV knows that in the few years for the most part the people that are watching Network TV are poor African Americans and brown people and so Steve Harvey Steve Harvey which is probably one of the more uninteresting comedians that I know is on every single channel yes yes and on radio I think that for me I sort of look at it in that context of understanding that these systems are changing the country is changing demographics are changing and those entities but I heard about this demographic shift from the President of Bank of America right sort of concerned with what the future would hold in that way and so recently people know now you know just like black hair products I think it's fascinating but let me just say this because I heard it around the same time 1982 I'm in Houston, Texas and people are talking about multiculturalism and the shifting demographics and then I'm at a conference speaking at a conference of funders and they've lost the country in October just recently funders from all over the country they're talking about shifting demographics I raised my hand and I said I am so sorry the demographics have shifted and the problem is the census takers don't know who we are, where we are where we live, what we're up under so let's be very clear the demographics have shifted but I would also say not only have they the demographics have shifted I think in a really sort of profound way absolutely the question has been how do you maintain power how do you maintain power as it shifts cracks and so again I think this is one of the reasons that Trump has been so important to the country just to a certain element in the country and I understand people are afraid people who have understood the world to be working in a certain way like for centuries are seeing this thing shift Barack Obama scared people to death that we would have Barack Obama and we would follow that with President Trump is an extraordinary development right and a number of think tanks have been working on this and looking at this and studying this for a very long time unfortunately we're at the end of our time and I just want to respond to one more thing that Kering May said and then share something with you and that is number one for 27 years I did not own a television all I did was read, read, read I didn't get a television until the new millennium in 2001 is when I started watching television and so I'm like left television when Ozzie and Harriet were still in separate beds so I'm looking at HBO going oh shit it's fabulous right what happened in 27 years and so when I watched television I wanted to go I'm like Kering May not only do I love movies remember I told you I was like grew up like having to go to movies I not only watch television I take notes I don't just sit there passively like Kering May I'm using this as soon as Jed and Marissa and others asked me to be a part of this I'm like Kering May I'm collecting articles I'm pulling stuff out of the New York Times I'm pulling stuff out of Atlantic Magazine I'm pulling stuff out of the New Yorker just for this just for this I take notes and let me just say this because people are always asking as I said what are the action steps what do we do after this why are we still talking and I'm going to read just briefly from Darren Greatley the less we talk about shame the more control it has over our lives I'm going to say that again the less we talk about shame the more control it has over our lives shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy people often want to believe that shame is reserved for people who have survived unspeakable trauma but this is not true shame is something we all experience and while it feels as if shame hides in our darkest corners it actually tends to lurk in all the familiar places you want to know where your demons are she has a list of 12 appearance and body image money and work motherhood, fatherhood family, parenting mental and physical health addiction, sex, aging religion, surviving trauma being stereotyped or labeled that's where our demons live and as Kerry May said they live with us every day all the time you just have to keep fighting back that's the action to give our keynote speaker another round of applause this photo and then we'll tell you what we're getting ready to do next thank you if you will it'll be brief it's not all this I wanted to offer support to you for coming here and telling us who you are I didn't get it from the 4A's a sense of what we were going to experience but I think that we have to forgive ourselves for all of the little feelings that we have had that said maybe we're not worthy or maybe they're right maybe it's not hostility that I'm feeling maybe it's me but that's what happens when you resist the system of keeping people down so others can rise and I appreciate you being so honest everyone here thank you so we're going to take about 10 minutes while lunch is being set up so if you need to check your cell phones make a phone call take a walk if you're planning on joining us for lunch we'll get that started in about 10 minutes time thank you so much for being here and we'll see you back here in about 10 minutes at 1 o'clock we'll begin our afternoon panelists so we have a bit of time for lunch so enjoy