 Can you see me? Can everyone see me right now? Okay, perfect. My name is Darnell Jamal. I'm an education associate here at Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. And I'd like to thank everyone so much for joining us today for art fashion performance, seeing through collaboration. This program is being held in conjunction with the exhibition, Willie Smith Street Quarters, which we hope that you will be able to see extremely soon here at Cooper Hewitt. We wanna give an enormous thanks to Target, Gucci, the Kobe Foundation, and Keith Herring for making this program possible. With that said, in a similar vein as Willie Smith's career, as we explored in the exhibition and extension resources like the exhibition book and online Willie Smith Community Archive, the conversation today will look at the potential for multidisciplinary collaboration to ship values, the shape of improvisational careers and the nuances of creative processes and presentation across media. For the speakers today, we have our moderator, Darielle Calmes, an artist, writer, director, and brand consultant who made history last year as the first black photographer to shoot a cover for Vanity Fair and his 106-year history with his portrait of Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis. His widely acclaimed podcast Institute of Black Imagination features conversations from the pool of black genius through the lens of design. And he also contributed greatly to the Willie Smith Street Quarters project with his To Be an American article, which you can find in the book and on the online Willie Smith archive. For our panelists, we have the legendary activist model news Bethanne Hardison, whose five-decade career has taken her from working in New York City's Garment District to becoming one of the first black models favored by European and New York designers to creative director and producer to founding her namesake agency where she guided the careers of some of the most prominent models in recent times. And as one of Willie Smith's most trusted confidants, she helped him create and inspire his successful design and lifestyle formula, as well as many of his peers. And it has an incredible recollection of Smith's life, which we also point you toward the Willie Smith book and online archive for you to read. Lastly, but certainly not the least, we have the always astounding and creative genius Jacobi Satterwhite, who conceptual practice addresses crucial themes of labor, consumption, carnality and fantasy through immersive installation, virtual reality and digital media, illustration, performance, painting, sculpture, photography and writing. He uses a range of software to produce intricately detailed animations and live action film of real and imagined worlds populated by avatars and artists and friends. Now we encourage you to use the chat box to engage with each other during the live, during the panel. At the end of the hour, we will open it for questions, which you may submit through the Q&A box and we will get to as many as possible. Please also note that closed captioning is available for this program through the icon at the bottom of your screen. We will also be recording the conversation and you can find it later on Cropacute YouTube channel. Though the museum is currently close to the public, we're thrilled to be able to welcome you to virtually see this program and we encourage you to explore the exhibition and community archive online and we'll drop that in a link in the chat. And now I'm excited to now turn it over to Dario. Oh, amazing. All right, awesome. Well, here we go. Well, first of all, Darnell, thank you so much for inviting me to come speak with these two lovely individuals, Ms. Beth Ann Hardison and Mr. Jakobi Satterwhite. Also thanks to Alexandra and her absence and just to the Cooper Hewitt in general, this is an amazing opportunity. And also thank you for not doing this during Black History Month. So anyway. So today, like, how did we get here? Like, why am I here? Why is Beth Ann here? Like, why is Jakobi here? You know, a former model and current model and activist and muse and, you know, Jakobi and an artist and, you know, virtual reality installationist and then myself, you know, a photographer and generally curious person. Well, on one hand, this is the kind of motley crew that Willie Smith would have just thrown together. And on the other hand, we can speak about the ways in which fashion, and I mean fashion with a lower case F, not with a capital F, the ways in which we all have engaged with fashion and or the fashion object in our work and across our various industries. And at its core, it's an engagement that is about space, the space between the body and the cloth, the space between the cloth and the gaze or essentially the distance between, you know, who we are and who we present ourselves to be. And it's a way in which like design and materiality are these technological levers of conversion. And in many ways, conversion or conversation is what today is all about, right? It's about collaboration. It's about mutual, interested, seemingly disparate forces coming together to make something different. It's a creative process to combine and birth a new thing, sometimes a third space. It's how coal in conversation with heat and pressure and time can become a diamond. So today, how we'll just kind of organize this as we'll speak to Beth Ann about her practice, her life and her relationship to Willie Smith, we'll also speak to Jacoby about his practice and the ways in which he uses collaboration not only with Beth Ann, but particularly with his own mother and his artistic practice. And then we'll actually speak about their combined collaboration and how that came about. And as Darnell mentioned earlier, we will open it up for questions at the top of the hour. There is a Q and A box. I think if you like, click up top or to the side or however you kind of have it arranged, you can just type questions as we're going along and Darnell will cycle back and we'll get to as many as possible. And then also, and I'll try to mention it at the end, there's a survey. So if you can stick around for a little survey, that'd be amazing. So hop right in. Beth Ann, how are you doing today? Well, I'm a little under the weather, but I'm happy to be here with you. Amen. I believe you got your round two vaccine. Vaccine. And as they say, it comes with a little sum extra. We're keeping you lifted up. So you've had an amazing, you are living and are having an amazing life and an amazing career. You've dipped into many facets of the fashion industry from modeling to Garmento, to model agent, to activist, then back to modeling and then to acting. Outside of your own desire and curiosity, a large part of this has been about relationships and about creative collaboration with many different individuals. Like what keeps you saying yes to life and what does collaboration allow for? That's a very good question. And it really is something that I strip to myself about often. Often I say, wow, you're still going. You know what I mean? Because it is something that, you know, most people at a certain time in life, they quit. But there's always some more opportunities for me. And I'm very happy to be able to sort of like stand up and get it going and be there. So for me, it's really, I'm very, you're so right about collaboration because my relationship with Willie was that. It was a collaboration. Even though I was just muse and sometimes I was assistant and many different things or many people that you, you know, you come along even when I had a model agency, that was a collaboration. You know, you know, trying to get that particular image to someone or Steven, my cell, that's a collaboration. You know, everything that you sort of do these days is that if you are looking to have a certain compassion and you're looking to really help change what we see but we are able to keep going and keep doing things. So I'm very happy that I have had this opportunity to have the strength and the desire to keep on doing things. And I really do care very much about others. So I think compassion is one of the most important things too that can help you even think about being a collaborative person, that for sure. And you, like Willie encountered you on the street, right? Like he just kind of kept seeing you come and go and like send some note. Like how did you all come into each other's sphere? Because he, you know, he would see me and I'm unbeknownst to me, I didn't know, but he would see me and he just thought I was a designer, you know, the way I dressed, the way I was. And I said to you, you know, many times people used to say to me, hi Willie, to me. And you know, just speaking to me like I was Willie Smith and I just at some point, you know, you get tired of saying, no, I'm not, well, it's too many words. It's just easy to say, yeah, hi, keep going, right? So I think Willie basically saw someone that inspired him and that he had someone he couldn't find out who I was. And then there's a girl that they used to be runners for federated stores and go drop off orders. And he asked her and she said, you know, I think I know who it is. And he wrote a note and asked if you could give it to me and then asked me to meet him downstairs in 1407 which is the club down restaurant bar in the 1407 building on Broadway. So of course that was our beginning. And he asked me then, you know, would I consider working with him in a capacity? Just once he learned I wasn't a designer. Once he learned I was a showroom girl and I worked in the showroom, you know, he wondered if I could, you know, maybe do things with him. It wouldn't interfere with my work. Sometimes some of the things he has to do is go to Philadelphia, you know, do things for magazines and newspapers. Sometimes it's just appearances. And so I went up and talked to my bosses about it and they always like, they were always supportive of anything that came out. Oh, you have to do it. You have to do it really. Oh, he's so great. Yeah. So that was a, that was, that's another collaboration, you know, when you grow up and you're being educated by those others and they really want you to win. And they just, you know, they educate you and they give you opportunities. They don't say, what do you mean? You're gonna go, you can't go. You have to work. No, they were always supportive. It's interesting. And what was this, like, what was this style? Like that not only Willie saw in you but that you both were kind of moving through the streets with, right? Like, and how are we seeing that, like reverberate on the streets today? Because Willie was doing something very special, right? Like he was really using the street as inspiration. Well, he basically was really, literally, it really was making work with him. And in our case, you know, you've got a good pair of pants, you've got a great shirt, you've got a great jacket, you've got a great coat, you know, it's a style. And you don't know that someone recognizes you having style, you know, you just, you don't think of it, but he did. And it was something about me that he really liked. And, you know, I was involved with Willie in, you know, through even his fashion shows, everything. Then when I had a model agency, he supported me, he supported him and David for Paper Magazine. You know, Willie was someone who really believed in the art. He really was someone who really believed in others. That's that thing again, compassion. And, you know, that's the thing that's very interesting to me because he always gave others opportunities. And because of his character, I think that's why so many people lean towards him. He always... Yeah, I love you mentioned this idea of the art. Now, could you pull up the images of his collaboration with Christo? And so this is artist Christo actually recently passed. But Beth Ann, like what was Willie doing that was so different? Like he was collaborating with, you know, Keith Herring, he was collaborating with Bill T. Jones. And it's something that we kind of understand is quite ubiquitous now, but this was quite revolutionary at the time, right? Yeah, you know, I'm so glad to say it that way. Because, you know, for us, we're not thinking it's revolutionary because it's just stuff that's happening. You know, things happen. So you look at it in respect. It's like when Versailles happened, you know? We didn't think it was that important, but later in life, you'd realize it and you reflect back. It was just his character. It was who he was. And I think people like Christo and Jean Marie, I think they just really liked him. And so they gave him opportunities to do things. So the workers, he did the worker's shirts, you know? People who really helped him organize. So he did that. Whatever little things that people could involve in it because they liked him so much. And, you know, you're right. It doesn't happen like that now. You know, now it's either licensing, you know? It's not quite the same, but this was a pure artistry, one artist appreciating the other. And I really appreciated all of that. Everything that would happen to him, it was only, I mean, he did furniture, no furniture. I mean, a lot of them did at that time because it was a big, you know, but he did so many things. Amazing. Now, we can, I think we can take that down. Thank you so much. And Jacoby, hi. How are you? Hello. I'm doing well, I'm doing well. So on this vein of collaboration, we're going to pull up a piece called Matriarch, what is it? Matriarch's Rhapsody. The Matriarch's Rhapsody. We're gonna pull it up in a second. But in your practice, like how do you view collaboration and your mother has always kind of been your collaborator as well? How has that played out? And how does that influence the way in which you think and work? I think that like the mode of collaboration really found its conceptual grounding for me. In my early 20s, when I was taking a break from painting and moving towards a performance practice and thinking about surrealism and data and the methods they used to kind of achieve modes of creation, which is like they would play games like Exquisite Quartz or Games of Chance by reading performance instructions as a way to resist against like the Western canon and colonized minds that that painting has created. And because I was feeling like as a black artist I was just sort of trapped in creating apologetically for a white audience. And so performance felt like it gave me agency. But when I went back home to South Carolina that year I remember, oh my God, goodness, but my practice actually started with my mother. Like when I was a child, my mother would make thousands and thousands of schematic diagrams. After her diagnosis, schizophrenia she basically had this feverish, she had this feverish desire to be an entrepreneur and will create schematic backgrounds and common objects, ordinary objects in the house that were supposed to be inventions that were patent. They were like DaVincian drawings. And she'd send them off to the home shop and they'll work into other programs and patents or places, whatever or publishing places. I mean, very like in a delusion of grandiore way. But I believed in it and that's what made me become an artist. And so I would kind of create with her when I was a kid as she had to learn how to draw in order to help her or whatever, but as the drawings accumulated over the decades and I was an older artist and realizing, oh my God, my mother just wrote me like a lifetime of performance scores. I decided, wow, these should be kind of like instructions for the way that I approach making things. And so through a lot of trial and error experiments, I realized I could trace and create these drawings and through the animation software and composite them into those spaces to create painterly landscapes for my body to perform in. A lot of my work stems from me using a green screen and a camera and going on that green screen with costumes I would use to make and I would perform and then I would composite my body a thousand, I mean, hundreds of times in the space to make this sort of pastoral concert scene that looks like a Titian painting. And eventually I realized, and then that's what opened the floodgates with elaboration because my practice became this thing about collecting archives, whether it was archives of other performances, performers I would solicit to perform on my green screen or archives that found images off the internet that I found were really politically charged and if they were put into a constellation together could create a really powerful statement. But it was about my practices actually sort of like weaving and congruent matters together to find form because when you try to force things together that really don't belong, it kind of creates this tension and the tension reveals my subconscious, it reveals my subconscious intent. I mean, and that's why, you know, like a lot of my work, I have a blind, I insert my work really blindly. I kind of like, I operate from the id and then I go into the ego, which is like, this is how I got to, you know, that then, you know, because I was, I mean, should I proceed to talk about that? Yeah, I mean, you know, I, well, you know, you're sorry, you were just like wearing me out because I'm like, there's so many things that you're bringing up that I just want to like talk about before we go into the collaboration with Beth Ann, like, and it's slightly tangential, but, you know, in growing up with a schizophrenic mother and, you know, this kind of vocabulary that it not only artistically gives you access to, but also mentally gives you access to. I mean, you're just, you know, casually throwing out terms like, you know, id, ego, super ego. How does, how do you think of mental illness, particularly as it pertains to black peoples in our community, and how and if, and does it relate to virtual reality, which is a space in which you inhabit? I think there's some of that. Well, yeah, true. I'm like putting you in the, yeah, because actually mental illness, especially schizophrenia is about hallucinations and you are embodying a world that really doesn't exist, but you kind of really believe it and it's for the rest of your life. So it's in a way, kind of, you know, like I used to reaffirmation a lot in my work, that the term like reifying desire is a series I made and it's about like, you know, making a concrete form for something that can never be concretized. Like love is something that you cannot put into form, but you know, in my work, I try to figure out, you know, use abstraction to deliver the essence of it. And so in a way, like that's why I'm saying, bringing incongruent ideas together to build form is sort of like a gesture that metaphorically aligns with what the idea of mental illness, I mean, you know, mental illness is always swept under the rug in the black community, but I thought, I think of it as, now you're tapping to another dimension, but there's a cash 22 is that you're not completely inside of the dimension that we're all collected in and therefore there's a tension and a conflict that leads to pain and suffering. But yeah, I actually never really thought about, I never aligned the VR thing with mental illness, but now that you mentioned it's like, yeah, right, it's very true. Hey, there's a, there's like, that's something I have to marinate on in regards to, yeah. But I mean, yeah, no, I mean, as you speak, I mean, when you speak about, you know, taking incongruency and just making it into forms, I mean, there's really no difference between that and what we're doing, right? On a daily basis, it's just a matter of the majority of us have decided that these incongruous vibrations create these forms, you know, and this is something that is just outside of it, but the ways in which virtual reality allows those of us who are quote unquote normal to access perhaps spaces that we have not been conditioned to understand, right? That we can be outside of the ideas of gravity and space and time. But let me not go too off track here. So, Beth Ann, you know, before we even speak about this collaboration with Jacoby, you've been amused for a very long time. Like for many, many people, like, what does it mean to be amused and what does it feel like to be amused? Yeah, very good question. And you know what? I wish it was still more of a circumstance now. There's not so much of that now, especially now in the street when it comes down to the fashion model servicing the fashion industry designer. It's sort of like gone away, maybe because there's so many models and that we have now casting directors. We don't have that relationship between the designer and the model. And that's where it all becomes a relationship of collaboration because he's inspired by it. There's no one in between. It's like someone gets in the bed between the model and the designer. The point it really is, is that that is something that has gotten lost. So for me, I mean, I really was that person, you know, with Willie, for Steven Burroughs, but also then now coming back even for Alessandro Michelli. You know, that cracked me up because I really didn't want to even imagine that. I mean, I was like, oh, I'm done with that, you know? But then you begin to understand that there's someone that's creating something and you must open your mind and opportunity to participate in it. Not to shy away from it, because it's a once again collaboration, but also it's an art form of doing something, making something happen. It wouldn't happen without you. It wouldn't happen without you. And that's the whole thing that you recognize as we go on. I mean, I'm still impressed with Jacoby and him looking at me when we're doing that shoot and then hit becoming so much more part of his continuance of his next, you know, show. And that he just, it just worked for him. And, you know, once again, you're a muse. You're an inspiration to something that someone else is creating. So for me, I'm very happy to be an inspiration to anyone. You know, that's what I've been doing all my adult life. I think, you know, coming from the 60s all the way through, you got lucky to have that opportunity and to have people really see you. And what they do when they see you, they give you an opportunity that you didn't even know. They help educating. If you talk about self-esteem, it becomes a whole new ball game. Yeah, I mean, I'm inspired just looking at you and I'm like, you know what? You're right about that. I need a muse. I'm gonna see if they have a section on Craigslist or maybe there's like an Airbnb version of Muse. I don't know, like we get like a rent on Muse. Something that's gotta be like Jacoby. We need to bring it back. Make sure, don't let's give it. The great thing with Jacoby, he could actually create that in his world because he is an artist that has no relationship to another industry. That is the industry that I'm mostly known for, which is the fashion industry, the model industry. So he has an opportunity to do that because that's where his inspiration lies and that's where he goes full on. So that's wonderful in that way. And that's actually a good segue. So how did this collaboration come about? I'm gonna throw that to Jacoby. Okay. Well. Do you remember? I do remember. It was actually super serendipitous in a wonderful way. I was approached by Interview Magazine to drive upstate to Bethan's house and spend a wonderful afternoon having a wonderful conversation about her black life. She was telling me so many wonderful stories, but I was supposed to shoot an editorial for a profile she was doing and the icons issue for Interview Magazine and Zendaya did the interview and it was just a wonderful thing. I was really excited to do it. Sorry to interrupt you. Darnail, can we pull that image up? Yeah. And you wanna know something as you're pulling image up. You know what's so interesting too? That I learned from him that he went to school right down the road from my house. Oh, wow. I mean, in Woodstock. Oh, yeah. I did a residency there for the entire summer. The ICP in Woodstock. Which I spent months in the Catskill Mountains doing film in the Waterfalls and Creek that end up being in my body for it. So I kind of made really important work in the Woodstock upstate. Yeah. Okay, I'm sorry. I totally interrupted you, Jakob. We can continue. Oh, so, yeah. I, as you see in the photograph, I spent that house and the way that it became more integrated into this much larger piece at my solo exhibition is that like 2020 was really hard for everyone to paralyze a lot of people creatively, including myself. I mean, my chest had a lot of palpitations trying to maintain a creative career when certainty was destabilized entirely and I feel like in a way it was like I was working from a place of faith that we would be able to continue culture and having a discourse in the art world. I wasn't sure if my work would even see a public opening at a gallery or any place. I was like, and then George Floyd happened and Brianna Taylor and there were protests of people marching downstairs from my apartment. And it was just like this paralyzing lack of focus that I had. And usually my work kind of operates where I like to like play in the world of abstraction and the eligibility and allowing the viewer to meet me halfway to find some sort of conceptual thing. But this was the first time I wanted to be more direct because I could only be direct in 2020. It was like such an urgent year, you know? And I was working on writing many different storyboards and I was thinking about how like 2020 seems like the new modernism, like, you know, in 18, I forgot, like in the 19th century when, you know, Manne created Luncheon in the Grass, that pastoral concert scene. It was the considered the painting that was, that there was a painting that was considered the dawn of modernism, which led to Picasso because it was him painting four ordinary people in the woods on a canvas, you know, like the canvas was reserved for royalty and regal people. And so it was like, this is like the pursuit of truth. So I thought like, well, 2020 seems like a paradigm shift, culturally, like there's a new normal. And so I wanted to focus on the idea of the pastoral concert scene. And when I went up to Beth Ann's house it looked like that setting. And when I was shooting her and thinking about, and I was also thinking about how like the black woman in 2020 seems like the most vulnerable kind of entity that, you know, not only like black people, communities like the Bronx, sometimes they are more vulnerable to the coronavirus and also to police brutality. It's like, it seems like the most negated figure. And so my piece that I was creating, I wanted to create this alternative universe where the black female had the most agency and the most power and like was the central figure. And listening to Beth Ann talk about her life and her work and her journey, I was like, oh my God, she's the ultimate muse and matriarch figure for my decision. She's been an agent of change and bringing representations to the black female, like, you know, down to like Campbell, everybody. Like she's really like allow young, like to her energy and her mission, you know, she's like a sort of conduit to a lot of young black girls around the world to see images of themselves, to inspire them to grow up and make change. So like if the domino effect of her existence, ultimately this made sense for her to be the main force in this video. So I was like, oh my God, I have all this great footage and I composited her throughout the scene. And then like, you see the whole concept of the pieces, I have these cyborg culture, like powerful female figures that are like destroying biological threats. It's very abstract. They're like, it's like kind of heroic. And then at the end of the video, it ends with this floral shrine dedicated to Breonna Taylor. But that fan is seen throughout the entire video. It's sort of like, you know, and she's in the composition of Mende's painting, The Luncheon and the Grass in this pastoral scene. And so it's like a virtual reality version of that painting. And instead of me giving a knot to ordinary people, I'm giving a knot to divine black females. You know, Mende said, I want to paint an ordinary woman, I'm painting divinely females and this is my alternative universe because we are entering the new normal. So, you know, I don't know, whatever. So that- No, that's wonderful. Bethanne, how does it feel to be the divine? Sometimes I'm getting ready to levitate. I'm trying to hold on to the bench. But, you know, it's so wonderful because you don't know this. You know, I didn't even know that after the, you know, which is, you know, you got to give a real shout out to Integral Magazine because of the things that they're doing in general and the idea that they can say, oh no, what do you think, you know, I only, in my list that gave me a list of who you want to interview. And, you know, it's in there. But I don't think they're going to get in there because if they had somebody, ooh, we're going to connect it because of my son and we're a family. But she was like, yes, he was the first one that they wanted. And then he being that person too, it was just such an interesting thing to have it all happen. And who knew that I would wind up in his, you know, single most important show? You know, that- I'm saying this. And I couldn't go because I was so frightened of her. I didn't want to, you know, give Corona a run for the money. So I sent my neighbor, and she rode on her bike and went down to the gallery and she just filmed it all because I had Brazilian friends of mine who work in art. They were like saying, this is you, this is your house. You know, and it was very nice to have that because I had no idea that he had taken it to the next level. So it's wonderful, it's wonderful. Thank you. So thank you for being there and allowing it to happen because it was, you know, I was so frustrated working in the studio and I was like, there's something missing and it just worked out. It's a long cave in. Yeah, it's great, it's great. So I want to quickly allow our viewers to get a small snippet of this collaboration. Darnell, if you could pull it up for us. So this is just about two minutes worth, but just to give you all a really great sense of what we've been talking about for the last 10 minutes and I'll be quiet. We are in hell, when we fail to exist. We are in hell, when we fail to exist. We are in hell, when we break others down. We are in hell, when we break others down. We are in hell, when we break others down. Just watching it on your phone or your computer screen, you know, try to imagine actually being immersed in this world. It was actually a VR experience and it was at Mitchell, Innocent Nash in Chelsea here in New York City and you have your Oculus Rift on and you are actually in this world and you're looking around. So Jacobi, well first of all, congratulations again. But tell us a little bit how you physically created this. The voice we hear is your mother, right? Yeah, the voice is started with this, well my mother created 155 or more acapellas in the middle hospital and at home along with the drone. It was all about like publishing. She was like, I gotta be a star and I wanna make commercial jingles and I wanna make R&B songs and I'm just the next shotgun or whatever. And 20 years later I realized they were compelling lyrics, very nice poems and the vocals were very cool. I like the cracky vocals on a cassette tape with this really raw. And so after the Whitney Bay annual, I was taking a break and I had a studio visit with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and they offered me this two-year commission to create whatever. I wanted for this performance residency there and I decided over a lot of glasses of wine I was like, oh, I wanna make a concept album. I wanna make a virtual reality album that's an hour and 24 minutes and just to bring back object to it just listening experience because everything is on screening services and I thought like, okay, C's vinyl records and A tracks are gone. How else can we have a sculptural approach to the sonic medium? And I thought like, oh, I should make, I think that making a concept album with like making 14 tracks for my mother's acapella collection, but, you know, with instrumentation from electronic music and jungle drum and bass and trip hop and all the genres that influenced me with, and it was one of my favorite, you know, electronic musicians, Nick Weiss from Teen Girl Fantasy. We became like best friends over two years working in the studio together. I learned so much about, you know, Pableton Live and Synthesizers and it's a painterly medium on its own. And what was interesting about making it is that like, this is a, you know, it became much more dynamic collaboration because it was a collaboration with my mother, me and the people who I was casting in the films which became just like metastasis of collaboration. But what was interesting about it is, sorry, I'm losing train of thought, what was interesting about it is that the music was influencing how I would go back to the studio to create film and the film was influencing how I was thinking about the sonic experience and the atmosphere and like, you know, the textures of sound and what I needed for the video and what the video needed for the sound and it became a synesthesia approach to making. And so, yeah, in a way, you know, like the lyrics are not meant to be didactic or like, you know, storytelling. The lyrics kind of guide motifs that I put into the film in a very distant way. But yeah, that's kind of like my approach that answers the question. Yeah, I mean, I think the lyrics are just so good. First of all, thank you for even captioning it in the video. I think they're so prescient and, you know, kind of circling back to our previous conversation around mental illness or understanding how we approach it from a place of quote unquote normalcy. You know, I think your combination of those lyrics in this space that you created, mind you, like Jacoby like physically like rendered all of these objects. Like this takes like months and sometimes years to create these films. They ring, they ring true. They ring true in a different way in a way in which, you know, just kind of linear speech and English syntax doesn't quite allow for that I think coming from a different perspective can shine light on truths that we perhaps don't have access to, but that's another conversation. So before we open it up to questions, I wanted to briefly talk about what's kind of happening in contemporary art and culture, particularly NFTs. And for those of you all listening who do not know what an NFT is, it is not nifty. It means non-fungible tokens. And so non-fungible tokens are, it could be artwork, it could be video clips, but essentially it's intellectual property that can exist in a digital space. So there are decentralized spaces on the blockchain and blockchain just meaning decentralized servers that information is shared over a large global network. But I think Christie's just auctioned its first digital art piece by Beeple's for $7 million. And so essentially what a non-fungible token is is a proof of ownership. It means that I own this thing. So the Mona Lisa could potentially... $69 million. Wait, what? $69 million. $69 million? Yes. It was like, literally what I looked at was like $7 million. $69 million. Okay, so this is crazy. So outside of the financial bubble that we're heading towards, you working in virtual reality and digital art, I think it seems to me that you're quite primed to step into this space. Are you thinking about NFTs and how it relates to your work? Yeah. I'm doing a little experiment maybe next week. Take it up the octave for me. Yeah, I'm doing a little experiment. I'm working with some people. I have a lot of interesting experiments that I never released in the art world, I guess. And I'm just testing some things out next week and we'll see what happens. But I think it's really cool. I think just conceptually, I just am interested in it because it's interesting how I'm interested into cryptocurrency and the blockchain. I'm interested in this weird way to concretize digital media and the idea of a token being represented by something that is laborious. I always felt like I'm a painter at heart. And I feel like I will still make things. And I'm very committed to real opportunity. And the thing about it is that when I work in Maya and I work in effort effects, the processes that are involved in creating a digital work that I make is more viscous and more visceral, more labor-intensive, more mark-making, more erasure, more adhesion. Me green-screening my body performing is so much like physicality involved in producing these works that they are raw, real, full-fledged objects. And so I find it amazing that I can put something on the internet on a non-fungible token and 25 people can purchase it in shares and build a value. And then I own it. It allows my work to continuously live and come around. That's something really interesting about it. I so knew I don't know what to say, but I'm interested. I'm kind of like, you know, why not? I was wondering what would this happen anyway because the art world always does something. Like every decade, there's some form that wasn't considered valuable that takes over. And by the way performance art did, it's always something, you know, it's always, I was like, how is digital art really gonna have this like weird monetization moment? That's like insane. And it's like, oh, God. But it's happening in this way that's weird because a lot of the NLT people aren't into art where they're like people popular in niche Tumblr circuits or in or on Instagram or Grimes or Celebrity or Zellia Banks and Writers. You know, I don't know. We'll see where it goes. But I am trying something out. Well, we look forward to finding out what that is. Hopefully we'll hear about it soon. But yeah, I think it is super interesting, you know, as the art world, you know, kind of circles around this idea and it definitely is like a Duchampian neuronal moment, right? We are at, you know, a critical pivot point in just reimagining what art is. And I think, you know, digital art has been made for so long that I think culture hadn't quite caught up to the ways in which it can be valuable and the ways in which it can be displayed. And I think it's been challenging, particularly in space and time, in actual space and time, to speak to like how these things are valuable. So I'm super excited to see what you come up with. And also, thinking about you and other artists creating in this medium, you know, the fusion of art and technology, right? Like you are at the vanguard of this next phase. And it's something that artists from time immemorial have always been enmeshed in, you know, when you think about Leonardo da Vinci, he was always playing with technology. He was always playing with different kinds of pigments and techniques and, you know, ways to, you know, build sculptures out of one cast bronze piece, where before it was, you know, horses were cast in like individual pieces. So I think it's wonderful to see how you are really stepping into a very old tradition, actually, this real fusion of art and technology. But like I said, I'm going to stop talking and we're going to open it up for questions. Bethanne, did you have anything you want to add about NFTs? Are you going to be at NFTs? Bethanne, I shouldn't do it at NFTs. If you two say so, I'll be whatever it can be. I want to stop. This sounds like this is the modern moment. I just want to keep up. No for sure. No for sure. It's interesting. Thank you so much for even continually educating us because you really do have so much information. And look at you. I mean, you actually know about Leonardo da Vinci because you read the book, right? Walter Isaacson. Yeah. See, I mean, who does that? You. No, it's, it's, it's, you know, but you know, thank you. Thank you. So let's, so let's see. I'm going to check in the questions. We have a question from Carmela. Let's see. Okay. So from Carmela, when you started in the art community, were you worried of being successful in your area? I'm thinking that's probably going to go to Jacobi. Oh, well, who is it? I mean, you know, you go to art school and spend $100,000 on education. You think something's one of them. But like for me, initially it was about, I wanted to be an art teacher at first. And I came from like this really good looking area in Columbia, South Carolina. And I had like low drink, like my expectations of what would happen in my life was very like combo in the beginning. And then, you know, I went to a boarding school in the latter part of my education, high school education and I started seeing other possibilities, but it was until, you know, my sophomore year in college, I created a suite of paintings that one of my professors kind of for the first time said, you can really take off one day. Like he's like, have you thought of going to Yale? And I'm like, yeah, for MFA, you know, just like, you know, that was kind of like, I have a few people in my life plant seeds of like, you know, shoot for the star is sort of, and that brought in my hunger to like be more disciplined and you know, like, I think that was just things, you know, I don't know. I just did everything I could to make sure I was at the height of my abilities. And I always, you know, I wanted to go to the grad school. I wanted to do Scout Heaton and I did 12 residents. He's at the grass because at some point art would became the only thing I knew how to do because it was what I did 24 seven. I left no room for anything else. And so after, you know, going through 12 residents, he's in building this massive network to many different kinds of artists and writers and curators. I just naturally became ingrained it and it was a lot of suffering and a lot of hard work and a lot of sleeping on floors and one degree weather. And like, I don't know. It was just like at LMCC after Hurricane Sandy. Like it was just so, the journey has been very intense. And so yeah, I was worried. Yeah. I was, I was worried that I was worried. I feel like it became like in a compulsory addiction to create 24 hours a day. And I was like, I would do whatever it takes for me to continue the pipeline I've been doing in grad school and within the residences because residences, they pay you like $700 a month, which is nothing, but they give you housing and stuff and you can create 24 hours. So like my whole adulthood is just used to working 24 hours a day on art. I mean, not 24 hours, but you know what I mean? Like a whole 12 hour day of work making art. I don't know about retail, even though I did work in retail one time and I hated it. Working in retail actually made me realize, fuck this shit. This is a family platform, Jacobi. I'm sorry. I think I'm kidding. It's, it's, it's New York. So it's lost. So we have another question. Let's see. From Luanne. Hi Luanne. Can you talk to us about how art can help to transform racist attitudes and help shape an inclusive and equitable future? Well, I feel like Beth Ann could answer the question because she's like, she realized importance of diversity and like, cause like the model is, it's like Pygmalion. Like, I don't know, like the model is, I took a class on the model in at university of Pennsylvania actually. With Wendy Steiner. She wrote a book about the model and the history of art and its importance of like transitioning theories and ideas. And so I don't know. Yeah, Beth Ann, you want to hop into that? I'm taking notes. I was so busy listening to him that I might have lost some of the question, but I think the fact of it is, is that what was the question again? Let me see. It was essentially how can art be used as a tool to transform racist attitudes? Naturally. It's the same thing with music. I think it's definitely a hit. Visual, visual opportunities changes everything. And for me to see what can be done in the art world as an artist or as a photographer, or as someone who basically is living that life, who change what we see because they get the opportunity to really basically give us an opportunity to see what we don't normally see. So if we see the black image, we see it sometimes. And so we get an opportunity for someone of color to tell the story of the black image. And that can change a lot of things because it starts changing everybody's mindset. The people who hire you, the people who think that that can never happen. It starts to change everything. So it's a very wonderful opportunity in art, really used to be. And also for film, you know, in all, if you get the opportunity what we have now, we do have an opportunity. To kick that off in new videos. Again, this is one of our 21st century exhibition, there are a bunch of this. But this is our moment. It really saw like play and all of that. Yeah. And, and Jacobi, could you speak a bit about what maybe you remember from Wendy Steiner and the model and the ways in which it could relate to this question? Oh, well. That's hard. I mean, in art history, yeah, the model is like the metaphor. And so if you think about Olympia by Manet and there's the white nude who's laying down and she has her servant who's this black lady, you know, like, I guess, I don't know how to speak about that. I'm sorry. I mean, actually I'm like flustered right now because I don't know how to talk. No, I think it's, I think, no, I think it's okay. I think it's about, you know, and looking at your piece with Beth Ann, just what presence means, what representation means, what does reification mean, what does being uplifted and shown in a place of beauty and prestige mean. For example, I was doing a job for the Met Museum, which will be coming out soon, yay. But I was there when they were closed. I had the museum to myself for like two days. And it was interesting because when you're in a museum and you actually remove people, you're really just left with the artifacts. And then you're really like, you're really allowed to think about what was decided, like who decided what was worth saving and who deemed that this was the story that needed to be told. And how that is reified over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, you're really left with the weight of it. Knowing full well that there were so many other things that were created that fell away, that left behind. And so it's a way for a certain group of people to uphold a history and to in a way rewrite history because it is what remains. And so I think what you're doing and what Beth Ann has done, undulating throughout her career is replace some of these images to add to this canon of understanding of what is beauty. I mean, there's so many things that are happening just in that piece that you are coming up against not only gender roles and not only race, but also ageism, right? Like rewriting the history of what does it mean for a mature woman to be beautiful and to also be held in a place of like regalness and regard and what does that mean and what does that allow for? But anyway, let me go to these other questions because you know, my father is a pastor and I will talk for the rest of the day. Let's see. This is from Timothy and this is going to Jacoby. Jacoby, given the relative newness of the technology of virtual reality, your work is considered innovative or perhaps ahead of the times. Do you think virtual reality will become a mainstream art and maybe one day be seen with the same ordinariness as painting and other traditional art forms? Yeah, absolutely because we, I mean, it's, well, it's like, it took decades. Like people have been trying to make virtual reality happen since the nineties. There were just so many like bad versions of it. But now it's reached technology and has reached the levels where, you know, it's much more nuanced and complex and you know, virtual reality can be used for medical purposes. It can be used for people with PTSD. Like as if somebody made a virtual reality piece so his grandmother could visit Cuba again and he made me do a 360 camera in her neighborhood in Cuba that she lived in and she was crying and it was like healing. But, you know, also mixed me, like now they create these hollow lens where it's a glass, it's like a glass shield where, you know, it's basically, it can map your environment that you already in and create experiences in VR. You know, it's constantly evolving. And with Elon Musk making the neural link, which is a chip they put in your brain, they drill it in there. And it's actually they're using some people with who are paralyzed to kind of help them move the arm again. But also the neural link can help you talk telepathic things like if I have a chip in my brain, you have a chip in my brain. We could speak to each other like text messages or if I have a neural link in my brain, I could like control my computer without using my hands as I'm like the cursor of the mouse. But this is in the beta stage. So imagine 20 years later what the neural link will be. It will probably something where you can create VR experiences, which is kind of scary. Like it's, you know, now that their technology is really taking off. And VR can be used for training purposes and it's really, it's here to stay forever. Because this is just the beginning. Like my work will look like a Nintendo game and like a couple of, but it will be, it won't be obsolete because the way I work about with it is very in a process oriented, it's like the same thing at least like a John Michelle Basquiat thing. It's like a certain primitiveness, kind of like a certain kind of like one to one ratio between the person and the object that the creator and the object that like it'll sustain itself. But VR is definitely, VR has so many places to go. And I actually have so many desires for it that I haven't even scratched the surface of what I want to do with it. But yeah, it's just like painting. I mean, I go back to, my VR sent me back to painting. And then my painting sends me back to VR, you know, like, yeah. Love that. I mean, in a way we're kind of living, you know, particularly even just with our phones, right? It's almost, we're almost like in like caveman times, you know what I mean? We're living in a world of images anyway. So we're actually living in virtual reality and not quite even realizing it. And even the idea of like black and white, right? Like you've never seen anyone whose skin is actually the color black and you've never seen anyone whose skin is the color white, meaning that they are just symbols that are a stand in for something, which means that we're really just reacting to screens and chimeras and ghosts. So in a way, what we're seeing or co-creating is virtual reality anyway. So we're kind of already there. We're all cyborgs already. We're like our artificial intelligence already. Absolutely. And that's gonna go crazy too. I have another question from Regine Gilbert. From an education perspective, how do we balance the history of fashion and art for those who are new to these fields? That's from Regine. How do we balance it? Yeah, I'll read it again. From an education perspective, how do we balance the history of fashion and art for those who are new to those fields? Jacobi. They've always been, they've always, they've always been, I mean, fashion and art is very exclusive to one another. If you think about, you know, Pasquiat and his, you know, Keith Herring, they were a very integrative fashion. Alexander McQueen's used to play, or Mark Jacobs, like with Elizabeth Peyton or Sterling Ruby with Raf Simons, fashion and art have been more... Or Versailles. Or Versailles, yeah. And like Marie Antoinette, like... Like they're all mutually exclusive. And I don't think, you know, people used to like do a high low thing between fashion and art, like honestly, most of my main inspirations came from fashion editorials that I would look like the Doja and Gabbana ads from V Magazine in the early 2000s that was inspired by Paul Cadmus paintings, like really, really influenced the way that I thought I'd think about composition and space. And like also like the, like, the scary... Oh no, sorry, the scary whiteness of an abber and crumbly and pitch quarterly catalog really put a stain in my brain, you know, when I was a teenager and I don't know where that went to, but like fashion is all... I think of it as the same. I love Nick Knight. Nick Knight is one of my main influencers because he's the first person to bring digital software into fashion photography with like the York images and the everything, you know? Interesting you say you mentioned Keith Herring and Versailles. I never think of them as fashion. We were just all a fashionable group of people living downtown all hanging out. It was a cultural moment, but I never think of them as being part of fashion. But because we all were like, you know, involved in so many things, we all sort of like were with each other. But the influencers definitely didn't seem like it came from anything like that. But that's interesting too, that you could, because you think about it, it seems like that. You think of Basquiat, you think of it because it's so culturally engaged and everything that everyone's doing, he's become like a, you know, he's iconic as Keith is. But me knowing them both, I never thought it was anything to do with fashion, you know? But it's like we were all hanging out. So I guess in some kind of way, you know, I never even think of myself in fashion. They're like, you know, yeah, I hate the word. But the whole idea of style and, you know, and that's what we really think of. And look at, you know, when you think about Bill T. Jones and Grace, and they did their thing, you know? You know, the painting on the body, you know that? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. That's like iconic, that's forever. I mean, even like when I, I worked with David Cassavance Archive, who's one of my best friends, I like he has the biggest collection of rafts and helmet length pieces in the world. And he kind of long, he, oh, sorry. My phone keeps going as he loans his stuff out to rafts and mints himself. So he could use some museums and like loans as opposed to Brianna and Drake and all the celebrities to wear. And actually Kanye West uses his archive as a template for Yeezy, like to study. And so what I use this archive for fashion for, which is why he has miscellaneous pieces like Comte Garceau and like, you know, Yoshi Yamamoto. And a lot of those pieces are, you know, they're historical. They come from the 90s and around 2000s and they represent identities that are now faded out. Some of his clothes represent queer communities that no longer exist and certain black communities that no longer exist. And I can be like Cindy Sherman and dress up in these clothes and wear wigs for my performances to create a silhouette of these identities for my films. Like a lot, I'm very inspired by like the 90s gay black male that you was brave enough to be out and proud in the clubs and at the shelter, the Paradise Garage, like the Willie Ninjas, like, and she has this archive where I can, you know, be Cindy Sherman and like... Okay. You have so many references. You know, you're not 70 years old, yet you know so much. I'm certainly thinking to myself, God, gee, he really, but that's the intellect. That's the same thing with Dario. You know, you're hungry for information and that's really wonderful, you know, that's really wonderful. And it's because of who you are, not because you're involved in fashion, but you can lift it and play with it and let it inspire you. But I tell you, I'm very impressed today. I said here and I learned so much. I see this. Knowing you, you must be, I think, I don't know what to say, you just, too much for me. That means a lot to me. I feel so good. Thank you so much, Beth, and thank you. I appreciate it. I actually have a question for you from Christine King. Do you have a sense of how the work you have done will continue to inspire and inform generations to come? And what advice would you give to those who want to champion diversity and representation? I think it definitely, it will definitely, I do feel, you know, I wish I had my foot on the clutch, making sure that nothing slips back. But I do think that we are always gonna see and remember this moment where diversity really had its play and the model of color definitely got their moment back because it was not like brand new, it was back. So that's for sure. And those who might want to champion it, you know, I always say, everybody is not meant to ride the Trojan horse. Some people are meant to pull the Trojan horse. So it's something like, you know, you can't, it's something that really is meant for those who are meant to be revolutionary, not everyone is. And you mustn't feel bad about it. What you must do is recognize who is doing it and support it. That's what you must do. Don't try to be like somebody, don't try to be like me. Don't try and figure, oh, I can do this, she did it. A lot of us are not meant to do that. What we're meant to do is recognize and support. Amazing. I have another question. This is actually from my mother. So this is very meta. To Jacoby, how do you allow your inspiration not to overwhelm your artistry? Wow, that's a really good question. It does overwhelm it actually. It really, it used to, when I was younger, my inspiration has really paralyzed me because I'd pay so much respect to other creators. I literally like, you know, I dive deep into understanding a person's form of art making whatever the medium is. And I couldn't match. I'm not as inventive as people think. I feel like I, or I feel like I suffer a lot to build my ideas. And so, and I never feel like, yeah, it does overwhelm me. And, but the way that I do it, I usually have to submit to this one strategy when the deadline's getting closer. And I'm like, I've learned over time that like there, you know, like Jasper John says, there's no such thing as a bad idea. It's just about execution. And so like my method of creating and not being paralyzed by my influences or the greatnesses that come before me or the greatness that is my peers is that I, I say, I commit to executing a stupid idea. I say, I, I, um... Yeah, that makes sense. I start with my, and I massage that stupid idea until it becomes poetic and pointy because I choose something simple, like really a literal, literally direct, something ugly, something corny, something like sophomoric and juvenile and from my heart. And I wrestle with it until it becomes amazing because ultimately the thing that you're just missing usually is your inner truth. No. Absolutely. I actually have a follow-up question. Have you ever shared your work with your mom? If so, what did, does she think of how you've built on her work? Oh, well, because my family's from South Carolina and they see art as painting and sculpture and it's conservative viewpoint, but she was really humbled the fact that I was paying homage to her. She didn't understand that, you know, it was an early form of the work but she died in 2016. And I, you know, I showed her things in 2014 and 2013 and 2012 and I let her hear two tracks off the album. What she was actually, what was funny about her hearing the album part is that when I was a kid, she would curse my dad and I would like, we would like stop singing them songs in the living room, girl. And like, I was embarrassed about it because my friends would come over to play video games and she's like, I'm like, oh my God, this is crazy. And she's like, y'all are gonna see, you gonna be my back dancer. And she was like, I'm gonna be rich and this is, this gonna be a number one hit. She was just really a startup about this is important material she's making, which actually is true because it's Mestonian collected the album. They bought the album, they bought it with the video Bursting Paradise and it's the first vinyl in the Hirsch one collection. So, but like when I played the two tracks before she died, this is like 15 years later, she was like, what? You know how like your delusion of grandeur when it's almost like you're preaching that this is gonna be big and when it actually happens, it shows that, oh, you didn't believe it yourself. I made this into a real record. Cause I think she thought you have to go into the recording studio in LA and like $15,000 rental fee. And like now presumer technology can buy these machines. So we made this thing in a studio and she was like, that's me. It was really funny and it was really sweet and it was really wonderful for a full circle closing moment before she died. Yeah, sure. That's amazing. I have a question for you, Beth Ann from Timothy. Beth Ann, you suggested that muses are less common in art and fashion than they were in the past. Do you think this is symbolic of a period shift from a focus on the individual and the complexity of a person to broader ideas like the complexity of social systems and structures and how they affect us all? Okay, so let me say, it's true. The only reason why it's changed is because the industry shifted because then it became the model was no longer being hired by the fashion center. The model was being hired by an outside source which was the casting director and the stylist. They were the interrupter, disruptor between the fashion designer and the model. That relationship is needed. They get off on each other, you know, that's the one thing I love about Issa O'Rourke. He never gave up his relationship with his muses. But in this life now, we don't have that. You know, you don't see it too often and so I think what's gonna happen is we'll ever come back again. And you know, at one point I have to say, I thought that Carly Claus was a muse. I mean, she was as close to this, that timeframe because she basically was being used by a lot of different designers. They really did, they allowed her to, you know, she didn't walk like everybody else. She switched to him because she was a dancer. She really was someone who I thought, hmm, this is life back in the day. But you know, excuse me a tone. Yeah, I don't think it was sustained. I don't know if it'll ever come back but someone needs to just sort of like grab hold of it and make it happen. I think we have time for one more question. Let's see, what do you think? Okay, this is from Carmela. What do you think about people having a style of the art and how people sometimes copy styles self-consciously? Style of the art? I think this, let me see. Let me see if I can kind of slightly decode this. What do you think about people having a style of art and how people sometimes copy styles, I think unconsciously. Well, yeah, because that becomes like what we call trends. That's exactly what that's what they do. They unconsciously become part of the masses and everybody's doing it, that's the trend. Excuse me a tone, no. Yeah, that's interesting that question because you really are at that place where you, yeah. I lost the first part of that question but I was really stuck on the fact that muses, I don't know, what was the question? Oh, it was about, what do you think about people having a style of their art and then how sometimes people copy styles? Yeah, yeah, that's what it, it becomes like a trend and I think that's what happens and they just get caught up in it. The style of the art is very interesting question since I don't understand exactly that so much. What truth of it be, like about a designer or someone who actually creates an idea that people get into and they like and they start to wear, okay, that's one thing. But the idea really basically, when they start wearing it and they're unconscious of it is because they're picking up on, everybody wants to have a supreme something, everybody wants to have, they all want to have it. And so that's what it becomes, it's not individually. Yeah, it makes me think of two things. One, a Miles Davis quote where he says, it takes a long time to sound like yourselves. And I think that that is, when style comes in and you're like unique style and or sound. And then secondly, thinking about what you said about Jacobia and myself, like how much input it takes to create a certain kind of output. And so in a way, what we deem as individuality and or a personal style is really our unique interpretation and or our unique answer to the conversation that we're constantly having with the world. And so I think style is something that evolves over time. Hopefully, if you're being honest, and I think, Jacobia, you can speak to it as well. You can kind of always tell when people are not being honest. I mean, it always comes out, it always comes out. But that's their limitation, that's all they can do. I mean, they're doing the best they can. They're not trying to be unique. Everybody doesn't have style. Everybody, people have a style. And you look at it and go, but in the end of the day, it's the truth. So it comes down to maybe having the opportunity to be something, but it really changes as we go along. And it's fair to what you said. It just shifts and now industry can help make things shift. And who drives it? Who drives that? Yeah, and I think it comes down to at its core courage, which Maya Angelou speaks about as being the greatest of all the virtues because without courage, you cannot practice any of the other ones consistently. And it's those who have the courage to actually be themselves, the courage to actually put yourself in spaces of unknown outcome like yourself, Jacobi, where there is just this will, Nietzsche calls it like the will to power, right? Which really is the will to self-actualization, not some kind of like Machiavellian kind of thing, but this impulse and Beth Ann, it's something that you've walked through the world with as well, to move from one industry to another, from one position to another. And really in all in pursuit of yourself. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, you follow who you are. You follow who you are. You stay close to who you are. And everyone doesn't always have a roadmap. They don't, and it's all right. You don't need to. Don't try to get caught up worrying about oh, I want to be like that one. No, don't, just be you. Amazing. Well, I think that that is a beautiful place to end. I want to thank you, Beth Ann, for spending this time with us as you recover from your booster shot. And Jacobi, this was a beautiful conversation as well. I'm so grateful that you could join us here this afternoon. And also lastly, thank you to the Cooper Hewitt for hosting us all for this conversation in celebration of the Willie Smith exhibition. And the art of collaboration, right? I hope that what we said today is a collaboration with you and your desires, you audience out there that I cannot see, that it hopefully inspires you to dream and to be curious about this very interesting and quite rich world that we find ourselves in. It's full of the strangest things. And stay conscious, stay curious, keep dreaming. And I think that's it. I don't know, Darnell, do you want to take over from here? I don't think I can end this. No, that's absolutely perfect. That was a great button. And we just ask that everyone stay tuned for the survey that will pop up as we close this webinar. And thank you so much to all of our guests. We really appreciate you illuminating this important aspect of Willie Smith's work and how it's living through all of you today in the contemporary world. So we appreciate this. Thank y'all so much. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.