Victoria and Dyani: Beads, (Re)writing, and Relations

GEEX Talks Q&A Podcast

What is the significance of adornment relative to your work? How do the many functions of jewelry — as a collection, as a resource, or as an aspect of cultural participation — resonate with the kinds of work you create? Artists Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez and Dyani White Hawk join in a discussion on untold histories, their artistic process, and the presence of glass in their work.

“Oftentimes, when the work is of large scale, it's because I want people to feel immersed in that space and the care of that repetitive motion. One stroke at a time or one bead at a time: it’s an example of care and the accumulation of care. In thinking about the intimacy of exchange in a single bead: that tiny item is impregnated with so much meaning and intentionality. Sometimes that intimate exchange can feel just as profound — sometimes even more profound — than a big, huge, giant exchange.”

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Transcript available on the GEEX website.

Thanks to Bullseye Glass Company and Vetro Vero for sponsoring this episode!

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Featured Speakers:

• Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez (@internet___angel): Visual artist based in Philadelphia and director of the Bead Project at UrbanGlass. Visit Victoria’s website.

• Dyani White Hawk (@dwhitehawk): Multidisciplinary artist based in Minneapolis. Visit Dyani’s website.

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Theme music by Podington Bear. Additional music in this episode by Otis McDonald.

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Selected questions from the audience:

• PROCESS (VICTORIA): How do you balance the writing process with your sculptural work? Does your perspective shift during the transition from writing to a physical medium?

• ADORNMENT: Thinking about beads and jewelry: what is the significance of adornment relative to your work? How do the many functions of jewelry — as a collection, as a resource, or as an aspect of cultural participation — resonate with the kinds of work you create?

• MATERIAL & MEANING: Do you ascribe particular meanings to repeated motifs/materials in your work? Are these fixed meanings or more fluid?

• FOR DYANI: It seems that doors/windows have been recurring imagery in your work since “Seeing,” which you shared was completed during your MFA while growing more familiar with Western art history. How has learning about Western art history impacted your relationship with the audience and your perceptions of how they may interpret your work?

• COLLABORATION: Connections and collaboration with other community members and artists are a major component of some of your pieces. Can you talk more about why that is, how you form these collaborative relationships, and why you feel they are important in your work?

• MATERIAL & MEDIUM: Thinking about the significance of how we understand and categorize our artistic practice. Dyani, your understanding of your practice — concerning glass — has shifted the scale and spaces your work occupies while remaining true to practices you began as a teenager. Victoria, you have worked with molten glass for a long time but also simultaneously work in poetry. How does your understanding of your chosen “forms” or “mediums” impact how you consider or contextualize your work?

• TRANSPARENCY AND OPACITY: Considering the distinct difference between the parts of Victoria’s talk: formally discussing the Bead Project versus reading poetry and prose during the slides of your work. This reminds me of the questions Dyani shared during the Carry series slides: “When Native artists bring with us the artistic traditions and knowledge of our people into museum and gallery spaces: how does the function of the work change? What do we intentionally carry with us into these spaces? What do we leave out?” How do you balance transparency and opacity in your artistic practice? How do you determine what to share and what to protect or “hold dear”?

• SCALE AND IMPACT: Both of you work and/or teach with the impossibly small unit of beads, and yet you both have a grand impact on your communities concerning power. Could you speak to this dynamic? Do you see a connection between the aggregate nature of beads as a material and the messages or impact of your work?

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Edited and produced by Emily Leach and Ben Orozco.