Alexis L. Silva on "BIPOC on Colonialism, Nationalism, and [the harmful illusion of] White Supremacy"

At last, our conversation with artist writer, and curator Alexis L. Silva is available for your listening pleasure! We talk about finding your community in the art world, redefining success in a non-colonial context, the value of community museums (like the Wing Luke Museum, where he works), being 2nd generation, and a Person of Color in the art world, why we should be building coalitions now, more than ever, and much more.

“Alexis L. Silva is a Seattle based Hispanic Latino artist, writer, and curator who works through the means of performance, installation, and photography. Inspired by the idea of emotion transforming into something tangible and the overall human narrative, he creates his work by constructing thoughtful and immersive experiences that provoke emotive and visual poeticism. 

Born from immigrant parents under the heat of the Las Vegas sun, Alexis began working with photography at the age of 10. Enamored by the idea of capturing time in a box, he continued to pursue his interest in photography and graduated from Las Vegas Academy of the Arts with a focus in Photography. He went on to receive his BFA from Cornish College of the Arts with a focus in Performance, Installation, and Photography. His current works are a collection of poems and found images that tell his family's immigration story. His love for storytelling and narrative fuels his practice where he explores ideas of queerness, race, and the overall human experience.”

AJ Hawkins on "Art and Death"

Continuing with our series on “Art and Death”, please enjoy our conversation with artist AJ Hawkins about how changing relationships to faith can change our relationships to grief and grieving processes, how the death of a beloved pet inspired a search to make sense of her own mortality, the necrobiome as a "microbiological afterlife", her project "The Reclamation", How Death Positivity includes issues like bodily autonomy and environmentalism, how art can be used to connect and communicate, and to cope with things that feel "too big", and a crash course on ecological disposition.

AJ Hawkins uses fine art as a research medium to explore the challenges of living in a mortal body. Drawing on her background as a painter, sculptor and custom fabricator, AJ often creates hybrid art works that blur the lines between 2- and 3-dimensional, traditional and experimental.

Her Kickstarter-funded project, The Reclamation, challenges viewers to choose more environmentally-friendly afterlives by highlighting the value of human decomposition and the necrobiome. In years since, AJ's art has focused on experiences surrounding grief and illness. Her new series, The Poisoned Body, explores the physical and psychological toll of living with a prolonged and severe iatrogenic disease.