(gentle symphonic music) - [Speaker] Welcome everyone to the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series.

(gentle symphonic music) (attendees clapping) - Welcome to the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker series.

Today, we bringing you a woman for all seasons, designer, cultural facilitator and choreographer, Shantell Martin.

A big thank you to our partners for their support, Design Core Detroit, Detroit Public Television, PBS books, and Michigan Public 91.7 FM.

Well, folks, time has evaporated.

Today is the last event of the season.

(attendees cheer and clap) It feels like to me that, like, literally last week, we were here with Nadya Tolokonnikova opening the season, and now it's April.

So I don't know where it all went, but I hope, I hope very much that you have been moved in some manner by the variety of perspectives offered here and that we all have some greater awareness of the variety of ways to see and engage the world around us.

So being our last event, I have a few thank yous I must divulge.

These are thanks to people without we could not have this series.

Of course, the Stamps family, and our dear departed patroness, Penny, for her incredible insight that has brought us all here, our foresight, I should say.

And let us not forget our crew on the ground here who make sure to deliver this series each week.

A big thank you to the Michigan Theater and its staff who are par excellence, extra specially all the organists who play the Barton each week.

The front of house team, Hannah and Steve Ouellette, thank you.

I didn't write it down.

Greg and Michelle, our tech directors, amazing.

Our faithful crew along with Erica up in the booth and Rob sometimes, and Scott back on the soundboard and everyone at IATSE Local 395.

Oh yeah, the union gets a hand.

Well, there you go, IATSE Local, there are people here.

And also our presenting partner, Detroit Public Television and their work with our InterVision Webcasting team, Ian Line and Tammy Johnson and the crew on the cameras here that capture and archive all of our talks online and expand our audience through the partnership with PBS books and all of their libraries.

So while we're on hiatus with our live events here on stage, you can catch up on all the talks, anything you've missed or review your favorites on YouTube and Facebook and streaming on Detroit Public Television.

So that's a good deal, and I thank all of them.

And I will thank, yeah, let's give them a round of applause.

(attendees clapping) It's a big deal.

It's a big deal.

I will look forward to seeing all of you back.

We will have a new season that will open in September.

If you wanna mark your calendar, it opens on September 12th, though the season lineup is not revealed itself yet, even to me.

But if you check back the Penny Stamps Speaker Series, Facebook and Instagram in early August will be where it will first be posted.

So please do remember to silence your cell phones.

There will be a Q&A right in here directly following the talk.

You'll see microphones at the ends of the aisles, so please line up at the microphone and ask your question at that time.

And now, for a little background on our guest today, Shantell Martin is a designer, curator, cultural facilitator, choreographer, performer, teacher, and more.

Her work has entranced audiences around the world in its intuitive energy, skill and bravura.

Using drawing as a physical stream of consciousness, her work is characterized by a unique freedom expressed through the possibilities of her chosen canvas, whether on paper or textile, a sculptural surface, a wall, or a screen.

She's worked with iconic brands such as Vitra, Max Mara, Tiffany and Company and BB Italia.

And in 2021, North Face launched a Shantell Martin collection.

She's collaborated with legendary artists such as Pulitzer Prize-winning performance artist, Kendrick Lamar, and acclaimed designer, Kelly Wearstler.

From fashion, design, and celebrity collaborations to positions at MIT Media Lab, NYU, and Columbia Institute, and choreographing a ballet at the Boston Ballet, Martin's drawn line constantly evolves.

I hope many of you noticed that she was covered recently in the New York Times design section just a couple of weeks ago.

And Ray Mark Rinaldi wrote of her, "She is a wall whisperer, listening and interpreting."

Of her journey she said, "It's been more about putting one foot in front of the other and you are where you land, so to speak.

The path may change, but the process remains the same.

I think the ultimate core of my being is to progress and to evolve and to ask questions and to be curious.

And I've used the tool of the simple line to help facilitate that journey."

Please welcome Shantell Martin.

(attendees cheers and claps) - It's always so embarrassing to come out after someone reads your bio.

(attendees laugh) But then, I'm super happy to be here, and it's the first time I've had an introduction with an organ, so thank you, Andrew, for your beautiful organ playing there.

So it's been a really, really, really long time since I've sat on a stage and given a talk.

So I was trying to think about what I should speak about today.

And I decided just to put kind of a few ideas out on my computer and be a little bit transparent and jump around from different types of ideas.

But before I start, I just want us just to kind of do a little reset.

You know, we all put one foot in front of the other to walk into this theater to see time evaporate.

That's a pretty big kind of experience we're all having right now.

So let's just all close our eyes for a second.

And I want you to think about your feet on the ground and how your feet feel.

I want you to think about how your bum feels in the chair, how your back feels on your back against the chair.

I want you to feel your hands and just wiggle your fingers around.

And I want you to say to yourself, just whisper to yourself, we are all in the right place at the right time.

Thank you.

Okay, so a little warmup.

I am obsessed with this question of who are you?

It's one of those big, scary, existential questions.

It's been around for a really long time, you see in lots of movies and TV shows, who are you?

And it's one of those questions that the more I think about it and the more I kind of work around it, it's really fascinating that it doesn't really matter how smart you are, how traveled you are, how experienced you are, how wealthy you are.

We all struggle with this question of who are you?

So I'm gonna plant a seed in the form of a question as we begin on this journey of this talk.

And that question is, if I was to ask you, who are you, and you were to answer without saying what you do, where you're from, or the roles that you play in your life, daughter, teacher, mother, cousin, et cetera, how would you answer?

If I was to ask you, who are you without saying what you do, where you're from, or the roles that you play in life, how would you answer?

And I think it's really interesting that we have the vocabulary to describe what we wanna do, who we wanna be, what we wanna do when we grow up, what we wanna do when we graduate, but we don't really know how to articulate who we are at the core as humans.

And in a way, I think if we figured out that vocabulary to describe who we are, I think that would put so many other things into perspective and give us real priorities in world, in the life, in this society of what we should be doing or shouldn't be doing.

And so I just wanna plant that seed with you.

But the thing is, I'm gonna look at that question in a new way, and I'm gonna take some of that way, I'm gonna subtract some of that.

So who are you is that big, scary existential question, but if we just take a few of it away, we're left with these three letters.

W-A-Y, way.

So you can think about that big, scary existential question in a new way.

How are you finding your way in life?

How are you finding your way in life?

How are you finding your way in life?

I'm finding my way in life through this language of words and lines and drawings.

And so it's interesting, many, many years ago, I put these words on the back of my bedroom door.

Who are you, who are you, who are you, who are you, who are you, who are you?

So before I would even leave my house, before I'd even leave my room, I would think about, Shantell, are you being yourself?

Are you being true, who are you?

And so to think about how I'm finding my way in life, we're gonna go back to the beginning.

And I love to show this little picture of me and my brothers and sisters when we were young.

Can you guess which one is me?

(attendees laugh) I'm the one wearing glasses?

No.

(attendees laugh) No, no.

So this is a picture of me and my brothers and sisters.

And I like this picture, 'cause, you know, it's a lifetime away.

It's 10 lifetimes away.

And I'm here with my brothers and sisters.

I'm not adopted, I just have a different dad.

And so I was born with an afro and brown skin, and apparently Michael Jackson short.

(attendees laughs) And I like showing this picture, because I think we all have assumptions of who people are and where they're from or what their families might look like.

And for me, I grew up in an environment where I didn't look like anyone around me.

You know, I grew up in Southeast London.

Has anyone heard of a place called Thamesmead?

No, okay, lucky most of you.

Did someone say yes?

No, okay, you're all lucky then.

So if you've ever seen, there's a movie called "Clockwork Orange."

- Yeah.

- So "Clockwork Orange" was filmed right across from a school I went to in Thamesmead.

So my primary school was across from the lake that they shot "Clockwork Orange" in.

But I grew up in Thamesmead, and I grew up in one of these big flats there.

You know, it's a housing estate, we call it a housing estate in England.

That sounds really nice, a housing estate.

In America, you just call it the projects.

But you know, this housing estate was built in the late 1960s in England.

And after World War II, there was a lack of housing because of all of the bombing.

So they started to build a lot of these kind of concrete structures.

And you know, at the time, it seemed like a good idea.

You know, like, let's build these kind of utopian structures where everything is off the ground and people have to walk.

You know, they can walk miles and miles without actually going down on the ground.

And so it seems like a good idea, you know, let's build these concrete kind of ideas.

But it didn't really turn out how people wanted it to, because it turns out if you build one of these big utopian concrete projects, council estates, and you think that everyone is gonna live there and live happily ever after, what you realize is that people with money don't really wanna live with people without money.

And Thamesmead ended up being one of those places where they ended up calling it a sink estate.

And a sink estate is where you kind of put all the problem families from around the UK and you put them in one place.

And by the time I was growing up there, it had a pretty bad reputation.

It's in the backdrop of movies and TV shows like "Clockwork Orange," and this is a picture of "The Misfits," a TV show.

But that's where I grew up, that was home for me.

And most of it, they've knocked it down.

They've knocked all of it down now.

And I wanna tell you a story about this picture here.

So probably a year and a half ago, someone reached out to me from Thamesmead and said, "Hey," you know, "we are the new association that controls Thamesmead."

This big, giant concrete council estate that went from miles and miles where you didn't even have to walk on the ground, because you could just go up these bridges and stairs, et cetera.

They said, "You know, we're knocking it all down now and we're gonna build a new utopian estate where people will want to live."

And it's always interesting, because when things become really bad, we blame the architecture and we knock all the buildings down and then give people these big expensive contracts to build it all up again and then say, look, we did it.

You know, all the problems have gone away.

But that said, they started to knock down all of Thamesmead, where I grew up, and they were reaching out to local artists to say, "Hey, we have something called a hoarding."

I didn't know this, but you know, these kind of, what do you call it, structures that go around the construction site.

In England, it's called a hoarding.

So they reached out to me and they said, "You know, Shantell, we are hiring local artists to do artwork for the hoarding.

We know that you grew up in Thamesmead.

We'd love you to create something that goes on the hoarding."

And I said, "Sure, okay, I'll create something."

And so I did this drawing behind me, and I said to them, "Hey, I'm gonna be in England, I'm gonna be in London.

I can come out and see all the hoarding, and I'd love to come and see my artwork."

So I flew to London, I got a train out to Thamesmead, and I'm walking around this giant construction site, because they've knocked all of these flats down.

And I'm walking, I'm walking and I'm walking and I meet two of my sisters.

And then we meet the person who is from the association.

And I'm like, oh, look, I just bumped into two of my sisters.

And we go to see my drawing.

And as we get closer and closer to my drawing, my sisters start looking at me and I start looking at them and they start looking at me and I start looking at them, and we get to where my drawing is.

And my sisters look at me and they say, "Do they know?"

And I said, "I don't think so."

And I look at the woman, Lisa, who's from the association, and I said, "Why did you put the drawing right here?"

The hoarding goes miles and miles around this construction site.

Why is the drawing right here?

And she said, oh, it's, you know, it's just kind of random.

We just laid them all out.

And I said, "Well, do you know that you put the drawing exactly below the flat that I used to live in?"

And she said, "No."

And so right here was where I lived, and this hoarding went miles and miles and miles around, but for some reason they put the hoarding right below where we used to live.

And that was one of the most surreal experiences in my life that taught me that I'm in the right place at the right time.

When I grew up in Thamesmead, I was from a family where no one ever finished secondary school.

No one finished school, no one ever went to university.

You know, I would be in this little flat up here looking out of the window, and I would see all the cars go away along in the road.

And I'd wonder, you know, where are all these people going?

What's their life like?

What's their future like?

And I was little, hopeless Shantell in there, didn't know that I'd ever be an artist, didn't know what my future would be, didn't really imagine any future for me.

I would just look at the window and look out of the window and wonder what everyone else was doing with their life.

And then many, many years later, here I am standing on the street, looking up, and instead of this flat that I used to live in, there was a sky and a world of possibilities.

And that was one of the most surreal kind of moments that I've ever had that told me that I'm on the way to find in my life.

The work that I used to create in Thamesmead when I was growing up there was, you know, very happy work.

I'm gonna show you some of it.

And I'm being sarcastic.

So I didn't know that I was making art at the time.

It was just an outlet for me to kind of get stuff out.

And so I'm gonna read you some of my beautiful poetry that I wrote when I was a teenager.

Out, trying to get out, out of the gutter, out of the ghetto, out of the estate, out of school, out of work, out of the country, out of prison, out of the park, out of this place, out of this party.

And I'm gonna read another one that is just as, you know, beautiful and you know, kind of hopeful.

No reason, no reason, no reason.

Listen, I switch off.

Kind of cut that bit out there.

And here's another one, which is really hopeful and optimistic as well.

Spotty little white boy, I know your game.

Sniff, sniff, puff, puff, that's your game.

No, no, I just sell them, I don't do them.

Yeah, yeah, kill you they will, drugged up, fucked up, spotty little white boy.

And that's a beautiful poem from 2003.

(attendees laugh) (Shantell chuckles) And one of my earlier characters that I used to draw was this character called hangman.

And the hangman, in a way, was a self-portraying.

Hangman was a robot, a part of the system, a part of this social societal structure, a part of being connected into a system that didn't know how to kind of get out of it.

But hangman also had this heart and this potential and this future.

And for me, that's what I felt like as a kid and as a teenager and as a young adult.

I was growing up in England with no real infrastructure around me, with no real kind of future around me.

But I had hope and potential that there could be something better for me out there.

And in a way, you know, hangman, the noose was already cut, you know, so it's not really attached and it doesn't really go up.

But for me, there was this potential to do something and to be someone and to think about being someone else.

And art is an incredible thing, because when you don't really have anything around you, you have this idea of being able to express yourself and get it out.

And I think there's a reason why we all draw, and we all draw because we have the ability connect our head to our heart, to our hand, and collaborate and co-exist with the world and get the stuff that is inside out.

And I just wanna show a picture here.

This is a picture of a collection I did with Puma.

And we actually, we went back to Thamesmead to shoot the collection there.

And for me, this was really important, because growing up, I always saw car commercials and, you know, fashion shoots.

And they were coming to Thamesmead, where I grew up, to shoot them, because it looked cool to, like, be in this big, brutalist council estate.

But no one actually knew what life was like there to grow up there and be a part of that estate.

So when I had my collection there, I made a point of going there and shooting the shoot there and inviting people out to come and experience it and see it that I knew there.

So I'm gonna fast forward a little bit in, what was the year, in 1999, that's when my life changed quite drastically.

It's the first year that I went to art school, and I went to a school called Camberwell College of Arts.

And I did a one-year foundation, a one-year foundation course.

And this is the first time I really experienced kind of a world outside of where I grew up.

So I went to Camberwell College of Arts, and I remember vividly the first day of school, we're all introducing ourselves.

And we're in this big circle, and I'm looking around at everyone, and someone has pink hair, someone has holes in their clothes, someone has a heavy metal T-shirt on.

And we go around in this big circle and we introduce ourselves.

And I remember this guy's like, "Hi, my name's Paul and I'm gay."

And I'm like, Paul, "Shh, what are you doing?

You're gonna get beaten up."

And this was real, like, where I grew up, if you ever said that you were gay, you would get beaten up.

But here we were in art school where everyone looked different, was listening to something different, was having a different experience, was transparent with the experience that they were having.

And it was celebrated.

We thought it was cool, we thought it was unique, it was a safe space.

And that's the incredible thing about art and being around the artists, and especially being in art school, those differences are celebrated.

Those differences are put on a platform where you can be proud of them and not have to hide them for the first time.

And for me, I went to Camberwell College of Arts, and I really got to be myself, and that was celebrated.

And there I met some friends that came all the way from Japan.

I was like, wow, Japan, that's amazing.

Where is that?

It's all the way on the other side of the planet.

I wanna go there.

And so fast forward, I finished my year at Camberwell College of Arts, and you know, it was amazing.

And then everyone's like, well, what to do next?

And everyone's like, oh, there's this really hard school to get into.

It's called Central Saint Martins.

And I was like, okay, I'll apply there.

And then I applied and I got in.

And it was pretty amazing.

It's like a really big amazing school with a big reputation that doesn't actually teach you anything.

It was really incredible, (attendees laugh) I'm being honest.

And you know, if anyone's listening here from Saint Martins, you know, you know I'm telling the truth.

So you go to Saint Martins and it's this big amazing school that everyone talks about, but at that time, we had no studios, no lockers, because they were saving all the money to build a big, big new school where they would put all the studios and all the lockers.

So my year, we just didn't really have anything.

But what we did have is we had everyone else, and we had all the students around us.

And I met really crazy and amazing people.

And I learned about Japan, because we had some students from Japan.

And I was that kid that hung out with all the Japanese kids, you know, there's always one of us.

And I was that kid.

And so I got really interested in Japan and this idea that was so far away from England.

So I was like, okay, I wanna go there, I wanna go to Japan.

And so I remember going to Japan for the first time.

And when I got there people would say, oh, (Shantell speaks in Japanese) like, where are you from?

And I'd say, ah, I'm from London.

And I'd say, ah, ina, that's cool.

And I would wait for some other type of judgment, and it didn't happen.

So when you grow up in England, as soon as you speak, people know where you're from, your income bracket, your accents kind of give everything away.

And when I first went to Japan, everyone's like, oh, you're from London, that's cool.

There was no judgment on anything else.

And for me, that was the first time I really experienced freedom of, like, trying to figure out who I was in a place where people weren't projecting onto me and I wasn't living up to any stereotypes.

And so when I got to Japan, my work that I was doing kind of changed, and I started to draw in these kind of long accordion sketchbooks.

And I have kind of one here that I can show you.

And so this is one of those long accordion sketchbooks, but it's just been scanned so that you can see it.

And so I'm kind of jumping around here as I said I would, but art school, I went to Saint Martins, hung out with all the Japanese kids.

I graduate Saint Martins top of my year, thank you.

(attendees laugh) First class honors.

(attendees clapping) And then I realized that it didn't matter.

It just really didn't matter, because after school, everyone who's getting jobs was because their mother or their father knew someone or someone in their family knew someone.

And my mum didn't even finish school, so I didn't have those connections there.

So I was like, well, I did what you're meant to do.

I went to school, I got the good grade, I finished top of my class, but now there's no jobs for me in England in the arts, because I don't know anyone and my family doesn't know anyone.

So I wanna get as far away from this place as possible.

And I wanted to go to that place called Japan, because it was all the way on the other side of the planet.

And so I moved there.

And so I moved to Japan in 2003.

And when I got there, I realized I wasn't angry anymore.

You know, the work that I was making, those poems and all the other drawings I was doing in England, it was quite angry.

But then I got to Japan and I was like, well, Japan's never really done anything bad to me, so I can't be angry here.

And I started to relax.

And with that relaxing, I started to do these drawings, and these drawings were almost like diaries.

They're part diaristic, part kind of dreamlike.

And it's funny, I called them, like, creepy cute.

So they're a little bit creepy, but a little bit cute, you know, that Japanese influence, you know, things that I would see, things that I would experience.

And you know, when I look back at some of these characters or kind of things that I drew, they're quite similar to what I'm doing now, but you can see that there's a lot more detail in them, and there's still these stick figures.

And you know, I'll just stop on this character here.

You know, you got this cute kind of, like, character with three or four heads, but it's wearing a really nice sweater.

And then there's a little cute bear in the pocket, but then one character is eating its shoulder, so you know, it's a little bit creepy, but a little bit cute.

And you know, these drawings would go on forever and forever and forever.

And I would draw them with a 0.05 pen.

So really, really fine pen.

So you'd have to get so close to it.

And that's kind of how I felt in Japan.

I felt a little bit isolated, I felt a little bit kind of insular.

And these drawings kind of really saved me.

And then at the end of all those drawings would be these types of kind of poems there.

And they were super fun.

So I started to draw and that would keep me occupied and interested.

And when I went to Japan, I loved dancing.

You know, I think we all love dancing, right?

So I'd love dancing, and I would go to all these clubs.

But the clubs in Japan were really expensive to get into.

So I was like, how do I get into these clubs, but without paying?

And in those clubs, there was always these core visuals.

There's always these VJs mixing clips and videos, and there's someone running, and then there's a rabbit, and then there's a tunnel.

Why is there a tunnel, why is someone running?

I don't know, there's clips from the sound of the music, you know, why is there, you know, clips from this movie?

And it felt very much like the background, but in visual form.

So I was like, I can do that, but I'm gonna do that with drawing.

And so I started to do visuals in clubs where I would either go to a Japanese mega club with 10,000 people, and I'd be drawing on my tablet going, woo, and the crowd would go, woo!

And then I would zoom in and zoom out and move it around.

And then there would be techno music playing, and everyone's like, woo!

And then I would see my friend, and their name would be Sam.

And I'd be like, yo, Sam!

And then Sam would be, like, in the audience.

And it was super fun, and fun fact, Wacom tablets.

I alpha tested the first Bluetooth Wacom tablets, or Wacom tablets, in a club.

So I built a drum strap for it, and I would be in a club full of, like, 10,000 people drawing.

And then that would be projected on all the screens and the stages around me.

I also drew to kind of really weird avant-garde music.

So a lot of circuit benders and people that were making their own instruments.

So I would have my hands under a visual presenter, you know, one of these things.

So I'll be drawing under here and then that would be kind of captured and presented behind the band.

And this would be really incredible, because I really figured out my whole career in this moment, these moments of drawing live to DJs and dancers and musicians.

So it's really amazing, if you're drawing live, you don't have time to think, you don't have time to plan, you don't have time to hesitate, but most importantly, you don't have time to be anyone else but yourself.

Think about that.

You're drawing live, people are watching you, there's that pressure.

You don't have time to think about what someone else would do.

You only have time to be yourself.

And then now imagine you repeat that, repeat that, repeat that, repeat that, repeat that.

You are extracting your style, your fingerprint, your identity outside of you into the world.

And I have a little video clip of one of those earlier shows.

So this is me drawing to a band called Upper Upper, two times up.

And you'll see it's like, beautiful classic music.

(punk rock music) (vocalist sings in Japanese) (punk rock music) (vocalist sings in Japanese) (crowd cheers and claps) - Okay, that's probably enough.

(laughs) And then, here's me drawing more digitally to a woman dance group called Muhe.

(upbeat drums music) It's crazy for me to watch that and think that that was nearly 18 years ago, me drawing in these clubs.

And so the interesting thing about that is that I would draw in these clubs, and I would sometimes even have people stand against the wall, and I would draw their moving, changing hidden aura.

And it was super fun.

And at the end of my event, people would come up to me and be like, oh, you know, Shantell, (speaks in Japanese) like, can you sign me?

And then, that turned into a whole series of work where I would draw on my kind of fans and then work with different photographers to capture them.

And I ended up living in Japan for five years.

And I did amazing things like, I made a DVD.

Not many of you will know what that is, but you would plug it into a machine and then you would watch the visuals.

And I made my first ever DVD with, like, 12 tracks on of me drawing in different ways.

And I became one of the top 10 VJs in the world twice by DJ Magazine.

And that was interesting, because at the time, people were like, Shantell Martin's not a real VJ, she draws.

And I was like, yeah.

(attendees laugh) So that was the controversy at the time.

So let's fast forward.

So I moved to Japan in 2003, you know, I'm doing these visuals 2004, 5, 6, 7.

And then I started to meet more and more people from America in Japan.

And they were like, you should come to New York, you should come to Boston, you should come and visit us.

And so in 2008, I went to New York for the first time, and it was amazing.

I went there and people were so friendly and nice, and I ate some amazing food, and it was, like, one of the best places.

So I was like, you know what, I'm gonna move here.

I'm gonna move to New York.

And so I packed up my bags, I moved to New York.

I got an O-1 visa, you know, the artist visa.

And when I got to New York, as now someone that is living there, I was like, oh, shit, what did I do?

(attendees laugh) New York has everything, but not if you move from Tokyo.

And then when you get to New York, it's amazing, but if people don't know who you are, they don't care who you are.

If they don't know who you are, they don't care who you are.

And everyone is an artist there in New York.

And so I ended up kind of starting again, and I would try and do visuals in places, and people would say, oh, we can't put up a projector, that's a fire hazard.

And I'm like, what do you mean?

And so I struggled, and I struggled to struggle the first couple of years in New York.

And then I realized what I was doing in New York.

I was doing this thing called playing the if game.

When I got to New York, I was like, if I had money, if I had a mentor, if I had a studio, if I had a gallery, if, if, if, if, if, if I had all the things that I had in Japan, things would be okay for me here in New York.

And when I realized that I was playing in the if game and waiting for these things to come to me, I realized that I had to make a change.

And so instead of playing the if game, I was like, well, what do I have?

Who do I have, where do I have?

Let me take advantage of things that I can touch and things that I can do by myself and I'm going to create my own opportunities by using what I have access to or where I have access to.

And so one of those things was my bedroom walls.

So I started to draw my bedroom walls.

I had a little room.

After sleeping on a couch for a year, I ended up renting my own room.

And I drew on all of my bedroom walls, and someone reached out and said, "Hey, like I saw the pictures that you were posting on Facebook of you drawing on your bedroom walls.

Can we write an article about it?"

And I'm like, "Sure, okay."

And then they're like, "Okay, well, we're gonna send our photographer."

And I'm like, "Oh, okay."

And then they're like, "Well, we like it so much, we're gonna make it the cover."

And I'm like, "The cover of what?"

And they're like, "Well, it's the New York Times."

I'm like, "Oh, okay."

(attendees laugh) I've never read it, but okay, I think it's okay.

And then they're like, "Okay, we like it so much, we're gonna make it a two-page spread."

I'm like, "Okay, that sounds fine."

And then it came out, and it was on two pages in the home and garden section, when that was a thing.

And I never knew it was a big deal, and I only bought one copy.

(attendees laugh) But my life didn't change.

So I didn't know it was a big deal until much later on.

But the funny thing is, is about creating your own opportunities by using what you have access to.

I started to create my own events.

I started to say, "Hey," to my friends, "you have a car?

Can I draw on your car?

Hey, like, do you have a space?

Can I do an event in your space where I draw on people?

Hey, you have a space, can we do some projections?"

And then we fast forward on, and you know, I have a very kind of diverse career now.

And it's interesting because, you know, it was mentioned before I came out that I just had a piece in the New York Times kind of two weeks ago, and it was like this piece here, beautiful piece, whole page.

And when it came out, everyone's like, "Oh, my God, it's gonna change your life, Shantell.

You have a whole page in the New York Times."

I was like, "I've had five pages in the New York Times and my life hasn't changed."

So I'm still waiting for my life to change.

But it's interesting, you know, you're just doing the good work, you're putting yourself out there and then you see what happens.

So I wanna talk about just some of the recent projects that I've been doing fast forward after living in America now since 2008.

So I've worked on a lot of beautiful projects, and this is one called the "May Room."

It's in Governors Island in New York.

And it was an ex chapel, and this is kind of the outside, the exterior.

It was decommissioned 25 or 30 years ago.

So it just sat empty, and it was pretty much kind of destroyed in the Hurricane Sandy.

So we fixed it up and I created a space called the "May Room."

So you walk in, you take your shoes off, you leave the outside outside, and then you come in and you walk this path.

And as you walk this path, you kind of become calm.

And as you become calm, you start to see that all these little dashes or dots on the back wall are actually letters.

And all those letters form phrases that start with may.

May we be kind, may we save trees, may you sleep well at night, may you, may you, may we.

And for me, it's a space for poetry and contemplation.

Yo-Yo Ma did a workshop there.

I also collaborated with the Poetry Society of America to do poetry readings in that space.

And there's no power in the space, only natural light.

So it's a place where you can really unplug and leave the outside outside and the inside inside.

These are some visuals that I did for Kendrick Lamar.

We created a 360-degree projection zone, and he did his thing and I did my thing.

And actually, really nice guy, so nice guy there.

I have done a bunch of residencies.

And in 2016, I worked at a residency at Autodesk in San Francisco, and I built all these drawing tools, which I open sourced the drawing files to so anyone could print them and use them.

And that was a nice idea of kind of, if I'm very confident with one line, what happens is I start to use two lines or multiple lines, and how does that look and where does that take me?

We also mentioned a little bit earlier that I've been at MIT and Columbia and you know, all of these kind of, NYU, Columbia, MIT and a few other places.

But the great thing about teaching or doing fellowships or scholarships at these places is that you get to really think about your own practice, but in an environment where you have so many other talented people around you.

And so this is a mural that I did in MIT, it's in the media lab.

And I did this drawing, and I was thinking about this drawing.

And I was thinking, I wonder how long the combined amount of line in this drawing is.

And because I was at MIT, someone around me says, "I can tell you."

(attendees laugh) How thick is the pen, how high is the wall, how long is the wall?

And then they did a little calculation, and they said, you know, Shantell, that drawing, the combined amount of line of that drawing is roughly 1,695 feet long.

And I was like, "Thank you."

(attendees laugh) And that was it.

(chuckles) But there's such a sense of curiosity kind of behind the work.

You know, I'm drawing, I'm not doing anything that no one else can do.

We all draw as children.

It's interesting what happens when you put good intention and hard work behind that drawing.

You just do a little bit constantly.

And here's me standing in the Lincoln Center in the home of the New York City Ballet, and all of these drawings behind me were actually kind of captured during rehearsals of the ballet.

So I worked on their artist series where you take over the whole promenade.

And for this project, I interviewed 20 dancers from the ballet.

And then I went to rehearsals to see "Nutcracker" and all these other incredible ballets, and created these drawings.

And those drawings became a part of this larger installation where I took over the ground and the walls and created furniture, et cetera.

I'm a huge fan also of the idea of infecting or disrupting museum and artistic spaces.

I didn't grow up with galleries or museums or art around me.

So I know that it's intimidating even as an artist to walk into a museum or gallery, and they say, "Are you a member?"

I'm like, "Do I need to be a member, what does that mean?

Like, how much is it, can I afford it?"

So I think there's plenty of room of making museums welcoming.

And so I worked with the Whitney Museum, and we did a Shantell shop in their shop.

So we co-produced a whole bunch of products from thousands of dollars from $7.

So you could buy some stickers or key chains or postcards.

You could buy a pack of postcards of things in the collection that I liked or drawn on all the walls.

And the idea about this is that if you buy some postcards and you put them on your fridge, your fridge is now a museum.

If you buy a T-shirt and you pull it on you, you are now the museum.

There is a way through retail and through design and through collecting that can also be art that you bring into the home instead of this unobtainable kind of artwork that goes into a museum and it goes on the wall, and then now, you won't ever get there or be a part of it.

And so I love creating these different types of projects where we are experiencing and doing that.

And then I'm just gonna talk to you about a couple of other collaborations that I've worked on in the past.

And one of them was with my grandmother, let me see, she's hiding on here somewhere.

Let me see.

Okay, there we go.

So this was my grandmother, Dorothy Martin, Dot Martin, pretty cool name for your gran.

So that was Dot Martin.

And we collaborated for over 20 years.

So for 20 years, I would send her some instructions and I'd say, dear gran, please, sew me, let's be friends.

Any color, any size.

She would sew it and send it back to me wherever I lived in the world.

And then I'd say, okay, that's great.

Now sew me, come home, any color, any size.

And so she would sew it and send it to me wherever I lived in the world.

And I would say, well, now sew me, go home, any color, any size.

And she would make it and send it to me wherever I lived in the world, Japan or America.

And then after she would make these, I would call her and I'd say, "Gran, Nan, what does go home mean to you?"

And she would say, "It means go home to your friends and your family."

And then she would say, "Well, what does it mean to you Shantell?"

And I'd say, "Well, actually, Nan, do you know that when I come home to visit you, people often tell me to go home to my own country."

And she'd be like, "What, really?"

And now I could have a cross-generational, cross-racial conversation with my grandmother who grew up in the same place that I did, but had a complete different experience.

Where I grew up was very white, racist, working class, homophobic, all of the things.

And so it was very hard to be me there and it was very hard for me to talk to my family about the experiences that I had there.

But through art and through collaboration, we were able to talk about these things.

And then I would say, "Hey, you know, can you sew me, half white, 1980?"

And then we would talk about it, what does it mean to be half white?

You know, why as someone that is mixed race do you have to denounce your otherness?

You know, I'm half black, I'm half Indian, I'm half this, I'm half that, why not half white?

And so she created these two pieces for me, half white, 1980.

And then she did another piece for me, half white 1980.

But it was the inverse.

And so those were really meaningful projects for me, because we were able to talk about kind of these bigger existential kind of race and generational differences that we had.

And we were able to display those in a couple of museums.

We displayed them in the Brooklyn Museum and the new Britain Museum of American Art.

And when we displayed it in the Brooklyn Museum, I remember my nan saying, "Why are they in a museum?"

And I said, "Because people like it, it's art."

And she's like, "Oh, really?"

And then I found out after that, she was at her club, her over 50s club, trying to sell them for five pound each.

(attendees laughing) And I'm like, "Nan, you can't do that.

I can put a couple of zeros on the end of that.

Stop selling them."

And so I had to fly to England and rescue all of the pieces that she was trying to sell for five pounds so that I could sell them for a lot more.

(laughs) But that was really interesting in bringing kind of my family into the arts, into this experience.

And you know, aside from that, the last kind of 15 years in England has been really interesting.

I just had a solo show that opened in New York, not New York, in LA, sorry, called "Intimate Whispers."

And in this show there's a site-specific mural and also some textile pieces.

So you're seeing one half of a textile piece here.

And this in a way is me picking up the baton from the collaboration that I would do with my grandmother and incorporating it and using it in a different way.

So this textile, you can't really see, but the background has lots of little lines in it that I've made with code, and the text itself, knowledge, kindness, awareness, strength, intention, whispers is made with Shantell Sans.

And Shantell Sans is a font that I released last year, and I released it on Google Fonts, but it's open source, so anyone can use it for free.

And you can also use it in Google Docs.

So I like now that if I'm doing a document, I can do it in Shantell Sans.

And then at the bottom I'm like, I use my own font for this.

(attendees laugh) But it's amazing, it's free.

And for me, Shantell Sans was kind of creating a new way to imagine Comic Sans.

So I don't know about any of you, but I'm sure quite a few of you are also dyslexic here because that's, we all end up going into the arts.

If you're dyslexic, put your hand up.

Yeah, see, there you go.

Proud dyslexics, you know?

As a dyslexic person, sometimes some fonts are hard to read.

And so I wanted to create Shantell Sans as a way of creating a new version of something like Comic Sans and then give it to the world free.

And in the first, I think, couple of weeks, we got over 4 million downloads, and now I realize I shouldn't have given it away for free.

(attendees laugh) I could have retired by now, but it's about the intention of putting work out there.

You know, one of my goals is to have one of the most recognizable lines out there in the world in kind of different forms.

So there's people all over the world using Shantell Sans, and they don't even know that a girl called Shantell made it.

And so I love that idea that the work can live on in a different way.

And so I've been working and working and working and drawing and doing different collabs.

Last year, I did a nice fun collab with Uno.

I also played my first game of Uno last year.

I was like, oh, crap, I gotta play, I gotta play it.

And it's interesting, I think about some of the different types of projects that my work has led me to make.

And in 2022, I choreographed my first ballet, and I choreographed a ballet called "Kites" for the Boston Ballet.

And we had a world premier at the Boston Opera House.

And it's a really amazing, but every time I tell people I choreographed a ballet, they say, oh, you a dancer?

I'm like, no, not really.

And they're like, oh, you're a choreographer?

And I'm like, yeah, I am now.

But it's interesting, because if you say you've choreographed a ballet and had a world premier at Boston Opera House, they ask you if you're a dancer or a choreographer in a way of asking how did you do that or how did you get there, or what path did you go in?

Or who gave you permission?

And I thought that being the artist gave you the biggest box of freedom to create whatever you want, wherever you want, with whoever you want.

But it's not true.

People put artists in such a limited box.

If you're an artist and you go out of that box, and you're on stage and you're a good speaker, they won't comment on anything that you say.

They'll just say, oh, you're a good speaker for an artist.

This is my art.

Being an artist gives you the freedom to create and speak and converse and make in any medium, in any industry that you choose to.

As long as you bring yourself to that work, as long as you bring your intentions to that work, and it looks like you, feels like you, sounds like you, moves like you, you can create a ballet, you can create an Uno deck, you can create a museum show, you can create a gallery show, you can create a fashion line, you can create a score to a movie.

You can create whatever you want regardless of the medium and regardless of the industry.

And this project was really interesting for me, because I made the ballet like I would a draw in.

So it was very intimidating.

I walked into the ballet, and I knew that I wanted to have a piece that had 11 dancers.

So I naively walked into rehearsals thinking that there would be 11 dancers, but there was 40 dancers.

So with ballet, they have the seconds and the thirds and the fourth in case anyone gets injured or they have to do someone else.

So there's a lot more people than I imagined when I walked into this project, so that was a little bit intimidating.

But for the first few days with the ballet dancers, I had them draw.

I put pens in their hand and I said, we're gonna draw.

And so we did some drawing workshops, small-scale and large-scale.

And then on the third day, I took the pens away and I said, we're gonna draw but without pens.

And they started to draw but without pens.

And then they realized that they were dancing.

And that was our common language, drawing was our common language.

And it was interesting because before that, I was a little bit intimidated that I don't know the language, I don't know the history.

I haven't gone and experienced or explored what other choreographs would do.

I'm coming in as an artist to see what I will do.

And so that was really interesting that once they realized that drawing was dancing, that bridge between us was a lot less.

And so after that, it was a dance in a way of how it was created.

I got them to improvise lots of little moments, lots of little movements, and I would give them some adjectives.

And I would say, you know, show me what disgust and sporadic and joy looks like.

And they would move in the ways that they thought those words looked like.

And when I saw a little moment that I liked, I would stop them.

Oh, okay, I can hear people whispering behind me.

But I would stop them and then I'd say, okay, show me what that little movement looks like.

And then I would put that on the board.

And then I'd name it Patrick or whoever created that dance, that movement.

And then over a week, I would have all these little moments, Patrick, Roan, Isaac, and I would kind of string them together.

And then I would start to piece them all together.

And that's how I created the ballet.

And that's also how I create my drawing.

You know, my drawing is a language of recurring words and lines and drawings.

But I wanna kind of go back to that first kind of existential question or seed that we planted, which was, who are you?

Finding your way in life.

And if you think about where you finding your way in life, you need a destination, you need a place to kind of work towards.

And so I've been giving these out as stickers for many, many years, but I think this is kind of fun.

We are all just simply trying to find our way to, say it.

- Yay!

- Yay!

So we are trying to find our way to yay.

Yay is this place of understanding, of celebration, of knowing who you are and how you're trying to find your way.

The interesting thing is is when you do find your way, you realize that you have to ask that original question in a new way, which is, are you you?

Which doesn't work as quite as way.

Well, wait, let's try this one.

Ayy, okay, so we are simply trying to find our way to yay.

But when you get to yay, you have to ask that original question in new ways, that you can continue to grow and continue to find out who you are at the core without saying what you do, where you're from or the roles that you play in life.

You've all been incredible.

So thank you so much for this time.

(attendees cheer and clap) And I know we're gonna open it up to some questions.

So if you feel like asking a question, come down to the stage please.

(chill music) Oh yeah, I can hear you guys whispering.

I was like, when is it gonna go on?

(chill music) Look, it's my favorite color.

It's is my favorite type of tea.

It's my favorite place where I like to be.

It's my favorite jeans and they fit so comfy.

It is my favorite perspective and sight that I like to see.

You're my favorite voice and I like to hear you speak to me, not confused.

That's the favorite sound.

I like to hear the sound of buzzing bees, the smell of tea.

I just feel a little bit tired today.

I just feel a little bit high today.

I just feel a little bit inspired today.

So come down for questions.

We've got two mics here, one on the left-hand side, one on the right-hand side.

We'll do some questions down here.

So make your way down.

As I think about space and my teeth.

Wait, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15 teeth.

And I know that you're the thief that stole my 16th tooth.

And I saw you reading that book of how to get it loose.

And I saw you seeing those new things, not those old things.

Make your way down.

New things, not those old things.

Okay, fantastic.

So we're just gonna do a few questions.

We won't keep you too long, and so we'll just go from like left to right, left to right, try and keep it a little bit short.

We don't want any monologues tonight, but we love some concise questions.

So we'll start with you here, please.

- Hi, my name's Sam.

I have to admit I'm a little envious of your lifestyle with all the moving around and the multimedia expression and art.

I wanted to ask, how do you, like, navigate, like, friendships and relationships and family relationships?

(mic feedback noise) I'm sorry, that might've been me, in this, like, line, of work that you d?.

- Yeah, so it's interesting because a lot of people say, you know, oh, are you working all the time?

And the answer is no, I sleep eight hours a night.

You know, I have a nice relationship.

I see my family, I see my friends.

So I think if you focus on eating well, drinking well, sleeping well, getting good sleep, it's amazing all the things that you can do and how much you can do in the time that you have.

You know, you hear people doing, like, oh, I'm doing a all nighter, I stayed up all night, I'm working so many hours on this thing.

If that's what you're doing, you're not being efficient or healthy with your life or your time.

So I think the way that I manages it is by being happy and healthy and getting good sleep and drinking enough water, and with that, you have an abundance of time to do so many things.

- [Sam] Okay, cool, thank you.

- So get more sleep.

- Yeah.

- Hello, my name's Layla.

While you answer this, could you sign, could I get your autograph, please?

- [Shantell] I won't sign, but I'll throw you a sticker if that's okay.

- Oh, okay.

- 'Cause it's gonna be a bit awkward to bend down and stuff like that.

- Yeah.

- So I'm gonna get a sticker.

- I was wondering, I'm an artist who's looking to live in Japan in the future, and I was wondering how did you, like, navigate your career in such a different country?

- So I think a lot of these places is just about getting there first.

And for Japan, I went there on a visa where you can go teach English first.

- Which is like the JET program?

- Yeah, kind of like the JET program but not a JET program.

But you know, I think that the thing is is to have the experience of leaving where you're from, going to a new country and finding opportunities that can get you in there first, and then building your friendships, building, you know, kind of the environment and getting used to it.

I also think it's really good to date places, you know, if you're there somewhere that you wanna move and it's Japan, how about the next couple of years, you save up and you make sure that your vacation is Japan.

And you start to make friends there and get a little bit familiar to it versus just kind of jumping in and being all in.

So I would say, you know, start to date these places first, build those friendships, look at residencies that happen in those places, get familiar with them.

And then that makes it a lot easier to move there eventually.

- Okay, thank you.

- Cool.

Hi, hi, this way.

I'll leave some stickers, like, out the front here, then you can grab them and then you can grab them.

- Thank you.

My name is Caitlin, I'm a junior at Stamps, and I think that I'm someone that really, like, values my community, and I think that art is oftentimes, like, portrayed as this very, like, solo practice that's very, like, linear.

And so I think I really enjoyed hearing you talk, because it was so, like, collaborative and also, like, exciting to hear about your journey in a way that I think I rarely, like, feel when I hear an artist talk.

So I kind of just wanted to, like, hear your thoughts on, like, collaboration or, like, friendship and like, how that has, like, impacted your work?

Because again, I think that it was, like, very exciting for me to hear you, like, talk about the ways you're, like, collaborating with people or like, branching out into, like, these crazy projects in a way that I feel, like, I really resonate with, so.

- Yeah, I'm gonna walk and get some stickers and talk at the same time.

You know, I think the thing with collaboration is it's so important.

Coming from London and England, people weren't naturally as collaborative.

You know, people always asked me like, "What are you working on?"

And I would tell them everything.

And in London, I'd be like, "What are you working on?"

They're like, "I can't tell you, it's secret."

I'm like, really?

So I think it's so important to collaborate.

You know, when I moved to Japan and I'm doing visuals with the DJs, dancers and musicians, that's collaborative.

The ballet, collaborative, even when you put on a show, it's collaboration.

And I think it's so important for us to create our own spaces and our own opportunities where we can come together as creatives and even create together, write together, draw together, read together.

It's so important to have those communities and like, help push each other and brainstorm.

Because the thing is is once you leave school, it's harder to collaborate.

You know, right now, you have a whole infrastructure around you.

You have teachers, you have mentors, you have your peers, you have your coworkers.

Once you're out of this ecosystem, it's a lot harder to collaborate and have those friendships.

And so build them now.

Use the opportunity that you have now.

You know, do something weekly, do something monthly.

Create those environments and communities yourself, because you have the space and time to do that now.

- Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

(attendees clap) - Hello.

I am Joseph.

I'm a junior at Eastern Michigan University.

And even though I don't do much art, I do consider writing itself to be an art.

And I feel like, recently throughout these two years, I've been keep hitting roadblocks, struggling with myself mentally thinking is this good enough or what can I do to make this really stand out?

How did you get past your own struggles when you were creating something?

- Yeah, so I think there's really interest in this idea about roadblocks and you know, creative blockages, et cetera.

We are taught to fight them.

You know, if you're having a roadblock or a creative block, people teach you how to get over that.

But I'm a big fan of leaning into that.

Life is a wave and creatively when you're on that wave that is going up and you feel like making and you feel like creating and you feel like riding and you feel like drawing, you ride that wave as high as it will take you, as long as it will take you, as far as it will take you.

But when that wave starts to come down, you gotta go with it.

So if you're having a creative block, go do something else.

Go for a walk, you know, go to a museum, go read a book, go watch a movie.

If you have a deadline, that's a different thing, but for the most parts, lean into a creative block, because it's there for a reason.

Because if you don't go down, you don't give yourself that space to come back up.

- Yeah!

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

(attendees clap) - Hello, my name is Adi.

I didn't really know what to ask you at first.

(chuckles) (attendee laughs) So I ended up feeling kind of hungry during your thing.

And I kind of have this idea that food is a form of love that everyone can share a meal, and it kind of grounds you.

Everyone needs to eat, even if you're a shitty person, you have to eat, if you're a good person, you have to eat.

So what should I make for dinner tomorrow?

(chuckles) - [Shantell] Well, you're wearing a T-shirt with sardines on I think.

- Yeah, I am.

- So I would say make some sardines.

And then, you know, we wanna be healthy, so a little salad on the side, and then finish it off with a nice cup of tea.

- [Adi] Okay, that sounds perfect.

- Okay, thank you.

- Thank you.

(attendees laugh) - Oh, hi, I'm Danielle.

My question is, I wanted to know about your North Face collab, just like, how that came to be your process, if they're still for sale?

- So yeah, I did a collaboration with North Face, and it was a European collab.

So it was sold in some American stores, but it was all over Europe.

So Germany, France, UK.

And just with any of these projects, you know, a lot of people will say, "Shantell, how do you get these projects?

You know, do you go out there?

Do you have someone that goes out there?"

And I say, "No, they all come to me."

It doesn't really work if I go to a brand and I go to North Face and be like, "Hi, I'm and artist and I love your stuff and I used to wear it when I was a kid, can we collaborate?"

They're like, "No, thank you."

So what you have to work on is doing stuff that you enjoy and making that and sharing that.

And the more that you make things and share things, the more people see it.

And if you're doing that and you're doing that a little bit constantly for a very long time, people see it and then they call you and say, "Hey, Shantell, we'd love to do a collaboration.

We are North Face."

And then you're like, okay, sure.

And you know, with them, we did a really beautiful collaboration, jackets, hoodies, T-shirts, pants, a fleece jacket.

And so if, you know, you Google Shantell North Face search and rescue, you might be able to find some stuff still on the internet, but you might not.

Give it a try.

- All right, thank you.

- Thank you.

- Hi, firstly, thank you so much for being here.

This was a really amazing talk.

My question, I thought that who are you thing was very interesting and I guess my question is, do you have an answer to that?

Like, I would love to hear your answer to who are you with the constraints that were given.

- Dammit.

(attendees laugh) (Shantell laughs) No, I love the question, who are you, because I find in a way that if I ask that question, what I'm actually doing is holding up a big mirror.

And then through you, perhaps through everyone, perhaps I get little refractions or refractions or pieces that resonate with myself.

And it is interesting that we don't really have the vocabulary to describe who we are as people.

Like, what words do we use?

Do we use like, I'm a free spirit, I'm curious, I'm creative, like, who are we at the core?

And so for me, the way that I answer that question is by showing it through my work, and through my work I hope that that shows who I am as a person and at the core.

So thank you.

- Thank you.

- Hi, I am Andy.

I've been in advertising since 1999, and I'm currently going to school to get my master's in UX design.

And so I'm currently doing motion design and advertising, but my real passion is in filmmaking.

And I've made some short films in the past.

And I'm just dying to, like, find some sort of spark or creative energy to get me into doing that again.

The problem is it doesn't make me any money.

So where should I start?

- I think where you start, if that's really what you wanna do, your plan A needs to be the same as plan B and plan C, you know, regardless of it making money.

You know, I think a lot of us go into the arts not knowing that it will make us any money.

But what we know is that if that's really what we wanna do, people will support you around you.

If they see that you are doing something that is in your heart and it's in your mind and it's something that you feel that you're called to do, the world will support you, your friends will support you, your family will support you.

Things will fall into place to support you, because you're doing what you feel like you need to do.

If it's just a hobby and you feel like, I just wanted to make movies 'cause it's cool, don't do it, go get a different job.

But if you feel like this is actually all of my life experience has led me here and now I'm in the right place at the right time, then you go into it 100% and people around you will support you, and you'll see that happen.

Thank you.

- Thanks.

- And good job for you, yeah, good job.

- Hi, my name's Ayana.

I'm graduating here from Stamps next month.

So I'm kind of in that space of like.

- Woo!

- What do I do next, where am I going?

And I kind of, I'm wondering what were you telling yourself before you moved to New York?

And like, what did you realize, like, when you got there, like, I feel like that's gonna be my next move.

- Yeah, I think it's a difficult question, because I came from Japan and I naively thought, oh, this career that I worked really hard for for five years in Japan will just transition to New York.

And then when I got to New York and I ended up sleeping on my friend's couches, because it, you know, wasn't the transition that I expected, I just realized that, you know, just kind of, like, what we were saying, like, this will work, but I need to be patient.

And so I think as you move wherever you move, you have to realize that you need to start somewhere and you need to be patient.

But it's always good to have those ideas of where you wanna be or what you wanna be doing.

And the thing is is it's really interesting, when I look at my career, I've only really done things that I could see.

And let me explain what I mean by that.

You know, I'm on the subway in New York and I see a poster for the ballet.

And I'd be like, oh, I wanna work with them.

A few years later I'm working with them.

I go to Governors Island, I see these beautiful buildings.

I'm like, oh, I'd love to do something here.

A few years later I do something there.

So I think pay attention to people and places and spaces you go to, and imagine what you could do there in the future.

Because if you kind of put that intention out there, it might take a few years, but that stuff happens, and sometimes it's in a way that we imagine and sometimes it's in a very different way.

- Thank you.

- Go on.

- Congratulations on graduating soon.

(attendees clap) - Hi, my name is Robin.

I just wanted to ask, like, how much you emphasize who you are, how do you stay strong in that when you receive pushback?

- Well, it's interesting, because, you know, you saw some of my story.

As soon as I was old enough to walk and go outside of my door, people treated me differently to everyone I knew.

And so from a young age, I had to be confident in who I am.

And I think that's really stuck through me and with me.

In a way, that was my first passport in life, was not fitting in and being different, and having something about me making me an outsider.

And I think when we all end up in a creative space, there is something in all of us that makes us a little bit of an outsider or a little bit different.

And it's about trusting that and trusting in yourself, that that is okay and you are okay.

And the more that you can lean into knowing who you are and saying yes to yes and no to no, the more you will become okay with that.

And I think we all in a way give over to peer pressure or try to do things that we think other people want of us or think of us, but we all have a compass in us.

And if we follow that compass and when something feels like a no, say no, regardless of what the outcome is, that it might happen.

If something feels like a yes, say yes.

And what happens is most of the time you're saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, a lot more to start off with.

But then eventually, you'll get to a place of yeses.

So I would say just to summarize, simply say yes to yes and no to no, and you'll see that slowly that compass will lead you to where you're meant to be and will make you feel confident and secure within yourself.

- Thank you.

- Thank you, Robin.

- Hi, my name is Surya, and I was curious to know how you and Casey Neistat came to meet, collaborate, work together?

- Yeah, so Casey, YouTuber, been a friend for, I don't know, 15 years or so.

We met in New York and we kind of hit it off, and that was it really.

I think just like, a lot of people when you live in places like New York, interesting creative people come across your path all the time.

And you know, he was someone that, at first, I didn't even know what he did.

We kind of would just see each other in New York and kind of became friends that way.

- Thank you.

- Cool.

- Yeah, so go watch some of the YouTube videos.

- Hi, I'm Eleanor.

I wondered if you had any advice for, like, young kids that actually live in the projects now.

Well, we call the public housing, or in the inner city or are currently homeless, just to give them that hope that you had as a child.

- I think the biggest thing that I lacked growing up was exposure.

And a lot of kids now, for better or worse, with social media is that they can see other options.

They can go onto YouTube and learn a skill or they can learn something.

So I think, you know, my biggest advice is exposure.

You know, if they have the ability to get out of there and go to a gallery, to go to a museum, go to see a show, or if not in person, online.

This is a show, this is this type of music, this is that type of music, this is this type of performance, this is that type of performance.

The more we can expose these children to, the more that they can see what naturally resonates with themselves, and the more that that can give them that compass to perhaps go in that direction or that direction or a different direction.

- Can I ask you to tell my Sherman students hello?

Like, can I film it?

- Okay.

- The pressure.

(both laugh) Sherman students.

Okay, hi, Sherman students.

Nice to, well, I don't know.

- Okay.

- Let's do that one more time.

- Oh, okay.

- Who am I saying hello to?

- Sherman students in Toledo.

- Sherman students in Toledo, a big hello.

I'm Shantell Martin and I'm on the Penny Stamps stage.

- [Eleanor] Thank you so much.

- Okay, that was better the second time, right?

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

(attendees clap) Okay, so it looks like that's the end of our questions.

I'll put some little stickers up here, So come down, grab one.

But you've all been amazing and thank you so much.

(attendees clapping) (attendees chattering)