(lively music) - [Narrator] Next on Curate.

- [Nastassja] Although Canaan will tell us that we know nothing of what it's like to be in prison emotionally and mentally I'm tethered to him.

- [Lady] I think the beauty of the moon is that it's a unifying force.

We're so thrilled to see it out here, this evening, for everyone.

- [Lady 2] To be like that, kind of, beacon of light and love, it's very impactful.

- [Female narrator] This is Curate.

- Welcome.

I'm Jason Kypros.

- And I'm Heather Mazzoni.

Thanks for joining us this week, as we come to you from the campus of Hampton university.

We stand before the Hampton University Museum.

This is the oldest museum in the state of Virginia.

More on that coming up, but we start across the river in downtown Hampton.

- [Jason] Artist Nastassja Swift has always made her art a direct reflection of who she is and what she feels.

- [Heather] And her recent exhibit might be her most personal.

She has created an artistic statement about her brother Canaan and his incarceration in the Virginia Department of Correction System.

Nastassja and art writer Jessica Lynne walk through the interactive exhibit at the old courthouse.

Their conversation shines a bright light on what truly inspires this week's 757 featured artist, Nastassja Swift.

(gentle music) - I wanna start big picture and ask you what it means to have this show on view in a moment where there have been many conversations about racial reconciliation, healing, abolition, and mass incarceration.

- To think about having this particular show about my brother in a courthouse attached to a functioning correctional facility, it's like, damn, that's a lot.

(Nastassja laughs) - There's a through line there.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Although Canaan will tell us that we know nothing of what it's like to be in prison, emotionally and mentally I'm tethered to him.

- We are in front of a work that features letters from your brother.

- One of the pieces is a 24 by 30 inch silk quilt and on top of it sits the property box that was mailed from Virginia Beach city jail.

This quilt, it's personified as me.

I'm holding his belongings and maintaining the value and thinking about all that is stripped from those who are incarcerated and how important these belongings might've been.

So for me, creating something of value to hold his valuables.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- And then just thinking of another way to, like, introduce my brother into this space, but also our relationship in the vein of frozen moments in time that captured the best parts of our childhood.

(slow jazzy music) I'm brother Canaan, with us being 13 months apart, we spent so much time together.

Thinking about how close we are and why we were so close.

Having a military dad, moving around.

You might not like me today, but when we move next month, you're gonna need me.

(Nastassja laughs) - I'm gonna be that friend.

- Exactly.

- That one friend you can walk into a new place with.

- Exactly.

So that's an important part of the purpose of having these photos here.

The time capsule piece, it's like this old nightstand with a quilt that's replicating a blanket from a photo and there's an old corded phone, a boombox, some CDs.

And on the corded phone, there is a QR code where people can scan and hear all these recorded conversations between Canaan and I.

- Those bonds don't go away in spite of interruption by the state.

That is one of the registers that's most profound about what you've offered here.

- Yeah.

- And maybe we can think a little bit more about sound because I know you have a video work that's also a part of the installation.

- The table structure holds a smaller quilt and a TV that plays a video of my mom, reading letters that Canaan sent her.

- [Mom] To start off, Mommy, I deeply appreciate everything you do for me and have done.

- I just really liked this idea of thinking about the earliest time of Canaan's incarceration, of not only how hard it was for me, also feeling that responsibility towards my mother.

So being able to see her reading his letters speaks to what I was supporting.

- Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Your mom here just reminds me of how many other people we don't necessarily see when we see a number or stat, right?

I wanna talk specifically about quilts and the quilt in the show.

- (Nastassja laughs) The quilt.

- [Jessica] Maybe we can make our way back there.

- Yeah.

The matriarch now.

(Nastassja laughs) (gentle music) - So, here we are.

Tell us the name of this quilt.

- This is security blanket.

(gentle music) Reading the letters from Canaan, I started to understand what his communication means to me, just as much as what it means to him and feeling like I have to respond to a letter.

I can't miss Canaan calls.

That's what this blanket serves as.

I'm in it and it's comfortable, but it could swallow me if I let it.

(gentle music) The detail of the project that is the fixed detail are the dimensions of the space, because they're the dimensions of her self.

Seeing that portrait of Canaan, that's mentally and emotionally the way that I feel when I read his handwritten letters.

You can see scratched out words and you can see the process of someone's thoughts.

And then it feels like he's here.

And the portraits of us, our body language speaks to our relationship.

Seeing those two little kids, describes without having to say, how close we are in age.

We're like this, and we look like that in the photo.

Canaan drew a picture of his prayer rug.

It feels appropriate to sit on a similar surface that he sits on multiple times a day.

This space creates this energetic connection in my mind.

(gentle music) - Making this exhibition and these works, have they changed the way you understand abolition.

- It's easy to have an opinion on what the criminal justice system should look like, until it's in your house.

- Too right.

Your invitation is a really beautiful prompt to think about power and healing and even the word justice.

So I hope that you feel ecstatic about what you've offered to us, because it's very, very potent.

- 5, 15, 17.

Can you believe it's been five months?

Just yesterday I was feeling down, so I slept the majority of the day.

Sometimes it's hard to accept and believe I'm really in this place.

But later that night I started feeling better.

I keep telling myself this will all be over soon.

I really want to believe it as much as I say it.

Canaan G. Swift.

(gentle music) - [Female narrator] Wanna see Nastassja's feature again?

You can find that as well as a Curate you feature on her from last season.

It's on our website, whro.org/curate.

The entire archive is there.

757 featured artists plus all of our full episodes and more.

- We mentioned earlier that we're coming to you from the Hampton university Museum on the HU campus.

Arts, culture and history have always been important tenants of Hampton U and as such the museum was established in 1868, the same year that the school came into existence.

And like the University, the museum has grown in the more than 150 years since its inception.

It now holds close to 10,000 pieces of art and history that celebrate not only African-American culture, but also that of native Americans, Oceanic, African and Asian peoples as well.

The museum is currently closed to the public due to COVID-19, but it's something you should experience when the world gets back to normal.

- The moon has inspired art for as long as humans have created.

Think van Gogh, Galileo, George Melies and Pink Floyd.

The Barry Art Museum at Old Dominion University celebrated the phenomenon with a traveling exhibit, bring together art, science, and a giant inflatable version of our favorite satellite for a festival celebrating all things lunar.

(gentle music) - I think the beauty of the moon is that it's a unifying force.

(gentle music) Here on earth, we only get to see one face of the moon.

It follows us, it tracks us.

And in this exhibition, we get to see it from all angles, which is something that I think a lot of us have never been able to really experience and look at.

So there's some discovery for everyone.

Tonight began with a lecture that we had last fall with conceptual UK based artists, Luke Jerram.

He shared with our audiences this incredible project that he'd been developing and traveling around the world.

And right after the lecture ended, I got numerous phone calls saying, we have to get that here to the Barry Art Museum.

So we decided that we were going to embark on this really exciting project.

It's been a year in the making.

We're so thrilled to see it out here this evening for everyone.

(gentle music) Here on 43rd Street, we decided to suspend the moon directly between the Ted Constant Center, the Chartway and the parking garage.

Working with the engineers was really incredible.

It was an amazing firm that said this is the funnest project they've ever gotten to do.

And what I love about it, is it's bringing the museum out into the street.

It's not everybody having to come through the museum to get to the art.

And I think it works perfectly, and it was a total feat.

(gentle music) The Barry Art Museum has never embarked on a project of this magnitude before.

It's the most ambitious thing that we've ever attempted.

And we do hope this is something that we could try to repeat.

Luke Jerram.

He has an earth out there.

He has a Mars out there.

The director of NASA Langley was really interested in us partnering together in the future to try to bring the Mars here.

I hope this is something that we get to do frequently to make sure that we get people here celebrating together, honoring the arts at ODU.

(gentle music) We've had the opportunity to partner with so many incredible organizations across the region, including NASA, the Chrysler museum, native American dance groups.

(native American singing) ODU departments, aerospace, science.

Getting the Barry Art Museum out there was a huge mission here, and letting people know that art is accessible to pretty much anyone, to make sure that we're getting something that anyone can get excited about.

(gentle music) And so it was just really incredible to have an opportunity to finally bring together all of these arts and sciences organizations to have a communal conversation about what the moon is.

It's a thing of lust.

It's a thing of desire.

It's our muse.

It's a collective force for good.

We all can get behind some moon.

(gentle music) - All you need is love.

And in Reno, Nevada, they have an abundance in the form of a larger than life sculpture that turned up at a time when the world really needed it.

(lively music) - I started working with metal in the early 90's.

I lived in Santa Cruz at that time, and I was going to events in San Francisco, underground dance parties, and I was taking light sculptures to those events and people were enjoying them.

And around the same time I purchased a welder and started welding stuff together, really fell in love with that medium.

(lively music) I've been going to Burning Man for 25 years.

The first couple of times I went there, I brought a bicycle and I started bringing art cars.

And then I saw what people were doing with their larger scale art.

And around that time I met Laura Kimpton and we decided to start doing some large scale pieces.

(machine whirs) First, Laura comes up with an idea.

She's the visionary artist in our collaboration.

- I do large steel sculpture.

I went to college to be a welder.

I came up with the words.

I came up with everything.

Jeff's the builder.

- I get the material, then I make the frames and then add the cladding or the sheets to the frames.

And it's all done here in this shop.

(gentle music) Some of the sculptures that are here in Reno that I have created, one is "Believe", which was co-created with Laurie Kimpton.

That is on the City Plaza now.

That sculpture also has some small birds in it and those birds represent Laura's father.

- [Laura] He went to Sienna every year to see the birds.

He's a meditator.

(gentle music) The "Love" sculpture is 10 feet tall and 30 feet wide.

- "Love" is actually made out of aluminum, which is a nice material.

It gives it a nice shine and then at night the lighting effect has more of a impact.

(gentle music) - So we brought it out to Burning Man and people loved it.

And then it was sitting, waiting to go a couple of places.

And then we got the phone call from Renown.

- Covid has been a challenging circumstance, not only here in Northern Nevada, but around the world.

The "Love" sculpture for us, is an amazing opportunity to showcase our love and support of all of the health care providers.

When we were contacted by Artown to be able to display it here on our campus, it was just an amazing opportunity that we could not turn down.

- Art heals, art unifies.

Art is an expression of our imagination, which hearkens back to youth when we are all pure and all of us had unlimited possibilities.

We think that that's what art means and that's why art captures so many people's attention and engages them so thoroughly to their core.

- As I was installing it, the doctors and nurses and patients were already being inspired by it and taking photos.

- One of the things that I think of, when I walk by here or drive by here, is that light and love, that's a huge thing.

And it's like, what more could we need?

You know, especially in the current times that we're living in, it's very dark for a lot of people, a lot of loss.

And to be like that kind of beacon of light and love in a very dark world right now is just, it's very impactful.

Love just isn't a word, it's an action word.

You know, it's something that, it has the power to change other people's lives and to impact other people.

By the care that we provide, the compassion, you know, all of that, so it's very inspiring.

- I've passed the "Love" sculpture at least twice a day on our main campus and I lost my father to Covid back in April.

And for me it is a living memorial that I get to acknowledge and honor his life.

It is a testament to him and all of the other lives that were lost as a part of this terrible pandemic.

And it also honors all of the amazing healthcare providers around the world who have tried to help patients and families to battle this terrible condition.

- It was so beautiful to put something up in a place it needed to go up.

(gentle music) - Looking to combine two art forms, a pair of Reno Nevada creators have come together to form Moderngram, a modern and dynamic connection between dance and film.

(lively music) - So Moderngram is something I started with Shaila Emerson, and it is a collaborative group of people and artists that I found and love, that I consider family, that we do different dance for camera projects.

- I met Erica a few years ago.

We just started talking about dance because we both had that connection.

And then she was like, I'd love to do some dance films if you ever would want to.

It completely piqued my interest obviously, but we made our first dance film together.

It's called Ravendoe.

It was more of just an idea from what we were both going through at that time.

It was really spur of the moment.

We planned it in a week and we just went out into the woods and dressed up as animals.

It ended up being, like, super inspirational to continuing doing dance films together.

(intense music) - A dance film is cinematography catered towards choreography or choreography for cinematography.

So you would approach how you would film something differently than you would like a short film or like acting or a narrative because it's movement based.

The videography would be used to help shift what the audience can then be looking at.

So it gives the choreographer or the producer more control over what their intention is, and what they're trying to communicate.

(lively music) - At a performance you can only see them so far.

In a dance film you're right there where they're breathing or looking at you and you can see the color of their eyes.

And this way we're able to add music and sound effects and different kinds of shots that are very intimate and it describes dance and storytelling in a different way.

(upbeat music) - My inspiration for anything that I do that's creative comes from a deep seated desire to unearth things that are stuck inside that I don't know how to process or talk about and then the concept of moving past those things.

What is the strength involved in that challenge, that I can find in my body and in my self?

I mean, that's what art is.

You know, you express the inexpressible.

- We have a lot of oxymoron ideas in, or conflicting ideas in our dance films.

Visually, I think it comes from the moment.

It's very spontaneous and most of our stuff isn't really planned out.

So it's just kind of fun to bounce ideas off of one another when we're working through our personal, emotional things and just our life and kind of adding that into the dance films.

I think it just helps bring out raw emotion within the dance film.

(intense music) - For Shaila, she has to be very much in tune with how the movers are moving.

And a lot of the times, with some of the locations that we're in, they can't stick with the choreography.

They have to improvise.

So she doesn't know what's coming next.

Being a dancer and shooting dance, it's just like a whole new level.

I take the camera and I dance with the dancer.

And so it's almost like, for the viewer, you get to be dancing with the dancer and it's like a whole new emotion that you get to experience within the dance film.

(gentle music) - I think what I want people to take away from what they watch, is that they can relate in some way to what I've created or get something out of it, even if my intention is not the same as what they interpret.

It's just a way to connect us all, especially when so many things in life can be chaotic and unrelatable.

I love that ability to connect with people through something like that and to just share and I think vulnerability is one of the most valuable things as humans as far as connecting each other.

(gentle music) - If your love for Curate has you craving more, come find us on the web, whro.org/curate.

And you can get lots of bonus material if you follow us on social media.

Check us out on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

- I'm Michael DiBari and I created "Breaking Stereotypes, Portraits in Black And White."

(intense music) I started teaching at Hampton University about 10 years ago.

And that same year, my first year at Hampton University, Trayvon Martin was murdered in South Florida.

I was really just moved by that, and I wanted to do something.

Something that, something, something.

He could've been one of my students and I felt really bad and torn apart and saddened by the whole situation.

So I talked to my students and we came up with a project that we could do together.

And so that's how this all started.

(intense music) I photographed them, I got them to write down what they aspire to be.

And I started this project to basically give them a voice.

(intense music) And I would just photograph the students in my office.

They would come in, they'd see the pictures on the wall.

And then we started talking about it.

And then they're like, oh, I'm interested in that too.

And so it kind of promoted itself.

They're just straight up black and white portraits and I kind of did that on purpose.

I just wanted to show that they're just regular people with aspirations that we all have.

Get a good job, have a family, do great things.

And so it kind of normalizes them as people.

And I think that's important for everyone to say, they're not, there's no stereotype here.

They're just regular people.

And that's kind of the point.

As a photographer, you wanna get your work out there, especially when it's so relevant.

I mean, it's so, I mean, it's just the way I felt.

I didn't do it for any kind of grandeur or anything special.

I just, you know, was moved to do it.

And since then, since Trayvon Martin 10 years ago, there's been so many.

You know, Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and it just, it hasn't changed.

And I think it's even more important and more relevant today, because of that.

(lively music) - Michael DiBari, as you heard in the feature, teaches photography right here at Hampton University.

You can see his work at his website, michaeldibari.com.

- Thanks for joining us.

We're going to leave you with more from the Moon Festival.

- [Heather] I'm Heather Mizzoni.

- [Jason] And I'm Jason Kypros and we'll see you next time on Curate.

(lively music)