- [Announcer] Next on "Curate".

♪ And now you're young and full of whim ♪ - [Miles Hoyle] This would be the first time where I've put together a group that really executed the vision that I had for the kind of music I knew I wanted to do.

- [Brent Hearn] It's a heart-wrenching story and I think it tackles a lot of issues.

Where I learned discipline and creating art was through him.

- [Franklin Sirmans] And so much of her work is about looking at the things that make up a whole.

- [Announcer] This is "Curate".

- Welcome to "Curate".

I'm Heather Mazzoni.

- And I'm Jason Kypros.

Thanks for joining us.

As residents of Coastal Virginia, I'm happy to report that we are quite fortunate to have a wealth of great local music to get us through any given night.

- But one local act might well hold the title of most unique.

Mosquito Cabaret brings a jaunty punch to Eastern European folk music and wows crowds with one of the most entertaining live shows in Hampton Roads.

- [Jason] All that and more makes Mosquito Cabaret our 757 featured artist.

♪ Close your eyes ♪ ♪ Forget my name ♪ ♪ You'll be fine ♪ ♪ Out there into the world ♪ (audience applauding) (bright accordion music) - While we wait to be able to do shows again, I just go door to door as surprises for people, whatever the occasion, a birthday, anniversary, or just because, try and cheer somebody up, because COVID's a bit of a bummer.

I borrow from different styles.

We borrow from like Finnish Humppa music.

- Klezmer, Balkan influence, and all the other styles.

- Growing up, my mom made me join a klezmer band.

- We're doing new klezmer?

Okay.

- I like how it's fused with a rock beat.

♪ Take a look at my tulips ♪ ♪ Drinking the April rain ♪ ♪ They're colorful ♪ - Miles writes the tunes and he's pretty amazing.

He's got a big catalog, like an encyclopedic knowledge about European folk music that a lot of music's based on.

So he comes up with the melodies and then the rest of us go to work and I write the lyrics.

It's a really beautiful working partnership we have.

- I was originally a guitarist playing punk rock and things like that.

What turned me on to accordion and then those different kinds of music, I would hear or see a band that I really liked, such as Gogol Bordello, but they would infuse rock music that I was very familiar with.

They would mix it with these kinds of world music things and the different instrumentation, like fiddle and accordion.

And I thought it was such an interesting mix that opens you up to this whole other world of music and I just tapped into that.

♪ I'll slice you up and put you in boxes ♪ ♪ And mail you to Timbuktu ♪ - Most of what I do has been very loud and straightforward.

You spend all this time learning how to play a Radiohead song, which just subverts everything about tradition and then you have to learn the tradition to be able to see what you're subverting.

(lively music) ♪ Hey ♪ ♪ Hey ♪ - This would be the first time where I put together a group that really executed the vision that I had for the kind of music I knew I wanted to do.

- My first time I met Miles, accordion?

Okay.

(chuckling) What kind of music is this?

- I played in a band with Dan, our bass player, a long time ago.

And then he got into a band, and the drummer of that band played drums with Miles in another band.

And word got around about this trombone player named Joe, and I was conscripted into playing brass for these guys.

- We were all just sitting in my room doing homework.

I get a message from this guy, he found me on Google, which at the time, I didn't know it was possible.

♪ Well, every now and then in the bleak affairs of men ♪ ♪ A tide of fortune will come along ♪ - I was fairly new to Norfolk, and I started playing coffee shops in the area.

I was doing an open mic at the Cure.

Some people that were regulars put me in touch with Miles.

We connected and got together and started writing music.

- Miles hit me up.

I was already in a few different bands and I was in-between jobs.

He sent me some demos of some of his tracks he did with his accordion and it reeled me in.

(lively music) - While we wait to be able to do shows again, we're working together really to write as much as possible and plan for the next album.

Unfortunately, in terms of performance, there's really not much you can do.

You just gotta wait it out.

(bright accordion music) That is my way of keeping myself sane while we wait to be able to do shows again.

So I've just been going all around Hampton Roads and occasionally even outside of town.

I did a wedding in Stanton, Virginia, and a surprise out in West Point, Virginia.

It's mostly around here though.

I just go door to door as surprises for people whatever the occasion, a birthday, anniversary, or just because, try and cheer somebody up, and just play for people and hopefully I think it helps brighten their day and I think it helps with brightening mine too.

- [Lady] Do you know any Metallica?

(upbeat music) ♪ And now you're young and full of whim ♪ ♪ Saying you're in love with him ♪ ♪ He plays you like you a little toy ♪ ♪ But you keep saying he's your boy ♪ ♪ But when you're old and gray ♪ ♪ You'll see things in a different way ♪ ♪ Unlock the door, let me in ♪ (energetic music) ♪ Well, I've never been a man of means ♪ ♪ Or known the ways of love ♪ ♪ I never thought that I'd end up in hell ♪ - [Heather] You can learn more about Mosquito Cabaret by navigating over to our website: whro.org/curate.

- There you can find links to Mosquito Cabaret's website and social media, plus get access to all our previous 757 featured artists.

Now keeping with the bug references, artist Jennifer Angus creates amazing art using insects.

- Inspired by Lewis Carroll, her work goes down a rabbit hole into a magical world of reimagined creatures.

(mellow music) - My name is Jennifer Angus and I'm an artist and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

At the MFA St. Pete's, we are installing my largest exhibition to date, "'The Grasshopper and the Ant' and Other Stories", and it's a multi-gallery exhibition that really explores not only insects, but our ideas of what art and artists contribute to our society.

- It really is an experience that is site specific.

So she came to the Museum of Fine Arts to look at our space and was inspired by a work in our collection.

That was really the jumping off point for this exhibition.

So when this exhibition comes together, it's really only for this space and only for this community.

So this will be the only time that it's available to be seen.

- When you enter the exhibition, it'll probably be a bit surprising because it's very dark, and you will encounter a painting that's called "The Grasshopper and the Ant."

Quite simply, it depicts the grasshopper and the ant, which is a story from Aesop's Fables.

I wasn't familiar with the story and as soon as I read it, it really raised my hackles because it was obvious to me that the grasshopper was an artist and that these ants were not appreciating his effort.

So you'll see that painting when you first walk in and then it's like going down the rabbit hole in "Alice in Wonderland."

It is a dark room.

And on your right hand side, you will see preserves, jelly preserves, but they'll look a little bit like specimens in formaldehyde.

If you read "Alice in Wonderland," you'll recall that she falls down the rabbit hole.

It's a long time and she actually gets a little bored, she gets a little hungry, and at one point she reaches out her hand and she grabs a jar and it's a marmalade jar, which turns out to be empty.

But that was really sort of the inspiration.

The hallway gets smaller and smaller and you're sort of spit out into the big gallery.

And when you walk into the bigger room, the scale is tremendous, and the goal here is to really make you feel just as Alice did, Alice shrinks at one point, that you have shrunk, that you have perhaps become insect size.

And then from there, you come into a large, long, narrow gallery, which we call the Cabinet of Curiosities.

The drawers are all filled.

They are to be explored.

The most common questions I get asked are, are the insects real?

Answer, yes.

Is this their natural color?

Yes, with one exception.

There are some scarab beetles, maybe half a dozen that have some gold leaf applied to them.

Another question I get asked is, have I collected the insects myself?

And the answer is no.

That would be a whole 'nother job, 'nother profession.

The insects come from specimen dealers and people are always surprised.

"I need to get in touch with my insect dealer."

There are such people that exist.

They sell to large institutions, whether it be museums or universities and to individual collectors.

Now, an individual collector probably just needs two of a species, maybe a few more if there's some color variations.

Obviously, I need considerably more.

And what you see here is probably, I haven't done a thorough count, but there's probably about 5,000 insects.

- When we're kids, we're fascinated by insects, and it's only when we become young adults that we're conditioned to fear insects.

It's something that is really important, I think, for us to examine as adults because insects are so important for the health of our planet.

They do so much work, and in fact, without them, humans wouldn't survive.

Remember that in a lot of children's literature, insects are these benevolent and helpful creatures often.

Think of everything from "Charlotte's Web" to "Alice in Wonderland."

We often lose that sense of wonder and my hope is that a show like this may help us all rediscover the wonder and beauty and importance of insects to our planet.

- I really had very little interest in insects as a child, but my interest really grew when I was doing research in Northern Thailand.

My background is in textile design, and I was photo-documenting these traditional costume and I came upon a garment, a shawl actually, that had a fringe, and on the fringe were strung green metallic beetle wings.

So really, these are nature's sequins and it makes total sense to just use what's in your backyard.

And for me, that's what started things, but I would say nowadays I'm much more interested in the opportunity to have a platform to let people know how important insects are to our environment.

- We have a terrific team in public programs creating opportunities both for young people and for adults.

For school aged children, there are camps going on, there are book clubs meeting.

There's even a gourmet dinner, a gourmet dinner with Brooklyn Bugs, and it should be a very interesting opportunity.

Yum.

- My goal for people coming to this exhibition is to leave thinking about insects in a different way.

- Artist Teresita Fernandez creates amazing paintings and sculptures inspired by geology and natural phenomena.

Her work was shown last year at the Perez Art Museum in Miami, Florida, where visitors got to see her vision in its most elemental form.

(calming music) - A landscape that might have one meaning for me and another meaning for you.

It opens up possibilities for interpretation that take us to other places based upon personal experience.

My name is Franklin Sirmans.

I'm the director of the Perez Art Museum Miami, and I'm also a co-curator of Teresita Fernandez "Elemental".

Think about landscape, for instance, in terms of being a genre, specifically of traditional art-making experience.

She explodes that traditional idea completely on its head.

(casual catchy music) One way that she describes her relationship to creating landscapes is she calls them stacked landscapes to suggest this idea that there is almost sedimentary layers which relates to geology in the same way, but more metaphorically, and that we are looking at layers of time that are part of the experience of any landscape.

So there is a direct reference to a colonial landscape.

- I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what the landscape actually looked like before colonization.

The landscape and the land and the Americas was manipulated in very sophisticated ways for thousands of years before Europeans ever arrived.

- I like to think of Italo Calvino, this idea of invisible cities in a way, right there.

They may have a reference point in the mind of the artist or when she's creating them, but they allow for us to see things in a way that is much broader.

This is "Nocturnal Horizon Line", work that's been created by graphite, all of it.

A painting, or shall you say sculpture.

It has elements of both.

You look at the top of that surface, you see this kind of sheen, this kind of glare that almost makes it have qualities of reciprocity of being almost like a mirror.

And then you go down a little bit and the graphite is a little bit thicker creating this horizon line, creating this kind of texture that almost looks like it could be water, perhaps it could be a seascape.

And then you go a little bit further and it gets thicker and it feels like the earth.

So maybe we've gone from the sky down below through the ocean and into the ground below.

Maybe.

At the end of the day, this is a really beautiful painting.

It's one of my favorites in the exhibition and I'm glad we got to talk about it a little bit.

Our exhibition ends with a series of works that are around the thematic of landscape and fire, the entire exhibition being called "Elemental".

And you can see the hand in that and you can see there are little tiny pieces of mosaic that make up this whole, and so much of her work is about looking at the things that make up a whole.

In the case of going directly on a wall, I think there's clearly an immediacy to that gesture that is part of the moment and cannot be divorced from the moment.

- They came at a moment where it just seems completely inappropriate to be subtle.

Those pieces were about American violence and they were about the land and the destruction of the land in many ways.

The climate just seemed like it wasn't appropriate to just make it about something abstract.

- And a big part of who she is is an activist in addition to being an artist, and I think those things can be one in the same, and in her body and practice, it really is.

So they're coming to the fore in a much bigger way, I would say right now, but they've always been there.

(calming music) - Each season on "Curate", we feature the work of college students who share the creations that are part of their curriculum.

Tonight, we're proud to present the work of ODU student Anthony "Rome" Brown.

Anthony introduces us to another story teller, a photographer who uses his craft to deal with tragedy and loss.

(relaxing music) - Well, I'll start by saying I'm Brent Hearn, 26, a photographer and videographer.

I started in high school, I started shooting photos, and then I went from photo to video around my early 20s, probably like 21, 22.

And then I started shooting every day for a really long time and I kind of haven't stopped since then.

That kind of just turned into a career after shooting a lot for different types of people, and then I realized pretty early on that that's what I wanted to do.

My normal job at work is I'm a photographer and video director for a design company.

Recently this past year, we did the shoot up in Canada, in Banff, Canada, which is pretty fun, Jasper, Canada as well.

So we got to climb on a glacier, which is if I call it a fun.

I got to bring my dad with me and we got to shoot together, which was a blast.

When I was eight, my parents took me on my first road trip across country in an RV with the rest of our big family, and that was kind of the first time I got interested in doing long distance traveling, especially from cars.

So ever since then, I've been one to easily get in a car and go on a road trip.

I kind of realized like the best work that I could do, the most fulfilling work that I could do, is telling other people's story.

You can convey more emotions with video, and I like working with audio as well.

A photo's worth a thousand words, but I mean a video is literally a thousand pictures.

So right now I'm working on a documentary about my best friend.

He was a graffiti artist.

He was originally a painter.

We met in high school.

He was quiet, but he was kind of wild, he did a lot of wild things outside of school, and I liked him just because he didn't really pay any attention to anybody else.

He just kind of did his own thing and he painted a lot, and he kind of taught me how to create things for six to eight hours a day, sometimes even longer than that, 8 to 12 hours a day.

Hanging out with him, it was all day.

All we would do is create.

I would shoot photos or videos, and then he would paint.

I mean, that was where I learned discipline and creating art was through him, but I always knew that there was something that was kind of off with him.

It felt like he kind of had a darker side to him.

And then over time, we put a couple pieces together and realized he had been abused when he was younger, and then he was getting into heavier drugs and he started doing heroin for a while.

His mom was involved in a shooting, and he eventually died a couple of years after that from an overdose.

And that person who shot his mom is now currently in prison, but is getting out this year.

It's a heart-wrenching story, and I think it tackles a lot of issues.

I think for me personally, the reason why I do all this, isn't just for a memory, but it's kinda my way of dealing with it because obviously it was really tough for a long time.

I mean, that was like the worst thing I think that's ever happened to me.

- My fellow Americans, tonight I want to speak with you about our nation's unprecedented response to the coronavirus outbreak.

It started in China and is now spreading throughout the world.

Today, the World Health Organization officially announced that this is a global pandemic.

(eerie music) - [Brent] (chuckling) All right, I'll see you.

- [Friend] All right.

- [Brent] Tell Taylor I said hey.

- [Friend] All right, bro.

(mellow music) - [Heather] You can find more "Curate U" content on our website: whro.org/curate.

- And you can follow "Curate" on social media.

We're on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

- [Heather] You're looking at works currently on display at the TCC Perry Glass Wheel Arts Center in the neon district of Norfolk.

- [Jason] We want to thank Tidewater Community College for providing a backdrop all season long.

- Thanks for joining us this evening.

We're gonna leave you with more from Mosquito Cabaret.

I'm Heather Mazzoni.

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

(energetic music) ♪ Now I lost my house on a game of cards ♪ ♪ I should've known they marked that deck ♪ ♪ I better pack my things and get on out of town ♪ ♪ Before I find a noose around my neck ♪ ♪ Because I've never been a man of means ♪ ♪ Or known the ways of love ♪ ♪ I've never thought that I'd end up in hell ♪ ♪ Or hoped for heaven up above ♪ ♪ I've never been a man of means ♪ ♪ Or known the ways of love ♪ ♪ I've never thought that I'd end up in hell ♪ ♪ Or hoped for heaven up above ♪ (slow-tempo music) ♪ Down at the bank, the riverbank ♪ ♪ Where I lay my weary head ♪ ♪ I can forget all of my woes ♪ ♪ And I can sleep until I'm dead ♪ (up-tempo music) ♪ Down at the bank ♪ ♪ The riverbank, where I call myself a king ♪ ♪ I can while away the time ♪ ♪ And never worry about a thing ♪ (lively music)