Full Interview Transcript

Interviewer

Thank you for coming today. Thanks. So, can you tell us how Trigger Planning 2.0 reflects your practice as an artist and architect? And can you talk about the themes of reproductive rights and climate change and how they're part of your work?

So in my architecture plus media practice, I design exhibitions that combine research, art, activism, to create public pedagogy on critical social issues. Some of my recent exhibitions have addressed themes of climate justice and climate activism, exploitations of migrant construction workers on architectural sites. I work with transboundary air pollution, global transboundary air pollution. And I would say that the through line for some of these projects have been issues of human rights, as well as sometimes I say human affairs and human relations. So the reproductive justice exhibition that we are currently exhibiting, trigger planting, is connected in a way to these larger themes of human rights, human relations, human affairs. and kind of cultural and social and geopolitical issues that impact human rights.

What is the story behind the original trigger planting piece, your collaboration with Maureen Connor and Landon Newton? And then can you tell us how did this new iteration come to the Milton Center?

The Trigger Planting 1.0, the original Trigger Planting, that was exhibited as a rapid response installation at the Freeze Art Fair. And that was designed just the week when the Supreme Court draft was leaked about overturning Roe v. Wade. So that exhibition was put together very quickly for the Freeze Art Fair, where we created this large installation, like a 40-foot, 20-foot map of the United States. marking the states with more efficient plans where the abortion laws were going to get more aggressive. Trying to show 50% of the country would then be impacted by these laws that hadn't yet been enacted, but the draft had been leaked. So that was the first version of trigger planting. Maureen Connor and I have been working over the years, occasionally I would say, on different exhibitions and installations. And Maureen had started working with Landon on these abortion garden projects. And they were doing, they were asked to do an installation at the Unison Sculpture Garden upstate, and they invited me to join the team then. It was kind of a landscape you know, large landscape project and with my expertise in architecture and design, I thought that I could, you know, join the team and try to help them design the exhibit. So that's how our collaboration for trigger planting started.

Can you describe the elements of this exhibition?

The exhibition has many layers. As you enter the Milstein lobby, you see a large banner that has the map of the United States, but the map is redrawn with boundaries and barriers that the laws, once Roe was enacted, how new barriers and borders created were created by these laws, and so the map is redrawn as kind of an archipelagos or clusters of states that have laws ranging from total bans to partial bans to more progressive laws. So that's the main feature that, in a way, frames the entire exhibition. Then on the side of the screen, we also have these maps that collect the data from, really from 2023, and they are abortion travel maps. They show how many patients had to travel out of state once these laws were overturned. So those maps kind of show the impacts of, you know, I mean, the numbers are staggering how many people have had to travel out of state to get you know, a basic health service. And then we also, on the back wall where there are shelves, we have a kind of a, we have a set of rotating materials and some permanent materials. So we have these abortificient dried plants that are hanging from the shelves upside down. And we have little, what we call bookmarks that have, that that explain the medicinal properties of these plants. They kind of gave the agriculture zones where these plants grow in. So that's kind of a long wall of, you know, these dried plants. We also have books that we worked with Miriam Neptune's team of librarians that have curated a set of books on these issues. And in terms of that curation of the books, we were really interested in recent books. You know, we have some historical books, but again, last five years, what has happened, you know, with these laws, sort of bringing really complex dimensions to these issues through these books. And then also very importantly, we have the timeline of Roe v. Wade and the lawsuit and how, what conditions, what people, judges, et cetera, how that lawsuit evolved and how Roe v. Wade was overturned and the very specific case of the clinic that was, you know, the Jackson Women's Clinic in Mississippi that was involved in this lawsuit. So these are the basic elements, but the exhibition was really designed to have a rotating set of materials. So while these main, you know, the banner and the plans frame the exhibit, we've been adding other materials throughout the year.

So were the student posters in the back part of the original plan for the exhibit? Or was that rotating?

The student work from the course Abortion in Context that Wendy Schorheim and Celia Lepom, to get her name, pronounce her name right, they had done this course Abortion in Context and they were, initially when we started working on the project, they had been thinking about exhibiting these posters separately and when they heard about our exhibit, we decided to combine and invite them to show those posters, you know, because they're so connected. And the idea initially when I designed the exhibition, it was already that the front gallery would have trigger planting, but the back area would be for student work, workshops, things, ways to engage students in these discussions. So that was a perfect match for the exhibit to have those student posters there.

Okay, that worked out, that worked out well then. Can you talk about key moments in the development and installation process, such as working with the greenhouse and the grounds crew, and then bringing in voices across the Milstein centers, and working with your student assistants?

When Marianne Neptune approached me to think about this exhibition, I was really interested in engaging people across the college, but also really to think about this exhibition as multi-sited. So even if the exhibition components are all kind of centralized in the lobby, to really think about how can we-- mostly how can these generate conversations across Barnard. So in the initial trigger planting, as the first version had live plants. And right from the beginning, we wanted to work with the greenhouse and also Keith Gabora, who is the groundskeeper. to think about how would we install these plants in the lobby. And then, of course, in the very quickly first meeting, we realized that this is an exhibition that's going to stay for a whole year. And to have live plants, you know, they're probably not going to survive. And Keith was very generous in his suggestions. And we had also, initially we had thought about having some live plans right next to the entrance. So as you enter, you see the live plans, and then you come into the lobby, and then you see the interior installation. And he... mentioned that I think we started the planning in the winter, so some of the plants were dormant there, and we thought that that plot would be available, but he rightly pointed out that there are a lot of plants that are in the ground, and that would bloom in the spring, so there wouldn't really be space to add additional plants. But then he very generously and insightfully came up with the idea of using the corner plot, which is right in front of Center for Engaged Pedagogy, CEP offices. And so that was his really excellent idea to do an outdoor garden featuring medicinal plants. So that was a kind of a process, you know, that started with the greenhouse and Keith Gabora. And then once the -- during the process of even installing the exhibition and, you know, thinking about the design of the exhibition, we worked with Zoe Ross at the design center. And then as the exhibition progressed, we started discussions with CEP, how they could do programming around it. To add additional materials, we also engaged ERC and Fatima -- that's Fatima's last name. We engaged Fatima Kohli at ERC. We also started conversations with Saima Akhtar at the Computer Science Center. And then that particular conversation resulted in a panel at the Journalism School at Columbia. Who else did we engage with? And then, of course, students have been a very important part of this exhibit right from the beginning. We had student interns who were, right from day one, helping us think about this project. Then they also came to help plant the garden. And then we are adding additional materials where students have been doing research on abortion and reproductive rights issues beyond the U.S. So, yeah, so these, I feel like I'm missing some. Of course, your team has been very kindly, you know, has offered us to do this video that will show some of the process and the elements of the exhibition. Yeah, very importantly, Reproductive Justice Collective, the student group. Right from the beginning, we wanted them to add materials to this exhibit as well. And also, they've been doing workshops, really, you know, on medicated abortion and other things in conjunction with the exhibition. I think I've covered most of the... Sorry, it's been a long process, so many people, you know.

So what were some of the high points for you during the process of making the exhibition come to life.

Yeah, there were many high points. I think for me, the, you know, really the exhibitions are all about the process and as I just said earlier, how others can participate in a process, not just of the final components of the exhibition, but that they can help us think about you know, how can we engage others, but also produce components for the exhibition. So the highlights, I would say, well one was working, the first I would say primarily was working very closely with Miriam Neptune. And it was interesting, I felt that her role almost evolved from being a curator to a close collaborator, and that was really a highlight for me in terms of her own expertise, also working with the library, so I think that relationship really evolved through this process, and that was a high excuse me, that was a very significant personal highlight, I would say, for me. Beyond that, working with students is always a highlight. It was something that we really wanted them to think about these issues and bring their own interest, especially when we are thinking about these issues beyond the U.S. So that was really, I think, interesting to see them engage. with this exhibit, but also really take on these case studies and do new research and bring content to the exhibit that I think is really, really important. I think the panel at the journalism school was really quite a highlight. That was called Abortion and Data and Abortion and Reporting. And so that, again, brought kind of interdisciplinary lens to these issues. and also engaged outside experts. So that was a highlight. And really, I think to sum it up, I would say for me, when we were installing the exhibition, for me personally, again, a really kind of clear memory that has been kind of imprinted on my brain has been when the banner arrived and the banner was unrolled and it was lying on the floor. And Milstein, as you know, the Milstein lobby is very active. And as people were coming in, students were already engaging with it, seeing this large map and looking at the laws, and I'm from this state, and I'm from that state, and it's incredible. I didn't know that this law was already enacted, is already in action. So that was really exciting to see. And then a lot of people came when the banner went from the floor and when it was hung by this really our expert installers who helped us install this show. And so that moment of seeing the banner going from horizontal to vertical and then others coming in and really looking at this, at that time it was kind of a, you know, this was really few weeks before, a month before the U.S. elections, to see similar colors. We intentionally used red and blue, the kind of electoral maps that you see on various media and television. We used the similar aesthetic. But for people to see that map as a kind of a broken map of the United States, I think that was really to see people's reaction do that big banner was quite a highlight.

Yeah, I know every time I see the banner, it's like I go up to the different states to see some states passed and then repealed, and it's very interesting. So what do you want visitors to take away from the exhibition, especially during this current time in our country?

Yeah, I mean, that's quite a complex question in some ways because I feel this is a moment of upheaval in so many different ways. And I think, you know, one thing I would say is that in terms of the Barnard community, the Barnard community is very diverse. And You know, so I think that, I hope, what I hope is people would take away different things and not the same things from the exhibit. So they would bring their own interpretations, readings, but also their own experiences around these issues, if not individually, just with the societies they live in, with their own families, and really think about others. through this lens of reproductive health, reproductive justice, abortion, things that should be really just normal healthcare practices that have become so entangled and complex. So I feel like reading through their own knowledge, they would also learn something new about others and hopefully the exhibit would also give them a way almost to step out of their own experiences that they might be more familiar with and that they would bring, or they would use to read this exhibition, but I hope they would learn something new about how devastatingly this issue is impacting people once Roe v. Wade was overturned. It's In some ways, we had hoped that this exhibit would also be accessible to the larger community around Barnard, and that, as you know, has been compromised. So I think this video and whatever we can put online and other ways of, you know, telling the kind of process, but also the research that has been collected in this exhibition, I hope it would circulate. But perhaps more importantly, I also hope that the campus would become more accessible to our larger community to be able to engage with, you know, not just this, but other kind of very public exhibitions and programming that we do at Barnard. So we hope that that engagement would bring other communities that I do really miss to engage with in this exhibition.

So what is your vision for the next iteration of the exhibition? And can you tell us how and why the design is changing?

In the next iteration, actually your plans have changed a little bit, so I might... Let me try to say. So we're not completely changing the exhibition. We want to add new materials to the exhibition. But right from the beginning, it was very important for me to bring the complexity of this issue that goes beyond the United States, but also as a kind of a connected network of sites and laws and care systems that are both in the United States but also go beyond the United States. So what we are, in the new iterations, we are introducing international case studies from 10 different countries to see how these laws recently have been, you know, have regressed or progressed and how these issues of reproductive justice, abortion, are, you know, have been addressed very recently. So we have 10 case studies that we're going to add behind the banner. They have larger timelines that, you know, almost historical timelines that mark important developments or markers around these issues, and then show the most recent laws. and barriers to access to abortion in these different countries. So I think this part of the exhibit was also to address Bonnard as a global community. We have a lot of international students on campus. And right now, we're all going through very difficult times, and particularly international students are also going through very challenging times. But that said, I think it's really important to look at some of these common issues and barriers around public health and abortion and reproductive justice in other places beyond the U.S. And I think it was also important for me to think about the systems of care as larger ecosystems that combine things like clinics, hospitals, court systems, laws, activism, networks of providers, not just doctors, but other kind of herbalists, doulas, all the kind of networks that already exist. And to think about these as nodes through which the systems of care and information also about abortion and healthcare as interconnected nodes through which this kind of information flows and is accessible to everyone. So bringing the kind of more beyond the U.S. and international component to the exhibit, I think, I hope emphasizes this point about thinking of this issue not in isolation or even in these sort of very enclosed communities, but really to think about it as a kind of a larger system. Often these systems and also spaces are invisible. So I think one of the ideas of the exhibits is also to connect and to make visible these disparate sites and systems that we often don't see, you know, how they really impact access to healthcare.

Can you tell us how it went from the trigger planting 1.0 to 2.0 here in Milstein?

Initially I was invited, I was invited by Miriam Neptune, but the way that connection happened is a little bit, you know, of a kind of, I would say almost a little bit of a funny story. But Karen Fairbanks, who's the Chair of Architecture, my department, had always seen this, or had known my work and had seen some of these installations that I had done around reproductive justice, in particular the Trigger Planting 1.0, and she always had thought that this exhibition should come to Barnard. This is so connected to, you know, the really historically the work of BCRW, but this issue, the Athena Film Festival, we've always, every year, we've had really important programming around, these issues. And so she, I think it was in that context, she really thought that this is a kind of a perfect site. But that had initially, these discussions began, I think, before the pandemic or right after the pandemic. And she had mentioned to the, you know, the team librarians and Monica, and we'd had conversations about this. And then they didn't go anywhere. But then after that few, just a couple of years ago, I'm missing the time, but I had a meeting with Mary Rocco, who you know who's the I had a meeting with Mary Rocco, who's a professor in urban studies, but also does the community engagement programming. She had come to my office to talk about housing and some other courses that I was teaching. And in my office, there's a large image of trigger planting on the wall, and She asked me, what's that? So I explained to her the project and she said, well, Miriam Neptune is looking for an exhibition and this would be perfect. I tell this story also because I always tell my students that they have to have their work up on the wall. You should always have images of your work up on the walls. You don't know who's going to see when and then that might trigger a conversation and that might actually lead to something, you know, that might lead to an exhibition. as well. So I just tell this story for students to say how important it is for them to have their work up visible on the walls in their spaces.