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NOTE<\/strong>: This post is to introduce you to the 55th episode of Fran\u00e7ois Matarasso\u2019s and my monthly podcast, \u201cA Culture of Possibility.\u201d It will be available starting 18 July 2025. You can find it and all episodes at Stitcher<\/a>, iTunes<\/a>, and wherever you get your podcasts, along with miaaw.net<\/a>\u2018s other podcasts by Owen Kelly, Sophie Hope, and many guests, focusing on cultural democracy and related topics. You can also listen on Soundcloud<\/a> and find links to accompany the podcasts. <\/em><\/p>\n The quarterly Miaaw Review<\/em> will be out soon. The first edition included an essay by me and shorter pieces by Owen Kelly and Fran\u00e7ois Matarasso. You have to subscribe to receive it. It\u2019s free, you won\u2019t be spammed, nor will your email be shared with anyone. Just enter your email here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Fran\u00e7ois and I were thrilled to have South Dakota-based artists Amber Hansen and Reyna Hernandez back on the podcast<\/strong>, especially because they were the first people we interviewed as we started \u201cA Culture of Possibility,\u201d on episode two<\/a>, which aired in February 2021, more than four years ago. <\/p>\n Back then, we talked about their work on community murals in the context of a world coping with COVID<\/strong>, exploring the challenges and rewards of the work (and including a lot of great photos). Episode 55 follows on our interview last month with author Jeff Chang<\/a> about the censorship of his work by the Department of Defense. The most extreme forms of censorship involve the heavy hand of the state attempting to crush free expression. But in the community-level work Reyna and Amber do, the limits on expression are more likely to be negotiated with a funder, property owner, or public official\u2014plus the artists\u2019 own sense of ethical representation in relation to the folks they\u2019re working with to create the mural. <\/p>\n We started with introductions<\/strong>. Amber described growing up on a small family farm, studying painting, and discovering that community-based art work led her to find a creative home in collaborative process. Reyna is an enrolled member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe of South Dakota who grew up in a household of artists. Her mother \u201cis a star quilter, and she\u2019s the biggest influence for all of my work, her use of pattern and color and design in her quilts is unrivaled by any other quilter I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d You\u2019ll want to start this episode at the beginning to listen to each of them talk about their formative influences and the power of public art. And follow their project, Mural On The Wall<\/a> on Instagram to see some amazing images. You\u2019ll find other links in the show notes on miaaw.net<\/a>. <\/p>\n We\u2019d asked Reyna and Amber to listen to episode 54 before our conversation to see one way free expression is being limited by the MAGA regime. I explained that \u201cFrancois and I wanted to have you talk about that on this episode because I know that you\u2019ve run up against practically every variety of \u2018is this expression truly free? Or does it need to go some other way here?\u2019 We\u2019d love to hear you talk about those instances that stand out for you as instructive for people, or that were instructive for yourselves. So where do you want to start?\u201d<\/p>\n Both artists thought describing their process would create a context for this question<\/strong>. Amber explained that \u201cit will give a glimpse into the landscape that we\u2019re painting in, but also how we navigate challenges, and also how we haven\u2019t been able to navigate those challenges when we\u2019re not using this process. When we\u2019re painting either in our community or we\u2019re being invited to paint somewhere else, we begin by introducing the project and inviting people to participate in helping us imagine the themes and content that will be portrayed within the mural. We conduct our own research. Sonia [Reyna\u2019s sister and a core member of the team] has been a really integral part of this process, as she has a degree in history and research. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re conducting research and sharing that at the meetings, and asking others to share poems and stories and drawings. Through this process, we are learning more about that place, learning what people care about. It also helps us to share the design process with people who are participating. We may begin with very concrete images and ideas, and then we\u2019re working to allow those ideas to evolve and change and become more abstract or to represent larger metaphors or themes. This is often a part of the creative process that people are not able to witness in public art, so it\u2019s really important that our design team knows how we got to the images that we land on, and that we have conversations about how that\u2019s resonating. Essentially, we want to create something that is new, that has never been seen before in that place, but also resonates with the people who came together to create it. And we\u2019re presenting that design back to the design team for approval\u2014that\u2019s the approving body.\u201d<\/p>\n This kind of collaboration is often new for participants<\/strong>, Amber explained. \u201cIn a lot of the places we\u2019re making work, there is no public art process, so we\u2019re introducing a way of creating work and sharing that. At times, we do have to present that design concept to a major funder or a building owner. Often this person may not be familiar with public art and with the process of approving it. But in those community-based processes, we\u2019re joined by our design team, so in a way the design has already been supported and vetted by the people we are working with. That can also make the approval process easier for that person who has to decide. So that\u2019s the structure that we work in most of the time and I think it\u2019s allowed us to create new work that perhaps wouldn\u2019t be approved without those deep conversations with the people participating.\u201d<\/p>\n We asked how the design team is assembled<\/strong>. \u201cIn many projects,\u201d Amber said, \u201canybody can be a part of the design team. It\u2019s open to anyone in the community. We encourage and invite anyone who\u2019s interested in being a part of that conversation. And in some projects, we are working with specific groups of people\u2014sometimes working with high school students or another specific group who has come to us to make work. If there are voices missing at the table, we might go out and talk to those people individually or conduct our own research to try to bring perspectives in. But it\u2019s the best when people are at the table, representing themselves in those conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe more diverse voices at the table,\u201d Reyna told us, \u201cthe more complex the imagery can become. So that is something that is very integral to what we do and what we want to make. But there are times when we\u2019ve been asked or commissioned to make a piece of artwork for a public building, or where we\u2019ve applied for a request for proposals from a city that\u2019s working with an arts council, where there isn\u2019t that community component to it, so it\u2019s just us working with boards or councils or city governments. <\/p>\n \u201cThat typically doesn\u2019t work out for us. So there is something to be said about the importance of the community-based process and its ability to get these projects moved forward. We do have that network of people who have been a part of this process from the beginning, who are seeing what we\u2019re doing, and they\u2019re understanding and learning more about art and communicating through visual language and making connections to one another through images, so they are supportive of what we\u2019re doing. It\u2019s easy to tell two women no, but it\u2019s not as easy to tell a whole group of people no and to also explain why. What we\u2019ve found in a lot of those situations is there\u2019s this deep-seated racism that exists, and people have these myopic views of what people outside of white culture are and what they represent, but they don\u2019t want to say that in front of a bunch of people. Having that web of people on the design team who are showing up to advocate for what we\u2019re doing, I think that scares people into into realizing what they\u2019re going to say is probably really problematic. It\u2019s like either expose yourself as a racist, or understand that maybe your views are myopic.\u201d<\/p>\n Several situations are discussed in the episode<\/strong>. Here\u2019s one to whet your appetite.<\/p>\n Reyna explained that \u201cIn 2022, we applied for mural project with the city of Sioux Falls, and they worked with the Sioux Falls Arts Council and the Visual Arts Commission to create the request for proposals and to have a mural painted on this big, unsightly parking garage that was built in the heart of downtown Sioux Falls, the biggest city in South Dakota. The parking garage was connected to a failed mega super mall they wanted to build, and it never got done. So they just got a really ugly parking garage, and they wanted people to not think about the parking garage. So they\u2019re like, \u2018Okay, well, we\u2019ll put a mural on it.\u2019 We applied for that, and we were chosen unanimously by the Sioux Falls Arts Council and the Visual Arts Commission. Then it had to go to the mayor for the final decision, but before they presented the design to the mayor, we were informed that our application was the one chosen. The mayor ultimately rejected the design and wanted to go with a different artist who was out of state. But the reason he didn\u2019t choose our piece was because it was an image of an Indigenous person. You\u2019re viewing them from the back, and they\u2019re laying down, wearing basketball shorts and sneakers and positioned in the reclining nude kind of position, but wearing shorts and shoes. He said that it would remind people of the drunk, homeless Native population in Sioux Falls, and he just didn\u2019t want that. He didn\u2019t want it to be controversial.<\/p>\n \u201cThat ignited so many conversations around if that\u2019s what comes to your mind when you look at this image of this brown body in a state of rest, that\u2019s a conversation worth having. Also, the artist that he went on to try and choose was out of state, non-Native, and submitted a design that was celebrating Lakota hoop dancers. So there were also conversations surrounding cultural appropriation, how Native culture is a lot of times defined in these spaces through a white lens. It also brings up conversations about monuments and who\u2019s making them, who\u2019s making the things that are representing diverse cultures. It was just so loaded. There wasn\u2019t a lot that we could do about changing the decision, because he refused to meet with us, and he refused to even tell us why he rejected it. We had just heard from people who were in the meeting that he had said the thing about the drunk, homeless, Native population. The only thing we were able to do is respond to the the lack of transparency of process. That was a good opportunity to let people know what we do, why it\u2019s important to have community voices involved, and to also think about the lack of transparency within our leadership.<\/p>\n \u201cThe arts community in Sioux Falls really responded to that. I was kind of surprised, honestly, because they were pretty upset about the whole situation. And that was a situation where we didn\u2019t have community members involved, and it failed to launch. So I can\u2019t say it enough how important it is to involve people who are living with these images that we\u2019re putting up.\u201d<\/p>\n This was a really rich and textured conversation of keen interest<\/strong> to anyone who cares about public art, representation, and cultural policy. Amber and Reyna shared other situations as we moved from censorship to questions of representation, the impact of social media, the importance of joy and laughter, the way community public art has evolved over the decades, and the good news that so far, that this locally based work in their region hasn\u2019t been infected by the censorious impulses of the MAGA regime. I know you\u2019ll want to tune in and hear it all. <\/p>\n The Cowboy Junkies, \u201cHard to Build, Easy to Break<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n