Episode 72: Establishing Existence (w/ Erica Hector Vital-Lazare)

Explicit content warning

07/20/21 • 51 min

Hey everyone. Happy Tuesday. We are in the midst of summer and time is going by quite quickly. I've been spending some time in the quiet suburbs of Shanghai before heading back to Zhuhai. There's a small but strong artist community here and it has been great getting to know the people here. Otherwise, I have been working on a 4-channel video and prepping for a show in the fall. I have also been recording a ton of interviews with the Las Vegas community through the Rogers Art Loft residency, through which and I am excited to share with you my chat with the amazing Erica Hector Vital-Lazare. Erica is a professor of Creative Writing and Marginalized Voices in Dystopian Literature at the College of Southern Nevada. She is also a poet, writer of fiction, and the co-producer of the photo-narrative installation Obsidian & Neon: Building Black Life and Identity in Las Vegas. Furthermore, Erica is the editor of McSweeney's Of the Diaspora, a series revisiting classic Black works in literature. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Erica as we talked about sci-fi and black futurism, reclaiming and revisiting one's past identity, and so many amazing book recommendations. As always, stay safe and healthy, both physically and mentally wherever you are, and I hope you enjoy this.

Links Mentioned:

Follow Seeing Color:

Links Mentioned:

Follow Seeing Color:

Previous Episode

Episode 71: Duplicate Dichotomy (w/ Shahab Zargari)

Hi everyone. I hope you are doing well wherever you are. As I mentioned previously, I am currently part of the Rogers Art Loft residency in Las Vegas and they have been putting me in touch with the local community and helping me meet people for the podcast. I have been speaking with quite a number of wonderful artists and cultural workers and these conversations will be released throughout the summer and upcoming fall season. For today, I am excited to share with you the first one of these talks as I speak with Shahab Zargari, an Iranian-American filmmaker, record label owner, and musician. Shahab takes me through his journey from working in advertising to making his own independent films and what drives him to tell the stories that he tells. We also talk about the pronunciation of names, Iranian films, Mad Men, and how he got a shoutout from Kevin Smith. Shahab also talks about his latest short film, Oh, the Guilt, which is a coming-of-age story set in the 1990s featuring a Persian-American as the main character. The plot tackles death, loss, and survivor’s guilt, elements of the human condition that transcend age, race, and creed. Check it out if you have the chance. Again, this episode was made possible through the Rogers Art Loft residency and I want to thank them for this opportunity. I hope you all enjoy this.

Links Mentioned:

Follow Seeing Color:

Next Episode

Episode 73: Black Cowboys (w/ Brent Holmes)

Hey everyone. Hope you are doing well. I just finalized a 4-channel video during my time in Shanghai and had a chance to exhibit it to the local art community. I am currently preparing to leave back to Zhuhai in a bit. I also just finished my time at the Rogers Art Loft residency and held the closing talk last week, so thank you to all who swung by. It was a wonderful experience and I hope to visit everyone in Las Vegas soon. I will be posting the conversations I had with the local Las Vegas Community over the next few months, interspersed with previous interviews I conducted. So stay tuned.

For today, I will be talking to Brent Holmes, a multi-disciplinary artist with a deep affinity to words- historical, epistemological and ontologically themed creative projects. Holmes also seeks to create a dialogue through several culinary projects, on the nature of communication, and morality and identity. Brent holds no degrees and says he most likely never will. Being the son of an entertainer, Brent is thoroughly traveled but has never completely identified any one place as his home until moving to Las Vegas. Brent and I chat about the coming apocalypse and for whom, the construction of the American West in relation to freedom, the body within a landscape, and symbolisms in objects. It was an enjoyable chat and I hopefully you will like it as well. As always, stay safe and healthy wherever you are and I hope you enjoy this.

Links Mentioned:

Follow Seeing Color: