The WhyPAR Podcast
Episode 10: “Art Is Research”: On Knowledge from Identity and Place - A Conversation between Maddy Ross and Artist-Researchers Pree Rehal, Bert Whitecrow, Ayrah Taerb, Ammarah Syed, and Jahmal Nugent.
Citation:
Ross, Madeleine. ““Art Is Research”: On Knowledge from Identity and Place - A Conversation between Maddy Ross and Artist-Researchers Pree Rehal, Bert Whitecrow, Ayrah Taerb, Ammarah Syed, and Jahmal Nugent.” Produced by Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández and Sarah Switzer at The Youth Research Lab. The WhyPAR Podcast. November 10, 2021. Podcast, MP3 audio, https://youthresearchlab.org/whypar
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Host: Welcome to The WhyPAR podcast, a project of the Youth Research Lab at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
Music
Host: In the WhyPAR podcast, youth participatory action research practitioners discuss the ethical dimensions of conducting YPAR. In our podcast, we explore issues of co-leading YPAR projects, building relationships, power dynamics, and sharing our work together. The Youth Research Lab is located in Toronto on the traditional territories of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River.
Pree: One of the things I really appreciate and learned about being part of this project is just that yeah, the fact that making art is research, very much like writing poetry can be research or painting can be research or planting can be research.
Host: Welcome everyone! My name is Maddy, and I’m a co-host of the WhyPAR Podcast. I’m a PAR practitioner and currently a research assistant here at the Youth Research Lab.
In today’s conversation, I’m joined by five young artists living in T’karonto who have been exploring their creative practice as a form of research since the beginning of the pandemic. Pree Rehal, Bert Whitecrow, Ayrah Taerb, Ammarah Syed, and Jahmal Nugent are all part of an arts-based research project called Making With Place, where they have created public art installations and online exhibits to illuminate resistant visions of community and culture. This work is a collaboration between graduate students at York University and the community arts enterprise SKETCH Working Arts. I strongly encourage you, our listeners, to visit their website to visually experience the artist-researchers’ individual work and explore their online journal-zine at makingwithplace.ca. The website also details how you can experience new Making With Place Public Art Projects, launching this fall as part of the City of Toronto’s Year of Public Art.
In this episode, we discuss what it means to consider one’s artistic practice as research, and the tensions that emerge between using research as a tool of resistance and its colonial legacy. The artist-researchers reflect on marginality, identity and place as integral sources of knowledge and knowing, and the creative necessity of place-making and community for disrupting dominant narratives and knowledge production.
This conversation was recorded over Zoom. Please be advised that there is some explicit language in this episode.
And with that, let’s jump in!
Host: All right. Welcome everyone. And thank you so much for joining us today on this episode of the WhyPAR Podcast, Pree, Bert, Ayrah, Ammarah and Jahmal. I'd love to start by having you introduce yourselves and tell us a bit about what brought you to this project.
Ayrah: My name is Ayrah Taerb. I'm a recording artist and executive producer. And what brought me here is my desire to make the process of culture-making across different classes, more equitable. Especially in a city where we recognize that the microscopes that we're under, mean that what happens in the now affects the future, not just for generations of people, but also for generations of funding, which I think is huge.
Jahmal: Hi, my name is, Jahmal. What brought me here… or, I'm a photographer, videographer and dancer. What brought me here was… kind of like say, it was an opportunity.
Pree: I'm Pree, Pree Rehal. I use they/them pronouns. And what brought me into this project was seeing a poster looking for artist- researchers. And I was really interested because I have a background in formal research and also some community-based research like for my masters and afterwards. The last few years of my life had been very focused on community arts, but I hadn't really had those two things overlap as like artist, researcher, being an artist-researcher. And so that's kind of what brought me into this.
Ammarah: Yeah. Hi, my name is Ammarah. Ammarah Syed. Artist name Ammarican. I am a wellness artist, calligrapher, photographer, performer, a collager. And I loop all my mediums back into healing and internal work and being ourselves, I am a wellness artist. And I think, my work is centered around the place that, caring for ourselves and as communities on the margins is radical work. And I think what brought me here is a kind of desire to, kind of not, turn research on its head a little bit and speak to our identities as culture creators on this land, T’karonto. And, and speak to our identities in this work, because I believe that we are underrepresented and our voices are essential to this culture that we live, breathe, and create.
Bert: Hello, my name is Bert. I am a two-spirited artist from Seine River First Nation. Um, my mother is Anishinaabe Ojibwe, and my father is Irish-Scottish. I've worked in community arts now for about four years. I am part of an Indigenous collective called Weaver and Mend where we've built and designed outdoor gardens slash installation spaces. We've also facilitated cultural workshops and have hosted online art shows and events as well as in person. I'm currently attending the Indigenous Visual Culture program at OCAD University. I'm a multidisciplinary artist. I work with a lot of, I guess, natural materials as well as materials that hold semblance to my culture as well. I also work with video and installation. I also have knowledge on, I guess, cultivating plant life and permaculture and, outdoor design and garden spaces.
Host: So, I'm wondering if you can tell me a little bit about the Making With Place project and the work that you've been up to over the past year?
Ayrah: Based on the shared experiences that I've been a part of, the Making With Place project is about researching and documenting the creative necessity of place making. I say necessity because as someone who commits creatively to a concept or a calling, sacrifices have to be made that very, very, very definitively and objectively affect livelihood, stability, survival, these kind of things. Among all mediums, you know, the essential thesis that I was presented to by Phyllis, was commissioned to be a part of this project, was the reality that, a full-time artist must develop the capacity and skills for placemaking in order to survive. Which I have now after a year or so of studiously observing, you know, that idea, deem to be true, you know? Because as a painter or a rapper or a dancer or a cinematographer, you know, it's very rare that after four months in the field, you have your own studio, you have your own office, you have your own home, you know, you're in board rooms and you're on tour, or you're on set full time, paid salary. You know, everybody's got a come-up story where they're couch surfing or living on the street or playing for audiences, you know, making lunch out of an old Tim Horton's cup, or, you know, doing what have you in order to survive functionally enough to create the art that takes them to where they, where they got to essentially. And in that, you know, in-between phase that, you know, society offers first to, as, you know, the, the plight or a conditions of the starving artist, placemaking is a huge element and a huge necessity in terms of making it happen and making sustainable until the quote unquote big break.
Bert: I think for me as an artist, I feel that process is just as important as the final outcome. So, I think like the process of creating, of learning, of having those conversations… to me, that that matters more, if not an equal amount as what the final outcome is, because it is, it is like a learning experience and I think at the end of it, you don't exactly know what the final goal is without all the in-between steps to that. So, process is like a very important part of my art making.
Ammarah: For me, what ended up happening with Making with Place project is I, in the, during the pandemic, I started working, frontline as a community and a harm reduction worker at a COVID-19 isolation site for home, homeless folks. Basically, these folks were on the streets, and, the City of Toronto is essentially worried about people being vectors for COVID, if we're being honest with the blunt truth of it all. And sent them to these hotels to quarantine, where they would get tested, and if they test positive, or they’re, while they were waiting for the test results, they would quarantine in a hotel. So, I worked at one of these hotels, and that's the perspective I was coming from with Making With Place, especially like, cause that was a place that I would, I think, well, everyone was kind of in, everything was in lockdown. I was, I was working at this hotel. So that was kind of a place where me and, I think for me it was like, it became the story of what that entailed and what it entailed to be traveling through the city and witnessing COVID-19 in the midst of, in the midst of everyone being home, me being like out and travelling to work and seeing what's happening in the streets and things like that. And so, positionality also like played in for me, it was like, what something that drew me and something that like, was something, it informed my analysis. I am, I'm South Asian, originally Bihari, and as a peoples that were, the mountainous regions of India were earlier a home too. It was like a really interesting analysis for me. Because I've just witnessed so many different things in the course of my lifespan, especially in what we label as poverty. And so, it was a definitely a very critical lens, that I would hope is intersectionally informed, particularly as someone who was born in the States.
Jahmal: I think for my practice, it was very much about… well, initial, I, I kind of have to say, because it definitely shifted throughout, like over time. But definitely, it was capturing. Like capturing what was happening in the moment, capturing past events and then kind of capturing what was, what was the effect of that previous event, whether that was a week or a few days from, it happening. I definitely, there's definitely have been some like some insights that I've come across through doing that. And also like being, being able to do that with more intention kind of brought up a lot more questions in terms of like me capturing, like, or taking a photo of something or recording something. Yeah, there was a lot more intention to it and also a lot more attention to, or intention towards what I was capturing and why I was capturing it.
Host: The next question I wanted to ask is, what are some of the goals guiding the Making With Place project, and how did these shape and inform your process and approach as an artist-researcher?
Ayrah: In terms of the goals, now this is objectively speaking. The last thing I remember us agreeing upon is deciding what goals are worthy to have. I don't mean that in a way that is vague or redundant. I think what I mean is intersectionality necessitates facilitating conversations across differentials and power created by race, gender, class, sexual orientation, privilege, et cetera, right? And, you know, based on the myriad of intersections that are possible with all of those state induced differences, we'll say, what's important changes. You know, what is important to, you know, a civilian in Regent Park is completely different to what is important to a civilian in Forest Hill. Now, when, if we're speaking from a lens that you know, is critical of classism, we'll give the nod to Regent Park. However, that's not to say that Regent Park knows what the world needs or even what Toronto needs.
So, Making With Place is essentially looking at, you know, the necessity of coming together, no matter what corner of the GTA or Canada or the world you're from, to decide what the implications of the objective truth are. The objective truth insofar as the community arts sector in the city goes, and this is subjective. However, I think has been objectively agreed upon by everyone here, the way that the resources are distributed is kind of bullshit. And that's a conversation that involves everybody, because even though, you know, Forest Hill doesn't experience the marginalization that creates the art, they're funding it in a sense, you know. So, I, and I'm keeping it this vague because that's how it was presented to me. This is an attempt, this is a pilot designed to do the work and the research to have consistent enough conversations, to resource people, to actually make suggestions that are viable enough to try sustaining, if resources are provided to make that possible for a time.
Ammarah: Yeah. I, I, I think it's really important to mention that like, like I don't identify as, as youth, or particularly even like a researcher. And I think a big part of that is that that is funder language, that is, that there is a motivated interest in that, that is that is why, our particular government, funds certain things. I identify as a, an artist, a culture-creator, and, a community, community, worker, community animator, yeah, a culture creator. And so, yeah, I, I think the project, for me, like really became about highlighting those pieces and speaking into, speaking back into the systems of power that we, live, breathe, and exist in every day. In a, in a way that is not often highlighted, we are fed a very specific narrative of how society is, how the world is and given at how we are supposed to be. And I think those things are, I think the world is slowly becoming more and more aware of how those things are not the realistic representation at all. And how it's important to subvert things, and share our perspectives, share who we are and how we experience things, and how we see things that are actually happening on the ground every day.
Ayrah: I raised my hand. I'm only gonna say this because, I think it's big. Especially since, you know, we're having a conversation that is in many ways being hosted by a post-secondary education institution. What, what was said about research, and, you know, funder language, I think a big implication of those sentiments is the reality that, research implies that you don't have the cultural context. People who've experienced things don't need to research them. However, oftentimes they need the language and the formats available, made available by research to document them, which in the case of marginalized art and culture making, are usually things that are inaccessible, irrespective of how intelligent and the necessity of acknowledging those implications in my humble opinion, would, bust the post-secondary educational institution wide open in a way that would actually create, dare I say it, smarter human beings.
Host: Yeah, I'm really hearing you talk about how your creative practice is a way to communicate and articulate these ways of knowing that you practice in your life and know that contest these dominant narratives that shape place and the bodies in these spaces. And how this, this project was an opportunity to use art as a way of contesting these things.
Ammarah: I think that a big part of me stepping into the project was having like a healthy skepticism around or what we're actually doing here. And is this, is this actually using the master's tools to like, in the words of Audre Lorde, are using the master's tools to dismantle the master's house? And, I think that Phyllis and Charlotte were like, actually, we want to hear more of that perspective and how you really feel in the arts about that, like in your work? And I was like, all right, I'm in.
Jahmal: I think I was just straight up skeptical about it. I was like, um… research projects… like anytime in my life when I've ever heard something about a research project involving like humans, I'm like, ‘Ah, I don't know, ’ like, ‘I don't like the sound of this.’ And especially once it gets into, I feel like the, yeah, like I it's weird. Like, I, I think there's, there's one thing about like a physical aspect of it. And then there's another thing when it's like a mental aspect of it. And I'm like, for me, I just kind of pictured, I was like, ‘Oh, are they kind of be like picking our brains for like information or tryna get us to like, act a certain way?’ Like, what is this research part? Like, are they just going to be like researching our daily like activities and what we do, and then kind of coming up with some, like, answer to how we like go about life, which is totally opposite of what like you actually do. So yeah, I was just kinda like, okay, well. But then at the same time, because it was in a way connected to like some folks that yeah, some folks that I trust very much. I was like, okay, you know, I'm going to go into this with like an open mind while also like kind of being cautious of what it entails, like what it's about. Yeah. And then I feel like as, as like, literally as I think, like maybe there was one time we had a, I guess kind of like a, it was like a day where, it was like a breakdown as to kind of what a more, a more better explanation of what the project was about. I was like, okay, this sounds kind of better, but I was still wasn't, I was still unsure as to what exactly it was about. Until, it wasn't until like day one, I think the first Zoom, the first zoom chat where the clarification was fully, fully there. And I was like, oh, okay, this, this is, this is kind of cool. Like research project led by like the artists. Yeah, I thought that was pretty dope.
Pree: Yeah. I can speak to this as well. I previously mentioned how for me, I wasn’t invited into the project. I haven't been staff at Sketch before. I'm just someone that frequents space as a participant. And I, I applied for the artist researcher position after seeing a poster. And like, I often talk about how, like, I grew up really poor. I grew up with a lot of food insecurity and so it's really important to me that I, alongside like other community members are paid for their work. And so for me seeing an artist-researcher position that pays, I was like, you know, whatever it is, like, I'm going to just apply for it and see what happens. And, so because I applied into it and there was an interview process, I remember walking in the room and seeing Charlotte and Phyllis who are both white women and being like, Jesus fucking Christ. Like what have I gotten myself into? Especially because as someone who has a background in academia, like I know that it's often white folks with magnifying glasses holding it up to historically oppressed people. And, yeah, I was also definitely a little bit nervous once I got there and yeah, but through conversation, I realized that like, you know, like maybe this might be okay. Because yeah, much like Ammarah, I felt, I felt that it was necessary to be honest about where I was at in my thinking and yeah, it worked out okay. Kind of like Jahmal as well when I, when we hopped on that initial zoom. Because again, we weren't able to meet in person because the pandemic literally started right when the project did, I saw a few familiar faces like Jahmal and Jess, and I was like, you know what okay, this might be okay.
And, yeah, so definitely some, some questions. I mean, also even with, coming into this podcast opportunity, like when we were at originally received information, I, yeah, even though I'm really familiar with community-based research or like, I've never heard of the term YPAR, I had so many questions and like, I understand what it is. I understand that it's like youth participatory action research. But I just feel like, even the jargon in itself is a barrier. Especially if like me as someone with research experience, couldn't decode that and wasn't familiar with that. And, yeah, like a lot of the documentation that we received, it didn't really, I just felt like it wasn't really spelled out for us in plain language. And I really had to like dig for it to figure out like what it was we were being asked to do, what the connection was. And, yeah. So I think for valid reasons, a lot of us come into this work with a lot of, speculation and concern for like what we're being really asked to do. And, yeah. I'll pass it over to Bert.
Bert: Yeah. I agree with a lot of what everyone has said. Coming into the project too, I, I truly didn't really know what the whole thing was about. Even though Phyllis had explained it. I just, I didn't like really grasp, like, I, I feel like I'm visual. Like I needed it like an outline, like an agenda of like what we would be doing, like what we would be talking about. But I think once coming into it, it was like, so open that we kind of created the space that we navigated and we, we chose what we wanted to talk about. And there was so much going on at that time, too. Like everything had just gone into lockdown, there were protests. So there was, there was so much happening as there is every summer. But yeah, I think going into the project too, as an Indigenous person, obviously, like the funders being two white women, I felt, I just, I didn't like, you know, you don't want to be tokenized in a way as a person, especially when it comes to like, I guess talking about the land and people are looking at you for answers in a way that you don't have answers to their questions.
And I definitely speak up whenever I feel uncomfortable in like a situation like that. I don't allow people to tokenize me or like, look for these answers or look to me to say what they're doing is okay. You know? So yeah, I think that was kind of my fear. That's, that's been my fear, I think, entering like different spaces and presenting myself, like I'm Indigenous, I'm from here. This is all the work I've done. And I think it's like, yeah, you get asked these questions that you're like, I don't have answers to these. Maybe you should, you know, like hire like an Elder and consult with that person for these questions that you want to ask. As far as research, like, I wasn't exactly sure what type of research they were talking about. Like, cause there's research in the academic sense, you're creating like a bibliography and like all that stuff being in university, you know, like research was presented to you in like a very formal way. But I think, yeah, like research in itself, like in your culture, in your upbringing, in your past, like that, those are all like very personal experiences of research, I think. And they're all very individual as well. So, I feel like that's what we all kind of brought to the table was our own experiences of where we were coming from and our own identity with place. But yeah, that's the end of that thought.
Ammarah: Yeah. Just, just speaking to that, what you're saying about like organized formal research, as well as what Bert and Jahmal mentioned, Bert and Jahmal, and, Pree mentioned rather. And Ayrah as well. Well, yeah, I, I have a first furthermore to mention positionality. I have, I have a Bachelor's Degree in, Global Health and Environment, as well as community work, from the University of Michigan. And in my upper-level research classes, we've very often had to do like these kind of case studies around things. And it was extremely aggravating because these researchers quote unquote, would like go into communities and eventually in finally, in what like 2015 finally got to a point where like, ‘Oh, we've found that we gained the most success in these, all these measures of progress in the communities that we work in when we just asked the community what they need.’ And, it's just, it's just such a, I feel like it was such a, it was such an intense, it was such a revealing moment in my career. And in all my careers, career choices of like, actually like, clearly this people don't know what they're doing. And, we, I feel like us, the communities have known what the community needs for time. It's like, you just literally have to listen to the people who live in it, it would be Elders that exist in our communities and things like that. And, like I feel like it was just so, it was just so aggravating to be in these spaces with these people being like ‘We’re going to study you’. But it's like, actually, no. I think we need more different perspectives. I think we need culture creators. I think we need people with intersectional identities speaking into this.
Host: And how do you feel now about thinking about research in your role, or assuming the identity of researcher or artist-researcher in your practice? Has that changed throughout your engagement in this project? Or do you still consider art as a form of research in itself?
Ayrah: No. I feel very confident saying that for me in mine, you know, this is not just to me influencing ideas. Every artist that I know and respect, art is not research. It's observation, because research necessitates due diligence in an arena of life, or human happenings, or even if not human happenings on the Planet Earth that you weren't there for. You know? And if you're making art about it, we we'd hope that you were there. And so, by virtue of that in and of itself, art can’t be research if it's, if it's research, it’s not art.
Pree: I definitely respect what Ayrah said, but I think for me, I feel differently about it. I, I feel like research doesn't have to always have, like white supremacist motivations. And, I think one of the things I really appreciate and learned about being part of this project is just that… yeah, the fact that making art is research, very much like, writing poetry can be research or painting can be research or planting can be research. Because I think you learned something about yourself, or you tap into certain parts of yourself. And I'm not a writer, but I strongly believe that like writing is one of the most revealing research methods. Cause I feel like when you write it just, I think it reveals so many things that you're holding onto, that you haven't maybe yet spelled out, whether it's like in the format of journaling or even just like, if you're doing some kind of formal work. I think that, yeah. There's something so, there can be something so magical about like creating things. And I think that, I think that even when it's just like a smiley face, I think that things have meaning and purpose and yeah, I don't think that, I don't think that research always has to be, tainted by institutions or, it's fucked up history and yeah. And I think that that's why I'm kind of like more of a proponent for community-based research and arts-based research. Because I think that it can be so different than, triangulated research with focus groups and surveys and interviews and whatnot. Like I'm very much more someone that advocates for community consultations, and art-based learning, when I am a researcher on a project as well. And yeah, and like I said, it's, it's really cool being able to be compensated for things that you're already doing, like maintaining your arts practice. It's really cool to just be able to like gather and chat about what you're doing and what you're making and what you're thinking about making, and to have that affirmed, in a way that may not otherwise be affirmed for certain communities. Yeah. I think I'll leave it at that and I'll also pass it over to Bert cause I see a hand.
Bert: Hi. Yeah. I think I really agree with what Pree just said about that process of art-making, being research, because I think that's how I look at, look at research as well. And I've had some really great Indigenous profs at OCAD who, when it's come to like a research project, they've, they've been like, ‘Oh, you can speak with like your family. You can speak with your friends. And that, that counts as research.’ Like you don't necessarily have to have like academic texts or all like all like quoting like quotes of people, but just those conversations and those generational stories that have been passed down, that qualifies as research in my art-making practice as well. So yeah, I do agree with that.
Jahmal: Kind of want to echo off what, yeah what Pree and Bert were saying or saying. Yeah, I think, just the idea, I know for me, just the idea of like, what research can be, was I think very… Yeah, it was, it was, I feel like it was a realization that I definitely needed to refresh in my, in like in my mind. Yeah, like I, I always thought about it that way, but it's like, I feel like as you go, like, as you go about life and as you worry about whatever and like the world as the world moves, you kind of, it, like, I feel like that realization kind of diminishes, or it gets weaker and weaker. And I think the, this was kind of like a wakeup call to remind me that like, ‘Oh, you know, like, yeah, like they're, they're like, this is like asking family members about things or like Elders, like these are all like, this is all research and it's not necessarily just like tied to like going to a library and reading a book.’ Yeah. Yeah, like I just think for me, yeah, it was just the, the realization of, or kind of like, yeah, the refreshment of realizing that, I guess.
Host: Yeah. There's a very real tension between what institutions gatekeep as legitimate knowledge and knowledge production. But in reality, research is happening everywhere and always has been happening everywhere, especially in placemaking and cultural production like what's happening in this project.
Ammarah: I think it's essential here to mention like the, the, the influences of like capitalism and colonialism, the patriarchal systems of power that we live in and what, how they have created research and, and how it's, it's such a… it's been a tool of subjugation for, for time. We're going into this for a land across North America, as well as like several other places in the world, so many, so many other lands of, ‘Oh, we're going to study these people’ and we are going to, you know, like pretty much objectify, commodify, their culture, their tools, their, their lives. And how it consistently is still, is something that still happens and how each of us are, in our identities, in our work in the community taking back that narrative and actually saying actually, ‘No, that's not, that's not the “research” quote unquote, research that we ascribe to, we ascribe to the generations of knowledge passed down to us by our ancestors, by, by our land, by our people, by our culture, by our artists, by us as we exist who, we are in this land that has been stewarded, you know, by indigenous people for, for generations. You know, it's in a reframing of narrative. And so if anything, Making With Place has really driven that point home for me of like, actually, we don't have to ascribe to that narrative. Of course we do, because we live in these systems of power, but in this project, we don't have to ascribe to that narrative anymore.
Host: Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the WhyPAR Podcast. This important and provocative conversation explored so many dimensions of research ethics, artistic practice, and activism, and illustrates the imperative of coming together to interrogate both how and where we locate knowledge through the complexities of identity and place. The generous reflections shared by Pree, Bert, Ayrah, Ammarah, and Jahmal are just the tip of the iceberg of the wisdom they have to share, and I would be remiss if I didn’t conclude this episode with another invitation for you to visit makingwithplace.ca to experience the incredible work they have created.