Phelan’s Library (Inflating Agitation), 2022
36” x 64”
inkjet photographic print
Inflating Agitation is a series by Related Tactics that features an inflatable/deflatable monument base temporarily installed in sites that speak to local community histories, particularly those linked to labor & social justice movements and the wounds of white supremacy. In this photograph, we deployed the piece at the former estate of Senator James Phelan, a dedicated arts patron who was one of the architects of the Chinese Exclusion Act and campaigned for office with posters declaring “Keep California White.”. We deliberately leave visible the energy and mechanisms (the blower & generator) that are needed to keep it activated to acknowledge that unlike a marble edifice, the memory of these histories must be refreshed and tended to in order to keep the stories alive in public discourse.
Frank Bartley (Inflating Agitation), 2022
36” x 54”
inkjet photographic print
In this photo, the inflatable/deflatable has been tucked into the greenery at Aquatic Park in Berkeley, near the site where Frank Bartley, a young gay man whose murder by vice police in 1969 was one of the radicalizing events in local gay rights movement building. The surface design of the deflatable suggests a plinth marked by guerrilla graffiti during national protests, subsequently painted over in blocky institutional gray–an acknowledgement that even without a figure upon its platform, the object continues to serve as a site for public negotiation and intervention around collective memory, power, and knowledge building.
Crystal White Cleanliness (Inflating Agitation), 2022
36” x 54”
inkjet photographic print
In this photo, the deflatable is squeezed into a pier in Berkeley honoring the Peet/Colgate-Palmolive factory that once operated nearby. In 1961, their workers went on strike, advocating for a union. In archives, images of the largely Black protesters contrast with advertisements extolling the cleaning power of the company’s products, including Crystal White Family Soap.
Collected Landscapes, 2022
5.25” x 3.5” each (set of 51 prints)
inkjet print
Collected Landscapes is a set of 51 vintage postcard prints (one from each State and Washington D.C.) that featured colonial and confederate monuments that have been digitally altered to erase those markers, leaving only the ghostly trace of the former presence within view. The seeming tranquility of the remaining landscape image belies the violence not only of the current struggle to dismantle monuments celebrating racist figures, but the processes of colonialism, war, and capitalist expansion that asserted control over these vistas and the people who lived within them. These ‘backdrops’ are themselves part of a scopic regime structuring knowledge and power and serve as a reminder that those systems are in operation whether or not these monuments visibly exist in a community. Installation detail of 5 of the 51 prints.
Disclosure: The Whiteness of Glass, 2022
approx. 27’ x 20’ x 9’
digital prints, hand-blown glass, drawing media on paper, neon, polycotton blend hoodie with sweat, plywood, plaster and plaster bandages, graphite, carbon, styrofoam, burnt shirt, test tubes, rubber stoppers, and collectively gathered sweat
Disclosure is a project by Related Tactics that examines systemic racism and exclusion in the field of glass and in the arts more broadly. The collective invited 13 artists of color to reinterpret data about the demographics of the field as a starting point for building a creative imaginary between and among them. In a structure reminiscent of a game of telephone, the project unfolded in three iterative stages of interpretation: data visualizations by Related Tactics; artist instruction responses by Einar & Jamex de la Torre, Cheryl Derricotte, Emily Leach, Corey Pemberton, Ché Rhodes, and Joyce Scott; and glass responses by Victoria Ahmadizadeh Melendez, Pearl Dick, Raya Friday, Vanessa German, Helen Lee, and Kim Thomas. The resulting objects, images, and ephemera in the installation are the residue from this dialogue. Installation view at Corning Museum of Glass (2023).
Disclosure: The Whiteness of Glass, 2022
approx. 27’ x 20’ x 9’
digital prints, hand-blown glass, drawing media on paper, neon, polycotton blend hoodie with sweat, plywood, plaster and plaster bandages, graphite, carbon, styrofoam, burnt shirt, test tubes, rubber stoppers, and collectively gathered sweat
Installation detail of Disclosure at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (2024). In the foreground is one collaborative thread: The struggle for people of color to identify legacies of other artists of color fractured and hidden by white supremacy (re-imagined) by Related Tactics, Cheryl Derricotte, and Pearl Dick. Immediately behind it to the left is Temporary approaches to change exhaust resources and erode trust (re-imagined) by Related Tactics, Corey Pemberton, and Kim Thomas. Related Tactics’ visualizations expand on the abstracted language of data infographics to delve into the lived experience of navigating the field as artists of color that is not reflected in quantitative data. Artists creating instructions in the second phase took a variety of approaches, from the poetic to direct prompts with researched citations. And the artists in the studio phase worked expansively, utilizing formal, conceptual, and social frameworks to interpreting offerings from earlier stages.
Disclosure: The Whiteness of Glass, 2022
approx. 27’ x 20’ x 9’
digital prints, hand-blown glass, drawing media on paper, neon, polycotton blend hoodie with sweat, plywood, plaster and plaster bandages, graphite, carbon, styrofoam, burnt shirt, test tubes, rubber stoppers, and collectively gathered sweat
Installation detail of Disclosure at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (2024). In the foreground is the collaborative thread: “The shape of living as a perceived threat (re-imagined)” by Related Tactics, Einar & Jamex De La Torre, and Helen Lee. The title of threads is taken from the caption Related Tactics created for our drawings, each giving a sense of the theme in that grouping. The De La Torre brothers’ instructions expanding on our drawing included a long research document reflecting on the history and cultural symbol of the hoodie, including accompanying drawings. Lee took an iterative, experimental approach to expanding on their instructions, using the material of the hoodie to create sand cast and blown glass impressions of the clothing, as well as wearing the hoodie while working in the studio to collect the sweat generated in creative labor–which also led to her invitation to the rest of the cohort to collect vials of their sweat to include in the installation.
Disclosure: The Whiteness of Glass, 2022
approx. 27’ x 20’ x 9’
digital prints, hand-blown glass, drawing media on paper, neon, polycotton blend hoodie with sweat, plywood, plaster and plaster bandages, graphite, carbon, styrofoam, burnt shirt, test tubes, rubber stoppers, and collectively gathered sweat
Installation detail of Disclosure at the Center for Craft (2022). In the foreground is the collaborative thread: Surviving as the anomaly created by white supremacy(re-imagined) by Related Tactics, Ché Rhodes, and vanessa german. Related Tactics’ data visualization can be seen in the left stand, with Rhodes’s instructions in the center. His prompt outlined a detailed social engagement project, with references to Black craft histories and possibilities for mentorships and paths for access. german’s work includes a variety of drawings, glass and plaster heads and vessels. In the studio, her creative process was deeply collaborative, working with other cohort members to help her fabricate objects while she sang and improvised poetry in a creative performance ritual. Among the glass objects is a small glass cluster, the first glass object she created directly, speaking to the ways the supportive, co-created studio environment fostered the ability to take new risks for all involved.
Who Else But Americans, 2022
8380” x 16.5” (full extension)
accordion folded inkjet print of 3 photographs taken every 2 miles of the Transcontinental Railroad
The title of Who Else But Americans is drawn from an infamous speech given by Leland Stanford at the Golden Spike ceremony in 1869 celebrating American exceptionalism in the completion of the f irst transcontinental railroad. This piece traces the railroad’s span using images pulled from online sources; stopping every two miles along the route to take three screenshots (referencing the estimated 3 lives lost for every 2 miles of track laid). Our project is a memorial to those lives lost, and situates this story within the long history of communities of color conscripted into processes of settler colonialism and environmental extraction. The mundanity and repetitiveness of many of the images emphasizes the ways the US’s violent legacy has been deeply naturalized in how we look at this terrain, the infrastructure that stitches it together, and the digital maps that guide us through that space. Installation view of the project at the Institute for Contemporary Art - San Jose (2024).
Shelf Life, 2019
4.5” x 2”
publication with instructions and stickers
Shelf Life is a starting point for examining larger systems of power a reader might overlook for the merits or enjoyment of an individual book through a series of actions for reflecting on how knowledge is constructed. The artist publication contains prompts that invite readers to reflect on how our collected knowledge may be incomplete, even if there are some sections that feature a diversity of voices. Are there other areas where we may need to seek out more authors, resources, or publishers, and continue expanding our perspectives? Shelf Life notably asks readers to sticker categories of books that might otherwise be viewed as normative, therefore the unmarked, invisible center. In this view, the cover and two page excerpts are visible. This edition of Shelf Life was designed and distributed by Sming Sming Books.