By Matias Alvial (Gallatin BA’19)
“Pill Time, Ladies” is a self-portrait that tracks my progress on antidepressants. It is a work that celebrates the possibility of getting better, hints at the fear of drug dependence, and dramatizes my mania (for instance, the euphoric feelings of thankfulness and overconfidence).
Read more about the creative process here IG: @matialvial
By Aine Nakamura (MA ’20)
By Vivian Xing (Gallatin BA ’22)
#Mood is a continuation of my exploration of storytelling still life photography. As I have always been interested in how different colors are associated with a specific type of mood, I incorporate the theme of color in this series of images to showcase different emotions/states that I go through. The process of making this series allows me to slow down my everyday life and refocus on my inner self. These images are an honest analysis of my mental states throughout the project. By presenting this project, I encourage viewers also to take some time, pay attention to their inner feelings, and embrace them.
Vivian Xing is a sophomore at Gallatin, originally from China. Before transferring to Gallatin, she studied photography and sociology. Now she is exploring the intersection of art, business, and sociology, which mainly focuses on how to use visual art and design as conversation starters for social problems. With a keen awareness and genuine care of the environmental, economic, and social problems brought by capitalism, Vivian is always questioning what changes we could make collectively and how visual strategies could encourage changes in consciousness around those issues.
By Kwami Coleman (Gallatin Professor)
Two tracks from the 2017 album Local Music, where the music revolves around field recordings from my home neighborhood, Harlem. One is a more straightforward trio piece called “Vestiges,” which is based on melodic motifs that are fashioned after those in older styles popular in Harlem, like boogaloo and R&B, and “Youth” which features a field recording of young men playing basketball very competitively and having a spirited talk on the block afterwards.
Vestiges from Local Music by Kwami Coleman Trio
By KC Trommer (Assistant Director of Communications)
When the train picks up speed, it sounds like a woman screaming,
one woman all over the city, releasing her heat in a high, steady wail,
smearing her red mouth along the tunnel walls. I make and unmake myself.
When the doors open, anyone can come in, anyone does. I circle back
downtown, leave the book open on my lap, look over the map
that lays out the routes. The city is a muscle; we feed it. The woman across
from me shrivels up her face, sticks a finger in each ear to kill the sound of
the train rounding into Queensboro Plaza. My hands are warm
on my lap: they are for making and unmaking. I thumb the seam
of the sketchbook open while the city sits and waits, indifferent and unblinking
like all gods. My mouth is a siren, my body mine to make.
Wherever I go, I am this woman. Whoever needs erasing, I erase.
KC Trommer is the author of We Call Them Beautiful (Diode Editions, 2019) and the chapbook The Hasp Tongue (dancing girl press, 2014). She is the founder of the online audio project QUEENSBOUND. She holds an MFA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she was awarded an Academy of American Poets Prize. Her poem “Fear Not, Mary” was selected by Kevin Prufer as the winner of the 2015 Fugue Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in AGNI, The Antioch Review, Blackbird, LitHub, Prairie Schooner, The Sycamore Review, VIDA, and in the anthologies Resist Much, Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance (Spuyten Duyvil, 2017) and Who Will Speak for America? (Temple University Press, 2018). She is the Assistant Director of Communications at NYU Gallatin and lives in Jackson Heights, Queens, with her son.
Published April 13, 2020
The sTans are Nina Katchadourian (Gallatin Professor) and Lisa Liu (https://lisaliuguitar.com/ ).
The sTans recently put out: https://thestans.bandcamp.com/releases
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