August 11, 2022 • 29 mins
How can we leverage the emotional impact of art to change the world? This week, Eva is joined by artist, social justice activist, and co-founder of The Center for Cultural Power, Favianna Rodriguez, to discuss the powerful connection between art, culture, and activism –and how art continues to influence positive change.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to Connections with Eva Longoria. I'm Eva Longoria,
and we have a great episode for you today. I
am obviously super connected to the arts, not only acting,
but I love to paint and I love to so
so I feel like I have a really good connection
to my artistic side. But today we're going to talk
(00:22):
about art and activism and how those two ideas connect.
And I first even related those two concepts years ago
because of our guests today, she's the one that really
informed me of how art and activism go naturally together
and how I could use my work to influence change
(00:44):
every day in small ways and big ways. And you know,
just like art comes in many different forms, so does activism.
There's so many ways we can be politically active or
socially active, and I think it's all about driving change,
whether that's short, political, or environmental or cultural. And I
think art's an easy way for us to digest that
(01:06):
because art is beautiful and a beautiful way to send
a message. So today I'm joined by someone who uses
her art to influence change every day. And her name
has come up on this podcast so many times because
I'm always quoting her. The incredibly talented if f Avianna Rodriguez,
Welcome to the show. Favianna. I'm so excited because I
(01:27):
I do see you quoting me, and I I've always
been looking forward to having like an extended conversation around
these concepts. Well, we care about so many of the
same causes, and you are You're a self taught artist
who has founded organizations that advanced culture, that talk about
social justice, about community organizing about Mother Earth, including the
(01:51):
Center for Cultural Power. So I want you to talk
about all of these things. But at first, how did
you get started as an artist, because I feel like
you came out of the womb artist stick. Yes, yeah, Well,
you know, my my family is from Peru. My father
was Afro Peruvian, and my parents migrated here in nineteen
sixty eight, which was one of, of course, the most
(02:12):
transformative years in world history, right, And when I was
born in nineteen seventy eight. I was born in Oakland, California,
and I lived through the era of the War on Drugs, gangs,
police brutality. My neighborhood was very polluted, and as a kid,
I just had an understanding that things were not right,
and I actually saw a lot of suffering around me,
(02:32):
and yet art. I was always a maker. I love
to create. I love to make things, and art was
a place for me to escape. It was a place
for me to go into my imagination and to also
really share what was happening to me, my family and
my community. Because when I was growing up, there was
no Dora the Explorer. You know, there was frieda Still.
(02:54):
I hardly had heard about frieda Um. The movie Selena
had not come out yet. And so not only were
Latinos very invisible in pop culture, but also coming from
a mixed race family, we were not visible on Spanish
language media. And so for me, art was always a
way for me to tell my story and to make
(03:18):
visible what was happening. And you know, when when my
mom noticed I love to draw, she actually hired a
chola who lived down the street who drew lowriders and
you know, smile now, cry later, and that was my
first art teacher. And then I would see the muralist,
you know, because I grew up in Oakland, this was
the home of the Black Panther Party, So black power
(03:40):
was still very visible in the eighties and the nineties
and hip hop in the streets, and so although my
community was suffering. Art was away that we could tell
our stories and that inspired me, and so my parents
were very much you know, they supported me artistically, but
they were math science. You know. I was in summer
(04:02):
science camp after school math classes. And when I finally
got a full ride to UC Berkeley going towards architecture,
I realized that I just needed to live out my dream.
Uh and the dot com boom had just happened two thousand.
So I taught myself how to code and created my
first web design studio and that kicked off my art
(04:23):
studio and I kind of never looked back. I dropped
that school and I became an artist. That's so amazing
that your your parents kind of saw that in you
and supported it because I think, you know, in the
Latino culture, it is like go get a job, go
get that paycheck, get out of the bario and so
it's so beautiful that you had parents that really nurtured
(04:43):
that artistic side. Did you find any whenever you entered
the space? Did you find barriers because you were a
woman or because you were Latina? Absolutely, and in fact,
you know, this is the work I do today. So
number one, there was no arts programs in my school,
in my school with mostly black brown kids. Number two
is that we were I was so busy getting my
(05:04):
requirements to get into college that having an art class
in high school was just not possible. And when I
finally decided to go to art school, I went. I
flew to New York City to Cooper Union to show
them my portfolio. I had not been able to develop
a body of work because I didn't have the resources
as a teenager or as a child. And so when
(05:25):
I finally decided to try to go to art college, well,
guess what. Art schools in this country are the most
expensive institutions with very little financial aid. And we now
know today that very few kids of color are going
to art school. So we actually have a problem with
barriers all across And I experienced those I experienced that
(05:48):
I wouldn't get accepted into art school. People didn't understand
what I was talking about. Do you think the problems
you had when you started art school have changed? Like?
Have you seen a more accessible world for people of color?
You very very little. And we can, you know see
this just by turning on the television. You know, we
(06:09):
get excited because we have shows like Viva are entified
only to learn, you know, a few seasons in that
these shows don't get renewed, and so there's a crisis
in how power is concentrated in the cultural sector because
it's not just film and television, it's the visual arts,
it's the performance arts, it's theater, it's music, and it
(06:31):
is not reflective of who lives in this country. I mean,
we still live in an art world that largely believes
in a black and white paradigm. Right, they don't see
Latino artists, they don't see Asian artists, they don't see
Muslim artists, and so the barriers exist at every single
point in artist's career. And that's actually the reason why
(06:52):
I decided to create an organization, because we have systemic
racism occurring in every single cultural sector. And I think
we also have to understand we are in a time
of cultural war. So people who have their levers on culture,
it's a very powerful place to be. And I think
a lot of times we think that politics is very powerful,
(07:16):
but culture is the most powerful because culture is really
where you shape the collective imagination. Right when did you
make that connection? Because that's where I found you. I
found a YouTube video of you doing a speech about
how culture really affects change, right, like culture makes policy,
not not policymakers. Right, that's correct. What is your message
(07:40):
about how culture changes societies? Well, you know, my the
generation that came before me, and you know, I was
mentored by the Black Panthers, and they taught me that
art and culture shape politics. And you know, when I
was growing up in California was the place where anti
immigrant policy was test did so I began to draw
(08:02):
the connections between what you would see on TV and
the anti immigrant policy. Right, and especially in the eighties,
I mean the war on welfare, right, the war on
drugs was a cultural war. It was a narrative war,
but I would say it was. In the year two thousand,
I was very involved in social movements, uh, and what
(08:22):
I realized is it's not enough for us just to
contribute art to social movements. We need to build power
in the cultural realm. And so, with a lot of
other brilliant thinkers, people like Jeff Chang, who has written
a lot about this, we decided that it was time
to get more sophisticated around how we thought about arts
(08:45):
and activism. And we began to write about and really
create almost a think tank around the power of culture.
And then when we began to understand things like stop
smoking campaign, I mean, the reason smoking ended was largely
because Hollywood decided to make a pivot. If we think
about the AIDS crisis in the eighties, why did it change.
(09:06):
It's because the AIDS quill right narrative storytelling with visuals,
you had act up right, you had all of these
cultural moments that helped shift ideas. We also have to
recognize in the eighties, Reagan gutted the n e A
because remember there was gay artists doing art, and he
gutted the federal moneys for the arts. So we are
(09:28):
existing in a country that has systemically divested from the arts.
First of all, if we even think about how arts
started in this country, art started because a lot of
the white colonial settlers wanted to be like the Europeans.
They wanted their museums. A lot of the major white
families who made money from slavery, they put their money
(09:48):
into major museums, opera's ballets. So a lot of the
art institutions in this country for hundreds of years were
reflecting one point of view, and it was mainly for
are the entertainment and uplifting of white culture. And even today,
you know, for the first time, Biden elected a Puerto Ricana,
(10:09):
Maria Rosario Jackson to help guide the n E a
first time, first time. So we have to understand that
cultural infrastructure in this country has not been equitable and
as a result, when we ask ourselves, oh, why do
we have such a homophobic culture, why do we have
(10:30):
gender and justice? Why are we still talking about abortion,
it's because we have not had the storytelling and the
cultural infrastructure to shift hearts and minds. Speaking of infrastructure,
(10:51):
do you think social media has changed all of this?
Like now, like I know with you your Instagram is
amazing and super vocal and loud and visual, right, and
I feel like now you can disseminate that artistic message,
that social justice message, environmental message at the click of
(11:11):
a button instead of actually having to do an exhibit,
having to get a gallery, having to make posters. Like
how do you think social media is bridged that infrastructure dilemma?
What's actually technology? Right? And you know this from Web
one point oh actually allowed people to have a presence
that's did in before Web two point oh, and now
(11:32):
we're moving into web three point. Oh. The thing that
we have to understand when I talk about equity, let's
talk about cultural equity. Because cultural equity means that we
are represented. And it's three things. It's representation, power, and access.
So we might have representation on Instagram, but I do
(11:53):
not have power to change algorithms or to really reach
my audience. And this is actually why I talk to
artists and I really encouraged them to create institutions because
we need to build our boards. We need long term wealth,
cultural wealth for the next generation. That that's something that
you know, the artists of the sixties and seventies left
(12:16):
very little cultural infrastructure for my generation. But that wasn't
their fault. I mean it was because the United States
government really did all it could to to smash that movement.
But not only is it about being represented, it's how
are we shaping powerful institutions? And then access, access, access,
and and you know, this has been a big conversation
(12:38):
in TV and film is that, yes, we have a
lot of talented people, but what are the access pipelines?
And then at the end of the day, if you
just have these largely white male boards, how are we
really building lasting power for ourselves. Yeah, if we're not
the gatekeepers. This happens in publishing. We can't get published
as if we're authors, right, because we're not the gatekeepers
(13:01):
of the publishing industry. So there is definitely that problem
across all industries. Absolutely. The thing I like about what
you do is people can gravitate to art and they
don't know why. They think it's aesthetically pleasing. They like
the color, they like the sculpture, they like the whatever
it is. And then when you explain to somebody, well,
(13:22):
you know this is representative of the oppression of women,
as this woman comes out from the flower, and then
they go, oh, it's so it's such an easy way
into getting people to think differently. Yeah, and I can
I could explain why that is so. First, human beings,
since the beginning of time, we have been sitting around fires,
(13:43):
telling stories and writing on capes. We are wired for storytelling.
It is a part of our d n A. What
neuroscience teaches us is that when the human body reacts
with senses, whether it's their emotions visually, like what you taste,
what you hear, your body has a reaction that actually
(14:05):
attunes you to change your mind. Right. This is why
when you watch very powerful documentaries, or you might hear
a song that just moves you, there is something that
is sparked in you. That is the power of art,
and that touches people much more than a ten page report.
And this is very important for us to understand because
(14:25):
it means that as human beings, not only are we
wired for storytelling, but we have to be very mindful
of what kind of stories we tell, and as we've
learned from the last administration, very actively people can use
cultural tools against us. You can activate white nativism. I mean,
(14:45):
you know, Trump was an extremely powerful storyteller and even
the idea of make Erica great again. It's a very
compelling narrative. And this is how humans work. And I
think sometimes in politics we think like, well, we have
the data, we have the information. If we're not speaking
to people's hearts and making art and culture and really
(15:07):
doing it at a scale that can compete with our opposition,
because our opposition is investing in culture. You see it
through their radio shows, through the YouTube shows. I mean,
they are going big in gaming. I can't even you know,
it's we're not We're not doing that at scale, and
it's it's part of the reason why we're not winning well.
(15:30):
And you know, it's so interesting you say that, because
there's symbols that I feel certain parties of hijack, Like
I love the American flag, but I get anxiety if
I see sometimes an American flag somewhere and I'm like, oh, no,
that's a Trump supporter, right. I was like, no, I'm patriotic.
Why Why can't I have an American flag outside my
house without it being hijacked? Why did they hijack the
(15:52):
word patriot? Right, I'm a patriot. A red baseball hat
gives me anxiety, you know what I mean. And they're like, no, no,
that's just Ain fan or whatever. I'm like, Okay, I
get these symbols are kind of related, right, yeah, symbols
in language. I mean, you know one thing that I
am really heartbroken about is how they co opted the
(16:13):
notion of life, of being pro marketing, the marketing of that.
We lost the market the pro choice people every I'm
pro life too, and you know, pro life, like not
just that, but in the age of climate crisis, we
need to protect all of life, including our forest, our
oceans are rainforest, and it's we we are at a
(16:36):
real intersectional point where we have to take it back
and those things can happen. I believe they can happen.
But you're right. Think about the power of symbols, and
on our side, the power of the fist, the pink triangle,
the symbol of the earth. These are symbols that already
activate a memory in us. And I also believe it's
(16:57):
because I think nature, of course is the most power orful.
You know, when we see butterflies, there is something happening
in our d n a. We just know that it's
a powerful symbol. Well, what's interesting because you have to
really think about how your words have power and so
just like art can obviously affect you, words to have
(17:18):
emotional poison. Language. Well, when I talk about culture, it's
actually it's everything. It's language, music, symbols, even you know,
how we express ourselves, our movements. And this is why
I think when we're thinking about building cultural power, we
have to use all of these tools. And it's just
(17:39):
as important as who you elect and how you get
marching in the streets and protesting. What are some of
the most powerful art movements you've seen the well you
(18:00):
you're doing this, the beautiful thing, the park that you're doing. Yeah.
So this has been a really wonderful project for me
because I grew up in a polluted community that is
mostly black and lucky Necks. My community lives eight years
less than people just two miles up who are mostly
in white communities. And I still live in the neighborhood
(18:20):
I grew up. Uh, And I think to myself always,
you know, we didn't have any voice in deciding which
freeways got built, and overwhelmingly, when you think about climate crisis,
the truth is that it's black and brown and immigrant
communities who live in neighborhoods without trees. They live near
oil extraction sites, we live next to freeways. We are
(18:42):
being poisoned. And because I grew up in a concrete city,
I hardly had access to nature. In fact, there's hardly
any trees in my neighborhood. And so as I've been
becoming an environmentalist over the last decade, I really realized
that at core of our fight for mother Earth is
(19:03):
rebuilding and healing our relationship to nature and the national parks.
Like many institutions after when this country had a moment
of racial reckoning. The national Parks recognizes it's problematic history
of exclusion. And in San Francisco, the Presidio National Park,
(19:24):
which was actually built on a former military site that
was polluted. It got cleaned up and I got invited
to help imagine what is the park of the future
where people from all over California can come. And so
my project what it was, it was actually around recognizing
that what that land was right before colonization, before the
(19:47):
Spanish came, before the colonials came, during the gold Rush,
it belonged to the Alonei people and there was elk
and mountain lions and grizzly bears, and so I wanted
to honor that history because what my project is about
is we can't repair the future unless we look to
the past, and we have to have truth and reconciliation,
(20:08):
whether it's around slavery, whether it's around what happened on
these lands, the theft, the genocide of indigenous people. Because today,
in the age of climate crisis, it's indigenous people who
are protecting the world's biodiversity. So I created this installation
and it's just wonderful. I mean, when people go, when
the children go, they just are really taken aback by
(20:32):
the colors. This is the first thing they say. They say, oh,
the colors, and I say, yes, I actually wanted to
disrupt the sterility of this park. And as a Latina,
you know, my mom would bring me moolas from Panama.
My mom would bring me little sculptures from Menzalvador. We
would go to Mexico. Like color is a part of
(20:52):
my culture, and so it helped. The project at the
National Park is a huge success. And I'm working with
a project also in Hollywood. It's called the Climate Storytelling
Playbook around how do we tell more stories about Mother Earth?
Because sadly, you know, Hollywood has done a horrible job
from less than three percent of scripted TV shows even
(21:18):
mentioned climate, and we are in the age of climate catastrophe.
And if Hollywood is around the story of humans today,
we have to talk about climate change. And so for me,
I see my work as really helping to give artists
tools to talk about the most challenging issues of our time,
(21:38):
which of course includes climate. Right. So speaking of that,
when you're like, there's a lot of factors that are
working for evil, right, Like there's a lot of people lobbyists, corporations,
money hungry people. What can the normal human being do?
What would you love to see people do more of?
(22:00):
In relation to art and activism, well, the beautiful thing
about art and culture is that we are not about
an issue, right, We're not about just climate change or
abortion or just racial justice. The power that we have
as artists and as creators is we can imagine a
different kind of world. We can imagine a world in
(22:22):
which all human beings can thrive in harmony with nature.
The most wonderful thing about being an artist is that
we can have an idea that maybe it is not
politically feasible now, but it allows us to dream. It
allows us to move the conversation, to change the narrative.
(22:43):
And so I really encourage people to leverage the power
of their imagination and to imagine what kind of world
do you want to see? And how are you manifesting that,
how are you supporting artists? You know, I want to
see a world in which all genders are included. So
for me, it's very important to fight for transgender rights,
to support transgender content creators. For me, as somebody who
(23:07):
recognizes that we live in the world that really mistreats
people with disabilities. I want to make sure that I'm
including that in my worldview, that I'm following disabled artists,
that I'm I'm helping to watch television shows that feature
these stories. And so I think that we can learn
the best of art and think about the future that
(23:30):
we want, and then see what artists are helping us
get there. We are at a time of cultural change
that's unprecedented in our human history, and that's the intersection
of pandemic, global economic crisis, global racial reckoning, and climate
catastrophe around the world, and so people are becoming disillusioned.
(23:53):
We're pulling back the curtain on these systems and saying
these systems actually don't work. But what are the stories
that we're presenting instead? Right, we can't just be about
our no. We have to be about our yes and
what does our yes look like? I know you were
involved in times of We know that we don't want
a world of sexual harassment, we don't want sexual abuse,
(24:15):
But what kind of world do we want? What does
a sexually healthy culture look like? And how are we
supporting those kinds of stories? You know, artists, content makers,
And so I invite people to really think about your
yes and try to manifest that. You can find the
artists you can live those values out in your own life,
(24:36):
because that's the power of art and that's how we
can inspire each other. It's so great. You also have
a lot of video guides on your website of how
to get in if people want to go to Fabiana
dot com. It's such You have such a great Instagram,
like your whole aesthetic is so of course you're an artist.
It's so beautiful, but it's welcoming, like it's super cheerful
(24:58):
and happy, and it's not preachy. It's like, come in,
let me, let me show you some stuff. I just
think it's so beautiful. Well, I love I feel like
I'm a I'm a joyful person and I'm very much
about my yes. And for me, my yes is about joy.
It's about transforming the world. We can do it in
a joyful way. It's a very feminine way of leading.
And you know, when I was growing up, there was
(25:20):
a lot of men and it was about you know,
fighting and struggling, and that was what we needed at
the time. But today we need a different kind of leadership,
and we need a leadership that is soft and is
loving and caring, just like Mother Earth. I feel like
if we can mimic nature and we can be interconnected
(25:40):
and caring and center care and think about the next
generation and center our joy, that that's a very different
kind of transformation that we can achieve. And so that's
what I try to embody and be as an artist.
And I feel so lucky to be an artist because
I can lead in a different way and show people
(26:02):
another future, and I can make it like it's not
just in my brain, it's in what I create with
my hands. And so, you know, one last thing I
would actually share with your listeners is that we really
need more people of color to support their children and
being creatives. We need the next generation of creatives to
(26:27):
really be bold because they're going to be going up
against an old infrastructure, but we need them. It's not
just about math and science and law. You know, By
the way, studies show that math and science improve when
you are artistic as well, or are really supports the
brain and abstract ways that helps math and science. So
(26:47):
I totally agree. So the last question I usually ask
all of my guests is what is a book you
would recommend people to read? I would recommend the book
Braining Sweet Grass by rob In wall Kimmer, and I
really love this book because it has helped me understand
(27:08):
Indigenous worldview around how we relate to the environment. And
as an environmentalist, I've been really collaborating and supporting indigenous
leadership and I've been trying to think about what is
it that feels different, And it's actually understanding that the
natural world, the trees, the oceans, everything we grow, is
(27:29):
a very dynamic body and if we can learn to
tune in, we will have not only a better healthier
relationship with ourselves, but we will just have a wonderful
relationship with the world around us. And so I've been very,
very transformed by that book. Changed the way I garden.
I learned about the Three Sisters, I learned about you know,
the viase, and it's it's just helped me really value
(27:52):
my time in nature. Wow, that's such a beautiful idea.
Oh yeah, it's wonderful. And you know, Robin wall Kimmer
is one of the leading Indigenous women thinkers that is
really helping folks have a different language to how we
connect to nature, which is so important. I mean, just
standing outside barefoot is you know, not not proway something. Yeah. Well,
(28:18):
thank you so much, Babiana for speaking with me today.
I adore you and I applaud everything you're doing. Thank you, Evan,
Thank you so much also for being a champion to
so many women of color. I mean you not only
talk about it, you be about it. So I really
appreciate this time. Oh, thank you so much for listening.
(28:42):
I'm happy to be connected with you. Connections with Eva
Lamgoria is a production of Unbelievable entertainment in partnership with
I Hearts Michael Bura podcast Network. For more podcasts from
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or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome back to Connections with Eva Longoria. I'm Eva Longoria,
and we have a great episode for you today. I
am obviously super connected to the arts, not only acting,
but I love to paint and I love to so
so I feel like I have a really good connection
to my artistic side. But today we're going to talk
(00:22):
about art and activism and how those two ideas connect.
And I first even related those two concepts years ago
because of our guests today, she's the one that really
informed me of how art and activism go naturally together
and how I could use my work to influence change
(00:44):
every day in small ways and big ways. And you know,
just like art comes in many different forms, so does activism.
There's so many ways we can be politically active or
socially active, and I think it's all about driving change,
whether that's short, political, or environmental or cultural. And I
think art's an easy way for us to digest that
(01:06):
because art is beautiful and a beautiful way to send
a message. So today I'm joined by someone who uses
her art to influence change every day. And her name
has come up on this podcast so many times because
I'm always quoting her. The incredibly talented if f Avianna Rodriguez,
Welcome to the show. Favianna. I'm so excited because I
(01:27):
I do see you quoting me, and I I've always
been looking forward to having like an extended conversation around
these concepts. Well, we care about so many of the
same causes, and you are You're a self taught artist
who has founded organizations that advanced culture, that talk about
social justice, about community organizing about Mother Earth, including the
(01:51):
Center for Cultural Power. So I want you to talk
about all of these things. But at first, how did
you get started as an artist, because I feel like
you came out of the womb artist stick. Yes, yeah, Well,
you know, my my family is from Peru. My father
was Afro Peruvian, and my parents migrated here in nineteen
sixty eight, which was one of, of course, the most
(02:12):
transformative years in world history, right, And when I was
born in nineteen seventy eight. I was born in Oakland, California,
and I lived through the era of the War on Drugs, gangs,
police brutality. My neighborhood was very polluted, and as a kid,
I just had an understanding that things were not right,
and I actually saw a lot of suffering around me,
(02:32):
and yet art. I was always a maker. I love
to create. I love to make things, and art was
a place for me to escape. It was a place
for me to go into my imagination and to also
really share what was happening to me, my family and
my community. Because when I was growing up, there was
no Dora the Explorer. You know, there was frieda Still.
(02:54):
I hardly had heard about frieda Um. The movie Selena
had not come out yet. And so not only were
Latinos very invisible in pop culture, but also coming from
a mixed race family, we were not visible on Spanish
language media. And so for me, art was always a
way for me to tell my story and to make
(03:18):
visible what was happening. And you know, when when my
mom noticed I love to draw, she actually hired a
chola who lived down the street who drew lowriders and
you know, smile now, cry later, and that was my
first art teacher. And then I would see the muralist,
you know, because I grew up in Oakland, this was
the home of the Black Panther Party, So black power
(03:40):
was still very visible in the eighties and the nineties
and hip hop in the streets, and so although my
community was suffering. Art was away that we could tell
our stories and that inspired me, and so my parents
were very much you know, they supported me artistically, but
they were math science. You know. I was in summer
(04:02):
science camp after school math classes. And when I finally
got a full ride to UC Berkeley going towards architecture,
I realized that I just needed to live out my dream.
Uh and the dot com boom had just happened two thousand.
So I taught myself how to code and created my
first web design studio and that kicked off my art
(04:23):
studio and I kind of never looked back. I dropped
that school and I became an artist. That's so amazing
that your your parents kind of saw that in you
and supported it because I think, you know, in the
Latino culture, it is like go get a job, go
get that paycheck, get out of the bario and so
it's so beautiful that you had parents that really nurtured
(04:43):
that artistic side. Did you find any whenever you entered
the space? Did you find barriers because you were a
woman or because you were Latina? Absolutely, and in fact,
you know, this is the work I do today. So
number one, there was no arts programs in my school,
in my school with mostly black brown kids. Number two
is that we were I was so busy getting my
(05:04):
requirements to get into college that having an art class
in high school was just not possible. And when I
finally decided to go to art school, I went. I
flew to New York City to Cooper Union to show
them my portfolio. I had not been able to develop
a body of work because I didn't have the resources
as a teenager or as a child. And so when
(05:25):
I finally decided to try to go to art college, well,
guess what. Art schools in this country are the most
expensive institutions with very little financial aid. And we now
know today that very few kids of color are going
to art school. So we actually have a problem with
barriers all across And I experienced those I experienced that
(05:48):
I wouldn't get accepted into art school. People didn't understand
what I was talking about. Do you think the problems
you had when you started art school have changed? Like?
Have you seen a more accessible world for people of color?
You very very little. And we can, you know see
this just by turning on the television. You know, we
(06:09):
get excited because we have shows like Viva are entified
only to learn, you know, a few seasons in that
these shows don't get renewed, and so there's a crisis
in how power is concentrated in the cultural sector because
it's not just film and television, it's the visual arts,
it's the performance arts, it's theater, it's music, and it
(06:31):
is not reflective of who lives in this country. I mean,
we still live in an art world that largely believes
in a black and white paradigm. Right, they don't see
Latino artists, they don't see Asian artists, they don't see
Muslim artists, and so the barriers exist at every single
point in artist's career. And that's actually the reason why
(06:52):
I decided to create an organization, because we have systemic
racism occurring in every single cultural sector. And I think
we also have to understand we are in a time
of cultural war. So people who have their levers on culture,
it's a very powerful place to be. And I think
a lot of times we think that politics is very powerful,
(07:16):
but culture is the most powerful because culture is really
where you shape the collective imagination. Right when did you
make that connection? Because that's where I found you. I
found a YouTube video of you doing a speech about
how culture really affects change, right, like culture makes policy,
not not policymakers. Right, that's correct. What is your message
(07:40):
about how culture changes societies? Well, you know, my the
generation that came before me, and you know, I was
mentored by the Black Panthers, and they taught me that
art and culture shape politics. And you know, when I
was growing up in California was the place where anti
immigrant policy was test did so I began to draw
(08:02):
the connections between what you would see on TV and
the anti immigrant policy. Right, and especially in the eighties,
I mean the war on welfare, right, the war on
drugs was a cultural war. It was a narrative war,
but I would say it was. In the year two thousand,
I was very involved in social movements, uh, and what
(08:22):
I realized is it's not enough for us just to
contribute art to social movements. We need to build power
in the cultural realm. And so, with a lot of
other brilliant thinkers, people like Jeff Chang, who has written
a lot about this, we decided that it was time
to get more sophisticated around how we thought about arts
(08:45):
and activism. And we began to write about and really
create almost a think tank around the power of culture.
And then when we began to understand things like stop
smoking campaign, I mean, the reason smoking ended was largely
because Hollywood decided to make a pivot. If we think
about the AIDS crisis in the eighties, why did it change.
(09:06):
It's because the AIDS quill right narrative storytelling with visuals,
you had act up right, you had all of these
cultural moments that helped shift ideas. We also have to
recognize in the eighties, Reagan gutted the n e A
because remember there was gay artists doing art, and he
gutted the federal moneys for the arts. So we are
(09:28):
existing in a country that has systemically divested from the arts.
First of all, if we even think about how arts
started in this country, art started because a lot of
the white colonial settlers wanted to be like the Europeans.
They wanted their museums. A lot of the major white
families who made money from slavery, they put their money
(09:48):
into major museums, opera's ballets. So a lot of the
art institutions in this country for hundreds of years were
reflecting one point of view, and it was mainly for
are the entertainment and uplifting of white culture. And even today,
you know, for the first time, Biden elected a Puerto Ricana,
(10:09):
Maria Rosario Jackson to help guide the n E a
first time, first time. So we have to understand that
cultural infrastructure in this country has not been equitable and
as a result, when we ask ourselves, oh, why do
we have such a homophobic culture, why do we have
(10:30):
gender and justice? Why are we still talking about abortion,
it's because we have not had the storytelling and the
cultural infrastructure to shift hearts and minds. Speaking of infrastructure,
(10:51):
do you think social media has changed all of this?
Like now, like I know with you your Instagram is
amazing and super vocal and loud and visual, right, and
I feel like now you can disseminate that artistic message,
that social justice message, environmental message at the click of
(11:11):
a button instead of actually having to do an exhibit,
having to get a gallery, having to make posters. Like
how do you think social media is bridged that infrastructure dilemma?
What's actually technology? Right? And you know this from Web
one point oh actually allowed people to have a presence
that's did in before Web two point oh, and now
(11:32):
we're moving into web three point. Oh. The thing that
we have to understand when I talk about equity, let's
talk about cultural equity. Because cultural equity means that we
are represented. And it's three things. It's representation, power, and access.
So we might have representation on Instagram, but I do
(11:53):
not have power to change algorithms or to really reach
my audience. And this is actually why I talk to
artists and I really encouraged them to create institutions because
we need to build our boards. We need long term wealth,
cultural wealth for the next generation. That that's something that
you know, the artists of the sixties and seventies left
(12:16):
very little cultural infrastructure for my generation. But that wasn't
their fault. I mean it was because the United States
government really did all it could to to smash that movement.
But not only is it about being represented, it's how
are we shaping powerful institutions? And then access, access, access,
and and you know, this has been a big conversation
(12:38):
in TV and film is that, yes, we have a
lot of talented people, but what are the access pipelines?
And then at the end of the day, if you
just have these largely white male boards, how are we
really building lasting power for ourselves. Yeah, if we're not
the gatekeepers. This happens in publishing. We can't get published
as if we're authors, right, because we're not the gatekeepers
(13:01):
of the publishing industry. So there is definitely that problem
across all industries. Absolutely. The thing I like about what
you do is people can gravitate to art and they
don't know why. They think it's aesthetically pleasing. They like
the color, they like the sculpture, they like the whatever
it is. And then when you explain to somebody, well,
(13:22):
you know this is representative of the oppression of women,
as this woman comes out from the flower, and then
they go, oh, it's so it's such an easy way
into getting people to think differently. Yeah, and I can
I could explain why that is so. First, human beings,
since the beginning of time, we have been sitting around fires,
(13:43):
telling stories and writing on capes. We are wired for storytelling.
It is a part of our d n A. What
neuroscience teaches us is that when the human body reacts
with senses, whether it's their emotions visually, like what you taste,
what you hear, your body has a reaction that actually
(14:05):
attunes you to change your mind. Right. This is why
when you watch very powerful documentaries, or you might hear
a song that just moves you, there is something that
is sparked in you. That is the power of art,
and that touches people much more than a ten page report.
And this is very important for us to understand because
(14:25):
it means that as human beings, not only are we
wired for storytelling, but we have to be very mindful
of what kind of stories we tell, and as we've
learned from the last administration, very actively people can use
cultural tools against us. You can activate white nativism. I mean,
(14:45):
you know, Trump was an extremely powerful storyteller and even
the idea of make Erica great again. It's a very
compelling narrative. And this is how humans work. And I
think sometimes in politics we think like, well, we have
the data, we have the information. If we're not speaking
to people's hearts and making art and culture and really
(15:07):
doing it at a scale that can compete with our opposition,
because our opposition is investing in culture. You see it
through their radio shows, through the YouTube shows. I mean,
they are going big in gaming. I can't even you know,
it's we're not We're not doing that at scale, and
it's it's part of the reason why we're not winning well.
(15:30):
And you know, it's so interesting you say that, because
there's symbols that I feel certain parties of hijack, Like
I love the American flag, but I get anxiety if
I see sometimes an American flag somewhere and I'm like, oh, no,
that's a Trump supporter, right. I was like, no, I'm patriotic.
Why Why can't I have an American flag outside my
house without it being hijacked? Why did they hijack the
(15:52):
word patriot? Right, I'm a patriot. A red baseball hat
gives me anxiety, you know what I mean. And they're like, no, no,
that's just Ain fan or whatever. I'm like, Okay, I
get these symbols are kind of related, right, yeah, symbols
in language. I mean, you know one thing that I
am really heartbroken about is how they co opted the
(16:13):
notion of life, of being pro marketing, the marketing of that.
We lost the market the pro choice people every I'm
pro life too, and you know, pro life, like not
just that, but in the age of climate crisis, we
need to protect all of life, including our forest, our
oceans are rainforest, and it's we we are at a
(16:36):
real intersectional point where we have to take it back
and those things can happen. I believe they can happen.
But you're right. Think about the power of symbols, and
on our side, the power of the fist, the pink triangle,
the symbol of the earth. These are symbols that already
activate a memory in us. And I also believe it's
(16:57):
because I think nature, of course is the most power orful.
You know, when we see butterflies, there is something happening
in our d n a. We just know that it's
a powerful symbol. Well, what's interesting because you have to
really think about how your words have power and so
just like art can obviously affect you, words to have
(17:18):
emotional poison. Language. Well, when I talk about culture, it's
actually it's everything. It's language, music, symbols, even you know,
how we express ourselves, our movements. And this is why
I think when we're thinking about building cultural power, we
have to use all of these tools. And it's just
(17:39):
as important as who you elect and how you get
marching in the streets and protesting. What are some of
the most powerful art movements you've seen the well you
(18:00):
you're doing this, the beautiful thing, the park that you're doing. Yeah.
So this has been a really wonderful project for me
because I grew up in a polluted community that is
mostly black and lucky Necks. My community lives eight years
less than people just two miles up who are mostly
in white communities. And I still live in the neighborhood
(18:20):
I grew up. Uh, And I think to myself always,
you know, we didn't have any voice in deciding which
freeways got built, and overwhelmingly, when you think about climate crisis,
the truth is that it's black and brown and immigrant
communities who live in neighborhoods without trees. They live near
oil extraction sites, we live next to freeways. We are
(18:42):
being poisoned. And because I grew up in a concrete city,
I hardly had access to nature. In fact, there's hardly
any trees in my neighborhood. And so as I've been
becoming an environmentalist over the last decade, I really realized
that at core of our fight for mother Earth is
(19:03):
rebuilding and healing our relationship to nature and the national parks.
Like many institutions after when this country had a moment
of racial reckoning. The national Parks recognizes it's problematic history
of exclusion. And in San Francisco, the Presidio National Park,
(19:24):
which was actually built on a former military site that
was polluted. It got cleaned up and I got invited
to help imagine what is the park of the future
where people from all over California can come. And so
my project what it was, it was actually around recognizing
that what that land was right before colonization, before the
(19:47):
Spanish came, before the colonials came, during the gold Rush,
it belonged to the Alonei people and there was elk
and mountain lions and grizzly bears, and so I wanted
to honor that history because what my project is about
is we can't repair the future unless we look to
the past, and we have to have truth and reconciliation,
(20:08):
whether it's around slavery, whether it's around what happened on
these lands, the theft, the genocide of indigenous people. Because today,
in the age of climate crisis, it's indigenous people who
are protecting the world's biodiversity. So I created this installation
and it's just wonderful. I mean, when people go, when
the children go, they just are really taken aback by
(20:32):
the colors. This is the first thing they say. They say, oh,
the colors, and I say, yes, I actually wanted to
disrupt the sterility of this park. And as a Latina,
you know, my mom would bring me moolas from Panama.
My mom would bring me little sculptures from Menzalvador. We
would go to Mexico. Like color is a part of
(20:52):
my culture, and so it helped. The project at the
National Park is a huge success. And I'm working with
a project also in Hollywood. It's called the Climate Storytelling
Playbook around how do we tell more stories about Mother Earth?
Because sadly, you know, Hollywood has done a horrible job
from less than three percent of scripted TV shows even
(21:18):
mentioned climate, and we are in the age of climate catastrophe.
And if Hollywood is around the story of humans today,
we have to talk about climate change. And so for me,
I see my work as really helping to give artists
tools to talk about the most challenging issues of our time,
(21:38):
which of course includes climate. Right. So speaking of that,
when you're like, there's a lot of factors that are
working for evil, right, Like there's a lot of people lobbyists, corporations,
money hungry people. What can the normal human being do?
What would you love to see people do more of?
(22:00):
In relation to art and activism, well, the beautiful thing
about art and culture is that we are not about
an issue, right, We're not about just climate change or
abortion or just racial justice. The power that we have
as artists and as creators is we can imagine a
different kind of world. We can imagine a world in
(22:22):
which all human beings can thrive in harmony with nature.
The most wonderful thing about being an artist is that
we can have an idea that maybe it is not
politically feasible now, but it allows us to dream. It
allows us to move the conversation, to change the narrative.
(22:43):
And so I really encourage people to leverage the power
of their imagination and to imagine what kind of world
do you want to see? And how are you manifesting that,
how are you supporting artists? You know, I want to
see a world in which all genders are included. So
for me, it's very important to fight for transgender rights,
to support transgender content creators. For me, as somebody who
(23:07):
recognizes that we live in the world that really mistreats
people with disabilities. I want to make sure that I'm
including that in my worldview, that I'm following disabled artists,
that I'm I'm helping to watch television shows that feature
these stories. And so I think that we can learn
the best of art and think about the future that
(23:30):
we want, and then see what artists are helping us
get there. We are at a time of cultural change
that's unprecedented in our human history, and that's the intersection
of pandemic, global economic crisis, global racial reckoning, and climate
catastrophe around the world, and so people are becoming disillusioned.
(23:53):
We're pulling back the curtain on these systems and saying
these systems actually don't work. But what are the stories
that we're presenting instead? Right, we can't just be about
our no. We have to be about our yes and
what does our yes look like? I know you were
involved in times of We know that we don't want
a world of sexual harassment, we don't want sexual abuse,
(24:15):
But what kind of world do we want? What does
a sexually healthy culture look like? And how are we
supporting those kinds of stories? You know, artists, content makers,
And so I invite people to really think about your
yes and try to manifest that. You can find the
artists you can live those values out in your own life,
(24:36):
because that's the power of art and that's how we
can inspire each other. It's so great. You also have
a lot of video guides on your website of how
to get in if people want to go to Fabiana
dot com. It's such You have such a great Instagram,
like your whole aesthetic is so of course you're an artist.
It's so beautiful, but it's welcoming, like it's super cheerful
(24:58):
and happy, and it's not preachy. It's like, come in,
let me, let me show you some stuff. I just
think it's so beautiful. Well, I love I feel like
I'm a I'm a joyful person and I'm very much
about my yes. And for me, my yes is about joy.
It's about transforming the world. We can do it in
a joyful way. It's a very feminine way of leading.
And you know, when I was growing up, there was
(25:20):
a lot of men and it was about you know,
fighting and struggling, and that was what we needed at
the time. But today we need a different kind of leadership,
and we need a leadership that is soft and is
loving and caring, just like Mother Earth. I feel like
if we can mimic nature and we can be interconnected
(25:40):
and caring and center care and think about the next
generation and center our joy, that that's a very different
kind of transformation that we can achieve. And so that's
what I try to embody and be as an artist.
And I feel so lucky to be an artist because
I can lead in a different way and show people
(26:02):
another future, and I can make it like it's not
just in my brain, it's in what I create with
my hands. And so, you know, one last thing I
would actually share with your listeners is that we really
need more people of color to support their children and
being creatives. We need the next generation of creatives to
(26:27):
really be bold because they're going to be going up
against an old infrastructure, but we need them. It's not
just about math and science and law. You know, By
the way, studies show that math and science improve when
you are artistic as well, or are really supports the
brain and abstract ways that helps math and science. So
(26:47):
I totally agree. So the last question I usually ask
all of my guests is what is a book you
would recommend people to read? I would recommend the book
Braining Sweet Grass by rob In wall Kimmer, and I
really love this book because it has helped me understand
(27:08):
Indigenous worldview around how we relate to the environment. And
as an environmentalist, I've been really collaborating and supporting indigenous
leadership and I've been trying to think about what is
it that feels different, And it's actually understanding that the
natural world, the trees, the oceans, everything we grow, is
(27:29):
a very dynamic body and if we can learn to
tune in, we will have not only a better healthier
relationship with ourselves, but we will just have a wonderful
relationship with the world around us. And so I've been very,
very transformed by that book. Changed the way I garden.
I learned about the Three Sisters, I learned about you know,
the viase, and it's it's just helped me really value
(27:52):
my time in nature. Wow, that's such a beautiful idea.
Oh yeah, it's wonderful. And you know, Robin wall Kimmer
is one of the leading Indigenous women thinkers that is
really helping folks have a different language to how we
connect to nature, which is so important. I mean, just
standing outside barefoot is you know, not not proway something. Yeah. Well,
(28:18):
thank you so much, Babiana for speaking with me today.
I adore you and I applaud everything you're doing. Thank you, Evan,
Thank you so much also for being a champion to
so many women of color. I mean you not only
talk about it, you be about it. So I really
appreciate this time. Oh, thank you so much for listening.
(28:42):
I'm happy to be connected with you. Connections with Eva
Lamgoria is a production of Unbelievable entertainment in partnership with
I Hearts Michael Bura podcast Network. For more podcasts from
my Heart, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
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