MEI-LING LEE, A TAIWANESE-BORN MUSICIAN, COMPOSER AND PERFORMER,
IN 'THE LIGHTED WINDOWS' VIDEO INSTALLATION
culture does, and that is not what I want to do.”
She was inspired by existing work from Gorman, with
whom she had worked with before on A Critical Conver-
sation, an exhibit examining the intersections of art, race
and privilege, that she produced in conjunction with the
nonprofit Eugene Contemporary Art last year.
A Critical Conversation, which was part of Jordan
Schnitzer Museum of Art’s Black Lives Matter Artist
Grant Program Exhibition, reinvigorated Caprario’s belief
that “art can — and should — connect with folks on these
political and social levels.”
“With A Critical Conversation,” Gorman says, Caprario
“wanted it to be clear that the work was about white
people's responsibility.”
The intent and process of this exhibit is driven by this
same intention, but Caprario talks about continuing to
push her own self reflection in an effort to communicate
on a deeper level with her audience. As she was beginning
to visualize her process and open up the conversation with
Gorman, Calhoun and McKenzie, she asked herself how
she could extend the conversation at work with others
and with herself.
“It needs to go back in,” Caprario explains of her work.
“I need to think about reflection more.”
Self-reflection was the first step, but bringing the poets
into the conversation was what really pushed Caprario in
this project. “It gave me more insight into what I was trying
to do. It encouraged me to keep going,” Caprario says.
An Ongoing Conversation
Calhoun, a poet who lives in Portland and met Caprario
through the nonprofit writers organization Willamette
Writers, describes how collaborating with her and the
other poets has truly been an ongoing conversation.
For this project, “she did not give us any sort of
prescribed prompt” Calhoun says of the artist. The
freedom Caprario gave the poets to write and revise their
own work enhanced the project’s ability to communicate
with an audience.
Calhoun talks about how, throughout the collaboration,
Caprario emphasized wanting audience members to be
able to place themselves within the work. Facilitating a
conversational process between the artist and the poets,
rather than an agenda for the project, was vital to that.
“All four of us kind of approach the topic differently.
There’s value in that.”
Calhoun knew of Caprario’s work and the abstract
beauty she is able to produce in her visual art. “I trusted
her to find that voice that would speak to her art. And
then in turn to create new art out of what the three of us
produced,” Calhoun says.
This is the first exhibit that Calhoun and Caprario have
collaborated on together, while McKenzie and Gorman
were both a part of A Critical Conversation. Each poet
points to the conversational form of this collaboration
as a catalyst for their writing — and for their re-writing.
With the existing work the poets brought to the project,
they dove back into and pushed it to a new level.
“It’s really exciting to see your work reflected in another
artist’s work,” Gorman says. “And I felt confident knowing
her sensitivity and how she works with care on the subject.”
Caprario describes being moved by images in each
of the writer’s poems. “Every word in the poem — if it’s
a good poem — every single word and how it’s phrased is
essential. There’s no waste,” Caprario says. The words
KATHLEEN CAPRARIO'S COLLABORATION 'PATTERNS OF PRIVILEGE: NOW HEAR THIS'
WITH OREGON POETS BENJAMIN GORMAN, BOBBIE CALHOUN AND CARTER MCKENZIE
E U G E N E W E E K LY . C O M
which resonated most with her she rendered into physi-
cal representations on her textiles.
“From Bobbie’s there’s an image of hands reaching out,
and birds and tire tracks. For Ben’s there's sunscreen, the
people protesting and the farm workers. And Carter’s is
the bears. The poem that I can’t get out of my mind by her
references bears. It's so strong,” Caprario says.
Caprario first met McKenzie through Showing Up for
Racial Justice (SURJ), a national organization with the goal
of bringing white people into the fight for racial justice.
The poem Caprario is referring to is titled “Calling for his
Mother — in Memory of George Floyd.”
Collaborating with Caprario shifted McKenzie’s
perspective in the poem. It brought a greater aware-
ness of her own responsibility as a white person.
“When I started the poem, it came out of feeling a
sense of outrage and horror. I was really focused on the
revulsion at the officer, Derek Chauvin, who murdered
George Floyd,” McKenzie says.
But as she began talking with Caprario, she shifted
to looking closer at her own place in society and her own
biases.
“What happened when I was revising was the need to
admit the ways that I’ve been part of this,” McKenzie says.
McKenzie describes the ways she had previously tuned
out systemic racism as damaging to everyone. “Because
white supremacy dehumanizes everyone. It affects white
people differently — they have to do something to tune it
out. To tune out the truth of who’s suffering.”
“I had been treating each shooting and each injustice
as an individual horror. Not as part of a system, so I could
just go back to my life, like it had nothing to do with it,”
McKenzie says. “As long as well-meaning white people
think that racism has nothing to do with them, racism
will persist.”
An Instrument for Change
McKenzie talks about dismantling the idea that poetry
and art should be separate from politics.
“Poems ask questions. They engage people so that
their emotions and memories are involved.” McKenzie
points to this kind of engagement as vital to communi-
cating with an audience.
As she looks ahead to the opening of Social Being,
Caprario says she looks forward to seeing how this is
received. She is eager to see how audience members
identify with the work.
“Does it move people, can they place themselves within
the context of the work?” Caprario asks. “And what does
that do for their understanding and how they perceive
themselves within their community?”
Caprario describes art’s, particularly collaborative
art’s, function as a bridge between individual and struc-
tural change.
“Beauty can be a real instrument for change,” she
says. “And then you’ve got to have structural [change].”
Creating work from where they, as white individuals,
are located was vital for both artist and writers in convey-
ing white responsibility in this piece.
“It’s not Black people’s job to show us how to right
wrongs,” Caprario says. “This is a white problem. It involves
you, but it is more than you. And it’s not right.”
Caprario, McKenzie and Gorman will engage in a Zoom
discussion a week after Social Being’s opening. McKenzie
says they will talk about the role of art in communicating
on social and political issues, and will be happy to answer
questions about the poems and the collaboration process
for this piece.
Then the first Thursday of February, Caprario and the
four other artists who have work in Social Being — Sandra
Honda, Mei-ling Lee, Charly Swing and Kerry Weeks — will
host a Zoom discussion where they will dive into the rich
conversations that emerge from the socially engaged art.
“I want this to be an ongoing conversation,” Caprario
says. “The work doesn’t stop here.” ■
Social Being will be at Maude Kerns Art Center, 1910 E. 15h Avenue,
from Friday, Jan. 14, until Friday, Feb. 11. Suggested donation of $3/
person, $5/family. Zoom discussions will be held 6-7 pm Thursday,
Jan. 20, and Thursday, Feb. 3. More information on gallery hours and
registration for zoom discussions at MKArtCenter.org.
J A N U A R Y
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