An Interview with Lov/Ethic
This week we had the pleasure of interviewing Abbi Abraham and Alejandra Sanchez from Lov/ethic an organization focuses on how we are able to strengthen our communities and collective liberation through love. We are thrilled to be hosting their immersive art gallery in the space this month.
Monica: I’d love for you guys to share a little bit about your background and hobbies, and how you got into work like this?
Alejandra: My name is Alejandra. I grew up in New York City, and I have always really cherished a lot of the collectivist values that I grew up with. I was born in Ecuador, and I think a lot of my life, I experienced moments where individualism reigned, and I felt really out of place in spaces like that. And so I think as I grew up and I surrounded myself with people that more so aligned with my values, it made me realize the importance of having rituals in like communities, like spaces and times where you like hang out as a collective and can strengthen and deepen your bonds that are beyond party culture, or going out for a drink, or just not necessarily being able to have a present conversation. Moving out of my parents' apartment and starting living in Bushwick has expanded my horizon, and I have learned that there are so many really cool spaces hosting community events. I started attending a lot of events from different organizations such as Strother School of Radical Attention. There's also a studio called Kaleidoscope that has really cool gallery events and arts and crafts nights. All of these are super affordable or free. That really inspired me to start something of my own and to kind of add to these nodes of resistance against individualism.
Abbi: I'm Abbi. I'm from Northern Virginia/Washington DC. And yeah, my current career is based in film, which is not necessarily a departure from the project that we're working on, but it's also pretty collectivist, all hands on deck practice that I've appreciated, not only as a way to express myself and to help build the creative vision of others, but also because it does build community around labor that and creativity, and I really thrive in those environments. I also, in the past, have worked in organizing concerts for musicians and artists, and from small house shows to festival sized concert or kind of small festival sized concerts. That also was another community building activity where I'm working really closely with creative people and helping them realize their mission and overall carry an experience that is satisfactory and also kind of spiritually nourishing for all. I moved here in September in Brooklyn, and also have been exploring various third spaces, including ThirdSpace, and trying to find communities and event programming that really aligned with my interest, but also didn't have a barrier of entry and Ale approached me with this idea based off of conversations that we've had around the Brooklyn community and around our desire to see something kind of artistic expansion upon that we had a conversation and and she asked, “Do you want to create a showcase?” And I was like, yes, caveat, let's figure out what we really want to delve into,, what exactly this will be, and what kind of experience we want to make and how we want people to come in and to leave our space. And so we took some time to really kind of nail down the thematic elements and our principles, our values and experiment and play with the ways that people engage with art exhibitions, and that's what you'll see on July 20.
Monica: Thanks for sharing. I learned a lot because I know some of your background, but not all of it. So it's really cool to hear sort of how you got to this path. It sounds like both of you have a lot of interest in collaboration and see it as a lens of creativity, and see organizing community as your lens of creativity. How do you think that this event, Lov/ethic, is sort of a reflection of how creativity can be used in community organizing?
Ale: Great question, I think for me finding creative ways to help folks engage in difficult conversations is a really big part of my activism. One of the inspiring pieces for this work is the book by Adrianne Marie Brown called “Pleasure Activism.” I think that pleasure has a place in a radical movement. I see my role in this larger movement of liberation and kind of freeing ourselves from cycles of oppression and colonialism that generally make people unhappy, as creating pleasurable experiences where people would come into community, or lean into their community and have a space to check in with one another and also hold each other accountable. For example, using an art event as a way to also fundraise for Gaza and for organizations that are doing a lot of political education in New York is pleasure activism. I think that that's kind of, to me, a creative solution to a lot of the disconnect and disillusionment and nihilism that people are experiencing. I see art as a vessel, as a way for people to come together and look at really beautiful interpretations of life and also come into community and engage with one another and have these conversations and not shy away from from the fact that horrible things are happening every day in our lives, and they will probably continue to do happen unless we create sustainable change in our community. So to me that’s where creativity comes in. How do you get people to engage with you without scaring them away? People shy away very easily from hard conversations. And I just want to create more spaces where people are comfortable introspecting.
Abbi: And I think when we are just as invested in the details of the event as we are in the larger structure, and the aims and goals of the event when we were planning, we were considering at least three different general spheres: we were thinking about the social aspect, the educational aspect and then the aesthetic, creative, artistic aspect. If you provide educational material it may boost the social aspects or make that outweigh the other elements of the event, and also vice versa.If you make education or if you add text everywhere and give people tons of pamphlets and historical background and context, you know, that begins to kind of overshadow other parts. And we're hoping to aim for a balance to all three, but we're particularly cognizant of how the social is so crucial in terms of connection. But I also think there easily can be created a toxic social environment that disengages people from the environment, from the art, especially working so closely with all of our artists and knowing artists in our lives, they're sensitive about their own work and are hoping for positive reception. And in an environment where people aren't inclined to speculate and consider the work in front of them, but instead to chat with friends and kind of mingle around might make them [the artist] feel discounted. So we're trying change that through certain elements, we're going to provide these cards, not so much conversation cards, but more so contemplation cards, that just give prompts that connect both the themes of the events and themes within your own life, the work, and encourage people to have conversations about it with others. We're trying to construct this event in a way so people fully immerse themselves in our mission and and maybe try something new, which could be really thinking about work and really thinking about how it's grounded in kind of either the real world or real ideas, and create really fruitful conversations with those around them, and even the artists too. So, yeah, I think that's where the creativity lies. It's like, how can we make this experience as dynamic, as fluid, as grounded in love as possible. That required a lot of throwing different ideas out there, tweaking ideas. And we're still, every single time we meet, we go over both big and small aspects of the event and I think that our creative process is continuing, and we'll even continue after we hear some feedback from people and see where the event goes.
Monica: Yeah, I love that. I think the idea of engagement is so interesting right now, because there's so many ways in which people just are disengaged. And I think being more and more virtual it just becomes easier and easier to disengage. And I even see it on social media, even with myself, I'm scrolling through but I'm not actually looking at what I'm scrolling through. And I think that's part of the reason why ThirdSpace seemed so important to me, because I felt we needed a facility for people to engage in. Just creating a vessel for people to engage, I think is so valuable. And like you said, you don't really have control over what's going to come out of that situation. But I think bringing people to a space where they know the intention really changes the game. Because when someone goes to a bar or a restaurant, they kind of know, like, I'm here to sort of check out a little bit and sort of have fun and sort of not be engaged. But when you set the intention of a space like this is a third space, or this event is an interactive, engaging event. You're giving people the mindset to approach what they're about to experience, and kind of like priming them. And I think that's also why this concept seems interesting to me too, because it's encouraging people to engage. And I think, like you said, that's, that's kind of the first step to getting people interested in in participating in hard conversations,
people to feel safe. There's a place for them to go do that, which is a little contained. I think people have trouble with just, like, Well, what do I do now? Also, after I've had this these different conversations, here's all these resources, here's fundraising efforts, here's people that you can create community with. Here's like, people you can do it with. You know, now that you have all this information, instead of just looking at pictures of Gaza on Instagram, you have people who you can band together with. So, tell me a little bit more about the organizations that the proceeds are going to, the donations.
Ale: So the first organization we chose is called the Bronx Anti War Coalition. We were thinking about our backgrounds and the fact that we grew up in America. We know that the human crises that are happening internationally are caused by the United States. So to me, it's important that we not only fundraise for one of the most horrible crises right now, which is the ongoing genocide in Palestine, but at simultaneously educate ourselves to prevent these massacres. There are so many political education opportunities offered by organizations like The People’s Forum that allow us to be aware of diverse narratives and stray away from American propaganda. Prevention is a huge part of living by love ethic, which can only be done by nurturing our relationship to political education and knowledge acquisition. Abbi is taking a really cool course at the People's Forum on Marxism and how it's applicable to today’s political climate, and I think that that is so inspiring. I also have a lot of friends who are very much on the ground, a lot of friends who have been in the encampments in Columbia. So to me that is all part of also this greater resistance, so that we can continue to prevent any kind of proliferation of these negative or terrible mindsets that can continue internationally. In terms of immediate aid to Gaza, we are also donating to Gaza Kinder Relief Fund. They provide medical aid for children who are in war zones, as well as ongoing medical treatment, obviously, after they have suffered horrendous injuries as a cause of war.
Monica: That's fantastic. I think it gives people even more incentive to come and know that they're able to be a part of something, even if it's just attending an art show to contribute. Tell me a little bit more about how you curated the artists and the run of the show and what that's going to look like.
Ale: It's funny because I don't really have experience curating an art gallery but I do think of myself as more of a vibe curator. I think I have a good idea of what kind of environment makes people feel safe and what elements are required to make an impact on participants. Having gone to a lot of different events around the city helped me a lot. Abbi and I did a lot of research where we attended as many events and exhibitions. I remember there was this one art gallery where there was an opera singer, and he was inspired to sing certain pieces based on the art. I thought that it was cool seeing those different mediums interacting with one another. So that was a really cool piece of inspiration. Going to the Strother School of Radical Attention also provided me ways in which like performance art can also be related to activism. One of the people who works at the Strother School of Radical Attention is one of the performance artists. I feel like we're just both really blessed that we have people in our lives who are artists and who are actively creating art. So it's been really cool. The process has more so been about seeing more if our mission statement resonates with people. Does this make sense to you? Do you like this? Do you feel like your art speaks to this? So yeah, that was kind of like our process, like the research and then seeing within our network who we thought would resonate with this.
Abbi: And I mean, neither of us come from a fine art or curation background, and we had our own networks, it's such a blessing to be able to support friends, to support people that I've admired for so long. It was a pleasant coincidence that all the work on the show is really deeply tied to what our event is around, and incorporates other themes, but at its core is talking about love, is talking about intimacy, is talking about community. We were limited to a gold mine of fantastic kinds of tools, and working with them has been great. We have everything from architecture to performance art to painting to photography to documentary filmmaking to weaving, to zines, we've got zines! And I think we also wanted to just include the variety of kind of love the mediums and kind of the different senses that they awaken within all of us. We wanted to have that be as diverse as possible. And we want people to come at the beginning and really take their time with all the pieces, since they're so rich and it can be kind of viewed from so many different angles, some are immensely immersive. Cam My Nguyen and Melina Huang, two of our artists have created an architecture, film and zine, and even more, for their exhibit that's all centered around self love. And it kind of just shows the expansiveness of self love and also how it's been devalued by culture, by larger Western society as narcissism and vanity, but is a really fruitful resource for us to all tap into and to realize boundlessness of ourselves. And so they've created this very boundless exhibition. And so, yeah, I think it takes time to really kind of examine all these, and I think with the other material provided to help guide people through, it'll, I think it'll be really refreshing to experience.
Monica: It sounds like there’s going to be a wide array of things that people will be experiencing here, and there will be a lot to take in. What do you hope that people walk away from the experience? Or what's your hopes for the future?
Abbi: I think ultimately, the one thing that I've learned from holding events in the past is that you can't guarantee the participants or the audience members. You can't guarantee their attendance. You can't guarantee their enthusiasm, and you can't guarantee the impact but you can darn try to do everything you can to give them the best experience that they can get, and so that's something we're certainly going to do. But I hope that this event lingers in their mind. I hope that it brings them peace. I hope that the questions that they may ask themselves, that the event asks of themcontinue to be themes that they draw back to. I hope that, if they feel so inclined, they could create another space like this, or explore and examine these same themes or other kind of parallel themes that come to mind through their own creativity, through an exhibition.I think we're trying to unlock an act of love and not a kind of passive, disengaged mode of experiencing the world. And so if this makes you feel more active, if even just seeing us putting this all together as something that makes you realize that you can also put your own labor into something you love, and for that to be produced that would be a dream. And I think I hope that we're trying also to, through our Instagram as well, create a digital platform and a bit of an archive of what this event will be, you know, pre and post. And so I hope that the community that we are trying to cultivate continues to feed and give back to that, or find some solace from that and continue to contemplate their questions and be more intentional in their relationships and in their art, in their life.