BmoreArt

Michael Anthony Farley: Let’s start with introductions—a little bit about yourselves and the “elevator pitches” for your practices?

Bao Nguyen: I am a performance artist. I perform around Baltimore in different settings. Usually you will see me doing improvised vocal music, maybe in a solo set, maybe with a crew of other musicians. Besides that practice, I also do theater. I recently had a performance with Submersive Productions. And beside those collaborations, I also have my own performance practice, like “proper” performance art. I recently finished my most recent performance project at The Ivy Bookshop. 

In my performance practice, I do one-on-one performances in outdoor locations. I did a performance at the Jones Falls Trail. I did another one at  St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in their community hall. I usually take one audience member at a time and perform  in character. I take them through a journey on-location, and we have conversations and movements together. It’s a chance for me to observe and listen to other people, and just to be very present with another and see where that moment takes us. 

Nia Hampton: I’m a conceptual artist and cultural worker from Baltimore. I’m a second-generation artist—maybe even third! We recently found my grandfather’s yearbook, where he said he wanted to work in film, so I think that counts.  

I founded a film festival in 2018—Black Femme Supremacy Film Festival—and was able to screen a lot of work, see a lot of work, create a scene that I felt wasn’t here before then. I have been working in various art spaces most of my life. In this program I am developing myself as a conceptual artist because I have kind of always struggled with the form. 

Growing up, I was an extra on The Wire, so I have an acting background. Singing, dance, performing arts—throughout my young life—and then once I got to college, I was like, I didn’t want to perform. I started to hate performing, and so I started writing. I was getting paid to write, so I was like, okay, I’m a writer—I’ve always been a writer—but that felt like the most me thing.  

And then after college, I started traveling and taking photos was just easy. I never really felt like a photographer, because I feel like as a millennial, we’re all photographers—it’s a very hard career for our particular generation. So it never felt like something that was like my thing, as much as it was like a means to an end.  

I think now that I’m in this program and learning more about all the types of ways you can be an artist, “conceptual artist” is what I’m wanting to leave this program with a body of work representing. Because I find that I’m most curious and interested in ideas—and it’s the ways that those ideas come to life that matters less.

Michael Anthony Farley: I’ve only just had the opportunity to know both of your bodies of work in the past couple of days, but it struck me that you have very different practices, and yet things in common. It seems you’re both interested in ideas of “place” and that in both cases a digital image or video ends up being the “art object” the majority of viewers experience? I mean, now a digital image or video is how most people experience any art object—I remember that being a big point of discussion even back when I was in the IMDA program a decade ago with Lexie Mountain. [Read our discussion about our grad school experiences here.

I’m wondering if you could talk about that—if your sense of awareness of medium has changed? What it means to have a practice that maybe didn’t start out with the thought “Oh, the viewer will experience this as a video”? But now we all work with that thought in the back of our minds on some level?

Nia Hampton: I remember when the program started, Bao’s work… the tangible asset was photography. And I feel like you had mentioned something about having a documentary video background? So in my short film, Bao plays the videographer!  Talking about like the way that the art object becomes a digital image, I’ve been saying “I’m an image maker” since being in this program a lot.

It’s funny, the last part of my show that I’m struggling with is graphic design! You know, it’s one of those things that I never studied formally, but as a cultural worker, I was always a graphic design person at my nine-to-five jobs. I’m thinking about how while the image will be digital, the video will be digital, these can be the tools that we use to make something that will eventually not be digital—which would be a physical postcard in my instance—I still have to understand these platforms because I’m a camera girly…  I keep saying one day I’ll learn Adobe Illustrator!

That’s what I like about this program: it feels very practical. Even if I graduate and I stay here and I go into nonprofit work and do comps, or advertising…I’m still using very practical art tools. Even though a lot of folks are painters—or getting into all types of art forms—you still have to know these things. I can appreciate that there’s definitely space to get like, highbrow and do all of these other weird things but I was laughing earlier… graphic art is still haunting me! Like I can’t avoid it! I still have to figure out that stuff in my work—as much as I’m not wanting to do—it is still showing up!

Bao Nguyen: To be very honest, beautiful images are how I remained relevant and marketable as a performance artist in the sense of being able to show people what I’m doing. I have to be quite honest that being able to produce beautiful documentation is an important part of my practice, whether I like it or not.

I think that it became even more important in this program because most of my performance is happening outside—not in the studio— and there’s no way to transport 15 faculty and 10 students to the location to see me perform and then take a big bus to go back! That’s not practical. So the images end up being the way for me to show people what I’m doing and remain legible, quantifiable, qualifiable.

But at the same time, I know for sure that the image is just the surface of my practice because many—if not most—of my performances are not documented. You are not allowed to document them, and the documentation happens specifically at a set-aside documentation session without an audience to be documented, and that is separate from the actual performance itself. Because I still want to have part of my practice away from the view of the camera… or away from being legible to the secondary viewer. And I think that’s important because I think that, yes—in this day and age when images on Instagram have a useful application as a way to gain an audience—I do think that the relationship that you build goes beyond the image.

What happens away from the camera is even more important, and I think that’s what sustained the practice—not just the images, but the relationships outside of those images that I am able to build with people.

Michael Anthony Farley: It’s interesting that both of you mention site-specificity—or maybe you haven’t in this talk with me, actually—but looking at your work I get this idea that place is important to you. Obviously, Bao, your work has a lot to do with site. I’m wondering if you guys could talk about your relationship with Baltimore and how being in Baltimore has changed or informed your practices?

Nia Hampton: Bao, you want to go first? I feel you were sensing the long story that I’m about to do!

Bao Nguyen: Thank you for handing the ball to my court! Yes, I feel like my life story has to do with place. I moved from Vietnam to Chicago, and from Chicago I moved to Baltimore for undergrad at MICA. So early on, the experience of moving to different places made me become highly aware of how places influence the way you think. Different places have different people and also influence the way you move around—different places have different public infrastructure, different ways of transportation.

When I moved to Baltimore, honestly—at the beginning—I didn’t think I would stay in the city.  But then I started to think… the moment when I feel like I really want to stay here. I think there’s a few moments… So I discovered improvised, experimental music in Baltimore through High Zero.  And I was playing improvised music at the Red Room in Normal’s Bookstore. And then after that, I collaborated with Submersive Productions. And those moments of collaboration with people here… I think started to make me realize, “oh, so there is a community of great people here that work together not for their sake of, like, becoming ‘number one’ in the sense of ‘I want to be the best artist in the art world’ but coming together to make something good happen.” And that feels very gratifying. I think getting to know the community of my musicians and theater makers and artists here really makes me want to stay here—that’s why I decided to go into this masters program.

That’s the reason why I decide to stay in Baltimore. I cannot speak for other experiences of the creative community here, but at least for me, seeing other artists’ channeling creative expression should feel very inspiring—especially when creative expression is not driven by a need to be marketable or for some sort of perfection or desire to advance a career. Seeing those moments makes me feel like I can identify and I feel like if I stay here then I can also just make my own thing and DIY my way through it.

The reason why I have access to so many of these different spaces—performing in a church hall or the garden of a bookshop—is because of the connection that I’m able to make with people. You know, let’s say if you are in New York, I think if you want to rent a church hall it would cost thousands of dollars. But here they just give me the key to the entire church… And they just handed it to me, trusting that I would not do bad things in their church!  I think it comes down to how I identify with and feel like I belong to the community here. That’s why I stay here. It’s those interactions that shape my practice.

Nia Hampton: For me, being from here, being someone who was raised in the arts here, it took me leaving to begin to appreciate it. I was explaining this to Lynn, the cohort member. She like so obsessed with my mom—who’s an artist—and impressed. And I was telling her it’s been a historically free city for a long time. You know, it’s not perfect… but if you’re not necessarily fighting overt racism, there’s space to figure other things out in your life.

My grandfather went to Frederick Douglass High School and they had good lives. They had the first integrated decent jobs working for the government, like they were able to get parts of the “American Dream” that other folks in other parts of the country weren’t able to access and other generations aren’t able to access just because it’s not necessarily a thing anymore. And so in that, there’s a little bit more space to be curious about what a non-traditional career might look like. And so my mom was able to become an artist in her own right. She didn’t leave here in a way that maybe would have propelled certain aspects for her, but she was able to develop a voice and really find other people.

I was very lucky from a young age to just have a very rich arts education.

I went to Midtown Academy which was like one of the first charter schools here which is across the street from MICA. Our eight grade graduation was in the Brown Center, and we would often have MICA students come and teach us about art. That was our normal. We used to walk to The Walters art museum—this was the education I thought everybody was getting, and it wasn’t until I got older and got out into the larger world I was like, oh, some people don’t know about these things.

But in Baltimore—similar to probably what a New York upbringing might give—you know, there’s a very solid, entry-level arts education, just by growing up in the city.  And so, for me, I think I got obsessed with leaving here—because that’s what you think if you’re from Baltimore—you gotta “get out” to have better things, at least for the Black people.

I didn’t do the New York thing immediately.  I went to Brazil, and that just kind of opened up the world and I started to understand my place in the world. Place is of course important. It’s the basis of our existence. In a reductive way—just an identity politics way, which a lot of people criticize—you know, we’re all coming from different places, especially in the IMDA program. And so for a lot of people, they’re coming here, but my lived experience is being from here and leaving.

Nia Hampton: I have an experience, I synthesize it, I make work about it, and I move on. I think the fact that I get to go to all of these different places being from a place like Baltimore informs not just how I’m received, but what I’m experiencing. When I started studying abroad, I realized that most study abroad programs are not made for people like me—people who are coming from Baltimore, which is a unique place, even if people don’t know that.

When I would go abroad, I was looking for what the equivalent of “a Baltimore” is in a place like Ecuador, which is a Black city.  And then once I’m in those spaces, I’m privy to things that other people wouldn’t get because your average person studying abroad is a white person or a wealthy person. And they’re not necessarily seeking those experiences—or if they are seeking these experiences, they get a very specific type of experience because they don’t look like the people they’re interacting with. A beautiful thing about being African American is that there’s a lot of Black people everywhere. So I have been able to go to many places and blend in. And I think more recently I’ve been understanding that being from Baltimore kind of gives me an ease in regards to urban landscapes, poverty, Black people.

That’s the whole other thing! I didn’t realize that there were like Black folks who did not grow up around other Black folks, and so they have their own internal things they’ve got to navigate. Whereas I can be comfortable in most places and it’s really worked out for my practice as someone who is very research-based. I have really got to go somewhere and have a feel for it by being in the space, and I don’t know that I would be able to travel and make the work that I make if I did not grow up in Baltimore.

Michael Anthony Farley:  I think one of the big changes with IMDA since my time—which, as a fellow Baltimorean, I appreciate—is that the program has shifted to be much more oriented towards the city campus now, right?

Nia Hampton: We still have certain things [at the Catonsville campus]  if you’re a teaching assistant or for some of the graduate assistantships, but it’s probably more centered in the city than it’s ever been.

Bao Nguyen: Yeah, maybe 50% in Baltimore to 50% in the other campus in Catonsville, but I think it also depends on the person. Maybe for others it’s more like 60% here and then 40% at the main UMBC campus or maybe the other way around.

Michael Anthony Farley: I haven’t been to the new studio space yet, which is insane because I lived like a 10 minute walk away for the past few years! So tell me about the facilities and what the studio spaces are like and the vibe?

Nia Hampton: Well, I’m here now. I love the studio spaces! It’s kind of why I applied—because I just wanted a studio space.  I wasn’t necessarily looking for an MFA program, but then a friend who graduated knew I was looking for a studio and told me to apply! They’ve grown on me a lot. When I first came, I wasn’t used to a work space with no doors! But I appreciate the communal aspect to them. You got a cute little wood shop, which I’ve been using.  I think that’s the most exciting part about this program—that you get to make work and they give you a space to make work. Because you will need space to make work.

Bao Nguyen: In the second year of the program, you can choose a larger studio depending on your work. I really love my studio right now. because I do a lot of paper making, which is like a new thing that I’m getting into, and just having a big floor space to do the messy work of pouring cotton pulp on the floor makes the process easier! And also, it’s a studio—it can be very messy without needing to be constantly cleaning everything up. There’s no way I could do that same paper making process at home… So I appreciate having the space and also just the basic thing of having access to unlimited water.

Michael Anthony Farley:  God, I would kill for a space to make a mess right now! That’s probably the thing I miss most about the studio we had in Baltimore. But I’m also curious about how the technological resources have changed? I’m sure there’s been a lot of advancements even in the ten years since I was there, but even then it was so overwhelming just having access to super HD cameras and professional lighting grids and stuff like that. I wish I had taken more advantage, in retrospect. Do you typically use the university’s cameras for your work?

Nia Hampton: Yeah, we have the video equipment cage and I do cameras a lot. We also have access to cool stuff in the ITE [the Information Technology and Engineering Lab], which I don’t know that much about. I would be interested in stronger courses around how to use those tools in the future. We did have an intro course that kind of briefly introduced the 3D printer and laser cutting and the CNC router, but they aren’t necessarily classes around those. If you have that desire and that drive to like to learn more about those things, it is available to you—you just have to kind of forge it yourself, though.

Bao Nguyen: There[s also a sound recording studio, which I want to get back into. I’ve recently been wanting to produce another album, so we’ll see. And I love the laser cutter in the lab. I use it a lot. There’s also a 3D printer that you can use, computer labs, I love the library.

Michael Anthony Farley: Yes! I could spend days in the AOK Library… it’s such a treasure trove of interesting archival stuff and really good exhibitions. Speaking of exhibitions, tell me about your upcoming open studios… do a lot of people from outside of the program come? That’s one of the things I always appreciated. So many other MFA programs don’t really invite the public in like that.

Nia Hampton: I think last fall was the first time I participated and I invited a ton of people. I do think there’s space for it to be more of an event, but it depends on the folks in the program who are inviting people into their work. Not everyone uses the MFA program to be visible in the community. It depends on what people intend.

I personally like it because people get to see the work and get to have a “gallery experience” without being in a gallery.

That’s what I love: you get time and space to make art and you get attention, but unlike working in the gallery system, your livelihood isn’t necessarily tied to the work.

Michael Anthony Farley: Right! In grad school you can make work people might hate, but you’re not going to go broke because of it!

Nia Hampton:I love bringing people in to see what I’m working on and to get opinions, and open studios always fall around my birthday, so I love using it to draw attention to myself. [laughs]

Michael Anthony Farley: Happy Birthday! I also would imagine that having the studios so relatively close to institutions and galleries is probably great for networking, right? I have noticed how much IMDA grads have been spotlighted in a lot of recent survey shows like Young Blood at Maryland Art Place, which is technically walking distance from you guys.

Nia Hampton: Yeah, I think it definitely can be because each semester is different depending on who’s working in the space and who is promoting it. I do think under [Graduate Program Director] Sarah Sharp’s leadership the program will probably be poised to be a lot more public. I have worked hard to be a more public-facing artist.

Michael Anthony Farley: My friend Lexie Mountain and I made the decision to apply to UMBC together way back in the day, and we were just talking about this earlier this year when we did a little “Ten Year Reunion” chat for BmoreArt—that IMDA feels like a more open-ended “choose-your-own-adventure” MFA compared to a lot of other programs. You have to be self motivated, right? You need to come in hungry. I mean that in a good way!

Not to throw shade at any specific schools, but sometimes when I’m at an art fair I can clock which MFA program a painter went to from across the room based on the fact that so many crank out cookie-cutter artists. But at IMDA there’s no dominant aesthetic. It’s really diverse, and you’re just kinda handed a tool chest with the ability to independently pick how you want to work…

Bao Nguyen: …and then get feedback about that work.

Nia Hampton: Yeah, the critiques are really a unique experience… I’m like, “I wish this was an experience available outside of MFA programs!”

Sometimes it’s good and bad, people comment that I bring people into my studio all the time, because on one hand it’s great that you have a dedicated group of people who watch you grow and your faculty and your cohort members.

But that can also be limiting—if those are the only people that are seeing your work consistently and talking to you about it, you get to a point where you understand that feedback comes from the viewpoint of what the other person does…  Like we all have our thing that we do and every time we’re looking at someone’s work it’s like oh maybe you should do this and it’s like you’re saying that because that’s what you would do!

Which is fine, but I think over time your practices do start to blend. That can be cool. But I constantly want new people to come and tell me things! Especially since I didn’t have a background as a studio artist. I came here instead of film school because I wanted the feedback from a diversity of opinions… sculptors, writers, painters.

I am more and more interested in researchers! I’m starting to realize you can use research grants in the humanities to pay for your practice. I want to talk to everybody! It just opens up the idea of what a “career as an artist” can look like.

Bao Nguyen: Here I also want to add that I think of this program more like a support system for me, rather than an academic structure that’s going to dominate my practice. I’m getting a living stipend, health insurance… it’s a support structure and resources for the parts of my practice that maybe aren’t even contained within the program, if that makes sense?

Nia Hampton: Yeah! You kind of get to experience living as a full-time artist without the stakes being, you know, “if they hate my work will I still have health care?” You get to kind of live in this little bubble for three years and get to use it bravely!