SPARK
SI-023, from issue 4, 2022.
Occupying a Non-violent Action Space
Nikki Juen is a relational designer. Her work encourages the respectful and equitable design of relationships. For her, Relationships are not solely about the objects of design, they are also about interactions between humans, ideas, buildings, cities, countries and networks.Lead by Nikki, Brick x Brick is a public art performance that builds human “walls” against misogyny. During the wall performances, participants wear brick-patterned jumpsuits adorned with colourful brick patches bearing statements of misogynistic violence made by Donald Trump.
NJ Students that I am teaching now are concerned with: racism, sexism, violence against underrepresented marginalized populations, equity, mental wellness, and safety. They are incredibly aware of the rampant amount of trauma coming out of the last two years and the traumas that were happening before but are exacerbated by the pandemic. For example, I had a Mexican student who had just graduated. She opened up an American History book and created a publication about all the people held in cages on the border between Mexico and the United States. She put an American flag on the history book and simply asked: “Why is this missing?”. She later told me that it was so empowering for her to ask that question. If she had done that at any other point in her studies, no one would listen to her. Teachers should know how to mediate difficult conversations across differences. How can difference and diversity be an asset to the classroom?
UDÖ How does your background as a graphic designer play reflect on your teaching practice?
NJ As designers, we learn and think through art-making. We can put our ideas in test situations, even more challenging environments like making of performances. For instance, my work BrickXBrick talks about building walls to take walls down. No one needs to do anything except put the suit on.
UDÖ It still takes a lot of courage to go to Trump Tower for a protest on his birthday. So what was the public’s reaction to this quiet form of protest?
NJ The founders of the project experimented with chanting, singing, and dancing. Using joy and movement to disrupt has happened over decades in the United States. That felt liberating to the performing individual, but sometimes it also felt dangerous or exhausting. There was so much emotion coming out of the election of President Trump. We knew what was coming when we stood with 35 performers in front of the Providence State House during the 2015 elections. That’s why we were so up and arms. The suits are brick-patterned, and each of those bricks repeats something Trump spoke about woman’s bodies. People approach your body to read his words when you stand in a line. It’s intimate. At that moment, people start crying. Seeing those words corresponding to us standing in silence was way more powerful than anything we could chant. Bodies became the resistance itself.
NJ Trump was all about rhetoric and using words to degrade aspects of our society. There were no amount of words that could combat that. We realized that our strength was occupying a non-violent action space. That made us be able to infiltrate spaces like the Trump Tower. We could go in with the suits in our bags and wear them once we are inside. The moment you put them on, they make you feel powerful. Many people have never been to a protest, but the suit created a very low barrier of entry. Just show up and stand. This is similar to the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong where a yellow umbrella represented that you are a part of the protest and protected you from tear gas. During the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, a woman ripped her abaya in public to show her blue bra in Tahrir Square. While this was unacceptable under the Eqyptian Muslim regime, the blue bra became a symbol of the Revolution. People made stencils, and the blue bra was spray-painted all across Cairo. In these moments, personal resistance turns into a constellation of stars that shed light on a whole nation.
UDÖ How does a nation, as a collective, move towards change after such impactful organized acts of protest?
NJ As an individual activist, you pay attention to the crumbs that you can tackle, and the whole cake will figure itself out. When you talk about the pendulum of change, you have to put it in decades. Indigenous cultures in America understood that our decisions now have a cumulative impact for seven generations. Only looking at traditions of today can be a little myopic, so one must take off their human goggles and plug them into the more extensive network. That, to me, is the wisdom tradition. The storytelling that happens in indigenous traditions and the reflection from those stories opens up many possibilities about thinking about life.
UDÖ How are those stories told differently?
NJ When you think about Hinduism, the stories are parables about how we understand ourselves. One of my favorite sculptures in the RISD Museum is the Shiva sculpture dancing in a ring of fire. The figure has four arms. One is beating the damaru (a drum) that beats the rhythm of life. Another hand folds a flame, while one foot is up because it is the dancing foot. The other foot is stepping on a dwarf figure which symbolizes ignorance.
UDÖ This is an ancient cartoon showing us the realities of life, no?
NJ And, if we look at them through a contemporary lens, they can be quite liberating. Shiva is not genderless, but they are known as both male and female. It tells us that everyone has masculine and feminine tendencies. I feel that ambiguity is such a liberation. Call it mythology or ancient truth.
this interview is edited for clarity and concision.
follow Nikki Juen here
more about BrickxBrick here
interview by Utkan Dora Öncül
Spark Interview-023