Cliff Notes
Each week, our regional Cliff Notes columnists Fox Whitney, Alitzah Oros, Melika Sebihi, and Kaya Noteboom pick the most exciting events and exhibitions on the West Coast.
Common Objects Library
October 1 to December 10, 2024
Common Area Maintenance, Seattle, WA
An experimental library organized by a fashion designer deeply considering the relationship between art, design, sustainability and community care? Hell, yeah! Common Objects, created by apparel designer Meke Spence, is a pop-up library project happening at Common Area Maintenance (CAM) on 1st Ave in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood. CAM is a duo of collaborative artist-led spaces,the other location is close by on 2nd Ave, offering studio, gallery, and event spaces. This project encourages people to borrow and donate a wide range of objects: clothing, arts, furniture, and house goods are available.
Libraries not only make goods more accessible; they build hubs of connection; encouraging people to gather, talk, and better understand the objects we live with and their relationship to our everyday lives.
Spence’s idea resists the economic divides that are impossible to avoid in more traditional gallery settings. The Common Objects library inspires me to consider my materialistic dreams and nightmares, reminding me that even the little things I have and wear impact others and our planet at large. There is definitely enough stuff to go around—why not share what we can while we can and do our best to reduce our contribution to the societal and environmental collapse of our planet?
Reflection: How can we use modes of borrowing and lending to bolster and beautify our own lives and the lives of others ?
Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas: Hold That Pose For Me
October 9, November 3, December 11, 2024
Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute 104 17th Ave S., Seattle, WA
Hold That Pose For Me is an open kiki session for the ballroom community to practice categories and get access to free community resources..All-American Runway would be the category I’d want to practice! Organized by the Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas (CD Forum), the sessions will happen monthly at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute in the CD neighborhood of Seattle.
If you’re not familiar with ball culture, quick, go watch Paris is Burning (1990) or Pose (2018-2021) right now! Ball culture is an important part of LGBTQ+ culture and the way many of us learned we could create chosen families, gather to celebrate, and center Black, Brown, queer, and trans ways of moving through the world.
CD Forum is dedicated to supporting Black communities with events that bring “healing, joy and radical expression,” specifically through non-monolithic representation of Blackness in the arts.
Led by Executive Director Randy Ford and Artistic Director dani tirrell, both artists and organizers I’ve known and admired throughout my time in Seattle as a working QT Black artist. CD Forum continues to make sure events like this monthly open session are happening with care and regularity.
Reflection: How can other artists and communities at large not just celebrate but also grow gathering spaces for Black and Brown artists living at the intersection of many marginalized identities?