In The Stacks with Valérie Déus: Textures
As a resident artist and guest co-curator with the Walker Art Center’s Expanding the Frame Series, Valérie Déus has spent the past four months exploring films from around the world with specific relevance to the social and political movements of the year 1968. In April, the Walker will present Expanding the Frame: Imagination Is Power, four programs of short films presented in collaboration with Valérie and Coffee House Press. Valérie will share field notes from her residency here over the next several weeks.
Food: Leftover avocado rice plate with sesame oil Beverage: Guava juice Music: “Vie Neg” by Skah-Shah, “David” by D.P. Express Poem: “Don’t Yuk My Yum” by Erica Hunt and Tracie Morris
Being on the radio is more intimate than I imagined. When I saw the call, I pictured it like playing music in my bedroom but that’s exactly what it’s not. I feel hesitant about this heart on your sleeve stuff—my butt-naked voice on the air without the help of facial expressions or hair (yes my hair, she’s very expressive) to enhance what I’m saying and also what’s said behind the words. My listeners get a curated audible experience created by how I experience the community.
A friend described my Project 35 art series as a love letter to south Minneapolis. I never thought of it that way, for me it was a way to learn about and understand my community through history and art. But with the addition of the radio show component on KRSM.org, I see more of the love aspect.
I see the love because the show is a weekly mixtape to south Minneapolis. It’s about me, my neighbors, my community and environment. I love sharing our stories in different mediums in multiple contexts. It’s all part of the conversation. Sometimes the conversation is in the lyrics, sometimes in the music and, sometimes, it’s how one piece carries the listener to the next.
From Rara to Kompa to Benga, I’m moved chapter to chapter, scene to scene, within the texture of the sounds and words. That’s part of the conversation I get into with my work.
Today was a…
“Violence I Know You” by Khadija Queen “Night” by Benga “Michael Brun X Lakou Mizik” by Gaya, feat J. Perry “Guede Zania” by Celia Cruz “River” by Ibeyi “Oh No” by Pat Lok “Vie Neg” by Skah-Shah “The Standstill World” by Akilah Oliver “Instrumental From Rara Se Male”
…type of day.
About the resident: Valérie Déus is a poet living and working in Minneapolis, where she is a professor of English at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. She is the publisher of We / Here, a South Minneapolis Art Zine, programmer of FilmNorth Cinema Lounge, and the host of KRSM radio’s Project 35, an eclectic mix of music, poetry, artist interviews, and more. Her work has been featured in The Brooklyn Rail, Saint Paul Almanac, Bezine, and the anthology How to Write an Earthquake(Autumn Hill Books, 2011).
