Volume II: Paris
Recollection
Editor’s Letter
SCEPTER is an independent annual publication that proposes a balanced approach to artist interviews. During conversational sessions with artists we discuss collaboration while creating an art piece together. The flow of the dialogue, the location of the encounters, and the mediums we use to create together are all guided by the artist.
Each volume explores a different general theme, and takes place in a new city, allowing us to highlight international perspectives on collaboration, community, and making.
The name comes from the idea that the scepter is an icon of monarchical power; we are metaphorically handing a SCEPTER to each artist, giving them authority over their own interview.
The second volume of SCEPTER is based in Paris and focuses on recollection: how personal and greater pasts influence art practices. While we were interviewing artists in October, the genocide in Gaza was still underway, and when we got home and began editing the volume, the United States erupted in a violence toward immigrants. This has led to a lot of discourse about history’s tendency to repeat itself, specifically the U.S.’s continual return to its imperialist roots. The injustice of one’s locationality and identity context is as startlingly clear today as it was one hundred years ago. In Paris, we had conversations with artists Park Chae Biole and Tatiana Da Silva Vaz who, through their work, explore what it means to feel safe in one’s body. Today, we can see how exclusive a privilege that really is. All the artists we spoke with discussed accessibility in some way, from creating exhibition spaces that invite participation, to making the gallery more physically accommodating for various bodies, and addressing the lack of opportunities for certain identities, such as mothers or immigrants.
With the release of SCEPTER Volume II, we are also launching our website, which has the transcripts of all our interviews published and ready to read. Accessibility is a founding value of SCEPTER; we wanted to create a space for interviews to be free of hierarchy, for conversations to be open-ended and lack the boundaries of traditional art journalism. Although we stand firm in our love for print media, paper comes at a cost. As a self-funded publication, we are unable to afford to bring SCEPTER to stores abroad at this time, despite the importance of place context in this project. The digital archive means to remedy this gap.
With greater accessibility comes greater possibilities of collaboration, but it also forms pathways to share feelings and participate in acts of collective healing. Many of the artists stressed the importance of sharing grief, and our responsibility to remember and memorialize those who have left this earth but whose presence should and must be celebrated by the living.
The artist Socheata Aing invited us to fold paper comfort meals with her as an offering to our ancestors. This was a continuation of a performance piece of hers inspired by the loving act of her mother carefully folding nems in preparation for their family’s Day of the Dead celebration. In the back of this publication we have provided some extra pages that we invite you to tear out and fold into your favorite food to serve as an offering to those no longer with us. Let the gesture itself be a memorial. Recollection is a responsibility to learn from the past as a means of restoration. When the powers that surround us use history as a model for perpetuating cyclical violence, we can and we must use the wisdom of our ancestors to resist it.
With love and gratitude,
Maitreya and Renée
Acknowledgements
We owe our gratitude first and foremost to all of the artists who invited us with such warmth into their spaces and were so open to this project. Kiek, thank you for your playful energy and making us feel like we were old friends. Tatiana, thank you for explaining your process with such gentle openness. Biole, thank you for being so caring and encouraging us to reflect upon what truly matters. We are incredibly inspired by your work in imagining and creating a future where art truly is accessible and approachable for all. Socheata, thank you for showing us true vulnerability even through a language that is newer to you and for your patience with translation. Your words will continue to encourage us to feel more comfortable expressing our feelings, whether they be of grief and hurt, or joy and love. Dārta, as our first interview in Paris, thank you for easing us back into the process and for being so excited to share your space and thoughts with us. Naomi, thank you for your enthusiasm and for teaching us to question what’s presented as the truth. We so appreciate you inviting us back to your studio a second time to complete our map project.
We were able to live in Paris to create this volume while Renée’s father was working there, so thank you to Renée’s parents, Peter Fritschel and Pam Nelson for their hospitality, enthusiasm, and curiosity at the dinner table each night.
Thank you to Ian Berry for having introduced us to the artist interview years ago and for his continued support of this project.
We want to thank Aglaë Miguel, an artist based in Felletin, France, who, although we were not able to interview, showed great interest and support in our project. We encourage you to look at her work.
Finally, our love goes out to our friends and family who ask us the big questions. You make us feel like dancing.