Tag: Crosstown Arts residency

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Art Art Feature

City of Dreams

From left to right, Lili Nacht, Neena Wang, Yidan Zeng, and Thandi Cai (Photo: Jin Yang)

Although their respective parents didn’t exactly dream they would one day become artists, Thandi Cai, Lili Nacht, Neena Wang, and Yidan Zeng did just that. “Our parents all chose to come here to achieve some dream that they had, the American dream,” says Wang, “and that transformed into something different for each of our parents. And then they also had dreams for us. And then we took those dreams and made them into our own.”

The four have known one another since childhood, having grown up together in the same circles within the Chinese-American community in Memphis. Over the years, though, as so often happens with childhood friends embracing the next stages of their lives, they lost contact, outside of following each other on Instagram. By 2022, Cai was splitting their time between Chicago and Memphis, while Nacht, Wang, and Zeng resided in Berlin, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, respectively. They hadn’t seen each other in years, but that summer, Nacht reached out via email to see if they would be interested in Zooming. 

What followed were months of Zoom calls, wherein they formed the MengCheng Collective — the name finding its origin in the Chinese phonetic name for Memphis, which also happens to loosely translate to “City of Dreams.” 

The Crosstown Arts residency this summer was the perfect opportunity for an in-person reunion, they decided. From the outset, the four knew that their residency would not be about sequestering themselves away to create the art that would be featured in their capstone exhibition. Instead, they would engage the community that they grew up around. “The intention [has been to create] an archive that is not just static, but can also be interacted with, participated in,” says Zeng. “It felt like a lot of our histories in the Mid-South were very invisible or suppressed, so how can we create a way for people to see their histories be displayed in a very public way, in an institution, and also for that to be a moment of celebration and collective witnessing?” 

To accomplish this, the group hosted weekly potlucks throughout the duration of their residency, harkening back to their childhood days of attending potlucks at Chinese-American households throughout Memphis. That first potluck was open to the public and had 100 or so in attendance — a turnout they did not expect. In the weeks following, they hosted potlucks with other Asian-American creatives in Memphis, with students from the Memphis Chinese Language School, and with their own families. 

With each potluck, the collective says they’ve found themselves in awe of the support they’ve garnered. “I feel like I’ve been on the verge of tears since I got here,” Wang says. “People have been so open and willing to listen to you. People are not just looking for what you can do for them. They really want to connect with you on a human level, and that is just so, so special and not something I’ve found almost anywhere else in the world that I’ve been. It’s made me realize how much Memphis has made me who I am.”

Yet the four agree that being away from Memphis has also solidified their identities. With distance, they were able to look from the outside in, able to question their experiences and to process them. “Living in Berlin,” says Nacht, “I felt a freeness that I never felt growing up, but that was also to do with me having not come to terms or not having not processed the traumas yet, like bullying that I had when I was growing up and the pressures from these generational conflicts. I didn’t even know until I left that it was not a great environment.

“I processed through the traumas [since then], and I’ve grown and matured and reconnected with my sense of self, and after having done all that — it took, like, 11 years — I can come back now as a person with my own agency, from a place of awareness of my culture and my own boundaries.” 

Like Nacht, Cai, Wang, and Zeng express similar sentiments — that they feel more sure of themselves, especially in their identities as artists, since leaving and returning to Memphis.  “My parents have been really amazing to me,” says Wang. “They’ve never heard me really talk about my artwork, but after my artist talk [at Crosstown Arts], they told me how proud they were of me, that they want me to actually really focus on my art, which is not something that they would’ve said, like, a year ago.”

The potlucks, she says, have also been instrumental in this sense of generational healing, with Cai referring to the potlucks as forms of participatory art.

“It’s helpful, at least speaking for my parents, to witness art in a way that is very much in the communities, that they themselves can also be part of that artistic practice,” Zeng adds. “I feel like, oftentimes, it’s easy for people to just kind of see art as a distant thing, like a sculpture or painting in a museum. But we are all very much interested in using art as a tool for change in relationship building.”

“[Art] is like a language,” Cai says, “especially in places where you have people, different cultures coming together. You may not understand the words or the context of what their sentiments are, but you can feel what they might be feeling. Even just the humility of watching someone create art and being there to receive it is really, I think, an important listening skill for human connection.”

Through their potlucks and artistic practices during their residency, Cai says, “Our community came together in a way that hasn’t happened before. I think that it’s just really important for us to be in the same room affirming one another. I think that is the core of everything that we’re doing. Healing is big on all levels — like within ourselves, within our community, with our presence in the city, between the generations, all of it. 

“Art is not just a tool for communicating with people in the present, but it’s a tool for communicating with people in the past and the future. As a time traveling tool, I think it can be really powerful to create the futures that we want to see.”

And the future they want to see, Nacht says, highlights diversity. “We need more representation, first of all,” she says, “as well as a different way of interacting with each other to promote this sort of care for each other in a community that comes from this place of understanding.”

“I don’t know if it is too ambitious to try to strive for,” Wang adds, “but the healing that we’ve experienced and that we’ve seen and that our parents and other people have shared with us [during this residency], I really wish that for other communities in Memphis that have experienced intergenerational trauma and just really anyone who needs to heal their relationship with themselves or their creativity or their family. Yeah, if we could just be an example of that.”

This Saturday, July 22, 6-9 p.m., the MengCheng Collective kicks off its week-long exhibition, “Kai Pa Ti,” with a night of food and fun. RSVP to the free event at Crosstown Arts here.

“Kai Pa Ti” will be on display July 22-29, 3-7 p.m., or by appointment. Appointments can be made by emailing mengcheng.tn@gmail.com.

Follow the collective on Instagram (@mengcheng.tn).

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Art We Recommend We Recommend

Crosstown Arts’ Resident Artist Talk and Film Screening

2022 resident artists (Photo: Courtesy Crosstown Arts)

Have you ever watched a movie or witnessed a painting and wondered how on earth did someone come up with that? Well, this Thursday, you can peek into the processes of Crosstown Arts’ fall-session resident artists: Nelson Gutierrez, Angelo Madsen Minax, and R Jason Rawlings.

Each of these artists will present a 20-minute talk, followed by a Q&A session. “You’ll learn about the artists’ priorities, how they got where they are,” says artist residency manager Mary Jo Karimnia. “It’s not a comprehensive talk about their practice; it’s more like a window into their practice. The talks are always fascinating. I never get tired of learning how artists approach things.”

“All of the artists bring something unique to the table,” Karimnia says, before adding that this cohort of three-month residents happens to have a local flair. Both visual artist Nelson Gutierrez and filmmaker R Jason Rawlings are from Memphis, and filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax, a current Guggenheim Fellow, taught at University of Memphis back in the day, though he now resides in Connecticut. The fourth resident, Brittney Boyd Bullock, is also a local and will give her artist talk in the spring.

The talks will also be an opportunity to learn more about Crosstown Arts’ residency program, Karimnia says. “[The residency] can be a really concentrated time to work on your practice. … We want people from elsewhere to learn about the great stuff that’s happening in Memphis, and we also want the people who are working in Memphis to be able to network with the greater arts world.”

In addition to this speaking engagement, Minax and Rawlings will screen some of their work on November 9th, with yet another Q&A to follow. “I think [the two films] will complement each other well,” Karimnia says. “They’re sort of a different type of filmmaking.”

Rawlings’ short film “Natives” follows a traditional narrative structure, telling the story of a claims adjuster returning home to New Orleans two years after Hurricane Katrina. Meanwhile, Minax’s feature North by Current is much more experimental and personal, exploring the inconclusive death of his young niece in Michigan. “It’s a lot of found footage and interviews,” Karimnia says. “It’s very aesthetically beautiful, but also not what you expect.”

Applications for Crosstown Arts’ 2023 residencies are now closed, and the next application period will open May 15th for residencies in 2024.

Crosstown Arts Resident Artist Talk, The Green Room at Crosstown Arts, Thursday, November 3, 6 p.m., free.

Film Screening by Resident Artists, Crosstown Theater, Wednesday, November 9, 6:30 p.m., free.

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Music Music Features

At Grandma’s House

CREDIT: Courtesy Maeve Brophy

The residency program at Crosstown Arts draws artists in all media to the heart of Midtown every year, and, despite the limitations of the pandemic, it is carrying on this fall, albeit with fewer participants. Having been a resident last year, I can attest to the inspiring exchange of ideas that the program can bring, as artists typically gather for field trips, artist talks, and weekly meals and meetings. This fall, most such activities have gone virtual, but the real-world benefit of studio space in one of Memphis’ creative hotspots remains. For residents focused on music, such a space can be doubly attractive, as they gain access to one of two studio houses next to Crosstown Concourse, respectively known as Grandma’s and Grandpa’s houses.

This fall saw a dramatic upgrade in Grandma’s house, with the temporary addition of a grand piano. Done at the behest of classical pianist and resident composer Maeve Brophy, it has transformed the house into the perfect venue for recording virtual recitals, and Brophy has modified her original plans to make the most of the opportunity, beginning with the posting of pre-recorded videos on YouTube, then complemented with live-streamed recitals, starting this Saturday, October 24th, at 7 p.m. on Facebook Live.

Courtesy Maeve Brophy

Whose house? Crosstown Arts resident composer Maeve Brophy records from Grandma’s house.

Memphis Flyer: It seems having a grand piano at Grandma’s house has given your time as resident composer a new direction. What are you focusing on now?

Maeve Brophy: I do compose, as well, but then I thought maybe Grandma’s house would be a space where I could focus more on this other project. My goal is to help increase awareness of works by relatively unknown composers, who were not taken seriously in their lifetimes because they were either women or they were not white. That’s the body of work I’m drawing from. And this fall I’m focusing on women in particular. It’s something I can contribute to this great movement to right a great injustice of classical music, the fact that these composers were not taken seriously and had to fight to be recognized, and then their work became neglected after they died. That’s a great injustice and a great tragedy. I’m just trying to do what I can to right that wrong.

How do you find these under-recognized compositions?

There’s a file sharing site that all classical musicians use, called IMSLP. It’s for public domain sheet music, including a lot of lesser-known composers. And that’s where I found a lot of the pieces that I’ve recorded.

I imagine many of those works have never been recorded.

Yeah. Or there might be, like, one recording. Actually, two of my Florence Price videos are the only existing recordings, at least that I can find, on the internet. My YouTube videos are all there is! [laughs]. And that’s kind of the point of this whole project.

Courtesy Maeve Brophy

Even among African-American composers like George Walker and William Grant Stills, there are remarkable stylistic contrasts. That’s educational in itself, just to see the diversity within the diversity.

Yes, that is very true. For example, there are so many women composers, I don’t have the bandwidth to do all of them. Women have been writing since music was first written down. My favorite time is the early 20th century, but even within that period, you still have throwbacks to Romanticism mixed with modern approaches. Like Blanche Selva. Her piece, “Cloches dans la brume,” was written in 1904, which I was shocked to learn. It was very forward-looking.

But there were also women writing in the classical era, contemporaries of Mozart and Beethoven. I just recorded a piece by Josephine Aurenhammer. Right before the lockdown, in February, I played a recital at Buntyn Presbyterian Church, featuring women and African-American composers. Her piece is a set of variations on a theme from The Magic Flute. It’s fun and brilliantly inventive.

It seems you find Grandma’s house especially conducive to creating these videos.

I didn’t have a good place to make classical videos. I was in an apartment, and it just wasn’t an ideal space. But when I saw photos of Grandma’s house, I thought, that would be a beautiful place to make videos, if I could just get a piano in there. That led to me contacting Lane Music. Now they’re my sponsor. They are providing me with that Kawai grand piano, and they’re the ones that moved it in there. Scott Lane has historically been very generous in providing pianos all over Memphis for all sorts of things. So I am very grateful that he generously agreed to sponsor me for three whole months. Over that time, in addition to posting videos on my YouTube channel, I’ll be performing live-streamed recitals on Facebook Live on October 24th, November 7th and 21st, and December 5th.