Bradley McCallum addresses trauma and struggle, racial identity and representation, collective history and individual responsibility. His work includes large-scale public projects, sculpture, paintings, photography, video, and self-portraiture. As the collaborative duo McCallum & Tarry, he delved deeply into the legacy of race in American culture -often incorporating profoundly engaging and personal narratives. In 1989, he founded Conjunction Arts, a nonprofit to support politically-engaged artists, connect artists and social justice organizations, and provide fiscal sponsorship for collaborative art projects.

McCallum has exhibited at art museums and international art biennials, including the Contemporary Museum (Baltimore, MD), SITE Santa Fe (Santa Fe, NM), Spelman College Museum of Fine Art (Atlanta, GA), Arizona State University Art Museum (Tempe, AZ), The African American Museum (Philadelphia, PA), Neuberger Museum of Art ( Purchase, NY), EVA International Art Biennial (Limerick, Ireland), Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art (New Palz, NY). His work is held in public collections at the Albright-Knox Museum of Art in New York, the Wadsworth Atheneum in Connecticut, and the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art in South Africa.

The following are excerpts from Bradley McCallum’s interview.

**Hugh Leeman:** Bradley, your art is deeply connected to focusing much needed attention on the darkest parts of the past that can be easily covered up or normalized. Before you ever began down this path with your art, how is it you came to begin making art on such pressing social issues?

Bradley McCallum: That's a great question. I would really have to pay tribute to an undergraduate professor that I had, Suzi Gablik. She was a visiting artist at Virginia Commonwealth University and was teaching a graduate seminar, an advanced senior seminar on her book, Has Modernism Failed? And in that seminar course, she asked the question, what is the responsibility of the creative person in society today? That question really shifted my thinking in making art because up to that moment I was very focused on the object and the formal qualities and coming through a very rigorous sculptural program at Virginia Commonwealth University that took great attention to both the materials and processes of forming sculpture.

Suzi’s question really resonated with me because it made me shift my focus away from the kind of internal dialogue in the studio to really thinking about how I might engage an audience and what is the responsibility that I take on when I begin thinking of audience. I think the steps from there to begin doing social practice art were just sort of one, two. It didn't take long for me to begin pivoting and to really thinking about how art could be in service and to think about audience as a transformative moment. That isn't looking at the white cube model, but looking at a kind of more public engagement, public art, collaboration at the core.

HL: This is impressive. I like this idea of collaboration at the core. Let's start a discussion on that thread here with you and your first wife, Jacqueline Tarry, who described your collaborative practice and interracial marriage as creating opportunities that address pressing issues often revolving around race, with the hope of providing a safe space for dialogue. How did you and Jacqueline's relationship bring about unique insights and emotional depth to the projects you worked on together?

BM: Well, I think there are multiple facets to that, to the positive aspects of our collaboration. Number one, being able to think through a problem with another person and to think through the complication of examining and thoughtfully reflecting on America's dialogue around race as a mixed race couple was unique and gave us the ability, I think, to use both the kind of aesthetic and poetry as well as a pause to reflect on the really troubling and problematic aspects of our American history.

I would say that there were works that I had done prior to our collaboration that really informed that arc. My graduate thesis at Yale was a memorial to victims of gun violence. That work was inspired by an article in the New Haven Register that paid homage to the victims of gun violence, but in one or two paragraphs really established an unspoken responsibility whether that child was responsible for their own death because of their activities—whether that was drug-related or otherwise—or whether they were an innocent victim.

That article was really disturbing, so I ended up cold calling the family's doors and asking the mothers to participate in a memorial in which I photographed them and took their testimony. As it turns out, often with instances of violence and poverty, it's predominantly in African-American communities and Hispanic communities. Of the 24 mothers who participated, all but one were African-American or Hispanic and one was East European. So the process of working across race around complicated issues has come natural to me.

And when Jackie and I began to be able to work together, there was a foundation for us to build on in terms of works like Witness: Perspectives on Police Violence and ultimately the body of painting that we did Whitewash that I think remains pivotal today.

Witness: Perspectives On Police Violence, The Call Box Tour
Each call box contained illuminated transparent imageries of street locations or places, such as landmarks of police vehicles, where violent incidents occurred. They also emitted audio testimony from victims, witnesses, and police officers, the interviews were done by the artists.

HL: I want to come back to some of the ideas and the collaborations with you and Jacqueline. But first, you mentioned something very interesting there, the idea of cold calling the mothers. I think cold calling in any sense, if you're doing sales calls, is often times seen as a difficult thing. You're doing it on an issue that's clearly very challenging and sensitive. How did those calls go? What was that like?

BM: Well, this article that inspired the work, Shroud: Mother's Voices, gave the address of each of the victims. And so I simply knocked on the door and introduced myself and explained that I was a graduate student in the sculpture department at Yale and was working on an artwork that would be a memorial to victims of gun violence. And I wanted to do that through the individuals who knew the victims most closely and to do it through the mothers' portraits and their stories.

All but one family agreed to participate, and I think part of why that is successful is attributed to maybe 40%, 50% sincerity and an equal amount of creating a space for those families to have their voice heard because it's not typically heard and to create an opportunity to genuinely acknowledge the individual in a more deep and profound way.

What was really remarkable about that piece is it helped to shape public policy. The exhibition at the Yale Art Gallery for my graduate thesis had overwhelming attendance from New Haven residents, which rarely happens. And then the work was invited to be shown at the city hall. And when it was shown at the city hall, it also created a moment for the mayor to invite the mothers who participated in this work to a round table to be again thinking about what could be done to improve New Haven police community relations. And that ended up being part of—I would have to say just one part of a larger effort—that led to community-based policing in New Haven.

HL: Let me pull that into something more specific. So one of your projects, Witness: Perspectives on Police Violence, was a project that you and Jacqueline Tarry initiated in New York City after the torture of Abner Louima in 1997 and the shooting of Amadou Diallo in 1999. The installation was first shown at Cathedral of St. John the Divine, which, “juxtaposes photographs, legal documents, and oral testimonies from victims' families, activists, and police to present a diversity of perspectives on those events. How might you evolve and expand this work if you were to create it for the 2020s?

BM: It's a great question. We were invited actually to represent the work recently in Brooklyn. And what is both profoundly sad and challenging is that the narrative has not changed. It has only become more entrenched, and the relevance of the work made 20 years earlier was still felt today.

Many of the families—Mrs. Baez is the first person to come to mind, the Rosarios came to the opening in Brooklyn most recently—and you know, they've spent the better part of their adult lives championing the need for police reform. And the exhibition was installed at a moment when there was an appetite and still a desire among the audience to really reflect on and think about and be challenged by the question of how do we police a democracy and to do that in a way that is fair and just.

What's also parallel to this sort of benchmark of time—we showed Witness: Perspectives on Police Violence in the wake of Abner Louima's killing when there was a group sort of mass protest and an effort to think about policing, and then September 11th happened and the tone and the tenor and the ability to have those conversations pretty much stopped. And with the election of Donald Trump and with the turning back of conversations that I think are important to have and essential has happened again. This time it wasn't an act of terrorism, but it was perhaps another form of terrorism from within.

Silence
Civic installation: engraved granite, photography, silk
2001

HL: In 2001, you and Tarry installed Silence in New Haven's historic Center Church on the Green, placing contemporary photographs of African-American church members amid the pews to represent their 19th-century ancestors who had once been relegated to the balconies due to segregation. Yet, the church's board secretly removed your photos from that main floor and put them back up on the balcony. And you said at the time this was, "a startling example of history repeating itself." Can you talk about the community discourse with the church and the dialogue with the community that followed this so-called history repeating itself?

BM: Yeah, I think two things happened. One of which is, it was in a church that was run very much with a board of governors, and there was a member on that board of governors who sort of wasn't very enlightened or sensitive in what they were doing and I think removed the photographs from the main center of the pew perhaps because they were taking the place where people who normally sit there go to and they felt like their space was being taken with a kind of unconscious blindness to the way in which they were repeating history.

But at the same time it opened up the conversation for us to make adjustments to the installation. So we ended up putting a kind of shroud over the granite plinths that were in the balcony. And those granite plinths acknowledged each of the historic members of the church, African-American descendant members, and we were able to bring the sister church which is still in New Haven in the black community in conversation with the church on the green on the square. So there was a way to open up a moment of civic discourse that became very constructive. But it was—for Jackie and I, it was more important to shift the installation and create a moment of reflection as opposed to trying to go back to the original vision. So there were sort of two phases of the installation in the end.

Evenly Yoked
Performance: video with sound
2010

HL: You know, to go with one more idea here on these past works that were collaborative and to continue on this thread where you're collaborating with Jackie—there was a piece you did called Evenly Yoked, and you performed as different couples, effectively a contemporary bride and groom an antebellum slave and master to explore, as was written, the tensions of your bond as an interracial couple. This was to be performed in relation to looking at a cross-section of history. Can you talk about what it was like to embody these historical roles with your partner, your intimate partner, your wife at the time, and how did reenacting these power dynamics affect your own understanding and relationship of the broader black-white racial divide?

BM: That's a great question. I think for both Jackie and I, this happened at a moment that was very raw and we really exposed the deepest part of ourselves in that work. I believe that when artists create work and are able to reveal their vulnerabilities, it often contributes to the strength of the work. And in this case, it most certainly did. This was the last major collaboration that we did as a couple, and I think there is an added burden, complexity, challenge when all the different aspects of life get put into one space—whether it's working together, whether it's raising a son, when all of the different parts come together. And you see some of that complexity and our engagement and performance through that video. So it remains to be I think a very profoundly powerful and important work, and I hope that it has a chance to be seen more widely again.

HL: I want to turn to a work that you did in Seattle. This is going back several years here where you're working with several youth—there's something like 26 teenagers—and there was a 25-hour performance where each of these teenagers stood perfectly still for one hour on a public sidewalk while they were being filmed. And they were effectively standing for friends who had died on the streets and engaging in a quiet act of civil disobedience against city laws that criminalized loitering. For this project, you took life-sized color photographs of each of the youth and recorded their personal stories. Can you share some of those stories and the impact that those stories had on you?

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Endurance, Civic performance: oral testimony, c-print photographs, video with sound, 2003

BM: Sure. So this is a work called Endurance. And it was actually commissioned by a program at the Seattle Arts Commission called Arts Up. And Arts Up was very revolutionary and forward thinking in that it was investing in different nonprofits who applied for the funding from the Seattle Arts Commission to do a work of art related to their nonprofit organization.

So the organization Peace For The Streets By Kids From The Streets, PSKS, we were one of three finalists for this commission based on our proposal. We ended up flying out to Seattle and we were interviewed by a cohort of the members. I think there were probably 12 youth who were participating in that interview along with Elaine who was the executive director of PSFKS.

What was remarkable was that it shifted the dynamic immediately. We weren't outside artists coming in to look at this issue. We were being invited by and empowered by the various participants who worked with us to create the work. So that's a fundamental shift right away. One of the early phases of the work was to be teaching the skills of audio recording because we thought initially we would have the youth be recording each other's testimonies. And so I did a series of workshops teaching the skills of interview and recording.

And in that period of time, one of the key leaders in this group and advocates, Rooster, you know, was celebrating with his then fiancée that they had just became engaged and they decided to get high again. And Rooster used the same dosage he had used three months before when he was using heavily and he had cleaned up in the interim, and that amount caused him to overdose. So there was a profound loss in the community and it also shifted the role and responsibility that Jackie and I had in taking the testimony. So we shifted back to a process where we recorded and orchestrated the engagement.

It also provided the shift from this being a political stand—because in Seattle there is a civility law that prevents individuals from standing still on the street for more than six minutes I believe it was. And so the idea of standing for an hour was a way of doing a quiet act of civil disobedience. So that gesture of civil disobedience was then married with a tribute and a way of acknowledging the peers of each participant who had lost. So at some point in the testimony, you'll hear each youth acknowledge their individual friends who had died. Sometimes it's Rooster, but oftentimes it's other individuals as well.

Inescapable Truths: James Foley's Indelible Legacy
Paintings: oil on linen, toner on silk, with augmented reality video
2017-2024

HL: There is a project you've been working on for several years that involves the journalist James "Jim" Foley and his journalistic practice. For context for those who may not know, who is James "Jim" Foley, and importantly of all people and topics that you could have chosen, how is it that you came to feel so compelled by Foley and his journalistic work?

BM: I was one of the countless individuals who witnessed the television news when Jim was kneeling in the desert and then executed by ISIS with a decapitation. And I think when this news first broke, there was a moment when the actual graphic horrific act was shown. I was walking I think through O'Hare airport or another airport, but it was just one of those moments where you can't stop thinking about the loss, the sorrow and the pain.

And a year and a half later, I was finishing a larger project that was looking at international justice through portraiture and working with the International Criminal Court in that process and was invited by a gallery to do a project in New York. And I thought, well, let me see if there's something I can do because I didn't at that point want to show the work with the ICC. I didn't think it was quite ready, but I thought, let me see if there's something more focused I could do.

I was mistaken because it wasn't a short focused project—it ended up becoming a multi-year project. But at that point, I reached out to Diane Foley, Jim's mother, and asked her if she would be willing to work with me in creating a work that would acknowledge and remember her son and look at that not through his death, but through the footage he took as a journalist.

So James, who's referred to and known in the field as Jim Foley, worked as an independent journalist and had earned and developed a great deal of respect among other journalists. And his mom has been a tireless force in fighting for the release of hostages internationally as well as ensuring that independent journalists have the safety tools that are essential for their own livelihoods.

You know, there are amazing forces that came together to make that body of work. It was shown at Northwestern University a little more than a year ago, acknowledging the 10-year passing of Jim's death. The work as it exists now—each painting is a layered painting based on a video still and then combined with a silk layer of a slightly different moment in time in that video footage to create a composite image—is then activated through augmented reality. So there are short video sequences that are drawn from the same day of his shooting a particular image but then associatively and aesthetically telling the story of that day and its passing.

So in a way, I think the initial impetus of that work was can an artwork change the way we remember someone. And I think luckily through a number of different forces, when you Google Jim Foley now you will learn about his life as a journalist, not just about his execution, and that was certainly a motivating force in this work—to think about how media is used within a given moment and how that moment can be changed as you begin to see it through a historical lens. So it's a body of work that I am looking forward to showing in San Francisco at some time and conversations are underway with a venue to do so.

HL: Excellent. It's an interesting idea where you're fusing not only the oil painting, but the silk to create this different frame effect and then you pull in the augmented reality. How does the augmented reality that everyone now has a smartphone and can tap into—how does that end up affecting the way that the viewer interacts with the work, and is there some sort of aspiration of that being where people now have their own version of that on the phone? It becomes journalistic in of itself. How do you see that?

BM: Well, to me it moves the paintings from aesthetic objects to portals. And as a portal, it gives the viewer who's engaging with the AR a chance to be in Jim's shoes in a way and to be on the ground in this array of different experiences and emotions and activities. And I think that will forever change the way that viewer sees the painting because in a way there's a bit of that memory that becomes instilled in them through the engagement with the video.

And so the work becomes transformative. It becomes a portal. It enables us as viewers to embody an aspect of a shared memory that I think film and television can do and photographs in some ways as well. But the work needs to stand on its own without that as well. So I think that becomes this point where the engagement of the AR is not a gimmick but it becomes a content building block and tool for understanding the work.

HL: I love that aspect—it's not a gimmick; it becomes a building block for understanding. I think that's an interesting word to use, that it becomes almost like a portal from being an aesthetic object to becoming a portal. You noted that Foley had dedicated his life to sharing the stories of people that were caught in the war. So in this work that we're referring to here, Inescapable Truths, you're aiming to build on that mission. And in the years since you began the project, conflicts in the Middle East and beyond have continued and the risk to journalists continues to be incredible. How has working with Foley's archive—videos, photos, and so on—influenced your perspective of conflict journalism and the role of art in the context of such atrocities as war?

BM: Again, great question and I appreciate how much care you've put into preparing for this interview. So thank you. Do you mind reading the question one more time?

HL: Sure. How has working with Foley's archive from his videos and photos and even his diary entries influenced your perspective on conflict journalism and the role of art in the context of the atrocities of war?

BM: Well, I think the generosity that the Foley family gave to me in handing the hard drives over to me to let me look at them 100% without any filters was unique and profound, and I cherish that because I had a chance to get to know Jim very well through all that was on his computer. So I feel like there is an intimacy and a kind of personal invitation that I received in the access I was given to this unique archive.

My role as the artist is to think through and distill and create moments of aesthetic engagement, poetic engagement, reflective points that will help us as an audience think about what is the importance of journalism and truthtelling to begin with, because we're finding ourselves in a moment of fake news and where truth is questioned and where journalism is downgraded. So I found myself gaining a huge respect for the role that journalists, especially conflict journalists, have in our society and the importance to provide them the support to do a kind of ground truth journalism to be able to go to a location and report back in a way that's not diminished through the filters.

You know, a huge and deep respect for the field and an understanding of how that field is in jeopardy, truly needs support. When the conflict in Gaza began, journalists were on the front lines and they took an incredible toll in terms of losses. And you see that in many conflicts worldwide, where in the past perhaps the journalist would be spared, but now they become a target. And that's horrific. And it's an incredible challenge that we as a global population have in terms of needing to bring effective change.

HL: Thank you. I would like to hear your response to this in reference to what curator Sophia Olympia Roe wrote on this body of work that we're talking about here with James "Jim" Foley. She writes that “although Bradley McCallum initially created this body of work to redirect the public memory of Foley away from the visual video of his death and towards the intensity and purpose of his life, the impact of the work is a reminder that armed conflicts are ongoing and that we are very much involved.” Can you speak to this idea that we are very much involved? How so?

BM: Well, I think in our politics we are involved. We are involved as Americans in the way in which our government provides weapons, whether that's to Israel to support, whether that's to the support of Ukraine and their defending themselves—the conflicts and global engagements are ongoing and ever-present.

She wrote that article in the midst of when I believe the Afghan war was still taking place, right? So it was before the US withdrew from Afghanistan, but it was at the moment when some of these key decisions were taking place and you could feel the presence and significance of Jim's footage in relationship to what was taking place on the ground in Afghanistan.

And so I think she was right in that perspective. I'm not sure if that is the core intention of the work, but I very much believe it's important that artists create work and leave it open for a kind of critical—these kind of critical links and thoughts to come together.

**TNT Art Lab‍ , ‍Turk & Taylor‍, ‍San Francisco, CA**

HL: Wow. Thank you. We've looked here so far at much of the past of your work and just starting to touch on the present as you do in this answer here. I want to switch further to this present where we sit right now, then also have your thoughts on the future. So recently you started TNT Art Lab at the corner of Turk and Taylor in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood to transform a vacant storefront into what you call "a vibrant hub for artist-led projects that engage with the neighborhood's challenges." So for those who may not know, what is the Tenderloin, and in what ways might having TNT Art Lab influence the neighborhood and how might the area influence the artwork produced here?

BM: Great question. The Tenderloin is located in downtown San Francisco or adjacent to it. It's a historically significant neighborhood. And for example, it is known for the Compton's Cafeteria riots, which is really the first moment, predating by two and a half to three years the Stonewall riots—a moment when the transgendered and trans and gay and bi community came together to fight against discrimination, and a series of riots took place. I'm sort of underplaying that because other people know this history much better than I, but that actually took place kitty corner or perhaps even on the very corner where TNT Art Lab is. So we are in the midst of a neighborhood that has been very significant in the past historically.

Currently, it is one of the epicenters for homelessness in San Francisco and meth and other drug-related issues that is combined with the homelessness. So there's a level of despair and poverty and blight that you see on the street on a daily basis. And when I learned that the space was available, I immediately thought, you know, this is an opportunity for Conjunction Arts, the nonprofit I started back when I was an undergraduate student, to really create a platform for social practice artists to work and test and experiment how their own works could help respond to, affect policy change, create windows of critical discourse and engagement that will bring transformative change to the neighborhood.

Those are the aspirations. I now am a bit older and not as aspirational and optimistic as I was when I was 20-some. But the very work I did when I was in undergraduate school that led me to create the nonprofit was a series of homeless vehicles that I created in Richmond, Virginia that were temporary structures that the homeless could use and people collecting recyclables and cans. New Haven was unique in that it had cobblestones in the alleyways, so moving a grocery cart was near impossible on those streets. So I created a moving vehicle with large wheels that could navigate that terrain easily. But they also became works that were collaboratively built so that I designed them in response to what each user needed.

And so by the time I graduated undergraduate school, there was a half a dozen of these unique vehicles being used in the streets of Richmond. And so, you know, fast forward 30 plus years, I think and have seen and experienced artists who have really been successful in helping us think more critically about the world we're living in. And it's going to take that because the challenges here are very significant. And there's not an easy solution. And the issues that inform the homelessness, the drug addiction, the poverty are multi-layered.

And in a way, the policy issues I believe that will be effective are ones that are beyond politics. But this is I think the moment to bring artists to the table and to begin joining other critical thinkers in looking at this aspect of our society.

HL: I love that thoughtful response. You know, going back on all the answers that you've shared in our conversation here, there have been these experiences where you set off in one direction and it kind of changes over the course of time. And you know, here you've just signed a 10-year lease on this space. So perhaps we can create a bit of a spectrum here to pull everything full circle in our conversation today where on one hand you note the aspiration that you had when you were 20 years old, and then on the other hand you mentioned the word reality which tends to contrast the aspiration. If you say 10 years in the future, here we are and the lease is coming to an end and you're looking back on your 10 years here, what would it have taken to make you feel like my goodness, we really achieved the high aspiration I have?

BM: Well, I think it begins in small ways. This TNT Art Lab is not just my own project. It is an invitation to work with other artists. And I think the success will be determined by the way other artists use the space. Currently we're in the exhibition space that Lava Thomas has used for a collaborative community drawing project. What a perfect way to begin this project.

And you know, I think the success will be measured by the way in which artists feel like this is a space they own as well. And they feel they can access and use the resources to both experiment and fail and test and exceed. You know, there will be a range, I'm sure, over the course of the next decade of projects that really do have a profound impact on the community and some that miss the mark, and that's okay.

You know, I think I'm hoping that this space also become a place where we can show examples of profound work like Francis Alÿs's videos that he's been doing with children. They're stunning. The children games—they're profoundly moving. That would be a great project to bring to TNT Art Lab. It is an example of excellence in the field from my point of view. And at the same time it needs to be a space where emerging and mid-career artists can come in and build the connection with the neighborhood and test how they might see this as an invitation and an opportunity.

I'm looking forward to having my studio here as well and to do work. And I'm not exactly sure how that will manifest itself now. I don't have a predetermined idea. I would say that in the last two and a half years I've started making ceramics again—something that I did when I was in high school. So there is a love for working with my hands and working with clay and building vessels that represent a kind of human figure and presence. How that body of ceramic work might also become reflective of the community is an open question.

But you know, for me there are many people who are helping make TNT Art Lab come into being. And I want to make sure that the kind of community collaborative grassroots artist-driven energy is there so that in 10 years I can step away from the board and that other people can step in and it'll have another—the unique thing about our lease is that it's renewable. So it's a 10-year renewable lease. So my hope is that after the first decade, I can step back and another artist can step forward and keep it going. So knock on wood.

HL: Bradley, thank you for doing what you do. It’s impressive. You know, often times I think that art—maybe a litmus test of great art is that old the cliche that great art reflects the society it's made in and it seems like so much art is kind of in its own information silo in many ways and that what you were doing is very much so of the people. I think that the other litmus test—how would this artwork that I see in a gallery, how would this fare in the Tenderloin or how would this fare in the rural Midwest or in the impoverished areas of the Caribbean? These are all places where I spent a fair deal of time in my life, and oftentimes it seems like the art wouldn't fair well there, as it's disconnected, and that's why it's not there. And so you're really speaking in profound ways. You're speaking the language of the people to the people and with them. So thank you.

BM: Yeah. Thank you. So there are at this point 20 artists that will be participating in a fundraiser at the gallery, all who are offering their work. And it is a range of both political and socially engaged work to aesthetic work, but there are artists who are believing in the importance of TNT Art Lab. And we're operating the fundraiser in a profit sharing model where when work sells, we'll share those proceeds with the artist who's given the work.

I grew up at a time when nonprofits would simply ask artists to donate the work and they would keep 100% of the proceeds. Something always felt wrong about that, but yet artists wanted to participate to support the organization and be part of that community. So I think that what we're doing is something you'll see more and more with nonprofits. And you know, it's a way that we can support the artist community while also trying to raise money for programming and engagement going forward.

**Bradley McCallum speaks at TNT Art Lab**

HL: That's impressive. I like that. You know, it's funny the normalization of that until you say it—it's like, "Oh, that does make sense that you donate your work and we keep 100% as a nonprofit and the artist really gets nothing from this." But they want to support and you're kind of changing this model. I mean, that's impressive. It's a new way of thinking that I think our world needs as much as anything. What are some of the aspirations with programming?

BM: It's great. One of our advisors advised me to not over—don't prematurely program it—to remain nimble and flexible so that we can be responsive. You know, what I've learned is that it's very difficult for a new arts organization to enter the environment from a foundation side. The San Francisco Arts Commission requires that organization to have a 2-year track record of operating consistently before they're allowed to apply for a grant. I think that's stifling and challenging and maybe not appropriate because you actually want to be supporting new ideas and efforts. But at the same time there are great organizations that have put in a lot of work over the years and it's important that those organizations continue to be supported.

So I think what I hope TNT will be able to forge is a partnership model so that an organization like MOAD, Museum of the African Diaspora, may bring in an artist who wants to do social practice art but they don't have—you know, doing that from MOAD's museum office may not be as appropriate as doing it from TNT. So I could see this—I could easily see us working in partnership with MOAD or SFMOMA or the de Young Museum when artists are coming to develop community socially engaged projects that may not be shown here, but this space becomes used as the incubation for building those projects that will move on in the world elsewhere. So there is a partnership model that I hope we will be able to realize through TNT.

Hugh Leeman: Wonderful. Thank you. It's impressive to think of what you're doing.

Braley McCallum: You’re welcome. Thank you for your thoughtful questions.

Bradley McCallum

Svea Lin Soll