On Top: NYC
Series 1: New York City — Photography Natalie Yang
When photographer Natalie Yang posted that she had some available slots to shoot in NYC, a new project popped up in my mind. I admire the way her lens lands on the subjects she chooses to capture, always strategically playing with light, taming colors. We came together to portray four young NYC based talented artists last June.
Weather prediction was bad for the two days that we planned on shooting, and I was nervous that everything would fall apart. I told the girls to come to my family house in Fort Greene so we could have the option of staying outside if it were to be sunny but also shoot inside if the rain showed up. As predicted, it rained all morning, but, as a miracle, when Natalie rung my door bell, some rays of sun showed up. She spotted the warm lit spots of the house and started to capture each of us.
The next meeting was on the roof of my Bushwick appartement. We met up with Stazi and Eli and discussed under the sunlight for a couple hours. The way in which Natalie was efficient and professional while working with friends was phenomenal. I always have a hard time drawing the line between work and friendship, but she seemed to handle it as a fish swims in water. I am so glad I get to meet people who are willing to share their passion and work with what I have created. This is the first series of On Top, and we were definitely on top of our shit.
Elizabeth Wirija & Stazi Genicoff
Thanks to Natalie, I came across Stazi and Eli, and got to talk to them about what they do and how they do it. When looking at their work online, I perceived for both of them an advanced identity of work, and a very strong message. Both multi-talented people create work as a display of their beliefs. From the people they choose to work with, to the final result of their making, they are both driven by choices reflecting who they want to represent, and why. I admire the powerful work they make, and of the resonant message they carry. In this conversation, I asked them how they nurture such full-bodied styles while still making work considering culture, and people.
Eli and Stazi captured by Natalie Yang.
Elizabeth “Eli” Wirija
Philo Cohen for Speciwomen: Who are you? What do you do? Where are you from?
Elizabeth Wirija: My name is Elizabeth Wirija, but I prefer to be called Eli. I am originally born and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia. I am currently 22. I am an artist. I hate labelling myself a photographer, or a designer because I think that it limits me and puts me in a box. I don’t want to have to cater to the specifications of that box. That is why I just like to call myself an artist. As an artist, you can create anything, and anything you touch becomes art. As a person, I would like to think that I am a passionate individual who is compassionate about people, kind and thoughtful. I have always wanted to spread love.
PC: When did you come here?
EW: I came to New York around 5 or 6 years ago to pursue art school. I went to school for Graphic Design at SVA.
PC: How is labelling yourself taking freedom away from you?
EW: My spirit is such a free thing. I hate specifying it. It does not allow me to try out different things. If I were to call myself a photographer, and I decided to put out a clothing line, for example, somebody will say “How are you as a photographer designing clothes? You should not be able to do that.” If I just say artist, I can just make anything that I am feeling. I think that creativity is formless. When you put a medium to it, it is able to express itself through that specific medium. I believe that anything that I experiment with will be great, and it is just about having fun in the process.
PC: I feel that a lot. I have a very hard time labelling what I do as well. We both come from outside of New York, and I know that for me, moving here triggered a big change in my way to think about myself as an artist, as a maker. Could you tell me a little bit more about what you were doing in Jakarta?
EW: I started taking pictures when I was fourteen. My family used to go on a trip to a different part of the world every year. My dad used to bring disposables and film cameras when we would go on these elaborate family trips. He took me to South Africa, Paris, America, different parts of Asia and he would always bring this camera. I was fascinated by it. Every time, we brought the camera home, and he developed it, and showed me our family photos. I thought that it was amazing how you could capture all that with such a small object. I asked him to lend me a camera, and started playing around and learning. What I was making when I started off was very different. I was just seeing what was interesting and took pictures of it. I did not think too much about concepts. Being fourteen, you are so instinctual. I push myself to continue to practice using my intuition. However, I now have a way more concept based way of thinking when I am taking photos. I do want to plan certain aspects of the shoot. I think of aspects such as styling and location a bit deeper, I want to tell a story.
PC: How did you keep this freedom and instinctual thought process when you started making work in studios?
EW: I only got into shooting in the studio very recently. I prefer shooting outdoors, because the environment is constantly changing and it inspires me. In the studio, the location is less important than if I were to shoot outdoors. I can really focus on other aspects of the shoot. For example, I want to start experimenting more with lighting, and the studio is an interesting place for that.
PC: What camera do you usually use?
EW: A Canon 6D.
PC: My next thought is on social media, and how platforms such as Instagram give access to photography to everyone. How do you still manage to put your work forward and build a portfolio on such program where everyone has the freedom to post whatever they want?
EW: I like the idea of making everything accessible, that is happening right now with the Internet. It allows people to create. Social media is a tool. You have to know what your intentions are when using it. For me, treating it as a platform to showcase my work is to take it seriously while having fun with it. It is all about presentation. In real life, if you meet someone for the first time and you present yourself in a way that makes them question and realize who you are, then they will see you that way. If you show your Instagram in that same light, people will treat you that way too. However, there are downsides to it too. You, then, have to constantly portray yourself in this light. Vulnerability is not much of a thing on social media. People do not want to ever be seen as vulnerable.
PC: What are your thoughts on that last aspect of it?
EW: I think that is pretty unrealistic because as humans we go through so many different emotions. For us to only show our highlights to others is very taxing and it is not real. I think it is important to be real, and talk about things that matter to you. If you are showcasing a too highly positive aspect of yourself on social media, then when you are showing something different, you are not catering to who they want you to be, and that feels incoherent.
PC: That’s a funny thing. Art is all about having emotions and sharing them, and suddenly we come across this platform where they are limited. How do you feel like this part of visual culture, that is social media, influences social change?
EW: I think that social media is a very important medium. People do pay a lot of attention to it. I read a study the other day, that was saying that the attention span of our generation is constantly reducing. But I believe that it is not because we are not reading as many books as past generations. We are reading tweets, articles, even though in short forms, we are reading a lot. It is just in a different context. Social media is all about teaching people how to behave in such technological times, teaching them social behavior. If you post things that have a value and a purpose, people will catch onto that. For example, I used to post a lot of landscapes, before I started to gear more work towards portraiture. With portraits, I feel like I can speak more on issues, and social change. Realizing that, I started digging into myself and what I think is important in this world. As an artist, you have that power to influence people, and you should use that. It is our responsibility. We are given this passion, and this talent; our duty is to move the world in a better place.
PC: How do you make this change happen in your work?
EW: For me it is about social issues, being a person of color in this world and what comes with that. Being an Asian person, how does that influence the way others treat me? How I can bring diversity into my own work? In media there is not enough representation of us. I took that upon my own hands. I only shoot people of color, I want that to be a base in my work. I am creating my own media. If I am the CEO of my own platform, I can create anything.
Stazi Genicoff
Philo Cohen: How do you manage to keep your strong identities and your work aesthetic when working in collaboration?
Stazi Genicoff: Eli helps me a lot. I am so grateful for them. We have a similar vision when it comes to shining a light upon people of color, and breaking down gender norms and rules. We casts our friends, or people from Instagram. Then I’ll style or they’ll style, we’ll come together and brainstorm on how we want it to be. We just work really well together. It is really a give and take.
Elizabeth Wirija: I think that one of the most important things when you are collaborating with someone, is not to impose your personal views, and to give and take. It is an energy exchange. You want it to be reciprocated. We constantly bounce off each other and reflect each other. As Stazi was saying, our messages are pretty similar, and we have the same intention. Once the intention is set, I believe everything is going to be beautiful. It is very important to have an outside perspective. When you are just working alone, it is a one track perspective. It is important to have different ideas floating around.
Philo Cohen: You are a multi talented maker. I’d like to know a bit more about who you are and how you became the artist you are today?
SG: I was born in New York and am currently living in New Jersey. I moved around quite a bit in my youth. When I was younger, I would visit my father in the city every other weekend. I have always had this love for New York, how diverse it is, and how you are constantly exposed to many different things. My mother is a hairstylist, and I would consider her an artist as well. In her youth she did fashion illustration as well as murals. For me, as far as the jewelry is concerned, I have always loved making jewelry from a very young age. My mom would get me these books that had wires, and beads. I would follow the tutorial and make jewelry out of that, or make things with yarn and give it to my mom or my friends. My dad used to work for a phone company, and when we’d visit him, I would always make things out of the wires that were on the floor. I have always been really crafty with little things, loved detail, and made pieces to adorn myself with. I make things my own. I cut and customize everything. I think that is where my creativity stems from: wanting to make things personal, and special to me.
PC: And how would you define your practice?
SG: I do a lot of different things because I feel like as artists, it is important not to limit ourselves. We can express ourselves through so many different ways and I do whatever I want. I model, I sing, throughout high school I acted, then jewelry making. I enjoy makeup and photography. I feel like there are no rules, I just do it.
PC: To focus a bit upon the technical part of your work, I’d love to know a bit more about the material and color range that you use when making your jewelry. How did you manage to build such strong and original identity?
SG: I found low cost materials, looking through different shops, and browsing, I stumbled across the silver chain. Then going to another place, I found the blue chain. I, then, decided upon the length. I have the longer pair, because I think it is delicate when the jewel hits the collar bone, and the shorter pair. I think as far as for this line, I really wanted to shine a light upon people of color, and make sure it was clear my jewelry was not gender specific. This is for everyone. I don’t think that anything should be gender specific. I just wanted it to be beautiful. I wanted diverse casting, young people that are creative, and that I find to be interesting. People who inspire me.
PC: How are other cultures influencing your making?
SG: I think that our society is hyper masculine. Men have become afraid of embracing their feminine energy. Jewelry should not be gender specific at all. I always feel like “Why can’t everyone wear this?”. Even when it comes to clothing, a skirt, everyone should be able to wear a skirt. You can wear whatever you want, it is not defining who you are. If you appreciate it, if you feel like, it is lovely, wear it! I think that in a lot of different cultures they have realized that. It is more about the details.
PC: You were born in New York, which is, today, one of the most advanced and open minded place on Earth. How do you use your work to educate people, and make them aware of social issues?
SG: As far as Flourish Wear, I think that it is clear when one sees the models that I choose that I don’t really care for gender roles. I don’t really know how I deal with it on my own platform, but I definitely talk about it often with friends, because it is very important. For example, I feel like being Black is something that I have spoken about. As a person who is biracial, I identify as a Black woman and embrace my Blackness. I have encountered so many micro aggressions that pushed me to love that about myself. To say “I am so proud to be a Black woman” is beautiful. Society tells us that we are not beautiful. That is what I have spoken about mainly, on my own platform.
Peaches Harrison
Peaches and I met a couple of years ago through a mutual friend. We did not become close right away, but I always saw her as one of the most hard working people I knew. Last year, she moved a few subway stops away from me in Brooklyn and we started to bond. Her constant need for creation, and her eagerness for new projects stunned me. She was attentive to details, and rigorous in her choices while staying practical. Her work reflects her straight forward mind. I am so excited to e-introduce you to one of the most driven people I have in my life. Glimpse into a casual conversation between two best friends about following your instinct, and surviving as a component of the Big Apple.
Peaches captured by Natalie Yang.
Philo Cohen: I just met your mother a couple of times but all of what I hear and see from her is that she is such a strong woman. She is doing a crazy road trip right now, alone with her dog and her car. I would love to know how her presence influenced you growing up.
Peaches Harrison: She always encouraged me to follow my dreams, no matter what that was. She taught me how to truly evaluate the pressures that I put on myself, and the way in which I saw the world, and what I was making. She is so strong, and such an entity in the world. She is not independent because it is not her goal to be outside of others, She is her own strength and her own compass, while still having the ability to rely on others. That is something I really try to take into life with me. I can be strong, I can be alone in New York, but I can still have the vulnerability to fall back on the ones I trust.
PC: Being alone in New York... The eternal challenge. How was the transition from moving out of home, to here? And, here is the big question: Why New York? What gives you fuel to stay in this city daily?
PH: I wanted to move here because of this whole idea that we have about New York: opportunity. I grew up in a very small town in Utah, and no matter how much I like to think that there is equal opportunity everywhere, it is hard to immerse yourself in places that aren’t immersive. New York is immersive. You are either here, and you’re doing it, or you’re not. Being in New York gives you no other choice but to create, because time here is incredibly valuable. Paying your rent, taking the subway, running to meetings, everything is valuable. There is no time for wasting.
PC: This insane value of time makes you change at a high speed too. I remember when I met you you were on a totally different path. How do you see your evolution as an artist, and as a thinker since you’ve been here?
PH: To me, New York is like a petri dish. Everything, including you, grows very quickly because you curate your environment to a place of positive growth. I entered Parsons as a fashion design major, because you have to apply as a major. It felt very right at the time, I had been an apprentice for a fashion designer for about two years, and my portfolio was pretty much only fashion based. I still love fashion, but I had more to give creatively than what I could manipulate in a soft material like fabric. I think that is what drove me into the industrial design program. The fashion design program is very specific to fashion design, while in the product design one, I could really curate the program depending on what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be. I work not only in wood, but also in large scale metal; I do jewelry making… I am designing both for myself but also for niche populations. I made a stool exclusively for the NYC Community Gardens commuters. I am exploring everything that I can think of creatively, without having boundaries of not knowing how to make it
PC: I think it pretty amazing that you started off with a very strong formation in a specific area, and decided to completely switch media halfway through.
PH: With practice and practice and practice comes the confidence to jump into your work without any hesitation. Only this year, I was doing eighty hours a week of only product design, or furniture design. This time spent on the matter really builds a certain confidence. I no longer identify as a fashion designer, I don’t even know if I identify as a product designer but I do identify as a designer because I have skills in all of these different realms that gave me the comfort to make whatever I chose to make.
PC: Within this strong confidence you built, do you ever feel challenged by patriarchal pressure?
PH: Industrial design is a hugely male dominated field, and building sure is too. I struggle everyday with going to Home Depot, for instance, and having a very concise, well educated question, and just based on the way that I dress, and the fact that I am a woman, I get very talked down to. They over-explain concepts to me that I am very knowledgeable about. It is not common to see women working in such laborious environment. It is hard, but it just makes me even more motivated to show them what I can do. I do go into my work with a woman’s eye.
PC: What’s that?
PH: How we have adapted to seeing things not at the surface level. Men were hunting and women were gathering. Women needed to be able to look at the details of a bush and identify if the berries were edible or toxic. When I am looking at things, I am not seeing just the surface level, but the big picture. I want to look for those details, and I want to have that come across my work in a well rounded beautiful way.
PC: Where do you think you’ll end up?
PH: I am still figuring out my personal aesthetic and growing within that. I have not really defined what I want to do just yet, because I feel like I am at the storefront of exploring the possibilities. I see myself working in furniture design, I see myself working in jewelry design, but I am not quite ready to put myself in a box for the future yet. I am still making these big discoveries about who I am as a designer.
Alyssa McDoom
I really wanted to include Alyssa for this series because I always wondered how she would describe her practice, her routine, and her environment. She is the only girl friend I have from the people I know at the New School for Jazz in New York City. When I met her, I noticed her joie de vivre and energy. She seemed to be constantly motivated and very self driven. Today, she is playing in New York -including one show at Cornelia St Café this week- and is about to put out her first EP.
As she is surrounded by men at the school she chose to attend, I wanted to find out about her way to navigate that scene. Alyssa opened to me upon her childhood, and how she got into the genre of jazz, as well as what came with it. A deep reflection on freedom in work, and independence of thought.
Alyssa captured by Natalie Yang.
Philo Cohen: How did your interest in jazz come about?
Alyssa McDoom: I had been singing since I was 10. I did musical theater and sang casually, I was very much into pop music. I am Caribbean and was raised around reggae music so I had never really heard jazz before, I did not even know it was a thing. [laughs] My sophomore year of high school, I did a summer program in which everyone was playing jazz. I thought it was so cool and way more advanced than anything I had ever listened to. I went back home as a Junior in high school and started trying to learn all the harmony and music theory I could and auditioned for a bunch of jazz programs I had heard about, and I just got in somehow. That is where I was thrown into jazz, really fast. I was introduced to it, and suddenly became a jazz singer.
PC: You never looked back?
AM: Well now I am taking a step back, because I was thrown into it so fast. The couple first years were so intense, I was learning so much, and trying to keep up with my peers that had been playing this music way longer than I had. It was really hard. Now, I am seeing all this from a different perspective. I know a lot more now theoretically which allows me to find freedom in what I do. I try to mainly focus on what I always found I liked in music.
PC: You are attending The New School for Jazz. It is one of the most classic and rigorous music school in this city. Do you believe that a strict curriculum is necessary in order to find this freedom?
AM: I think it depends. When I applied to college, I was apprehensive and questioned if I was committed to jazz enough to make it the focus in my career. Above everything, I connected most with writing music. I chose New School because I knew that the students who went there were doing their own thing. Music schools, and conservatories, especially when they are strict, can try to force you to focus on things they feel is best for you. And what someone else thinks is best for you, may really not be the best especially when it comes to your art. They often want to choose for you, the path that you should be going on. But I realized that this is the time in my life and career where it is the most important to discover on my own. I wanted to go to a music school where I would not have to fight for my own future.
PC: Talking about fighting for your own future, and because you jumped into it so fast, did you know how male dominated jazz was?
AM: Well, yeah I did. [laughs] When I did that first Grammy thing, I was in awe. The musicians I was meeting were some of the top in the country at our age, and they were extremely talented and all had huge knowledge of music. These musicians were pretty much all males and they were extremely intimidating. They were constantly challenging the singers/females in the group to show how much more they knew and how much better they were. It was my first time being in an environment with jazz musicians, and I quickly figured out how degrading the scene was to singers, and to girls. Singers are the dumb people in music.
PC: I find this last sentence pretty crazy. The fact that singers are considered the “dumb people” in music while most vocalists I know at Jazz are women.
AM: Jazz is such a difficult, and old school genre. Most artists spend their whole life trying to master it, and it takes a lot of dedication and practice to be able to do it well. When you are a singer, you naturally don't have to practice as much as an instrumentalist because singing is something that you can do naturally whereas instrumentalists need to spend time learning the instrument. So because of that, singers have to constantly be proving themselves to be more than this generalization that they don't know anything. And sadly over the years being a singer has somehow become simultaneous with being a female. If you're a woman pursuing music, it is assumed that you sing. So female instrumentalists have it a lot harder being the small minority within this genre. But I guess that is the bottom line of everything .The standards are so much higher for women in our society.
PC: When you talk about the first time that you encountered this patriarchal climate at the Grammy competition, it seems like it was quite shocking to you. Did you grow up in an equal atmosphere?
AM: I was born in a suburb in Florida. Growing up in a town where I was really the only Black girl, made me recognize early on that I was unlike my peers. Because of my differences, I never truly fit in. But, I never let this difference affect me negatively. I was raised around a huge family, and they were all so proud of where they came from. They taught me how to be proud of who I was, that my differences made me special. They always pushed me and inspired me to challenge myself. When I found music, I was totally okay with being different.
PC: How did that feeling of difference changed when you moved to New York City?
AM: Doing all these music programs in high school had already taught me how people from other states were so much more open minded than the ones from my town. Arriving here, it was an extremely different lifestyle than the one I was accustomed to , but it felt really good to be in a place like New York where there is so much diversity and people are so accepting and open to other opinions and lifestyles.
PC: I feel this eagerness for diversity when I listen to your music. There is a diversity in instruments, in vocals, or in sound effects. How did this new lifestyle you encountered when moving here influenced your creative process?
AM: My creative process completely changed. I learn all of what I know from my friends, from the people that I work with. When I moved here, I met people who were thinking about and analyzing music on such a deep level. While living here I came to realize that thinking only technically was a shallow/surface level way of approaching music and art, that there is so much more to think about other than technique which is what I only thought about for so long. Music is so much deeper than trying to be the perfect singer with the perfect technique and that was the problem I ran into studying music in an institution. Now when I make music I think about elements of my music that I would have never even considered if I had never moved here. The options you have when creating are endless, and that is what I am exploring while I have been recording my first body of music here.