I was invited by Headlands Center for the Arts to be the inaugural curator for Wall Space, a sculptural installation by Chris Kabel and a centerpiece of the Commons, a public space the residency opened on its grounds in 2017. The installation is a modular lettering system attached to the façade of one of the Headlands buildings, and I was commissioned to select and edit the writers who would create the first four texts: Wendy Rose, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Patty Chang, and Camille Roy. Each piece needed to have a direct or tangential relation to the concept of common or open space and/or the power of the natural environment, addressing themes of access, equity, power, identity, policy, property, climate, geography.

It was important to me to choose four California artists, all either living or born in the Bay Area. And, particularly given the themes of the installation, it felt crucial to begin with Wendy Rose, an Oakland-born poet of Hopi and Miwok ancestry; Headlands Center for the Arts is on Miwok land.

My curatorial statement:

I was delighted when Sean Uyehara approached me to curate a year’s worth of text to be writ large at Headlands Center for the Arts, as the organization celebrates year one of The Commons, a new public space in the middle of its grounds. Having spent a glorious ten weeks in residence at Headlands several years ago, I know well its singular combination of land, sea, and art. I sought writers whose words would echo and reverberate in this wild place, leading those who come across them down surprising, provocative, and rich pathways. I wanted language that would challenge, but also leave room for various interpretations, so that these texts might become sight-specific collaborations between single authors and an ever-changing flow of readers. Ultimately, I don’t believe in the false distinction between art and activism, and I look to language for ambiguity as much as clarity. This is a surreal year to be contemplating public space, particularly in this country; I chose writers who are formally dazzling and politically fierce, so they could do nuanced justice to the complicated themes Headlands asked me to address.