Editor’s Note

Each of the authors in VoCA Journal, Issue 14 delves into a core concern, a shared commitment to examining and documenting the voice and intention of artists through interviews, translation, and collaborations across disciplines in the field. The contributors’ decision to capture and frame individual artist voices in service to informed stewardship is a counterpoint to populism. Issue 14 is published in a historical moment where most citizens in the United States have opted to undo a century of work fighting against racism, sexism, ableism, and censorship, all themes that are touched on, if tangentially, in the four essays.

VoCA Artist Interview Workshops, foundational to the organization’s mission, are constantly evolving in form. The Spanish language sessions are the most recent development. Internally, there has been a focus on structuring programs to serve growing numbers of constituents, many of whom are conservators researching, writing, archiving, or curating in Spanish.

Isabella Cilia’s essay Translation as Radical Act: The Radical Women Translation Project contributes to the expanding field of translation studies through Cilia’s careful weaving of the process she stewarded to translate lesser-known artist interviews from Spanish into English. We are introduced to the significance of context, such as key historical and political moments; the import of the translator’s own biography; the range of material a translator tackles, from video to audio and printed materials; and critical choices that divulge the translator’s values and purview. Cilia poses a provocative question about the role of the translator, informed by the work of canonical theorists Lawrence Venuti and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Through telling examples from The Radical Women Translation Project, she analyzes how to translate in a way that refuses to conform totally to values of fluency in English, juggling translation techniques that domesticate or foreignize.

VoCA Journal Issue 10, edited by Emily Watlington and published in December of 2020, was commissioned at a moment in time when Disability culture was being widely discussed, represented in mass media and entertainment, and was a lightning rod for cultural and social change. In a reflection and continuation of the work yet to be done, author Haley Moyse Fenning draws on two decades of lived and professional experience in an essay that includes a guide for organizations committed to reviewing, writing, and revising protocols that improve access. Her position is anchored by a revealing mix of sources from Panteha Abareshi’s Ableism Feedback Loop (2020) to the work of Gus Casely-Hayford OBE, Director of the V&A East in the U.K, which the author uses to better understand the current lag and standstill in the efforts being made to improve access, noting the impact of isolating one issue at the expense of others. She highlights Casely-Hayford’s analysis of several studies that are evidence that systemic ableism, racism, and class bias have not been addressed with integrity and purpose, leaving us in a “structural lag” and holding pattern. Fenning’s contribution resuscitates a subject that holds a challenging position in administrative offices of arts organizations. In my experience, I’ve observed how curators and administrators jockey between addressing ableism and racism, picking addressing one over the other as their pronounced expression of an ethical code. Perhaps this is another example of the scarcity mindset at work, one that motivates workers and citizens to choose and thus isolate one subject or cause to support at the expense of others.

In productive contrast to isolationism, authors Megan Creamer, Kaelyn Garcia, Isaac Facio, and Gio Swaby tell a powerful story of what it means and how to communicate and collaborate across institutions, even in the face of natural disaster. In this essay we learn about how the fragile work of Gio Swaby, contemporary artist working in textiles, traveled to three venues from the South to the Midwest to the Northeast. The works in Fresh Up included both stretched and free-hanging life size portraits, made on natural undyed, unfinished canvas textile, machine stitching, and applique fabrics.  Sensitive to volatile climate conditions, the conservators communicated proactively and in doing so deepened the understanding of Swaby’s work. Realtime documentation of the treatments from re-tensioning works, designing and constructing new mount systems, the decision to reduce creasing and compression marks, stitch stabilization and the re-activating of adherences, were made collectively. The value of sharing information, fostering trust and the open exchange of skills and perspectives among the conservators, curators, handlers, and the artist allowed for Swaby’s work to be seen widely. The communication necessary for this exhibition tour has created a record that will serve future curators, collectors, and conservators.

Alice Evans’ reflections on the creation of the podcast BOOKNESS are pure pleasure to read and inspires a listen. As a book conservator at the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford, Evans attended a VoCA Artist Interview Workshop in 2022, after which she and her colleague, Jo Maddocks, launched BOOKNESS. The story of BOOKNESS Evans tells harnesses the material variety of the books she cares for, bringing life to the process of building a podcast. We gain an understanding of how she and Maddocks think about and address the question, what is a book?, and critically, how to care for books made from the wildest materials, from cheese to growing mushrooms. The dramatic quality of case studies Evans and Maddocks bring to the podcast amplify the persistent question: how will conservators contend with ephemeral materials and structures in contemporary art practices? BOOKNESS, this witty and intelligent oral record, is a much needed, candid, font of knowledge.

This essay, like the three others in this VoCA Journal issue, provides roadmaps and calls to action, manuals for conservators, publishers, artists, curators, and administrators committed to capturing the stories and the essence of artists’ intentions. The essays in this issue center around the importance of preserving and documenting the voices, intentions, and diverse practices of artists, especially in ways that counteract societal biases and continue pushing for positive change.