Bomin Jeon Interview

Bomin Jeon, Interviewed by Matt Richardson

October 2020

More about Press Press: https://presspress.info/about

Matt: Hello I’m Matt Richardson a student at Towson. Thank you so much for being here Miss Bomin. So, first of all I’m curious how did you become involved in Press Press?

Bomin Jeon: To give you a bit a background about me, I came to Baltimore because of college. In 2012 I moved to Baltimore to attend Maryland Institute College of Art, which is also the place I’m working at currently. As a student I was in the sculpture department and I met a friend whose name is Kimi Hanauer, and she’s actually the founding editor for Press Press. So she had this idea of starting a press and she was working at refugee project which is a nonprofit organization in the city that works with refugee youth who have been recently relocated into the city from all over the world. She was running this afterschool writing workshop with them and I got interested in her project and I joined her because we’re both coming from a different country and culture so I was very interested in working with the refugee youth who were just learning how to speak English and adjusting to American society and culture and just being a help in their transition.

While we’re working with them we’re using English as a language. Oftentimes when you’re a student who is required to attend English as a second language class because you’re a foreigner, learning English is tough and kind of an oppressive force in you life, where you have to learn so much in such quick time. So while we were running the workshop with the kids we realized ‘oh we don’t want English to be a stressor in this workshop' or in this program, we want it to be a tool where they feel like they can communicate something that they can be creative with, something that they don’t feel restricted by. So we started writing poems, doing creative writing, storytelling, a lot centered around their own culture, what they want to talk about, about themselves. Out of those classes there was so much good work produced that was just phenomenal, and Kimmy and I were very motivated to share that with other people, obviously with the consent of the students involved, who were excited to have an exhibition with us and make a book with us. So that’s when we started making books together, so we compiled their poetry their posters and prints and made that into a book as a compilation of their writing. Ever since then we became interested in printmaking and also self-publishing as a tool, starting from zine making to now we make all kinds of books, hand made to perfect bound, polished versions.

M: Yeah I read a couple of things on the website, I was really interested in the collaborative activity about defining sanctuary. I’m curious, for those types of things what informs the topics you choose to discuss? What made you decide to look into what sanctuary means to different people?

B: Great question, as a collective we identify as an independent publishing initiative, we think of the process of making a publication as gathering the public. For us, obviously we love books we love designing it, editing it, whatever goes into that process. But also I think it's equally or even more important for us to think about the process and that that's where a lot of the work is the making a book is usually you know really just a culminated manifestation of different conversations, different projects, different relationships that we have with people, real people, real tangible relationships that we have. And it kind of serves as a document that now travels to other places and people buy those and resonate with the content. That is kind of the process for every project that we had we never really set out to say “let’s make a book about this very specific topic," it usually happens very organically and naturally when things arise in our lives and the conversations that we are having with others that gives us hints. Like ok, I feel like a lot of people are concerned about this topic, I feel like a lot of people are already talking about this topic, it's very relevant.

So, for example, for the sanctuary manifesto that poster or the manifesto called sentiments which is a publication that was compiled and published in 2018 but it actually took us 2 years to compile it since 2016. So the making of sentiments and the manifesto happened actually after 2016 when Trump got elected. All the collective members -- there’s four of us in Press Press; Kimi Hanuer, myself, Valentina Cabezas, Bilphena Yahwon -- none of us are from this country and we all hold different immigrant or refugee experience. So when Trump got elected a lot of our families and our connections, friends, there were so many fears, so many concerns and uncertainties about the future when it comes to their status in the US and their possible repercussions for their safety and many other things. So it kind of bubbled up in our personal lives and personal connections, we were just talking about this all the time, what’s it gonna look like for us to live the next four years? What is gonna be the change? As you know Trump had a Muslim ban and was very much Islamophobic and so we’re talking to our Muslim friends and their communities and how it's affecting them how their friends can no longer or families can no longer travel to US and see families. We were already feeling the tangible results of the fear of the administration and the policies that were put in place. So, we really wanted to center our community, which is people who have relationships with immigration in different forms. So you could be an immigrant yourself, your parents might be immigrants, you might be second generation third generation removed from immigration. Maybe you’re a third culture kid. There are many ways to approach the identity of an immigrant or a non-native person.

M: And many perspectives to get.

B: Yeah, exactly. So we started having conversations about how we are frustrated with the conversation of legality of who is citizen and not citizen and the depiction of immigrants. There was a very specific depiction of immigrants, and there was a lot of focus on the southern border and people who are displaced from South America coming into the US. And there’s this very generalized broad picture of who are the immigrants in America. But we’re not a monolithic group of people -- we cannot be monolithic right? We all come from different cultures, we speak different languages, our social economic classes are very different thus our experiences are very different. That was also a frustrating part, there’s a lot of nuance there but it doesn’t get talked about enough or there isn’t much nuanced conversations around differences and also solidarity within immigrant communities.

And also another frustration was that this is really not working for a lot of people and how do we do better for each other? All those questions and frustration triggered us to reach out to different writers and artists who we have relationships with in person and their friends to ask questions about how do you define your story and narrative in this immigrant story. And how do you battle with it and struggle with it, because I don't think it's set in stone for a lot of people, it's a constant battle of figuring out who you are and where you fit.

Specifically, for the Sanctuary Manifesto we traveled to different cities to host workshops that are 3 hours long so we did one in Brooklyn NY and we invited artists who are immigrants or immigrant adjacent, have some type of relationship to immigration. It was around 25 people and we asked the questions: what is sanctuary for you? how do you, how do we build it together? and how do we maintain it? Because I think a lot of people were seeking sanctuary within their lives an at the time and I think also at the same time a lot of people were scared there will not be a sanctuary for them anymore so it was important for us to talk about that and like kind of assess the needs of the communities and try to define it a little bit. And actually in the process we went to Brooklyn, we went to Chicago, we did one in Baltimore because that’s where we’re based in and all these cumulative answers from this workshop resulted into this manifesto that are 38 statements.

So we had a lot of co-editing process after the workshop in this huge Google doc that we edited for months, and we got to a point where we felt like, oh these are pretty accurate to all the positions that would help that were held in the workshops. As you can see if you read each statement there are some that don't really necessarily go with each other. There may be an opposition. You know, some handle sanctuary as this type of space, you know, like a concrete theme. Some answers say a sanctuary is not even a real thing, you know, like it doesn't exist yet it's a feeling it's a fleeting thing.

So, in the process of doing this workshop and editing and compiling, we realized, your sanctuary may not be someone else's sanctuary, and that's OK. And I think the part that really was hard for us to figure out is that we are so prone to think that we need to find a definitive answer that fits all and in the process of doing that sometimes there is violence because you're over stepping on someone's sanctuary in order to build someone else sanctuary. That's still the part that we struggle with sanctuary cannot be defined by me for someone else, it has to be flexible it has to be open. So I think we opened up a lot of conversation that's around how to recognize difference and not find it threatening and how do we appreciate each other and coexist within the space.

M: Before I was at Towson I was at a Community College, and I really enjoyed when I was there that one conversation that we were having about global affairs and I realized that in our little group every single person in there was born on a different continent. I just felt like having diversity of opinions really enriches those sort of conversations. Why do you think that elevating marginalized voices is important in creating art? And even larger in culture in general have you seen a positive effect that your work is happening in the community since you started since you guys started press press?

B: Yeah I think for us I think it's hard to measure the impact because I think there's always the part that we will never know where our folks end up. You know, who you would touch, we can't really track that that this person reached out to us is saying 'hey I love this book I love this chapter' or whatever.

I think one thing that always we are so surprised and happy to find is that people felt like they were reflected in the contents, especially if it's 'oh I've never seen any writings like this' -- not so congruent or accurate or similar to my own story. And that felt good just to read someone also experienced this right? And that is powerful I think. I've had those moments in my life where I don't feel like I'm a total freak for thinking a certain way, you know, just having something that make sense of your point of view is really important.

If you are coming from a marginalized community, we always talk about representation how much it matters. Because it is powerful to see yourself in someone else's shoes and be reflected in the mainstream. But also there is a limit to relying on mainstream media to portray all the nuance and difference. I think there is always an agenda, there is always a political leaning, and we're actually not expecting them to represent all of the stories right. We are always thinking about subverting the power, giving the mic to people who actually are telling the origin of the story. You know; no translating, no editing, no interpretation of someone else's story, we're just giving the mic to the people to share the truth that they want to share, so it doesn't get diluted and it doesn't get misinterpreted. A lot of interviews actually twist words, and say things that are not true, or they have very biased tone to it. So we're always thinking about 'how do we make sure we provide those spaces and ones where people who don't feel like their stories getting told fully or more transparently' because we think it's important to tell those stories and have those updates as much as possible.

M: I agree with the thought that everything has political leanings because if you as a person make something you're putting yourself into your art and who you are and what you believe is focused in heavy part by your politics those would come out either intentionally or unintentionally in your work so I think that just adds flavor too...

B: I don't think we are also trying to achieve neutrality either I don't really believe that that's possible honestly.

M: Not unless you are a very bland person.

B: I don't know what's more frustrating -- is you know with a platform with following, with money, with capital, right -- like for like big media -- for CNN -- obviously there's money involved, obviously there is lobbying involved. Any news media left or right. So it's important for me to know that people don't feel like that industry has the only legitimacy when it comes to telling the truth or histories. As we all know history is always written by those in power, so I think thinking about revisionism when it comes to history that we often experience. Like in my own country, I'm always thinking about archiving our own history, making sure I leave records of what I'm experiencing in my first person so that someone else, maybe future generations, can have that as a record and might have more diverse viewpoints so they know it's not just only like New York Times that they are basing their history on.

M: Yeah so you're looking forward as well, opening people's eyes and broadening their experience now and in the future. I actually did a similar thing this past summer for one of my audio classes where we did a Journal every week right after lockdown started explicitly as you know, just a good way to check in every week and have a good record. Plus it didn't hurt that I had done an interview back in January why they had asked about COVID and I said “it’s probably fine” so I didn't want that to be my last word on it. Speaking of our current situation however, how have you guys adapted your communal art approach to creating and sharing art for press press in the time of COVID?

B: yeah very good question we have very big blows. You know, we had really big things happen in the past few months -- some really good some really bad -- I will start with bad. The fact that we can't convene with people anymore and that's kind of core of our practice -- making people come together and talk to each other and have this conversation, have meals together -- none of that is possible during COVID. So I feel like portion of our work is not possible because of you know health and safety reasons, which we're still navigating. Whether that's still possible to translate virtually through zoom, although we all hate zoom! We're trying to be mindful of what people have capacity for.

Another bad thing is that we had we gotten displaced from our studio. We literally got displaced last week which is was a huge blow for us -- but maybe it's a blessing in disguise, because we weren't already we weren't using the space as we wanted to because we can't really gather people so we're gonna save rent and get a chance to think about what our next move is. Like OK, if we're going to have another physical space, what it's going to look like? We can think about what elements do we want. Do we wanna build it out? Like it used to be just a studio and library space, but it doesn't have a kitchen, doesn't have a community space, like all this stuff. So I I'm thinking of it as a blessing in disguise.

But yeah good -- the good part that what we've been doing with press press project wise, is that we've been working towards mutual aid. So as you probably have seen pop up in like New York City, there's a lot of mutual aid efforts going on right now people just showing up for each other and serving each other. We're very inspired by a lot of our friends and community stepping up and doing that for others so we wanted to do it on our scale or our with our skill sets so we invited we invited 8 artists and writers who would create a poster. They created a poster each. So the project was called Poetry for Persistence. We collaborated with artists and writers to create different posters, and we sold them as individual clusters or as a set through Printed Matter, which is an organization based in New York City that supports artist folks and independent publishers like us like. So they have a physical store and also studio where they can produce a lot of things. So we created this and we raised $15K for this effort. The artists themselves were paid a stipend to create the posters, and all all the money that was made from the posters was collected to this pool of money to be donated to these different organizations that our community members suggested donating to: the Baltimore Action Legal Team’s Community Bail Fund, Sex Workers Outreach Baltimore, Baltimore Safe Haven, Keith Davis Junior Legal Defense Fund, BYP100, the Free Black Woman's Library , and Sister Outsider Relief Grant. As you know you know after COVID, and on top of that with a lot of different uprisings in different cities like Minneapolis, I I think it was very clear to us that we really need to show up for our community of Black people and people who are doing the work on the ground already. So the funds were distributed into organizations that are grassroots and doing the work on the ground. So yeah that's been really exciting -- never thought we would raise that much money! It's been exciting to know that people really show up.

M: Build it and they will come. that's great this kind of leads into my next question where I'm curious just in general but also in relation to press press -- have you found that art informs social movements or more the other way around? Have you seen social movements and art interact firsthand wave when you're creating or presenting your work?

B: Yeah I think all of our collective member probably have different answers to this so I can only give my personal answer, or I guess in general we do believe that our as a tool. I think it's a powerful tool. As visual people, I don't know if you're a visual person, but I just think about advertisement which is another powerful tool that is used for capital and buying stuff. I think art holds power in grabbing people’s attention, just communicating. And I think we're also very text heavy so text is very important to us too.

I think it's both ways -- art making is informed by our political beliefs and what we deem as important and what we find is necessary to do. And then that process informs what it looks like also. Let's say "Sentiments" the book itself is very thick. Perfect bound very soft cover books and it's very colorful. You know, I think it's color scheme and layout is informed by the conversations that we had, and the feelings that it's trying to invoke. When people hold it, does it feel good? We also thought about weight -- like it has some weight to it and that means something right? It's a good significant weighted book, but maybe that's representative of the content itself. Also, it holds some weight, has a lot of truth that has a lot of stories and narratives. So texture and things like that, the very physical visual things, we are also very picky about because we want it to purely feel good and feel good to read and feel good to look at and easy to understand -- that's always important to us. Kind of easy to understand and also…

M: Engaging to the audience?

B: Engaging to the audience yeah.

Interview Link: https://youtu.be/iP9Mh3pGd0Q

More about Press Press: https://presspress.info/about