THE FOCUS

Rachel Bubis: Your practice spans painting, filmmaking, and graphic design. Do ideas typically begin in one medium before finding their way into another? How does your approach change from one medium to the next? Noah Thomas Miller: All the time, but it's a fairly natural process. I love working across mediums and finding intersections between them, and once I established my own visual language, it made it easy to blend whatever I'm doing. Normally everything starts from a written idea...

Faira Herod: You stated that what the body loses, an art practice can make visible and transmissible. Has this idea played a role in leading you to create art in response to your chronic illness? How has this act of creating art helped you overcome what you cannot control in your own body? Jocelyn Mathewes: Generally, I make art out of fixation, whether that be from a desire to understand, a fascination, love, or frustrated preoccupation. I make in order...

Rachel Bubis: As a Lao refugee and immigrant, you describe how your experience during and post-Vietnam War continues to heavily impact your life and art. You’ve also mentioned that this experience of war shows up as visual fragments, unlike your siblings who remember specific sounds or smells. Why do you think your experience was different? Sisavanh Phouthavong: As the youngest girl of seven, I grew up with four brothers and an older sister. My siblings were always very protective of...