High Visibility is a podcast, exhibition, and publication series produced by Art of the Rural and Plains Art Museum that welcomes into conversation artists, culture bearers, and leaders from across rural America and Indian Country. We are grateful for the support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Today we have the chance to speak with Su Legatt, and to learn more about how her upbringing in rural Minnesota, and her experiences as an artist and advocate for rural communities, have shaped her recent work and her sense of where we are headed in both the national conversation on rural culture and in the current forms of support and visibility available to rural artists.
We have a chance in this conversation to see these ideas intersect across her work, notably in her recent series Dish – which celebrates the forms of generational knowledge, local culture, and personal creativity present in the Midwestern potluck. The events, and the subsequent Dish book all offer, in Su’s words, an opportunity to “bring people together for intimate exchange and the preservation of private moments” and to “collectively build a more complex and complete understanding of Minnesota identity while building new connections and strengthening existing networks.”
Along the way here, Su also shares her work in Advice from Minnesota Grandmothers, which shares some similarities with the Dish events, in that she presents another element of rural everyday life – in this case the crocheted doily – and offers it as a vessel for a much deeper channel of generational knowledge. Like Dish, it defamiliarizes our associations to objects and practices that we might initially dismiss or overlook. After being with this work, we find surprising bridges between cultures, and some powerful expressions of vulnerability and intimacy, that emerge from these materials.
Su Legatt is an artist, educator, and community organizer. Her photography, installation, and social practice projects explore the quiet, often unnoticed, individual moments of every day life. Su utilizes a variety of community engagement techniques and crowd sourcing methods to create opportunities for participants to share with others in the hopes of creating what she describes as “micro moments of empathy.”
Su is a graduate of Minnesota State University Moorhead and Utah State University and she has taught photography, digital media, and professional development courses at Lake Superior College, Minnesota State University Moorhead, and North Dakota State University and a wide variety of workshops throughout the United States.
She works with various non-profit organizations to organize and create cultural events that help to improve the social structures and relations within each community. As an Arts and Culture Commissioner for the city of Moorhead, Minnesota Ms. Legatt works with legislators, non and for profit organizations, and local artists to support and strengthen the role of the region’s creative community.
Artist photograph above by Amanda Fechtner
High Visibility is a podcast, exhibition, and publication series produced by Art of the Rural and Plains Art Museum that welcomes into conversation artists, culture bearers, and leaders from across rural America and Indian Country. We are grateful for the support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Today we have the chance to speak with Su Legatt, and to learn more about how her upbringing in rural Minnesota, and her experiences as an artist and advocate for rural communities, have shaped her recent work and her sense of where we are headed in both the national conversation on rural culture and in the current forms of support and visibility available to rural artists.
We have a chance in this conversation to see these ideas intersect across her work, notably in her recent series Dish – which celebrates the forms of generational knowledge, local culture, and personal creativity present in the Midwestern potluck. The events, and the subsequent Dish book all offer, in Su’s words, an opportunity to “bring people together for intimate exchange and the preservation of private moments” and to “collectively build a more complex and complete understanding of Minnesota identity while building new connections and strengthening existing networks.”
Along the way here, Su also shares her work in Advice from Minnesota Grandmothers, which shares some similarities with the Dish events, in that she presents another element of rural everyday life – in this case the crocheted doily – and offers it as a vessel for a much deeper channel of generational knowledge. Like Dish, it defamiliarizes our associations to objects and practices that we might initially dismiss or overlook. After being with this work, we find surprising bridges between cultures, and some powerful expressions of vulnerability and intimacy, that emerge from these materials.
Su Legatt is an artist, educator, and community organizer. Her photography, installation, and social practice projects explore the quiet, often unnoticed, individual moments of every day life. Su utilizes a variety of community engagement techniques and crowd sourcing methods to create opportunities for participants to share with others in the hopes of creating what she describes as “micro moments of empathy.”
Su is a graduate of Minnesota State University Moorhead and Utah State University and she has taught photography, digital media, and professional development courses at Lake Superior College, Minnesota State University Moorhead, and North Dakota State University and a wide variety of workshops throughout the United States.
She works with various non-profit organizations to organize and create cultural events that help to improve the social structures and relations within each community. As an Arts and Culture Commissioner for the city of Moorhead, Minnesota Ms. Legatt works with legislators, non and for profit organizations, and local artists to support and strengthen the role of the region’s creative community.
Artist photograph above by Amanda Fechtner
Hello, you're listening to High Visibility. This is a podcast produced by Art of the Rural and Plains Art Museum that welcomes into conversation artists, culture bearers and leaders from across rural America and Indian Country. It's offered in conjunction with High Visibility, a collaboratively curated exhibition, currently on view at Plains Art Museum through May 30 2021. My name is Matthew Fluharty, and I'm the organizing curator. In the months ahead, I'll be with you, along with other hosts from the Plains Art Museum. As we share the richly divergent stories lived experiences visions of folks across the continent. You can learn more about the high visibility exhibition by heading to plains art.org. We also welcome folks to check out the high visibility site inhighvisibility.org, where we offer show notes and transcriptions alongside further information on the individuals and work discussed here. Also, depending on the podcast platform, one can view and directly link to artists work while following along to the conversation. We're grateful for the support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts in making this endeavor possible. And we welcome folks to check out and subscribe to these conversations on their favorite podcast platforms. Today we have the chance to speak with Su Legatt and to learn more about how her upbringing in rural Minnesota and her experiences as an artist and advocate for rural communities have shaped her work and her sense of where we're headed. And both the national conversation on rural culture and in the current forms of support and visibility that are available to rural artists. We have a chance in this conversation to see these ideas intersect across her work, notably in her recent series Dish, which celebrates the forms of generational knowledge, local culture, and personal creativity present in the Midwestern potluck. The events and the subsequent dish book all offer in Su's words, an opportunity to "bring people together for intimate exchange in the preservation of private moments, and to collectively build a more complex and complete understanding of Minnesota identity while bringing new connections and strengthening existing networks." Along the way here, Su also shares her work in Advice from Minnesota Grandmothers, which share some similarities with additions and that she presents another element of rural everyday life. In this case, the crocheted doily and offers it as a vessel for a much deeper channel of generational knowledge. Like Dish defamiliarizes our associations to objects and practices we might initially dismiss or overlook. After being with this work, we find surprising bridges between cultures, and some powerful expressions of vulnerability and intimacy that emerge from these materials. Su Legatt is an artist, educator and community organizer. Her photography, installation and social practice projects explore the quiet, often unnoticed individual moments of everyday life. Su utilizes a variety of community engagement techniques and crowdsourcing methods to create opportunities for participants to share with others in the hopes of creating what she describes as micro moments of empathy. Su was a graduate of Minnesota State University, Morehead and Utah State University and she's taught photography, digital media and professional development courses at Lake Superior college, Minnesota State University, Morehead and North Dakota State University. Su works with various nonprofit organizations to organize and create cultural events that help to improve the social structures and relations within each community. As an Arts and Culture Commissioner for the city of Morehead, Minnesota, Su works with legislators non and for profit organizations, and local artists to support and strengthen the role of the region's creative community. So without further ado, please get comfortable enjoy our conversation with Su Leggett. Su, welcome to high visibility.
Su Legatt:Thanks for having me.
Matthew Fluharty:It's a real honor to have have you with us today. And just to have the space to settle in, to think about your work, your artistic practice where you're coming from And a couple questions around how the arts and culture field and maybe how the broader cultural conversation has oriented itself around questions of social practice art, community based work in the last couple of years, I'm really grateful for the chance for us. Just kind of have a conversation and see where it goes around these questions. So, Su, maybe to begin, where did you grow up? What were some of the early experiences, maybe some of the early influences that were markers on the beginning of your creative journey?
Su Legatt:Yeah, so I, I'm about as Minnesotan as they come. I was born in Little Falls. But I grew up five miles outside of a tiny town called flensburg. It is still there, although it's pretty much just a church in a bar at this point, which I think a lot of small towns in Minnesota, kind of boil down to a church and a bar and some houses. So we were there for probably my first three or four years, bounced around a little bit long prairie and then eventually we settled in perm, which is in lakes country, close to Detroit Lakes. Why Deena, that sort of area stayed there until I graduated high school, I went to college in Morehead. When you talk about early experiences, all of my earliest memories involve being outside. In the dirt, we were a dairy farming family. So picking rocks, and being in the field, my job was to steer the tractor or the truck through the field as my brothers and my dad would load it with hay or whatever, I actually do have a memory of sitting on my mom's lap in the tractor while we were spreading fertilizer. And she would I almost don't even know if I should say this. Whatever it was 35 years ago, she would fall asleep and I would steer it, I just had to drive it straight across the field. And she because she was so tired, she would be asleep and I'd be sitting on her lap and I just had to go straight and we got to the end, I had to wake her up and she would turn it and then she would doze off again, I would steer it straight across the field and wake her up. That was the reality of the early 80s. The woman had four tiny children. Safety was different back then. But it was that those two things kind of go that story goes hand in hand. Two points with it was it was outdoors. It was a harder life. You had to really work but also you had to you grew up fast and you had to earn your keep we I know we had an allowance when we were growing up. But I don't remember getting the allowance. We just had chores as a part of being members of the family. It wasn't like we were paid to pull our weight we worked because that's what you did. You had to earn you were a member of the family, you made a mess, you cleaned up your mess, you know. So even when we moved off the farm, we moved off the farm when I was about nine. And we moved to a house on a lake because we were in Lake Country and perm. It was funny because we didn't have a farm anymore, but it still felt like a farm or my mom had the massive vegetable garden. And we had to pull weeds out of the off the beach. And we had to pull the seaweed or we had to pull the weeds out of the lake because my dad didn't want weeds in the lake.
Matthew Fluharty:Make sense? Right.
Su Legatt:So my parents still like their tiny little yard their plot of land was still very much treated like a farm. And my dad when we were teenagers would loan us out to the local farmers to help them bring in their hay and whatever chores they needed done. We were lent out to help them with their chores. So we still felt like farm kids even though we weren't living on the farm. I'm really grateful for that because it taught you how to appreciate what you had. And you didn't take anything for granted and you really built relationships. So hearing
Matthew Fluharty:you describe that early memory of sitting on your mother's lap. Is that one of your earliest most formative memories.
Su Legatt:I think my earliest memory was in my parents bedroom. My mom was getting ready to go out. I have this memory of my mom putting on makeup and getting ready to go out and I was begging her for my own. I can't remember if it was I wanted my own crayons or my own Legos because I didn't want to share With my brothers anymore, I didn't want to share with my siblings, I wanted my own. And she was like, No, that's just not gonna ever happen. And I was so upset. But it also says in my baby book that I always broke my crayons, because I pushed too hard.
Matthew Fluharty:An early warning sign of what's ahead.
Su Legatt:very passionate about my coloring. It's I think that was my earliest memory. And I told him that because I was describing it to my mom one time and the room that we were in and she said, there's no way you could remember that because you were probably only two. Because she said that was the bedroom at this, this house and you were probably only two years old. There's no way you can remember that. That's amazing. I mean, it's amazing how memory works. fascinated by memory. So much of my work is focuses on memory and deals with memory. Let me ask you a question about memory. And this was a little bit of where I was going around thinking about your earliest, most formative memories, because though I didn't grew up in Minnesota, I grew up in Appalachian Ohio, but grew up on a farm, and also grew up on a farm that my parents had to leave. You know, so your memories made me think about the 1980s. And what the 1980s looked like for many farming families, certainly across the Midwest, where
Matthew Fluharty:I think although we grew up in different regions of the continent, I also experienced that feeling of leaving a farm and moving somewhere else. And that kind of adaptation that a family goes through, and that a person goes through just when you're you've moved and the relationship to the land is different. And I guess what I'm wondering, Why think is two things. I feel like the work in the rural arts and cultural field has really to profoundly dwell on what the 1980s meant to many rural communities, and how radical the shifts were, in many cases, how tragic they were.
Su Legatt:When the white settlers acquired land, illegally, horribly, through the government through the Homestead Act, when it was taken by the US government from the Native American peoples. When they acquired that land, it became a multi generational system where they passed it down from parent to child, again, and again and again. So farming became a culture, it became something that was ingrained in the society and within their family. That's for a lot of people. That's all they knew. That's all they knew how to do. And when the large farms and the mega farms started to form in the 80s, wiping out that independent single family farmers, they didn't know what to do. They didn't know anything else. And so now you have these people who have to completely start over, they don't know what to do next, my dad ended up starting a trucking company. He actually just retired in January. Like after 40, some years, he just retired, and he was able to make a go of it. But to this day, if you asked him he would have preferred to just keep farming because he was really good at it. He was showing cattle and winning awards, and he had the highest producing dairy farm in the state of Minnesota, in 1983. Or whatever your it was. He was an award winning dairy farmer. So it was more than just having to change jobs or having to change careers, there was a massive cultural shift. It is ingrained in our language, the difference between supper and dinner, there is a difference between supper and dinner. It's not just hot, like you choose to say one word or the other. So they're there. It's ingrained in the culture. And I think we're even seeing it today. I mean, the American diet is something all on its own. And it's something that has to be addressed. But when we talk about being a meat and potatoes, kind of family, there's a reason why American farmer eats meat and potatoes because they're out in the field physical labor. All day long. They have to have that high calorie food, when you take them out of that lifestyle and put them into a desk job or something that doesn't require that manual labor, but the food is still part of their culture, and still what they're going to eat. We end up with these high obesity rates or these diets that don't fit our current lifestyle and there's a transitional period that has to happen and we're in that right now. So I I get what you're saying, like we're in this transitional period where we're trying to figure out how, what is our culture now, what are we supposed to be doing when in rural America, the lifestyle that white settlers had for 150 years is no more, what is supposed to happen next. And there's a conflict that we're seeing between the food that we eat and the language that we use against our daily practices and the jobs that we have, and the clothing that we wear. And there's this odd combination or conflict that we're seeing. And I think people are sorting that out. Which is fascinating to me. There's a deeper story to be told. I mean, that's part of what is resonating with me and what you just shared two and a deeper story that in this moment, folks far beyond rural communities, I think would like to hear. And as we make sense of the ever evolving, political moment we're in, we need to hear this conversation. Yeah, I agree. And I was it was it popped into my head this morning. It was, I don't know what it's like for you. But I, I'm one of those people that have these random thoughts for this morning, I had to go to Target and pick up something and just out of the blue, a thought popped into my head, like, I wonder how to address this juxtaposition between this fascination with romanticizing the rural, where it is an escape, you go to the rural for respite and for recovery, of a glorification of the country, and how it's going to give you salvation and relaxation and all that. But at the same time, the people there are Hokie on educated, there's that archetype of the rural being, how it's depicted in movies and TV shows, and the way that the rural is thought about. And again, this is a generalization, but the way that it's depicted by Hollywood, or the way that it's thought about by the the urban cultures seems to be in direct conflict with itself, where it's both the salvation but also something to be mocked. And that I'm just, I've just that popped into my head today. I'm like, I wonder how they think about that? Or do they think about that, like, how does that resolve itself? I got I want to have that conversation with a Hollywood producer. How do you balance that? One of the movies that I actually really enjoy, I find fascinating and hilarious is Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. Because it flips that script. Where do you know this movie? I don't know. Okay, so Tucker and Dale are, I think it actually take place in Appalachia, so you might appreciate it. But Tucker and Dale are these two average guys who their dream comes true, where they're able to purchase a cabin out in the woods for their hunting cabin, and they're going out one weekend, they're going to fix it up. But then there's these college kids who are going to go camping. And because of the stereotype they have in their head of the country bumpkin and movies like deliverance. They're convinced Tucker and Dale are going to try to kill them. And because of their own ignorance, they go through the series of mishaps and harm themselves, convinced that it's Tucker and Dale, harming them, when Tucker and Dale are constantly trying to help them. And they're like, why are they hurting themselves? What is wrong with these college kids? And it's, I mean, it's funny and ridiculous, but at the same time, I watched this movie going. Exactly why? Why are they still convinced? And you and I saw this when we were in Chicago. For that conference, we had the conversation before our panel where like, we know, we're going to be asked, we know we're going to be asked because our panel was on on the rural social practice in the rural communities, when we're presenting on on a conference on power in Chicago. And we knew it was in 2016. And we knew we were going to be asked about the 2016 election. And we were and part of it was that just knowing we were going to be asked about have like What's it like being an artist in a rural community? Like somehow that's something we should be afraid of?
Matthew Fluharty:Yeah, so I'm really grateful that you mentioned That time that we were together and open engagement in Chicago for folks who are less involved in the social practice, part of arts and cultural conversation, open engagement is one of the most preeminent national and international gatherings for folks doing social practice work. And my experience there, but my experience in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election was that it felt like there was a kind of chasm. And on one side was the really highly developed conversation around social practice, you can even add community based work in there. You know, by that point in 2016, there were a university programs on this, there's so many books, it's a practice that really had gained a lot of traction in the arts and cultural conversation. So on one side was that chasm. And then the other side was, like, You turned on a light switch after the November election, and suddenly, folks were asking, what is happening in rural America? What are the conditions on the ground in rural places. And what was really striking to me was like, This chasm is really complicated, because on one hand, you have the ways you spoke of before that rural places have been, and we're being represented in popular culture and in the media. And like, those very forms are erased the racial, cultural geographic, the historical difference that was there. Like what I thought about in the moment, immediately after that election, is that this is a field in a body of work, that is pitch directly towards the kinds of conversations and social change that could occur out of a shared cultural imperative. Yet, so little of the work that was taking place outside of cities was even visible in that field. And so I wonder, like, if that's attention that you have experienced, like, as your journey has progressed? And just like, if that was attention that you felt as well, in that moment in the year since?
Su Legatt:Yeah. So around 2016. And leading up to 2016, I would say, from 2016 to two or 2012, to 2016. social practice was a hot topic, it was one of those words that if you dropped, like on a grant application, people sat up a little bit taller, you know, oh, social practice today, it's placemaking. Ooh, creative. placemaking. Oh, I'm interested, tell me more. The downside is, okay, in every field, there are bad practitioners. There just are there are people who are doing the work, who don't really know what they're doing, when something becomes popular, that number increases, because they're riding the wave. The problem with that in social practice, or community engagement work, is that it can hurt people, it can hurt communities. And what I find troublesome is the lack of accountability that is placed on organizations and on creatives, the people or the organizations who sweep into a community and say, we're going to do this for you. And they do it and then they leave, and then the community is going, Okay. Now what, we have this high maintenance thing, or we have this thing that we didn't ask for really doesn't help us in any way, or now we have to take care of who's gonna pay for that it doesn't really get to the heart of what they actually need. One of my heroes, or one of my role models is Suzanne Lacy. She has a bit of a track record of being invited by institutions or organizations to go into a community to do a certain project or to do something that they want her to do. And then when she gets there, she says, you know, I've talked to them, and we're going to do this. Instead, I've talked to them. This is what they're telling me, and they're going to guide the ship. And the one of the things that people who choose to do social practice work very early on, I think struggle with a lot is the idea of letting go of authorship. They say I have an idea. I want to do this project and they go into community. They say, I'm going to do this for you. And no matter how much the community says, No, thanks. That's cool, not interested. They go, No, no, no, it's good. It's good. You want it, trust me, trust me, trust me. And they push and push and push, instead of going, oh. And the problem is that you shouldn't go into community saying, I'm going to do this for you, you should go into community saying, What can I do for you? How can I be of service to you? I have a certain set of skills, I have a certain network. I'm curious about you. Tell me your story. Let me learn from you. So a project like dish, for example. I'm interested in hearing the stories from these community members. So dish is essentially an event, a system or a series of events, that brings people together that is just a catalyst for storytelling. It allows me to hear people's stories. And then the photographs and the recipe cards are the the artifacts that come from those events. So they're the physical documentation, that is visual catch, that allows me to disseminate those stories, because I come from a studio art background. So I'm always I'm attached to this idea of presentation and visual presentation in particular. So for me, 2016 You're right, you're absolutely right. And it was an interesting time for politics, for rural communities. And for social practice, or community engagement, art. And in our world, those three things converged. And for good or bad. We saw a lot of things happening all of a sudden. And but you know, I'm one of those people that believes the world kind of balances itself. For every action, there's an opposite action, the pendulum continues to swing back and forth. And a lot of those people who were doing the bad work, I don't see or hear from as much anymore, because I think their reputation caught up with them. And people started to figure out, and they've moved on, they realized, maybe I don't want to be a social practice artists, I don't like the idea of shared authorship. They're more of a branding and marketing person, as opposed to the community engagement, shared practitioner type person. So they found their place in the world and communities. The hard thing, though, is the social practitioners who try to approach with ethics and with sound approach and projects and practices and everything. When they then go up to an individual, an organization, a community, whatever. And they say, Oh, no, we've been burned before. We're not doing that, again. That hurts. I've had that happen a few times where I see a great opportunity. And I've been told, nope, I did something with this person A few years ago, and I ended up having to pay for everything. I did all the work. I did all this and that person took all the credit. And I'm never doing that again.
Matthew Fluharty:Well, those artists in those organizations who created projects and programs that ultimately created hurt in the community, have gone forward, monetize it on social media and uses the backbone for further grant funding.
Su Legatt:Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's it's like that in every field, I think. I don't think that's unique to social practice art. I think it's like that in everything.
Matthew Fluharty:So against that tapestry, of awfulness. What I would like to place in the foreground is dish as a project. I'm so glad to hear your thoughts on Suzanne Lacy, in these ideas of invitation. And I'm wondering, would you be willing just to read for us the first two paragraphs from your introduction to dish?
Su Legatt:Oh, sure. I grew up in rural Minnesota, the daughter of dairy farmers, who in the late 1980s had to give up farming. As I got older, I began to understand the gradual disappearance of rural culture as I knew it as a child, large family gathering surrounded by huge tables full of food, wild outdoor adventures with my siblings that took us deep into the woods with only a tiny deer trail to guide us out again, an hour spent in the lap of a parent in the tractor spreading seed or manure, or eventually harvesting crops. We attended a small country church where not only did everyone know everyone, they knew your troubles celebrated your successes, and were ready to come to your home to help in times of crisis. Everyone talk to everyone not out of desire to better understand each other. But because neighbors were a network of assistance and information, we couldn't look up a recipe on the internet run to the store for an ingredient we forgot, or replace something that broke. Money was tight, time was precious, and things were just too far away to constantly be running back and forth. Today, I laugh at movies that show farmers walking around without a task in the middle of the day, or driving into town just to buy a single sack of flour. potlucks are simple custom that seemed to transcend political affiliation, economic status, religious orientation, and all other social demographics. While the culture of rural communities is constantly changing, the simple gathering of humans around food is not our memories, histories and traditions are intertwined with food as communication.
Matthew Fluharty:Thank you.
Su Legatt:So isn't that ridiculous? When you see that in movies, farmers just going for this long stroll conversation in the middle of the afternoon, just just talking about their troubles as though they don't have anything else in the world to do in my life. I have never seen that happen.
Matthew Fluharty:And it seems to sit even within one of the things that I feel is really, really provocative about dish is that you have those set of associations. And yet in what you just shared from this beautiful introduction to the book on dish, like we learned that it's an intimacy with the cultural history of this region, which allows this project to really flourish the way that it has inferred to open up that notion of invitation.
Su Legatt:Yeah, I think it's more than just this region, I think there's a certain level of nostalgia that everybody can relate to, even if you grew up in the city. What was life like, as a kid, pre internet, I didn't grow up in the city. But I know my friends who said they rode their bikes, everywhere, you had to go outside and play, you still had to go outside and play. Maybe everybody rode their bikes to so and so's house because they had an Atari. That was the cool kids house because mom and dad got them in Atari, or they played street hockey outside, or they all met at this particular park or something, it's very different today, there might be a little bit of that still. And even the rural communities, they're still a little bit of playing outside and going and exploring the woods and things like that. But I think the great divide, it's not so much rural and urban its technology. And that there's that I think I'm part of that sliver generation of not quite Gen X not quite millennial, but that sliver generation that the internet created. So dish touches on several points related to the rural community, where I'm fascinated by specific to the rural community, this cultural shift that's happening with the decrease of family farms, first of all, but also the mass exodus that's happening due to lack of opportunity, and the ability to support your family. So people are moving away just because of less jobs. So because the family farms went away, that led to fewer job opportunities, and the mass exodus that's happening in the rural communities that lead to fewer opportunities to gather and socialize. All of that created the reduced opportunity to celebrate and propriate culture, I don't know how else to say that. So dish is a gathering that brings people together and provides socialization. But because every food item that's brought is a family or an ancestral dish, there's also a cheeky sort of one an opportunity to celebrate family and family history, but also a little bit of a demographic sort of study. Where if a lot of the dishes that are brought are German, for example, there's a strong German population and that community, sometimes they are all over the place across like completely random and surprising and fascinating and it's great and Sometimes they're very tight. And the community is not exactly what you'd expect it to be. Because I never know going in what we're going to get. But they know. And they go, Oh, Oh, you didn't bring your whatever. Oh, it's nice to see this. I remember I had this last time. So it's fun. And then you get to hear the stories. And the first question I asked at the at every dish event is what did you bring in Why? And it's a great icebreaker for them because they have pride in what they made. And they want to talk about this is my mother's donut recipe, or this is a dish that has been passed down at for generations, or I made this in honor of, you know, so when you start the conversation off with something you can be proud about, it opens the door to potentially talk about something a little bit more challenging, as opposed to starting with something that's really hard and working your way up to something you're proud of.
Matthew Fluharty:Are there conversations to stand out to from these dish events, or folks that are in that space where they're able to think together? About a story or a situation that might? Might Harken to what you're sharing? Yes, there. There's moments of difference that I appreciate one of the phrases. You know, in Minnesota, we have Minnesota nice. I think there's also Wisconsin, nice. There's southern hospitality. There's this regional notion that there's a kindness or there's a general hospitality associated to this particular region. I don't think every region associates that way. I think certain reasons take pride in being tough. Or being you know, I think tough is a good word.
Su Legatt:So but in Minnesota, we have a Minnesota nice. So one of the things that stand out for me is people who are new to the region in just about every dish event, there was at least one person who was new to Minnesota and their stories or their general take, because we would talk about Minnesota nights and whether or not it was real, is it? Is it real? Does it exist? And the people who are from Minnesota would generally say at first they'd say, Oh, yes, yes, absolutely, yes. And then somebody would introduce, maybe it's a passive aggressive. You know, it's more, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. It's learning to refrain yourself, and to restrain yourself. It's more about just holding back. It's not imposing yourself is more what Minnesota is about. And then the conversation would go into No, sometimes people just say, No, it's not because the new people would point out in the front end, maybe they would be invited over to somebody's house, but that person didn't actually mean it. Like, oh, it'd be great to get together some time. Okay, see you bye. That's it. There's no follow up. There's no, Let's exchange numbers. There is no great when would you like to get together? It's an empty gesture, which is not necessarily kind. It's more just the perception of kindness. Um, it's funny because I was at a conference in Oakland, California, a long time ago, and we were doing an active listening exercise. And when it was my turn, I said, you know, I'm from Minnesota, and I told my little spiel, and at the end of our workshop, this young lady came up to me and said, Where are you from in Minnesota? And I said, Oh, it's a small town, you won't know it. It's called Perm. And she goes, ah, I'm moving to Perm. And I go, I go, no way. I go, where are you from? And she goes, San Francisco. I said, How are you moving to perm, Minnesota. She met a guy at a co op in California. And he was moving home to perm to take over the family farm. And they were getting married, they were getting married, and they were going to move to perm to take over the family farm and she goes, what should I know? What should I know about moving to Minnesota and living in this small town? I said, Well, first of all, you're going to be a novelty. People are going to be fascinated because you're from California, at first, and then they're going to disappear. So at the beginning, they're going to be fascinated by you, and then they're going to disappear. So if you want to make connections and you want to get to know people You're going to have to do the groundwork, you're going to have to be the one that reaches out. So, join an organization, get on the board of some group. I know there's an Arts Council, join the Arts Council, do some things to get yourself integrated into that community right away. And then you'll start making connections and it'll go from there. But if you don't do that, you're always going to be an outsider. So anyway , I kind of got off topic.
Matthew Fluharty:That totally tracks with my experience and Winona.
Su Legatt:I think it does. It's funny, because that came up in the conversations with dish a lot to where people were living, you can live in a house for 20 years, and it's still the previous owner, oh, that's Johnson's house. You know, it's not your house. You live in Johnson's house, your, you know, your Fluharty. But you live in Johnson's house, even though you've lived in that house for 20 years.
Matthew Fluharty:So I've lived in the upper Midwest for five years now, and that term, Minnesota Nice's and then there was like this conversation about it when I moved, moved here, that was really percolating. But I love this notion that came out of just what the natural dialogues were during the dish process for that being holding back instead of Minnesota nice, which feels I mean, from my own personal experience feels close to something that I experienced. And it, it brings me back to the dish book itself, which is a really incredible book, I have to say, you're also a very accomplished photographer. So the dishes themselves appear here. And they look incredible. I mean, like compositionally, they're they look really striking, but they also look like things, many of them things that I would love to eat. So the genre of this book is really cool, because it plays in part with the notion of what a recipe book should be, while also really subverting our expectations of what a recipe books should be. And also subverting our expectations of what a quote unquote, art book, whatever that means anymore. Should be right.
Su Legatt:It's funny, you say that, because I had a really hard time writing my grant application. This book is supported by a Minnesota State Arts board grant. And I had a really hard time writing the grant application, because I'm like, well, it's an art book that includes recipes. But I don't want people to think it's like a cook book, because it's not going to have these juicy, full display, food pics, I think of the photographs like portraits of the individuals who brought them, but I don't want them to be tainted by all of the outside information. So it's almost like a Richard Avedon approach to the objects. So they have just that flat, that plain white background, and all you get is the object, like a very studio still life, almost commercial, but warmer. And I had no idea how to describe that. In my application. Thank you for saying that.
Matthew Fluharty:It's a challenge, you're describing a kind of book that we haven't seen, until you've created it, maybe to say again, what I learned through having the privilege and the pleasure just to sit with this book is that the form and the project itself, defamiliarizes our relationship to food and to gathering and to the forms of cultural association that are really interlinked with those things. I think this goes back to that notion of maybe what we're talking about with Minnesota nice, really is a quality of holding back in that. Two things happen when I sat with the Dish book. One of the most immediate things that happened that would maybe counter general expectations about what would be contained in these pages, is that there is a really broad cross cultural representation here of folks who attend to dish events and have the food link to their own cultural events and ancestral traditions. So we have Nigerian fried rice. And then we have cookie dough. And if you were to ask me in one sentence, how do we talk about contemporary rural experience? I would say well, those two dishes are both on the table. If that catches us off guard, that's an opportunity for us to think about what is at stake right now. In rural communities. Also and something that was very meaningful to me, as well was I think some element of the holding back the maybe it's it is a quality of life, and Minnesota or lightlife, in the upper Midwest, in the way that folks who are European descended hold back, is that we're also holding back our own cultural difference. And even for folks who may be come from that wider European tradition in this book, there is difference, there's a lot of difference there. There's a lot of difference that I think sometimes we don't sit with enough.
Su Legatt:What just really strikes me about the work of dish. And maybe it's in distinction to the other forms of social practice you mentioned earlier, we get to that point through being in relationship with each other, as opposed to it being some sort of really dogmatic statement about what a project is. So there were supposed to be four additional dish events that got cancelled because of COVID. And I ended up having an online event via zoom. And at first, I was really upset that those last four events were canceled, I was really excited about them. And they spread the radius of dish a little bit further north east, which was really exciting for me, but to kind of hidden blessings came from that. The first was that because those events were canceled, I didn't have to edit the photographs I could include in the book. So every single dish that was brought to the dish events is included in the book, which I'm so happy about because every participant who came is important. And I wanted them represented, because I was I lost sleep, I literally was up at night trying to figure out who do I not include? I don't want to not include somebody. So I just said, you know what I'm going to make it fit, I'm going to, I'm going to have to include everybody. So not having those cuts made that possible. The other thing that happened is the online event, I had participants from North Carolina, Missouri, and Kansas, attend the event, who would not otherwise be able to attend, but they all had Minnesota roots. And they were all so excited to just talk about these topics, because they were living in communities with people who did not necessarily relate in the same way that they did to the topics we were discussing. One woman pointed out where she lives, they don't have bars, they have squares. So we have, we have like lemon bars, or we have seven layer bars, they have squares. So when she brings bars to any event, or they have full pans or whatever, like they just bring the whole pan and then cut that line or whatever. So that was like very exciting to her that she could talk about bars, and people understood what she was talking. So there's that language, right where you're speaking your language. It's funny how projects develop. And it's one of those things where if you hold on too tight, the project won't be what it's supposed to become. One of the things I get asked a lot is how do you know when your project is over? And I generally say, I don't know, if my projects are ever over, I feel like they evolve and morph into the next thing. And with the dish book coming out, it's it's hard because now there's more people who want to host dish events. But at the same time, to me, it's like, this is a good benchmark for the next evolution. And there's more things I want to do. Moving forward to the point. About a year ago, somebody came up to me and go, are you the potluck lady? And I was I was shaken by that. And I was like, I don't know, if I want to be known as the potluck lady. I'm like, oh, it might be time to evolve again. So. But it's funny, because it's a criticism I've received in the past where I think my work has a general sort of look about it where I've been told it's very clean. But there's a there's a cheekiness to it. Like there's a slight humor, but I've also been criticized because there's, there's no solid, like, I'm not a landscape photographer, or I'm not, you know, textile sculptor, and I've been criticized for that in the past, but I think, you know, to, to plead my case, I think it's important to make the work that you feel best represents what needs to be representative of the community or of the story you're trying to tell because not every story is going to be told best the same way. And that sounds like I get that that sounds. I don't know like I'm making it up or something or I'm just Whatever. But part of it also is that I like to learn. I like to learn new things, I like to challenge myself, I like to learn from other people a lot. And I think that's where dish comes from too is I like hearing their stories. And when they introduce a new idea to me, I met a woodturner. And now I'm just like, I need to do woodturning. I need to learn how to wood turn. So if 10 years down the road, there's a project that comes up that involves recovering trees, I have something in my toolbox that allows me to present some variation of this tree, I recovered from this farmer's field. And I can tell the story of it. And I've created some piece that you know what I mean, because there's the physical object associated to the object, which is comes from the specific place, which is tied to the story. And, yeah, so I want to do justice. So I have to have this ability to morph and transition. So I can best tell the story for that person or for that object for that community. In talking about woodturning.
Matthew Fluharty:And then thinking about how a story is best told, it takes me to the work in advice from Minnesota grandmothers, which is also on view at the Plains Art Museum for the high visibility exhibition. And so I'm wondering if you could share a little bit about how this project came about because it centers again, in one of these objects, which for many folks is a real central everyday material object.
Su Legatt:I can't even remember the year that I put out the call on social media, I say call art language I posted, I just posted on social media. What advice did your Minnesota grandmother give you something like that, and then people just responded to it. And I collected the feedback, wrote it down, stuck it on a piece of paper and just let it percolate. It started around the time that my mother's mother started having health issues. And going downhill a little bit. And I was thinking a lot about generational knowledge, the information that we pass from parent to child, and for me, and at the same time I do, I think a lot and I have projects in the past that never quite came to fruition about objects that represent an aspect of identity for whatever reason. And for me, one of those objects is a doily one because in my family, the women crochet, so we have doilies in our homes. So there's that just the aesthetic of the doily in your home. And like you said, it's this object that we have, right. But also, crocheting is a skill that was taught to mother to daughter passed down from generations. And as far as I know, I'm the last one. And there's a weird sensation in being the last daughter to know how to crochet in the family. So there's a weight that's tied to that. So I started thinking about the relationship to mother the relationship to grandmother, the baggage, the emotional baggage that's tied to the doily for me personally. And then I had I put that out there. You know the advice for Minnesota grandmothers. And all of this is happening. I'm living in Morehead and Fargo Moorhead has spring cleanup week which is like my Christmas. I love it. Because spring cleanup week up here, you can put anything on the curb. There's limitations, it can't be chemicals or electronics, whatever. And they will clean up the garbage service people will take it away. Inevitably, people shop the berm, you drive you cruise up and down the streets and you go through people's piles and you discover found objects in the art world. It's found object. So one time, I don't know if the person was a furniture maker or an a pollster or what but I found these huge boxes of fabric swatches from the 60s and 70s. I hit the jackpot, right? So I'm putting these in the back of my car, no idea what I'm gonna do with them. I'm sitting on them for two or three years. So I've got these fabric swatches from a few years earlier. I'm thinking about object connected to identity. My grandmother's health declining and I start reminiscing on generational knowledge. All of these things converge and you get the advice from instead of grandmother pieces. So these are the statements. The advice is screen printed onto the found object fabric, which is stretched over wooden disks. And then the doilies are crocheted borders on those disks, and then they're starched and presented as wall pieces. So when you see them in a formal gallery setting, first of all putting a doily in a gallery, hilarious. Another hero of mine is Marcel Duchamp if you hadn't picked up on that already, so presenting in the data lists are an influence for me. Putting a doily a starched doily in a gallery space cracks me up way too much. And the doilies are bright colors, they're not usually white. And then they have these phrases on them. Like don't sit on cold concrete, or love life. Never stop learning stuff like that. So they're starched, and they're up on the walls, and they look like polka dots. And they're bright colors. And they're funny, but they're sentimental or nostalgic. And for me, they're very personal. And I crocheted some of them. But my mom helped me out. And she crocheted some of them as well. And what's funny, and I take a little bit of pride in this is my mom, and I can't remember who crocheted which ones, which I'm very proud of because I think she's way better than I am. So if we can't tell, that means I did a pretty good job.
Matthew Fluharty:That's really inadvertent high praise.
Su Legatt:So it she actually she contributed to the Facebook response to and she has her piece in her house. So hers was when making bread, make it worthwhile, bake at least 15 loaves at a time, which she does when my mom bakes bread, she does at least 12 to 15 loaves.
Matthew Fluharty:Wow, that's a practice of invitation right there.
Su Legatt:So she that was her grandmother's advice to her.
Matthew Fluharty:Thank you. So as, as we kind of come to the end of our time together. And, you know, in thinking about peace forms of everyday generational memory, you've just shared with advice from Minnesota grandmothers, are there some projects or the inkling of some questions that you're thinking through that might lead your work? In the year ahead?
Su Legatt:Yeah, I've I've been thinking a lot about generational knowledge, but also learning through osmosis, what we acquire simply by being present. And especially as a white, straight, cisgender female, what I am missing out on by not being present. So you asked me before, what am I currently reading right now. So I'm reading some things from my own personal growth right now. But I've been doing more just trying to quiet my mind. And that's one of the things I've really appreciated about 2020 is I know, people are sick of zoom. But I feel like zoom has been like a great equalizer where everyone has to call in on the conference call. It's not eight people in a room and one person calling in, I don't have to drive for hours to a meeting in Minneapolis anymore. Everyone gets to call in. And I love that. So I've been thinking a lot about this idea of equality in terms of in physical space, and how we relate to each other. racially, and religiously and other demographics, but also in our physical space, rural and urban, whether you have an apartment or a house, whether you have a large house or small house, just those types of things. But then also I've been thinking about where I stand as an artist. And when things were getting really hard. I had to take a moment to think about where I was at as a social practice artist and somebody who posted events around conversation. And whether or not I was equipped to continue to do that. Am I the person who should be hosting events and having conversations did people want to have conversations about food and shifting cultural dynamics in rural Minnesota? And I don't know if I've answered that yet. But I think things are starting and again, there's that pendulum right to every action. There's an opposite action. I think things are starting to quiet down a little bit, for people personally, I don't know if people are ready to have those conversations yet. But I think there's room for other conversations. And hopefully other conversations can open the door. Because in the end, it's really I was talking to a friend a couple of weeks ago. And he was getting really frustrated, because he, he felt like he was surrounded by just horrible people. Like, why am I always around horrible people. And I said, if you have a very sensitive radar said, The trick is to train yourself to turn that down and find one thing in common. If you can find one thing that you can agree on, you can build off of that. The problem is that we are allowing these loud voices to stand in front of us. And we need to let them be loud. But let them be loud elsewhere for just a little while, so that we can have that quiet moment. So we can connect with somebody here. Let them be loud here. Let us connect here. And that's a very difficult thing to do. Because the internet is in our pocket, every moment every day. And I don't know how to get around that. So I think introducing things like Dish, and Advice from Minnesota Grandmothers having a little bit of sugar with your medicine. And a little bit of humor, a little bit of nostalgia, a little bit of realizing that we've all felt like the outsider at some point. We've all had to learn a new trade. We've all had to discover something. We've all been naive. We've all said something that was wrong. We were all offensive by mistake. You know, we've all done it. It's just learning from that and moving forward and growing.
Matthew Fluharty:Su, thank you so much for your time and for joining us on high visibility.
Su Legatt:Thank you. It was fun.
Matthew Fluharty:Thanks again to Su for her time and generosity in this conversation. Please check out the show notes in the High Visibility site, inhighvisibility.org for further information on all the work and ideas discussed here. Please also check out Plains Art Museum at plainsart.org to learn more about the High Visibility exhibition, which is currently on view until May 30 2021. Thanks so much for spending some time this conversation. Take care