In the Frame: Cameron Russell

What are you working on currently?

Cameron Russell: ‘My first book How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone came out last year. It’s a blend of memoir and creative nonfiction that considers whether the work of modelling can be a site for creativity, power building and repair. Now I’m working on a second book about gestation and climate catastrophe. 

‘I’m also continuing a project called The Art of Care in collaboration with Mei Tao. Three years ago we started to think about how to share the art we and other caregivers made of our families and communities, experimenting with how to exhibit work that is ongoing, often ephemeral and very rarely intended for an audience beyond a few familiars in small private spaces like the home, bedside or classroom. This year we’ve collaborated with dozens of caregivers and put on three shows: first at Gallery 263 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, then at Proyecto Público, General Prim, Mexico City, in collaboration with Marcelina Bautista and most recently in Tucson, Arizona, with Dora Rodriguez and children and families at the Salvavision summer camp.

‘At UMass Boston I’m co-teaching a course with Professor Candace Famiglietti on transnational feminisms, using the fashion industry as a case study. Fashion allows students to apply foundational and contemporary feminist texts and concepts while cocreating urgently needed intersectional research and experimenting with embodied, artistic practices. The course treats feminist practice as both scholarship and collaboration, producing creative ways to communicate research to wider audiences.

‘Oh! And I’m raising our children with my wonderful partner and our community.’

What ritual or routine keeps you going?

CR: ‘I like to have lots of projects going at once, and I think what keeps me going is letting things develop at the pace they should. So if an answer is coming slowly, or if I need to live more to figure it out, that’s okay. If I’m collaborating with someone and whatever is happening now in the world calls us to evolve or pivot, we can. If something arises that feels urgent, relevant and needed, I can make space to lean into that.

What work of art made you see things differently?

CR: ‘The essays ‘Journey into Speech’ (following ‘Notes on Speechlessness’) by Michelle Cliff and ‘It’s Only a Matter of Acceleration Now’ by Binyavanga Wainaina were transformational for me. The way they are structured is so gestural. Wainaina’s piece especially is almost choreographed. Reading them I felt liberated from structural expectations and ambitious to explore that in my own writing.

Which artist or designer from history do you wish you knew more about?

CR: ‘Years ago my partner, Damani Baker, gave me Of Water and the Spirit by Malidoma Patrice Somé. There’s a passage in the book where he talks about the role of musicians in helping people move through grief. Since then I’ve often wondered about the roles artists have played historically in helping people heal in community.’

What are you reading currently?

CR: ‘I’m finishing We Grow the World Together: Parenting Toward Abolition by Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson. It’s an anthology exploring how parenting, caregiving and struggles for liberation intertwine. I don’t see parenting as separate from work, and I am always delighted to find spaces where parents and caregivers are resourced to share how parenting informs their other work, their writing, their theory, their art making and vice versa. I’m excited to start All Ah We is One: Caribbean Carnival Costume by Aisling Serrant. It’s the newest title from a wonderful indie publisher, Common Threads, that publishes “radical histories of craft and making”.’

What artists or designers are you excited about right now?

CR: ‘Angélica Macías Mejia, artist and director of Casa de la Misericordia y de Todas las Naciones. Her spectacular imagination is matched by the life-affirming care families provide with her and to one another at the shelter she runs in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. Founded on principle of not turning anyone away, the home includes murals, a fibre arts workshop, a ukulele shop, a primary and secondary school, a tortilla factory, playgrounds and gardens.

‘Landon Newton, artist and gardener behind The Abortion Herb Garden, an ongoing collaborative garden installation planted exclusively with abortifacient and contraceptive plants across the United States. Her art practice, working with people and plants as collaborators, is such a graceful guide for our time. Her recent installations at Socrates Sculpture Park, Barnard Library and and Frieze New York felt like gentle invitations to anchor in life, beauty, connection and even ease as we navigate challenging times together.’

Your favourite view, anywhere in the world?

CR: Sunrise through the screen window at my parents’ place in Maine.

Most memorable art or design show you’ve seen in the past year?

CR: ‘Wages for Housework Community Archives at the Our Right to Care Conference and Gee’s Bend: The Next Generation quilts exhibition at Spencertown Academy Art Center.’

Top picks at Christie’s right now?

CR: ‘I’m drawn to Vittorio Caradossi’s Moon Nymph. Having worked as a model for twenty years, I admire the work of brilliant models, who most often (even today) remain anonymous and without credit for the art works they collaborate in making. Whoever it was that played moon nymph was skilful!’

‘I am delighted by this dog stapler by K.G. Subramanyan and Gyarsilal Varma.

‘I don’t know the story behind Bikash Bhattacharjee’s Untitled (Katayun Sketching Outdoors) or the relationship between Katayun and Bhattacharjee, but I sense a real tender respect for Katayun who is drawn sketching here. I always love admiring and being awed watching my friends create, and that's the energy I get from this work.