Frequency Gardens: This Room Feels Like a Hug

Hannah Fagin: I work in the Learning and Engagement Department at The Museum of Modern Art. I manage the Adobe Creative Residency, a community-engaged residency program based here at MoMA.

As the inaugural Adobe Creative resident, artist DonChristian Jones organized Frequency Gardens, a summer program and radio show for teens organized with the Lower East Side Girls Club.

Since 1996 the Girls Club has supported young women and gender-expansive youth of color throughout New York City in leveraging their inner power to shape a better future for themselves, their community, and the world.

In this podcast, the Frequency Gardens teens interview DonChristian Jones about their exhibition, The Sumptuous Discovery of Gotham, a Go-Go, on view at MoMA PS1.

Rae: Hi, I’m Rae. I’m 17 and I go to Manhattan Village Academy.

Lilo: I’m Lilo. I’m 18. I go to Hackley School.

Rebekah: I’m Rebekah, I’m 15. I go to Clinton.

Zee: I’m Zee. I attend Art and Design High School and I’m 14.

DonChristian Jones: And I’m DonChristian Jones. I’m the Adobe Creative Resident here at MoMA.

Zee: I wanna know your thought process this morning. You got the only hot drink out of the whole crew. We all got on the iced drink train, but then you had to be different and get the hot coffee.

DonChristian: You wanna go there? You wanna start, really?

Zee: We’re gonna go there.

Rae: Yeah!

Zee: We’re gonna go there.

[Frequency Gardens theme plays]

Lilo: We are at MoMA today interviewing DonChristian for the Frequency Gardens Podcast.

Zee: How did you get here?

DonChristian: I have at this point embraced performance in an overarching way. I’m really regarding my practice as a performance-based one. And that what happens within this ongoing performance and these ongoing collaborations, you know, there will be traces of the performance.

There will be ephemera, maybe some objects that are left behind that others might regard as the work, if it’s a painting or if a song...

Zee: Or a podcast...

DonChristian: ...or a podcast. But I actually believe, or I’m trying to feel, that the actual work is moments like this shared space and time that is ephemeral, that is almost impossible to...that is impossible to fully capture.

It’s the lightning in the bottle that I think always trying to achieve and that is what...it’s like my fuel.

Lilo: Speaking of your installation, the room, there’s so many individual pieces that I loved, I love the couch, the lamp, the little record player. I want the whole room. I want to like transport that and like make that my new room for college or something, you know? Everything felt so purposeful literally every single detail.

Rebekah: Yeah, what was the design process like?

DonChristian: Yeah, it started in concept, right? So, I was shown this bare, blank, white cube of a space, maybe last May. And I was so excited by that ’cause I’ve never really had an opportunity, like, to show something that’s not a singular vision, but an overarching vision with all these other people contributing.

The first thing I saw was the carpet. I knew that I needed to see a little peek of a wall-to-wall carpet beneath the door because I think that was going to be the signifier of a portal. We’re not stepping into a gallery. What would it actually look like in color? What would it feel like to walk into that room today? And then also thinking about blaxploitation films. Foxy Brown, Shaft, that kind of colorway in the office settings. The slatted blinds, the shadow created from the slatted blinds and that kind of play with daylight was important.

It’s kind of like building a set, like a game board. Like, what are the things that you want to see in here and where could they go? Where could they be placed?

Rae: What did you feel building that space?

Well, I wanted to create a space where people could gather and that could hold the multitudes of people’s feelings. Be somewhere where people could come to find some solace and peace. Escape the confines of the institution. Escape the confines of the city and the day to day, you know? And allow people to just kind of soak. At first I thought it could be a teacher’s lounge...

Zee: It was giving teacher’s lounge vibes.

DonChristian: And thinking about the history of PS1, like, what if a teacher’s lounge was also a superhero’s lair?

Lilo: What was your favorite piece that you added to that room? Or your favorite piece of furniture, your favorite document, your favorite item?

DonChristian: I think that it would be impossible for me to answer. But on a whole, I think it’s the practice of being in there. The routine of going there and experiencing it with new people every time, is my favorite part. The way it changes daily and finding something new daily.

That happened with one of the letters on my scatter board. It’s been in my possession for years, but I had never opened it and it was from my dad...and was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever worded to me, and I had never gotten a chance to respond. But now I get to sit with it and kind of respond in an unending way.

And then, also, I think all of the objects, artifacts, ephemera that have been collected of friends and family and collaborators like yourselves. There are just these signifiers of collaboration, and signifiers of trust and vulnerability. I just feel so blessed to have been given so many
heartfelt art objects over the years. Whether they were considered that at that time or not, they’re absolutely art objects now, whether they be a letter or a little trophy. Uh, the beaded curtain in the entryway.

Lilo: I was talking about this earlier, but my grandpa is Jamaican and he has the beaded, long, all the way to the floor arch. And that’s what I thought of when I saw that. I was like, this is so my grandpa.

Z: The room brought me back to my grandma’s house in Dominican Republic. I used to go there a lot, but I don’t get to go as much anymore. But the color of the teal, reminds me of the tile that’s, like, in the garden out back. So it brought me back to when my Dominican friends, we would run around in the rain barefoot, being stupid. And I’m really glad I could feel that way especially since I don’t get to go back much anymore. So I’m really glad I got to feel that in that room.

Rae: For me it was like, I feel like everybody had that one family member that had the beaded curtains at one point or like they went to that person’s house and the minute I entered that space, I cannot remember the family member, but I remember being in their house and I was just like, whoa.

I’m even getting emotional thinking about it. I felt like a little kid again, just playing with the curtains. I remember being told to stop playing with them and I didn’t want to continue playing with them. It was such a surreal thing for me to be in that space that was warm. That type of warm that, you know, everything is gonna be okay and, like, that type of hug that, you know—that one person, whether it’s, like, your grandmother or your mom, whoever, really felt very reassuring. You know, it’s okay. I’m here for you. And that’s how I felt in that space.

DonChristian: You’re saying the room felt like that?

Rae: Yes. Yes. It really did.

DonChristian: Like a hug from your mom or your grandmother?

Rae: Yes, it did. I just felt completely reassured. I felt very nice.

DonChristian: That is so...I mean, that really stands out to me that you said the room made you feel young again.

Rae: Mm-hmm.

DonChristian: That speaks to something I wanted to achieve, a sense of timelessness. Like this amalgamation of time and eras and...and genres, such that, like, it was everything at once and almost universal. That someone, anyone, could walk in and relate to something or see something that made them feel that way.

And a lot of people have been saying that, and it means so much to me.