Jared Brown Interview

Portrait of a person wearing a black beanie and a black graphic T-shirt featuring an image of Tupac, looking at the camera under warm indoor lighting.

Portrait of a person wearing a black beanie and a black graphic T-shirt featuring an image of Tupac, looking at the camera under warm indoor lighting.

What does receiving an unrestricted grant at this particular moment make possible within your practice? Has it shifted the way you are thinking, working, or planning for what comes next?

Receiving the unrestricted grant will make it possible for me to plan and finance new a body of work. Although it’s too soon to determine the overall outcome of the new work, I’ll be able to fairly pay people in my community for their contributions which was a major hurdle for me prior to being a grant recipient. Being a grant recipient has shifted the way I’m thinking about the future- I have much more confidence in the work culminating positively and I’m confident that everyone I’ve begun enlisting to help with the work will feel proud of it as well.

How is your practice responding to, reflecting, or pushing against the current cultural and political moment?

My practice is pivoting to some extent because of this political moment. I want as many people to experience the work I’m doing as possible- not just fellow artists or academic types- I don’t want people to feel like they have know theorists or art history in order to access my work. My work is intentionally pivoting to center entertainment. I think people need to leave performances or art shows feeling challenged and inspired to move the needle along themselves. And I think that can be done with entertainment- comedy, music, performance. I have nothing against white cube gallery spaces but I’m beginning to realize and accept that my work is not exalted there.

Collective care is central to Threewalls’s work. How does that idea take shape in your own practice or community right now, and what are you hoping to build, sustain, or imagine moving forward?

I want to expound on collective care in my practice even more so now. I think as an Artist and Performer, I’m aware of what each of those roles needs when they are being invited into spaces that admins (that aren’t artists) can sometimes overlook. Empowering the collective around me to take risks in their work, to fail in their experiments- with the understanding that they have people to support them in their trials- is what I’d like to extend to my collective. ThreeWalls has been an ongoing space for me to try new things, experiment, and fail. Failure is where some of my most interesting art is birthed from. I want to empower my collective to think about what they do beyond metrics and critical reception because it’s often a hindrance to genuine art and creativity.