Image Description: Quisol wears a striped collared shirt with bright pastels of peach, lavender, and teal. There’s a deep blue backdrop. To the right of Quisol, a stack of cassette tapes, family photos, and a Tagalog language bible sit atop a marble stand. Quisol is holding a cream and blue electric guitar that has daisies painted on it. Photo by Mel Taing.
Dear Reader,
My name is Quisol (he/they) and today I write to you from the traditional lands of the Catawba and Sugaree people, otherwise known as Mooresville, North Carolina. A few months ago, I entered a new phase in my journey with ACI as Co-Director of Design. Today, I reflect on the key moments that brought you and I to this moment.
I first joined ACI as the Programming Fellow in 2017. At that point in my life, I had just closed out a chapter full of community organizing, producing music showcases, and finding my voice as a music artist. Then, I was blessed with the opportunity to attend graduate school at Harvard with a full scholarship. My goal was to use the time and resources that academia afforded me to build an organization that could leverage my passion for the arts and political analysis gained through struggle to create new, liberatory futures. I didn’t know it then, but ACI turned out to be the home for this intersectional work.
The first big project I worked on with ACI was the first ever Arts Equity Summit. Drawing on my production experience and the expansive network that ACI had been weaving in Boston and beyond in years past, we manifested a convening unlike any other. Over the course of three days, we witnessed performance art, celebrated, heard inspiring keynote addresses, engaged in critical dialogue, and much, much more. The summit brought together creative leaders from across the City of Boston and from around the world, providing a hub for new conversations, introducing audiences to new venues, and catalyzing new collaborations that would unfold over the following years.
Holistic design was a central element of this work and is an ongoing area of practice and learning for me. In the Summit context, intentional design was integrated into every element from how we approached partners, conducted our call for art, and curated the workshop breakouts. These were projects of curation and facilitation, a skillset that I was able to articulate and sharpen through collective work with ACI.
In another sense, graphic design is a key component of my work both with ACI and as an independent artist. I’m passionate about design because it’s how we’re able to communicate our identities, values and even vision for things yet to exist. Oftentimes, the design choices we make paint a picture of the future and invite others to share in creating it.
More recently, my thinking about design has turned to look to the past and Afro-Indigneous permaculture principles to inform how we collectively build liberatory futures. Over the last few years, I’ve been reconnecting with my indigneous roots. For me, that means recalling the names and places where my ancestors lived: Ilocos, Tagalog, Arawak, Borinquen. It’s learning the stories, worldviews, embodied practices, and language that my ancestors held. It’s realizing how much of the culture we share today, such as día de los muertos, hammocks, and barbecue, which actually come from indigenous roots. It’s communing with other people who carry on the traditions and deepening our personal connection to the earth as much as possible. To my great joy, learning the ancient ways and natural systems has given me new language and frameworks for discussing today’s issues, especially within my work with ACI.
Image Description: A portrait of Quisol, seated on a drum throne in the pose of The Thinker, with his head resting on his fist. Quisol wears a pair of white and beige checkered overalls, white sneakers, and a silver necklace. A light greenish-grey sheet hangs in the background. Photo by Gothika Magazine
I feel empowered reconnecting with my cultural roots, especially as an act of resistance since colonial powers attempted to erase them over the last centuries. A big revelation for me recently is that I actually have a role in preserving and extending these lineages as an artist. When I reflect on my music and visual art, I notice the hundreds of tiny ways I incorporate my cultural inheritance into my craft. Earlier this month, I put out the first installment of my project Dreamworld, In The Flesh: a song with three movements and accompanying film. The cover art contains a sun symbol that I designed, drawing from Arawak petroglyphs found carved into massive stones across the island of Borinquen.
Thanks for allowing me to share a bit about myself and my craft. Thank you for your ongoing support of Arts Connect International.
Sincerely,
Joseph Samuel Quisol
Image Description: Quisol wears a striped collared shirt with bright pastels of peach, lavender, and teal. There’s a deep blue backdrop. To the right of Quisol, a stack of cassette tapes, family photos, and a Tagalog language bible sit atop a marble stand. Quisol smiles at this camera while straddling the chair backwards. Photo by Mel Taing.
Throughout this fall season we will be highlighting our employee Co-Directors!
Interviewed by Artist in Community Fellow Mel Taing, each co-director will share more about themselves centering on what they're most excited about in their work, how they’ve been practicing self-care, and what they hope to manifest in the future!
Joseph Quisol (he/they) is the Co-Director of Design at Arts Connect International. You can follow their work on Instagram (@_quisol) or their website https://www.quisol.co.
What is the juiciest thing you're working on right now? What aspect of your work are you most passionate about in this moment? Is this a particular memory from the past month that you want to highlight?
This past month, I've been in New York and Boston working closely with Chanel Matsunami and Micah Rose for They Watch You Thrive. It's been a joy to work on this project since it's so aligned with the music album I've been working on called Dreamworld. I just closed out a year of working on this album with engineer Lucía Martinez and They Watch You Thrive came at precisely the right moment to help me pivot from the sonic to the visual elements of this project. I was blessed to work with Chanel Matsunami Govreau and Mel Taing on multiple photo shoots. Then we worked with Jay Hunt of The Loop Lab to film of live versions of my upcoming music blended harmoniously with the poetry of Micah Rose. I'm so excited to ultimately share these pieces with the world.
