Interview with Artis Burney of Cosmic Poetry Sanctuary

In preparation for our A Day in Black History celebration at the museum this Saturday, we wanted to share some insight into the world of Artis Burney’s Cosmic Poetry Sanctuary. Last year for Juneteenth, Artis and the Cosmic Poetry Sanctuary performed on our campus and was a highlight of the day. This upcoming Black History celebration, we eagerly anticipating the Black History Living Wax Museum, which will be a poetic interpretation of key figures in Black History. We are so grateful to have creative spirits like Artis in our community and knowing more about his background just makes The Cosmic Poetry Sanctuary even more special.

OOMA: When did you first realize you wanted to be a poet? What started your interest in written and spoken word?
Artis: I realized I wanted to be a poet when I was about five years old. The first time I read the lyrics to a Sade song.

OOMA: What is the Cosmic Poetry Sanctuary and how did it form? 
The cosmic poetry sanctuary is a social experiment about peace and love. The BP oil spill basically killed my job. The world was afraid to come here. While I was making plans to leave radio I was having ideas about what I could do to not just help myself but help my community. I wrote poetry about and imagined a safe place. Since, dirty water and storms from climate change was exactly what had taken my career, I wanted to create  a real time artistic vision as an example of my views on extractive economies. I started clearing land originally as a stress release. And then as I cleared I had so many “wow” moments. Every time I would clear a new space, and carve a path to a new tree, I found myself saying wow and I wanted to share it with somebody. I invited some friends and they could see my vision too, so I kept working. I learned new new terms like “land stewardship”, food desert, and more importantly spoke to my community and they expressed similar concerns about water and energy.
OOMA: Cosmic poetry sanctuary seems to draw a lot from the natural and spiritual realm- what is important to you about bringing these topics to Biloxi, MS? 
AB: When I think Cosmic Poetry I think about God’s voice and how according to most holy books everything around us was spoken into existence. Additionally, before the organization and the space had a name my friends and I would do open mic poetry there. We forage with Lynda Baker there and teach. My family goes back on paper to 1735 on the land. My spirit feels connected to it.
OOMA: With your event at OOMA I see you are going to do a  Living Wax Museum Black History Program, what will this entail?
AB: it entails representatives from the cosmic poetry sanctuary and members of our community getting together and we share with each other a person that we think is important in the history of Black people in America.

OOMA: What excites you the most about returning to the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art for this program?

AB: The opportunity to perform live art inside of my favorite art museum on the Mississippi Gulf Coast always excite me. I’ve been performing at the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art  since about 2007. I’m in love with the wow moments just like every other person that appreciates the artistic spirit. The Ohr-O’Keefe and Cosmic Poetry Sanctuary always delivers the wow moments.

You can follow Cosmic Poetry Sanctuary on Facebook and Instagram.

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Interview with resident artist, Hee Joo Yang

Later this week, our first artist-in-residence, Hee Joo Yang’s piece will be deinstalled and will become a part of our permanent collection. Hee Joo was our first artist-in-residence last summer and worked at the City of Biloxi’s Center for Ceramics on our campus to create her exhibition, The Caves. Originally from Seoul, Korea, this was Hee Joo’s first time in the South and while she was here, she experienced her first hurricane! We caught up with her to ask her about the residency and her time at the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art.

 How did you get interested in ceramics? What attracted you to making things out of
clay?
Ceramics was the major I chose when I entered university in Korea. So, at first, I was completely unaware of it. However, I got interested when I started learning wheel throwing and hand building. It was fun to do both, each of them having their own unique texture, even while using the same clay. And more than anything else, it was essential to experience how I love all the processes of making a shape with my own hands and firing it in a kiln.

What was your residency like at the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art? Were you here
for the hurricane?
This was my first residency and I was honored that the museum selected me as the first residency artist. Of course, there is going to be rain and wind wherever I go, but I never expected it to be a hurricane. While my clay was locked-up in Florida, I had a rewarding time coming up with ideas for making and collecting materials to use for the sound work. Most of all, I was fascinated by the Frank Gehry buildings called ‘The Pods.’ I worked hard for a short period to fill that space with my work. The many people I met at the studio were kind and supported the work I wanted to do so I could happily work.


What was your favorite part about Biloxi and making work in the South?
As it was my first visit to the South of the United States, I had high expectations. And the natural scenery of Biloxi perfectly lived up to those expectations. I was able to see such a beautiful beach every day, and the ever-changing sky and sea were amazing. However, since it was an area that was heavily damaged by a natural disaster, I was able to experience the scars that remain even after a lot of time had passed. Nevertheless, the power necessary to overcome it all and create a wonderful place to live in once again, was what motivated me to work with the hurricane I experienced.


How did your experience with partial deafness inform the fabrication of The Caves?
Partial deafness sometimes misses a lot. In addition, there are many things to be taken care of in daily life, so fatigue quickly builds up. Such tiredness makes me mentally and physically exhausted. In Korea, we often use the expression ‘going into the cave’ when we are in such a tired state. It has a negative meaning in a certain way as it cuts off all relationships and I disappear into time alone.

However, I thought of this cave as a healing space for myself. And I asked myself, what sounds did I hear from where I am now? I wanted to share an experience with myself or the audience exploring the unknown cave space while asking and answering questions about how it influenced me.

What are you working on right now?
Now I am examining ways of understanding myself through objects by focusing on giving form to invisible embodiments of states like emotions, memories, and experiences. This allows me to explore the circumstances surrounding me and ask: Where do I get inspiration from? What do I hear and feel? How do I process the memories of everything I have been through? Exploring these unshaped things in my studio work allows me to give form to my accumulated experience over time. This work synthesizes and catalogs my relationship with myself through the objectification of invisible things.

George Ohr was known as the mad potter of Biloxi, if you were going to give yourself a nickname based off of your work, what would it be?
Based on my work, I would like the nickname ‘Sound Searcher.’ Because sound is an inseparable sense from my life and work, it also gives me a lot of inspiration. I reinterpreting the sounds I have experienced and heard. Also, trying to visualize them with clay is one
of my important work methods. So, it can be said that this nickname is my own way of collecting and researching sounds.

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