Artist Interview Transcript

Jordan Sook interviewed by Philip Gurrey

PG: So we're here with Jordan Sook in his Toronto studio. We're coming to speak to you after, seeing your show at Art Gallery Windsor-Essex (AWE). The title of the show is, ‘The Closest I’ve Felt to God.’ The “I” in that title, was it was a personal “I” or a collective “I”. Could you expand on that?

JS: Yeah, I feel like it's a bit of both. You know, being, someone who is a God fearing person... There is very much a lot of me in that. However, when I'm like thinking of the title, there is a collective sort of approach to it, putting my self into the mind of someone who may have been an enslaved person, you know, given the context of the show, thinking of what they might have had to have gone through, you know, from slavery to freedom, one would only assume that it might have been the closest they would have felt to God literally escaping a living hell into, you know, what might seem like heaven. And so that was really the parallel that I was like kind of, drawing with the title.

I wanted to really explore the context of someone having to have faith to go through this journey of, you know, long days and long nights. Being chased by enslavers, things of that nature and having to have faith in God or what someone else might call like a higher power. But then also to thinking on how religion was weaponized during that time to indoctrinate both people that were enslaved, but also those that were the captors in that sense. Verses from the Bible that they would use to "justify" owning another person. And, the tension that you see between the Bible's, this push and this pull between them is really speaking to that sort of energy between the two and I really wanted to sort of communicate that to the viewer in a way that was through the sort of impossibility of the physics of the sculpture.

The Bibles are symbolic of like the religious sort of structure that “justified” their actions. There's a spiritual element to all the works, but that one in particular was challenging. You know, that piece, I first saw it at the Amherstburg Freedom Museum. The idea that it was common practice to own someone and sell them as a commodity, was something I really wanted to communicate to the viewer, but there was no way around that artistically. And so I felt like literally abstracting the work itself, making it to scale and re-presenting it was probably the best approach to doing that. And in making that work, you know, you feel a connection, you're reading the names you're seeing, how they're talking or communicating about these people who were real people. And the irony of that piece is it's this the people who were enslaved were not even the main focus. The idea of presenting that in a way that, could be watered down was unavoidable.And so that's why I directly took the piece itself and sort of just blew it up.

With myself, I pride my work heavily in abstraction. And I believe everything that exists is already there to be used and can be reinterpreted in many ways. And material really speaks to what its use is for. And we think of, in this case, the cotton we think what that meant economically during that time. You know, every thing we look at basically, clothing-wise is cotton or some blend of that. And what I think of what is important to us as a society, you know, we look at commodities based off of their scarcity. And during a time, cotton was, the price that it was due to the labour that was required. Ironically enough, the labor was free... in a sense. From the lens of a black male, literally having to, in making this work, pick the cotton itself, you feel the connection in some sort of way to that. You know, that cotton was shipped from Kansas to here, my studio in Toronto. I'm going through, I'm picking out the twigs and, all the little leaves that are in there. And, you're kind of getting a sense of what was required. You would see they would be picking 400, 500 pounds a day. That piece weighs probably 40 pounds. 

In the framing of the piece, we were contemplating framing it, or not framing it. And the frame, it gave it this sort of like window-esque, sort of feel. Looking into the distance or looking into different space. And I think a lot of times when we look at art in general, we want to be taken somewhere and we want to go somewhere and come back, but have left with something. I think when I made that work, I was in another space, mentally, creating it, tying my own identity.

I spent some time in the South, my high school experience, I was in SoutheastBrunswick, Georgia. So where we lived was down, the road from a plantation. So I'm drawing on all these experiences when making this work. So there is, a static as the work might also seem to maybe the naked eye. There is a lot of depth of myself in relatively to the black community at large in the work, and I wanted that to be something that, could tie into the narrative of the work that was not overly jarring, but still ask the viewer to look for more.

That was a national competition [Gordie Howe International Bridge Commemorative Artwork] that was sort of narrowed down to, I believe, three artists. And, I was selected. And then from there,I had the opportunity to meet with, descendants from the Underground Railroad. Hear some of their stories hear what they were looking to thematically, have within the work and really get a chance to hear, you know, fourth or fifth generation, you know, descendants and hear what they, what they really wanted their legacy to be. And, in making the work, it was imperative that we created something that, spoke to all of them because each family has their own story and their own contributions to the community.

And I want to acknowledge that, but also to thinking on this sort of collective, nature. When you see that piece, it's a series of, church pews that have been chopped up, mutilated and form sort of this ring like sculpture. And because I have that opportunity to connect with that community, I was able to go to, SecondBaptist Church and some of the other, you know, historical sites on the Detroit side, but also in Windsor and really hear the history of it. And one of the things I learned was enslaved people, even when they got to enjoy when they got to Windsor, were not necessarily free, you know, they hid in the churches, hid underneath the floors. There were bounty hunters that would come from the south and looking to “reclaim their property” and bring them back. And it was something that I knew equally as much, we couldn't water down, the significance or the, ugliness that came with that.

And so when you see this ring, it's talking on community. It's about connection. Strength, resilience, all these things like that. And it's tilted at an axis that, you know, asks the viewer to sort of like look to the heavens, but also to thinking on traveling at night, the idea of the North Star. So there's a lot of interpretations within that work. But relating it to the exhibition [at AWE], the exhibition is really the sister piece to the artwork, going back to the Bible's, those Bibles, specifically are pew Bibles. So the pew Bibles tie in to the church pews of the piece. The title of the piece, 'Make a Joyful Noise', which is a verse out of the Bible. It was actually also a hymn that was sung, by enslaved people during that time. And so it's a sort of celebratory approach to what was such an ugly, and harsh reality. 

The show [at AWE] was the presentation to the community for the first time of what the piece [Gordie Howe Bridge Commemorative Artwork] would actually be. And so those renderings that would have been on the far right side, those, were the first time the, of the community saw what the piece was going to be. And one of the things about that piece is that it lights up, so light kind of breaks through the pews. So at night time, it also serves as a bit of a beacon, in a way which I think is very special, to incorporate that one, given the context of the UndergroundRailroad, oftentimes people have to travel at night, but then also to, it being a pedestrian walkway.

So what's really special about this bridge is you can walk from Canada to the US, you know, take a bike more or less. And I think that's really, really special. And I think it's really, exciting that you can have sort of this communal approach somewhat, to creating a work that kind of is an offering back to the community. And so I'm looking forward to seeing the reaction, knowing that it's going to be there for however many years, you know, is really, really special. 

You mentioned the idea of it being a portal. The work itself, frame sis going to frame the bridge. So you're standing in the future and looking into the past, looking into Detroit. And so there is that connection of the greater than us that that exists with that work. And it's an entry point for people from obviously the black community in Detroit, Windsor, but also to the diaspora at large and then people who are not even a part of that diaspora to really come and experience it and appreciate it. And, it's a common place where dialog and connection and history can all sort of intertwine with each other.

And so, whether you're a believer or not, a believer or whether you're Buddhist or Muslim or whatever, you can appreciate the qualities of the work and what it means. And, the value of this contribution to, Canadian history.Canada wouldn't be the same if these people were not able to make that journey. And I wanted to acknowledge all that, you know, in the work. I know it's a lot kind of stacked in there, but as you peel back the layers, you can kind of see the depth and thought process that was kind of put into it.