Karen Krolak and Nicole Harris

[00:01] KAREN KROLAK: Hi, I'm Karen Krolak I am 49 years old and today is Friday, January 8, 2021. I'm calling in from Malden, Massachusetts and I'm here with my longest running collaborator and one of my greatest friends, Nicole Harris. We've known each other since 1996. Is that right?

[00:25] NICOLE HARRIS: I think so.

[00:26] KAREN KROLAK: Excellent. And do you want to take a second and just introduce yourself?

[00:31] NICOLE HARRIS: Sure. I am Nicole Harris. I am 40 years old. Today is Friday, January 8, 2021. I am also in Malden, Massachusetts. And all of the things that Karen said about me apply in the other direction.

[00:46] KAREN KROLAK: And one of the things that I had wanted us to be able to talk about today was the busy is the new black artist in residency that you created in 2016. And I was wondering if before we got into like the whole what that project was, if you wanted to talk a little bit about the background of what led you into creating that project.

[01:14] NICOLE HARRIS: I applied for a residency on a, like a cargo ship. And it just seemed like an entertaining idea to get to go be an artist on a cargo ship. And so trying to figure out what being what that environment would want me to do. I was thinking about the idea that that's something that moves very slowly. And so I was interested in the idea of how everything that we do right now moves so fast and how everything has to be done instantly. And we can't be just moving at what, like the speed that we want to be moving at. We have to be moving sort of at hyperspeed all the time. And so I came up with this whole idea and I applied to this residency and like thousands of people apply every year and they take one. So my chances of getting in were fairly slim, but I had spent a fair amount of time putting together the proposal. So when I didn't get it, wanted to find a way to make the project itself happen anyway.

[02:22] KAREN KROLAK: And just for a little bit of background. Normally when you're creating work, have you done things like this where you've been an artist in residence in a unusual transportation mode, or is that related to kind of like your creative practice prior to this point, or was this more of a departure for you to kind of do something in that way?

[02:45] NICOLE HARRIS: Well, since 2014, 15ish. Somewhere in that time period, I became artist in residence at the house that I live in. I had lost the place that I was living in previously. Karen and Jason, who own this beautiful home, had said like, well, why don't you come live with us and you can be the artist in residence at Our house, which all of us were like, haha, that's so funny. Like, that's never going to come up again. Clearly it's on my resume now. It's something that I do. You know, it is as we do projects, we've been working together now for quite some time. And so we have projects outside of, you know, we run an arts nonprofit together. And so to be able to have this opportunity to do other projects together just because like we were sitting around having coffee in the morning has been an exciting arts adventure. So that would probably be my first like what we like to refer to as unexpected arts residency. But this is the first time that I always have a hard time with artist residencies because they're like, we're going to give you something sort of, but then you have to pay a bunch of money for it. But like, we have to tell you that you're worthy to give us your money to do this artist residency. That always feels so disheartening. Do you have to like put in all of this work in order to pay someone to go and stay at their space? And so this is the first time I decided like, well, fine, if I'm going to pay, I'm going to pay to go somewhere I want to go and just make the project I want to make. And nobody has to tell me that I'm allowed to do it and that I just get to do what I want to do.

[04:26] KAREN KROLAK: So what did you decide to do that would be different than being on a freighter ship that went from, I believe that freightership was going from Canada.

[04:35] NICOLE HARRIS: From Vancouver to somewhere in China. Yeah, yeah, I decided. I really have always wanted to sail across the ocean. That seems much more entertaining to me than flying to another country. And so I tried to figure, I like looked into a bunch of different options of what I could do and decided to take a six week cruise to Europe. I left here. Well, I drove down to New York City and got on the ship in New York City. We sailed down to Fort Lauderdale in like two days. And then it took us a week to get to the Mediterranean. I spent four weeks then in the Mediterranean and then a week to come back to Fort Lauderdale. So it's a lot of time on a ship. A lot of time on a ship.

[05:27] KAREN KROLAK: And how many countries did you get to see?

[05:31] NICOLE HARRIS: I believe. Oh, I should have looked this up. I believe there was something like 23 ports, but there were, I don't know, maybe 2012 countries approximately. I don't know.

[05:53] KAREN KROLAK: And when you started thinking about how you would take this project that was originally intended to be on a cargo ship where you would have been one of the few passengers because it would just have been crew and basically you as passenger. Which side note, the woman who did get that wound up being trapped at sea for quite some time because the cargo ship had lost its ability to port in China. And it just like all of apparently it went into bankruptcy, the company that owned it. And so she was stuck at sea for at least four weeks beyond when it was supposed to end. And I've been very thankful that you were not on that boat and that I did not have to figure out how to like charter a helicopter to come rescue you. But that was a very different kind of relationship of just how many people would have been there. How did you. When you were thinking about taking your ideas and putting them onto a cruise ship, which had both a lot of people and people kind of coming and going all the time, how did you conceive of what you were going to do as an artistic practice in that environment?

[07:00] NICOLE HARRIS: I'm not sure that there was actually a huge amount of difference in the proposed project, if you will. Like, what I said I was going to do in leaving and what I said I was going to do in applying to the other project were fairly similar. I was really interested in all of the different ways that we can slow down in traveling by ship being obviously a very slow method of travel in writing letters as opposed to sending text messages or emails or any number of other electronic ways of communicating and then just being able to like have constant reminders of how to be present in the moment that you're in. And I don't know that that really changed. I think the, the experience was obviously very different in that there were 2,000 something people on the ship and that's just passengers. So then like, on top of that, there's several thousand crew members on the show. I mean, there's a lot of people. But I think the idea itself was pretty, pretty similar from when I started.

[08:22] KAREN KROLAK: And what were some of the activities that you did that were part of the creative practice? Or what were some of the prompts that you gave yourself that you were playing with as part of a creative practice.

[08:38] NICOLE HARRIS: So before I left, I made, I believe, 23 hand bound books and I gave them out to people. I think it was 26 to people across the country, across the United States. Some of them were artists, some of them were people who I think are just really interesting people. And each of those. So each person got a book and each Person got a name of another person that is participating in the project. And so within the books, people were given a series of prompts that they could use or could not use that we call GEO choreography prompts that encourage you to really look at and experience the environment that you're in in a way that's going to make you sort of slow down. Like, a good example is that when we go to work, we get, you know, if you drive to work, you, like, get in your car and you turn on the radio and then you're at work. And, like, whatever happened between leaving your house and getting to work, you have no memory of it because you just do the exact same thing every day, and you drive down the same streets, and you might even pass the same people. It's all sort of the same. And so if you can make one change in what you're doing, you're going to experience that thing differently. Like, even on the days where you're like, oh, yeah, I had to stop at the grocery store on the way home from work today changes how you experienced your drive home. And so there were prompts that were anything from, like, take a picture of all of the blue things that you see in a day, or, like, have a stranger sign this book, which makes you have to, like, stop and talk to another person. And so people could use the book prompts. They could not. It was sort of a place for people to begin. But I really didn't want. What I didn't want was for people to have to have more things that they have to do and then just make it another kind of busy work project. The whole idea was that we were trying to make people less busy. So the prompts were there, the books were there, and then they each had pen pals. People were encouraged to then do with those tools what they wanted to. I actually didn't make myself a book. I made one that I handed to somebody at the start of the six weeks, and it had a little note in the front, and it said, like, please return to cabin number, whatever my cabin number was by this date. And it sort of circulated around the ship during the time that I was on board and did get back to me at the end. I have the feeling that not a single passenger ever saw the book and that it was only ever seen by crew. And that for the most part, it was like, oh, yeah, we said we'd do this thing for Nicole. Let's all, like, sit down and do it right now. But whatever it happened. And there's a bunch of things in a book by a bunch of people that, you know, some I knew, some I didn't know. And then I tried to write to all of the people in the project as frequently as I could. Not every. Like, I tried to at least send one thing from each port, but I didn't necessarily send 26 things from each port because that was a little absurd. I did get to a point in the middle where, like, where I realized that it was important to be experiencing the things more than it was to be writing letters back home about it, which I think would have been different had I been on the cargo ship, because there just would have been less happening every day. But, like, every day I woke up and I was in a new country and there was a new thing to look at. And so while I don't think that the. You know, I started out with the plan to do the same thing, I think it adapted based on the new ship in a way I didn't necessarily expect it to.

[12:31] KAREN KROLAK: And I know, like, because I was one of the people who got one of your books, and I know that there were definitely things that I noticed that were changing while you were gone. You know, I had to go to the idea Swap in Worcester, which is this big event that happens every year in New England for all the different arts presenters. And I hadn't been in a long time and was really super nervous about going by myself and taking the train out there because I'd had to stop driving because of a health condition earlier in the year. And, like, I used the idea of the choreography of the commute in the book as a way to kind of steel myself to be able to do it, and it became completely different. My perception of making that trip happen, that, like, something that was previously a kind of perfunctory thing, became, like, really ridiculously silly. And by the time I arrived for it, I was, like, in a very relaxed and curious mode because I'd been taking pictures of, like. I remember one of them was the step back sign that's, like, right before you get onto the train that tells you to be careful of the edge of it, and was thinking of, like, how I could turn that into, like, a patch on a backpack. And then on the train, I had kind of had a suspicion that somebody else was also going to the idea swap. And I didn't actually ask them to sign my book, but I, like, use that as an excuse to have a reason to have to go talk to them. And so I'm curious for you, what were some of the kind of Initial things that you noticed changing while you were on the boat or shortly after you've gotten back that were kind of outcomes from participating in this cruise as an artist in residence, as opposed to just being a passenger.

[14:27] NICOLE HARRIS: Well, I decided to do the project in part because I live a life that is very busy. And I don't know you've ever been on a cruise, but you get these little, like, itineraries every day. And there's, you know, there's more things you could ever. Like seven things happen at a time, so it's not like you can do all of them. But I would, like, make myself a schedule in the morning of all the things I was going to go do. And there was just this feeling that I needed to be able to take advantage of every single thing and make sure that I was doing all of these things every day. And then I never really got seasick, which, thank goodness. But there was one day where I just didn't feel great. And so I sat. You could get DVDs from the front desk on the ship. And so I just spent like an entire 24 hours. Like, it was crappy weather outside, so it's not like I wanted to be sitting outside on the ship. I didn't really know anybody yet. And so I just watched movies for like, an entire day and was like, oh, I'm pretty sure the point of this is I'm not supposed to be doing things. Like, I think that's. That's what's supposed to be happening. Like, I'm not supposed to be setting schedules for myself. The whole point is to not do that. But it was like, a good amount of days into this trip before I figured that out, which I guess it could have taken a lot longer. And I'm glad it happened before I hit. Like, I was still traveling across the ocean. But, yeah, it was definitely a surprising moment of like, oh, yeah, huh? I don't need to make myself be busy when I'm theoretically on vacation or whatever you want to call this thing. I think there was a lot in coming home again. I mean, I think there was a lot in our lives that were. Was very chaotic in the time that I left. And so there was a lot in coming back that felt like, had everyone had to figure out how to make things work when Nicole decided to take off for six weeks. And so, like, I didn't have to feel as much obligation to every single thing that anybody ever asked me to do, ever. I could just say, like, yes, I can totally do that, but, like, I can't do it tomorrow. And so that I think felt less stressful just in like existing afterwards. Even though I came back to like, oh, surprise, you've been gone for six weeks. Here's six weeks worth of life that you missed. And there was certainly a lot of like, work and things I had to catch up on. I felt more empowered to say no, I don't have to say yes to everything all the time. And there are still days, you know, now, whatever, it's been four years, there are still days where I'm like, oh yeah, you don't have to say yes. Remember that. Remember that lesson you learned four years ago. You should remember it today. But I think that was one of the biggest things in coming back again that I kind of figured out.

[17:44] KAREN KROLAK: And while you were at sea, the election of 2016 took place.

[17:49] NICOLE HARRIS: Indeed it did.

[17:51] KAREN KROLAK: What was it like both to be not here in the country when the vote happened and then like having to deal or see firsthand how people all over the world were responding to the shift in power that had gone on there.

[18:12] NICOLE HARRIS: Okay, so first I want to explain a little bit about what it's like to take a six week cruise. So at the time I was what, like 30, 36, something like that? And I was, there was a five year old on board and she was on board for the entire 45 days. Other than that, you could basically do the full thing or you could do it in two chunks. And so there was a couple who had just gotten married who were like in their 30s, like early 30s for the first two weeks. And there was a single woman who was on board with like her parents who was a little bit younger for the second half of the trip. But otherwise There was the 5 year old, there was me in my late 30s, and then there were people like, I don't know, 25 years older than me on the ship. So your average person who can take a six week cruise is both older and potentially more wealthy than me. And so there weren't a lot of people who were similar to me as passengers in the ship. There were a lot of people who were similar to me as crew. But the crew was given very, very explicit instructions to not speak to any passengers about what was happening in the United States. Like, it wasn't allowed, they weren't allowed to talk about it. And so in the lead up to the election itself, you know, much like much of the United States, there was still a belief that like, there was going to be an election and it was just going to be an election. And it was a little weird, but, like, we were all going to get through it. It was going to be fine. And then, you know, I wasn't here. And so, like, the time thing, like, it was well into the next day by the time we had announced any sort of results. And so, like, everyone was clearly kind of anxious for that little amount of time that it took to get results. And then everybody went back to being on vacation again. And I was like, hello. Hi. Anybody here? Feeling a little stressed about what's happened? No. No. No one's feeling stressed about this. Great. And very luckily, that day, I did meet a woman who is now a good friend of mine, who's a musician who lives currently in Austin, Texas, who was one of the only younger Americans that I had met. And many of the other people that I had met that were younger were not Americans. So, like, their impact, with the exception of a man who is from South Africa who really felt like his country very specifically receives aid from our country in a way that he was going to be impacted. Everybody else was like, well, it sucks to be the American in this adventure. It's like, thanks, guys. Nice to meet you, too. So I was not really in the best of moods as everybody's, like, doing their, like, social dance hour. And so the day we got the results, we were in Spain, I don't remember where in Spain at the moment. And there was a couple who's an older couple, and they taught the ballroom dance classes, and they are from Maryland. And so they're, like, sitting on this. I'm in, like, my most comfortable clothes. I'm, like, miserable. I've got my headphones in. I'm sitting on this bus trying to take us from the port to wherever it was that we were going. And they came over and they were like, you're gonna come with us. I was like, I'm gonna what? They're like, we're going to this place, and you are coming. Oh, okay. And they were like, we're not going to talk about it, but I just want you to know that, like, we understand, and we would like to just, like, enjoy this, stay together. And I was like, that sounds lovely. And then the next day, we were in Barcelona, and I loved it there. And I was, like, on my own, and I was, like, feeling really excited. I'd gotten all of these recommendations of places to go. I found this jewelry maker. He made these really beautiful pieces of bamboo that he turned into jewelry. And I walk in, and there's a dog. So I'm, like, chatting to the dog. Because, you know, it's a dog and there's nobody else. And someone comes out and he's like, hello, you're an American. And I was like, oh, God, do I say no? I mean, I've already spoken. He knows that I'm American, but, like, maybe I should just leave. Like, I'm not sure what to do. And he was. I was like, I am. And he was like, could I. Could I just give you a hug? Was like, yes, yes. Like, I just was so afraid in being, like, where we had gone the day before, we hadn't really encountered people. Like, we'd gone to, like, a tourist. Like a. We're into a fort. Took a bunch of, like, tourist places where we were basically surrounded by other tourists. And this was the first time I'd been, like, in a place where there were just people that I could talk to so personally. I found that I happened across people who were really understanding and made the assumption that Americans were needing support as opposed to, like, what the hell is wrong with you people? Which I was very grateful for. But it took, I would say, I mean, similar to what I heard when I got home for other people. You know, it was like a week of kind of foggy before. I felt like going to our little social dance classes in the afternoon and, like, really wanting to be there. But it was very weird to be surrounded by people who were like, what's wrong with you? Why aren't you happy today? I'm gonna go have dinner over there now. It was very weird.

[23:45] KAREN KROLAK: And so one of the things I've been wondering about as you've been talking about the project again, as we've been kind of thinking about this, is, you know, since the whole idea of your project was about slowing down and permission to slow down and being able to find that space, how do you think things that you learned from that have influenced how you've behaved during the lockdowns of the pandemic or shifted your perspective, because that's obviously been a period of time that has caused all of us as a world to kind of slow down. And it feels like you've been pretty resilient through this period of time. So I'm curious about whether any of that particular journey actually wound up being relevant to something you could have never predicted would have happened while you were taking it.

[24:43] NICOLE HARRIS: I don't know so much that there are specific things from that project that I could say like, oh, yes, that applies to now. But I feel like there was a big shift in that time of, you Know, I talked about, like, wanting to needing other people to give you permission to go and do an artist residency. And I think I spent a lot of money to go on a cruise ship. Like, a lot of money. I didn't have to go on a cruise for six weeks. And I feel like there's something about making that investment in yourself that gives you permission to continue to give yourself permission to do things. And so I think, you know, we universally sort of. We're told that all of those things that you do for your career, though, none of them happen anymore. And so for us to be able to say, like, okay, but, like, what does that mean that we can do? And we don't need somebody to give us permission to do a thing, that we're just going to, like, make something happen in order to keep going. I know at the beginning of all of this, our organization, Monkey House, was given a pretty substantial grant in order to create these Covid collaborations that Karen was talking about earlier that were ways that we wanted to be able to connect pieces of the community to each other. And Karen had said to me, like, okay, what are you going to do? Like, you. If you have this amount of money, like, what are you going to do? And I came up with a project that has a budget that is bigger than, like, every other project I've ever done put together. And Karen was like, wow, that's like a big budget project. I was like, no, no, we don't have to do it. It's totally fine. But I don't know that. And we did do it, and I was, you know, encouraged to make that happen. But I feel like without having made that investment in myself four years ago, I don't know that I would have been comfortable making a sizable budget proposal for something now. And then there was another. You know, we had a very similar experience to what happened with me on the ship of we came up with a proposal for a project and we didn't get it. And we, like, it's one of those awful things where you make the proposal and then like, four months later they tell you whether or not you get it. So, like, you've built up this, like, not only have I made this proposal, but, like, now I've been. Have had four months to, like, make it even better, and then they say no. But we were able to say, like, okay, but you know what? We don't need this grant in order to be able to do this project because, like, we can make some adaptations and do it for ourselves, because, like, it's a project that we believe in. And so I don't necessarily feel like those are, like, lessons learned so much as because one thing happened, it allowed permission for other things, more like waves.

[27:53] KAREN KROLAK: That it kind of reverberates out from there. I also was really aware, you know, because some of the early Covid outbreaks for our country took place on cruise ships, just how differently you were thinking about what was happening there. Do you want to talk at all about what you noticed for yourself about how you were thinking about those outbreaks on cruise ships that were different than you might have before you went and did this for six weeks?

[28:25] NICOLE HARRIS: I don't know how different it was other than, like, I know human beings that I love and care about who live on cruise ships. And so, like, my. I think there was a lot of especially, like, maybe not right at the beginning, like, people who were on cruise ships before it started, but like, people who are like, oh, well, I'm still going to go on my trip because, you know, I paid all this money for it. Whatever. Whatever those reasons are that people chose to still go on their trip. There was this sense from the rest of the world of, like, cruises being this sort of entitled thing that people go on, and it's only for people who are of a certain whatever and that, like, they're to blame for getting on a cruise ship when in this time. And I feel like there's a whole lot of people who don't choose to get on a cruise ship. That's their job. They wake up there every day and they go to work that we didn't really talk about or think about in blaming the cruise industry for spreading things or for making things worse. And I feel like, just like everybody else, everyone is doing everything that they are humanly capable of to not allow their industry or their whatever what it is they're doing to make things worse. I mean, aside from the obvious, people who are, like, licking people, but that's just, you know, a special grouping of people. But, like, people, you know, your average person, no matter what field they're in, no matter what situation they are in, like, everyone is doing their best. And I think it's important to remember that and how many people that impacts, you know, how many people. If we just decide, like, you know what, nobody needs to go on cruises anymore, like, how many people we're putting out of work? Just, like, who needs to go to the theater? Well, like, how many people are we putting out of work by closing down Broadway? Does that mean we shouldn't be doing it? No, of course not. But, like, let's not forget that there's all these other people that are impacted, not just the people who can afford to go on cruises or who can afford to buy tickets to shows on Broadway.

[30:51] KAREN KROLAK: So my last two questions for you. One, is there anything that was, like, a particularly great moment from your cruise, whether it's related to the actual, like, artistic practice or not, that you feel like is kind of how you want to be able to remember that trip? Or is there something that's kind of like an iconic image of what that trip was to you?

[31:22] NICOLE HARRIS: I don't know about iconic so much, but I remember a moment. So I was there over Thanksgiving, and, you know, as I mentioned, the majority of the people that were on the crew were not from the United States, so don't celebrate Thanksgiving. And, you know, Thanksgiving is a holiday fraught with difficulties. But a group of crew that I had become friends with all closed. All, like, there's big. You can't close things when you work on a cruise ship. Like, you have to be open for the public because you have to be making money all the time. And they closed their gallery in order to, like, have a Thanksgiving dinner with me. And so I remember going to find them just to, like, see if we were going to dinner. And there was a little sign that says, like, we're closed to celebrate Thanksgiving. And we all went to one of the, like, nicer restaurants to go for dinner. And I remember that feeling, like, a moment where, like, I understood that those and all of those people that were there, people that, like, I have had relationships with since I left, that it became more than just like, this is this thing that I did for a minute, and then it's going to go away and not exist after that.

[32:30] KAREN KROLAK: And then my last question, just knowing you and knowing kind of what you value in the world is gratitude and appreciation for things. Are there any people or organizations or participants in that project that you want to be able to acknowledge or thank?

[32:53] NICOLE HARRIS: I'm pretty sure we are not. We do not have enough time to make that happen.

[32:58] KAREN KROLAK: Doesn't have to be all of them. I just. I know you that you tend to like to be able to share gratitude for that. And I'm just wondering if there's, you know, any. Like, I was thinking of Ginger McEachern, who taught you how to be able to make the books by hand.

[33:13] NICOLE HARRIS: I think a person that I don't ever really talk about much is my friend Alex Strasnick, who drove me to New York City to get on Because I was like, I have to, like, take either drive myself and then leave my car in New York City to get on this thing, or, like, I have to bring all of this luggage. That's a crazy amount on a bus. She's like, no, no, just put it in my truck. I'll drive you. And, like, didn't ask me for anything in return. Didn't even let me pay for gas. Was just like, this is an adventure. We're going to go do it. And the guy who drove me from. I was staying in Queens, and I took a cab to the terminal, and he was like, I'm sorry, you're doing what? Where are you? I think this is, like, the most amazing thing I've ever heard. And, like, it really just set me off. Like, I was feeling a little nervous, and he was just like, this. You are so brave. I'm gonna tell my wife about you and my kids. That just really made me feel like it was a big, exciting adventure and not, like, a really dumb idea I had. So I think those two.

[34:11] KAREN KROLAK: That's good. Excellent. Well, thanks. We can end there. And thanks for being able to share some of that with us.

[34:18] NICOLE HARRIS: Thank you.