I don’t want my work to be seen as merch. I am not a brand.
– Yazmin Bradley
Sticky Teeth’s micro-interviews have less to chew off.
Ft. words from creative professionals at the intersection of the arts and writing.
In this edition, writer Yazmin Bradley speaks on the icky privatisation and forced consumerism of the creative process, and the humbling experience of getting intimate with beloved genres in community settings.
xx Tahney
Yazmin Bradley is a writer from unceded Dharug Land, Western Sydney.
Tahney: What’s been on your mind?
Fav creatives working with writing/language?
A quote from one of them?
You will want to hear that Anne takes solace in these precarious days, so let’s say that’s true: She takes that trip she always meant to, an ethereal island resort where every day the indigo waters whisper Get out, get out while you still can and the jacarandas whistle a jaunty tune of existential dread. She cashes in her many retirement portfolios, she doesn’t so much throw parties as fling them, handfuls of bacchanalia into those feverishly starlit nights.
What have you been working on lately?
I’ve been helping my grandmother write her memoir, and it’s forced me to engage a lot more with the genre as a whole and interrogate its conventions (it’s my favourite book genre). I was working at Parramatta Library when we first started her project, and it was one of those strange moments where timelines converge; my job was less rigorously bookish than it was community care and holding space for people’s stories, and here I was holding space for my grandmother too.
So, I set up a workshop at the library to teach folks how to write their memoir. Some had dabbled in writing before, others had never tried. The workshop had started in silence, but by the end, I was able to step away from the table to fill up the tea and coffee stations. People were swapping stories without my help. The humbling fact was that I was no longer needed.
IWhat else we should be reading in/on the arts?
The most recent thing I’ve released was Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Substack for The Suburban Review, which was their creative nonfiction piece for #32 Subscribe. It’s mostly a continuation of my answer to questions 1 and 3, except it’s funnier (I think). I even write about doing a striptease and flaying my skin in it. Sexy stuff. There’s a little interview about it here.
Anything that talks about Moon Wrasse.
David Willis: “It is my personal mission as an art writer to strike a balance between critical rigour and concise readability.”
One night in bed, I decided to stop saving tattoos on Instagram. The more I saved, the more ads popped up, each increasing my fear that most tattoos are badly chosen and badly executed, as if all rules of visual art and even aesthetic pleasure usually policing other artforms are irrelevant.
Carmela Vienna talks about the overreliance on AI in arts marketing and social media, and the need for more inspired, well-edited content, as well as treating arts marketing more seriously within arts orgs in general.
Too, with the Venice Biennale as a whole, in this unearthliness, the curatorial was a blur of impact and thought. I wasn’t sure if it was possible to achieve anything cohesive. I’m still not sure if it’s possible to look at, en masse like this, the variety of mediums, ideas, and cultural contexts and get it and not just be overwhelmed, weary, and clueless.
Haneen Mahmood Martin talks about shared accountability and diverse perspectives in the arts industry, matching words with actions—i.e., more POC in leadership positions—and the use of clear, accessible, but impactful language.
Liv Collins has an infectious energy rare in an industry of pretension. I’m really excited to feature her in this sticky teeth micro-interview for her truths about writing education at art school and some hot insider arts reading suggestions.
Anna Kate Blair speaks on the intersection of art, writing, and time. She explains her major concerns for lack of enough resources for the writing process itself, and also touches on history, capitalism and imagining alternative futures for creativity.
Brussels-based journalist Sarah Schug discusses the challenges of language in the art world, the need for accessibility, the diminishing value of art writing and her proud accomplishment—a self-published book on Iceland’s contemporary art scene.
Writer and editor Erin McFayden reflects on framing artistic activities as labour and advocating exploring the good it creates rather than its economic value – as well as her reccs for some artistic endeavours.
Writer Yazmin Bradley touches on the pressure on authors under the commercialisation of Bookstagram – how can we reclaim the creative process from capitalism? She also explores working with her grandmother on her memoir and the possibilities of Substack for creativity.