Episode 57 Molly Joyce Transcript

[Opening theme music] 

[Diane] Hello, and welcome to this episode of ArtsAbly in Conversation. My name is Diane Kolin. This series presents artists, academics, and project leaders who dedicate their time and energy to a better accessibility for people with disabilities in the arts. You can find more of these conversations on our website, artsably.com, which is spelled A-R-T-S-A-B-L-Y dot com. This episode is part of a special series. In the next few weeks, you will discover artists I had the pleasure of interviewing before ArtsAbly existed, for my doctoral research about music and disability. They are at the origin of the work I am doing today with ArtsAbly. The artists you will hear were interviewed between 2020 and 2023, and all accepted to be featured as archival guests of this podcast. Today's archival conversation comes from audio interviews with the composer Molly Joyce, dated January 27, 2021, after the release of her album Breaking and Entering, and February 27, 2023, after the release of her album Perception. It also includes excerpts of her compositions. Like for regular episodes, you can find resources mentioned by Molly Joyce on ArtsAbly's website, in the blog section. 

[Interview]

[Diane] Thank you, Molly. 

[Molly] No problem. 

[Diane] Let's start with your life. Where are you from? Where were you born? How did you come to music? 

[Molly] I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania originally and I think I started on like violin, like kind of traditional Suzuki violin lessons when I started I think more to the encouragement of my mother and I always joke because she saw it as a nice, like, thing on my college resume like 20 years down the line but never really expected me to go into it seriously. I think that she wanted me to have some, like, extracurricular activities So I kind of just did do the like kind of private violin lessons in the beginning. And then this, of course, changed after I had a car accident at the age of seven, in which my left hand was nearly amputated. So, following the accident, thanks to the encouragement of my mother and my physical therapist and my elementary school orchestra teacher at the time, they tried to figure out if I could just play any instrument. So then I played cello backwards. So I bowed with the left hand and fingered with the right hand. Yeah, and kind of went from there. And then I picked up, like, trumpet along that time too, which is a little, like, easier for me to play with kind of my physically different hands. But then I was really drawn to music composition, I think, and I didn't really, like, think about this at the time, but when I look back, I think, why I was so drawn to music composition was that I didn't have to, like, think about what my hands could or could not do. Because even with the cello or trumpet there were always some frustrations in a way because I couldn't hold a lot of weight in my left hand, like, I was trying to play an instrument that was really not made for my body. So with composing and composing for other people I felt like I could really let my mind and imagination run free again, not always kind of coming up against those kind of physical limitations in a way. 

[Diane] What was your age when you started violin? 

[Molly] I think like five or six, whatever the kindergarten age in the U.S. is. I think I started, yeah, like around that time. 

[Diane] So you had this car accident and how did it impact your school education and your studies? 

[Molly] Fortunately I guess, not too much, I think. It happened in the summer before my, like, second grade of school, in elementary school, at least in the U.S. system. And I remember, I think I missed the first couple of months, I think, so I was like still in the hospital or something or recovering. And then basically went back but I think for a long time, I always had a cast on my arm or something. So there was more surgery, user physical therapy. And of course, going back, I think, from what I remember, I mean, I think you're so young at that age that you just kind of go with the flow. Although I definitely remember some kids like calling me out or or I think because they're afraid like that was going to happen to them or something, just kind of typical bullying like standpoint in a way. so but I think fortunately I was so young at the age that I almost like didn't know any better like than to try these new instruments in a way and a different way of playing them like I didn't care too too much I think. 

[Diane] So going to high school and everything, did you follow the path of music or did you struggle between music and something else? 

[Molly] Yeah, I think in high school I did, definitely did a lot of like trumpet in a way and like marching band and pit band. I definitely wasn't like super good on the instrument. I think I was like okay to like stay in on the ensembles or like stay to be accepted. But it was kind of my main extracurricular in a way, kind of like my sports. I think I wasn't very good at sports and slash afraid of playing sports because of my hand, I didn't think it was something I could do. And that's when I started composing more seriously too, because I think I just loved, like, composing is all on the computer, like it all feels like a big video game to me and still does in many ways, like I love the satisfaction of the midi feedback of like hearing what you just wrote. And I remember in high school I asked my mother for lessons too, like, just composition lessons which initially started more as kind of music theory lessons in a way, I just felt like I knew I needed some feedback on my work, like I was kind of working in isolation. And that's when I think once I started getting lessons and going to summer festivals for composition, like, realizing that there were professional composers out there and that you could get graduate degree like there was schooling out there, encouraged me more and, and then I think when applying for colleges actually, I think I applied to one regular university but mostly conservatories. I think I just wanted to see what would happen more I still like and even to this day I think I still question if I'm actually going into music. Anyway I feel like I'm gonna have to like grow up at some point or something, and get a real job but... But again and then I think that's how I approach my practice in a way too or everything when I apply to things, I'm just like let's just see what happens, kind of, and try not to take it too too seriously. 

[Diane] You just apply to Julliard and you get there? 

[Laughs.] 

[Molly] Well, I think, and I think to be honest, I think I was lucky because I feel like with Julliard, or with composition, people come at it later, all stages in life. So like, you're not necessarily competing against all these prodigies that have been composing for like 20 years or something. 

[Diane] How did you end up to Den Haag? 

[Molly] One of my teachers in my undergrad, or when I was living in New York and I eventually worked for her, Missy Mazzoli, who's like a huge role model and mentor to me. She studied there for about two years, like on a Fulbright. So when I was looking into graduate studies, I definitely wanted to look in some international options and then looked into like Den Haag and like doing a grant over there. Yeah. So I was only there about one year. So I wish I could have been longer, so I love... Because I love going abroad, I think, and learning from kind of different schoolings over there. And then 

[Diane] And then after that, you came back to Juilliard? Or did you go to Yale directly after that? What happened between the... 

[Molly] Yeah, I went to Yale directly. So, yeah, I was fortunate that I was able to defer Yale like one year when I was accepted after Juilliard. So I could go to The Hague for one year. Because, and I think, I'm very fortunate for all experiences but I probably would have tried to stay in The Hague a little longer I think if I didn't know that was lined up in a way. 

[Diane] Yale in composition directly? 

[Molly] Yeah, music composition. 

[Diane] Let's hear an excerpt of Compare and Contrast written for flutist Martha Cargo and cellist Ben Larsen in 2016. 

[Music: Compare and Contrast] 

[Diane] I read in this article that you discovered Critical Disability Studies in Yale. 

[Molly] Yeah. 

[Diane] So how did it work? How did you... 

[Molly] Yeah, it's interesting because, well, first, I guess I did some music... I took like a Music and Society course. My first semester there with professor, like, Sebastian Ruth who... Just, I just can't say enough good things about him, and he runs community music works in Providence. He's like MacArthur award winner. And I really just love this course. It was really about, I feel like, finding an organic way to make your, like, think about just your musical practice within society and reading such as, like, John Dewey and Grace Lee Boggs and Maxine Green. I couldn't believe I didn't read this before, like, in undergrad. Because I used to be, to be honest, kind of skeptical of, like, political music or socially minded music. Like, I never wanted to really force it in a way I think or I felt like music's very abstract in a way. And so this course like started getting me thinking about that and it was when I was performing on the toy organ more and thinking about like my body in relation to that. But I definitely was not identifying as disabled or doing any of the disability studies. And then fast forward to kind of my last semester there at the end of two years. I wanted to do an independent study. I didn't even know in what, or I just wanted to do something. I always have this like mindset of trying to get all the credits or just exploring every option. And fortunately, Sebastian was able to be my advisor and I knew I wanted to do something on disability or impairments. Like I feel like I was still dancing around the word in a way, but at first I thought I wanted to do like just looking at disabled musicians such as Itzhak Perlman and Evelyn Glennie, and just seeing how it informs their practices maybe, but it kind of quickly turned into investigate... kind of a personal investigation of my own body, especially in relation to the organ. And then just a study, like... discovering, of course, this kind of wealth of knowledge and literature out there with disability studies. And it was kind of great because Sebastian, I don't think he really knew much about that, but he was just very encouraging for me to follow my intuition and follow the references and all these articles. I was really just to go kind of further down the rabbit hole in a way. And it was just incredibly like life changing. And I'm not exaggerating. Of course, there's always more to read and learn from. And again, I feel like I was kind of always leaning in this direction in my intuition, even my music, I feel like was always very physically motivated and informed by like binaries, I think from my two physically different hands. But I think reading about this disability studies, especially about the social model of disability kind of like opened the door, if you will, in a way, like kind of set me in like faster down that path. And still to this day, I feel like there's always more to learn, of course. 

[Diane] I'm going to backtrack a little bit. Because you talked about the organ. I remember you were telling in this article that you were searching for an instrument to adapt to your body. And that until you discovered the organ, you didn't find any of these instruments adapted to your own body. Can you talk about that? 

[Molly] Yeah, I think to be honest, I think once I, especially once I like stopped or like got out of high school, like stopped playing trumpet. And I think once I was clear I was going down more music composition path I was kind of like relieved in a way to not worry about performing as much, I think. you know I didn't have to Or either, you know, I didn't have to engage in my with my hand at all and I guess in undergraduate I did play like some keyboards in a way sometimes, I think with my own band in a way. Sometimes with the organ, not too much, or because I knew a lot of, like, especially Missy Mazzoli, like one of my mentors, like she performed in her own band. I knew a lot of the composers I admired performed their own music so I was trying to figure out an outlet. And then I did buy the organ like during undergraduate studies in New York. Because I kind of joke it was like my ticket to Brooklyn if you will. It was kind of cute, like, I always felt like when I took lessons around New York, especially with composers in Brooklyn, they always had these, like, toy pianos and melodicas laying around their apartments. So I knew I wanted something like that. However it really did stay - I'm looking at it because it's like right here - it really stayed as like an accessory or a toy to me, like I would play with other musicians or with dancers, but I never really saw it as kind of front and center in my practice. However once I got to grad school, and especially I was away from it from a year when I was studying in The Hague. So I I knew I wanted to start performing again and kind of be self-sufficient almost. Like if someone asked me to just do a 10 minute set, like I could do it and not always have to ask other performers or figure out a way to have my music heard. So then I kind of looked back to the organ away and started creating like electronic tracks with it, which really expanded its sound world. And then of course, coupled with the disability studies kind of made me realize that I'm really kind of performing, like, with my disability on it, like, on its own level, and with the chord, the organ's makeup of chord buttons on the left hand side and the keyboard part on the right hand side. It feels incredibly natural for me to perform on. And in a very public way, almost, in my disability. Like, I feel like I don't know what's really going through the minds of my professors and everything at the time, but at these, you know, very new music, you know, composition concerts, and to kind of get up and play a work that, like on the organ where my hand's clearly prominent, and also like performing work that's just very physically motivated, that, like, I just wanted my hands to switch places or something like that. Almost like - I don't want to, like, label my work - almost more performance art-ish in a way, or just having larger motivations than just the musical content. 

[Diane] Let's listen to an excerpt of one of Molly Joyce's pieces for Electric Toy Organ called Form and Deform, composed in 2017. 

[Music: Form and Deform] 

[Diane] So I listened to all your compositions. I mean, I really love your orchestral and choir. 

[Molly] Oh, thank you. 

[Diane] Wow. And so I really feel there was a— there was like a before and after. 

[Molly] Oh. 

[Diane] I listened to your style of the orchestral style and the choir and the string quartet. And then after that, when I listened to your toy organ, it's like day and night. 

[Molly] Oh, it's true. 

[Diane] I discovered... I mean, did you meet the right persons and change style? What happened exactly between the two? 

[Molly] Or I guess my first response, I think obviously the works for the organ, like just with the instrument, like the actual sound makeup, and they often include a lot of electronics and in my voice and stuff and the lyrics I write. So it's just a different, like, materials anyway, kind of, if you will. Like, I guess I hope sometimes that the styles are somewhat consistent or at least like what I write now, like across kind of mediums or forces. I don't know. I mean, I do know that like a lot of, or say like my album that was for the organ, like I wrote it after finishing grad school. So I think I was feeling really free in a way without the teachers and everything. And not like the teachers were bad, but just really like, okay, this is what I can do. Like I'm totally free. I don't have to show it to say, I don't even have to show this to anyone if I don't want to. Not feeling just really like letting my music do what it wants to do in a way. 

[Diane] So I hear that there were the imposed style, kind of imposed by teachers, but then in this imposition you still have a very free compositional style, right? It's never— you can feel that there is something fresh, and so that's why I really appreciate it in your work. 

[Molly] Oh, thank you. 

[Diane] There is something that we can find in your work today, it's this kind of repetition or looping or something that is coming back. You were talking about your CD where it's really binary, right? All the titles are binaries. Before doing this CD, how did you come to all these title reflections? 

[Molly] Yeah, it's interesting because I think I realized at some point, like, oh, my titles are kind of like— I'm very attracted to these titles that, I think represent contradictions in a way, in the best way possible, like high and low or something. And also titles that kind of reflect the actual architectural structure that the piece will play out. Like "High and Low," like using the maximum range or something like that. Or like... I don't know, like "Lost and Found" or something where the bass part seems lost the whole time and kind of finds itself musically by the end. I think I like those kind of subtle suggestions that they don't give you the whole picture. Like hopefully you actually have to listen to the piece. And then upon further reflection, I kind of wonder if that stems from my own immediate experience with binaries, of course, with my two physically different hands. And I also think a lot with like these phrases like "this and that" or "breaking and entering," like some of them have like negative connotations, I would say, and I kind of love putting them front and center and hopefully flipping into not necessarily an over-the-top positive connotation, but maybe neutralizing it a little more. Especially like "Breaking and Entering." I don't know why I'm like so attracted to that. And I think that also maybe correlates— again, I don't want to totally label it with like disability, like always has a little like negative connotation almost. People like dance around it, like myself included, did for a long time, like afraid to say the word. And like, why does it— it's just language or something. Like, why does it always have to have that? 

[Diane] Let's now hear an excerpt of the album "Breaking and Entering," with the piece called Form and Flee, composed in 2020. 

[Music: Form and Flee] 

[Diane] There is also a part in this article that says that "before," and I don't know where the breaking point is, I think it's Yale. Um, "before I didn't consider myself as disabled or disabled enough because I was not in a wheelchair, I was not" - blah, blah, blah. And, and now you have no problem saying you're disabled, right? 

[Molly] Yeah, exactly, yeah. 

[Diane] Was there a process in - also in your personal, but also in your musical world? You know, to arrive to this conclusion that, okay, I recognize I'm disabled and I also, I'm going to reflect this in my music. 

[Molly] Yeah, exactly, yeah. I think they're kind of happening in tandem, or I'd say at least personally, especially once I did that independent study. Well, once I did that, I used to say like I have a weaker left hand or something. I would rarely talk about it. And then once I did the independent study near the end of grad school, I started saying like impairment more, like reading more about the language. And then finally, I think that following like winter, so a friend, a collaborator of mine actually, Jerron Herman, because I was reaching out to more disabled activists and artists when I was traveling with residencies. Like, I had such a strong interest in learning more about it, but I was still like afraid to really identify as it again, because I feel like I wasn't in a wheelchair, did I have a severe enough disability? But he really pushed me. He was like, well, do you identify as disabled or something? And I didn't really answer that question immediately when he asked it, but I really thought about it and obviously, maybe, you know, want to embrace it even more. And then I think with my music, in a way, I was always leaning in that direction, kind of similar, especially once I started performing on the organ more and wanting to especially explore like physical absence and loss in my music or the lyrics I write. A lot of them are informed like directly by disability studies and language from that. And I think, yeah, it kind of happened in tandem with that. And I'd say also even more publicly in my work, once I started including more accessibility, such as like open captions in the lyrics. And those are always interesting conversations, especially with collaborators that might be non-disabled too, like how important it is to me, I think, really recognizing that kind of disability aesthetic in a way too in the work and how it has to be kind of ingrained from the start. 

[Diane] You also named Stefan Honisch. 

[Molly] Yeah. 

[Diane] So how did you — did you meet him or did you read his work? or how... 

[Molly] No, it's interesting because I think when I was traveling more for residencies, I would try to learn about local disabled activists or artists to hopefully meet with. And I think it was actually when I was at like one in Switzerland and then I asked Alice Wong of the Disability Visibility Project who I'd met in San Francisco when I was there for residency. And that's when she still had this like Facebook group where people would post, like connections or something like that. And I asked if she knew anyone in Switzerland and then she said she could post to the group. And then Stefan, I think, emailed me after that actually, because he said it looks like we have a lot of shared interests and I unfortunately didn't know his work beforehand. And then once I started reading the articles, and especially the one about kind of vulnerable virtuosity, or when he mentions that, like really started getting me thinking. And his work has really been, yeah, important to me ever since. 

[Diane] Let's now hear an excerpt of Over and Under for organ and orchestra performed by the Minnesota Orchestra in May 2022. This is what Molly indicates in the program notes: "Scored for organ and orchestra, Over and Under explores the possible uniform and divergent relationship between such immense instrumental bodies. This relationship evolves so that by the end of the piece, the organ and orchestra have ultimately switched roles, and in order to reach this outcome, the two instrumental bodies must begin in contrasting positions and gradually progress to replace one another." 

[Music: Over and Under] 

[Diane] That leads to my next question: how did you start this Perspective project? 

[Molly] Yeah, so the idea stemmed from a conversation with Judy Heumann, and I've been fortunate to meet with her a couple times, as an American disability activist, and I feel like she always knows like the right question to ask at the right time, or she— to kind of like progress your thinking, kind of like push your buttons in a way. And she asked why I refer to my left hand as weak, because I think I was explaining to her about a collaboration with a dance collaborator of mine, Jerron Herman, and I was saying like we both have weaker left sides. And then I realized like— and then she was like, why do you say weak, or something like that? And that question really struck me. Because I knew it was always kind of a go-to term I would use, I think, to explain why I couldn't lift something, or if I wanted to like get out of something, or just to really describe my left hand. And I don't think she was saying necessarily to just call it like my strong left hand and deny weakness altogether, but really just to think about what weakness can be, or as such a central concept to the disabled experience, especially to individuals across a range of disabilities and further experiences. So I kind of got this project in motion. It started when I was in an art and social impact fellowship in Washington, DC. So I think I was already thinking along those lines myself, but also learning a lot from my colleagues in that cohort that were doing more visual art and dance, I would say, that were more openly involving other participants in their work through interview forms. So that got me started thinking about that. And it was initially planned as part of their public art festival, this residency in DC, which of course got canceled with COVID but at least did get me started thinking about like a larger project like this one. 

[Diane ]So you chose all the participants of your project based on the encounters that you did in these years of studies, or did you just extend your project, or what happened? 

[Molly] I wanted to initially just interview people from like Washington, DC, because I was in that residency and wanted highlight the voices of people I was meeting in DC, like Judy, or people, you know, disabled activists and so forth. But then once it got started too, I realized like, oh, I can open it up, especially because disability, even pre-COVID, has this, you know, value of virtual connection. I could open up to people I've met with other residency travels, especially to get more of a variety of disability voices, like in mind, or just in other identities as well. Not like holistically diverse in a way, but just to get some more voices in there that I knew would be up for speaking, like doing the interview, because I think it was like kind of coming up the time where I started— I needed to start working on the music and everything. I was trying to get people I knew would be easy to kind of schedule in. The questions were— it came kind of natural, I guess. I started with that question of obviously weakness, and then thinking about really just central terms to disability culture, obviously, like access or care, interdependence, like terms I feel like I read or seen come up so much. And then also terms that I knew might be a little controversial, like control or cure, which with all the interviewees, I always gave them the option to, if they didn't want to answer, they didn't have to, or, you know, the answers could be as long or short as they want. And then some of the concepts also were ones that kind of personally have frustrated me, like control or assumption, or really all of them in a way, or like I've thought about a lot, but especially like assumption. I think these just feelings that I feel like come up a lot with the disabled experience. 

[Diane] So did you first interview them and create the music, or did you do it at the same time? 

[Molly] Um, I first interviewed them. Yeah, I did all the interviews and then, and then would edit down the interviews to kind of like what I considered the highlights. And then you put the interviews in an order that like, um, I guess I felt like made sense. Like if sometimes the, the interview responses related to each other, like fed off one another. Or if they didn't relate to each other, kind of contradicted each other, I like to put that next to each other too to show the kind of diversity of the disabled experience or viewpoints that we don't all think the same about one thing. And then, yeah, and then added the music. I think unless I had some really strong feelings about like, I kind of want this as a musical material, then I would put a little bit of that in, but I really tried to focus on the responses first and then adding the music. 

[Diane] Once you had all these interviews lined up, did the music come easily? Did you think of each topic? Did you think of more the interviews that you had with people? How was your process on creating the music? 

[Molly] I remember at first I was like, this is— it was like the most challenging piece I'd ever written. Now it's a little more natural, I think, because I was very hesitant about, yeah, like overshadowing their voices too, and just not sure, like, am I doing this right? or something like that. Because I'm so used to writing in music notation software. And very— and this was also a little different process for me because I wrote more in Logic, like the digital audio workstation. So I just wrote on the timeline there, like played in MIDI stuff, like without notating it. I would only notate it if I needed to record it in later, like for myself. And some of it's even just more improvised under it, or it's more of a feeling like that I was going with without like a strong beat or anything, which I think in the end was good because it kind of pushed me beyond the page. But anyway, I think a lot of it was more just really intuitive and trying to feel it out and create music that's hopefully interesting in the background but doesn't overshadow them. That's not just like, say, a drone or total ambient sounds or something that's not developing in and of itself. And I— well, I definitely tried to get a variety between each section. Like if I felt like the previous section was kind of more organ heavy, then try to feature the voice more in the next one or do more drum heavy. So at least have variety with that and variety with like tempo, mood, if that makes sense too, or rhythm, or just so it's not all the same. And then some of them are a little more literal, like Control or something is this constant drumbeat that goes to a distorted one by the end, like showing a loss of control kind of. And then like Cure. And again, this is kind of like intuitive, and then I look back, I was like, yeah, it's probably trying to get at that, but Cure is like these oscillating major minor chords, which almost sounds like you're at like a fair or Fantasyland or something, like cure is never going to be attained or it's always going to be slightly above you or something. Yeah, so sometimes I feel like the music was like my answer to the questions in a way too, but again, not trying to override their answers, really just hopefully support and enhance them. 

[Diane] As a final excerpt, let's hear one of the sections of the Perspective project that started in 2020 and that is still running today. An album was released earlier this year with 12 tracks and 3 extra ones as EPs. We will listen to the Assumption section. 

[Music: Assumption] 

[Molly] What is assumption for you? 

[Interviewee 1] An unwillingness to learn. 

[Interviewee 2] Assumptions can lead to specific forms of discrimination, prejudice, intolerance. 

[Interviewee 3] Assumption is my whole life, past, present, and future. You don't have to be in the room for your kind of your whole life been laid out for you already. 

[Interviewee 4] I think if one is making an assumption about what someone can or can't do based on a presumed notion of what a disability is, I think that is again getting in the way of that disability value of Nothing About Us Without Us. 

[Interviewee 5] Assumptions limit the opportunity to fully know another person, to fully learn from or experience something, going in with ideas ahead of time. 

[Interviewee 6] Frequency. Like if something happens a lot, happens with a certain frequency, then perhaps in the future you will more and more likely to assume that thing is happening. 

[Interviewee 7] It's where we go, we don't bother to look. And what happens is you end up missing out all this space in between and what was in there, right? Because you made this leap, and if it's wrong, if it's wrong, then you ended up somewhere and it's not correct. And the thing is, you're moving forward with this incorrect assumption, with this incorrect idea, and it's flawed intelligence, right? It's bad data, which means everything you do from that point on in some ways is corrupted, right? And that's such a harsh word. At the same time, it's so very true, especially when you talk about how it impacts people, right? So your corruption and how it connects with other people means how you treat them, how you talk to them, how you engage with them, what you have even to offer them, even if it's done with the the best of intentions, is wrong. 

[Molly reading interviewee 8] A professor instructed us to use a common headphone for communication. I cannot use the headphone, and that is an assumption. 

[Music fading] 

[Diane] You told me that you have the full interviews on the website. Is that something you would consider, I don't know, doing a more detailed story about or continue or extend? Or is it the project that you, it just lived in the moment and you're satisfied with whatever happened? 

[Molly] Yeah, I'd have to think about something with the longer interviews conducted. I mean, I definitely knew I wanted to get them online somewhere. At first I was thinking about creating a separate website, but then I kind of— it was easier to put on my website or keep it all like connected to that project page. And then I'd have to think about that with a long form. And then some of my dreams are to have like an interactive website with it where visitors can submit their own answers to the questions. Although as I've been looking into that, I've been learning how there's a lot of spam with that, like when you have online forms and everything. So, but yeah, but we'll see. I mean, it's not official, official yet, but I think I might do a new version of the project for Düsseldorf, like art commission in Germany, interviewing people there and having— I'm still kind of figuring it out, but like having it videos in like the subway, say, or, you know, it's like public art, or even like I was talking about, like screenshots from the videos as billboards, like many different avenues like that. And also exploring with that, obviously translation, like if it's all in German or English or both, as well as German sign language. Because that's something I haven't been able to do as much with this project, like sign language, just because of budget constraints really, or I've never like filmed a sign language interpretation, so that would be good. Yeah, and then I might do a version next year too with CATA, which is Community Access City Arts, so they're kind of legendary with like, disability arts and community arts. And I think we're doing a version with like their dancers, which I'm really excited about. Kind of a similar thing like interviewing them, but I think we might try to create the concepts together with the dancers or decide upon them together and then do the interviews, rather than me coming at them with certain concepts or topics. 

[Diane] So when you are involved in disability studies topics, your work makes totally sense, but I was thinking of people who didn't think at all about disability and critical disability. Did you have conversations with a crowd who's discovering disability? 

[Molly] Yeah, I'd have to think about— oh yeah, because there's just been so many conversations, I think. But, like, some people say, I think even my aunt said like I would— because some people mentioned their specific disability in the interview answers that I included, like, "because I'm blind," they'll say, or something, or "because I use a wheelchair." But some don't, or like, or I didn't include like everyone saying exactly what they are, and I didn't explicitly include their names. And like, yeah, like my aunt was like, I would have liked to know what their disability was. But to me, that's like not really the point, you know? And I think, and I'm not like, it's just my aunt, or she's just curious, I think I understand that curiosity, but I don't - Again, it's more about the concepts and the answers, I think, rather than knowing like, oh, do they have a severe disability or not? Even though I think it is interesting occasionally, those anecdotes when they say like, "because I'm blind," or "because I have a cochlear implant" or something like that. So that was definitely an interesting conversation. Yeah, and then I think some people, I can't think of any certain topics, but obviously there's still like a lot of like, you know, "it's very inspirational" or "it's amazing how people overcome," like those kind of narratives that you're typically trying to counter, you know, with disability-focused pieces. 

[Diane] Maybe there is— there would be an interesting thing to do what you were supposed to do at the festival that was canceled, which is the projection of the work in a place where people can just go and come and assist, and then you would have interesting feedback, I think, from the people there. 

[Molly] Yeah, definitely. I was fortunate to do— I did a version of that last year in Minnesota with the Minnesota version, and then I actually have one coming up this Friday in Chicago of the whole work, so that'll be up for like a month or so at a gallery there. So I'm excited for that. 

[Diane] Wow, yeah, that's great. Okay, thank you so much. Have a great day. 

[Molly] Yeah, yeah, you too. 

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