Hosted by TJ Dedeaux-Norris & Jason Šimánek. Conversations on art, care, creativity, and what it means to emerge.
In this episode of The Emergence Room, we sit down with Liz Glynn – a sculptor, performance artist, and current Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Known for her work navigating endurance, material transformation, and the politics of labor, Glynn has been in Rome working with wax and plaster – materials that hold memory, pressure, and impermanence, echoing her ongoing interest in how bodies, histories, and systems leave their imprint.
Continue reading “Liz Glynn”
On this episode of The Emergence Room, we are joined by Aliza Wong, Director of the American Academy in Rome and a professor of history at Texas Tech University, where she has spent over two decades teaching and mentoring students. Her scholarship centers on modern Italy and the Mediterranean, with a focus on race, nation, culture, and identity – nwork that feels deeply connected to the kinds of conversations she fosters in the spaces she leads.
Continue reading “Aliza Wong”
In this episode of The Emergence Room, we sit with João Salema, a fellow traveler whose practice feels as fluid and transient as the way she moves through the world.
Our conversation unfolds around living between places—between homes, cities, languages, and selves. We talk about what it means to build an art practice while constantly in motion, and how João makes objects appear, disappear, and reappear—both materially and emotionally.
Continue reading “João Salema”
In this episode, we are joined by Christine Sun Kim, an artist whose work rigorously examines sound, language, power, and access. Christine’s practice challenges assumed hierarchies of communication and invites us to reconsider how meaning is produced, circulated, and authorized. Her work moves across drawing, installation, performance, and social engagement, often asking who systems are built for and who is required to adapt.
Continue reading “Christine Sun Kim”
On this episode of The Emergence Room, we’re so honored to sit down with Sean Mooney — American Academy in Rome Fellow, artist, curator, and longtime collaborator with Chuna McIntyre.
This conversation unfolds around music and singing, and how sound becomes a way of holding memory, devotion, and care. We talk about what it means to live as an artist who is also a caretaker — of ideas, of objects, of people, and of shared histories.
Continue reading “Sean Mooney”
Okay – today’s episode is one of those conversations that reminds us why we love doing this podcast. We’re so excited to share this conversation with Paula Gaither – and truly, talking with Paula was such a gift. She is equal parts party, equal parts scholar, equal parts absolute bright light of a human being.
Continue reading “Paula Gaither”
Just moments before we recorded this episode of The Emergence Room, roles briefly reversed.
Anita Contini – founder of Creative Time and longtime leader at Bloomberg Philanthropies – was in the midst of conducting interviews for her current research project, Origins and Outcomes. As part of that work, she interviewed T.J. while T.J. is working at the American Academy in Rome.
Continue reading “Anita Contini”
We’re excited to welcome Timothy Darden, also known as BlacKostume, to The Emergence Room.
Continue reading “Timothy Darden”
This week in The Emergence Room, we sit down with someone whose presence feels like stepping into a poem — David Keplinger, poet, translator, teacher, and Rome Prize Fellow.
Continue reading “David Keplinger”
This week we sit down with Margo Weitzman, Rome Prize Fellow and PhD candidate at Rutgers University, whose research traces a sixteenth-century merchant moving between India and Italy—translating worlds through trade, language, and desire.
Continue reading “Margo Weitzman”