Hosted by TJ Dedeaux-Norris & Jason Šimánek. Conversations on art, care, creativity, and what it means to emerge.
On this episode of The Emergence Room, Heather Hart joins us for a conversation about culminating our time as 2025–26 Rome Prize Fellows at the American Academy in Rome and what it means to carry that experience forward. Heather is an artist, Assistant Professor of Sculpture at Rutgers University, and co-founder of Black Lunch Table, a platform dedicated to supporting the histories, intellectual agency, and communities of Black artists.
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In this episode of The Emergence Room, we sit down with Michela Palermo, an artist, photographer, publisher, and the 2025–26 Fondazione Sicilia Affiliated Artist at the American Academy in Rome. She is also the founder of Palermo Publishing, an independent publishing project working across photography, visual art, and critical thought.
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In this episode of The Emergence Room, T.J. Dedeaux-Norris hosts a conversation with Kaaj Tshikalandand – cultural mediator and anthropological researcher. Recorded at the closing of T.J.’s exhibition Black Body: Ancient City at Murate Art District in Florence, Italy. This marks the podcast’s first-ever live episode, held in the museum with a live audience, and the first time T.J. is hosting the show on her own within the space of her own exhibition.
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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.
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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.
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