Following is the full nicole killian interview as featured in the Fall 2023 Studio Magazine and part of the Curious Minds interview series.
nicole killian’s work uses graphic design, publishing, video, objects and installation to investigate how the structures of the internet, mobile messaging and shared online platforms affect contemporary interaction and shape cultural identity from a queer perspective. They are interested in the repetition, looping and dissemination of content.
killian has exhibited at Sediment in Richmond, CAVE in Detroit, Arcadia Missa in London, Present Works in Milwaukee, Little Berlin in Philadelphia, Embassy in Los Angeles, Sadie Halie Projects in Brooklyn, Nomade Gallery in Hangzhou, Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema, and Artat the Whitney Museum of American Art for Lorna Mills’ “Ways of Something.” Their writing has been published by WOW HUH, The Enemy, Carets + Sticks (now Contemporary Art Review LA), The Journal of Feminist Scholarship, The Theo Westenberger Foundation and in the third edition of Terry Barrett’s Criticizing Art. A current essay, “The Emotional Potential of Girls Presented on the Internet as Object” will be included by Exempt Works (formerly Penny-ante Editions) in Modern Behaviours. They have spoken at the Rhode Island School of Design, CalArts, Central Saint Martins, Royal College of Art in London, Pratt Institute, Yale School of Art, Kunsthall Stavanger, Maryland Institute College of Art and the Cranbrook Academy of Art. They previously were a visiting artist at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design from 2011 to 2013.
killian appreciates a good karaoke performance and is co-creator of annual publication ISSUES with Sarah Faith Gottesdiener. Their publishing initiative, nico fontana, is concerned with a queering of language, objects, bodies and spaces. They recently served as guest editor for the Walker Art Center’s Soundboard and organized “How Will We Queer Design Education without Compromise?” Killian earned an M.F.A. in 2D design from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Diplom Hochschule Anhalt in graphic design from the University of Applied Sciences/Bauhaus Universität, and B.F.A. in graphic design from the Rochester Institute of Technology.
STUDIO: You recently participated in the MURRMUR show at the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU that featured installations of three, three-dimensional objects in the gallery space all addressing the intersection of diverse themes including, “reading,” “the body” and “queering.” I’m also remembering your recurrent interest in the idea of generosity. Can you talk about the connections between these ideas and how your understanding of them has evolved in your work?
KILLIAN: I love this question! For me, my project for MURRMUR is about use—it was important that the pieces were looked at through the lens of design and of use. Going off this idea, when it came for the work to be documented by the institution, I stipulated that the work was not to be photographed without people in the image. With this body of work, I want to design things that aren’t just fun to photograph, but have an aspect of use, and maybe for me use is also connected to generosity. It’s giving people a place to sit; it’s softening existing structures, it’s creating support.
STUDIO: The title of the show encapsulates an intriguing chain of concepts related to texts, the act of reading and the fundamental challenges of human-to-human communication. The title acronym stands for “Misread Unread Read Re-read Misread Unread Re-read.” Were you involved in establishing the theme of the show and its title, or was this given to you when your work was commissioned? How did this challenging deconstruction of what it means to read (or misread) play in your conceptual approach to the final works?
KILLIAN: The title of the program was dreamed up by Egbert Vongmalaithong, assistant curator of commerce and publications. The title of my specific commissioned project is “between a book and a soft place.” Egbert and Senior Curator Sarah Rifky had originally reached out to me regarding a book fair taking place at the ICA and wanted to know my thoughts on that possibility. At the time, I wasn’t necessarily interested in another book fair in Richmond, or participating in it, but I expressed my interest in creating spaces for reading to occur. I mentioned that at book fairs, sometimes the most exciting things are not the books you buy, but the programming that happens in the space. The programming, and gathering of people—that’s what really has legs to walk off and generate new ideas, forms, projects, collaborations. I told them I had an interest in making space, or building spaces. So, this is what I came to originally prior to the actual work.
STUDIO: So, the spaces set up the situation where the act of reading is not necessarily an isolated personal experience, but one that is communal? And by this I’m not thinking of reading groups or book clubs, but an actual physical space where “shared reading”can happen. It seems this reframing of communal reading leads to your focus on the physical body and broader definitions of what it is to read?
KILLIAN: Yes, exactly. I think it’s also important to think about how the act of reading is not just for the page, but for example: reading the room, reading others, reading yourself. And this can also play into a question I like to pose often of “what does it mean to be legible?” or “what are the differences between legibility and being read?” or lastly “who do you want to be read by?” Lots of questions surrounding visibility and communication in all its difficult and fun forms.
Another node of this work deals with our awareness of our own bodies when we relax. I sometimes think the act of getting ready to read can be just as enjoyable as the act of reading. Sometimes you get so relaxed cozying up to read that the book never gets opened!
STUDIO: It’s interesting that you extend your focus to issues outside of our normal understanding of what constitutes a book or a text, saying (and I’m assuming these are your words from the ICA website, “each structure invites visitors to have a seat and become a book,” and also that, “we dance language with our bodies, wear it, and hold it in our hands.” This certainly opens up the idea of texts and their form well beyond what most people think of graphic design.
KILLIAN: That is actually writing from the curator, Egbert Vongmalaithong. It’s fun working with an institution because the curator ideally brings new language to your practice. Coming from a background in graphic design, I love the overlap in our discipline’s language between bodies and formal elements: body text, header, footer, the “bleed” and so on. Additionally, there is this lovely quote by Roland Barthes that goes “Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words.” When working with typography in the classroom, I try to encourage students to think about manipulating the form of the language just as they would a piece of clay, or a piece of wood. So then, for me, is the exciting thing of combining both of these points, and thinking about the body as a book, or a body within a book.
STUDIO: I love how this addressed the stereotypical obsession with form that is associated with graphic design and its struggle with the legacy of modernism. Bringing in not only the syntax of form as a focus, the idea of thinking of formal manipulation of semantics in a constructive way is a fascinating idea. It’s not a function of editing or revision of the given text, but a way of engaging actively with content.
KILLIAN: Totally—when I first started teaching, I really reflected on how much of the body is left out of the classroom, of graphic design pedagogy. Not only does the “canon” not reflect the bodies in the room, etc; but also, much of learning has students sitting at tables, working from their own laptops, not engaging with others, let alone themselves. I’ve tried to think about building a practice that allows for bodies, allows for movement, for rest, and for play. And I hope that this project at the ICA starts to do that formally with the support structures I’ve made.
STUDIO: Interestingly, your work for the MURRMUR show does not deal explicitly with content per se, but rather with a person’s physical experience of engaging with content, with the act of reading. It’s not about the designer’s usual role of giving form to content, but with the idea of giving form to the act of engaging with it. This brings us back to the concept of generosity in design. Do you have anything further to say about that thread of your work?
KILLIAN: That’s a great way of thinking about it. This project is a first for me. It’s the first time I explicitly chose to not put actual language into the work. I wanted the bodies that used the work, the bodies that inhabit it, to create the context and conversation. Prior to this project, all my video work, wearables and editions had words on them — this felt scary to do, but it was something I wanted to try. It’s an experiment I want to keep working with. Form is inextricably linked to content, so am I able to create a structure or form that communicates without words?
STUDIO: This is interesting, because at least in the realm of print design, designers rarely engage with or observe readers’ physical experience with a piece. It’s printed, shipped, and often forgotten … on to the next job.
KILLIAN: [Laughs] Yeah. I think also living in Richmond where this work is being exhibited has been a funny experience. I work from the ICA a lot, so I’ve been seeing strangers on the soft bench, cradle, opening the soft book, gathering on the conversation pit. I’d have to say, the people who really get it are the future adults, the kids. They just get right on everything without asking any questions and start experiencing for themselves. It’s a great lesson for us all. It’s also been nice to hear the workers at the ICA say how much they’ve enjoyed the pieces being installed and how it’s provided soft spaces in such an austere building. Perhaps the whole MURRMUR project gives people more language to think about how we can inhabit spaces better, softly and communally. It’s definitely something I want to continue to challenge and work with.
Interview conducted by Roy McKelvey, chair and associate professor, Department of Graphic Design.