Maddie Lychek
Hopping the Fence Podcast Transcript - #14, Maddie Lychek
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RC: Hello, I’m Rebecca Casalino, and this is Hopping the Fence, a podcast dedicated to talking to artists on the fringes of the Canadian art scene.
Madeleine Lychek is a queer Filipino-Canadian performance and video artist. She uses social media as a digital playground to engage with conversations surrounding power and play, exploring how a body and its consumption can be used as a radical act of self-discovery.
Our conversation was recorded in Hamilton within Treaty 3 territory on the ancestral land of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe nations under the Dish With One Spoon wampum agreement.
RC: Hi Maddy!
ML: Hi Rebecca!
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RC: How are you?
ML: I'm good, and yourself?
RC: Good, just drinking coffee in Hamilton. Living. Where are you right now?
ML: I'm in Guelph, also drinking coffee. Seated at a very cluttered desk, in a nice little purple bedroom.
RC: Nice. What kind of purple?
ML: I wanna say... lavender?
RC: Ooh, that's a good one. So, I guess just start off, do you want to tell listeners about your practice, what it looks like, what mediums you've been working in lately and in the past?
ML: Yeah sure. So I use performance, video, digital media, printmaking, drawing, artist multiples. So…interdisciplinary practice to respond to identity politics and digital culture.
RC: Sick!
ML: In my practice personally, it's just kind of been navigating Instagram and finding ways to manipulate my own images so that they're not flagged on the algorithm.
RC: Mmm. Yeah, didn't you make a nipple shirt using a filter, or was that Photoshop?
ML: That was Photoshop, yeah. 'Cause I needed a way to censor my nipple obviously for Instagram and then it just lead to that.
RC: [Laughs]. Just more nipples, that's the solution!
ML: Yeah.
RC: [Laughs], awesome. So I guess you've touched on this a bit, but in terms of what your practice looks like in different spaces within the gallery or Institutions, what does your stuff look like versus on Instagram?
ML: In the past, my work in galleries or institutions typically takes a video format, which often documents my body and some performative acts that I've done. Or in other instances, it's been performances inside an institution or space.
RC: Yeah, and when you mean performances within an institution you mean Guelph and... Is Ed Video considered an institution? I don't know.
ML: I mean, it's an artist-run centre. We don't have a gallery, so you... there's not a gallery space per se, but people have posted livestreams and recordings from the space, so… yeah, I think you could define it as that.
RC: Yeah, the setup that you have for your performance is pretty sleek, like a nice white background, well-lit kind of deal? It looks very early video art but clean.
ML: Yeah.
RC: Have you done any performances just in your bedroom with your iPhone? Or that isn't how you picture your video work coming out?
ML: I haven't. I wanted to, but like you said, at the same time, I think the concepts and what I tried to convey in my video work might get lost in the clutter and the noise of a domestic space like a bedroom.
RC: Yeah, that's so interesting, that it places you in the domestic when you kind of do DIY things.
ML: Yeah. I think for me, the aesthetic of video recording studio, it sanitizes everything. It's just kind of a blank space and you're focused on the actor in the space, you’re focused on my body specifically. Whereas, I think in a domestic space, not that that gets lost, but there's other things that distract you from that.
RC: Mhm. I totally feel the same way about my practice. I stopped making video work as soon as I lost a studio. So that's interesting to hear that you feel the same way, [laughs]. So, what's your relationship to different artist-run centres and different Institutions? Like who have you worked with and what have your experiences been as you've been an emerging artist coming up in Southern Ontario?
ML: So, in November, I got a job with Ed Video Media Arts Centre, which is why I relocated back to Guelph. That's been really great. I am the digital education coordinator, so I'm responsible for organizing workshops. And there's a few shows that are in the works with Ed Video that I'm helping to coordinate and organize. As far as other institutions that I've worked with, most of them have been in Guelph during my undergrad. I had a show in Germany and Bremen when I was there two summers ago. And that was the gallery space, Galerie FLUT, the gallery space in HFK, the school there.
RC: Was it different than installing in the student gallery at Guelph, Zavitz? Or it was kind of the same format?
ML: It's a similar format. The space itself is different because there's windows so that kind of served... that was a little, not challenging... well yeah, kind of challenging because it was a group show and I was putting in a video. I think if it was just my work I would have had all the lights off. But we kind of had to play with the lighting because there was other mediums in the show. But yeah, that was a really great experience in itself. I'm kind of blanking because it's been a while since I've had work in an institutional space.
RC: So where have you been showing your work outside of institutions then, if it's been a while?
ML: I've shown work online. I've been part of a group show with Koffler Digital, with the Tamil Archive project that I am a community fellow with.
RC: Do you want to talk a bit more about that? ‘Cause I really love the work that's been coming out of there. I followed the archive on Instagram, and I see how active everyone is.
ML: Yeah, yeah. It's such an awesome collective. There's so many avenues and there's so many aspects of it. I know I won't do it justice in explaining it, but basically it's about archiving Tamil histories and Tamil futures that have been lost or forgotten. It's just an awesome collective with a lot of really creative people. Yeah, I'm really happy to have been a part of it and to still be a part of it. I'm also working on another group show with them coming up in the end of this year.
RC: Sick.
ML: Yeah. So there's always lots going on with the collective.
RC: So what does it mean to be a community fellow then? What's your job within the collective?
ML: Yeah, so basically we... there's an application process and they were just looking for artists, academics, writers. And it was just more so to add members to the collective. It's kind of an extension of it because... I mean, I'm not Tamil, some of the other fellows, some of them aren't. But yeah, it was just a way to, I think, for them to engage with the community more so and invite people into the collective and the community that they've built.
RC: So, I just want a pivot to talk more about the physical works that you've made. I think one of the first things that I saw of yours that wasn't video that really stood out to me was your book work, titled You spent thousands how to draw vaginas and make softcore porn from 2018. [Laughs]. I was just wondering if you could maybe describe that for the audience before we start going into depth about that project?
ML: Yeah sure. So the work is a zine. It's hand bound. The text is pulled from text messages that my ex boyfriend friend sent me when we were breaking up because of his inability to grasp my desire and my need for nudity in a video work that I made that year. And there's also line drawings of penises within the zine as well [both laugh].
RC: I love those drawings so much. It reminds me... it's almost the beginning of Sapphic Pangea which we'll talk about later. But yeah, why do you feel the need for nudity and to explore those kinds of bodily images?
ML: Yeah, I mean for me, the work that sparked controversy in his eyes was drawing on objects. It was actually for a drawing class that I was taking. And the prompt was simply to draw on an object, and my mind kind of went to how the body is objectified and how we, or people as a society see it as something to be objectified, as an object. Although the work in itself, I don't see it as objectifying each other, because it was me and my friend Raquel Rowe, who's also an artist, drawing on each other with Sharpie markers. And to me, if we were wearing clothing, one that's less area to draw on, and it just didn't seem necessary, it didn't seem fitting to the work to cover up parts of our body.
RC: Mhm. And what was the reaction of performing nude? 'Cause I know some people did it in undergrad... But it was... I think something that was more explored by the time your year came around. I don't know what it was, but I was really impressed to see how bold everyone was and to have the confidence in art making, and also body confidence obviously, to record yourself and then present it within a classroom setting.
ML: Yeah, that was a few years ago. But for me, I didn't really think much of it at the time. Maybe it was easier because I was doing it with another person, like it wasn't just my naked body. But again... it's all just flesh. I've never... I don't think that's something to be hidden. I think within the context of art, it's viewed differently. Even outside the confines and the context of art, it's nothing to be ashamed of.
RC: I find that so funny. I didn't do any nude works, and there was one time when a professor asked me why I hadn't, because it was almost changing the original concept for me not to be shirtless in this one video. And I published that video anyways with me wearing a nude bra, and I got a bunch of comments from family members saying they were really uncomfortable with it [both laugh]. So I guess seeing your works and the works of your different peers was really inspiring and that's so funny that you're just like, "Of course, like why not?"
ML: [Laughs]. Yeah, I think for me... It helps that my parents were supportive and they never really questioned that aspect of my art. They came to see a group show that I was a part of, Feelings, at our studio, and... yeah, they didn't question any of it. I saw the zine that we were discussing earlier. Yeah, they've always been really supportive, so that has definitely helped me and helped my career 'cause it's not something that I've had to second guess for my family's opinion.
RC: Mhm. Yeah, I think also the text in your zine was just so funny. And I think also coming from an art school perspective, people do really question why you go into school for studio art, and I think it summed up a lot of the weird assumptions that people make. But what was that process like for you, making that work about your ex? That's pretty vulnerable, and also exposes yourself and your relationship with him.
ML: Yeah, I did it fairly recently after we had broken up. Now it's two years ago. I think for me personally, it was really cathartic, and I found it very therapeutic to just make work that was so vulnerable. It had to be made then because if I had made it now or even a few months after, I think the emotions and the rage in a way would have subsided, and I may not even have made it because I had moved past that point of my life and that relationship.
RC: Mhm.
ML: And as shitty as it was, I made good work out of it so...[laughs].
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RC: This week’s podcast recommendation is “Star House, Star People,” episode three of One From The Vaults, a Trans history podcast by Morgan M. Page. “We bring you all the dirt, gossip and glamour from Trans history. Join us as we take a look at the early lives of the patron saints of the trans movement, Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson! We'll examine their beginnings, take a look at what might have gone down at Stonewall, and follow them up to the 1973 Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade! The first in a three-part series on Sylvia and Marsha!”
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RC: So do you want to talk a bit more about the drawing on objects video? I didn't know that was for a drawing class and that makes me like it more.
ML: Yeah. I don’t…there isn't really much more to say about it.
RC: Maybe your collaborative relationship with Raquel, because you both are featured in each other's videos, right?
ML: Yeah. That's been really great because I think we have a similar approach to our work and our videos. And there's just this shared level of understanding when we’re collaborating on a video or one of us is featured in the other's video, where there's kind of a brief discussion of the concept but nothing is ever really rehearsed. And it just kind of is improvised and it comes into being as we work through the work. So it's really nice to be able to collaborate with someone that way.
RC: Yeah and it sounds so organic, the way you work.
ML: Yeah, it really is.
RC: That's always good. It makes for a good work environment I think, and new ideas can be thrown around pretty openly when you're already comfortable with the people.
ML: Yeah, and I think it fosters this ongoing critical dialogue and critical critique that you might not necessarily have with people that you're not as comfortable with, or that you don't trust in the same sense to be critical with your work, with their work. So I think it really helps all of our individual practices to have that community.
RC: Mhm. And then one of your other collaborative projects that I'm interested in is Sapphic Pangea, if you want to talk a bit about that, one of your projects on Instagram.
ML: Yeah. So that is a collaborative drawing practice that I have with my girlfriend Paula who lives in Germany. So that's where the title kind of comes from, Sapphic Pangea. The bio is like something about this stance, like the separation of the continents and how... obviously not actually, but if some continents were to resort back to Pangea we'd be closer. In all the geography... the geol- oh my god, I can't think of the word. [Both laugh]. It wouldn't work, that would be kind of shocking. Yeah, it just became this nice exchange where we draw intimate photos of each other that we send each other. And there's little poetry throughout. And it's just this continual prompt for us to keep creating. It exists on Instagram because we thought that would be a good format for it.
RC: What's it like making work within a partnership, and then also within a partnership that's long distance? What are you, seven time zones away? Or five?
ML: Six.
RC: Six, darn.
ML: Yeah, I mean... it's really nice because it's the complete opposite of my previous relationship where that person was not supportive. And yeah, even when Paula and I started dating, the said that she would be really flattered and honoured if I were to incorporate her into my work, or have her be part of some aspect of my practice. And it also probably wouldn't have come to be if we were in the same time zone because I think having a long-distance relationship, you kind of have to be creative and find other ways to explore intimacy and be intimate and define…not define but explore what your relationship is and can be.
RC: Mhm. It's really intimate. Obviously exchanging nudes is an intimate practice. But then I think also to take the time to draw the other person is just so lovely. Visually tracing another person's body, but then actually outlining them and sharing those drawings. I think they have a kind of power to them. And I think vulnerability is maybe a really good word to describe your practice that you used earlier. And I think maybe that's why people engage with it so much.
ML: Yeah, probably. I think for me... not that I have a different definition of vulnerability, but yeah, I think a lot of people have come to me and said, "Oh, your work is so vulnerable." And I think I've reached a certain level of comfortability with myself and my relationships with other people where I don't... I don't define these things are these aspects of my practice of being super vulnerable, it's just kind of exploring who I am and what that…
RC: Yeah I think maybe for artists that aren't used to being so autobiographical or maybe literal and their desire, especially queer desire, and being so open about longing for another person is maybe where it comes into being vulnerable. Like less than nudity, and more the personal aspects of it.
ML: Yeah. I think longing is something that's very inherently queer.
RC: Mhm. So Sapphic Pangaea is living on Instagram right now. Do you see it as being outside of the internet, like coming into printed-out drawings, or into zine format or anything like that?
ML: It actually did come into a physical manifestation last January at the Button Arts Factory. There was a show called Friends and Lovers, where we applied and participated in the show. Yeah, I've thought about zine formats and other things...I'm not exactly sure how it would come to be or manifest. I think it's definitely something that I would revisit in the future, but as for now I don't have any current of plans for that.
RC: Yeah, I was just curious because I think it makes a lot of sense for it to be on Instagram. Paula posts her drawing, you post yours, it feels like an exchange. And I think you were saying in your artist talk for the Connection Found show, that you are surprised to see a new drawing pop up in your feed, [laughs].
ML: [Laughs], yeah. We coordinate when we post them, like we post them at the same time so that we maintain the form and the structure of the... like, the grid and the layout. Yeah, that was something that was important to her. But I do agree to maintain the integrity of it, so to say.
RC: Oh, so it is this coordinated dance of digital sharing?
ML: Yeah, yeah.
RC: That's so cool. Your work is so... it feels cohesive, even though you are performing by yourself and then performing with other people and moving into drawing and video... what do you think is the main theme that runs throughout your practice? What are you investigating? 'Cause I think you're coming at this from a very interdisciplinary but also conceptual practice. For you, what's the feature that combines it all together, if it is combined together?
ML: I think for me, it all leads back to the body and identity politics, and sort of navigating myself through the world, as vague as that sounds.
RC: For sure, when you say, "identity politics," what do you mean specifically about that?
ML: I think for me, what comes into play is sex and sexuality as well as racial ambiguity. The fact that I am a woman, like how the world sees my female form in a way.
RC: Mmm. That's so interesting 'cause your work is so grounded in the body. You trying to understand people's perceptions of you, is that the angle that you're coming at it from Identity politics?
ML: Yeah, I think so.
RC: And when you were at school, was this something that came up in theory, or this is just coming through your lived experience as a person in the world?
ML: I think it was a natural impulse. I mean, I've always been drawn to conceptual artists and performance artists, especially the feminist performance artists from like the 70s, like [inaudible]. Yeah, I think it just is a natural evolution.
RC: Yeah, and when you say... that's where my heart lives as well, 70s performance art [laughs]. Who are the artists that you were first exposed to that impact your practice and who you think about a lot now?
ML: I think, like I said, Yoko Ono, Carolee Schneemann, Hannah Wilke.
RC: Yeah, Yoko Ono for sure. You re-did her Cut Piece in Zavitz gallery right?
ML: Yeah, yeah. I also did it in the University Center at Guelph.
RC: Oh my gosh. Like, with a non-arts audience? Or did you have plants to come up and do the first cut?
ML: I mean, I told my channels and friends that I was doing it, but there were... it was an intervention into a public space, and there were football players that came up, somehow thought it was like a trick or something. They were talking about how their coach discourages them from them putting themselves in vulnerable situations -
RC: [Laughs].
ML: ...which is super ironic because [inaudible] scissors close to my skin. And the administration wrote a letter to Martin Pearce actually saying that they heard about it and thought I was a disgruntled student or something.
RC: Whaaat?
ML: So I thought that was really funny, [laughs].
RC: That's so funny that they didn't get the reference also. Maybe because we're in art circles and Cut Piece is just kind of like... you need to know.
ML: Yeah. There was one person that came up to me when I was doing that and was like and, "Oh, the Cut Piece, yeah, this is so cool." But other people were like, "What's going on?" So yeah, I had some friends planted around to explain what was going on. People were hella confused.
RC: So, from Cut Piece, I love the football players feeling vulnerable. Were there any other moments that stood out to you as a performer interacting with the audience?
ML: Someone tried to cut my hair and I pulled away at the beginning.
RC: Ugh, so rude.
ML: But no, other than that, I can't think of anything that sticks out to me. For the one that I did in Zavitz Gallery actually, I remember Abby Nowakowski actually took my shoes off, like unzipped them and took them off. Which in hindsight was really nice, because I didn't think about people cutting them. 'Cause they were leather shoes, [laughs].
RC: Oh my gosh.
ML: Yeah.
RC: That's so nice. I like that Abby thought of that, like, "Oh, gotta save these shoes."
ML: Yeah, yeah. [Both laugh]
RC: Is there any project that you are excited about that you want to talk about that’s in progress or that you've already done that you've been thinking about lately?
ML: Yeah. I have a few projects on the go. Most of them are very preliminary. There's not too much to say about them. I'm currently creating a show about memes and digital culture for Ed Video, and that's going to exist in an online space, but I'm excited for that.
RC: I guess you can't talk about the work that's going to be in it because it's super secret right now? [Laughs].
ML: Yeah, I'm still reaching out to artists and everything.
RC: Valid.
ML: I'm not [inaudible] to say about that.
RC: Do you consume meme art? Is that something that's part of your regular art diet?
M: I mean, yeah. I think anyone that has any form of social media, I think it's hard to not consume meme culture. I mean, look at Bernie Sanders –
RC: Oh my god.
ML …and how that exploded.
RC: Well, do you want to talk a bit about the multiples that you have on your website? Also I just realized that your URL is "lmfao.idk."
ML: Yeah, it's lmao.idk.com.
RC: [Laughs]. Are you gonna keep it that?
ML: I've been debating, 'cause I really like it and I think it's really funny and kind of reflects me as a person. My friends make fun of me because I'm always like, "Oh man, like, I don't know." But the only problem is, because my name's not in the URL, it doesn't come up that high on Google search engine. So I've been thinking about changing it, but I'm not sure.
RC: I love that because I feel like it ties into meme culture, like your artist website is a meme. [Laughs].
ML: Yeah, [laughs].
RC: The stickers that you're selling online, those came up and I'm like, this is awesome and totally make sense with your practice. How did that start up?
ML: I think my sticker practice or making stickers as part of my practice kind of came to be when I was doing a lot of markets in Guelph during my final year. Because there are so many opportunities to do that in Guelph, well pre-pandemic.
RC: Mhm.
ML: But yeah. The stickers that are there... The penis fly trap actually came from a series that I did, oh my god, I think in like 2017...
RC: Awesome.
ML: ...where I drew a bunch of line drawings, similar to the other line drawings in my practice, of slang words for vaginas. So I think there's like 30 of them. I actually made the penis fly trap one into a screen print. That one's a digital drawing but it's based on the colours in the screen print in a way.
RC: I think the sandwich board with "eat your girl right," just...I fucking died. [Both laugh].
ML: Yeah that one's really funny, people like that one. I just drew that one and made it into a sticker. The previous format of the eat your girl right, I wrote it in cursive but then I though of the sandwich board, and like lunch and eating, it made sense to me.
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RC: Thanks for listening to Hopping the Fence, a podcast dedicated to the fringes of the Canadian art scene. If you have an artist that you would like to hear interviewed, would like to correct / fact check a past episode, or would like to chat, feel free to send me a message on Instagram @hoppingthefence, or by email at rebeccaecasalino@gmail.com. Thanks to the OCAD Student Union for your financial support. Thank you to all of our Patreons for your ongoing support. It truly does help me avoid burnout and keeps this podcast rolling. If you would like to support Hopping the Fence, please visit our Patreon to subscribe. Check out the show notes for more details. If you can’t donate, no worries. Thanks for taking the time to listen.
Audio editing for Hopping the Fence by Emily Reimer. Original artwork by Alex Gregory, and original music by Jessica Price Eisner.
Thank you so much, bye!
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