Having spent most of my life in Minnesota, I never could have imagined that I’d feel most like myself fishing in the Pacific waters off the south-east Alaska coast.

It was an uncharacteristically warm August, one of the best times of the year to hook a salmon. But it still felt chilly to me, even in head-to-toe rain gear, as compared with Minnesota’s hot and humid summers. After a few days angling off the Alaska Panhandle, I had gotten the hang of battling with a feisty king salmon on the end of the line, but then I hooked something entirely different. It felt like I was hauling a gargantuan up from the depths of the sea.

My boat mates laughed as I struggled to bring the fish in. That is, until they saw it was a “barn door” halibut, the apt name given to oversized forms of the flatfish. Our guide, who had now jumped to attention, could tell it was a female based on its size and explained we would release it back into the wild to help maintain the population. I had never seen a fish of that magnitude – some 6ft long and likely 200lbs in weight – let alone caught one.

I was no stranger to fishing. In fact, out on the water was one of the few places I felt at peace with myself and the world around me during my Minnesota upbringing. Fishing with my family taught me to have reverence for nature, optimism about future prosperity and patience for what was to come. The methodical ritual of baiting the hook, casting the line out into the mirror-like lake, waiting for that telling tug and reeling in the bounty was almost instinctual. Of course, catching pint-sized perch and sunfish couldn’t have prepared me for hooking a behemoth from the bottom of the ocean.

I wouldn’t fully grasp the significance of that Alaska fishing excursion until years later, but even in the moment, I felt a knowing familiarity and a deep connection to the experience.

And it all started with an email four years earlier.

Upon seeing an unexpected email pop up from my estranged mom in 2012, I contemplated leaving it unread. But I couldn’t resist the subject line – “I want you to know this” – which piqued both my curiosity and my skepticism. Had my mom discovered the meaning of life as an expat in Ecuador? Was she finally ready to talk about my upbringing after years of silence? Did this epiphany even have anything to do with me?

My childhood had left deep scars due to my parents’ alcoholism, depression and codependency. My sister and I spent our days escaping into the fantasy world of our imaginations and our nights wondering if our parents would be too drunk to feed us dinner. Of course, trauma is far from straightforward. My most painful memories are inextricably intertwined with joyful ones, like gardening and making art with my mom and hunting and fishing with my dad.

Our dysfunctional, disheveled household had long been a well-kept family secret – and the impetus for our estrangement as adults. Now, my mom was about to reveal another secret. “I made a decision at one time that I am neither proud nor ashamed of,” she wrote. “I had an affair before you were born.” That’s when my entire understanding of myself, then nearly 27 years in the making, began to unravel.

She explained that my late dad was not, in fact, my biological father. Instead, she told me, my birth father was an Alaska Native man she’d had an affair with back in the 1980s, when my parents spent a stint living in the picturesque Inside Passage town of Ketchikan, where I’d been born.

While this sudden disclosure validated my lifelong feelings of otherness – having grown up in rural northern Minnesota as an olive-skinned, dark-eyed, chubby-cheeked kid attempting to blend into an ocean of blonde-haired, blue-eyed classmates – it also completely shattered my precarious sense of self.

Throughout my midwestern upbringing, I had fought an ongoing battle to prove just how normal (read: white) I was. Our small-town neighbors couldn’t pinpoint my precise background but seemed to know I wasn’t one of them. When asked where I was from or what I was (a frequent occurrence), I would spout my rehearsed explanation: I was of English, Danish and Dutch descent and I tanned well, just like my mom’s mom. It was an exhausting exercise in attempting to convince others – and, if I’m being honest, myself – of who I was.

Instead of typing out the irate reply to my mom that first came to mind, I wrote my response with calculated caution. If I pissed her off, I’d never uncover my truth. My ludicrously calm email thanked her for disclosing this information and outlined a dozen questions about how she met this man, what he was like, if I resembled him. She answered what she could in a brief, matter-of-fact paragraph – and that was that. We haven’t communicated since. I flashed back to my childhood and wondered: could my life have been entirely different?

From there, I was left to decide what to do with this newfound knowledge. Through some Google sleuthing, I discovered I had some half siblings and likely belonged to a tribe called Tlingit, a word I wasn’t even sure how to pronounce at first glance (it’s “KLING-kuht”). Still in disbelief, I did three at-home DNA tests for good measure, which revealed nearly identical results showing that I am indeed of Indigenous American descent.

I thought of my dad, the man who raised me. I was a college freshman when he was found dead in 2004 at our modest lakefront cabin near Bemidji, Minnesota. In the months before, I had let his phone calls go unanswered, unable to handle his ceaseless pessimism. Upon learning of his passing, I felt a simultaneous sense of guilt, sorrow and relief. He had gone into a downward spiral after my mom filed for divorce two years earlier and, at just 58, ultimately lost his battle with alcoholism.

The loss was two-fold, of both my dad and our cabin, a place that served as the backdrop for so many of my favorite memories. It’s where he and I spent summers fishing, one of the few activities that helped us bond. I remember digging under logs for nightcrawlers and soaking in the endless sunlight out on the boat. We’d reel in perch, sunfish and the occasional walleye to be cleaned, pan fried and devoured that same evening. All those happy moments enjoying Minnesota’s wild bounty would forever be tainted with the knowledge that this was where my dad met his demise.

Receiving this news that I wasn’t his child – eight years after his death – triggered an existential crisis that left me paralyzed with anger, shame and grief. At first, I did my best to ignore all of it. I hid behind what white-passing privilege I can access. I thought of myself unkindly: a bastard child, a half-breed, an unwanted Other. But concealing my truth was literally making me sick; I was plagued by insomnia, drained of energy and susceptible to every little illness in the air.

I realized I had to do something – I had to return to my birthplace.

In 2016, 31 years into knowing one identity, I mustered up the courage to make the pilgrimage to Alaska to find myself. I tracked down my brother Ric, who is three decades my senior. Much to my amazement, he not only believed me but supported me in my journey of self-discovery. He revealed that he too had experienced separation from family and wanted to help me however he could. He even subjected himself to a DNA test, which proved we were half siblings.

Before my trip, Ric confronted our father, who denied I was his daughter. This didn’t come as a surprise, as my mom had explained he’d done the same when he met me during my infancy. Ric wasn’t sure if he could convince my birth father to meet me but affirmed he was excited to meet his sister.

Having grown up fighting for my parents’ attention and affection, I was taken aback by Ric’s unconditional support and uncensored honesty. Yet despite our positive exchanges, a wave of panic washed over me as my plane touched down in Ketchikan. I wasn’t sure I was ready to rewrite my personal history, but there was no turning back now.

When I first met Ric at a local cafe a few days later, he was visibly shaking with anticipation. He then immediately took me into his arms, his home and his life. He gave me a tour around town, pointing out where I was born, where he grew up and where various relatives, including my birth father, lived. He even located the house that my family had inhabited decades before, and I got to walk through those same spaces where the few photographs from my infancy had been taken. I thought maybe I would serendipitously encounter my birth father during my week in Ketchikan, a small community of about 8,000. But I never did.

In addition to explaining our own family’s complicated history, Ric gave me a crash course in all things Tlingit. I witnessed master carver Nathan Jackson at work on a totem pole. I marveled at the intricate beadwork adorning elk hide moccasins. I snacked on so-called “salmon candy” jerky caught, cured and smoked by my own family.

All of these experiences left me awestruck at the deep, meaningful traditions of my people yet overwhelmed that I knew so little about my ancestry. Where I had naively hoped for a comfortable homecoming, I instead felt like a tourist admiring a foreign culture. Was I destined to be a stranger in my birthplace, an outsider in my own existence?

This cloud of uncertainty hovered over me as I embarked on an Alaska Native rite of passage: salmon fishing. I wondered if it would be similar to all the freshwater fishing I’d done growing up. As our floatplane took off for nearby Prince of Wales Island, I felt a familiar combination of excitement and trepidation return. But then the unadulterated beauty of Tongass National Forest – the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest at nearly 17m acres – unfolded below. That’s when it hit me: my history was about so much more than just me.

It was out on a boat chasing after chinook (and hooking that barn door halibut) that I finally started to feel at home in my heritage. Sure, the surrounding scenery was certainly different from that of my childhood fishing excursions, with majestic bald eagles prowling for food, friendly whales showing off for us and the occasional enterprising sea lion stealing our catch. But unlike everything that had felt so foreign in recent days, this was something I absolutely knew how to do.

I felt a simultaneous connection to my Indigenous and European ancestors, who both relied on fishing for subsistence and survival. My Native forebears had done this for eons before me, long before my childhood when I spent so many hours angling on Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes. But for many Alaska Natives, fishing isn’t just a beloved pastime – it’s a way of life, with the summer harvest being carefully preserved to sustain families through the long winter. Salmon in particular represents much more than simply sustenance; in Tlingit tradition, it is considered a sacred human-like being worthy of deep respect.

Each evening, we feasted on freshly caught, simply prepared salmon, halibut and rock fish – much like the perch, sunfish and walleye I’d savored during my youth. It was at once a familiar and wholly new taste.

Even after my return to Minnesota, Ric remained the life preserver I so desperately needed. He has continued to teach me about Tlingit life and even helped me get enrolled in my tribe. His unwavering kindness, I now realize, reflects Tlingit values about the importance of family. I’m forever grateful for finding my clan after trauma tore my nuclear family apart.

It would take another few years, a global pandemic and a racial reckoning that rippled out from my hometown of Minneapolis for me to truly embrace my identity. During that time, my birth father died, and with him went any hope of developing a relationship. Instead, I have gotten to know other newfound relatives, who have shared their stories about him. By all accounts, he was charismatic, driven, stubborn and complex – traits he passed down to me.

Where I once held so much anger and shame, I now try to hold grace and compassion. For my estranged mom, who chose to protect herself and her family from the turmoil the truth might cause. For my late dad, who did his best to love me despite his demons. For my late birth father, who faced ongoing discrimination throughout his lifetime and was no doubt affected by intergenerational trauma. And for myself, as I navigate a new existence as the person I have always been: a strong Tlingit woman who comes from a long line of strong Tlingit women.

In discovering more about my ancestry, I have come to understand how Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island have been deeply impacted by displacement, dispossession and disconnection from their traditional life ways – the long-lasting result of colonialism, oppression and forced assimilation. The undeniable parallel to my own decades-long displacement makes me feel less alone on my journey of healing, as does the kinship of countless Native teachers who have shared their wisdom with me.

And yet, I have so much to learn and so many unanswered questions: did my dad know I wasn’t his biological daughter? Did my birth father know I was his? How might life have been different had I been better connected to my Tlingit heritage at an earlier age?

Even today, I’m still hit with waves of feeling “not Native enough”, an enduring effect of colonialist constructs about Indigeneity and a common phenomenon among younger generations who have grown up away from their tribal traditions. When imposter syndrome creeps in, I think back to that fishing excursion during my first pilgrimage to Ketchikan.

I also endeavor to eat the foods of my people – salmon, crab, berries and more – knowing that these culturally relevant flavors nourish my body, spirit and sense of self. I take comfort knowing that my ancestors handed down traditions, like harvesting salmon and halibut to feed their families, so I too could experience them. And I remind myself that although I came of age thousands of miles away from my tribe’s ancestral homelands, like so many Alaska Natives, I grew up learning to live in harmony with the world around me.

An Alaska Native Tlingit tribal member, Kate Nelson is an award-winning writer and editor living in Minneapolis. She focuses on amplifying important Native American change makers and issues.

Located on the second floor of Zimmerman Library, the Indigenous Nations Library Program is a service point for the University of New Mexico community that empowers Indigenous students.

The space provides a safe learning environment, culturally relevant information services, Indigenous scholarship opportunities and social gatherings, according to the INLP webpage.

Janice Kowemy (Laguna) — who manages the space for INLP — offers research assistance and resources on Indigenous topics.

“INLP is a space where people can feel comfortable and learn about Indigenous scholarship, the issues Indigenous communities face today and also utilize what’s available in our collection for their research, as well as advance their Indigenous studies,” Kowemy said.

Kowemy said that all Indigenous students are eligible for the “Michael and Enokena Olson Memorial Scholarship” which awards two students $250 each semester. 

The program’s educational materials are a select assortment from Zimmerman Library’s catalog.

Every month, INLP offers an array of themes related to Indigenous research to highlight different topics – most recently centering harvesting and the World War II code talkers. This is in an effort to focus on resources in bigger collections so students know what is available to them, Kowemy said.

“We have a small section of periodicals of Native American newspapers. We have the back issues of those, like the Cherokee Daily Times, Navajo Times and Jicarilla Apache,” Kowemy said.

INLP also hosts a variety of activities as part of their community outreach, such as poetry slams, making gingerbread houses, cupcake decorating and their Indigenous food series which introduces people to dishes from Indigenous communities.

“I think one of the main things is the student workers here who come from various tribes. They offer a lot of their support and creativity as well. They are also involved on campus so it brings a lot of student groups here to utilize the space,” Kowemy said.

In the program’s space, there are multiple murals created in collaboration with Indigenous artists from the collective Ansulala, Native American Studies students/professional artists and former INLP Outreach Librarian Mary Alice Tsosie (Dine’). The art is meant to symbolize planting seeds of knowledge, according to the INLP webpage.

The hands illustrated throughout are meant to represent “human intervention” as well as the acknowledgment that human beings are a part of the Earth’s sustainability.

The water designs symbolize all 19 Pueblo Nations in New Mexico, as well as their interconnectedness.

“This is a one of a kind program in a university setting,” Kowemy said. “I’ve gone to various conferences and talked about (the program) and people are interested in starting their own program similar to this at their academic library. We are hoping it will get out there and that people will model what we’ve been doing here.”

Kelsa Mendoza is the copy chief at the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at copychief@dailylobo.com or on Twitter at @kelsar4in. 

So much of the art world orbits around questions of value, not only in terms of appraisals and price tags, but also: What is worthy of your time in These Times, as well as your energy, your attention, and yes, your hard-earned cash?

What is the math that you do to determine something’s meaning and worth? What moves you? What enriches your life? In this new series, we’re asking individuals from the art world and beyond about the valuations that they make at a personal level.

Curator Allison Glenn wants people to see the world around them with fresh eyes and a sense of inspiration, whether that’s in New York, Paris, or small-town America. “There are many centers,” she said. In pursuit of this goal, Glenn has taken on roles as co-curator of the Counterpublic Triennial in 2023, senior curator at New York’s Public Art Fund, guest curator at the Speed Art Museum, and associate curator of Contemporary Art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. In these capacities, she has strived to expand and elevate the intersection of art and public space with projects that underscore this dynamic convergence.

But her passions extend far beyond the art world The curator cultivates pleasures from the small and simple to the splurge-worthy. A good hair day and a new outfit can’t be overvalued, she said. Meanwhile, she’s also saving up for another trip to the Aegean Sea and a Michelin-star meal. 

Currently, Glenn is busy organizing “Sovereign Futures” a three-day symposium (April 5–7, 2024) at the University of Tulsa that will unfold over time and in multiple locations, at the invitation of the artist Rick Lowe. “Sovereign Futures” will bring together leading artists, academics, and curators to consider the concept of sovereignty through the lens of contemporary practices. 

Recently, we caught up with Glenn who told us what she values most in art and life—and why.

What is the last thing that you splurged on? 

A five-course prix fixe vegetarian lunch with a wine pairing at La Table du Collete in Paris. The well-known secret to Michelin-star eating in Paris is to book at lunch, as reservations are much more accessible. At around the fourth course, as we were struggling to finish our plates, our server started teasing us that we were the only table in the restaurant that couldn’t manage the courses! It’s honestly the best meal I’ve ever eaten.

Amuse bouche at La Table du Collete in Paris. Photo courtesy of Allison Glenn.

What is something that you’re saving up for? 

Retirement and travel. Women aren’t taught as much about investing, and I used to be scared to even try. But now that I’ve gotten over the fear, I’ve been educating myself on the different ways to plan for my future while building my business. 

The opportunity and privilege to travel is one that will always be important to me. Recently, I spent a few days in Athens, Greece, visiting the current ARCAthens residents, curator Deniz Kirkali and artist Carla Maldonado. I’m on the board of ARCAthens, and I cannot recommend the residency enough. Previous participants include curators Miranda Lash and Anita Bateman, and visual artists Tomashi Jackson, Le’Andra LeSeur, and Tariku Shiferaw. 

While there, I made time to go to the beach and wade in the Aegean Sea. I always find inspiration in the places where water meets land. 

Glenn is saving up for a trip back to the Aegean Sea. Photo courtesy of Allison Glenn.

What would you buy if you found $100? 

Spanish lessons with my tutor. I learned Spanish in grade school, but then studied Italian for four years, so my brain often switches between the two when I’m trying to confidently speak. It can be a real challenge!

It’s important to be adaptable in this world. Spanish is the future, and I want to be present for it. It’s a slow process, but with intention, I hope to be trilingual one day.

What makes you feel like a million bucks? 

Let’s be honest, a great hair day and perfect outfit will always make me feel incredible!

I’ll also add in good sleep, great food, starting each day with a daily meditation practice, and staying hydrated. Recognition from my peers and colleagues is also very important to me, and being acknowledged for the work that I contribute to the field is truly gratifying. 

What do you think is your greatest asset? 

My creativity and unending desire to learn. I love building things, and finding unique ways to approach a project or exhibition.

What do you most value in a work of art? 

When the material and aesthetic choices anchor the conceptual. I’m so moved by site-specificity, and value when a work of art considers both audiences and the environment in which it is situated. 

I also value the vulnerability that goes into making work and exhibiting it publicly. I would argue that we don’t talk about this enough—artists are often in the arena, taking risks. I deeply admire the ability, and desire, to put themselves out there.

Who is an emerging artist worthy of everyone’s attention? 

Where do I start? There are so many!

Joanna Keane Lopez, who is a New Mexico-based artist and painter who learned adobe techniques through apprenticeships with older women plasterers. In 2020, I commissioned A dance of us (un baile de nosotros) as part of State of the Art at the Momentary in Bentonville, Arkansas, and have watched her career just blossom since. 

While in Paris, I had the chance to experience a performance as part of Raphaël Barontini‘s We Could be Heroes (2023), a site-specific installation at the Pantheon that included a sound piece composed by Mike Ladd and a collaborative procession by Mas Choukaj that honored the historical figures depicted in Barontini’s installation. It was a momentous occasion.

Artist Raphaël Barontini’s We Could be Heroes (2023). Photo courtesy of Allison Glenn.

Who is an overlooked artist who hasn’t yet gotten their due? 

Again, there are too many to list. George Sanchez-Calderon, who I had the opportunity to commission a work from while at Crystal Bridges. 

Cristina Molina, Kellie Romany, the sculptor Frances Bagley, Azza El Siddique, Tia-Simone Gardner. The list could go on endlessly…

What, in your estimation, is the most overrated thing in the art world? 

Believing that the center of the country is the periphery and that the periphery is the center. There are many centers in the [art] world. 

My current work with “Sovereign Futures,” for example, is taking me to Tulsa, where I am working with a team to present a constellation of artists’ projects and performances that provoke dialogues on sovereignty through the lens of contemporary practices. This three-day convening of leading artists, academics, curators, and minds will unfold over time and in multiple locations.

Curatorial advisors to the project include Kalyn Fay Barnoski (Cherokee Nation enrollee, Muscogee Creek descent), the assistant curator, Native American Art, Philbrook Museum of Art; visual artist Yatika Starr Fields (Cherokee, Muscogee Creek, Osage); Caleb Gayle, Professor, Northeastern University, School of Journalism and Contributing Writer, New York Times Magazine; interdisciplinary artist Rick Lowe, co-curator, Greenwood Arts Project. This work wouldn’t be possible without Lowe and Jeff Van Hanken laying the groundwork with Greenwood Arts Project, and The University of Tulsa, George Keiser Family Foundation, and Bloomberg Philanthropies supporting the further development of these crucial dialogues. 

A treasured photograph of Glenn’s late brother. Photo courtesy of Allison Glenn.

What is your most treasured possession? 

A series of black-and-white portraits of my late brother, which I took with a Minolta X7A film camera while studying photography in undergrad. I have one printed and framed in my home. Catching glimpses of his smile really anchors me, and reminds me of our deep connection. 

What’s been your best investment? 

Moving to New York. The city provides constant energy, and the arts community here has been so open, nurturing, and receptive. From the moment I moved here, I have felt very welcomed. 

What is something small that means the world to you? 

My collection of plants. I love caring for my house plants, propagating them, and nurturing them to grow, which is something I get from my mother. They bring such beauty and vibrancy to my home. 

That and my morning oat milk matcha. 

What’s not worth the hype? 

Doing things the same way and expecting different results. New approaches, new results. 

What do you believe is a worthy cause? 

Equitably paying artists for their work. 

What do you aspire to?

Big picture? Traveling the world, running another half marathon, commissioning the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (one day…), or artistic directing an international triennial. 

Day to day: commissioning dream artist projects. I’ve been lucky to work with real visionaries, which has resulted in collectively pushing ourselves to think expansively about what a public work or exhibition can do or be. I aspire to continue to do this meaningful work for the entirety of my career.

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“There’s a 1966 report called ‘The Jost Report’ that was about friction in machines. I was listening to a podcast about it. It said that if they could reduce the friction in ball bearings, they would be able to drive one to one-and-a-half per cent of GDP. And they did that, and saw those results come through.”

Ball bearings were not on Music Ally’s list of anticipated topics when preparing to interview Karibi Dagogo-Jack, head of music partnerships at Roblox. But the former Spotify exec said he has taken inspiration from The Jost Report in his role helping artists and labels make the most of the popular online platform.

“It’s a powerful analogy: if you can reduce the friction for someone to create what they want, what kind of ecosystem, what kind of fly-wheel, what kind of knock-on effects can you generate? That’s what the entire partnerships team, and the entire company of Roblox, is geared towards.”

Dagogo-Jack joined Roblox in December 2021 as the latest move in a career that has seen him work as a senior analyst at WMG; handle biz-dev for multi-channel networks Fullscreen and Maker Studios; then new business development roles at Universal Group and then Spotify.

Since he joined, artists and music brands launching experiences on Roblox have included David Guetta, the Brit Awards, 24kGoldn, the Grammy Awards, Spotify, Charli XCX, Elton John, Mariah Carey, Warner Music Group, Theoz, Twice, Metallica, Paris Hilton and Blackpink. It’s quite the roll call.

“People are really using this as a global, immersive platform for communicating with their fans, for selling items, and for creating really deep, engaging experiences for promoting releases,” said Dagogo-Jack.

“We’ve seen everything from Weyes Blood coming on to do a fan-only meet’n’greet – I think there were 85 people in there  – and we’ve seen Twice have 70 million fans that have visited their experience over the last few months.”

“There’s always more growth and more tools and more features coming to Roblox, and we’re always thinking of ways to help artists address their needs through those.”

Talking of growth, Roblox recently published its latest quarterly financial results. They revealed that in Q3 2023, the platform averaged 70.2 million daily active users, who spent 16bn hours on the service. That’s just under 19 hours each a week on average.

As Roblox has grown, its demographics have also widened beyond its original core userbase of children. 57% of its users are now older than 13 years old, and 17-24 year-olds are the fastest-growing segment of its community.

Dagogo-Jack said that as Roblox has grown and widened its appeal, so the music industry has deepened its understanding of the platform, and what labels and artists can do on it.

Initially focused on one-off virtual performances, it is now seeing more focus on community-building; different kinds of events including meet’n’greets; projects that involve working with popular existing Roblox games and experiences; and exploration of virtual merch.

The latter is a big focus for the company. Indeed, it recently published a ‘Digital Expression, Fashion & Beauty Trends‘ report looking at how Roblox users are expressing themselves through their avatars, virtual clothing and other items.

Electronic music label Monstercat was one of the case studies, having sold six virtual pendants as ‘Limiteds’ (Roblox’s limited-edition virtual items format) including one that went for the equivalent of $10k.

“The Monstercat stat in that report is astounding. The highest Limited sales to date,” said Dagogo-Jack, who pointed to the label’s long history of experimentation with games and metaverse partnerships as a key factor in its success with its Roblox experience Monstercat’s Lost Civilization.

“They have really rolled up their sleeves and met Roblox users where they are. There’s a community of people on Roblox that speak a slightly different language, and have different memes, and are really, really internet-native,” he said.

“Monstercat has, every step of the way, been in conversation with them, has been in league with them. A lot of what their success is, is just an accretion of small activities over time.”

There have been a number of virtual-merch success stories on Roblox in recent years. Music Ally has written about the strong sales of items from Lil Nas X and Zara Larsson, for example. Dagogo-Jack thinks that it’s been one of the easier aspects of the metaverse for artists and their teams to understand.

“There’s a track record of musicians being able to sell [physical] items to their fans, and of that transaction being a pure expression of fandom,” he said.

“You wear the hat, you wear the t-shirt, you wear the pin, whatever it might be. It’s another way of flying the flag for the artists that you love. So it’s just an extension of that behaviour on Roblox.”

Dagogo-Jack is excited to see how artists can go beyond virtual item sales, citing in-experience subscriptions – which Roblox launched recently – as the next step. “There is the potential for that to fit into an entire fan culture that you build on here.”

He cited Twice Square as a good example of an artist experience that could be perfect for the subscriptions model in the future, having already notched up 70.7m visits from fans since its launch in March 2023.

“That’s a core fanclub experience. It’s really about socialising. It’s about socialising up to the artists, the artists speaking with their fans, and the fans speaking across to each other too,” he said.

“They’ve done a really good job of taking the building blocks of Roblox as a platform to drive towards this fan story. ‘How do we sell limited items in this environment and have that fan engagement activity spill up? How do we have the band appear in the experience? And how does that continue to generate fan activity?’”

“You can imagine how subscriptions layered on top of that – a subscription that allows you special access to something or somewhere – could also drive fan engagement and fan activity.”

Twice Square is also an example of Roblox experiences that are designed to be persistent: not just one-off marketing campaigns but longer-term communities that regularly get new features and engagement from the artists.

“I remember when I was interviewing for this job I would look back at things they [Roblox] had done already, and it was kind of like going to to one of these abandoned malls! There are fewer and fewer of those instances now,” he said. “I think people are really thinking about how they create persistent experiences here.”

One factor in that is that there are more artists who have grown up playing Roblox, and more label and management staff who understand the platform too.

“We’re in the generation of artists that have grown up on Roblox. The initial conversations we’re having are not ‘what is Roblox?’. It’s ‘Here’s the thing I want to do on Roblox, how do I go about doing that?’ We’ve had artists completely do an entire concert and everything else, develop the entire experience, without my team being involved,” said Dagogo-Jack.

“Well, at the very end my team has to be involved because there’s no way to get licensed music onto the platform without some legal stuff that my team has to be involved in! But we’re at a pretty interesting point of native fluency around what’s happening on the platform from an artist end.

“And for labels, because of maybe a little bit of a demographic shift in the age of the people running digital strategy, they are catching up. Maybe not as native as the artists are, but there are some people at the labels who are thoroughly impressive as far as how much they know about Roblox.”

What is on the wishlists of these people, in terms of new features that they would like Roblox to provide? Dagogo-Jack says that a key request is making it easier to build experiences. He’s excited about Roblox’s work with generative AI technologies, to reduce the barriers, in that context.

“People want to make it easier to distribute their music through the platform, which we’re actively doing, and people want to be able to generate meaningful income from the platform, which we’re starting to see as well,” he added.

Music distribution and Roblox has been a tense subject in the past. In 2021 it was sued by US music publishers body the NMPA for “exploitation of music without proper licences”. An agreement was reached a few months later to cease hostilities, and enable Roblox to continue working on licensing with publishers and the industry.

That work continues, although Dagogo-Jack cited Monstercat, again, as an example of a label exploring ways to make its music available on Roblox in other ways.

“They put a significant portion of their catalogue in Studio [the tool that is used to develop Roblox experiences]. There’s an audio section and it has sound effects and music that you can use, and Monstercat is freely licensed there, allowing any developer to use a subset of their catalogue,” he said.

“They’re saying ‘hey, we know that there’s not a direct sales or monetisation model right now on platform, but we believe that proliferating our music across the platform will have knock-on effects for listening off-platform’,” said Dagogo-Jack. “They’ve been around for a while, so that’s a pretty strong signal to me that they’re finding success taking that approach.”

What about the bigger picture: licensing deals akin to those signed by Meta or Snap that would enable a much bigger catalogue of commercial music to be used on Roblox by its users, with payments to rightsholders? That may be one for the future still.

“I can tell you our licensing infrastructure right now. We don’t cover master or publishing, but we do cover a subset of publishing, performance rights, in the US. We’re working towards how we have that globally addressed,” said Dagogo-Jack.

“It’s not a contentious relationship that we have: we think that everyone has a right to be paid for their content, and we are making sure that we have the correct payment infrastructure for everyone.”

There may be potential to build on what Monstercat has done in Roblox Studio though. Music Ally has always wondered whether there was scope for an artist to make a sandbox of assets available to Roblox developers: not just music but visual assets, sounds etc.

So, instead of just one ‘official’ Roblox experience – or sitting alongside that – there might be thousands of fan-created ones, all using approved assets from their favourite artist. Does this idea have legs?

“There’s a digital strategy job for you out there at some of the labels!” laughed Dagogo-Jack. “Yeah, we consistently pitch that concept to artists and labels, and honestly to brands and companies of all types. It’s a way to harness the engagement and the excitement of both the developer community on Roblox, and then also the user community as well.”

He said that the best example of this kind of approach so far comes from outside music. Language-learning Duolingo made a variety of its assets available in Roblox Studio – including its famous owl logo – and ran a ‘Game Jam’ competition for developers, collecting the best experiences in its Duolingo Game Hub.

“I’ve been dying for a musician or a record label to take that up and kinda weaponise it!” said Dagogo-Jack. “It’s not quite happened at the Duolingo level yet, but that would be a really powerful and meaningful approach.”

Karibi Dagogo-Jack is speaking at the Music Ally Connect conference in January 2024. For more details on that click or tap here.

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In a video performance she shared called “Lix Cua Rahro / Tus tortillas mi amor” — in English, “Your tortillas, my love” — the artist speaks Q’eqchi’while she grinds corn with her mouth to make tortillas. She then shapes and presses the tortillas with a heart stamp and fills them with blood from a wound on her finger.

Parth Shah, a writer and an adjunct professor in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media, attended the lecture and said that performance was one of the most striking takeaways for him.

“I know that this kind of imagery repulses people, and it’s seen as ‘savage,’ but I love the point she made at the end about [how] these are technologies,” he said. “These indigenous practices have their own merits as well, and we in our modern reductionist scientific society will push away these kinds of things as dirty, or as regressive, but to see someone create this performance that’s honoring millennia-old food practices — I found that really rebellious and energizing to see.”

Monterroso links performance with her origins as a Mayan artist, connecting ancient knowledge and culture with contemporary art. She incorporates achiote and Mayan indigo — pigments with spiritual and healing properties — to dye textiles that she uses for her sculptures and sometimes her performances.

One of her recent textile projects, called “Rambo para sonar heridas,” or, “Rhombus to Heal Wounds,” is embroidered with traditional Mayan recetas, or instructions to make remedies for physical and spiritual healing. She drew the text for the remedies from a book that was passed down through her family. 

UNC senior Brenda Palacios Rodriguez, who is working on an independent project researching arts in her own Qatanum culture, said she loved how Monterroso visually expressed traditional Q’eqchi and Mayan knowledge and connected it to a holistic ecological system. 

“I think that’s so valuable and so important a perspective that many of us should definitely reflect on more and connect to, because at the end of the day, it is all connected,” she said. “And art is a beautiful way of expressing that.”

@dthlifestyle | lifestyle@dailytarheel.com

Through patchwork, embroidery, beadwork, stitching and adorning them with daily objects such as Thailand’s ubiquitous religious amulets, Jakkai offers different points of view about gender, identity and equality.

They draw in the eye: the soft colours of glass beads, or the glitter of metallic fabric cut into small squares. Closer up, you realise they depict scenes of violence such as villages destroyed by military attacks.

The heartbreaking series “There’s No Place” greets visitors in the spacious foyer at Chat. Large panels of embroidered cloth, and small patchworks produced by children and adults from displaced communities, reflect the pain of losing their homes.

“Just before Covid, I went to the Thai and Myanmar border, where there is a Shan refugee camp and I conducted embroidery workshops and storytelling to get to know the community,” he says.

He recalls how children, especially, who those had lived through traumatic events, often found it easier to communicate through art.

Once Covid erupted, making travel to the border impossible, Jakkai worked with Shan educational organisations in Chiang Mai, a city in northern Thailand, where he has a second home.

“I invited people to different workshops, asking them to embroider, in black and white or grey, on the same pieces that were colourfully embroidered by members of the stateless communities, so more privileged people could know about their situation, and get a feeling of working within limitations,” he says.

He pays all those who create art for him, so they are not charity cases, but meaningfully employed.

Other wall hangings are made of pretty beads in deceptively serene, pastel tones.

“See these? From afar, they may look like make-up. But they are bloody marks and bruises,” he says, pointing at a work called We Will Not Be Erased that is among three pieces on loan from Hong Kong’s LGBT-focused Sunpride Foundation.

The portraits are of gay activists who have been victims of homophobic violence.

In a way, Jakkai is playing a trick on his audience, lulling them into thinking there is little to challenge them here. But in fact, he tries to pull two opposites closer together, just as he is hoping to see less divisiveness in the world.

Among his earlier works are reflections on the widespread corruption in some Buddhist institutions. Lucky Ware (2008) is an installation with a beautiful silk patchwork by Jakkai based on an old folk Buddhist painting from Cambodia, with angels, arhats (those who have attained Nirvana) and devotees shading the Buddha with an umbrella as they play instruments, pray, or carry ritual objects.

In front of it, he has placed buckets filled with offerings that represent indulgences the ascetics are not supposed to engage in: cigarettes, condoms, beer, sweets and electronic mosquito killers (which would go against the monks’ ahimsa, or do no harm, vow).

“It really depicts the two worlds of Buddhism,” he says, “the Buddhist principles, right there in the painting, and what they have become in our modern society.”

Changing Closet invites the public to take selfies while wearing Muslim-style skullcaps (with hidden embroideries on the inside) from the south of Thailand, and military jackets heavy with symbolic embroidery.

Phayao-a-Porter is a new series of second-hand jackets that seem to be little more than a support for some amazing bead embroidery, all laden with social messages that address the environment, corruption and institutional violence.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Jakkai created works honouring Thais who had lost their jobs, especially those employed in the tourism and service industries.

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In a show called “Outworn” at Flowers gallery in Sheung Wan, on Hong Kong Island, large wall hangings made from deconstructed and reassembled work uniforms, at times in the shape of surgical masks, recall the social toll of the pandemic.

On top of this cloth collage, Jakkai has attached Thailand’s ubiquitous Buddhist amulets, chains, and round pandemic stickers reminiscent of those handed out to people who passed temperature checks in Thailand.

These are records of the fear and desperation of the time, when science seemed to have failed and everyone had to endure a cycle of calm and anxiety.

In their painful immediacy, these works address the pandemic without rhetoric or cliché. The tapestries record and allow us to process a trauma the whole world has been through.

“Jakkai Siributr: Everybody Wanna Be Happy”, Chat, The Mills, 45 Pak Tin Par Street, Tsuen Wan, New Territories. Daily, 11am to 7pm. Until February 13.

“Jakkai Siributr: Outworn”, Flowers Gallery, 49 Tung Street, Sheung Wan, Tuesday to Saturday, 12pm to 6pm. Until January 6