Camera Roll with Annika Hansteen-Izora
Camera roll is a new interview series where we glimpse into the current moment via the mundane and the ordinary; the life lived in this moment of a global pandemic.
Annika Hansteen-Izora is a queer artist, poet and designer and creative director of @ethelsclub, @formnoform, @somewhere__good and @black.feast. We talk with Annika about exploration, storytelling, and how living ‘many lives’ in a day is actually possible.
Where are you right now?
Brooklyn, New York.
What’s your morning routine?
When I open my eyes, I make a note of gratitude for the day. I do some light stretching to wake my body up, make an almond milk matcha or lemon tea, and tend to my altar. My altar, which holds pictures of my ancestors, is one of my most important rituals. I have a deck of affirmation cards, and every day I ask the cards, “What lesson do my ancestors want me to hold today?” Whichever card is pulled is placed on my altar, and it’s replaced each day. Today’s message reads: “I am sacred; an intrinsic part of the natural flow of life.”
Tell me a little bit about your background, what was your first job out of college, and how did you end up in design?
I’ve always been a multidisciplinary creative, and I’ve been grateful to explore some of my main passions across spaces. Across creating in art, tech, culture, writing, community spaces, music, and design, I’m very tethered to understanding what makes people find joy, and using digital or community means to bring that joy to light.
My time in college was a dance between exploring the digital and art worlds. I double majored in Psychology and Sociology, and triple minored in Gender and Sexuality, Africana, and Comparative American Studies. At the same time, I was running a poetry organization, leading the booking of artists at one of our campus music venues, and interning at tech companies like Intel in the summers. I was learning to connect my passions in art, technology, and community, and that landed me in my first out-of-college job as a UX researcher at a small design firm in Portland, OR. UX research is essentially using methods of research and strategy to understand the needs of a user, and how to better products or experiences. It only took a few months for me to realize that research was not what made me happy, creative was. I ended up self-teaching myself design classes off of the skills I’d picked up in college in designing concert posters, and began creating designs for local art and community programs in Portland. After a year in Portland, and dancing between the UX, design, and art direction worlds, I moved to Brooklyn with the intent to become a full-time art director and designer.
You describe yourself as a creative director, art director, designer and poet, How do those titles differ as well as how they complement each other?
A creative director, art director, designer, and poet all share the passion in telling stories, they deviate in terms of the method they choose to tell their stories in. A creative director is part strategist, part creative, and part project manager. They oversee all the moving parts, teams, and directions that go into making a creative vision come to life. An art director creates the overall vision or aesthetic for an experience. A designer is someone that visually pulls a concept into reality, using a variety of tools, whether graphic design, sonic design, motion design, or endless other forms of creation. A poet is an artist of words, that uses language to capture a moment in time. I dance between all of these roles in my day-to-day.
What do your days look like, how do you balance work and personal life?
I personally don’t believe balance exists between my work and personal life. Throughout the day, I’m living many lives: work, creative career, organizations and collectives, friends, spirit, body. For quite some time, I tried to balance all of these things at once, and it was disastrous, I severely drained my body, mind and spirit. I really had to learn to be honest about what having a 9-5 that I love meant for my time, resources, and energy. Rather than aiming for balance with my passions outside of work, I now pull two meditations into center: (1.) What do I need in this moment so my body feels well and cared for? (2.) What am I being pulled to in this moment to focus on in my life?
Making sure that my body has what it needs to feel well and secure is one of my highest priorities. After that, it’s letting myself move through phases with my creative passions. For some months, I might be focusing on my writing, for a few weeks, it might be learning to play my ukulele. Having patience and watching the ebb and flow of my creative energy is something that’s a meditation in itself. That’s especially been true since adjusting to life in COVID. I’m now working from home, and I’m so grateful for the extra time that I’ve gotten back from what was once an hour-long commute. But I’m not necessarily using that extra time for creative projects. Honestly, I’m using that time to rest, take a nap, maybe read if I’m pulled to. I think there’s a lot of narrative from creatives during COVID that we now have extra time to give to our projects, and that story doesn’t feel true to me. That narrative doesn’t give space to the truth of what I’ve lost personally during COVID, what we’ve lost collectively. I’ve needed to give myself time to process and mourn during this time, to just be. That’s something that I’m being intentional about giving myself, time to process, time to be. That’s asked me to show up with a commitment to communicating my boundaries and needs, and to exercise compassion and patience.
What excites you about the design industry versus what do you wish could change?
Design is such an exciting realm to explore meaning. I love versatility, and design allows for so much expansion, whether through style, method, or application. What’s exciting me especially right now is the conversations people are having about decolonized design, which means the understanding of design outside of a white colonial canon. There are so many people having conversations about what design can teach us about creating communities, sharing resources, or building collectives. People like Legacy Russel, Antionette Carroll, or Ari Melenciano are writers, designers, or creative technologists that are exploring the meaning and application of design in new ways.
What I wish would change about design is abandoning institutions that only uphold white colonial canons of design, or that gatekeep what design was and is. I think about design schools, and I wonder how many designers were taught about Black designers in school. I also want design agencies and firms to face their tokenization of their Black designers. In the face of the Black Lives Matter protests, I saw many agencies put up rushed, sans-serif posts that all said something along the lines of “We hear you.” But what exactly was heard, and what action did that result in? Design asks us to show up with intention, and that means we also have to apply that to the actions we say we’ll carry into the world.
Advice for anyone who is interested in getting into design and creative direction?
The biggest advice I’d say is to let yourself be curious, and to let yourself play. Play doesn’t mean to get everything right, it means to allow yourself to make mistakes, to try new things without this pressure to “succeed.” All of this experimentation eventually will lead to your signature style, which I think is one of the most important skills you can have. Your style might be visual, but it also might be the way that you create, it might be the story that it’s important to you that everyone receives when they look at your creations. Beyond that, my advice is annoyingly simple: work your ass off to put your creations into the world, don’t be precious with guarding your perspective, be kind to people, and meet deadlines. I think my advice is annoyingly simple. But I’d essentially say to work your ass off, be kind to people, and meet deadlines.
What does play look like for you during COVID-19?
Right now, play looks like exploring whatever is igniting a “yes” in me. It also means to not let myself take everything so seriously and perfectly. I think COVID-19 tossed many of my deadlines and calendar dates out the window, so I couldn’t continue my habit of having everything be perfectly regimented. Some mornings, I might play by coloring, other times it’s dancing in my bedroom, or getting completely absorbed into a book. Play means letting my energy ebb and flow as it needs to. Dreaming is a really important part of play for me. Giving myself to think of realities beyond what we’ve been handed. What we see as “normal” is often informed by status quo that upholds white colonial, heteronormative ways of being. Dreaming gives us space to imagine beyond the confines of normalcy. I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to communally dream, to dream and share our dreaming with others.
Where is your face mask from?
Phelums, a Black-owned fashion brand.
What have you done during quarantine that you hadn't before?
I’ve been dancing on my roof. Learning how to take care of my hair. Painting my nails and checking in on friends with more intention. Taking more naps.
What is your skincare routine and has your makeup routine changed since COVID?
I wash my face with Youth to the People Superfood Cleanser, and spray with their Adaptogen Soothe + Hydrate Activated Mist. I love serums, and right now I’ve been using The Ordinary Buffet serum and the Glossier Superglow serum. I use Kiehl's Avocado Eyecream and the Krave Beauty Beetshield as my sunscreen. The biggest change to my makeup is that I’ve totally abandoned foundation, and I’ve been having so much fun exploring bright colored eyeliners! It’s been a very simple and playful ritual lately, trying on different colored eyeliners and shadows.
Places or organizations you're supporting or wish you could support?
Activation Residency, a Black trans-led residency.
The Black School, an experimental art school teaching radical Black history.
The Loveland Therapy Fund for Black Women & Girls
Do you feel sexy and what inspires that feeling to you?
Any feeling of lushness and pleasure feels sexy to me. I’ve been practicing lushness for myself with baths, buying lingerie (ASOS, Fenty, Love Vera), and taking lots of nudes, just for myself. I feel sexiest when I’m in bed in lingerie, with tea (ginger, lemon, honey and turmeric or peppermint, and matcha) and a candle (SkiinTones, Antik Lakay, Greentree Home), reading or journaling.
What are you listening to?
I’ve been making many playlists in my spare time, I’ve been listening to anything that evokes any dreaminess. This is a playlist I recently made about portals and dreaming.
What are you watching?
Lots of queer cinema. I’ve been working through different lists of films, the last I watched was The Watermelon Woman.
What are you reading?
Glitch Feminism, by Legacy Russell.
What are you eating? Feel free to share recipes if you have that.
I’ve been making soups with the colder weather. Butternut squash, tomato, and pumpkin have been faves.
What are you drinking?
Water, matcha almond milk lattes I make at home, and lemon and nettle tea.
How do you keep active?
Morning stretching, alongside at-home-workouts (I do the Chloe Ting ab workouts, and the SWORKIT workouts for my butt and legs.)
Do you seek connection with others right now and if so how do you connect in respect to social distancing?
I’ve been seeking connection to loved ones in very gentle ways, letters, or sharing dinner with a friend in the park. With most of my work on a computer, at the end of the day I’m typically too digitally drained for phone or video calls, or texting. At the beginning of quarantine, I let friends know “I love you, but I can’t connect digitally right now.” Social distancing has honestly asked me to not connect with some friends for months, but we’ve found ways to gently check-in on each other through letters, or voice memos. Relationships change and COVID is asking for all of us to find new ways to communicate what we need right now, whether that’s space, time, or distance.
Favorite things you've bought during the quarantine?
Twist candles from Hello Yowie, one of my favorite Black-owned stores. My prayer palm plant. A print of one of my pieces, that reads: Black Joy is Sacred, that sits in bold yellow in our living room.
Images provided by Annika Hansteen-Izora