Ep. 215: Kinfolk’s Idris Brewster Uses AR to Empower Collective Memory Building

Artist, creative technologist, and educator, Idris Brewster grew up in Brooklyn, being filmed for a documentary about his education as a black student at a prestigious, primarily white, school. His coming-of-age, only partially caught on camera, included a lot of basketball and hands-on artistic development. A grant awarded in college gave him early access to VR technology which opened a path to combining all of his talents and interests and expressing them through new media. Now, as co-founder and Executive Director of Kinfolk Foundation, he’s harnessing augmented reality, location-based technology, and community to engage in placing digital monuments in public spaces, memory building, and foregrounding the Black, Brown and Queer histories that have been intentionally silenced. 

Subscribe our our NEW Substack to read more about Idris Brewster.
Learn more about Kinfolk on their website and instagram.

---

Read the Transcript

Idris Brewster: Technology and AR specific is super important because it allows other modes of expression to be tangible. 

Amy Devers: Hi everyone, I’m Amy Devers and this is Clever. Today I’m talking to co-founder and executive director of Kinfolk Foundation - Idris Brewster. Idris is a Brooklyn-based artist, creative technologist, and educator, who uses his technical and artistic expertise to disrupt traditional narratives through immersive experiences, all while empowering others to do the same. And Kinfolk is a trailblazing non-profit digital and educational platform with a mission to bring Black and Brown narratives to the forefront through immersive Augmented Reality experiences. Idris co-founded the platform in 2017 as a means to bridge communities. Since inception (and with support from the Mellon Foundation), it has changed how we learn about our historical heroes. Recognizing that school curriculum, cultural institutions and monuments have systematically excluded BIPOC histories, through Kinfolk, Idris debuted the Monuments Project, which inserts hundreds of digital monuments into public spaces - so users can experience history come to life anywhere. Prior to Kinfolk, Idris studied both Cognitive and Computer Sciences at Occidental College, in Los Angeles, and then worked for Google, where he developed an educational program called Code Next, which exposes Black and Brown youth to the world of computer science, allowing them to have the tools to build their own future. As an artist, Idris focuses on blending technology and the material world - as a means of creative expression, as well as sociohistorical education. His creative expertise includes painting, augmented reality, 3D modeling, and hip-hop production & engineering. He has received several awards and recognitions for his work, including from Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, New Museum, Eyebeam, the United Nations, the Museum of Modern Art and Forbes 30 under 30. As you’ll hear, among Idris’ many talents is his ability to build bridges - with the sensitivity of an artist, the precision of an engineer, and the vision of an architect, he’s designing community-based systems of archiving, educating, storytelling and collaborating that effectively distributes, across the existing social and cultural divides, the tools and means of the building of collective memory. Hot damn.  Here’s Idris…

Idris Brewster: My name is Idris, I’m from Brooklyn, New York, born and raised. I’m an artist and creative technologist and I just want to create cool things that tell interesting stories in unique ways. That’s why I do what I do. 

Amy: Well, you do it well and you are creating cool things and I can’t wait to unpack all of that. But let’s start by unpacking your youth, you said born and raised in Brooklyn and I understand your parents were documentary filmmakers? Can you take us back there and paint the picture? 

Idris: Yeah, so my parents have done a lot in their life. My dad is a doctor, my mom was a lawyer and he was a psychiatrist.

Amy: Oh, okay, everybody is on multi-hyphenate.

Idris: Everyone was on multi-hyphenate, but my dad was always interested in film. A lot of his early films were fiction films focused on psychiatry, psychological thrillers. But they ended up creating a practice for themselves in documentary film. My mother is a human rights attorney and so they started shifting the focus on telling stories around impact and diversity around the world. And so one of the films around when I was born was called American Promise and it followed my life from five years old, in kindergarten through 12th grade at an elite private school called The Dalton School on the Upper East side of New York. And the documentary focused on what it’s like for people of color to go through an environment for that long, especially an environment that’s not built for them, obviously it was predominantly a white school, upper class school. And so the film really looked into the difficulties surrounding that. I mean for myself, what that meant for me was that I was focused on otherness from a really young age. Focused on to think about my place in the world in relationship to others. I was being interviewed at five years old around how I felt being the only Black kid in my class. And so thinking about race from a very early age caused me to be really critical as I grew up. 

Amy: How did it feel to be the subject of such a critical lens, and by ‘subject’ I mean the subject matter? Are you conscious of that or was it just so sort of baked into your childhood that you aren’t able to separate it? 

Idris: I definitely wasn’t conscious in the beginning and I think it being my parents also had an effect on me because it was like, in the beginning it felt like I was just talking to my parents. I think it was different for the other subject, Shayan and how he felt because he was an outsider in terms of his parents not making the film. But I was quite shy and I think it was something that I wasn’t always comfortable with, is being in the spotlight, especially when they would come and film at schools, it was something that I felt embarrassed about. And always having that… feeling othered, but then having a documentary that highlights the otherness was something that was difficult for me to grasp, I guess. But as I started to grow older, it started to make a little bit more sense why this was being done. But there was still an aversiveness to this. I remember in high school when they would try to film us in school and as I was leaving school, after school, I would evade the cameras. I would try to escape situations where I was being filmed. My parents hired a younger cinematographer to follow me to a party and I didn’t know at that point that the cinematographer was at the people… yeah, like there’s this guy with a camera looking for you. And so they were trying to find ways to document my life undercover because it was something I guess I wasn’t comfortable with. But after the film was released I was doing on the speaking tours, seeing the impact face-to-face of the kids who had similar struggles to mine. It all was worth it in the end, just the impact that the film had nationwide and around the globe was really astounding. 

Amy: I watched it in preparation for this interview…

Idris: Oh wow. (Laughs)

Amy: Yeah and I certainly am more interested in hearing your reflection on the film than my commentary. (Laughs) it was incredibly generous and intimate to share so much of such a formative time in your life. And just from reading the YouTube comments and everything, I can sense how much of an impact it has had and that act of… kind of willingly sharing your narrative so that other people can place themselves within it, can understand their own context a little better is incredibly powerful and incredibly generous. And at times, the intimacy of the film was almost uncomfortable but that’s because it was so real. And so my hats off to the filmmakers with that, in that it felt like no ego, it felt egoless. Pretty powerful.

Idris: Yeah, I definitely relate to the egoless aspect of it and I think… I never thought about it that way in terms of being egoless. But I think thinking about how I move through the world now is trying to move without ego and I can see that maybe that comes from a space of the… how I grew up, how I was raised and that all played into how this film came about. So I really liked that comment of this being an… the egoless aspect of it because I know my father definitely made himself look worse in the film at points and was like trying to be really raw with his perception and characterization of himself because he knew that folks would resonate with that. So really leading with that authenticity was, I think, what was visible throughout the film. 

Amy: Yeah, I agree and what a powerful example as parents, but also, it made me feel like a teenager and I could relate to… I don’t know, the invasion of privacy maybe that you may have felt at times. And I’m wondering when you hit the teenage years and you need to start really carving out your own space and forging your own adult identity and how do you do that with the cameras on? When the watchful eye of your parents’ camera is on you and what was the flavor of your particular teenagerdom and then the extra layer of having it be documented like that. How did you navigate that whole territory? 

Idris: Yeah, I guess one of the misconceptions when folks watch the film is that that is my whole life and there were a lot of aspects that weren’t covered and folks think that it was filming every day. It was a couple of times a month maybe, at best. If there was an important life event of course that would be documented more stringently. But it was pretty open and so I think it’s not like my life growing up was like oh, there’s this camera always around me. It was something that being filmed from such an early age, I was used to. I was very open and authentic with cameras from five years old and earlier and so that’s something that I even carry through now when I’m speaking to folks and talking, like I’m just myself, and there’s nothing that I don’t… not that I don’t have a filter, but I’m okay being authentic in environments where other people might feel anxious or self-conscious and that’s not to say that I don’t feel those things, but I think evading was… evading those things was more about annoyance I would say…. for me it didn’t capture a lot of myself. It didn’t capture… it showed some basketball, but basketball was a huge part of my life. I was playing very competitive basketball going to national tournaments from a really young age. 

My parents also made a film on my basketball team at 12 years old, going to the Nationals, it’s called Slaying Goliath, so that’s interesting. I think when I got to high school, I think a different cover was how into art I was. How all the different art classes I took, that was something I definitely gravitated towards. I was taking theatre, I was doing graphic design, I did woodworking, clay, painting, music. I was really into the arts and getting my hands really dirty and that was not something that I think was covered. And I think I’m glad. I think there’s a persona that the film portrayed and I’m glad they didn’t capture the full perception of me, even though sometimes I have to fix that for folks, when folks meet me for the first time. So there was a lot in my creative endeavors that I was really into that the film did not cover. 

Amy: Sometimes creative agency needs to develop in the incubator, like in the back rooms and in the places where you’re free to explore and experiment without it being subject to scrutiny or to anybody’s questioning or judgement. So on some levels maybe that’s a beautiful aspect of having part of your story told, but not all of it because there was still ample room for you to grow into your own person. So developing all of this material agency, creative agency, athletic agency, which is also very creative, feels really essential to who you are now. And I’m wondering how it informed your decision making when you decided to go to college? 

Idris: Yeah, I mean when I went to college, I think… which I’m sure a lot of folks from communities of color can understand, it’s like there was still a pressure in my head of I needed to do something that was deemed professional, that was deemed successful. And so while I was into the arts and my parents were artists, so they set a stage for what life could be like as an artist, they also worked multiple jobs while doing the artwork. And so for me, a concept, a vision of an artist is someone who is sort of a multi-hyphenate, that can especially… nowadays it’s a lot harder to make a living as strictly an artist. I think that was something where when I went to school I was like all right, what can I do that can set myself up and that’s why I was like, let me try… my dad is a doctor, let me try to be a doctor. And I took a biology class freshman year and I was like, uh, no, that’s not what I’m going to do. (Laughter) That’s not really… that doesn’t excite me. And I think there was something about going into cognitive science that was enticing to me, thinking about the mind. I really focused on emotions and emotional processing and I think that related to art, that relates to storytelling. I did computer science because I think that was a burgeoning industry that I was interested in, but I wasn’t really interested in the ways that other folks were. 

I think a lot of people went on to become engineers at tech companies and things of that nature. But for me it was… which is why I probably say ‘creative technologist,’ it was using this in a creative way, one that’s also a critical way, I think was extremely important. So while I went to school I did cognitive science and computer science, with a concentration in artificial intelligence. I was also getting very interested in music and very interested in sound. I’m a hip-hop producer and so that was where things were burgeoning at the same time. But what really opened the door for me was I wrote a grant for my senior year to get an Oculus DK2, which is the development kit, the second development kit for the Oculus VR headset. That was a headset that wasn’t out at the time, it wasn’t available to the public, and so I was able to get my hands on it early, which was really… set me off, like oh wait, technology can combine art. It can combine storytelling, it can combine sound, it’s a way that I can combine my interests. And I think that’s my forever pursuit right now, is how I can combine the disparate areas that I’m interested in, into one sort of medium, which I’m still struggling with until today. 

Amy: Okay, I need to ask you about this grant, what year was it? 

Idris: Twenty fifteen, it was a grant with my school, my school was able to purchase a desktop computer for me as well as the Oculus headset. And then in that I did my thesis which was studying emotional processing within a VR environment. I put people through scary VR experiences, happy VR experiences and so that really set myself up and just thinking that immersive media is something that… immersive art, immersive media, something I can really get my hands on moving forward. So that was really I think the start of me, not doing so many different things, but figuring out maybe a way to combine them. 

Amy: That makes perfect sense now that I understand. And where do you think your need to do all this emotional processing comes from?

Idris: That is a deep question. I think it’s a need for me to understand myself and others. It’s a need to… I think art is a way for me to express and learn about myself. I think it’s also a way for me to express and learn about my culture. I think what I like to say I’m moving towards is a place of a research based artistic practice. And so it’s a way to explore my own feelings, especially when I’m getting into painting and sound, that’s my area of expression that I really covet, that I don’t share a lot and that I’m really protective around. Which goes back to our previous conversation about protecting that creative space.

Amy: Understanding how others resonate also helps you understand your own self. And so there’s this…

Idris: Yeah. 

Amy: Kind of gaze or mirror that when done in a way that is not exploitative, but is generative, can be really mutually enlightening. 

Idris: I agree with that. 

Amy: I know in the documentary you were described as a sensitive kid and I could pick up the fact that you were very… when I say ‘sensitive,’ it means that you were able to pick up on impressions. Like a lot of impressions on everything around you, like the emotional weather, or topography of a space. It seemed like you were cognizant of, even if you didn’t know what it meant or how to process it. 

Idris: That’s a good point. 

Amy: When you’re kind of more empathic than other people are around you, sometimes you need to study them in order to understand yourself because they haven’t been able to reflect it back to you. 

Idris: Yeah, that’s a very good point, I’m definitely very sensitive to my surroundings, whether that is people, whether that’s my environment, whether that is the nature that’s around us. And so that is… it’s been… empathy I think has been subconscious for a lot of my life. And so the need for art to be the way that I can explore that. And then connect with others, I think also is a big part of my work, is to connect, collaborate and share stories that can resonate and a part of that is understanding how people are interpreting, reacting, engaging, yeah, I think that’s a great way to put it. 

Amy: Yeah, so you double majored then in cognitive science and computer science, right? And this felt like a good combination because you could filter your art practice through all of this. So when you graduated, what was the plan? 

Idris: Yeah, you’re positioning me as someone who was thinking very far out, when I don’t think that was (laughter) how I was… I don’t think at the time that’s how I was moving in the world. I was thinking very short term, which is something that I don’t do now, but definitely that’s how I was at 21 and 22. 

Amy: Sure. 

Idris: And I was interviewing to do a software engineering job at Google, got to the final round, that didn’t end up working out. I was talking to some start-ups about how to do that, but those didn’t seem like it fit with what I wanted to do. I got an opportunity from my mentor, Errol King, to work at his incubator within Google, it was called Code Next. It was a computer science program that provided Black and Latino middle school and high schoolers across New York City the ability to learn how to code through the lens of art. It was a STEAM program where we taught AR, VR, we taught music making through coding, we taught visual painting, it was called processing, which is a visual coding language. So we taught them how to use technology through creativity. 

Amy: That’s amazing, that’s perfect for you. 

Idris: Yeah, it was perfect. 

Amy: I want to take that class!

Idris: Because it allowed me… there was a bunch of classes, there was like after school programs every day and then on Saturdays there was a whole leadership course where we taught, it was basically advanced course where we taught them all the good things. And so that also set me on a couple of paths. It allowed me one… a part of my job was exploring and creating and then turning that into a course that we could offer to the kids. So I got to explore my interests. It also got me on a path of education, it was empowering youth through technology and showing them that there’s other outlets. [0.25.00] A lot of times in computer science education folks were thinking hey, if I’m not this super math genius who can code programs on their own that are very numerically based and not ‘creative,’ that seemed like the path for a lot of folks. And so this was a way to expose them that hey, you can create art. A lot of my students were painters, artists, hey, this is something that you can apply in your practice. Some of them turned into UX UI designers now because they’re using their same artistic skills, but in a way that is related to technology. And so it got me on a path of really thinking critically about what is the role of technology in our society moving forward, the digital divide is something that is really real. Folks don’t have access to the technologies in communities of color as much as they should. And so again, from here on out I start to then think really critically about the role of technology in our society, especially who is getting left behind and the work that is necessary to close that gap.

Amy: I wonder if you could spend a couple of minutes just talking about the digital divide and the work that you think needs to be done to close it, if you have thoughts at the top of your head about that? 

Idris: Yeah I do…there’s definitely more logistical answers than others. I think the most important thing is… how can we get these technologies into the hands of folks who… how do we make folks creators? I think a lot of times Black and Brown folks are a lot of the consumers of these technologies. I think Black and Brown folk generate a lot of the use cases and generate a lot of culture for these platforms. I mean Black Twitter is a huge thing. And it’s a lot of the reason that makes Twitter engaging for people and that’s something of where, hey, we are active consumers and content creators. So how can we also be in the room when we’re building these platforms? How can we provide more avenues for folks to think of computer science as something that relates to them? Because that’s a lot of the issue, people like myself didn’t view computer science as something they wanted to do. I was privileged to go to a great high school at Dalton, I didn’t take a single computer science class that we were offering that throughout high school. I didn’t take it because I was like, that’s not for me, that’s not something I want to do. And there were very few Black folks who took computer science at my high school. There’s like a narrative issue around how can this relate, how can this be more fun. And so I think that’s one part of it, is how can we make this more relatable, but then also the inroads need to be in existence for folks to be able to learn and know about these things, in schools. So that’s one of many, but that’s like the first steps. 

Amy: Yeah, thank you for sharing that, it’s cultural infrastructure as well as logistic actual infrastructure and it’s also perception and the narrative, the cultural narrative that this isn’t a crowd… not that a crowd that you belong in and it’s also not an avenue that is going to be receptive to you, is that kind of what you’re saying? 

Idris: Yeah, yeah, that is, and it is not an avenue that’s going to be receptive…

Amy: Right, so then you’ve got to change the avenue. 

Idris: You’ve got to change the avenue and I think it’s becoming even more pressing now because a lot of the… technology is influencing our lives more and more. Some people spend over 10 hours a day on their phones. A lot of our identity, time spent communicating with folks is online, it’s shaping a lot of who we are in our lives. And especially now with AI, the technology is who is basically building it and so if we don’t have folks of color in these rooms, we’re going to get the imperfections that we see and inequities that we see in the technologies. Like you searching ‘monkey’ on Google five years ago and it was bringing up ‘Black folks/Black women,’ and then you see now the data that’s existing within AI systems, it’s not… there’s missing gaps in data that we have. Or if it’s around predictive policing and then the predictive policing models are really reinforcing that Black folks need to go in jail because it’s giving them high scores on recidivism race because it’s looking at the data of who was imprisoned in a very skewed and inequitable system where Black and Brown folks are unjustly, and in crazy numbers, incarcerated. So there is a lot of work that needs to be done in these big tech companies in terms of who is building this and what communities are being considered. The first step is the youth and getting them involved and getting them on these career paths. But there’s also some larger shifts that need to happen. 

Amy: It sounds like Google Code Next was a really foundational experience for you, but also that it’s attempting to address some of this stuff. Did you feel like it was an effective program?

Idris: It is an effective program. We started in a small space on the second floor, now it has its own storefront on 16th Street in Chelsea. It’s expanded to at least five other cities across the country and when I was there it was just New York and then by the time I left it had expanded to Oakland. So it’s continuing to grow, continuing to shift. And it was a foundational time for me. One, because I got to explore my interests, I think that was a great thing about the job and really kudos to my bosses of giving the space for me to explore myself and my interests and then be able to relate that out to the kids. And then third of all, a lot of the work was hands-on and during the day. So it was very great work/life balance. And so it allowed me to have an artistic practice outside of it that I was exploring, it allowed me to do different projects and sometimes I brought those projects back into the classroom. And so I was able to found what I’m doing now while at Google Code Next. I really attribute that to the space that I was allowed to explore myself and also the work/life balance that allowed me to actually pursue other interests. 

Amy: I mean I love hearing you say that because I also feel like this is a clarion call to all employers. I feel like if everyone has this space and is allowed to bring their own curiosities back into the workplace, nothing but good can happen from that. (Laughs)

Idris: Yeah, 100%, my director sometimes would be like, explore machine learning and then what you figure out, find a way to envelop that into the courses. I was giving ideas for courses, it was a generative time for me to, again, research, explore and experiment, that I’m just forever grateful for. 

Amy: You founded what you’re doing now while you had the opportunity to do all of this artistic practice and research on your own. Let’s talk about the path from Code Next to Kinfolk Foundation? What did that look like? 

Idris: That was a journey. That was a journey. As I said, while I was at Code Next I was always doing artistic projects, whether that was exploring generative art, making albums with folks in music and then another one was exploring AR projects. I never really built AR before, it was always VR, but in 2017 there was a, like I said, a national reckoning in terms of our memory and our monuments and our public spaces. So before, from 2015 onwards there was at least like 400 monuments that had been taken down in our country, confederate monuments. But before 2015 until the beginning of our country, only around five had ever been taken down. And so it was clear that that moment was… the public was critically thinking about this issue and taking action on it. And so one of the important action moments was in New York when Mayor de Blasio in 2017 was reconsidering what to do with the Christopher Columbus Monument. This was a monument that was not a landmark at this moment in time and they were voting on whether this should be a landmark. Whether we should take it down or whether we should add context around the monument. 

And so I got together with a friend of mine, Glen, who was my partner at the time and we were like, let’s start to do actions around this. And so there was activism campaigns to garner support for the removal of this monument. In order to do that we tried to build AR experiences that would tell the true story of Christopher Columbus. I learned how to code AR and made a prototype and we got artists to create these physical paintings and when you pointed the app at the paintings, the paintings would come to life and these paintings were telling stories around Christopher Columbus. So we’d bring these easels and these canvases to Columbus Circle, to other places around the city and we started to have these demonstrations and that was sort of the beginning of like hey, what is this new form of activism? How can technology art play a role in advocacy campaigns? So that’s what we started to do at that moment, to explore this new medium. And I would also bring this back to the classroom and show the kids what we were doing, so it was a full circle for me to be able to do something outside and help me strengthen my role as a leader towards the students, to show them their creative paths where you can make this a reality. So that was the beginning. 

I just think that’s so powerful because I think one of the things that you talk about frequently is radical imagination and being able to not just imagine a future, but then maybe build a prototype or a rendering or an example of what that is, so that other people can get on board with your imagination and from there you can change hearts and minds and build it collectively. I’m kind of paraphrasing a lot of things that I hear you say, but I wholeheartedly espouse, I teach design and I know that when you know how to go from zero to something, the hardest part along that journey, I know how to build it, but the hardest part along that journey is getting the collective buy-in that you need. And so what you’re doing is so beautiful and so brilliant because you’re inviting other people into the space to see what it could be and to resonate with it, like they would with art, like they would with information, like they would with connecting to that missing piece that you were talking about. So I just get so very excited when I learn about what you’re doing and I think this is actually a really beautiful origin story that’s born of your artistic expression, but your activism and also education and so seeing it all gel together in Kinfolk Foundation is… I mean it’s just growth. It’s like when something organic grows (laughs) into what it’s supposed to be, it feels like that. Doesn’t it feel so natural to you? 

Idris: It does, it feels natural, it feels good and I think one of the things is not trying to be perfect. Trying to build something and show that off while it’s being built. It was never the perfect app. I was never the best super coder, but we built something and got it out there fast and started showing people and it started garnering support, even though it’s not this fully-fledged perfect app, it was something that people could grasp on and relate to and the stories could carry it through. And so after we were doing these demonstrations, of course they decided to make it a landmark, so the Christopher Columbus Monument stayed in its form, but we realized that we had a tool that could help folks, we radically reimagined their spaces and reimagined our history and our stories. And the tech, not being associated with any legacy institutions is a medium and a platform for folks that empowers them to tell these stories. I know it’s inspired by Pokémon Co, which is an app where you can go around the city and catch different Pokémon in different location based areas. It was the first real big location based augmented reality app. We were like if we can do that with Pokémon, why can’t we do that with our stories? Why can’t people place their stories in spaces across this country? 

And so we ended up getting to, applying to two residences, one at the New Museum called NEW INC, and the other one at IBeam, we ended up getting them both in 2018, which then I left my job at Google, on a whim, it was definitely a risk and a leap. But I left my job and then we were able to figure out what this could become in the context of art residency. So it was really the artistic based approach to how this technology could grow, was really great, it got a large community of art and tech supporters that were able to push this through. After that we got a couple other grants that really… all right, this can be a thing. Now we’ll be able to pay ourselves a marginal salary, but it was starting to become something where this can be something big. We brought on another co-founded, Micah Milner who was a 3D art genius, who then took our platform from something where we were building 2D artworks to now he can build a lot of 3D monuments. And this was really the beginning of now we have 3D art on our platform. Because as a digital artist or an artist, I’m abstract, I am very… sometimes I use a lot of generative art, and very 2D. And so getting someone with the skills to really perfectly recreate anything they want in the digital space really pushed our capabilities to the next level. 

And even though Covid hit and we weren’t able to really realize our dream at this point in time of doing an app that releases in public spaces, we released it in 2021 as an app that people could bring into their own home. They could place these monuments in their spaces, basically create a gallery of monuments within their home and a lot of the folks that gravitated to that were teachers. So it was interesting, we built this art platform for history and then teachers were the ones gravitating to it because they can bring this history into the classes on Zoom, digital learning and so we were always really open about what we were building and the directions that we could go. But it was a really exciting time to… it’s been developing and we’ve let it develop on a really natural course and ideas are still always leading us, we try not to have too many preconceived notions about where it can go. 

Amy: That’s a beautiful way to allow the organization to evolve organically and to keep the creative spirit at the center of it. How would you describe Kinfolk Foundation to somebody who hasn’t heard of it before? What’s the elevator synopsis? 

Idris: Elevator synopsis is Kinfolk is a digital archive that is using emerging technology, like augmented reality to visualize our history in new ways that is led by community. Basically think of it as digital sculptures. We create digital sculptures and these sculptures can be activated in place-based ways. We want to close the gap in terms of how many monuments are representing Black and Brown folks in the country, there’s over 48,000 monuments in general, 48, 175 around there. But there’s only around 200 or so monuments towards Black and Brown folks. And so there’s a large disparity and we can’t close that gap with physical monuments. And so these digital monuments are a way to reimagine our public spaces, but if I was explaining to someone I don’t know, it’s trying not to use words like ‘augmented reality,’ but try to speak about it in terms that they understand is usually the goal. 

Amy: Well, I’ve heard you talk about it in ways that are more storyteller based, less tech and more storyteller…

Idris: Yeah, I mean the technology is just the vessel, it shouldn’t be the focus. It’s just the means to tell stories. The African oral tradition is something that is centuries old, Black communities have always been telling our stories through maybe means that aren’t just writing or aren’t just text. That is often deemed a Eurocentric way to really record culture, to record history. Where the primary motive that for Black communities has always been orally. It’s been through culture, it’s been through movement, it’s been through dance, it’s been through art, it’s been through expression. And it’s always tough when the modus operandi for society is to operate on a text and written based culture where these other really interesting forms of expression always get pushed to the wayside. And so that’s where I feel like technology and AR specific is super important because it allows other modes of expression to be tangible. We can record oral histories, place it on the platform. We can create these sculptures that are made by artists that really tell history in an experiential way. 

We can capture animations of dancers dancing and place that, and folks can bring that into their space. So it’s really a multi-hyphenate way to experience history and I feel like that’s a lot of times what folks are missing, especially in schools, is that engaging way. And then the final layer of that, with AR does present is the ability to make that feel participatory. Make it feel like you’re in the history. Make you feel like you’re contributing. And so the immersive aspect of it is that engaging factor. It makes it more of an experience that feels real. It’s an app that brings you also closer to your physical spaces and your natural environment, whereas a lot of technologies bring you away from that. It’s aiming to isolate you. And so this is a tool that can bring folks together in a way that prioritizes reality. 

Amy: Ooh, I like that you said that. ‘Prioritizing reality,’ even though you’re augmenting it with extra context. 

Idris: Yeah. 

Amy: But you’re creating an immersive experience that can be shared. 

Idris: That can be shared, that can be experienced together, and that’s built together. I think the way these monuments come to life is not just one person, it’s a multitude of people, it’s an artist communicating with the community to get their feedback, showing works in progress to people. Having archivists, historians, educators work on creating the narratives and storytellers crafting the narratives around these monuments. There’s multiple moving parts to this and it’s really a community effort, which is why I think yeah, that team work and that collaboration is also extremely important to have people feel stewardship over these things. A lot of times monuments plop in a neighborhood without one, the community being talked to around what this is going to be and two, they’re not really involved in the process of what it’s going to look like. And there’s times when cities have tried to do that, it’s gone bad, just look at the J. Marion Sims debacle in Manhattan. But that’s the important part as well, is getting them into the process. 

Amy: And I’m a firm believer in the transfer of energy. If you imbue the very origin of everything that you’re doing with community, then it can’t help but foster community because it’s baked into its energetic DNA. 

Idris: Yeah. 

Amy: Kinfolk has had some major milestones since founding in what was it, 2017 that you officially founded Kinfolk Foundation? 

Idris: It was incorporated in 2018, but we started in 2017.

Amy: Okay (laughs), we don’t need to get too technical. 

Idris: Yeah, it started in 2017, yeah, early 2017. 

Amy: So you were part of the Tribeca Film Festival with a walking tour of work that you called Black Lands, which were Black enclaves that you created augmented reality around. You were featured in a MoMA exhibition called New York, New Publics, which is super exciting. And I understand that the culturally responsive pedagogy, the curriculum is a huge piece of this, because it’s being deployed in classrooms all over I think it’s such a powerful way to tell these stories, because they’re both engaging and entertaining, but they’re not marketed as an entertainment product, even though they are entertaining enough to be. So, (laughs) but because there’s like a real pedagogical agenda here, it also makes the content very trustworthy, which entertainment isn’t always, you’re not sure what’s fictionalized, you’re not sure what’s biased. But because this feels like archival material, I can tell the content has been vetted in a way that is historic… meant to be historically accurate, even if it is, the history of it has been erased. 

Idris: Yeah, our goal is to repair our historical memory, repair our collective consciousness and fill it in with the stories that have not been told in the mainstream. And so I think we are at an intersection with building an entertainment product or building experiential works and even though we are in classrooms, it’s always art based approach in classrooms. We’re asking kids to be designers, asking kids to think critically about their history and how do they turn that… what do your monuments look like? And so it’s really the curriculum is focused on bringing kids into the ethos of Kinfolk as creators and designers of their own futures. I think it’s important to talk about the facts of history, but for us it’s a melding of that past/present and future. The speculative is just as important as the facts of the past and there’s a way to meld them. Saidiya Hartman talks about critical fabulation, which means that there’s gaps in history and the data and the facts sometimes aren’t there. So that’s where art speculation is really useful. The job of the artist is to fill in those gaps and tell those stories. And so for me, I was like, all right, this platform, Kinfolk, can be a driver of critical fabulation, but bring that, not just to artists, but bring that to our communities in general. And so it’s been really exciting that this work has been noticed and spread to a bunch of different areas. 

The Mellon Foundation grant that we got in 2022 really allowed us to think about this on a larger scale. Before then we were focused in New York, still really building ways to bring this into your own space, but that grant which was the largest amount that we’ve really ever received, all right wait, our dreams can actually… we can actually make them happen. And so we then started to focus on hey, this Pokémon Go idea, some people call us ‘Wokemon Go…’ (Laughs) But this Wokemon Go idea can really be a thing, how do we move towards that? So we then, in 2022 started to spread to six different cities. We were in New Orleans, Philadelphia, Alabama, New York and Los Angeles as well as Miami trying to think about how do we spread a hyperlocal artistic based experience but then have that have national reach? And so it was really exciting to be included in the MoMA show, that was also a turning point for us. We were one of 12 artists and organizations chosen, because all of us as a whole were changing the future landscape of public spaces in New York. 

We got to really create the exhibition we wanted, which was me saying, all right, how do we blend nature, blend our reality with the technology and then bring that into the museum? So we sourced these three hundred year old trees and turned them into beautiful pedestals. We made cut-outs of these trees, made three pedestals. And when you had the app, you could point that camera at these pedestals and the monuments would grow out of those pedestals. 

Amy: Oh wow. 

Idris: So when you see it, it’s like these three trees there, it’s like what is going on. But then there’s iPads there that have the digital space, have the digital monuments activated and then if you download the app you can have them grow out of it. And so I think that’s really the ethos of how I’ve tried to move throughout this world. It’s like how do we continue to make nature and our real world come into conversation and a medium like augmented reality which can recognize your real world and augment that is the perfect technological tool to really blend the material world with… what is the materiality of this technology that we’re working with. And so we did the same thing with Black Lands. We were already working on three monuments around Black enclaves with three existing communities in New York and for that we made a little bit of an alter space that we filled it with dirt, rocks, a bunch of different fragrances and I didn’t put flowers because they didn’t let us put flowers, we would have put flowers if we could. And then when you had the iPads, that was able to let these stories grow from out of the grounds, but the interesting thing about Tribeca that we did for the first time was we did really first person narration. It’s like first person monologues from these historical figures. So there was a whole spatial audio component as well that as you walked around the experience, sonically you were in the 1800s with horse carriages coming by or water streams coming by or you were at the dock on Wall Street with [** 0:58:09] in Land of the Blacks who was giving a speech. And so there was… it was really fun, how do we immerse folks in this space? Let them time travel back in history. So that’s something that we’re continuing looking to do at these installations and we’ve just exemplified the immersiveness of the work that we’re trying to bring to life. 

Amy: That sounds intense and wonderful and amazing and kind of awe-inspiring. And that’s the direction you’d say you continue to involve in, in a lot of these in-person events and activations and walking tours that sort of bring people together out in real life, as opposed to the… I know I can download the app and put a monument in my living room, but where is Kinfolk Foundation evolving into, do you think? What’s the direction you’re pushing into? 

Idris: Well, I think that is a question we’re still really examining and answering, but I’ve come to the conclusion on is that what is unique about this… how can we use this medium the best? What new can we bring to the world and there are plenty of apps that you can bring these experiences into your own home. But what doesn’t exist is really a cultural platform that allows us to augment our spaces with our heritage, our history, our memory. How can we enable memory builders across the country to reach larger audiences, to have more engaging activations? I mean creative placemaking is something that has happened forever and this is a new way. I think this layer that exists across the world, that honestly I think is going to be a large part of the future. Like we don’t even know if 30 years we will have glasses that can augment our spaces. And so how can we make sure that our lives are prioritize into that future? That’s the focus of us building what we’re building right now. And so I think the location based aspect is super important and probably where we are going to focus. How can we create as many experiences as we can? We’re partnering with a lot of museums and institutions who really want to do this work, don’t have the capability to create walking tours or digital art… digital public art themselves. And so we’re lending hands to institutions who are aligned with our mission to really build this out. 

One example is the Stonewall, Stonewall National Monument is opening up a visitors center the end of June, in a couple of weeks. And so we’re collaborating with the artists Tourmaline and B. Hawk Snipes to create basically a digital altar. It’s a monument, but it’s an altar to Stonewall, specifically the mothers of STAR, which is Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. And so that is one exciting example of an institution that’s really interested in this new form and we’re helping them bring that to life in new ways. And so that’s definitely installations, walking towards working with historical sites. But then also focusing on ways that we can do it ourselves to collaborate with communities and artists, for them to bring that to life, I think. In a couple of years we envision a space where people can upload their own monuments. Tag their own histories around the country. So that’s where we want to move to.

Amy: Man, I just got goosebumps talking about the Stonewall altar and this vision of the future is truly optimistic and exciting and I feel really hopeful talking to you. (Laughs) It’s really great. 

Idris: (Laughs) Yeah, hopefully, I think there’s a lot that needs to be worked out, but I think it is a vision that people can unite around and it’s important that we do this together, because we can’t really do this alone and there’s an ability to unite a bunch of people. So many people are doing brilliant work across the country in different ways when it relates to our history and our memory. And so how can we have something that can help build a national movement to bring this to life nationwide and globally, because there’s also global interest. This is not an issue that’s just in America, it’s across the world. 

Amy: I want to bring it back to you personally for a second because as you’re telling me these stories and you’re talking about memory building, I very much hear your parents in all of this, both in the multi-hyphenate part, but in the generosity of documenting the personal story in order to share the narrative. And you talked about your childhood and feeling othered and navigating that from a really young age. And I’m wondering where you would place that now, in your current existence? How does feeling othered still feature in your daily life and how does it interrelate with other states of community and belonging? 

Idris: Yeah, I think that feeling of otherness, I think was because I was living in a white dominant point of view in a world. My world was going to school, there were three other people of color and that was my reality. I think my life growing up was dominated during school by a really Eurocentric point of view and that was the reality I was living in. And so that really caused me to not have a grasp on my identity sometimes or to doubt my identity and my culture, because that’s not the norm of what I was seeing every day outside of my home and my family, but the majority of time was spent in school. And so I think now I flipped it on the head and it’s like, I’m embracing the otherness and I’m building for… I don’t necessarily view it as otherness, and I feel like that point of view of otherness was because of my environment at that moment in time. And now I feel connected to a community across the globe that I’m building for and with and in terms of who I’m doing this for, it’s for my community and it’s not really considerate of others at this point in time. 

I feel like if we build for the liberation of Black communities, I think that will trickle down to other areas and other people and if we focus on those whose stories are under told and focus on that energy of us together, that will translate. We don’t necessarily need to… a lot of people ask me, why don’t you talk about white history, which I don’t really… Black history, white history, I think it’s all a history and we should avoid viewing it that way. But there’s also situations of why aren’t you thinking about changing folks minds who are Trump supporters, or why have you not changed people’s minds who aren’t a part of your community? And I was like, if we make compelling stories and focus on building it for the right people, those will touch the people that it needs to touch. There’s an example in our app was banned from the school district in North Carolina in 2021, we were building a series of monuments with the City of Winston-Salem, which was a beautiful great experience, but the teachers in this district were trying to bring in folk to be brought into their schools and the board sort of…denied that motion because they were worried about the backlash that it would receive from parents. 

And so from me it’s like, we can… let’s build for us, for us, by us, FUBU, and the rest will happen. And so there’s not necessarily any more feeling of otherness, but a feeling of togetherness and it’s a duty to allow that togetherness to shine in all these different forms. And so it’s also, I think, why the collaboration is a big key, because want to do this in community and really break down the isolation that folks are feeling and even though physically you might not be together, if folks are seeing the representation, they will receive that. I think we did a Tribeca, someone spent 20 minutes at our exhibition, which doesn’t take more than 10 minutes, and she was tearing and crying because she hadn’t seen the story of Sojourner Truth talked about in such a joyous way. And so there’s also an aspect of what are the narratives that can really bring us together? I think trauma is something that while it does bond folks, I think it can be divisive and it’s not uplifting. And so we also like to, even though we’re talking about really difficult topics, building with that joy and that imagination and play as well is super inviting and it’s super great at making community and making people feel represented. So there’s an identity piece of this as well as like we want to be able to help people recognize that they are in the community, which is why these stories are so important. 

Amy: I love everything, I love it all. It has been a joy. I have spent the last few days of my life just digging into your work and researching everything that you’re doing and it has been enriching for me, just to spend my time doing that and becoming so inspired by what…

Idris: I appreciate that. 

Amy: What you can build with your imagination and so thank you so much for sharing this time with me, for sharing your story with me, for the work that you’re doing in the world and for all the things that I’m excited to see come from Kinfolk Foundation, because I do feel really hopeful about what’s on the horizon. And I just want to put as much wind in your sails as I possibly can because it’s fucking cool what you’re doing. (Laughs) It’s really cool. 

Idris: Thank you, thank you for the good energy, thank you for the good energy, I really appreciate that and I appreciate the time having me on, it was a pleasure talking to you. 

Amy: Hey, thanks so much for listening for a transcript of this episode, and more about Idris including links, and images of his work - head to our website - cleverpodcast.com. While you’re there, check out our Resources page for books, info, and special offers from our guests, partners, and sponsors. And sign-up for our monthly substack. If you like Clever, there are a number of ways you can support us: - share Clever with your friends, leave us a 5 star rating, or a kind review, support our sponsors, and hit the follow or subscribe button in your podcast app so that our new episodes will turn up in your feed. We love to hear from you on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter X - you can find us @cleverpodcast and you can find me @amydevers. Clever is hosted & produced by me, Amy Devers, with editing by Mark Zurawinski, production assistance from Ilana Nevins and Anouchka Stephan and music by El Ten Eleven. Clever is a proud member of the Surround podcast network. Visit surroundpodcasts.com to discover more of the Architecture and Design industry’s premier shows.

---

The Monuments Project, 2022. General Toussaint Louverture on Columbus Circle

Tourmaline - Alien Superstar, part of Kinfolks’ Signature Series

Manuel Mock, from Tribeca Film Festival

Hank Willis Thomas - All Power to All People, part of Kinfolk’s Signature Series

---

Clever is produced and hosted by Amy Devers with editing by Mark Zurawinski, production assistance from Ilana Nevins and Anouchka Stephan, and music by El Ten Eleven.

---

Keep Listening