The Art of Identity

Nick and Christine had the privilege of sitting down with Amanda Chestnut on our most recent podcast Episode 128. Chestnut is an artist, community advocate, curator of In This Moment, and an overall dynamic Rochester resident.

Listeners may remember Chestnut from episode 121 of our podcast when we spoke with Chestnut and Jeanne Strazzabosco about In This Moment. Chestnut has a thirty-year history in the arts and works in various mediums including ceramics, photography, and other types of multimedia. They also incorporate special elements in their pieces such as their own hair or needlepoint work.

“I've had people who know more about art than me describe me as a conceptual artist. I never really came up in one specific medium,” says Chestnut.

This wide-lens approach to the arts has allowed them to explore themes of race, identity, and community in ways unique in the wider Rochester area. Several years ago Chestnut also produced AFRICAN AMERICANS, CIVIL RIGHTS, JESSE OWENS a book/archival box that, according to the Visual Studies Workshop website, “re-claims the other-ness of Black photographic subjects as well as the innumerable attempts to personally other the Black artist and [their] family for much of [their] life.” 

The project incorporates poetry, archived photos of African Americans, modern photographs, and much more to form a type of  “meditation on race and memory and history and where all of those things overlap and intersect with each other and how things have changed but not changed,” remarks Chestnut. “The second edition, I'm hoping, will actually have some . . . newspaper ephemera in it as well.”

Chestnut also has a deep investment in the wider Rochester area arts community and was instrumental in founding Roc Arts United:

“Roc Arts United envisions the greater Rochester region as one in which government, education, business, and residents recognize and support the artists and small arts organizations—in all their diversity— as a key component of a healthy, vibrant, and equitable community with access for all.”

Chestnut also serves on various committees around the area advocating for the amplification and support of the Black community and Black artists. Learn more about Chestnut in this latest podcast, and find them on instagram @blk_amanda.