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ART AND ACTIVISM PG
ART AND ACTIVISM
For UO junior Mikalo Arenas, art is both a direct form of activism and a way to express themselves and recover from burnout following activist work.
BY NIKA BARTOO-SMITH• TWITTER @BARTOONIKA
UO junior Mikalo Arenas wants to be able to send a message to the masses through their art — "to have it be felt within the soul and stay with the people is the goal," they said. "And art can provide this."
Arenas is majoring in women, gender and sexuality studies and minoring in both theater and sociology. They are Crow Indian and Mexican and, for them, art and activism surrounding their identities are linked to each other. They use art both as a direct form of activism and a form of self-care to tend to the burnout that often accompanies activist work.
“Art gives me the ability to reconnect with my voice. Whenever I am unable to find the right words to explain something, I go to art,” Arenas said.
Painting and written word are the two art forms that Arenas is currently most drawn to. They tend to decide in the moment which medium will best express their thoughts and emotions.
Arenas also models or “presents” themself authentically to the world. Modeling is a form of radical self-love, especially for someone who defies gender norms, they said.
“It also is a form of letting the world know that we are still here, as Native beings. I am thriving and I am living and I am loving,” Arenas said. “Against all the odds I have still somehow made a way to love and to live.”
Pursuing a minor in Theater Arts, Arenas has spent lots of time in the theater department at UO. The theater department is very White, and they often feel tokenized as a non-binary Person of Color, Arenas said. In one costume class, they were told that they needed to shave their face to apply make up and continue with the class. They felt like their experience was erased in that moment, as someone who already did makeup and knew it is very possible with facial hair.
“There’s a lot of tokenising within the theater community,” Arenas said. “As a non-binary person, someone who defies the status quo of gender, being looked at and asked specific questions about that.”
This is not the only experience Arenas has had at UO that made them frustrated with the university.
“UO for me has always been a soul crushing experience,” Arenas said. “It will always be a soul crushing experience, being a BIPOC person within a colonial institution that is not made for you.”
Arenas cited the Pioneer and Pioneer Mother statues as a reminder that the campus is built on colonialism. They smiled as they talked about the statues being taken down last year.
Land acknowledgements – the recognition that the land was originally inhabited by Indigenous people – at UO and on people’s Instagram bios, bother Arenas. They said that land acknowledgements can be a problematic form of “modern erasure” when done incorrectly.
“If you are going to acknowledge the genocide of a people, you need to put more time and effort and emotions into that,” Arenas said, referring to short land acknowledgements before events on campus. “Not just something that you feel like you need to do so people don’t yap at you.”
One of the main ways Arenas processes their emotions, especially related to activism, is through their art. In one poem, “Conversations with the Moon,” Arenas describes the pain and sadness experienced in their life.
“Constantly being conditioned by colonizers / Has felt like I was forced into hibernation / Like my soil has gone rotten from years of contamination,” Arenas wrote.
For Arenas, part of both art and activism is being radically authentic, especially through “my words, my aesthetic, my being, how I dress myself, my gender,” they said.
“BIPOC people, we don’t have the ability to choose whether or not we are activists,” Arenas said. “That is something that was chosen for us.”
Mikalo Arenas stands outside of the Miller Theatre Complex where they participate in the University of Oregon Theatre Arts program on May 4, 2021. Arenas, a third year women, gender and sexuality studies major, uses their passion for poetry, modeling, theatre and fine art as a means of activism for the issues that they are passionate about (Isaac Wasserman/Emerald).
Campus Creatives is a weekly column by A&C reporter Nika Bartoo-Smith that highlights unique and talented members of the UO community. If you know someone who should be featured — whether they started their own business, run a podcast or just love to dance — email Nika at nbartoosmith@dailyemerald. com or or Tweet her @BartooNika.
Conversations With The Moon
My chest is heavy while my limbs feel chained. Vivid senses accompanied by a blurred vision. Wide awake while hope dims As life becomes a grim prison. It's from this deceiving dream, that I believe And the tempting embrace of slumber Into which woes I'd sought to relieve.
Tied down by the limbs, At my chest too; there is no escape. I begin to hear the grim hymns Of that light figure, whose shape Embraces my brain - I can't breathe! More than my mind, at times, it will invade. All I can do is hope to be free.
It all feels so real. Being in a constant pin, as these horrors Make way with such zeal. I can't seem to scream, despite the tortures. Breathing heavily, I try to move, Watching what else the white figure conjures. It's for these nightmares, I long to sleep.
On the nights when I lie still in my bed, I dance with fellow Crow Indians inside my own head. I stuff my dreams all plump with bushels of dread and I sigh when they smother the sprout of hope that grows in my head.
There are nights when I cry for all those I’ve met that only live to experience death, I wail and I wish that people would cherish their breath. Most evenings I feel cold and alone, clinging to my wall in hope to create my own home- with a gamine girl in a fantasy dome; us trapped together forever. I stay up most nights until times beyond reason, constantly thinking of conversational treason, of things that I’ve planted directly in loam, that ever still refuse to grow.
Constantly being conditioned by colonizers, Has felt like I was forced into hibernation. Like my soil has gone rotten from years of contamination. I will always try my best to grow a new creation. In hope that maybe one day, We may finally get our long awaited vacation.
-MIKALO ARENAS
