Sell Out is a series by interdisciplinary artist Angela Fama (she/they), who co-creates conversations with individual artists across Vancouver. Questioning ideas of artistry, identity, “day jobs,” and how they intertwine, Fama settles in with each artist (at a local café of their choice) and asks the same series of questions. With one roll of medium format film, Fama captures portraits of the artist after their conversations.

In the Vancouver spoken word scene, Johnny Trinh, Vancouver Poetry House artistic director, is well known for reminding poets and audiences that “it takes a community to raise an artist.” As a veteran of many poetry shows in Vancouver and throughout the country, I have had many opportunities to ruminate on the meaning of this phrase; in particular, its invocation of the collective as the inherent foundation by which a poet, or any type of artist, nurtures the sort of self and worldly awareness that makes artistry viable and valuable. I am also reminded of author and cultural critic bell hooks’ assertion: “I think that part of what a culture of domination has done is raise that romantic relationship up as the single most important bond, when of course the single most important bond is that of community.”