About Tiki

INTERVIEW WITH TIKI PATHER BY AUDREY JIGGETTS, 11/22/2024

So for the record, could you say your name, class year and major? 

Okay. My name is Tiki, or Tarika, I’m a 2025J senior and I’m double majoring in Architecture and Africana Studies. 

So cool! Okay, so an introduction question we had was media you have been into lately… whatever that looks like for you.

I love, like, boiler room sets. [laughs] I listen to those often. I’m a big piano fan…I listen to that when I get homesick, like DJ sets. I spend a lot of time on Pinterest. Lots of time on Pinterest. I also love mapping. People do just like, the most amazing kind of speculative mapping, like when it comes to representing things that are more abstract and felt, which I love. And also like..the fashion on Pinterest as well. So yeah, that’s kind of where I’m at lately. My social media I’ve basically taken off my phone because it’s distracting me and I have a lot to do. But actually, I was on Reddit recently and I was on the mycology side of Reddit, and that was amazing. I was tweaking over that [laughs] I was showing all my friends like. “We need to go to the forest right now! I need to find a mushroom that looks like that!”

Reddit is my guilty pleasure!

Reddit’s lowkey really good. I was always like oh my god, only freaks are on Reddit, but recently I’ve been like there’s actually some cool forums. Not everyone on there is fucked up.

Exactly! Okay, so, how would you describe yourself? Artist, musician, writer, whatever word you would use to describe yourself. 

I used to identify as like an artist, before I got into architecture. But I'd probably say a word I resonate with is responsibility, in terms of my career path and what I create…like the trajectory. Because I think that like, there are two kinds of ways I create. There’s like the jewelry and the fun cute stuff..which like…is fun. But when it comes to stuff that I’m basing my life upon, a lot of my work is more political. So I’d say I don’t super know how to describe myself, but I resonate with the word responsibility, and kind of thinking about reorienting architectural work.

Do you want to talk more about what you’re interested in on a bigger scale, besides just jewelry?

Well, the reason I decided to pursue Architecture and Africana studies was because I worked at an architecture firm right after high school in Johannesburg, and it was all women of color. It was a very rare kind of space. They were doing really political architectural work, working with NGOs, black and brown people, and low-income people. It was very research based and mind blowing to me. My perspective of architecture before that point had been very much like, “it is a blueprint and about building,” and I hadn’t thought as much about it as the politics of space and what it means to claim a space. I was thoroughly inspired and like…in love with it. And then I came to Smith, like “okay! Architecture!!!!” and I took an architecture class with a white professor, and was like “yo…what the actual fuck? [laughs]

[Laughs]

It was really apolitical and bizarre. And so I dropped architecture for a long time and then I found Africana studies, which was great. But as time went on I was like okay, I can just get some of the design skills even if I’m not gonna get the theoretical and political stuff. I’ll suffer through the architecture classes which I don’t enjoy [laughs] and get the political stuff from Africana studies. That’s the kind of work I’m interested in, like fields of architecture practice like forensic architecture. They’re an activist agency that works with people who have been victims of state violence or police brutality to curate visual evidence. There's really fascinating political architectural work and that’s what I’m interested in. 

Wow. Okay. Awesome! [Laughs] So, why did you choose the specific pieces you submitted?

Um…well the jewelry stuff I submitted because I do like to make things, on a basal level. I think it’s interesting because before I became more politically aware, I was just creating for creating’s sake, and that took up a lot of time. But when other stuff started to bear more of a weight on my life, that fell to the wayside…which is okay! I haven’t made jewelry in a while because of that. There are more important things going on. I am into fashion though, and it was cool to teach myself how to do that over a few years. I started a small business in 2019, just for jests, because I was bored, but over the years and COVID I watched a bunch of tutorials. That was cool, like a long protracted process of learning how to make jewelry.

The Winnie Mandela drawing is more personal, because that was from when she passed away in 2018. It’s just crazy because if you speak to people about Winnie Mandela a lot of people will be like, “oh, she’s a contested figure, she’s such a complicated figure, blah blah blah.” But really Winnie Mandela was just a really radical Black woman who gave up absolutely everything. It’s crazy because there was this smear campaign, post-Apartheid. Winnnie Mandela was too radical for the new government, the ANC. She didn’t wanna make deals with the new white government. So they said she was a murderer, they called her a witch, and it was all over the media. It poisoned the well for her and her image; people really demonized her. So when she died, and it was proven that there was a smear campaign, it broke my heart. I spent a long time on that piece- it’s actually pretty huge. I was in boarding school at the time, and it was a very personal and meaningful piece for me. 

Yeah it’s so beautiful. What medium was that again?

Pen and gouache. 

In general, what mediums do you prefer to work in and why?

I really like pen. I used to just do pencil, because I was insecure [laughs] and I wanted to be able to erase it. But yeah, when I do draw I mainly use pen. But the main way I create now is digitally. Which…in a way is a loss. It doesn’t feel as tactical and isn’t the same. But what I do like about digital media, which I think is in the Cromwell piece that I sent through, is that you can do more. It’s pretty expansive. So yeah, pen, digital, adobe and stuff. I also make stuff with clay, and I solder, and use chainmail. 

Beautiful. Lots of different things, huh.

Yeah I used to oil paint, which was fun. But oil painting is so tedious. Not in terms of the medium itself but the smell…the vapors…I used to oil paint in a random place in my house and everyone would be like, “you need to stop. Like it smells terrible and it’s giving everyone a headache.” So definitely the more easily accessible tools are my go-tos, yeah. 

Do you collage on Adobe? Or what do you use digital spaces for?

Mostly for mapping. A lot of the digital designs are really spacial, and clearly more distinguishable as maps or diagrams. An example in my portfolio is a horizontal diagram of these two museums, which are both connected by the John J lineage in New York. The Met, and then these museums in France, the Musee de L’Homme…I’m probably butchering that. But yeah, just talking about how violence connects these two spaces and how there’s one settler lineage that’s present. I mean, it’s crazy. The J’s were so involved with creating the Met, and then they were also in Paris in the 1800’s signing treaties. There’s this crazy story about when they trafficked an enslaved woman to Paris and…it sounds super convoluted and hard to explain without the visuals, but that diagram is a visual representation of the overarching violence of museum spaces and settler lineage, and how that interacts with physical space. 

So interesting. And…how do you feel your identity as a person of color intersects or interacts with your work?

Hmm…

I mean, I guess you’ve been talking about it…[laughs]

Yeah, I mean I’m trying to write this fucking grad school application right now and they are like, “what is one experience that has pushed you into applying for architecture?” And what I’m extensively trying to say, which links back to this question, is that growing up in South Africa….I mean especially in Johannesburg…it’s a very contested space, politically, racially, in a gendered way and economically. I was born six years after Apartheid ended. The very clear spatial injustice around me was something that politicized me and got in my head from when I was very young. I didn’t have the language, and I didn’t realize it was political or racial until maybe I was in my young teens.

Also, in South Africa people talk about race all the time. It can be good, because everything is racialized, but it can also be a lot. And sometimes it’s like, “wait what the hell are you saying?” [laughs] It’s a very complicated space, but it’s also very inspiring. The way people have fought for their rights and to claim their space…there’s a lot of joy in South Africa but there’s also a lot of suffering. That tension and that complex society really shaped me, and allowed me to like…question things, question systems and talk about race. That is definitely the Africana studies path.

When I got to Smith and I started taking Africana studies classes it was like…of course I’m gonna major in this. How my identity falls into the more artistic part though; I was always a creative kid, but then I started to become more aware. I use the word responsibility again, because I started to realize that yeah, I’m a brown person but I have privileges. I’m lower middle class, I went to school, I always had food even if that was sometimes a little bit of a struggle. I understood that I had a certain responsibility with the work I was going to do. Even though I think visual art has an impact in the world and can be active, it didn’t feel active enough for me. Which is why I was like, okay. Let’s look at architecture. So yeah. Very drawn out answer- [laughs].

No, it's awesome! Seriously…just so interesting. I mean, being from here I hear the same perspectives over and over again. Obviously you don’t have to go to another part of the world to hear a different perspective but…

Yeah! And it’s so weird, because the racial politics in the U.S and South Africa, they have some resonances, but they are also so different. Even with the U.S. it’s so massive that even from state to state there can be a very big variance in the way people refer to themselves or talk about other people. An example is like, I had a conversation with a friend the other day and I called them brown and they didn’t identify as brown, and it was interesting because our perspectives on identity and the racialization in our own minds was not the same. Kind of crazy…[laughs].

It’s weird!! [laughs]

It is weird! That’s the thing, at the end of the day it’s fucking absurd and made-up. I mean, it has a huge impact materially and spirituality on people’s lives but it is made-up. 

In what way do you feel that your work has changed since arriving at Smith?

Umm..

If it has.

It definitely has. I have grown so much since I came to Smith. My peers and professors I’m super indebted and grateful to and for all they’ve taught me. It’s crazy, when I got here I thought I was so with it, but there was a lot I didn’t know! And of course now there’s still a lot I don’t know, but I think I had no clue as to how much I didn't know, and how much I would find out. Learning all that I have in Africana studies especially, like the critical theory and queer theory and my experiences being in a queer space, really have deepened the more speculative/theoretical/political side of my work. I definitely feel there’s a lot more depth there. Also, the research skills have been great. I’ve really learned how to become a little mole. I’m in the archives, I’m online, I’m digging [laughs]. But yeah the research skills have been amazing because they really add to the work and they make the work more than just a visual representation. It’s actually grounded in something.

[whispers] So. Cool. 

Thanks [laughs].

[Laughs]. Do you have any advice that you would give to a younger artist or…to use your words, responsible creator?

Um…I think it’s so important to push your vision, not on other people necessarily but in your own life, even if it’s not resonant with where you’re at. For example my experiences at Smith where I was like, this architecture is not the kind of architecture I want to do, and I got really jaded. I’m really glad I didn’t give up though, and that I ended up pursuing that kind of creative work through other channels, whether it was an anthropology course or an Africana studies course. If you have a vision and you want to grow it but you feel like you’re trapped in this superstructure, believing in yourself and making it happen is important. I think making and creating is really huge, and especially for people of color it can mean many things, and be active in the world in different ways. Even if it’s just personal, creating is important and making space for that is important. 

If you could meet any artist, or person in whatever field feels more important to you, who would it be? Alive or dead?

I’m thinking about this theorist in black studies and geography, Katherine Mikitrick. She wrote Black Geographies and Demonic Grounds. She’s freaking amazing, based in Canada. I read a bunch of her work for the Cromwell project, and I’m like in awe of her. I would love to have a conversation with her. Her kind of theories are really powerful and prescient in more political and architectural circles so I would love to just be able to like sit down and chat with her. 

Does she ever come to schools?

I mean, she’s prolific, so she must have visited different colleges but I don’t think she’s ever visited Smith. 

We’ve gotta get on that. Very quick, before you leave. [laughs].

[Laughs] True! Y’all need to rally to get her here, she’s so cool. 

Before we end, do you have anything else you feel is important to talk about?

I would love to chat a little about the Cromwell [fellowship]. I’m super grateful that I got the Cromwell from the Africana studies department to do some research over the summer. The project was basically looking at how the communication of South African activists during Apartheid, the prison communications specifically formed these kinds of meta-geographies that worked beyond the traditional geographies of apartheid. Like, the way that letters would be able to travel over prison walls, even though the body was still enclosed. Doing that research and also trying to visualize that in designs was really powerful and amazing to do and I’m so grateful that the Africana studies department facilitated that. It was a lot of reading, going to archives, going to museums, designing…it was really great. Very deeply touching. Oh! Actually another thing I wanted to add onto advice for creators at Smith was that there are opportunities, if you look in the right places. You just gotta be…doggin about it! [laughs] You gotta go for it! But you can get funding, and you can do cool things. I’ll end it there.