IN MY HOUSE
At home with
Salome Asega.
ISSUE 1: THE UN/MAKING ISSUEMoving from an apartment to a home was a big deal for us as an immigrant family. I was born and raised in Las Vegas, and we lived on one of these suburban blocks where all the homes are copies of each other. What stands out to me the most in my memory is our backyard—it was this lush place that my father tended to. In the desert, he was interested in figuring out how to grow things, so first, it was grass, and then it moved to fruits and vegetables. I remember how proud we were to have grown our first watermelon and strawberries. We also had a volleyball net and would play volleyball as a family in the backyard.
In this memory, there are lots of sandalwood and tobacco-type smells, which are actually all of the candles I have in my current apartment. There's also a lot of food. My mom was very into making cactus juice blends. She loves a mango-cactus juice blend, which makes me feel like I'm back home. I even have a little cactus tattooed on my inner arm. When I drink it, I'm like, "it's health!"
I live in Bed-Stuy. I'm biased, but it's my favorite neighborhood in New York. It's so gorgeous—nothing beats summertime in Bed-Stuy for me. I've lived in the neighborhood since 2009. It was the first place I moved to after dorm life in college, and I've lived in the same five-block radius since then.
The brownstone I live in is the home I had dreamed of. I also love it for the stoop. My neighborhood has always been so community-oriented. Every morning, everyone comes out with their coffee or tea, and we give each other tips on alternate-side parking rules. We're like, "Have the ticket people come?" And then, every evening around sunset, people come out. One of my neighbors plays music loudly, all the dogs are out, and we just yell at each other from across the street.
I love my neighborhood because it's always been so community-oriented. I'm on a block association that's pretty tight, and it's the same one that the Laundromat Project is part of, and I'm an alumnus of that program. That's a space that feels very close to me.
My rising sign is in Virgo, so my home needs to be set up on day one! I need my soft seating. I need a media zone. I need all my kitchen appliances. Like, I need everything set! I have a cowhide sitting pouf that is traditionally Ethiopian, and it's a pouf you might sit on for coffee ceremonies. I have some ceramics that my mom made. They're all super abstract, and she signed the bottom of each one. When you turn the corner to the bathroom, you'll see my cowboy hats [laughs].
I also love designing and setting up my home in a way that expresses who I am, what I care about, and my values. I'm surrounded by many friends, by which I mean artworks. My walls are full of artwork made by friends, and it's a nice thing to come home to every day. When you walk in, the first artwork you see is a print by Nontsikelelo Mutiti, and I love seeing it every day.
I think a future ideal is to cultivate a space that is modular and can serve many purposes. Like, when I need it to be a wind-down space, it can be that. When I need it to be a turn-up space, it can be that. My home is very much about decompressing, but I love to see how it could serve more parts of myself. I want to introduce more good chaos into the home—good fun and good trouble can happen here.
So much of my personal art practice moves through a participatory design process, where I’m inviting people into the making of something, whether it’s a video, sculpture, or installation. Even then, in a studio practice, I’m hosting others. I think that just comes from me being a generally excited person, and I want to share what I’m curious about with other people. Hosting, programming, and workshops that bring people into a world we can co-design is definitely part of my practice.
I think for me, I was always more interested in the process of making with others than the final deliverable. I think the object or media piece that gets exhibited at the end is always beautiful and interesting. But the thing I’m more excited about is the road it took to get there with other people, which is sticky and hard and impossible to document or package. But it’s definitely where I think the core of the work is.
The key thing always is to make sure that the space you're designing or stewarding adapts to the many kinds of people who will be coming in and out. We each have our individual roles, but we're all community stewards. We're there to take care of the NEW INC members, mentors, and alumni. I think we all practice a culture of hospitality. We're not just email people. When you walk in, we're like, "What's up?" We're playing music. There's always seltzer. We want it to feel comfortable.
Our core thesis at NEW INC is that when you put a bunch of multidisciplinary people who come from different sectors in the same room, catalytic things can happen. And so for us, it’s about serving as a match and letting people spark the flame in our space. That means that as stewards, we have to create the scaffolding for those catalytic things to happen. Some of it is really boring operational stuff—making sure that there's a booking system, making sure there's a space manual—so that all these things help set expectations for how people can engage. They're boring things, but important things that signal to people that this is my space too.
I’m lucky to have a team where no one has an ego. Everyone is there in service to members. Everyone really wants the members to win. And so if that’s our goal, then it’s okay to fall back and not feel like we have to micromanage the space. It’s there for you. It’s one of our offerings.