By Mariam Keita ’24
Arts & Entertainment Editor
From a young age, Kay Brown ’24 has had an affinity for the arts. As a Black woman, she often did not see herself represented in the fields she was interested in. Using her Southern roots and a passion for racial justice dialogue as her inspiration, Brown launched the e-magazine “Disturbance” in August 2020. The Mount Holyoke News recently met with Brown to ask her some questions about the last six months of publication and what the future might hold for “Disturbance.”
Editor’s note: The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Mariam Keita: So I understand that you run a web magazine called “Disturbance.” What can you tell me about it?
Kay Brown: “Disturbance” was an idea I was sitting on since high school. I felt like there was a strong need for representation, and also to explore the arts and activism and politics hand in hand. The arts have always been very powerful to me. Sometimes even I need to remind myself that the arts can create real change. That’s what I tried to do with “Disturbance.”
MK: You said that you thought it was important to create representation. Representation for whom?
KB: “Disturbance” focuses primarily on Black artists. It’s really hard when you’re passionate about something, but you feel like your art form doesn’t love you back, or you can’t see any representation or anyone else who looked like you before you. I research and actively seek out other artists of color who have come before me and before other people in those areas [to] encourage [others] to keep going because representation and the lack of our presentation can cause someone to change their career path or not pursue something.
MK: Who all is involved with “Disturbance” right now?
KB: Right now it’s me. And my sisters helped me with graphics because we’re all kind of artistic. My mom was an English teacher for 13 years, and she’s a writer and editor so she edits a lot of stuff. And, like, I would like to take submissions and have it be more collaborative, but that takes a larger following. We have to build that up first before anything else could happen.
MK: You’re a first-year student, and you spent a year abroad before enrolling at MHC. Can you tell me a little bit more about what you did during that time?
KB: I went to Florianópolis, Brazil, in the state of Santa Catarina, which is a really white space. Not a lot of Afro Brazilians. I was there for almost a full year. I came back to South Carolina in March of 2020, because of the pandemic, and I’ve been here ever since. When I was in Brazil, we had internships [and] everyone was matched up with a host family. I lived in a community called Barra da Lagoa, which is a historical fishing community. I worked in engineering [and] sustainable environmental things because that was really the path I thought I was going to go on in high school. I worked in the water quality analysis lab at the Federal University of Santa Catarina. I think I got there in August, I started working in September and I think by November I realized that I didn’t really want to be in a lab all day. It’s something I still care about — environmentalism and sustainability. But I feel like I can explore it and I’ll be more passionate about it if it’s through the arts.
MK: What else were you able to explore while you were in Brazil?
KB: When I wasn't working, I pretty much got to do whatever I want[ed]. I joined an Afro Brazilian bloco, which is like a group of people who are dancing … and playing instruments [together]. We got to perform [at the Brazil] Carnival, which was around this time last year. So that was really fun. It got me involved in like, … Afro Brazilian activism and politics. That was also a really pivotal moment where I saw the arts being used to disturb the peace. We were literally using our song that one of my block leaders created and singing a song about Afro Brazilian resistance. That was a really big full-circle moment. It’s like, they’re literally disturbing the peace through their artwork, and it was really great. I also did capoeira, which is like Afro Brazilian martial arts dancing that the slaves used to do to defend themselves.
MK: I heard you say that this form of dance that you learned was an example of the arts being used to disturb the peace. How are you using the word “disturb” in that sense?
KB: “Disturbance” is inspired by a James Baldwin quote that says, “Artists are here to disturb the peace,” and when I’m writing pieces for “Disturbance,” or writing social media posts or just like, looking at new artists, I think of the word “disturb” as anything that is comfortable that people have gotten complacent with. In Brazil, and with the bloco, there’s this idea of racial democracy, and it happened really quickly after they abolished slavery. They never had a civil rights movement for Black people. There’s this idea that, like, you put your country before your race even though there’s still systemic racism. By performing and dancing, we were disturbing the assumed space of protection and peace that Brazil has tried to, like, play off.
MK: So with “Disturbance” the magazine — You named it that way in order to embody some of that spirit?
KB: Yeah, definitely. I think that’s like, one of the things about art that’s really empowering, is that it can disturb the peace. Artists are, like, the greatest architects of society because if anything, artists can change the consciousness or help to shape the consciousness that then empowered people will get to see. People who can maybe more directly change systems, like in law, will be impacted by that.
MK: Where do you see yourself, ideally, one year from now?
KB: Ideally, one year from now, we w[ill] have had our first collaborative issue come out. I’m also really into podcasts. I listen to a lot of podcasts, and I feel like the podcasts would be really cool to pursue. Maybe those are like, my two goals.
MK: Are there other e-magazines from which you’ve been able to draw inspiration during these last six months?
KB: Rookie magazine was started by Tavi Gevinson. Rookie magazine was online but then they also had this big yearbook they used to come out with. There’s also this other online magazine called The Messy Heads. I just followed them on Instagram. They also had an online form and a print version. More recently, changing womxn collective is a really cool platform, but also an online magazine. You scroll through their website and it’s like, “Okay, here’s prose,” or like, “[Here’s] essays, here's visual arts,” and everything’s kind of separate together. I really like their formatting. I also take a lot of [inspiration from] other people in the artistic world. Kimberly Drew is a really great curator and writer. And they actually graduated from Smith College. So yay, Seven Sisters! Kimberly is really cool, and they just published or co-authored a book called “Black Futures.” When they were in college, they started a Tumblr page to like, share more about art.
MK: Which piece that you’ve published so far have you been the most proud of?
KB: I released a piece analyzing a song called “Baby, It's Cold Outside” on Christmas Eve. It’s kind of funny because I was talking to my mom about it and it’s like, “Oh, Merry Christmas, look at how this Christmas song is actually lowkey about coercion and not respecting boundaries and consent.” I feel like that’s “Disturbance” in a nutshell. It’s like, you think everything is okay. And you feel like there’s some peace happening, but if you dig deep enough, you’ll realize that everything is a little bit disturbed. And it’s okay to call that out. … My senior quote was by Lucille Clifton, who’s one of my favorite poets. Clifton said, “I come to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” I thought this was a really good mantra because a lot of people don’t like to call things out, but you kind of have to.
MK: If other people were interested in writing for “Disturbance,” how would they go about doing that?
KB: On our website, we have the “Contact Us” page. And that can be found on our social media. So right now we're not looking for any contributors, but in the future, it will be on “Disturbance”’s website. Any announcements about that will probably be made on social media.
To find out more about “Disturbance,” visit disturbanceemag.com.