Theaster Gates discusses two of the four rooms in Assembly Hall, one featuring ephemera from the Johnson Publishing Company Collection—including furniture, art, and magazines from the publisher of Jet and Ebony magazines—and the other selections from the Ana J. and Edward J. Williams Collection of “negrobilia.” “I hope one day these objects disintegrate, both physically and emotionally,” he says, “that instead with have this truth of equity, this truth of dignity.”

In this new Artspeaks video, choreographer Meg Stuart discusses the source material and ideas that drive her dances: from how thoughts move to physical and emotional states, subtle geometries, and gestures.

Spanning disciplines of theater, performance, music, and visual art, Rabih Mroué’s work engages with the contemporary politics of the Middle East and the enmeshed history of discord in the region, often drawing from his personal experience of the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990). Here, Mroué discusses a trio of projects presented at the Walker: Again we are defeated, a gallery presentation of visual works; the lecture-performance Sand in the Eyes, and Borborygmus, a theater work by Mroué, Lina Majdalanie, and Mazen Kerbaj.

A key aspect of Jason Moran’s career as a jazz musician and visual artist has been research, including poring over archival photos of stages at legendary jazz clubs of decades past. “But they were never enough to satisfy my urge to feel what it was like to sit inside one.” As his Walker-organized exhibition travels to the Wexner Center for the Arts, we share video of Moran discussing the stages he recreated—both as art objects and as performance spaces within the galleries—from the Savoy Ballroom, the Three Deuces, and Slugs’ Saloon.

Occupying a space between performance and visual art, Maria Hassabi’s work explores stillness and sustained motion. In Minneapolis to present STAGING in the Walker galleries, she discussed how her sculptural movement installations examine the tension between the human form and the artistic object.

Visiting a casino in the early 1980s, Ericka Beckman was struck by the “use of human value” on display: white gamblers in elevated seats placing bets on a jai-alai game played by Mexicans in a pit below. In a new interview Beckman discusses You The Better (1983/2015), a video informed by that visit that explores chance and capitalism through game play.

Created by adhering shimmering stainless-steel skins to the surfaces of four 400-million-year-old stones, Jim Hodges’s sculptural boulders capture and cast sunlight, creating an effect that is both monumental and airy. The artist discusses his work Untitled (2011), a new addition to the Walker hillside, with executive director Olga Viso.

Inspired by the profile of Minneapolis’s IDS Center, Tom Burr’s Zog examines dualities of inside and out, playing architect Philip Johnson’s hard-edged corporate facades against his softer domestic architecture and personal story—“a mid-century homosexual who lived in a glass house.”

Claes Oldenburg demonstrates multiple configurations of Geometric Mouse, part of the exhibition Claes Oldenburg: The Sixties at the Walker Art Center.

Artist Keith Edmier discusses the kitchen from his work Bremen Towne (2006–2007), part of the exhibition Lifelike.

“As an abstract painter, I work with things that I cannot see. Google has mapped the whole earth. We have maps of Mars. We do not have a map of the soul, and that intrigues me.” To commemorate Whitten’s passing on January 20, 2018 at age 78, we revisit his reflection on Soul Map (2015), a large-scale acrylic collage that offers a poignant cartography of the invisible.

Artist Andrea Büttner and the Walker’s Fionn Meade and Peter Hannah discuss the meaning, maintenance, and cultivation of a delicate moss garden within the galleries of Andrea Büttner, the artist’s first US solo exhibition.

Daniel Eatock discusses his work Felt-Tip Prints (2011), part of the Walker Art Center’s exhibition Graphic Design: Now in Production.

“You want people to see something that is important, and it’s your job as an artist to focus that somehow.” Inside his studio in El Segundo, California, Allen Ruppersberg discusses the roles collecting and copying play in his practice—and how ephemera, from old comic strips and advertising signage to historical materials from the Walker Art Center Archives, makes its way into his art.

“I wanted to make something about what moves us from being stagnant and stationary to being active and involved, and recognizing that we are always participating in this world.” In this new video, choreographer Faye Driscoll draws on her Thank You For Coming trilogy to reflect on the relationship between the performer and audience and the way in which the theatrical stage can create a space of temporary community.