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Haley Robinson
206 Plays4 years ago
It was an immense pleasure to meet and speak with Plains Cree/Filipinx activist, model and video creator Haley Robinson. Haley is from Treaty 7 territory and we spoke about art, creativity, identity and the immediacy of video content to explore questions of identity.
You can also connect with Haley's work and causes here:
https://linktr.ee/og.robinson10
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host Ken Zalante. Editor and producer Peter Bauer.
00:00:18
Speaker
This is Ken Vellante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast, and I'm very excited to have Hailey Robinson on the show. She is somebody I really noticed on Instagram, her use of video, really engaging content, and really just a fascinating individual. So I said, Hailey, will you come on to the show? So we have Hailey Robinson, welcome to Something Rather Than Nothing.
00:00:48
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Oh, it's a great pleasure.
Early Creative Influences
00:00:53
Speaker
So the big question starting right off is, when you were born, Hailey, were you an artist?
00:01:02
Speaker
Honestly, I've always had a little bit of creativity in me. It wasn't until I hit, I'd say maybe when I was five, I started getting into piano lessons and dance lessons. And so I started like creating my own like dances and creating songs and music. I'm not the best, but I always tried my darnedest. And so do you think like you had just,
00:01:29
Speaker
when when when folks are born that you know like there's an artistic or a creative component uh to to everybody or you you got a you got a bigger piece of that i think it depends honestly it sounds crazy to say this but i feel like it's passed down like i was adopted and honestly my adoptive family isn't a huge musical family they tried as well but
00:01:59
Speaker
They weren't the greatest musical people. And when I met my bio family, it wasn't until I found out my bio dad is a drummer, a guitarist in a band and everything. And I was like, oh my gosh, like that makes sense to why I just absolutely loved music. And I felt so connected to music and wanting to play it.
00:02:19
Speaker
and everything. So I'm lucky that my adoptive mom did put me into music, but it wasn't because she loved music herself. It was because I wanted to try it.
Creating Engaging Content
00:02:30
Speaker
Yeah, you're a very expressive young person, I'd imagine. As a child. Well, yeah.
00:02:40
Speaker
Hailey, I wanted to just acquaint folks with who you are and the content that I referenced. When I chatted with you briefly, I was mentioning that one of the pieces that drew my eye to your video content and TikTok content was this immediacy and this energy that you had. But it was also super engaging and at times confronting, which is
00:03:06
Speaker
something I like or I appreciate because I think that process is important. Can you just talk about your relationship with video and kind of how you create now and if there's something different about creating TikTok videos or that type of format in immediacy?
00:03:34
Speaker
It's definitely, it's different. It's kind of like a blog, but in a very short clip blog. So you have to be really careful about what you're posting or trying to put everything into one video. But it's a very creative outlet. You can get serious stories out there in a creative and fun way for people to want to watch.
00:03:56
Speaker
But yeah, I just mostly try and be me, just being me and sharing my story and hoping that people will understand and maybe someone who's going through the same thing will feel less alone because of what I'm posting.
Connecting Through Stories
00:04:15
Speaker
I just wanna be able to connect people, essentially, with what I'm posting.
00:04:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. One of the big topics you bring up and that I really enjoy for myself and thinking about is about identity. And I think a lot of times as humans, we're viewed a certain way or who are you and where do you come from, what's your race? And
00:04:46
Speaker
When you put forth that content, do you experience a useful back and forth with the audience as far as tackling those questions? Because they're big questions. I ask them for myself, class, and race. What happens for you? Is it a good reciprocal relationship that occurs?
00:05:13
Speaker
Mostly it's it's it is mostly good. Luckily. I haven't come across very malicious people so far which is very lucky on my part and it's mostly just a lot of people trying to reach out to me and help me as well because You know, I'm going into this world knowing nothing I have I don't really have a lot of family to support me on this journey or a lot of
00:05:37
Speaker
You know, I didn't have a lot of real life friends here supporting me. So it was all meeting people online and them coming to me and helping me or me coming to them and asking questions. And so it's been so far really, really lovely. As much as I don't love the internet, it's helped me connect and helped me on my journey. I actually had someone finding my bio dad's name
00:06:04
Speaker
um on like a creative voters list and I had absolutely no idea like what tribe I was from who I was and she just messaged me out of nowhere and she's like hey like this is your dad by the way and it's just like it's crazy to think that there's people out there also willing to help me just show rangers on the internet it's it's amazing yeah I mean it's and and I appreciate I appreciate what you know what what you had to say because I know that when you um
00:06:34
Speaker
uh You know bring up these these issues which is always easy to to to bring up like you're looking for the engagement and the understanding and Heck, there's a philosophy podcast.
Art as Everyday Life
00:06:45
Speaker
So we're supposed to be like, you know thinking about you know questions of of of Identity. Um, but anyways, I I really appreciate that I was my question was based on, you know what your experience has been and it's it's good to hear
00:06:58
Speaker
And of course, this provides the ability for us to be able to connect and have this conversation, which honestly wouldn't happen otherwise. So I just love that. All right, Haley, let me just go right to it. You're a gifted artist. What is art? What's art? What are you up to creating?
00:07:23
Speaker
to me art creating can be so far for me right now it's in my videos, but It used to be a vast majority of everything for me I had to kind of limit it because I have a really bad ADHD brain so I start on one project and then I'll start on another project while this one's unfinished and then go back and forth but art can be anything it could it's so subjective and so vast that
00:07:51
Speaker
you can't really put it down to one thing. And especially because everyone's opinions and minds are so different, you could ask somebody else what their opinion on art is and they could be like, oh, I think life is art. Or you could go to somebody else and be like, I think painting is art, right? Like it's very much, but personally for me too, I think in general, living your life is art. Everything around you is art. Yeah, well, yeah.
00:08:21
Speaker
Yeah, there's the art of living. I mean, there's been a lot of books, you know, along those lines. And I think these discussions for me are always so interested because I think a lot of times we drop back and say, like, living, like being able to live. I know what I hear a lot. I hear a parenting, right? Things that we don't normally think of, like the art and the decisions that go into
00:08:43
Speaker
You know an artful way of of of doing things now Your answer complicates my my my next question, which is okay but um, so we involved in art activity in in in In in you are as well and humans are but what is what is the role when we be in artful or doing art or how we're doing things what is the role of of art itself and
Art's Role During the Pandemic
00:09:11
Speaker
I say the role of art is essentially just it's bringing people together and connecting with something or feeling an emotion or just uniting people. That's the role of art is uniting people and creating an emotion or creating a connection with either the art itself or with the people looking at the art or experiencing the art.
00:09:36
Speaker
Yeah, arts, you know, the COVID pandemic, I've done most of the podcasts, you know, through that time. And when the pandemic first happened, I was like,
00:09:53
Speaker
why the hell am I going to talk about art? Like it was, you know, that kind of shock, right? Like at first, everybody was like, we're all going to die. Like, you know, at least I was. And so I was like, well, how am I going to talk about, you know, art? But, you know, I would say what I've what I've generally seen is that
00:10:14
Speaker
rather than there being a reaction to things like doing art in really tough times, that there's just been this deep need to consume it, create it, to process emotion. And during these times, do you think the role of art has changed during the pandemic for us?
00:10:38
Speaker
Oh, 100% it has, 100%. Well, like you said, during COVID, that's when I actually started my TikTok is, you know, COVID happened, I had no job, I had nothing to do. I was like, you know what? Let's download TikTok, let's see what the whole hype is about. And next thing you know, I'm posting really personal stories of myself on there. And yeah, it just like grew from there. But definitely when the pandemic hit,
00:11:07
Speaker
the role of art definitely changed and I feel like it's going more into more of like a technology sense and trying to connect people through like technology and their computers and phones and everything like that.
00:11:23
Speaker
I feel like that's where it's going now. Everything is heading to a digital world. I don't know if I'll be able to keep up with that, but I'll try my darndest. And on that, so you started the TikTok at pandemics, the opportunity and
00:11:44
Speaker
the ability to do that.
The Unique Appeal of TikTok
00:11:46
Speaker
What's different about TikTok and other platforms? I've noticed differences and I've mentioned a couple things that I've noticed, but what's different about the environment?
00:11:59
Speaker
The environment is very much like you would go on Facebook or Instagram, and it's very like you stop at a post and keep scrolling. But with TikTok, it's just continuous videos. You're continuously being fed content over and over. There's no pausing unless you pause yourself. And it's quick.
00:12:20
Speaker
quick entertainment so people eat it up really quickly and right away and they they get the gist of it and then they move on to the next video i think that's that's the difference between tick tock yeah now i gotta be clear be clear like i'm asking this question for the general audience might not know about tick tock uh i don't need this information i'm fully aware of what it is
00:12:42
Speaker
No, actually it's fair. It's very helpful because I, you know, I do a podcast, so it's like audio, right? So I think about audio, but for me, the power of video is like, because you get to see in the audio that's there, it just has, like I said, that immediacy to it.
00:13:05
Speaker
I wanted to ask the big question, and I never know when to ask it, but I wanted to get it in there.
Philosophical Reflections
00:13:17
Speaker
Totally shows why is something rather than nothing. And the question I ask, the big philosophical question is, why is there something rather than nothing? I think there's something rather than nothing, because even though nothing can speak
00:13:34
Speaker
words as well something can totally like you can look at nothing and create your own kind of emotion and your own feel of it but creating something to put out there you are giving people something to think about and creating an emotion for them instead of them creating it themselves if that yeah yeah
00:13:59
Speaker
I can't revise your answers. And the answers are also completely different. As a matter of fact, when I answered the question on an episode, somebody interviewed me, if you asked me it right now, I might give a different answer because it's like, yeah.
00:14:17
Speaker
I was also like writing down your questions and I was trying to write down answers but I just decided not to because my answers kept changing and I was like I just can't. We're definitely going to share in that. One of the things I ask guests because I tend to have luckily have guests from you know different areas of the world is
Art Scene in Calgary
00:14:40
Speaker
uh in Calgary right and and and and where you are um could you give us can you tell us what like what the art scene uh is is like or you know like what the some places some of the reason i ask that i mean some places have very vibrant art scenes some places have art scenes that you wouldn't expect that are like really big or underground what's what's your experience of the art scene by you
00:15:10
Speaker
It's Calgary is starting to get a better art scene. It's very inclusive as well. You need to know people to be able to like get inside the art scene at all. But I think they're starting to get a lot better. They're starting to try to create more pieces out there for people to explore and look at. And they're starting to get more artists that are actually from Calgary. And it's just, it's getting there. Calgary,
00:15:40
Speaker
is getting there. Same with like the movie scene. They weren't doing a lot. Last year was like the big jump into the movie scene. And so I think they're just a little behind on that.
00:15:56
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. And I tend to do it too with like music scenes. You know how music drops into particular, like, you know, like out here in Oregon, like Doom Metal is huge, like as a metal. Well,
00:16:12
Speaker
people disagree with me. But anyways, Portland's a really good do-metal scene and I enjoy that. Hailey, I wanted to ask you about, we mentioned TikTok and you creating video.
Personal Identity Online
00:16:27
Speaker
You wanna talk about other things that you create and how listeners can connect with the art that you're creating and where to find you and it and all that stuff.
00:16:40
Speaker
Oh, so mostly just like TikTok and Instagram are our main platforms. I don't really do a lot of things outside of social media yet, that's per se. But, you know, I just mostly try to talk about
00:16:58
Speaker
a lot of things because I am a lot of different things. I'm mixed indigenous. I'm LGBTQ. I'm also two-spirit. I'm adopted. And so there's many, many different things for me to talk about and for people to connect to. And I just, yeah, I just want to be able to share my story online to have people
00:17:24
Speaker
watching to be there with me on my journey. It's like it sounds weird for me to say this but my family I guess is like on TikTok and Instagram for me literally feels like a little family for me and they've been supporting me for many years and yeah I just feel amazing.
00:17:43
Speaker
No, it's such a great thing. And I think it's always complicated when we talk about online environments and in-person. And obviously, there's trade-offs. But like I said, even in doing this show,
00:18:02
Speaker
really could not even possibly do it a few years ago or like to really be able to easily understand what somebody's about, who's an artist, what they think about, and then be able to, you know, be able to connect with them and, you know, have a conversation. And I've realized that a lot because people's like, where do you get your guests? I'm like, well, I know some of them, but I don't know, I don't travel around the world, but you do, you do and what you're able to see and come in contact.
Sharing Journeys and Common Experiences
00:18:31
Speaker
So,
00:18:31
Speaker
I just wanted to let you know I really appreciate what you do and I wanted to let you know as far as the questions you interrogate, I think about them a lot and I think they're really important during these times. I've found myself
00:18:51
Speaker
Honestly finding a lot of the categories that I understood throughout my life to be complete bullshit You know whiteness and then going into my own history and class stuff you know once you start to interrogate these type of things you start to kind of open up more questions and Hopefully understand ourselves better in it and I appreciate you doing that I love it just like
00:19:18
Speaker
I felt myself like I was so alone doing this. And when I started posting it, I realized I'm like, there's so many people going through what I'm going through right now. I'm not alone. And I have so much support out there. I just need to.
00:19:31
Speaker
trust that it's out there and that I'm not alone. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Closing and Best Wishes
00:19:37
Speaker
Um, uh, Haley, uh, I've really enjoyed, I've really enjoyed our conversation and, um, I, uh, really appreciate what you do as, as, as I mentioned, and, uh, also want to thank, uh, your helpful, uh, friend Tara, uh, for connecting us. Uh, she's,
00:19:56
Speaker
It's quite wonderful. And I just want to wish you the best of luck in everything and good luck with filming. And I look to be able to see what you do and learn more about you as we go along. But thank you so much for showing up on something rather than nothing and keep creating. Of course, of course. Thank you so much again for having me. This was so lovely.
00:20:24
Speaker
Alright, have a great day and so nice to meet you. Thanks you too Ken, see ya! Bye! This is something rather than nothing.