Today we’d like to introduce you to Sea Krob.
Hi Sea, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My energy and my artistic focus is like playing an accordion going in and out; I enjoy looking into large societal topics as well as being deeply introspective on my own life. That can look like a lot of plates spinning at the same time. Still trying to find the right blend of being outward-looking and inward focus which comes with time and practice.
How I got to where I am today starts with my body; I am a fourth generation to have cystic kidneys and diagnosis as polycystic kidney disease (also commonly referred to as PKD). PKD is the diagnosis for folks who have a genetic condition that develops numerous cysts to grow in the kidneys causing the kidneys to get larger and during that expansion, it damages the kidneys with a high rate of leading to end-stage renal failure. PKD acts as a framing device because I have had the privilege to know about my cystic kidneys all my life, unlike 90% of people with chronic kidney disease in the United States don’t even know they have a chronic kidney disease (according to the CDC- https://www.cdc.gov/kidneydisease/pdf/CKD-Factsheet-H.pdf).
Starting college (after seeing the impacts of end-stage renal failure on multiple family members), I figured if I was going to in kidney failure, I was going to live life in a way when I look back, I would have something to reflect back on. As a result, the darkroom has acted as a home base for my creative exploration. Part of my nontraditional journey through academia, I have been extremely grateful to all my collaborators, peers, and mentors that continued to affirm that I got this and just keep going!
Currently, I am working on three main projects. The first is making art in a community with members of the PKD community by photographing people and hearing their stories. This is a project I started during the summer of 2020 and slowly trying to continue making images as we negotiate this post-Covid lockdown time period. The images are made in the collaborator’s home space with the same micro-background framing them.
In conjunction to the PKD collaborator portrait series, I am also working on photographing people who are waiting for a kidney donation while on dialysis and kidney donors as part of my advocacy work in support of getting the Living Donor Protection Act passed. If this sounds like something you would be interested in, I am always looking to meet more people! Please feel free to email me at [email protected].
The next project I am working on is a more personal and introspective collection of images. When life has kicked up uncertainty, that precarity gets translated into the photographs I make. Back in the fall was my first term as a graduate student in the photography program at California State University, Long Beach. As a parent and a student with an upcoming move on the horizon, I started photographing my public transit commute from the West Adams area to CSULB as I tried to take in that infinite time last fall. Spending so much time at school and commuting (on average it being 15 to 20 hours a week in total), I often felt a strong pull back and forth between needing to be at school and at home with my family but never feeling fully present in either place.
The images are made with 35 mm film (both black and white and in color) double/triple exposures (two/three exposures in the same frame). I was drawn to making photographs like this because I loved how the way the light and shadows act as burn / dodged masks in the camera to entwine and weave a new image together. The photos are often confusing and hard to piece together or understand with a semi lack of control of how the final image will come out as that mirrors how life can be at times.
Lastly, Bobi Bosson (she/her) and I are collaborating together to curate a group art show highlighting the experiences of parenting artist students called Time Poverty at the Gatov Gallery at CSULB on September 17th to the 21st with a reception on September 17th, as well as an artist panel (details are still pending). There will also be documentation of everything about the process on the Instagram page @timepoverty. This show is an important conversation to highlight our needs and experiences as parenting artist students as well as normalize the experiences for future students.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I am a non-traditional student. That mostly came from being a part of my dad’s caregiving team when his health care was more intensive. Unfortunately, he died in 2018 without having received a kidney transplant after 11 years of dialysis while I was at UCLA for my undergraduate education. His death greatly impacted how I make and think about art and living life with cystic kidneys myself. I am definitely open to bringing up death/grief more in conversations to normalize grief in every day beyond the initial death.
Another challenge I have is being a public transit commuter in Los Angeles. The time tax being a public transit is high especially because the stops can be placed in locations that are more ideal for car commuters rather than the transit commuters. There are only a few stops close to public bathrooms. There isn’t accessible water stations which is very hard during the extreme heat waves. And public transit can just be generally hard to access for people with additional needs.
Lastly, being a parent and a student has been such a life-changing experience for the betterment of my life but it still comes with hurdles that can make getting more education out of reach for other students. Thankfully, in California, parenting students are now eligible for priority enrollment because of the time poverty that parenting students often face. However, there is so much more that is needed to adequately support parenting students so that they can thrive.
For example, it doesn’t matter if I can sign up for all the classes I need to finish my program if they are during times that there is no childcare options available to me. In addition, childcare costs can be just as much, if not more, tuition than the parents. I am asked often “How do you do it?” I can’t answer the question, I just do it and hope for the best.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I would say that my energy and my artistic focus is like playing an accordion going in and out; I enjoy looking into large societal topics as well as being deeply introspective on my own life. I am still trying to find the right blend of being outward looking and inward focus, which comes with time and practice.
This back-and-forth started when I was attending Chaffey College. At that time, I was thinking about what is a true/false self, when do people feel most like themselves, and how to change the first impression of someone to reflect who they are. Looking back, even though I was not an out (to myself) non-binary person, I was most definitely working through my own identity in trying to understand other people.
While studying at the University of California, Los Angeles, I started to flirt with the rules around what is photography and how I make the image to communicate how I feel. During that time, I was in the early stages of grief. Early grief made time felt like it was just melting all together. I used improperly developed negatives to print multiple images folding into each other. I also started making my own painted negatives. This process was a way to recreate the translating an event into a memory with the loss of information but also the highlighting of other specific details.
Over COVID, I shifted into making digital images of my everyday domestic caretaking duties. I start drafting and testing out how to make images for the PKD collaborator portrait series. The idea grew from wanting to see other people in my community who share similar stories like mine and feeling both connected to them as well as in isolation from them.
While in grad school at California State University, Long Beach, I am starting to create a rhythm for myself. I am working towards being able to be introspective about changes going on in my own life, like in the double exposures of my commuting. Then at the same time, being a part of community dialogs – like the parenting artist student curation and the kidney advocacy labor.
We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
Covid-19 highlighted with urgency how much our medical system is in need of change. When my dad died, he had a lot of advantages going for him. He became one of 12 people to die that day waiting for a kidney transplant. According to the National Kidney Foundation, only a small percent of people waiting for a kidney receive one every year (https://www.kidney.org/news/newsroom/factsheets/Organ-Donation-and-Transplantation-Stats).
Over COVID-19, kidney communities were already more vulnerable because of being a pre-existing condition impacted by the COVID-19. Overall in the United States, people on dialysis were dying at a higher rate than before (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8174675/), people are getting kidney damage because of COVID-19 (https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-kidney-damage-caused-by-covid19), and the communities of color (especially the black, brown, and indigenous folks) saw the intersectional harm of both COVID-19 and kidney failure (https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/expert-answers/coronavirus-infection-by-race/faq-20488802).
There is a lot to go on in the need for urinary justice which I can write at length about. But the COVID-19 lockdowns got me to connect with the PKD Foundation as a part of the Advocacy Champions Network because I want to work towards health equity in our country so that everyone has the best quality of life possible and transplantation regardless of any social factors.
One step closer to that goal is getting this Congress to pass the Living Donor Protection Act (H.R.2923 and S.1384) so that we can increase the protections extended to living organ donors so that more people may be able to donate a kidney. Living donor kidneys give the recipient the higher transplant success rates (https://transplantliving.org/kidney/why-choose-a-living-donor-transplant/). This is a common sense bill that has bipartisan, bicameral, and insurance industry support that looks to address one factor in chronic kidney care. You can go to https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member to ask your Representative and your Senator to co-sign and support the Living Donor Protection Act (H.R.2923 and S.1384).
Contact Info:
- Website: seakrob.com
- Instagram: @sea.krob
- Other: patreon.com/seaKrobstudio
Image Credits
(Black&white studio image of artist) Photographed by Ashley Bohm Moore, 2023 (all other images) Photographed by Sea Krob
