On Thursday night at Hard L in Capitol Hill, two sisters brought the love from Portland with their single-night reception, Sister Signs. A collaborative showcase between Samantha and Corbin LaMont, Sister Signs showcased the bond of “platonic love greater than biology or gender” that exists between the two siblings.
Having a sister of my own, I’ve come to understand that we are stronger together than we are on our own. The same held true at Sister Signs last night, with Sam and Corbin’s collaborative pieces displaying the true magic of sisters entirely in sync. I spoke with my friend and designer Corbin Lamont about the project and what it was like working with her sister.
This isn’t your first participatory/submission site. How is this one different?
I was thinking about it from a lot of different avenues. I feel like everything else up to this point has been different exercises into thinking about how people interact with things. I came at this show very directly — what is the best way to engage people and what are different methods of doing that. So I wanted to go beyond solely digital or having constraints based on space. In this show, we have people interacting in the space and sending physical things out of the space as well. We also have people who are interacting with the show that aren’t here (online). I tried to think about it in as many ways as possible.
Have you had any favorite submissions?
It’s been really fun in the first couple hours of the show to see people talking selfies in front of the background that we made. It’s such a dumb idea in a lot of ways — it’s something we do innately with our sisters, like send pictures of our outfits — so it’s fun to see it in a gallery setting. Also, to see people actually writing long postcards to their sisters is incredible because I feel like people don’t write each other anymore. The digital submissions have all been great, but I think I’m more excited about the handwritten notes and interactions because I like to see people actively engaging.
You collaborated with your sister on this project. How did you both come up with the idea for Sister Signs?
Leigh — who is a part of the space (Hard L Gallery) — offered the idea to both of us. My sister had been to the gallery’s opening and was really excited about the space. So when we came back together after I’d been traveling for a while, we were like, “I don’t think we can make this show about anything else besides being sisters.” That’s where all of our ideas were and that’s how we relate to each other. It’s a huge part of relationship. We could have come up with something else, but that would have felt too imposed. This was the natural thing to do.
Did collaborating with your sister come naturally? What was it like working together?
We have similar tastes when it comes to clothes, color schemes and that sort of stuff. She went to school for ceramics and is a painter, an illustrator, and I’m a graphic designer. I do things in other mediums. We have very different skill sets but they mesh together. For example, I would ask her to illustrate the icons and then I would arrange them. Sam was excited for me to think about the participatory aspect and the language of it. Collaborating with anyone is a challenge because it adds another level of thinking, conceptualizing and discussion to your work. It was well worth it, and mostly enjoyable.
What’s a favorite memory you have with your sister?
The thing that’s funny about our relationship is that were 10 years apart. When I was six, she was supposed to babysit me and I have this distinct memory of playing with Barbies outside her door for hours. I just kept thinking, “She’ll come out and hang out with me. She’ll come out and hang out with me.” Finally I knock on her door — the thing is she would get really mad about me going into her room — and she goes “OH MY GOD! I forgot about you!” It was the worst thing she could have said! (Laughs) Then she rushed me to bed and I had to go to sleep.
We’ve always been interested in art and had similar tastes in music, so that has brought us together. I’m so glad to be where we are. I think a lot of people don’t have relationships with their sisters, but Sam is such a young spirit. So it’s very, very easy to have the relationship we do.
