Mathew Swenson: We met at a luncheon at Mariane Ibrahim Gallery during Expo, through Betsy Beirele. It felt like one of those instant connections where I felt like I'd known you forever. When was that?

Emma McKee: Yes, first time. I think we both have that old soul energy that really clicked. I absolutely agree, and have always appreciated what you do with and through TELL. Beyond highlighting the Midwest, you have a special knack of providing a glimpse into someone's orbit, which isn't easy to do.

Mathew: You've been with the gallery thirteen years now. Walk me through that arc, because this is not a small thing.

Emma: I started in Seattle. She had only been open a year and a half, and next year we'll celebrate fifteen years in operation. So it was just her and I for many years, and I've watched the business grow globally to three spaces. I did have a brief break when I moved to Berlin in 2016, but since then I've been working with her. I moved into the global strategy position more recently, but was director for almost ten years. It's been a whirlwind, and an honor to work for someone who has such strong and voracious vision.

Mathew: Why Chicago for the gallery? And why Chicago for you personally?

Emma: My interests really lie in what I call margin cities. Chicago is very much one of those. There's a reason we're not based in New York and LA. I think Mariane has been very smart with her choices for cities based on seeing the value of what it means to choose a place like Chicago, which has a precipice and a foundation of culture. She has been seminal in my value of the city. And of course our program focuses mainly on Black artists and artists from the diaspora. Kerry James Marshall, Nick Cave, there's this huge history of artists coming out of Chicago that really drew her to want to give back to the city internationally. That shaped the way I think and value both growth and expansion in the art world, and it's personally why I want to focus my career on Chicago and the Midwest specifically right now.

Mathew: When you deal with publications in major cities, they tend to treat New York like it's not a region and anything outside of it is local. What does that mean for the story of what's happening here?

Emma: I think Chicago has finally arrived at its moment. The way the city has always operated, as both a soft power and a radical space, is coming into focus. There's more room for this kind of combined mindset that the city's foundation is built on, combining art, civic life, and politics in some senses. From a communications standpoint that really strengthens the city, especially during times of conflict, where locality is even more pertinent.

I think a lot about the idea of surrendering, in terms of how we receive information and how we think about communication around ourselves or our businesses. To veer away from exposure and to focus more on public image, something you and I speak about frequently. This is ever relevant because of the way the media landscape has changed so drastically. Not only do we need more Midwestern publications and critique, but more content that reflects the fabric of how the city operates, which is genuine, and with tension, hyper focus. I think Chicago and the way we innately and naturally operate will be what people need to turn to when it comes to valued communication, intellectual storytelling, and impact-based work rather than iterative buzz-based work. That's what we in the Midwest have had to do innately because of our distance from New York and LA.

Mathew: I think Chicago is more vocal than other parts of the Midwest. There are places where modesty caps the incentive to be loud about ourselves.

Emma: Yes. That humble sensibility can sometimes be a pitfall for expansion. We need to be better about communicating ourselves internationally and being more proud of that. It's a double-edged sword. In one way we benefit because we are on this precipice of expansion, which conjures really strong radical ideas. And then at the same time we become super comfortable because of the structure of the art scene. We need to challenge ourselves to think of ourselves as more of an international city, because we really are.

People often relate Berlin and Chicago in certain aspects, and I think about that a lot. What I've been thinking about is this idea of play. In Europe there's a really freeing sense of experiment that you don't necessarily see in the US anymore. People opening project spaces left and right, curatorial experiments across the city that are so playful. I think there's a teetering point where we need to also experiment more freely and less perfectly.

Mathew: What do artists, galleries, and institutions in this region really need that they're not getting right now?

Emma: I think what we're lacking is critique. There's a big conversation in Chicago right now, and historically speaking, about the lack of critical writing and context. Publications are often veering towards reviewing exhibitions in New York just out of convenience. And this lack of critique allows people to wait in a more comfortable realm. We need more publications focusing on the work we're doing in a more intricate way. Not necessarily praise, because I don't think Midwesterners need that. But it will challenge us to expand in a more global way if we're also part of global context conversations.

Mathew: A lot of local publications cheerlead because of advertising. We're lacking the funding for critics to come out and really be loud.

Emma: Absolutely, there's a huge crisis of criticism, and I think it's negatively impacting cities like Chicago in particular. We really need that challenge, so that people internationally also read about the work we're doing and so we are placed within new social and cultural contexts. It will have a twofold effect: challenging us locally and putting us on an international scale. But I do see writers and curators operating as both, because the city craves that. Chicago knows it needs to be more critical of itself, because of our innate craving to grow.

Mathew: I think about the import and export of it. There are global players who can bring regional artists to the globe, but who's bringing the regional players to Salon de Mobile or Basel?

Emma: Completely. What's been exciting for us with the gallery is that even when we have a show in Mexico or Paris, the conversation still brings it back to Chicago. We showed Carmen Neely in Mexico City during Zona Maco week. She's Chicago-based, and we had an incredible exhibition where even Chicago collectors were buying from the show, but she had this international visibility. I think creating models and structures that innately have import and export built into the fabric of operation is what we're missing a bit of in the Midwest.

Mathew: Do you think the Midwest is positioned to actually challenge the dominant paradigms, not just catch up to them?

Emma: I do. The Midwest can challenge dominant paradigms through counter thought, in culture and also in how we think about our future. There's a lot more space in the industry, as there should be, for atypical business models and spaces. The Midwest is already a place that thrives off its atypical-ness. So what the future requires of us will feel easier, because we are used to instrumental change as our usual ethos.

Mathew: You've always been drawn to communication in a very specific way. Not publicity. Something more structural than that.

Emma: I've always been kind of obsessed with communication, not in the publicity sense, but in the strategic. I think that's what attracted me to working on branding and communications, and now has shaped and drawn me toward community, through analysis of how the context of our world is shaping so drastically. How this can both support but also influence businesses, in the art world and broader culture. People's superpower is their indifference. I'm curious about how a value system shapes culture, and how to share that with the public. Messaging and how that influences people at scale, that is powerful.

There's something so future-focused about communication and storytelling. Stories, documented and historical, are such an important point of intimate connection. And looking toward the bigger context we are in now, in an uncertain future, storytelling will be more and more important. 

Mathew: You've lived in Berlin, you've been embedded here for years. What does Chicago actually look like from inside its own fabric?

Emma: I've always been someone influenced by the innate fabric and structure of the city I'm living in. I am fascinated by holistic units, and understanding how operations and systems affect a larger initiative. In Berlin, how the small and independent galleries and nonprofits create a stream of energy throughout the city's functionality. And in Chicago, how its people influence how the city operates. From Hamza Walker's Renaissance years and the path he laid for curation and critical thinking in the city, to the artists like Kerry James Marshall who made Chicago home, to the subtle but ever powerful artists of the city like Kellie Romany. Chicago is an example of an emerging framework for how art lives within cities, how institutions grow without erasure, and how legacy can be built with intention, care, and accountability.

The soft powers of the city surge energy into every bit of the way the city operates. That's why you step into the city and have this feeling that is indescribable, a quiet transmission between patrons, city planners, and the small but mighty arts administrative community that turns the wheels. Chicago's impact is felt more than it can be explained. And I dare say the Midwest at large.

Mathew: You're staying at the gallery but also starting to work with outside clients. What does that look like?

Emma: I want to create a business that supports the fusion of art, architecture, and design, which I think are our biggest strengths in the city, but between which there's a lack of interaction. The PR landscape is a total mess and is changing, and content and communication and storytelling are more important than ever. And something that really interests me is work that's more socially engaged, because Chicago operates very civically, and that's something we do really well. The commercial art scene is really being challenged right now because the model is not built to be sustainable for anyone but the large blue chip galleries. So stability and sustainability, when it comes to models, is part of what I'm thinking about.

Mathew: What happens when you remove the container of the gallery?

Emma: I like that idea of a container. I will enjoy still being with the gallery in this container of the built experience I've had for the past thirteen years. But what interests me most about this new business is connecting people. I think there's a real benefit that will come to the work I want to do outside of the gallery through the connections I've already built for the gallery. And I think having the international mindset from my time with Mariane and my time in Berlin, and focusing that on the Midwest, is going to be a really interesting conversation. I want to create invisible threads. The building of invisible threads is what I am most ignited by. How do I create invisible threads with the cultural institutions that already exist and the work that people are already doing? That's where my strengths lie.

Mathew: What would it mean to build something here that didn't exist before you?

Emma: My future work, I hope to be a boundary-less model, closer to a consortium than a traditional agency. Conceived as a gesture in motion, the work I hope to do through the rest of my career should never be fixed. I would love for it to function as a consortium, one forward-facing, leaving traces through legacy work and built environments.

I think it excites me that Chicago can offer the possibility to exist and operate in an in-between, non-existent space. I can pretty clearly see the gaps in the Chicago art scene from my international experience, so building something that addresses a serious gap while supporting existing ecosystems is what I'm focused on. Something that brings the ecosystem to the next level of international exposure. And like you said, maybe that's just soft power. Maybe part of the gap is that the ecosystem that exists here has been operating well, but the story isn't getting out. And how does it get out? That's the question that keeps me going.