Sourav: Nancy how are you?

Nancy: I am doing well. I am so happy to be here with you and I am very happy to be in Bangladesh, Dhaka.

Sourav: So this is the first time that you are here in Bangladesh?

Nancy: Yes, it is my first time.

Sourav: So what are some of your first impressions?

Nancy: Very happy, I am very aware of the great art making and have enjoyed being in the studio of Cosmos. I feel that it is one of the interesting experiences I had and I have done quite a bit of travel in my life but very seldom have I come to a place like this.

Sourav: Great. What was the first thing that motivated you to enter the music world?

Nancy: When I was a very small child my parents enjoyed driving a long distance to go to rehearsal of a kind of well known festival with Boston Sydney Orchestra in the United States on the east coast called Tanglewood. So I remember, it wasn't very pleasant the journey but when I got there, I was fascinated to see the orchestra and all the instruments and hearing some well known composers. So it was a very early memory that I had, and when I saw the violin, I said to my four-year-old self that someday I would like to play that instrument and then when I was a child of about eight or nine years old, I had a very good teacher, name is Amsterdam and she gave me a violin and I was very happy. And then some years later I started playing let's say a cousin of the violin called the viola and so that has been a very important force in my life as an artist.

Sourav: That's good. So does your administrative duty interfere with your daily life?

Nancy: That is really a great question because some people think that when you take on a leadership position you have to stop doing the artistic expression but I think it is the opposite. I think it is very important to continue to do artistic work when you are trying to help people and it is tough sometimes but it is really important to carry the artistic spirit with you when you are helping others through its service position of leadership because the students and the faculty are living for their art and you have got to show that you respect them by also being an artist.

Sourav: You have been to Bangladesh for a few days so what is your impression about Bangladeshi art and artists?

Nancy: One of the things I learnt was how special and original Bangladeshi art is and especially the students are very eager to learn and they are very respectful of their faculty who are really well known and distinguished artists. And then they have the opportunity to go to workshops such as this one in the Cosmos. So I think there are many opportunities and there is a real sense of possibility and originality and new ideas are driving the work.

Sourav: So can you highlight your future plans, what are you planning to do in near future in your personal life and also in professional life?

Nancy: Thank you for asking a very important question. I feel it is important to give students a helping hand in their careers. So one of the ways of knowing the world that I most appreciate as an educator is meeting people in different places of the world and learning from how different people manage and the new ideas that I learn for example, in Bangladesh, so one of my goals is to connect students throughout the world with opportunities and possibilities and giving them a helping hand so they can launch their careers. I think that we need to teach optimism and possibility and it is very important that students are very excited about how each student and each artist can make a unique contribution to the world. So that is what I would like to concentrate on both as a dean and an artist myself and as a traveler meeting people and bringing people together as best as I can.

Sourav: Also I believe through our UNB news there are lots of subscribers who are students. So they are very eager to know what they should do after graduating from the universities. What should they do in the initial stages for their career? What should they start with for their next venture?

Nancy: Well first of all I think they should dream big. So they need to have really big ideas and very positive with a lot of determination that they will succeed. And also, we have a word we use sometimes called 'agency', which means how to be inventive and how each student can show the meaning-making in their lives through the art, maybe it is looking at social change or transformation or social justice or working with the community, working with children or print making, painting, sculpture, photography. There are so many media that are available to them. The main thing I think they need to believe is that they can do anything they want. Now but we say in America that we live in the gig economy, which means that sometimes they will be taking on some jobs but they can also have huge goals and really meet their sense of possibility by being original and so they can start something that didn't exist before, so my main advice to them is to dream big, have great ideas and believe in themselves and ask for help and expect to be supported by people. And I am always happy to help people, and I think many of the professors and you will feel this way that we're there to help students launch their careers. But the skills that they have learnt as an artist, the creativity, the originality, the invention and the uniqueness of each personality, each way of seeing the world, they are also transferable skills. So because they are such creative people anything that they would do on their way to earn a living, as they are thinking about making the biggest ideas, they have many skills in their toolbox that they can use. I think our students are going to be very successful and I think they are going to transform the world.

Sourav: So you have already been to Dhaka Art Summit 2020, you have been to Dhaka University Fine Arts faculty, also here at Cosmos Centre you visited Cosmos Atelier studio and Gallery Cosmos. Also you have been to few other places, you also interacted with students of Bangladesh who are working contemporarily in the art sections. Already you talked with them and spent some time with them. So what are the hopes and scopes you find in their vision and missions?

Nancy: The students I met are very happy, they feel they are very well taken care of, they love their professors, they are very articulate, they are very excellent people. There is a great deal of warmth and hospitality throughout Bangladesh and they have great values. I was incredibly impressed with the students that I met, they are very good at their art and really talented, they are going to work hard, they are willing to learn, and I want to tell you how much I learnt from them. I learnt a lot from the students, I learnt a lot from the professors and you, and one thing that I realize is when I leave Bangladesh I am going to have ideas that I never had before. It is a very special place.

Sourav: For example, the ideas like...

Nancy: Well, ideas about being very serious about research, looking at discovery, and creating new knowledge as a part of art making, that is a very progressive idea, and in United States we are just starting it frankly, in some other societies we have something called practice-based research, perhaps a little bit more seasoned and traditional idea. But one thing I realized in Bangladesh is how progressive the thought processes are because I think people look at research in making art as very connective. So that is one of the experiences I had and I learnt a lot about how students do think about their research, not just Masters students, even the undergraduate students.

Sourav: And your background is music, you love music. Did you already hear some Bangladeshi songs and music?

Nancy: Last night at the EMP cultural centre there was a treat, a surprise for me, an artist who loves to play the traditional instruments gave us a small concert. And it was beautiful, I enjoyed the sound, the chamber, he made his own instruments. So now that I am a little bit familiar with Bangladeshi music, I would like to go back and learn more about it. Much of my time here was really learning about ideas that I can take back. It will help me be better at my job so I feel very honoured that I was here and I could learn a lot of new ways of thinking that I can bring back to America.

Sourav: During this time with you, we learned from you also.

Nancy: I think that is the best thing life has to offer, that we can all learn from each other and that we can find common ground.

Sourav: You heard some Bangladeshi music, do you have any message for the Bangladeshi musicians?

Nancy: Well, I think that it is very beautiful and one of the things I learnt first, from one of the students that I met - she talked about fusion - of course I know about fusion, but she used it in a different way and because she brought that idea to me, I kept thinking during my trip about fusion, about how we can integrate knowledge. So maybe we can have an opportunity in the future where some of the traditional Bangladeshi instruments and my viola can have a fusion together. I would love to see that happen in the future.

Sourav: Okay, and hopefully we are very keen to look forward to you coming again, and over and over to Bangladesh...

Nancy: I would look forward to coming back because it is a very special place and I would love to keep in touch with everyone, and keep learning.

I said to students that I met, don't let anyone ever take you voice away from you, and I think it is the best advice that I can give, everyone is worthy, if you work hard enough and you explore you talent and you are also willing sometimes to take risks, and see what doesn't work. I said education is sometimes like dancing with the unfamiliar, if you get too comfortable we stop learning, sometimes we have to be a little uncomfortable to continue learning, to have the agency and confidence to keep learning new things, and trying to find people who are supporting you, and if someone is saying to you, Oh I don't know if that will ever happen or you will not succeed, just smile and nod, say thank you and walk away, don't believe those people. Because if sometimes someone is very negative, it is not really about the person that they are talking to, it is more with what is inside them, they may not be confident and so they may not be able to have the vision that the young student has about the student wanting to do many wonderful things, he is excited, he is doing research, he is doing art making, he is going to workshops, he feels very exuberant about the future. But someone might say, Oh yes, how are you going to make a living, I don't think those things will ever happen. So I say tune that out, go for the most ambitious programme that you want and believe in yourself, and have good mentors. I said to the students last night that sometimes you may have a mentor who doesn't even know that he or she is a mentor, it could be a secret mentor, or a silent mentor, you read a book about someone, you study their work, and you learn some ideas and you feel some inspiration from other artists or a writer, and that person can be in your heart you mentor and you can keep gaining confidence and learning from someone, it could be someone in Bangladesh or someone across the world. But look for people who inspire you because I think that inspiration is the root of all education and those are my last thoughts.

Sourav: That's great. In your speech we heard lots of times about dream, we are now dreaming that you will come back again to Bangladesh and we can work together again.

Nancy: That is a great honour, that is such a kind thing to say, thank you very much. I do want to say thank you so much for allowing me to share these ideas with you, both for you and UNB and also for Gallery Cosmos in Bangladesh, you are wonderful organisations and this is a great way for us to share ideas together, thank you for the opportunity.