Interview with Joshua as told to Tori Weston
Please tell us about your background and how you came to Somerville.
I’m originally from California and moved to Cambridge for graduate school at MIT, where I researched the connection between brain networks, learning, and memory. Currently, I live in Malden, but I come to Somerville by way of my socially engaged art projects. A few years ago, I directed a project called Through These Realities, supported by the Somerville Arts Council, bringing local photographers together to create a series of images inspired by local poets' original work. I’m also part of Somerville’s Cultural Capacity Plan, which collects feedback from the city’s creative and cultural communities to make sure their voices help shape Somerville's future. I’ve also exhibited work at the Nave Gallery for the Somerville Toy Camera Festival.
Your work combines art and science, how does one inform the other?
My neuroscience background also plays an important role in my art. I’ve spent 10 years figuring out how cognition, art, technology, and neural activity relate. In chasing this question, space, representation, and narrative have been consistent themes in my work.
As a researcher, I was figuring out how dopamine helps store spatial memories in brain networks. I became more deliberate in combining my network understanding of space with how I use space in my photography, figuratively and literally. My work often connects diverse artists and scientists, emphasizing visual and internal representations to tell their stories. My current project uses film photography and AI to visualize the participants' cognitive maps. The goal is to show how participants think about and see themselves throughout Somerville. If anyone wants to learn more and participate, please reach out!
At what age did your creative journey begin?
Maybe somewhere between my teens and my thirties. As far as I can remember, I’ve wanted to learn how to use tools to bring what was in my head to connect to the external environment. I was 18 years old when I first started out in a NASA lab
studying sugars on meteorites to see if they could be a source for starting life on Earth. I was in my 30s when I had my first solo exhibition. As a teenager, I really enjoyed woodworking. In my experience, seemingly unrelated creative fields share overlapping features, such as experimental processes, developing a vision of the results, and storytelling.
Who or what inspires your work?
My son is a big inspiration.
How does one find your work?
I have a website that has more information about my photography, art projects, and my writing. Instagram is also another way to see my work.
