We were lucky to catch up with Keia Kodama recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Keia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

The meaningful project I worked on was an installation for a local exhibition Coordinates: ICE Pac. Each artist was allocated a room to transform and mine was a moment to empower Black men and the negative connotation of the black hoodie, titled PULLOVER/PULL OVER (only said once). This installation was an immersive walk through that allowed you to not just empathize but to face any racial biases in hopes to shatter the perception that caused them to exist.

Keia , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a Mix Media and Experimental Custom Sneaker Artist passionate about street culture, style and design. My work is a semi chronological documentation dedicated to storytelling for BWOC through my everyday style and projects. This mostly includes reimagined ideas, new sneaker pick-ups and any exhibitions I am lucky to be apart of.

I originally was very fashion focused, pursuing a career in wardrobe styling and creative directing. My location prevented me to really expand in that field as I had hoped so I pivot into retail doing visual production (displays) and merchandising. I think my art style and medium really formed during the pandemic merging everything I loved with visuals, fashion, interior and sneakers into one package.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Social media is a tricky place, however is one of the best tools we have especially as creatives and/or entrepreneurs. Best advice I can give is to:

1. Know your “WHY”- why are you on here? why should anyone follow you? ask yourself the hard WHY and find the answers.

2. You are a business, knowing how to operate as a business 1st and creative 2nd will honestly allow more time for creating because you are running like a well oiled machine.

3. NOTHING WILL EVER BE PERFECT!!! stop this mindset or logic. The beauty of being a creative or offer a service is that will provide for those that can’t do it, those that are too busy to do it or those who are too lazy to do it.

4. Create a content calendar and schedule- this will allow you to hold yourself accountable and also produce content that is more intentional, one thing I know about us artist/ creatives is that we never want to look or feel like a gimmick. A calendar and schedule can and will prevent that.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I think we need bigger and better opportunities for commissions with/from corporations. Whether it be through social media or partnerships within the community to build within as a freelancer would be great.

Outsourcing artist and creatives for company parties, office decor and aesthetics, merchandise etc.. That can build a stainable ecosystem for a lot of artist to thrive in.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://app.usefoam.com/shared/media-packs/mp-share-2502fbeb787b622ed2a5ae22d58c278c9576d9ac61129e3305a6c640d314e1b8
• Instagram: @keiakodama

Image Credits
Photographer Dev Anglin instrangram @dev_anglin