Tre Borden is a Los Angeles-based art consultant producer and media strategist. He’s the founder and principal of Tre Borden /Co, a company committed to lifting up creative voices and advocating for resilient, inclusive and equity-centred communities. The company produces public artworks tackling inclusive themes, curates art in private and public spaces, organises idea-led events and produces media content that centres progressive thought leaders.
Most recently, Borden produced the short film A Black Woman’s Declaration of Independence written and directed by Jessa Ciel.
Q > Tell us a bit about what being a creative consultant and producer entails and the path that brought you to this role.
A > One of the things I appreciate most about my career is that I can choose what I work on, and I am able to work with the people I admire and like most in the world to make dreams possible. My role is to work with artists, and others with a compelling and creative vision, to make their ideas a reality. Often that means finding the resources, building the necessary team, securing partners and permissions and reaching audiences to make a bold ideal feasible and help it to reach its full potential. This is a very collaborative process between me and the artist/client, and it is a role I’ve gained the confidence to do after working on a variety of projects over many years. I began in Sacramento in 2012 working with artists to activate dormant and underutilised spaces to engage people. This took the form of pop-up galleries, temporary installations and events, which at the time were uncommon in Sacramento and during a nascent renaissance in the city. That grew into art consulting for developers and businesses and producing more permanent large-scale art projects with artists.
After Trump was elected I became much more thoughtful about producing projects that had a progressive point of view. It was important to elevate artists and ideas from marginalised communities that sought to make an impact on the problems our world faces. I continued to do this when I moved to Los Angeles in 2018 and expanded my network of artists and mentors. In the pandemic, my work began to include more digital media as that was the best way to reach people, so with A Black Woman’s Declaration of Independence, I feel like it’s a real culmination of my experiences. It is even more so a full-circle moment that I get to do it with one of my oldest friends and collaborators Jessa Ciel who has been such a huge part of my life and journey as an arts professional.
Q > What did being producer of “A Black Woman’s Declaration of Independence” involve?
A > When Jessa came to me with the idea for this film in January I at first questioned whether she was really serious about creating such a provocative and vulnerable work. When it became clear, rather quickly, that she was determined to see it through, I told her she could count on me to help and my job became to do everything in my power to make sure that she not only had the resources to execute it, but to ensure that it was done at the highest level we could achieve. This project will be highly scrutinised, so it was important to make sure that even if people disagreed with the content or message, as many might, they wouldn’t be able to say it wasn’t well done. One first I experienced in this project was investing my own resources (Jessa and I co-financed the project) rather than seeking investors/donations which we decided was necessary due to the nature of the content and the self-imposed timeline. It was also due to what turned out to be a fair amount of naiveté about how much money it would take to make haha.
My main role is to oversee the entire production, which means putting the pieces in place to make sure we could execute the film, supporting Jessa in creating the strongest statement we could from a creative standpoint, and now is focused on making sure we reach the widest and most relevant audience we can which fortunately/unfortunately feels like the entire sentient world. Essentially my job is to create the container in which this film can flourish. It has been a challenging way to marshal the skills I’ve learned on other projects and in a medium that is so accessible. I hope to do more of it.
Q > Learnings and chapters — Have you ever experienced ‘rupture’ and started anew?
A > I would say that my “rupture” was two-fold; The first was when I left New York at the beginning of the recession in 2008 and returned to my hometown of Sacramento. I was so unsure of what was next and felt somewhat sheepish about living in my parents’ house while taking GMATs with no clear goals but business school. My second rupture was being “separated” (aka fired extremely suddenly) from my first job out of my MBA program after 30 days and having to begin the real work of finding out how to best utilise my ability to bring people together and think big. Thankfully, artists were such a worthy and complex class of professionals to collaborate with and they taught me so much while allowing me space to learn and hone my skills. The journey has been so meaningful and rewarding, and I am so grateful.
Q > Which things do you think the people around you often take for granted?
A > I think that people underestimate how much impact one person can have by not accepting how things have always been or what is presented as possible. We are living in a very precarious time where it is so clear how much is at stake and how much bold action it will take to create a world where everyone has a chance to thrive or even just survive. Especially in America: we are so complacent about our status as a country that matters in the world that we are blind to how much we have undermined ourselves with unfulfilled promises of liberty and justice for all. This film, which focuses specifically on the toxic soil of white supremacy that this country has grown out of, will hopefully jolt people awake and propel our current momentum of reckoning to even greater possibility and urgency.
Q > What projects are you proudest of having been involved with?
A > Aside from this film, I am most proud of a project I completed during the pandemic called Lighting Up The Sky with the Crenshaw Dairy Mart. This is an art collective in Inglewood led by Patrisse Cullors (co-founder of Black Lives Matter), Alexandre Dorriz and noé olivas that sits under the landing path for planes at LAX. In June when the racial reckoning (and pandemic) were in full swing we placed a mural and light installation on the roof of their building that spells out BLM and serves as a beacon of hope and action for everyone flying above. It was so meaningful to work on that especially in such a desperate and chaotic time.
Another project is Colors of Progress which was a visual oral history of the LGBTQ+ movement using the words of people from that community from the past and present. Its goal was to use the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots to lift up a much more inclusive set of voices from the struggle than are typically acknowledged and make people have to sit with their experiences as they enjoyed celebrations around the country. It was one of the most logistically complex and personal projects I executed with artist Phil America, a frequent collaborator and a dear ally and friend.
Lastly Bright Underbelly, a 70,000 square foot mural in Sacramento I did with mural team Studio Tutto will always have a special place in my heart as it was the first time I executed something permanent on that scale and really started to spread my wings as a producer of ambitious projects.
Q > Surprising contradictions — tell us about things that conflict you and inspire you at the same time.
A > I would say not knowing what I’m doing is a constant tension. What I mean by that is the feeling of approaching an exciting idea and having a clear vision with no real blueprint for how to do it is exhilarating, but it is also very challenging. It keeps me humble because I am always forced to ask for help and am so reliant on other people who believe the vision to bring an idea to life. A great benefit is I am constantly meeting brilliant and values-driven artists whose skills I can put on full display, and it also pushes me to keep innovating every time. Another contradiction would be always having less resources than would be ideal for a project and yet the resourcefulness that necessitates creates the best version of the project.
Sometimes a constraint can be an asset as how you adapt a project to real circumstances keeps it close to its essential parts and also requires ingenuity and most importantly a team that is in it for the right reasons. That said, after this project I am looking forward to having the opportunity to execute an idea with enough resources to grow a team so that we are not wearing so many hats and can actually sleep (it is 2:54 am as I write this).
Q > How can art influence communities who exist outside/beyond the art world?
A > Sometimes people make the mistake of thinking that I have a formal contemporary art background and education. I do not. Everything I know about the art world has come from working directly with artists and being curious about how they navigate the problems we all face. My relative ignorance, and the fact that I started my career in Sacramento with less access to the more rarified (read: relentlessly exclusive and pretentious) art world, has allowed me to forge a career in the arts that thrives on accessibility and impact. I don’t have an interest in a career in the arts that keeps most people out, and it does a huge disservice to communities and artists to prevent meaningful collaboration. I often say artists are just problem solvers and communicators when you get down to it, and artists are some of the most socially versatile community creatures we have — comfortable in a dirty warehouse, an art opening and a political rally. What they have to say and their approach to problems that affect their communities is so vital, and I think allowing them a seat at the table and a visible place in society is so beneficial to pushing things in the right direction. The “art world” I think really just refers to the most capitalistic and exclusive aspects of the art ecosystem, and I think the less we can replicate in the arts what we see not working in other aspects of society the better.
Q > What advice would you give a youngster considering a career in the arts?
A > I would say first understand what it is you care about and the impact that you would like to make. I think sometimes people starting out think you must narrowly and visibly define yourself or specialise in a particular style to be taken seriously. The most interesting and effective artists I know are always learning new ways to express their ideas and are responding to real needs and conversations in the communities they care about. I think sometimes the medium is the message and vice versa so deciding what impact you want to have and how you want to create change is a very good foundation before you even decide what you want to make. That being said, figure out what you enjoy doing and see who is doing it already. There is nothing created now that isn’t the result of so many brilliant minds who were here before or still here now so getting as much exposure as you can to the artists who inspire you is essential and should never stop.
Borden was raised in Sacramento and attended Yale University where he received his B.A in East Asian Studies and graduated with his MBA from UC Davis Graduate School of Management.
