Derek Kalisher is 21 years old and is Romke’s boss.

MOSSLESS: Your mentor was Liz Deschenes. How was your experience with her?
DEREK KALISHER: What we talked about was fruitful, but it was somewhat brief. We only met once but we did exchange e-mails, throughout which we discussed the role of science and art.  This came to a head when she sent me a section of Robert Irwin’s Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees. Sadly after that she had to make a trip to Germany, and we lost touch.  We only started talking again recently.

ML: Can you tell me something about the work you exhibited?
DK: I have a big fascination with life and death.  I’m sure we all do work around that concept. So, what I hoped to do with the work was photograph the in-between state, where the plant and animal both meet just as basic organic substance, with aspects of its former life, but clearly dead.

ML: What was your most memorable moment at SVA?
DK: I was asked to take part in SVA’s summer residency program.  I got to do it for free by assisting the coordinator as well as showing all the other students how to use all the equipment and being on call in case any of them had a problems. So, I thought it would be a good idea to set up shop in the radio station since I worked there during the year and had the keys for it. I’d hang there after class and if anyone needed any help I’d be at their service. So the weeks go on and things are going great, I had turned a section of the station into my own private studio; I was also in the early stages of working on the project being exhibited now. This was all until the elevator in our building breaks down and everyone needs to use the freight elevator, including the president of the school who’s office happens to be on the same floor as my “studio”. The timing couldn’t have been worse, that day I had chosen to shoot a dried fish I had picked up in Chinatown a day or two prior, and the odor had crept into the hall near the elevator.  I was just about to start shooting when I got a call to go help one of the other students on a different floor. While I was gone the president smelled something odd and investigated, to find the radio a wreck with all the stuff I was shooting, plus my friend Bobby hanging out there on the computer. I get a call saying I have 5 minutes to grab my stuff before the cleaning guy gets there and chucks most of the stuff in the radio. I scramble up stairs hiding all my equipment, photos, paper, and all my other things in the back room so they don’t get tossed. Only to have my key taken away soon after locking most of my things in the room. Luckily after pleading with the guard I get my stuff back but I’m banned from the radio for the rest of the summer. The best part is when I come back the following semester I get promoted to being the station’s manager.

ML: What are you going to be doing this summer and onwards?
DK: The summer I’m not sure. I hope to travel.  I’ve never really left New York for more then a week or two, and never out of the States. Beyond that I will most likely be looking for work, applying for this and that and inevitably a grad school.