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The unstoppable Amber Dorko Stopper on Artblog Radio

Roberta and Libby interview Amber Dorko Stopper in this 15-minute podcast for Artblog Radio.

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Whether Amber Dorko Stopper is fighting to resurrect Nam Jun Paik’s  “Video Arbor” installation, on Franklin Town Blvd., for which the software has degraded and fallen out of date, or whether she is devouring Korean horror movies and textile traditions–all of which grew out of a quest to help one of her adopted child know something about his Korean background–Stopper doesn’t do anything halfway. When she started publishing a literary magazine, she bought a printing press. She started the publication because she didn’t like what was going on in literary fiction! She dives into each new subject, swimming deep before coming up for air. Yet she is eclectic in her creations, which range from knitted sculptures, to hand-printed Tarot cards, to adaptations of African knitting traditions (another adopted child is African-American). We talked to Stopper at her rowhouse home in South Philadelphia about art, literature and adoptions on May 15, shortly before she was headed to the (African-American) Juneteenth Festival in Olean, NY, for her first solo show. When she pursues a subject or a project or a skill, she is unstoppable and fierce.

stopperchonggobela
Stopper’s son with the chonggo-player robot she made for him.

This episode is edited by Peter Crimmins. The music is by Eric Biondo. Thanks to the Knight Foundation for helping us get the ball rolling on this project. Thanks to J-Lab‘s Enterprise Reporting Fund and William Penn Foundation for additional support and to our partner WHYY NewsWorks for their ongoing support. You can listen to Artblog Radio on Apple and Spotify.