Art & Fellowship with Erika Chong Shuch and Tiffany Steinwert

Why It Matters

The collaboration demonstrates how interdisciplinary arts and spiritual life programs can be deployed as tools for community building, wellbeing and experiential education, informing campus programming and models for socially engaged art. It signals institutional support for experimental, participatory practice with potential broader impact on civic and cultural engagement.

Summary

Stanford’s Art & Fellowship episode spotlights artist Erika Chong Shuch and Rev. Dr. Tiffany Steinwert discussing A Thousand Ways to Hold, a year‑long participatory project that pairs conversation and clay to ask “what have you held and what has held you.” Rooted in Chong Shuch’s social performance practice, the work stages intimate pinch‑pot workshops across campus to bring strangers and campus groups into ritualized creative encounters. Steinwert situates the project within Stanford’s commitment to whole‑person education and multifaith spiritual formation, framing it around questions of self, belonging and the transcendent. Together they describe the project as an experiment in how art and spiritual practice can foster connection and meaning post‑pandemic.

Original Description

"1,000 Ways to Hold" is a ceramics-based social practice project by 25-26 VPA Visiting Artist Erika Chong Shuch that brings people together to shape clay bowls while reflecting on what they have held, and what has held them.

In this episode of Art &, host Ellen Oh speaks with Erika and Tiffany Steinwert, Dean for Religious and Spiritual Life at Stanford, about the project’s roots in ritual, spirituality, and community-building. Together, they explore how art can create space for deeper presence, how making side by side can open unexpected conversations, and how a simple prompt and a ball of clay can become an invitation to listen, remember, grieve, connect, and be held.

Across the academic year, "1,000 Ways to Hold" moved through classrooms, dining halls, community centers, spiritual life spaces, Stanford Hospital, and staff communities before culminating in an installation at the Anderson Collection. The resulting bowls form a collective archive of intimate encounters across the Stanford community.

Featured Guests: Erika Chong Shuch & Tiffany Steinwert

"1,000 Ways to Hold" is on view at the Anderson Collection at Stanford University from April 2 through August 17.

Follow Stanford Arts for more stories about art, research, campus life, and creative collaboration.

Credits

Host: Ellen Oh

Creator / Producer / Editor: Taylor Jones

Production Support: Edi Dai

Sound Designer & Mix Engineer: Chase Everett

Theme Song & Music: Juana Izuzquiza

Executive Producers: Ellen Oh and Anne Shulock

Artwork: Connie Ko