Jelani Mahiri
Written by: Marquart Doty
The small, windowless office is full of color and creativity, and every corner mirrors a vibrant energy. When I first walked in, I noticed artwork with both beaches and mountains, and lots of quotes and thoughts taped up above the desk. Collected works of art and abstract photos adorn the walls. Stacks of textbooks, grading guides, and papers live in organized chaos. Shades of green, orange, and blue scatter throughout the room — from the art pieces to the notes left on the wall. This is the office of Dr. Jelani Mahiri, an assistant teaching professor in Montana State University’s Department of Anthropology.
The room feels like a reflection of not just his work, but the relationships he’s built over time. The eclectic mix of influences in his office mirrors the community he’s found in Bozeman — a place where his roles as a teacher and artist converge. For Mahiri, community is something he builds through teaching, art, and conversation.
“This is my outer life” said Mahiri about his office. “You can see I’m pretty messy. But there’s piles of things that, if you dig down, you can see where they came from.”
Mahiri had just completed his PhD at Berkeley in 2009 when his then-partner accepted a teaching position at MSU.
“I had to literally find it on the map,” he said. “I was like, oh man, where’s Montana?” But over time, he’s become enmeshed in the community, both as an academic and as an artist. He’s taught a wide range of nearly 20 different courses, even ones that step outside what he sees as his own field of expertise. For example, although his geographical expertise is South America, he’s also taught courses on contemporary Africa.
“I hope [my students] get that following the things that matter to you and putting them in an academic context allows you to develop aspects of yourself,” he said.
His academic background is interdisciplinary: he studied physics and Spanish as an undergraduate at Morehouse College in Atlanta and anthropology at University of California, Berkeley for his master’s and PhD. He studied street vendors in São Paulo, Brazil during graduate school, exploring identity and labor in public spaces. To go along with his PhD dissertation, he created a portrait series called, “Asphalt dreams, concrete realities: Camelos and the struggle for a space to work in Sao Paulo, Brazil.” The series featured nearly 300 young street vendors.
“Some of them gave me the middle finger because they weren’t all happy about it,” he said. “But, yeah, it was just a chance to explore.”
In many ways, he treats his academic work, including projects like the one in Sao Paulo and teaching classes such as Culture, Language, and Society, like an artistic endeavor.
“Part of the learning and doing sometimes is an exorcism for me,” he said. “Like, I can’t get these ideas out of my head. I’ve got to do the research and figure it out so I can set it aside, and it’s no longer in my head. It’s not quite a demon because I don’t think of it as a negative. But I think demons can have a purpose as well. It can be haunting in a way.”
His photography, which includes abstract studies of light and water as well as landscapes, has been featured in numerous shows in Bozeman. He said the art community is small enough that he knows most gallery owners, and that the art scene is less competitive and posturing than in major cities, with more room to grow as an artist.
“I can talk to people [in Bozeman]. I can talk to them all day, and sometimes they probably want me to shut up and go away,” he laughed. “But it’s been really supportive.”
As he uses his art as a way to create community, his art-making process is deeply personal and introspective.
“Photography is a way that I can kind of do my own thing,” he said. “It really feels like mine in the world, and I don’t have to do it for other people. I can do it for me. It’s not so much self-care, but, like, self-recognition, and self-love, and a way of nourishing an identity I feel connected to. I’m fulfilled in the entirety of the process, even if I’m failing in the process.” Mahiri’s photography, like his academic work, is also a reflection of himself. Viewers can tell how much he’s interested in the people and environments around him. He photographs with a candid, playful eye. Green, orange, and blue appear as often in his artwork as the colors seem to appear in his office. Mahiri has considered relocating before, and he’s left Bozeman a few times since first moving there in 2009. But he always seems to return. In 2014, he had to go back to San Diego to be with family. “I debated whether to stay in San Diego,” he recalled. “But I felt I had a better community in Bozeman.”
He has found a welcoming, tight-knit artistic and academic community that is the right space for his creative pursuits. Much like his approach to teaching, Mahiri believes that being an artist in Bozeman is about being a part of a place that promotes expression and exploration, rather than just producing art. His office, full of vivid green, orange, and blue vibrance, reflects the artistic and academic community here. While we often think of Bozeman as only an outdoors sort of place, it’s important to remember how much possibility and space places like Bozeman have for other kinds of exploration, too.