On Community Salons And Reimagining Hospitality: Krystal Frame
All photos by John Leon Jansen, unless otherwise credited.
During SXSW 2023, we partnered with Sustain Frame to launch their first-ever Colloquy, a salon-style experience reimagining community conversation through experiential food.
Taking over eleMINT Skin in East Austin, Colloquy blended sex education with sensual exploration. From a communal plate installation to sex health educational tools and self-love rituals, the event served as a living altar to appreciate our bodies and the nuances of reproductive health.
Now, we’d like to introduce you to Krystal Frame—a long-time collaborator of Future Front and the creative behind Sustain Frame.
Portrait of Krystal Frame by MinkMade
ABOUT KRYSTAL & SUSTAIN FRAME
Krystal Frame (she/her) is the founder of Sustain Frame, an experiential series exploring environmentalism.
Now working in operations for creative nonprofit and community initiatives, her career started in the fashion and hospitality industries working in various positions. Krystal found herself lost in the mix, concerned by the ways her industries of work were negatively impacting the planet.
She decided to set her eyes on advocacy work in the environmental space with an awareness of the connections of social justice issues. Through Sustain Frame’s community offering, she hopes to offer windows into radical shifts toward sustainability and consciousness within the retail and hospitality industries.
Q — How did Sustain Frame come to be?
A — I started off in the Fashion Industry, but quickly found the shortcomings that came with it. (I realized early on that this field of work runs off of unhealthy habits and unsustainable practices.) In addition to these issues, the lack of inclusivity in the space led me to quickly burn out, as the work seemed to do more damage than good.
My background in the service industry helped kickstart Sustain, as I got curious about the lack of interest within creative experiences and events toward advocating for the greater good of the environment. I started Sustain officially during the pandemic, too, and my first few events simply explored ways to give back to the environment. Now that Sustain has grown into what it is today, I now curate and program experiences that explore sustainability, community and environmentalism from many angles—through dinner series, salon-style conversations and experiential summits.
Q — Walk us through how you started your salon-style series, Colloquy. What inspired you?
A — Colloquy came to be when I began to delve into the history of salons. Salons were once used for artists and creatives for communal communication and a space to grow. These casual spaces sprung up as moments to discuss societal issues of the times and act as a safe space for those who frequent them.
Using this as inspiration, I wanted to mirror that salon-style experience over food. And that’s how our first pop-up during SXSW came to be. For our first one, we chose sex education as our topic, because conversations surrounding sex health are often labeled as taboo, due to misinformation or a lack of reliable information.
So, incorporating fun and interactive activities for people to engage in, that first Colloquy was designed to challenge the negative connotations revolving around sex education and sex health. We worked with Future Front, eleMINT Skin, Plan C and individual creatives to make it all happen, too. And, to stay true to Sustain’s message, all food and materials were locally sourced. It’s important to me that all of our experiences uplift local voices.
Q — Having lived in Austin for some time, what does “homegrown” mean to you?
A — Although I’m now based in New York, I’ve made it a priority to connect with folks in Austin still. Austin holds a special place in my heart, and I hope that people can continue to foster new ways for incomers to come and explore what the city has to offer. I believe in the importance of making Austin welcoming, where people can feel at home within it, as I owe this town for giving me a safe space to develop and become the person that I am now.
Q — The world is your oyster. How do you want to expand this year?
Now that I’ve launched Colloquy, the salon series, I hope to continue creating conservations around sustainability and other societal issues. In regards to Sustain as a whole, my main priority is space. I hope to eventually obtain physical space in upstate New York to embody Sustain’s mission toward a revisioned hospitality experience.
*Photos from Colloquy’s launch during SXSW 2023
This special edition of Colloquy is part of Future Front’s Texan Feminist Initiative.
At Future Front, our work is guided by a commitment to improving representation and resilience in our creative and small business communities. This has a distinct relationship to our understanding of social justice in Texas—which includes reproductive justice.
We envision a Texas that acknowledges and fights against the intersectional issues that affect our communities’ health, like access to reproductive cares, systemic racism, transphobia, abuse and violence, sexual miseducation and more. We envision a Texas without sexual stigma—a Texas that does not work to prevent all genders and sexes from receiving appropriate health services.
We envision a Texas where spaces that prioritize individual agency and the communication of truthful, responsible information thrive. We envision a Texas where abortion is decriminalized. We envision a Texas where we can speak for ourselves.