“Good art makes me want to talk to people,” says curator Bennett Simpson talking to artist Ingrid Calame about his 2013 MOCA exhibition Blues for Smoke. Ruminating on the blues, their conversation roams over cultural influences and intersections from Robert Johnson’s Delta legacy to the poetics of everyday experience.

On the occasion of the first California-Pacific Triennial at the Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA), we asked curator Dan Cameron a few questions about his curatorial process and some of the ideas that influenced the framework of the new exhibition.