Aliquam ac erat at neque accumsan tris-tique. Praesent id tempor nisl. Curabitur sed nulla at magna venenatis cursus vitae nec tortor. Fusce dictum fringilla.
Maecenas ipsum purus, ultricies ut hendrerit ac, imperdiet et lectus. Nulla facilisi. Proin porttitor bibendum rhoncus. Praesent imperdiet nunc et sem dignissim elementum. Donec lobortis congue fringilla. Donec consequat ornare sodales. Nunc posuere mattis mi, ut facilisis ligula accumsan vel. In consectetur accumsan diam, eget porttitor justo luctus id. Nulla porta nibh sed lacus feugiat fringilla. Nam ut leo augue. Donec pellentesque, enim ac gravida congue, lorem velit aliquet turpis, non adipiscing mauris dui at nisi. Nulla lobortis sagittis ligula, nec tristique nisl iaculis a. Proin cursus mi a nunc bibendum fermentum. Integer ultricies arcu et nunc interdum id sagittis mauris pharetra. Duis elementum aliquam eros, nec egestas orci laoreet eget. Nunc erat velit, aliquet non consectetur non, placerat eget sapien.
Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia curae. Cras et eros convallis risus ullamcorper aliquam at in odio. Quisque vitae rutrum mi. Aliquam ac erat at neque accumsan tristique. Praesent id tempor nisl. Curabitur sed nulla at magna venenatis cursus vitae nec tortor. Maecenas elit nunc, porttitor non tincidunt nec, scelerisque vel dolor. Suspendisse consectetur mauris vitae odio semper euismod. Curabitur in enim augue. Curabitur vel tincidunt odio. Integer volutpat tempus nunc, sed molestie velit pellentesque eu. Praesent dapibus enim turpis, at lacinia purus. Fusce dictum fringilla justo ut pellentesque. Vivamus eu urna dolor, id ultrices odio. Fusce sit amet sem nibh. Phasellus rhoncus imperdiet egestas.
Suspendisse consectetur mauris vitae odio semper euismod. Curabitur in enim augue. Curabitur vel tincidunt odio. Integer volutpat tempus nunc, sed molestie velit pellentesque eu. Praesent dapibus enim turpis, at lacinia purus.
Integer volutpat tempus
Fusce dictum fringilla justo ut pellentesque.
15
I was given the chance to make a work in an old graveyard, where the old forged crosses have a similar aesthetic. I adapted ‘Mémoire’ to the space. It has a pattern but there are also wires that are not structured, a bit like life itself. There are things in life that we can control or guide, but also things that are out of our grasp. The work was laid down as a carpet on the earth, on a crossroad of paths. I burned the plastic off the gardening wire and people could then walk on the work. After a few weeks, when I removed the work, it left an imprint on the ground. Visually, this imprint vanished quickly, but the pieces of burned plastic are still part of this soil. The trace became a concept within my work. The lace is now exposed as a sculpture, being a trace itself of what it has been. I adapt it every time it is mounted. I let it evolve as a sculpture according to the space it is shown. Often I leave subtle traces of the work behind in the space after the exposition. This work became a metaphor for life itself and a representation of its own experiences. I gave it the title ‘Mémoire’, in French, because it means memory as well as biography.
This coming together of all the effects of the work and what it leaves behind was a starting point for the development of other works.
What is the role of memory in your art process? We are particularly interested if you try to achieve any kind of translation of your experiences of living in many places with such different cultural and social environment.
Memory is what the identity, the person in the present, is built on. It is what is left behind after experiencing the world around us. It is a trace inside the mind. In our memory the information we have is continuously changing or morphing. Because superficial information (true, false, incomplete or generalized) is more accessible and present than ever before, our memory as a culture works in a breakneck pace. We link experiences together, enhancing and forgetting them. Most of these processes occur in the unconscious. I work with those processes in form and material.
Objects have their own memory, their own experiences that we cannot always read or tell in words. They can be an imprint, hold a trace of experience or be a trace itself. In ‘Chez moi’ I used feathers that I’ve been collecting for 12 years. Those feathers are a collection of souvenirs that I gathered everywhere I went: when I went for a walk near my home but also when visiting others and going on a trip. Some of them are also collected by friends and brought to me as a gift. They hold traces of the places they have been to, and the birds that they came from. Not only through visible traces on them, but also by the DNA they contain. That is the reason that I also use my own hair in my work, like in ‘Histoire de fou’. A hair is a line that can be read like a timeline: you can identify the seasons by the change of colour, the thickness, the length. It tells something about the person that grew it. It even tells something in a way we cannot perceive with the naked eye if you read the DNA and the chemical traces.
What is the role of technique in your practice? In particular are there any constraints or rules that you follow when creating?
Sculpture and installation is a good medium to give a static point of view, a pinpoint in the stream of information that is surrounding our culture. It is also something that is physically present, that takes up space and shares it with the presence of the viewer. It is a body that confronts the body of the spectator. Although the sculptures are mostly static in their perception, they evolve in time. I use that consciously in my practice. Every material has its unique way of behaving. I’m very sensitive about material and I use that sensitivity in my language. The material serves the concept of the work, it enhances the image and their capacity to form, to pick up traces, or whatever else I need for that work’s effect. On a formal level I often use lines and shells. The lines can be certain kinds of yarn, wires and hair. Shells are used in works like ‘Living’ and ‘Pieces of skin’. ‘Pieces of skin’ is made out of paper and oil, it resembles skin flakes and are remembering bricks in their form. They are translucent and pick up filth of every environment they have been placed in because of the oil. It is a metaphor for humans that leave their traces in the houses they have lived in, the relationship and the meanings they have with brick walls. A brick wall is hard while paper is very soft. Skin flakes holds information of the body while those paper and oil bricks pick up information of their surroundings. Choosing a material can be a question of making contrasts, enhancing tension and reminding another thing. I often start out with an image that is very common in our environment or in our cultural memory, an image that is part of our traditions and has a meaning. A brick construction, an oval framed portrait, the furniture inside a living room are common images. In using them, there is an aspect of the work that anybody can relate to, there is recognition. But then I manipulate them and change their forms or material which alienates it from the original object and its use. This recognition as well as the alienation come together in a specific way, like traditions and the effects of memory do.
How do you see the relationship between emotional and intellectual perception of your work? In particular, how much do you consider the immersive nature of the viewing experience?
f your work? In particular, how much do you consider the immersive nature of the viewing experience?
The emotional and intellectual relationship of my work always begin as two very seperate things. At first glance, my art may seem frivolously aesthetic .The colours are vibrant, and deliciously arresting. But then you look a little closer, even through the simplicity of the block colour and basic lines of geometry and pattern, there is always a story within… and that is when the emotional and intellectual perception of my art merge and the true beauty is discovered.
olted by the Thought of Known Places… Sweeney Astray” by Joan Jonas was one of the first performance installations that really made a huge impact on me. I was living in Paris during this time, in the early 90s, with a lot of influences from different cultures. It became the starting point of my own work. Joan Jonas practice has explored ways of seeing, the rhythms of ritual, and the authority of objects and gestures. Jonas continues to find new layers of meanings in themes and questions of gender and identity that have fueled her art for over thirty years. She is a great inspiration still today.
It is impossible to avoid the topic of body consciousness, embodied emotions and the image of body and personal identity that we see in your practice. What is the function of the identity appearing in your artworks – is it a canvas used to present your ideas or rather the subject of the art? What inspired you to use this as a theme in your practice?
I have been developing my visual imagery since I began studying art and film - from conceptual thinking, composition, using light and colour in different ways, through all the different techniques I've utilised over the years in my work and in my collaborations with stage artists such as dancers, musicians and actors. My approach is always developing through exploring these things. Visual imagery in essence is your way of experiencing what you see and transforming it. This is my world that I want to share and express through my art. The body consciousness, embodied emotions and the image of body and personal identity is part of this visual imagery, the emotional essence in my practice. Always present and always developing in different themes and projects.
Marina Abramovic stated: You see, what is my purpose of performance artist is to stage certain difficulties and stage the fear the primordial fear of pain, of dying, all of
which we have in our lives, and then stage them in front of audience and go through them and tell the audience, 'I'm your mirror; if I can do this in my life, you can do it in yours.'Can you relate anyhow to these words?
de-identify myself, by losing my roots, my culture, I would be very happy. Unfortunately the human being does'nt choose the place where he is born. He grows up in a society that automatically identifies, through education, culture, family... More than ever I think it's more important to go on a way of self-knowledge with the aim to meet “the other”.. This other without which we can not exist. It's the same for the artist. It is more important for me to be focused on my practice than to try to define it according to esthetic criteria of identification. It's probably the reason i like to remember the painter Matisse who said or wrote that an artist must never be prisoner of himself, prisoner of a style, prisoner of a reputation.
Would you like to tell us something about your background? Could you talk a little about experiences that has influence the way you currently relate yourself to your artworks?
All my way is influenced by encounterings.
It began by the meeting with my professor of literature at school. More than giving French or Literature classes, she brought us to discover texts, movies, plays, visual artworks and to think about on what we saw or read.. Thanks to her that I met Pierre Vincke, a theatredirector who was worjink in the tradition of Grotowski ... Both of them have led me to go to theater school. In this school I had meetings. Meetings with artists but also and especially human beings that made me discover. I always need o discover rather than to master a practice. It's probably the reason my encounter with Monica Klingler and Boris Nieslony was decisive for me and led me on the path of Performance Art which is a form still difficult to define. Each performance artist has a different definition of what it is...
Could you identify a specific artwork that has influenced your artistic practice or has impacted the way you think about race and ethnic identity in visual culture?
No I don't have a specific artwork that has influenced my artistic practise but many.
I'm influenced by some philsophers as well as poets or musicians or dancers or visual artists but also by some places or landscapes or atmospheres ... For some years, I was used for example to go to India where I was used to follow some traditionnal muscians or to learn bharatanatyam and practice vipassana meditation... Of course this experience has impacted my art work.... This brought me to think and work differently... My experience in India brought me to discover traditionnal strong art and paradoxally to the way of Performance Art. But there I see one common point: to make no separation between art and life and to be here and now, without projection on the future.
It's difficult for me to speak about race and ethnic identity. But I can say that today we miss more and more this notion of “to be here and now” which is more present in some cultures ... By practising Performance Art, it's my way to be connected to this way of thinking. And even in this field actually it's more and more difficult. The society and the art world brings us more and more to plan in advance, to define our work, more than to do. Just to do. To do what we deeply need.
And of course, my encountering with Black Market International and later the notion of Open Source or Open session via PAErsche have also a big impact on my work. When we go on that, each of us perform by sharing time and space but without trying to convince each other on some common way. This is for me a wonderfull way how we can meet each other, regardless of our origin, our race or our “identity”...
Many of your works carry an autobiographical message. Since you transform your experiences into your artwork, we are curious, what is the role of memory in your artistic productions? We are particularly interested if you try to achieve a faithful translation of your previous experiences or if you rather use memory as starting point to create.
My memory is clearly a starting point to create. I don't have any autobiographical message. I use my personnal experience ( what I feel , what I see, what I learn, what I ear...) to work. It's a motor or a material. I'm not able to paint, so I can't do something with red or white or yellow or black colors. All I have is life, a body alive. And I need to do something with that...
My sensation about life sometimes is too intense then I need to transform this intensity in some action. Some artistic action... If people can take something from this action this is great... but I don't want to give them “a specific message” or to control the translation of my experience.