I do relate to them when it comes to mirroring your audience. In 2011 I made a film about two Brazilien artist moving to Norway.The film plays out like an hour long conversation between the two about integration, facing the problems as immigrants, specifically the struggle in becoming accepted by your newfound peers, as someone working within the arts.
Eva Løveid Mølster (Philosopher of Art) analyzed the film;
Sabina Jacobsson’s Boxing Memories is disturbing in an intriguing way. The experiences of Alex and Vitor points out a feature of the Norwegian society that we don’t want to think of as “ours”. “We” identify ourselves with the young people from Benjamin Hermansen’s neighborhood who are against racism and for an open society. But who are “we”? And did we forget about our own history – before the oil – when our ancestors went overseas to seek their fortune?
I think the – the young people here they are (…) I would prefer to use “wasted” (…) because they have a lot of money. They have a lot of possibilities. And they don’t care too much. Because they don’t need to be creative, they don’t need to find for resources. They have all – they have it all.
(Voice of Alex. Soundtrack time 13.42-14.06. My extracts.)
Your approach constantly tests several viewpoints to reveal an incessant search of human condition: revealing its social identity but also in the attempt of tearing off the artificial masks, created by culture. While walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you where do you place your artworks: as a political statement, bringing back the political voice to groups that are being not heard,
manifest, a sparkle that aims at being the beginning of a revolution? What are the most important political issues you would like to confront your spectators with?
I would say equality among all citizen especially when it comes to gender and sexual identity. The Manifest for Civil Rights for LGBT people in the world.
Your works are strictly connected to the chance of establishing a deep involvement with your audience, both on the intellectual, emotional and – I dare to say – physical level. I would like to ask you
if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process? In particular, how much do you consider the immersive nature of the viewing experience? How important is for you the feedback from the receivers of your artworks?
Most of my work, as you describe, is inviting the audience to get involved with their thoughts and emotional approach to my work. And yes, I think feedback is important. Not only as critisism but further more to open up different viewpoints. I want my art to move. Politically, emotionally or aesthetically. For example this interview helps me to see my own work in a different way, which is interesting for my artistic development. It sharpends my mind and conceptual thinking and it opens up new ways of thinking. Collecting influences from the past related to the present.
Before taking leave from this interesting conversation, we would like to ask if, in your opinion, art can change the future for racial and ethnic identity? How can art help to make sense of these complex histories?
I beleive visual arts is needed in so many areas of society, to help us see things from different angles. When I enter different art arenas, I do it with my conceptual basis and I can contribute to a rethinking of the predictable approach to the unknown. I like breaking rules and playing with traditional thinking.
Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Sabina. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?
For the moment I am working on a new shortfilm called ”In Our Present” taking place in Valencia, Spain. We will shoot in 2017. "In Our Present" is the sixth movie in a series of short films where I'm using appropriation as part of my method. The film has references to M. Antonioni and F. Fellini's films from 60/70s.
The film contains a poetic visualization, episodic narrative, and a mysterious and unpleasant atmosphere. It will be a story about our present seen from a Spanish/Norwegian family's perspective of identity conflicts and secret desires. I want to show the distance that occurs in a family when you don´t talk to each other.
"In Our Present" is the sixth movie in a series of short films where I'm using appropriation as part of my method. The film has references to M. Antonioni and F. Fellini's films from 60/70s.
The film contains a poetic visualization, episodic narrative, and a mysterious and unpleasant atmosphere. It will be a story about our present seen from a Spanish/Norwegian family's perspective of identity conflicts and secret desires. I want to show the distance that occurs in a family when you don´t talk to each other.
iving 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.