8 minute read
Buffard
A R T I S T I N T E R V I E W LARA BUFFARD
Lara Buffard is a French Baroque persona, born in Paris in 1973, based between London and Athens. She is a performance artist who incorporates symbolic and surrealistic visuals within her work. She subverts the darkest aspects of life through striking and colourful images, communicating personal and social ideas in playful and powerful acts, transforming the human body into a Raphaelite creature. Website: www.larabuffard.com IG: @lara_buffard_
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Tell us a bit about yourself...
I'm originally French-born and grew up in Paris, but I lived in Egypt, Switzerland, Canada, and London for seven years before moving in autumn 2020 between two lockdowns to a small island in Greece. How did you become a performance artist? I became a performance artist by…chance! I worked for ten years in a museum, but when I moved to London, I applied to a call out for a project called "if Tate Modern was musée de la danse" by Boris Charmatz. I was not a dancer and not a performer, but after two days of selection….they selected me. Someone I worked with wrote a performance and sent it to me, and I answered I'm not a performer. He wrote me back, " if you are not a performer, nobody is a performer, come on Monday!" Since then, I've never stopped working. The same year I started my own projects. I never thought to be a performance artist, these came to me, and I feel it's where I must be and where I can share and help people reflect and make their own journey. One day, six months after a performance, I received an email, and this man wrote me how he finally talked to his dad and told him for the first
Photo by Luis Hartl
"I love you, dad. " He wanted to thank me for helping him do this step……..my performance was completely silent, but I guess he got some message. Did you always want to be one? What is your earliest memory of making your art? I was 5 years old. I remember doing puppets with cheese boxes, I always created things, but I never felt I could call myself an artist in the institutional way. I found it to be pretentious, until….. I couldn't hide anymore, I was sweating art!!
Photo by Richard Kaby
How did you choose the medium of performance art?
I love the ephemeral presence. Stay an emotion, a feeling. The present moment is the point, being there and now, together. I'm deeply moved by a live human presence.
What themes or ideas do you pursue in your work?
It's mainly about women's empowerment and people's empowerment in general. And death!
Can you tell us about your process?
Each working opportunity is a playground where I dive into it and take the chance to explore. I write and draw a lot, and usually, I have clear images that come to me. I process a lot in my mind via visualization of the space. How I will move and why, which symbols I will use. What does it mean for me? I don't need people to understand literally, but I must be clear myself about what I want to say/do. As a performance artist, your body talk! I read a lot, usually, when I'm in a process. I see symbols and metaphors everywhere. I can even randomly open some books and always find materials for my working process. When I write, at some point I reread and when I see something coming back or saying the same things but in different way. I know it's important for me, and I must work on it.
Photo by Thurianne Le Calvé Photo by Lara Buffard Photo by Jenna Callawaert
Do you actively search for inspiration or let inspiration find you? How do you come up with ideas for your projects?
Inspiration is everywhere. I feel totally immersed in my practice. I do a lot of series of photos called performing for the camera. I draw every day, it's quite a compulsive practice!
I'm listening to podcasts about art in general. Whatever it is, when people are passionate about what they do, it's fascinating. And when I listen, I can draw! As soon as a date for a project is confirmed, I start to work; it's like a flow. I take lots of notes, too and practice automatic writing.
Photo by Mauro Abhül
How did your practice evolve or unfolded over the years?
Usually, I'm pretty clear quickly about what I want/need to say in a performance. I work a lot with a kind of costume-installation on my body, and during the making process, it helps me jump into my subject. Recently, I created a burka made out of newspaper, and I totally embroidered it for an International Performance Art festival in Switzerland. All the articles used are about women's situations around the world. Abortion, rights, equal pay, contraception, place in the society…..reading and spending so much time on it because of the embroideries helped me feel and get into the right presence when I performed.
Tell us about a typical day in the studio.
Ideally, and if I don't have to answer emails straight away, I draw for one or two hours. Then I do the administrative stuff, which is a big part of the work, and then I create, and I can do it until the middle of the night. When I'm in the creative part of the work, I don't count my hours. Since I moved to an island in Greece, I use as well materials from nature and things I find on the beach or during my walks.
Photo by Lara Buffard Photo by Shin Iglesias
How do you draw the line between performance art and personal life? Do they overlap? Is this line blurry or strong?
Like most artists, I use my life as material, but I always say I feel I channel people's voices. It's why I cover very often my face, and it's not about Lara but me as a human being. I express on their behalf what most of them can't.
About your project "One Small Step,
" you say it is "a piece about the experience of being an older woman in our society and the process of being observed and
e s t r o r F i a u l J y b o h o t P
scrutinized. " Could you elaborate on that? On what it means to be an older woman in our society? I remember very well when I had this idea after a woman told me how she feels transparent because of her age. I personally don't feel pressure as I have a pretty big character, but I'm sad and tired of hearing women's stories about feeling ignored, judged, even rejected. Old or young, how we are never enough, not right, not having this or being that. Women are full of shame and this is not ok! I'm a mother of three, and my oldest one is a young woman. I stand for them, old and young. Would you say other artists or art genres have influenced your practice? If yes, how?
I admire women artists who dedicated themselves totally to their art, like Nikki de Saint Phalle, who became very ill because of the products she used for her art but didn't stop, Georgia O'Keefe, who was painting for hours in her car despite hot weaves in New Mexico. Sophie Calle for being-making a piece of art with her life without boundaries. Marina Abramovitch for sacrificing and challenging everything for the sake of performance art. And there is the one and only one Alejandro Jodorowky, he is a source of eternal inspiration. When I discovered his books, I thought, "Ok I can live on this planet!
What is your dream project? (let's say, in an ideal world where money, time, space were not a constraint)
I would like to collaborate with more people on the same project. I met so many talented people with different backgrounds, dance, visual art, musician, philosopher etc.…. I would like to explore and do a big project with them, together. Living and creating for six weeks without financial and working space issues and performing in different countries.
Tell us a bit about the future (any plans, upcoming projects, news).
From October until the end of January 2022, I will be visiting lecturer at the University of Arts of London (UAL) and in charge of MA students through a project I
have with Body Intelligence Collective, my team in London. I will be a coach for Dansathon, a contemporary European dance prize, in November. Presenting Digital Umbilical, a virtual stage, in November in Belgium. Working on a project with a neuroscientist who graduated at MIT and a musician for a piece about consent & sexuality. Working on a performance project about empty fountains in Athens. Collaborating on a project for a Greek film-documentary for 2022. Working on my series of masks called Family portraits. Like always, waiting to hear from institutions I applied to!
Lara Buffard, When the silence is noisy; Photo by Lara Buffard