ART Habens Art Review // Special Issue

ART

H A B E N S C o n t e m p o r a r y

A r t

R e v i e w

BRENDA BULLOCK SAPIR KESEM LEARY ZINKA BEJTIC CAROLINE MONNET CARLA FORTE ANDREA KNEZOVIC FERNANDA VIZEU CHARLOTTE SEEGERS TRACEY SNELLING , video installation, 2014

ART

ART

H A B E N S C o n t e m p o r a r y

Zinka Bejtic USA

Sapir Kesem Leary

A r t

Tracey Snelling

R e v i e w

Carla Forte

Charlotte Seegers

Andrea Knezović

France

Slovenia

Israel

USA

USA

I try to share my life with the viewer as if they were my close friend, as if we are companions to great discoveries. My main attractions is exploring body limitation in a spiritual manner.

Tring to connect to elements outside myself – people, plants, moods. The inner body and the outer world try to be symbiotic. Spending time out in the world has greater value to me than spending days on days in the Atelier. Hoping to meet new people and experiences that will inspire me.

My work derives from voyeurism, film noir, and geographical and architectural location. I create new realities that change with the viewer’s perception.

Through video, sound, and manipulation of size, I am not trying to replicate a place; rather I give my impression of a place, its people and their experience, and allow the viewer to extrapolate his or her own meaning.

Capturing moments and re-enacting them through painting and video.

My primary intent as Since I discovered anthropology, I a Filmmaker is to became passionate communicate my about this discipline personal and social for a particular aspect concerns, of it. transforming them into a magical realm What interested me the most, is that in where anything revealing cultural becomes possible. aspects of ways of Images, dialogues, acting, thinking and silences, colors and feelings, anthropology movement join to “denormalises” the create a visual equilibrium, speaking commonness, it for themselves. Within subverts conventional my cinematographic ways of thinking. work, movement is a It is this “dislocating” effect that I am key element for narrative and visual looking for when conducting my development; achieving a frame in research. my work focuses on motion from the image. Beyond an experimenting new unorthodox narrative visual sensations and aesthetic, through conflict.

When it comes to matters of existentialism, survival is one of the greatest challenges which each individual encounters in their lifetime. It is the primal urge which coordinates our actions and imagination, regardless of social, economic or political backgrounds.

Throughout our life journeys we establish patterns which determine our individuality, our modes of action, social positions and the conditions in which we exist. Identity plays a crucial role in shaping how and with whom we will assimilate ourselves.

In this issue

Andrea Knezović Carla Forte Zinka Bejtic

Charlotte Seegers Sapir Kesem Leary

Caroline Monnet Brenda Bullock

Fernanda Vizeu

Caroline Monnet

United Kingdom

Brazil

Canada

I seek the creation of artistic projects that give voice to contemporary social and political issues, intending to reflect about the past, the construction of identity, spiritual beliefs and political ideals, in order to create, or at least consider, other future perspectives. My life story, including participation among European anarchist groups and hippie gatherings, gave me material so I can today, after my graduation as an actress in Rio de Janeiro

Great results can be achieved in many ways. Mixing, merging and combining techniques and genres generate almost unlimited possibilities and opens up new perspectives.

Exploiting the possibilities that lie in each genre and technique is how I work with all my projects. In APIDAE, I recovered data from a destroyed and disrupted mp4 file of a bumblebee that I observed last summer. I wanted to contribute in drawing attention to the fact that bumblebees are dying.

Tracey Snelling Fernanda Vizeu Brenda Bullock

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Special thanks to: Charlotte Seegers, Martin Gantman, Krzysztof Kaczmar, Tracey Snelling, Nicolas Vionnet, Genevieve Favre Petroff, Christopher Marsh, Adam Popli, Marilyn Wylder, Marya Vyrra, Gemma Pepper, Maria Osuna, Hannah Hiaseen and Scarlett Bowman, Yelena York Tonoyan, Edgar Askelovic, Kelsey Sheaffer and Robert Gschwantner.

Andrea Knezović

A still from

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, video performance, 2015

Andrea Knezović

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video, 2013

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A still from Special Issue

Andrea Knezović

, video performance, 2015

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Andrea Knezović An interview by and

, curator curator

Hello, and thank you for the warm welcome!

First of all I would like to say that that my journey within the art world is completely accidental. My first aspiration was to become a doctor, which turned out to be from a start an incompatible ambition for someone who has a tendency to deviate from regular systematic structure. So, by chance and life synchronicity, I ended up moving from Zagreb, Croatia to Slovenian capital- Ljubljana, where I enrolled in a B.A. at A.V.A-Academy of Visual Arts. I graduated from the department of conceptualization of space, based on art practices which combine visual arts, theatre and set design. My primary focus at the time was photography, which was an ideal starting point for further exploration of visual vocabulary.

Andrea Knezović

found playful perspective to my creative art practice. Playfulness and managing was something that was crucial during studying, mainly because I was lacking financial means to sufficiently materialise ideas. These circumstances directed my interest towards more conceptual aspects of my creative practice, giving me opportunities to manoeuver within mediums and focus more on the thematic of my work rather than particular medium.

Coming from the part of the Europe where geopolitical changes are frequent and cultural politics variable, Balkan is an interesting mixture of various socio-political conditions. In my artistic prac-

During my studies, as every young art student does, I discovered various mediums in which I

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tise, reflection on socio-political issues is something that comes as a natural modus operandi, mainly because my personal life and impressions depends on it. Restructuring and fluctuations are common occurrences in such setting, I feel that art and cultural scene is responsive to those circumstances; where playing with certain ideological and social constructs opens a new window for us to understand and comprehend the reality we live.

When it comes to conceiving the ideas and making art, my practise varies from one project to another.

I like to believe that each artistic creation that I undertake has a unique reference point which narrates the general atmosphere of the process itself.

Every project that I begin leads me through my personal rites of passage. I use concept as a central idea of my creating, which through comparative practices and experimenting takes me to formation and materialization of an artwork. Medium, even though it appears as a secondary factor in this process, still has a crucial role in forming a referent and credible art project.

In my creative process, I usually find interest in notions that hold certain ambiguity or indeterminacy, which frequently takes me to exploration of margins and thresholds within particular contexts. I think that Synergy plays a crucial role in this, especially if you work with themes that go beyond direct and clear representation. In that case, each element of the work needs to correspond with one another to create an understandable and intuitive setting.

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Andrea Knezović

A still from

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Andrea Knezović

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A still from

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Andrea Knezović

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Seeking beyond conventional, moving away from the centralizing authorities towards margins, investigating boundaries and obstacles, is fundamental part in understanding conditions of immigrant identity.

On the Threshold, as a project rose on exactly these ideas. Being an immigrant myself, it comes naturally to me to experience and examine hybrid states of identity. Threshold state is a perpetual mode in which your identity exists. The omnipresence of this thematic in my life steered me to explore this subject outside personal context, and create ‘bridgeprofiles’ that correspond to similar notions. I started working on the project at the end of 2013 in collaboration with (the project was part of ). I recorded testimonials of different individuals about the ambiguous qualities of being an immigrant. I asked them to elaborate upon their personal impressions and how they perceive their own identity in transitioning from one place to another. They were asked to tell their stories in their native language, as well as English language, and also try to associate and produce abstract sound that reminded them of the migration. The exploration of their intimate conditions formed the organic set up of the project. It was immediately obvious that the sound was the dominating aspect of this work, while video served as an aesthetical landscape related to an identity of individuals. General atmosphere of the project was focused more on research of different notions of identity, rather than defining parameters between migration and assimilation.

I decided to deconstruct the interviews and arrange them in three layers of sound, all intertwin-

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Andrea Knezović

ing with each other, creating dynamic, yet intimate narratives. As a project, On the Threshold captures liminal states, which in anthropological context (V.Turner and A. Van Gennep) describes disorientation of identity, in-between states, where anything can happen within rites of passage rituals. The reason why I found liminality so important in the exploration process of identities, is because it bares non-fixed attributes. It is a concept that does not determine or establishes, but rather welcomes abstraction as a referent view point of the process. I find this extremely essential in understanding complex matters such as identity.

If we talk about immigration I believe we can’t avoid socio-political and geopolitical context. On the Threshold, first of all is a project that focuses on the intimate condition of globalized individuals, where unique perspective and personal undertaking is in the central focus of the project. On the other hand, the project tackles issues beyond individual experiences and subjectivity, so if we correlate it with contemporary context, On the Threshold could be interpreted as an allegory to current occurrences.

The question, is this project political or not? I feel politicization in any case is unavoidable in such subjects. If you decide to create a work that involves immigration, you immediately invite different contexts such as biopolitics, geopolitical dynamic and social paradigms. Reflecting the current events in Europe and Middle East; geopolitical destabilization, engineered immigration crises and

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Andrea Knezović

A still from 21 4 13

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Andrea Knezović

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A still from

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, video performance, 2015

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economic exhaustions, On the Threshold is an example of personal artistic interpretation that captures aspects of several contemporary problemsocial disorientation, naturalization, globalisation, and integration.

Political engagement in arts ranges from all sorts of different interpretations, from humour and irony, to sarcastic remarks or atavistic engagement, to many other forms of expression. I believe that this work holds a more gentle side to it, especially if we draw the parallel between direct political engagement and the brutality of the immigration circumstances nowadays.

Creative process is something that is perpetual in life, no matter from which side or context it is implemented.

If we consider that creative process engages research, experimenting, abstract thinking, intellectual involvement regarding themes we focus on, it is definitely something that involves a level of intimacy. Even showing interest in something, no matter if we experienced it directly or not, can create certain personal bonds to a subject.

We absorb information daily that is not necessarily our own, which we process through cognitive mechanism and build what we called ‘personal truth’. In this case, we use conjectural knowledge as a tool for building new constructs.

I feel that comparative thinking is crucial component in creative process of any kind. This permits us to experience, recreate, project and empathise with circumstances disconnected from our direct experience. Intuition also plays a key role in creative process, and is the fundamental attribute of our unique subjective understanding. Abstraction

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within thinking and creative process establishes exclusive individual intimate space, which serves as a catalyst for recreating personal experience.

This is what I consider a beautiful quality of being a human being, because it enables us to go beyond mere empirical actuality.

With the project Liminal it is hard to say exactly if its objective is to be fly on the wall or overachiving narrative.

It depents on the engagment and perception of the viewer, of course.

I started working on Liminal with an intention to explore different approaches to communication. It began as an experiment in which I involved peope coming from different national and linguistic backgrounds; from Sweden, France, UK to Serbia and United States. I decided to give them an assignment - to write a short story of their choosing, true or fictional, and focus on memorizing it's general content. Then they were instructed to elaborate these stories in imaginary languages resembeling their own with rhythm and sound, as well as in foreign languages that they were not familiar with.

During this experiment they were also asked to express in freestyle form the emotional states that they were experiencing at the time. As the experiment began (it lasted for several months) I realized

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A still from

, video performance, 2015

that the process itself was much more demanding and difficult then it seemed in a conceptual aspect.

Not only experimenting with language and communication, but also how it was reconstructing psychological states of participants.

I realized through observing the process that people have difficulty functioning outside structured

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Andrea Knezović

syntaxes. Everything that we perceive in the world, we connect with symbols -they determine our understanding of from and concepts. Language it self is created from these notions and serves as an identifying tool for trade and conformation of existing reality. When you ask people to fuction outside of this context they usually fail to

ART Habens

establish logical narrative in their minds. It becomes playful and painful practice, because they lose the orientation of pre-learned symbolics.

Therefore their mentality is set in absolute state of indetermancy, where outcomes have no predictive mathematical narrative. These ambiguities are again related to my personal research of thresh-

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Andrea Knezović

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A still from

, video performance, 2015

olds and manifestations of liminal states.

By definition attributes of liminality or liminal persona are necessarily ambiguous, since this condi-

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Andrea Knezović

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sonal internal experiences, as well as how I sense the world around me. Working with concepts of liminality provides me access to themes that are usually hard to grasp with material forms. These challenging and exciting concepts, position my artistic practice in the state constant mutation, which forces me to stay active and alert.

Sometimes I’m not sure if I’m challenging communication and language through my work, or if it is challenging me. I think it works both ways.

I always had difficulty conforming to a direct visual vocabulary that transparently shows the meaning behind the artwork. I find it uncomfortable to determine just one mode of communication and not leave space for ambiguities. I guess in this case you could say that I like to challenge hierarchy.

The way I perceive language is from one side as a structured system that enables us to logically perceive and communicate with world around us, and as symbolic associative tool that gives us an opportunity through codes, meanings and signs to establish abstract narrative. For me, playing between these two concepts is the most interesting, because it opens space for unexpected dialogue.

tion and these persons elude or slip through the network of classification that normally locate states and positions in cultural space. Liminal states are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned by certain cultural, political or ceremonial convention. These qualities are something that I find closely relate to my per-

The way audience perceives and experiences art is relevant. Nevertheless my artistic practice and the way I communicate with my work is not necessarily always dependent on it.

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Andrea Knezović

ART Habens

I feel that with each work I create, a different kind of communication evolves. It is important to consider and examine all aspects of how you are going to make and present a certain work; from the contextual part (Is the concept referent? What are the key ideas of the concept? How will the audience understand a certain subject?), to practical and applied practice (Which medium will I choose to portray my idea? How will certain mediums impact the viewer?

Why and how will I use a particular medium? Etc...)

As an artist, I find it crucial to first understand my work, to emerge myself in it and secure my comfort in how I relate to that work. Then I start developing the means by which am I going to communicate ideas with the viewers. Sometimes I use abstract visual vocabulary, which is not always relating to the general public, and is only understood by those who decide to engage deeper into the work. Other times I use direct statements, and visual language that is easy to grasp form any perspective. In the end it always depends on what I want to communicate with the audience.

It was my pleasure doing this interview.

Right now I am working on several new projects, one is a new work which will be exhibited end of this year, and other is an on-going collaborative project with curator . I am also developing an educational platform for young artists, where the main aim is to promote and stimulate young cultural workers in their further creative practice.

For the future, I hope to be surprised by my own creative process. I like to see things unfold spontaneously, so giving a concrete answer on how my work will evolve, I unfortunately can’t. It is much more interesting for me to observe the circumstances that are evolving in their own rhythm, rather than determining future conditions of my process.

An interview by and

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, curator curator

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Andrea Knezović

A still from 21 4 21

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Carla Forte Lives and works in Dallas, USA

Staring at the Ceiling, video, 2015

Staring at the Ceiling, video, 2015

An interview by Melissa C. Hilborn, curator and Josh Ryder, curator arthabens@mail.com

First of all I would like to say that I'm thankful for the opportunity to be part of LandEscape and to share with every one of you my artistic work and my essence as a human being.

I was born and raised in the city of Caracas, Venezuela. There I attended the Instituto Universitario de Danza (Dance Institute), and specialized in movement, composition, performance and improvisation. In 2005, Alexey Tarรกn (Guggenheim Fellow 2007) and I founded Bistoury Physical Theatre, a multi- disciplinary company based in the city of Miami, for which I am currently Executive Producer and Film Director.

tremendous interest for directing and expressing my feelings through art.

When I began to work with Director Alexey Tarรกn in Caracas in 2004, I realized that during the creative process dance was only a point of departure for composition. Later I discovered that besides performing, I also had a

Since I was very young, my passion for cinema was very strong, and my older brother Vicente Forte (a visual artist and writer) became one of my greatest influences by teaching me to love this art form from an experimental and

Carla Forte

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independent perspective. During my childhood there was always some video camera documenting our family moments, birthdays, graduations, trips, etc, and either my brother or my mother would always be in charge of directing the filming.

Despite the fact that these were very informal family documentations, it later became something serious for me and I am sure that it was had a great influence on my incursion into film directing later.

Upon my arrival to the United States in 2007, I had the opportunity to formally develop my first cinematographic works, some in collaboration with Alexey TarĂĄn, and some others co-directed by my brother Vicente, the rest of them written and directed by me, all of them bearing some important relationship to movement, even when this element may not be so evident in a few of the works.

Filmmaking became a personal means of expression and I have not stopped since; I am still a performer, but when it comes to directing I prefer to stay behind the camera.

My work deals with “in-communication� (or lack of communication), about that invisible thread thread that binds us to a common life despite and beyond our differences. Echoes that harbor secrets that can only be heard in silence.

Initially, in order to get the work going on any particular project, there must exist some kind of motivating concern or interest for something, someone, some theme to be developed. From that point ideas and stories are born, always connected to my own experiences. The need to create and to say something is an essential point of departure and it doesn't matter how difficult it might be to achieve it, I have to do it.

Before beginning to shoot, I first make the project conceptually possible in my mind; I do not limit

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Carla Forte

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Staring at the Ceiling, video, 2015

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Carla Forte

Staring at the Ceiling, video, 2015

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Carla Forte

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myself creatively and anything that might seem impossible I just transform into something simpler. I prepare a script or a schematic outline of the scenes; not many takes are done because time is short, since these are low budget (or zero budget) productions. Shooting can take up to twelve days, in the case of a full feature, or just a few hours or a couple of days in the case of a short film. However, my last project, a documentary named The Holders, took 4 years of production, involving an intense and arduous process of research and investigative work undertaken by Alexey Tarรกn (as Producer and Director of Photography) and myself at the facilities of the Miami-Dade County Animal Services shelter, a place where dogs and cats are dropped off and abandoned daily in our city and eventually killed off when they have surpassed the maximum length of stay in the wait for a home.

I make special reference to this work because despite the fact that it was a project for which initially there was no money at all, nor the best equipment for documenting, we did have an immense will and determination to make it happen and to tell the story. As a vegan and activist for animal rights I was resolved to make this film, which ultimately in 2015 was named Official Selection for the 32th Miami International Film Festival.

Interrupta talks about family. In general, families are held together by strong bonds, by common experience, daily life, the passage of time that makes us age together. The family thus exists while at the same time all of us are independent beings, unique individuals capable of supporting ourselves. Every family has its own distinctive

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seal, its marks; we grow up and take on our own paths, carrying a certain past and history.

For this project, I decided to work with my mother, my father and my brother because it would serve as a reunion for us. Getting together for a few hours to experience each other individually and as a nuclear family was an integral part of the visual experiment. Dancing was the point of departure for the story, because I think that each individual has a unique and very particular way of moving, and because at the same time there are memories that recur in the body and make us dance or act in a certain way.

For the development of each scene, each one of us had to choose an element or object to interact with or at least to be kept in the frame during the shooting of the scene. This element was to be something that really identified us as human beings, something that made part of our daily lives. This element or object acted as a means to show that even if we are alone we will resort to something, whether out of necessity or routine.

Interrupta portrays each individual separately in this common home, and although none of the scenes are shared collectively by the family, the memories become one.

Interrupta is based on a poem I wrote, and to each of the performers I gave a fragment of the poem to be read as part of the scenes. Every excerpt was written and assigned according to the particular individual. Nothing was done randomly. It is a common poem that explains who we are and where we are going.

My stories are definitely a reflection of who I am and every element I employ has been influenced by some experience. I use the camera in

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Carla Forte

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Staring at the Ceiling, video, 2015

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Staring at the Ceiling, video, 2015

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movement in many of my works because dance is always present Our eyes are in constant movement; we look anywhere without much thought; we arrive at any unexpected situation.

We are always moving, even when we sleep. Life occurs in a sequence shot that does not stop.

I think silences are important moments that give any situation or routine a break, a rest. There is a lot of noise in our surroundings; we are affected daily by external factors that make us react to their stimuli, which constantly confirms and reminds us that we are not alone and that we are surrounded by situations that we cannot control by ourselves. The use of black and white is fundamental in many of works because a second after I have written this line I have already been past, while the use of color revives any experience because nothing dies in the attempt. I have never experimented with creating any work that is disconnected from my life or my experiences. However, I'm not closed to the possibility of directing scripts or proposals by other artists. Nevertheless, I am sure that in order to do this I would immerse myself in their experience, I would try to live it in some way and feel it as mine as I need in order to be able to tell the story.

Staring at the Ceiling is a work based on a poem by my brother Vicente, which was later turned into lyrics by my friend and Miami-based music composer Omar Roque. It is a very individualistic story and I would dare say it's even egotistical.

We have all stared at the ceiling. Thinking of something while our gaze is fixed makes it appear simple; however, the mind is capable of traveling

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Carla Forte

to any other place or situation. This work is a tribute to the ability that we all have to transplant ourselves to that ideal place or memory. I still see my father often travel for hours while sitting on his chair. It seems as if he is simple quiet and introspective, but beyond that simple description I know that my father embarks on to the adventures of his own stories in his mind.

Staring at the Ceiling is a voyage through physical stillness and mental desires. It explores the capacity to travel in our own thoughts and live in a parallel world that distances us from reality; it is an escape from routine and monotony of daily life to free ourselves from society and yet remain enslaved by our own desires.

The amorphous format was chosen with the intent of creating a sense of enclosure, of feeling trapped in our own thoughts; a notion that no matter how free, we are always bound by our own social and personal constraints.

Each and every one of us holds a unique world of our own that is constantly trying to please its whims and desires. I think it's difficult to know other people because in a sense we never get to know ourselves fully.

Staring at the Ceiling, video, 2015

Many of the comments that I have heard from people after seeing this work have to do do with them feeling afraid when they are watching it, or that they experienced a feeling of anxiety. In a way, I do narrate about a very intimate world that holds a dark side of my desires and thoughts.

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I am a constant flux of influences because every day, when I go out to the street, I find myself surrounded by strange people that always leave something within me: sounds, situations, a wholeness that helps me carry on with my day to day. I believe many of my influences derive from seeing my father cry, chasing after the dog who runs astray in the streets, the homeless person asking for money at the corner with the traffic light, the neighbor's folkloric music, my aunt's uproarious laughter, my mother singing, the lack of

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communication between people. All of these moments become one more scene in one of my stories. However, I must say that there are many artists I admire and that certainly their works have created important marks in my life.

Among them are Alexey Tarรกn, Lars von Trier, Bela Tarr, Jim Jarmusch, Jan Fabre, Reinaldo Arenas, Fernando Pessoa, Steven Soderbergh, Francis Ford Coppola, among others.

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Carla Forte

Staring at the Ceiling, video, 2015

I am co-founder of Bistoury Physical Theatre and Film and currently Executive Director and Film Director of the company. I have worked as collaborator in the choreographic works of cofounder Alexey TarĂĄn, integrating film as an important component for the development of his works. Every creative process thrusts us into a new world where not only dance and film join.

Bistoury is a research and experimental space in which local artists collaborate. We have had the pleasure of working with visual artists, musics, dancers, actors, poets, singers, among others,

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making every process and experience truly magical.

I find collaborative creation to be an extremely interesting process because it involves getting to know others and allowing others to get to know you in a very personal way, “viscerally� as my brother would say. I think that in order to achieve a good collaborative work there must be profound research and immersion, artists must believe in one another, egos must be put aside and the artists must plunge together into a shared world.

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I believe that feedback is vital. However, the point of departure for each of my works has its origin in honesty, in a personal and sincere source of concern, of interest, in who I am. I believe that if we created thinking initially about our audience then surely we would cease to be who we are to become an infinity of tastes and approaches and likely end up doing nothing, It's inevitable to think of the audience during the creative process because we too are audience for others, and later they will be the ones to issue their opinions, to dissect, to laugh or cry, to reject or embrace the work, those who decide whether to applaud or to get up from their seats and leave. That entire wave of emotions that I hope to arouse when I present my work is underlaid by fears, insecurities and expectations, but what holds me standing firm is knowing that my work is a true reflection of what I am.

I am currently working as collaborating film director and performer in Alexey Tarรกn's most recent project, named TRIBE, a work that tells, through physical theater, stories of homeless people who live in the streets of the city of Miami (https://vimeo.com/116922384). This project is extended through artistic residency in Barranquilla, Colombia, for the development of a video dance, thanks to the exchange program of the National Performance Network US, along with the Red de Artistas del Caribe (Caribbean Artists Network) in Colombia .

I am forever grateful for the participation of collaborators in my work, because I consider them an essential key for the process as well as the final outcome of the project.

I believe my work will find itself evolving through the new experiences yet to come; breathing with active consciousness lets me into a reality of greater suffering but one apt to be fully lived, enjoyed and then turned into a magical realm to be explored and interpreted by the audience.

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Zinka Bejtic

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An interview by and

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became fascinated with the form itself and explorations of visual elements in avantgarde film movement. The surrealist approach is something that I was able to draw from when creating my projects and it seems to be a creative act of effort to free and liberate all of the aspects of imagination. There are so many new techniques that have excelled with the digital age phenomenon and I am very interested in these specific approaches and

The interest in the non-narrative film was shaped mostly by the possibilities of selfexpression due to lack of limitations usually imposed by commercial or narrative format. I

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how they apply in expriemental films today.

Some of the most interesting and unique characters in music and fashion that explore the similar concepts are Leigh Bowery, Isabella Blow, Bjรถrk and Lady Gaga. They can also still be found across contemporary catwalks as demonstrated by designers Gareth Pugh, Philip Treacy, Viktor & Rolf, Comme des Garรงons and many others. In regards to the fashion film and surrealist legacy, many fashion brands utilize the surrealistic concept in a dream-like state to boost the collection.

Being educated within different disciplines of design and film, I had the opportunity to experiment with processes that involved graphics, moving images and sound. These approaches enabled me to expand and excel in different areas such as photography, video, film and visual communication. Living in the day and age when moving image is everywhere the static visual experience rarely comply with the expectations of the viewer who now want to be engaged and stimulated through images and sounds, they want the full experience of immersive interaction. That is why the concept of art film today has an artistic but also commercial value. It is the format that encompasses the visual communication, photography, music video, commercial, advertising film, promotional video etc.

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If I don’t was a project done for the fashion

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association Modiko from Sarajevo, in cooperation with the British Council. I was assigned a group of four different designers Amna Kunovac Zekic, Jasna

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Hadzimehmedovic Bekric, Ata Omerbasic and Milan Senic and my task was to create a concept for the film that would provide a platform for four different outfits to be

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and fashion designer David Saunders of brand DavidDavid and the opportunity to collaborate with them in a three-day workshop. Even though fashion film format is mostly non-narrative, my idea was to include a simple storyline that still was in a way abstract and very much open to the interpretation. The film asks a question how does what we put on alter our personalities?

As the ideals of beauty change, the concept of empowerment through fashion remains strong as it suggests self-expression and identifies the idea of beauty as the tool for conceptualization of positive self-image rather than a simple interpretation of clothes Metamorphosis through fashion indicates that power is in the hands of the subject and not the observer. In the film, four different personalities emerge out of the single character. This type of expression suggests the choice, freedom, strength, power and control, attributes that signify beauty in the modern society. Fashion takes on the symbolic and aesthetic role and communicates on different levels offering a glimpse of the lifestyle, personality and character, making the very idea of beauty that much more intriguing and more complex to interpret. We were filming in Sarajevo national theatre warehouse, a set that helped us create a contemporary and mystical world. It was great working with the fashion designers and lot of fun on the set.

Later, I continued to work with Milan Senic who was behind styling and fashion design for Split, my most recent film.

The idea was to create a surreal environment that would visually suggest the fantasy, dream or escapism of some kind.

Contrasts of many sorts are evident in my work and I think it’s the idea of juxtaposition of unexpected elements that creates tension, necessary to engage the audience.

Since this format relies heavily on the aesthetics of the screen rather than the storyline and the narrative, it’s important to

represented in one single film. At the time, we’ve had a great pleasure of meeting prominent British fashion filmmakers Kathryn Ferguson, Elisha Smith – Leverock

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give it tension and advance the aesthetic appeal in such way. There is a suggestive aspect of the horror genre implied through the technical conventions of the film. The sound was an important element through which the sense of uneasiness was introduced. I wanted it to seem mysterious and unexpected, I wanted the fear of the unknown to be the main protagonist. The film begins with that in mind and ends with a realization that it is imaginary. This notion led to the title that poses a question “If I don’t”. We always think about what if I do something, but I think it’s more important to think about the opposite. What if I don’t?

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In this project I question the socially constructed paths – marriage and motherhood and their effects on women artists. For women, it’s generally a battle to be recognized in a field that requires discipline and determination, which is generally speaking dominated by men.

Statistics say that 80% of students in art

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schools are girls however; galleries and museums worldwide represent 80% of male artists. What happens to the girls? And more importantly – why? Women struggle to

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Zinka Bejtic

maintain their identity as artists while raising children and attending to their families. This gets especially difficult because of the socially accepted stand that

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once you are a mother you no longer have the right to put yourself first.

I would like my project to start a

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, 2011

Fashion Association MODIKO

conversation and raise awareness of this issue so that perception changes. I’ve been teaching for a long time in North America, Europe and now here. Most of my students

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have been girls. I look at them, their passion and enthusiasm about art and I want them to believe that what they are learning and what they love to do will remain their choice.

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not exclude the other. On the contrary. It’s great how they can and should complement each other. But in order for that to happen, the social perception needs to change.

There are so many things that can be done so that mothers who are artists are encouraged to continue making artwork and what is even more important be accepted within the artistic community. Having childcare in museums and galleries, shifting the opening of cultural events to weekends, establishing a network of artists/parents who would offer workshops and provide resources for mothers-artists etc.

The video questions the challenges, struggles and rewards of women artists. As the art profession is often dismissed as a 'hobby' and not taken seriously, the issue becomes very complex. The idea of an artist is often presented in someone who is defiant, eccentric loner so the image of a mother-artist is not easily conceivable or socially accepted. The issue becomes even more complex when the internal struggles of female artists are questioned. To what degree a mother artist can stand out without facing criticism and bring attention to their work without feeling guilty.

The project is a video installation in which I have juxtaposed images representing my creative work and my daughter’s footage calling ‘mommy’. By combining her physical form with abstract visuals the discrepancy between the two worlds becomes more obvious and it further accentuates the bridge between the physical and imaginative sensibility. The artistic forms are simple but visually provoking and mesmerizing with almost a hypnotic effect, which causes the interruptions to be even more pronounced. The transitions between the segments are followed by strategic sound design to further emphasize the fragmentation. As the video progresses, the juxtaposition of the images becomes more intense to simulate the feel-

I would like them to accept that their dream to become a designer, filmmaker, artist should not disappear the moment they start a family and become mothers. One should

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ings of confusion, interruptions, distress and frustration. The sound provides a platform for this emotional journey as we shift from dense, chaotic rhythm to a mellow and playful ending that remains open-ended and unanswered.

I give the same importance to both, aural and visual rhythm. When developing concepts for art films or videos, I first depict the mood and the message and then work to develop a temporary track that would serve as a guideline for visual inspiration and development of the rhythm. It’s the back and forth process that sometimes becomes very complex and as the director/editor, you have to find a balance and decide how to integrate both towards the end. Sound, for me, is a very important component. I teach my students that no matter how great the visuals are, if the sound is not done right, the entire experience is questioned. The mood, the emotional aspect or the sensation in general is greatly influenced by sound.

A still from

, 2012

Premiered at MTV Adria 2012

rylines where most of the action is open for interpretation. I like to suggest and not show things literally. I place a lot of focus on the visual expression, graphic elements not only

I like to explore the problematic of modern society through visualization of simple sto-

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Zinka Bejtic

through abstract imagery but also laws of the frame and mise-en-scene, visual contrast, colors and movement. Subjects of my work often explore dichotomies between

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inside and outside, polished and rough, physical and emotional. The relationship between image and sound is an integral part in understanding the experimental expression.

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As an artist I no longer seek to depict or describe the reality but instead inquire within my own inner reality. New perspectives arise and influence all artistic fields and various

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avant-garde movements characterized by different aesthetic foundations, but encompassed by their common struggle against tradition and taste for novelty, experimental

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elements. The attention is directed to the medium itself with techniques involving cutting o or designing extravagant sound and the effects are usually made to provide a more abstract point of view or more symbolic interpretation.

Well, I have to say that I do not draw from personal experiences when deciding on the topics of my projects. I am more interested in ideas that allow a specific demographic group to connect and re-think. I very much appreciate the simplicity in form and complexity in meaning. Art film rejects the mainstream conventions and explores the medium itself, it is personal and I like the fact that my films can be interpreted on many different levels, depending on social or cultural aspect of the person watching. Surrealism is a significant source of inspiration for me. Many fashion films today have drawn upon the conventions of the movement and contrary to what many believe are not just a commercial advertisement but represent a form of art. As fashion itself, it stands on its

and individual freedom. The entire experience of immersing yourself into this art form comes from the mood or emotional impact created by this synergy of visual and aural

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own as a representation of the designer’s vision of beauty and his/her inspiration. Certain fashion films are triumphs of experimental film with directors’ work resembling the work and style of Luis Bunuel. One of the earliest fashion films created was a British film Ceremonial Hat in 1948 for artist Eileen Agar. The film consists of close-ups and medium shots of a decorative hat. The models of fish, lobster, tiger fish, prawns and seashells are attached to it. Additionally, several feathers are attached to the hat. The male voice is heard in the narration. In this voice over he says that surrealist artist Eileen Agar has designed the hat. Different shots of the woman walking down the street follow, together with the reaction shots from the crowds she’s passing. The aesthetic quality of even the early experimental / fashion films is evident and these films represent an extension of the style concept, another way to experience clothing, fashion or a brand.

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I think I am inspired every day and this is why I continue to teach. I’ve been fortunate enough to have two careers that I love and care about deeply. I am amazed at how talented and ambitious the students are today.

How fast they learn and pick up information, new trends and techniques. I love spending time with my students and watching them

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get that ‘a-ha’ moment, seeing the spark in their eyes and excitement when they become consumed by the project. I recognize myself in them, remember those wonderful

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moments when you forget to eat, drink or sleep because you’re so engaged in your work, when you know that you’re creating something that will push your personal

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boundaries and take you to the new creative level. It’s great for me to be able to do my own work but at the same time to also have an opportunity to open the doors for some-

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A still from

, 2012

Premiered at MTV Adria 2012

changing technologies, but to new pacing and different mindsets. Students learn much faster today, they are generally speaking more technically up to speed and more inno-

one else, show them the way. Teaching methodologies today and undergoing significant changes. As educators, we have to adapt to, not only new and constantly

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though everything is accessible online and you can teach yourself just about anything if you want, still, I think the idea of someone standing in front of them not so much to teach them or feed them information but inspire them is very important. In today’s busy world, children often lack real role models. I am not implying that I should be one, but more often then not, I feel that I am. And that gives me a great responsibility as I spend time with them, shaping their minds and helping them pave the way into the future. In my opinion, educating someone means feeding them with passion and information to keep the excitement and positive energy. Everyone will be good at doing what they love. Finding what that is represents the hardest thing for most people. I feel very honored and privileged to have that opportunity and I sincerely enjoy being able to share my skills and my knowledge with students. And there’s nothing more wonderful than being blown away by an amazing project they created because I was able to inspire them.

I make films for myself. That is the privilege I enjoy because it’s something I am not asked to do but I do it purely out of passion for the purpose of self-expression. Company, particular budget or any other requirements do not impact the topics, conventions and production techniques but represent a pure artistic creation. In my projects I deal with

vative. They don’t take things for granted but instead challenge everything, which is a step forward from the type of linear education my generation used to have. And even

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topics that many people can relate to and therefore are drawn to explore them. They might not like them but they will understand their message. I believe the beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Being a designer I put a great emphasis on aesthetic of the form itself and I am also interested in the idea of female beauty and how it is interpreted in the media nowadays. As the ideals of beauty change, the idea of empowerment through fashion remains strong as it suggests selfexpression and identifies the concept of beauty as the tool for creation of positive self-image rather than a simple interpretation of clothes.

Metamorphosis through fashion indicates that power is in the hands of the subject and not the observer. This type of expression is consequently projected through the choice, freedom, strength, power and control, attributes that signify beauty in the modern society. Fashion takes on the symbolic and aesthetic, as well as communicative roles.

Bare on the other hand is interpreted as more vulnerable, open to criticism against the ideals of beauty suggested through the hyper-sexual, image obsessed context in contemporary culture.

Fashion accentuates a narcissistic approach to the idea of beautiful. It is superficial and harmless compared to the idea of a body image created by the media and beauty industry. If true beauty lies in attitude and self-expression, than fashion liberates and nurtures the confidence and flair. It’s a formula that has been refined to optimum effect – to make one stand out, be noticed and be unique. As bare body is subject to a more intimate interpretation that lies in the eye of the beholder, fashion communicates on different levels offering a glimpse of the lifestyle, personality and character, making the concept of beauty that much more intriguing and more complex to interpret.

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Thank you for this opportunity. It has been

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my pleasure. Well, I am always super busy with teaching and that is still my main priority but I am also engaged with several films and video installation projects that still aim to reconfigure realistic elements and create

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a new form of reality that will hopefully assign value to the viewing experience and challenge the status quo.

An interview by

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, curator

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Charlotte Seegers

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video, 2013

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Charlotte Seegers

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An interview by

, curator

Hi Dario, thank you for inviting me to discuss my work.

I think it is important to mention that I come from this solid anthropological background and decided to add the visual art into the discipline, not the other way around. I don’t really consider myself as an artist. I would rather say that an experimental approach in film allows me to go outside rigid canons of conventional filmmaking and conduct my ethnographic research in critical and creative way.

Since I discovered anthropology, I became passionate about this discipline for a particular aspect of it. What interested me the most, is that in revealing cultural aspects of ways of acting, thinking and feelings, anthropology “denormalises” the commonness, it subverts conventional ways of thinking. It is this “dislocating” effect that I am looking for when conducting my research. And I suppose that this quest for subversion and dislocation enables me to embrace a more artistic approach in the way I conceive and produce my work.

My current life situation also influences my hybrid approach and especially the choice of my subjects. I come from France and came to London five years ago. The reality is that despite this MA, to make a living I am working as a waitress and invigilator in galleries, alternating with freelance researcher jobs for art exhibition and videomaker from time to time. The people I meet and the life I lead influence the choice of my subjects and the way I conduct my work. I don’t see myself belonging to the academic or art world.

Like many people I suppose, I consider myself

Charlotte Seegers

in-between these social, professional and cultural circles - and I use it. I like to play in the interstices, put them in relation, juxtapose, coordinate, dis-coordinate them, showing other point of references.

In my case, I suppose the symbiosis is obvious. I have an abstract and intellectual background and

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Charlotte Seegers

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I feel the need to find a practical tool and a medium to conduct and communicate my research. Without it, I feel that my research isn’t complete and can’t reach a wider audience, outside the academic word. Writing is an interesting medium, but I find more suitable the complexity of the visual: playing with expectations behind images and the unexpected structures of the society.

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In my practice, multidisciplinarity is inherent to the process of the making itself. Dealing with human experience and the making of films, I am inevitably dealing with different types of knowledge to express some concepts. But I also believe that art and social sciences complement each other. Diversity, fusion of approaches and point of views, is fundamental and fruitful to

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innovate and make us attentive to the intricacy and complexity of one’s reality. For me, art resolves the ethical and political concerns of anthropology .

It gives the tools to develop a well informed and creative research, taking into account the aesthetic, experience of human life but also anthropology’s ability to subvert.

To say a few words about the process of my

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work, I would say that I use ethnographic fieldwork to situate my inquiry; often using singular stories, unheard voices and drawing them in the structural world we inhabit. For the choice of the aesthetic and the type of language I want to use, there is no clear methodology. I think about representational issues, the relationship between the subject and my understanding, trying to grasp what I want to

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Charlotte Seegers

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subvert, almost like attempting to portray the actual experience of the ethnography itself. For Immediate Response, I was much influenced by the descriptive and poetic aesthetic of Gary Tarn, Carol Sheeman with Fuses, and the hyperrealist and anti-illusionist aesthetic of Chantal Akerman’s films - I don’t hesitate to take examples from diverse disciplines, film genres, for me they are all worth getting inspired from.

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I really enjoy the research phase of the work but I am aware of this huge gap between theory and practice, all of your thoughts can be reformulated in the making, so better not to be stuck in this phase of the process.

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Immediate response was first a project about student prostitution; it became more orientated towards sexual addiction at the end. My Inspiration came from a lucky meeting I suppose. I was interested, and I am still are, about taboo and shame around sexuality.

I was a student at the time, working as a waitress and keeping in mind what my teacher once said: “Why are you working of the side?

Here people don’t work”. Student prostitution was everywhere in magazines, films, drama for mainstream media. Obviously the economical issue probed by them seemed to me a bit naïve, I was curious to know what was behind that, so I started to interview independent student escorts in London, just to find out who they were. What I found interesting is that some students were proud of being sex workers and of belonging to the Sex Worker Open University with badges and all of that. I thought that, it might represent a glimpse of feminist revolution, new values, new relationships models and innovative ideas.

I led few interviews but I didn’t manage to grasp them fully. All seemed too constructed, not genuine at all. But, to be honest, I didn’t try too hard to get to know them because I had met the protagonist of my film already, a man. I hadn’t even thought about a man at first. I was soon fascinated by his honesty, his stories and the way he himself did a retrospective on them. I was also fascinated by his dual character, student, in a relationship for years, straight and male prostitute. Sometimes he saw me as his counselor but most of the time he attempted to destabilise me, I think, with graphic and exciting stories, trying sometimes to convince me to work with him, while keeping a reserved attitude somehow. This situation made me think about a film I had watched months before, which had inspired me I think, Elles, from the Polish director Małgorzata Szumowska. This film is a fiction drama about student prostitution in Paris; the lens is progressively turned toward the first character of the story, Juliette Binoche, who plays a feminist journalist. She first appears as a coherent and confident woman, intelligent, independent, following a healthy diet, working from home in her apartment with balcony in Paris. But soon she encounters these two

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Charlotte Seegers

student escorts. They begin to tell their stories, explain their point of views, and in doing so they challenge her own understanding of sexuality.

She soon realizes that she is the one trapped in her own conventional, sexist and bourgeois sexual norms. I found this film great, well done, and I really enjoyed this mirror effect that you also get in ethnography. I thought it was a clever way to pass on this dislocating effect to the audience. I remember James asking me at the end of each interview: “Why you don’t do it? Is it wrong?” I decided to make a film about our dialogues and especially the part I could relate the most due to my personal experience: sex and self realization. Our conversations led me in this direction: the relationship we create between sex and self in our consumerist and individualist society. A society which stresses us to maximize our chance of self realization, where settlement and failure is not an option, and where desires need to be fulfilled immediately, almost before we happen to know them. James alludes to this anxiety and the immediate character of his pursuit. I thought that it was a great issue I myself experience combining psychological, social, cultural issues along with physical needs and pleasures. Filling holes in his self-identity with the gratification he would get from sex: a good and tangible metaphor.

I wanted to tell his story but I couldn’t portray his face to keep his anonymity. My teachers told me to leave it to a radio program, but I wanted to turn this obstacle into its advantage. I thought that actually not portraying his face was the key of my film, I didn’t want people to exteriorize him: to give him a face, a shape, even a name, but I wanted them to identify to him, like I did. So I took the challenge.

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but I think it is systematic, because of the type of films I get my inspiration from and probably because of my scientific background. I prefer to open the viewer to an issue rather than give him a univocal understanding of it, and I appreciate films featuring complex and multifaceted characters with conflicting motivation and internal conflicts.

We all are full of contradictions and I like the viewer to identify with the character, even if such

Well, I didn’t really think about it when I made it

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character first appears alien to him. There is a reason behind the idea of juxtaposing collective imagery and James narrative- to emphasize the identification and let the viewer enter in direct relation with him, to make his own sense of it.

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Charlotte Seegers

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embedded in one, amongst many, self-defining contexts. I understand why you say a “neutral” and “scientific approach”. I try to be as “objective” as possible because I find a work more interesting when it leaves room for the viewers to make their own interpretations. But my work is totally subjective. I would say, it is more “honest” than neutral (it is the word used by the protagonist of my film after watching it).

Thank you, I am very happy with this reception of my work. This is what I attempted to do I suppose, but I wouldn’t say that my work is neutral. I am proposing to look at an issue through a particular spectrum; an issue

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actual social and political context, I try to move away from this attitude because I think we need to be engaged more than ever. Here art can help to bring life to our curiosity and make us attentive to some issues, give other point of references. Some choose to convey an explicit sociopolitical message, some use sensationalist strategy. To my personal taste, I don’t think a sensationalist language is that much effective.

On the contrary, it dismisses the ability of the viewers to make their own investigations, their self-critiques, which nowadays is indispensable in our current socio-political environment. We need to regain our ability to make our own mind.

Art is also a good way to highlight an issue when the access is restricted because of power relations and ideologies and there is a certain pleasure at playing around “the rules of constraining places” (as said De-Certeau) - like when I turned the anonymity obstacle into its advantage in Immediate Response.

This question makes me think about Detournement strategies and surrealist attempts to disrupt inscribed images.

I believe, like you, that there are encrypted messages, and some artists find a certain pleasure at reversing and displacing them. But when you say, “revealing an inner nature”, I am skeptical about it.

I think it would be too ambitious to attempt to decipher “our inner nature”, to distill some essential elements of truth.

I don’t think we have the tools and abilities to do that.

“Honest” when I try, as you said, to share my experience of the ethnographic process embedded in our own social and cultural frameworks which define him, me and us.

As regards art and sociopolitical questions, I have never really been comfortable with activism because of the nihilist deconstructive turn of the discipline, I suppose. But in the

However, what an artist can do, one of his roles

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Charlotte Seegers

if he wishesso , is probably to overthrow our aesthetic and cultural representations, trying to get to this fundamental questions, which is: how is reality constructed, rather than transparently representing it; asking ourselves, how are we made?; how are we becoming who we are?

Which gaze subjects us?

I guess this vision of art is strongly influenced by my readings about the relationship between surrealism and ethnography. Art and anthropology here had this common role of disenchanting, demystifying our artificial and constructed collective imaginary: playing with perceptions and showing how exotic our constitution of reality is.

Yes, it does influences my decision-making process. It is actually very difficult for me to start a creative process without having clues about the audience. I think about the audience while producing and conducting my work. For example, Immediate Response was made at university and I had a clear vision of what I wanted to subvert, the conventional categorizations I wanted to address: the academic world and the gap between theory and practice, rigid canons of documentary films, but also British selective university system, western obsession with self realization, the word “ambition”, this amalgam between sex and relationship, prostitution and its stereotypes of “girls in high heals and fish nets diving into cars”,... I had many things in mind while doing it.

Addressing to someone or something actually drives my creative process. Speaking about the reception of my film, It’s great that my film has been awarded at Goldsmiths University but knowing the subject, its sort of ironic as well. I find that interesting.

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At the moment I am working on a collective film (Kaleido film collective) gathering visual anthropologists sharing similar views. I am also doing my best to make a living as a video-maker and as a researcher for art exhibitions giving

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story-lines and contents for exhibitions.

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Also, I come from this anthropological background and I think it is very present in the

What I would like to do now is to develop my hybrid filmmaking practice. I have much to learn in order to combine art and anthropology. I am now thinking about diverse topics with my film collective, which make sense to us in our everyday. I am also looking for a film project in Morocco.

way I conceive and produce my work. I want to work in collaboration with visuals artists and filmmakers to explore wider and innovative possibilities to communicate and conduct my research. I think there is a lot to do here and huge space for creativity.

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Lives and works in Bern, Switzerland

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Deca Torres

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video, 2013

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An interview by and

, curator curator

Sapir Kesem Leary

Hello to LandEscape and its readers. My first introduction to art and art making was when I studied theatre. To be perfectly honest, growing up, I dreamed of becoming actress and studied acting while in elementary and high school. Once I finished my compulsory military service, I have begun official training in a Theatre school. After two years I left the acting school in search of a new direction. I think that performing on stage was too emotionally demanding, and being the total person that I am, I immersed myself in the characters I played. By the time we were done with rehearsals I was emotionally and physically drained.

That experience made me realize the importance of the interconnection: I needed to eliminate the element of the director and connect more to my own character. Maybe that was the reason I started documenting myself in videos.

In my opinion, honesty is the most valued quality in an actor/actress which translates for me to honesty with oneself and a sense of freedom in front of the camera. I was lucky to find art as means of expression, it is another stage but the scenes write themselves - they are not directed and I try to be

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Sapir Kesem Leary

an honest spectator or an active participant in the story.

My love for television, animation, comics and film is a core element in my cultural substratum. The ability to be so wrapped in a story in a way that make one feel a part of something outside of oneself. The connection one has with fictional characters can sometimes feel liberating and meaningful. I wanted to make that connection from the other side of the screen. Reach out to the viewer.

In my paintings and drawings stand as well my personal experience as a means to tell a story. In other words, I try to transcend my specific experience so that its core speaks of something bigger. I try to see the experience as it was, but naturally memory can be tricky and some things get distorted. I love that. Our memory can make such profoundly more precise impact than a camera, because of the emotions it carries. I use photos and videos to jog my memory, but painting a realistic picture does not interest me. I prefer painting my own memory. As this is a main aspect of my painting aesthetics - to be able to transfer the feeling of the experience into a painting while trying to stay true to the natural surroundings of the experience.

That actually depends on the medium I choose to work with. It’s a different set up for drawing, painting, sculpturing or video.

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Sapir Kesem Leary

Although the first thing that needs to occur in any medium is paying attention to something while it is happening. Since my work is mostly focused on my personal experience, I must first choose the experience. It doesn’t have to be an earth

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shattering understanding. Sometimes just noticing the lighting in a certain scene can feel meaningful enough to try and live it again through art.

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Francine Gourguechon

I try to be attuned to the environment I’m present in. When I am having a conversation with a friend and suddenly get the urgency to film it [in real time] -- it can become a very delicate situation. The friend I am conversing with must feel comfortable with the camera

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otherwise I will lose both the conversation and the documentation. In this scenario the best set up is a mental one. If my friend doesn’t feel comfortable with the camera then it is all gone. If I am too focused on the frame rather than on intimacy, everything is

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Francine Gourguechon

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With painting it varies. Sometimes I paint scenes that I have already filmed, then I let the videos and photos run on the computer screen while I paint or I spread drawings on the table. The format is chosen by the shape of the memory. Some memories are panoramic, some are zoomed in, etc. I take many brakes while painting, it’s hard to hold a feeling or a memory for a consecutive amount of time. Still, a painting can take between 2 hours and two weeks [usually not longer]. In painting, I feel exploration needs to always occur. When I lose curiosity and go to previously found solutions, it usually feels boring and not genuine. I find it hard to commit to a specific format or surface. Sometimes, a specific paper draws me in, sometimes it can be a block of wood I found. I collect surfaces and then when a shape of a memory fits a format I have, I get excited and eager to paint. In choosing colors, I also try to stay loyal to the scenario while connecting to the feeling of the experience.

It is also important to hold both these ends while remaining playful. For instance, in „Missing the Gondola“ the mountains have many colors: brown, white, green that actually exist in the landscape. At the same time, the red, purple and blue of the mountains in the picture stand for the passion and emotion of fantasy I was experiencing from seeing the Alps for the first time. This painting actually has a funny story because I got stuck on top of mount Pilatus [after literally missing the Gondola down the mountain] with my newfound love and current partner. The whole painting is chaotic: the mountains look like gushing waves while my partner and I are colorless, immersed in each other. Even the blankets on the bed create two winged figures observing one another.

lost. The process of documentation everything is very delicate. Even when I film myself, if I do not approach it with an open and willing heart and just worry about the end product, the magic is gone.

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Sapir Kesem Leary

Phase to Face is an autobiographical video following my experience in a student exchange program in Switzerland. The first part of the video investigates the quiet space of being alone while flirting with a new persona. The second part, follows encounters between me, new friends and strangers, deepening the search of meaning in loneliness and love in a foreign country. I actually arrived to Switzerland heartbroken after finishing a relationship of eight years. It was my first time completely on my own. I have never travelled anywhere for more than two weeks and have been in a committed relationship since I was 19. So being alone was a new and exciting experience for me. The camera became my partner in the process of discovering Switzerland and my newfound independence. She [the camera] was the one I confided in. I took her everywhere and felt she was my confidant. Everything felt so new, that I could be inspired even by the structure of a house. I was inspired even by the leafless, naked trees [not a common phenomenon in Israel]. I made one important decision: to never be lazy and always take the camera with me, and to never shy from asking the person in front of me if I can film him/her. I was editing throughout the duration of my stay in Switzerland. It was interesting to discover myself and my friends in the edit process.

When filming without a script, one gathers an enormous amount of material. I watched a lot and tried to carefully choose the scenes

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that fitted the mood I wanted to create. I searched for specific moments of honesty and connection between the film and the viewer. If I had to make a list of inspirational sources it would be too long to read. I think it’s about connection and

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Sapir Kesem Leary

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intimacy. Once I am able to feel intimacy with a tree, human or even a wind breeze; there is potential for art.

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experience“ is. Direct experience is generally experience gained through immediate sense perception. I believe some people can get into a creative process from mind stimulation rather than the senses.

In order to answer this question I think I need first to define what „direct

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important. If I am stimulated by a concept I will search a way to meet that concept in a more intimate way in order to enter the creative process. For instant, the video Tea Ceremony is a mixture between direct encounter with material and inspiration triggered by a book about Wabi Sabi*. I was never in a tea ceremony, and all my information about it came from movies or the Wabi Sabi book. The experience was not direct, but I tried to make it direct. I tried exploring that notion and make it personal. I wanted to gain that ceremony despite the fact that I did not have an opportunity to participate in a proper tea ceremony.

Nonetheless, while collecting pieces of sand and glass on stormy days from the beach, I thought I felt that spark, which Wabi Sabi refers to. So maybe it was inspired by the direct experience after all‌ :) Thinking back on my classmates in Shenker, I cannot think of any work created that had nothing to do with the creator in one way or another. It is true that I do a direct documentation, but everyone in my class ended up interpreting their personal experience in one way or another. Some tried to clean the personal aspect once the process was on the go and some left it visible. * Wabi-sabi represents Japanese aesthetics and a Japanese world view centred on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete"

Sometimes, an idea is so exciting and stimulating that it inspire us to create whether we had a personal and direct experience with it or not. For me personally, the direct experience is very

Yes. Many times I feel that one medium is very limiting. Different media open options

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for many more ways of exploring a certain concept. The body and mind react different to each medium and being playful is a huge inspiration source.

Filming documentary can feel very direct.

This scene is interesting so I film it. Then in editing things change a bit to capture the atmosphere. Video is more than one shot. It is an event and the editing process can take a long time. With Phase to Face, the editing process took a few months. The process of documenting is different from the editing and is different from the end product and each process adds another layer that transforms the original experience. So the end product is actually not direct at all, but is concreated through different lenses, through bridges and valleys.

Painting is actually much more direct, there is an immediate reaction of the painting surface to the colors. The oil colors tell a different story from the camera. I have less control in painting. I try to create the image mostly from memory and as we know a memory distorts the situation. Nevertheless it feels much more personal than a photo.

The painting can tell me something new about the video and vise versa.

It’s hard to explain how the different materials affect the mind process. When one thinks in 3D, in 2D or in media; each medium tells a story a bit different. Above all I love to experiment and be surprised by the material.

Many times one feels the history of the material and this can affect the mood of the

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Sapir Kesem Leary

work, especially if one is attune to it. In the year 2001 there was a suicide terror attack in a nightclub located on the Dolphinarum beach in Tel-Aviv, it injured 120 people and

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killed 21, mostly teenagers. Today, this beach is neglected and is full of trash, glass, sand and leftovers from that night club. So as you can imagine, it carries a heavy load. I

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mixed all those materials together with plaster in order to create a tea set. I was interested in the contradiction between rubbish and destruction to a peaceful act of

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drinking tea and contemplating. Even while watching the video, I can feel how much the tea set creates an atmosphere that my colleague and I had to surrender to. It starts

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set. I believe this kind of things could only happen when the material has a history and by pouring more meaning and feeling into it. I attempted to capture the Wabi Sabi sentiment in the work.

The viewer is very important to me. The most important thing in my art is to make a connection with the viewer so that we can become allies. It is quite hard to imagine what each person would feel and how she would respond, so when I begin the process of editing—I try to remove the spectator from the equation and cater to my own aesthetic preferences. If I feel that I managed to create something that interest me or makes my stomach move in one way or another, I know I am on the right track. When I show works in progress to colleagues and friends I try to be very open to new descriptions of the work. It is very exciting to hear something I did not have in mind, sprout out in someone else’s mind.

When a viewer is curious enough to create his own interpretation, then surly there is something interesting that is worth exploring in the work. I start by trying to challenge myself and the people I work with in my videos. Then, they challenge me back and a discussion is created. So, yes. It is very important for me to trigger the viewers’ perception. If I manage to do so, I feel accomplished. out playfully with the sound, which contradicts the serious expressions we have. The entire mood is about imperfection and failure, and that has an immense grace thanks to the tea

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Sapir Kesem Leary

I think we all have a relationship with nature. While working on New Form, I felt that connection in a more visible way. I grew up in a city and growing up, I didn’t spend much time in nature. The time I made New Form I was very interested in meditation. I have been practicing meditation for a while, but at the time I created New Form I experienced a particular opening and a deeper curiosity and awareness to my surroundings. I realized how disconnected I was from nature. I found myself stopping on the side of the road to observe a random grass field, a random bird. In the city I watched the sky in the middle of hectic traffic jam and went to the beach much more frequently. I think being attuned to Nature [by 'nature' I refer to any environment that is not industrial] we can deepen our connection to our own human nature, and to the way we observe ourselves and our surroundings. The nature in my works reveals the mood and emotions that cannot be spoken. The most direct metaphor is probably the stormy sky that expresses and/ or stands for the stormy mood. In painting, since there is no text, other visible signals are more needed than in video. The nature helps to go deeper in to the story. The main thing I feel the nature in work convey is: Stop. Don’t rush forward.

Let yourself be bored or amazed by what’s around you.

In my work I usually deal with my own life but in my school it was often said that the

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mere act of creating art in Israel-- already makes our work political. My sister, Sharon Avital, who is a researcher in the humanities, recently wrote that even the decision to be joyful and going to musical and spiritual festivals (that are very popular in Israel)—has

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political implications. She claims that by choosing to participate in an alternative way of life, we choose by default to not succumb to the propaganda of fear and the politics of identities that divides Israel and actually the entire world. So it is easy to see that in Israel

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each decision we make as individuals and as artists has political overtones. But now I live in Switzerland and I think that it is not so different even if not as obvious: my decisions to consume meat, or use plastic, or create art

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rather than to work in another industry – all have wider implications. The challenges I face as a young woman in this world are shared by more people of my generation. As the feminists said: the personal is always political.

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over time or that it is a question of geography.

I guess it also depends on the personality and the urgency of one’s call. As for new media, I think that what it allows us is to share and to share more quickly. Artists, intellectuals and travellers traditionally had the ability or took on the role of looking at their lives and cultures from a different perspective and articulate what they saw in their respective media. Perhaps now with the increased movement and flow of information—more people can look at their lives and cultures with fresh eyes. I don’t think that it make our work as artists less relevant, but actually adds a new sensibility since we can develop a conversation more easily. When I was fresh out of theatre school I started a video blog and got comments from all over the world. It was amazing and really inspired me.

I am currently editing footage of a colleague [Artist Guy Aon]. He documented himself for a period of time and now I took over the materials in order to make a short video from it. It’s interesting to go into someone else’s world and try editing it. It is a very different process and experience than when I am editing myself. I am currently living in Switzerland and hope to travel a bit more. To continue documenting and also make an attempt to write a more scripted video. I’m working on another project about swimming pools [I have been working as a lifeguard for this past summer]. And, of course, always carry on with painting and drawing.

So what I try to do in my own work is to explore what I am familiar with and allow the audience to feel the reverberations. To answer your question more directly, I am not sure that the role of the artist has changed

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, 16mm, 2012 (film still) Š Eric Cinq-Mars

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Caroline Monnet

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video, 2013

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Caroline Monnet

4 03 Summer 2015 , 16mm, 2012 (film still) Š Eric Cinq-Mars Summer 2015

An interview by and

Caroline Monnet

, curator

(photo by Eric Cinq-Mars)

curator

The way I produce my work depends on the project itself. I usually don’t approach a film the same ways I approach a sculpture let say. But I agree that there is always a form of personal interaction with the work. I am interested in

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creating works that have meaning and evoke feelings.

This is why most often I research intensively before I actually start making the work. It is part of the process and acts as the foundations of the works.

I became a multidisciplinary artist out of necessity really, because film and video was just not enough for me to express certain ideas and concepts. I believe it is the idea that dictates the medium chosen, not the other way around.

I explore whatever medium best serves my expressive needs. Each medium is a world in itself and has great potential for storytelling.

It is also quiet liberating to explore different mediums, different avenues of my own personality and to truly embrace the history that comes with a particular medium.

It’s almost a way of educating myself in terms of techniques while striving to choose the perfect medium for the perfect story. Lately I’ve been working at making concrete sculptures.

They explore ideas of monument, architecture and minimalism. I try to challenge this industrial material to bring poetry and synergy.

My interests do not necessarily vary from one medium to the next. I believe each works influence each other and constitute a larger plunge into the thematic I have been exploring since the beginning of my art production.

It’s true that I studied Sociology and Communications. I think it is difficult to know what you really want to do in life when you are asked at 17. I have always been interested in art, in people and society in general. Because I don’t come from an artistic family and I did not have artist friends as a teenager, I never really thought I could make a career doing art. It is only later, in my early twenties that I started

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, 16mm, 2012 (film still) © Eric Cinq-Mars

seeing things differently and knew I wanted to work in film and visual arts. However, I believe my sociology background has had a huge

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influence in the work I do. I think it is nice to arrive to the art world from a different angle.

My interest in society and in people is engraved

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in the work I do still today. Art for me is a powerful tool for education and empowerment. I still believe the artist or the filmmaker has

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Caroline Monnet

, 16mm, 2012 (film still) Š Eric Cinq-Mars

somewhat of a responsibility in our society. The artist expresses a point of view on the world and can therefore help in sparking debates,

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sharing ideas and challenge our own ways of organizing our communities. Making art is a constant study of the world, others and myself

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Caroline Monnet

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it. I had studied sociology and communications and worked briefly for the National Broadcasting Corporation as well as a documentary television series. I made my first film IkwĂŠ in 2009. I was living in Winnipeg at that time and came across a small grant opportunity to direct and produce my first film.

It completely changed my life as I had finally found something that I was passionate about.

Filmmaking to me is a way of encompassing all forms of art. It speaks to performance, music, painting, photography and sound. It is collaborative, creative and challenging. As a self-taught filmmaker, I think I just try to do my own thing. I don't encompass myself into a style or a box. Because I have no formal training, I tend to follow my instincts and figure things as I go. Each film for me is a new challenge, a new opportunity to get better and refine my own style. Concepts and story often dictate the style of the film but I believe each film is filled with the same sensibilities, vulnerability and esthetic. As I grow as filmmakers, so do the films. I am more ambitious now than I was five years ago, but it’s because I am always up for new challenges in creating narratives. I also believe that my dual practice in visual arts has a huge influence in the way I envision my films.

Gephyrophobia is an experimental film, shot on a bolex 16mm that was commissioned by the WNDX festival of moving image in Winnipeg (Canada). At first, it was supposed to be a silent

within that. In the end, it is not so different from any sociological endeavors.

I became a filmmaker without really expecting

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film, but when the images came back from the lab, there was no way they could remain without a soundtrack. I truly believe that sound is crucial in creating a mood and therefore an experience.

With Gephyrophobia, I was asked to capture the pulse of the city of Ottawa, which is the capital of Canada, in a way that resembled the first experimental documentaries of the 1930’s. This is why I approached the project as a kind of city symphony.

I grew up in the Outaouais region, which is just on the other side of a river from Ottawa. For me, to capture Ottawa on screen is to talk about that river, or let say that border, that separates Ottawa from Outaouais. That river separates the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, therefore the Anglophones from the Francophones. It separates two identities, two languages, and two realities.

The incredible Frères Lumières composed the soundtrack. This was our first collaboration and they have been composing most of my films since then. I love how they captured the essence of what I was trying to do with sound.

On one end, the more government run city of Ottawa, more square, desolate, and on the other end the more catholic lower class driven reality that exist on the other side of the river.

They played with multiple layers of instruments, which fits perfectly with the minimalist black and white look of the film. The film might be minimalist and elegant in form, but encapsulates layers of meaning that you have to understand for yourself.

Cassie Packham and Nicole Kelly Westman in

My work is most often rooted in things I know

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Caroline Monnet

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, video, 2014 (still) Š Caroline Monnet

such as family stories, memory and observations.

I work from a very visceral and instinctive

place. My work will often start with a flash of an image or the spark of an idea. Visuals are often what drive my work. It’s like I see just one

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Caroline Monnet

, video, 2014 (still) Š Caroline Monnet

making its own connections. I often view the work as a puzzle that slowly reveals itself in front of me. I am always confident it will lead to

image and then start compositing around that first spark. That first flash must come from a place of memory and then the brain starts

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Caroline Monnet

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For me, Identity is an endless topic. It is all around us and often the most interesting thing in the world. My earlier work was narrated from a first person perspective and identity was at the center of the work. More recently, I’ve moved away from a personal specific identity obsession, but the work is still grounded in documentary foundations to evoke different realities.

With Portrait of An Indigenous Woman, I wanted to portray the reality of being an Indigenous woman from various perspectives. Too often as indigenous woman, we are put in categories. I wanted to challenge these perceptions by letting a group of women speak for themselves themselves. The project started in December 2014 during a residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. There I was surrounded by a fascinating group of young and talented indigenous women from Canada, the US and Sweden. It was so unlikely that we would all find ourselves in the same place at the same time that I felt a necessity to catalogue it. I wanted to catalogue us maybe for ourselves, but also for the rest of the world to see. We all come from different indigenous background, different walks of life, but we all breath and represent indigenous in our own right.

This diversity was essential to the piece and allows for discussions around what it means to be an indigenous woman today. We can talk about mixicity, queerness, traditional versus

interesting discoveries and that I’ll end up figuring out how to make it work.

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Caroline Monnet

urban lifestyle and responsibility as women in general. The video is very simple and the camera acts as an observatory eye onto someone’s personality. I wanted the approach to be as simple as possible to really let the characters express themselves. I thrive to create authentic representations of who we are as indigenous people. For me and many other indigenous people it is no longer a simplistic reality, there is now a multiplicity of worlds we walk between. We navigate between realities and this is essential to my practice.

Yes, I agree with you. As artists, we tend to dig under the surface to bring some information and ideas out in the world. I am also interested in what art can do. I mean, I think this is why most artists do the work they do. It’s about leaving something behind that would energize people. Our job as artist and intellectuals is to be different from the common perceptions. We have to make our art as intelligent as possible to fight stupidity. I like this idea of revealing unexpected sides of human nature and constantly re-evaluating how we engage with the world around us.

I think in general, my work is aimed at creating an emotion. I subtly work on the brain to make the audience response physically to the work. I never want to spoon-feed what the work is about. I’d rather assume the public is smart and will have

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© Davide Di Saro

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Caroline Monnet

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Caroline Monnet

, 2014 ŠDavide Di Saro

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their own personal interaction with the work. I am confortable with people making their own interpretation of the work.

I am a firm believer that I can only speak about the things I know. My own personal reality is always intrinsically weaved into my work.

Personal experience is a stepping-stone in creating the work I do. Roberta is a fiction film, but it is also based on the memories I have of my grandmother when I used to spend time with her during the holidays. I wanted the main character (Roberta) to be beautiful, eccentric and likable. I remember thinking that my grandmother was the most amazing and exciting woman.

Only later I realized her eccentricity was hiding something deeper. She was hurt and displaced.

Memories also feed imagination in my opinion.

The authenticity of the story comes from a direct experience, but the fiction behind it

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Caroline Monnet

allows for further possibilities in storytelling.

The film tells the story of Roberta who left her native reserve to follow her husband in a suburban area in hopes of a better life. There she finds herself alone, far from her family and friends, and turns to amphetamines to cure her boredom. I used humor in order to talk about a dramatic subject and to make fun of a conformist lifestyle. My character is an indigenous character, but any woman of that age could probably identify with her. This helps in braking conventions and stereotypes. By showing this reality, I believe I’ve created a new story in the world of indigenous cinema.

not accepted there, then I failed in the authenticity of my intentions. It is often easier to show a film to an audience filled with strangers than people close to you. The Black Case is the perfect example of this as it speaks of residential schools. I was nervous the first time I showed it in Toronto, but I’m glad people understood that co-director Daniel Watchorn and I were trying to honor someone’s story to the best of our abilities.

Presently, I am artist in residence at the ARSENAL gallery of contemporary art in Montréal. It’s a great space showcasing amazing artists. I feel very lucky to be there and have the chance to be part of it. I have been producing sculptures that revolve around personal materiality. These works are somewhere between architecture, installation and sculpture. On the filmmaking level, I am developing a few new projects, including my first feature film, in collaboration with Daniel Watchorn. I don’t want to talk too much about it as it is still in the very first stages of development, but promises to be challenging and exciting ride. Once again, I feel like this project will aim at challenging preconceptions of indigenous realities while trying to establish understanding between different communities.

I do not set up to create works thinking of my audience. This would be counter productive in my opinion because then the work comes from the wrong place. I respect and honor the process in making art. Once the work is completed, then it is really interesting to see how people react to the piece. I often find international crowds hungry to know more about indigenous esthetics. I don’t create work to educate audiences, but it’s nice when people have questions, comments and are surprised by the information in the works. On an international level (especially in Europe), I find myself being an advocate for Indigenous issues.

I hope my work can continue to sustain itself and evolve as much as it has been evolving in the last recent years. I am always on the look out for new opportunities and I hope I can start reaching bigger audiences with both my film and visual art practice.

In Canada, it can be the same with nonindigenous audiences, but it’s more a reminder that this is our common history. I’ve said this before, but for me, screening my films at ImagineNATIVE film + video festival in Toronto is always my most challenging screenings. This is where I screen the films for my friends, family and larger indigenous community. If the film is

Summer 2015 Special Issue

An interview by and

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, curator curator

; Installation view at Raw Gallery of Architecture and Design ŠJacqueline Young

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Tracey Snelling

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video, 2013

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Tracey Snelling

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An interview by and

, curator curator

Tracey Snelling Yes, sometimes I feel that showing a subject and/or idea in multiple physical manifestations can be the most comprehensive, ideal way to get an idea across. For example: the film Nothing stands on its own. Yet, my ideal installment of the film would have the film projected to fill a large wall in the space, still photographs that I took on location of the film hung on a different wall, and installations of motel room beds, nightstands, and dimly lit lamps spaced unevenly throughout the space, so that the viewers could lay on the bed and watch the film. This added installation and

(photo by Rebecca Brown George)

participation dimension lets the viewers become part of the film, and allows them the opportunity to imagine they are guests at the motel.

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Tracey Snelling

I've been fascinated by motels, desert, and travel since I was young, so when I began to write my ideas for a film, I naturally leaned towards this setting. A few films that, in hindsight, influenced this work include Badlands, written and directed by Terrance Malick; Paris, Texas, written by LM Kit Carson and Sam Shepard and directed by Wim Wenders; Wild at Heart written and directed

by David Lynch; and See the Sea written and directed by Francois Ozon, among other films.

I was interested in presenting the desert as a character in the film, with quiet shots of large expanses of the landscape. I wanted to capture the feeling of the desert, of a small rundown town and being lost. I was most interested in presenting the exact moment when someone goes from denial or ennui, and being stuck in a situation without the energy to act, to the point of action and change. How does this come about? What causes the actual propulsion? I could have easily presented this using a male or female character, but I chose a woman, perhaps because I am a woman.

I had the rough story idea in my head, so I sat down and wrote it out on three sheets of paper in an hour or so. I still have the papers somewhere here... I wrote a description of the feeling and mood, and what one would see-waking up in the trailer, Jane driving, the hum of the air conditioner in the motel room, the heat causing everything to move so slow, the three motel rooms, the drive and gas station stop. I don't remember if the title came first or the the title came while writing the story, but I wanted the film to follow the meaning of the title. While things actually happen in the film, it's a very slow, methodical timeline, where seemingly nothing happens. Form following function.

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On another level, Jane's life at the beginning of the film is really nothing--she goes through the motions of life and does the bare minimum.

Her decision in life is to make as few decisions as possible. She's stuck.

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Influenced by the sometimes quiet and contemplative scenes in the films listed above, I wanted the film to trudge along, feeling like the heat of the desert was weighing it down.

It's so hot that even the film can barely move!

And the end, or the anticlimax after the

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climax, is an example of the mundanity of everyday life. In Hollywood, The movie ends when the hero rides off into the sunset. In my film, my heroine needs to stop to fill up her gas tank. This type of anticlimax is often found in French and other European films, or in some

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Tracey Snelling

of the great American films from the 1970's. I find this a much more thought provoking ending, which echoes the continuity of life,

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going from dramatic events to the general, everyday acts that everyone must do.

Another interesting aside is that I had

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Tracey Snelling

originally written the character of Jane to be a much harder, tougher, worn-down young woman: someone who is much older than they

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really are from rough life experiences. But while casting, this one actress, Elizabeth

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Tracey Snelling

Guest, was so captivating and engrossing. We weren't able to look away from her.

more lost, less hardened character. The film elevates to another level because of Guest's talent and the contrast between not being able to look away from Jane, and Jane being so passive and almost invisible.

She had something that was so interesting, but she also had an innocence and listlessness. After seeing her, I realized that my character Jane would have to change to a

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Tracey Snelling

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in the film, everything is shown through movement, the lack of movement, and mood.

In a way, I'm taking what I do with my photographs and expanding upon the idea.

When I make a sculpture, such as a sculpture of a roadside motel, there are lights, video and sound in it. The sculpture acts almost like a three dimensional film without a timeline.

Then, if I take the motel sculpture out to an abandoned desert roadside location and shoot a still image of it in the evening, I'm placing the motel in a particular setting and evoking a certain mood. I'm giving the motel context which didn't exist, or wasn't limited, when it was a sculpture. Now I've set parameters. So, in Nothing, when I have the long static shots and temp morts I am placing the motel and Jane into more of a context. On another level, the desert and the motel become additional characters in the film.

I initially had ideas of what the shots would be in my head, wrote them down, and sketched out a few. Many of the ideas were worked out during a location scouting trip that the cinematographer Todd Banhazl, the producer Idan Levin, and myself made down to Twentynine Palms and Joshua Tree. All three of us had input on what would be interesting and could add to the film. We also came up with new ideas at this time on some shots, and added or changed some shots during the actual shooting. We shot the film over three days, did the initial editing in four days, and I worked with the sound editor for a few days over the internet while I was in Greece for an exhibition. The entire film was made in a month, from scouting and casting to color correction and completion, in order to reach a deadline. It was intense, but also interesting to see what can be done in one month.

I spoke somewhat of that above, but to elaborate, I like having the time to see a place, a room, a landscape. With no dialogue

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Tracey Snelling

When making The Stranger, I collaborated with the producer of Nothing, Idan Levin. We directed the film and both acted as cinematographer. I wrote the two poems that alternate during the film. One poem is about being alone, and is narrated in English and Spanish, and subtitled in Arabic And Hebrew.

The other poem, which echoes the first poem line for line, is about us all being similar and at times, all being one, and is narrated in Arabic and Hebrew and subtitled in English and Spanish. The multiple layers of the poems, their meanings, the languages and the relations between the locations of these languages (both border places--the US and Mexico; Israel and Gaza Strip), in addition to the visuals and ambient audio, give multiple clues and associations that are layered and must be extracted by the viewer, making a kind of Adrian's thread.

When editing the film and figuring out the placement of poems, narration and subtitles, we worked as both mathematicians and detectives--on one hand following a formula or structure that we came up with to piece the film together; the other aspect was figuring out which scenes went best with the lines from the poem, and how these scenes interacted together. The many layers of the film, poems, narration, subtitles, and sounds make The Stranger a film that asks to be viewed multiple

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times, in order to pick up on the different nuances.

The concept of non lieu is an interesting one, and I find these places to be of more interest that notable locations. When traveling, I

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always try to find a local grocery store and corner shop. One can tell a lot about a particular culture from the grocery store, what's on the shelves, what people are buying, and who is shopping there.

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What these non places do is to bring together groups of people from the place.

The people and their characters become more important than the location or building. By presenting these places in The Stranger, the

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Tracey Snelling

idea of being nowhere and everywhere, and of the global world being smaller and more similar than one might initially think, is emphasized.

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Tracey Snelling

ART Habens

I don't agree with what Demand said about symbolism. Art can rely on all of the above.

Many of my sculptures are of iconic places, whether it be a motel, liquor store or bridge.

These places are kinds of symbols with ideas connected to them, such as a motel as being a place of travel, liaisons, seediness, and often Route 66 or the southwest. When I add the additional details--peeling paint, a door open with a pair of high heeled shoes strewn on the carpet, a video of a couple tangled under the covers, the psychological narrative develops.

Often, I leave this open ended enough so that the viewer can bring his or her personal experiences to their interpretation of my work.

Other times, my work is about a specific place, such as the huge city Chongqing in China.

Wandering the streets alone several days for many hours, with my cameras and tripod, I captured my experience as an outsider looking in. Though I might try to remain as neutral as possible at times, my interests and attractions lead me to document certain aspects of a place and ignore others. So, my personal experience is an integral part of my creative process. Even when I make a work that's inspired by a film or literary work from another, I still bring my ideas and interests to the work. I can't imagine how one would separate their personal experiences from art.

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ART Habens

Tracey Snelling

I try not to think of an audience when I'm making my work, whether it be film, sculpture, or photo. I want the work to be as pure as possible, and to follow my vision. I've been showing my art for many years and I'm used to the second act of it being presented and viewed by others (after the first act of creation). Sitting in a dark theater at a film festival watching my film with an audience has been a completely different experience. When a film or video is shown in a museum or art space, viewers can wander in and out as they choose. At a film festival, short films are viewed in sequence in one sitting, and it's a captured audience. It's a new and sometimes uncomfortable feeling for me to sit with an audience in a dark room and watch my film.

The one time I do focus more on the viewer while creating is in an installation. I often want my installations to immerse the viewer, and for this reason I take many considerations towards the viewer, such as lights, placement, flow of the space, and sound.

Presently, I'm working on a large scale installation called One Thousand Shacks.

Addressing the immense issue of extreme global poverty, the installation will be a 5 meter high x 3 meter wide wall of small scale shacks and favelas, with lights, video and sound. I will be presenting part of the sculpture and speaking about it at a

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conference on poverty in New York this fall, and the installation will possibly show at Art Basel Miami or Frieze NY. I am partnering up with an organization that builds houses in poverty stricken areas, and will donate part of the proceeds from the sales to this cause. I

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Tracey Snelling

ART Habens

with my collaborator on The Stranger, Idan Levin.

would like to start exploring the presentation and installation of my work in unusual outdoor spaces, such as a lake or a freeway underpass.

I like the idea of coming across unexpected experiences. I'm also in the beginning stages of developing an idea for a feature length film

An interview by and

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, curator curator

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Photo of

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Fernanda Vizeu

ART Habens

video, 2013

that went viral, taken by the photographer

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ART Habens

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Fernanda Vizeu

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An interview by and

, curator curator

Fernanda Vizeu

Well... I was born in Brazil but grew up in Chile. I lived there for 12 years of my life. Then I went to the USA to finish my last 2 years of high school, and then I went to live in Germany to work as an Au Pair. The work was expected to last one year, but lasted only three months. It didn’t go quite well. At that time, my brother, who is today a monk and who deeply inspires me as an artist, was traveling in Europe. He had started a hitchhiking trip that would take him 3 years around the world, regularly publishing his travel diary entries on his online blog. Then I started meticulously reading everything he published: things like poems, short stories, philosophicalpolitical manifestos and also his experiences during the trip. Wow‌ My brother was a nomad around the world! This provoked a revolution

inside me. So I decided to join him. We met in Rome and traveled together around Europe and a bit of Asia, to then separate after a few months, when he decided to continue alone to India in search of a spiritual awakening. The travelling experience I had with him, I believe, was a turning point in my life, as it gave me the opportunity to start questioning the system we live in. During this trip, I got to know political movements and different ways of living. I lived in anarchist squats around Europe, participated in anti-capitalist protests, took part of a No Border camp in Lesvos (Greece), also a hippie gathering in the Ukraine,

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Fernanda Vizeu

etc. I met nomads and people with alternative lifestyles. And I was only 19! Experiencing many things and places completely new to me… So it was a very unique and intense experience. It was a moment of perceiving myself and the world from a completely new point of view, with less judgement, kind of seeing it more as an outsider.

Today I realize that I matured a lot thanks to these experiences. Then, after travelling a few more months by myself, I decided to move to Rio de Janeiro to study theater, and, already in theater school, I felt the urgency of talking about the things that I had just experienced. I'm sure that what I experienced contributed to my evolution as an artist in many ways, especially intellectually, because I could question the world, question the crisis we are living in, question the role of art in capitalism, etc. Of course I wanted to replicate all this at some point of my career, posing questions to others through my artistic production. In 2013, during my last year of artistic training, the political demonstrations started in Brazil. Since I had already taken part of many of them in Europe, this time, as an art student, I wanted not only to take part of this new movement in Brazil, but also to express myself artistically, responding to this context of political discussion. I think I couldn’t produce what I produced if I hadn’t lived in all these countries, if I hadn’t traveled with my brother, and if I weren’t in Brazil in a political moment that was so crucial and unique. All this was a gathering of factors for already being able to create an authorial work. So yes, I see my artwork up until this point as a reaction to my experiences. I cannot disconnect them from my artistic productions as they were strong enough to almost impose themselves on my work. If it weren’t for them, maybe I would have arrived in Rio de Janeiro and would have not understood the political context I had found myself in.

Demonstrations on the streets would begin and maybe I would have felt they hadn’t much to do with me. And now that I'm living in Berlin, that is, as you rightly said, a cosmopolitan city, where consumption of art is very strong and where there are artistic projects of different sizes and natures everywhere, I can perceive that my works seem to be part of a bigger movement, still isolated, but which denounce authoritarianism through art. The most relevant works I saw while I have been in town seem to want to promote discussion of political and social issues, and I see that there is a

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common thread that questions the violence of the capitalist system. For example: the other day I saw a play by the Chilean group La Resentida, at the International Festival of New Dramaturgies at the Schaubühne, one of the most important theater companies of the city, which talked about

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Fernanda Vizeu

the death of Salvador Allende. I mean, works talking about capitalism and socialism, followed by a debate of the play, and active participation of all who were present, which is not often done today in many places. At least in Brazil this discussion sometimes does not go beyond inflamed

ART Habens

bipolarizations. And here I have also seen plays that include elements of the actors’ biographies on scene. Somehow it makes me feel that there is an alignment of my work with what is happening in this city, which pulses artistically. One example of this, is that as soon as I arrived in Berlin, I was

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invited to exhibit my works in the largest art festival of the city, the 48 Stunden NeukĂślln, which in 2015 had the theme "S.O.S. - Art Saves the World". I mean, I think I'm not the only one willing to discuss these issues. Of course I also realize that even though transgression and

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libertarianism are part of Berlin’s DNA, the city has transformed itself very quickly. Only 25 years since its reunification, in which capitalism has imposed itself with vigor. A lot of people are arriving from different places, and with that, what is produced artistically in the city also undergoes

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conflicts of our last century enriches it. The past defines our present and future, right? I think it’s the same with one’s artistic production.

Since the demonstrations began in Brazil the media has shown in its journalistic narratives a tendency of criminalization of these movements, weakening the protests. In the newspapers, the words used to refer to the demonstrators were always “thugs,” “vandals,” or "rioters," and the narratives were that they got into conflicts with the police, when in fact the protesters were being massacred by the police. This could only become clear because of the internet, which is more democratic, and where anyone who went to the streets could share content about what was really happening. So it started to become clear to the participants that the media really manipulated the truth. The internet had and still has an important role in exposing biases fed by mainstream media.

But most people, who didn’t take to the streets, didn’t realize that. So me and Ariane Hime, my friend and colleague during theater school at the time when the demonstrations began, felt an instinctive urge to express ourselves and respond to this context, to make an artistic manifesto in one of the protests. We then started talking about what to do, about the importance of being an instrument, of allowing ourselves to give voice to what the collective was indicating, and of how to use this to make an effective message. We then agreed that we would do a performance in which we would remain seated, eating dinner and watching television, alienated from the protests going on around us, and that we would resist until the moment of violence, which happened often.

We would wait for the gas bombs to explode, to then put on protective masks and pick up from

changes. That is what I have been feeling. Beyond that, being a city where history is so present, with signs of impacting past events in each street corner, Berlin has been very good for the understanding and deepening of my work. To be confronted with so much information about the

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Fernanda Vizeu

there, making a criticism of the people who remain alienated even with all the chaos around.

Of course we didn’t have an overall understanding of the reach it would have and how we would provoke so great a reaction. We didn’t know it would be something that people would identify so much with and that it would be something to replicate. In this sense, I only became aware that the message we passed on was what many people wanted to say, after seeing the photo of the performance circulating on the internet and all the comments that came from it.

I think we are all urgently needing to discuss political issues, since we live in a world in crisis.

We are on the verge of an environmental collapse and little has actually been done about it.

Scientists are saying so. But the majority of the population remains totally oblivious because governments and mainstream media do not want to talk about it. We are already almost 7 billion people on the planet and in little time, if we continue using the resources in such an uncontrolled way, things will worsen. As I believe that any social transformation passes through politics, since transformations happen only through the collective, it’s necessary to talk about these issues. We all need to talk in a more direct way, overcoming taboos. Deep down, politics is about how you put yourself in relation to others, in the sense of wanting or not to contribute with something. Politics are the decisions that an individual has in relation to the choices of the society as a whole, understanding how individual choices affect the collective. Nowadays we’re just not used to talking about politics. People are

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afraid to talk about it, since deep down they feel they don’t have authority enough to talk about it.

They are used to a fast-food life, to entertainment, and feel intimidated when it comes to serious topics. Politics ends up being a theme that exposes

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their weaknesses, or even worse, the condition in which most of us live: of alienation. So if society is afraid to talk about politics, it’s necessary that the artist does. He is a free being. He is a person who has the courage to expose himself, or at least

ART Habens

should. And I think that if my work so far had any reception, it is precisely because I do this, because I don’t try to maintain neutrality or hide myself. I make myself available to talk openly about the issues I consider necessary. But I do not

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ART Habens

The exhibition

Fernanda Vizeu

in the art festival

think my works are propaganda because I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I just want to communicate directly with the public, to expose issues to the world, to make people debate. And deep down that is to raise a flag of freedom, which

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is the opposite of propaganda. Because propaganda doesn’t want to provoke discussion, it wants everyone to accept that and to understand it as a unique reality or the better one.

Propaganda is the opposite of freedom, it’s prison.

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Fernanda Vizeu

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seeing this!?". It is to draw attention to something.

Of course a lot of people don’t understand that and think I'm a propagandist. But that’s because they aren’t seeing what I’m seeing. The environmental collapse that scientists predict for the coming decades is already happening. In Brazil, the largest mining company in the world, Vale, a Brazilian company that was state-owned but was privatized and sold to a foreign capital, has just committed one of the largest environmental crimes in our world’s history: two mud dams with mining toxic waste collapsed, killing people, decimating cities and wiping out life in one of the most important rivers of Brazil, the Rio Doce. The mud trail took the lives of animals, affecting thousands of people in communities that depend on the river for fishing and water supply.

All the flora and fauna of the region were affected with still incalculable consequences, probably for hundreds of years. The mud has already reached the sea and is reaching areas of environmental preservation, where whales reproduce, turtles spawn, etc. But Brazilian press reported it showing Vale as a victim of a fatality, protecting the company, because it funds political campaigns and advertises in mainstream official media, but so far has done little to repair the damage. They even said that the mud was not toxic and that it would serve as a fertilizer to help in the recovery of the region. And thousands of people are still without water.

I think that art has the power to transform society via the transformation of the individual who gets in touch with that artwork. Because often, art trespasses, affects a human being in ways that go far beyond emotional and intellectual aspects.

Perhaps art can unite both and it’s precisely that that makes it transformative. I think the artist achieves a transformation when he not only thinks about pleasing the audience or does something beautiful to be contemplated, but when he thinks about the transforming power of that work. When he thinks of provoking something, when he thinks

With it you want someone to submit to an idea, you want to convince someone of something. And I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I don’t want anyone to be an anarchist or socialist, or whatever. In fact it's just like: “Man, you are not

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Fernanda Vizeu

about raising discussion about something, when he thinks about raising questions... So I think that art has that power. If the artwork is only something to be appreciated, it ends up becoming something static, only aesthetic, to be beautiful, and loses that transformative potential. The point is that when there is a real provocation, the work runs the risk of not being pleasing, of being misunderstood, especially when you exceed some formal limits.

“Catracacatraca” originates from an illegal increase in the tickets of public transport in Rio de Janeiro and in several other cities in Brazil. This was the catalyst for the demonstrations to begin, because it has become increasingly clear for some that the state works to promote the interests of private companies. Like I mentioned, as the media criminalized these movements, the demonstrations quickly lost strength. Then no change happened. The ticket costs did not decrease. They increased even more a few months later. So the work stems from a response to this context. In fact, it derives from a question: what if someone decided simply not to pay the ticket, decided to jump the turnstile? Because if we protest and nothing happens, if the government’s commitments to us, those that should be the beneficiaries of public services, are not met, then what? What if we get there and also don’t fulfill our part? And if we simply don’t pay? I talked about it with Peter Boos, my partner in life and art, who is co-creator of the performance, and he found it interesting, that it was worth it. So we began to discuss how to aestheticize it. It soon seemed clear that the best platform to generate debate would be the internet. So, at first, the idea was that I would jump the turnstile of some buses while holding a camera, recording what would

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happen and how much it was effective or not, and then publish the recordings on the internet. We knew there was a risk involved, like being arrested, for example, since I would be doing something illegal. But then, already in the first attempt, we understood that it wasn’t necessary

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Fernanda Vizeu

to do it more times because the debate was already triggered in our first trial. During the performance, on the bus, there were people who reacted against, but also people who supported me, like the man who decided to pay for my ticket so I wouldn’t get kicked off the bus by the

ART Habens

police.The work ended up denouncing the conservatism of Brazilian society.

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what is the real efficient way to be able to communicate with the audience? I think that if the work requires a symbiosis of different mediums, concepts or viewpoints in order to reach a discourse, then yes, symbiosis should be used.

Let’s spare no work. But this is only the artistic

I don’t know if it’s the only way. Maybe. I think it depends on each work, on what you want to talk about. Before you know the language, it’s art. So,

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Fernanda Vizeu

ART Habens

They indicate where the work should go. And they are what say if the work has any relevance or not.

In "Untitled or And the people in the dining room," the photographic record of the performance by another artist is what spread. It was shared by more than 1,800 people in only 48 hours. Whereas "Catracacatraca" is a performance that became a short-film and now a theater play.

I think so. If Ariane or Peter didn’t participate, I’m sure the works wouldn’t be the same. In fact, they wouldn’t even have taken place because they originated from the dialogue I had with each of them. If it were only me watching television, without Ariane, the performance would almost have another meaning, one of loneliness for example, rather than of something communal. We had already done other works together and between us there was a very intimate and sincere interaction, what means that we trusted each other in making such risky decisions. Moreover, Peter also contributed to the critical view of the work, regarding how we would present it later.

And as me and him are a couple, and we are both artists, of course we are constantly talking about our world views, about art, about what we want of our work, separately and together.

support, the consequence, not the genesis. In the case of my works, I think there is a symbiosis as a consequence, because the result was beyond my control. The works showed their own dimension.

So I have the impression that, in these works, the issues approached is what’s important. The why.

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Fernanda Vizeu

Well, in "Untitled or And the people in the dining room" the interaction with the audience is less susceptible. The performance is an image, which is independent of the interaction with who sees it, even if records have shown that other people appropriated the work after we fled the bombs, as the case of two men that continued doing the performance in our place. Of course also that due to the circumstance we found ourselves in, we could have been hurt, or even killed (laughs), and that would determine another ending to the performance. Then, thinking it over, yes, it’s susceptible to the audience’s interference.

Especially because it also gained the collaboration of another artist, the photographer Byron Prujansky, who we didn’t even know, but that suggested a name when he published the photo, and that was assimilated as part of the title. I also think that the massive sharing of the photo endorses the content of the work, revealing how that speech is a reality for part of society. In "Catracacatraca" the audience’s participation is a key component, as I do it precisely in order to see what will be the reception of the ones present.

Without their participation the performance doesn’t exist, because I’m proposing myself to do a portrait of society through a deliberate action to provoke a discussion. I did it exactly to see what would happen, in an almost documentary sense like: if I do this, what’s the consequence? And the fact that the woman in the bus was available to debate, even if against it, but available, was what facilitated the appearance of the issues we wanted to discuss.

At the moment I’m developing a continuous work with my partner Peter Boos, as we have several projects in theater, performance and video that we want to do together and that we are producing one after another. The priority now is to make each time more people enter in contact with the registries of the two performances. That’s why we are working a lot to bring Brazil Exposed to galleries and art shows. In addition, we have "Catracacatraca" evolving into a theater play,

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which is our area of origin. We already finished a dramaturgy that includes the transcription of the debate that took place on the bus and also the comments to the performance after it was published on the internet. We are working to stage it, as we believe that in theater it’s possible to

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have the audience’s attention for a longer time and thus to create a deeper discussion.

What I aim is to be in service. If we artists seek to address issues that society demonstrates urgently need to discuss, understanding better the role that we can exert from that space of

ART Habens

awareness, then we will be using the real transformative potential of art. I think that's the most important. For that reason I would also like to thank you very much for the interesting abens questions and for the space that gave me to talk about so controversial issues.

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, 2011

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Brenda Bullock

ART Habens

video, 2013

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Summer 2015 Summer 2015

Brenda Bullock

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An interview by

, curator

and

curator

Well, I'm mostly self taught. Even as an adolescent I knew that a kind of artistry was inside me, and I needed to express it. I'm always conscious of that word, 'need' in that many artists throw around the idea of imploding if they don't project their experiences, but it's funny because it's often true. A life/career without learning the trade would have left me unnourished, and I'm just glad I discovered that early on. To summarize, I embarked on graphic design, which was a good career in itself, however I ultimately began evolving my work after completing my masters.

Brenda Bullock

Brenda Bullock (BA in Media and Production Design) worked in London publishing houses as a book & web designer, completing a computing HNC. Having attained her Fine Art Masters and winning the Royal Photographic Bursary award, Brenda now combines her work as a fine artist with lecturing in Digital Photography at Coleg Powys and running a successful photography business.www.brendabullock.com

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ART Habens

Brenda Bullock

A concept is subjective, the viewer derives meaning based upon their experiences and perception of the piece. While I could (and have done in the past) translate a concept through a sole medium e.g photography. I feel that fusion of disciples is more expressive, truer and cements my intention. In creating this way I feel the work is able to communicate the concept across a wider wavelength of expression. Thus the viewers perception is enhanced.

, mixed media

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Brenda Bullock

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Brenda Bullock

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, 2011

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Brenda Bullock

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A topic so linked to memory is wholly intuitive. It's about capturing the feeling of a cultural time when life was a slower pace and there were different rules. What one sees can be interrupted so many ways but an emotion from a piece is lasting and unchangeable. It's that kind of cross-historical empathy which the piece was intended to instil.

This question would have me unfold a large array of definitions about source-energy and the like, but suffice to say, I liken memory to the wind. It's intangible nature becomes in a sense the powerful component, it's what gusts, blows and howls our present selves into action. We are all riding with the wind of our personal history on our backs. What's important is never turning to face it too often, you'll get leaves and all sorts in your eyes.

Instead, let the wind tend you on, and even warm the nape below your collar. This metaphor carries into my work process without alteration. While it is often tempting to conjure up emotion into a physical art, I find those projects tend to frustrate me because the memory isn't pure. What I try to stick to, is conjuring the physicality of my present self, with the emotions therein relating - but not imitating - a past emotional state. Essentially, memory's role is to give me the kite of an idea, but not hold my hand while I fly it.

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Summer 2015

Brenda Bullock

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Brenda Bullock

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A disconnect is possible in regards to the production of work, of course, it's the mechanical artistry after all. As far as the process goes, I cannot imagine the same to be true. After all, if the artist has no experience from which to draw, she is embarking on an empty tank. The emotive and sensory nature of the creative process demands fuel, demands feeding. Any artist who attempts to do so without the experience would - I believe - draw out something from themselves they were not expecting. It may not be the direct experience applicable to the title of the piece, or the intention of the project, but this would then morph the work into something else. It's hard to cheat your mind in that way, to enlist a kind of emotional automation.

Regarding my work, I deliberately remove the historic gaze for a reason. Whereas some works rely on that tool, the backward glance to effectively draw up a range of effect by recognizing brazenly the work that has come before. I believe in some instances that backward glance can labour a piece of art, where it would be served better being orphaned to the eyes of its audience and viewers. Denuded of the responsibility of expectation, a piece of art can for lack of a better term 'be itself' when not foreshadowed by its lineage.

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Brenda Bullock

For me, my work is instinctive and surreal, I wanted to create beauty but at the essence of my subjects, the beauty that is sublime and, as you may have guessed, uncanny. I allowed my subjects time and space to do and what they were comfortable with. My process was to work with integrity and the genuine. For this series so much relied upon the subjects feeling unwatched, going about their lives, that after sitting by while a welder went about his work, he half-flinched on hearing the shutter snap, having forgotten I was there!

Rather than taking a portrait of the man, I took a portrait of the environment in which like a finger print, his existence had imprinted on. The idea was to capture something on the other end of the spectrum from the images daily presented to us. The manipulation of portraiture is commonplace, and increasingly effective. De-voiding the scene of its host/subject gave me freedom to poke fun a bit, but also show how much depth can be gained from a man/woman's shadow. Through the video and the overlapping sound-scape, I intended the viewer to 'know' this man without ever seeing his face properly.

Interesting to me is the bounds to which this kind of portrait is capped, the periphery where it comes into contact with vanity and is enveloped by it. I don't think we will be seeing adolescence posting pictures of their desk contents/wardrobe collections any time soon.

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ART ARTHabens Habens

, 2011

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Brenda Bullock

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The key word there is obviously context.

Commission portraits require a more conscious effort to be mindful of another person's view, their preferences, their opinions of themselves. That's something you can't really get away from, nor do you need to. When it comes to my own work, or indeed community projects in which my audience are more open, then it is a different notion. Any artist in any profession or medium will always produce the best results when adhering to their heart, and their passion. Perhaps some people produce art with a feverish worry over what critiques and the public will think, but that's just not for me. Life's too short!

And thank you as well!

This following year is actually a pretty busy one. A big collaboration will result in a projection onto the Elan valley dam around November 2016, and I'm also working on a number of personal projects which I will be posting updates for on my website.

An interview by and

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, curator curator

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