YANNICK TOSSING

YANNICK TOSSING

When did you first become interested in art?

In Luxembourg at the age of 16, you can choose a specialization in high school. I was between sciences and art. I always wanted to become a teacher but did not care if I’d either become an art or science teacher. So, I thought sciences would be too exhausting and chose arts. Long story short, after those years I became way more interested in art and the idea of becoming a teacher was fading away. So here I am now, being into art and trying to make it as an artist.

How did you get to where you are today in your practice?

It started in my research Master in 2017 that I developed a personal style of sculpture after experimenting with a 3D pen. My artworks are about the deformation and distortion of human movement through everyday tasks/ objects. Writing is a visualization of a person’s hand movement and a very personal, unique property. By using the 3D pen on sculptures, the aspect of writing per se might not be present anymore but the 3D pen transmits my movement to the artworks. It is creating a direct link between basic movement and everyday objects. When I saw an old signature made by my father compared to one after he was already suffering from Huntington Disease for several years, I figured that this was a visual representation of how even the most basic actions become more challenging in daily life. I wanted to transfer this observation of a degrading control over the body into other everyday settings.

What has been the most challenging aspect of your art career?

The most challenging aspect was to let loose and be more spontaneous in my creations. I always wanted everything to be exactly the way I figured it in my head. At some point, I realized that to get to that point you must try stuff and go through different steps and be open to get another result as planned. It might sound cheesy but the saying “there are no mistakes, only lucky accidents” seemed to be more than just a random saying.

Where do you find inspiration?

I found my inspiration in a very personal experience. My father suffers from Huntington Disease and I tried to find a way to visualize this rather complex disease. Of course, it is impossible to recreate or even to know how he is seeing the world, but it is possible to represent my view of the whole situation. As the disease is quite rare and confusing to many people, it is also an attempt to share it with people and make the illness more visible in the world.

Which artist do you look up to? Any artists you're loving at the moment?

In my research, I was highly inspired by artists where mental or physical challenges played a big role, such as Dali with his paranoiac-critical method, Van Gogh with his unique view on the colours of the world or the unknown artists of the Art Brut/Outsider Art label, “promoted” by Jean Dubuffet. At the moment someone I am looking up to is definitely Daniel Arsham.

What's one thing people should know about you?

I can be chaotic but somehow always make it work in the end.

ASIA STEWART

When did you first become interested in art?

I trace my interest in art back to Saturday afternoons spent lazing around with my Nana while Billie Holiday’s voice rang out from the radio. I would clutch a broom in my hands as if it were a dance partner and prance around dust piles while my Nana lightly tapped her fingers against a plastic deli container that was filled with a drink that was more milk than black tea. I couldn’t have been more than six or seven at the time, around the same age that I had been when my mother began to regularly take me to Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performances. This was a consequential period in my life when I began to associate my impressions of art with movement, heartache, resistance, and defiance. As I grew older, I was drawn to musical theatre and opera and charmed by the heightened theatricality and melodrama of both disciplines. As a singer, I felt most comfortable using my voice on stage and fully understood the idea that someone could become so overwhelmed with emotion that they would have no choice but to burst into song. Over time, I began to transmute my classical vocal training in theatre into energy that would feed more experimental works that I would stage independently.

How did you get to where you are today in your practice?

The pandemic forced me to seriously reflect on the type of art that I was creating. Before 2020, I spent the majority of my time as a singer and actor working as a vessel for other individuals’ creative visions. When it was no longer possible for me to dart in and out of auditions and rehearsals for theatrical productions, I had to confront the possibility that my former work wasn’t as fulfilling as I had previously believed. When I recognized that I wanted to have greater agency as a director and creative, I began to devise and stage performances independently with whatever tools and materials I had available. Every performance that I stage allows me to return to myself. Inspired by personal and familial narratives, my conceptual art investigates topics such as internalized racism, respectability politics, compulsory heterosexuality,