Week 8: Fireworks + Tornadoes
LungA School Fall Semester 2018
Paragraph 8 Duration: Performance key: Situation key:
168 hours Not granted Layers of consequences colliding
Breakfast with Amanda + Aoife
Magic In The Everyday Workshop w/ Julie Lænkholm + Shan Turner-Caroll
Gabrielle
Victoria
Aoife
Liv
Amanda
Marie
Fanny
Julie Lรฆnkholm + Shan Turner-Caroll As interviewed on the road for Seydisfjรถrรฐur Community Radio 107.1fm Sunday 18th November 2018
Claire: Hi Julie, good morning. Shan is just refueling, and we’re about to leave the fjord. Julie is driving herself to the airport. Julie: I love the fact that we’re refueling ourselves after this week. Shan: Hi everyone! We have flags. The petrol station flags waving goodbye. J: I love that we’re finishing this trip together, it can be a little rite of passage. S: I’m taking my jacket off! I’m sliding down the side of my right leg… I’m putting back my seatbelt… click and clack. C: Ok, so Julie has been visiting here from Denmark, and Shan has been here all along. But the two of you did a workshop this week. Julie how many times have you been here now? Do you want to tell about your time with LungA? J: I think I was here the first time three years ago. I’d just finished grad school in New York, and I heard about the school actually from an exchange student from Brussels. Jonatan and Lasse were just finishing the program, and I emailed them asking if I could be the artist in resident. And at that time actually they didn’t even know if they were making a residency, kind of I misunderstood what the guy said, but Jonatan caught it and they made a residency program from then on… C: You’re the pioneer! J: But it was funny because they kinda took what I said and made it into a frame, which I think is very characteristic for LungA School. So, yeah, I came with another person, and was here for three months. And it was quite a contrast, coming here to this little community, because I’d been living for five and a half years at that time in New York. It was so funny because in New York we spoke a lot about community: community-related work, community and art, this whole discourse. And when I came here it was the first time I really understood what community is. It was really interesting that I had been moving around it in a very theoretical mode, whereas here it was really lived. Later in these months I hitch-hiked up to the North to visit the town where my family stems from. My dad is half Icelandic. C: Was that why you were interested in Iceland? J: Yeah, exactly. I wanted to go back. I felt like I’d been living so much in my head that I couldn’t feel my body anymore. Like the fast pace of New York
had made me mute so many things. I needed nature so much. C: And you got it here! J: Yeah… I had no idea also that nature was so violent and so demanding. This place — it’s not like you come to rest here. It touches you in places you haven’t been touched before, so it’s very confronting. C: You come here to do a different kind of work? J: Yeah, but it’s very active. You have to be super conscious about the silence that this nature has, I guess. Yeah but it was interesting, Solveig actually, who was the librarian at that time, she had an old photo collection — she collects old photos. And she had a photo of my great grandfather. C: What?! That’s amazing! J: Yeah, so that was the first time I was here. And then a lot of things opened up for me. I was invited to do the Light Festival, where I did a singing piece with all the fishermen in the community. And I did a work in the swimming pool and came back to do a museum show in the North, in the museum there. So there has been a lot of work coming out of my LungA experience. The work that I did in the North also activated my relationship to my Icelandic family, so I’ve been coming a lot in the last three years to visit them as well. The thing is also that when I was invited in to do the residency, since it was such a loose structure it was kind of easy to — and I think that’s very characteristic of the LungA project — if you wanted to take a part of the cake and make something beautiful out of it you could. I knew that in the coming years I would have a problem, in that it would be difficult to see my friends from New York. Both because of my visa issue, and second because of my financial situation. So I asked Jonatan and Lasse if I could curate the residency program because I was interested in this idea that if they came here, there might be an opportunity that they came to Denmark on the way home to visit me, but even if they didn’t we could have a community although we would not be here at the same time. We would still be together, just more in an invisible way. C: The experience is so unique to each person, but also gives the feeling that other people you know have been through this before, and to imagine them in this place that seems so far away is really interesting.
J: Yes, completely. So special. And you can tap into that feeling together. C: So, Julie one of the people that you curated into the artist in residence was our lovely Shan. J: Yessss! C: How did you guys meet. Can you remember? J: We met in grad school in New York, at the New School. I was taking my Masters there and Shan was there to have a year in exchange. And we actually have a photo, Claire, we’ll show you, the first time we are hanging out. Actually we were in a group together. The first time, Shan had just arrived, and I was chosen to present his work. So I came to his studio and he was so sweet he bought blueberries. And I immediately just knew… C: Just fell in love? J: Yeah, this is a special human being you know? So I spent actually a lot of time preparing that night because I really wanted to be able to speak about his ideas. Also because Shan’s practice is so particular, and it’s not like a mainstream sort of art practice. It’s so special. So yeah. Isn’t that where we met each other? S: Yeah. Umm. Now with the mountains and the snow it feels like we’re riding on the back of a zebra. J: I know it feels like we’re on the top of a zebra! Can you take a photo out the window? S: Yep. Ooh, look at that pink in the sky. C: Shan, can you tell us about your LungA experience? S: So, I was sort of in the middle of the last semester from the exchange, and I’d been Skyping with Julie during her time here. C: Julie had already left by that point? S: Correct. She was in Iceland when I was still in New York. And I’d been following her journey here. And then Julie was finishing up and she said “Shan, the boys are wanting to have more people to do this residency and I put your name forward.” I was like, oh ok. Like, “woof, ok!” Then I chatted with Lasse.
I think he Skyped from the top of Heima, the little attic. And then I think he was just like, “ok, this works, come on over, when can you come?” And so then I came over the following year. And that was a godsend. Because coming home to Australia from New York was a big thing. It had been the first time I’d lived out of home, lived overseas… And I think from such a big experience, having Iceland and LungA soon after gave me something to work towards and look forward to. And wow what a difference to New York. C: But then it’s so weird in a way that there’s this growing New York community, people with all these connections to New York. Actually as we speak Jonatan and Lasse are in New York, or leaving right now. J: Yeah, visiting our school. C: Yeah, visiting Parsons [to present at the Project Anywhere conference 2018]. It’s funny, it’s like the circle is complete. S: And I just want to also say that coming from Australia, and then going into New York, and then coming here. It was very different than my experience in New York. I felt like this was almost the best of both worlds. Where you had community, you had a strong discourse here, but you also had access to different things. For me I felt safer to explore certain ideas and topics, and myself. There’s a certain looseness here that I was a little bit scared to explore in New York. But it’s hard to explore that in New York as well. It is conducive to this landscape and this community. C: I think there’s an opportunity here that’s really unique to be quite vulnerable, and to really open yourself up, maybe in a way that is just not possible in a city like New York where you have to be on guard a bit more… J: And I think that’s what we urged for so much. It was interesting for both mine and Shan’s practices to be in a school like New School, because it’s a very academic school. And I think for such intuitive practices with other sorts of intelligence, it can feel, for me at least, it can feel quite reductive to be so boxed in to language. Also for me it was very challenging in a good way because this was an area of my practice that I hadn’t unfolded that much. I was given an academic language to maneuver, and a perspective on my practice. That was great, but at the same time I felt a little bit homogenous. In the sense that every time we had a visiting artist, they would use the same reference. So in a way it became almost this monotone way of speaking about certain things. There was a trend with which academic figures you would reference. I think it’s impossible to avoid, but it’s just interesting to
sort of come to a place like this where it’s very much at the other end of the scale, in terms of using other forms of language — like your sensory system, intuition, all these other things… C: As reference points for your practice? J: Yeah exactly. I mean I also learnt that all my life I tried to avoid language. Because language, the spoken language, has always been so hard for me to maneuver. Both the written and the spoken one. Look at the sky! [veers off road] S: Julie Julie Julie! Sorry… J: Yeah ok but look at the sky out there. S: Yeah ok. C: And look at the road. Hahaha. J: Yeah but I realised that language will always be secondary to our art practice, and in that sense it is super important. C: Well the art practice is its own kind of language. It’s just another language. J: Yeah but it cannot exist without the other language. That’s what I realised. I mean it can, but there’s some part of it that’s like its sidekick, in a way. C: So then, how did this workshop between you two come about, and what was the premise? S: I’d come to LungA and then gone back home. Then I had two years at home in Australia, where I was trying to put myself out a little bit more, so I could meet people and realise the importance of community after being both in New York and LungA. I noticed that in the last two years — outside the safety of a school — I’d been focused very much on trying to create more opportunities for myself, but I hadn’t actually made much art. This was very tiring for me; I needed to reconnect again. I spoke with Julie and said, “I’m thinking it could be a good idea for me to go to LungA again but in a different role.” I wasn’t sure if I was chasing something that’s already been, but she said because it was a different role and a different time in my life, it could work. And then she said, “if you were doing the internship, what if we were to think about also putting forward to the
boys that we would do a workshop.” I thought, great. So then we had a chat with the guys, and that’s kind of what happened. C: It was also a good opportunity to do the workshop together... J: Yeah, exactly. Constantly, our life is our practice and our practice is our life, kind of. So this is also an opportunity for me and Shan to share some time together. Given the fact that we are overseas we have to think about other ways of getting in touch with each other when you don’t really have a bank account that can allow you to visit that often. That’s why you can also use your practice to weave in these projects of doing things with your friends that are so special. S: And also then… Wow look at that sky! Claire, also we met in New York as well. And we’d been wanting to try do something together. So Claire and I have been doing the LungA Internship together, and then this week it was the workshop with Julie as well. It was really special for me to do both. C: Do you want to talk about the content of the workshop? How did you start, what was your approach, and how did it develop? S: We had been developing ideas for six months. Chatting about what are we interested in, what are our practices, what can we offer? And things were slowly coming up. But I think we both knew that it was fully going to come together when we were together here. It couldn’t have happened before then. J: It was interesting, I feel like we knew but we also didn’t know. It’s almost like our energies had to meet until something just clicked. C: And it is like fireworks when you guys are together. J: Yeah, yeah, I don’t know. But it’s also the way we led the workshop. We had to say to the students like, we’re keeping this structure open because in our experience when we make work we lean back and try to unfold more than just coming to the studio and making art. It’s more like looking at what’s really happening and seeing if there’s energy there to be unfolded. So actually living the philosophy that we’re trying to teach in the workshop. Trying to also tell the students it’s not that they should feel unsafe that we didn’t prepare. We’re holding the space for them, but we’re doing this consciously because this is the practice that we have and that we can share, kind of. C: Also that’s a great practice to take into your life. I guess it’s kind of what your work is all about. That life and art are interconnected. You can’t really
separate one from the other. S: We were thinking, “ok what’s a language that exists?” Like, Julie and I have a knowledge of each other and a certain language about the work, but what are a few key words that allow the participants to have access to this? We were thinking of words like art, magic, transformation, magic in the everyday. Just to try and give a certain feeling and allowing access to certain ideas. J: Also like, how do we connect to nature, site and community? C: Tell me more about magic. J: We can start by saying that we actually pre-framed this whole workshop energetically with a medium. We Skyped with this healer to set up the workshop and asked the spirits and guides around the site, the spirits of the land, how we could make this work, and best hold the space for the students. This is also something that’s very dear to Shan’s heart, actually. How can we ask for permission to be on the land because it’s not ours? Is it ok for us to work both with and on the nature here? And that’s where she suggested something that actually we ended up beginning the workshop with… Wow guys, look at the moon, saying goodbye to us! S: Oh! J: Yeah so actually we set up the workshop like this. Do you want to tell about the first day? S: On the first day we went out into nature to collect materials to make sculptural offerings. We were interested in shifting or looking at the language around art. What would happen if you were to make a sculpture, and instead of calling it a sculpture or a painting it could be a spell or a prayer or a mantra. How do you perceive or relate to a thing when you shift the language? Julie and I went out on the Sunday prior to collect some things and it was SO incredible, I feel like it was so important, because while we were going to collect all the materials, we realised, “shit,” this is the start of the workshop, they have to be collecting their own things, this is creating the relationship with the land, with the flora and fauna. So on Monday we went out together as a group and collected things. From there we spent the day making these offerings, and then we went up one of the mountains, right up to the third tier.
J: Yeah it was a big walk. S: It was a big bloody walk. J: One of the girls had a panic attack. Which was so kind of beautiful. But… C: Pretty intense? S: Yeah, I think that was intense. And realising I think there’s a big… C: There’s power. J: Yeah, we actually asked them in the beginning to put an intention for the week if they had one. I told them that my intention was to stay centered and open my heart at the same time. So before they made these offerings they included their intention in some different ways for it. S: At the top of the mountain, we sat in a circle and Julie held the space and guided us through a practice. J: And we were surrounded with all the sculptures that the people made, right? S: Exactly. All these offerings. We were sitting inside that actually. J: We tried to drop our hearts down into the earth and then while we were connected with the earth, we were asking the spirits to come closer to us and asking if we were allowed to be here. We were kind of gifting the nature and asking if we were ok that we could unfold the workshop using the land and on the land in the area. S: Mm hmm. Realising that this wasn’t our land or our place, is for me a strong aspect of how I feel. We were very high up the mountain, almost into the snow. It was cra-zy beautiful. You could see out into the fjord, and you could see over the town. So it was a perfect place. And then we had a sauna afterwards, as a group. That was the first day. Then the second day we invited Rina, who has a regular and strong presence at LungA, through her relationship with Lasse. J: She’s a dancer. And we were interested that day in how the body relates to nature. So it made sense to invite her in to do a body exercise. She was doing it around touch, how do you feel the body through the touch? We showed a video called In My Language that is suggesting that through relat-
ing to nature with different senses you can create your own language. S: …And relationship or experience with these things. J: Yeah, so that was kind of setting day number two off into their individual investigations. Actually, it was super heart opening to see what people were doing. For example, the girl that got the panic attack, she went straight up to the same place that we went on the mountain again. S: Fanny went for a walk, and disassembled her saxophone, and put the top of her saxophone into the waterfall and played the waterfall. J: And another girl, something opened her heart, so she was by water and had a theme of fluid and fluidity, and wetness, and how that could help her access a way of being in the world, starting with a big cry, with like snot and all of this. She worked with that all week in various ways. C: Actually, I saw her at lunch that day, just after that. Everyone was just like — I think they surprised themselves as well, they were all kind of like, “oh, what’s coming out of me?” They’re all so pure and raw. It’s beautiful to see. I guess it’s a common theme at LungA but especially at this point in the program, it seems people were really open to that and ready to fall in a bit more, go a little bit deeper. J: Yeah, it was super exciting. So we combined them. We also did a natural dyeing workshop. C: And is that a little bit more your practice Julie? J: Actually it’s also Shan’s. I think I got very inspired by this also through Shan’s work with natural dyes. He’s been working with it in various ways. Maybe he’s been working with it more as a… S: Conceptual thing? Or symbolic? J: I don’t know I feel like Shan has maybe been working more with the site specificity of it, using it as a spell, and me, I’m looking at like plant etymology and healing qualities. So both within this healing, magical perspective into natural dyes, but with a little bit of a different angle. C: So you dyed some things? J: Yeah, the next morning. We felt like we needed to do something calm
and soothing, something collective. Because they opened up so much the day before. So not closing them down but just feeling their community and doing a work together. S: I think also because we were wanting to hold the ground and be present, because there was a certain openness and looseness that needed to happen for them to sit with these ideas, that if there were a few little pins through the week just to hold these little things up. We thought these group works could be the little points of meeting to then go back out again, and also just receiving. Or getting little techniques or processes that they could potentially even use as well. So it was trying to see things in a holistic way. We had the kitchen of the hostel all beautiful and steamy and smelling gorgeous. I think everyone really enjoyed that. And in the afternoon, we went back out again to do the individual investigations. Then in the night time we made a work in the pool. So the town is really small and there are certain places that you become very familiar with, that become an essential part of daily life here. You’ve got Skaftfell, you’ve got Herðubreið, you’ve got the pool, the gas station. These are places that we visit all the time, but we wanted to reimagine or to transform these spaces into something different. Julie had done a work at the pool before, and so we decided that it could be beautiful to make something there for our LungAs. We had candles, and we had this jellyfish video. The jellyfish was actually from the fjord, so it was this little entity with us. J: We started the day with the question: how does the body feel, and how is the body sensing towards community, site and the surroundings? So, it felt right to move around in this water. There’s also something very ritualistic about the swimming pool and how Icelandic people use the swimming pool. It’s open in the morning and the afternoon, so it’s how you greet your day and how you leave your day. S: Also it’s a public space. J: Yeah, how you swim this way, you swim that way; how the body is normally used to moving within a public space. Whereas now we actually had the opportunity to just move freely around. Actually carry each other around the swimming pool, sensing it in a different way sort of. Which made sense in the whole day that we were trying to point towards. C: The swimming pool could also be metaphoric because it’s a container for a liquid that is otherwise unbounded. It’s a space to hold this within.
J: Yeah I love that. From that point on, it was a mixture between them working on their own practices, us starting the day with a meditation… S: We were introducing these kinds of ways of being that might be conducive to a creative practice. We wanted to offer different ways of doing that. C: Well meditation is like a discipline in itself. Rather than going in with a direct focus, of like “ok, I’m going to make this thing,” instead it could be like “ok, I’m going to open this space” S: Yeah, we said that yesterday, it just couldn’t have been this good if we had planned it. We had been talking for six months, but it was almost this unconscious thing of needing to be here, and as soon as it was that ‘boom’ coming together, it opened up. C: What was a nice surprise that happened for you guys? J: There were so many. I think for us together, at least for me, it’s been really wild to see that you set up this premise for a workshop and then you actually see it being unfolded within the gestures of the students. S: That’s exactly what I was going to say. J: It’s so wild, because you speak about these things, then you see the students so honest and open, and taking so many risks. And realising that me and Shan were also in the workshop, so we really had to hold on to our honesty which was super beautiful and super challenging as well, right? We prepared the workshop for the students, but also finding ourselves within that transformation. The pragmatic part of making a workshop was interesting, like how do you talk about these things when you’re just used to goofing around on your own? So, it’s been so beautiful for us. We talked about it yesterday that it’s such an opportunity to shed layers together. C: Mmm. It’s kind of equalising. [airport check-in interlude] S: I’ve just noticed that Julie’s pulled out of her pocket a little piece of mirror from one of the gifts that we made for our LungAs. It looks almost like a whale. Should we talk about that? J: Yeah that’s a good way into the ending ritual.
S: Julie and I made little gifts for each of the students for a closing, where we collected these buoys from fishing nets. Using the dyed fabric that we all made together, we transformed these little buoys. I saw them as like, if there was a tornado of memories and time and stuff, and then something would sort of fall out of that for each particular person that would be reminiscent of their time. For example, for Aoife, Julie made a glory hole for the moon, with this buoy. It was so good. C: I love that you described this as a tornado because that’s how I feel it’s been to watch you two together — like this little tornado that’s whipped through Seyðisfjörður, and there’s little pieces that flew off. Especially just to witness that from the outside, it’s been like “I have no idea what’s going on,” but I’m just kind of receiving these little fragments. From these two little elves — you guys have been running around Seyðisfjörður like two little elves getting up to mischief. It’s this big adventure, so mysterious. S: Yeah for me it feels a little bit like that as well. Anyway, so we had laid out, on the second last day, this long bit of fabric over a wharf going out into the fjord. And then we had each person’s gift laid out in a line in the centre of it. The idea was that we would invite them as a closing piece. J: Yeah, to put the buoys out in the fjord and be caught by the stream and then like, just saying thank you to the fjord, and they could think about their intention, but they didn’t have to. But there was a funny thing that happened, do you want to tell the story? S: Well we went up into the mountains first to experience Fanny’s piece. J: Which was a dancing, movement and singing piece up on the top of a mountain, we were all performing these gestures and this choreography that she made. And then we wanted to go down to the buoys to finish off as a little surprise for them, and a thank you. S: And then Julie just said, “can everyone just look the other way for a second” and so I turned as well, and Julie said “no, no, no, Shan, you look this way,” and she said, “can you see, just see our spot?” And I wasn’t quite sure what was happening. She said, “just look at the spot that we were meant to be going next,” and I looked out there and everything was gone. There were no buoys there, the material was gone, and we just looked at each other and were in hysterics. Because it’s like, “what the hell!?!” and then we were like, “Ok! Nature did it for us, that was the piece!” J: Yeah, they were ready to let go already.
S: It was hilarious. We were just laughing as we were walking back down the mountain. And then halfway down we realised that for one of the gifts, we had thought it would be kind of cute, if we duct-taped one of the joggers of Victoria’s that she had dyed onto one of the buoys. So then we were like, “oh my god! Her shoes have gone out into the fjord!” J: We thought we’d lost one of her shoes to the fjord! S: And we were like, “well what are we going to do? We’re going to have to go to Egilsstaðir and buy her another pair of shoes, blah blah blah.” C: Did you tell her? J: Yeah afterwards we did, but in the beginning no. But then it was really funny, Shan transformed into MacGyver, because he saw something on the piers, and he was like “I’m just going to run forward” — so Shan runs, runs, runs, to the pier, and he sees that there’s a big bundle of something, and then, I don’t know how it happened, but the wind had taken the fabric and swirled it all around the buoys in a way that all the buoys had been kept safe, and it was stuck to the pier… for some reason it was like the wind had kept all of the work inside the fabric. Shan pulled it up and put it on the pier, and so when the students came all the buoys were there. Including the one with Victoria’s shoe. S: Yeah, that was the main one we were like, “oh thank fuck!” C: She’s got her shoes! J: But maybe it was a bit much that we kind of forced on Victoria that she should offer her shoes to the fjord. S: So last minute we were just pulling this thing together, and it was so nice. J: They kind of instinctually knew what to do. We were standing together watching all the buoys catch the same stream line and go out towards the sea. I guess that’s sort of how the workshop ended. S: Yeah. I think that was just the perfect ending. Just before we started the walk, we had a little meditation together to re-centre and we asked for universal timing. That’s what we were focusing on and it was interesting how all these different things slotted in together perfectly. There had been a lot of things that occurred by chance. For example, Victoria had also been working on a self-portrait, where she was looking at reflections with objects. She was
looking at this rock, and she made this clay bowl. J: Yeah, she had this this idea about how can you project yourself into nature, and the interrelationship between these two things. Are these two things really alive, and how do we relate to each other? That’s why she found it so interesting to call it a self-portrait, because she was looking into a stone. She also made a walk with Aoife, collecting clay to make her own pot, and then she put gasoline oil in it that has a reflective surface, and a shovel next to it. But then… S: And so we, we needed to get the rock, there was a rock out in the carpark. It just happened super quickly, because this was half an hour before we did the walkthrough. So we went out to get the rock… J: And maybe we should just say the walkthrough was sort of our interpretation of an exhibition. It seemed an appropriate way of sharing, but it was also super personal. That’s how we chose to do that with the group, or well actually they chose to do that. S: Because each person’s pieces were made in different spaces as well, so we didn’t want to have that defined by one exhibition space. J: I’m sorry, you were talking about Victoria’s work! S: Yeah, so the rock was so heavy to carry up, and Julie just said, “ok, let’s just use my jacket.” So she took her jacket and we rolled it on there, and we walked it into the building. We put the rock down, we rolled it off the jacket, we moved the table out of the room, and then I went to open the door to make more room for the table, and as I opened the door, it hit the shovel that was leaning on the wall, the shovel hit the clay bowl with the engine oil in it, smashed it, and then the engine oil started dripping and leaking out onto the floor. We were just standing there, I was just like, “what the hell?!” But then we stood back and realised what had happened, and we fell in love with it. It was perfect. I mean I really, really, loved it but there was a twinge of guilt as well, that I was responsible for it. C: Tipped her work over, lost her shoe…! Thanks a lot, guys! S: But she was really incredible. J: She loved it actually. And I think that is the thing with like, catching what is actually going on. S: That was the whole thing about this week, having the sight to realise that
you can’t define things, or some things are out of our control. And just that really quick gesture of like, the rock, the upstairs, the boom, boom, chick, bam, and then it was done. I was relating that to when we thought that the buoys had been taken — it was out of our hands, nature finished that gesture for us, it was kind of beautiful. J: Yeah, and maybe this is also where language comes in, around the discussion — are these coincidences that we choose to put meaning on or are there these energies that we call a ‘flow’ that actually we are leaning back into and pointing towards? And that’s where we were weaving into this what in quotation marks is called ‘spirituality’ — maybe not directly, but there’s some sort of conversation with that. How do you create something, develop something, tap into some sort of flow and see what’s happening? Unfolding more than making. C: And what do you think? Do you think it’s a little bit of both, or do you think it’s more one than the other? J: I definitely think it’s more one than the other. I think it was pretty clear. But I don’t want to impose that, maybe it’s not important what I think. Also, even the concept around time. It would be impossible for us to say “let’s have an opening” — I mean of course this is also what you’re disciplined to do as an artist, having an opening. You have a deadline, you have to show something — but knowing this and still choosing to unfold the process — some will happen before, some will happen after. That was interesting to see, because Gabrielle made a full work two days before the end, and then she developed it into another thing that became almost a new work, with new connotations, for the walkthrough. And then Fanny’s work unfolded the day after. This whole thing around time — it’s definitely a man-made construction. Whereas there’s maybe something else going on that we’re trying to point towards. We have this construction of time that we made in the world, so we can have some sort of structure around our lives. But we also wanted to point towards the other dynamics that are forces unfolding in life. If you change the frame a little bit you might have an opportunity to use that in unfolding your life practice and your art practice. C: What was the funniest thing that happened this week? I feel like there was a lot of laughter going on! S: I think my favourite — well I have many favourite things — but we had a beautiful hour where Julie and I were making the gifts upstairs, and the hi-
larity surrounding that in the ‘Art School for Actors’ was super funny. J: Yeah, because we tried to make something in the studio, but we couldn’t find any tools! Like, give us a fucking hammer! Where’s the regular, downto-earth, basic tools? You have the most beautiful studio you’ve ever seen, and then it’s crazy we couldn’t find like a hammer or a nail. S: Or a needle and thread. We got the giggles. But it was hilarious because we were MacGyvering with the hammers, using staple guns because the staple guns themselves wouldn’t work but we ended up using them as a hammer. It was just one thing after another, it was hilarious. J: And then we were making fun of being spoilt, so we were like, “what is this, is this a studio for actors?!” Like another art form that doesn’t use these tools as artists do. I don’t know, it was silly but we just wanted to laugh so we just wanted to find something to laugh about. I peed my pants so many times this week because I laughed so much. S: [laughing] it was so good! C: And Julie just quickly do you want to tell us what you’re onto next? Because you’re a busy lady! J: Yes, my next project is in Uganda, Africa. I’m actually in the process of transforming myself into a cheetah. I’ve been invited to go to an organic cotton farm, that uses chilli and cinnamon as pesticide treatment. They invited me to come see if there was any local species or local flora that I could dye the cotton with. It’s a political project for the woman hosting it, and there are these local women coming there to weave. I wanted to go to Africa because of my relationship with the cheetah, and then this project appeared. So yeah, it’s going to be interesting! C: Exciting. Ok, well maybe it’s time for you to catch your plane! J: And actually, my plane is delayed so it’s leaving at 11:11, that’s fun, because we talked a lot about eleven in the workshop, so I think that’s… S: Yeah, it’s perfection. J: Ok, thank you. C: Safe travels home Julie.
PHOTOCOPIER I WANNA KNOW YOU GOT YOUR GREASY TONER ALL OVER MY HANDS SPIT OUT PAGES STREAKED WITH INK IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES WHAT A MESS OPEN YOU UP EVERY SINGLE SLOT JAMMED DEEP INSIDE A TIGHT COIL STUCK TO ONE ANOTHER BACK IN TIME TEARS, WET PAPER, TEARS OH NO
MATRYOSHKA YOUR SCREWS TOO SMALL FOR MY DRIVER PLUG THEM WITH A RUBBER BAND GENTLE BUT FIRM IS HOW YOU LIKE IT CAREFUL, NOW DELICATE FINGERS PICK OVER YOUR INNERMOST PARTS CUT THEM OUT PIECE BY PIECE TINY PLASTIC BITS SNAPPED OFF DRY FOR 24 HOURS SHE COMES BACK SEVERAL TIMES DURING THE NIGHT —THIS SHOULD WORK!—
Stop Motion Workshop w/ Setare Arashloo + Alma Sinai
Hildur
Johan
Luna
Jocko
Villi
Luna
Bianca
Isaiah
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Alma Sinai + Setare Arashloo As interviewed on Seydisfjรถrรฐur Community Radio 107.1fm Tuesday 20th November 2018
almasinai.com setarearashloo.com
Claire: The internet! Shan: Hello! Um um. Ooooh! C: Oooh! We’ve got a little volcano going here! S: We’re just opening some sparkling water Alma: This is going? C: Yeah this is going! So welcome to our radio show Setare: Thank you C: This is Seyðisfjörður Community Radio 107.1 FM. We are joined today by the lovely Shan… S: Hello it’s nice to be on this side of the desk again, the last interview we did was in the car, so it’s nice to be back the behind the table, in the studio! Hi Larry, the Executive Producer — hi! We’re back here! [The studio erupts with laughter and people cannot contain their joy] C: Ok we’re also joined by Alma Sinai and Setare Arashloo, who together ran a workshop with us last week at the LungA School. S: Which we weren’t sure right to the edge was going to happen, with your tickets here and your visa, Setare. SA: Both, and my travel permit. S: But lucky for us the stars aligned and you got on that plane. SA: Yes, I got my visa a few hours before the flight and jumped on it. I’m glad I’m here. C: So are we. And Alma has been the artist in resident as part of the LungA School program, so you have been here the whole time Alma. A: Yes! C: So, what should we start with?
S: I’ve asked this question twice now but I would ask it a third time — where did you guys meet? And what led you to this point today… sitting at this table… SA: I first met Alma at her brother’s — I’m not sure if it was a birthday but it was a party — which I wasn’t invited to! I went with a friend who was Alma’s brother’s friend, and I met Alma there. We weren’t introduced and didn’t talk or anything, but years later I passed this entrance exam to university which is sort of a big deal in Iran and you have a year of preparation and studying for it, and because I graduated from the same school that Alma was going to for that last year, I was invited back to talk to students about my experience and do some test classes with them. That was, I think, the second time we met. Both of these incidents had us not being properly introduced to each other but at the same time we had a lot of common friends and that was the main reason we kept in touch. And then we became friends when Alma went to RISD [Rhode Island School of Design] and I finished my Bachelors, I went to MICA [Maryland Institute College of Art] in Baltimore, both in the United States. Eventually we ended up both going to graduate school in New York. A: Not the same graduate school though, two different ones. SA: So we sort of crossed paths a lot and the friendship evolved around that. A: As for LungA, I learnt about this place through Julie Lænkholm who actually was the first artist in residence here. I had it in mind to come here but it didn’t really work out for a while, with timing and all the other things. But eventually I aimed for it and ended up here. Also me and Setare always had these collaborative ideas because we have been teaching together for some time, a couple of classes. C: Teaching art? A: Yeah, it was Sunday school in New York which was for the Iranian-American community that had children who were half-Iranian, half-American, or were from backgrounds that had some sort of relation to Iran. Like, partly from Iran. So, we had that on Sundays, since 2013. There we had some stop-motion workshops, and some other classes for young children. Some of them were art history sort of stuff, very simple sessions, but I think that was a good experience for us.
We also always shared our experience with teaching different ages, but we never really had this experience where here we held a workshop that involved students around 18 to 26 years old. I thought it would be a great time to actually make that happen here, whether Setare came as an artist in residence or artist in workshop. I think with her plan it kind of worked better to come as the artist in workshop — I’m very grateful to have her here. S: Beautiful! Before we go on, Claire and I would like to give a shout out to our good friend — Amal Khan… C: Amal’s listening! A: What?! Amal! S: From New York baby, hello! We can do that because I think at this moment you are our only listener. C: You’re our only listener Amal! She just commented to say hi, and we can see she’s listening. Oh, she’s saying hi back! S: Hiiii! C: So Amal was actually the artist resident last year and she went to school also with you Alma? A: Yes, with me and also Shan actually. I actually was introduced to Jonatan and Lasse by Luli, Luciana Pinchiero, who came I think before Amal and Maika’i. I was introduced to this program through her but we all know about it from Julie. But yeah, I knew Maika’i, Amal, Aaron, Luli, and Shan… and Claire… and Julie! C: Bit of a legacy. A: Yeah, it’s through Parsons. C: Cool, so maybe would you like to talk a little bit about your workshop itself, and how it came together? SA: So I think the way we planned the workshop was to combine that collaborative practice we have had together with the teaching. Now that we have more of a mature audience in class, in terms of their freedom with their work and why they are here — they chose to be there because they
want to do something about their works — that helped us to establish this relationship more as artist-to-artist. We are here to share our practices and technical skills and the ways we go about transferring our drawings to moving images and sequential art, whether it’s narrative or not. By sharing from our work or people who have influenced us — mostly artists who use the medium of animation and motion picture for their art practice — we were hoping, and I feel like it happened in class, to give people ideas or open this door of how to transfer an existing artwork to another medium, and the technical skills and problems that come with it. You have to work with it; it opens up new ideas and potentials for how the work itself can evolve. So that was the main structure. Every morning we went in with examples of artists who have worked with animation. Even simple things like how they set up their studio to be able to do these things, but also not get distracted from the making of their artwork so much by being so involved in the technical aspects of making animation. Because that can be pretty overwhelming for the work. We also touched on how they talk about their works, how using this medium might have changed their work, or why they might choose to use this medium. So we just looked at examples of our works and other artists’ works from different parts of the world, and different stages of their practice. Some of them are emerging artists some of them are strictly animation artists, some of them are fine artists, well established, who are picking this medium as another way to experiment with their works. And then talking about what people have done in class, what they have done in their works and what are the ideas they would want to explore in this medium. From there it became a workshop studio, spending more individual time with the students, and trying to make possible what they want to do. Almost every day we would gather and talk about what each of us had done, and what kind of feedback we want from other people. Maybe there are collaborations that make sense to come out of this, maybe one person has done something that sounds interesting. One person may have written something that can be a sound for another person’s video… and sort of talking about all those possibilities among the group. And then again going about the more individual practices making the work. C: Maybe that can lead us to talk about the cross-over between the work that each of you individually make and how you came at the workshop in that regard?
A: Well medium-wise and also conceptually, our works have some overlaps or mutual aspects to them that doesn’t make them very similar, but it makes them kind of rhyme with each other in what I find to be a good way that makes sense. We are both multidisciplinary; maybe Setare was more multidisciplinary since the beginning. More than me. I don’t know that’s how my impression is. We both were drawing and painting, and we also did some printmaking and videos and then installations. Setare also does performances, or whatever suits the concept of the work in a way — I think she is less limiting in that sense of narrowing down her mediums — whereas I think for me I can categorise into three main mediums. I think also that aspect in her work inspires me to how I can open myself to other things. But there is some sort of dialogue going on between our works. I don’t know how to articulate it actually, but I think a lot of it lays in having a mutual background, that a lot of stuff doesn’t need to be spoken about, it’s just there without us going through the struggle of explaining it to each other. But then finding this path for how we channel this stuff out together in our individual works or collaboratively. That’s what I think, maybe. C: Your father is a film-maker Alma? A: Yep C: And your mother is a writer Setare, is that right? SA: Yes. C: It’s kind of interesting that you both come from families who are producing stories or narratives. SA: Well, my mum does more like research and non-fiction writing, but yeah I’m sure that’s part of it. A: I have to also mention that I have two mums, and both of my mums are painters as well — I don’t know how much I take from each but I think it’s at the same time, for me at least, it’s kind of funny that I end up also doing these narratives that have bits and pieces of what they do. Yeah, I like that as a reference point as well. At least something that is very deep inside and I can’t necessarily pinpoint how it exactly affects my work, but I’m sure that it does on many levels. S: Alma we had a few chats before Setare came and I remember you sort of — this is nice for me because I haven’t really had a chance to ask about
your workshop — but with a certain photocopier incident in mind, how did you come at the workshop in relation to experimental processes. Sort of like, “ok we have a certain amount of resources here so how do we translate that into this situation”? C: The limitations of no photocopier! No printer! A: The thing is that luckily a big part of our group had already done their photocopies and stuff [before the Dreaded Photocopier Incident]. Some people still needed some stuff which, with the help of other people in town, we managed to figure out. But I don’t know it might sound a little weird but I think these limitations kind of, of course it’s a bit trivial, but kind of make everyone more creative in a sense. They frustrate everyone, and they go crazy about it but at the same time it becomes more of a crazy and fun process. Because we obviously had this in mind that “oh we’re just going to print it,” and then we remember that oh my god, we can’t really print it. So we had to come up with something else or maybe go a different path. I think for me and Setare it was easier to see it that way, but because for some of the students it was a new challenge for them it might have been a bit of a struggle. But I think that was a part of it, especially also in this town. I think both of us are usually used to just going to the store and buying the material that we need. It takes maybe like five minutes or thirty minutes, but knowing that here you have to go to another town, and maybe they have it… C: And you have to plan it days in advance! A: Yeah, yeah. I think it’s hard but it’s nice also to deal with. It gives you more ideas on how to deal with those things. It might be super clichéd to say this as well, but me and Setare I think come from a background that has some sort of absurd limitations in some sense, so maybe we don’t panic the same way as other people. We do panic but it’s just, I don’t know, I just put it out there, but I don’t want to articulate it anymore! Can you say more maybe Setare, does that make sense? SA: Yeah, I think everything, there’s always a lot of no’s — “no you can’t do this” — in the process, that I think it feels weird to me when there’s none of that. I’m just so used to it both in terms of material or subject matter, what you can show, what you can’t show. C: You mean working in Iran particularly?
SA: For the most part, but also in its own way, being an immigrant, or living in a place that you have to constantly — and it has changed but it’s still there — where the experience is that you have to struggle with what is written on things because of language barriers or the materials have changed, or people’s perceptions of your work are very, very different. I always make this joke with people that I really wanted to go to the States to have nude models and draw tons of drawings without anyone questioning that, or having that access, but when I got to the States, when I was at art school, I realized how differently my work and my drawings and bodies in my drawings are being interpreted, that was absolutely beyond my expectations. I had no clue. C: It opened up a whole new way of thinking about your work? SA: Yeah, both for how it was being interpreted, and what it meant for me. In a way, bodies weren’t the main issue in my work anymore, and also I was confronting all of these other readings that are there because of the culture — like politics; everything that is new in the new environment. In a way going somewhere and seeing all plans and expectations falling apart, you have to work around it. At the end when I look at it I always felt like I have done what I meant to do, but in the process it feels like I’m doing something completely different. It sort of became the nature of the practice for me. And here at LungA it also happened. Maybe the expected frustration of like “ok, now the copy machine doesn’t work” comes from this experience. As I said it sometimes feels weird if things go as planned. Both in terms of materials or what people want to make. I think we tried to communicate that to the students as well, like, you need to have a plan that is going to fail, and the next plan will come out of that, and that’s the whole point of this process, which can be very long, very frustrating, and has very different aspects to it. You have to constantly transfer from digital to manual, from drawing to editing, from dealing with technical issues, with your computer crashing, or the copy machine doesn’t work. Even by the simple fact that you have to draw one thing over and over and over again. Or by printing frames of your video and drawing on them. It’s process and embracing everything that comes in that process. C: I just want to make a comment about the level of patience Setare that I saw you exhibit with that photocopier. I think if you weren’t an artist you should be a surgeon or something because it was one of the most beautiful
things I’ve ever seen! I was in tears because I was frustrated about the photocopier, and Setare went — I mean, we went DEEP inside the photocopier, it was deep… S: You went back in time! A: Claire was saying it was like the Russian dolls, like we keep opening… C: It was like a Russian doll with a paper jam, inside a paper jam, inside a PAPER JAM. And then Setare just came and she had the most amazing patience, just fine details with her fingers, and it was like she went into this other zone. It was so amazing. SA: But I still didn’t fix the printer! C: Actually you kind of did! It’s just that in the last step we didn’t put it back in right, did you realise that that’s the only thing that was wrong? SA: Yeah, Jonatan told me! I was like, “really!?” Because, maybe I didn’t tell you guys, but I did go back twice. C: What?! [laughter] SA: I like took everything out, put it back in, I was like “THIS SHOULD WORK, I know, I know!” C: That’s something I would do! S: That’s so beautiful. SA: Yeah, like one time after dinner, it was late and I came back and I was like I’m going to take everything out! And do this again! C: “I can’t sleep unless…” that’s great! SA: But now I have a better understanding of how copy machines work. C: There’s layers, so many layers! S: I have a few more questions — how naughty are we feeling about being a little bit late for dinner? A: No, we’re not.
S: Are we feeling a little bit naughty? C: I feel like it’s fine S: Yeah ok I’m feeling a little bit naughty too. C: Sorry Skaftfell. S: Ok I have one question for Alma in relation to the work you‘ve been making here, and the exhibition that you had at the Sláturhús [Cultural Center, in Egilsstaðir]. You had come here and there was certain work you had planned to work on, but it seems like there were so many new influences here that came into it, can you talk about that? A: Yeah, yeah. Right before I came to LungA I was working on a series of prints back in Iran, and in my mind I was planning to continue those, making sketches for those, and start some sort of videos in the same line. But what I had in mind was that it was going to be the same subjects in terms of whatever I’d take from the environment. And when I came here, I kind of really, really felt present and it didn’t make that much sense to me to bring in stuff from before. For example, I saw a performance by Marie and Liv, and when I saw it I was so moved I thought, “ok I’m just going to use this because it’s so strong and it stays with me.” And then another day I was just walking into the Net Factory, just going to my studio, and I saw Liv in the middle of a performance by herself, and I just started taking photos. So, this kind of happened very naturally and organically, without me planning it very much, I just let everything come to me and I was very open to it. In the end I was very happy that it happened, because what I was doing in the prints before was that I would take bits and pieces of everyday life images that I saw or took, or like, figures I drew, and then just misplace them with other things or other situations. Just re-generate a scenario for them. But when I came here the process of re-generating the scenario kind of ended up being in Seyðisfjörður again. It wasn’t in a totally different world. So in a very, I don’t know, maybe sentimental way, it felt like the alternative that I was creating was kind of here again. And I wasn’t really planning that it just happened by itself. While I was in the process of that Lasse told me about this opportunity to show at the Sláturhús in Egilsstaðir, and that kind of gave me a deadline, so I had to decide how much time I wanted to spend. I was making a series of episodes, but I decided I would just focus on maybe two of them rather than having four short ones, or four that I’m not very happy with. So it’s still
ongoing, and what I’m showing there is in the windows of the Sláturhús. We put some yogurt on the windows. I learned that from Lasse, because we were planning to do it with some matte transparent paper, but then he said “let’s try this trick” and it worked, so the video is rear projected on the window and only comes up when the light is down, which is going to be most of the time from now on I guess. I really like that aspect, that it’s only up when the town is dark. So that’s the work. It’s two videos, both of them are performances, one by Marie and Liv, and one by Liv. C: With the mountains in the background? A: Yes. The mountains I already had carved, but I’m also going to be working with the mountains of Seyðisfjörður. SA: Yeah, I remember in Tehran when I saw Alma’s recent works I was like, “how appropriate that you’re going to Seyðisfjörður! The mountains are going to hug you!” A: For some reason during the past year I was just very much focused on drawing and printing my drawings of mountains. It made almost too much sense to be here. I was like “oh my god I can’t believe it’s so right for me,” on many levels, also other than just work. So yeah. C: How do the mountains make you feel here? A: The thing is that it’s… I’m astonished by how different they look every single day. Not even a day I’ve felt the same about them. The walk to the Net Factory usually takes twenty minutes, but for me it’s always 45 minutes because I get so distracted by just standing and looking and taking photos. So I think I’m speechless because it’s so different it doesn’t feel like it’s just one thing I can talk about, every time it’s a surprise. C: It’s true, yeah. SA: Can I bring in a little quote here? S: Please! SA: One of my favourite writers is a Chilean writer called Ariel Dorfman. In his biography he talks a lot about the experience of exile and immigration and being forced to leave your home, and seeing all the things that you’ve built up because… he was the cultural minister I think for [Chilean President, Salvador] Allende and then the coup happened. It happened, if I remember correctly, on September 11, 1973, if I’m right. He goes to France and then
different places in Europe, and then ended up in the States. He doesn’t want to stay in the States, wants to go to Mexico, but he ended up staying in the States and I think he teaches at Duke University now. He starts the book saying that because Pinochet’s coup was backed with the CIA, he makes this sort of irony to say — and he starts the book after the 9/11 incident — and he says like, “I feel like my 9/11 is now taken from me, because 9/11 for me was this point where the coop happened, and now nobody is going to remember 9/11 as I did, or as Chileans did.” And he talks a lot in this process of immigration, and exile, he talks a lot about things that can’t exist anymore, but they have some place in your memory, and how you go about knowing yourself and the world with these things that are constantly disappearing and changing. One of the points he talks about is when I think he’s in France with his family, and his son who left Chile with them very young, still a kid, is painting some paintings, and he’s like “I noticed that he doesn’t start his paintings with the mountains anymore.” It’s in one of his interviews with this Iranian director, and he says, “I’m telling you, and you understand this because you are from Tehran.” I want to say all of us sort of started out painting with that zig zag line of mountains… it resonated with me so much when he talks about how his son doesn’t start the paintings with the mountains anymore because there are no mountains around him, that sort of is the landscape. That’s the feeling I had a lot with being in New York. You don’t see mountains around you. For me in Tehran there is no sense of losing direction. Whenever you lose direction, that mountain points to north. And you know where you are heading. To not have that was a sort of, it was a very symbolic way of talking about how in a new environment, in a new geographical-social-cultural environment there are lost directions, and you have to find other things that are going to direct you, and how you find yourself within that losing of previous points that were directing you. And then coming to Seyðisfjörður and I was like, “ok great, MOUNTAINS! As much as I want!” It’s been very refreshing and nice. A: It’s disorienting to not have them, in the literal sense but also all of the other senses. S: I really enjoyed that story. Would you like to talk about the exhibition you made with the students here? C: Yeah, you guys decided to show the works of the students as part of this party that was happening, planned by some of the students, at the Net
Factory here. There were some installations involved, and you guys incorporated the animations into that, in different ways. Can you talk about how it evolved and how you worked with the space? SA: From the beginning we talked with everyone about whether or not they wanted to show their work, and what context, it was totally up to them. We didn’t want there to be any pressure of exhibiting the work. In the middle of the workshop we went back to that talk and said I think for the short amount of time that we have, and the amount of things that are happening in your work and using this process that is very long and usually needs patience… I think at this point I’ll put the question forward, which is about presentation and showing the work projected on the wall or on a piece of fabric — what kind of fabric, where, how do you hear the sound, what kind of environment do you create for your audience, do you want a sort of oneon-one relationship with the work or do you want it to be in this space and exist alongside other things that are happening? These are all decisions that are going to affect your work and the making of the work, so I think it’s important for us as a group to talk about it. And then if the idea of exhibiting to others makes sense for you and you feel like that’s going to add to what you take out of this workshop, let’s do it, otherwise I don’t think there should be any pressure for doing that. Two of the people in our class suggested that they were arranging a party at the Net Factory, and they were cleaning up, setting up, and they wanted to invite others to share their work along with this party. So, we talked about how different it would be if there were projections in the space while people are dancing, not necessarily hearing the sound of the video, or some other people can show their work in more of a private setting in the studios where you can put headphones on. So, that sort of combined and made this offering of like “this is a space that we are creating if you want to make your show.” And they made a really, I think, very nice and inspiring screen for everyone, which was the round screen. C: It was suspended over the dance floor… SA: Yeah. To show their works. Then everybody decided where they wanted to show. C: It was nice as a dancer at the party [laughs] to experience the works that were shown on that screen, over a long period of time, you know, as I was moving in the space, or just catching a glimpse of something again. Or I thought I’d seen it all and then seeing fragments of other things at different times. It was a unique viewing situation.
A: I think for us it was also essential to go through all of those stages, not to be like “ok we’re just going to export the videos and that’s it.” I think in our experience it’s somehow, by the time you finish a video, or any type of art, you have this love-hate relationship to it. But when you put it in a different landscape or context it can be refreshing, and we wanted to have the students involved in that process. To just, because some of them were just like “ok I’m so over this video, I’m over seeing all these frames all the time,” because it was also so compressed. So, I think that was also a good way to end the workshop and merging it with the party there was another level of joy in that, I guess. A lot of them were tired by the time the party started, but then they kind of, I don’t know, boosted up again! C: I mean they worked so hard! It was interesting to see you, Alma, go through your own process a couple of weeks before, for your exhibition at the Sláturhús, and everyone being like, “oh my god, Alma, that’s a LOT of work!” And then you did your workshop and it was like seeing them all go through it again, like “HOLY SHIT, THIS IS INSANE,” you know? But it was also really great to see them get absorbed in that process and at some point, dive into it. A: Yeah, and also like, finding out whether or not you’re the kind of person to see the joy in like, “ok I worked one week, and it’s fifty seconds of animation.” It was funny I was showing my work to one of the students, and she was just commenting also, I worked for maybe two weeks or something, and she said “just come here, it’s just like two seconds!” [laughter] Just two seconds! It was one minute!!! SA: But when people get into that space it’s almost impossible to… like, we had to go into the workshop and say, “guys and girls just leave the desk!” C: Step away from the desk! SA: Take breaks! A: Yeah they weren’t even taking breaks! S: Can you share a little about what’s happening next for both of you, after your LungA experience? SA: Who wants to think about that?!
S: Well I know Alma, you have another residency coming up? A: Yeah, two weeks after LungA I’m going to a teaching fellowship at Vermont Studio Centre, which is going to be for two months, and probably after that I’m going to be back in New York. C: Back in the city! Oh Amal is just typing that she was just going ask. A: Yeah ok! SA: Now you’re accepting questions from the audience! A: And then I’ll apply for more residencies, hopefully I’ll get something in New York. C: And if anyone’s in Egilsstaðir they can check out your work for months, right? A: Yeah, until March, or through March, I’m not sure exactly. S: Let’s see how that yogurt holds up. A: Yep! I actually have this fantasy of the yogurt falling apart gradually, and that’s how the work ends. I don’t know how that’s going to function, but I hope! SA: What’s next for me? From here I’m going back to New York. C: With a green card! SA: Not yet, not yet. And that is, depending on when I get a green card I’m going to teach, hopefully, if I get the green card or my work permit, I’m going to teach at Queens College at the Art Education Program for art teachers. It’s mainly structured around how we bring in our own practices and experiences and different backgrounds to our art teaching. I’m going to focus on my experience working at museums and taking from museum collections to art classes, taking students to museum collections, and how a relationship can be established between a school and a museum. And also social practice, talking about how community-based and socially-engaged art practices can feed pedagogy and vice versa, and how it can be brought into schools. I also just got a text from a friend of mine who’s staying at my place that I received a proof of a book which I’m going to publish.
All: Oooooh! SA: Yeah it’s like a small run artist book and it’s ah… S: [sniffs] That smells delicious! SA: [laughs] Actually for me it’s a little frightening! Because art exhibitions and showing fine art, I’ve done it before, but this is a different level of putting yourself out there. C: Somehow it’s a bit more permanent too, because once it’s done it’s always there. SA: Yes, it’s published, and you have hundreds of them! So that’s a picture essay, talking about the presence of body and female body in the urban scape, focusing on this series of individual protests in Iran called Girls of Enghelab Street which started with one woman [Vida Movahed] standing on a utility box in the street and waving her headscarf. They were mainly interpreted as protests against mandatory hijab and uniforms in the streets but in this book, I’m talking to another Iranian artist called Golrokh Nafisi who also does a lot of public performances and work in the public space. We talk about how this gesture and this form of protest — which is actually pretty unusual for protests, because of its individuality, because of how it manifests itself, and how it offers its presence to the citizens of the city — what it brings to our mind, what are the conversations it brings to the table for inhabitants of the city, and what is the relationship between that body participation citizenship and all of that. And of course, it pays homage to this I think really choice of gesture for communicating what these women were communicating. S: Incredible C: Super exciting. We’re running quite late for dinner now, so we might need to end soon… S: We’re coming Johnny! C: Amal, by the way, says that it was really lovely to hear from us all. A: Thank you and it was lovely to have you listen to us Amal, I keep thinking about your face on the other end! S: We sometimes play a little game where we just say a word and you have
to say the first thing that comes to mind. And I don’t even know what these words are so please excuse me. We’ll do Setare first… C: Ok. Um. [laughs] Winnie the Pooh. SA: Cat A: Cat?! C: Vegetables SA: Love C: Digital SA: Aghhhhhhhhh. S: That’s good! C: Perfect! Jake Gyllenhaal [laughs] SA: What is that? C: Jake Gyllenhaal! SA: Oohhhh…. POSSIBILITY! [laughter] C: Second dinner SA: Needed S: Yas! C: Photocopier SA: I wanna know you! [laughter] C: Jonatan
SA: Calm C: Mmm. S: Ok and we have for Alma — Savage Garden! A: Insatiable S: Down boy A: [laughs] I’m just thinking about the artist. Holly Valance! S: Yeah yeah, that’s why I did it. Teeth! A: Umm. Cold S: Bed bugs A: Don’t even. S: Umm.. Cannelon…. Oh, Analogue! A: Analogue? Favourite S: Impersonations A: Different S: Mountains A: Here S: Lasse A: Jonatan S: Awww. Well thank you so much guys! C: It’s been so great to have you here together. And you’re staying for a little bit longer Setare, so that’s great! A whole week! And Alma you’re staying for the rest… S: Can we have one more movie night in Alma’s room?
A: Yessssss please! C: Alma has the biggest bed in the whole house. A: Yasssss. I also have a bunk bed! S: Haha, for anyone interested! C: Alright thanks guys, it’s been a pleasure. Over and out! S: Bye Amal, our only listener! A: Thank you! SA: Thanks guys! A: Dinner time!