What question do you keep coming back to in your arts practice?
“My quests are inwards, towards knowing the self, living deeply with existential questionings, its pain, its longings, its tenderness, its transformations and eventually seeking transcendence. Also questions about the fragility of life, of throbbing flesh, the impermanence that it inhabits and yet isn’t there something within us, an essence that lives forever, that which is indestructible?”
How does your arts practice allow you to respond creatively to conflict/crisis around you?
“If I wish to give to this very same conflicting world through artistic expression, through my day to day personal choices or through work of pure commitment for a cause that I believe in and its urgency, it is all on the basis of being a citizen of the world and as its family member. Today we have the power to express with words and visuals through the tools of social media, for dissent, for amplifying our voices for solidarity, also for venting, trolling and quick reactions. But I wonder if this is enough for me? The real actions start with an individual’s urge for a shift, for showing up, even if it is with small steps and trivial decisions, it is contributing to the manifestation of a collective resolve.”
What do you enjoy most about the process of creating new work and what recurring challenges do you encounter?
“This thing of being on the edge and not knowing , chasing a phantom, a whim, an epiphany is what makes doing art a process of pure torture & deep joy. I go through outbursts of making and then there are pauses, I fear a lot during those times, it is uneasy ,it is filled with silences but it is all needed ,I have learnt to fill these breathers with reading, writing, collecting, watching films, taking trips. At times you try to push out something from inside of you by looking in a different direction, only to return back to the point you left at and find something of potential right there. Playing with materials and experimentation is the most childlike enjoyable process for me, along with rummaging through failed works that always have hidden clues to a new direction.”