Hello Wednesday Kim and welcome to NotRandomArt. The current issue of our magazine is revolving around the problem of identity. Is there any particular way you would describe your identity as an artist but also as a human being in dynamically changing, unstable times? In particular, does your cultural substratum/identity form your aesthetics?
I grew up bounded down by strict rules, and do’s and dont’s. I really hate to be constrained. So I can say it is my reaction to the subject of restraint. Asian culture is a big influence and definitely resonate to form my aesthetics. Yes, Asian culture is a part of influence. My works are precarious and fragile.
Would you like to tell us something about your background? Could you talk a little about experiences that has influence the way you currently relate yourself to your artworks?
I have misogynistic experiences and unwanted experiences because of my identity as a woman. Traumatic experiences stay unconsciously in my mind. The hidden forces of the subconscious begin to swirl with traumatic memory and end up creating bizarre images in subconscious stages, such as a dream. Most of my works are employed from dreams.
Could you identify a specfic artwork that has influenced your artistic practice or has impacted the way you think about race and ethnic identity in visual culture?
Hey, V (HEVY) Year: 2016 This short video is about struggling life in USA as a female Asian, illustrated in abstract way. And I believe I am not the only one who had misogynistic experience because of gender (discrimination against women) and race (racism) according to the world. It is still happening
everywhere.
The abstract expression of your works is very powerful. Could you tell us more about the aesthetics of your works and both its consequences and meaning for the effect you achieve?
My work involves found objects, assemblage, videos, and a mixture of analog and digital- From digitally mediated video and still collages, to a butt-shaped drum, using ready-made objects, to a basket of boobs and other video collages.For the videos, it’s a mixture of 2Dand 3D. My videos generally last only a few minutes with alterations.I tried to use Repetition compulsions movement (a symptom of trauma) in videos, which is repeating scenes and movement. I can say it’s bizarre, impatient, and disturbing, but in a funny way. Mostly, it’s like a world refracted through the prism of a schizophrenic mind. I don’t believe in perfect works. I am precarious also my works are..
How much do you consider the immersive nature of the viewing experience? How important is for you the feedback from the receivers of your artworks? Can your works be seen as an invitation to discover some secret rooms and the dark side of the human mind? Do you feel like your artworks can communicate the ideas on the unconscious level during the viewers’ experience?
The audience is invited to my traumatic memory, whether they want to be exposed to it or not. Just as I was exposed to it without wanting it, the audience will be exposed involuntarily. I would like to invite viewers to the indirect experience and engage them with my trauma through my work. But I want the viewers to feel free to use their own imagination, write their own stories with it when looking at my work without trying to understand it.
How do you see the relationship between emotional and intellectual perception of your work? Do you see it as a merge and rather agree with the idea that emotions, which per force belong to the individual experiencing them, should influence the cognition of attributes belonging to an artwork?
Psychology facts are good enough for having fun with imagination. Relationship between emotional and intellectual perception of my work are evil twins. Sometimes, I look at my work, different thoughts, ideas and meanings come about..
Your work takes its roots from personal experiences. What is the role of the memory in your practice? It seems to create an unique subliminal space between boarders, territories, memory and place.
Traumatic experience(memories) ->(obsession -> instructive thoughts) + subconscious = bizarre and grotesque images in dreams. Most of my works are employed by dreams.
Before taking leave from this interesting conversation, we would like to ask if, in your opinion, art can change the future for racial and ethnic identity? How can art help to make sense of these complex histories?
All my way is influenced by encounterings.
It began by the meeting with my professor of literature at school. More than giving French or Literature classes, she brought us to discover texts, movies, plays, visual artworks and to think about on what we saw or read.. Thanks to her that I met Pierre Vincke, a theatredirector who was worjink in the tradition of Grotowski ... Both of them have led me to go to theater school. In this school I had meetings. Meetings with artists but also and especially human beings that made me discover. I always need o discover rather than to master a practice. It's probably the reason my encounter with Monica Klingler and Boris Nieslony was decisive for me and led me on the path of Performance Art which is a form still difficult to define. Each performance artist has a different definition of what it is...
Could you identify a specific artwork that has influenced your artistic practice or has impacted the way you think about race and ethnic identity in visual culture?
No I don't have a specific artwork that has influenced my artistic practise but many.
I'm influenced by some philsophers as well as poets or musicians or dancers or visual artists but also by some places or landscapes or atmospheres ... For some years, I was used for example to go to India where I was used to follow some traditionnal muscians or to learn bharatanatyam and practice vipassana meditation... Of course this experience has impacted my art work.... This brought me to think and work differently... My experience in India brought me to discover traditionnal strong art and paradoxally to the way of Performance Art. But there I see one common point: to make no separation between art and life and to be here and now, without projection on the future.
It's difficult for me to speak about race and ethnic identity. But I can say that today we miss more and more this notion of “to be here and now” which is more present in some cultures ... By practising Performance Art, it's my way to be connected to this way of thinking. And even in this field actually it's more and more difficult. The society and the art world brings us more and more to plan in advance, to define our work, more than to do. Just to do. To do what we deeply need.
And of course, my encountering with Black Market International and later the notion of Open Source or Open session via PAErsche have also a big impact on my work. When we go on that, each of us perform by sharing time and space but without trying to convince each other on some common way. This is for me a wonderfull way how we can meet each other, regardless of our origin, our race or our “identity”...
Many of your works carry an autobiographical message. Since you transform your experiences into your artwork, we are curious, what is the role of memory in your artistic productions? We are particularly interested if you try to achieve a faithful translation of your previous experiences or if you rather use memory as starting point to create.
My memory is clearly a starting point to create. I don't have any autobiographical message. I use my personnal experience ( what I feel , what I see, what I learn, what I ear...) to work. It's a motor or a material. I'm not able to paint, so I can't do something with red or white or yellow or black colors. All I have is life, a body alive. And I need to do something with that...
My sensation about life sometimes is too intense then I need to transform this intensity in some action. Some artistic action... If people can take something from this action this is great... but I don't want to give them “a specific message” or to control the translation of my experience.