The world has changed at such an accelerated pace since the beginning of this year, how are you coping with all these changes?
I would prefer to say that the world has “apparently” changed. It is too early to evaluate how deep these nowadays visible changes really are and how sustainable some of the positive changes will be? I am asking myself about the real nature of these changes and their impact on my life. As almost everyone I am confined at home, as almost every one I am still in contact, perhaps even more than before, with all my friends around the world, it seems to me that I am now 24 hours on line, something I hated before. As almost everyone who is sane, I take the opportunity to organize pending matters, to read a lot, to watch films I always wanted to see, and mainly I rediscover the notion of time. Honestly, I am not so sure that these changes are so important for me as they should be, I am used to work from home… and my creativity needs quite often the loneliness and the calm of a closed place. What is different now, it is this strange feeling to belonging to a global experience which was imposed on us by scientists, medical doctors and politicians, without knowing all the parameters. Are one’s role and contribution, as well as behavior relevant for the expected results? I wish it is.
In fact, it is not the first time that I live in a kind of confinement. It reminds me of the first fieldwork I did as a student of social anthropology. I spent a full year more or less confined in an isolated small village (in rural Bangladesh), literally without any contact with the outer world, no electricity, no running water, no telephone in the proximity, living under traditional rules not always understandable to me, physically free to move but in fact only inside the village… In my memory it was a year of learning …about myself, about the importance of certain values, about human nature, about life. I had social contacts (even too much and bound to social control) but limited to the villagers around … I was missing “cultural elements” (like music, not having even a small radio to catch the Bengali channels), it goes without saying that I had no opportunity to hear or to speak my mother tongue, I was missing some food items (like cheese). But it was such a life’s constructive year. My second experience was in countries under war with an imposed curfew day and night for a certain though usually short period of time but with the constant fear of the bombs falling, or of the presence of a snipper. Death was present, food and basic items were scare, and confinement though not compulsory but self-imposed, was the only way to keep a bit safe. These experiences taught me that the human being after a short while learns how to cope with such extreme situations and afterwards tends to consciously forget them (though it is somehow unconsciously kept engraved).
Many years later, similar feelings already experienced in these different contexts are re-emerging… Insecurity, fear and doubt first, then I get used to this new situation and start to develop a certain routine which is paired with fancy wishes like going to an exhibition, this urge to feel the artwork physically, to be surrounded by other visitors, to listen to their comments, to exchange comments with a friend, or to go to a concert and feel the vibes of the audience.
I realize that the physical reality, the direct communication, the surrounding energy, are missing…My senses and emotions want to escape to the outside world… I am becoming less creative, missing the mundane inputs.
As someone who travels a lot, has the restriction in movement changed your perspective on everyday objects and situations?
I had planned two, for me personally, important private trips in this first half of the year which had of course to be cancelled, hopefully postponed for the after “Covid” times. I was (and still am) for very personal reasons frustrated and sad… I suddenly felt like a prisoner!
However, the confinement at home gives me a new perspective on my daily life. I live in a place large enough to allow privacy; my half rural environment allows me to walk outside in the forest; my working place looks over the lake, giving me a feeling of wideness. The restriction of movement brings to light the privileged environment I live in. Some say that the actual situation brings more equality among the people … we might be all confined, but not under the same conditions, we might be all fearing the threat but again not under the same conditions…The common ground might be the fact that we are all back to the essential, there is no other choice.
For me, traveling is mainly linked to discovery, new knowledge, anticipating new projects, new ideas, to creativity … but I am realizing that confinement allows you to come back to yourself and to discover some of your hidden dreams… The travel takes place inside of yourself in a very unplanned but interesting way.
Downtime plays an important role in a creative person’s day. How do you deal with it?
Since last fall I have been in a downtime phase …probably due to many changes occurring in my personal life, a fascinating but tiring process of transformation in my way of life, my habits, my values and beliefs… A kind of self-evaluation! This process is still under construction and the confinement may either accelerate or slow down the necessary transformation.
During the first weeks of confinement, “my” downtime seems to transform itself gradually into a “uptime” again. New ideas are beginning to spring up, I feel the need to work again.
Downtime is, from my point view, difficult to deal with because it doesn’t let you one day in peace with your own conscience, you feel under pressure but you don’t have the energy to fight against it. As I don’t have to live from my art, I try to accept downtime as it comes, knowing that it is a more or less short-term phase which finally pushes me in a new creative energy. When I reach a downtime phase, I have in mind this symbolic picture of a fall, and it is only when I reach the hard floor that I can give a kick to push me up again…If I would give the kick when still in the air, there will be no impact… Therefore, it is important to first reach the hard floor, even if it means sinking to the deep bottom of a pit!
From a more positive point of view, downtime is a necessary phase in the creative work. It brings you in a state of “positive” laziness, gives you time to observe, to work on specific details, to take some distance from your previous work, maybe opening new doors for your future creative development. Downtime can be perceived like a compulsory “rest” phase.
What are you working on at the moment?
Last fall I started a new series I called “Urban landscapes”, the focus was more on big busy cities with some reminiscence of Tokyo… I stopped to work on it during the winter (downtime and busy with other priorities), however, just before the confinement I wanted to work again on that series… I am working on it but from another perspective… it is impossible to put aside the changes brought by the confinement and the restriction of movement; the urban activities have been from one day to another almost completely frozen. The second part of the urban landscapes will obviously express the emptiness of the cities.
Do you have any thoughts on the evolution of the art Industry in 2020?
All the major contemporary art fairs, planned for the first half of the year were cancelled because of the “covid”, which means that all cultural institutions, galleries, art fairs and the art industry in general had to rapidly adapt to a new reality, namely the digital engagement. But not every artist, every work and every gallery can be presented under a digitalized form, the impact of an art work cannot be the same as physical depiction and as remotely digital presentation.
Then the mobility of the artworks, of the gallerists, of the art collectors is impeded by the new rules, and the real “physical” exchange is considerably reduced.
The last argument is the economic global situation which will have a large negative impact on the big art sales and might bring changes in the profile of the Art buyers and collectors. It could totally transform the rules of the art market. However, it is too early to predict which kind of changes will be operating in the art industry during the second half of the year and further.
I wonder if the contemporary artists will be very strongly influenced by the global situation and how it will be reflected in the art production!
People across the globe will no doubt find these times testing to say the least. How would you recommend navigating it as an artist?
The artist is primarily a human being who deals emotionally with the surrounding situation. As any other human being, he has to face the changes and deals with them. For some artists it might be a rich creative experience, for others, a phase of uncertainty and fear, others may try to escape the new reality, other will integrate the changes in their work… Every artist will probably choose his/her own navigation course to get out from the crisis. Important is to be aware of the changes of perceptions and the impact on the creative process.
What is moholinushk reading at the moment?
As many of us I decided at the beginning of the pandemic to read a “thick” book which was offered to me a while ago and never opened: Ayn Rand, The Fountain Head. The book was published in 1943 as romantic and philosophical novel and became a major success. The author, “Ayn Rand developed in this novel a philosophical system named “objectivism”. In this novel, Rand advocated reason as the only mean of acquiring knowledge, and rejected faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism and rejected altruism. She supported “laissez-faire capitalism”, a system based on recognizing individual rights and property rights”. The novel is centered around different architects working in New York and having completely different perceptions of what modern architecture should be.
I finished the book without any enthusiasm, rejecting totally her philosophical view (the “virtue of selfishness”) … and wasn’t surprised to read in a review of the book that this novel is one of the few works of fiction that Donald Trump likes!...
To put this rather negative experience behind me, I started the last book of one of my favorite authors: Hanif Kureishi, What happened? 2019. A collection of essays and fictions reflecting our modern age, full of observations on culture and the way we live now. I enjoy every page of it. I might read again the previous works of Hanif Kureishi in the following weeks.