Artist Statement
"It is not your responsibility to finish the work of repairing the world,
but you are not free to desist from it either." - Rabbi Tarfon, Pirke Avot 2:21
By Darren Bell
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I deeply, passionately believe that art has the power change the world. I know it can, because it changed me.
I grew up immersed in art: My mother, a performing arts critic, took me to shows and I quietly listened to the artists backstage - answering her questions, describing their process, their visions, their raisons d'être. My father, an Israeli folk dance archivist and teacher, invested all his time and energy preserving our country's dance vocabulary - which taught me how culture imprints itself in the legacy of a people. It is because of this immense privilege I had that the relationship of past & present became the main lens through which I offer my musings: I'm fascinated by the practice of exploring how something people think of as new actually has deep roots and a history; and how something that seems old or irrelevant actually resonates in our lives today and sheds light on the structures of modern society. I recognize how artists not only have the ability to instigate change - but the responsibility of doing so. I explore this responsibility by making work that concerns relationships and the tension inherent to them: Past & present, the individual & society, the personal & the public, the textual & the somatic, vertical space & horizontal space, marginalized & privileged... |
"Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent." - Jim JarmuschI dedicate a lot of thought to the space between originality and authenticity. I consider our culture's obsession with everything new and shiny and our "out with the old, in with the new" attitude. I think about how this attitude might be clouding our ability to tell what truly makes our hearts expand, what truths flow from within the deepest wells of our identities.
Authenticity means digging into the parts of my identity that stir up many questions and struggles for me: my Jewishness, my queerness, my body dysmorphia, my traumas... Thus, a key mode of my experimentation is with the manner in which my individual history (told both as text and histories "written in the body") can be shared and made relevant to many - the audience. "Only people with no memory insist on their originality" - Coco ChanelI have found that my insistence on authenticity over originality intersects with my dedication to making historical stories relevant to present-day audiences. What unites them is this responsibility I feel for repairing the world through art-making: if we know our history, we will create a better future. The stories I tell may be old, but they are fresh, important and truthful now.
I create work from a place of passion and commitment, and use every tool I have up my sleeve - be it theatre, puppetry, circus, music, dance or raw vulnerability. By letting go of the pressure to be original and focusing on making authentic work, I have found that the originality came effortlessly, almost as a side product of mining what I feel is urgent and important. This way, I ended up becoming one-time-only to the marrow of my bones. |
By Igor Bass
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