ARTIST STATEMENT (outdated)
Photo by Guy Bellingham
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I deeply, passionately believe that art has the power to change the world. I am guided by the principle that 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 personal & the public, the textual & the somatic, marginalized & privileged...
The relationship of past & present is the main lens through which I offer my musings: I am passionate about 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. "Everything is illuminated in the light of the past. It is always along the side of us, on the inside, looking out." - Jonathan Safran Foer
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I dedicate a lot of thought to the space between originality and authenticity. I wish to subvert our culture’s consumerist obsession with everything new and shiny, to challenge how it may be clouding our ability to tell what truly makes our hearts expand, and to bring forth the truths that flow from within the deepest wells of our identities.
"Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent." - Jim Jarmusch
To be authentic means digging into the parts of my identity that stir up many questions and struggles for me: my Jewishness, my queerness, my foreignness, my body dysmorphia, my neurodivergence... 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.
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Photo by Darren Bell
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Photo by Igor Bass
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"Only people with no memory insist on their originality" - Coco Chanel
I 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 engage with our history, we can 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 anyway, almost like a by-product or an after-thought. By mining what I feel is urgent and important, I create work that is both unique to me and moving to my audiences. |
