conversations in ten questions 12 : Meggy Rustamova
In this series of interviews we try to get to know the artists who were the guests at the Arter’s Performance Programme in Autumn 2019. Our next guest is Meggy Rustamova.
Ayse Draz, Art Unlimited Performing Arts Editor & Mehmet Kerem Ozel, Writer [The Turkish translation of this interview is published on art.unlimited]
What is the spirit performance in your opinion? How do you define contemporary performance today?
Where performance in the ‘60 and ‘70 used to be about experimenting with body, fluids, and extreme human endurance, the focus has been shifting towards politics, ecology and experiments with other media like dance, video and music. I personally try to create installation performances where the audience has the liberty to walk throughout and interact with the artist, the objects, the sound and the photographs. It’s an opportunity to bring a certain sensitive concentration and establish a visual dialogue with the audience.
Are there any artist whom you can describe as "my master", or any person whom you think influenced your art most? And if there is such an artist or person, who?
When I was a student at art school in Belgium I looked up to the usual suspects Joseph Beuys, Marina Abramovic and Ulay, John Baldessari, Vito Acconci, Gilbert and George, Ana Mendieta, Adrian Piper, the conceptuals. I appreciate how Martha Rosler works with video and performance. Slowly throughout the years I started introducing video and then later shifted to sound and larger installations. Other artists I appreciate are Francis Alÿs, Andrea Fraser, Janet Cardiff, Ceal Floyer, Fiona Tan, Chantal Akerman etc. I respect their uniqueness, their poetics versus politics, conceptual statements and experimental use of media.
When you are working on a piece, what sources inspire you? Do dreams play a role in your works?
I get inspired by the location, the people involved, the social, economic and political context and the addressed subject-matters. I’m dealing with the relations between individual and collective memory, language and human behaviour, I try to look for ways to translate the current matters and phenomena in the world. My stories are developed by association, fantasy, daydreams, the ordinary, the banality of daily life and historical tradition. At the end of a performance I share an object or a photograph that can remain with the audience.
Do you believe in the transformative power of art? How?
If we can speak of a certain power, then it is in the eye of the beholder. I believe in the right timing to watch a piece, to fully comprehend and absorb it. Art is emotion, no necessity to consider the worth of the artwork, the artists status, gender or dominance in the art world. Most artworks we love come from a point of recognition, a touch of emotion, a feeling of sublime, a detection of beauty, a mirror to our soul, wishes, melancholia, personal search and happiness.
How do you think the process we are going through globally as the humankind with regards to the new pandemic will transform performing arts in its aftermath?
As the pandemic will last for a few months I believe it will effect all kinds of art disciplines, but more in general society, economy and social organisations and hopefully climate awareness. The unimaginable has happened: ‘‘something that couldn’t happen here or this is a thing far away in China’’ came to our personal doorstep, this is an unprecedented situation in our globalised and digital world. This feels like an exercise for future pandemics or human disasters where a huge amount of people will be affected. Next on the list are the lack of drinking water, the drought, forest fires, floods, earthquakes, amongst which some are already happening, so the climate change is almost inevitable, but if we react universally some damage can be adjusted, this lockdown proves we have the power to transform our future. On a positive note, millions of people are in a quarantine situation and we are all linked through social media, app’s and our smartphones, somehow all strangers are connected.
How do you imagine being under lockdown and having to practice social distancing will shape, inspire your future works?
I am currently working on a new film, the scenario was to examine the relationship between humans and animals, nature and travelling. The current quarantine, - at the moment as we speak not even reaching it’s peak – will inevitably influence my writing, editing and view of our globalized capitalism driven society. This will be established in a not obvious manner, but in a more poetic or indirect approach.
What was your favourite moment about being and showing A Speech of Nature in Istanbul?
I have many favourite moments, one of them is visiting Arter in May while it was still under construction. Discovering the narrow streets around Arter with Aslihan and actually meeting and talking to people that live in those neighbourhoods was fascinating. On the stroll through these streets we bumped on a food market, where we bought some fruit and thus helped the local economy. The Arter offices are facing the people’s houses, Aslıhan pointed out a patterned blanket that was used to cover up a car (see pictures). With Selen we went hunting for trees and on our way I photographed a dog with a boys arm (see picture). During the performance I was walking in circles, in- and outside the building, picking things up from the fountain, there was a build-up evolution in the installation and the sound scape. I cherish the collaboration with the neighbours who were so kind to hang my photographs at their windows. After the performance I donated some photographs to the neighbours, this way I wanted to include them in the happening and hope they found their way to visit Arter.
You define your works as mostly involving films and installations that articulate images, gestures and sounds, but could you explore what and which elements give them a performative nature?
The performative is present in the treatment of the human voice as a guide through the installation. The performer and the audiences are using the same architecture circulation and the audience is invited to participate or to walk through the photographic sound installation. The space outside the art institution and the neighbours participation were also of great importance in the development and presentation of A Speech of Nature. I consider it as a constantly moving entity, each time it is performed the circumstances are different. The audience has their own choreography and path between the photographs, as if moving through a labyrinth.
A Speech of Nature explores the relationship between the city and nature; could you elaborate on that?
What stroke me in the Dolapdere area is the lack of green, a park and nature. Many people are living in tight and poor circumstances. I wanted to share trees, animals, nature and travel photographs, and sounds of nature and combine these ingredients into something universal. Most animals amongst which the cat and the dog I photographed around Arter, some horses I captured in Iceland and birds in the United States, or a tree from Hiroshima in Japan. By combining the geographical continents and deconstructing languages I was looking for a universal human territory.
Is there anything in particular you want to share with people until we can have your works to be performed in real time and space again?
As people are spending more time in their homes I hope they become conscious how important it is to be surrounded by art, beautiful objects and positive images. This could be a photograph, an artists edition or a book. I truly hope people will do the effort to collect items that make them smile each time they see it. I’m currently working on a new book that will be published in September, the photographs of my project in Istanbul will be off course included as the project continues to grow.
Ayse Draz, Art Unlimited Performing Arts Editor & Mehmet Kerem Ozel, Writer [The Turkish translation of this interview is published on art.unlimited]
Photo: Tomek Dersu Aaron
What is the spirit performance in your opinion? How do you define contemporary performance today?
Where performance in the ‘60 and ‘70 used to be about experimenting with body, fluids, and extreme human endurance, the focus has been shifting towards politics, ecology and experiments with other media like dance, video and music. I personally try to create installation performances where the audience has the liberty to walk throughout and interact with the artist, the objects, the sound and the photographs. It’s an opportunity to bring a certain sensitive concentration and establish a visual dialogue with the audience.
Are there any artist whom you can describe as "my master", or any person whom you think influenced your art most? And if there is such an artist or person, who?
When I was a student at art school in Belgium I looked up to the usual suspects Joseph Beuys, Marina Abramovic and Ulay, John Baldessari, Vito Acconci, Gilbert and George, Ana Mendieta, Adrian Piper, the conceptuals. I appreciate how Martha Rosler works with video and performance. Slowly throughout the years I started introducing video and then later shifted to sound and larger installations. Other artists I appreciate are Francis Alÿs, Andrea Fraser, Janet Cardiff, Ceal Floyer, Fiona Tan, Chantal Akerman etc. I respect their uniqueness, their poetics versus politics, conceptual statements and experimental use of media.
When you are working on a piece, what sources inspire you? Do dreams play a role in your works?
I get inspired by the location, the people involved, the social, economic and political context and the addressed subject-matters. I’m dealing with the relations between individual and collective memory, language and human behaviour, I try to look for ways to translate the current matters and phenomena in the world. My stories are developed by association, fantasy, daydreams, the ordinary, the banality of daily life and historical tradition. At the end of a performance I share an object or a photograph that can remain with the audience.
Do you believe in the transformative power of art? How?
If we can speak of a certain power, then it is in the eye of the beholder. I believe in the right timing to watch a piece, to fully comprehend and absorb it. Art is emotion, no necessity to consider the worth of the artwork, the artists status, gender or dominance in the art world. Most artworks we love come from a point of recognition, a touch of emotion, a feeling of sublime, a detection of beauty, a mirror to our soul, wishes, melancholia, personal search and happiness.
How do you think the process we are going through globally as the humankind with regards to the new pandemic will transform performing arts in its aftermath?
As the pandemic will last for a few months I believe it will effect all kinds of art disciplines, but more in general society, economy and social organisations and hopefully climate awareness. The unimaginable has happened: ‘‘something that couldn’t happen here or this is a thing far away in China’’ came to our personal doorstep, this is an unprecedented situation in our globalised and digital world. This feels like an exercise for future pandemics or human disasters where a huge amount of people will be affected. Next on the list are the lack of drinking water, the drought, forest fires, floods, earthquakes, amongst which some are already happening, so the climate change is almost inevitable, but if we react universally some damage can be adjusted, this lockdown proves we have the power to transform our future. On a positive note, millions of people are in a quarantine situation and we are all linked through social media, app’s and our smartphones, somehow all strangers are connected.
How do you imagine being under lockdown and having to practice social distancing will shape, inspire your future works?
I am currently working on a new film, the scenario was to examine the relationship between humans and animals, nature and travelling. The current quarantine, - at the moment as we speak not even reaching it’s peak – will inevitably influence my writing, editing and view of our globalized capitalism driven society. This will be established in a not obvious manner, but in a more poetic or indirect approach.
What was your favourite moment about being and showing A Speech of Nature in Istanbul?
I have many favourite moments, one of them is visiting Arter in May while it was still under construction. Discovering the narrow streets around Arter with Aslihan and actually meeting and talking to people that live in those neighbourhoods was fascinating. On the stroll through these streets we bumped on a food market, where we bought some fruit and thus helped the local economy. The Arter offices are facing the people’s houses, Aslıhan pointed out a patterned blanket that was used to cover up a car (see pictures). With Selen we went hunting for trees and on our way I photographed a dog with a boys arm (see picture). During the performance I was walking in circles, in- and outside the building, picking things up from the fountain, there was a build-up evolution in the installation and the sound scape. I cherish the collaboration with the neighbours who were so kind to hang my photographs at their windows. After the performance I donated some photographs to the neighbours, this way I wanted to include them in the happening and hope they found their way to visit Arter.
You define your works as mostly involving films and installations that articulate images, gestures and sounds, but could you explore what and which elements give them a performative nature?
The performative is present in the treatment of the human voice as a guide through the installation. The performer and the audiences are using the same architecture circulation and the audience is invited to participate or to walk through the photographic sound installation. The space outside the art institution and the neighbours participation were also of great importance in the development and presentation of A Speech of Nature. I consider it as a constantly moving entity, each time it is performed the circumstances are different. The audience has their own choreography and path between the photographs, as if moving through a labyrinth.
A Speech of Nature explores the relationship between the city and nature; could you elaborate on that?
What stroke me in the Dolapdere area is the lack of green, a park and nature. Many people are living in tight and poor circumstances. I wanted to share trees, animals, nature and travel photographs, and sounds of nature and combine these ingredients into something universal. Most animals amongst which the cat and the dog I photographed around Arter, some horses I captured in Iceland and birds in the United States, or a tree from Hiroshima in Japan. By combining the geographical continents and deconstructing languages I was looking for a universal human territory.
Is there anything in particular you want to share with people until we can have your works to be performed in real time and space again?
As people are spending more time in their homes I hope they become conscious how important it is to be surrounded by art, beautiful objects and positive images. This could be a photograph, an artists edition or a book. I truly hope people will do the effort to collect items that make them smile each time they see it. I’m currently working on a new book that will be published in September, the photographs of my project in Istanbul will be off course included as the project continues to grow.
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