Raluca - Interviewed by Mat

Raluca interviewed by Mat – Edited transcript

MD: If we could start by giving the reader a small insight into your background as an artist and how you’ve got to where you are today?

RC: I started by studying Economics in Bucharest and France. When I was in France a shift happened and I realised I actually want to make art or engage with art. So I finished my BA in Bucharest studying photography and video making and then I moved to the Netherlands. So now I am living in the Netherlands and my practice is more or less focused on interactivity and engagement of the audience as an active part of the work. I predominately work with performance and I am constantly addressing the question of the vanishing point of a work and how a work can exist without being actually definite or fixed. I also do interventions within public space, so I can say that my main focus is working with people and with public space by using my body. I normally use my body a lot as way of activating my presence, the others or the space.

MD: I thought we could follow on from this with a brief introduction to what the audience will actually see within this new exhibition?

RC: The project is a re-enactment of a performance I did a year ago. It involved my daily routine. Because I am interested in routine and daily habits that people have, I decided to expand this project and get further involved with the community. I have been conducting interviews for the past weeks for this purpose with community members and I am going to perform them in the space by re-enacting other people’s routines using pieces of string that measure the size of the objects they use daily and objects with which they relate to on a common basis.

MD: You mentioned that you did this a year ago, where was this? And can you tell us a little more about how it manifested itself in this first instance and then maybe we can talk a little bit more about your expectations of it for this new exhibition?

RC: It was in Bucharest – I was at this point when I was struggling with my daily routine: going to work, going to my boyfriend’s place, staying in my house and I felt really full of these habits I was doing every day. I was invited to do a performance as an opening to an exhibition about home and places – this was when I came up with the idea.

- I find by putting the strings in the space and vocalising this daily routine it became another representation, a visual representation of my daily life in Bucharest. Now I have decided to move from this individual representation to a collective one, in which I am representing other people’s struggles with their daily lives.

MD: You mentioned about members of the community that you are going to be working with – who are these people?

RC: I don’t particularly want to focus too much on them for the moment because I feel it will be more interesting to actually experience the performance in the space and let that reveal the individuals involved, but I can say that there are people who have been doing the same work for a long amount of time.

MD: So people like in a traditional 9 - 5 working environment?

RC: Random people from different working domains: they maybe work in an office, or they are artists who have part-time jobs, cleaning. People from all walks of life that experience the same routine everyday…

MD: And you said that you interviewed them?

RC: Yes. Maybe interview is not the proper word. We have been discussing our daily lives and about the repetition experienced...

MD: And how have those discussions evolved and how did they originally come about?

RC: It was through the Institute initially. Because I have never been here before, I asked them to put me in contact with these people. They have been very nice and people have been also very generous. We met for a coffee in the gallery café, as a way of interacting with the space and we began discussions. The whole process is basically a way of understanding people, but also representing them in an art form.

MD: I am kind of interested in the way you are going to interact with the gallery space. Could you maybe elaborate on what we will actually encounter when we go into then space? Focusing on the interplay between yourself, the placing of the strings and their vocalisation...

RC: Actually, it’s not such a fixed structure. Mainly I am going to work in the gallery space, but at the same time I might decide to move in between the spaces, such as the lecture hall or the cinema or even the main hallway. I am not really a fan of gallery spaces that much.

- The strings will remain for the rest of the day in the space. I hope once you experience the performance, you will relate in another way to how the space looks, the strings create a different structure for this to happen.

MD: That brings me to an important question. In terms of the actual performance of the measuring of objects and their vocalisation - I presume that is going to be happening in the space?

RC: Yes.

MD: Are you going to be there?

RC: I am going to perform.

MD: So you will be a constant presence in the gallery?

RC: Yes, I am going to be a constant presence.

MD: And the process of measuring?

RC: Measuring is going to take place before; the objects will have been already measured when I will start the performance, whereas the vocalisation will be simultaneous to spreading of the ropes. This also involves going to people’s workplaces, to their homes, it involves going into the personal spaces of those people.

MD: So… I might walk into the gallery space and you will be vocalising there and then?

RC: The performance itself is going to be announced. The public will know when the performance will take place. If they miss it, they will be able to see the remains, the ropes spread through the gallery space, which at the end of the day are going to be taken away for the next performance.

MD: This brings me onto the issue of documentation - Is it important to you?

RC: For this project not that much. I think my focus is on what happens there live, probably I am going to have some photos taken and maybe use some excerpts from the text as documentation. However, this is not my main focus for the project. I kind of prefer it to become more ephemeral.

MD: Are you kind of conscious of the audience’s reaction or is it more to do with your relationship with the people you are directly involving?

RC: That’s a very good question. I think it’s double-sided because I am actually trying to see the extent to which these habits are universal. And how they can relate to anybody, no matter from what part of the world that person is from. We have these constant habits that we are making and this constant routine that is asked from us - we are constantly asked to perform in this way.

MD: I see it almost as about the tension of maintaining these habits, consciously and unconsciously, whilst simultaneously wanting to break away from them….

RC: I think it’s a very complex discussion and maybe I am not the right person to talk about it, maybe a sociologist would be better equipped? In a way it’s about breaking and living with these habits at the same time, because I think this is what we are constantly doing anyway.

MD: I completely agree.