Jujube/practice

From time to time I write about my practice. This is a nice place to collect those writings (2018-present).

Text on Practice

I started this text as one on method (how I make what I make now). After some feedback from Steve, who, for the second time, noticed the recurring routines in my doing, I decided to connect how I make things to a broader personal context. I surprised myself as I included referenced I thought would be private or less relevant... Perhaps it was not a coincidence that I was obsessed with autobiography.

Jujube/methods-session-11

IFFR takeaway

During IFFR I reflected a lot on cinema and how the moving image fits in my practice (or, how my practice can be grounded in the moving image).

See: Jujube/2019-iffr-takeaway

from an artist residency application (feb 2019)

In my artistic practice I weave together tales and autobiographical materials in the form of moving images. I search through the longing, loss, resilience from personal experiences and create emotional resonance with imageries, sounds and (fictional) voices. How are we moved and, subsequently, how do we begin to contemplate about our selves and develop empathy towards one another?

My most recent works encourage the viewers to form a connection from within. Meditation is both a method of production and an (audio-)visual result. I'd listen to the wind through a field recorder and try to depict silence in sound editing, for example, or put my hands on the frost as the camera captures its disappearance.

Three factors continue to shape my practice. The first is my experience as a playwright. The telling of a story — and sometimes, fragments of it — remains essential as I convey ideas and emotions. The second is my use of the moving image. By exploring the medium and the craft associated with it, I expand my visual vocabularies and, in turn, find the anchoring form for my works.

The third is my engagement with artist residencies. In recent years I have traveled to, among other residencies: Norway, Finland and Spain. From a story photo album of a lichen's awakening in the arctic, to a video poem inspired by the darkness of November, to a film in which a young person seeks her past in the clay-filled ravines — the characteristics of each place are key to my work.

Perhaps that explains why I am drawn to remote and often wild places. The ecology outside of the human-centric environment humbles me. It makes the fundamental connections noticeable: between the human and the earth, air, water and — given sufficient refuge and humility — the self and fellow species.

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Related: Jujube/methods-notes#re:_abstracting_story_13.2F02.2F19