Interview with maline casta
16. 09. 2014
Q: Why/When/How did you start to work with performance, what is your background, how did you arrive at doing performance?
I fell in love with performance art by accident. It started when I found a beautiful book in a bookstore during a lonesome summer when I was 20. At that time I was a theoretical theater student and the images in the book had a deep impact on me. I could clearly see that this was very different from theater- and yet it had a resemblance. I wrote an essay on the subject and my fascination for performance stayed strong, but it took a long time until I started doing my own performance works.
Q: What role does performance art have in your life/artistic praxis?
For the last 10 years I’ve primarily been working as a set- and costume designer. After a few years in the theater industry, I started to feel an increasing frustration. My mind was filled with images that newer got a chance to develop. Also, working with scenography was making me locked to the wheels of dramaturgy. I had a clear answer for every color, every shape, every material. I could motivate every nail and screw by their part in the story. Performance art became an outlet where I felt more free. Here I could allow myself to be vague, to not always have an exact answer, to follow my gut feeling. I started to see performances as poems where the atmosphere was more important than the exact meaning of the words. Even if I had a specific theme or subject, it was open for the audience to make their own interpretation. It also created a space where I could experiment and try out new ideas. Over the last five years I’ve been exploring many different expressions; installations, sculpture, illustration etc. To make performances with the material I’m currently involved with always helps the other projects to move forward. Normally, I am a control freak. Improvisation has always been one of the things I fear the most. Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to it. In many ways performance art is the scariest thing I could think of doing.
Q: What is the process like when you make a performance- from idea to actual work?
I am a slow thinker and I like it when ideas take time to develop naturally. I often start with an image that I carried in my mind for some time. Eventually I start to play with it, to understand more about it - where it comes from and what meanings it carries. That’s also why I like to work with durational pieces, that allow the image to grow beyond the first idea.
I usually work with sketches when I prepare a performance, making a rough story board or several small scenes without connections. Since I often lack space and money to try out things beforehand, the ideas are often untested when I make the actual performance. I might have tried certain elements but I usually don’t know if it will work out.
Q: Can you tell us about your latest project?
This summer I did a project together with the curator Rie Hovmann Rasmussen at NLH space in Copenhagen. NLH space is a small gallery with big windows towards the street. The theme of the project was presence. I wanted to focus on the visitors presence and created a situation where I was tied to strings that extended though a hole in the gallery wall on to the street. Passers-by could pull the strings, either to help me or to make my work more difficult. I was sitting in the gallery working with a newspaper installation during three days, divided over 18 hours. The situations that occurred during the days were very different from the situations at night, when I was alone and more exposed in the street because of the light in the window. More than I had anticipated It became a project about empathy.
Q: How do you experience or consider the audience/surrounding?
The surrounding is always very important to me. Every place has it’s own history and this adds a new context to the work. I often work site specifically spending time at the location to finding the images that evolve from there. I often do research on the area, both historically and also about the current sociopolitical climate. I sometimes aim to dissolve the border between the spectators and the performance or to place the spectators inside the piece rather than vein on the outside looking in. I personally think its fun to do and try things so I assume that sometimes goes for the audience as well…
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Q: Why/When/How did you start to work with performance, what is your background, how did you arrive at doing performance?
I fell in love with performance art by accident. It started when I found a beautiful book in a bookstore during a lonesome summer when I was 20. At that time I was a theoretical theater student and the images in the book had a deep impact on me. I could clearly see that this was very different from theater- and yet it had a resemblance. I wrote an essay on the subject and my fascination for performance stayed strong, but it took a long time until I started doing my own performance works.
Q: What role does performance art have in your life/artistic praxis?
For the last 10 years I’ve primarily been working as a set- and costume designer. After a few years in the theater industry, I started to feel an increasing frustration. My mind was filled with images that newer got a chance to develop. Also, working with scenography was making me locked to the wheels of dramaturgy. I had a clear answer for every color, every shape, every material. I could motivate every nail and screw by their part in the story. Performance art became an outlet where I felt more free. Here I could allow myself to be vague, to not always have an exact answer, to follow my gut feeling. I started to see performances as poems where the atmosphere was more important than the exact meaning of the words. Even if I had a specific theme or subject, it was open for the audience to make their own interpretation. It also created a space where I could experiment and try out new ideas. Over the last five years I’ve been exploring many different expressions; installations, sculpture, illustration etc. To make performances with the material I’m currently involved with always helps the other projects to move forward. Normally, I am a control freak. Improvisation has always been one of the things I fear the most. Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to it. In many ways performance art is the scariest thing I could think of doing.
Q: What is the process like when you make a performance- from idea to actual work?
I am a slow thinker and I like it when ideas take time to develop naturally. I often start with an image that I carried in my mind for some time. Eventually I start to play with it, to understand more about it - where it comes from and what meanings it carries. That’s also why I like to work with durational pieces, that allow the image to grow beyond the first idea.
I usually work with sketches when I prepare a performance, making a rough story board or several small scenes without connections. Since I often lack space and money to try out things beforehand, the ideas are often untested when I make the actual performance. I might have tried certain elements but I usually don’t know if it will work out.
Q: Can you tell us about your latest project?
This summer I did a project together with the curator Rie Hovmann Rasmussen at NLH space in Copenhagen. NLH space is a small gallery with big windows towards the street. The theme of the project was presence. I wanted to focus on the visitors presence and created a situation where I was tied to strings that extended though a hole in the gallery wall on to the street. Passers-by could pull the strings, either to help me or to make my work more difficult. I was sitting in the gallery working with a newspaper installation during three days, divided over 18 hours. The situations that occurred during the days were very different from the situations at night, when I was alone and more exposed in the street because of the light in the window. More than I had anticipated It became a project about empathy.
Q: How do you experience or consider the audience/surrounding?
The surrounding is always very important to me. Every place has it’s own history and this adds a new context to the work. I often work site specifically spending time at the location to finding the images that evolve from there. I often do research on the area, both historically and also about the current sociopolitical climate. I sometimes aim to dissolve the border between the spectators and the performance or to place the spectators inside the piece rather than vein on the outside looking in. I personally think its fun to do and try things so I assume that sometimes goes for the audience as well…
<< Back