Interview with Irma Optimist
Finland, August 2018
Q: Why / when / how did you start to work with performance, what is your background, how did you arrive at doing performance?
I followed performance in the 1980s and thought that perhaps I could do the same. I have always been interested in art. So I started in 1989 and took the artist name Irma Optimist in 1991. I was already working at the university as a researcher and teacher in Mathematics, so I was ready to perform in front of an audience.
Q: What is your process like when you make a performance, from idea to actual work?
First I have many ideas and memories of my old performances. I put them on paper. Then I start to organise my ideas, so many ideas are put away and many new ideas are created. Then I start to build a logical and conceptual action.
Q: Can you tell about your latest project?
In June, I was invited to Poriginal Gallery in Pori, a city in Finland to perform for asylum seekers. The subject was difficult. I created the performance to deal with the asylum seekers attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea. The outcome could be that you may be frozen to death or drowned. I sometimes use other artists works together with mine. This time the artist was Yves Klein. The rest was my own complex way of doing a performance. I am a researcher of chaos theory.
Q: What role does performance art have in your life / artistic praxis? Do you also work within other fields, like installation, sculpture, drawing, and other expressions? How do they influence / inform each other?
My life is divided into four parts- Mathematics, Performance Art, Là-bas (organizing events) and Nature. In some ways these parts are separated, but in other ways they are all mixed together in one persona called Optimist. In art, I am really “only” a performance artist. If something else is created such as videos, photos, exhibitions, they are created because of performance.
Q: With what kind of form / material do you express yourself and use in your work and how did you arrive at using this material?
When I teach Mathematics at the university, I use an overhead projector. So I also use it quite often in my performances. I build my performances around it. I love it. Other materials are more normal performance stuff.
Q: How do you experience or consider the audience / surrounding? What space / surrounding do you find interesting to work in? How does your surrounding influence your work? Do you involve the public? If so, how?
For me it is important that an audience is focused on me. My performances have some message or story which I try to make more os less clear. I feel the influence of an audience very strongly. I do my action for them. I don´t like to do interactive performances and speak in my performances anymore. I think that there are enough good performance artists doing that.
Q: Make your own question, and answer it.
Why do you think that performance art is just for you?
Because it is as difficult as Mathematics. You are the art work by yourself.
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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 followed performance in the 1980s and thought that perhaps I could do the same. I have always been interested in art. So I started in 1989 and took the artist name Irma Optimist in 1991. I was already working at the university as a researcher and teacher in Mathematics, so I was ready to perform in front of an audience.
Q: What is your process like when you make a performance, from idea to actual work?
First I have many ideas and memories of my old performances. I put them on paper. Then I start to organise my ideas, so many ideas are put away and many new ideas are created. Then I start to build a logical and conceptual action.
Q: Can you tell about your latest project?
In June, I was invited to Poriginal Gallery in Pori, a city in Finland to perform for asylum seekers. The subject was difficult. I created the performance to deal with the asylum seekers attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea. The outcome could be that you may be frozen to death or drowned. I sometimes use other artists works together with mine. This time the artist was Yves Klein. The rest was my own complex way of doing a performance. I am a researcher of chaos theory.
Q: What role does performance art have in your life / artistic praxis? Do you also work within other fields, like installation, sculpture, drawing, and other expressions? How do they influence / inform each other?
My life is divided into four parts- Mathematics, Performance Art, Là-bas (organizing events) and Nature. In some ways these parts are separated, but in other ways they are all mixed together in one persona called Optimist. In art, I am really “only” a performance artist. If something else is created such as videos, photos, exhibitions, they are created because of performance.
Q: With what kind of form / material do you express yourself and use in your work and how did you arrive at using this material?
When I teach Mathematics at the university, I use an overhead projector. So I also use it quite often in my performances. I build my performances around it. I love it. Other materials are more normal performance stuff.
Q: How do you experience or consider the audience / surrounding? What space / surrounding do you find interesting to work in? How does your surrounding influence your work? Do you involve the public? If so, how?
For me it is important that an audience is focused on me. My performances have some message or story which I try to make more os less clear. I feel the influence of an audience very strongly. I do my action for them. I don´t like to do interactive performances and speak in my performances anymore. I think that there are enough good performance artists doing that.
Q: Make your own question, and answer it.
Why do you think that performance art is just for you?
Because it is as difficult as Mathematics. You are the art work by yourself.
<< Back