Mochilero, 2020
Camilo Cárdenas: Improvisation is incredibly important in my work and in performance in general. A performance is different from a play or acting precisely because it is not a rehearsed event; it is a real time and unique exposure of the self. scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Mochilero, 2020
In ‘Autorretrato’ I had a lot of preparation, such as researching the stereotypes, gathering the clothing and manipulating my hair and beard. But in the studio, every time that I changed my persona and stepped in front of the camera, I was scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Camilo Cárdenas Land Mochilero, 2020
intuitively and spontaneously becoming a different person. The energy that I display for the camera isn’t-and can’t be- rehearsed. It is completely improvised and felt. There was also a ‘practical’ improvisation with this project, which was discovering new personas by playing with mixing different elements of the wardrobe and hair styling. The majority of Camilos on camera in Autorretrato Colombiano - American Selfportrait were completely improvised. Lots of artists convey the ideas that they explore through representations of the body and more specifically by using their own bodies, as you did in Campus Hummingbird: how do you consider the relation between the ideas you aim to communicate and the physical act of creating your artworks? The more personal the idea that I am trying to convey is, the more likely that using my body will be the most effective and direct way to convey it. I see a very strong relationship between idea and medium, and therefore, when the idea is, for example, my identity, putting myself in front of the camera becomes the most direct link. In Campus Hummingbird I am taking Peter Campus’s ‘Three Transitions’ as a technical and conceptual structure, and imbuing it with the message of identity I am trying to transmit. This is also an example of ‘collaborating’ with another artist through multiple temporalities; finding in someone else’s work fertile ground for the seed of an idea. In this case Campus is also sharing the scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Campus Hummingbird, 2019
impulse of using his own body as a medium, making it seamless for me to enter the work. This physical presence in front of the camera is very important for me and my work, but physicality in my creative process goes beyond film and performance. My Camilo Cárdenas scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
Campus Hummingbird, 2019
background in sculpture is an indicator of this. Our ability as human beings to manipulate and alter materials, and through that alchemic action, re-define and create the meaning of something, is an amazing gift. scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Campus Hummingbird, 2019
Both Autorretrato Colombiano and Campus Hummingbird are silent films, while Mochilero that can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/412587745 is pervaded by the sound of the ambience: would you tell us something about your choices? And how do you consider the relationship between sound and performance? Camilo Cárdenas: I often tell my students that sound is at least 50% of a film. It has an immense emotive power, since audio physically touches our bodies. My choice to make both of these films silent has to do with the fact that the visual elements, which are at the center of the concept of the pieces, are faithfully and sufficiently communicating the message I intended. They also contain a certain ambiguity that I like; it allows the piece to remain open to interpretation. Adding sound to these pieces would limit this audience interpretation, since it has such a strong capacity to affect emotion. In the performance context, by contrast, sound is inevitable, it is everywhere even if it is ‘silent’ in the space where it takes place. This ambience sound is part of the reality of that moment, and therefore an important element to share. In this context I embrace sound as another tool of expression and utilize it to heighten the emotional layer of the performance. A particular aspect of your artistic research is centered on the ways in which people choose to identify themselves; whether by scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Camilo Cárdenas Land
language, country, beliefs or something else entirely. As an artist who moved at young age from Colombia to the United States to Colombia, how do your memories and your everyday life's experience fuel your creative process? Camilo Cárdenas: My personal history of relocating from Bogotá, Colombia, to Boston, Massachusetts at the age of thirteen has generated an array of questions and shifting views on what it means to be from somewhere and to belong somewhere. Home has become a moving target, represented by people, not place. Thus, I make work that plays with, explores, and raises questions about the nuances of identity. While this liminality of belonging is far from unique, it is continuous and with me every day. Currently, I live in a nature reserve in Gachantiva, Boyacá, Colombia, where I am disconnected from the internet and instead focus on daily activities such as making bread, cheese and other food items; take care of our cows and veggie garden; and work on home improvement projects. This way of living is also influencing my view of identity and further expanding it away from labels such as nationality and gender, to name a few, towards a broader and more energy and spirituality oriented scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition
Camilo Cárdenas scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Transformacion Colibri, 2017
scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Transformacion Colibri, 2017
identification. Finding a no-identity identity, so to speak, is a very liberating process. Your artworks have more than a story to tell and trigger the viewers' imagination, addressing them to elaborate personal interpretations: how open would you like your works to be understood? Is important to you to invite the viewers to extract particular meanings from the performances that you create? Camilo Cárdenas: One of the main takeaways from my MFA was to lean into ambiguity. I used to place a lot of importance on a specific message being delivered and clearly interpreted by the audience. This became a self defying approach, because taking so much control over the messaging in a piece closed it down to how I would interpret it only. Once I understood the role of ambiguity in the work, I was able to lessen control over a piece and ultimately the message became more clear and more people received it. I try to identify the core symbolism in my work, either performative or not, and use it as a foundational structure for a piece. The relationship among these symbols creates a narrative and a dialogue on its own, and this is the language that is ultimately spoken with viewers. As you have remarked in your artist's statement, you see art as an agent for scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Camilo Cárdenas Land
Transformacion_Colibri_2017 Transformacion Colibri, 2017
individual and cultural identity formation and retention; a fundamental component of our social fabric. Artists and performer from different art movement and eras — from pioneer Richard Morris, passing through Thomas Light and Andy Goldsworthy, to more recently Kelly Richardson— use to communicate more or less explicit messages in their artworks: do you think that artists can raise awareness to an evergrowing audience on topical issues that affect our everchanging society? In particular, how do you consider the role of artists in our globalised and evergrowing society? Camilo Cárdenas: Artists have a unique ability to raise awareness about social issues. While there are many mediums and messages out there, artists are always creating work that responds to their personal experiences, and that, in turn, is a reflection of larger societal experiences and events. However, that is not to say that all artists are consciously and explicitly using their work to raise awareness. This is something that many artists are working very hard to do because they see issues and situations in society that need to be highlighted. Often artists are put in a category of social activism when they operate in this way; when they address specific social and political issues that are affecting people. I have personally drifted further and further into this realm of social and political messaging in my work; not because I want to be ‘political’, but because these issues, such as immigration, othering and sociopolitical inequalities, affect me directly. The role of the artist in our globalized society is to hold a mirror to the issues, the people being affected by them, and the people enabling them; to make people question what they take as a given, and to consider alternative ways of coexisting. You are an established artist: you are the recipient of a Delphi Research Fellowship from the Center for Material Culture Studies at the University of Delaware, as well as a Competitive Travel Grant, and over the years your works have been internationally exhibited in several occasions: how do you consider the nature of your relationship with your audience? By the way, as the move of Art from traditional gallery spaces, to street and especially to online platforms — as Instagram and Vimeo — increases, how would in your opinion change the relationship with a globalised audience? Camilo Cárdenas: There are two sides to answering that question, which I believe are complementary. On one hand, I strongly believe that we create work for ourselves, that we do it because it is part of our personal expression and even Camilo Cárdenas scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land
because it keeps us ‘sane’, as Louise Bourgeois famously said. The creative impulse doesn’t need an audience, just the space and time to flow. But on the other hand, related to the previous idea of art as an agent of social awareness, the creative process doesn’t exist in a vacuum, is influenced by our communities, and is the best tool for cultural and communal expression. For me it is very important to share my work with as many people as possible; to enter into dialogue with the communities I am a part of. This feeling has pushed me into the performance realm, where I find a more direct connection with the audience, as well as more socially active work. During this past year and a half of the pandemic, I have relied more heavily on sharing my film work, due to the ease of sending a file rather than a physical sculpture, to be displayed in an exhibition. This has expanded the audience that can interact with my work, and that is nourishing and encouraging for me to continue working. I do think that there is more that can be done for these virtual exhibitions or attendances to be more social. They can sometimes feel a bit distant, where the work travels, people get to see it, but you don’t really have that much of a chance to continue the dialogue with those viewers. I am not incredibly active on social media, but I do share work on my instagram, @obracamilo, as a way to connect with people and keep the conversations going that are generated by the work. http://instagram.com/obracamilo scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Seamless Pattern (El Agua se va a Acabar)
We have really appreciated the multifaceted nature of your artistic research and before leaving this stimulating conversation we would like to thank you for chatting with us and for sharing your thoughts, Camilo. What projects are you currently working on, and what are some of the ideas that you hope to explore in the future? Camilo Cárdenas: Thank you as well for scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Camilo Cárdenas Land
including me and giving me this opportunity to share my work. Generally speaking I am moving further into work that is public and interacts with the communities I share in. I hope to explore more and more in this area. Currently I am working on a project titled “Al Calor de la Olla” (To the Heat of the Pot), which aims to raise the voices of rural communities here in Boyacá, Colombia, so that they may scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land Special Edition Seamless Pattern (El Agua se va a Acabar)
express themselves as to the way they are affected by the current socio-political issues facing Colombians. Protests have been going on since April 28th of this year which have been met with suppression and violence by the Colombian government and military forces, and which have left many dead and many more missing. It is part of the sad history of the country that people who speak up for peace and human rights are taken down by those in ‘official’ power, or otherwise in a position to pull political strings. This project will create a physical, visible and, simultaneously, anonymous platform for people to speak up and express themselves in this very difficult time. I am also spending time doing something I have wanted to do for a long time, which is sculpting with wood. I have been using cedar wood, ink, and acrylic to create anthropo-zoomorphic figures. Other projects include short films, such as a series I call ‘Morning Light’, that I approach as ‘visual poems’ of shots of light hitting my surroundings in the morning, and which I started when I was living in Philadelphia; collaborating on music videos; and generally staying creative and crafting in my everyday life, such as making furniture, food products to sell, crocheting clothing, and more. I don’t see art-making as something removed from our lives and exclusively designed to live in a gallery; it is part of who we are and it is fueled by our daily existence. Camilo Cárdenas scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW Land An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator [email protected]