A still from
Women Cinemakers reflect German photographer Andreas Gursky's words, when he stated that : are you particularly interested in structuring your work in order to urge the viewers to elaborate ? In particular, how open would you like your works to be understood? Yes I agree with Gursky, whose work I appreciate. And I thank you for your insightful conclusion. One can look at the same aspect of reality in many different ways. By clarifying viewing parameters, the artist can reveal a new world for the spectator as Gursky does. I wish my works could be meeting points with everybody's inner self. And if they are, they have been understood, even though the interpretations can be infinite in number. We have particularly appreciated the way , an experimental video that can be viewed at , features such rigorous sense of geometry and at the same time conveys the idea of prehistoric monsters, showing the resonance between apparently opposite concepts: how did you structure the editing process in order to achieve such brilliant results? Thank you for appreciating the geometry of the movie: I have made the editing instantly in place by watching the subject through the camera's mirror filter while rocking my body in line with the waves. One could say that I was dancing the movie. By watching the movie the spectator at the same time takes part in the film's creation. To explain more closely the movie is taken during the same expedition as . The icebreaker Oden reached Barrow in Alaska that is a little Inuit settlement housing Arctic Research Centre. As usual I was moving around carrying on my cameras. On the beach I noticed a steep sloping iron grid, probably used to pull up boats on, which the ocean waves threw up jellyfish on. I picked myself up on the top edge of this construction that ended steeply in the ocean and I watched the event through the ocular in my camera's mirror filter. The image I saw reflected a feeling that had fulfilled me for a long time, a sense of being in the beginning of time when the first organisms came out of the sea. Transformed through the mirror filter in the camera I saw the Arctic Ocean spitting up ancient beings on the geometric structure of the iron grid. In order to create an illusion of newborn offspring coming up from the sea, I had to change the camera angle many times.
Women Cinemakers How should I do it so that it appeared natural or not even noticeable? The only way was to change the shooting angle at the same moment as the waves hit the iron grid. This was only possible to do, so to say, freehand without the support of camera stands. I put my body in motion and I crashed in tune with the waves while shooting. Had I lost the balance, the risk was great that I had fallen in the ice-cold sea. Austrian historian E. Gombrich, writing in , talked about the importance of providing a space for the viewer to project onto, so that they can participate in the illusion. As an artist particularly interested in exploring the tension between the fantastic and the realistic documentary, how do you consider the creative potential of direct experience? In particular, how does your everyday life's experience fuel your creative process? I grew up at the place in the world ruled by a single truth, namely, the communist doctrine. Nothing else was allowed. Even a child, as I was, could not help but see that this truth in reality was a lie. As a tool to be able to orient myself in life, I practiced a technique to constantly search for the opposite pole of all given truths and doctrines in order to search for the reality in the field of tension there in between. This approach to life has become a habit. Accordingly in my artistic practice I want to put the spectators in a state of mild uncertainty. So that, when no answers are given, they are forced to seek answers and interpretations within themselves. In their efforts to interpret the work without instructions, they may catch a glimpse of themselves. Many, but not everybody will be happy when that happens. Assuming that we look at the world through a frame created by our expectations, we can change our experience of the world just by changing the expectations or the viewing angle in the same way as we change a camera filter. To do so is widening the perspective. To switch between ways to look at the world amuses me and brings me new ideas to explore in order to understand the world better. Rich of allegorical qualities and reminders to Nordic symbolism, is another piece that we are pleased to introduce to our
Women Cinemakers readers. This captivating video a be viewed at https://youtu.be/6NrkbfGJvcI and provides the viewers with an immersive experience: how important are metaphors and reminders to traditional imagery in order to create an evocative work of art? As for the movie, the use of Nordic symbolism was part of the mission itself. The film was created on behalf of Umea Municipality for the video installation in the Arrivals Hall at Umea Airport as part of the municipality's application to become the . The purpose was to focus on the Swedish nature in relation to ancient history and especially on Sami culture that has been reduced, on the verge of denied in Swedish culture. The reason I got the commission is due to the fact that I, in an innovative way, have done a number of works that refer to art history from many different epochs and parts of the world. In my research, I have been taken by how expressions of native cultures around the world are similar to each other and that I wanted to highlight through my work. Art history inspires me a lot. I do not know how it could be otherwise, possibly in some state of blackout. In all I do, I see glimpses of previous artists' works. Everything they have taught me by their personal endeavors. And I feel grateful. I do not refer to any particular work of art, not to any particular artist, not even to any particular art period and yet all of that is included in the works I create with the help of all the artistic techniques I have learned during life. French anthropologist and sociologist Marc Augè once suggested the idea that modern age creates two separate poles: nature science and culture society. Since you are particularly involved in the search for points of convergences between different art historical periods, how do you consider the relationship between traditional heritage and contemporary sensitiveness? Sweden, where I live, is a modern country focused on the present. An average person does not give much importance to historical knowledge. But I, raised in Central Europe, am deeply aware of how historical events, if we don`t deal with them, on an unconscious level affect the present, that is not always in a positive way. Another aspect is that the art of indigenous peoples have been diminished and exempted for imperial reasons and have the need to be restored. The art reflects its time and speaks to us throughout the ages because we belong with those who have
gone before us. We are reached by the message in the same way that we are reached by the starlight of the already extinct stars. But we can only answer the appeal with our own voice shaped by our own time; otherwise there will be no exchange and no cross-fertilization, just a romanticized retrospective. I think it is important that we grow a sense of belonging; not only with the planet earth, but also with the human race to protect them both and in that work we must embrace the Women Cinemakers
history to understand ourselves as a whole. I use allegorical references to art history because they already carry embedded explanatory models. This does not mean that you have to know them in order to experience the work, but in case they are familiar and conscious you can include the hidden symbolism embedded in the work in the experience, which adds a value. Each work contains several interpretative layers
that can be read in parallel. Sound plays a crucial role in your artistic practice: through techniques of manipulation, you mutate authentic sound recordings to create ethereal and often enigmatic atmospheres that provide your artworks with a captivating sense of ambiguity that force the audience's perceptual process to continuously subvert their initial sensations. How do you consider the relationship between sound and the flow of the images playing within your practice? I work with the sound the same way as I work with the movies. Often I use authentic sound recordings already embedded in the film. I try to capture and develop what's already there behind the surface, but maybe not directly audible at the moment of recording because it is overwhelmed by noise. The interesting sounds rarely lie in the foreground of the sound image. I ”wash” the sound free from slag until the interesting sound layers begin to appear. I have no prior idea of how the final result should sound. I simply listen and let the sound carry me on as I did in my youth when I created sounding mobile sculptures. The sculptor Michelangelo has said that he carries out the form that already exists in the stone block. It's a suitable allegory for how I work with the movie sound. I can amplify or mutate different audio channels so that the sounds that are barely audible in reality come to the forefront and the dominant sounds come in the background or I change the tempo of a soundtrack or mix them in different order, but I never change the rhythm that is associated with the image flow because this rhythm is an integral part of the film work, created in the identical now. Here's the main difference between working with the movie sound as I do and composing music for the movie. Digital technology can be used to create innovative works, but innovation means not only to create works that haven't been before, but especially to recontextualize what already exists: do you think that the role of the artist has changed these days with the new global communications and the new sensibility created by new media? Women Cinemakers
The biggest achievement is all communication that has become possible across borders. A while ago, I watched in real time an artist talk at LACDA in Los Angeles, which is on the other side of the globe from Stockholm, where I live. This is amazing. It is not always possible to travel here and there, but nowadays you can take part in events despite the distances. You can easily stay informed about various art directions and find like-minded people across the globe. This adds a new dimension to art. The balance of power has been shifted. The artist can take on the initiative much more than before. A new freedom has entered the art scene and changed the artist's role. Artists can send their digital works via the internet to galleries in different places on earth. The galleries can in turn present the work on a screen or print and mount it without time-consuming and costly shipping. The most exciting thing is that we are at the beginning of this development. On the other hand working with new technology is no guarantee that artwork that is created will be innovative, that depends entirely on the individual artist's approach. Over the years your artworks have been internationally showcased in a number of occasions, including your recent participation to the group exhibition LACDA Electron Salon, Los Angeles. One of the hallmarks of your practice is the ability to establish with the viewers, who urged to from a condition of mere spectatorship. So we would like to pose a question about . Do you consider ? And what do you hope to in the spectatorship? I am genuinely interested in the psychology behind the spectator's involvement in artistic processes and the impact they may have on the spectator. I have even developed an interactive portrait photography method for people suffering from dementia with the aim of improving their self-awareness and ability to attend. The method has shown surprisingly good results. Some patients who lacked a language have started to speak. For those interested in this project visit http://www.dascha.nu/dementa_e.htm. My basic starting point is that we are all interested in ourselves and that we need to be able to reflect Women Cinemakers
ourselves in the artwork to get involved. So to say, that the spectator himself must find his own space in the artwork. It is this space that Gombrich describes in . In the field of tension between the work of art and the spectator, an additional world is created by the spectators’ own mind. My videos are based on the same mirroring principle as used by psychologists to examine the emotional ability of patients. was a Swiss Freudian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst that were artistically educated as well. In my video installations I go even further. The process of overlapping image projections woven into each other and transformed by the motion of the veils creates new and unexpected imaginaries appearing and disappearing in a constant flow all around the spectators which by their own behaviour had an inevitable impact on the transforming process. No one of the momentary appearances can exactly repeat itself and the installations remains in some case unknown even to me, so even I have to constantly renew my paths of associations. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Dascha. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? What I currently know with certainty is that I will complete an order for a permanent sculpture installation called in and in connection with the opening of the work; my videos will be shown in the culture house theatre hall. In addition to this, I have a number of already initiated projects that are just waiting for me to get time to complete them. Which one of them gets in goal first and what direction the work will take is impossible for me to know in advance. My artistry moves in elliptical courses in which I continually return to previous works to carry them on hoping that I still can surprise myself. An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant [email protected] Women Cinemakers
Hello Sarah and welcome to : we would like to introduce you to our readers with a couple of questions regarding your background. You have a solid formal training and after having graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Cum Laude, from Northern Illinois University, you nurtured your education with a Master of Fine An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant [email protected] Arts, that you received from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: how did these experiences address your artistic research? Moreover, does your address your artistic research? I left the Southwest side of Chicago to attend graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I studied Hip Hop Feminism with Dr. Ruth Nicole Brown, author of Black Girlhood Celebration: Toward a Hip Hop Feminist Pedagogy and Hear Our Truths: The Creative Potential of Black Girlhood. Dr. Brown’s courses Sarah Beth Woods Women Cinemakers meets Lives and works in Chicago, IL, USA Sarah Beth Woods is a Chicago-based visual artist working in sculpture, performance and film. Woods’ background as a painter and critical cultural worker has led to an interest in the aesthetics and political implications of modern surfaces and the body, specifically skin and hair, saturated color and shine. Cultural influences derived from formative years spent on the Southwest side of Chicago continue to manifest in the content and aesthetics of Woods’ work, specifically black material culture, and women’s conceptual spaces.
SarahBethWoods
Women Cinemakers interview had the most radical pedagogy on campus. This is where I began material explorations that connected me back to black material culture and the cultural landscape of the South side. I found a beauty supply shop near school that carried the most incredibly vibrant braiding hair. The synthetic hair was taken back to the studio and braided into other found objects in the series Afterwards I realized that there was a literal material connection, the braiding hair and the bath poufs were made from the same nylon material. I spent the most formative years of my life living and teaching on the Southwest side of Chicago at a parochial school in a Black-middle class neighborhood. 98% of the students were African-American. I identify as German, my Grandmother was first-generation. The school had a highly revered music teacher, Dr. Cynthia Nunn. During the time I was planning lessons the hallway was filled with the sound of kids singing the most incredible gospel music, while Dr. Nunn banged out these incredible melodies and harmonized. I always felt that spiritually it took me to another place. I was taken by surprise by the myriad of rules surrounding adornment and the black body, this was most pronounced in hairstyle. Specifically, there were rules about how ones’ hair could be worn. A few strategically placed barrettes were permitted, but an entire head of small, white pony beads warranted a phone call
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers home. This was my first hands-on experience with respectability politics, a demarkation, a deliberate separation from “Otherness.” There was one occasion where one of my third grade students came to school with her hair half braided. It was picture day and they asked me to step in. I was highly aware of the cultural boundaries that I was crossing but also felt grateful that I was trusted to the task at hand. Most of my work points back to these personal and profound moments. You are a versatile artist and your practice is marked out with such stimulating : before starting to elaborate about your artistic production, we invite our readers to visit in order to get a synoptic idea about your artistic production: would you tell us what does address you to such captivating approach? How do you select a medium in order to explore a particular theme? I’ve always been interested in collage and bricolage, even as a child. The immediacy, the texture, the layers, all resonate with me. The subversive history and qualities of Dada, specifically the way collage can be easily reproduced and distributed. There is an emphasis on process and material, similar to craft that excites me. interview
While attending the San Francisco Art Institute I studied film with Ernie Gehr, and Janis Lipzin and Interdisciplinary Collage with Carlos Villa. Villa’s mixed media work is featured in by Lucy Lippard. We watched a lot of early Soviet Cinema, and Stan Brakhage. My major was Interdisciplinary so I was able to easily traverse disciplines. During this time I was immersed in diy/punk culture, George Kuchar’s campy, lowbudget movies, and experimental film. When I eventually returned to Chicago I started studying abstract painting, which is evident in the content and formal aspects of my work. I feel lucky to have had such a broad range of experiences between art schools and state universities. In my work content comes first, an initial idea, a spark followed by material decisions. Generally the process is quite intuitive. Some of my initial questions are how can I deconstruct this? How can I push the limits of this material? Do I conceal or reveal? I want to pronounce the importance of a subject that relies heavily on surface, temporality, and the body. (Concepts often intrinsically linked to the feminine.) How do I do this earnestly, within the context of the groups, which are frequently negated for their associations with fluff and artifice? The surface is as important as the content, both in the film and the ways in which we intellectualize these groups. For this special edition of we have selected , an extremely interesting experimental video that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article and that can be viewed at What has at once captured our attention of your insightful inquiry into is the way it provides the viewers with such a captivating : when walking our readers through the genesis of , would you tell us what attracted you to this story? I’ve been fascinated with girl groups for as long as I can remember. I was looking at early choreography, early girl group appearances, and was transfixed by some of the groups’ first television appearances, essentially these moments in history where girlhood had a visual and sonic presence, a conceptual space. The synchronicity made them appear larger than life, Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers interview expanded through time and space. Movements became more isolated and pronounced. During my last project BRAID/WORK I worked with Fatima Traore, a Malian- American professional hair braider. The goal was to create links between our practices, gestural iterations of race, and crosscultural identities. We were invited to show our work at Rootwork Gallery, a space in Chicago run by Tracie D. Hall. Hall had a collection of glossy 8”x10” girl group promotional photos. I pointed to one of the shots of The Marvelettes and said, this is my next project. I formed a fictional girl group that summer with Alexis Strowder, Anya Jenkins and a third woman, Yahkirah Beard, who is a professional dancer and lead in Our weekly rehearsals/filming was done at Prosser High School in the Belmont- Cragin neighborhood of Chicago where Strowder, Jenkins and I attend church on Sundays. We had two public performances, one at Silent Funny, a music and art venue on the Far West side and the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum on the city’s Near West Side. I consider these performances part of the process rather than finished work. We have highly appreciated the way your film challenges the audience's perceptual parameters to explore
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers , your film provides the viewers with a unique multilayered visual experience: how do you consider within your process? For me, the groups represent the intersection of high artifice and femininity combined with authentic, lived experience. They teach us about girlhood as an appealing and multifaceted identity. Groups were often formed with friends in school or church choirs, which seems so grounded and unmediated. Producers changed their names, their looks, the way they held their bodies, their image, the songs they sang. They chose whether to include or exclude certain group members, some remaining in obscurity because they weren’t given proper credit on records. Beneath the shiny, glowing surface of those groups there were a lot of hard realities. There is this in-between, otherworldly space that these groups exist in. I wanted the imagery in the film to have a graphic quality, layers, and texture. I chose Double-X Negative film for its adaptability to a wide range of lighting conditions. There are some really wonderful moments when the women’s movements create tracer-like effects. Those moments feel the most successful to me. The dream-like quality of reversal film is the perfect aesthetic, keeping the work from being too legible, too interview
Women Cinemakers quick of a read, too fact-based. If its too literal you shut down entry points for your audience and for me that is also connected to expansive legibility. I read a lot of Luis Alberto Urrea’s works, specifically, I always return to It’s an incredibly rich account of the author’s distant Aunt, Teresita who is suddenly sainted at the age of 16. Urrea researched the content of the novel for over twenty years and then folded in all of this intensely visual magical realism to form something new. The girl groups are intrinsically linked to Teresita, they share the same kind of magic. With its minimalistc yet powerful visual structure, seems to reflect German photographer Andreas Gursky's words, when he stated that : are you particularly interested in structuring your work in order to urge the viewers to elaborate ? In particular, How open would you like your works to be understood? Moreover, we really appreciate the way you explore the expressive potential of a wide variety of materials, and more specifically textiles, as you did in the interesting
A still from
Women Cinemakers German art critic and historian Michael Fried once stated that ' .' What are the properties that you search for in the materials that you include in your works? Initially I search for materials that hold both personal and broader cultural meaning. Once the materials/content is deconstructed there is space for broader interpretations. That’s one of the reasons Hear the Glow is so stripped down and minimal. Materials have the potential to detach from their original meaning and purpose but are also capable of coming back to it full circle. I believe in multiplicity of thought, and I’m not interested in specific works being overly didactic. I want my audiences to have different entry points and experiences. People often think of hair weave as a material strictly used by African Americans or as a material that reinforces westernized ideals of beauty. Some of this holds true, but I think we enter into dangerous territory when we fail to look at the entire picture. Remy hair (the most popular) is imported from Russia and India. Pilgrims in India sacrifice their hair at temples, where it is collected, cleaned and processed by low wage workers, generally women. The hair is then exported to other countries.
Women Cinemakers In the States there are a lot of First-generation Korean families that settle in segregated sections of inner cities who are owners/proprietors of beauty supply shops that sell the premium hair. Customers who purchase the hair weave come from a myriad of ethnicities and social classes. In fact, Africa has become a major importer of Remy hair. What’s fascinating to me is how many hands and cultural barriers the hair passes through and the blurred boundaries between the real and artificial. I apply these ideas to materials, even things that are believed to be essential qualities like feminine body comportment. Courtney Bradshaw, the choreographer for nd I had many conversations about Maxine Powell. Powell had a finishing school at Motown Records, which taught her groups etiquette, poise, and social graces. Another conceptual link back to my early experiences in Chicago with respectability politics. To answer your question more specifically, the materials for were purchased from a giant bin of bath poufs at Walmart. The poufs had vibrant, saturated colors that are found in other products marketed directly towards girls and young women. My research pointed me to labor politics at Walmart, which often targets minority women through very strategic marketing. There’s an interesting triangulation of labor taking place as well: the women consumers, women workers and the offshore labor of the women who construct the bath poufs. Most of my research pointed to exploitative practices but these kinds of neoliberal practices aren’t limited to Walmart, its wide spread. There’s also this inherent contradiction or polarity because the poufs are beautiful. The plastic binds color incredibly well. So I’m forced to dig beneath the surface, look at what’s behind, that’s the link to Gursky and the conceptual spaces of the girl groups. How is in your opinion online technopshere affecting by the audience? Do you think that today is easier to a particular niche of viewers or that online technology will allow artist to extend to a broader number of viewers the interest towards a particular theme? I’m enamored with Vimeo. I can click a button and send almost anywhere. Since a lot of my work is material in nature the process of getting work from point A to point B is usually much more involved. Clicking the button feels too easy. As far as broader viewers I’m finding the film is getting a lot of attention overseas which is
Women Cinemakers made possible through platforms like Vimeo. It makes the work more accessible so I suppose the question is, does the accessibility change the art’s inherent value? There’s a lot of art online, an infinite amount, so there’s risk of anonymity and saturation. There is something to be said about looking at art in person. I think that’s important for sculpture and painting. With film the experience is going to be really different every time the work is screened because there are more variables. That potential is exciting. There are a lot of people who wonder why I use 16mm with todays advanced technology. When it comes down to it you cannot replicate the grain, the light, colors, and imperfections that celluloid holds. 16mm film pronounces itself first and foremost as a material, I find that incredibly interesting. Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco once stated, " ". As an artist concerned with current issues and universal human experiences, what could be in your opinion in our unstable contemporary age? Does your artistic research respond to cultural moment? I’m always carving out . That's a thread you'll see running through a lot of the work here in Chicago.The support from different communities on the West Side of Chicago allows me to ask difficult questions and take greater risks. Its important to be continually evolving as an artist, working toward something even when the process feels abstract and uncertain, signs that tell me I’m on the right track. I am aware of the stories we don’t hear, the performances we don’t see, the ways we think we understand black materiality and culture. I want to disrupt the paradigm. As far as the cultural appropriation debate goes, culture isn’t static here in Chicago, or anywhere else for that matter. Segregation and separatism tells us that it is. Humans aren’t static. Culture transgresses boundaries and still maintains its original importance and meaning. *The term Otherwise Worlds of Possibility was termed by Ashon T. Crawley in Black Pentecostal Breath: an investigation of aesthetics and performance as modes of collective, social imaginings otherwise. Published with Fordham University Press. 2016. We appreciate the originality of your artistic research and before leaving this conversation we want to take this occasion to ask you to express your view on in
the contemporary art scene. For more than half a century women have been discouraged from producing something ' ', however in the last decades women are finding their voices in art: how would you describe your personal experience as an unconventional artist? And what's your view on the future of women in this interdisciplinary field? I think women have always had voices in art, and created art but haven’t always been accepted or nurtured in these environments by those in positions of power. We acknowledge those who have and continue to work tremendously hard to level out some of those power structures. Culture at large has been catching up with inclusive ideas about art making, but there’s a lot of work to be done. The important conversations being held about the Me Too movement and contemporary debates about separating art and artist is gaining a lot of momentum and that’s exciting. I think that opens up a lot of opportunities for female and femaleidentified makers in the future because we are collectively thinking about their experiences. Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Sarah. Finally, would you like to tell our readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving? Film is in my future. For I had one single image in mind, gleaned from popular culture and there wasn’t much variation in movement. I like the idea of using something that produces multiple images to slow down and focus on one long, drawn out image. Yahkirah Beard, the lead dancer in the film, and I talk a lot. She’s an incredibly talented dancer. feels like it should have multiple components, we’re currently making plans to shoot some solo footage. I have a stock-pile of glow-in-the dark objects, and reversal film. Check my website for updates, new work, and to join my mailing list. In addition, is part of the group show, Yellow Book at the CICA Museum, Gyeonggi-do, Korea. September 21- October 7, 2018. I’ll be screening the film in-person at The Other Art Fair Chicago, September 28-30, 2018 at Mana Contemporary. An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant [email protected] Women Cinemakers
Captivating and refined in its balanced and effective storytelling, Más amor por favor is a stimulating documentary film by Adali Torres: inquiring into our perceptual process and the relationship between the inner sphere and the outside reality, she demonstrates the ability to capture the subtle depths of emotions. This captivating film offers an emotionally charged visual experience, inviting the viewers to unveil the ubiquitous beauty hidden into the details of our everyday life experience: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to Torres's captivating and multifaceted artistic production. Hello Adali and welcome to WomenCinemakers: to start this interview we would ask you a couple of question about your background. Are there any experiences that did particularly influence your current filmmaking practice? Moreover, does your cultural background address your artistic research? An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant [email protected] Thank you very much for this space you’ve given me to share my thoughts. Hopefully, you enjoy it, liking or disliking, it’s ok as long as you feel something. The main thing I want to say is that I’m a woman. Despite it being uncomfortable for me to say it, I have been thinking about why I will describe myself as such in this interview. I find it important to stress that the use of this is so as to let everyone know that I’m within my right and my pleasure to break it. I’m not a woman all of the time, I’m a faggot and a lesbian, I’m androgynous and pansexual with a constant transgender feeling. I am a person with a body and mutant energy. The decision to make that person visible and what it brings to my day to day life has become one of the subjects of the exploration of my creative projects. A precedent has been the construction of strong collective hugs that make me feel comfortable enough to let go these gay fears. Hugs that serve as a protective barrier that has been created by strong people, sensitive and brave souls, notions that nowadays Adalí Torres Women Cinemakers meets Amador explores his identity through a journey in which she looks to challenge the definition of gender. She is afraid to become man o woman. The film is a tour through her city, family, hair, her body and her fears. A "little goat" (fag) from Lima that interacts with our own fears. Lives and works in Lima, Perù
Women Cinemakers try to seep in the general conscience thanks to an upright feminist movement. What I want to express is a part of this social fight but with a deeper regard that is the same with which I look at myself and my own human contradictions. Another experience worth highlighting is having questioned the TRANSformation when the binary normative was stricter and more rigid. This TRANSformation remind me of how necessary it is to adapt. This is something that I’m trying to pursue in my audio-visual practice, as well as knowing the multiple treatments that you can give to an image and to a sound, to connect with the non-static component of cinema. To play with the sense of bringing a constructed truth. My truth. My body and language adapt because the transformation is unending. It is really difficult to openly identify as a lesbian faggot in Lima. I live in a city of infinite colours and flavours but despite its cultural richness I find it hard to feel other than what I feel for Lima today. I feel that I live in an insecure, male chauvinist, violent, lying and selfish city. To live in Lima is to me, to try to win. But I still ask myself, to win what? I enjoy being stimulated by the streets in Lima. It is in my 27 years that I can find harmony in such a chaotic place. But this harmony goes hand in hand with knowing the fear of overstimulation that I feel living here. My fear resides in how defiant it is to perform androgynously, in presenting myself in a way that others don’t understand. My fear resides in digging so much into me that I won’t be able to present what is happening to me because it changes every day. I find the self-portrait useful because it allows me to look at all the ways that I want to experiment with myself and I find it healing. It is to find respite within so much chaos. The sensation of fear and the scenarios that I imagine that stem from that fear are useful to me when exploring the creative process. When I ask myself what I fear and why I fear it I search for confidence expressing myself. The need to connect with the world starts with visibility. Something that influenced me was having to keep a message to give for so long. When I was 24 I decided to make Más amor por favor with an interview
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers
Women Cinemakers intent to loosen the knot in my throat. I wanted to talk about gender and the unending voyage of one’s identity. I didn’t know when I would do it, I thought it had to come out soon and it came when I couldn’t hold it in any longer. A wise friend with whom I learnt a lot about love died, he had to let us go. At that moment I had the need to feel alive. To feel alive meant to yell, cry, let go, breathe. Juanma taught us that all cycles end and start again, even if we don’t always know how, and I can’t help but relate my immense desire to know myself with this idea. I studied audiovisual communication to obtain a tool that will help me narrate what I have stuck in me. I didn’t just want to question gender but also to have another view of life. Even though I thought that this film had some student-film mistakes and that I lacked the movie world experience, I used my instinct to search for a new direction and it was then that the film got known. What is hidden falls by its own weight. For this special edition of WomenCinemakers we have selected Ma s amor por favor, a captivating film that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once captured our attention of your insightful inquiry into the representation of the hybrid is the way your sapient(sabio) narrative provides the viewers with such an intense visual experience, enhanced by elegant composition. While walking our readers through the genesis of Ma s amor por favor, would you tell us what did attract you of this story? I was drawn to the experimental treatment of all the edges that make up a film, the cinematographic language, the changing and indefinite story and my constantly altered emotions. Something elementary is the game against myself, to prove what I am capable of directing my identity journey and the journey of those who are dedicated to the project, as were the people on the team, the actors, the producers, the advisors. I'm curious to know what questions have stuck with them after getting into the world of Amador, the protagonist. Making films and developing this story with such devotion serves as therapy for freedom. It was fundamental for me to talk interview
about my body as a space, as a stage, as a location. To ask ourselves about harmony in a space and the tension that comes with it. I wanted to create a rhythm of inconsistent coherences by experimenting with the audiovisual. I would like to apply to my life some situations described in the movie such as confrontational conversations with my mother, working in the “dream room”, watching a symphony of kisses and hairs that are personal experiences that I allowed myself to boost. What is it to enlarge a truth? Is it to make it plausible? Is it real? I don’t have an answer, only that I choose to believe in that construction. In the story, Amador is a person that performs androgynously in Lima, sometimes is he, others is she, he does it in front of his family, his friends, his streets. Her coherence exists as she is a unique person that searches for freedom that he and she can only give himself. That love that we can grow to make us feel comfortable. My way of doing it was to tell it subtly. I wanted it not to be necessary to talk about labels, of men or women, of cis or trans to allow the spectator to identify with the sensations abstractly. The senses in their essences, like the touch of two hands, touching hair stuck to the skin regardless of who the skin belongs to, closing our eyes and try to lose control.