THE BODY, PERFORMANCE, ART – INTERVIEW WITH CAMILLAT
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CamillaT, is a young Brazilian artist who lives and works in Campinas, a small city in the state of São Paulo.
Our choice to interview her for #brazilianart, comes from the desire to make known not only her beautiful research work, but also to be able to let people understand how the production and management of art works in a reality dislocated from São Paulo (although very close), which is currently in great turmoil and aims at enhancement and development through precisely contemporary art.
Camilla, in fact, is not only an artist, but also a curator and producer of contemporary art.
Starting precisely from the desire to decentralize art from the big capitals, she began to collaborate with some spaces such as Atal (@609atal), where she manages the production and organization of the space that is conceived and designed for the dissemination of contemporary art, with an eye to the internationalization of art.
But she is also the founder of Femea Fabrica (@femeafabrica), a place born from the need to have its own atelier and to give space to other artists so they can produce together. Self-managed, it currently counts with seven artists, emerging and unrepresented, working and sharing ideas and productions. Designed for diversity in art, it welcomes not only visual artists, but has a major focus aimed at performance, an artistic mode currently in vogue in South America (and beyond), as it allows for a broad and fluid language, as well as welcoming artists working with music, and sustainable art.
"We all have the idea that the arts, mainly the visual arts, is always enclosed within itself and its atelier, transforming the space into something open and accessible to the public is one of the main goals of Femea Fabrica."
Performance and the relationship with institutions
Camilla converts the sensitive into a creative process, where the body is put at the center and is transformed into performance, work that is then concretized in other mediums, such as photography, video, or installations; Like many artists Camilla began to have her work seen in closed institutional spaces, such as galleries, museums, and exhibition spaces, as well as in open spaces, but she sensed that the work when done in open public spaces had a fruitful and positive response, while indoors in institutional spaces there was always something missing, the artistic response was not fully satisfied.
"I was looking during the performance for the relationship with the audience, but I saw that inside the institutional space this was not happening and the artistic act remained half-hearted and was not fully realized."
So he began to look for an alternative way for his performances, also beginning a different, more nature-focused research, positioning himself as an even political tool beyond aesthetics, that is, a real tool for transformation.
Thus were born works that were dried in language, creating a symbolic structure accessible to all.
Such as, for example, "Botica Elementar," a small wooden container where some medicinal herbs that Camilla cultivates and studies in their essences are stored, a performative series that aims to unite the objects necessary to carry out the work with a profound artistic poetics.
The object in this case becomes an integral and fundamental part of the performative act, incorporating itself into the body, thus creating a perfect dialogue.
"The attempt of "Botica" is to think of objects as in our everyday life, for example, I will make a soap with the medicinal herbs that I am planting in the garden of Femea Fabrica, which will become a sculptural procedure, and this soap will be offered to the public so that they themselves realize the artistic act ( use of soap), at home."
This kind of work becomes a means for art to become popular by simply and concisely reaching anyone.
Creating by stepping out of the comfort zone
The chat with Cammilla was long and super stimulating, and she also answered us the fateful question, "If you came to produce in Europe, would your creative act be the same?"
So many artists have a hard time answering this question, but Cammilla was clear:
" I adapt to places, and for me it is always very stimulating to get out of my comfort zone, the fact that I work with plants and nature helps a lot this process of adaptation to the place where I am. Every people also have their own traditions in terms of medicine and the study of plants, so my art must always be on the move and elsewhere...it's part of the research."
If you are curious to know a little more about the beautiful work Camilla does, you can visit her IG page @camillaticaa