Art_Gossips

Some days ago Naiara Valdano from Art_Gossips contacted me for an interview I would like to share today with you. You can find the original one in her blog Art_Gossips.

Thanks Naiara.

Art_Gossips

Nowadays you are living in London, Why do you emigrate and why do you decide to live in London?.

There is not an only reason, there are various reasons and their results. Although I have spent a lot of time in Spain, so I do not considerer myself as an emigrant.

Talking about your work, What artists and elements inspire you?

The City and the buildings and the stories behind them, why someone built them? when?. How they look like years ago? Routine, daily life, light and the sea.

Goya, El Veronés, Tizian, Chinise art and classic architecture. Nowadays I am working with Turner, Constable and “Land art” artists.

I like your project #SinPrisas What did you want to talk with this project?.

#SinPrisas: 15, agosto, 2011.

©Susanalf. 2011

#SinPrisas is a critique of bad education. This work started one evening in December, when somebody who was in a hurry spilt her coffee over me and ran away without an apology.  I got really angry. She reminded me of The White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. From that moment, I started thinking about that and to observe people and I realized that we are not present in our lives and then wonder why we are never happy. We live immersed in a life dynamic where we only think about the future and we often forget about the present. For a long time I have been listening to people talking about what they are going to do on their holiday, what they are going to do next Friday after work, what they are going to do when they have a better job...

    I also like your project #LastCall, a blog where we can find the pictures you took in airports. How did it start?

#LastCall. @Susanalf.2011

  #Lastcall is an online diary that shows us every airport where maybe some day ago we were waiting our flight. #LastCall, is a personal project as well as an open project which was born as a reflection of many hours spent at airports waiting to fly out. I reflect about the use of the new public spaces, to analyze by photo language how limits between public and private space disappear in an airport terminal.

An airport is a tract of levelland where aircrafts land and take off, usually equipped with hard-surfaced landing strips, a control tower, hangars and refueling facilities, as well as accommodations for passengers and cargo. Airports are public and busy spaces, they are the most complex and dynamics station owing to the importance of the air traffic in our times.

But an airport is much more than that. An airport is a conglomeration of all cultures, it is a place of floating bodies of people in limbo, a place where everyone is waiting to be somewhere else, it is a place of contradictions. It is a so called “No-Land”, where dead time seems constantly present. An airport is the ultimate waiting room. And yet, it is a center of contemporary culture, a place where identity is scrutinized thoroughly, and also shed like a snakeskin. We become anonymous and homogeneous.

Nowdays most of the airports are big terminals where we can do a lot of things instead of flying in or out of. Airports are not only a station for passengers, with most of them being amazing architectural buildings, they are a new kind of building, something in between a station and a mall. Like big cities outside a normal city. The first and last view of such city, area, or country. Airports are places where people from everywhere can meet.

This year you are participating in The Other Art Fair, Why did you decide to participate in this event?.

One year ago I had a pair to tickets for visiting The Other Art Fair. I really liked what I saw there so I applied for the next edition. I took part for first time in April in Marylebone. This is going to be my second time in The Other Art Fair, but I feel more nervous than six months ago.

 You are going to present your work #Time. What does it talk about?.

#Time: Spitalfields. 

©Susanalf.2014

#Time continues talking about the same idea I talked in #SinPrisas, we live too fast. #Time is a self portrait that talks about the speed of time. #Time is a wish to make it stand for a while in the present days.

We spent a lot of time thinking about the past and planning the future and we forget to live the present and when we realize it the present has been past.

What are you plans within the following months?.

Crow4art

These days we are working on #Postcards from London to Cardiff. It is the second part of a project I started last year #Postcards from North of Spain. The project has the same spirit that #SinPrisas and #Time, life in present without rush.

#Postcards from Northern Spain is a diary from a trip without the rush to our destination, in which the path becomes the star. The first part was in Spain, from Aragon to Galicia and now it is going to take part in United Kingdom, by train from London to Cardiff.

Later, from 1st to 25th December, through twitter (@caracolll) you can discover #AdventCalendar. And some things more after Christmas.

About to finish, could you suggest us some photographers?

Charlotte Mary Rose, Wai Kit Lam and Yasmina Pérez. Visit: James Thurgood, Tili de Arizmendi, Reissue Korea or Cody Choi, if you go to The Other Art Fair. I am also rediscovering Gerhard Richter.