Rebeca rasel's Page

Website

outraletra.multiply.com

College / University

Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro - UERJ

Program

Master in Visual Arts

Member type

Artist

If you're an artist, what kind of art do you make?

Conceptual, Installation, Performance, Photography, Video

About my artwork

Art is a process which connects people, especially when our daily narratives dissolve into art works. When younger (like…in a decade ago) I started writing letters to friends who no longer were living in the nearby house. This proximity was one of the best we could have at the time and since we've kept the habit on writing, we've never been that far again.

This can surely sound too romantic ('cause it somehow is) but behind this biographical statement lies a common feeling of our days: the one that points out the global but decentralized contemporary (e-)life in which we live. So, instead of blurring ourselves in a depth of sadness for having less in common with our neighbors but strangely falling in love with a person two countries ahead of ours, for example, we start to get the feeling on reconfiguring ourselves and our concepts on home, family, territory, property and so on. Though this extended life brings about a “huge fiction-like everyday mood”, we can say there'll always be some place we call 'home' - but we surely can’t expect it to be this very ideal place with a roof and a grass to put our feet on...

Well, if our house is now a subjective one (located in some fictional or symbolical order), so is our sense of belonging; as humans we won't never be away from 'need' and 'miss' but since our daily living has changed, we'll be constantly resettling our senses on this “searching and belonging” economy.

"Are you searching for me?" started then as a project filled with the feeling of art not as a mere object, but art as process and destination - like a letter with a subject but with no specific receiver. Along with this, I found a quote from Zizek which says: "a letter always arrives at its destination, 'cause its destination is where it arrives", and then it started to make sense that I've always been searching for a reader. And no matter if I no longer have a handwritten letter in my mailbox, 'cause somehow I know (we all know) that in every single (art) line we draw lies a reader - and since (the art) life is filled with this fictional sense, the otherness is no longer a well pointed spectator in our audience, but a ‘who’ who somehow gets involved with us in this artlife we’re constantly sharing.

As for "art objects", I can say I'm into typewriters, office tables and chairs – especially when they've got a broken leg. These objects are surely connected to this entire letter thing, and since I 'recognize' or 'interpret' (or whatever better - psychological - synonym you find) myself on them, the 'searching and belonging' proposition can be seen through these objects and on the narrative you (the objects and the-you reader) will create.

As for performance works, I've been lately working with Marcia Abreu, who's a photographer into vintage cameras and Lomography. Since she's also got a feeling for “the unknown reader” and for an art process based on this storytelling-like thing, she's been a nice partner on this running “Are you searching for me?” project. Besides Marcia, I'm having some art talks with two other artists from this 'global e-village' we live in: Marit Knarud from Norway, and Sohrab Mostafavi from Iran, which are planning on joining us on this 'search for a reader' and as soon as we get their contributions, we'll surely get back to you again.

Artists I like

Joseph Beuys, Louise Borgeois, Francis Bacon, John Cage, Allan Kaprow, Joseph Kosuth, Marina Abramovic, Richard Long, Antonio Dias, José Bechara, Leonilson

The centre of the artworld is

nowhere and everywhere

My artreview.com URL:
http://www.artreview.com/profile/rebeca_rasel
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