Can you give a quick introduction?
“My name is Camille Rojas and I am a recent graduate of Ryerson from IMA (Image Arts). I’m a visual artist; I make films, I make dance films, photography and installation”
How did you start this project and why?
“I did a residency at the AGO (Art gallery of Ontario) and I got support from this feminist group called EMILIA-AMALIA, it was a sub-residency. I had freedom to do research and shooting if I wanted to and so I took advantage of that. I saw a space, the Walked court (at the AGO) and I thought I could do something in here. So my interests are dance and filming dance; moving bodies. I had this idea of getting a friend or someone who was a non-dancer and making them dance, or teaching them, or collaborating with them in a series of movement sequences. I had my friend Edward who holds himself like a dancer but is not and he has a degree of nice awkwardness and I thought he would be willing to give himself to me. Make himself vulnerable. It was just me and Edward, the space and my camera so we moved together and created a little dance sequence.”
What's your creative process with this project?
“I don’t plan too much ahead because so much of this project is about the live interaction. We rehearsed a little bit before we started filming. Yeah, I don’t like to plan things too much which is why I don’t like to work with digital because it has that idea of the playback. Film is more relaxing for me, its like you’re taking care of a third person and that feels more intimate.”
What emotions are you feeling about showing this work publicly?
“This is a more visited show because it is Nuit Blanche and it's really important for the other artists as well to have that exposure here. For Avery and I who are recent grads it’s good for us to show an exhibit in this industry”
What’s integral to your work as an artist?
“Honesty and no bull shit.”
What role do you have as an artist in society?
“I don’t know, my work isn’t about social justice and that's the first thing that comes to mind. Its for taking people somewhere they didn’t think they could go to. You didn’t know you could think about moving bodies and dance. People are shy about dancing and movement but I think for me it's to challenge people about what they think. I want them to feel emotional. Feeling is an important part; there is some art that is really sterile and don’t like emotions these days. Humans are emotional beings and I want to address that”
How has your practice changed over time?
“I use to work with just still photos. And my still work always had an element of movement with bodies; I often shot myself. I still like to work with stills but my work has changed in a sense that I use moving images now.”
Who do you draw inspiration from as an artist?
“Regular people on the streets. The way people move, my own personal relationships with other people. Dancers such as Yvonne Rainer and Tacita Dean who is a filmmaker and she also uses analog picture film. I also take inspiration from dogs and human animal relationships”.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
“Nope!”
Avery Steel
Can you give a quick introduction?
“My name is is Avery Steel, I’m a 22 year old image artist working in a hybrid region exploring the relationship between performance and photography. I am currently completing my masters at Ryerson in the photography preservation and collections management program. I also did my undergrad at Ryerson university in photography production where I made this body of work for my thesis.”
How did you start this project and why?
“This project was an extension from a previous body of work titled ‘I speak because I can’ which was a photographic series drawing on the experience of my personal trauma. From that I took static images and expressed it through film. This project started out as a personal journey working through my definitions of personal trauma and this turned into reaching out to other audiences who had similar experiences. It transitioned into making art for people other than myself.”
What’s your creative process with this project?
“I had just finished an emotionally draining body of work a month prior to starting this one and what I was craving at the time was to step away from myself and the personal narrative that the previous project had. I wanted to create something that gave me joy that involved dance. Before photography I was actually a performance artist. I really wanted to work with dancers and I really wanted to get back into choreography. I considering why I had this interest and why I had this passion and why it interested me in the first place. This brought me to something difficult I had to face; and that was the trauma I had been addressing in my past bodies of work I was trying to escape that. I turned to dance to take control back over my body. I felt like when I was performing I was in control of myself when someone had previously taken that control from me. I had re-explored this trauma, opened the wound and covered it back up again with performance. I felt it was really important then to address that by choreographing my story of taking control.”
What emotions are you feeling about showing this work publicly?
“It’s always a mix. On one hand I’m really nervous and anxious to open this side of myself again in the context of critique. It’s interesting because when you’re taking something from art school, you're surrounded by collegagues and friends you trust but taking it to the public opens it to a larger variety of people. This hits home because it's such a vulnerable body of work. I wanted to create this work to reach out with the obscure nature of this art piece. People can see the metaphors from their own experiences. I’m excited and hopeful that the project will resonate with someone outside the school.”
What’s integral to your work as an artist?
“Vulnerability is definitely a key word. I’ve always been honest in my portrayal of why I create things. My story is what drives the work and my ability to be honest and vulnerable with my personal narrative. I see the value in people who are artists who can be honest about the difficult subjects in the current political climate. As artists we hold a special place in that movement; that our artistry can provoke others to be vulnerable and share stories and spark change.”
What role do you have as an artist in society?
“As artists we have some responsibility in provoking change and being thoughtful about experience and emotion over data. One thing that is really great about being an artist and being in an artist community is that these tough subjects are no limits to what you can touch on in your work. As photographers, filmmakers, musicians, writers we have an innate sense to try and reveal the truth either metaphorically or literally. With the experience I’ve had, I can speak for myself and find a voice my experience I see my responsibility to try and provoke change.”
How has your practice changed over time?
“It’s gotten more difficult. I started off taking images that were really safe and also shallow. I started off taking portraits of people around me and that's what sparked my interest of the taking of photos. I always had an innate want to capture resemblance in the world around me especially when I was younger and it became a hoarding of images for a while. It wasn't thoughtful, just kind of snapping. I became interested in fashion photography as I got into university and thought I would be a commercial photographer. Through education and the art going experience and working in the commercial field I realized that it wasn’t for me to work commercially. I realized that I loved fine art photography and the poet metaphors in art photography. I started reading more and going to galleries more and through education and want to understand how people expressed themselves through photography I started to do that as well. I became more truthful and told a little more of the secret in every body of work. Towards my last two bodies of work they have been brash in their honesty towards the experience of sexual trauma at an early age and dealing with adulthood with that in mind and how to deal with the memories of trauma.”
Who do you draw inspiration from as an artist?
“I have different artists that I pull inspiration from on different levels. I still pull from fashion photographers that work with colour that I’m really drawn to. That would be Hart & Leshkina, they take fine art and fashion, they have a consistent style and use the body to interact within a space and draws in textiles. I also pull a lot of inspiration from literature; early female writers. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, she wrote ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ which is about a woman journal entries her swearing to her own journal that she's not mad even though she knows she’s mad. The whole thing is a metaphor for living in a patriarchal society as a woman; a phenomena of female hysteria when woman tries to express herself and she is deemed to have something wrong with her. This inspired me in the role of a women in the art world. I want people to be uncomfortable looking at my artwork that makes use of the body and in other thematic ways.”
Is there anything else you would like to add?
“I’m very excited to show this work and I’m very grateful to exhibit with two wonderful female artists that I look up to. Also to have an all female show makes me feel empowered and inspired.”