However, from constraints come their own beauties, accidental mistranslations that shed light on existing linguistic structures and their biases, or that lead us to a place unknown.
– Kollektiv Collective
Sticky Teeth’s micro-interviews have less to chew off. Ft. words from creative professionals at the intersection of the arts and writing.
Plurality is borne in Kollektiv Collective Pia Zeitzen and Sasha Shevchenko‘s shows and texts via losses in translation. Here’s their thoughts on writing within (and outside) the constraints of language.
xx Tahney
Kollektiv Collective was founded by Pia Zeitzen and Sasha Shevchenko in 2019.
Tahney: For you, what’s an issue with art/writing? How do you approach it?
Given your relationship with text, who are some practitioners you like?
That’s a hard question because we don’t quite separate art/writing/art writing. Our minds and practices are influenced by different people who do different things with language. We love Stéphane Mallarmé for endless rolling of dice; Luce Irigaray for space; George Perec for showing us that a novel can be a building, a chess game and beyond; Leonora Carrington for imagination; Edouard Glissant for everything; Derrida and Deleuze+Guattari for our formative years; Angela Carter for also everything; the list is endless.Some words from them?
There’s this quote that has been stuck, somewhat out of context, in our heads all summer.
It’s from a collection of essays by the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art (Moscow), not translated into English. This particular essay, written by poet and critic Igor Gulin, is on Tarkovsky and the last years of his life spent in exile in Europe.
Here is a humble attempt to convey the meaning, coupled with enjoyment at knowing that something in there will definitely be lost: “…only nostalgia is left – not the longing for home, but a mellow anticipation of death, an oblivion inhabited by cardboard figurines of the loved ones in which one can escape to from the life that never happened.”
What have you been up to lately? Any highlights?
Our shows are born out of our texts, and our texts are born out of our shows. We expanded quite a bit in our recent interview with WTF? on the role of writing in our practice, the name we go by, “superpowers” of being foreigners.
We were quite happy with the text we wrote for our recent show ‘on the flip side was’. It was about the feeling of having landed on the wrong side of the coin, and we think we found an amusing way to express that through (mis)use of idioms and visual language that are traced through the works in the show.
For us, thoughts and feelings find clarity through writing and words, and sometimes, the point is in doing it wrong.
More of Kollektiv Collective here.
Interview by Tahney Fosdike.
For more on arts writing:
Haneen Mahmood Martin talks about shared accountability and diverse perspectives in the arts industry, matching words with actions—i.e., more POC in leadership positions—and the use of clear, accessible, but impactful language.
Liv Collins has an infectious energy rare in an industry of pretension. I’m really excited to feature her in this sticky teeth micro-interview for her truths about writing education at art school and some hot insider arts reading suggestions.
Anna Kate Blair speaks on the intersection of art, writing, and time. She explains her major concerns for lack of enough resources for the writing process itself, and also touches on history, capitalism and imagining alternative futures for creativity.
Brussels-based journalist Sarah Schug discusses the challenges of language in the art world, the need for accessibility, the diminishing value of art writing and her proud accomplishment—a self-published book on Iceland’s contemporary art scene.
Writer and editor Erin McFayden reflects on framing artistic activities as labour and advocating exploring the good it creates rather than its economic value – as well as her reccs for some artistic endeavours.
Writer Yazmin Bradley touches on the pressure on authors under the commercialisation of Bookstagram – how can we reclaim the creative process from capitalism? She also explores working with her grandmother on her memoir and the possibilities of Substack for creativity.
Writer Suzanne Claridge talks about ephemeral approaches to working with language and their belief that good arts writing should not lose sight of its purpose: the reader and experiencing art.
Plurality is borne in Kollektiv Collective Pia Zeitzen and Sasha Shevchenko’s shows and texts via losses in translation. Here’s their thoughts on writing within (and outside) the constraints of language dualities.
Sammi Gale’s thoughts on collective action among writers, artists, and creatives, and the essentials of empathy and meaningful encounters within creative endeavours.
Universal basic income would assist in allowing us all to dream, think, read, write and participate more. Art writers need to be paid more and on time.