perspectives on intimacy
As part of my external research, I decided to contact artists and other creatives to be able to gather a collection of perspectives on intimacy. Thinking about the questions "what do I want to immerse myself in (to feed my work)?" and "what is something that I want to find out about?", I realized I wanted to dive into other people's perspectives on intimacy. Since my work is deeply based on the experiences of being a human being, I decided that to have something as a simple conversation surrounding this subject would be extremely inspiring as part of my research.
With that, I tried to contact a variety of people that are references or impacted my practice in some way, from different fields of study and different cultural contexts: Edith Derdyk (artist from Brazil), Bel Barcellos (artist from Brazil), Dryden Goodwin (artist from England), Banana Yoshimoto (writer from Japan) and Celine Song (director, playwright, and screenwriter from South Korea/Canada). I was aware that some of these creatives would be harder to get in contact with, due to the distance that exists because of their popularity. As it was my first time contacting artists out of my personal/educational circle, it was a challenge for me, naturally shy and introverted, but at the same time I was feeling ambitious and excited to create conversations with people that inspire me and my work.
Even though some of the creatives haven't replied yet, I was able to have initial conversations with the artists Bel Barcellos, Edith Derdyk and Dryden Goodwin. I created, for each artist, a series of questions based on their own practices, wishing to hear more about their points of view surrounding intimacy. For Dryden Goodwin, I first thought that intimacy was present on the act of actively looking at people; for Bel Barcellos, the intimacy seemed to be present in the topics of her work and in the embroidery process; for Edith Derdyk, it seemed to be present in the relationship with materiality. I'm still waiting for the answers of Dryden Goodwin and Edith Derdyk, but Bel Barcellos already shared her perspectives through email.
Even though this external research is still ongoing, the artists were extremely generous to share their time and thoughts with me, even if just initially by answering my first contact, and I feel grateful to have had this opportunity. As someone from Brazil that it is now living and studying in England, this research became (by contacting artists from each of these places) a search for connection (of perspectives, of intimacies) while being in the space in-between.
