Interview You - The Self as Insight
Every artist carries within them a reservoir of untold stories, profound reflections, and unspoken motivations waiting to surface. Interview-You invites you to become both the interviewer and the subject, embarking on an introspective journey to excavate these hidden truths. By framing the act of self-reflection as a structured interview, this method helps artists confront the obscure, mysterious, and often challenging facets of their identity, practice, and aspirations.
Through thought-provoking prompts and guided self-questioning, Interview-You encourages a dialogue with yourself, uncovering the foundations of your creative voice. This technique goes beyond mere introspection—it transforms personal insights into compelling narratives and actionable frameworks for your artistic statements, manifestos, and future works.
Interview- You transform self-reflection into a powerful tool for artistic growth. By treating yourself as both questioner and responder, you create a space where your truths, uncertainties, and aspirations come to light. This technique doesn’t aim for resolution but for continuous discovery—an evolving conversation with your artistic self that fuels your creative pursuits.
Using it
Clarify Your Voice:
Discover the core of your artistic identity by asking questions you might never have thought to confront.
Bridge the Personal and Universal:
Unearth connections between your lived experience and the larger themes that resonate in your work.
Craft Authentic Narratives:
Transform raw reflections into powerful artist statements, compelling manifestos, or conceptual frameworks for your practice.
Setting the Stage: Preparing for the Self-Interview
To engage deeply with this process, it’s essential to create an environment conducive to reflection and insight:
Space: Choose a quiet, distraction-free setting that feels meaningful to your practice. Surround yourself with objects, images, or works that evoke your creative identity.
Tools: Document your thoughts in a journal, recording device, or visual medium. Revisiting these notes can reveal patterns and growth over time.
Mindset: Approach this exercise with curiosity and openness. Embrace ambiguity and unresolved feelings as opportunities for growth.
The Interview-You Framework
The self-interview unfolds in four distinct phases—Past, Present, Future, and Shadow. Each phase delves into a different dimension of your identity and artistic journey, offering prompts to inspire reflection and action.
Phase 1: The Past - Excavating Roots
Prompts:
What early experiences sparked your passion for art?
Which pivotal moments shaped your artistic philosophy?
Whose perspectives influenced your early works?
Phase 2: The Present - Unveiling the Now
Prompts:
How does your current work reflect your artistic truth?
What themes or motifs recur in your practice, and why?
What challenges or desires shape your creative process today?
Phase 3: The Future - Charting New Territories
Prompts:
What would you create if there were no constraints?
How do you envision your art being understood decades from now?
What risks are you hesitant to take, and why?
Phase 4: The Shadow - Engaging the Unseen
Prompts:
What parts of your identity feel too complex to express openly?
How do failure and rejection inform your work?
What remains hidden in your artistic vision, and why?
From Insight to Action
After completing your self-interview, consider ways to transform these insights into tangible outcomes:
Statements and Manifestos: Use your responses to draft an authentic artist statement or craft a manifesto that defines your future trajectory.
Creative Projects: Translate your reflections into new works, letting your discoveries guide form, content, or medium.
Audience Engagement: Decide how much of your inner dialogue to share, balancing vulnerability with the power of mystery.
Questions for Artists to Question
These interviewing prompts aim to uncover the deeper layers of an artist’s practice, bridging the personal and the universal through approaching themes such as memory, identity, process, and transcendence. This exercise catalyzes artistic growth and transformation by exploring the interplay of color and emotion, the fluidity of identity, or the tension between permanence and impermanence. Engage with these questions to redefine your creative vision and deepen your connection to your work. This set of questions spans self-exploration, innovative methodologies, and universal themes, offering a rich framework for introspection and dialogue.
Exploring the Archive and Color
How do you perceive the relationship between color and memory in your work? Does color act as a personal archive of emotions or experiences?
Can you share an example of how the interplay of color and materiality has shaped a specific piece?
In your practice, how does the ephemeral nature of sensory experiences influence the permanence of archived ideas?
Navigating Object, Temporality, and Conceptuality
How do you balance the material and conceptual elements of your work?
What role does temporality play in shaping the narrative of a particular project?
Has the perception of time ever transformed how you approach an object or concept in your art?
Interweaving Text, Texture, and Textile
Can you discuss a project where text, texture, and textile converge meaningfully?
How do these elements influence the storytelling aspect of your art?
How has incorporating physical textures shaped how your audience engages with your work?
Reflections on Process Art
How do you embrace unpredictability and imperfection in your creative process?
Can you share a moment when fragmentation became a critical element in one of your works?
How do you think process-oriented practices reflect more significant cultural or societal movements?
In Situ and Ephemeral Art
How has creating site-specific or ephemeral works shifted your approach to permanence in art?
Can you describe a project where the transient nature of the piece deeply impacted its meaning?
What is the audience’s role in experiencing and preserving ephemeral works?
Art as Methodology
How has your art-making process revealed unexpected insights about yourself or society?
Can you describe a project where the methodology was as significant as the outcome?
In what ways does your work challenge conventional methodologies?
Being as Composition
How does your work explore the fluidity of identity and the concept of becoming?
Can you share an example where your art facilitated a personal transformation or a shift in perspective?
How do you think art contributes to reshaping collective identities?
Notebooks as Maps
How do your notebooks function as blueprints for your creative process?
Can you share an instance where revisiting a notebook reshaped or refined an idea?
How do your written or sketched thoughts translate into your final work?
The Triangulated Being
How has societal perception of your identity influenced your work?
In exploring "I am what I believe I am," how have self-perceptions shifted your artistic voice?
Can you describe a project that feels like a direct expression of your unfiltered self?
Transcendence and Expansion
How do you navigate the tension between personal dedication to art and the universal themes it touches?
How have you connected tangible forms to intangible, universal ideas in your practice?
Can you reflect on a moment where your art bridged the personal and collective consciousness?
Potential Philosophical Foundations
Audre Lorde’s "Erotic as Power": Recognize and embrace the depth of feeling as a source of strength.
Deleuze and Guattari’s Rhizomatic Approach: Embrace the interconnected and non-linear aspects of identity.
Dewey’s "Art as Experience": Honor integrating disparate experiences into a cohesive creative act.
Paulo Freire’s "Pedagogy of the Oppressed": Focus on dialogic and participatory methods in education, empowering learners to question and transform oppressive systems.
Merleau-Ponty’s "Phenomenology of Perception": Emphasize embodied experience and the interplay between perception, environment, and creation in the artistic process.
Judith Butler’s "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution": Investigate identity as a performative and fluid construct, encouraging artistic practices that deconstruct norms and imagine alternative realities.
Spinoza’s Ethics: Highlight the interconnectedness of all beings and the importance of joy and affect in understanding the world and fostering creativity.
Jacques Rancière’s "The Emancipated Spectator": Reimagine the role of the audience as active participants in meaning-making, dissolving hierarchies between artist and viewer.
Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory: Treat art, materials, and contexts as part of a dynamic network where all elements (human and non-human) co-create meaning.
Gloria Anzaldúa’s "Borderlands/La Frontera":Embrace hybridity and liminality, drawing from cultural and personal intersections to create works that challenge binaries and celebrate multiplicity.
*Philosophy as a Mirror: Reflecting Before and After The Self-Interview
Engaging with the philosophical foundations behind your practice can be like holding up a mirror—one that reflects your inner workings and the broader world that shapes you. Before conducting your self-interview, these ideas can act provocatively, nudging you to think critically about your motivations, creative processes, and the invisible forces influencing your work. They serve as a lens, sharpening your perspective and opening new pathways of inquiry.
Imagine approaching your questions with Audre Lorde’s Erotic as Power in mind. Suddenly, you’re not just asking what inspires you but exploring how passion and vulnerability fuel your artistic vision. Or consider Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomatic thinking—it might prompt you to trace connections you hadn’t noticed before, linking personal memories to more extensive cultural networks. These frameworks prepare you to embrace complexity, ambiguity, and even discomfort as you delve into your past, present, and aspirations.
After the interview, philosophy becomes your companion in synthesis. As you revisit your responses, thinkers like Judith Butler or Gloria Anzaldúa challenge you to go deeper: How do your statements perform identity? What contradictions or borderlands in your answers hold untapped potential? Philosophy, in this phase, isn’t a set of answers but tools for refining your voice and making your manifesto more resonant, expansive, and authentic to you.
This interplay of questioning, reflecting, and reframing is transformative. By engaging with these philosophical underpinnings, you’re not just writing about your art but engaging in a dialogue with it. And in that conversation, your practice can find a richer, more nuanced expression that invites others to join you in the exploration.
*Disclaimer: These texts are a point of view, they are meant to inspire and guide you as a departure point for your professionalization, or perhaps a stepping stone to keep you on a critical stance and liberate your creativity. As an artist and educator, I try to approach art matters with care, openness and curiosity, feel free to send me a message if you find mistakes, misconceptions or milestones.