Amelija

About me!

Hi! I am a third year Student, majoring in studio art, and minoring in french and business. Growing up I always wanted to do something creative for my career, for the longest time I wanted to be a hair stylist and I actually ended up doing several professional gigs with hairstyling, including working as an assistant at a hair salon for a year in high school… which confirmed I did NOT want to work at a har salon! Just wasn’t the right environment I was looking for, and I felt I needed a job I could bring more variety to everyday, it just felt too repetitive! I always loved visual arts and had it as a hobby I would experiment with every once in a while but I got really into it in grade 12 when I could finally fit art into my class scheduling. I ended up applying to a variety of art, film, and business programs at different universities, but the studio art program at the University of Guelph really appealed to me and excited me! I also loved the campus! Now Guelph is my favourite place ever, and I am so happy with my program choice, I was definitely meant to explore art more in my life! Something that has also always brought me joy is working with children, although I denied my whole life that I would be a teacher because that’s what both my parents are… of course thats all I ended up wanting to do! Having a variety of art and french courses both excite me for my future career as a teacher, as I would love to have art as a big part of my teaching style, and my love for french will also be beneficial for getting me a job (hopefully). My roommate and I have a dream to open a school one day, run with my interest in business, with a focus on outdoor education, the arts, and helping children with special needs!

Marina Abramovic

1. My first impression of Marina Abramovic’s works was how shocking it was, the level of commitment she had to her work. When she was preparing the actors and herself to be performing 6 days a week, 8 hours a day, for 3 months, I couldn’t believe it was physically possible to accomplish the specifically demanding tasks their bodies had to endure for that long. Especially with Marina’s main sitting performance work, what seems so simple is what I thought would maybe be the most challenging for me. As we were watching the documentary I started getting uncomfortable and had to keep switching my positions on my reasonably cushioned office chair, all because I had been sitting for an hour and a half maximum. I couldn’t imagine the level of commitment it took her to sit with that level of stillness, for that long, constantly. The commitment she had to her work drew me to her as an artist, as I admired that she fully dedicated herself physically, mentally, and emotionally to her works, to the maximum degree anyone could possibly imagine dedicating themselves to something, which is something almost no one can do. However this also simultaneously set off some red flags in my head, as she ended up having an immense audience, people who idolized her and even started copying what she did. There were parts of the documentary where spectators were shown staring at each other, as if to recreate her work on the sidelines, which is a really beautiful and interesting thing to happen with engagement, however I do worry that people may copy the not-so safe portions of her work as well. I find that demonstrating triggering topics need to be done so carefully and sensitively, especially with art, as it is one of the most inspiring things in the world, but it can inspire/influence people positively just as easily as it can inspire/influence people negatively. The idea of fasting and self-harming that is involved with many of her works did make me question if it was something to advertise, and if she approached that properly.

2 . A feature about Marina’s performance art that stood out to me was the intensity of eye contact. I learned that this is a very effective feature, as it sparks discomfort in the viewer, but that discomfort is what really draws people in and evokes a reaction in the viewer, which is typically the goal of performance art. Whether Marina was making eye contact with spectators as a sole method of communication, like she did in “The Artist is Present”, or making eye contact with another actor in her performance work, like she did in “Imponderabilia“, the feature of eye contact was crucial to intensifying the experience for herself, the actors, and most of all the spectators, also creating a sense of intimacy that she successfully incorporated into her works. Her quote “When you perform it is a knife and your blood, when you act it is a fake knife and ketchup.” really allowed me to realize the intentional realness she brings to all her works, and how reality is such a key feature to her works being successful. What I think Marina understood is that when people watch a horror movie, or an uncomfortable scene in a play, this will obviously evoke a discomforting feeling, however spectators can always have a level of reassurance that it is all fake, its just special effects, makeup, fake blood, or a camera working behind actors who will get along as friends after the scene is over. With performance, Marina ensures that people understand she is completely devoted to the experience people receive when watching her, and part of that is knowing that what she is doing is 100% real. They watch her in real time, doing very real things to herself, or with others/ other things. This not only makes it that much more shocking for the viewer to see and understand, but it leaves a deeper impression on the long lasting effects spectators have after seeing the performance.

3. I believe the main way performance art resists many museum and commercial artworld conventions is the idea of the present moment. Performance art erases the concept of “historical pieces”, or “modern pieces”. There is no added value to performance art of how old or new it is, it is always happening in that moment, and cannot be saved in the archives of a museum, waiting to be shown again. A lot of artwork carries meaning based on what was happening during the time it was created this can be a good thing, as we can keep it in the public eye for as long as we feel necessary, or re-introduce pieces that remind us to revert back to certain practices, or remind us not to repeat certain practices. However with performance art, there is no imagining what happened years ago, or thinking about how we should mold our work to be fitting in the future, it is designed to impact the viewers who are present there, in that moment, and all that will stay in the future from it is the impact it had on people. Performance art needs to be so impactful because it is purely memory that carries on its impact. Abramovic interestingly recreated her works, which is how she made a compromise with this idea of reminding viewers of what they have already seen. I believe by creating an entire exhibit solely based on recreating her past works, it did draw more attention to her as an artist and an icon, and I think that throughout this process she became more idealized and famous, which did bring more attention to her impactful artwork, but it also mostly drew attention to her, which isn’t necessarily bad, I just don’t see it as necessary to the impacts she was originally trying to make with her works. I think this may have undermined the ideas at play in her work, as people seemed to end up coming not to be influenced by art, but to come see something famous.

Km assignment!

1 Km of LIFE

My work 1 km of LIFE has several goals: Firstly to inspire people to be more present in their everyday lives, and to have more of an understanding of the people around us, whether we know them or they are strangers to us. It’s meant to make people think twice before being rude to their waiter, honking at someone necessarily, or loosing their patience on a complete stranger. This work is a way to remind us that everyone has a unique live they’re living, and we have no idea what that includes, unless we know them personally, and even then people hide a lot more than we believe.

I think about this concept every time I am stuck in traffic. It’s beyond the capabilities of my imagination to picture the individual lives that are being lived so close to me, all down the highway, yet I will never know what these people’s stories truly are. I have no way of knowing if the family in the car next to me are anxiously waiting for the traffic to clear because they are heading to Canada’s Wonderland, or a funeral. I try to always treat people with compassion and kindness, because you really never know how your behaviour may impact them, and I think the world needs more of this mentality. With this piece, people will realize just how much goes on around them that they would never consider, in only a km.

The process I went through to complete this work definitely felt experimental, as my original plan was to go on a km walk, interview everyone I ran into, and make a movie about/with my findings. I was completely disregarding a big issue: the winter. Not only did I have to go on several walks before discovering an area that actually had people walking in it, but once I found a good area, people were then bundled up in their winter gear, looking straight down, and walking as fast as they could to get from the grocery store to their warm car. Needless to say, I quickly ruled out the idea of asking people if I could film them answering questions about how they were feeling that day in the freezing cold. I am very glad this didn’t work out however, because I believe my final product was a way more successful way of attaining my goals.

I decided to record voice memos as I walked, sharing my observations of each person who walked by me. I recorded whether they made eye contact with me or not, what colours they were wearing, if they were alone or with other people, did they have air pods in or not, did they seem happy, frustrated, sad, etc. I made a few conclusions with my findings. First of all, people who had colour in their outfits were more likely to make eye contact and smile at me, they also just looked happier in general. The same went with people who were not alone, except for one couple who were barely acknowledging that they were together, let alone noticing that I was there. All of these things of course led me to wonder why they made the choices to wear colour that day, or what was going on in their lives that made them seem happy or sad.

I chose to use chalk pastels for my final work for several reasons. I loved that chalk pastels are supposed to spread, just like they way we appear in public rubs off on other people without us noticing. The flaps I made to show the people I ran into are black silhouettes to represent the fact that without looking up and intentionally noticing, people are nothing but faceless, lifeless, “NPC’s” around us, but with the smeared pastel colours underneath, what was truly underneath them could shine through, and when you lift up the flap you can read the details about what was really going on based on my observations. I used this concept of smudged “energies” in pastels all over the map, where things would be shown in colour or black and white based on how bright or dark their energy seemed to me, affecting the energy of everything around them.

^^My tentative plan after having to rethink my original one