7 Responses to “Saya Woolfalk”

1. Cathy B.
   

   May 5th, 2009 at 10:47 pm

   Dear Saya,

   Thanks for posting your newest project. I’m interested in how you completely mask the body.

   Shana Robbins, who’s also on this site, chooses the same sort of camouflage-a total body suit. Both of you seem to be seeking anonymity, expressing a desire to merge and disappear into an environment.

   For Shana, the vision is to fuse with a remote natural environment. For you, the material world appears a playground. No Place looks exceedingly cheerful and fecund.

   Do you fabricate this universe yourself?

2. SayaW
   

   May 6th, 2009 at 9:06 am

   Hello Cathy,

   No Place is the framework for my most recent project. Both Rituals of the Empathics and Ethnography of No Place are parts of the narrative of this story.

   As for masking the body, I mask the body as a means to make the people of No Place subjects anyone can potentially project into. In Ethnography of No Place the narrator states “their (the No Placean’s) costume is flesh,” riffing on the idea that we exist in a social world as an amalgamation of signs and symbols. Those signs and symbols are part plastic social categorization and part real organic body. The people of No Place can change their flesh costume and transform at certain moments in their lives. By masking the body and face, I attempt to consider our ability to put on and remove such symbolic language. I also like the idea that if people blend into the landscape it makes it difficult for us to distinguish one thing from another. We have to search for new language (possibly through ethnography) that can describe our new world.

   A fictional group of women called The Empathics come into answering your question about if I fabricate everything myself. I do fabricate the universe but with a lot of help from many people. I have integrated collective construction into the project by working with groups of women to enhance our current world. In the fiction of No Place, The Empathics are a group of women from 2009 who perform rituals and group activities to communicate with the people of No Place. In reality, I work collaboratively and as a mentor with many women to create the work.

   When we work together we try not to wear masks.

   Saya

3. JillianH
   

   May 13th, 2009 at 7:41 am

   Hi Saya,

   I am interested in your use of color. Much of your work includes imagery of vegetation, of “natural” life, but the bright, almost florescent colors lend them an other-worldly feel.

   What is the role that these vibrant pinks and greens play in the Rituals of Emphatics and Ethno-graphy of No Place?

   Jillian

4. SayaW
   

   May 13th, 2009 at 9:58 am

   Hello Jillian,

   Thanks for the question.

   There are so many reasons I use florescent color in my work but I think the strategy anthropologist Victor Turner, in his book Forest of Symbols, locates as a part of African Ndembu ceremony may be the most relevant here. Turner believes it is common in many societies to take some part of a whole, and make it grotesque. This process of exaggeration causes that element to stand out, making it easier to think about the relationship of that part to a whole. Here is how Turner puts it:

   “What is the point of this exaggeration amounting sometimes to caricature? It seems to me that to enlarge or diminish or discolor in this way is a primordial mode of abstraction. The outlandishly exaggerated feature is made into an object of reflection. ”

   I similarly isolate abstractions, use these abstractions to create images and objects, and redeploy them to explore the narrative potentials embedded in various symbolic landscapes, ideological systems, and human constructions.

   I also spent two years traveling to Brazil. Many of the materials (fabric, paper, paint) that make up No Place were purchased while I lived in that tropical environment. During my time in northeastern Maranhão, bright color in garments and décor was an everyday experience.

   Best,
   Saya

5. JennyK
   

   May 13th, 2009 at 8:22 pm

   Hi Saya and Cathy,

   I resonate with what Saya mentions about masking personal identity “as a means to make the people of No Place subjects anyone can potentially project into” and her interest in how the individual can blend into the environment, making things more “interesting.” In my work too, I use similar methods of hiding the face (removing individual self-hood), and transforming the body to merge with other environments. I think the body is a powerful locus to discus mental states and transformations, and body-based has a unique ability to communicate viscerally with an audience.

   Saya, I like your work very much and look forward to someday being able to see it in person. I also truly admire your unashamed and open idealism. I believe that artists, as creative problem-solvers, are in a unique position to be healers of the world (what in the Jewish tradition is referred to as Tikun Olam), but it seems that market or Spectacle-based concerns have distracted so many.

   In today’s art world it is not very “cool” to care about anything, in a discourse where irony and works on sensationalism and failure reign supreme. However, I think, in some part due to the recession, the new administration in the States, and the pressing inevitability of today’s environmental crises, that we are finally seeing a sea-change being to swell. I look forward to seeing that wave build and crash.

6. SayaW
   

   May 18th, 2009 at 10:16 am

   Hello Jenny

   Thanks so much for the lovely feedback. I really enjoyed looking at your work as well. It is quite beautiful. An outcome of this website I am enjoying are the links between myself and other artists who identify with feminist themes. Also, do you know Fay Ku’s work? I think the two of you may have some things in common.

   I mostly agree with your take on irony but I think there may be a place for it in our work. For example, here are two definitions of cosmic irony from dictionary.com:

   1) the idea that fate, destiny, or a god controls and toys with human hopes and expectations;

   2) the belief that the universe is so large and man is so small that the universe is indifferent to the plight of man; also called irony of fate

   In some way this kind of irony can be used as a critical practice that pushes up against a common belief that humans have the ability (and sometimes the right) to control the trajectory of our world. There are a lot of artists who use irony in ways that are uninteresting but there are also a number (Shana Moulton, My Barbarian, Dave McKenzie to name a few) who attempt to utilize irony as a critical tool. Their work appeals to a sensationalist generation, talks about human attempts and failures at controlling their worlds, while maintaining a variety of meaningful stakes. Optimally, irony is deployed with a bit of idealism thrown in.

   Saya

7. Jenny Kendler
   

   May 26th, 2009 at 9:30 pm

   Dear Saya,

   I took a look at the artist you mentioned, Fay Ku, and yes, wow!, we do have many things in common. I would love to meet or talk to her about her work some day. It would be fascinating, I’m sure, as we seem to have many similar interests, such as a fascination with okapis and the human body growing plant life.

   I do definitely agree with your expansion of the definition of irony that I laid out a critique of, towards the positive use of irony shaded with the absurd. I would group it also with the idea of the uncanny, sometimes a Brechtian Interrupter (or the “wink, wink,” as I call it) that I utilize in my work and appreciate in the work of others. I definitely see this in your work too — and it is the point where seriousness of purpose melts and blends a bit with humor, levity & joy and self-awareness. I tend to think of it as some small part of the work that nods towards externalities and context/meta-context. You are absolutely right that there is a place for this type of irony in work that engages with the world, irony that lends a sense of humor and lightness to the work through the acknowledgment of absurdity.

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