Interview with
Nina Fiocco
Born in Feltre, Italy, in 1985, Nina Fiocco is an artist, art historian, and curator. In this way she combines artistic work with research; often in her artistic practice she is interested in topics such as education and public participation. Fiocco arrived in Mexico in 2012. Among the most frequently discussed topics are the limits of art, the relationship between it and history, as well as activation through work processes. In this interview with Sybaris Collection, the Italian artist addresses some aspects of her piece Le Domestique, as well as the production processes of her pieces. The artist explains Le Domestique as follows: During an art residency in France, I produced a video which explores the dimension of the language as a kind of border. I documented strategies, languages, devices and communication methods that humans invent to talk to animals. In the process of this work, during the exploration of the more or less noble narratives at the basis of the invention of these modes of communication, the video expanded its spectrum of significance to the more general relationship between the tension between “the inhabitant” and “the stranger”.
By Sybaris Collection
“I am interested in developing a political activity rather than an academic one and I believe that it is possible to socialize works, processes and practices by constructing other narratives.”
Le Domestique, Video, 2016
Le Domestique, Video, 2016
Le Domestique, Video, 2016
Le Domestique, Video, 2016
In the piece Le Domestique the production process of the work is the work. In the case of works whose process remains hidden, what is the responsibility of the artist to disseminate these production processes so that the viewer knows them?
I am not convinced that artists have the responsibility to show the processes because I do not think it is necessary to know them for a work to make us think; on the contrary: not knowing how a work was made, causes us doubts, makes us ask ourselves questions. These are gaps that produce reflections, modify imaginaries, and I
believe that opening gaps is the artist’s job. In the case of Le Domestique, it is true that it is a work that is recorded while exploring a space, but there are also hidden processes. In fact, the montage seems spontaneous, although it is an artifice: you decide what you want to show, you build a temporality that often does not correspond to the times of the recording, you organize a sequence that represents a possibility of history
I see in Le Domestique a space where household (domestic) and work activities are carried out as if they were part of the same purpose. With the current pandemic, one of the great changes that took place in urban homes was the fusion of the domestic space with the work space, but there are many places (especially rural) where this fusion has been working for a long time. Is there a return to activities typical of rural settings after the pandemic? What implications does this have for you?
I believe that the pandemic aroused an interest in rural areas and self-sufficiency, although I believe that in this case these activities – apparently emancipatory of certain economic and political systems – were capitalized and appropriated from a privilege that produces a certain romanticism that is not always positive. If we want to think of these activities as a possibility, we must reformulate the way in which we conceive and live the time of our lives; In other words, we have to think about how to revolutionize the ways in which we produce
How do you merge your activities as a historian and curator with your artistic activities? Can an artistic activity have academic loopholes? Can this bias limit the dissemination of art to a specialized viewer?
My activity as a curator seeks intersections: I am interested in developing a political activity (in its etymological sense) rather than an academic one and I believe that it is possible to socialize works, processes and practices not only through the insertion of their meanings in the flow of a hegemonic story, but also by constructing other narratives that can often emerge from other experiences. For me it is very important that provisional communities of debate and joint production are formed through exhibitions, a publication, a public program
How do you merge your activities as a historian and curator with your artistic activities? Can an artistic activity have academic loopholes? Can this bias limit the dissemination of art to a specialized viewer?
My activity as a curator seeks intersections: I am interested in developing a political activity (in its etymological sense) rather than an academic one and I believe that it is possible to socialize works, processes and practices not only through the insertion of their meanings in the flow of a hegemonic story, but also by
constructing other narratives that can often emerge from other experiences. For me it is very important that provisional communities of debate and joint production are formed through exhibitions, a publication, a public programt amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
Some of your pieces have been made through a long research process. How do you conceive time as a factor in artistic production?
Besides being necessary for me, because it is a way to think and resolve my uncertainties, slowness is a way to combat certain disposability and to build other forms
