Absolutely stunned with Tereza’s wonderful answers to my questions. I will definitely be using parts of this interview in my research paper

Dear Tereza,

Thank you very much for agreeing to answer my questions. I only have a few and totally don’t mind if you get off topic and want to add anything additional or from your perspective that the question/questions missed to address.
So here goes:
Would you consider your work to be community-oriented?

Yes, I guess you could say I am, but perhaps not in the usual sense. I certainly like working with people, whether these are my collaborative partners, students, or general public.

Family/female multigenerational family oriented?

Not all my work, but my 4 Generations of Women project, which is now in its 14th year, is deeply so. It is a project I have been working on for the past 14 years, and which documents some of the shared moments between 4 generations of women in my own family. I have been staging annual rituals, which are a way of marking shared time, in its embodied, multi-sensory presence. So it less a documentary and more a kind of performative, observational study. The time element is important, because it is also an observation of how time transforms our relationship. But is  also about how the past affects the presence, and presence the future. I have also been exploring psychogenealogy – how experience of our ancestors shapes our own experience and observed some of these dynamics on my own family. The best example is in my film Water Rituals. https://vimeo.com/287300318/b8ef05365b

Or do you consider yourself to be a solitary artist?

This is something I think about a lot. I am definitely not a solitary artist. I feel I am more of a “relational artist.” I am interested in reciprocity, I love the energy and inspiration of collaboration. I feel like my work materialises in this field of mutuality. It has taken me a while to realise this. For me the idea of solitary artist is a kind of romantic dream, that somehow doesn’t even exist. Even the Czech artist Jan Svankmajer, who is a friend and somebody I admired for years, and who appears a solitary genius, is deeply embedded in the surrealist community and the spirit of collaboration. But of course he does have sustained stretches of time of working alone.

What do you think are the main differences between these two approaches?

Well, I actually think that no artist is solitary in the strict sense of the word. If I think of David Hockney for instance, he was creating work in solitude, but he was in deep dialogue with the world around him, including nature, music etc. So perhaps the division is not as strict as we imagine.

What are the benefits of solitary work compared to working while being surrounded by family: parents, grandparents, children?

It is true that solitude is important at times. Being always surrounded by family can be difficult. One needs to find moments to escape, to have instances of introspection, reflection, solitude. I do it while taking walks with my dog, an hour each day. This is deeply nourishing. I also find time when my daughter is at school. They are not sustained long stretches, but one learns to work in brief windows. Sometimes I wish I had more of this solitude.

That said, I realise that if I were to be alone, and had all the time I want to dedicate to my work, I would struggle, because my work is deeply relational, and process based. I feel like I need “ordinary life” to nourish me, and perhaps find some of the friction between duty and my artistic calling in some way energising. Being a mother certainly helps one to clarify priorities and become much more focused and time efficient.
But, the moments of solitary works are important, vital even. And they can also be quite painful. Sometimes they open up inner spaces that do not feel comfortable. Sometimes one feels unproductive and inneficant. Yet, these periods are so important for allowing a deeper processing of ideas, like an incubation before new illumination.

How has growing up in a “tribe” and then having your mother, grandmother and great grandmother around while raising your daughter, influenced your art?

I feel it has given me a real sense of grounding, and belonging. I feel like I am part of an ongoing narrative which stretches in two directions, the past and the future. Or, perhaps it is more circular, spiral. There is something deeply comforting in this experience of belonging and I am grateful for it. Both my mother and grandmother are creative themselves (mother is an archictect, grandmother was a fashion designer), so when I involved them in my art projects, they were totally understanding and enthusiastic, never questioning or resisting. At the same time, their presence in my life informed my work directly, as mentioned already, through the 4 Generations of Women project. I have two daughters, one is an adult now, the other Seven. Raising them is of course influences me as a person, hence also as an artist. But I am unable to assess how. I have been a mother for the past 24 years, so this really is a deep part of my identity.

If you were giving a speech/presentation, how would you like to be introduced?

Artist, researcher, educator

How would you react to this quote:
“I am a woman who treasures the wisdom of our past and who treasures the wisdom of what we still have, and those are the ways that I work. “(Tessie Naranjo 2000a)

I agree with the important of building on the past. Without understanding the past, one doesn’t realise how much of what one is creating is actually just a rephrasing of what has been said, over and over in the past. The realisation doesn’t diminish its importance, but it makes one more humble. And having the awareness is also important in terms of an informed dialogue with the past. 

How do you feel about this quote by Tracey Emin in 2013:
“I don’t think I’d be making work [if I were a mother],” she said.
“I would have been either 100 per cent mother or 100 per cent artist. I’m not flaky and I don’t compromise. Having children and being a mother… It would be a compromise to be an artist at the same time.”

I imagine this is true for some artists. Perhaps people who have such a strong sense of their calling that there is no question. Emin’s quote reveals a very absolute, and binary understanding. I do not identify myself with this position. My own approach has always been a kind of curiosity of experience and exploring how roles can intertwine and become nourishing. Being a mother is a profound experience and dimension of life that I would not want to miss out on. It is in itself deeply creative. But I respect totally that each person feels this differently.  And Emin is a highly successful artist, so perhaps her decision was right for her. But, for me, the whole life is a kind of art project, and criteria of success are many and subtle.

Or this one by Marina Abramovic said famously in 2016:
The artist explained to the newspaper that she never wanted children, even at an early age.
“I had three abortions because I was certain that it would be a disaster for my work. One only has limited energy in the body, and I would have had to divide it,” she said. “In my opinion that’s the reason why women aren’t as successful as men in the art world. There’s plenty of talented women. Why do men take over important positions? It’s simple. Love, family, children—a woman doesn’t want to sacrifice all of that.”

I think this is very radical again, and I can see how this could be true for certain kind of artists. It is certainly true that motherhood takes up a huge amount of energy and time. I also agree that in comparison to men, this puts women into a much less favourable position. At the same time this is also because the society is structured that way. There is not a biological imperative behind this. Having a child did not make me less creative or driven. It actually made me more so. But I do have much less time and less motivation perhaps to pursue artist residencies or projects, to make this my sole focus. So in that sense yes, perhaps I would be more successful if childless. 

How would you see the work you do and the conditions in which you create in relation to Tracey’s and Marina’s opinions about female artists having/not having children?
I want to embrace the reality of my own situation as fully as I can. The family thus becomes the material, the substance from which my work is born. I do not always succeed, but in some of the projects at least, I feel it is working (i.e. 4 Generations of Women). And increasingly, I am turning towards my own lived experience as the source of creativity. I realised that rather than always looking elsewhere for inspiration, perhaps it is time to embrace and examine all that is right in front of me, so close to me that I hardly see it. This includes the small moments of the everyday, the seemingly insignificant, which is of course life itself. I also think that sometimes we are so enamoured with grandiosity of gesture and feeling, that we don’t give enough space to the subtle and small things happening around us, which are profound and vital.