Celia Stroom: “The curator’s work is to connect, at a very deep sensory level, the artists to the public”
By Irene Calvo
Portrait by Hubert Caladagues
Celia Stroom initiated Heroines in 2019, a non-profit and non-governmental platform formed by women from different countries and artistic backgrounds. This collective organises a nomadic project that encompasses an art residency, a program of talks and an exhibition, all under the same name. This project takes place in a different country every year; this year, 2020, Heroines celebrates its second edition in Thailand. The project, that encouraged women artists to be multidisciplinary and to work collectively, is each year organised in just six months and it revolves around the concept of female intimacy in all its ways. Stroom curates the annual exhibition, that shows the works of twelve international artists, which have been working together at the art residency for two weeks. This exhibition is named “The Enclosed Garden”, a title inspired by the concept of “Hortus conclusus”, used in the medieval age in Europe to express a metaphoric representation of female intimacy and psychology in literature, philosophy, theology, art, crafts and architecture. “The enclosed garden” is marked by the multidisciplinary work (installations, performance, video, sound art, photography, perfume art, painting, drawing…) and for being installed in a private flat, far away from the white cube; also the exhibition opens only at night. In this interview, Celia tells us more about this thrilling project and the curating challenges that she faces in each edition of Heroines.
Sketch of the exhibition by Celia Stroom / Poster of the exhibition 2019 in Georgia by Natasha Nikouline
How would you describe Heroines?
I have imagined an utopia. A group of independent artists and cultural managers from different art fields and different cultural backgrounds would elaborate a new definition of the exhibition show. Since 2019 we master the ambitious challenge of producing in only a few months the first annual and nomadic festival for women which includes an art residency (workshops with locals, research program, and creation of artworks) and an exhibition. This series of events entitled THE ENCLOSED GARDEN happens every year during one month on fall in a country where female artists can not express themselves freely and be paid for their artistic commitments. We offer to a team of experienced artists, students and local communities of women, a space and a budget to work on specific psychological issues. Together they create a cabinet of curiosities of 200sqm made of installations, music composition, video, drawings, performance, texts, polyphonies, paintings, sculpture, photography. Therefore, throughout collaborative, intercultural and multidisciplinary practices, the artists carefully work their way toward creating a collective artwork of unprecedented form: a live exhibition, a safe space that artists have invested and lived in, and that opens for the public at night. In small intimate groups, visitors discover this temporary home where they can walk, see, smell, touch, and hear this collective creation. Year after year, HEROINES give a shape to a collection of female artworks. 10% can be sold to collectors attracted by this unusual process of creation, exhibition and collection and 90% is preserved. Starting from the residency of creation, to the exhibition and then the sale or preservation of a collection, I try to explore a brand new process where the exhibition suddenly plays an active role by enhancing the scopes of perception of art, modifying the physical experience of the audience and questioning societal constraints imposed by our cultures.
How did the idea of a project as Heroines come up?
I would consider Heroines as a long research process. I was first interested to understand why we are not encouraged to become multidisciplinary and to work collectively. In that perspective I have been studying consecutively Contemporary Dance, Polyphony, Opera singing, Ethnography, Art History, Museology, Curating and Cultural Management. The strategy behind was to shape a multidisciplinary profil and to connect with people from different backgrounds. This decision has not been easy since the environment (family and professionals) always encourage to focus on one speciality. Year after year, I spent time to observe carefully how things work in different fields. Then, I extended my research on museums, observing what is supposed to be an “exhibition”. As a museologist, I have never really been convinced by the following shema: Individuals artists are invited to exhibit individual artworks, mainly in “white cube”, where the audience experience an individual journey, more intellectual than physical. I naturally came to the concept of Heroines after my 10 first years of work. When I am in charge of large scale projects for museums, renovation of a museums or management of an exhibition project, I observe that the administration and the process of organisation are often to complex. We waste money and time with to many inefficient procedures. That’s why I conceive with The Enclosed Garden, a pop up project with a reasonable frame. In six months we raise funds for a festival made of two weeks art residency and one week exhibition.
How many people are behind this project?
Heroines selects in priority women since they are under-represent in Art History and Contemporary Art industry. The residency program provides a supporting environment in the selected target country (2019: Georgia, 2020: Thailand) and covers travel expenses, accommodation and per diems. We provide a workspace and an exhibition space, as well a professional support for reflection, research, production, and experimentation. In 2019, in Georgia it was composed of 12 collaborators coming from France, Germany, Spain, Thailand, Iran and Georgia. Every year, The Enclosed Garden is organised by a new manager. She has to be native from the host country. In 2019, Salomé Jashi, a Georgian filmmaker was organising the project in Tbilisi. In 2020, Bussaraporn Thongchai, a Thai artist, is developing the project in Bangkok with the help of the manager of the last edition and myself, the art director of Heroines. Every year, the network of collaborators grows and we can spread what we have experienced during this intense collaboration.
“Inside the body ” Drawing by Bussaraporn Thongchai / “Inside the body “Vegetal Installation by Celia Stroom
What is The Enclosed Garden?
The audience is welcomed by these words: “enclosed garden, where my fears and desires, fill my cornucopia of flowers”. The Enclosed Garden is an exhibition which journeys into the female psyche. It finds its roots in the concept of Hortus conclusus, «Enclosed Garden». It has travelled from the East to the West in the Middle Ages and made writers, philosophers, artists, architects, theologist question the limits of the space, physical, psychological, societal, cultural, and spiritual. One of the most famous Hortus Conclusus is the Lady and the Unicorn. This topic is dear to me since I started studying this topic when I was specialized in medieval iconography at La Sorbonne University in 2001. This quasi surrealist French tapestry, created by an unknown artist, presents six women condemned in a closed space to seduce an Unicorn that villagers want to catch. Here, the artist creates a metaphoric world where the women are isolated in a space profaned by sin. She seems to float in a sea of blood, the red vermilion of the tapestry. These six women practice rituals of purification, by the stimulation of all the senses. Our contemporary Enclosed Garden gathers as well six women from the host country and six artists from abroad to explore the concept of Enclosed space from their different cultural backgrounds. The venue is always an empty flat, an intimate area of an immense building, a place where secrets have been exchanged, where one can isolate oneself, and feel free in a dark labyrinth. After days of intense exploration of our doubts, emotions, hidden thoughts, this Enclosed Garden becomes the place where to deposit the treasure of our fantasies and the richness of our singularity. In small intimate groups, visitors are given access to this temporary home, in “room of one’s own” of Virginia Woolf, where they can walk, see, smell, touch, and hear our collective garden. We then observe intimacy in a spatial form, an inside separated from the outside. Here we tickle the boundaries between private and public, singular and plural, loneliness, observing modesty and shame in the face of vulgarity and obscenity. I have imagined an Enclosed Garden where everyone can lose themselves or find themselves.
Why did you choose the concept of intimacy? What are the meanings of intimacy that are worked in this project?
The liminal aspects of «Intimacy» offers many topics of exploration. In the exhibition, Intimacy is a source of inspiration and it’s also a space.
We create a SPACE of INTIMACY between:
-Artist and Artist
-Artist and Artworks
-Artist and Audience
Together, audience and artists, we experience the social and ontological resonances of intimacy in the contemporary society. Thus, the project nourishes a form of empowerment: the ability to give oneself the power to do something, the ability to give oneself understandings about personal trauma, tragedy, historical context, the ability to be fully embodied, and to understand that we are not alone. “Stories engender the excitement, sadness, questions, longings, and understandings that spontaneously bring the Wild Woman back to the surface.” Women who run with wolves: myths and stories of the wild woman archetype, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, 1992.
How do you select the cities where Heroines will take place?
I really consider that the values of our project are universal and they are not connected to any political ideology, that’s why we don’t really choose the country. It’s an artist from the country who chooses our project! In 2019, Bussaraporn Thongchai applied to Heroines-Georgia. She then proposed to bring the project to her homeland for 2020 in Thailand.
Could you talk about Thailand 2020?
In Thailand, women are under-represented in art and they cannot express what they want because of the censorship of the oppressive monarchy. For the Thai artist Bussaraporn Thongchai, bringing The Enclosed Garden in her homeland is a challenge. And we are supporting her in every aspects of the project. It will take place during Bangkok Art Biennale. However, It will be the only one series of events that happens at night, involves only female artists, where the audience will be able to stimulate all their senses. As usual, we never select a venue dedicated to Contemporary Art. This year, we choose an old building of China town. The residency will take place in Nakhon Phatom, in the countryside, where actually growing number of women are defying generations of Thai Buddhist tradition by creating the unrecognised all-female monastery outside Bangkok. After two weeks in the nature, we will bring the wild artworks in the city and create this metaphoric free world inside the empty building.
Perfume – Blood of Unicorn by Quentin Bisch for the “Catharsis room” exhibition 2019 / “Inside the body” Textile Installation by Rezvan Farsijani / “Inside the body” Drawing by Celia Stroom / “Skin room” Installation of sheep skin by Celia Stroom / sound bath by Diane Barbé
How do you select the artists?
We publish a call on May and select them according to several criteria. First of all, can they create by themselves? Can they live in a community? Are they already working on topics related to psychological issues? Do they accept to create not only in their art field? Can they create in a short period of time? Are they efficient? Are they ready to go beyond their fears or at least to question them? Are they already established artists? Are they able to perform? And even directly speak to the audience?
You develop the project in only three weeks. What are the challenges of this short period of time?
Indeed, it’s a pop-up project composed by two weeks of retreat of creation and one week of exhibition. The duration of the project is one of the main challenge of the team. For example during three full days and nights, we install all the artworks created in the countryside, then when the exhibition opens we continue to create. Our methodology consists of inviting the artists to live together in a full time community. With such an intense format, we deliver very spontaneous art, something which come from our entrails. I don’t consider that we would be able to create about the topic of intimacy without this kind of tempo and deep immersion.
As the curator of the exhibition, what are the advantages and disadvantages of a multisensorial project?
My main conception of the curator’s work is to research and experiment new ways of exhibiting artworks and connect at a very deep sensory level the community of artists, their creations and the members of the public. The process of “synesthesia” or co-perception in psychology came to my mind naturally since I am myself synesthete and my partner was working for the last 10 years on this topic as well as a researcher. In the state of synesthesia two or more bodily senses are coupled. One may perceive music through colors, or visualize certain objects while hearing sounds or music, or feeling a taste of fruits while touching ice. During our immersive shows, the audience awake their senses and feel the excitement that triggers living art. We collect the feedbacks of the audience and for now they are just frustrated that the duration of the exhibition is 4 days. I started to develop this concept of exhibition with the project L’OEIL ECOUTE (The Eye Listens) in 2015 for museums only. All our installations and performances would be inspired by masters of art and would embrace the audience in a multisensory experience. This project comes from the observation of the Body in Exhibitions, one of my favorite topic. The motion of the body feel so often limited. Don’t touch the artwork, don’t cross the line, please be silent. Finally, in an exhibition space, I mainly walk, observe, with distance, read texts, or take pictures. This radical observation has been challenging me so much these last 10 years of career for museums. I am constantly wondering how the “temples of art” / “temples of the Nation” can become a brand new source of inspiration, knowledge, delightment and pleasure in the future. Awakening our senses is one option, of course, we can always invent many others.
Why did you decide that the exhibition opens only during the night?
I would answer with this question: Why shall we respect the process of daytime exhibitions, which is actually settled by the working time of employees in museums? That’s why I was wondering what would be the best schedule for an exhibition made of intimate spaces. It opens at night when focus is at its peak, and mental barriers can break down. When we enter in the dark, smelling already some olfactory creations, and listening some sound installations, we feel straightaway the mystical aura of the exhibition. In the night, we chose to stimulate the sight only in the 2nd room of the exhibition, and we end the exhibition with an installation which can be touched. We are conscious that the audience experiences mixed feelings from worries to relief, some of them feel safe and homey, and others take time in the venue to release their mind and body. Our artworks are created according to these observations.
Heroines is a non-profit project. Do you have the support of any institution?
Every year, we apply to international funds depending on the location of the exhibition. In 2019, we were supported by the Ministry of Culture of Georgia, Creative Europe – I-Portunus, European Cultural Foundation, Goethe Institute, Institut Français, Women’s Fund of Georgia. In 2020 we already are supported by Thai patrons for the residency and we are currently applying to international funds for the expenses of the exhibition.
Residency Art-Villa-Garikula (Georgia) / “Tears of mirror” video installation by Salome Jashi / Managers of the edition 2019 collecting plants Celia Stroom and Salome Jashi / Collective workshop of painting on a drawing made by Laure Slabiak.
What are the challenges that Heroines faces for the upcoming future?
Indeed, we are facing numerous challenges. I have been taught many times that we cannot raise funds in a short period of time. However, by experience, I also know that if we don’t take risks and try to change established rules, nothing changes! The biggest challenge is to keep this annual tempo and create year after year a collection of artworks in different countries. By the end of the year we plan to create an online gallery to introduce each artwork created collectively during these two first editions of The Enclosed Garden.
We like to discover new artists in our interviews. Could you recommend us three artists that have been working with Heroines?
I will introduce you the three managers of the edition 2020.
Bussaraporn Thongchai currently works in Berlin. She was born as the youngest of 4 daughters in a small town in the Nakhon Phanom Province in 1985 (Thailand). She studied Bachelor and Master of fine arts at Silpakorn University in Bangkok. Her artwork examines the complex interplay of social phenomenon, the female body and the lived experiences of the women. She considers herself as an archaeologist who has become an expert in excavating her own life. Based on her childhood memory in a patriarchal family, Bussaraporn questions the gender roles in her society and has been illustrating this through provocative drawing and painting. Two Years after the death of her father, ‘The Man Number 10’(2012), presents complicated relationship between herself, her father and all of her ex-boyfriends. Shortly after the 3rd solo art exhibition ‘SORRY! Life in Progress!(2013)’ was held at Gallery N, Bangkok. Bussaraporn literally moved out to her exhibition space, living and working in the venue for one month while visitors of the gallery were welcomed to observe her life in progress.
She now combines her artistic skills to mediate and empower migrant women who experienced violence and exploitation from human trafficking since she has started to work in an anonymous shelter home in Berlin. She will be guest artists of BAB Bangkok Art Biennale in 2020.
Salome Jashi is a filmmaker, producer and video artist from Georgia. After studying journalism and working as a reporter, in 2005 she was awarded a British Council scholarship to study documentary filmmaking at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her visual approach is minimalist, poetical, sensitive, nostalgic and sometimes rough. From the very beginning of her career she has been attracted to filming micro environments, working on the video as a craftsman. Her documentary The Dazzling Light of Sunset |2016| was given main awards at Visions du Réel’s Regard Neuf Competition, Film Festival Jean Rouch in Paris, FICValdivia in Chile, Zagrebdox. Her previous film Bakhmaro |2011| was nominated for the Asia Pacific Screen Awards and Silver Eye Awards. Salomé has received Adami Media Prize for her short film The Tower |2018|. Alongside filmmaking, since 2018 Salomé is developing video installations in collaboration with artist Celia Stroom in L’OEIL ECOUTE, a multidisciplinary project about synesthesia. Salomé tutors worldwide at workshops for documentary filmmakers, at times collaborating with European Documentary Network. She has also produced a performance touching upon the subject of sexuality in Georgia - More than one species |2017| made in co-production with Goethe Institute’s International Coproduction Fund.
In 2020, Salomé is the resident of DAAD artists-in-residence program in Berlin, working on a new documentary project in co-production with German Corso Film and Swiss Mira Film.
She has been the co-producer of The Enclosed Garden in Georgia in 2019.
I am Celia Stroom, a French art historian, ethnomusicologist, dancer, singer, composer, curator and museologist. In my work, research, curating and creation are intertwined. Since years, I have fulfilled the immense pleasure of finding things, observing people, collecting objects, forgotten polyphonies, studying archives, filming, recording, photographing, writing and creating from them as an Historian and ”archeologist of the Self”. I create Cabinet of curiosities in private intimate shows, made of drawings, poetry, polyphonic performances, installations, photos and videos. My artistic process comes from the way I perceive the world, a deep emotional connection with every elements. Interconnection is the heart of the process. And as an art director of a collective, I enjoy tremendously sharing ideas, shaking, and challenging everyone to go beyond their limits. My inspirations comes from hours in museums, expertising in the silence of storage areas collections, writing the concept of new museums, managing renovation project. I studied contemporary dance and opera singing at the conservatory in Paris alongside Art History, Cultural Management and Museology at Sorbonne University. Having worked as a consultant for museums (Louvre, Chanel collection, Ixelles museum, Musee Galliera, etc) and having performed in operas for a decade, in my artistic work I now let aside the strict techniques! - embracing the free expression fully experimenting with the form to create shattering sensual experiences for the audiences, surrealistic rituals and immersive trances. Since 2008, I am managing M&M, a society of museology with my collaborator from Musee du Louvre, Agnes de Ferry.
Then alongside a career of classical singer, I created in 2015 as an Art director the project L’Oeil Ecoute, a series of multisensory living paintings inspired by Masters of Art and esoteric rituals. In 2017, I started a long term ethnographical exploration of forgotten male polyphonies in Georgia. After two years of art residency in villages of the Caucasus financed by the European IPortunus program, I have discovered as a music composer and a vocal performer how to create wilder polyphonies for contemporary art projects and to translate these scores written for male voices to female voices. Then in 2019, I initiated the collective Heroines after hours of inspiring discussions with the feminist Georgian filmmaker Salome Jashi.
