Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/714702
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 14 AUGUST 2016 30 This Week In your description of the pro- ject, you've said that play was an important part of what you're doing. How did it influence your work and thought process, ex- actly? Rebecca Camilleri: Maritea and me met months before we even started discussing this project. Over cups of coffee and sometimes a chocolate truffle, we went through a process of breaking down our ar- tistic practice and often ended up speaking about why it is important to keep making work, what are the priorities of making life as an artist and defined our goals for the com- ing years. Both of us are driven by the ur- gency to create, create and create but through our conversations we also realised that a large part of our practice is talking and writing about and for projects, as a well as networking and admin work. Therefore, when we started this project, play became a very im- portant term. In order to define the project, we needed to explain what we will be doing, but this contradicts the aim of a process which is purely about playing. By play, we refer to the process of doing something or trying some- thing out of the pleasure and cu- riosity of doing and not with the intention of finding something or creating something at the end. Every day over a period of two weeks, we created tasks which we would do together or separately. An important part of the process was trust. It is easy to start doubt- ing the process of 'not knowing' but we made a conscious choice to overcome the uncertainties which arose and focused on re- specting the process of play. We walked, talked, wrote, made photographs, explored the rela- tionship of words to images, built a map with objects, went on a si- lent journey to town, interviewed each other, gave each other person- alised tasks as gifts and used spon- taneous role-play sessions. This process gave us a lot of free- dom and space and led both of us to rediscover interests which we never allowed enough time to discover. In a way, it left us with seedlings of ideas which can now plant! Martinea Daehlin: I don't think it is possible to separate perfor- mance from playing, particularly not when working with devising that is a process of experiment- ing and playing. I see playing as moving freely through a structure which can change at any time. After becoming a mum I have become very aware of the way we play and interact with those around us and whilst being alone. I want to find a balance between being open/flex- ible and present in the moment, at the same time as trusting my beliefs and aims, that can only be achieved with an element of playing. Rebecca, what did you learn from your experience with the rubberbodies collective, and what did it tell you about the theatre (and arts) scene in Malta? RC: The rubberbodies collective was an enriching experience both personally and artistically. I was intrigued by the process of weaving together ideas and abilities to create performance and it gave me a lot of experience in collaborative process- es, performing, directing and writ- ing. We worked hard and each one of us flourished as an independent artist. The collective was my artistic womb; it was my family, my heart and my life. Malta is currently in an exciting phase. There are a lot of practic- ing artists on the island and also a lot of international artists who are interested in doing things on the is- land. Welcoming nations of traders seems to be a characteristic of the island and I believe that we must support the local artistic commu- nity by inviting visiting artists. On the other hand, what was your experience in Mexico like, and what did it teach you? RC: Like anyone who is growing and discovering, I had the urge to try out different things. After five years working solidly with the col- lective, I felt my life was stuck on one rock with one family. I wanted to get away from the land, the place and the people which once were part of my playground. So I began moving. First I moved to Gozo, then travelled to India and now I am in Mexico. Before coming to Mexico, I knew that I was ready to embark on an- other project. After working for so long with a collective, I feel it is important for me to find my own artistic integrity. But the shift hap- pens slowly, and I think the act of traveling is a reflection of the searching. In April I had a return flight to Malta but I chose to miss my flight and stay. During this time I was living in Mexico City. This city is surreal, intense and dynamic. At the time I was living in Teatro Lucido, an underground creative space, run by Wendy Ada Moira, who lived in Malta and col- laborated with the rubberbodies collective on a few projects. In this space, there was no separation be- tween the theatre and my life. I had no door to my room and my living space transformed continuously from 'my bed' into 'their rehearsal space' into 'this theatre play' into 'a wild party night'. During this time, I hunted the city; I visited art spaces, participated in workshops and at- tended performance festivals. We often use the phrase "because in Malta...". I have started to think of Malta as a small dense space which reflects similar situations which happen in other contexts. In my experiences working in Europe and now in Mexico, I have learnt that being an artist is about doing what you love and in the process building relationships with people who can appreciate, criticise and support your work. If you want your work to be seen and shown, you need to get out of the cocoon and trust that what you are doing is important to you and to the world. MD: I am brought up between Norway and Mexico, and for me to be able to bounce between these so different cultures has been a gift for my practice. Mexico is a country full of playing, it's a place where you have the possibility to create your own ways of living and creating work within a certain chaos. For me this makes it an ideal place to create work. On the other hand, Norway is a country with a very strong and fixed system, which can be great to create structure during a creative process and a collaboration. How does playing figure into this particular project? RC: Playing has been very pre- sent in the process. As I explained before, the intention behind the process was to respect the playful- ness, yet it also raised a lot of sub- jects which are connected to the ar- tistic practice: such as life, money, the professional sphere, the daily practice and – lest we forget – the equally important process of 'un- learning'. Presenting the project to the public has challenged us in a dif- ferent way. We agreed that making a performance out of this process would be contradictory to what the project is trying to achieve. In San Cristobal de las Casas, which is the place where all this took place, we opened our process and engaged others in the thinking, doing and documenting. Focusing on the ac- tion of human interactions that happen over the everyday indul- gence of teas, coffees and cake, we met in a café around a large table with four other artistic practition- ers. We initiated conversations through cards with words. We spoke about the relevance of being "professional" and why it does not work to have a professional email. We discussed the impossibility of separating your life from your ar- tistic practice and how the act of writing can come from a necessity or from an expectation. There was a lot of talking which triggered a lot of thinking. These forms of en- counters seem to be a necessity for the artist as it is a place in which you can open yourself and your practice without necessarily showing your work. It is not about the work that you do, but more about the engage- ment one requires to support the life of your work. MD: In this specific process playing was at its centre: we played with different roles and forms of thinking, writing and talking. We became our future self, created thoughts while walk- ing in silence, we acted as if we were in a therapy session. We The journey, not the destination While their collaborative and obstinately 'fluid' project THINKDODOC is still going on, TEODOR RELJIC spoke to Maltese performer Rebecca Camilleri and her Norwegian- Mexican counterpart Martinea Daehlin about the importance of play for their work, and why not having an end product to the experience is actually one of the key points of the endeavour A collaborative project incorporating artists from various countries, THINKDODOC takes a multidisciplinary approach to explore the process, rather than the end product, of artistic work