SASI VICTOIRE - INTERVIEW

Rubber and oil palm estates are often isolated micro villages away from the cities or friends. Being the manager’s daughter, I had no access to friends my own age and lived in the confines of a plantation compound.

The administration staff of rubber or oil palm estates, lived away from the manual workers. My life, although restricted and stratified under class and cultural expectations, was mainly a resultant hangover of colonial British dominance. It was the final remains of comfortable, upper middle-class lifestyle with servants and gardeners. During holidays, the children often sent away to boarding schools returned to be dislocated yet again with no friends or social outlets. Long interludes of afternoon siestas when the adults rested saw restless children seeking activities to keep them occupied. The boys could take off on bicycles, fishing in little rivers, unaccompanied.

I had to upkeep my family morals and expectations. This period of loneliness opened the need to create fantasy activity to find meaning in emptiness.

As far as I remember, I scribbled and drew on the backs of cupboards, under shelves and in any small crevices that I felt safe during those afternoon siestas. I was certainly unconfined in my imagination. I was found out one day, when my mother tipped the shelves to clean the mud wasps in the corner of the bookshelves. She then bought me some paint and colour pencils and an art block to scribble on, thus beginning a passion that has allowed my overactive imagination to seek an outlet.

Page 108 : Questioning Gaze, Print Image in Roundel diameter 250 mm., Sasi Victoire.

Have you always wanted to be an artist?

Art opened in me a certain curiosity to find answers to questions that arose and to escape life’s monotony in my confusing environment of constant change and transitions within my home. I lived in an era of change politically and socially in Malaysia’s reach for nationalism.

I lived under British imperialist conditions that provided benefits and comfort to access education but also confined us to see progress within Eurocentric models.

I was always an astute voyeur of my space whether by choice or by accident and was highly perceptive of power play in social and organisational situations. I felt compelled to reconcile the glaring social inequalities, find a way to thrive in disparate religious vacuum, and remain visibly unaffected. I also perceived the need to fit in within my environment where women, although vastly intelligent and educated, had to find a place in the social hierarchy that played out patriarchal dominance. I was drawn to power politics, feminism, racism, the glaring inequity of the social class and difference and this was carried out eventually in my doctorate thesis.

I am extremely fortunate in my different encounters with the art communities to find interesting people who propelled my interest in art and broaden my understanding to find my own trajectory.

Describe your work?

My work changes with the issues, I pursue. I was described as a post media artist although I find labels an unnecessary weight on artists to conform.

A migrant already faces many challenges, to find a relevant position to speak from. The straddling of where you come from and where you intend to occupy are constantly oscillating positions to awakening the viewers’ social consciences of political and social struggles to explore.

I find text a very compatible medium with imagery to explore my narratives. I also love to animate my narratives and love the use of movement whether linear or circular to propel the narrative. I also try to reveal my culture through language, music, cultural memes, and colour to provide context to my work.

My understanding of concepts and meanings are researched before I take an informed position so that I may provide greater clarity and comfort to myself and the community, I am involved with. I do not move away from topics of stereotyping, racism, prejudice, and power inequities in my rhetoric.

My work deals with using multi-disciplinary processes that challenges the artist, the distributors / the gallery systems, and the audience. I began my art life among excellent mentors in Victoria although at the time I was quite naïve and oblivious to what I was exposed to. I was enjoying my newfound reliance on my own values, differentiating between cultural overlay, and finding my comfortable space in self.

My work in art began as an exploration of media, techniques and play but later moved to addressing social issues before a drawing of my grandmother began my steady exploration of my own Kerala culture, its diaspora. While I was really interested in printmaking, I was very technophobic and ill equipped to compete in a very aggressive male domain in art studios. I was still afraid to ask and challenge power positions. It took a lot of living to build my confidence in having a voice. I was still finding my feet and my place in a very Anglo- Saxon platform in the 70s. Australia was going through a renaissance of freedom and a surge of political change among student networks. There was a genuine interest in Asia with opportunities in friendships and social interaction through language and culture offered in university- based curriculum. Melbourne was a hot house of art explosion with the exploration of Modernism. All these terms assaulted my naïve sensibilities, and it was much later as a mature student I explored the print medium. In Lismore, a uniquely exciting cohort of students headed by the indomitable Jan Davis as lecturer.

What is the philosophy behind your work?

My position is in fairness, equity, and respect for all kinds of knowledge. I champion women’s issues and believe that cultural structures and roles have impeded the progress of women for the benefit of patriarchy. I also believe that women have acquiesced to this position and acted as gatekeepers to harness the progress of women.

I uncover power structures covertly in various relationships and use Alice of Wonderland reputation (as a well-known British literary legacy) as a protagonist in my visual narratives. I work in the arts to create a community that I can be proud to belong to and always endeavour to carry them alongside as a way of broadening the scope for harmonious existence.

Do you have a set method / routine of working?

I am a concept -based artist and invigorated by ideas and challenged to find solutions. I like to work on several themes at the same time. I also love the expansion that emerges through collaborations in multidisciplinary adventures. I love to play and enjoy the freedom of expression and use the print medium to direct my journey.

My belief in art for community development is my underlying inspiration to challenge myself. I apply for grants to include and inspire other artists to collaborate and push them and myself beyond our boundaries. It is a strategy for inclusive participation in community and giving an opportunity for other artists to explore new ground. There is a greater potential when we carry others with us. Various challenges in life, has provided much fodder for exploration and growth. I love words, they provide the energy and impetus to explore new paths into visual exploration. My dreamscape is vital to move towards exploring magical realism where one can suspend time, truth, beauty to find my own narrative. I use magical realism to transport audiences beyond culture and place to find their own meanings in art works.

Why do you choose this material / medium to work with?

Although a printmaker, I do not confine my work to any medium. This gives me freedom to explore, transport my self to areas that give me voice without social and political censorship.

How important is drawing as an element to your artwork?

When challenged by sudden bursts of inspiration, I trust my dreamscape to prove direction and scope. I have always loved drawing to calm my mind, to escape, to find a path through challenges into the wilderness of imagination.

What inspires your work / creations?

To challenge the audience with my work I began to employ Alice as a device to reach Australian audiences at different levels to articulate issues like prejudice, racism, inequality, and uncovering patriarchal constraints for the role of women in culture. Lewis Carroll’s writings are filled with humorous nuances and pointed reflection of the world. It provides covert fodder to reinterpret on my own terms.

What have been the major influences on your work?

I am influenced by narratives and wordcraft and images that convey the mood or the hand of the artist.

What are some of your favourite artworks and artists?

I love the drawings of William Kentridge, Kathe Kollwitz, Brett Whitely, the fun pumpkins of Yayoi Kusama, the printmaking of Barbara Hanrahan, and the self-portraits and colour of Frida Kahlo, the flowers of Georgia O’Keefe and many more. Mark- making influences of De Kooning, Pollock and Joy Hester.

Any particular style or period that appeals?

All styles and periods have appeal, but they are chosen to reflect my current investigation. I also seek to include styles and periods of other cultures to be inclusive of global history and culture.

What are the challenges in becoming an exhibiting artist?

Lack of funds and eternally chasing grants for a project fuelled by passion that rarely translates into life’s needs. Justifying one’s choice, persuading organisations and networks to believe in your commitment to art and community. Living by your ethics and code that sometimes means one has to take up the challenge for it.

Name your greatest achievement, exhibitions?

My curation of artists and performers for exhibitions in Jaipur, Delhi and Tropics to Tropics Festival in Malaysia as an arts ambassador of Australian mainstream and indigenous work and culture.

https://vimeo.com/149619925?utm_source=email&utm_medium=vimeo-cliptranscode-201504&utm_campaign=28749

The mentorship of many artists and students from Far North Queensland and broadening their reach by international collaborations through my play Alice in the Antipathies.

How has the COVID 19 Virus affected your art practice?

My play had two seasons lasting ten days each in Malaysia and Cairns. All subsequent tours were cancelled.

What are you working on at present?

I am currently finishing the frames of imagery for a poem I wrote and include sound collaborations from local Dungog musicians, Donna Cavanaugh and Phil Watts. It is targeted for a ten-minute animation on water spray at Williams River jetty at Clarence Town, New South Wales. It targets the valuing of the waterways and the need to transform one’s personal and collective invasive behaviour towards land, water for climate change.

What do you hope viewers of your art works will feel and take with them?

It is a strategy to take personal responsibility and contribute with changes that would alter and integrate personal, real action to bring about change for the generations to come.

It is also a way to celebrate local artists and value their contribute towards community.

Forthcoming exhibitions?

Water sprite project where there are workshops to create water sculptures with agriculture feedbags. Artists and public will be called for in July Week 1 & 2 Saturday at At Creator Incubator in Newcastle Little Gallery, an exhibition “WITH ALICE”. (Early December 2023)

This body of work will uncover Alice as a conduit to access the audience in my rhetoric and also allow the showing of my play Alice in the Antipathies to Newcastle art lovers.