SCULPTURAL   ACTIONS

My sculptures are not made just to be seen—they are meant to be touched, worn or manipulate, and often generate temporary social spaces, inviting participants into shared experiences. People are always part of the artwork—they ‘act’. 

Robert Storr describes this act of the spectator as follows: “like wandering onstage and picking up loose pages from a script, overhearing bits of recorded dialogue and trying to figure out what the setting is… and what actions might still be taken.” The idea of the public as a wondering actor has always intrigued me. I shape a stage where people can step in, respond, act, and animate the sculpture. It’s only in this in-between—between sculpture and actor—that poetics, meaning, and ultimately art can emerge.

But to act, in relation to art, can also mean something else. Mary Jane Jacob’s groundbreaking exhibition Culture in Action in Chicago (1993) took place in neighborhoods, not museums. The artworks were conceived with and by local residents.  Jacob sought art as a living, breathing practice—art that requires action, not just from the artist, but from real people: residents, neighbors, communities. “ ‘In action’ meant being alive—and claiming the right to participate in what shapes your own life” (p. 176). For Jacob, ‘to act’ refers to art as social practice—deeply rooted in real lives.

Sculptural Actions means both to me: allowing the public to become actors who activate the artwork and the social act of making art in and with the world, for everyone. Not for the betterment of everyone, but for the betterment of art. Because art becomes stronger when it’s confronted with reality. When it’s forced to transcend itself to other people, worlds and discourses.