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Six of the Best: Part 22

Part 22 of an interview series in which I invite artists to respond to six questions about art, process, and creativity  (previous interviews: 123456789101112, 13, 141516171819, 20, 21). I am honoured this time to post an interview with +Juanli Carrión, a multimedia artist who was born in Spain and now resides in New York City. I was fortunate enough to encounter him when I entered a silent auction and won the right to commission a small print from him. Ñ–Gracias, Juanli!

Flyer (performance)
Philip Hartigan: What medium do you chiefly use, and why?

Juanli Carrion: My main medium is site-specific interventions, and then photography, video, installation, sculpture and drawing as a result of the mentioned interventions. My creative process works as a reaction to a situation or in some cases as an encounter between a pre-existing idea and the location of the right place at the right time. For these reasons every project talks about a specific concept in place and time, and that's why site-specific is the medium that better fits my practice.

Philip Hartigan: What piece are you currently working on?

Juanli Carrion: I just finished my new project Opus 2012, a multimedia art project that brings together video, music composition, performance, photography and site specific intervention in the landscape to stage the current situation of Western society on a political and existential level via the union of the universe (as macrocosm) and the theatre of politics (as microcosm). Opus 2012 uses Mozart's opera Don Giovanni as a basis for its development. It presents President Barack Obama's 2012 State of the Union Address as an opera performed in the North Mexican desert.


Individual (installation)
Philip HartiganWhat creative surprises are happening in the current work?

Juanli Carrion: I have a background in music as a piano player, but it's been more than 10 years since I played. With the last project I have rediscovered music as a medium for visual art. It's a medium in which I am still very comfortable, and which I am already thinking about using for upcoming projects.


Philip HartiganWhat other artistic medium (or non-artistic activity) feeds your creative process?

Juanli Carrion: Literature, for its ability to create new realities that can be interpreted in so many different way for each reader. That's probably what feeds me most these days.


Kei Seki (installation)
Philip HartiganWhat’s the first ever piece of art you remember making?

Juanli Carrion: It was actually an installation I did in college in which I created a cubicle made of wood and fabric with a  pool three inches deep inside it, and a chair inside the pool. Visitors were invited to take off their shoes and take a seat in the chair, then put their feet in the water and watch a series of videos projected in three of the fabric walls of the cubicle. The videos I projected contained images that questioned the idea of memory.


Philip HartiganFinally, and you can answer this in any way that’s meaningful to you: why are you an artist?

Juanli Carrion: I am an artist because if not I would be in jail.

If you liked this interview, and you'd like to keep up to date with the series, why not Subscribe, or sign-up via Google Connect, using one of the options over on the right? Thanks, and keep creating.

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