The Open Mind Series is a selection of interviews with artists, designers and other ‘creators’ from around the world giving us an insight into how they see the world now and tomorrow. No qualifications required. No taboo. No right or wrong. Just openness. And artworks.
How do you imagine the world in 20 years?
I don’t expect it to change that fast. In twenty years, we’ll probably be spectators of more and more natural disasters, I sadly hope that it will be at least harder for anyone to deny that earth is reacting because of us. I imagine destruction to go on in the name of progress. I expect ecological consciousness to keep on growing. Not a very positive point of view I admit but 20 years is short.
How do you imagine the world in 1000 years?
1000 years is sci-fi. I already don’t feel comfortable in my time, so how could I expect something welcoming? The best landscape I could imagine: civilization ruins, high trees, virgin mountains, oceans, and rare species that survived (I hope we don’t) like rats and cockroaches.
What is the plant, animal or object that most inspires you and how?
I draw trees and the forest is an important research field for my work. Nature generally inspires me, but plants as trees, ferns, are strong witnesses of something that pre-existed us, animals, and that will survive us.
What is the emotion that drives you in your work?
Remorse mostly. I chose to work on a collapsing subject and I cannot deny that’s fascinating me. As an artist, I feel like standing in a delicate position, creating inevitably waste and somehow using nature. Even though I think that drawing a landscape has never been such a powerful symbol, since everything we draw can potentially become an archive of something that is disappearing, I don’t feel completely passive. In the installation Prothesis, I used natural material such as trees, branches, mushrooms and stones and I “repaired” it with wax sculptures – the simple idea of human guilt that vainly tries to fix things he destroyed. Most of the time I collect dead material but it happens that I provoke death myself on organic things to “make it better”. This is a violent act and idea to me. It’s like trimming a tree, trying to control everything and to impose our sense of balance. There is an ecological message in my work obviously, it is about transmitting my experience of nature, and hoping it has an echo.
What does community mean to you personally?
When I hear the word community, it is related to the idea of retreat, paradoxically. And I think as a city dweller, that it’s hard to consider or fully understand the word community (I grew up in Paris). I believe in small groups, far from cities, even if I have never tried to create these groups myself. The only thing I’m sure of is that I need people. I only bear loneliness when I chose it and for a short time.
How do you connect with the Earth today?
While walking in nature. It is the only way I have found to get closer to the earth. Giuseppe Penone wrote “La volontà di un rapporto paritario tra la mia persona e le cose è l’origine del mio lavoro.” – “The desire for an equal relationship between my person and things is the origin of my work.” Looking for an equal rapport with natural things is also what drives me.
What is your dream for the arts world?
I like simple ideas. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to intellectualize art, but I’d like it to be affordable for everyone. I am very attached to Technic, very sensitive to aesthetic, I don’t want it to become only conceptual. I think we should go for another Renaissance.
What’s the best thing on earth?
The countryside!
A French artist based in Belgium, Pieremilio Gandini explores the impermanence of things and nature through drawings, installations and sculptures, using fragile and alterable materials such as wax and clay. Exhibitions of his work were held at the Greylight Project, at the Centre de la Gravure et de l’Image Imprimée de La Louvière, and at the Lethaby Gallery in London.