Every Work of Art Is a Self-Portrait
Making the "Cross-Interview" Project
An art therapist once told me that every work of art is a self-portrait. I think that's true. And something more happens when an artist works with another person as their subject. Something gets revealed about the person and about the artist in relation to that person. Whether it's a drawing, a piece of music, performance art, a poem, or a photograph. Or an interview.
When I made the first "Cross-Interview" in May of 2024, over a year ago, it was an experiment. The experimental part of it was about translating what I had done with photography into the cross-interview. I started photography as a teenager. What made me fall in love with photography back then was really that the camera was a tool, a sort of telepathic tool, for the subject and the artist to communicate.
There's a connection that happens when the photographer works with another person as their subject. After the picture has been snapped, and the negatives developed, and it's printed in the dark room, the final image really reveals both people on either side of the camera. There will always be a part of the photographers' subconscious exposed in every picture that they take. And hopefully take the viewer deeper into the psyche of the individual. And so the same idea goes with the cross-interview.
When I was ready to set up my cross-interviewing project, where each elevates the other through the connection, I knew Michael the Magician from Macau would be down for the experiment. The idea was to make the interview into an art piece.
The idea was that each elevates the other, which is a concept I believe in and have lived my life by. This was something I had in common with my grandfather, Mandrake the Magician, who lived his life as a traveling performing stage magician. From city to city, each job he took on, it would always be a win-win situation where each side elevates the other through their connection. He was very much into cross-promotion.
This is something that I hold as a standard in my own life. Just the very natural flow of each person and the energy that they give to each other. When each person elevates the other, it is a win-win that becomes the truest expression of love.
It's that verse from the Bible that says, "Do not conform to the patterns of this world. Instead, be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Allowing ourselves to really trust and just have faith. The highest form of love is the only way.
I love you,
Käla