Previous Phone Tag participant Eugene Choi connected me with Athena Thebus for this Phone Tag interview. Athena is an artist based in Sidney who works at the intersection of sculpture and installation. Writing is both a driver and presence in work that navigates ideas of self and emotionally laden concepts such as shame. In this Phone Tag interview, we discuss how obsessions with words informs her practice, the importance of finding a queer community, and how she came to define herself as an artist.

 

Phone Tag is a generative interview format, where I ask each participating artist five questions (plus others as the discussion meanders). At the end, I ask him or her to introduce me to an artist whose attitude and work they find interesting and/or inspiring, who I then interview with the same five questions.

*****

 

Linnea West:  “If you were to briefly describe your practice, to someone who doesn’t know you, what do you say you make?”

Athena Thebus:  “I make sculpture and installations. I used to write a little. Well, recently it’s been a real combination of the two. I’ve been writing, and then wanting to make atmospheres or objects or installations that almost create a room for the writing, so they go hand in hand.”

LW:  “So, the text is very much in the gallery and an essential part of it?”

AT:  “Sometimes it’s not in the gallery. I’m like, ‘What part of this text do I want to make into a room or a mood?’ That’s where it begins. It might meander someplace else, but that’s the starting point.”

LW:  “Do the texts ever live by themselves as well? Do you ever publish them?”

AT:  “I do, but not many.”

[laughter]

“In my practice I do have a lot of text, in words or phrases that appear in my installations…I guess it is pretty text heavy. It just needs to breakdown and fragment as it goes along.”

LW:  “For me, as a writer, one of the things I love about writing about art is that writing pushes my thinking forward. How does the writing practice affect your thinking or your visual practice?”

AT:  “It feels like it becomes clearer. Also, I get stuck on words. Not stuck, but obsessed by words or certain phrases. Especially phrases that come from my mom that I thought that I had forgotten. For example, the other day I was thinking about desire and how much it’s a driving force in a lot of the things that I do. I remember when I was eight, I had one of those things that you have in your room that’s half a whiteboard, half a corkboard. She had written in permanent marker on the whiteboard side: ‘Desire + Determination = Success.’ It’s so full on. You know what I mean…I covered it up with pictures of my friend from school.”

LW:  “Yes.” [laughs]

AT:  “We have different ideas of what it means to be successful, but what is distilled in me from that quote of hers is definitely the desire.”

LW:  “That’s fantastic. I think that is so intense though.”

AT:  “Yeah. Permanent marker as well. I could never wipe it off.”

LW:  “What are you working on now?”

AT:  “I just had a really busy month. So I’m taking some time to rest, but I do have projects coming up. [Previous Phone Tag participant] Eugene [Choi] actually did this Real Real streaming thing with Campelltown Arts Center. I’m about to do that next.

It’s coming up in six weeks. It’s a live stream event. Before the stream you get a two‑week residency in the space. I’m doing it with Akil Ahamat and Ainslie Templeton. It should be good.

After that, a few other things. I’m not sure yet….I’ve got to move studios and all this kind of stuff. Some projects that I’ve been thinking about, and something to do with that quote, because it’s really been bugging me now.”

LW:  “Do you often work with other people?”

AT:  “It’s pretty fresh actually. One of my first real collaborations was with Marcus Whale. He’s a musician. For our first collaboration, I made the set and did his costume for a performance at a festival. It’s still fresh, but I like it. Usually I’m solo.”

LW:  “Do you have more performative aspects to your own practice?”

AT:  “I don’t like performing that much, but I love watching dance and I love watching performances. It’s just so energizing. Sometimes I feel that parts of my work lack this kind of performative aspect, like the rooms really need to have bodies moving in them. So I’m taking a little detour and just making rooms and costumes for performers that already exist in the world. Instead of bringing them into my space, I’m going to their space.”

LW:  “That’s interesting. And who knows, maybe in the end, it somehow does work back into your space.”

AT:  “Yeah. It’s exciting. I just love being able to do something and then hang back and not be involved.”

[laughs]

LW:   “So you mentioned that you’re moving studios. What’s an ideal day like in a studio?”

AT:  “Oooh an ideal day. The ideal day is that I wake up early and I go to yoga and that’s very rare. And then, I’ll ideally ride my bike to the studio, and when I get there, I read a bit. Then I make something and it makes me feel powerful and strong. That gets wrapped up within 6 hours because I think 6 hours is the most productive amount of time and then I ride home, and then I make dinner.”

LW:  “Does this have to be making something physical to get that feeling?”

AT:  “No, not necessarily. It could be some good words or it could just…yeah, it doesn’t have to be something physical. It’s a productive thinking time.”

LW:  “That makes sense. But you are also making objects, right?”

AT:  “Yeah…there’s never been the most ideal studio space. A lot of my installations are components that come together only in the week of install. I would so love to have a practice where that’s not the case, where everything’s figured out before install. It’s just hard to have all that time and all that space. Maybe that’s just how I work as well—everything’s fragmented. I can only think in fragments and then it comes together later.”

LW:  “If you work with fragments and assembling them in space, does that mean that the set up is provisional and that it could be reinstalled in a different way, or that different parts that could be reused?”

AT:  “Absolutely. I recently reinstalled this exhibition called Dreaming About You Woke Me Up. I’m so much more into the second iteration than the first, which is to be expected. I’m honestly interested in that kind of restructuring, re‑presenting something that’s essentially the same idea but different. I’m also trying to resist making something new all the time.”

LW:  “You don’t want to make something new all the time because the ideas are rich enough that you want to keep going back to them?”

AT:  “Yeah. Also, I feel like there’s this pressure to continually make something new. I don’t think it gives that idea enough length to be felt fully.”

LW:  “When did you first think of yourself as an artist?”

AT:  “It would have to be when I moved to L.A. in 2014. I had dreamt of the place before ever setting foot in America. I remember I was just like, ‘Whoa, I have to introduce myself to all these new people that don’t know who I am.’ I kept introducing myself as someone who was trying to be an artist. I realized that’s a fucked thing to say.”

LW:  “Yup.”

AT:  “Drop the trying to be and conceptualize myself as an artist. That’s when it first started.”

LW:  “That makes sense. How’d you like L.A.?”

AT:  “I loved it. It’s so sunny and warm there. It’s also the first place that I ever imagined a future for myself in a queer community. It’s a really critical moment in my life. Maybe that’s why I hold on to it as the best place ever.”

LW:  “Do you think that moving away had a lot to do with having that moment in your life?”

AT:   “Sure. I grew up in Brisbane, which is a much smaller city than Sydney.”

LW:  “You’ve been living in Sydney since L.A.?”

AT:  “Yeah, since 2015. I only got to be in L.A. for a year. I’ve been trying to come back. Every year I enter the Green Card Lottery.”

LW:  “One of the questions that I like to ask artists is: Do you think it’s more important to be in a big city or a quieter place? A big city is often great for a career, and you can see a lot of art. It’s also usually tough financially. From what I hear, Sydney is an expensive place to live. Or is it better to be somewhere smaller, where you can focus on making?”

AT:  “That is such a tough question, but I will say it’s better to be in a big city. I would never move back to Brisbane, for example. I never could go back to a small city. Definitely big city. Bigger ideas, more people. It’s just so much more exciting. It feels dense.”

LW:  “Everyone I talk to has either been in a big city or, maybe in an MFA program that was in a small town, so they were away but usually in a city. Nobody says, ‘Oh, you should be in a big city.’ Everyone says, ‘Oh, it’s a tough question. I want both,’ etc. You’re my first person who was just like, ‘No, you should just be in a city.’

AT:  “Yes, absolutely. That’s funny.”

LW:  “Who has influenced your practice?”

AT:  “So many people. Definitely AL Steiner. Who else? José Esteban Muñoz, definitely. I think also Bhenji Ra and Justin Shoulder, even though they’re very much more performance artists, because of their approach to culture, the Filipino culture, from an Australian point of view. Not even an Australian point of view. That’s an incorrect thing to say. Having a mixed heritage and living in Australia, and trying to negotiate all of that, has been a huge influence in my career.”

LW:  “How did you find your people? Was it in art school, or just going to see things?”

AT:  “Not art school. It was just going to things. Justin and Bhenji are very key…I see them as parents in the creative community here. Wait, what was the question?”

LW:  “It was about how you found these people. How they came to you.”

AT:  “Sydney has this great community of Filipino artists that I don’t think I’ve seen in other cities. Definitely not in Brisbane. Unfortunately, I only had one year in L.A. so I didn’t find that community in that time. I’m sure it exists. It feels very unique to see this group of people.”

LW:  “I have become more aware through these interviews that it exists—that there are these connections between the Philippines and Australia. Is this a historical relationship, or a more current immigration? Where does this come from?”

AT:  “There are Filipinos everywhere. It’s really great. It seems to be a current generation—actually, no, wait, I think we celebrated 50 years of diplomatic ties with the Philippines and Australia last year. There were a lot of events at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and all around Sydney City, with other regional galleries, as well. I guess it’s rising up in our consciousness.”

LW:  “Was your generation the first to be raised in Australia as Australians?”

AT:  “Yes, definitely. That’s correct.”

LW:  “Do you have family in the Philippines?”

AT:  “I do. My parents actually just retired there. My dad’s German and my mom’s Filipino, and they both moved to the Philippines. It’s strange. I didn’t think I’d miss them, but I really do. It’s weird. When they’re far away, you’re like, ‘Oh wait, come back.’”

[laughs]

LW:  “Those are actually all of my questions.”

AT:  “Really?”

LW:  “Yeah, it’s a simple interview process—five questions and they’re always the same. ‘When did you first think of yourself as an artist?’ is always super interesting. People sometimes really struggle with it.”

AT:  “That’s true. I guess pivotal to that answer is that when I was 25, I decided not to doubt it for five years.”

LW:  “Oh, that’s good.”

AT:  “Not have a plan B. Not working towards a plan B. Just to reassess it in five years time, so when I’m 30 years old.”

LW:  “This reminds me, though, of what your mom wrote on the board about determination and success, and desire.”

[laughter]

AT:  “Oh my God. It’s exhausting! In a good way.”

AT:  “Thanks for making the time to Skype, and for interviewing me.”

LW:  “Thank you. This has been great.”

 

*On Friday July 27, Campbelltown Arts Center will stream Real Real 3, a performance featuring Athena in collaboration with Akil Ahamat and Ainslie Templeton, live on Facebook, at 1:30pm local time. Learn more here.*