Evelyne Schuurman

Year of birth: 1996. 
Where do you live: Beijing, China (since 2017).
Your education: Currently doing my PhD at Tsinghua University (Beijing, China), researching cross cultural art creation.
Describe your art in three words: sincere, identity, exploring.
Your discipline: contemporary art.
Website

Could you tell us about the inspiration behind your performance work, “Intimacy”? How did your experiences of living abroad influence this project?

Living abroad is exciting but comes with many challenges one must face. After the so-called ‘honeymoon’ face, you have to come to terms with reality. Every challenge you come across is a great opportunity to reflect on your own self and the values you carry in life. When you really involve yourself within a culture that’s very different from your own, you might start to question yourself or you might feel misunderstood. For me, this led to questions such as: What am I doing here? What is it that I value most? How do I envision my future here? What is the connection with those around me? I felt a bit out of touch.

This made me put more thought and importance on relationships with others. I believe the essence of human nature lies within the ability to form connections with others. We all long for intimacy, connection and understanding. Reflections and experience over these years shaped the direction for my art making. I decided that I want to create works on a very personal level, deeply connected to how I make sense of the world and myself. It is a kind of quest of figuring things out, about my reflections and reactions. The performance work “Intimacy” was the first series I made in this direction. It was made at the time I felt the most lonely and vulnerable.

The contrast between the warmth of an embrace and the coldness of the material in your performance is striking. What does this juxtaposition signify for you?

I love to implement some kind of contradiction in my works. For this performance, I opted for a cold material that not only stands in contrast to the warmth of the embrace, it also puts a clear space between the bodies. This could embody the lack of a deeper emotional connection, or represent the desire for closeness that’s just a bit out of touch. As it is a very thin material, it makes us reflect on the question of how close we really are to one other, on a physical level, emotional level or even spiritual level? What is standing in between?

How does the use of a moldable medical material enhance the themes of loneliness and belonging in your work?

Even though the purpose was to record the physical embrace, I didn’t want to just use any moldable material. The choice of material is a very conscious one, related to another time of struggle in my life. When I was diagnosed with severe scoliosis, I was made to wear a “medical corset” during my teenage years. This should have been the treatment that could have prevented a very invasive surgery. It was to be worn day and night, with it only being allowed to take off 1 hour a day. I hated it. It was a cold, hard plastic that left no space for me to breath or move. After a year, it didn’t give the envisioned results, meaning that I still had to undergo the invasive surgery regardless. This was so devastating that it became some sort of symbol to me. A symbol of hardship, loneliness, of being de-attached from others, emotionally and physically. It left a very deep impression on me. So much that I decided to not implement it in my own art creation for a long time. Which gives this performance art a double meaning for myself, it was the first time that I re-embraced this material, literally and figuratively. To come to terms with this time of my life, accepting it as part of myself.

In “Intimacy,” you explore the concept of recording bodily traces. What role does the preservation of these traces play in conveying your artistic message?

I’ve always been inspired by the human body. I’ve made paintings recording different details of the body, different shapes and body movements starting from high school. Which is probably on some level also connected to having scoliosis, which made me more aware of my own body.

In the case of “intimacy”, it has a double meaning. On one side, I wanted to visually record the bodily traces to emphasize the individual experience of both participants.  The action of a hug might seem to have a singular meaning. Most people might interpret it as warm, comforting, a sign of closeness between two people. But we cannot know exactly what the other might be experiencing or thinking of. On the other hand, at the end of the performance we can only witness these bodily traces on the material. This object created through a hug is the materialized memory left of the action. It’s a testament of a fleeting notion in time, and thus reflects on the fact that we have to cherish those around us.

How do you see your cultural experiences in Belgium, China, and beyond shaping your approach to art and performance?

I’ve always been interested in conceptual art and performance art. I believe my education is what shaped my approach to art the most. In Belgium, we have learned about art history through the western framework. In China, I’ve researched performance art of Chinese artists during the 1990’s. Combined with my own personal experiences, I lean more towards a more “introverted”, calm way of handling performance art. It doesn’t always have to be very shocking to be powerful. I believe art is a way to show personal experiences and different worldviews, which other people might relate to.

The performance creates a moment that is both intimate and detached. What do you hope the audience feels when they view these photographs?

I hope the audience would be able to start to reflect on their own relationships with others. The photographs might lead the audience to think of people in their life that they got out of touch with, or with those that left. To appreciate time, memories and those around us.

Living abroad often involves dealing with a sense of isolation. How do you personally connect with this theme, and how does it appear in your other works?

During these seven years in China, I’ve tried to build meaningful relationships with those around me, but still couldn’t help feeling lonely. Even in the case of more intimate relationships, it still made me feel as if there was an unbridgeable “gap in between”. This made me think of the essence of relations between human beings on a bigger scale. Living abroad can easily enlarge complicated feelings of loneliness, belongingness and isolation. But it also often tricks us, in the sense that we might start believing we won’t experience these emotions back at home, which isn’t the case. These are emotions that surround all of us, no matter where we are.

Through my work, I’m reflecting on these feelings but also reacting to them. I believe people should keep striving to form and maintain meaningful relations with those around them. Especially at a time where on a macro level, the distance between people seems to be growing bigger. We should not forget the things that combine and connect us all. For my next performance works, I will be experimenting more with physical touch, with communication through different languages, and understanding between people.