SMITA SEN

Smita Sen is a visual artist working with sculpture, dance-based performance, and advanced technology to research how the body is shaped by its environment. Sen’s work has been shown at venues like Bard College, Flux Factory, Anthology Film Archives, the Knockdown Center, and ISSUE Project Room. Sen was a fellow at the Mildred’s Lane residency (2018) and received the Instigator Fellowship from NYU ITP Camp (2018). An educator, Sen was a Visiting Artist at the Bard College Disturbance Lab and has given talks and workshops at Columbia University, Bard College, NYU ITP Camp, and LRLX NY. In 2021, she will serve as an artist-in-residence at Recess (New York, NY). Sen graduated Magna Cum Laude from Columbia University with a BA in the Visual Arts (2016). She is currently teaching and designing the Emerging Media program at Choate Rosemary Hall.

Smita Sen is an artist working with sculpture, technology, and performance to study the relationship between the body and memory. Sen investigates haptic memory, the memory specific to ‘touch’ stimuli, and considers how the body internalizes its environment and significant life events. With this approach, Sen studies how the human body can become a living document, storing tension, movement patterns, and emotion over the course of a lifetime. Her artwork and research is ultimately an attempt to understand the resilience and malleability of the body, and to find ways to continuously support its inner healing mechanisms.

Hi Smita! Thanks for joining me for Mint Tea. To begin, what’s your favorite tea?

What is my favorite tea? Well, it's probably a jasmine tea.

Could you tell me about your background and your practice?

I am a sculptor and a performance artist. The anchor of all of my work is kind of the studies of the body and memory, and how the body internalizes its surroundings, and significant life events. My work has always been a way of documenting the body's transformations and how it stores specific memories. And then expanding from that, I've also dealt with the body and its mortality, and the ephemerality of the body. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about caregivers, and how caregivers store a lot of somebody else's illness within them, in order to care for them and tend to them. Memorializing the body in a different way, right? So I've been creating a lot of sculptures, working digitally to create these very soft and fragile sculptures. My work has been expanding from there, but everything always comes back to the body and memory.

What projects are you working on right now?

Right now, I've been working on a couple different things. Lately, I've been working on a couple of different performance pieces, all kind of examining grief, and caregiving, and how we store grief in the body, and then also how we recover and how we heal grief in the body. I've been doing some performance pieces on that on those topics. Then I've also been developing a larger scale set of installations and altars where it's not just about honoring the body and honoring caregivers, but also about creating environments that serve as caretakers themselves. A space that cares for you, that allows you to release certain memories from your joints and from your musculature, like allows you to let those pieces go, to heal, to create an environment for meditative healing.

I am the most familiar with your digital works and your performance pieces that incorporate dance. Can you talk about how and why you choose to work with the media that you do? How does working in multiple media affect your practice?

So I work with digitally modeled sculptures, and then I do these performances. From a performance side of things, where I have a background in dance, I do a lot of movement-driven performance pieces. I came to digital sculpture not just because I thought it was technologically interesting, but also because when I got really injured and it was very difficult for me to do these large scale movement performance pieces, creating like physically soft sculptures with the computer became a way for me to still maintain a range of motion without having to compromise my body. Right. So 3D printed and modeled sculptures ended up being quite healing for me in another way. Those are my two really the two foundational pieces of my practice, digital sculpture and movement-based performance. I've been moving more into installation driven works lately, thinking about how an environment can heal the body. But that's still nascent.

What inspires your performance? Can you talk about any movements that you like to explore?

You know, it really depends, like for the body drawings, those were all very, very organic, like the score for those performances required that I would check in with my body ahead of time and see what it was capable of moving and doing, and then I’d develop a gesture, and then I'd repeat that gesture, across all of the material, which was flour. I had flour all across the floor, and I'd move through it, in order to examine that gesture in my body. For example, I was feeling really tired one day when I was in the studio, so all I wanted to do was pile all the flour into a corner and just lay on it. So for that day, the gesture was just was bed, like I just made a bed and just lay down in the bed, and so that was the drawing that was developed. For other pieces, for example, one of my more recent pieces, “Offerings of Sleepless Care,” that's a choreographed work. It's more of a dance on film than it is a performance piece. Two different things, but I try to work with as many different approaches as I can.

Can you tell me about your creative process for your performance works? Do you start with an idea, composition, study, or emotions?

Well for example, with the second part of the body drawings, which was “Grace and Restraint,” I had sindoor, which is this really potent red color. So I restricted my interaction, my movement, to something really soft and reserved, and it became a bow. In India, bowing is a big deal – everybody bows, at some point or another, to someone they really respect. I had the bowing, being a part of this gesture of me bowing to this material, and this notion of like Indian womanhood and what it's done to my sense of my relationship to my own body. I'm bowing into this material and then lifting up into, like, a yoga boat pose, so it's kind of a very physically demanding bow, I'm contorting my body and then getting into the gesture and then coming back down. And then I press my forehead to the floor, and like anyone who's done a really good sincere bow my face is on the floor. The mark that it left was like these scratches into the material. You know, notions of Indian womanhood, for me can be really restrictive and really complicated, and sindoor as a material is also pretty complicated too, because it's typically made from lead. You start putting that on your forehead from the day you become married, and so as you apply it, women slowly grow crazy because they're developing lead poisoning from wearing this sheath around their forehead, which is really, really interesting. I thought that was a cool moment of a gesture working metaphorically really well with the material.

“Offerings of Sleepless Care,” which is more of a choreographed piece, it was all about this waving, about just this gesture of holding and carrying, almost like, I'm just this massive ocean or body of water that's carrying someone else. Being a full-time caregiver for like palliative care is really quite complicated. It's not something that ever leaves you really. And it's there's a lot of parts of it that I'm really grateful for, like I think it was a huge treasure to have been able to care for my dad at the end of his life, but I'm not going to deny that it took a toll on all of us – on my brother, myself, and my mom, it was hard. So the kind of herculean reserves of strength and tenderness that it requires, just reminded me of an ocean. So “Offerings of Sleepless Care” is really driven by these fluid, oceanic waving movements, but also, there's really tiny gestures in there too, like, really tiny little movements that I do with my hands and with my shoulders. So it's all in there.

What do you think about when you are performing?

I think about everything. No, I don't know, I go into the zone. You know, there's this thing of, performers don't practice until they get it right, they practice until they can't get it wrong. And I think that stays with you – anyone who's had any kind of classical training, that stays with you for a really long time. I think it's a great thing, you end up in this state of flow, where you're just very in touch with the material, and you're very in touch with your body, you're very in touch with the music and you're very in touch with the gestures, and you just flesh it out as fully and completely as you can. For me, at least, I try to hone in on one word or one feeling, and I'll meditate before I perform, before I dance. Even when I'm in the final leg of rehearsals, I'll spend a lot of time just meditating on a single feeling or image, and then once I have that image in mind, I'll just focus on it for the entirety of the performance. Yeah, once you know exactly what you're doing to a certain point, then you can lose yourself in a single image or feeling and that just drives the intensity of what you're trying to convey home for whoever's watching it.

Tell me about your process of digitally modeling your sculptures. How does the shape come to you? Do you sketch them out or does it happen organically?

It really depends. Like right now, I'm working on a piece that's about my relationship to my voice and my vocal cords. I've been pulling a lot of different diagrams and pictures of vocal cords and the voice box, and then I've been looking at different visual interpretations. I've been looking at seashells that resemble the voice box. I'm looking at like old biological drawings, like scientific drawings of different sea creatures, Ernst Haeckel’s drawings of sea creatures that I think are similar. I try to pull those things together, and once I have those different images, I'll try to sketch something out if I can, or I'll just go into the software immediately and start to see what looks good or what looks interesting. And not everything does, so I'll start in one place, and then say no, let's adjust this, or let's change this. This voicebox piece, I'm wondering if I want to make it wearable, like would it be something that like hangs around my neck? And if it does that I need to consider measurements of my neck and all this other stuff, and how would it hang and all these other things, which are more like design questions.

When you were working on your “Manipura” series, you were also inspired by the caregivers’ essays, right?

Yeah, so those are different, where I spent a lot of time with the writings. A good example would be the piece I did for Sarah, where she was taking care of her mom at the end of her mother's life. I spent a lot of time with that written piece, thinking about the image of Madonna and Child, right, and the classic image of a mother like holding a baby. I tried to interpret that into like a soft seashell, as well as a flower petal. I came up with different medicinal herbs for the caregivers in that series, but specifically for Sarah I kind of pulled away from the other details, whereas other sculptures in that series, I had a lot more visual detail, directly related to the medicinal herbs that I picked. But for Sarah's, I just let it be as simple and elegant as possible, as quiet as possible. In some ways, like this is like the hood of the veil of the mother, and then the shoulders and then like, the baby goes here. But then it's also so soft and so delicate, and this one's actually cast in ceramic which is crazy.

What is beautiful to you?

The ocean. The ocean always. The ocean is always beautiful to me.

But what do you think about the concept of beauty in general?

Well, when it comes to beauty in general, there's that idea right that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I feel like there's something almost universal about what touches our hearts. What makes us feel loved and what makes us feel in awe of the world, things that are awe-inspiring, things that kind of remind us that we belong to something larger than ourselves. That's beautiful to me. And just anything that either deepens our experience of the day to day, or deepens our experience in our body, or just completely expands our experience of our body and our sense of self.

What is your favorite color?

Would I say blue? Everything is blue, I love blue. But this exercise I found from forever ago, like I wrote it in kindergarten. I wrote down that my favorite color is yellow, so I've been having this whole love affair with yellow for a little while.

Is there a new medium that you would like to try or to work in more?

That’s a good question. I'm focusing a lot on installations right now. But I also have been thinking about like, ways to do it, because installation is so expansive, right? It's so all-including that I feel like there's so many pieces that I can incorporate. For example, for the “Manipura” installation coming this summer, I'm thinking about whether I want to paint certain parts of it. So then would I be spending more time with painting and drawing in a way that I haven't recently?

Where are you located now? Do you think that New York or Miami influences your practice? Do you think your artwork changes when it is created in two different cities?

So I am between Miami and Connecticut. Miami is where I grew up. Despite what everybody knows about Miami, it is a very low-key tropical place. It does have some hardcore, wild, unexpected turns and twists, but it's all right. I do love Miami and I love being home. I work in Wallingford, Connecticut, and I also love my job, and I love what I do, and I love the community that I'm a part of up there.

I also know that you were in New York for a while for school, and that’s how we know each other. How is your art different when you make it in New York? How does the city influence your artwork?

New York is interesting because my work usually becomes smaller and more contained, and that's part of like the intensity of New York. I think I'm always trying to protect my work from the rest of the city, so there's always this like quiet affectionate hold that I have on the materials. Whereas in Miami, I feel like I still have that, but I'm a lot more willing to just like place my objects in the environment and have a dialogue with the environment and with the surroundings. I feel like I'm more willing to engage the people of New York and I love the people of New York, but I think the kind of industrial intensity of the cityscape is something that I don't know always how to like bring into the fold. So I love to engage the people, and I like to get the people to experience softness in New York, but it's almost like a protective gesture because I know the city can be very intense in another way. Which is funny because I love being in the city, I love New York so much, but I think it's different. When it comes to my art making, it's a very different space. Yeah.

What is the space where do you your work?

So this is kind of my little miniature studio inside my family home, my mom's house. The backyard is really where I spend a lot of time in nature just trying to make work, or I'll go to the ocean and I'll make work inside the ocean, just trying to engage as directly with the space as possible. A lot of backyard time. We have some mango trees. I hang out with those mango trees a lot. Mango season is a really big deal down here.

How do you stay connected to your community? Can you talk about your experience as an educator and how that influences your practice?

It’s interesting, I think being an educator is what allows me to kind of stay connected to everyone. The community that I feel most connected to as an artist is the dance community. The dance community is amazing. I don't know what's happened, or how, it was just this group of people that I've encountered, but they're just also lovely and also open and understanding. I used to volunteer at Alvin Ailey and so I got to know all the dancers who are at the Ailey school. There's really just a lot of people who are very mindful of their own bodies and how their bodies are moving through space, and thinking long term about protecting their bodies and expressing themselves artistically through this very ephemeral and very strong, but very delicate instrument.

And then spiritual community has been here and there, I feel like I'm still kind of finding my way through different spiritual communities because I feel like I never really know where to find my footing. Like the New Age community is different, it's very confusing. The Hindu community is different. And the Buddhist community is also quite different. I feel like most connected to the Buddhist community lately, but then the Hindu rituals are something that I love, and Hindu celebrations and Hindu festivities I love. I've kind of been in those two spaces a lot, Buddhist and Hindu communities.

I don't know what other communities, but there's the film community, I'm really in touch with. I love filmmakers, I love musicians, so those are always really great people to spend time with. Yeah, I think being an educator just gives me a chance to hold space for other people, and get to know a lot of young people who are excited to express themselves, and who are trying to make sense of who they are and why they see things the way they do. So it's just a pleasure. I love being a teacher and I love getting to know everybody.

What’s your favorite tool?

I've been really into clay lately. I've been really, really into clay, and I've been really digging it. So I will let you know how that goes. I don't know what will emerge from it. But I've been really into clay lately.

Do you have any ritual that helps you get into the zone?

Meditation is kind of the big one. I like to spend a lot of time in nature, that's really important for me. I'll spend a lot of time by the water, by the ocean. When I was in New York, I would walk along the Hudson River, like all the time. I just walk along the water and spend a lot of time that way.

When do you know when you are finished with your artwork or a body of work?

When I can look at it and feel at peace with it. That takes a long time, though. And I have to really look at it for a long time, then I have to put it away, and pull it back up ,and look at it again. And then I will know that it's finished. It's also interesting, because like, I always try to like marry this halfway point. I feel like sometimes in the visual arts, because visual arts is very different from classical dance or classical music, where the metrics for a good performance are clear, whereas visual arts, it's so much so much murkier, right? What makes for like a really great, everlasting, emotionally compelling, creative and interesting work of art? So I feel always try to feel like, if it's worth looking at twice, I've done my job. There's so much stuff that people will look at once and it's over. But if I make something that's worth looking at twice, I'm onto something.

Who are your favorite practicing artists?

Janine Antoni is a big one. I love Janine Antoni, I think she's a brilliant artist. The work that she's done with performance is just awe inspiring, right? I love the work that she's done thinking about the body. She also comes from a background in dance, so I feel like we mirror each other in some ways, but we have different philosophical foundations. So that's interesting. And then I also love Maya Lin. Maya Lin is a wonderful artist. And speaking of different philosophical foundations, where Janine Antoni, I think comes from a more Abrahamic, linear tradition of time, whereas Maya Lin is dealing with the circularity of time, in a way that I connect to. Asian artists and circular time, that's something that's important to me. Oh, of course, James Turrell. Also someone who is very familiar with the desert, and I find that people who've lived in the desert also have a very circular sense of time. He has something similar that I like to spend a lot of time with.

What gives you the feeling of butterflies in your stomach?

Basketball. Real answer, it's basketball. Like a game of pickup in the East Village, oh my god. This is like the one and only sport in Miami that this whole city can get behind, because of the Miami Heat. And last year we did so well. So proud of my team. But yeah, I love, like, I love basketball. I keep a basketball in my car, it's in the passenger seat all the time in case I'm in a park and I want to play pickup.

www.smitaksen.com | @smitatims