“Time is basically the central theme in my work. How do I manage to extend the time during my performances, maybe even stop it?”
Name
FINJA SANDER
Profession
Artist
Website
finjasander.de
Where are you from?
I was born in a pretty small town in Lower Saxony, Germany. For 8 years now, I am living and working in Berlin, Germany.
Your style in 3 words?
determined, rigorous, resilient
Your weakness? Your strength?
I work like crazy and think about my projects 24/7. Strength and weakness at the same time.
What makes you different?
The calmness, I radiate during my performances. The concentrated space I create with my work.
When did you decide to become an artist?
I’ve always wanted to create my own spaces. Even as a child, I renovated and rearranged my tiny room almost every month. So very early, it was clear, that I had to express myself creatively. For me, it’s about being able to constantly develop and create new values without paying attention to any rules or borders.
Do you choose your art form, or does the form choose you?
At the moment it’s me who decides the form and tries to control many things. But the more works I realize, the more independent they become in their form, effect, and dimension. Over time, I have to adapt and submit myself to them. I see myself as a worker for my own ideas, who in the end only executes and implements.
What do you find most fascinating about the creative process?
The moment when my own imagination materializes itself and is translated into reality.
A few words about your favorite creation?
My current performative series „Für Morgen” keeps me busy and poses a great challenge for me. Therefore, this work is currently receiving my greatest attention and dedication. I will show it within the next twelve months, at twelve different locations. Another work that had a huge impact on my self-understanding as an artist, was my graduation performance at the University of the Arts, Berlin, last summer. It was a puristic and very focused gesture of saying goodbye. Accompanied by hundreds of flies, I was standing there, in an isolated room for hours on meter-high stilts, just looking the recipients straight in the eyes. For me, this performance marks the all-important restart as an autonomous artist and the end of being tied to an institution.
What surprised you most about your first art shows?
I found it exciting to see how the individual works suddenly grow together into a whole. When they no longer exist on their own, but can be transferred together into other content-related contexts.
Someone else’s work that inspired or inspires you…
Sigalit Landau
Who would you like to work with someday and why?
I would very much like to work with the German artist and photographer Andreas Mühe. In a certain way, the compositions and perspectives of his work are similar to the formal approaches of my performances. The pathos in his photographs can also be found again and again in my depictions.
A new project coming up or an idea you want to work on?
The already mentioned performative series „Für Morgen” is a central part of my further study of our memorial culture and how we deal with depictions of heroes in Germany. In the summer I will live and work for one month in Schwäbisch Gmünd, in Baden-Württemberg where the local Kunstverein invited me to do research with children from the youth art school, on how commemorative culture and monuments can be represented and revived through performative gestures.
Finish the sentence „More important than my career is…“
…getting things done without looking left or right.
2023: Where are we going?
Hopefully in a different direction.
Do you think about time as an artist?
Absolutely. Time is basically the central theme in my work. How do I manage to extend the time during my performances, maybe even stop it? What does time do with things that are important to us, and that accompanies us throughout our lives? In addition, it is always about creating something that should outlast us.
When the going gets tough…
I need a Coke and good food, to get up on my feet again.
Put on your future vision glasses: What direction is our generation moving in, and what will our world look like in 50 years?
We may have managed to avoid the consequences of our actions one last time. Alternatively: we will finally reach the tipping point. That would be the more exciting option for someone like me, who draws her strength from extremes.
What would you do if you could change the World?
In the sense of Jonathan Meese: The Establishment of a Dictatorship of art
What does freedom mean when it comes to art?
When we no longer have to talk about freedom in art.
If the universe is everything and it’s expanding, what is it expanding into?
I should have asked Stephen Hawking
Tell us about your future plans…
I think my research on a German culture of remembrance and the question of how we can examine our collective memory and thus create a new cohesion will keep me busy for a long time to come.
Your city’s favorite spots?
I recently discovered the restaurant Bob & Thoms in Schöneberg. Absolute recommendation!
A book that everyone should read…
„The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner“ by Alan Sillitoe
Last but not least: what is your favorite Song?
One last statement please: „Wood or stone, gold or art?“
The Golden Time is over
Your #…?
#finjasander
