1 00:00:12,074 --> 00:00:15,764 ALFREDO JAAR: I strongly believe  in the power of a single idea. 2 00:00:17,800 --> 00:00:21,320 So the most difficult thing  for me is to arrive at the… 3 00:00:21,320 --> 00:00:23,161 at the essence of what you want to say. 4 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:25,120 And when you reach that… 5 00:00:25,120 --> 00:00:27,816 that essential idea, it’s… 6 00:00:28,341 --> 00:00:29,477 it’s extraordinary. 7 00:00:34,200 --> 00:00:37,165 I could say that everything I know about art 8 00:00:37,480 --> 00:00:40,501 I learn it when studying architecture. 9 00:00:42,120 --> 00:00:44,848 I approach art as an architect. 10 00:00:45,520 --> 00:00:50,920 And as an architect I give myself  a program so this program will… 11 00:00:50,920 --> 00:00:53,012 will take into account a space. 12 00:00:54,040 --> 00:00:57,000 Studying that space I...I… 13 00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:00,829 I try to reach what we call  the essence of the space. 14 00:01:01,480 --> 00:01:03,760 And then I combine that essence, 15 00:01:03,760 --> 00:01:08,358 that finding with the essence  of what I’m trying to say. 16 00:01:13,120 --> 00:01:16,600 Every single element has  been thought of in design. 17 00:01:16,600 --> 00:01:19,591 Nothing is arbitrary, absolutely nothing. 18 00:01:20,640 --> 00:01:24,320 The work has been fabricated by engineers or by… 19 00:01:24,320 --> 00:01:28,734 by people who have the right skills for  the right installations I’m working with. 20 00:01:30,360 --> 00:01:35,080 I’m at a point where the most  fascinating process for me is just 21 00:01:35,080 --> 00:01:37,810 to think, to think, to think and to think. 22 00:01:38,440 --> 00:01:44,059 And uhm, and then to let someone  else execute the project. 23 00:01:46,640 --> 00:01:50,560 I have been incapable in my career to ever, 24 00:01:50,560 --> 00:01:56,619 ever create a single work of art that  is just coming from my imagination. 25 00:01:59,200 --> 00:02:03,309 My imagination starts working based on research, 26 00:02:04,128 --> 00:02:11,040 based on a real life event, most of the time  a tragedy that I’m just starting to analyze, 27 00:02:11,040 --> 00:02:15,385 to reflect on it and to...to  accumulate information. 28 00:02:16,120 --> 00:02:18,160 But the original impulse is… 29 00:02:18,160 --> 00:02:22,174 is this real life event to  which I’m trying to respond to. 30 00:02:26,560 --> 00:02:28,151 So in the case of Rwanda, 31 00:02:29,122 --> 00:02:32,361 I started following the  tragedy from the beginning. 32 00:02:32,760 --> 00:02:37,360 I was outraged, how we were told,  this is happening, this is happening. 33 00:02:37,360 --> 00:02:40,839 Yesterday 35,000 bodies were recovered, 34 00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:45,440 they were floating on the  Kagera River, 35,000 bodies. 35 00:02:45,440 --> 00:02:49,473 And it was just a five-line story on page 7. 36 00:02:51,677 --> 00:02:55,480 So.... So I was following this story  and I reached a limit and I thought, 37 00:02:55,480 --> 00:02:57,800 well I have to go, I have to go. 38 00:02:57,800 --> 00:03:01,359 I have.... There is something  I would like to say about this. 39 00:03:01,800 --> 00:03:04,152 And then so I just went. 40 00:03:05,600 --> 00:03:08,265 And it was the most horrific  experience in my life. 41 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:11,680 I was getting into huge dilemmas, how… 42 00:03:11,680 --> 00:03:17,813 how do you present this, respecting the  dignity of the people you are focusing on? 43 00:03:19,240 --> 00:03:24,448 So that’s why THE RWANDA PROJECT lasted six  years and it’s my longest project to date. 44 00:03:25,120 --> 00:03:33,240 I end up doing 21 different pieces within  those six years and they all failed. 45 00:03:33,240 --> 00:03:34,576 That’s why I kept going, 46 00:03:35,080 --> 00:03:41,856 looking for the perfect way to communicate  to my audience that experience. 47 00:03:42,800 --> 00:03:44,228 And of course there is no way. 48 00:03:47,880 --> 00:03:54,021 There is this huge gap between reality  and its possible representations. 49 00:03:55,280 --> 00:03:58,000 And that gap is impossible to close. 50 00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:02,250 So as artists we have to try different  strategies of representation. 51 00:04:02,880 --> 00:04:05,000 And THE SILENCE OF NDUWAYEZU 52 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:13,584 is just one more attempt to represent  a very difficult and tragic situation. 53 00:04:15,116 --> 00:04:18,416 When we say a million dead, it’s meaningless. 54 00:04:19,360 --> 00:04:22,240 So the...the strategy was to… 55 00:04:22,240 --> 00:04:28,166 to reduce the scale to a single human  being with a name, with a story. 56 00:04:28,880 --> 00:04:34,597 And that helps the audience  to identify with that person. 57 00:04:35,080 --> 00:04:41,600 And this process of identification  is...is fundamental to create empathy, 58 00:04:41,600 --> 00:04:45,777 to create solidarity, to create  intellectual involvement. 59 00:04:47,855 --> 00:04:51,637 The text at the entrance tells you a story. 60 00:04:52,120 --> 00:04:57,920 I visited a refugee camp  and Nduwayezu was seated on… 61 00:04:57,920 --> 00:05:03,328 on the stairs of a door...a school that  they had recreated inside the refugee camp. 62 00:05:04,440 --> 00:05:12,691 Nduwayezu actually saw with his own eyes his  mother and his father killed with machetes. 63 00:05:14,160 --> 00:05:20,384 His reaction was to remain silent for  approximately four weeks, he couldn’t speak. 64 00:05:24,120 --> 00:05:30,198 For me, the heart of an exhibition  is really the spirit of the artist. 65 00:05:32,360 --> 00:05:35,134 The spirit of what he’s trying to communicate. 66 00:05:38,680 --> 00:05:43,440 I want people to...to walk in that  space and to feel that they have 67 00:05:43,440 --> 00:05:49,240 entered into a model of thinking  and of looking at the world. 68 00:05:55,160 --> 00:05:58,760 Coming back to...to Chile,  coming back as an artist is… 69 00:05:58,760 --> 00:06:01,023 is an incredibly moving experience. 70 00:06:10,418 --> 00:06:13,520 It was incredibly moving for me to  share my work for the first time 71 00:06:13,520 --> 00:06:15,381 with all of my friends and family. 72 00:06:16,200 --> 00:06:20,400 It was almost like starting from scratch, 73 00:06:20,400 --> 00:06:23,510 because they were experiencing  it for the first time. 74 00:06:27,120 --> 00:06:31,365 It’s a very, very emotional  situation, incredibly emotional. 75 00:06:33,800 --> 00:06:39,290 At...at the age of five, my father decides to  move to this French island called Martinique. 76 00:06:40,360 --> 00:06:42,699 And we lived there for ten marvelous years. 77 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:48,200 And then at the age of  fifteen, my father announces, 78 00:06:48,200 --> 00:06:49,520 okay, we’re going back. 79 00:06:50,800 --> 00:06:55,427 And we moved back to Chile which  was during Allende’s period. 80 00:06:56,560 --> 00:07:00,547 And so we arrived in a...in  a country incredibly divided. 81 00:07:10,240 --> 00:07:11,880 I’m so obsessed with… 82 00:07:11,880 --> 00:07:16,614 with communicating a very specific  amount of information to the audience. 83 00:07:19,720 --> 00:07:26,162 And uh, one very important  element is the economy of means. 84 00:07:35,480 --> 00:07:38,937 Muxima is divided in ten cantos. 85 00:07:45,800 --> 00:07:50,298 And each canto in itself  is...is structured as a haiku, 86 00:07:51,200 --> 00:07:53,229 which is a short Japanese poem. 87 00:07:54,320 --> 00:07:57,720 What, what fascinated me about haikus is the… 88 00:07:57,720 --> 00:08:05,495 the capacity for fifteen, seventeen  words to communicate an entire world. 89 00:08:07,720 --> 00:08:12,840 My way of thinking is pretty Cartesian  and it’s coming from my French education. 90 00:08:12,840 --> 00:08:14,635 I’m...I’m very logical. 91 00:08:15,160 --> 00:08:17,120 To make sense for me is… 92 00:08:17,120 --> 00:08:19,916 is a very essential aspect of the work. 93 00:09:04,440 --> 00:09:06,908 I was incredibly shy when I was a kid, 94 00:09:07,160 --> 00:09:09,680 so my father took me to a psychiatrist 95 00:09:09,680 --> 00:09:16,400 and the psychiatrist gave him two or three choices to help me to overcome this shyness. 96 00:09:17,680 --> 00:09:20,000 So he brought me home a little box of magic. 97 00:09:21,574 --> 00:09:25,000 And, and I got into this  world and I became a magician. 98 00:09:30,120 --> 00:09:34,144 And to be a magician helped  me to confront the audience. 99 00:09:34,480 --> 00:09:41,888 And to do something when they knew that I was  trying to hide something, but they don’t see it. 100 00:09:42,602 --> 00:09:44,115 What they see is the magic. 101 00:09:47,242 --> 00:09:51,629 Before moving into filmmaking I was  an actor and I did a lot of theater. 102 00:09:52,280 --> 00:09:54,069 I wrote plays and I directed plays. 103 00:09:55,160 --> 00:09:57,909 And so when you combine the world of magic, 104 00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:03,760 the world of theater and so  those two things plus my… 105 00:10:03,760 --> 00:10:07,560 my background as an architect,  everything is there. 106 00:10:07,560 --> 00:10:12,829 And, and that mise-en-scène that you  see is really a result of those things. 107 00:10:16,040 --> 00:10:19,201 I had forgotten about this stuff. (LAUGHS) 108 00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:29,821 I think it’s important to incorporate a  beauty in the work because it’s part of life. 109 00:10:31,080 --> 00:10:35,000 But that doesn’t mean we  should just stay with beauty. 110 00:10:35,280 --> 00:10:40,852 And we should not be afraid sometimes  to confront beauty and horror 111 00:10:41,440 --> 00:10:46,134 and LET ONE HUNDRED FLOWERS BLOOM  probably does that in a very direct way. 112 00:10:47,120 --> 00:10:51,320 And it’s based on a Chinese poem that Mao used to… 113 00:10:51,320 --> 00:10:53,920 to throw a campaign asking intellectuals to 114 00:10:53,920 --> 00:10:57,439 participate in the life of  the revolution in the ‘50s. 115 00:10:57,880 --> 00:11:02,572 “Let one hundred flowers bloom, let one  hundred schools of thought contend.” 116 00:11:04,440 --> 00:11:09,520 After one year, because intellectuals  were suspicious of Mao’s intentions, 117 00:11:09,520 --> 00:11:12,945 they finally gave in and  they started speaking out. 118 00:11:13,680 --> 00:11:15,944 And of course they gave great new ideas, 119 00:11:16,280 --> 00:11:19,393 but they were contrary to  the ideals of the revolution. 120 00:11:19,960 --> 00:11:22,407 And then their voices were suppressed. 121 00:11:25,177 --> 00:11:31,341 So here this piece is standing as a metaphor for  the struggle of intellectuals all over the world. 122 00:11:32,286 --> 00:11:37,840 Here we have a hundred flowers being  submitted to contradictory forces. 123 00:11:37,840 --> 00:11:40,749 On one hand they are being  fed with water and light 124 00:11:41,400 --> 00:11:48,720 and on the other hand they are being killed  by strong industrials winds and strong cold. 125 00:11:48,720 --> 00:11:51,400 These flowers will be dying continuously. 126 00:11:51,400 --> 00:11:52,957 We will keep replacing them. 127 00:11:54,720 --> 00:11:58,880 And what connects this particular work  that was shown in Rome for the first time 128 00:11:58,880 --> 00:12:05,580 with the Santiago situation is that instead of a  video that we had in Rome with Gramsci’s grave, 129 00:12:06,440 --> 00:12:09,717 here we are opening a window into the Alameda. 130 00:12:10,640 --> 00:12:14,080 We are less than a hundred  meters away from the La Moneda, 131 00:12:14,080 --> 00:12:18,560 from the presidential palace where our  socialist president, Salvador Allende, 132 00:12:18,560 --> 00:12:22,468 was killed during the military  coup by General Pinochet. 133 00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:29,160 This piece is really making a link with  the immediate history of our country. 134 00:12:33,880 --> 00:12:40,560 By opening a little window into this gallery  that happened to be on the Alameda uh, 135 00:12:40,560 --> 00:12:42,880 a world of connection is created. 136 00:12:42,880 --> 00:12:47,080 And...and that I think is extraordinary,  the power of art to do those things, 137 00:12:47,080 --> 00:12:51,656 to create connections, to make  bridges and that fascinates me.