AIC 53rd Annual Meeting

We highlight the need to create bridges and trust when discussing interviews and long-term relationships with artists. Trust is the base of most of the deep relations we make in our lives and in a professional capacity. Interviews, when conducted from a trusted perspective, are “a place of shared vulnerability” (Daniela Rivera, 2024). Still, this vulnerability becomes complicated or different when we add language to the equation of trust and vulnerability. 

When conducting the research and the pre-interview contact with the Cuban artist Gladys Triana for the CALL/VoCA series back in 2019, I noticed how different it was to talk and interact with Gladys when we were speaking Spanish versus when speaking English. Spanish was our commonplace language, but we also agreed it was the language of love and rage. Emotions were better expressed in our mother tongue. Even though we speak different Spanish versions, the connection was more natural, and her memories came from a feelings perspective.

Curator Leah Triplett Harrington interviewed artist Daniela Rivera for the VoCA Talk series during the pandemic. Her experience with all the uncertainties and the imposed distance made her reflect on many aspects of the interview from the artist's point of view. While presenting this experience in one of the Spanish VoCA workshops, the issue related to the language arose, and it captured the interest of both the artist and the conservator to dive into the experiences and conduct a new interview in Spanish.

In this presentation, Chilean artist Daniela Rivera and Spanish conservator Ruth del Fresno-Guillem want to expose the shared vulnerabilities that have been lost in translation. We want to expose the experience, the results and the research conducted from the perspective of a language of love and a language of work. The difference between using language to communicate concepts and the use of language to communicate emotions and how to reach the desired outcome of integrating them. Ultimately, the interview as an act of love and kindness in a double direction. Language as a possible enhanced channel of connections or a political contradiction. As a Spanish-born professional, working with Latin American artists can be a position of connection by language and some cultural aspects. Still, it can also be a separation by historical colonialism and misunderstandings. We want to explore the language and cultural limitations and possibilities and question our biases and strengths. 

This presentation wants to be a reflection/experience-based to enhance the reflection about how we conduct and receive an interview.