cecilia mandrile (argentina)

1. tell us about your everyday environment,
your hobbies and lifestyle

2. what do you see as the point of your works?

3. tell us your thoughts on the problems printmaking is facing today ? what might they be and where's the solution?

4. do you use computers in your work,
and if so, how do they help you and what do you think of them?

5. what do you think are the best and worst sides of print art?

6. what does printmaking give and mean to you?

7. where did you get the idea from to take part
in the tallinn print triennial?

8. your favourite artists?

i am an argentinean artist, currently working in england.
i studied and taught printmaking in argentina and in the usa.
i also produced my work and taught in cuba and middle east.
in times of constant travel, i am working on portable objects and installations, mostly from digital printing and photography.
i was formally trained as a printmaker, and i feel that my attitude while working, even in three dimensions, follows the concept of the image as a multiple, not as edition, but as permanent process, reconstruction and adaptation to context of a single image. i do use computers in my work, but i don't consider my work high technology oriented. after so much moving in my life, i "adopt" the computer simply as a portable studio.
the successive abandonment of printmaking facilities, trip after trip, made me re-think the new work environment and adaptation of my images through different media. at the same time, the use of photographic images began to be essential in my travels,
so i began to develop a digital image archive in my computer.
my laptop's hard disk, diskettes and zip drives began to function as my portable plates to be printed on the journey in combination with objects found. i have worked in different places,
sometimes in formal studios with exceptional printmaking facilities like the franz maseerel centre in belgium, or the centre for fine print research in bristol, england.
but, in other settings, i just work in any corner of a room
or on the seat of a bus or an aeroplane. i believe art happens everywhere, not just in the studio. i think that every new environment one experiences and people one meets, are extremely precious influences in the development of the conceptual and aesthetic process of the artwork. i think it was for the same reason, because of the importance of the "process", the ritual,
i chose printmaking as my main subject when studying.
the production of a print involves many steps, and sometimes even a community of people working for a single "estampa".
but beyond that, the individual process implies strategies in concepts and material, drawings, reverse thinking, mistakes,
and after the development of a plate, often, the print is not at all what was expected, yet it was a valid idea. i like to think of this description of the trip from the idea to the print, as a metaphor of a journey (and of my journey).
certainly, as a nomad printmaker, all these steps are materially different from artists working in well-established studios.
yet, i feel the ritual of the process remains.
i feel the concept of my work shares the problematics presented in the 12th tallinn print triennial, which is also why i wanted to take part in this event. i also participated in the last tallinn triennial, and i was impressed and happy to see in the catalogue, the adaptation of the "print language" in the context of infinite and diverse discourses. because the concept of the 12th tallinn print triennial is so challenging and questioning, and curators are so open in their criteria of what a "print" is, i think this is one the most important exhibitions for artists who deal with the recontextualisation of graphic language. fragile fragments is a portable installation project of foldable paper dolls. based on the scanning of parts of my own body and objects found while portraying different landscapes through my journey, i construct, document, and reconstruct these pieces that will be folded down and carried through other journeys, other landscapes. through a narrative photographic series, i intend to document my experience in these scenes as a witness and as a performer. these paper dolls are being installed in different spaces changing their position and attitudes, pretending to interact within the given space. through this process, i feel that an apparently lifeless print/object changes its attitude in order to adapt to the new environment. (hopefully one day i will be able to install and document some fragments in the landscape of tallinn.) in the making of these dolls, i try different combinations of my fragments as a curing process, in a metaphor for the constant search of the human being for the construction of his existence. as with previous work, this is my way to approach a visual language that can translate my perception of -and adaptation to- different realities as a migrating artist.