back issue

A trained fashion designer and an instigator of the first Masters program to promote socially motivated design, British-born Lucy Orta has worked predominantly in the contemporary art sphere for the last two decades. Along with her solo practice, since 1991 she has engaged in collaborative artistic work with her Argentine-born husband, Jorge Orta. Together they employ a range of techniques from sculpture to light projection, as well as staging ephemeral interventions, performances and workshops focusing on socially engaged and engaging concepts. On the eve of participating in the Adelaide Festival's visual arts program, 'Adelaide International 2010: Apart, we are together', Lucy Orta spoke with Nikos Papastergiadis about creative chain reactions and changing the world one meal at a time.

Nikos Papastergiadis: You began your career in fashion; what made you cross over into the visual arts?

Lucy Orta: I studied fashion–textile design at Nottingham Trent University and I worked as a successful designer for various brands in Paris for around ten years, but this 'fast' industry career was separate yet parallel to my development as an artist, which took place gradually after meeting and working closely with Jorge ...

NP: What is the difference between the aesthetic possibilities?

LO: I don't think we should look at difference through aesthetics. We can talk about the differences of approach to the conception of an idea, whereby a fashion designer takes into account the emancipation of the body and the changing identity, the history of dress, the evolution of textiles and materials, the development of the cut, the method of construction, and so on. A fashion artefact will evolve out of this embedded knowledge and the wish to innovate. So we could say the artistic approach follows the same plane and evolves out of the desire to push the boundaries of previous artistic impulses ...

One example of our overtly political works is Fallujah, 2004–07, which took the form of a protest against the war in Iraq. It included a silent performance by fifty volunteers wearing striking combat suits at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. We stood standing for several hours throughout the museum galleries in collective meditation for the victims and offering a prayer for the future of the citizens. This travelled to the streets of Prague a couple of years later as a second attempt to bring about a public consciousness ...

NP: The symbol for the 2010 Adelaide Festival is the human heart. Can you elaborate on your use of this symbol and its connection with both the body and the community?

LO: Jorge began working with the symbol of the heart in 1996 for the simple reason that a dear friend of ours died a senseless death on a waiting list for a heart transplant. It made us aware of the fact that there are thousands of deaths each year due to the lack of organ donations. Within this sensitive subject area, art could generate workshops, actions and exhibitions that could, in turn, awaken a public consciousness. We embarked on fifteen years of research leading to the production of artefacts, installations and performances under the heading 'OPERA.tion Life Nexus', with the collaboration of over forty cities globally ...

This article appears in excerpted form. You can read the entire article in Art & Australia's Summer 2009 issue.