BL8K Talks: In Conversation with Performance Artist Ciarra K. Walters

If you know me you know I have a nag for complicating things. I wouldn’t call it that precisely, I would say I have an insatiable need to understand everything. Sometimes the answers are just one Google search away and other times, like I’ve come to uncover, are just sort of non-existent.

I have so many how questions like how do you do this? How did the world get created? How are shoes made? How do you make, in my case, your dream of becoming an artist come true? 

Last week I got the honor to talk to Ciarra K. Walters and very soon that talk became a catalyst experience I couldn’t wait to share. 

So I finally got the opportunity to ask none other than a performance artist the big question, “how did you become an artist?” And, spoiler alert, her answer wasn’t that different from the ones I’ve gotten before. Rather it was Ciarra’s incontestable faith and excitement for her work that reiterated my love for art. 

No rodeos, let’s start off strong. Tell me how you became an artist, how you got into the industry and what you do. Who are you? 

I am from Maryland where I am currently pursuing a masters in fine arts at MICA. About my art, I didn’t really consider myself an artist until I moved to LA where I was taking photos and shortly after discovered that it wasn’t actually that hard to get into the creative spaces. So,I went from not knowing anyone to going to parties and events where I would always bring my camera. 

I then started working with Solange, interning at her company where I wrote for their website and went to events to take photos. It was so much fun! I think that is where it all really started. 

Right now I am an interdisciplinary artist working with different mediums like film and photography. Although, now, I consider myself a performance artist. It took me a while to embrace it, but I finally did! I also do portraiture which is also a form of performance art, I manipulate photographs trying to make it seem like something else. I did this a lot when I was in California where I would take photos and then figure out how to make them seem like it was somewhere else. I asked myself “how can I make this look like it is not California? I mean, I was broke back then and I couldn’t travel but maybe my photography could. 

In between laughs and talking about the struggles of making money and pressuring a restive career we got to talk about performance art. 

It really comes down to “how can I make my body look like something else?” How can I manipulate the form, how many shapes can I create? So, how can I manipulate my body to move in a way that is elegant and effortless therefore making all my performances spontaneous. 

(See! I am not the only person with the how questions) 

Performance comes at a time where I might be inspired by either nature or by sculpture, that’s when it comes to life. It’s just me experiencing how I move within my body. It is spontaneous and comes from my intuition. There is repetition in movements which to me is very interesting because it tells a story of how we interact with our surroundings within our bodies. 

How do we navigate in our bodies? 

Do you perform for an audience?

It’s just me. There can be people around but I am not like; “hey guys! I am about to perform!” The only times I’ve truly performed for people was at the beginning of my career where I would recite poems I wrote for my photography series named The Bedroom Series. 

I am starting to understand performance art as a live human expression, is that right?

Performance art is about being present. -In between laughs- I am definitely not a present person. I am always thinking about something else but when performing there is no escaping the present.

Is it just you, your body and your surroundings? 

As of the last couple of years I’ve been incorporating materials. I’ve worked with themes of fragility and exploring mortality where I used wire and wrapped it around my body to showcase the ever changing body of a woman. How age, insecurity all manipulate it and create these painful experiences. Right now I am working with eggshells. 

Eggshells? Please tell me more, I am very curious!

Eggshells come in all these different sizes and colors, something about that fascinated me. They are also fragile. As I started working with them I came to realize that this specific project was my way of processing and working through my grief. I lost my mom to cancer and I watched how her body started to disappear. Seeing the strongest women I know become so fragile made me understand how fragile our existence is.

Everything is so fragile it can change in any second. How do we embrace it? How do we move knowing that our time is ever changing, nothing remains? This is what my performance is about. 

You previously mentioned how performance art is all about being present and now  that you’ve shared your experience and how art has helped you understand and deal with your grief, in my opinion, goes to show just how indispensable it is to be present. How did you understand your work with fragility as something that is very close to your heart? 

I’ve talked to my professor about this and how my work is an umbrella but I struggled to understand what the handle of my umbrella was. What is supporting all of my work? So I’ve been trying to figure out where the fragility comes from, not what it is and that is my handle; the acknowledgement of my grief. 

I have to make a quick pause and just take a deep breath. Ciarra’s connection with her surroundings, her life and herself and how she channels it through art is just damn beautiful and a poem that writes itself. Anyone who is lucky enough to have art in their lives is a winner. 

Yes! I always try to teach my little sisters that, yes, the world is a horrible place sometimes and devastating things happen and grief is all around us but still we have to find that one thing that makes us happy and makes us feel alive. To think about the micro and not the macro, how do we change ourselves before changing the world. 

Art is human therefore it is beautiful, gruesome, condemning, dark, comforting and a beholder of human existence and yet it is a business. What has your experience been like getting into the art world? 

I thought the art world would be inviting as I see black artists in museums so therefore it should be a place where creativity and free expression rules above all. But, oh my god, was I wrong and it turns out it’s like any other industry. The whole thing is like let’s pretend we care about women and we believe Black Lives Matter but it is evident in museum collections that that is absolutely not true. At all. The numbers show that the playfield is not equal, far from it. Also, why should this happen and why should artists be categorized? I am not just the Black artist, we all have different things to say and worthy to be heard and viewed. 

x

Probably my favorite part of talking with Ciarra was her insight on the realities of the art industry. Art, for many centuries, was all we had as memorabilia of our history and our source of education available to just a few, hint it wasn’t to women or any other “minorities”. It was sort of a shock when Ciarra told me that the art world still works that way. 

If you think about it, museums are places designed for certain people to feel comfortable in them. Which is true. But like Ciarra so beautifully said, you don’t need a certain type of education to understand art. We are all humans therefore we all have the ability to feel art and be one with it. 

Ciara opened up and shared her feelings with the world and even though we might not be going through the exact same thing she is we can still understand it and somehow her umbrella handle is similar to yours. That is the beauty of art, it belongs to everyone. 

All photos and videos from Ciarra J. Walter