Sash B

Sash B is a recent graduate of the Fine Art MA at Central Saint Martins, his choreographed performances seek to redefine space; he draws new boundaries that defy limitations as lines reach over, above, across and eventually beyond. jotta talk to him about marking his territory, dis-lexic dance practices and intellectual masturbation. Can you tell us something about yourself? I find it very difficult to hit repeatedly on my head with my right hand, and simultaneously make circles on my belly with my left hand.

What mediums do you choose to work in and why? I try to 'keep missing a step' between Disciplines and media. Which is implied by my exploring a 'dislexic In between', isn't it?
I listen to Dance. I Install words. I sew painting. I Draw dis-placement, dis-function, dis-tortion.

How important is the ephemeral aspect of your work? I like my practice to be time consuming and resulting in ephemeral works. Because I like the Wisdom of the Absurd.

Like the needle of my sewing machine biting into the flesh of the paper, whilst biding together fragments of paper... I like this transient and fragile quality of my work, because it materialises the flowing and elusive quality of the artistic Quest (made 'flesh' in Dance). I like to dwell on the ephemeral. Guess I like stretching Time in Space.

Can you tell us about the relationship your art practice has to a dance practice? My work is inspired by my 'DIS-lexic' way of processing the world. Which I approach through the hyperlaxity of my body, and my moving between practices and media. I am a Fine artist who searches through a dance-based practice based on improvisation, fusing choreographic process & performance in the flow of a same Space & Time, thus giving flesh to my quest for the 'equation of an overlapping of categories and a slippage of levels', by being in the process, thinking through it and showing it as a result. And... putting a stop to intellectual masturbation. Sometimes.

I investigate a 'Double Axis of Dis-location', through the dislexic In-Between of 'Trans-lation', between and within Stretching, Geometry, Space, Time and Language. My interest lies in the tridimensional tension between a very physical approach of a 'Concept', its translation into abstract/linguistic/mathematical terms and domestic items/material/situations. To make abstraction figurative. Whilst keeping its methaphoric quality, whilst keeping it 'grounded 'into a physical practice that is about being 'centered'.

In the ‘Hunting for the Inbetween’ series your photographs feature a physical trace, an outline… Your work seems to deal heavily with boundaries and borders...Liked your association of ideas here: from the 'In-between-dance-and-Fine-art' to 'please talk about borders'. Yes I was trying to cut or sticky tape ‘through/across/over' the claustrophobic and authoritarian limitations that established 'categories' are, to suggest the 'beyond'. Was trying to create a new logic of classification. Like in 'My-friend's-hairdo-that-was-so-much-part-of-my-landscape'.

What or who inspires you?
Deleuze and his Rhizome, the pink contortionist at 'Britain's got talent', Yvonna Rainer, Francys Allys, changing gears in my car on my Island.

I am interested in the paradox within the notion of 'process', which is about the 'Now and Here' experience. But it also implies a 'forward', a direction, a 'becoming', a 'work in progress'. For me those sum up the 'elusive but pregnant' qualities embedded in the always 'middle of the Now' that the 'In-between' is, embodied in the flow of a 'constantly renewed Now' in Dance.

What are you currently working on? Currently working beautifully in my studio. And on a project, Yes, which is my In-between with your next question. Do you have any up-coming exhibitions? Watch out for 'Time Out' in October, for 'The Artist & the Institution, the Body & Fine Art: a DIS-lexic In-Between'. It may happen.
But let's not sell the skin of the bear before killing the bear, we say in French...

To see more of Sash's work click here

By Stephanie Grace