The World Stirs My Imagination - My Creative Day with Katarina Rasic

I don’t have a routine or a studio, therefore explaining my creative day is a difficult task,  expressing what inspires me is what I will aim for. The street is my studio. Scavenging for long-forgotten treasures in the busy markets stir my imagination; letting the cold water of the ocean touch my feet while I compare the sound of snow with the sound of sand under my feet.  Saying goodbye with my art to one home, so another could welcome me.

When I decided to change my life and leave my permanent home, which was the moment when everyday devoured me; MONOTONY ruptures life, I decided to resist it and started the journey of a lifetime.

“MONOTONY ruptures life...”

Still from the performance The Inside Story (Processes. Emotions. Food), Encounters, ArtO2, Mumbai, India, November 2017

Interestingly, my journey began in India, Bangalore to be more precise. I felt great creative energy and decided that I want to move. The movement will be my permanency and my driving force in creative expression.

In extension to my creative practice and as my everyday creative process is teaching, from the start, I felt it as an extension of one another. The teaching imposes questions that I often take into my art practice, it pushes me to experiment in my own work and creativity of the kids always brings new ideas into the process. My days are different from one to another and each place brings a new excitement of the discovery.

“The movement will be my permanency and my driving force in creative expression.”

Mumbai took my heart the first time I landed in the city. I knew I never wanted to leave. Do we call it home though we weren’t born there? Every time I travelled out I was eager to come back, I missed the stuffy smell of the streets. Humid touch on my skin, noise and business, Mumbai was like a living creature with a heart pumping fast, never stopping, never getting tired. I never saw a city like that, energetic, always on the go, sweaty and busy, loud and grumpy, shiny and excited in the nights and lazy and quiet in the mornings. I always found endless inspiration on the streets of Mumbai. I collected water from the potholes of the city to create art, bathed in the sea to make a conversation with the city and collected the memories of the people living there, but it was time to leave.

“I knew I never wanted to leave. Do we call it home though we weren’t born there?”

I landed on the opposite side of the world in Rio de Janeiro, around a year ago from now. Rio shook the ground under my feet, uprooted me, and then stole my heart. It was a place that deeply changed me, I would say my entire art practice too. It made me question my work and look into my creative expression. I always say the point when creativity starts is when we are out of our comfort zone but are we ever really move out of it? How do you go out of the comfort zone, when you are the one deciding on the move? Well, I learned how in Rio. I learned how to dance on the waves of the ocean. inquired into my art, and started breaking it to build new ideas.

Moving from city to city brings a new set of questions, interests and gives us new pieces of the puzzle. Now when I am in Bangkok, again there is no routine, each day floats to another, some are there to inquire and discuss, others to create and reflect. Exploring and learning about new places and cultures impact my work greatly.

“Moving from city to city brings a new set of questions, interests and gives us new pieces of the puzzle.”

Last but not the least, I like to have a good set of markers and sketchbook with me at all times, this is very important when traveling around. But to a great extent, my work is impacted by the experiences and objects I find on the streets, which I use in performances or as a driving force to come up with ideas for my work, slowly going from more physical creation of the work to the exploration of the concepts and ideas to be transformed into performances.

 “The only constant is change.” said Heraclitus, which is a creative process in itself, I say.

About the Artist: Katarina Rasic is a Serbian artist living and working in Bangkok. She spent 5 years in India and a year in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. Rasic’s performances and paintings stem from her personal experiences and actions. Her performances draw us into the repetitive ritual-like practice, where her body becomes an introspective tool to unearth notions of home, belonging and identity deeply rooted in our collective memories.

This is the third episode of the mini-series "My Creative Day". You can check out the FIRST and SECOND one by clicking on the link.