An Interview with Bianca Barandun
Bianca Barandun creates work that makes me ache for a time when we see art in person again. I’m desperate to stand in front of these pieces and fully appreciate just how complex her compositions and capacity for material manipulation are. For now I will have to be satisfied by repeatedly scrolling through her gorgeous documentation imagery all while counting down to a time when we don’t have to be so socially distanced from compelling contemporary art.
In Motion, 2018. Image: Courtesy Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop
When did you first start printing?
During my foundation year at Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (ZHdK) in Switzerland, I was given three little zinc plates. I remember the posture of me and my classmates, hovering over these three precious little plates whilst working with them. For each of the zinc plates we were supposed to use another technique, namely drypoint, etching and aquatint. This was the first encounter I had with printmaking in its most traditional way. It is also a memory I share with many, including my mother, who had a similar experience just a couple of years earlier, scratching into very small plates. I am still in possession of these prints and plates.
A few years later, whilst studying Illustration (BA) at Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften (HAW) in. Hamburg, Germany, I was completely immersed in drypoint, etching, screen-print as well as woodcutting. This time the dimensions and the purpose of the prints changed, I had a goal. Essential to that feeling was the fact, that the structure of the HAW operates via a booking system, meaning you book into courses and generate your own weekly rota rather than being allocated to a class. Hence, for new arrivals the Oil Based Print Room was essentially the best place to get to know and interact with other students. It was also a place that provided you with a space to work, which was rare to find. This experience was immensely valuable, because I formed long-lasting friendships, joined and assisted in bringing group exhibitions to life. Furthermore, I produced books and prints, which I was able to present to a broader audience at the Leipzig Book Fair, for example.
After my BA, I moved to London to study and received my MFA in Printmaking at the Royal College of Art in 2017. It was vital for me to study printmaking, not because I am necessarily a traditional printmaker. It is more due to the reason I gain huge inspiration from the various processes of printmaking and hoped to incorporate this style into my own work.
12.12.19 and 08.08.18, 2018-2019. Mixed media.
Where do you typically make your work? Home studio? Shared space?
I am sharing a studio with a good friend of mine in London, which is also the place where I usually create my work. Due to the current health crisis of COVID-19 and shifting personal circumstances, I am not able to commit to this studio as before, but I am looking forward to going back again. In the meantime, I have set up a studio at my brother’s place in Switzerland, which I also enjoy.
Today, next to my artistic practice, I work as a freelance educator, which I really enjoy. It also hugely contributes to my own development as an artist. At the moment I am also working as a part time Oil Based Print technician at Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (ZHdK), and before that at University for the Creative Arts (UCA) in Epsom, where I was also employed as a sessional teacher. Both institutions grant me access to print facilities, encourage and allow enough room to accomplish tests with materials and techniques to find out new ways of working, which inevitably fuels my own practice. These environments are hugely stimulating, and I enjoy being able to share ideas, test out processes and discuss work with my students, fellow technicians or teaching staff. Since I graduated from the Royal College of Art, and when I started working in my studio in Stratford, London, I have realized that I feel this great freedom and joy of working, experimenting and discovering again.
10.10.18 and 12.10.18, 2018. Mixed media.
How do you see your print background informing your more expanded practice?
Succumbing to the charm of print, there is a feeling to it that I value highly, and which deeply appeals to me. This includes the different processes, the smell of the print room, the presses, the optics and use of tools, the haptic of the fresh print, the slightly damp paper and the materials used to get there. The more force you can put into a plate the better. I enjoy the act of removing the paper from the plate after it went through the press, when it reveals how the ink sits on top of the paper and the possibilities to alternate this process in order to create embossing or debossing. This very moment where it bridges over to a rather sculptural work is the moment where it gets interesting for me.
As an example, a pivotal point in my practice was when I started experimenting by leaving an A2 size zinc plate with a hard ground etching laying in the acid for way too long. When removing it from the acid, the plate rather resembled a three-dimensional landscape, more an object in itself than a usual plate to print. Taking this as a starting point, I tried out a variety of materials to print with, excluding paper. I realized that I appreciate certain aspects of print and its processes, but I am not necessarily convinced by the typical end product and foremost its presentation when regarding prints in a rather traditional setting. By evolving, borrowing certain aspects, combining and alternating processes I started to realize that printmaking is offering me a huge source of inspiration to draw from. It also provides me with a tool to work in an almost sculptural way, which fascinates me. In my point of view, print has so much to offer, but it is a matter of how it gets displayed, of how these old techniques get put into a contemporary context and how they can function as a catalyst to a conceptual way of working.
I am drawn to using materials or particularly processes that I am unfamiliar with, because it means I am not able to control or regulate the process as much as I would like to, hence inevitable imperfections or errors occur. This directly stems from my affection for imperfect prints, as well as the shifting state of a very composed versus an uncontrolled working rhythm that printmaking inhabits. When there is a process in which I have to work quickly, for example when working with jesmonite, a plaster-like material whose drying process is rapid, it won’t allow me to intervene much. The reason I like to work with these imperfections is that my main goal is to create work which feels on the verge of finished and unfinished - controlled and uncontrolled - to create work which makes you feel something, where there is just something a little bit off or that has an underlying tension.
Gravity and XXXY, 2018. Image: Courtesy Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop
13.01.19, 2019. Mixed media.
11.01.19, 2019. Mixed media.
Who would you love to collaborate with?
I would like to find a space, where I could have the luxury of time and resources in order to create an installation, which transforms the whole room to create an immersive experience for the viewer. Another dream of mine is to do a residency, where I could spend time in a foundry to learn more about casting materials and how they interact with each other.
In light of my previous works, playing with materials and different surfaces, I extended these experiments in order to illustrate the glacier surface changes. I have an ongoing project called “Darkening Glaciers” with Dr. Martina Barandun. It is my first art and science collaboration, for which we successfully received funding from the BAK Kulturfonds, Stiftung Kulturfonds - Pro Arte/Gleyre, Switzerland.
I am equally excited about being a contributor to the September 2020 alternative program for the Adventure of science: Women and glaciers in Central Asia, now from home due to COVID-19. The program is addressed to young women from Central Asia. Via Zoom I will run a lecture and exercises and foster discussions about what art is and how the pairing of art and science can enhance both. The aim is to raise young women’s interest, curiosity and creativity in the fields of science, nature, art and wildlife.
The idea for Adventure of science: Women and glaciers in Central Asia began during glaciological fieldwork in Central Asia. Martina Barandun and Marlene Kronenberg were inspired by the energy of young women they met there and initiated this program.
Adventure of science: Women and glaciers in Central Asia proposes field trainings in cryospheric sciences, climate change and alpine ecology. It aims to provide young women at the beginning of their scientific studies with a boost of confidence, strong role models, and new knowledge of what a science career offers, which can have a great influence on their futures. Each course is open to young women with different cultural and social backgrounds from Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan). The program is tuition-free and all necessary equipment is provided. The courses are organized in a single-gender format, including the instructor team, providing an environment in which the young women are not exposed to any social concerns and pressure of mixed gender groups. A close link to local universities and research institutes based on well-established relations through CICADA project allows the trained women to build up their scientific network locally, which is key to ensure the sustainability of the program.
The "Adventure of science: Women and glaciers in Central Asia" project is mainly financed by the University of Fribourg under the CICADA project with a remarkable contribution by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC. The program is organized in close cooperation with the UNESCO Almaty office, Girls on Ice Switzerland and Inspiring Girls Expeditions. Adventure of science: Women and glaciers in Central Asia is currently seeking funding contributions from external collaborators to guarantee a continuation of the program after 2020.
21.12.19, 2019. Mixed media.
13.01.19, 2019. Mixed media.
What are you working on at the moment?
I have just completed a series with photographs extracted from work in progress images. Simultaneously, I have found a way to work with textile and canvas, which is very new and stimulating for me. I am very excited to change media.
Additionally, I continue working around the phenomenon of Hikikomori. After a conversation with a friend, I was immediately intrigued by this topic. Hikikomori are people who withdraw from society to seek isolation, but it is also the name of the phenomenon itself. Overstimulation, frustration and the pressure to communicate simultaneously on multiple levels, the fear of missing out as well as the pressure to perform and succeed professionally are among the key factors for the phenomenon of Hikikomori. Today there are an estimated million Japanese „modern-day hermits“. Although this phenomenon originated in Japan, it is branching out to European countries as well. Often Hikikomori choose their bedroom as their retreat, whereas these controlled spaces are being heavily equipped with digital devices to communicate with the world outside from their four walls, escaping into a virtual space. It is particularly this contrast of our interconnected world, the sharing, one could say oversharing, of personal data and the radical withdrawal from it, which I find fascinating. Especially during these times of social distancing, I wonder if we could learn something from this phenomenon.
Morphing Memories and the Possible Future – Part 1 at Hiltibold in St.Gallen, Switzerland, 2021.
Each feature post in the Womxn in Expanded Print series is accompanied by a donation to the social justice cause of each artist’s choosing in their name. Bianca’s chosen organization is UN Women.