EVA LIS

TMTX: It is great to have you as artist in residence in Summer 2024, in the Thamesmead Texas project space based at Cygnet Square. We’ve been following you and your work for a few years now. Since our initial introduction to your practice in 2022, it seems we have been destined to work together. We first saw your work as part of a group exhibition at Erith Exchange alongside a screening of Roz Mortimer’s ‘A Deathless Woman’(2021), that you translated from Polish into English. 

EVA: (I only translated some interviews; subtitles were written by someone else.) 

Roz explored the Romany genocide in WW2, in a beautifully poetic hybrid documentary film. Prior to us meeting it occurred that we showcased this film in Thamesmead, as part of the Estuary Festival in 2021, at the Thamesmead Travelling Cinema.

The film had a special screening in Erith, due to larger concentration and history of Travellers based in the wider area. The accompanying exhibition actively acknowledges this, with a showcase of locally based Gypsy makers and artists. You showed alongside Daniel Turner, formerly ‘The Gypsy Sculptor’, an artist who has exhibited with us on several occasions. 

As an artist, you talk about being influenced by nomadic cultures. As our project space is also nomadic, we thought our invitation would be suitably fitting. Do you see your artist practice belonging to the narrative of Romany Gyspy culture?

EVA: Thank you for having me as an artist in residence. 

It is not that I identify myself specifically with a Romany culture, but I am looking for a cultural expressions that are communal, shaped by the environment.

I am interested in animism as antidote to materialism. 

The world that is being fossilised into systems, predictable, stable, and sedentary feels like a cage. I am seeing a different way of relating with the world and nomadic traditions seem very much to resonate with me. 

TMTX: You recently completed a research project looking at Fungi supported with a Making Space for Nature grant, a local initiative that supports projects that incorporate the local environment; we initially thought this fungi project might translate well in our space and give you the opportunity to expand and take it further, however this changed quite soon into the residency, can you talk about that change and you have approached this residency?

EVA: Fungi are fascinating! There is a spotlight on mushrooms at this moment and I took opportunity to participate in it. I created a workshop aiming to show not only what they can do for us but ignite a fascination with nature. 

I grew mushrooms in petri dishes (from spores) and saw them grow. I spent 3 months, day and night with them, spraying water on them every couple of hours like a good caregiver. But in the end, I felt sad. I felt they don’t like to live in captivity, just the same as any other creature. They live in symbiosis with trees and are part of something much bigger and having a bigger purpose than our risotto. 

I had to ask myself if I want to make work ABOUT eco art and nomadic traditions or I want to practice it. 

I want to practice it. 

Although technically it would be possible to create environment for the mushrooms to grow there, it seemed a bit pointless and in conflict with my practice that is about RELATIONSHIPS with space and found materials and not manipulating objects and space . The gallery space is too dry, hot and bright for mushrooms but good for yeast so maybe we could invite yeast instead and see what will happen. 

TMTX: The environment/sculptures you have created in a sense feel archaic and have a magical quality, one reference Liam made was the work of Andre Eugene, a Haitian sculptor of the Grand Rue movement, do you believe in magic, and is the folk magic vibe in anyway apparent to you?

EVA: I feel very much drawn to genre of magical realism. Including symbolic elements or something irrational, magical  is just a gesture of respect and acknowledgment that there are forces that we can neither see or understand. 

We are living in the world of data but in art, I am not looking for reasonable answers, I want to wonder and keep guessing. We are born with a sense of wonder and in that sense we are all born into magic. I’m interested in the elusive shadows more than the objects that are casting them. 

TMTX: In terms of other references, I felt the landscape you created was reminiscent of Jurassic Park – (yes the Steven Spielberg film!), due to the use of debris and discarded modern materials to create skeletal forms. Can you talk about your approach/ philosophy to sourcing materials and making?

EVA: I wanted to use objects found around me. There is a restaurant in the Lakeside centre, 5 min walk from the residency space called “Thamesmead Social” (highly recommended). I asked if I can have egg cartons that they dispose of and they generously kept them for me. There is something about the architecture of those egg cartons that resonates with the architecture of Thamesmead. Maybe it is its fragility and brutalism, primal and processed, organic and structural elements …. I had no preconceived idea for the outcome of the residency. I would come to the gallery and seat with those boxes, move them around and at some point it felt like they found the right place so I would leave it there. I liked how some patterns started to emerge from the chaos. 

TMTX: Has your time on this residency opened up any new ways of thinking, where will it take you next?

EVA: I didn’t have a studio space for a decade or longer, so it felt very nice to be given that opportunity and trust . Thamesmead Texas residency gave me an opportunity to introduce myself as an artist to my local community. Nomadic traditions are being systematically eliminated as they oppose the capitalist values of accumulation, hierarchy, expansion and individualism. Therefore having a gallery like Thamesmead Texas, actively promoting nomadic cultures, is so rare that we may even call it revolutionary.  I would love to continue this collaboration.

I love your idea of art cemetery. I would love to see all of those discarded art pieces changing its form and meaning.