A FLOWER OF CHAOS 

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Interview to Kong Shengqi (b. 1989), lives and works between Paris, France and various international residencies.  

Kiki is the artistic name of Kong Shengqi, a Beijing-born architect and visual artist whom we met during her residency at Casa de Velázquez in Madrid, carried out from September 2025 to July 2026.

The first time we stepped into her studio was in February of this year. We were immediately trapped by her fascinating work: wood-carved figures that resemble religious idols or fantastical creatures of all sizes, interchangeable between cultures and yet strangely recognizable as symbolic of that intangible something. Months later, during our conversation, Kiki stands almost camouflaged amongst her pieces. She refers to them as “her friends” and describes how the wood often “tells her what it wants to become”. In a world increasingly dominated by hyper-technical standardization, algorithms and AI, her work feels both refreshing & fun: medieval legends, ancestral rituals and artisanal techniques feed her fascination for all that is folkloric, miraculous, or slightly inexplicable.

Here is probably one of our most original conversations to date:

Hi, Kiki! The last time we visited your studio at Casa de Velázquez, you were in the middle of developing a project inspired by local legends, including the story of San Antonio de la Florida. Now that the pieces are finished, could you tell us how the research evolved and how it led to the sculpture we see in the fountain today?

The sculpture I installed at the center of the fountain is, in a way, the culmination of my project at Casa de Velázquez, although perhaps not its final step. As you say, the idea began with the legend connected to the Church of San Antonio de la Florida. Every year, on the feast day of San Antonio, women place their hand into a holy water font filled with pins. According to the tradition, the number of pins that remain stuck to their skin predicts how many lovers they will have. I had only read a brief description of this ritual, so I imagined what it might be like, and that became the starting point for the work.

I made three wooden sculptures from the trunks of dead pine trees that I found in the mountains north of Madrid. Later, I added cast aluminum elements inspired by churros. I once came across a heart-shaped churro being sold for couples, and I found it amusing. I imagined that, for Spanish people, churros might be as ordinary as youtiao is for Chinese people: an everyday food with no romantic connotations at all.

In that sense, I’m fascinated by the way ordinary things change their meaning when they move from one context to another. Commercial marketing often makes this more extreme, turning an everyday object into a contemporary symbol of love, almost like a small myth invented today. I liked the dialogue between this and the much older legend of the pins at San Antonio de la Florida. So, instead of adding actual pins to the sculptures, I replaced them with these churro-shaped forms.

I also visited the exhibition Half of the World: Women in Indigenous Mexico at the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid, where I saw a video about the celebration of the ripening of cactus fruits. What struck me was the idea that cacti might have developed thorns as a form of self-protection, because their fruits were so delicious and desirable. It made me think again about the legend of San Antonio, where love and pain are also linked through an entirely invented chain of cause and effect. 

Only later did I realize that the surface texture of the three wooden sculptures also resembled churros. I had never planned that. These kinds of unexpected correspondences appear often in my work. Those kinds of discoveries often become the most interesting part of the project.


I’m loving these unexpected churros apparition. How about the other sculpture you have developed for the open studios held in June at the Casa, installed next to the fountain work?

The second part of my project grew from another line of research. For some time, I've been intuitively interested in the relationship between the instruments of troubadours and the migration of plants.

I first learned about the story of the Cardón cactus through Patricia Esquivias’s video work Cardón Cardinal. The work tells the story of a giant cactus transported from Mexico to Seville for Expo ’92, a task that was so difficult that the cactus was never returned to its place of origin. What struck me most about this story was the contradiction of transporting a living plant as if it were an ordinary object. We all know plants are living beings, but we rarely treat them that way. My sculpture refers to that story: its form is deliberately rigid, as if it has been constrained to fit inside a vehicle, just like the cactus was.

At the same time, I had been visiting many museums, including the Royal Palace in Madrid, where I became fascinated by the elaborate clothing worn by Spanish royalty in classical portraits. The men's culottes remind me of the segmented forms of pumpkins and cacti. While researching these garments, I discovered that they became popular during the colonial period as symbols of royal power. I found it amusing to connect this historical symbol of authority with the body of a plant.

For the final version of this sculpture, I coated it with latex, peeled the skin away, and presented only this flexible shell. It became something between a textile, a flag, and an empty skin. Suspended in space, it moves gently with the air and the light, transforming a heavy object into something surprisingly fragile.

These works seem to be connected by an interest in local stories, vegetal life and a certain sense of irony or displacement. 

Yes, exactly. Whenever I arrive in a new place, I try to immerse myself completely in it. I absorb everything around me: stories, history, materials, objects, landscapes, gestures, even small everyday details.

Then, little by little, unexpected mixes begin to emerge. I don’t consciously try to invent them, I actually discover them during the process. Two things that seem unrelated suddenly begin to gravitate towards each another; once I notice that connection, I follow it. As an artist, I think that’s a privilege. I don’t need to prove these relationships the way a scientist would. I’m interested in creating another way of looking at things.

Moving on to broader questions: your bio mentions that you grew up in a multicultural environment. Could you tell us more about your childhood and what that ambience was like? 

I was born and raised in Beijing. My father worked at the Australian Embassy in China, so I spent much of my childhood in the embassy district, where meeting people from different countries was part of everyday life, even though it was still quite unusual in China at the time. Later, throughout middle school and university, I also took part in many international exchange programmes and activities. Encountering different cultures became a part of my education, and my curiosity about the world kept growing.

I also grew up during a period when China was becoming increasingly connected to the rest of the world. From the late 1990s into the 2000s, there was a strong curiosity about what existed beyond the country’s borders. Foreign films, music and images gradually became part of everyday life, and I think that atmosphere helped to shape my imagination.

As a child, I was also fascinated by maps. We always had a world map somewhere in our home, and I spent hours looking at it. The names of distant countries and cities amazed me. In Chinese, foreign place names are usually transliterations, sounds represented through Chinese characters. Since I knew almost nothing about those places, every name made me dream of imaginary landscapes. To me, they felt mysterious, poetic and full of possibilities.

So, when I describe my childhood as multicultural, I don’t mean that I literally grew up in different countries. I mean that, from a very early age, I was constantly exposed to different ways of living, imagining and understanding the world. That curiosity has stayed with me ever since. Rather than making me feel attached to one particular culture, it made me want to understand as many different ones as possible.

You’re already hinting at it, but you have also mentioned that the political situation in your country shapes the development of your practice. Do you think your fascination with multicultural tendencies has something to do with the fact that, until the 1990s, access to other realities in China was limited? 

Yes, I think that’s true. Because access to the outside world had been relatively limited before, my generation had a lot of curiosity. I think I was especially drawn to everything that felt different or existed outside the mainstream. Ever since I was a child, it was never important for me to be the best. What mattered was finding my own way. That’s why I was naturally attracted to alternative culture and underground scenes.

A lot of that culture reached us through unofficial channels. I watched countless films on pirated DVDs, bought cut-out CDs, read pirated manga, and absorbed an enormous variety of music, cinema and literature from different parts of the world. Looking back, I think that period shaped my imagination just as much as my formal education did.

Around the time of the Beijing Olympics in 2008, I gradually felt that the atmosphere was changing. Beijing itself changed dramatically, and at a certain point I felt as though I had lost my hometown. The streets, the neighborhoods and the atmosphere I had grown up with disappeared so quickly that I could hardly recognize the city anymore. That was a very painful experience, and I don’t think that feeling of loss has ever completely left me.

What I miss most about Beijing from that period is its raw, underground spirit. The city felt chaotic, but also incredibly alive. There was always the feeling that something unexpected could happen just around the corner. As Beijing became cleaner, more efficient and increasingly standardized, I felt that something had disappeared. When I eventually left Beijing, I wasn’t only leaving my hometown. I was also leaving behind a particular atmosphere that had shaped me. Looking back now, I realise that what I’m really searching for is not another city, but that feeling. I feel nostalgic for the raw, unpredictable spirit of the Beijing I grew up in, and I think that longing continues to shape the way I see and make work today.


You mentioned that you studied Architecture before progressively moving into art. Do you feel that you chose are, or that art chose you? 

For me, art was never something I chose later in life. It had always been there. When I entered university, I studied architecture, but it was within the Central Academy of Fine Arts, the most important art school in China. So I never really felt that I had moved from one field to another. I always felt that I was simply exploring art through different disciplines.

Even before university, I had already developed my own strategy. In primary and middle school, I deliberately stayed around tenth place in the class rankings. That way, neither my teachers nor my parents paid too much attention to me, which gave me the freedom to spend my evenings, weekends and spare time exploring music, films, literature and all kinds of cultural experiences. Looking back, I think my artistic education really began there. More than school, I believed in teaching myself.

I chose architecture simply because it was the artistic discipline I understood the least. I already knew something about sculpture, painting and printmaking, but architecture remained a mystery to me, and that was exactly what attracted me. After graduating, I worked as an architect for two years because I wanted to complete that experience and truly understand the profession. It was during those years that I began to understand not only how architecture works, but also what kind of practice suited me personally.

I gradually realized that architecture is a discipline very much related to urban development, public policy and many forces beyond the architect’s control. My own experience of losing my hometown also made me question whether I wanted to spend my life contributing to the same processes in other cities. But this wasn’t a rejection of architecture. On the contrary, it continues to affect my artistic practice, both in the way I think and in the way I work. I simply discovered that I needed another way of working: one that allowed more freedom, more uncertainty, and a more direct relationship with materials, places and ideas.


In that sense, I wonder if your interest in everything artisanal, manual and folkloric also comes from a reaction to the process of standarization that you’re describing - shying away from something that felt excessively utilitarian and rational. 

That’s probably part of it, yes. I’ve never felt very comfortable with systems that are imposed from above. If that can be understood as a reaction to standardization, then I suppose it’s true. I believe I am much more interested in forms of culture and knowledge that grow from everyday life, through people, places and traditions, rather than through institutions or fixed rules.

One of my earliest memories is growing up near a Daoist temple in Beijing. I used to go there very often and talk to the sculptural figures. They aren’t exactly gods, but rather immortal beings, each with a different role. One looks after the weather, another after studies, another protects something else... There was also a small stone carving of three monkeys in one of the walls. People believed that touching them would bring good health. Even today, I still tell people to touch them if they ever visit.

I’m not religious, but I’m very attracted to these kinds of practices. What interests me is not whether people literally believe them, but the way these stories and rituals become part of everyday life. They create invisible relationships between people, places and objects.I think that experience exists across many different cultures, even if it takes very different forms.

For example, when I came to Spain, I found something very similar. Religious festivals are still very present in everyday life, and I was moved by the devotion people bring to them. What interests me isn’t religion itself, but the fact that these rituals are still alive. They aren’t something preserved behind glass in museums; they continue to evolve because people still believe in them and keep practicing them.

I think that’s something I also try to bring into my work. I hope people can build relationships with the beings I create, almost as if they had their own presence or personality. In my own studio, I also have small daily rituals. I move sculptures around, change their positions, spend time with them. It’s difficult to explain rationally, but I feel that these gestures matter.

I’m always searching for small moments that feel almost miraculous. In the fountain project, for example, the moment when water enters the sculpture feels like a small miracle to me. Or when a plant passes through one mouth and emerges from another. They’re very simple gestures, but for a brief moment they seem to escape ordinary logic. That’s the kind of experience I hope my work can offer.


Actually, something that grabbed my attention the first time I saw your work was that the sculptures seem like religious icons or symbols, but it’s difficult to relate them to a specific culture. I wonder if you consciously play with the fact that these symbols often seem almost interchangeable.

Yes, I think about this a lot. I make a conscious effort not to make the identity of my sculptures too clear, while still allowing a sense of the sacred to remain present in them.

When I graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, I wrote my thesis about wood sculpture. I focused on three different traditions: religious sculpture, masks and marionettes. Although they belong to very different cultural contexts, I realised they all share a similar sense of the sacred. Looking back, I think I’ve been asking the same question for a long time: how can a carved piece of wood become a presence that people want to relate to?

I never wanted to reproduce religious icons or symbols. I’m more interested in understanding why they have such a powerful presence. I’m always searching for a space between what already exists in the structure of the wood and what I bring to it. My sculptures are never completely realistic, but they are not abstract either. They exist somewhere in between.

Since coming to Spain, my work has gradually become more abstract. Faces are beginning to disappear, although the sculptures are still figurative. I deliberately leave more space for the viewer’s imagination. So yes, I try not to give my sculptures a fixed identity. The more open they remain, the more people can project their own stories and build their own relationships with them. For me, that’s where the sacred begins.

In terms of your actual process, do you find that manually carving these creatures also has something ritualistic?

Probably so. I never make sketches before carving or decide on a shape or a face in advance. Instead, I follow the wood and what I gradually discover by touching it. I often feel that what I’m looking for is already inside the material. My role is simply to reveal it.

Before I begin carving, I spend a long time just looking at the piece of wood. It’s almost like a conversation. I move very slowly, trying to feel whether I’m heading in the right direction, because once you’ve made a cut, there’s no going back. Unlike clay, you can’t put the material back.

Perhaps that’s where the ritual lies. It’s not about repeating a fixed gesture, but about paying complete attention. The process asks me to listen, to wait and to respond, rather than to impose an idea. I think there is something sacred in that way of working.


There is a long history of wood carving as an artisanal practice that exists across many cultures. Is that history is something you feel connected to?

Not exactly. I have looked at wood carvings from many different cultures, but I’ve never studied them systematically or tried to classify different traditions. What interests me isn’t their historical or stylistic differences. I’m simply looking for a certain quality, a certain presence that I hope my own sculptures can approach.

I have enormous respect for artisans and highly developed craftsmanship, but I don’t think technique should ever take control of the work. As an artist, there comes a moment when you have to stop before technical perfection becomes more important than the work itself. An artisan often strives to create a perfect object. I try to resist that. I don’t want my work to become a product. I’d rather think of it as another being, another life, something that can have its own presence in the world, even beyond my own understanding of it.

People often ask me about traditional wood sculpture, especially the long history of wood carving in churches. But I don’t want to imitate existing works. For me, it doesn’t make much sense for sculpture to inspire more sculpture directly. A sculpture has already become itself. What interests me is the state it reaches, not its form. I’d rather search for that same quality through my own experiences than reproduce an existing image. Otherwise, it would feel false, almost like a copy, and I don’t want to waste wood doing that.

At the start of the twentieth century, when artists started developing abstract visual languages, they often shared the idea that anyone could access their artworks beyond specific cultural backgrounds. Looking at your work, and at your life (you’ve moved around a lot!), I am intrigued whether this idea of universality is something you have in mind.

Maybe, yes. I think people often emphasize our differences, but we probably have much more in common than we sometimes realise. I’m curious about all cultures, and I don’t believe there is any hierarchy between them. What I find beautiful is that there are many different ways of interpreting the world, while still sharing many of the same human experiences. That’s why I usually avoid giving my work the strong identity of one particular culture or nationality. I want it to remain open enough that people from different backgrounds can approach it through their own experiences.

I also prefer to remain open myself. Throughout my life, I’ve tried to keep receiving influences from different places rather than settling into one fixed cultural identity. I like thinking of myself as someone who gathers all these different influences together and lets them coexist. I once described it as a kind of “flower of chaos.”


I was introduced to your work by painter Diego Kohli, who views the canvas as a kind of theatrical stage. I’ve read a text where you said that you conceive your works in a similar way.

Yeah, theatre is very important in my work. Not because there is a specific play behind each piece, but because I’m fascinated by theatre as a magical space. I never begin by trying to create a scene, but once the works are installed together, they naturally form one. They become like actors and actresses on a stage, and possible relationships begin to appear between them, just as they do between characters in a play.

At the same time, my works don’t need a script or a fixed scenario to tell a story. They remain open. The image is enough, and the viewer can complete the rest through imagination. I feel that a script, or any predetermined narrative, can sometimes become a kind of prison. It forces bodies and lives to follow a path that has already been decided, leaving no room for mistakes or surprises. I don’t want to imprison my figures inside something they are required to follow.

This idea of theatre is also connected to architecture. I began thinking about it after reading the autobiography of Aldo Rossi, one of my favourite architects. He writes about the city as a theatre, and that idea touched me deeply. We all play roles in the city during our lives. When the lights go down, our part is finished; when the lights come back on, the play continues. This idea often returns in my work.

Building on the idea of your works being characters, one of the things that most strikes me about your pieces is the fact that the creatures seem so alive. I also read a text in which you mentioned that you liked wood because it looked like human skin. Do you envision the artworks as living creatures?

Yes, I think they are. At least I hope they have a life of their own.

I remember reading an interview with my favourite manga artist. She said that every time she created a character, they gradually revealed themselves in ways she hadn’t anticipated. As the story unfolded, they kept surprising her by showing new sides of themselves that she had never consciously planned.

I feel very close to that way of creating. I like to think that all my sculptures are alive and constantly changing. That’s also why I never want to control them completely. If I already knew exactly what they were going to become, they could never surprise me.

Some artists describe their works as “their babies,” as if they had given birth to them. I prefer to think of my sculptures as my friends. It’s not that I create them alone; it feels more like a collaboration. We make them together [laughs]. The wood helps me and slowly tells me what it wants to become.


I am also curious about how your sculptures relate to the exhibition space. You once installed your pieces in a French catholic church. They looked so funny and out of place, but at the same time clearly connected to religious iconography.

Whenever I install my sculptures, I want them to establish a conversation with the figures that already inhabit the exhibition space. In the church you mentioned, that meant the saints, the religious icons and all those existing presences.

At the same time, I always imagine my sculptures as strangers to the place they arrive to. Wherever they go, they never completely belong. When one of them enters a new space, I imagine it arriving like someone who doesn’t yet understand why they’re there. It’s a little shocked, almost like an alien arriving from another planet. It feels as though it once had a mission, but has somehow forgotten what it was.

I think that feeling probably comes from myself. Having lived in different countries, I often feel that I arrive somewhere before I fully understand its language, its codes or its context. I need time to understand where I am. My sculptures carry that same feeling with them.

So no matter where they are installed, they always remain slightly displaced. Like actors who have stepped onto a stage without knowing the whole script, they begin discovering their role only after they arrive.

Do you consciously think about comedy or humor while creating? Is it something you actively look for?

Definitely. Humour is very important to me. I think it’s closely connected to freedom. If we always need to control everything or appear serious, humour becomes impossible.

I’m fascinated by what people sometimes call “Russian jokes”, the dark humour that emerges in very difficult circumstances. They’re funny and cruel at the same time. Rather than denying suffering, they allow people to live with it. I think that’s a very courageous way of looking at the world.

That’s also one of the reasons I’m so drawn to Iberian cinema. In many Spanish and Portuguese films, tragedy and comedy naturally coexist. We tend to think they’re opposites, but I don’t think they are. Humour doesn’t make suffering disappear, it simply allows us to see it differently.

I feel something similar in my own work. Even when I’m dealing with subjects like belief, migration or history, I don’t want the work to become heavy or intimidating. Sometimes a small absurd detail or a smile can open the door to much deeper emotions. For me, humour is also a form of courage. It keeps the work open and accessible. I don’t want people to feel that they need specialised knowledge to approach it. Everyone should be able to enter through their own imagination.


You did an exhibition titled La Thérpaie de la Fantaisie. I loved that title because I felt it encapsulated something essential about your work: using fantasy as a healing space. It’s quite a broad question, but what role do you think fantasy can have in the contemporary world?

Fantasy is very important to me because it allows us to imagine possibilities that reality doesn’t immediately offer.

Sometimes I feel frustrated by the fact that I will spend my entire life inside this body. I’ll never truly know what it means to experience the world as a cat, a tree or another being. Through sculpture, I try to imagine those other perspectives. It gives me a small sense of freedom, as if I could step outside my own life for a moment and experience another way of being in the world. That’s something I also find in films, books and many other forms of art.

I often think about wood in the same way. Wood is the dead body of a tree, but I don’t see it as the end of its life. I see it as the beginning of another possibility. A tree may have spent a hundred years standing in the same place. Through sculpture, I want to offer it another existence, another body, while still preserving something of its own character.

Perhaps that’s what fantasy means to me. It’s not about escaping reality, but about discovering that reality could always be otherwise. Every time I work, I’m searching for that balance. I don’t want the sculpture to remain only wood, but I also don’t want to dominate the material completely. What I’m really trying to protect is the dialogue between us.


You’ve already mentioned popular art, folklore, and legends. Are there other specific references that have particularly inspired you?

Most of my references actually come from outside sculpture. I’m usually less interested in borrowing forms than in discovering different ways of seeing the world through cinema, literature, architecture, music and video art.

Sergei Parajanov’s The Color of Pomegranates has probably had one of the strongest influences on my visual imagination. I was very moved by the way it tells a story almost entirely through images. Every scene feels like a sculpture, an installation or a stage. It taught me that images don’t always need to explain themselves.

Another film that has profoundly influenced me is Dušan Makavejev’s Sweet Movie. What moved me most was its ability to remain rooted in a particular history and culture while speaking far beyond it. It gave me a feeling of nostalgia for a world I had never known. It made me realise that a work becomes universal not by erasing its roots, but by remaining very much connected to them.

I also often return to Pipilotti Rist’s video works. I love the freedom in her work, the way the body, plants and fantasy flow naturally into one another without clear boundaries. As I mentioned earlier, I also often return to Aldo Rossi’s writings, as well as Glenn Gould’s recordings and reflections on artistic practice. What inspires me isn’t so much their style as their way of looking at the world.

One book has stayed with me ever since I was twelve years old: The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. I remember feeling that everything I wanted to say was already inside that book. The connection with my work isn’t obvious, but it has always reminded me to preserve a certain innocence. Whenever I feel my work becoming too sophisticated or too self-conscious, I think back to that feeling.

I’ve also always been drawn to digressions. I don’t enjoy writing, music or even thinking when everything feels too predetermined. Sometimes what seems like a detour reveals more than the destination itself.

Another text I often return to is Heinrich von Kleist’s On the Marionette Theatre. There’s a beautiful story about a young boy who accidentally performs an extraordinarily graceful movement. When someone points out how beautiful it is, he tries to repeat it, but he never can. The moment he becomes conscious of his own grace, it disappears.

I think about that story very often. As artists, we’re always in danger of becoming too aware of what we’re doing. I don’t want my work to become too perfect or too self-conscious. I prefer it to remain vulnerable. Every sculpture should still be a risk. I don’t want to know the result beforehand. Only then can something truly alive emerge.

Do all these references have something in common?

Yes, I think they all share a similar attitude rather than a similar style. None of them escape reality. On the contrary, they look at reality very closely, but they refuse to accept that there is only one way of seeing it. They leave room for imagination, coincidence, humour and mystery.

That’s something I deeply admire. I don’t think fantasy is the opposite of reality. Sometimes it allows us to see reality more clearly. A miracle, a legend or an absurd image can reveal something that a purely realistic description cannot.

I think that’s also why I’m so interested in local stories and folklore. The more rooted a work is in a particular place, the more it can sometimes speak to everyone. Universality isn’t something you decide in advance. It emerges from being honest about a specific experience. Perhaps all these references remind me that art doesn’t need to explain the world. Sometimes it simply needs to make us see it differently.


Moving to one of the final questions: you've lived in several places, including Beijing, Paris, and now Madrid. How have you experienced the art scene here? What are your impressions of Madrid so far?

I still feel that I need more to discover Madrid properly. But simply living in a Spanish-speaking environment has already opened up a whole new artistic landscape for me. Even my Instagram feed gradually began introducing me to artists from Spain, Portugal and Latin American that I probably wouldn’t have discovered otherwise. Through your platform, I’ve also discovered several artists whose work I genuinely admire. 

What struck me most is a very different kind of energy. In many of these works, I feel a strong connection to the land, to memory, to belief, to myth, and to ways of understanding the world that leave room for the invisible. Even at ARCO, I sensed a different atmosphere, another way of approaching contemporary art. There is something raw and powerful about that energy, and I found it very inspiring.

It made me realise that contemporary art doesn’t need to distance itself from local stories, rituals or spiritual questions in order to feel contemporary. On the contrary, those things can become a source of extraordinary strength. I still have a lot to discover, but this encounter has already influenced the way I think about my own work.

This makes me think about broader questions about the art system. In a world where so many things seem oriented toward objectives and results, art seems to maintain a certain distance from that logic, but questions of economy and maintenance still affect this freedom.

Yes, I think that’s one of the biggest challenges today. Many applications ask you to describe a project before you’ve even arrived somewhere. I’ve always found that difficult, because my work begins with encountering a place. I need to walk, observe, meet people, discover materials and stories. I can propose an intention, but I can’t honestly describe the final work before I’ve experienced that environment.

Of course, I understand why these systems exist. Institutions need to make choices, communicate with the public and organise their programmes. But I also try to leave enough space for uncertainty, because that’s where my work really begins.

The same is true economically. I don’t want financial pressure to dictate my artistic decisions. That’s one of the reasons I’ve always been interested in economics and investment. For me, financial independence isn’t an end in itself; it’s a way of protecting my artistic freedom.

Art has never been a business plan for me. It’s a way of entering into dialogue with other people and with the world. If I can preserve that freedom, then I feel very fortunate.

And finally: looking ahead, what dreams or plans do you have for the future? 

I’ve been interested in creating works for public space for quite a long time. Even when I was studying architecture, most of my projects were conceived for public space. Later, during a residency in Japan, I began creating participatory works that people could play, activate and interact with.

Two years ago, I completed my first permanent outdoor public project, Topinambours Troubadours, at Vent des Forêts in eastern France. That experience confirmed my desire to create works that continue living after I’ve left. Since then, I’ve become even more interested in making art that exists beyond enclosed exhibition spaces and becomes part of everyday life.

This October I’ll begin a residency at Atelier Faires in the Vosges. Next year we’ll organise a carnival and an exhibition there. I only have a few ideas for now, but I’d love to create something that people can use, children can play with, and that the village can gradually adopt as its own.

More and more, I’m interested in artworks that don’t simply occupy a place but participate in it. They might become a meeting point, an instrument, a playground or part of a local ritual. I hope people won’t only look at my work, but live with it.

Perhaps that’s what I hope for most in the future: to create works that continue to have a life of their own, long after I’ve gone.


Interview by Victoria Álvarez Conde. 13.07.26