Ana Esteve Llorens Interview, May 20, 2020

SEGMENT SYNOPSIS: Visual artist Ana Esteve Llorens, who is originally from Spain but now resides in Austin, TX, shares how COVID has impacted her. Ana expresses that the pandemic has both changed and not changed her life. SUBJECTS: COVID-19; (Austin, TX)

Haha, okay. Okay.

Hello, my name is Anna Esteve Llorens, I am a visual artist originally from Spain, living and working in Austin, Texas. I came to US in about, 15 years ago already, as an exchange student, and then, and since then I have coming, I have been coming back and forth, but I now live here in Texas. And the person who invited me to do this, to participate in this project, is my friend and artist Naoko Wowsugi. So it's a pleasure to be here.

Um, I have been, in the last years, working in my studio and also teaching. So it's been, you know, a combination of both where I cannot kind of separate one from the other. I think once you start participating in the, in academia, or like in the education world, it almost all blends together. And so when this, when this pandemia happened, it was almost like, you know, it was, it was kind of the same too. And the way it impacted my life, obviously, we, we had to stay, um, we couldn't go outside. So, but the making of the work and the teaching had to happen. So we had to rely on digital platforms, and kind of reinvent the way we relate to each other. So that was strange, but also interesting as an experience.

Yeah, so, but also as an artist, because we spend so much time by ourselves in the studio, I guess that was kind of one of our advantage, because we were kind of used to be by ourselves, right? So like that loneliness is not, isn't, it's familiar to us. So that I think, I think there was an advantage and there was something that didn't feel strange. But what it felt strange was the impossibility of physically relating to friends and family, and even to my students. So that's, I would say, the main impact of this crisis in my day to day life.

Um, and then, you know, also as artists, I think we have to motivate ourselves to keep making work a lot of times and that, you know, that maybe like the, the peace, the passion for our making was one of the motivations to continue, as always. But also, the net of friends around, you know, me were very important, like being able to take the phone and establish a conversation and like, support each other. I think that was crucial, and it still is, as we are talking. And, yeah, and also like, you know, that there has to be hope. So we have to, if not in the same way, we have to think about alternative options to continue and to move forward.

What I've learned about this crisis, maybe, is to go back to appreciate the things that I did not have forgotten, but maybe I had taken for granted. So yeah, I've, I'm like, you know, pay more attention to what I cook every day to, to, to who I speak with, to, you know, and to the sunsets and sunrises. Everything that is more related maybe to nature and the rhythms dictated by nature has been, have become more and more present, I would say. But, yeah, I'm positive I think we'll make it and we'll get reinforced out of this crisis.