Meet the Curious Minds - Petja Ivanova
Meet the Curious Minds #1 - Petja Ivanova
Interview by Lise Ninane & Fotini Takirdiki
Photos by Veronika Hubert Natter
Berlin, 24.4.2020
Credits: Veronika Hubert Natter
What are the thinking processes and knowledge practices that guide your artistic research?
Credits: Veronika Hubert Natter
I am really glad you asked me about my knowledge practices - or, shall I say, the knowledge forms I rely on. I think that, from the very beginning, I was seeking out what we can call marginalised positions. Working with electronics and code, I was sceptical towards relying solely on rationality and the “scientific method” and I was naturally drawn to mythological approaches about world genesis.
In my project Active archive/glossolalia, for example, I came across a very little-known German music-ethnologist, Marius Schneider, who was researching on the melodies inscribed in the ornaments in churches in the beginning of the 20th century. It is crazy! Going back to Vedic texts and megaliths, he was able to prove how certain ornaments represent musical notes. He thus found Gregorian chorales inscribed in church garden ornaments, I think in the south of France/Spain. I found this mind-blowing in terms of encryption - it is like the deep past of crypto-practices. So yes, the approach of combining spiritual aspects with technological developments is, in a way, my research method. I used it again in my latest project on insect exoskeletons: I developed a xenofeminist-like narrative by looking at scarification practices of tribes in Ghana and other parts of West African.
Credits: Veronika Hubert Natter
What are you currently curious about? What makes you want to dig deeper?
I’m currently curious about the ability of vaginal fluids to crystallize and the ability of other bodily fluids like blood and urine to be fluorescent. I wanted to combine this with ideas I found in an article about witch bottles. These bottles are tiny little vessels that have been found in homes, apparently dating back to medieval times. They sometimes contain urine, sometimes nail clippings, sometimes metal nails, supposedly to protect houses from witches. It is obvious that they are a sort of anti-witch propaganda tool to support the medical establishment. At the same time, they could be seen as a disease-protection tool. This points to a totally different direction, and I am interested in taking this approach and combining it with current philosophical contributions, such as Michel Serres' idea that, just as animals use body fluids to mark their territory, humans use pollution to appropriate the world. I don't know where I am going with this yet. But somehow I want to relate it to vaginal fluids. It is a coincidence that I came to be interested in that - probably because I saw other bio-artists working on microscopic images and I used it for the first time one year ago. Now I am curious to know how these fluids crystallise and what this looks like. Do you have a microscope I could use?
Credits: Veronika Hubert Natter
In what way does the current situation with Covid-19 encourage you to explore new ways of learning and collaborating together?
I feel that Covid has made broadcasting practices more visible. There is a new tendency in radio and community radio, in which community building is very Covid-related. I’m part of this movement at the moment, by collaborating with Archipel Station and on a broadcast of Cammack Lindsay for Cashmere Radio. And I am much more active in showing solidarity and trying to support all my friends that run initiatives for social justice, making the invisible visible and fighting for equality in these challenging times. Here are links to some of these initiatives:
Archipel stations: https://archipel.community/radio
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