Mia Habib: I want to activate other sensory apparatus than the visual and intellectual, that the art is felt on the body

June 11, 2019

The festival Kloden in the city center is underway, and we have had a chat with the artistic council about their visions for Kloden , their thoughts on performing arts for children and young people.

Mia Habib works at the intersection of performing arts, exhibitions, publications, lectures, teaching, mentoring and curating. She is a trained choreographer from Oslo National Academy of the Arts and holds a master's degree in conflict resolution and negotiation from Tel Aviv University. Her performances have been co-produced at a number of institutions across Europe.

What are you thinking about? Kloden and what the theater will become?

What's really nice is how you've thought about it. Kloden as a physical place; that where Kloden is located plays a role. Both the programming and the localization of Kloden , and the dynamics and interaction between different groups that are present on site provide synergy effects and great value. Thinking that a theatre should not only be visited to see a work, but also to have other encounters and different ways of being in contact with art and artists, is a way of thinking that Germany and France, among others, have been working with for a long time, and which has not been so widespread in Norway yet. This value of the different contact surfaces, between the audience, artists, area and work, provides Kloden an enormous strength. When I think Kloden Then I think about these various meetings in the house.

What are your thoughts on being on the artistic council?

It is a vote of confidence and very nice. It is nice to have an artistic council across the disciplines in the performing arts field, that we have different backgrounds towards momentary art. I look forward to hearing the perspectives of others, and to developing a way of thinking together and reflecting that can push Kloden's goals and visions. It is important that we have different backgrounds, both geographically and culturally. There is still too much laxity in this in the performing arts field, I think. The map does not connect with the terrain. Kloden shows the map closer to the art field.

Do you have experience of working artistically for a young audience?

I have both worked in artistic teams that have had young people as a target group, and have been in contact with young people a lot through teaching. I am particularly interested in community art. More than just creating works for young people, here we are testing how young people can be an active part of the process and give it direction, where the young people themselves are agents, participants and creators. But at the same time it is also important that young people see works of art that represent something other than what they know, that they did not know they were interested in, and that challenge them. Contemporary art can do this, namely to create a sensitivity and listening that is not activated as much otherwise. There are many ways to do this, and it is particularly exciting with Kloden , that there are so many people involved who understand contemporary art. That's important.

Is there anything that characterizes your own artistic practice?

I'm interested in working outside and inside the stage space. Both working site-specifically, and how it speaks back to working in a stage space. I'm interested in how the artwork can go through the body, somatically, through a physical experience, with the performers, with me, with the audience. I want to activate sensory apparatus other than the visual and intellectual, that the art is felt on the body.

Kloden takes on social responsibility, which is something art institutions should do. That doesn't mean I think of art as something instrumental. But the institution must show that it is a social actor and political player, especially now with the temperature in Europe, and take that into account. It does Kloden . And I am concerned with that in my own work as well, without it being instrumental. Art is in dialogue with the temperatures within which it exists. Art can provide space and opportunities to be human, which other expressions do not always allow for. 

Photographer: Yaniv Cohen