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 i sentrum is underway, and we talked to the artistic council about their visions for Kloden and 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 do you think about Kloden and what the theater will become?

"What's really nice is how Kloden has been conceived as a physical place; that where Kloden is located plays a role. Both the programming and the location of Kloden, and the dynamics and interaction between different groups that are present at the site provide synergy effects and great value. The idea that a theater house should not only be visited to see a work, but also contain 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 yet been so widespread in Norway. This value of the various interfaces between the audience, artists, area and works gives Kloden an enormous strength. When I think of Kloden, I think of these different encounters in the house.

What are your thoughts on being on the artistic council?

It's a vote of confidence and very nice. It's nice to have an artistic council across the disciplines in the performing arts field, that we have different backgrounds in the field of instant art. I'm looking forward to hearing the others' perspectives, and to developing a way of thinking and reflecting together that can push Kloden's goals and visions. It's important that we have different backgrounds, both geographically and culturally. I think this is still too lax in the performing arts field. The map is not connected to the terrain. The globe 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 their target group, and have been in contact with young people through teaching. I'm particularly interested in community art. Rather than making work for young people, it's about exploring how young people can be an active part of the process and give it direction, where the young people themselves are an acting agent, participating and creating. But at the same time, it is also important that young people see artworks that represent something other than what they know, that they didn't know they were interested in, and that challenge them. This is what contemporary art can do, namely create a sensitivity and listening that is not otherwise activated. There are many ways to do this, and what's particularly exciting about Kloden is that there are so many people involved who have an understanding of 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.

The globe is taking on social responsibility, which is something art institutions should do. That doesn't mean that I think of art as something instrumental. But the institution must show that it is a social and political player, especially now with the temperature in Europe, and take that on board. That's what Kloden does. And I'm concerned about that in my own work too, without it being instrumental. Art is in dialog with the temperatures within which it exists. Art can provide space and opportunities to be human in a way that other forms of expression do not always allow. 

Photographer: Yaniv Cohen