Interview #197 — Lara Chamas

by Hasib Hourani

Lara Chamas is a Lebanese, Australian artist based in Narrm (Melbourne). Fleeing civil war, her parents migrated to Australia, where she was born. Lara’s practice investigates postcolonial and migrant narratives within the context of her cultural identity, using both humorous and poetic notions.

Through narrative and experience documentation, storytelling, transgenerational trauma and memory and tacit knowledge, her research explores meeting points between narrative theory, cultural practice, current political and societal tensions, and the body as a political vessel. Lara’s work has been exhibited widely including at Gertrude Contemporary, KINGS Artist Run, Bus Projects, West Space, The Substation, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, as well as in Ramallah, Palestine, during a residency.

Lara spoke to Hasib Hourani about the negative space of sculpture and the vulnerability that entails.

I thought we’d start by situating ourselves. I’m sitting on a high stool in my kitchen. Thirty minutes ago the sun was shining on my shoulder but now it’s an arm’s length away. I’m in the clothes I slept in, watching a wattlebird suck nectar from the bottlebrush outside my window. It’s 2.30pm.

I’m sitting at the tram stop. I have a coat on because the wind is really cold but the sun is shining enough to make my glasses turn all the way dark. There’s a lot of cars rushing past even though we are in lockdown. It’s 2.35pm on a Wednesday.

It’s 4.12pm now and the coat was a bad choice. I’m very very warm, overheated in fact. But I scored two bottles of two-litre milk a day or two from expiring, so they’re reduced. I will try to make labneh for the second time after a first very failed attempt.

I finished a tub of DIY labne yesterday for breakfast! I use my dad’s technique. And in the evening, I bought a carton of cold brew from IGA that was one-day expired and reduced to near nothing. We’re living such adjacent lives right now. Tell me what happened to the labneh the first time you tried to make it?

So the first time I tried to make labneh, I got some beautiful reduced Jersey cow milk that Mum says is the best to make labneh because it has the cream naturally on top. After the milk boiled I let it get too cold before I put in the starter yoghurt. I wrapped it up in cling wrap and towels and left it overnight but it just never set into yoghurt. It congealed a bit but it all just passed through the cloth and I had to throw it away. THIS labneh, though, is going great so far!

Oh you make your labneh from scratch from scratch. Okay. I get it. I'm really impressed, haha. I feel like this is a really good point to segue into talking about your art practice, actually. Do you feel like there's an authenticity that can only be achieved if you're starting with raw materials and building up from there?

Yeah, I do. Labour is definitely an important part of my work, and the process of refining something, making something from raw, or from “nothing”. It feels authentic because I’ve put so much of myself in there. Blood sweat and tears very literally. Materials I find myself continually using are concrete, glass, metals—usually bronze. And in the process, I use wood, plaster, and clay almost always. Wax is an interesting one. I do a lot of lost wax casting, or adult straight from wax to mould and make in another material. These materials aren’t exactly organic, because they’re refined for use, but there’s still a raw element to them.

The transformative element being my labour is what legitimises art-making for me, and provides some authenticity. Again, lost wax casting is my favourite method. You make your wax object, you mould it, and the wax melts away, the metal or glass it poured into a negative space. Then you break away the mould. You get one shot. It might not pay off. But you make something, from nothing.

I definitely get what you’re saying. Not necessarily organic if we’re being pedantic about it, but these are all materials that can be “found” if you set out alone with the intention of finding them.

There are so many splinters here that I want to talk through, but the big one is “something out of nothing” (again with the adjacent lives, I was with my brother earlier this morning and we kept saying that same phrase back to one another). You mentioned the wax melting away, that negative space, there are tiers to the “nothing” you’re talking about. It happens several times over before you finally get an object. I wonder, how do you value that negative space? Talk me through the importance of that interim nothing.

I think that interim nothing is the most vulnerable moment. If you haven’t done the process correctly up until that point, the “nothing” won’t work out. That nothing is so romantic to me. To get to that nothing is so hard, there’s a million steps to make this perfect object only to have it literally melt away. All your hard work, gone. That nothing is both the destruction of alllllll your work up until that point, and then in a split second the very moment of creation. Without the “nothing” you can’t fill it up to make your “something”.

It’s sort of like the labneh.

You start with off milk that would be thrown away if you don’t buy it, all the cows’ hard work and generosity. And you boil it and set it and press it and express all the liquid out, your matter decreases by two thirds. And you’re left with this wonderful concentrated delicious substance, and we roll it into little balls suspended in olive oil. It’s a liquid that’s lost its value, into a solid-ish, with so much rich flavour, story, culture.

I don’t think my practice is at all separate or a coincidence from two things. How my ancestors made something from nothing, transformed off-milk into labneh through time and labour, or even made children really, the hard work that goes into making anything at all–creation, cooking. And the desire to turn myself into that “something”. Transform myself into something I deem worth enough.

The labneh metaphor is so poignant and so perfect, because it’s not just an evolution it’s actually a purification. And tying it back to our ancestors is perfect too, because I suppose that’s what we are trying to be, for them, this pure legacy.

You mentioned that blood, sweat, and tears are very literal materials that you work with. Can you speak to that a bit more?

I can’t think of an artwork where a bit of my self wasn’t literally mixed in there.

Sweat. The labour intensity, I put my body through a lot typically when making, even small objects require a full body exertion to make into bronze or glass, to make a silicone/plaster mould, and then the lost wax mould itself. So as someone not particularly fit, and differently abled, I quite literally will sweat to get things done. Or large objects demand so much physical effort, installing a work might be what does it.

Blood. It’s not that I’m clumsy… but I’m clumsy. I find the best way to carve or cut is with a naked blade, the Stanley or hobby part just gets in the way. Sort of like how my mum will peel potatoes with a small knife, I now do this too. Not a peeler to protect your hands. She’ll also use her hand as a chopping board half the time. If something just needs another little tomato or onion or whatever. She’ll just cut up straight into her hand and let the pieces fall into the bowl.

Working with the materials I do, particularly metal and glass especially, I bleed, I get little cuts, I knock something and break the skin, it just happens naturally for me. And I could probably avoid it, but it changes my method. Working with glass, you have to expect you’ll be sliced into, even on a little micro level. Or even making a wax object, again, I like to use a naked blade. Heat is another thing. I get a lot of little burns or abrasions, sometimes more serious things like chemical burn, or dermatitis from the material I’m using. Wax, glass, bronze, and even plaster or concrete. They all need heat to manipulate, or heat up to cure. I get hurt a lot actually, now that I think of it.

Tears. I cry a lot as is. Like a lot. I’m a very emotional person. And the process of creating makes you cry too. From the content of the work bringing up some memory or story or finding some awful bit of research connected to it. But also something messing up, lack of sleep, a deadline approaching, from a little cut. From being exhausted by install. From the physical, mental and emotional demands of making in a capitalist and product-based art world. From a badly behaved curator or gallery, from being tokenised or disrespected or misunderstood. I’ll cry about most aspects of the process of a work.

So there are elements to your object-making that precede the object (for example the wax that melts away). And there are elements that succeed the object (abrasions, cuts). We as viewers can’t see these things but it’s still integral that we experience them. How do you make sure that that doesn’t get overlooked? They’re not necessarily “nothings” but they all demonstrate the vulnerability you were talking about.

I don’t know that I can make sure it isn’t overlooked. I can in some ways reveal these things in artist talks, or conversations, stories. But there isn’t an in-built way the work shows it. I don’t know if part of how I feel is because that labour I’ve been through is overlooked, or perhaps that I think it’s present in the sheer size, intricacy, or material of the work, and therefore I feel exposed? I’m still figuring out how much I want to show people, and how much is safe to do without feeling like I’ve exploited myself or my pain for some middle class people in an all-white room. On one hand, it feels private and just for me and my process, that can be revealed to those I choose to let in. On the other hand, I want recognition for my struggle, of course I do, whether people admit it or not, I think everyone wants a witness at least sometimes. I guess I’m still trying to find a middle ground that makes me feel good about it.

And in a way, I do think the labour is present in the work. Maybe not to everyone, or even most people, but I think when you look at something, anything, you can see, or at least feel what’s gone into it. Like the mise-en-scéne of a great film. You take it in subconsciously or in a split second view of the characters room, and you might not think it’s important, but you’ve absorbed that information in that shot, and if the main characters shelves were bare, you’d feel differently about them. There are a small group of people who might reach out after they’ve seen a show or a work of mine and it becomes clear in their questioning or interest that they can see what went into it, never knowing exactly what or how much, but they know.

I like that. This covert knowing, its inarticulability. That feels like a safe way to be vulnerable because those who have context (for whatever reason) can bypass an explanation. I see it as a tiered system of who gets to experience your work, and to what extent.

I wanted to say earlier that your practice makes me think of translation, but that’s not quite it anymore. Translation makes something accessible to a new audience. I think a better word instead is re-contextualisation. I say this with your mum’s handiwork in mind, the way she holds and uses a knife.

I feel like I’ve also thought of my work as translation, and then realised it wasn’t, re-contextualisation is a good one.

What happens to your art objects when they’re not being exhibited? Now that we’re talking about context. I say this in a literal sense but also in terms of the significance they hold when they’re no longer under observation.

They become dormant I guess, waiting to be activated again. Whether it’s being shown again or talked about, etc. In a literal sense, they live in a storage of some kind, shoved under a desk or on a shelf in a box and forgotten. It’s a bit sad. The work will not lose its meaning for me, but I guess if it’s something I’m not doing to re make or re-use again, I sort of move on, and it becomes a bit more dormant in my heart and mind. But a necessary step to get to the next work.

My whole practise is dormant right now. All my things are destined for storage tubs. I’m a recovering artist. It’ll activate again when it’s meant to, when I can bear it again.

How often would you say an object of yours is made to be a one-off? To not be remade or re-used? I’m curious about the shelf life of art objects.

A work is only a one-off if I end up hating it, I guess, or if it’s an experiment, or test run. I couldn’t think of a work that made it outside of the studio that wasn’t used more than once, even if I’m tired of them, I have works that people request to show.

But what do you do after the work is done? Store it? Sell it? Destroy it? With some glass works I’ve smashed them up to reuse the glass, bronze too, I’ll reuse the material. But some works I made in my undergrad many years ago live in boxes covered in dust, or in my parents’ garage. I forget about them.

Now I have withdrawn from my masters, to be finished at an indeterminate time in the future, I have to move out of the studio, and I’ll be faced with this question: what do I do with these works now? I have to pack my studio into storage tubs and some things aren’t going to make the cut. And it’s going to be emotional to have to condense it all. I’ve thrown artworks away after I’ve had my use for them, wasn’t happy with how they turned out, were poorly made, etc. I can think of works now that I’ll be throwing away. With large works I can’t store that’ve run their course, I’ve demolished them. Sometimes that choice is made for me, and I know in making the work I can’t store or move it after and it must be destroyed, so I know its life will be the duration of a show.

You described yourself as a recovering artist. I’ve never heard that term before, can you explain it a bit more?

Well, I’ve taken the action to stop practicing and making and actively like trying to get shows or anything. If they come they come, if it’s old work, artist fee, I’ll do it sure if there’s not much effort in my end. I would also do something if it was well-paid. But in terms of practice, I burnt out so hard at the start of this year, I had a big emotional breakdown, and I feel like I’m still not ready to go back. There’s also logistical issues like financial stability. I’m sick of the hustle. I burnt out so bad I’ve lost my passion for my own work. So I realised I need to leave, so I can miss it and come back. But then I asked myself and others, what is an artist, am I still an artist even if I don’t practice, am I an artist only when I return to practice?

We call a rose, a rose at every stage, even when it’s a seed, before it’s bloomed, and after it’s died. I’m in recovery. And the way I practised wasn’t sustainable in many ways. The Melbourne contemporary arts scene is soul-draining. I’m in recovery because I can’t shake the way I think or see the world, which I ultimately settled on as what being an artist is, not whether you produce something. So I settled on the term recovering artist for this chapter of my life.

Our identity as artists or writers is contingent on the production of work. The constant production of work. It's hard to consider myself a writer unless I'm writing, which is so unsustainable. But because we're not getting paid for anything but output, how else can we quantify it?

Maybe we need to stop considering our craft as a profession. But that feels like losing or giving up.

I dream about a life that can be sustained by my craft, financially. But does anyone actually have that?

Craft should be a passion, but as soon as you start working in the field or making money from it, it’s a profession. It’s not sustainable. This experience has made me realise I need more than my craft, I need a day job to make me appreciate going home to get back to my craft. It’s hard not to be disheartened and burnt out by freelancing and constantly producing.

What you said about the rose, “[it’s] a rose at every stage, even when it’s a seed, before it’s bloomed, and after it’s died”. That brings me back to the “something from nothing” that we started with. There’s a life cycle so deeply ingrained in your relationship to art. We will always be makers because our ancestors were makers. And our children will be, too. We're other things as well, but we're makers by nature not profession.

Yes, exactly. I think of a maamoul mould a lot, and my relationship with casting and mould-making.

How so?

Oh, it’s like an original, authentic mould and making maamoul is like original, authentic casting. All the steps of making the dough, how it resembles clay, and using your hands. It makes me feel like casting and mould-making is in my blood.

Also, here’s my labneh, I’m very proud.

I can’t remember if you described the balls of labneh as “jewells” earlier on in the chat, but that’s the first thing that comes to mind when I look at these photos. To see something so pure. And the olive oil makes them glisten. It definitely feels sculptural, and precious.