Startup with Marta Ramirez

ico Marta Ramirez

  • launch

December 30, 2024
Dear readers and colleagues,

Do you know anyone with the tattoo that says: Mountains are calling and I must go? I remember being completely obsessed with it as a teenager. Always thinking, "I'll take that one when I grow up," only to completely forget about it years later. Memories of those thoughts run through my head as I write this text, on my way to the Alps.

I could fill this letter by explaining how tough the past six months have been since I graduated from HKU: working myself overtime at a side job I hated just so I could pay an incredibly expensive rent in Rotterdam, dealing with feelings of loneliness, anxiety and the pressure of not being able to create in that state. But I don't. The thought of being surrounded by mountains again gives me hope.

The most important thing that has happened in the past few months after graduation is the unstoppable will to know myself better. I have learned not to avoid discomfort, but to listen to it. What is it trying to tell me?

Ten things I learned about myself and my artistic practice six months after leaving art school:

1. I am an academic. I miss school, being surrounded by knowledge and research. Living places where brains are full of ideas. It's not a withdrawal syndrome; I genuinely miss it.
2. I underestimated how powerful it is to be surrounded by nature.
3. Being disconnected from nature and my environment has affected me and my practice for too long.
4. Art exists in a dynamic, emotional interaction with the world around us, with both influencing each other. Complacency stifles creativity.
5. The one thing that kept me from combining my previous studies in ecology with my artistic practice was fear of failing at two things at once.
6. Making art for me is less about the end result and more about the physical activity, the choreography of material and the emotional processes.
7. In a world shaped by colonialism and capitalism, it is the responsibility of art to reconnect with the world around us and carry the voices of the unheard to the ears of the unconvinced.
8. The ecosystem of art works like the ecosystem of an estuary. It needs one or more rivers flowing into it and a free connection to the sea. Dynamic transitional ecosystems at high risk due to the current social and political climate. Their survival therefore depends on their ability to maintain their identity while constantly changing.
9. Believe in my ability to heal and in the ecosystem's ability to heal. Take leaps into the unknown.
10. To the unfriendly inner voices: there is the door.

And as I reflect on my list, I leave you with the question, Why and how can our art make a difference in how we respond to crises?

In a world beset by environmental problems and social turbulence, art calls us to listen, observe and reflect. To transform passive awareness into active engagement. Only in this way can it become a tool for change.

We've heard thousands of times that art reflects the world. But it is how art shapes how we see and respond to the world that really matters. By embracing the messiness of starting an artistic career and leaning into that discomfort and uncertainty, perhaps we can face the crises that require our attention. It's about creating spaces where transformation is possible, where both the artist and the viewer are part of an ongoing conversation about what lies ahead, and how we choose to navigate it together.

For now I leave you, the mountains call, and I must go.
Marta Ramirez 

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