Julien Delagrange: You grew up in Tiraspol, in a region that is officially part of no country. How does that particular kind of geographic ambiguity-being from a place that doesn't quite exist on the map-shape the way you understand identity, and the way you understand photography?
Eva Chapkin: I believe it's the only place where I do exist. The only place where the moment I pass the border, I am who I am, I can finally feel my arms, I can finally feel my lungs expand from the moment the car picks up a rhythm back home, I know that I am present. I feel like the places where I am considered present alter my perception of identity, with each home or space I move my body, it reeks of thoughts to preserve. From corporal memory to encompassing myself as a phantom limb, a prosthetic memory. Through imitation, we learn. Through observing, we react. Through reacting, we exist.
JD: From this perspective, could you briefly discuss the title of the show, Dislocation? And what is the role of dislocation throughout your artistic practice in general?
EC: Dislocation doesn't follow the idea of displacement, more like a fracture, a dislocated shoulder, which we tend to get from time to time. It's care, but also frustration, that you cannot move properly; you cannot pick up the cup you like in the morning, just because this 'limitation' is stopping you. From reinterpreting what is familiar to your ghostly new being, how do you step into your so-called new 'home'? Where do you leave your belongings? You're just like a guest: unaware of your surroundings, shy, unable to move, so as not to disturb the home. My artistic practice is filled with observation and shame. The four walls don't invite me in; they observe because the longer you're gone, the more you vanish, and the more the pavement there doesn't grasp onto your shoes.
