There’s a sticker on Maya Rochat’s laptop that reads ‘Neochamanism is not a crime’; this is also the title of one of her recent images, used in full on the flyer for her solo show at Seen Fifteen but cut into three separate panels in the gallery. It’s a jokey riff on the popular phrase, but when I ask her about it, she’s quite serious. She’s interested in the concept of Shamanism, she says, and the idea we’re all interconnected.
“If I have a good time when I’m making an image, I notice people react to it differently [when they see it],” she says. “If I’m stressed or upset, they get something else.”
At the opening, Rochat will do live-painting on a projector, the ever-evolving images projected over the prints and the crowd. “Each person has an experience that’s unique – just by being there, you are activating the show,” she adds. “The light, the people, are changing – each moment is there just for you, and then it’s gone. You can’t really document it. It’s also a way of sharing what happens when you make an image – you have these apparitions that appear in the moment. If it’s too fixed, I feel a little bored. It’s not the end result, it’s the process.
“I’m passionate about photography, but I feel that when you visit shows you often see a book but bigger,” she continues. “When you visit my shows you have a different experience. I don’t want it to be too finished; I want it to be more like an atelier.”
This approach has informed how she presents her images – shots of water are displayed on translucent panels on the windows, so that the light can play through them, for example; panels are hung untethered, so that they move as people walk past. Elsewhere the process is part of the image and impossible to separate from it, with Rochat painting on paper before printing, allowing the wet inks and paint to mix up.
Rochat uses photography, scanning, painting and drawing, and makes analogue, inkjet and lithographic prints; everything for her is fair game, if she can play with the medium’s potential. The resulting images are layered and deliberately confusing, including happy accidents and what Rochat terms “lies”, in a bid to draw attention to the image and its materiality, and confuse the assumption it can document reality.
“I also like to think about the collective imagery, the fact that all those other images [that have gone before] are compressed in the image [and how it’s read],” she adds. “A few years ago people felt like ‘Uh this is very heavy work, so layered and complicated’, but now I think the reception is easier, because everyone has seen so many more images.”
Give Me Space by Maya Rochat opens at the Seen Fifteen Gallery tonight and is open until 22 January. Seen Fifteen Gallery, Bussey Building Unit B1.1, Peckham, London SE15 3SN. seenfifteen.com
