E3: Lisette Ros - Participating in Evolution and Devolution

This week, Asia is joined by Lisette Ros, a Dutch performance artist who investigates daily conventions and breaks down everyday behaviors. Lisette approaches her performances as experiments or opportunities to research and collect data about her body, all in the attempt to better understand her fluid, queer identity and consider the question, “Who is she, in the midst of it all?”

Lisette first explains how she familiarizes herself with any performance location and begins the process of research (1:22). She then reviews how her work "Reframing Conventions" shifted when performed in various locations including the Red Light District (03:56). Asia questions if and how the question of safety comes up in Lisette's work (13:15) and Lisette admits that her work does not embrace comfort, in favor of searching for moments of vulnerability and exposure.

Lisette later describes her My Self series, which currently includes five performances: The Fetus, The Other, The Body, The Bladder, and The First Breath (14:56). All five contribute to Lisette's efforts to deconstruct her slippery sense of identity and question when and how we come to recognize and make sense of our bodies and the worlds that live within them.

In an effort to better understand her "blood" and family line, Lisette will begin to develop the sixth performance of the My Self series: The Unfamiliar Roots (26:54). This project will take her to Indonesia (where her grandfather was born) to participate in a program at Melati Suryodarmo's Studio Plesungan.

Before they close, Asia and Lisette discuss the axolotl, a fascinating creature that Lisette was recently researching in Mexico City. The two reflect on the ways that the axolotl's resistance to evolution both challenges and inspires Lisette's practice and investment in "being in flux."

Follow Lisette Ros online at www.lisetteros.com and on Instagram @lisetteros.

You can also watch many of Lisette's performances on PerformVu! Head to www.performvu.com

This podcast is produced and edited by Asia Stewart.

Find Asia online @asiastewart and @performvu