Kubra KHADEMI
Stage director

Kubra received a production grant for her play Reperformance and a creation grant in partnership with the Atelier des Artistes en Exil.

What is your artistic background ?
I am a multidisciplinary artist. I have always drawn, ever since childhood, and today I draw ‘myself’. I also use my body in my work. I do performances. I have always been fascinated by public spaces because they seem to belong to men (a mysterious phenomenon to me until I started to understand the concept of patriarchy). I started exploring public spaces while walking and it became the basis of my performance practice. Walking is the drawing of performance art. Walking in the city made me think, question, feel as an individual and this leads me to all my creations.

How do you see your profession today ?
Today I can see clearly how I was already an artist when I was a little. For instance: drawing naked women, using my body in different forms, I would say I was exploring my sexuality. I was talented at mimicking others. Basically a lot of ‘bad’ things I did seemed to be bad because I was a girl… My mother used to punish me for them. I was a ‘bad girl’ through my mother’s or Afghan culture’s definition. Now I don’t feel sinful anymore because I realize I was just an artist. Today I am an artist in a much larger context, for sure. The bad girl of the past is an artist today. I use my personal life at work. It is all about my identity and/or sexuality and exile. I live in my art.

How do you see yourself in five years ? In 10 years ?
I will keep living in my art.

This interview was conducted in 2019
Photo credit: Amandine Besacier