WASI

A LOOK AT LIFE BEFORE CSM

Art does not exist in a vacuum. It is made up of experiences, cultures, failures, successes, opinions, frustration, urges and most importantly; people.

WHO: Once aims to focus on current CSM students who have had radically different paths in life prior to the one they have now.

WHAT: We’re interested in what their past experiences have brought to their current practice and how they can help current students approach art outside of a vacuum that it is commonly confined to.

WHY: As creatures of environment, we subconsciously absorb and radiate the experiences that surround us – Once is a platform that will allow students to learn about the stories and people who surround them; creating channels for creative communication and connection as well.

WASA LOOK AT LIFE BEFORE CSM

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The �nal push to pursuing fashion for Benjamin Benmoyal came in the form of an injury to his ear. Calm, poised and collected, he tells us about his time with the Israeli Army – each sentence gleaming with a sense of pride and nostalgia – and casually adds that he’s lost hearing in one ear.

“I’ve got quite a complicated story.” He says, smiling earnestly.

“Perfect.” I say. “We can’t wait.”

TheIsraeli SoldierBenjamin Benmoyal25FranceFashion Design and Marketing

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When did you realize what you were doing wasn’t for you?

I was forcing myself everyday, working on chemistry, physics, maths to get my aerospace engineering degree... and really didn’t enjoy it anymore. I think I found it rewarding at the beginning because everyone (especially my parents) were proud of me and to say that their son is in a great school and will get a ‘good job’. But getting older I think you get to know yourself better and realised that it wasn’t my dream but my parents’ one... I then ended up in the army. I always knew I didn’t like it in the army. Basically, I’m French and Israeli and Israel had stopped giving me money to live in France, so I had nothing. So I left France and I decided to go the Israeli army because they were paying me. I trained for a year and got to the Special Forces. I fought in Syria and Lebanon and I got injured. I couldn’t hear in one ear and so I ended up in hospital and I realized what I wanted to do was fashion.

And how old were you when you were serving the army?

I was about 19 and then I served 3 years.

How did you end up at wanting to do fashion?

I knew nothing about fashion but I knew I wanted to do something in it. I applied here, I made a portfolio, I applied to foundation and then from there and I knew I wanted to end up designing in the end.

So what do you plan to do afterwards?

That’s a good question. Next year I have my internship. But I feel like you learn the most elsewhere.

What have you brought from your current experiences into your current path?

Everything. All I am today is thanks to what I have done. Sometimes you’ll see army-based things in my work. I’ve brought those things with me but that’s not the most important. The army gave me self confidence, mental strengths, to never give up, and always getting the situation as it is (even bad ones) and making the best out of it in order to succeed, toughness and rigor.

What about the Army’s sense of discipline?

Yes, there’s a sense of discipline towards myself but not really to the system. It’s made me more rebellious as well. If I feel like I should do something, I’ll do it. I’ve developed the confidence to follow what I think.

What did you have to do to get to this point?

I think it was a mistake, honestly. I didn’t know what a portfolio was at that point. I had two weeks to do it and I had two weeks in the hospital. Thanks to that time there I got time to do that portfolio and honestly, it looked really bad as well. It was entirely army inspired. I didn’t know anything about fashion so I did what I knew. I was very scared because I knew that I dont have the level and that I didnt know anything about fashion or art.

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During the last 4 months of my service I was learning by myself some fashion and art culture and was training at drawing and sketching between 2 operations or patrols or other stuff on my sleeping time.

Do you think having these experiences will benefit artists?

I think any experience whatever it is, would help cultivate better designer/thinkers/practitioners. It’s the life experience of each individual that makes him unique, otherwise we would all be the same and create the same things. It means end of creation. Moreover, it’s especially true for fashion designers. As a fashion designer you will design for people and those outside of your bubble. How do you want to design for people if you stay stuck in your own bubble with friends that look like you, think like you and work with you? That’s why I think designers have to be very, very curious and get interested in philosophy, politic, art and business amongst other things. You have to understand the world you live in, especially the one we live in now.

Do you think these experiences have made you a better artist?

It’s made me more curious and ask a lot of questions.

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The army gave me self-confidence and the mental strength to always make the best out of every situation. It’s made me tough, above everything else

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Eva’s everyday demeanour consists of a colour scheme of teal and orange. Laidback and friendly, she chats with us about her day and the work she’s had to do in the week. She reaches for her matching orange file and preciously shows us the work that’s in it.

“I’m working on making a 2-in-1 uniform and these are the colours.”

A beautiful mix of teal and orange.

TheDesignerChefEva Neueburger26AustriaFashion Textiles

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So tell us about your time as an apprentice chef.

For the actual apprenticeship I worked in three restaurants. Two of them focused on Austrian cuisine. One of them was a Michelin star restaurant or like the Austrian equivalent of a Michelin star.

Was it tough?

The whole work experience was extremely tough. I think it prepared me best actually for CSM, for the workload. I especially see it with younger students and students who have not been working. They are really struggling to actually stand up for their own point of view and not to take criticism personally. And I think that’s really a lesson I learned.

For how long have you been working?

I worked from 18 to 22, so for four years. I did the apprenticeship, like a short version of it for one and a half years and then the rest of it was just working.

And in those four years you did three restaurants?

Yes, I started at a hotel. It was very average spot. The kitchen wasn’t very good. It was just for learning and it was close to my hometown.

And you had people teaching you?

Not really actually. When you start off as an apprentice chef, you are the worst of the worst. You are really the lowest thing. I was literarily for most of the time of the three months what I did was peeling potatoes and cleaning the floor. And literary cleaning the sif from the floor. It was the lowest work. And they had fun from looking at me doing it because my dad and my family is quite renown in the area where I come from because he has the company. So they loved doing it. Because they were like

“Look at her, she is on the floor now and does she thinks she is better than us. But that was a very god lesson for me, because it was reality check.

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When you were doing that did you still enjoy it?

No, I hated it. But I had that little competition going on with me because my family made a fortune, but it was very hard work and everybody obviously thinks that we are rich kids.

Was you family into arts and fashion?

Only me.

What do your parents do?

My mom used to be a teacher and my dad owns a company. It is a meat product and that’s quite renown in Austria. One of my brothers studies

economics and is going to take

over the company and the other two studies

engineering. Nobody in my family has any interest in arts or

fashion. I don’t know where I got it from.

You said that fashion was always in your life but you just never though that you would make a career of it?

No, I just never took it seriously. It kept coming and going. It was never a profession for me.

When did cooking come about?

It came about at the age of 16 when I found a DVD of Jamie Oliver. In my generation he was really the one that actually brought cooking back on the radar. My dad was going nuts when he found cookbooks on the night table next to my bed. He didn’t understand what was going on. It was the weirdest thing for years. And Jamie Oliver brought it back and he

started the whole

movement that we have

now. People care about nutrition, people

care about diets. It is literally due to him.

And changing the way students eat in schools as well.

Yeah, especially in Great Britain. He just brought it back on the table as a lifestyle actually.

At what moment did you realise that what you were doing wasn’t for you? When did you realise that I am done, I will go do fashion.

Well actually I have to say that I am not done. And the idea that I have now is actually marrying both of them. It was just that I knew I had to make plans because I am not that young anymore. And it always gets to the point that whenever I do fashion, I want to do cooking. When I do cooking, I want to do fashion. And it goes back and

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forth. When I chose to do one thing, the other one pops up and kind forces me to go further down that road as well. Not each of it leaves me ever. But there was a point when I was done with me apprenticeship, I was working for a few years and it was really hard work. And I realised that if I want to make a classic career in cooking, it means fifteen more years of extremely hard labour and then maybe being the head chef in the kitchen of somebody who owns a restaurant.

The classic career in cooking didn’t really appeal to me. I just didn’t want to put myself through all of that. It is not too hard for me, but I just can’t be bothered. I would rather do it my way. And also I felt that I want to do some academic studies. I really missed education, I missed learning. Kitchen is lovely, but the people you are with mostly do not have really stunning conversations.

When I do cooking, I want to do fashion. And it goes back and forth. When I chose to do one thing, the other one pops up and forces me to go further down that road as well. Neither one leaves me.

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They are funny guys. Most of them are actually guys, hardly any girls. I am not that skinny but that was my advantage in the kitchen so I could actually lift staff and work. It is literary labour. Physical labour. That’s something for males.

That is interesting because I don’t think there is actually a marrying of fashion and food now.

There are concept stores. There is this thing in Paris called Colette, where you have the restaurant where they sell lifestyle things. What I actually have in mind is kind of like a concept store. And for me I just realised the way I create food is completely similar to the way I create fashion. It is just two different medias. In one I work with fabric and in the other one I use any kind of ingredient.

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TheFine-ArtFather

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Kris walks in with a coffee in one hand and a canvas bag in another. He scans the room quietly and smiles. He tells us he’s sorry that he looks a mess but it’s quite the opposite – he is put together, neat and starts speaking with us right away.

“There’s a lot going on at the moment.” He lets out a little sigh, but his smile stays put.

“Where should I sit?” We gesture at the tiny,

black, leather couch in the corner of the studio.

Then, we begin.

Kris Tralewski45PolandFine Arts

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At what point did you realise that what you were doing wasn’t right for you?

I had a back injury, so I was away from work for a few months. And in the meantime I decided that I don’t want to stay at home and do nothing so I started doing courses. All kinds of courses I could find. Like life drawing and ceramics, printmaking. Whatever I could find. And then I decided that this is what I want to do. And before I spent sometime working as photographer. So I had a bit of a background. And I always wanted to do fine art. So that was a chance. When I was a child my dad never allowed it to happen. So I decided that I reached the age when I don’t need to worry about what my dad wants. He wanted me to study law, which never happened. So I decided that I would like to proceed with it. But then to validate yourself as an artists you need some sort of degree or you will be seen as an outsider, or kind of armature who does craft. If you just do art at home, you don’t have the context really. You need to have a wider cultural context. After finishing all these courses I decided to do a foundation diploma. Just to see if I can create a portfolio. At the end of our foundation course, everyone was asked to submit university applications. And I was told by my teacher that I can try it as well and I decided that why not. If I get in, I will get in. So that’s what I did. And I had two offers

Which year are you in now?

First year.

Before you were working for audio-visual company, was there anything else what you’ve done when you just got out of university?

I worked for IV company where we would organise corporate events and provide technicians and equipment.

Did you enjoy doing it?

Yeah, it was fun. It was something different every day, because we would work for different people. We did everything from meeting to big companies. There was a lot of travelling. And at that time I was also working partly as photographer, so I took my camera and took pictures, meet different people as well. You will see a lot of different cultures and you take it all in, and then you just want to do something with it. I don’t want to have pictures in my albums. I want to use it somehow and make something out of it.

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So on that note, what do you think you brought from your past experiences into your education now?

I think that the easiest thing for me personally, it was the critical stuff. I used to study cultural studies. It was history of culture. So whatever we have now during our lectures, I have read all of this some years ago. So it’s much easier. Other thing is that we can talk with other people. I know all of these things, then I talk to other people, then they know something as well. This was one of the reasons as well why I wanted to do fine art. I think it is nice to share this kind of things. There are perhaps some more talented people than me, and they can use it even better.

What did it take for you to get here? What did you go through to get to this CSM?

It was hard. It was a tough decision. I am a father and I can't really work because there

is problem with childcare. And as an artist you have to be here in the studio. You can’t just skip because then you will not have any work. It was hard. I have to improvise. But so far it has been ok. I can survive. I invest in future. And ideally when I finish this thing I would like to do

post-graduate course and then do teacher qualification. For me it is an investment in the future. Even though I am much older than my fellow students, I don’t think about giving up yet.

You have a daughter. How old is she?

She is eight years old.

What does she think of this?

She is very proud. It is nice that she can go to school. When she is asked about what I do for life. She says that I am an artist. It is better than saying that ‘my dad is just at home, unemployed’

Do you think being a father changes the way you approach art?

I think I can learn a lot from my daughter. She is a better artist than I am. One thing I can learn from her is that she is not ashamed of her art. She is not afraid to experiment. I am an adult and I am more self-conscious. Whatever I do, I want it to be of high standard. And if it is not, sometimes it is easy to give up for me. But then I was told by one of my tutors form before I went to CSM to embrace the failure and to incorporate it into my art. Just make it a focal point of your practice. And my daughter is not afraid of failure. We can learn from kids. Just to experiment and don’t go back because this will lead to something else.

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Do you think she will go into arts in the future?

This is what she says. But we will see. I have to visit some galleries and see what is happening in London, so I take her with me and she enjoys it.

So before having your daughter would you say you were more afraid of criticism? Did she have an influence on that?

I think she had an influence. I was more afraid before. Children are not afraid of criticism. The older you get, the more conscious you are. You get worried that people will not appreciate what you create or that it is not good enough. But kids don’t care. They just do it. I think it is good to look at how kids approach creative process.

Do you think that having this experiences makes up better artists? Because many people come fresh out of school at the age of eighteen.

One thing I would advise for anyone who wants to study art or design is to do foundation, because it will give you more experience. And you will leant to work differently from school. If you do foundation it will give you more real artist practice. It will give you more context, so you can bring things into you art. Of course you can paint nice things, like landscapes. But nowadays to be successful there has to be something more than that.

You mentioned you want to teach. What is it that you would like to teach other people?

To be open minded. To take in more from culture. To look at things. Many people draw from memory. And you have to just look at things. This is what children do. They observe things. At the school age there is a moment when children start drawing things wrong, because they know that for example a chair has four legs and they draw four legs of equal length. This is the time when our brain kicks in and our memory. We don’t really look at things. This is the most important thing for young artists. To learn how to see. And we can learn this from children.

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You mentioned that if you were to teach you would ask your students to get into a bigger cultural scene. Do you feel that it is present in CSM? Do you feel that people here are open minded? Also what is the difference in art school in Poland and here?

The difference is that in Poland everything was more academic. And you learn more. You learn that whatever you take in, whatever you are told you have to take it as universal truth. And whereas here you are taught to be critical. You have to make your own judgement. Also what I learnt since I have been in CSM I think we are encouraged to experiment more. We are not here to be the generation of artists like the previous generation. We are actually here to make a new generation of artists and make something new. If you are an architect you don’t go to school to build a Roman Church. You are there to learn all of that but then you are encouraged to think for the future. Design things for the future. See how we can present things in our own way. To take in what we are given and then see what we can offer.

Do you think that now you are being experimental enough?

I think I’ve only just started.

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