By Jess Woodward
Sonya, who currently lives in Deptford, speaks about the ways in which her family have impacted both how she views herself as well as her work. Her dad is originally from New Mexico, and her mum is Russian. Sonya moved to London when she was 7 after living in Boston. Sonya explains how this sense of cultural awareness from a young age has created a feeling of space for Sonya, a sense of being removed. This ultimately plays into the ways she views her surroundings and more widely her life, which is inevitably reflected in her work.
After studying politics and sociology in Canada for a year, Sonya dropped out and came back to London to study art at Goldsmiths University where she has just graduated from! We asked why she chose to focus on video and media instead of say painting for example. She explains how she got into video specifically about a year ago whilst studying at uni after not taking or being in any photographs for a year. She voice-recorded throughout this period and then combined this with her interest in concepts of time. For example, a film that is three hours could be telling the story of a day or of a lifetime.
Sonya tends to do a lot of work with her voice with her tutor explaining that her voice seems to be the anchor of her work more than the image. Even after watching just a snippet of one of her videos called ‘October 26th’ which can be found on her Instagram, I was able to see how her voice is the centre of her work. A beautifully hypnotic energy emanates through her videos. Sonya said it feels like her work is her communicating with herself, it’s about presence.
Obsessed with her childhood, Sonya explains how she is sad that she’s no longer a child, and is super interested in vulnerability which she feels is reflected in childhood. In her final piece she uses videos from her own childhood speaking fondly of how lots of the video are her dancing which she loves as it appreciates the pureness of a child’s mind. Sonya likes to create an encapsulating environment with her art. Giselle who went to go and see Sonya’s final piece in person described it as feeling like she was inside Sonya’s mind, with the three-dimensional structure creating a real atmosphere.
Moving forward, Sonya says she is really interested in curation, and is also hoping to get her own studio space, as well as starting at the art school Akademie der Bildenden in Vienna in March. She is currently working as venue manager, curating for Matchstick Piehouse as well as her collective called ‘Bloc’. When I asked her how Sonya chooses who what work she wants to curate, she said its more based on an intuition, and centres around representing people and mutually celebrating each other.
To end on we had a very interesting conversation about how working we feel women work together, even acknowledging the difference between different women e.g transgender or queer. We spoke about how we lean on each other for both work and emotional support and they often become one and the same.
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