Cristina Busto

1. What made you choose art as a profession?
I don’t think these things are a choice and yet you have to make this choice every day. Art helps me communicate and I’ve always needed to communicate.

2. How would you define your work?
Plastic research applied to video.

3. What subjects are you interested in?
I’m interested in light as a natural projection, experimental film, traditional animation, visual poetry, the performing arts, psychology, education.

4. What resources – formal or otherwise – do you use in your work?
Drawing is the first step for projecting and also for other key pieces. In general, I use recycled materials to create things and I also use video as a medium. My goal is usually a video piece, either live or recorded.

5. What relationship does your work have with reality? What are your raw materials?
Everything really. My work is real and can be seen and experienced. It lasts a set time. It’s my reality from the moment I make contact with an idea, from coming up with a concept until I realise it as a piece.

6. What, according to you, is the point of art?
Everything – creativity can turn a mistake into a success, so it’s always positive. Art has many facets, politics, sociology, psychology, education, looking for alternatives to conventional methods.
It’s also a very important part of leisure and cultural offerings.

7. How do you hope the public will receive your work? What audience are you aiming at?
I sometimes think there shouldn’t be an audience, art should be something about life, by which I mean that sometimes it’s more interesting to do a workshop than an exhibition.
I like people to enjoy it aesthetically, laugh, psychoanalyse themselves, be in the moment, live for the present in front of them, behind them or around them and feel part of the piece, part of art.
I aim at anyone and everyone who is interested in asking questions and looking for answers.

8. What qualifications have you got? What do you value most from your time in education?
My first contact with art was at the School of Fine Art in Asturias and then I graduated in fine art at the school in Cuenca, the same year I got my teaching certificate. My time at the school gave me a theoretical grounding and plastic creative experience. I always learn from people around me.
I value the foundations I built for creating my identity within the art world and also outside it.

9. How would you define your current professional situation? And in the future?
I’m happy with where I am at the moment. I’m at a new stage, creating live films is really motivating and I’m picking up a lot of new experiences, from self-managed spaces to institutions. I’d like to create stage pieces.

10. Many artists say it’s difficult to make a living from their work; how do economic considerations affect you when it comes to work? Do you think this has a bearing on your work?
It’s tough making a living from art, but then so is making a living by spending twelve hours behind the wheel every day, for example. The economic downturn has had an impact on my work, at one point in my life all my pieces were recorded at home rather than in a studio. I used objects and spaces in my everyday life in my work and found recycling bins were full of the most innovative materials.

11. What do you look for or expect from your relationship with promoters and curators? What advantages and difficulties have you found with these relationships?
I hope they do their job professionally and you can rely on them. They helped make my work move and be seen, they have almost always paid me for it and they’ve behaved very properly. I try to get them to relate more with my work than with me as a person. I’m not interested in galleries – that might just be a thing of mine or maybe because so far they haven’t offered me anything good.

12. What do you think sets the arts scene in Madrid apart from elsewhere? What would you say are its pluses and minuses?
The arts scene in Madrid is highly institutionalised, and the programmes on offer at these institutions are pretty interesting. Just as in any other city, feedback is an important part of the arts scene here.