What am I doing to do?
This is so cool.
Could I start?
We are starting now? Ok.
Hi, Tania.
Hola, Tania.
Why did you want to be an artist?
Why did I want to be an artist?
Well, because I spend a lot of time thinking why?
So either I became a philosopher, or I became an artist.
We have a general question about your career path.
So, how did you start from, if you did go to uni, how did you get to where you are now
at Tate?
Thank you.
First of all, let me tell you, it took 30 years.
So it was a long path.
One thing that was very important for me is to always be faithful to what I believed was
my idea of art.
Even if a lot of people didn't understand, even if a lot of people didn't agree with
me, even if it wasn't fashionable.
Who's your biggest inspiration?
Believe it or not, my biggest inspiration is injustice.
How does it feel to be an artist admired by people around the world?
The more people see the work, the more exposure I have, the more opportunities I have to show
my work, the more I feel the sense of responsibility, and the responsibility is also about sharing
the visibility with others and about giving space for other issues to be talked about.
Hi, Tania.
I've just been into the migration installation and I was very moved by it.
My question simply is, what is it?
The piece is about, how can we make migrants our neighbours?
How can we negotiate new values in our society?
And actually making sure everybody understands that they have their own responsibility with what
is happening around them.
How did you make us cry when we went into the room?
So we went into the white room.
Why is my friend crying?
Well guys, your friend is crying and you are crying because we worked with a chemist to
come up with a compound that is a natural and organic compound that triggers you to
cry.
What kind of organic compound is this?
My answer is: shhh!
How can people relate to real pain when they just have something that smells and makes
them cry like this?
I'm wondering whether the idea behind it is that empathy with migration is a moral imperative
now.
What I want is other people seeing you cry and see what happens.
Are people going to empathise with you?
Is it possible to have the physical reaction before you have the emotional reaction?
How did you think of the idea of like, putting science behind art and mixing the two together?
For me, science in this project is the metaphor, it's the way to enter into the metaphor of
the project, because it's what delivers the meaning of the project.
If you don't touch the floor, if you don't engage, if you don't feel part of it, then
you don't reveal it.
How did you make the floor?
Thank you for your question.
The floor is made out of an ink that reacts to heat.
It's called thermochromic ink.
Right.
I wasn't entirely happy about the black shiny floor, it made the area look a bit dim and
gloomy.
I wouldn't like to be your cleaner.
And also I'm disappointed when I found out I had to bring 200 or 300 people with me to
get any idea what the picture on the floor was going to turn out to do.
So I'd like your views on that please.
You're right, I think it is disappointing that you have to bring 200 or 300 people to
see the image.
And I think it's also disappointing, the fact that sometimes maybe you need 300 votes in
order for a law to change.
The number thing is pretty interesting.
Why did you choose to have a nice number on everybody?
The title of the piece is a number that changes every day.
The amount of people who move and migrate in the world last year plus the amount of
people who have died and are still dying, trying to move to another country.
I'd heard about the exhibition.
I was wondering, is it working like you're intending it to do?
It is working as I intended because all of my work is a social experiment.
All of my work is about putting something there for people to make it work or not.
So it is working because of you guys.
I think it's inventive.
I think it's fun.
I like the fact that you've got a lot of people that come and see it and they interact with
your work really well.
I've never really seen anything like it before.
It was really cool, yeah.
I want to thank you for this experience.
I really appreciate it.