I can honestly say that my experiences generated from the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts’ BREATHE initiative have been ground breaking and life changing. The opportunity provided to Julian Semilian and myself to engage in critical and creative dialogue with revolutionary artists/animators, Jan Svankmajer and Stephen and Timothy Quay, transcended my highest expectations. We embarked on this multidisciplinary intensive project with great excitement as well as great anxiety. To travel abroad and meet with these legendary visual catalysts in their personal studios seemed both surreal and humbling given their stature and achievements. However, our nerves were quickly laid to rest as each individual opened their arms, minds, and spaces to us as though we were old friends. My personal and artistic transformations experienced during our travels are directly related to these open and intimate exchanges with both Jan Svankmajer and the Brothers Quay.

In our visit to the Quays’ studio in London we were welcomed with handshakes, endless cups of coffee, and warm Romanian music. Immediately we found our conversations to be fluid and organic, allowing us dig beyond the surface of any ordinary or typical interview. In our discussions the issue of tactile and intimate settings within their films arouse, as well as their preference to work out of a personal space in which they begin to know their creations as characters and living things. With the level of success that Stephen and Timothy Quay have achieved it was inspiring to see that they still lived their work. At age 61, they have maintained the same humble, yet efficient studio for the past twenty years and prefer to collaborate within a grassroots mentality. There are no egos or grandiose facilities, only a will to generate challenging, complex, and vested works. This level of engagement and DIY philosophy is not only an ideal model for my students but also a crucial reminder to myself that genuine investment and integrity within the work has a pertinent and resonating voice. In speaking with Timothy, we discussed the significance of limitations and how isolating a particular medium to its bare essentials actually allows one to explore, become, and envelope that medium to its fullest potential. In all of the years of creating critically acclaimed feature films and stop motion animations, the Brothers Quay have not strayed from keeping their hand present in their work.

These issues were also relevant in our dialogue with Jan Svankmajer’s producer, Jaromir Kallista and his wife Pavla Kallistova who were generous enough to pick us up from the Prague airport once we had departed London. Pavla mentioned the beginning of a new film production and how chaotic events had been of late given their small, yet familiar production team. After this remark, Julian quickly recognized Jaromir as an actor in Svankmajer’s short "Food". The fact that Jaromir both produces and acts in Svankmajer’s work may be a result of low budgets, but it is also a tribute to artists collaborating with trusted peers who have a genuine enthusiasm behind their vision. Julian and I learned quickly that the three artists we respected and admired were based strongly in a sense of community and collaboration. That community was opened to us in our visits with Svankmajer’s producer, art director, fellow collaborators, and Svankmajer himself.

During an entire afternoon spent with Jan Svankmajer in his Southern Bohemia home and studio, we were the first individuals graced with full access to view his private collection of eccentric artworks, African fetishes, and personal artifacts. Within this eclectic museum, which Svankmajer referred to as his Kunst Camera, Jan revealed his true passions, earnest fears, and deepest emotions. He had accumulated the body of work within this space with his wife and lifetime collaborator, Eva Svankmajerova. Jan set a surreal tone by mentioning that he himself would not visit the Kunst Camera in the evening because the energies and dialogues between objects within the space were too strong. Finding myself consumed with these intense emotions of Svankmajer and his surroundings, I recognized his openness to us as an identifying quality of who Jan is as a person, mentor, and artist. It is this openness, emphasis of community, collaboration, and collective engagement that we as a UNCSA campus should continue to cultivate.

To the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts, I cannot thank you enough for this magnificent gift.

Will