Books are at the core of Alma Archive, I’d love to hear which ones have shaped your practice or your life.
Ilona van den Brekel: That’s a difficult question. I don’t think there are specific books that have shaped my artistic practice. There are, of course, books that have left a lasting impression on me. One of them is Blindness by the Portuguese writer and Nobel Prize winner José Saramago. The book is about the reaction of civilized people in a situation they no longer have any control over. It leads to complete chaos and animalistic behaviour. Another book I’ve read recently is The Eighth Life (for Brilka) by Nino Haratischwili, a family epic spanning the whole of 20th-century in Georgia. It describes inhumane reactions to oppression and dealing with people who think differently. For some reason, while these themes don’t appear in my work, I find them extremely interesting and intriguing.