Stanca Soare is a Romanian and French visual artist. Born in Bucharest in 1995, naturalized in 2008 in France, she conceives installations and performances. She studied fine arts at Ecole Supérieure d’Arts et Médias Caen-Cherbourg, Institut Supérieur des Arts of Toulouse city and Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Arts of Bourges city (France). She works in the village of Miroși, Argeș county, while spending her time traveling between Paris and Bucharest.
Her most relevant exhibitions until now are Néons at Le Lieu Commun art center (Toulouse, France, 2017), Éclats #1 – Constellation Provisoire (“Slivers #1 – Temporary Constellation”) at Le Creux de l’Enfer art center (Thiers, France, 2020) and Ballad of Escape at the National Museum of Romanian Peasant (Bucharest, Romania, 2021). Among her public performances, we can count Inoculation at the Festival des Temps Sismiques event (Strasbourg, France, 2017) and Forgotten Lives at Le Nadir concert hall (Bourges, France, 2019).
You can follow Stanca on her website and on her Instagram profile.
Q&A with Stanca Soare
When did you discover your passion for art and what does art mean to you?
I keep on re-discovering the meaning of making art on a daily basis. In my case, art becomes the expression tool of a long thinking process. I place in art what I cannot put into words. I believe that each intention and action, such as using the visual expression environment, are part of a process. For me, visual arts are a filter that enables me to look at society and myself. A filter which gives me the freedom of concepts and of ideas.
Describe yourself briefly: what triggers your emotions or what makes you angry?
My personality is flexible and chameleonic and this is imprinted in the versatility of the shapes I use. I have been working in museums for 3 years and I am passionate about the audiences’ psychology and their behaviour towards a work of art. I like travelling to learn what art means in totally different cultures and in my free time I eat cinema, Japanese literature and comic books for breakfast. I also started collecting Romanian coverlets.
Describe your artistic vision: sources of inspiration, techniques, messages you want to communicate to audiences.
I use performance and installation to tell short stories about social and intimate contexts. I stage my environment, so that they also include a performance. I do that because I want to give a two-fold meaning to my works. I compose installations out of volume objects inspired from handcraft and vernacular techniques and I place them as props. I experiment with textiles which I connect to language, transmission and to the inexpressible. I’d rather not limit myself.
Who influenced you on your path and how?
Magali Desbazeille supported me in structuring one performance and in being sharp with the meaning of my work. Nicolas Herubel stirred my interest in installations. The artists who influenced me are Mountaincutters and Hippolyte Hentgen. I somehow revolved around their exhibitions like a bug attracted by a lamp. I hope I will meet them someday.
What work of art your produced you like best and what does it mean to you?
“Forgotten Lives” from the Emmetrop Art Center (Bouges, 2019) is my favourite artwork. From the conceptual and visual perspectives, I feel that, by this performance, I reached a clarity and wholeness I cannot find again.
There, I used a great number of textile pieces from various installations and I spent a lot of time working on the storyline and on non-verbal language. I achieved a nice mix between Rwandan and Romanian cultures with the partner I used to work with. The output was a strong speech against the war, while keeping a personal touch to our modus operandi.
What moment in your career made you happy?
In 2016, when Arnaud Labelle-Rojoux organised the “Dada Ball” in Toulouse, at Printemps de Septembre festival: it was my first “live” performance and the first time I had a collaboration with an important artist. Several other emerging artists were part of it, so it was a team effort. Some composed the sound for our intervention, others worked on accessories. Arnaud wanted to organise a “Performance Night” based on Kurt Schwitters’ piece, “Ursonate” (1932). I was very impressed by the energy that I felt when the action took place. The fact that many young people came to the venue (CDC Saint-Cyprien Toulouse) because they were interested in watching performances amazed me. It’s really important to be in a certain state of mind in order to see a performance. The public remains one of the major aspects in the matter.
What do you expect from Accelerator programme?
I would be glad to see how much I evolved thanks to the programme. I am starting to feel the benefits of the mentorship stage. I take into account the professional aspects regarding budget and management in a more serious manner. I began to gather strong arguments against the idea that being an artist is just a hobby, instead of a profession. I am pleased that Accelerator gives me tangible solutions to practical issues.
What other artists inspired you and why?
I like Theo Mercier very much due to his polyvalency of production and for how he places objects into the space. His last exhibition from Avignon (2021), “Outremonde”, comprised only sand and was performed by children. I also like Julien Creuzet’s installation “Ricochets, The pebbles that we are, will flow through (…)” from 2017. I guarded it in 2019, when it was presented at the Modern Art Museum in Paris.
What are your future plans?
I cannot say whether my future plans will work. I’m not the type to have 5 simultaneous exhibitions. I’d like to be selected for some artist residencies and a postmaster programme that I applied to in France. Let’s say that I try to focus on the quality and the impact of my practice. I wouldn’t fancy working on projects that don’t represent me, only because the opportunity presented itself. All that being said, I am still adapting to the Romanian artistic context I hope to be able to build solid foundations now, for the long term.
Works of the Artist
in Back to Where It All Began Exhibition
