“To make art is a game of strategy”

Upon arrival at our meeting place – the former brewery, converted into living and art spaces – I found an oasis of peace and calm in the middle of a dynamic city. Désirée gave me a little tour, and we sat down in the middle of the open space. At first, we talked about her Roel Verniers Pitch. I was particularly interested in how she felt about it all: pitching an artistic practice, the day itself, and the buildup toward it. She told me that her mind was split into three parts (as it goes with minds these days). The first part was very grateful; that part felt taken care of by the TheaterFestival and Hestiro Art Festival, and she was very happy with all the fantastic people involved in the process. Of course, the stress was definitely present, but thanks to all the help she received, it did feel like being in a good place.

Another part still feels that pitching, subsidies, and the whole system around it is quite strange. The artist with the most urgent or beautiful project does not necessarily give the best pitch. The last part of her ‘likes to play’: she accepts the game and tries to beat it. Désirée dropped a great quote (as she always does): “to make art is a game of strategy”.

Continuing our conversation, we talked about her relationship with pitching and how she claimed her agency over “the capitalistic part of the job.” She regarded much of the periphery of the work as bureaucratic tasks imposed by institutions. But, she explained, it is actually very important. People come to watch your performance, and that is truly meaningful; it is also for them that you write these things.

Désirée can’t make pieces for a generic public – an abstract group called ‘the public’ isn’t who she performs for. Her pieces flourish because the individuality of each spectator is allowed to exist and even honoured. The difference in mindset between making a piece for ‘a public’ versus a group of individuals is significant and important. For all those individual people, she creates promotional texts, pitches, and teasers – it’s a way to claim agency.

She also told me: everything about your piece carries an implication, a meaning. What you write in the promotional text is just as much part of the piece as what you say during the performance, so you should honour everything. Art is not a bubble floating in space.

A pitch with ghosts

What was her favourite piece of material in the creation of the work for which she won the Roel Verniers Prize? Simple: ghost stories, she told me. When she was younger, it often happened that she would sit around the fire while people shared ghost stories. She still remembers how magical it was: she felt so many emotions at the same time. She was afraid, but also safe in this social space; she felt cherished and relieved afterwards. This is the experience she wants to share with the people attending her performance.

Désirée has another intention for the piece: she would like to honour a horror radio show. La Mano Peluda (today Miedoteca) is a Mexican radio show that functions as a kind of ‘library of fears’. Three times per day, people can call in and share their scary stories. The show has been very important in the Mexican diaspora and helps people abroad connect with the motherland, Désirée tells me.

What is a ghost, then, for Désirée? “It is something that is here, but at the same time not here. It has unfinished business with the world of the living. It is like an urgent message, but struggling to be delivered. It carries memory of trauma and pain that is not yet digested. Ghost stories are a way of talking about these things in a less intellectual way; the experience is more physical and funny.”

Horrorscope: prophecies by Désirée Cerocién

To end the interview, I told Désirée that I wanted to write a horoscope – a collection of prophecies for the future – and asked for her suggestions. We called it a “horrorscope,” in line with the subject of her piece, and this is how it goes:

Désirée (Aquarius), change will happen in your lifetime. You will live long enough to see old empires crumble. As you said, they are already crumbling, but how long will it take until there is nothing left of them but dust? You hoped that when the real apocalypse comes, it won’t be that bad. The idea of a hopeful apocalypse is one that never occurred to me before, but it shows your dynamic spirit. To make these empires crumble, it is important that we do our duty, even if we don’t immediately see the effects of our efforts. 

To illustrate this, you used a Spanish proverb:

No hay mal que dure 100 años, y no hay cuerpo que lo aguante.

No evil lasts 100 years, and nobody can endure it.

You reminded me that we must remember we are doing it for the next generation. We might not see the results of our fight, but that is not why we are fighting. The last thing you requested for the future was some retrospection: we have to honour the dead, you said. Many people have died recently, and it is our duty to ask what they would have wanted us to do. This thought calls for respect and consideration; we should look back in order to know how to look forward.

Dear Désirée, I wish you all the best for the future!