Dora Garcia on Performance, Marginality, and the Politics of Deviance

In an interview with Maria Rosa Sossai for Artribune, Dora Garcia discusses her artistic practice, which spans writing, film installation, and performance, with a focus on literature and narrative. Garcia recounts discovering the Zurich Joyce Foundation, a group that reads James Joyce's Finnegans Wake weekly, which she filmed for her work The Joycean Society, shown at the 2013 Venice Biennale. She explains her interest in marginal figures like Franz Kafka, Robert Walser, J.G. Ballard, Antonin Artaud, Samuel Beckett, and psychiatrist Franco Basaglia, linking marginality to the artist's condition. Garcia reflects on her retrospective at the Reina Sofia in Madrid, titled "Second time around which is in fact the first," referencing psychoanalyst Jorge Jinkis and Julio Cortázar's story "La Segunda Vez" to explore repetition, trauma, and political repression. She notes her absence from her performances due to shyness, preferring to direct others. Garcia teaches in Geneva and Oslo, integrating her students into her projects. The interview covers her interest in deviance, counterculture, and psychiatric experiences, inspired by Artaud and Basaglia.