French artist Nils Alix-Tabeling is steadfastly engaged in modern day socio-political conflicts while harkening to fictional fantasies and erased history. For someone who is determined to study through essays and historical research to address questions of colonisation and rural societies, this vigour is embraced by multi-layered symbols of paganism, ornamental whispers, and the occult. “To me there is nothing more pleasant than to turn away from the work when leaving the studio, and feeling a shiver in my back, worried to turn around.”

Recently, Public Gallery has presented Alix-Tabeling’s first solo exhibition, ‘Maison Catabase’, which consists of three floors interrogating the unseen relationship between witchcraft and ancient mythology to the violence against queer folks and people of colour. Three little cat-like sculptures sit on the ground floor, introducing ideas of divine domesticity with their uncanny forms and simultaneously implying the resilient nature against authority required by marginalised minorities. In our back & forth, the artist speaks to why they identify their work as more camp than queer, the labor of materiality, collaboration, craftsmanship, and an all-encompassing story journaling the past and future in the surreal world of Nils Alix-Tabeling.

Queerness, the idea of limitless desire, and how historical touchpoints address modern realities are just a few of the ideas your works touch on, but did you always want to do what you’re currently doing? What impacts your artistic drive?

I think that although what interests me evolves and changes with time, it has always followed a certain trajectory. It has always been important to me to make sure that what I do is politically engaged, and in this regard the question of how truths are produced interests me greatly. I think that history's claim to truth is clearly heavily influenced by ideological agendas. Queer history is really sensitive to that, as many queer histories have been erased or modified to fit within a dominant heteropatriarchal narrative. The question then is how do you rebuild truth when you know that most of the reference points that you are working from have been erased? I believe that artists have a social role to play here as we work with a medium that actively integrates elements of fiction or instability. When trying to convey a discourse through materials there is an accepted aspect of fiction that I believe can become very useful to counteract this erasure.

At the core of your works there are many historical references including folklore, paganism, and Medieval practices. Can you speak about how you consciously study and evoke these narratives in your processes?

Very early in my practice I began research on the witch trials. I found transcripts of many of the trials, and became extremely interested in how those transcripts were interpreted by scholars in the centuries following. I then became very interested in the idea of letting yourself be directed by empathy. I think that the witch trials were primarily concerned with class war, which then subsequently touches on feminism or queer theory. This is something that is really important to me, and that!s why I often talk about my work as camp more than queer, as I believe that the word camp embodies an aspect of class struggle that queerness doesn!t necessarily have. Camp is often defined by a desire to mock or parody exuberant wealth. What is interesting as well, through reading Silvia Federici on this subject, is that the witch hunts were the beginnings of an attempt at reshaping society to prepare for the industrial revolution, the starting point of the ecological emergency we stand in now. To me that’s why paganism is so important, it is a system of belief that connects together ecology with sexual liberation. It allows us also to talk about decolonisation by imagining how a pre-colonial world would have looked like. Paganism works through a process of addition: embracing new ideas and beliefs instead of suppressing and ignoring. A lot of my work until now has been a form of investigation of the many survivances of paganism, for example the research I made on fairies just after graduation (Mélusine, La Vouivre), as a way to talk about forms of primitive communism in rural societies. All of these questions are becoming increasingly important to many artists and there is definitely a resurgence happening, which I am extremely enthusiastic about, as I believe that this could be the building grounds toward something new and collective.

Incredible craftsmanship is featured with all of your works, but meticulous materiality and making is exhibited by the works “Tabl/eau Alchimique”, “Le royaume de Satan était habillement divisé”, “et trois Chaises Sympathiques”, your work based upon I-Ching and medieval alchemy shown at Moco-La Panacée in late 2020. I wonder what the process of creation from beginning to end is like for such a project?

The idea for this work started when Vincent Honoré invited me to take part in the group exhibition Possédé·e·s. This was a very exciting opportunity for me as the show was exploring subjects related to witchcraft that I had been working on myself for a while by then, and I felt very happy to have the opportunity to fully engage with the themes of possession for this work, more specifically how an object can become charged. I had just been displaying giant figurative sculptures in the Palais de Tokyo at this time, surrounded by a series of smaller works exploring hybridisation between animals, humans and plants. I wanted to push myself to see how I could produce works that felt alive, or embodied, but this time without relying on figuration, and trying to insist on an aura or presence around the works radiating from the materials. Thus I decided to focus on alchemy. I started collecting essays, and very quickly it appeared to me that there were very deep connections between European alchemy and the I-Ching. Both are books of changes, both were surrounded by an occult aura while being early scientific disciplines attempting to make sense of the world by preempting concepts of modern chemistry. I wanted to highlight these cultural parallels, even wondering whether both could have a common root. I looked mainly at the evolution of Aristotle’s theories and started to understand that the reason why alchemists were persecuted is that their work involved not only stones and metals but also concepts around identity and gender. The fluidity of the world that alchemy presented became a threat to the church. I decided to focus mainly on glass, one of the biggest technological success of alchemists. I set my mind on producing 64 mirrors that would function as images to contemplate and read, 64 hexagrams. I collaborated with my friend Basile Moukendy Mukanya Verheyden who helped me to chemically etch and silver plate the mirrors. We also worked on reproducing one of the earliest attempts at turning mercury into gold called "the Pharaoh’s snake”. It is a powder that when burned grows into golden meandering ashes. For the table I wanted to work with wood but treat it like stone, in order to myself attempt to transmute materials. I wanted to also produce three chairs, that would act like three priestesses or witches around the table. I started collecting metal objects to later cut and assemble, working together with my friend Chloé Arrouy. I was interested in the idea that the non functional chairs would emanate an aura that would make it felt like a presence was already sitting in it, or radiating from it. I tried to give them personality to accentuate this sensation. I followed the old archetypal image of the three moon goddesses, each associated with a different aspect of witchcraft. One of the chairs is very pastoral in nature, and speaks of fertility and crop growth rituals, rebirth of the earth, and sacrifices. Another chair is a weaver of stories, an archivist of collective knowledge shared by oral transmission. The last one is more dark in nature, it is a #Strige! turning into an owl under the dark moon to roam the night. It wears chainmail and spiked objects found in nature, sea urchins and thistles. I wanted it to feel powerful and dangerous, able to take revenge. This whole process of "dressing up” the metal was the final step for me in trying to allow the works to develop an aura all together. I wanted the sculpture to feel like a ritual taking place, thus not just exploring witchcraft and alchemy but also embodying it. I hope that this was successful. To me there is nothing more pleasant than to turn away from the work when leaving the studio, and feeling a shiver in my back, worried to turn around. And I generally do not stop the work until this happens.

In seeing your works whether it’d be in the form of sculptures or performance pieces there exists a balance between camp and grimness; With your solo show, ‘Together at Last! ... Pierrot & Harlequin, in a rural fantasy’, you speak to the unification of camp and couture, how does the synthesis of these elements play into your projects?

When Michał Woliński invited me to work on this project, with the support of Friends of Liste in Basel, the political climate in Poland was very tense. I wanted to respond to what was happening there, while also refusing to feed into a western European versus eastern European narrative, as well as criticising the opposition between urban and rural lifestyle. I became interesting in exploring homosexuality in the countryside, refusing the historical assertion that queerness is an urban creation. I started imagining Pierrot and Harlequin, two ageless folk figures, as a couple. I wanted them to feel almost like gods to which the sculpture would be a shrine. Two figures plowing the world and seeding queerness in their path, pulled not by powerful horses ( a recurrent imagery of colonial power and expansion) but by camp little cats. I like the idea of the cat as a familiar ( in relationship to witches) but also as an animal that doesn’t respond to authority. The idea of the plough for me was a way to evoke the constant labor of repetition in queer studies and feminist discourses. It often feels as if every past victory is always questioned by the right, and each new generation has to become active to protect the legacy of older activists, to re-plow the same terrain. I was also interested in the opposition between productive plants and weeds. When studying herbalism what becomes fascinating is how every plant coexists and shares space and time together, creating a safe environment for each other, keeping moisture, creating shade for the next life form to grow. This was for me a way to connect rurality with queer values. (Biology has also been heavily influenced by right wing ideologies of competition and violence, but when looking into it one can decide to focus on the constant collaboration and sharing that happens constantly in nature.) To reply more specifically to your question, obviously camp and couture are very tightly connected, but I think when working with sculpture it opens something else that is interesting. I like to work with specific materials that together form a vocabulary to transmit what I want to express through a language of visual sensations and affects. And in this regard I really like to place at a similar level materials that are collectively acknowledged as precious (crystal, pearls, rare woods, silks, etc), and materials that are normally considered as disposable, or cheap (like hairs, paper, vegetation that I collect during walks, shells, etc). To me there is something camp in making these materials feel precious through a labour of taste and craftsmanship. I am also very interested in the idea of dressing up the sculptures. In pagan traditions most sculptures were dressed for specific events, and the process of making their garments was part of collective magical rituals that acted as moments of cultural exchange. Having lived in Belgium for a long time I for example really started to enjoy the Carnivalesque tradition of dressing up papier-mâché giants to parade them in the street. I like the idea that the sculpture needs to be activated by a moment of care directed toward it to be emotionally charged, and thus gain its independence. I enjoy placing a handmade coat on a sculpture before allowing it to exist separate from me. Recently my partner brought to my attention the folk tradition of corn dollies. They were made with the last of the wheat after the harvest, in order to create a vessel for the spirit of the field to have a place to live in during winter, and brought inside the house to be kept warm by the fire and alongside the community. To go back to the subject of camp, I think working class rural communities have always been very interested in campness. And for me to include that in my works is a way to break the separation between city dwellers and countryside inhabitants, in an attempt to create the bases for dialogue and exchange, at my level, which is the cultural industry.

Having just successfully exhibited your show ‘Maison Catabase’ in London’s Public Gallery, what are you striving towards both creatively and personally from this point on?

Until now I have mainly taken part in group exhibitions, which I enjoy greatly, but I now have the opportunity to work on a solo exhibition with Dortmund Kunstverein, which I am really looking forward to. I am starting research on Ulrike Meinhof, one of the most active members of the RAF in Germany. I want to look at her from a feminist perspective, specifically at how she was perceived and presented in the media. At the time it seemed impossible to acknowledge that a woman could coordinate and participate in violent action, and Ulrike Meinhof was always presented either as hysterical, lovesick, or brain damaged, even though she has always made her demands and the demands of the group very clear. She was motivated by a will to end colonialism by targeting the organs that made it possible in Europe, to reveal colonial violence to the people of Europe. I think the show will take the form of an enquiry into the disappearance of Ulrike Meinhof's brain, which got illegally stolen by a neurosurgeon in the prison where she was assassinated. I want to create a parallel between Ulrike's lost brain and a Mandrake plant, spreading its roots long after her passing. To me this exhibition will be an opportunity to explore and identify similarities between the period around 1968 and what is happening now. I think due to Coronavirus there has been an exodus of artists and people from large cities towards the countryside. This is an opportunity to create pockets for sharing knowledge and rethinking our lifestyles. At the same time the ecological crisis has become as urgently felt as it was in 1968. The RAF was already strictly against the use of nuclear powers, which is still an issue today. I find the demands of Ulrike Meinhof still resonating, although her methods (urban guerrilla) are arguable. We probably would gain in comparing and studying how communist values are necessary to end colonial practices and ecologically threatening behaviours.