The nature of identity

The temperament of identity

The plasticity of identity

Rubia Rose constructs scenes and instances that invite us to navigate questions of identity in a painless, quiet manner. To analyse, question, and deconstruct the complex structures that shape, motivate, traumatise, and bend us can be an alienating unsettling task. However, in Rubia’s process we are never alone, she finds a way to make the process natural, not violent, despite it making us very aware of the fear and pain of shattering our constructed reality.  

The first time I met Rubia Rose was during a ceramic workshop. As Kunstwissernschatler*innen, the class was being shown around the ateliers to better understand artistic practice with ceramics and the material’s versatility. Rubia talked us through her many works in ceramic and the journey behind each one; I remember being particularly struck by the ingenuity and softness behind her pieces—the cats loafing on the floor, the ravens tucked here and there, the faces, everything felt like characters in a play, like they were someone without having to be named. 

She molds pieces of herself into her work, not because they are extensions of herself, but because her artistic practice is simultaneously an exploration on the nature of identity: Rubia takes from herself and plants it into the material, so it can nurture some sort of agency as it becomes part of the scene, independent and evolving. This process is a self-reflection that invites the viewer to participate, to ask themselves what if they too were in this moment, what if they are observing me? Who am I to them? Who am I to myself?

Questions on the nature of identity lead you down a path that highlights the fickle flame of the self’s facade. Rubia’s work explores the process of perceiving, and being perceived by others, an exploration that highlights how often we forget that our reality is a simple fragment of an unconsolidated whole. Drawing influence from her mother’s work as a contemporary dancer, Rubia creates deceptively simple sets that invite the viewer to imagine themselves as participants through the movement of her characters: a tipping chair alive with frozen adrenaline, deflated ravens, ones capable of recognising more in us than we do in ourselves, the strong structure of a cage paired with unfixed walls—every piece of the set offers a moment frozen in time for self-reflection. Rubia’s sets transform into scenes as we accept this invitation, scenes that create a chance for our solo dance, our soliloquy, an attempt to enter the stage without the gaze of the Other. It’s just us, the mirror, and our projections onto others.

We become aware of the struggle between what we are and ought to be, the many faces scattered on the floor represent the collective echo of this struggle within everyone; we are trapped between the illusory desire for individuality and the conditioning forces of our environment. 

Rubia has a way of separating the body from its identifiable, constructed concept and confronts us with its function as a cage. From there, she exposes the system’s fragility and vulnerability; gazes can break us, crowds make us feel desolate, fears break our hearts, and feelings drown us—we are susceptible to everything which we desire. With self-denying appetite we gingerly engorge ourselves on overconsumption, an act we have come to ritualise so easily, that we need not spend time thinking about or grimacing over it. That willful ignorance becomes a necessity: to open our eyes would be to recognise the judgement of the Other upon ourselves is the same jealous knife we wield back at them—a realisation that could break us. 

Rubia’s works create a space that captures and deconstructs tilting moments of our conflicted thoughts and emotions. They are deceitfully simple sets at first, yet densely direct in what they offer the viewer: a possibility to ruminate on the nature of identity. Hers is an invitation for us to project, imagine, and self-reflect; when we connect, we consolidate the set into a scene. Rubia’s search is less focused on fixed answers, she doesn’t claim to have them. Instead, the intention is always the attempt. Identity is not rigid, there’s only temporary answers here.

TEXT: Juliana Arosemena