Interview: Lara Pacillo // Photos: Emmaline Zanelli courtesy ACE ‘ROCKAMORA’ work in progress
Kaspar Schmidt Mumm uses art as a language. Through his practice, Kaspar creates communication in different communities, pushes boundaries through immersive experiences, and acknowledges the rehabilitative qualities of art. ROCKAMORA is his first major gallery exhibition as the recipient of the 2023 Porter Street Commission — Adelaide Contemporary Experimental’s annual $20,000 art award — where he has called on fellow members of the performance art collective The Bait Fridge and the six-piece music ensemble Slowmango to bring the exhibition to life. Ahead of its launch on Friday June 9, with its finishing touches in the works, we stopped by ACE to chat with Kaspar about engaging with art, breaking down borders between cultures, and empathising with bullies.
Tell me about ROCKAMORA. What is the inspiration behind it?
Oh my gosh, this goes deep. ‘Rockamora’ is the name of my mum’s primary school bully. She and her whole family moved from India/Pakistan to Canada. When my mom and her sisters went to school, it was a majority white school, and so they got bullied. My aunty is good friends with Rockamora now, it’s way on, but when I was a kid, I always heard this story of my mum and aunties, these little tiny girls in primary school, overcoming their bully. And it was a story that I told myself over and over again to overcome the things that I went through when I was the only brown kid in school. So that’s a huge part of it.
The idea is that it’s like a giant Tamagotchi. So people come into the gallery, and it’s like a really simple video game. There are six interactive levels where you clean them, feed them, they poo. You can go inside ROCKAMORA’s head, and you can actually control ROCKAMORA yourself. You can interact with it from inside and outside.
People are so used to not being able to touch art; whereas with this, the hands are couches, the feet are ramps you can lie on, you can hug it, you can feel it, you can play with it, that’s the whole point of it.
What is The Bait Fridge, and how does it play into the exhibition?
We’ve been working together for like seven years now. It kind of started off as just building a stage out of garbage and recycled fabric and stuff. We started wearing costumes because it would protect us from our medium like a big smock while we’re painting, and with Slowmango band playing alongside. We do live art in the context of we’ll do a workshop with the regional community where we all make costumes and sculptures and a giant float. And then we’ll parade that through the town.
All those people in The Bait Fridge have helped build ROCKAMORA and are a part of the workshops for it. In The Bait Fridge, there are dancers, musicians, programmers, producers, actors, writers. There’s everyone from the arts, and they all come into it. Essentially, it’s just a pool of people that we have to collaborate with and learn from, and we all teach each other our skills and our practices.
Why do you think it’s important to make art collaborative and engaging?
Art is social. One of my favourite quotes is, “The museum is a school, the artist learns to communicate, and the public learns to make connections.” If we’re talking about cultural institutions that are run by the government or owned by the public, that’s what I think they should do. I think that public institutions should A) hire communities to be represented, and B) show them to communities that need to see them.
You need to make it accessible. That’s one of the biggest things. Accessibility is at the forefront of contemporary art right now, and it needs to be because that’s how you make it interesting. Accessibility isn’t just about accessibility. It’s also incredibly beautiful, and we need to recognise that beauty.
Congratulations on being awarded the Porter Street Commission. How do you feel about receiving it?
It’s hard to come by opportunities like this, and I feel incredibly privileged. I believe I deserve it because I truly engage with my community. The money I’m receiving is going right back to artists in this city to showcase what they can do. There’s no way in hell that I could have built ROCKAMORA by myself. The credit list is extensive, and I want it that way because I consider it a necessity.
What do you hope people will take away from the exhibition?
The overarching theme of ROCKAMORA is that ROCKAMORA is the antagonist. ROCKAMORA is the thug. ROCKAMORA is the bully. It’s the audience’s responsibility to heal and care for them, and that narrative is what we need to tell. We need to make giving care to people – offering to help them have the same privileges as everyone else in society – something cool. We need to make benevolence something people want to do and strive for because that’s what makes us human.
You can think of ROCKAMORA as your bully. I think ROCKAMORA represents so many different people to me, and it may seem strange to try to heal your bully. However, healing a bully recognises that something is broken and needs to be fixed.
It’s also the people that have the power or are in a point of privilege that need to recognise their own flaws, and figure out how to fix them so they can heal themselves, or they can heal others like them. There’re so many aspects of society that we need to reanalyse and put a Band-Aid on, we need to open up those wounds and heal them.
What inspired you to become an artist?
I’d say there are a couple of levels to that. Simply because my mum always taught me painting and drawing, I did it in school, and then the girls at school thought it was hot — so I wanted to keep going. And then a really a good friend of mine who’s sadly not alive anymore, Elliot, got me into graffiti and street art. Then it kind of continued. I went from painting to sculpture to installation to performance. The whole time I was doing that I was always working with my mum and getting these jobs that were more therapy related or community related.
Now I’ve realised workshops are actually what I want to do with my life. Making art and paintings and sculptures and stuff is more just the way to get there. It’s great that I have a craft, and I can use it and I can make sellable paintings, but that’s not the reason I want to do this. I think that’s just something I do on the side to help me meditate. Making art with people – that’s the thing that really motivates me.
What have been the key challenges and strengths you experience as an artist?
Money, money so hard. I think Adelaide is a really supportive city in if you do something well, it’s recognised, and if you push hard, and you really go for it, the government and the community will help you and give you money and support.
I don’t want to downplay any careers and I don’t want to say that there’s any jobs that don’t need to be done, but it probably would have been easier to filter into society in a way that was already in the system. I just refused. I don’t think that’s me. I think my strength is that I am multicultural. And so I always have believed that I can break down borders between cultures, because that’s what I’ve done since I was a baby. My mum and dad did that their whole life, they were both immigrants. I’m an immigrant, and so if I want to be an international person, the place to do it is in the arts, because arts don’t rely on a single language, arts are a language of their own.
I can paint with someone that doesn’t have the same neuro capacity or is neurodivergent, I can paint with someone who speaks a completely different language, is an alien, is homeless, is rich. I can practice my craft with any of those people, but it doesn’t work the same for language like English. I think that’s why I wanted to make art. I just saw it was my way to be able to jump around and be with different people.
What advice do you have for aspiring artists?
I guess it also depends on what age you are, I think that age is a big thing. Carclew is amazing. I think if you’re young artists, go to Carclew. You don’t even have to be the person who gets the scholarship or whatever. Just go hang out there and learn about how it works, because they’re the ones who really make young people professional. Otherwise, if you’re a bit more regional, talk to your local council arts officer. It’s their job to make art happen.
You’ve got to do things outside of your school or group. It’s all about finding people that like what you do, and you like what they do, and make stuff together. Don’t just sit in your studio alone and tinker. It’s really important to have your craft and get good at it, but find people that also have that drive to do that thing and do it. That’s the most important thing you can do.
If your readers want to be involved with The Bait Fridge or Slowmango, send us a message. We have days where people can just rock up and hang out and see what we do. We want artists in Adelaide to succeed and we’re all a community that just helps each other.
ROCKAMORA: Launch event June 9. On show June 10 to August 12 // Adelaide Contemporary Experimental Lion Arts Centre North Terrace, Adelaide 5000
