Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Camilla Dilshat. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Camilla, appreciate you joining us today. Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?
I am a London-born Uyghur – a turkic ethnic group from Central Asia, the majority of the population living within land occupied by China. As a practicing artist, I make art about my diasporic experiences, specifically relating to the feelings and emotions of the body and through making art. Through my reflections, I have come to realise how intertwined the power in self defining oneself is to the body. How does the body feel when people do not understand who I am?
Other people’s mental grasp of my ethnicity has been littered with misunderstandings. Misunderstandings that have misrepresented who I am despite tiring and constant self-definition that started since I was a child. Saying I was Uyghur was simply not enough and despite explaining the history and geography people still denied my identity – “so you are basically Chinese?”. There was an absence of power or credibility within my own words toward my own body and self-definition. Therefore, I never had a clear understanding of what being Uyghur meant. I did not grow up in the homeland surrounded by an abundance of Uyghur culture. I grew up London where no one had even heard of us despite our over ten million population across the world. With other people viewing my Uyghur-ness as invisible, self-doubt began to creep into my body and under my itching skin. My body felt empty and not grounded. I represent these visceral feelings in my sculptures through detached ceramic tongues, leaking gourds and uncomfortable latex skins. By outlining my diasporic experience through materiality instead of words, I am able to tackle complex and confusing feelings and thus re-define my sense of belonging in the diaspora. While the Chinese Government has been breaking down Uyghur-ness, I feel it is important to reconnect to my identity as a form of resilience.
Camilla, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a sculpture and installation artist who has just graduated from a fine art MA at City & Guilds of London Art School in 2023. I initially studied an undergraduate in History and graduated during Covid. As the world slowed down I took the leap to study a year-long art Diploma as a way to return to my passion. Now I am a self-employed artist with various part-time/freelance jobs in art workshop leading, teaching and widening art participation specifically for children. I have participated in various group shows in London as well as abroad in Tashkent, Uzbekistan and Melbourne, Australia.
Through my art and my workshops, I engage in sculpture-making to expose the reality of disconnection and uncover moments of re-remembering and community building within diasporas. I make references to the body and bodily feelings alongside markers of nostalgia such as decorative windows, sunflower seeds husks and sand. As my body reacts, consumes, and blurs between boundaries of familiarity and unfamiliarity I hope to narrate the complexity of diasporic belonging.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect about being an artist is connecting with people through my practice. It sounds simple but this is how I can see the impact that I want my work to have. I want to specifically reference an “Uyghur Diaspora Voices” workshop I participated in where I ran a sculpture making event titled “Memory Carriers”. The purpose of the workshop was to decorate clay gourds, reflecting on certain materials and how they may evoke certain memories and emotional and bodily feelings. With each attendant embellishing and filling their own gourd, the sculpture they walk away with will act as their own carrier of memory and feeling. It was daunting running this workshop at a very academic event that was filled with documentary screenings and lectures. However, the outcome was wonderful, people joked, laughed and shared stories as if socialising around a table at an Uyghur gathering. My art had created connections and a healing space to release.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
I think non-creatives may struggle to understand why I decided to shift away from History and academia to art. My thoughts about starting to reconnect to my identity and heritage began during my undergraduate where I wrote my dissertation on Silk Road history. I could have continued my journey through research and I was thinking of entering the museum and collections world. However, I believe turning towards creativity and art was essential in my personal journey of reconnecting to my Uyghur-ness. Art is something that is able to transcend words. This is not only important concerning my own insecurities around language and mother tongues but also to people connecting to my work when they may not have heard of the Uyghurs before. The fact that people are able to emotionally connect to my work before even hearing me talk about it is powerful. They may relate to the pile of sunflower seeds as nostalgic markers or relate to the uncomfortable feelings of disconnection my sculptures narrate. Through this I feel that people are able to emotionally connect to my place and experience as an Uyghur person better than if I explained it through words.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.camilladilshat.com
- Instagram: camilladilshat
Image Credits
For the first image (art installation with red wall) please credit: Studio Adamson