NO STRINGS ATTACHED | ANNA RUTH

Anna Ruth is a Canadian artist currently living and working in Jyväskylä, Finland. After studying Art and Design in Vancouver, Ruth moved to France to attend a Master of Fine Arts. This multidisciplinary and multicultural artistic path is also reflected in her practice, which can be classified as relational art, where the artist explores the cultural identity of specific places.
Ruth considers art as a means of communication through which she expresses her humanity and presence in the world. She does this by exploring delicate concepts such as boundaries or control, both of oneself and of others.

On the occasion of the RAW (Relational Art Week) festival, organized by Myymälä2 in Helsinki in 2022, the artist was asked to create an interactive performance that included the practice of drawing.
Drawing is probably the first form of art we learn as children, and it is interesting to see how people’s approach to this practice changes once they become adults.

The interactive performance staged by Ruth, titled No strings attached, is as simple from a material point of view as it is conceptually complex and layered.
The setting includes a white wall, with a black square in the center serving as a canvas, a row of crayons on the ground, and finally, two retractable poles taped to the artist’s hands.
At this point, volunteers from the audience are involved, and they are given the freedom to act creatively on the scene by controlling the poles attached to Ruth’s arms. The only restriction is that they must not touch the artist directly.

Entrusting the control of one’s body to strangers is an act of faith, and it is interesting to see how everyone chooses to interact first with the artist, and then with the traces previously made by other volunteers, adding lines that are sometimes harmonious, other times chaotic, approaching the work in a plural and heterogeneous manner.
As time passes, people become more creative and daring, challenging their self-imposed limits and expanding their boundaries beyond the edge delineated by the black square. The environment is the canvas, the artist the brush. Some people seek chaos, others try to make sense of the existing marks, looking for familiar shapes such as a smiling face or a word.

Ruth’s operation aims for a role reversal: the artist becomes the tool with which to act on the canvas, and the voluntary spectator becomes the mind that applies artistic intuitions. No strings attached presents itself as a sum of various figures—each with their own story, personality, and background—who come together in a collective performance to celebrate cooperation and raise awareness about the theme of conscious control.

Anna Ruth
No strings attached, 2022
Three hours interactive performance, RAW – Relational Art Week, August 2022, Myymälä2, Helsinki.
Materials: one artist, two retractable poles, tape, a wall, and pastels.
Photo: Kamila Śladowska.

Anna Ruth, No strings attached, 2022.
Three hours interactive performance, RAW – Relational Art Week, August 2022, Myymälä2, Helsinki. Materials: one artist, two retractable poles, tape, a wall, and pastels. Photo: Kamila Śladowska.

15/06/24