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NATALIE ISDOINGOKAY

Being present amid the chaos of life feels like a luxury. In 2023, there were twenty calm and peaceful minutes, before freefalling from ten thousand feet above Cape Town. A pivotal moment of my journey during an artist residency in South Africa. I gazed upon the glowing twilight in that African clementine sky, whilst the soil land came as clay on my palms. I never intended to be an artist; it was just a pulsating urge to feel the present.

Snow, I had never seen snow. The next year I was in Nagoya. I looked forward to seeing a snowfall for the first time when the weather forecast said that there was no chance. Where there is expectation, there always comes disappointment. I wondered if I had always been that disappointment to others. One night I dug up my red notebook with a scribbled idea that happened in some university library in the UK, of one non-existent artwork, Never Have I Ever (2024), I then decided to send it to the ifva competition. There was this other night, in Nagoya, a miraculous email came named “Finalist Confirmation”. The next morning I woke up, as I pulled back the curtains, the first snow that wouldn’t come, was falling slowly. Soon after I made my first media artwork, was honoured with the Gold Award, and never intended to be an artist; it was just a pulsating urge to feel the present.

Life sent me a gift, showing me a door to an entirely new path. With my trusty DV camera, my kaleidoscope of trials and vibrant errors for years has been documented, which later transformed into the brilliance of Clementine (2024). I found myself surrounded by a captivating mix of souls — a dance artist, a filmmaker and a theatre artist. Together we kickstarted Binchadou (2024), an interdisciplinary artistic experiment. Then I was brought to the Transmediale media arts festival in Berlin, followed by a multitude of more miraculous moments. For each step I took towards and into this world, the harder it gets to say who I am as an artist. I never set out to be an artist; it is just a pulsating urge to understand the present.

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