Having left everything behind, Elodie Laurent and Stéphane Kiszak wander the world, creating art as they go along. Iggy Fenech interviews the couple known as Elka, who have turned Maltese landscapes into transient pieces of art the photographic records of which are on exhibit at St James Cavalier.

If you had to write down all the things that are important to you the list would most probably include your family, your friends, your job, your possessions, the place you live in and the feeling of security you get from the familiarity of it all.

When thinking about these things it’s hard to imagine life without them and in most cases they only cease to be a part of our lives when they are taken away from us.

But imagine leaving everything behind, packing up a few essentials and moving away from everything and everyone that had charac- terised your life up until then.

It’s almost impossible to fathom, but for couple Elodie Laurent and Stéphane Kiszak it is a daily reality that they have chosen to pursue.

The duo Elka.The duo Elka.

“Although we never really planned it we felt the need to do this,” explain Laurent and Kiszak, who make up the artistic duo Elka. “We sold and gave everything away, and anything we kept had to be compact – after all, we have to travel with a 10kg backpack.

“We don’t have a lot of material to create our art with either and we usually pick up anything that we find interesting along the way. This is crucial because we never know where our next destination is going to be.

“One of the things that pushed us to go ahead was an article about the Japanese sculptor Enku from the Edo Period. As a wandering Buddhist monk and artist, he created hundreds, if not thousands, of wooden sculptures, which formed part of the landscape or were given to people and we find that to be an impressive legacy to leave behind.

“In fact, we like working with nature and on site and we love leaving something where we go without it being too overbearing –an idea rather than anything too physical, in fact. What’s important for us is that the sculptures we create work with nature.

Our responsibility is to continue the journey and to create the art; the rest is for the viewers

“This constant travelling puts us out of our comfort zone. However, at the beginning it was very disturbing, particularly because nothing ever looks familiar. We never go back home and some of our friends wonder if we’ll go back at all. Having said that, we love the idea of nomadism, so it’s working for us.

“There have obviously been hardships,” they say. “When we first left everything behind in May 2014 we slept in tents. It was only after a while that we started staying in hotels. There was a point where we ended up without any food for two days and times when we walked for miles and miles to satisfy the most basic of human needs – only to find out we were on the wrong track.

“Thankfully, in Malta, St James Cavalier have put us up in their artistic residence and we’re super comfortable, meaning we can focus more on our art.”

Although both were artists before they dropped everything and moved on to become wanderers, Laurent and Kiszak’s fleeting journey through the many places they’ve been to is definitely a contributor to their creations.

The material they pick up along the way – most of which would be considered rubbish or littering – is placed together to create a sculpture full of different textures, colours and stories.

Soaring through the air, they capture its moment of glory to a backdrop that’s inspired them. The sculpture is then disposed of and the photo – the immortalisation of a transient moment of a sculpture made of rejected materials floating through a sea of air – is then ready to be displayed and to become a topic of conversation.

“The materials we use for our sculptures depend completely on what we find,” Laurent and Kiszak tell us. “It takes us a while to collect what other people may consider to be garbage – which, in reality, it would be – but for us, anything from fishing nets from the sea to forgotten plastic toys from the countryside, could be part of our next art piece.

“Once we have enough material, we build a sculpture and, well, throw it in the air,” they say. “We take 60 images for every one shot and then choose the right one. Sometimes it’s a matter of trial and error, too. It’s a method that works for us, however, and we never know what will come out of it.

“One thing we like about our work is that there is also no transformation: a branch is a branch, a tyre is a tyre. We think people have to find their own message in everything. If people like photography or if it they like a story, then they can enjoy our art from their own perspective. As Duchamp once said, it’s the viewer who makes the art. Our responsibility is to continue the journey and to create the art; the rest is for the viewers.”

Viewers at their exhibition will also be pleased to see how Laurent and Kiszak juxtaposed the naturally pastel colours of Malta’s scenery with the more striking hues of the man-made objects they’ve found.

The exhibition, titled Flying Sculptures, took two months to put together. The duo have roamed our streets and countryside to find picture-perfect settings where to take their photos. And should the environmentalists wonder, the duo then dispose of the materials they picked up along the way in a legal and environmentally friendly way.

And, these photos of Malta, may very well go on to be exhibited abroad as well.

Flying Sculptures is curated by Patrick Fenech and is organised by Fondazzjoni Ċentru għall-Kreatività. The show runs until February 15 at St James Cavalier, Valletta.

www.sjcav.org

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