The necessity of art – an interview with Dave Hooper
By Tracey Lien
As the founder and curator of BLAC Fridays and an art lover and maker in his own right, Mink Magazine was intrigued as to what makes Dave Hooper tick. We caught up with him for a chat that left us with a greater appreciation for artistic pursuits and all things arty.
What's your artistic background?
I come from a family of artists, and studied and practised art even as I was studying other things at University.
I've been through an exhausting and extensive refinement of my creative preference over the last 20 years trying almost every kind of creative visual activity I could trying to satisfy my creative urge. This has all lead to our current program [BLAC Fridays], which incorporates creativity and self determination on many levels: artistic, conscience, ideology, visual, community, and collective.
What does art mean to you, and why do you think it's important for the world?
Art is a self exploratory activity, taking us within our own psychological makeup, helping us to examine and question the way we function, our underlying paradigms, and why we are the way we are. Such activity is never wasted.
Also, art teaches us to access and utilise our intuitive natures. It gives us confidence in making decisions, especially when at every step the choices are unlimited. It helps us to define and build our social and cultural identity, and it teaches us that the unlimited ways in which we can each create only points out our different strengths, while also showing that we all have the same essential qualities.
As far as the world goes, we are entering a period of world history where we as a race are becoming more and more uniform in our beliefs and in our identity. Art and local original culture is one way in which our public and society as a whole can take control of our own cultural identity, by supporting local cultural producers and providers, the public can play the crucial role of increasing demand for originality at a local level.
What inspires you?
Many things are a source of inspiration for me: beauty, harshness, truth, ugliness, peace, fear, horror, etc. I'm emotionally motivated, so I suppose what inspires me are the things which move me emotionally.
