Q&A with Sarah Aiken: Beyond the Self: A Dance of Connection and Significance

Q: What is Make Your Life Count about? 

Sarah: Make Your Life Count explores scale and meaning, the vastness of space and time and the human experience, shifting perspectives from the intimate to the universal. It delves into how we perceive our own place in a world where we are both monumental and insignificant. The work invites audiences to lose themselves in the intricate patterns of community, ecology, and history and to reflect on their place within it. 

Q: What inspired you to create this work? 

Sarah: This work is about the individual self and the ungraspable scale of the universe. In making it, I was thinking about things too big for my mind to comprehend; scales in space and time that are too much for us to see/understand- so that we can only grasp them in fragments. I was thinking about things that feel immovable, unsolvable, like global power structures, like climate change. I was also thinking about myself.  

In trying to make a positive mark on the world I need to learn (and love) how little I matter and how powerful that can be. With so much of our lives and identities commodified, we can’t look away from ourselves, so I’m looking even closer, zooming right in, in an attempt to unsettle the boundaries of self. I am trying to understand the importance of my life, the importance of others lives, grappling with the inconsistency of how lives are valued. 

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  Make Your Life Count by Sarah Aiken. Image by Tiffany Garvie.

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  Make Your Life Count by Sarah Aiken. Image by Tiffany Garvie.

Q: How does Make Your Life Count address themes of individualism and identity?

Sarah: We live and participate in a culture which centres the individual; which tells us to make the most of ourselves, our lives, build identities that incorporate our contribution to the world, our values, and politics. The process of personal growth and self-actualisation is undertaken to be the best versions of ourselves, to make a difference; we have never been so conscious of ourselves, looking inward for meaning where we once might have looked to god.

With so much of our lives and identities commodified, we can’t look away from ourselves, so I’m looking even closer, zooming right in, in an attempt to unsettle the boundaries of self. I am trying to understand the importance of my life, the importance of others’ lives, in a world in which this value shifts depending if that individual is First Nations, Palestinian, poor, or a white woman with an Australian passport.

Q: What role does technology play in the performance?

Sarah: The work incorporates large-scale projection and an onstage camera to multiply, minimise and expand my image, creating images and illusions that manipulate time, scale and perspective. critique the constant performance of identity demanded by techno-capitalism. The use of technology is aesthetic as well as thematic, reflecting on our increasingly curated online selves and the mediation of identity through technology.

Q: How do you balance your various roles as an independent artist?

Sarah: Balancing the roles of artist, fundraiser, producer, and performer is a constant juggling act. It is hard. It requires a lot of energy and self-motivation, but it’s also incredibly rewarding. Independent artists can do so much with so little, and that produces an incredible agility, experimentation and responsiveness that I wish were more widely recognized so that it was a sustainable career path.

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