"Home is a place where you're welcome" - William Serapa
William Serapa is an artist who currently makes his home in Athens, Greece. His mediums of choice are photography, collage, fabric dyeing and writing. He was raised as a member of a minority population group currently identified as 'Third Culture Kids.' The Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Culture_Kids) on the subject defines TCKs (also abbreviated as 3CKs or Global Nomads) as "someone who [as a child] has spent a significant period of time in one or more culture(s) other than his or her own, thus integrating elements of those cultures and their own birth culture, into a third culture."
The result is an individual who belongs to no one culture or nationality but sees the entire world as his home. The term is generally significant to practicing professionals who are being trained to deal with the particular problems and anxieties that develop from such an upbringing.
Augustinos Touloupis: Serapa does not sound like a Greek name.
William Serapa: (laughs) No, it isn't. It's actually not a name at all; just something I use that I picked up from my mother-in-law. She's an immigrant in an English-speaking country who didn't learn much of the language and is not very literate. The people she came into daily contact with had this expression "shut up, will you?" which to her sounded like "serapa William," so it's an expression that she uses all the time and I thought it would make a great name. Dedicated to her.
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AT: William, can you tell me a little about the places where you were raised?
WS: I was born in Lebanon and was raised and have lived in various parts of the Middle East, South Asia, the United States and Greece.
AT: How did these circumstances come about and where are you originally from?
WS: My ancestry is Greek. My father was a peacekeeper with the United Nations and his work involved postings to troubled parts of the world.
AT: You mean war zones.
WS: Countries at war. Perpetually it seems. It's good for business. (laughs) There's no demand for inventory and spare parts like that of a military at war.
AT: How did this affect your general outlook and, more specifically, your vision as an artist?
WS: It gave me a broader understanding of the 'otherness' of foreign cultures and made me more tolerant of their ways and values. In my art, it has helped me pinpoint the unspoken symbols that each culture has developed. Growing up in a single environment narrows your point of view because the eye only sees that which is moving: it spots changes in your surroundings. So the goldfish in the proverbial fishbowl can't see the water or the fishbowl just like we can't see the air that's in the atmosphere. You can only see these things when you come from another perspective - which is why people should travel more and expand their horizons.
Take the United States, for instance. The moment you get off an international flight you are greeted by arrows of different colors on the floor. You follow the color arrow that matches the type of entry visa your passport carries. So I always called the United States the land of "follow the arrow." There are arrows to follow everywhere. Even in the instructions that tell you how to open a box of cereals.
I have assimilated and use a broad variety of symbols with relative ease because none of them are my own. But I've made all of them my own.
AT: What is the current focus of your art?
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WS: Empowerment.
AT: Can you elaborate on that?
WS: Sure. To the majority of our species, inhabiting this planet we see as our world, a home is that unique place where you are born, where you are raised, where you breed, where you do what work it is you do, where you amass your collection of possessions and where you eventually die.
In Western civilizations, where the concept of mobility is more ingrained, the physical location or address of a home may change but the concept still holds true. This concept has been further evolved in the West thanks to the untiring efforts of professional persuaders, generally known as admen, working on behalf of industry.
The mass production of goods originally served the military and agricultural sectors before the advent of the consumer society. As the world licked its wounds and began rebuilding from the rubble of World War II, entire populations were sold images of the ideal home, replete with the possessions deemed indispensable by our caretakers. These caretakers employed the best in the business, who at the time happened to be working for the military. After all, isn't the guy who can convince you to sign up to go to war - where you face the very real probability of being maimed or killed - the one most qualified to sell the masses something they can hardly afford?
That warm fuzzy feeling that overtakes the proud possessor of superfluous inanimate objects began its unstoppable growth with the advent of the electric refrigerator, sold to a world that had known hunger in unprecedented numbers as vast amounts of food had been seized by armies around the world. Emboldened by their success, industry then sold the concept of a car for every family and that worked so well they expanded to the model of the two-car garage in every home.
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Several decades later we find people have been so well trained that they're being sold material goods while they are still barely off the planning stage. People eagerly anticipate the release of the latest wonder industry has to offer, down to the very specifications they have been taught to crave. The majority of people, that is, because reaction to the sweet dreams sold by the folks whose smokestacks have been contentedly belching clouds of industrial bliss was as prevalent at the onset of the Industrial Revolution as it is in the age of tree-hugging environmentalists and anti-globalization protesters.
The focus of my art is to empower that alienated minority of unhappy dwellers in the land of the global mall. Which is also why try to use recycled objects as much as possible. Collage is great for that. The equipment I use is also mostly second-hand. Only a few things were bought new.
People drowning in things makes for inexpensive recycled art supplies.
AT: You have no formal education in Art.
WS: Only in Literature.
AT: Where did your inspiration come from?
WS: Mainly from the Beat writers. My life changed when I took a course in Beat Literature. It made me realize that Art is something that springs from deep inside you. From your guts.
I have this friend. He's a struggling actor and poet. I love his poetry, which he calls "splachnic," from the Greek word "splachna," or 'innards.' He sees writing as spilling your guts all over the manuscript or as Kerouac would say, blowing your mind on the page.
The Beats also taught me Art isn't just something you do: it's something you are. Your art becomes your life and your life becomes your art.
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AT: How does that translate in photography?
WS: Good question. Have you seen the work of Robert Frank? It's a move away from the posed, set up, idealistic image. It's a spontaneous act that captures the unembellished spirit of a moment in reality. Like Ginsberg's title says: 'Reality Sandwiches.' Friedlander did the same thing. He didn't photograph the usual tourist sites. His camera captured the ugliness of the man-made landscape as he saw it.
AT: What landscape do you use as a reference? Where is home?
WS: I have no single, place-specific reference, unless you count the planet as such. Moving around so much made me wary of becoming attached to any one place. You see, there are costs involved when you move. Personal costs.
Also, it's difficult for locals anywhere to accept me as one of their own. I stand out like a sore thumb. Worse than an immigrant because I don't fall into any one category they can recognize. That makes them uncomfortable.
I have to admit there was only one place I felt completely at home. When I was living among America's subculture I stumbled upon this society who call themselves 'the people of the Rainbow' or the 'Rainbow Gathering.' Something that has evolved from the '60s counterculture. When I walked into my first Gathering I met people who hugged each other and used the greeting: "Welcome Home."
It was the first place I'd ever been to where I wasn't expected to behave any particular way and anything I did was cool and raised no eyebrows. Total acceptance. Home is like that: a place where you're welcome. It's at the opposite end of the universe from the America of the Patriot Act and Homeland Security.
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AT: You have an endless reservoir of stories, has anything been written about your life before?
WS: (laughs) A journalist once tried to pirate an interview with a hidden tape recorder. There was a member of a band in Minneapolis who wrote a song about me called 'Man without a Country.'
AT: What do you do for a living?
WS: Usually anything that doesn't interfere with my art. At the moment I am a professional translator - translated for the Olympic Games. Which is the ultimate commercial event, by the way. The sponsors take over the entire city for two weeks. Nothing other than a sponsor's logo is allowed - even on toilet bowls in the venues!
When I was younger and wiser I committed to something that makes a lot more sense now, in hindsight. I realized then that Art should remain fun and unadulterated by commercial concerns so I told myself to find a job to make a living and carry on my real work apart from that.
I didn't realize how clever that was (do we actually grow stupid as we age?) until I got the kinds of jobs I dreaded and had to eventually quit because clients had very specific requirements that allowed for little or no creativity. For example, while photographing a professional basketball final match there was a newspaperman who ran down to one of the photographers and began ordering: "I want three of so-and-so dribbling, three of him shooting," and so on. Like he was ordering souvlaki. 'Three with everything, three with only tomatoes, no tzatziki, hold the onions...'
I worked in a photojournalistic agency for a while and their demands were very specific. So I got bored and used to experiment and used to get told off for 'wasting' film until some of their ad agency clients saw my material and began asking specifically for that. Then my bosses would send me off and ask me to do my "weird shit."
AT: What's next on the horizon?
WS: I'm still getting used to working with digital media. Probably passing on our love of art to our sons will be the next challenge for my wife and I. They learned to draw at age two. No.1 Son is great with a camera and No.2 Son is fooling around with video a great deal.
AT: Thanks, William, for your time.
WS: No worries mate. Cheers.
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