K

Interviewee Name: K

Interviewed By: Lulu Course: Daylong Into To HCD - 2016-02-03 PART 1-2

L: What does empathy mean to you?

K: For me empathy means having a soul and filing the vibrations of the other souls around you, feeling their vulnerability as something familiar.

L: What is your best experience with empathy?

K: Well I don’t know about that, but once I was called empathic when I listened to a soul in need. It was an honor.

L: Have you experienced a need for empathy in your life? Can you give an example?

K: I tend to neglect my need for empathy but I usually need it when the things I cannot control go really out of hand.

L: How do you feel when you are not receiving enough empathy from your peers?

K: I have mixed feelings, on the one hand if I don’t get it I feel I deserved not to get it but on the other hand I feel helpless as a child.

L: How would being empathic improve life for you and/or those around you?

K: Empathy is a crucial feeling among human beings. Having empathy for the ones around you and receiving empathy creates a greater level of respect and consideration in the society.

L: Please tell me a short story that would involve both art and empathy.

K: Lately I lack empathy as I am alone and to get it, I am doubling myself though art. I am making prints of myself, when vulnerable as to leave a trace of the feeling and to never forget how it felt. I want to become more kind and empathic with me and the ones around me, for this I need to leave memories.

L: As an artist, do you use empathy in your creative processes? In which way?

K: I let my soul create and I am trying to be kind and patient with it. I let it talk though colors and stains, I listen and understand. The person in me is empathic and understands the artist. It is like watching art-house movies, not everybody can watch them and if you want, you will get and understand much more of it than a straightforward Hollywood (for ex.) movie.

L: How do you think art could influence building empathy?

K: Through art, the artist comes in front of the people naked, he is being honest and gives everything he has. Whichever form this art takes, it is sensible and sensitizes the audience. Only being sensitive one can reach empathy.

L: What's keeping you from becoming more empathic? Why?

K: It is new to me, I am still learning its limits.

L: Do you think there is any way that could be solved through art? How?

K: If I am the artist and I create, there are things that come out that I have never thought of and I carry on with exploring them. By exploring my own sensitivity I am becoming more aware of the needs and feelings of the ones around me, it makes me understand people and souls better. At the end of the day, we all sooner or later end up with people around us that are similar to us, we need empathy and to receive it as much as we give it.