Clarisse Hassan

My work at the RCA has been informed by my interest in exploring dynamics in interpersonal relationships. In other words, I like to examine what it means to be a person in relation to others. My practice could be likened to people watching, trying to make sincere and empathetic work about human experiences. Living during the Covid-19 pandemic has made me re-examine the central role that certain relationships play in our lives, romantic or platonic. 

I spent most of my isolated time finding ways to replicate the feeling of social interaction. I started taking acting classes on Zoom, being louder and bolder than I was comfortable being with strangers, interacting in character and creating scenes together. Every time a class ended, the post-togetherness, red-cheeked feeling of glee stuck with me afterwards. I also filled my time by writing, transforming memories and building stories from things half-remembered, half-imagined. 

This led me to consider the act of play, both in the sense of amusement and drama, and how it can help us escape the halted present but also transform the experience of being an adult in a way that feels radical. Playing like we do as children, or playing as protest like the Dadaists did, because the world around us feels too illogical and incomprehensible. Playing because there’s nothing else we can do. 

I decided to build a project out of this idea of radical play, combining my writing and my drawing to create stories that would show micro-resistances against the status-quo, such as the gender stereotypes and expected behaviours. Through my stories, I aimed to subvert expectations of womanhood and found myself writing young female characters and wanting to show their complexities. The result is a collection of 24 illustrated pieces of writing (in the form of poem, short story or scene) which aims to find meaning through radical play and reshaped memories.