Interviews

Here you can listen to the interview by Taylor Weech of Patricia Arlene Kienholz and Ildikó Kalapács on KYRS Radio, Praxis Radio, Jan, 2013:

http://praxisradio509.podomatic.com/entry/2013-01-28T14_10_03-08_00


The following interview was conducted on KYRS Radio's  "Does the Answer your Question?" show by Michael Reid in September of 2011.  His guests are Rachel Dolezal, The Bearing Project's PR chair and Ildikó Kalapács, the project's executive director and visual artist.  They discuss the project's purpose, the sculpture's background and interpretation.  This interview is an outreach to the Spokane, WA and area community to get involved in the project by becoming board members, suggesting site locations, volunteering and recruiting future donors.

Ildikó Kalapács and Rachel Dolezal Interview, Part I., KYRS Radio, by Michael Reid
Ildikó Kalapács and Rachel Dolezal Interview, Part II., by Michael Reid

Ildikó Kalapács, Artist

The Bearing Sculpture Project

by Timothy J. Connor
Writer, editor, photographer for the Center for Justice and Spokane's Community Building


Ildikó Kalapács's inspiration for Bearing, a life-sized sculpture that succinctly embodies the intimate human burden of war, does not arise from a single moment, or memory, or place within her consciousness. Yet it does carry some weight of her history.

"I grew up in Hungary during the Cold War era. My grandparents were in the Second World War. And they experienced the German takeover, and then the Russian takeover, and then the socialist era. So they, especially the women, were very, very tough."

"Under the harshest conditions," she adds, "the women always had to figure out how to get what they wanted, for themselves, but mostly for their families."

What one does see in the poignant forms in Bearing is a matronly woman with a basket on her head. In the basket is a man. On the man's lap is a military-style automatic rifle. It is, very purposely, a different kind of monument to warfare from the mind of an artist who readily admits to spending some part of every day as a student of social justice.

From her hands and her points of view, she sees Bearing not as a hectoring argument, but as a starting point for reflection and discussion.