Interview
Sena Clara Creston
Sena Clara Creston is an artist and educator originally from New York City. She learned to create personal space from repurposed material by growing up in an artist loft in Chelsea. Creston learned to use the power of the image to tell convincing stories while studying photography and imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. There she began using immersive light installations to create the feeling of “being there.” Her exhibition Night Lights at PLP Gallery in New York City used lightboxes to project viewers into idealized spaces. For her residency and exhibition at The General Store in Iowa she photographed desolate farmscapes until the moon let in enough light to call it a night. She then used backlit transparencies of the images to create Insideouthouse, an enterable farmhouse with wall sized transparencies of the country road at night. The vast American landscape was recreated in a cell-sized space that could easily fit into any city room, with walls that appear to be built out of distance, light and space.
Creston went on to study electronic arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she animated responsive light installations and vehicles to reflect the viewer’s actions and the environment’s point of view. Her recent series, Plastescape, uses repurposed water bottles to create an animated light-up garden, guarded by an autonomous robotic art creature. Creston moved to the California in 2020 to work as a photography and media arts professor at Sonoma State University, where she fell in love with the feeling of freedom inspired by the open space of the Pacific Ocean. Creston teaches her students the power and poetry of their personal story; communicating with emotion and creative interpretation what they feel, think, and believe. She has created robotic, light based, and photographic installations for galleries, museums, and festivals, and conferences including the Borealis Festival of Light, Treefort, Tri-Cities Airport, Museum of Sonoma County, EBCH Museum, Jundt Art Museum, CoCA Seattle, The Wassaic Project, and TEDx Richland.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“I grew up in an artist loft in New York City; an open space where my parents were either making art with me, or leaving me to make my own while they made theirs. All the art they saw, I saw; from international avant garde film festivals that would begin below my loft bed, to the Met, to the Louvre, and all the galleries in between. My individual interests were math and physics, which I studied at Stuyvesant High School and Vassar College, until I realized that while I enjoyed learning and applying the hard rules of science, I was more interested in exploring ideas and wanted the creative freedom of art. I transferred to NYU to pursue my BFA in Photography and Imaging, learning the power of the image, light, and installation. The transdisciplinary artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg introduced me to physical computing; opening my world to the complexities I could learn to create. I became interested in manipulating light and movement to create environmental relationships, and received my MFA in Electronic Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for my interactive installations.”
What inspires you?
“Everything inspires me. The idea is a gift that comes at anytime from anywhere. I get a lot of inspiration by imagining the lives, feelings, personality, need, desire, and social structure of inanimate objects and the environment.”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“My main themes use light, movement, and material to explore environmental relationships. I use found materials to provide a history of the piece, and expose the viewer’s established relationship to the art object. I use mechanics, puppeteering, and the poetry of motion to bring my sculptures to life, literally animating them. My robotic sculptures talk back to the viewer revealing their opinion, personality, and attitude. Light manipulates the mood of my photographs and environments to evoke emotion. Articulating my artwork with the momentum of found materials, encourages viewers to consider their active role in the environment.”
How would you describe your work?
“I create photographs and interactive installations to reflect on what is considered natural in a mediated world. My photographs show how humans manipulate their environment, and natural phenomena reclaim it. My environments beckon the viewer with light and movement to create an uncanny experience, where familiar materials move with emotive gestures to articulate our responsibility for environmental reactions.”
Which artists influence you most?
“My parents influenced me to make my art as I saw fit, always have a camera on hand, and turn my home into a studio. As a small child I was drawn to Jean Tinguely’s kinetic sculptures, confirming that art-machines can be made from anything and an idea. In high school, I became enamored by Mark Esper's electronic sculptures, eventually interning for him in exchange for answering all my questions. I learned to use light to tell emotional stories by interning as a gaffer for the cinematic photographer Gregory Crewdson, and immersing myself in James Turrell’s lightscapes.”
“I create photographs and interactive installations to reflect on what is considered natural in a mediated world.”
What is your creative process like?
“My creative process starts with an idea I see all at once in finished form. I’ll write down a word or phrase or sentence, and sketch what it looks like. I then have to look closer into my imagination to see the details. I sketch out the components, figuring out how they will move, and what materials they will be made from. I then consider what I need to learn, who I can collaborate with, what materials I should collect, and what do I need to do to get it done. My pieces may take a few years to complete, so I generally have four projects going at once; one I’m just starting to come up with ideas, plans and sketches for; one I am in the process of building; one I am exhibiting; and photographs that I can make start to finish whenever I want.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“I think artists are compelled by a force that gives them new ideas and the desire and ability to make it, regardless of request. Artists may be influenced by the society they live in; but are not necessarily guided by invitation, permission, accolades, value, popularity, or media. I think art will continue to be made by self-proclaimed artists, whether it falls in or out of public favor. I believe freedom of art is crucial for encouraging society to understand and articulate their unprescribed thoughts, feelings, needs, desires, and culture.”
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
“I began exhibiting interactive installations at the Wassaic Project, where I could see people engage with my art machines, pushing them to their physical and experiential limits. At Borealis Festival of Lights in Seattle, I saw how people would form emotional relationships to robotic flowers, coaxing, encouraging, and provoking their movements. At the Sebastopol Center of the Arts, two little girls cautiously approached the Huminal. The older walked around it making the head follow them, until their mother commented that it was as if it had eyes. The child stated that it does have eyes, and pointed out all the different sensors. The smaller one said that they thought it was a unicorn.”
