Sara Sadik
The French artist discusses “beurcore,” dystopian resistances, male expressions of love, and Graft Theft Auto as an artistic medium.
Cyrus Goberville: Can you tell me a bit about who you are and what you are presenting here?
Sara Sadik: I'm 27 years old. I live in Marseille, and I'm a video and performance artist. I'm presenting my last film, which is named Ultimate Vatos, Volume 1. It’s about a new exam that men have to pass in order to join an uprising organization. It’s about isolation and loneliness. They’re put on this island, and they have three exams to pass. But the most difficult thing isn't the exam, but more that they are alone. They are tormenting themselves with their own overthinking.
CG: But this is something super important in your work, which is men’s condition. There is a form of romanticism. They're adapting all the time—in response to love, success…
SS: The main subject that I work on is love. I worked on love for, like, two years and four projects. And so it was a cycle, and it was the easiest subject to tackle at the beginning when talking about men. And I think the most urgent for me, because we never talk about love related to men—how they love, how they express themselves. All my films are created as an evolution. So in each film, they start from just adapting to then having the final form of self-confidence in themselves.
CG: In the film, there’s a double relationship: the man is in love with this woman, but there is friendship also, and he loves his friend. And at some point he needs to choose if he needs to go with his friend or with love.
SS: Love is main subject, but it's love for his girlfriend, love for his friends, but also love for himself. And so as I said, there’s the topic of self-confidence. He is really torn between how to manage his love—how much love he give to who and how we can manage all of these.
CG: True. And what is “Beurcore”?
SS: “Beurcore” is a word that I invented when I was still in art school, when I was passing my diploma. When I was in school, I didn't have any artists I could relate to. And every time I was trying to describe my work, I was like, “Yeah, I'm focusing on working-class characters from the Maghrebian diaspora,” and so on. So I wanted to invent this word, just to describe my work more easily.
CG: With which artists do you think you now feel a connection?
SS: Meriem Bennani. For me, she’s like the greatest artist of all time. I was a huge fan of her work. And then we met, and now we are friends.
CG: How did you get into Grand Theft Auto, the video game you’ve been using to create some of your video work? I've been playing this game all my life.
SS: Yeah, me too, with my little brother. At the beginning I was supposed to do a CGI film, but it was too expensive to do it all in CGI. And there I found out about this thing where fans were reproducing French rap music videos in GTA. And so I was like, oh, this is a phenomenon. And I like to work on phenomena. And so I decided to make a film with the same method.
CG: How did you do it?
SS: I watched so many hours of game play—like hours, hours, hours on YouTube, to take inspiration for the angle, the POV, and everything. There are like only three scenes which are CGI, which are more cinematic.
CG: The soundtrack is super well done, so melodramatic. So what is your relation to music?
SS: Yeah. Only listen to rap music, French rap music—this is my main inspiration. But what I like about it is that there are so different styles, it’s so diverse. The melodramatic vibe, as you said, and then the cloud rap, which is more dark.
CG: And what are your next projects?
SS: For the Lyon Biennial, which opens in September, I will present volume two of this movie. It’s a coup d’etat organized by all the winners of the exam featured in volume one, which takes the form of a TV show when they take over a national TV channel for 24 hours. A dystopia of resistance.