Tom Esam and Paul Ferens

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© Tom Esam & Paul Ferens

Tom Esam and Paul Ferens, founders of Number 1 Main Road, discuss their motivation, creative potential in every moment, and exhibitions that inspire them.

What are you currently working on—and what do you find particularly stimulating or challenging about it?
We are currently preparing for our next show ›Sending Hate by Most Dismal Swamp… we always ask our artists to think big, as if there were no constraints and now we are at the stage of taking that big idea and trying to figure out a version of it that is achievable. We always find that this scaling back approach leaves us with the most impactful exhibitions. A surprising amount of the time we are left with something pretty close to the dream scenario.

Do you have a daily ritual that gives you structure or inspiration?
No but that sounds like a good idea! For us everyday is completely different, we yo-yo between being organised, healthy and professional to complete chaos.  With too much structure things begin to calcify and with none at all you completely burn out.

What kind of music do you listen to when you want to focus or reconnect with your creative process?
We’ve been listening to a lot of Chuquimamani-Condori, their music often has elements of two songs playing on top of each other simultaneously, it seems to be a good reflection of our headspace while working on a show, chaotic but with a sense of synergy.

Has there been a book that fundamentally changed your perspective—and why would you recommend it?
Kippenberger: The Artist and His Families by Susanne Kippenberger is a huge inspiration for squeezing the creative potential out of every opportunity. She talks about how for every exhibition the flyer, the poster, the exhibition text became a chance for him to express himself… we can relate to this greedy/generous attitude. We use every part of our small space as part of the exhibition, to the point where we have no office, no storage… the exhibition reaches every corner of our physical space and continues through our online communication.

Is there a work of art you would love to have in your home?
It would be fun to integrate an art installation into a domestic setting, something that takes over a whole room, or multiple rooms. Owning ›Simply Botiful‹ by Christoph Büchel would be amazing.  I remember climbing through a refrigerator and eventually finding my way to a prehistoric excavation site with a wooly mammoth.  The scale and depth of that installation was insane.

We have been talking a lot about creating installations outside of art settings, we’d love to set up the Number 1 Main Museum for some of our installations to live on… we were looking at old motels for sale in the middle of the US last year but are yet to find anyone with deep enough pockets to fund that particular plan (if thats you our DMs are open!)

Which exhibition venue in Berlin inspires you?
It is mostly the curatorial groups with no fixed location that we find particularly exciting, we are really into exhibitions that respond to their environment, this seems to happen more outside white cubes.  LAS Art Foundation’s Lawrence Lek show was phenomenal.  New Scenario has been a huge inspiration for many years. Trauma Bar had a great programme and it’s exciting to see them continue without a fixed location as Trauma.  Also Molt’s recent exhibitions have been really exciting!

Is there an object that accompanies you and reflects a part of your identity?
Nope, we like to change things up. Carrying around the same thing everyday would feel like an anchor.

What keeps you going, even in moments of doubt?
We dont tend to doubt ourselves very often (which is probably why we have persevered for so long in such a precarious industry). Our conversations are more about the practicalities of achieving our ideas and deciding where best to focus our energy rather than doubting ourselves. We have a huge list of projects we want to work on and artists that we love and want to work with… it’s going to be quite a few years before we get to anything that we have any doubt about!

Which personality would you like to have a conversation with—and what would you talk about?
We’ve met enough artists to know that loving their work is no guarantee of an interesting conversation!  It seems like the best conversations with creatives are when you are developing ideas with them, so currently the answer is our upcoming artist Dane Sutherland (Most Dismal Swamp). Getting the opportunity to dive into an artist’s creative process for a few months is one of the best parts of the job.  It’s why we focus on solo shows that involve the artist generating new work; it makes the process of putting on an exhibition much more of a conversation.

What do you look forward to when your working day comes to an end?
On a good (and increasingly rare) day, playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2… becoming a medieval knight for a few hours is a good counter balance to the realities of the Berlin art world!

 

 

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