SB: So, Nisha Madhan…
NM: Yes, Stephen?
SB: Can you tell me why you wanted to make this show?
NM: Hmm…I decided to make a show about obsession because I was really taken by this book by Sophie Calle called ‘Take Care of Yourself’ which you gave me this year.
SB: Why were you influenced by it? What did you find interesting about it?
NM: Mmmm…What I liked about it is that she took one thing, which was a break up letter from her boyfriend and she processed her grief about it over a hundred times by giving it to over a hundred different female interpreters…and what I found interesting about that is through processing her grief so many times, the letter stopped being an emotional object and turned into something else…like processing fine flour.
SB: Where did you get the title?
NM: I got the title from a love letter that I wrote to you.
SB: Ah, so how did you mean it when you wrote it?
NM: I meant it in a really positive and sexy way! (laughs) but lots of people find it quite a bitter and negative title and it was never meant to be bitter and negative.
SB: Yeah. So…
NM: I think I wanted to celebrate obsession and not be negative about it.
SB: So you think obsession is kind of positive aspect to most people’s lives, I mean what have you found from talking to people about it
NM: Most people talk bout it in a negative way, the accepted psychology seems to be that obsession leads to destruction…
SB: Or dysfunction
NM: Or dysfunction yep. And that’s quite a buddhist philosophy to practice non- attachment to things, but then there is also the idea that attachment to things can lead you down a really enlightening road as well. Like, quite often people will talk about their obsession being about what they want to do with their life, that they’re obsessed by their future and I don’t see that as a negative thing I see that as giving a fuck.
SB: And obsession is something you’re weary of getting caught up in but you kind of crave it too….What’s your favourite colour?
NM: At the moment it’s purple. What’s yours?
SB: It’s been yellow for a long time …and what’s your favourite thing about working with me?
NM: There’s lots of favourite things, making you laugh is pretty awesome…and your enthusiam for ping pong balls is quite weird, and we both like to eat sushi for lunch…
SB: Mmmm and what’s it like making a show in an apartment and for an apartment? Cuz we’ve worked in my apartment and we’ll be performing in your apartment…
NM: We’ve made it in three apartments cuz we worked on it in our apartment in Brussels too…
SB: What’s with that? What’s a good thing about working in an apartment?
NM: uuuuum…
SB: It’s free..
NM: That’s for sure. And I enjoy having my home life and artistic life be one continuous thing. Having the research and objects of the show around me all the time so I can keep considering them throughout the day.
SB: You sound like my kind of girl.
NM: Really?
SB: Yeah, do you want to go out?
NM: Where?
SB: No I mean, like, go around together?
NM: What like pash and stuff?
SB: Yeah.
NM: Okay.
(They pash)
