ALL PEOPLE ARE CREATORS

INTERVIEW: ALISSA KLIMA

OCA Magazine: Tell us, please, about yourself and your creative activity / work

Alissa Klima: I believe that all people are Creators. We try to be creative in the way we communicate and work, build relationships and families, raise children or perform social duties. I was born in a Soviet society with different limitations. From childhood I found it immensely interesting to build up reality that was lacking around. We played role-games with my friends where we imagined adventures and places that were not accessible to us in reality. I think back then I first felt that the arts are a place for people like me.

OCA: How did you choose your path and who is your role model in the creative space or life?

AK: I have always been in love with reading. If the food we eat determines what we are in material terms, what we read establishes our mental and spiritual foundations. My beautiful mother was teaching Russian literature for 40 years. She loved bringing her colleagues to our house and I was introduced early to complex concepts and debates around them. I think she was the first who invested in me the appreciation of a deep dialogue. Further, while working at the British Council in Uzbekistan I met a prominent person that I consider a great teacher Mr Anthony Read. He loved reading and introduced me to a fantastic world of English non-fiction. He used to say ‘choosing between talking with a dull person and reading a good book, I always choose a good book’.

OCA: What is your main achievement in 2021-2022?

AK: The last few years were stuffed with challenges that the world has been facing. Dramatic disaster caused by COVID 19 affected almost every family in each country directly or subtly. My mother died in July 2021 in the intensive therapy ward in the hospital which I successfully left a week before both were diagnosed with pneumonia. It was a great loss in our family. That was the point when I realised that people must live their lives despite any mischief. I introduced yoga in my daily living and finished the book ‘Children of the Red Horde: The Late Sketch’ that I was working on for many years.   

OCA: What is the main feature that makes you and your art/work unique?

AK: Every piece of art is unique. When my third boy makes Minecraft objects out of paper boxes that are lately flooding our flats as a result of growing delivery business pushed by COVID-19 and numerous lock downs I always praise him for creating something fabulous. That’s how our mind is set up. I think that my writing has finally been established by a combination of the rational part and my artful part. All of my works are always based on real history and real events but the story is a fiction. my language is quite recognisable. It seems logic dressed in a great deal of emotions. 

OCA: Tell us, please, about the events of the Eurasian Creative Guild (London) and projects that you have already taken part in and how does ECG influence your creativity and success in your work?

AK: I have been taking part in a few meetings that took place in Moscow where I lived and worked after moving from my home country of Uzbekistan. But in recent years we all were isolated and I tried to minimise offline contacts until the situation with the pandemic is settled. Hopefully in 2022 I can reestablish participation in such meetings. It is an amazing chance for interested people to come together!

OCA: What is your motivation and the main aim of your creativity?

AK:Many great writers believed that creation is most prosperous at turbulent times. In this case it seems that we are heading to the peak of creativity bearing in mind that the world and our countries in particular are heading towards yet another historical twist it seems. It is unthinkable for me to write for the sake of writing. Any writer has a passionate desire to express his or her experience, view or idea. That’s the main driver for creativity. This is called the idea in our terms. But if an author doesn’t bear a Super Idea a story is lacking the core. Our experience or thoughts alone cannot motivate either ourselves or readers. What truly motivates people is both a belief and hope that tomorrow will be better than today. It doesn’t mean that we should lie or write about goodies. It means that in all things we are discussing we should invest love in what we talk about: be it concepts, nature or people. Without love anything is void.

OCA: What would you wish for the members of the Guild and other creative people, just starting their career? 

AK: With respect to what has been said before, I wish that people involved in creative writing or any other form of arts keep coming to the thought of how I can make this world a better place. Does my story evolve a question in another person of how to create as oppose to destroy? We are facing yet another turn of quite dramatic time in the history of human beings. It would be great to stay on the grounds, that we definitely keep the status of humanity in what we say or do. We should always remember that without love anything becomes redundant.