7 | Little by Little with Ida Sophia

In this episode, Alexis step’s into the deeply immersive world of South Australian-born, Berlin-based artist Ida Sophia. Known for her evocative performance art, as well as her work in media and sculpture, Ida shares the discipline and solitude that shape her creative process. From her durational performance Regret to the significance of journaling as a "moving studio," this conversation is a raw and inspiring exploration of what it means to create with intention.

More info: https://www.idasophia.art

If you’d like to see more, you can follow Ida on instagram; @ idasophia_art

 

This episode was recorded on 1st March 2025 on the lands of the Kaurna Peoples. We hope that this episode inspires you as a creative person and as a human being.

Thanks for listening, catch you on the next episode.

Psst! We are always on the lookout for creative people to share their story and inspire others. Have you got someone in mind who would love to have a chat? Get in contact with us via Instagram @throughthecreativedoor

 

Creative resources from Ida:

Book: Letters To A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

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TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ttcdpodcast

 

CREDITS

Created and Hosted by Alexis Naylor

Music by Alexis Naylor & Ruby Miguel

Edited and Produced by Ruby Miguel

 

00:09 - Alexis (Host)

Hello, my name is Alexis Naylor and I am your host here at Through the Creative Door. On behalf of myself and my guests, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians on which this podcast is recorded and produced. Owners and custodians on which this podcast is recorded and produced. May we pay our respects to all First Nations people and acknowledge Elders, past and present. On this podcast, I'll be chatting to an array of creative guests, getting a glimpse into their worlds and having some honest and inspiring conversations along the way. I'm delighted to welcome you to Through the Creative Door,

 

00:42

Ida. I am so chuffed. Thank you so much for coming through the creative door. I actually just have no words. I have, I mean, as I wouldn't be doing my due diligence if I hadn't done a little stalky, stalk of you, but there's actually no words. Like, I've seen some of your beautiful performance art and it's so emotive and so thought-provoking. And I know that's not all that you do, because you also obviously do amazing sculptures which, for those listening, we're sitting in front of one of your artworks. What did you say? This one's called. 

 

01:31 - Ida (Guest)

This is called contact failure. 

 

01:34 - Alexis (Host)

Yes, I'm going to put a pin in that because I want to circle back, because I think that's super interesting, and I know that there's another component to this that's living in another room, so I want to unpack that a little bit. But yeah, I mean, it seems to me that the landscape of you as an artist is like so fluid and there's so many mediums that you sort of draw upon. Um, what does a creative space mean to you and why? 

 

02:01 - Ida (Guest)

yeah, I mean it needs to have a level of isolation for me. I need to be able to, you know, close the door and to to enter it, um, almost in a monastic sense. I have a very Um disciplined studio um practice. I like to be in the studio by 8am, even earlier, if I can be. I'm just obsessed. 

 

02:29

I at the moment, my studio is in a basement and I bound down the stairs so excited with my little thermos of coffee and my journal under my arm, ready to go into the studio and continue working from one whatever project or multiple projects that I'm working on right now. Um, but I'm actually in a residency and over the course of my practice, I've done multiple residencies and that has been so um, it's been so beautiful to be around other artists consistently whilst having this very isolated, monastic practice within a community. So I kind of need both. I need to be able to step into it, close the door, have that whole world and then be able to open the door, have lots of people come in, be connected to community, have a lot of experiences. Uh, wherever that residency is situated, um, right now it's in Berlin, which is what a city to do a residency in. There's like 300 plus galleries. 

 

03:34

It's uh, the studio is in the city is the city, I should say yeah, it's really taught me about going beyond those four walls of my studio and and recognizing that, uh, practice is is in the looking, the listening, the feeling, the, the seeking, uh out what a city can actually provide for you artistically on the pulse yeah yeah, yeah, totally. So I think energy in that way is important Energy, excited energy and then very concentrated energy, it's both. 

 

04:16 - Alexis (Host)

I love this question because in some ways, it doesn't matter what kind of baseline I think we're all sort of trying to find. It's like the yin and yang of creativity within a space and uh, yeah, what a beautiful answer. Beautiful answer, I mean. You have, your body of work is massive and your mediums are across the board. Is there a body of work or a piece of work that you're most proud of creating, and how did it come about? 

 

04:52 - Ida (Guest)

yeah, I think I'm most proud of creating Regret from 2021. This work is a 28 day dur performance, six hours a day. Every day, I sat in a chair and I watched this monumental installation of flowers decompose, and I did that because I regretted not spending the last month of my father's life by his side and I wanted to spend the time in the work that I wish I had spent with him, but not only that. Again, realizing that my story is a common story, you know, a regret is something that a lot of people feel. I had a participatory element where I cast these little plaster pieces that people could write their regrets on, and my, my um vow was to hold the literal and um metaphorical weight of that regret after they placed it on a hook on the garment that I was wearing a cloak thing that you're wearing. 

 

05:59

Yeah, yeah, and this work. The reason I'm so proud of it is that I was the first day I did it, for sitting there for six hours I thought, oh my God, what have I done? This is really hard, but I'd done the training, I'd done the endurance training, I'd done the mental training before, and when I got to the end of it, I felt like I could continue doing it for three months. You know, even though this thing on me had got to about 15 or 20 kilos, I felt so light. 

 

06:28

You know, I didn't realize, or I didn't know with empirical evidence, that durational time in performance could really be so effective on myself and the people that shared this work with me. You know, people showed me that they needed spaces to come and, um, be able to be with their stuff that are, you know, non-religious or you know. So I understood that, uh, through durational performance, there was some kind of gift there, given that people can come and have an experience, go away, think about it. The show is still going. I'm still there, I'm still holding the space, still holding their regret, and then they can come back in that revisited state where they've, where they've carried it as well, and it was a beautiful. It was a beautiful thing. It really taught me what I was capable of and um, what I needed to do with my practice, what my duty is as an artist to do with my practice. 

 

07:34 - Alexis (Host)

Yeah, it's so. It's beautiful to hear you articulate what it was like in that space physically, because the photos of that time, of that that performance, like they're striking, they're really striking and so for someone who's paletting it, who wasn't in the room to feel that you know, wash over them, they're very emotionally triggering images, knowing the context. Yeah, and that, yeah, super powerful. 

 

08:08

Yeah, yeah, thank you yeah, thank you so much for being so gracious and sharing that. That's, yeah, it's a good question, beautiful. On the flip side of things that you're proud of, have you had an experience or a situation that's challenged your creativity? 

 

08:30 - Ida (Guest)

I've had a really blessed artistic life and I think my challenges are the source of the best parts of my practice, so maybe I don't see them as challenges so much. 

 

08:48

I think all of the things that I work through in my different works are based on the challenges of early childhood, as so many are like interpersonal, inter-familial things that that arose, and I think the challenge perhaps is being so candid and so vulnerable in order to revisit, feel it again, extract it out of you into your right hand, look at it, understand it, understand where you are now and you're not that child, and look at it from a different world view and from an art perspective and from a translation perspective and and from a a truth perspective. You know, can I actually do something with this or am I ready to? And then, of course, translating that into into a work, into materiality, um, so there are lots of things that I know are still locked up. Um, that will take time, I think. But yeah, I think the challenge is is is the really the, the going in and doing the revisitation of some of the things that you're like, oh, that one's painful, but it's, but that's, that's okay. Does that answer your question? 

 

10:30 - Alexis (Host)

it does, it does very much. So, okay, good, considering that you change workspaces, the studio space, I'm curious is there anything like an object or a thing that you can't live without when you're creating? Of course, of course. What is this thing? 

 

10:52 - Ida (Guest)

I'm a prolific journaler. Okay thing, I'm a prolific journaler, so it's a absolute essential for me and I don't feel complete if my journal is not with me at all times. I've journaled since maybe I was about six and I must have hundreds of A5 journals. There's mine just there, within, within the eyesight. 

 

11:14 - Alexis (Host)

I have to have it there is there a particular kind of like? 

 

11:18 - Ida (Guest)

blank paper, a5, that's okay. Okay, it changes, you know, over the years. But, um, the thing with the journal is that it is, it is the moving studio, because I'm, because I'm moving around all the time and I don't think that we we switch off being an artist when we're in the studio and when we're being out of the studio. It's just not, it's not a thing, it's not. It's not in our wheelhouse that we have a nine to five. I don't think that it ever fully goes away or that perhaps people don't understand that we stop being artists. We don't stop being artists, pardon me, at at any time. 

 

11:57

Um, we're experiencing the world as artists and gathering and collecting and, uh, the journal is this, uh, deeply supportive space that holds the constancy of artisthood throughout every minute of my day, even like just a few days ago, I finally had this huge realization about this theme of hope in my entire practice. 

 

12:22

It is the, it is this, this word that has driven everything we do in our life with this, this hope that we, we hope someone will do something, we hope that we'll get this, we hope that they'll love us, we hope that they'll forgive us. All of this has driven all of our behavior and all of my work, and you know this. This light comes on, it's an idle Tuesday afternoon at 2 45 in the afternoon and you're like, oh my god, I've got to write this down immediately and for me it's a. I think the second object that's very important to me is my lame pen that I write with, because writing my phone is just, it's not a thing, it's almost not fast enough. My hand is quicker and I need the connection between my, my brain and my arm and my hand to to, to think and deliver exactly what it is, um. So yeah, definitely recommend having a lemme pen for all of the all of the journaling I

 

13:29 - Alexis (Host)

I really agree with that as a lyricist and a songwriter. There's something about the notation and it's this um. So we spoke off mark about how I got diagnosed with complex regional pain syndrome a couple of years ago and I talked to people about one of my major struggles around that was the physicality that I lacked and that was I couldn't. I had to learn how to write again. 

 

13:50

Yeah, I'm right-handed so I had to learn how to ride again. I couldn't play piano and it's like that, that physicality of letting it flow through my body to allow whatever was you know the synapsis in my brain to snap and go through. That was the struggle, that was so hard. So I yeah, it's, it's, yeah. You can be in another state of mind when you know your body can just flow, it can flow through to your hand]

 

14:19 - Ida (Guest)

 and the determination for you to go, this is absolutely essential for me and my expression, like handwriting, is such a it's such a thing that is only ours. Um, I can imagine that that is something that you were absolutely, uncompromisingly not going to let go stubborn, some would say good, good that's. I mean, that's the only way that you, that you get yeah through it, yeah, and you still are every day right yeah, it's a practice that's right for a reason. 

 

14:55 - Alexis (Host)

Now, if you could give one piece of gold, one nugget of advice to another creative or another human being, what would it be? 

 

15:04 - Ida (Guest)

oh, I think, always in the back of my head, and maybe because this is because I'm such a virgo the, the quote, or the, the um, what should I call it? The, the way of thinking through everything that I do is, little by little, a little becomes a lot. This, this compound gesture like why, why I work through with durational time, it's the compound of every single hour, every single minute, every single day that that makes the powerfulness of the piece. Or, you know, doing all of the, the admin, that we have to do as 21st century. 

 

15:40

It's ridiculous artists you know, little by little, little becomes a lot. It's it's when you have really ambitious projects, um, you know they just take they to hold them. You have to hold just a tiny bit at a time, and that it has been the the greatest lesson that I. I just have to take one little bite at a time. Well said, well even in, even in this, in the self-talk. You know, you get into the studio in the morning and sometimes you can feel like you really doubt everything that you've done. Maybe it should all just go in the bin. And it's like one little thought, that's like no, I know what I'm doing, I'm here, I've showed up for the studio, and then that thought becomes another good thought and it sort of builds up and then it just becomes total, uh, excitement to be there. One little thought rolling after the other. 

 

16:35

So, yeah, it's kind of um, essential, yeah, yeah yeah, and it's self-propelling too builds on each, precisely, precisely the momentum of that, like you can catch the wave and then all of a sudden you're doing this enormous thing and you're like, oh that that wasn't so hard. 

 

16:56 - Alexis (Host)

Yeah, I love that feeling. 

 

16:58 - Ida (Guest)

Yeah, how good is it yeah. 

 

16:59 - Alexis (Host)

Yeah, cool, yeah, yeah, I did that, I did that. 

 

17:02 - Ida (Guest)

I'm here. 

 

17:03 - Alexis (Host)

Ready to receive. 

 

17:04 - Ida (Guest)

Yeah, yes, yeah, totally, totally. 

 

17:08 - Alexis (Host)

I'm curious, if someone wanted to do what you do, would you have any advice or recommendations on courses or books or, I don't know, any sort of content that someone could palette in to sort of develop their creative process and even come close to what you do? 

 

17:35 - Ida (Guest)

well, I mean specifically for durational performance. I think that, um, figuring out, uh, uh, how to uh expand your endurance capacity physically and mentally is the first step. You know to take an eight hour walk, you know, and you know to sit and just listen for 30 minutes, you know, these little things can build up your endurance and are really it's really physical. So that's the practice total physical health and an alignment and building that up slowly, slowly, doing semi hard things for a long time. So that's very practical. But I think I I think the sort of philosophical or mental side of being an artist requires much more work and much more nourishment. 

 

18:45

And the greatest resource I think I could recommend is a book called Letters to a Young Poet, which you might know, by Rena Maria Rilke, who is a German poet. His poetry is extraordinary. However, this book is a one-sided correspondence, it's just the letters from Rilke to another poet, and it is essentially about solitude and how we must not fear it but know that it is the absolute, necessary aspect of unlocking that which is so deep within us as artistic people. And it is absolutely heart-wrenchingly open. And oh, he says things like if there are abysses, let them be our abysses. These, these sorts of lines that you just think, my god, I, I can understand why being alone is so important to um what I can do in the world with people. So read that and then read it again, read it every month. It's a constant next to me with my journal, I think yeah, yeah, yeah. 

 

20:08 - Alexis (Host)

Oh, my goodness, it's, I feel like, in regards to like, yeah, exactly what you were saying about, yeah, as an artist, it's like looking after ourselves as a whole human being to be able to serve as an artist, yeah, and like, yeah, taking in, yeah, all of these bits Absolutely To feed that. 

 

20:30 - Ida (Guest)

I'm really against any struggling or starving artist tropes, I think oh my goodness, me too I think it's an absolute um travesty that any of us should ever have to hear that will be placed in that category, um and what we can do within that. You know, I'm referencing rilke. He's he's reminding us that our, our struggle is is our actually our power? You know, making artistic work is a struggle, but it's the it's the struggle we choose. 

 

21:03 - Alexis (Host)

So, therefore, choose your hard right that's right, that's right. 

 

21:06 - Ida (Guest)

So it's, it's um, quite a, quite a privilege to be able to, to wrangle all of this out of, out of ourselves and um, and that requires living a very different lifestyle and life to many other careers and we choose it because we can't do anything else. You know, it is, we know, and yeah, and it's ups and downs, arounds, throughs and unders, and I choose it all, yeah. 

 

21:41 - Alexis (Host)

Wow, you're speaking my language, lady. You're speaking my language. I've tried to bow away from it before and I'm a lesser of a human because of it. 

 

21:48 - Ida (Guest)

Right. 

 

21:49 - Alexis (Host)

Yeah. 

 

21:50 - Ida (Guest)

Can't put you in a box. 

 

21:51 - Alexis (Host)

Nope, Nope. Shred doesn't work. You've broke it. I want to be on top of the box. 

 

21:56 - Ida (Guest)

I want to be around it, I'm gonna throw the bugs. Yeah, I'm gonna take it apart, I'm gonna make it a circle. Now I want to be different colors. Yes, yes, lighting, oh my god, but that's it. That's our life. 

 

22:12 - Alexis (Host)

It's quite special yeah, we're really lucky. My goodness, you are such a joy and thank you so much for being so gracious and sharing just a little piece of yourself in today's interview. 

 

22:27 - Ida (Guest)

I just yeah thank you, thanks for making the time for me. 

 

22:31 - Alexis (Host)

I do have one last question, mm-hmm. If you could hear another creative come onto this podcast and answer these questions, who would you throw under the bus? Who would you like to hear? 

 

22:43 - Ida (Guest)

It's a no-brainer for me. I would suggest Joseph James Francis, who is a sound artist and sculptor. Who is a sound artist and sculptor and he has an incredible approach to to what sound can be in in our lives and how it can change the experience of us walking through it. I think he's got some incredible research that is behind his practice and a really interesting history. Of course, I'm super biased. We collaborate all the time and he made the sound works for Witness. He did the sound work for Regret as well. He's an extraordinary creative and I think he has so much to contribute to our contemporary art dialogue. 

 

23:36 - Alexis (Host)

Yeah, Wow, I will try and pin him down. Hopefully he's ready to receive me and I can bail him out with questions. Right, let's do it. I'll be like you can put a good word in for me, yeah yeah. Amazing. Oh my goodness, Ada, thank you so much for this beautiful chat. 

 

23:58

this has just filled my cup yeah, me too yay thanks for tuning in for another episode of through the creative door. If you enjoy our episodes and find value in them, consider supporting us by making a donation. Just visit buymeacoffee.com/throughthecreativedoor or by the link in our Instagram bio where you can choose an amount and even write us a little message. Every little bit helps and we truly appreciate all of your support. But if you can't donate, no worries, you can still help us out by sharing our podcast with your friends and family and leaving a review on your favorite platform. Thanks so much for being part of our community and we'll catch you on the next episode. Bye.