SIMON FUJIWARA IN CONVERSATION WITH NICOLAS VAMVOUKLIS

Speaking of identity construction, “Who the Bær,” the cartoon character you have lately developed, lives in a world of complete freedom. What is your definition of being free?

In the case of “Who the Bær,” it is a special definition of freedom – because “Who the Bær” is a philosophical cartoon character – one that is a pure image and knows it – they do not believe in or aspire to authenticity; they only aspire to ‘appear’ as something or someone. So freedom for “Who the Bær” is freedom from the human constraints of wanting to be authentic. This is perhaps my actual question in the whole project – can we, as humans, live without identity, without a sense of self or authenticity? The answer is no, even though our times are increasingly asking us to abandon the old, tired ideas of gender, nation, power hierarchies, etc. – all the things that made up ‘identities’ – and embrace new, fluid thinking. So freedom might be freedom from identity, but “Who the Bær” is sort of a thesis on what that might look like. It’s fun, it’s cute and it’s terrifying, I think.