Welcome to the Bunker Questionnaire, a series in which we ask Bunker Projects residents and exhibiting artists a few questions based on Marcel Proust’s famous Proust Questionnaire, a survey that purported to reveal a person’s true nature. We hope their answers and the accompanying photos allow you to get to know them and their work a little bit more.
Ajunie Virk is a writer-director and animator from Illinois whose work investigates the relationship between surveillance, identity and paranoia in a diasporic middle-America, conjuring up narratives that force viewers to face uncomfortable truths only apparent after objects of nostalgia are stripped of their familiar contexts.
Describe yourself in three words.
“Curious. Attentive. Sarcastic.”
Who are your favorite artists/the ones who’ve influenced you most?
“I’m always inspired by other artists who are altering the way I view the relationship between animation and narrative. Ones I can think of off the top of my head are Robbie Ward, Suzan Pitt, Kohana Wilson, Alexa Lim Haas, Andrew Thomas Huang, Adam Elliot, Rodrigo Goulão de Sousa, Don Hertzfeldt.”
What is your idea of happiness?
“I do a little dance before I start working. I do a lot of green-screening and physical performance in my practice so it loosens everything up, but I think that more importantly, I like to sync my movements and mindset with a specific tempo throughout a whole studio session. This is some sort of attempt at that.”
What’s the next goal or milestone you are working toward in your practice?
“Completing and screening my first longer, narrative film. I’ve been working on it for a few years now and it’s the first piece I’ve spent a significant amount of time on. I can’t tell if I’m more terrified or excited the closer I get to it being completed.”
What’s the best creative advice you’ve received?
“Make whatever would annoy your sibling the most.”
What draws you to do artist residencies?
“The sense of collaboration and community—I love meeting new artists, learning from them, and seeing years down the line how my time with them eventually shifted the concepts and form of my own future work.”
Photography by Anna Brewer
If you’d like to support Bunker Projects’ mission to provide a safe, equitable space for emerging artists to develop their practice and create new works for exhibition, please consider making a one-time or recurring donation here. We are so grateful for your generosity.
