Rose Eken: That’s why I make art

The short answer is: I make art because I can't help it. I grew up with art. My mother teaches opera singers and was briefly married to the publisher Hans Jørgen Brøndum, so there was art in every sense of the word in my home.

I've never been very good at fitting into a box, so you have to try to create your own. When I was 16, I left school and got a job as a stage technician at Café Teateret in Copenhagen, and at the same time I started arranging light and sound for bands in the Copenhagen underground scene. I did circus with my friends, went to 'Den fri ungdomsuddannelse' (an alternative education for young people) and drew at Glyptoteket. It felt natural to express myself. I thought about becoming a scenographer, but I was more attracted to art, and when I was accepted to an art academy in Scotland, that was it.

Making art is what makes me happy - it's like breathing. I feel best when I am making something with my hands. As a child I didn't have a doll's house. Instead, my room was one big installation, full of little miniature scenarios and workspaces where I could draw or paint. In many ways I do the same today. I invent worlds.

I realise that being an artist is not the easiest profession. Being an artist requires much more than 'just' being exciting and creative. You have to know an incredible number of different things. It requires a lot of self-discipline and hard work. I probably work at least 80 hours a week - every day of the week - far more than most people. You also have to be able to figure out how to live in an unstable economy.

There is probably something in me that would rather stand on the edge and look into the abyss than stand further in, where it is safer. I am happier out there, where I can question things and invent my own everyday life. It is a great privilege that I can now make a living from it, but it has only taken twenty years to get there.