Experiments

DOCUMENTARY FILM (4.5MINS)

I printed out around 30 images from the years when I directed New Arts North, a community arts company that operated from 2008-2018, which I co-founded with composer/musician Russell Burbush (my ex-husband).

Searching through the archive, the methodologies and
territories of that period start to reveal themselves. I now have the time to hold them up against the light of a wider context.

A feature of my work with others was using arts-based methods. I've continued with this methodology, making objects and films during the last few months as a way of thinking through my core concerns. The arts-based methods allow a free flow of ideas, opening up tributaries, difficulties and contradictions.

FILM STILL

As I begin to make, many ideas flow through:

We are made up of shifting layers of memories, modified all the time by our interaction with each other and the outside world.
My projects create environments in which people make art to subconsciously sift through these layers of memory, at the same time noticing what they value and what they are aesthetically drawn to.
It feels luxurious to me, with this MA, to now be able to do this for myself. To listen to myself. This is a lesson I have learnt. Somehow, we all have to make together, not just the autopoiesis I enabled in others, but the sym-poiesis that Donna Harraway talks about.
My projects often involve overcoming an initial challenge -find a space to occupy: underneath an old theatre, in an old kitchen, in an empty shop, hire a community hall or room in God knows where, book a museum education room, meet on a beach, a lakeside path, a field.
My projects often involve overcoming a second challenge - find a piece of ground on which, metaphorically we can all stand equally eg knowledge of a myth, a story, watch a film together, learn a new skill together. So we can all come out from under our shells.
Now in 2020/21, the challenges are just the same. The same search for space to occupy, except it is people's domestic space that they now have at hand, or the prospect of meeting up in groups of 6 outdoors, if the tier allows. The new disenfranchisement is via a disparity in wifi and home technology. The piece of metaphorically even ground can still be found, but only in instances where the first challenge can be overcome.

DOCUMENTARY FILM (3MINS)

With the physical space in which we would normally encounter tutors and students now gone, I made a docu-film about how this troubled me, and how working through this trouble, we might still overcome the challenge of occupying space and finding ground together without a physical space.

In millions of homes around the world, I knew that innovation was starting to take place concerning remote communication and learning. Driven by necessity, choirs, actors, young people, and families were devising quizzes, and sing-a-longs, employing make-up, clever editing, and costume to engage, entertain and make sense of. In a sense, the revolution had already begun long ago with Youtube and other social media platforms.

My own commissioned community work of 2020 and coming up in 2021 have been going the same way.

'DISEASE AND CURE' FILM (4MINS)

This film is the companion piece to my essay - the short story of Ganglot:

'Hermes (Greek god of messengers, tricksters and thieves) has been travelling on the folds of time. He intercepts a communication from Ganglot, servant to Viking goddess Hel, benign overseer of those who have died of natural causes or illness. Ganglot had wished for an audience with Viking god Freyr but ends up meeting Greek gods Athena and Hephaestus.'

I have submitted this for a group exhibition. I have said that the film is yet to change and be refined. I've also said that the garment and a wall-hanging (that will hang behind Ganglot in the film) will also be exhibited in the space. The further apart each element is, the better, so that the viewer is able to assess each piece on its own terms (in relation to its own genre) as well as part of a whole.

I am basically experimenting with the various elements of the zoom space looking to mobilise elements other than spoken English language. For instance, I'm considering the actions associated with fabric that can be used as psychological metaphors.

PHOTOS OF MAKING