Personal Development, Ambitious Planning and Werewolves
More please from ACE, the British Council and fellow foundations/independent funders for artists. For creative process and practise to truly flourish, artists from multiple disciplines need opportunities to be together – time and space to talk. My resilience and belief as a South-West based live performance artist has shot through the roof because of the fellowship and lab one has demonstrated how creative people are building a thriving community! I very excited for my mentoring sessions to begin with Quarantine and look forward to lab two in Egypt…
Taking Another Route
Here’s one for you: British Council, Arts Council England and Jerwood Arts walk into a room… No that’s not the way to begin this blog… something like ****hell, I can’t believe it, Am I dreaming? – No, I’m not because that pinch hurts, wow, wow, wow…Actually, I think my response was ‘No bloody way’ with a massive grin during a very classy zoom with the main producer of this mindboggling opportunity. It is always rewarding getting a yes after days of grafting an application and then cutting words, only to add more sentences and then finally, actually understand the question and to start over again...But to be told by a fellow human being that your words resonated with them and then 10-panel members, well I think it puts everything off to a good start!
Live Practice when We are Forced Online – Goodluck with That?
No Galleries, No Theatres, No creative spaces – not even outdoor live events or interventions – a tough period for live practice and the arts in general just got more impossible! The reminder of how everything shut overnight is probably to welcome at the moment but to tell the story of these two extraordinary opportunities needs to be set in the backdrop of Lockdown. It is said that artists work is like an iceberg, the bit that audience see is a small percentage of the work being put in. Yet, for me this imagery is more then just us artist wanting recognition for all the background paperwork, application writing, marketing and self-promotion, networking etc etc etc…..No, I think the iceberg also demonstrates that the little bit above water that can be observed, interactive with and critique is not necessary the most vibrant and alive piece. Speaking from the way I’m aiming to create, ‘the practice’ (the act of putting my creativity into motion – there will be a lot more on what the practice means just bear with me for now), can only be realise if my energy is focused on the messy, wonderful incredible journey of collaboration and creativity, rather than fixating on producing something that can be consumed.
My Jerwood Journey (And Hopefully tbc!)
I guess it is a story told hundreds of times by now but when I applied for this bursary in early 2020, I could not imagine how the rest of the year would have planned out - although with all the amazing support from Jerwood, this is not the tail of isolation it could have easily been!
Does your rock talk?
Well yeah it does – but apparently not as much as ours in Torbay! Torbay is a UNESCO Geopark and it is a unique one as we are the only Geopark that has people living, sleeping, going to work, being educated and playing! Daily life and vitally important conservation, a portal into the rock and earth history are deeply bounded in a tapestry of what it means to be human now and for the rest of the earth’s time.
An Almost Out-of-Body Reflection
The 15th September was a truly magical, transformative, joyful and creative evening. Aided by the fact that we were discussing the potential conclusions to the content we were sharing to an invited intimate audience/outside eyes 5 minutes before we began, there was a powerful balance between improvisation and structure. From the feedback we received, a lot of the Squeeze Box aims and objectives came across in the sharing and we are so excited to use the learning from the 15th in exploring new ways to develop Squeeze Box. After our critical friends arrived, we explained, in an informal chat, that this will be an open devising session and we encouraged the invitees to roam around the space soaking in different perspectives and feelings. The space itself was a barn divided into two rooms – one we had lights on and one was kept dark except for the projections. What follows is an abstract, distant, almost out-of-body reflection of the journey of that evening:
Behind the Magic
In order to be able to remove background from original footage, you need state-of-the-art camera technology, a lot of lighting and as much green as you can get, but for our process the magic is definitely not all in the equipment but the brilliant people operating it!