How is it November - time flies when you’ve got this much going on!
It’s been a while and I had hoped to post here before now but it’s been a busy month. A mixture of exciting work, progress with my professional development project and a less than brilliant spell in isolation due to my daughter’s nursery having a COVID case has kept me away from writing about what I’ve been up to.
Firstly, I am thrilled to announce that I am going to be working with Capsule in a Producer/ Festival Management role as their very brilliant Executive Producer Kate Self goes on maternity leave. Those are massively accomplished shoes to fill but myself and the equally brilliant Sadie Newman (BE FESTIVAL) will be covering the many aspects of Kate’s role. I am really excited about the projects I’ll be working on, with a return to some Home of Metal work and supporting a really dynamic talks programme shining a light on women in the industry. Supersonic will also be building on the success of their digital festival Sofa Sonic with pre-Christmas gigs with Hen Ogledd, including a very exciting Kids Gig and festive Bingo with Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – all events bookable here.
In my previous blog post I wrote about getting an Arts Council Developing Your Creative Practice grant in 2019 and while lockdown has forced me to rethink my research and approach it very differently, it has also enabled me to devote much more time to it. My research explores commissioning contemporary art and cultural programming in the heritage sector, with my original intention to visit many best practice examples throughout the country. I have always intended to make a podcast and publish some writing around the subject but a reallocation of the budget has enabled me to make more podcasts and to commission an artist to make a new sound work to accompany the interviews. I am currently going through the process of interviewing experts in the field and artists who have recently made work in response to heritage venues and landscapes. I am currently recruiting an artist for the sound commission via an open call, but more on that in a forthcoming post. I am really pleased with the direction this work has taken and am really confident that the podcasts will be a great resource for curators working in the sector and those interested in how artists interpret our relationship with history, place and the environment.
The grant has also supported some work with vocal coach Kate Terris, addressing some of my anxieties around public speaking and while this has been very disrupted by the pandemic we’re both pleased that podcasts are a main output of the research, very much helping me to overcome aspects of my practice that I find challenging. I am also thrilled that with the support of the Arts Council Emergency Fund I was able to make this website which can now host this content. Over the next couple of months I’ll be working on a new page in the projects section with more detail about my DYCP research – keep your eyes peeled for that.
At the end of October I took a research trip to London and had the opportunity to visit lots of exhibitions which are really feeding into the development of my ideas for future projects. I had the opportunity to visit the fantastic exhibition The Botanical Mind: Art, Mysticism and The Cosmic Tree at Camden Arts Centre, Among the Trees at the Hayward Gallery and a fantastic archival display exploring the Whitechapel’s work with communities in Exercising Freedom: Encounters with Art, Artists and Communities. Above all one of the most inspiring visits of this trip was to the Chelsea Physic Garden, London’s oldest botanic garden, housing around 5000 different medicinal, herbal, edible and useful plants. This visit very much informed how the natural environment is becoming an important focus of my research and really driving the development of my ideas for future projects.
Another important development in my work recently has been the development of my grant award with the Guild of St George, a charity for arts, craft and rural economy founded by John Ruskin in 1871. I was awarded a grant earlier this year to develop a project in response to Ruskin Land, a 100 acres of woodland in the heart of the Wyre Forest, Worcestershire. There is so much to talk about with this that it will also need to wait for a later post, but exciting things are happening in 2021.
With so much going on and much promised to you, I am sure to post again here soon, but in the meantime, please do follow, like and interact with my Facebook and LinkedIn pages and sign up to my mailing list.
As always, if you’re interested in knowing more about what I do or how I can help you make your exciting projects happen, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Image: Eija-Liisa Ahtila (b. 1959, Hämeenlinna, Finland). Horizontal – Vaakasuora, 2011. 6-channel projected installation with 5.1 audio. 6 minutes. Among the Trees, Hayward Gallery, 1 August - 31 October 2020.
