Audiovisual Cultures episode 48 – The Late Shows automated transcript

hello I’m Paula Blair and this is audio-visual culture support cast that explores and highlights different aspects of cultural production this Edition comes to you from the Newcastle Gateshead Lee it shows an annual weekend when cultural venues stay open late and put on special activities to get people out and sampling and engaging in the city’s cultural life as you’ll hear I spent the evening in commercial Union house and had the great fortune to meet and speak to Clara Murphy Morgan from milkfish productions Rachel Brooke from good space Paulina Taylor and Alice dirt from room for a performer Maria’s Marasco and poet Jenny McDermott I’ll begin at the end with my reflections as I trundled home that night 20 19 just a very quick shout out because this shows about the late shows but I did it and reclaim the frame bird’s-eye view event this afternoon as well showing baja rose de verano or birds of passage Colombian film based on the true story of the rise of drug cartels in Colombia in the 1970s it’s really amazing film it’s really worth your time so the focus today was ready on the lay it shows and I suppose I when I spoke to Vox Pop in quite a few venues but I mean as usual with it shows I’ve haven’t managed to leave Customs Union ice because there’s just so much amazing stuff going on there so I might pick up a few more interviews at a later date what’s represented on these few recordings it’s really just the tiniest nap shot of what was going on across Newcastle Gateshead I suppose this is new castle gates heads version of culture night because they don’t do your culture night here which is usually in September across many places and instead they do that it shows once here in May Museum on a Friday they have it and whose burn which is in there east of Newcastle and on the Saturday focusing on Newcastle upon Tyne Highlander Gateshead you’ve got the big heading venues like the Baltic Center her Contemporary Arts and the tyneside cinema he does something even said a library they had a silent disco tonight and they had some life music earlier in the night as well and our galleries like the side had something on better managed to get down there yeah so I just hope there’s a few people that I managed to shake loose and I hope that gives a bit of it here sir and you’ve got an idea there’s such a rich cultural tapestry in Newcastle and it’s just great to be able to speak to even just a few of those people who exemplify that and hopefully these are people who will get on again and speak to you at more length and also to people I didn’t manage to speak to hopefully will lead to other podcasts in the future thanks so much for listening thanks so very much to everybody who’s contributed their voice it’s really lovely to get you right there

would you be happy to introduce yourself yes I’m Claire Murphy Morgan I’m the artistic director for monkfish productions and we’re a small arts organization based at good space here in commercial Union house in Newcastle we’re all right here for the late shows what kind of things are you doing and what a monkfish tonight it shows well monkfish is part of a work space community called good space and good space is on floor to one floor five of commercial Union House and we’re a working community so we provide accessible and affordable space for community organizations arts organizations and small charities to work in close proximity with each other the space is operated by a company called North and creative solutions good space has a membership programs all of the organizations that are based here remember organizations so it’s very much about building the work space community where we can come together and where we can collaborate with each other share ideas and lots of tea and cake as well and so you doing some stuff together tonight we are so good space is hosting late shows here and monkfish is part of the good space community so the project tonight is about diversity inclusion and self-awareness it’s very much core to the kind of ethos of what good space is about and monkfish is hosting a word space where people are invited to come into a space pick a word out of a hat any word at random to do with the theme of diversity or inclusion and either write or draw something in response to that word it can be anything at all anything that comes to mind is random is abstract or as obvious as they like and then that’s gonna go on to a big canvas if you like of all the ideas that have come together and hopefully we’ll be able to take some of those ideas and a piece of work from them which shall be hopefully hosted here in good space and so while you’re on the spots what would your response be to diversity I think diversity is about making sure that all sorts of adjustments and preparations are made to include everybody I think people confuse diversity with equality I think they are mutually supportive of each other but they are different and diversity is about that dignity of difference and learning from each other as a result of that of everybody having their own unique contribution to me does monkfish have anything coming up in the future that you’d like to a pretty quick monkfish has just completed a big site-specific program of work working with artists in new and unusual spaces and an around gate said that you wouldn’t normally have seen artists popping up in and we’re hoping they’re in the autumn we’re going to be picking that up in Gateshead and developing more work and develop in our program of site-specific working if people want to find out a bit more where should we direct them then go to our website is http://www.seannal.com we’re also on instagram and twitter as well thank you very much and have a brilliant night thank you

hi I’m Rachel Brooke I’m a host here at good space and I creative producer on the late shows project which is where we are tonight good spaces in quite a lot hosting quite a lot tonight for the Late Show so what with your old age so my role on the late shows at good space as initially to come up with a concept and work with our participants volunteers members and our wider community to create multiple interactive spaces so the initial idea that I was thinking about based around doing something that would be organic improvisation giving people the tools to be creative and use those tools to have one final piece of work on multiple final pieces of work at the end of the evening and then out of that we came up with the theme of self-awareness for diversity and that theme has essentially come from a lot of conversations and a lot of interactions that have had recently and that many of my colleagues and peers of heard recently around being part of society being part of a public space being part of a community and how it feels when self-awareness isn’t considered and how and when that might need to be adapted for diversity so that might be anything from you know I might have a loud conversation on the telephone on the bus and that loud conversation on the telephone might cause multiple people to have a response that is negative yeah and I could come away from that and think oh wow I had allowed a conversation on the bus that was really inconsiderate of me but what I could also think is you know what are the experiences of every other person on that bus and what else might be going on in their lives that mean that you know what seems like just a loud conversation is actually so much more and how that affects them just my loud conversation affects someone’s entire day you know has somebody had you know a bereavement or a breakup or just somebody have anxiety or depression or a learning disability or special educational needs and how does that additionally affect them and so the overall idea is to get everyone who comes through the door to just think a little bit more about how they are in public for this mural that we’re currently sitting out right now I did a Venn diagram which is self and other and in the middle I’ve just left a question mark because how do we self care how do we be mindful how do we consider ourselves and also consider other people and it’s a very complex space and it’s not something that we can approach easily or in a straightforward way but I feel that you know the more that you think about it the more that you’re able to find some balance in life and I hope that everyone who comes here tonight goes away into things a little bit more about that so it’s a really nice idea during the murals and there’s a few of them yes we’ve got a mineral we’ve got a zine and the mural were just inviting anyone to contribute anything any idea we’ve got dictionary definitions up around on the walls for self awareness and for diversity we’ve got lots of visual aids to encourage people to think about what’s happening in the space and how they can contribute creatively whether they want to contribute a word or an image or a feeling or an idea and there’s multiple ways that they can do that they can do that through sound so we have a room with synthesizer or guitar or keyboard and multiple percussion instruments and lots of different things that people can pick up and shake and make sounds with and even some children’s toys there’s a children’s book that has sound effects on it which has gone down very well actually in the zine workshop we’ve heard that that tables been busy the whole night people are really getting into it and contributing I’m really excited to see what comes out of that we have a word room which essentially we’re giving people the opportunity to pick up a word select a word out of a hat or bring their own word to the table if they wish and then they can draw an image or they can write something they contribute something to a collective piece of wall art I guess it will eventually become once we’ve although at the moment we’re still open to what the final outcome of each piece of work will be how it’ll end up being used and how we will exhibit it and same with the zine you know we may end up with multiple scenes and may it have you know end up with five different themes all around you know the one idea and we’ve got a performance room as well and in the performance room we have essentially it’s asking the question of inclusion and should everybody be included how do we ensure that everyone is included and the absurdity of ideas of inclusion in spaces this our utopia the thing that I took away from it because I’ve been into every space and participated when I’ve had a few minutes and I think that the biggest thing that came to me from that space was this idea of how absurd is to even imagine that one could enter into utopia and what red tape is involved in entering into utopia and do I have to you know what is the criteria for entering into utopia and it’s very thought-provoking it really made me think about you know times that I’ve cued for things and times that I’ve waited in line for something and it kind of has to be experienced and I’m actually I’m so blown away by it that I I want to talk with her about how we can set it up elsewhere and have some sort of performance installation that we can take around to other venues and other spaces so hopefully they’ll be more the performers name is Maria smear after skirt and she’s not long been in Newcastle and meeting her has given me this ability to open my mind up a lot with regards to performance and performance art and to how we can use our minds and our bodies and our voices to express and create and feel and heal as well finally I haven’t mentioned the silence room yes yes silence well the thing about the silence you missed them the main goal that we had with the silence room was to have an audio recording yeah what we started doing was putting now clip forwards with paper and pens and giving people the opportunity to pause questions and ruminate and think about what silence is and the response from that has been overwhelming actually we’re really excited by how much content we’ve gotten from that so we’ve got something else that we can maybe continue this project and this idea into something else or recreate in a different space but the overall idea with that is that can we ever achieve silence and even when there’s silence there’s always silence allows noise to come through and I think that that room seems to be going down very well as well people are they come in a bit unsure and you know it’s a bit intimidating but actually once people start to experience it and then just anything you can see obviously clicking people’s head they’re like not sure what’s going on should I come in here we gesture for them to come in we

exactly which again you know is another way of us thinking about how to bring diversity into self-awareness one other thing that’s really important to add is that with the theme one of the more crucial aspects of preparation for the event was making sure that we would be as accessible as possible for all diversity and we have been working with midnight Memphis who is an access coordinator and also works for dementia friends so she is very clued up on how to consider as many requirements to ensure that people of all diversities can be included in an event like this so we’ve got things like noise cancelling headsets we’ve got some safe spaces we’ve got opportunities for people to participate but anyone who just wants to observe that’s fine we’re not going to make anyone feel uncomfortable we’ve got lots of comfy space where people can come and sit down have a cup of tea relax and seeing that being used and seeing people be able to relax and feel I guess book safe here and at home here is really really important we’ve learned a lot in the preparation process as well and a lot of things that we’ll continue to consider when we’re running the space in all of the different ways that we use it going forward is there anything you’d like to say about good space mo generally just so if anybody wants information on what it actually is yeah here at good space we have meeting rooms office spaces and co-working spaces the office spaces used by members who are lots of small charities social enterprises charitable organisations and by them all being here together we’re creating a community that allows them to interact and inspire and support and have a community space to do their work to execute their work because a lot of these charitable organizations are one or two people good space allows to have peers and colleagues we have things like group T Briggs and special lunches and opportunities for people to come out of their offices and sit down and have a cup of tea in a chat but what we also have is meeting rooms which are incredibly affordable I think the most affordable in Newcastle and what that means is that small charities small activist groups community groups people who want to get together hold meetings hold anything from training to creative events that they can come and rent off spaces for a very very reasonable price which means that we are essentially ensuring that people aren’t being priced out of doing good I probably can’t name gdpr I probably won’t be able to say who uses a space but the range of people that come through that door is quite astounding and my day-to-day job as host means that I get to meet some really brilliant interesting fascinating people who are all incredibly inspiring and also you know diverse personalities and that’s a really great thing and it makes me I love my job I love working here and I hope to be here for a really long time and then a co-working space which again is incredibly affordable and if we have some regular co-workers some people who come in a couple of times a month the kind of launch of the co-working space has been quite soft since we’ve been here and we’re gradually building up the numbers of co-workers and we run sort of periods of time where we have free co-working on certain days and things like that but basically if anyone wants to know anything more you can email hosts at northern creative solutions doctor at UK northern creative solutions is the name of the charity that all those good space

I’m Pauline Taylor and I am the coordinator for room for you I’m Alice Stewart and one of the counselors who works for a room for you could you tell us a bit about what room for years and their ideas our own artists and house yeah well it’s an arts and health project as you said we’re called room for you because we’re really making space and time for people and we have a program that works in different hospitals throughout the Northeast so we’re working in Gateshead we’re working in New Castle and we’ve been working recently in Sunderland in each venue we place an artist and a counselor working together and that’s a bit of a unique approach because what we get there is we can offer an artwork we can offer an opportunity for people to join in and do something but alongside that we’ve got someone who’s really able to listen and talk and help the patients and their families who are there we probably need to ask Alice a bit more about that because that’s my role is I encourage patients and companions to create some work while they’re talking about what they’re going through and why they’re in hospital as a counselor often we make a conversation safe in a hospital setting because sometimes patients they don’t feel that they can talk about what they’re going through safely with their own family members and often having a therapeutic input with art on the side at the same time it can help patients to talk about what’s really happening for them because sometimes it’s quite hard sometimes they’re very ill and they enjoy that space and time to talk is it okay to ask what kinds of arts projects you do with patients and what kinds of patients you’re working with well we have a range of different artists who work in the different venues and they each bring a variety of projects and different skills that they’ve got so off the top of my head we do quite a bit of silk painting we’ve made probably mats in the past we do wire sculpture give us a few more what else have we got zoodles felting needle felting yes that’s a good one things with driftwood and cut up marks paper collage Chuco large fabric collage some sort of knitting and crochet skills as well because actually we’re trying to pick up and I think we do pick up on something that somebody said one week and we start to think together and you know the team the artists and the counselors say oh so-and-so mentioned this perhaps we could do that so actually it’s I think it’s developmental sometimes we’ll make we are sort of commissioned by a hospital to make a piece for a corridor or for a waiting room or something like that and that gives us a starting point and a size to work to and a way of encouraging people to join in because sometimes we’re making individual pieces that people take away the little pieces of needle felting perhaps but sometimes we’re working on a larger piece a joint piece of work which is going to be there in say the day room or something that people are going to see when they go and sit with their families and it’s again the content of it is quite interesting we’ve done quite a bit of work using the meaning behind different flowers so one of our artists did some work where she read up about what different flowers meant and looked at things like heartsease which is a type of premiere of viola but it’s name is how it sees it’s meant to ease the heart and you know a lots of herbs lots of things like that that we can incorporate those into the work and that gives you another talking point doesn’t it would you like to just say what you’re doing here for the late shows so room for use based we have a small office in good space in commercial union house and when we heard about the late shows we thought this is a great chance for us to meet lots of people and they’ve already been people coming in to the room to the building finding out about our exhibition we’ve got an exhibition planned for the month of June it’s going to be in Newcastle City Library opens on the 1st of June and it’s on for about three and a half weeks and it’s going to tell the story of room for you our plan is that we’re showing some of the artworks but it’s not just about the artwork it’s about how we work it’s about how people develop and what week how we can help if we can help you know how we can help people through the difficult times that they have and I think to reiterate isn’t it about the unique way that we work that it’s a qualified artist and a trained counselor we don’t really know of many projects that are working and that

my name is Maria Smirnoff ska and I’m a Polish American actor performer and singer I came to Newcastle about a year ago but I’ve kind of been traveling in between a few places but I’ve kind of been based here I just came back from the tour I was doing with a company called theatres on frontier which is based in Peckham and they do shows in various languages so in a way that’s kind of connected isn’t it to diversity yeah yeah and I worked with them years like 12 13 years ago and they do a very physical and visual type of theatre and so we just finished a tour in French all over schools north and south and middle all of England yeah I went really well it came back about a month and a half ago and yeah it’s just settling in and trying to find you know new projects and work on things for the late shows tonight you’ve been trying to get people to utopia I have indeed yes I just I thought its kind of a performative way to bring this idea across and I had a million ideas I couldn’t decide on one and in the end I thought yeah why don’t we try to take people – first I thought heaven and I thought maybe that’s not open enough and I thought maybe paradise and I thought no let’s just go for utopia and it was actually great because it engendered a lot of interesting discussion I don’t know if you were in one of the ones were yes so it opened up a lot of discussion which was fabulous and I had no idea what to expect because I’ve got actually done performative art before I’ve done you know kind of acting in a play where it’s mostly set things can be improvised but not usually so this was kind of a new challenge and quite exciting I must say cuz I didn’t know what to expect and some people obviously didn’t want to participate and you know I didn’t want to force them but some people were very open and came in and it was like oh wow this is so cool like you know it’s really opening up the discussion but in a performative way yeah and so the question was how’d you even get there are there Eska agency – exactly well it was like what makes up utopia what is utopia and how do we get there and you know bringing in this theme of diversity and some people didn’t want to leave they thought earth was fine so that was also interesting like why escape why can’t we fight for a better world here which was great it was like oh gosh yeah so you had some really interesting responses I was going let’s get away let’s get them all to utopia and like no but nobody was able to go unfortunately nobody was actually nobody qualified so the portal didn’t open and take anyone but I think everyone got something out of it I gave little quotes out to read and you know little seeds that went in and hopefully you know hopefully gave people something I hope you know I don’t know but maybe something to think about and just kind of go hmm yeah what is this diversity and actually it’s a good thing Franks it even came out so that’s what I was trying to do tonight do you think you’d see this sort of thing again oh definitely yeah I like that it had kind of a theme which in a way I guess you know it is a bit political and it was nice to do something like that I don’t think I’ve done much of stuff that’s kind of more socially engaged like this that is actually it’s very rewarding to kind of see that open up create kind of a discussion and a community for the moment of the performance in whatever way that is and that’s beautiful I loved doing that actually so definitely yeah so that she based in you can’t that’s me based in Newcastle yeah I’m actually working on a one-woman show up and trying to develop four years and the theme is kind of finding one’s place on earth which is also a universal as well as personal theme so at the process of finding funding to get that going and then I would like to you know perform that and tour that which is another kind of discussion opener in a way relevant to you know migration and humanity in general that would be great thank you thank you Father I also run workshops based on the training I did which was with a company called song of the goat Theatre in Poland so it’s a type of experimental theatre training physical and very vocal so it’s kind of connecting body and voice it’s working with embodied voice and I’ll be running a series of workshops here at good space and commercial Union house come soon have dates yet I don’t have a website but I have a Facebook page where I post stuff and so I will spell that for listeners because it’s not easy so my first name Maria spelled ma RI e and my last name is me Rosco so that’s s m.i.a r OWS K a and you can look on there and I post you know upcoming workshops or performances and stuff on there thank you thank you very much for participating hello so my name is Jenny McDermott I go by JM in the poetry world and in the making world I make poems I perform often and here at the late shows I am selling my wares which are poems original poems that I’ve typed about my typewriter pardon the millennialism and then I’ve made some tote bags screen printed those and I’ve screen printed some original prints as well all with this fine slogan just saying what everyone’s thinking which is make art each ass which can really mean what you want it to mean I was thinking about making a sign that said you know if you’re not into the eating us not for you what about make art great assignment Oh classics something like that just slightly changes and we’re also trying to show off our performance that we’re putting on next week at the shoe tree cafe uncle monkey which is on the 23rd of May yes people would like to follow me I am Jenny underscore piece on Instagram I’ve tried to stop using Facebook I guess millennialism thing but you can find me there under Johnny McDermott and I have made but I made those on my typewriter as well anything else you’ve been listening to audio-visual cultures with me Paula Blair and massive thanks to all of my guests this week Claire murphy Morgan Richard Brooke Pauline Taylor Alice Stewart Maria it’s Morosco and Johnny McDermott’s this episode was recorded and edited by Paula Blair and the music is common grind by air tone licensed under creative commons attribution 3.0 plant available for download from ccmixter dot-org thanks so much for listening if you like the show and find its content useful and interesting please help cover production and distribution costs by donating to pay pal Tommy /pe a Blair and libera Paycom /pe a Blair episodes are released every other Wednesday please rate share and subscribe on your chosen listening platform as this helps others find the show for more information visit audio-visual cultures dot wordpress.com all of our past episodes are linked from there and follow av cultures on Twitter and Facebook and thank you so much for all your engagement on social media thanks to our patrons for your continued support thanks for listening and catch you next time