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Audiovisual Cultures Episode 124 –Strand, Thor and Robert Simpson

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Show notes

Recorded on location at the Strand Arts Centre in East Belfast, programme manager Johanna Leech and cultural freelancer Robert J. E. Simpson chat to Paula Blair about the venue’s history, its current status and plans for its future. We then learn more about Robert’s work as an artist, an actor, a for-hire freelancer and with the CinePunked podcast. And finally, there is a post-viewing discussion between Robert and Paula after seeing Thor: Love and Thunder (dir. Taika Waititi, 2022) with plenty of references to plot details and lots of meandering off to other broadly relevant topics! If you get something out of this episode or know someone who will, please share it and give it a good rating and review on your podcast app.

Music: commonGround by airtone (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. Edited by Paula Blair with Audacity. Recorded on 2 August 2022. Get early access on Patreon.

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you’re very welcome to audio visual cultures the podcast that explores different areas of the arts and media I am a liar and for this episode it was my great pleasure to speak in person T. G. one LH and her guys as program manager at the strand art center in east Belfast and cheat cultural freedom Sir Robert J. E. Simpson the following conversations were recorded on location at the strands first you hear from all three of us talking about it strands it’s history present and hopes for its future then more but Roberts and the different aspects to what he does and finally Robert knight shot quite generally up by things springing from the location and having just watched Seward often thunder and denotes we mention plot details so if you want to avoid spoilers fast pick mark this episode for after you’ve seen the film my huge thanks to our generous patrons without him I would not be able to keep making that show and providing it for free if you can join them and want to access exclusive bonus material including I takes it will have come from these recordings have a look at our membership options at Petri on dot com forward slash AP cultures you can also head over to our website audio visual cultures dot com and dropped one off donations of any amount you choose and use the buttons to make one off Tony tions of any in mind if you count two thoughts sharing this episode with the friends and giving us a nice review every access this podcast would be much appreciated okay I really hope you enjoy this one it was great to crack say record most and strong arts center fell in love with the sentiment many years ago was a very small tiles and rose from Hollywood rose I am very M. here’s while this may really great pals Robert J. Simpson %HESITATION Joanna H. as a programmer she yes you can tell soleil VS John John has been on the podcast before quite awhile ago talking by one of her art projects let’s say she’ll be speaking a week back and her guys is a programmer at the strands and as retail’s fails to meet up with Robert from semi punks and he’s right behind me that may talk asked him on sending yeah it’s really cool to be here it’s very special to me that we’re all here so thank you both for joining us the service of in the same room together before the ad was like we’ve known each other for so long in various different you know prices but like yeah yeah so I’m doing that would you be happy to give us a better if your spiel about the strong because it’s a really old sentiments one of Belfast the last time doing art deco cinema %HESITATION and it was known as a strong sentiment for a very long time and then it was rejuvenated as distraught arts center so would you be able to just give us a bit more detail of faith yeah so the strong does on Hollywood road and east Belfast Northern Ireland and yes I suppose said we are the oldest cinema left in Northern Ireland %HESITATION on the last pre existing kind of wartime and building on this from nineteen thirty five and we have four screens currently used to be one theater and when we became the art center a few years ago it just meant we were look at rates relief for the building I’ll be able to get charitable funds T. help us change from thirty five millimeter film to digital and apart from not the strand for time was a variety theatre so we’ve been able to take you sixty two KM and kind of out on all the creative things that we do so sometimes we’ll have like circus performers before film on it sometimes would be doing just straight up like comedy or theatre what film is still our first love and we have film clubs for younger people and older people and we’re hoping she refurb next year on we’ve got four of the six million that we need I’m not just take pride hold me electrics and here disability access and lost a few bits and pieces of people enjoy contests thank K. and Robert you’ve done a few events here you yeah hosts and you can change the thing so what’s your experience with the strong this was would be my local summer when I was a kid %HESITATION although we weren’t big cinema goers which is ironic considering how much time I spend watching film today %HESITATION so I certainly remember coming here as as a kid in the so it’s got a kind of nice warm for the feeling of family because that’s when we actually rolled together and every member of the class I still remember coming here to see Michael’s Christmas Carla my teacher from primary one thing behind me I haven’t seen her for years so it’s just a memory that I have %HESITATION as if any I think it’s it’s it’s fox and all of the history so I’m I’m like I’m really into this sort of film history and I have been wanting runs you K. take a photograph some doesn’t old cinema sites when I come and that this is still functional art deco nineteen thirties cinema and all of us thanks contesting that we still have that there are still a few other cinemas in the city repurposed from similar kind of period but the still retains a lot of his character %HESITATION so the whole appeal it’s a nice place to work as if they were there for very different screens are mostly done stuffing and the tiny screen around here spring for an screen too which is quite a woman the next big stage on the other screen I just love the feeling of the if the case experiment of the shape of the room and I love that it’s got that big D. performing space with the screen behind the scenes in the front row on the screen isn’t too closely and they went to the cinema somewhere else now the crux of the week insight and real woman deeply regretted cream my forty five degrees %HESITATION but it’s it’s a great place that sickness let it rest and I think he gets back on the books because it’s not in the city centre it’s in the sort of middle ground between here and like proper suburbia so people overlook a a little bit since and has always impressed me so you know it’s like this is the hardest on the Billboard charts what is the people I talked to the I don’t make stuff awesome he still knows where it is so I think this little gem on the %HESITATION like it’s all his stuff was all the more stuff here but this is trying to get a person the citizen and the funding and all the rest of us in the system also to eating yeah great yeah it’s a very special place to me at this the first cinema I would have gone see and I can’t remember what the earliest films I saw were that I had really fundamental films being experiences here so wait saw timber instead I met before Christmas and I was just a few weeks after my dad died so that was really special experience for me and I think you and I do I think we we went to see it again as adults but I think it was in the queue F. T. F. R. member correctly we saw together in KFC but I was family funded over quite a lot over the years as well the teenagers so the missile and I also when I was far too young went see Jurassic Park here at this and I hope they run off to the toilets on the new cover girl sequences all night because I’m the same way the school and walks up property each other’s about fourteen and I was in it so when I came to see it here so it is scary and yet they still pumping knows I still you know the first ones are the best yeah yeah yeah so it’s a it’s a specially plea yes and yes so I just wanna encourage anybody who’s ever living in Belfast but not in the east or visiting Belfast ever check it because there’s always such great things mean just up just last week he had the Rocky Horror Picture Show and had an amazing night here and you’ve always called gigs on there’s traditional Irish music but there’s there’s also %HESITATION you know things that might appeal to you all different parts of the community I think and as you say there Sarkis and there’s comedy nights and there’s all sorts of things so yeah absolutely jacket I just really special that either if you want to add anything I would say that it’s it’s the there’s nothing says strong thank you get necessarily no cinemas and is that tie in with the history of the site %HESITATION it’s not a multi plex variance here even though it’s called multiple screens %HESITATION it’s it’s something different it feels like you’re you’re literally taking in the E. ninety years of history here I don’t know for me that so stuff resonates more %HESITATION it feels like that’s an important thing to me team I’m a worry about place like I said it’s great to hear the phone line that you have are a lot of the funding that you need in order to kind of just jealous of this up a little bit more and approve it because so many of these places to get lost over time %HESITATION %HESITATION on various groups online and when you kind of read about another cinema that’s been torn off the condom to they can get the funding of local consciousness at now we don’t need it and it’s a little bit of the kind of the the culture of the area that’s gone so this is a special place it is important that it gets maintained it’s important that the case use of the people take a chance on certain I feel like it’s it’s important for east Belfast to have nice things that’s right they have nice cultural things because for a very long time it felt like we weren’t really allow you to have nice things are nice cultural things or enjoy those things if we did have some so I feel like even at slightly politically it’s a very important space to protect and to nurture for those reasons this file and I just think it’s it’s a real shame for other communities like Surrey Belfast because you know if north Belfast west Belfast sites both of us would have hot places like this around the finger tips you know just on the road and not something that I love here is that I live here and work here you know I can just walk around the corner you know good a gig here and not have to go in and out of the city centre %HESITATION but the stock has also always been like a place for everybody so even like it historically like throughout the troubles and things he would have had a mixed group of people come in here because we have people from Georgetown would’ve locked up or and because of and things of being close to the city center with like curfews the strong would still be open so we’ve kind of been not place people go on and it doesn’t matter where you’re from you’re gonna set Tyne and how this experience together and I think you know what that’s like what Robert was tennis I kind I feel less like family because either you can with your family or the cinema became your family so for individuals and for people and maybe also had been three traumas after wartime as well a lot of people said that when it came to the cinema they would be able to like let all of their kind of excess baggage go on for their mental health it was really important so we have a project called strong stories to try to collect all these stories or you know we were talking to someone he was hurt there currently staff so they would sign the film to their parents and then she was worried that she wouldn’t get all of that kind of cloths but you know with her mom was just so happy to be in space I’m happy that she’s in a space where you know you shouldn’t be doing anything or be a certain person she could just come and be entertained so entertainment is the most important thing in my own skin the sun was always came behind northern we needed this %HESITATION I mean it’s one of the things I love to I came across Belfast whose they skipped he skips to the cinema %HESITATION in front of most of the time of our home so I can stick my boxes %HESITATION but it’s just to remind you that that’s the way that we can avoid it or this way some of us have a voice the the the traumas that were going on during that time I happen to be looking at a research on ice looking through some old kinematic off with police and there was a list of the cinemas in Northern Ireland in nineteen fifty seven outlook items dozens and dozens and I were going to I don’t have any of course one of the hospitals in and told us it’s really depressing so they they are the old time capsules I know you guys teachers and stuff here as well and showing off the history center to focusing photographs when people cough most tourists and locals alike the stuff we see in the so you get into you we live in the stories that otherwise we you know we kind of just walk past I think that being nice hello printer yeah great strong Mr well thank you so much for your time that’s really kind if you find tax useful with your podcasts we’ve got two options for you you can subscribe to the audio visual cultures podcast on U. shape for captioned videos and you can visit all the visual cultures dot com and click the transcripts top both sites are linked in the show notes along with information like this episode J. Simpson yes hello who took it stays in a room with you I’m not on a computer screen this is a weird thing about social media and the way that our world works on it is that you you can feel that you are with someone a lot more than you actually are just because you have a computer screens and your Facebook updates and S. and we’ve done a couple of podcasting type things together so it doesn’t take us that long since I’ve seen you but it probably yeah we have %HESITATION we saw each other in person lasting things probably by October twenty nine new it’s scary because I haven’t been here in a long time well honestly August twenty twenty two hours like a whole other Jackie is we haven’t changed in some ways we have and in some ways we have consensus even the fact control of the pandemic yeah nine I would love for my listeners she learn more about you because I mentioned G. and we’ve done that we’ve done and I am in conversation but I picked out I don’t my my other personal you change that Wilson on the podcast and I’ve since any problems which is very kind of you to help me on this I basically invited my styles so you were on the list anyway again just our ordering young yeah well I think we’re at a point where it’s just anytime that she’s trying to find a way of doing things together you know because we are quite easily set up for online stuff but it’s just really great status in person yes it would you be happy to well I think what I’ll do is I’m going to throw a bunch of stuff in there my perception of old route to things you do X. I don’t know how I describe you but you do you do with this stuff so I’m gonna just say that you research and write about film young felons he runs any problems he makes any proposed class and you do the website and everything which is class and it’s really great if you subscribed to not because you create blogs by Robert and Rachel he’s also working on so many pounds ye are an artist G. E. jeho don’t even don’t even offer that right year Hardesty yeah you draw I think you G. to be disciplined yeah in some sculpture and then then yes yeah actor things are easy ask your I would say an expert on hammer on the date and not just company in Salem but comedy ferry generate here and it’s easy Aston expired it was a friends in that world yeah I’ve talked to lose stuff fight which is the things I feel like I knew a bite so are you happy that meander intake is three something I mean I realize it is a whole lot of stuff %HESITATION I could give advice when I was a teenager I met friends to begin with right right from friends for many years Hey told me just to focus on one thing because it would mean that case was easier to work out what I did and I stupidly nor the device and carry on doubling in as many things as possible %HESITATION if I was being generous about myself I think the word is poly mas Paul at that the other way looking as my Jack of all trades master of none the weather self deprecating and all of that %HESITATION so yeah I just I mean I didn’t describe as I work freelance in the arts that’s why I’m in the moment and I also ask them before which is in denial this year %HESITATION which I thoroughly enjoyed yeah I do a bit of arcs I kind of happened for a long time I don’t want to talk or face coming up back into it during the time that make an exhibition coming up in a couple weeks which is nerve wracking because it’s the first time I’ve done a solo show all like my actual Han’s artworks a lot of it is a sort of love as portraits based on raw and inspired by life should I did %HESITATION cold comedy of madness which is on the nice comedy in mental health and ended up with my friends Ross %HESITATION twenty sorry we did a couple times %HESITATION dinner before pandemic I can’t so hasn’t been touched I’m still thinking about all the things and over the pandemic of kind of going back into the house the seasonal stuff %HESITATION John things I love going out %HESITATION city %HESITATION I I guess I do some research and history of the month long time a switch in the university %HESITATION you know I was an octopus and things as well of the lower crime films over the years but not an official connection them for for quite some time %HESITATION I’m still researching their company has to have the the marking on the moment a couple comite Smokey before then the air now %HESITATION on their kind is distribution and exclusive films stuff well said and then second which is sort of my driving thing these days those mean Dr Richard Kelly controversial tile %HESITATION she showed ME I don’t give years actually should yeah I just like a gender neutral tiles not a reason to do it state but it’s a pretty yeah this is a switch on the kind of %HESITATION steer a lot of us the more me these days to switch us just caught a writing career stock room then %HESITATION things and family and %HESITATION that’s basically a project that supports using film today I was kind of like using phone conversation %HESITATION so it’s a sensible sensibly an organization that talks about film but actually we’re trying to do something or try to look at social conditions we try to look at that service %HESITATION thoughts and and and life and stuff and and use the phones as a way to open this conversation is waiting to find an ingress into sometimes difficult topics %HESITATION I mean we’ve done stuff with censorship and stuff but it’s Parker favors and stuff my gosh lighting number things with mental health all stemming throughout the lands of projecting film everyone feel safe and phone numbers of the film %HESITATION but you can actually kind of get under the skin of kalos stuff so we do that %HESITATION you know we got our podcast with Cummins publishing on as well and %HESITATION we do live events so we can interpret them our own pro on them I’ve haven’t had much happening since we’re trying to get back into it again %HESITATION yeah delete things behind a very we’re talking bout of the night but if you do them very well and C. G. some ready class stuff we’re going to go and see somewhere whichever one is that site in a minute so and and have a leave at lunch but we’re going to talk about more after its hopes night maybe by the phone but we can try to me because I don’t know I I N. Xin the sun’s going to pay I’m no I’m not gonna say before we go in the I’m not a Marvel aficionados neither am I which I think in a way it’s quite interesting because what if we come up with something you know or it might just be we we will talk about the film itself but we just keep having to reach out by Ian your stocks generally here I’ve seen a few of them I haven’t seen the whole gentle cycle phone so it’s it’s going to be fairly open ended for me although I find I wrestle find ironic that someone who’s not with a comic book nerds the first common tree trunk that I did for the release was for %HESITATION marvels really it is hard to talk %HESITATION which is kind of strange %HESITATION it is S. as in its action Marvel film yes yeah so I mean you know my relationship with these films as isn’t Sam big spider man fan I had seen no sign remains but then I was reading exclusively so may first time and then now it spends a picture on a news to the MCA’s so I’m sort of catching up a little bit because I mean despite our man I haven’t seen the sort of big Avengers homes or anything I know stuff but what’s happened things like that but I’ve just been definite and I you know I’ve seen the seconds guardians of the galaxy it just happened on this and I have seen so Ragnarok but I have not seen the work so you know there’s there’s so really fun and I liked it so I think it sort of it I think this is a quote because it’s taken thirty days so it’s sort of marvelous G. synthesis it’s what I eat I’m aware of but we’ll see what happens I think they should lose a cameos and stuff it should be quite fun I I’m just happy to an open minded and have a laugh related to that system for a couple hours really is not yeah and to you China very kindly Cytisus complimentary tickets because we have both done stuff for the strand before and %HESITATION sometimes on paid so you know it’s nice it just got some calls %HESITATION you know be able to do this and to stay up the straddle back lately yeah okay so do you see it later big thanks to our generous patrons Apache on dot com forward slash AP cultures for keeping us going if you’re not already supporting us your missing item behind the scenes content exclusive audio and early releases as well as being justifiably smoke for helping identity podcaster sharing free education you can see all my mistakes and get actions no one else is hearing all straight to your inbox or personal RSS feeds join the part today Apache on dot com forward slash A. three cultures this is a call to all right for a long time I have no idea this call for action line make them wrong but anyway civic spaces up stairs and shotguns that Joanna has very kindly and that is used to just have a bit more potassium we caught some nice artworks in the Scotland expands off the strands of photos and things but other analysis Benetton studio today four was it production of hairspray that’s coming hello Sir so yes and there was a lot of activity in the states very sweaty and here and here yeah hi this is very quiet and it’s just me and Robert how many tasks and staring at the holes in the crimes for the survey a hotel on the poke and very weird because those were here for all of my life yeah hold the city keeps on changing us was you’ve been away for so long it’s nine AM and I still live within a few miles of here but I’m not done enough this little bit yeah mmhm yeah so it is strange seeing senator sorry we’re just tired of the word love and thunder I thought it was quite the kids in the front row or I thought we’re gonna have to tell my my idol going shut up I think they sent a silent and I figured if you what it’s going to be such a light cross she finally found that they’ll join the money because they’re right at the front of the tenth most say they were OK after five months the first few minutes survey they didn’t detect analyze and I thought I suspect they thought they were on their own I think when they really service people may they not ISIS faxes yeah they were I think they thought they were told was when they were talking about it well I don’t know this jump scares in the film because some of the started by like minded horror and I thought can I did jump scare on the so well in that report and you have to be careful you can play pranks on kids anymore I mean look it’s terrible because the schedule was the you know you you we all your life to kind of be able to do it by %HESITATION the nineteen nineties enjoy the I thought it was good fun yeah I don’t know the film’s well enough to be invested in store on to be in no way you need to add anything so for me it was just like I was I was quite entertained for a couple hours yeah I think very similar for me I haven’t really thing we were talking about is our dear I have only ever kept in an isolated the MCAT so what I don’t really remember him most of these people are most of the time you know I just remember there was a funny rock creature and rock and I was very spectacular today he also directed both of these items that was all I remembered about Ragnarok tank and I was and they they thought little sketch was it was Sam Mayo and some often yes it was one of them I don’t know who the third one was something he was probably not Damon’s father and I’d like to really alike but they were playing it’s you know Loki and Thor and Odin and this week probably Friday at Asgard reenacting a lot of us that %HESITATION Lewis ragnaros or or something that was quite funny and %HESITATION yeah this in the car seat as I can remember sure sold so there we are I do think there was some sort of toward Olympic skating you can write about that’s all I remember yeah whatever yeah as you say I’m not home enough basses and guardians of the galaxy I only see the second one I just laughed like a drain three out today yes I could sign child so many options grounds couple of ours may see past the most Marvel films as a man hello I DO you kind of got a little bit frustrated with the abundance of characters I still think I mean like me being a kind of old school phone comments like universal monster movies where it was a low diminishing returns as the crowned everybody and it seems to be working for the marble stops the ball it also means that sometimes it’s just it’s my focus is to spread yeah just give me a character on the villain %HESITATION that may work but it was it was fine I mean I didn’t know who the backstories for most the characters but it was fine nice this sentimentality in and %HESITATION dying people all look here’s I thought myself Welling up but Sir no responses as there are for a lot of grief I thank yeah I haven’t seen the word which I feel a bit bothered by it because you know I do you have a very special place in my heart for Kenneth Branagh horseshoe directed at I haven’t seen all of this and I haven’t even seen Belfast yet I need to say it and it’s just never going to be no single well that didn’t come by Regis and you castle and then it was very shown anywhere in new castle signed so I wasn’t feeling okay about going to the cinema yeah when it came to light so %HESITATION just win and I’ll watch it when I can cope with it is I know that it would only have been probably only make me feel super home seconds also yeah I do find sometimes I finds fans from here but that this time sort of watch get fibrations I’ve been watching it maybe for research purposes and it’s really emotionally overwhelming because going yes Sir %HESITATION there you know he says most of the apostles and actually show in Belfast so yeah that’s a yeah they can swim as like seventy ones like that with it just because it doesn’t look like that anymore because a lot of the stick the British Army and anyone doesn’t show me up into the so the whole thing so the Senate she’s anyway hello there rumble yes %HESITATION yeah I haven’t been investments Heiser I think I’ve seen all three Iron Man films for a long time ago and I don’t remember anything beyond Robert Downey junior send them I think one of cultures and them and Nick fury Sam L. Jackson turns up that’s all I remember about those I don’t care I think I saw the first American %HESITATION %HESITATION I haven’t seen the denture stuff that’s already I was really want to see the spider man their most recent Spiderman yeah I haven’t seen it yet Netflix had spider-man’s Andrew working up see the second one with Tom hardy because their old homes thanks again except I think it’s homecoming we sing we watch that recently and I I went to watch far from home and it was gone I think it just was a couple of days to date it was already taken off Netflix so needs to see us at some point and then I can see all the spider man together yeah I mean you need to I wouldn’t have been just hold this vitamin and see films last year the spider man comics I wanted to follow what was going on and I hadn’t seen the more thing that works so that was also like my way of kind of getting into the whole MCU stuff so we watch them in order I kind of got the big thrusts but the role the big mixed mushrooms with everybody in experiments like a tiny bit part player in old and because it I started off by rewatching the many films that those and then attempt at the second set in the third set you know certain health but yeah some paid off thanks to say sorry I want spider Gwen and my mom’s father once a once yeah I just want all that %HESITATION in those miles Morales hello and despite our sh well that was just that you love to I think that this wasn’t even it was more just what could we both go and say that either I have seen yes we can go and see her face because I think there’s other phone so that the man I thought that was weird like complimentary check it’s far so hate for sin go to the center for some of well I mean like I’m missing I have means that pressure losses on that Mike yeah I do miss my regular my weekly outings this enough and not inside her I see them pay for a subscription ticket nine the facts so nice fun %HESITATION ball I’m still not I mean it’s it’s it’s worked I got my body for money so far and Cher well I’m not using it and all yeah see I used to do a little to suffer he asked Hey %HESITATION scanner and I was always said well if you are is back in the back and say I use it in in the Merion was Sarah I said no to soften its voluntary work for them and everything even the days in the office just right without men and things so I just want to send my for free all the time for a couple years okay so you simply cannot say so %HESITATION and selfish about it obviously thank you go to the center I do things are summarized for frail sometimes them and somebody asks me what my doctor sent in a telemedicine Feldman visual so basically what is something you got to go to the center for fails having a doctor it doesn’t give you a free pass to you and the thing I have for her yeah this is Larry or not so I question sure Lester is kind of nice couple not one author less what else can you pass yes this week’s sex at parties I don’t know what the doctor is only ninety minutes fines and concrete it’s nice really economy some people feel a bit intimidated it’s doctor because it’s a doctorate but I think that’s it she she if people don’t necessarily understands what is it I think you’re actually person or someone your origin story you know your your rags to riches rags to rags right to the hope of riches rifles thanks you know it was all kind of realized it’s just a normal person to sell as Jenny from the block K. single people look at you on the street in figure something they the paper %HESITATION do you want to get in so I want to play you know like there is this kind of an interpersonal gray I think you’re not getting in trouble off %HESITATION because some insight on the inside of it yeah share that that’s a whole a diatribe against me was a lone gas that’s actually kind of go %HESITATION hot in the ring you ready and you can’t stay stop happened and then never got back into yeah and you don’t do the research and all and anyway the toxin in an institution yeah I find that fascinating because you can do the research yeah you know I think a lot of people to look at I think you need really understand that’s when you called three to PhD process all of that work full not license so inaccurately put in for years of your life it was for she’s a document for examination and won’t stop meeting is over you discussed out for an hour or whatever box and it can be all it can to nineteen all rights on box moment in time and not to sites your weather you convinced your examiner surely deserve a doctored or not it’s a fairly subjective sass and it’s one that is life changing and it alters your very psyche it’s not something like necessary advice my name is Jay if you count data research and you can write it back but what it is you’re really interested in if you’re able to find a way and the means and the resources to share our Monday yeah because that’s not what a PhD necessarily yes no we had %HESITATION I was talking to a doctor afternoons on the same from how custom yeah and that was just on her fifty through since she went on to write on traditional and kind of give a little bit of reassurance that it can be counted on but it’s it’s it’s a hard slog as well because I think you probably view decided for me by the academic community you know our academic because you you know you’re not doing a project as such perhaps but then again it’s all fake tie dynasty if you don’t publish your stuff in the right places your work the matter how good is meaningless yeah so some of stuff five maybe want to do mine you know it doesn’t matter what standard to make get it tell you it wouldn’t comment so the whole things is policed and monitored and how long to sing so frustrating I mean I was looking one of my friends got some justified some other publication on big because taking years of work today and then you see the price point almond you know it’s like you need a mortgage in order to buy this book the researchers I put is an accessible to anybody who’s not part of an institution yeah which again sort of sits ready all day for me I kind of we talked about this before this is all day with me with this idea that education should be accessible Robson I mean this is this is probably like working class way from east Belfast I still very much feel there is opportunity so I hired and I took advantage of to learn a thing of the people should be able to do that shouldn’t be behind big glass doors yeah what should be you know you gotta have accessible no I completely agree because that’s I mean again that’s the thing that might be it’s easy access I developed at NC I thank and I can’t afford to buy it it’s ridiculous for paperback it’s forty five times no excuse I’m not still years after its nine well I didn’t appreciate years ago and things have moved on so much because it was very much about contemporary moment I mean I was publishing and I was already out of date and parts and snowing it’s well it is so very much has changed and it’s talk back and it’s on the scale and there are things that I would do differently and it was what it was at that at this time and it was never in it to be a survey it was just this is what came up for me on time and you know I think there’s still something in it and I think if it wasn’t so traumatizing to go box say I probably try and JD a more accessible version of it because that cracks me up that night for such a long time and even said either cursive and six oxime price I just don’t understand why but it was stopped urgency to population to get a job even just across the fixed term job somewhere totally precarious just to get a fit in the door with those I have to take the contract archetypal bushing is a permit scheme it’s horrible it’s I mean it’s it’s there’s a real work that is done with the old family the bulk of the people who do the work don’t benefit from it and if you’re in on Sunday to PhD program in which I was staying in the cells so you don’t get the benefit stuff see your husband hates do your work that you then going to sign over to somebody else to make the money yeah and they do make the money on that so here in a way that they sell it to the university libraries where it’s read by five people it’s just it’s just really great to me and it creeped me having seen some academic contracts the rights that people sign away for nothing and collision doesn’t pay the vast majority of people anyway you may not stop the grim reality of it but I’ve seen it and I think they went away all the rights in perpetuity I thank the system will not rescind those rights in order to maintain the tiny little kind of profit margin it got coming in I just I think it’s a scandal but I’m continuing this conversation very quickly so we want to let you know this is just to have it Virginia Tech because they don’t know how much steps to be fair yeah to be fair to take a CD and the words of income there I’m not sure how much mileage you can get we can have a go I mean a lot of it’s not without its problems it’s great crack and everything but you know he does raise a child army which I wasn’t too comfortable about remorse is a telegram if you think you just trusting Selbach Oster sedated well I mean I guess Seuss’s it did feel slightly manipulative %HESITATION to do so but there’s also been a woman all hope and that the policy coming fall by our children you know that there are actually real hope for everyone NAS because we screwed up the promise but the case possible I mean for enough because of the nature of these films and the sort of comic book storylines it is old %HESITATION war but the kids are doing as a last resort but they are helping and changing things and the adults counted without the kids I like to think you know as a director and as a writer that he’s a bit more savvy and liberal and I maybe get in and out to lunch it’s a fun sequences synergy sync sequence that that it’s it occurs to me hi this is any different from what we’re fighting against in certain countries where there’s child soldiers on it strokes wars and things like that and they’re reliant on comments and stuff and it’s great that they’ve got to save our city of K. it’s three different places there in Asgard which is vegan the Scandinavian and they’re all different colors all different races in Stockholm mix together and that’s really nice but at the same time you know you’re lumping all these kids and it is scared kids and their toys are coming these deadly weapons to kill the sand eagle creek church you know and there but it’s not face this evil and it’s not maybe necessarily that long ago that kids of certain racial box primes there are ancestors are not faced with evil and so I think that there’s maybe some March somebody hasn’t been the salt box very I don’t know or maybe it’s a way of overcoming it I don’t know how you’re feeling yeah but I didn’t feel good about it I mean I’m not one children in the house possibly as well home developer to really feel about it %HESITATION yeah I think it’s I think it’s a valid points in a way I kind of want when I think about children armies and discourage another line of ice like a part time job the dominoes the down you know and in which case dots why certain I’m going to buy and I children are scary the thing is they are powerful and they do have a lot more strength and %HESITATION yeah I mean that the point about that I mean you can put the with every single awesome them kind of narrative because the dam is always going to be someone that’s different there’s always some of the separation you can never find yourself really I need to see for yourself you got to do down under the pretenses of being something Alderton so I don’t know how you don’t and I don’t know hi culturally we don’t in some ways drawl on decades all imagery and bigotry and bias and uncertainty leading to the broad brushstrokes night doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it I I don’t think it’s a case of you shouldn’t do it but I think you kind of just need to be aware it’s it’s a fine line for all the the the talk of stuff and then drive to be more progressive which is a good thing I probably I don’t think we can stick her head is on sale a list of possible happen that we have and how these historical sites I know there’s not alone some of them are still true you know I mean you look at books on the Middle East and and and so she sent her Friday night and there is a sense of slightly %HESITATION faceless kind of threats you know we we suggest entire races of people are the same with the Russia when I’m rushing again this year %HESITATION but certainly every Russian piece of artwork from the twentieth century you could no longer play you couldn’t play then we see you couldn’t watch their films because they were all the other animals rats it’s more nuanced than not and I think that I think it’s okay to hop out that nuance and I mean ultimately argument on this question hello he’s very definite office I am very definitely has a reason yes that’s going to come yeah that’s the thing about eight A. M. C. and probably they’re slightly more peripheral works because it was reminding me of rock concert that balcony house appoints me as anything yes I kind of agree with this guy my mom Christian bale side a little bit kill all the golds not really they’re they’re making things worse or not really so just said about basic concepts you know I saw yeah this guy he’s been run roughshod lakes he’s not had a fun time and that’s actually quite understandable that he wants to see a band students missiles and not just stop at the death of his old people I mean this because he just doesn’t care and he was quite happy for them scientists are fine you know because it’s about like what we’ve been street and U. K. and what’s happened is that I think over in the states in so many places where those who are in part in some way he holds the park there have been a great time hello even when they’re not having a great time no no way better sign Mr so that’s what we’re in and the U. K. in this moment and summer twenty twenty T. anyway you know our prime minister he’s not our prime minister but is still our prime minister has home rough year but you’ll turning of his own making still on the ground time so do way way better than just about everybody else in the whole country so it felt a bit like thought it did feel yes there’s a point there but I did feel like Christian bale’s character who were I think it was his name is I really did fill in his fight for a lot of food and I just thought you only did just that now the topic this is you and the war is set kind of house techno local walks can one he’s actually trying to help him but the rest of the market and trusses you know so if I did find that quite interesting it did remind me of a set what’s the same is it Carol co creative skills no I’m thinking of Jessica Jones said the guy in Black Panther anyway he has a he has a real point you know and and not found the nine I thought that was really important said bring in that moral ambiguity rather than just skin sources spots and you know you did have a lot of that language if I’m going to go and get the five guys in this but I don’t think he was off on a guy and always he’s Christian bale so he has a super hero from the other universe the rifle universe so having mine for such a long time I mean I think you’re right I think I think that the nuances being played with is important but I think I think that is testament to the generation of where and where your villains are no longer just fell injured you guys are never entirely good I mean risks of spoiling for anyone who hasn’t seen this ours is a populist waters yeah yeah so I mean there is a point in which %HESITATION sore killed since and that is transgressive bold but also you’re kind of looking I mean what he’s doing is he’s sort of punishing somebody’s in the house %HESITATION who seems disinterested the but also he comes in he’s actually he’s %HESITATION he’s the gold color in a moment and there is the observation made the you know the times and and soon you doing exactly what you’re trying to stop saying therefore are you any better no you’re not you’re you are exactly the same willing to carry your own but the motivation is very similar to it it’s like you know it’s in the need to protect other people is sending bills characters is one to kill to calls because people are losing their lives in order to protect the people who don’t care and the office and see what’s going on as well as guardians because they’re not just on my house said they’re looking at the bigger picture I suppose that the the political the global political equivalent is is exactly that it’s it’s what goes on in terms of warring countries it’s it’s that those fears and says those leaders who will how the army’s go in blindly and lose themselves but really don’t care you know they’ll they’ll set their house on there that used a line which is Wednesday I did enjoy a all the rock music I mean I feel like I mean Thomas skulls and roses how much money does Aksel rose needed this point because the end of the chatter something more surgery coming up I don’t know her you know he’s not going to say but I enjoyed it but at the same time I kept thinking of making minds because make it mind you the salute to those songs again that you can just see Meghan I think the thing in your own innovate the title and stuff those needle drops those specific needle drops of all the guns and roses song that are familiar to people they aren’t even sounds of guns right they feel very tired I mean I think they’re used pretty well it gives us some energy but I feel like if you need those specific song pini welcome to the jungle beats way sweet child of mine and I said he whatever he needs those to give your phone the energy you might need to re assess what’s going on in your storytelling %HESITATION certain though that it needed them to get the energy but I assumed it was part of the S. six of the currents and I know that the gardens the galaxy scores or you know the song tracks run scorer kind of popular search and things on the guardians are here at the start of the film something that kind of almost two decades the tone that you’re gonna have to follow on from I mean it didn’t didn’t really bug me I think from a reading cynical point of view it’s a great way of getting the parents the ground I mean that’s just the parents the grandparents in yeah because is what’s really scary and I keep on saying this on social media is that you and I are not of a generation we could be grandparents offices Friday thank hi my online dating like this is like gradually crawling away like no %HESITATION but you know I I I think that it’s %HESITATION dots part of what’s going on is it means you got the older generation so that’s the starting to lose some so they may be okay now listens to the but their love and everything else so it’s kind of it’s it’s it’s this alchemy H. A. and Andy they kind of got like magic that brings these generations together which probably seems kind of appropriate them we have all these kids looking up to this older generation who also looks up to an older generation and how that kind of feeds and cross fertilizes I’m being very generous yeah for someone who is notoriously not a fan of comic book movies I think it’s worth census in the bait the CCI because it’s very C. GI tastic and there were points in some of the fight sequences right just saw he couldn’t make an animated maybe just make an animated movie I’d rather just watch all animation at this point all I’m saying on screen for however much a percentage of them it’s just a minute I mean man it says wait wait let’s see no and essentially because I think on the Sega name right Sarah her mood maze take it’s cool then later chairman Paul costs so it’s been talking about is kind of locked the case and you know mark mark does not like spam he ran off to join the spellings told you know there’s been a lot of people kind of trying to speak up on behalf of the soul the visual effects artists yes because it’s a really tough job and there’s a huge amount of them making it for my class I think the conditions aren’t very good to their working conditions are gays and they’re not unionized and they they’re under huge amounts of pressure to get the work done and the average year doesn’t necessarily know the sheer amount of stuff that goes into what we see on screen because you got people who work specifically on shadow work specifically on what color people who work specifically on bot like being it’s a huge team of people making everything that you say %HESITATION and you happen to work on that characters in the costumes and the people in the basements and that what happens in the lights and all sorts of different things that have to come together and they’re under huge pressure to do it very quickly and I think then that can lead to the there’s a sense of weightlessness there’s still I think there’s still an issue when they’re when CGI’s had to be rushed even really huge budget elms there’s still an issue with Bob character just that quickly happening wait anymore you have to in the maze so it’s just like sodomy that’s on an X. ray %HESITATION VS Morris I think income math facts the special effects are I think there’s so much more realistic and nonsense you know eight cabinet dissociated minus the C. GI visual effects because there’s no half still and so I can make an arrest is because it doesn’t feel like there’s any real jeopardy when there’s no limit to anything you know this makes sense but I don’t want N. trash talk the people in me because it’s not their fault thirteen to order what they send to let’s say it’s a nuanced conversation thank I used to be very very vocal and my dislike for C. GI having films are promos I guess you know fifteen years ago well whenever all right when I was kind of fool’s CG I wasn’t really advanced and off so didn’t actually use it sparingly it was reading the office %HESITATION I think it was the mummy I recall when this is like nineteen ninety nine will make their call the water and it was just so distracting Lee not radio and stuff like that we the greeted me because just use a tank it’s it’s going to cost you less money and will look like actual water but the way that the technology is going online it’s works a lot better I mean we were talking off the phone briefly and with John about ready player one which is all CG I and part of it because you’re in the computer world yeah the screen I mean owns on Saint Martin all along we talked to a free night awards and is again a very CG I haven’t well but you know the thoughts and the computer mouse hearts men’s bait I think that there’s still an awful lot of CG work that gets done the year doesn’t recognize SEG asshole I mean it’s quite disturbing when you when you see how much sometimes and they find this insurance is constructed in a and a computer one Hans the computer the stuff of the white Aryan scenes in the they bring into them because he’s a comic book movies I have a little bit more time for the because I realize you couldn’t create those spaces physically you need to give it a go one and certainly there’s going to be physical elements within new spaces I don’t know if you look at the the big war thing the bill for months Lauren okay I don’t know what I’m going to hold okay so what I did and this is it this is this all part of the Disney Lucas universe anyway so Marvel probably using the same stuff they basically have created this massive wraparound stage backgrounds that make it to the wall that was overrun this awful little pixels that projects the CG images in real time with the actors performing a problem and is almost seamless so the space is actually the screens will move and I’ll change lighting and stuff instantaneously the work with the cameras and you get a much more seamless experience simply actors as well what is meant is I mean like you McGregor famously on solid because he did the job because he was acting the blue screen the whole time there’s nothing there was night he’s just gone but we won and essentially you know we’re going back to the same stuff but the CD this time is standard it looks convincing and your city in it and the international space I mean I know myself a little bit of acting work they do to you if you stay in a room with the sap is being built for this enough there to kind of sell the illusion in a performance I am much more in a part of the performance and and what have you stick in a blank a blank room give me a black box and I’m kind of not not the black box the numbers are very welcome to hire me for but you can in a black box and it is harder to kind of immerse yourself as opposed to maybe call props and things look and I’ve been to and stuff like the department streets recently so you’re actually in the physical spaces and not really to sell stuff for you so when the CG I understand that it’s there for a reason and because of the aesthetics of comic books I can kind of accepted I felt like when I first went there whenever they go into the shop around something was black and white I thought that that kind of know why ask the statics vision effective and I mean it reminded me a little bit of Sin City %HESITATION yeah you know which which was deliberately echoing the comic but it’s based on but it has the feel of a comic you know when you look into because they are predominantly still black and white as snow every time you’ve got color comic so that that I thought works really well but also hides all the problems with CJ in the southern Roos shadows in the shadows so I really like that part I thought it was done really well and then you do you can’t these elements of color because it says now not the Hummer the lights G. and up a bit thanks my user and so that you can see her face light up and everything else stays and block my ears so I was really cover was really well done and yes it does hide a lot of you can hide things in the darkness and god you know so it’s at help in those parts that were still very CG I tastic on amino No Way Hey it’s a nice little introduction to some people who wouldn’t see a black and white film here it’s a nice way of just making it will open their absurdly I think again it speaks a lot to take these %HESITATION mentality in his his influences I mean for what was I suppose it’s it’s like the issue with the G. pitcher and home you can have a sketchy pictures always your story and your son is okay I can hear what’s going on in a concise and I go to store them in dance and I’ll I’ll overlook the fact that you’re using separate run thirty five miles or you know using the crime video camera folks on the news and you know the the list that cameras I had an issue with some of the sign in this film I couldn’t make out all the dialogue at times I don’t know if I just mean means that my ears need cleaning out I’m getting a maze I do have some of this or if it was about so I mix good evening where we were in the Senate on the sign you know it’s going to match the facts because not enough of the front speakers all these things can make a difference in terms of your your experience but whenever that’s happening I’m kind of struggling so the scene I I start coming out of the film a little bit about the dodgy C. GI I didn’t even know us there was enough there is enough of an emotional hearts for me to kind of just go on that and I was laughing and that the weird rock creature thing yeah I mean there’s a lot of humor for me works so it can go one that was something I did ready for member enjoying about Ragnarok and guardians of the galaxy TV they’re really funny %HESITATION riotous Lee funny and I appreciate it thanks because it’s retention I haven’t really seen a lot of the other stuff with low key and that can be better handled so if you know anything Loki and Ragnarok psychology brothers you know they’ve been these mortal enemies but neither just argue in an elevator and it’s really funny and so you know what their stuff like that and it constantly and it stops it was very Marvel universe stop taking itself so seriously I appreciate the thought you know and I think already into the galaxy some not really reality at several points in off each other and they’re all so funny with each other it’s what separates it from the DC stuff and the DC stuff really was a match for a long time %HESITATION I think the hope for DC is being actions taken aback and stopping something less like a kind of nasty marble and just relish in that kind of the greatness of your your simple stories with exception possible flash next year which are looking for all right other than that the tension that suit the C. hall and Michael Keaton coming back yeah that’s right that’s great yeah hello there is an issue now with the K. plan the flash and also its obligations right seen anything about any of that I will send you some links okay I actually was really quite keen to see parts of price I’m going to see that happen yeah and and it looks really fun so maybe that’s a say after moving toward something like Akane interaction yeah the interests in the Michael Keaton again has done his turn in the Marvel Marvel as well sure so that was a really nice surprise checks I have no way to state no patents into spider man %HESITATION any phones but just in the past year called off I mean the the current incumbent is a joy to watch her I did not expect to enjoy his films as much well I got a real buzz are them yeah and the last of the the spy movies because it’s fun service yeah thanks you know I’m all here for it HM eight so we’ve got you know it it did the things that tickle thing and but also I mean I I I do think that there’s been a huge part of the sort of things that come up during the pandemic we hog being much more nostalgic look back a lot we look for comfort and place the couple was not on the night it was in whatever we highlight ten fifteen twenty years ago so a lot of these movies that are doing these multi verses that are a lot of these franchises there being repaired it with some of the old incumbents I mean I think that that is also kind of fat into our own needs to we can access I mean I think we always have thought that it’s just it’s being read the reading office the last couple years share maybe a physical leverage points just my experience as well with the first spider man directed by Sam Raimi daca faxes by nine eleven nine they had to change the ending of the film as it was going to have all the Tarzan and me they were destroyed and then the maid of the world was very different certainly invaded the western world is very different after that and I eat do you feel like there was a huge shock and brings in talent television mini cross everything really but you know I have observed as well because I was very engine twenty four country terrorists drama thanks to god and even things like the axe files when it was still being made it got much darker than it ever been before and there was this turn and a lot of film and television production and stop spider man especially because of the setting because of the New York City siding they felt it so deeply and spider man being embraced by the city and thought city specifically failing I cant needed a hero and a way came right at the right time even though I was affected by it and I think you’re right I have always wondered if spider man is sought special one because those films were they did really well talks office they maybe didn’t work received huge you are critically but they were box office hits all three of them I have wondered if you know where the impervious to because of what it happens and I think people are spending PhD since stuff like this I don’t know but maybe somebody art therapy has investigated this property in there was better but I’ve been curious if I thought I said no I’m not gonna spider man the person was a cagey take their photographs must be my I call this giants %HESITATION spider man figure there was also some windows I have used the body still knocking around somewhere so I know that I am inherently biased because I love the I remember the TV series as a kid I don’t watch the cartoons and there were TV films as well that I remember watching and stop was part of my memory but also I think I was just at the right age when the Spiderman movies too much I was what will the person was ninety nine it was nice to his mom so I was trying to when I came out I was slightly older than Peter Parker is meant to be an artist and I think one reason systems connects it’s because it’s used a lot of the super heroes we see our old white privileged men up until very recently that the bomber is the ultimate white privilege not I am on white privilege mon lots and lots of money Peter Parker is working class yeah this is really what he’s learned because he actually has nothing yeah he’s intelligent but he’s a little bit bumbling there’s a girl really loves what he’s all about us and he is keen to go into the change yeah we will go through as we just entitles and that is something that I think that resonates and I think he’s gonna hearts that I mean he actually is a hard he’s a lawyer to show his emotions he’s not close off in the way that some of the others were he’s funny he’s Heller is when he’s played right he’s hilarious I I think that just make some slightly more lovable he he he’s the lovable rogue and marble been quite good at guessing capitalizing on this day they’ve got a bit more really someone’s with everything else but he’s a circuit that you kind of wanna keep you would like to bring your minutes when you get it what do you think you know what that was my kids or my nephew you hopefully get my Hogan I hang out with them and I think that may be wiped out works the nine eleven stuff yeah you’re right in terms of the was that moment and it was a fitting animals that kind of moment in the film and it felt like you know they’re making a statement my foot %HESITATION I mean I still remember that I’ve seen the trailer that they had to the birth date he catches a helicopter between the two cars a lab %HESITATION Mabel’s definitely an element of this box I don’t know I mean I think we always need a hero to combat this is this campus will Thomas are briefly it’s it’s the escape isn’t that some all person and when nine eleven happened I think it would make a big difference here in Northern Ireland where you know we kind of that’s the honest we’re used to people getting killed on a regular basis for no good reason and I remember thinking at the time it was horrible but I also felt kind of slightly normalize but we look for scapegoats when a person to take us away from this kind of fierceness processing here you have something that was it skip this that was also quite home grown threats which felt you know like the end of the film that sort of sits there on notice that game you know what ever since it’s it’s there or not Bob pasty so company keep calling for proper academic well we’ll have to find if anyone knows %HESITATION animals get tons hello %HESITATION and I live with he’s got offended about everything around well it’s been really good to talk about society because we don’t really get much response said to talk like that and it’s quite cool to see that work already on a PH with stuff not be necessarily entirely in the C. M. agreement but enough that we don’t kill each other that’s not why I think this is the same as this country though it didn’t feel like killing people I disagree with my parents generation I think that’s how you solve your absolutely it was just to show you know all those years by the university in Dyson’s pines that were spent casing Charlie wasted no we can have a tax and sign your over to it’s not we’ll call casting is four stars from me our box enjoy this I really enjoyed it and it was I think skate company to see if the kids have a good time to shut up and say and I think it was a wee bit scary first on because there was a bit where it was I thank you thank you know I made the jump scares me the milestone for the jump scare number last spoke to me is quite good if you know that the CFO with the audience’s version intended for what yeah and we’re not lives anymore and the dinosaur I think the thing that I can throw the records so I was just happy that you were bearable and the cinema because that’s my thoughts are always giving side isn’t right because the first time we’ve gone to see some of the cats are pretty sure has always said like what if this person doesn’t behave themselves well this is why you like I would never never minister first dates because like I you know I think that’s how you know other than that there was his second in an office the staff and all because we’ll be able to shop it’s people people talk will with your phone but it works but I did I thought of it sucked up in the atmosphere and it’s all because it’s just not right okay and then it’s also leaving behind this mission yeah exactly I think I I actually suspect they genuinely didn’t realize we were there for quite awhile and then the first time you run and it’s way then I think they really so there’s something and there are lots of the stuff that this call these Jurassic Park to then you haven’t seen it yet either no I’m dying to see them on the sale really last week before sending ships to dis or movies and I I I find it perfectly fine I mean it’s it’s it’s a retread of the first woman anyway all American for but it’s on it’s not scary even though there’s more dinosaurs more screen time but it didn’t offer me yeah not so much a thing it did enough for me to kind of maybe look at the stuff the stock together and how long all the suspects I mean this is the thing about probably talk about this before with you like friendships and stuff that if weather today the last few years differently and I’ve made a point this year can we connecting with people something virtually you know someone gets in person but it is quite nice is that need to get get a dime back well thank you Robert this is the most enjoyable pleasure what a great day that’s enough the T. make more nice memories and this shines a hospice yeah get back enough reason to think it’s a building sites in the all seeing in this party and this is true I mean look at its home %HESITATION and that that’s what we are hi guys for me being here once the strike was never mind was never a regular spot it was somewhere I went hostile this time I mean it’s all things that they don’t sing of arguing with John about it like I remember being a cage driving posterity in queues outside here with the four signs that freelancing who’s going to looking at these baselines always things slightly envious of people getting acute and I don’t care anymore yeah maybe a Film Festival some the only time I ever have to queue to get into a scream hello I’m also call upon the social to get older so I really don’t the people well this is the great just so happy that please how’s life because I’d be devastated if something really happened to it you know yeah since then so I’m part to me all my life thank you sharing this with me thank you for asking so here it was tell us where your expressionist %HESITATION huh okay so if if this was a relatively soon %HESITATION my extension is home the north’s going museum which is in Bangor castle Bangor Northern Ireland straight into training right this is daisy has actually started cinema seeking the seven look at my heart mmhm %HESITATION it’s opens on the twenty third of August and it will run through until the eighteenth of September okay okay system for just under a month but I will have her work to anywhere else that actually wants to do something with it excellent it hurts because he knows that I sent thank you again

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Audiovisual Cultures Episode 123 –Studio Visit with Susan Hughes

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Show notes

Paula Blair visits Susan Hughes at Orchid Studios in Belfast to chat through her work. Susan is from Belfast and graduated with her MFA in 2021 from the University of Ulster and received that year’s Centre for Contemporary Art (Derry) and Platform Arts (Belfast) graduate awards. She has completed many artist residencies in Ireland and Scandinavia where she has used her traditional fiddle-playing as a bartering tool to gain access to local stories. In this episode we learn about Susan’s practice involving painting, text, sound, colour and light across different media, and spend time in particular on uses of language and encounters with the natural world. If you get something out of this episode or know someone who will, please share it and give it a good rating and review on your podcast app!

Music: commonGround by airtone (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. Edited by Paula Blair with Audacity. Recorded on 28 and 29 July 2022. Get early access on Patreon.

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no C. facial cultures the podcast three different topics across film arts and media this is a special one because it’s the first in person recording not with someone I live way since March twenty twenty on the twenty eighth of July I visited artist season Hughes at her studio in Belfast and she kindly let me poke around and talked about her work as you’ll hear season marks across lots of different media including video audio music painting storytelling and sculptural light boxes and a lot of these incorporate taxed light and color in some way Susan is very drawn to water and land that is near water season as a graduate of university of Ulster’s masters in fine arts program and we talk a little about her experience of completing that during covert restrictions before a play you are chopped me huge thanks to our fantastic patrons at Petri on dot com forward slash a fee cultures for your generous support to gather our patrons are funding our website and every night again tak upgrades and I really wouldn’t have come this far with Saudi official cultures with items so if you wanna join and help that process and helps out work as well as getting lots of exclusive extras and early releases then please have a look at our tears on peach tree on and see if there’s anything that works for you and if you just want to drop a one off Pfeiffer for example there are buttons on the website which is audio visual cultures dot com or please just show support body sharing with friends and giving us a nice review where for days that he listen I’m a huge fan of citizens and I hope by the end of this chapter he will be T. enjoy somebody doesn’t at the same person was in March twenty eighth just before the end times so here the chosen one season so it’s really a class to be in your studio and how will we put the fight and see your work in the flash it’s ready to answer phone yeah %HESITATION for anybody to send hi we know each other that is three two one LH he’s big friend of the show and has been on herself and she did dead bending glass Choubey neon few months ago and you were one of the incredible people he gave some of your work so last night I discovered she existence because I’ve been away from Belfast Northern Ireland for quite awhile and I missed a lot of people so you know it seems like I mean you’ve you’ve been on the art scene for quite awhile but he did your MFA there was not he graduated last year so %HESITATION he seemed to be really prominent this year but that’s my perception from being quite far right side so I mean if you’re happy season which she like to give us just a bit of background about yourself and say what you wanna say and tell us a bit of an introduction to your work and then we’ll start picking through and see if we can sure M. well I didn’t I am thirty at night and I did my degree you know like twenty years ago yeah twenty years ago and the art college here in Belfast and a study Panton but then it was a big guy what like seventeen years I guess until I did my masters and in between them you know I did different things was that I was an art teacher in a school and then I can go a bit disillusioned with it education system and decided I wanted to get back into the art and have a proper practice so I left teaching and a lot of residencies and knots I suppose developed a methodology or way work in words my fiddler played Irish traditional music and so my fellow would kind of be tracked me to certain places in Ireland and Scandinavia as well now %HESITATION and Norwegian folk music as well and then in those cases I would swim in the sea and the music as well would be like a way to learn effective under the sea and also it’s like currency so you can like swap June for a ride in a boat more for some someone will bring up the mountain or you know you can kind of get to know people quicker get into society quicker so I became really interested in Swiss folklore and storytelling and not necessarily just folklore but also it was kind of experience all things dramatic stories are I would hear of white and the city and they were all intertwined with my own experience as well this is well this woman and the relationships we build with people in romantic relationships as well on the intensity that is that associated with the physical environment so we added crystal resin seasoned and Norway and have done a few on Ireland’s everyday like islands my Daddy is a bird watcher so that would it become something I got interested in myself when I was eighteen I started I went to volunteer with the RSPB on on Robben island %HESITATION and then a few years ago and to a little island in Iceland that was a bird sanctuary soon yeah the the birds and and those kind of really %HESITATION hands are places that are kind of on the edge which is where the birds go to places that are on the order parameters of say Ireland %HESITATION ice land that they stop off Oct those are places that really interests me in the usually quite harsh and dramatic places but then added to my masters I graduated two years ago and not change it changed everything you know like it it’s %HESITATION I had been working in a very limited pilots doing collages these little sort of sculptural only after things they’re actually and this was this was before my monsters but those connect the colors of the sea and Ireland and one third basically Grays and turquoise is %HESITATION drawings and things and am yes reduce your photography %HESITATION hyphen one forever I’ve been using taxed for a long time nine and everything was quite autobiographical and personal but they wanted the monsters I can’t came item myself a bit more I started using other people’s stories and other people’s experiences and I was interviewing people and then kind of retailer story but three a lot of video this was my final show would have been a mixture of video art installations this year by fox it was also not sure that you are hot yeah that was part of me and a monster shows and I was it was out of the facilities in the article above you know life technician who can help you with having your video editing to get to higher level and %HESITATION just shooters conversion of your comfort zone yeah you know and and getting the confidence try materials and you know I don’t know anything with sculpture but none of us know anything about anything you just have to get on with it and try it you know and this is what what is what you do you have even if your tree into something else is your eye and you’re like I wanted things to be certain a sack yeah yeah and and you I knew what I wanted you know I talked to I started to learn how to I. T. sources while and even everything didn’t have to be done by my hand I can get the perspex guys to cut costs things to measure and I get to employ someone to make me a box that was really really crisp and perfect instead I can make myself so that was a pretty mind blowing you know when they had things like making video I always had this feeling of everything had to be completely authentic and on that if I was making a video for the subject of the story was about a certain face the dolphin a child to be from that place but then you know I started learning but fully artists I’m sorry if you want to create drama and story years everything’s kind of possible and you can if the story is authentic and you’re telling if it can be authentic with I’d have enough you know all of those things haven’t become a place so few things are not really interested in the monsters this was the any kind of further education I don’t Belfast perfectly good for support me with learning how to write proposals and things have gotten getting you better at talking about your work and articulate and yourself so all of that was helped me get more opportunity since graduating as well the Athens asik yes you have as a little show a few months back you probably think was meant %HESITATION this platform it seems very based Ryan’s that idea if there’s a lot there’s a lot of language really interesting use of language is just hiding somebody has said something so the idea of SWAC spot it was a touch the story that you picked up somewhere and I’ve been really drawn in by your use of tax because it feels abstract is but it’s very much linked to something very real for either yourself or for somebody else maybe it’s somebody you know or to be ratified or interviewed or something like that and I am just so interested in how you use and the way somebody has said something and it’s often quite accidental you know in spontaneous sewer you know it’s they haven’t sort of sudden thought it but something I need to say something profound about this but it comes right into quite a profound way but it’s quite accidental yeah yeah I mean I I think I started out I I’ve always been right myself you know but I was looking at my father’s bird watchin backs is can Hey there like ledgers I suppose where he would take any notes when he was in the early days of our motion is so extreme minority that he would like hi detail the kinds of every place that he went and the bird in high heat high the birds flight wasn’t so I started looking through those and yes this accidental classes and whenever I isolated things that he had written they were just so beautiful and they could also and when they’re taken out of context this year and then invent their own narrative so they become like more valuable or something yeah yeah we really enjoyed planner aren’t aren’t I like place in my own words west beside his yeah because everything that I write is so old I self consciously poetic I’m trying to be yeah so I said you know one fact is so affected okay really you know by all the the time to talk to writers and I enjoy reading that and I’m so paranoid about what people think about what I write what I mean chorus his stuff is in my god or are you someone somebody’s just tell a story well the people that I’ve managed to get hold of to tell stories a lot of them for complete you know on conscious of of that kind of thing you know but then when I combine it with my own stuff is more self conscious it can it changes it then again you know it’s almost like an active and kind Sir these two stories might meet each other and then you just have these moments is just drawing together almost so’s reading some of your stuff in your web page this morning and that’s how it felt when you you would compare you’re a kind of an experience west and according to that friend to told you an experience I’d had that was entirely different but very soon so they almost pinched together or they repel each other but they’re just offices you know there are two sides of a coin almost you know that’s the way it’s perception it’s a ways of thinking things that’s what’s been Mister members you were quoted we change from where retrospectively looking at something and say may have been incredibly anxious in the moment and terrified not knowing what’s gonna happen next and then you look back in your own reading was fine actually I think you were I was you know this Iraq’s those bobbing into each other moments I think yeah yeah they can it because you’re I think you’re talking to bye %HESITATION no the story I interviewed a neighbor of mine worn it I mean she she I just call her on my friends but then one day she just mentioned are her boyfriends and like they’re both in their seventies like your boyfriend manages the value of that time when when I got lost in the jungle what you need is a it’s still legal story I mean I was like just I couldn’t stop thinking about it and then I Oster Kening come back and tell me the story again I’d lost stuff kind of initial yeah I think of her talent but she too was again perfectly you know yeah she’s she’s a beautiful speaker and she is good with words but she she’s kind of carefree as well so but anyway her interview actually transcribed it and she talked about it you know gotten lost but also really specific things that claim and all M. a particular MD riverbed %HESITATION you know with the animals and the sign of the animal Slater in nineteen she can see them and when when you’re transcribing them sure it seems even your lesson over audio soul %HESITATION are serving you kind of get obsessed with this voice and on her and her voice in her story can I merged into my own memory of an experience of getting lost in the mist intermingled with my friend and I started to it was the weirdest fan it was kinda like faded out as it was you know that I felt like I was more now than I was in her body and then I was remembered my own body imagining planning dying and this particular beach in Donegal and and then be in the best with my friend and you know just these three stories I was completely obsessed with them and they started emerging because sometimes they would have these that moments like what you’re saying where they they become like inversions are like the inmates were she’s talking about climbing up the rocks and I was in my gin and climb and dine Roxanne hello yes is talking about starting to loosen it so yeah it is like a market and printed articles and stories and I started to like make code between what was common worker there animal science mentioned were rather worse the weather but what was the cedar in in both these different places I don’t know it’s just it’s just fun to do that and it really like broke open language and narrative as well I’m and thing of loyalty to the story it kind of three things often your the the fact itch everyone remembers things differently means that there and everything’s open for possibility as an artist and represent things you know we’re standing in front of Isaac Haas and that’s really into something quite similar to our I think you were talking to somebody and then they call and they were describing how people used to pay before lots of light pollution and things and people I well people could see in the dark before all the facts and you see all these three words on the on the square like box that’s quite a reddish color as it wasn’t Shakespeare in the time of three word slogan I think so get brexit %HESITATION nor such like that and I say cops it’s just so hard you know so there’s a paradox pieces this is there the the words are extracts is %HESITATION it feels almost not quite but it feels almost like a hi Katie where you’re trying to fix something something basic to quite tiny space on your economical selling good you know so I find out re fastened as well but it’s not just the words it’s the combination of the words and the color and the light and the sharpness I think because you’re very specific in the fonts that you choose as well so there’s a crispness to it so it’s striking but there’s no punctuation so there’s nothing to see tell the reader hi there supposed to take this and anyway you know it’s very it’s free but yet it is structured because they’re on top of each other there and the last almost and it’s it’s just just like another three class because it’s so they’re all four letter three four letter words and he Serret long enough it’s like I mean I get my ice tested all times it’s a bit like a cannon hi tests and then like what kind of process you go through T. choose the words part of the whole story and then the decisions you make with it whether it’s a rectangle shape or a square shape what color you know what a service of process is there a structure or is it intuitive you know what I mean sometimes it’s really easy to stock jumped like their eyes I Cox said the mine who you follow me I was writing notes and write notes and or a sale a lot of stuff and everything was amazing but at one point eighty I was talking very fast and it’s like really thank Donegal Donegal accent and so I could understand them like me P. five percent this time is the authentic I did couldn’t understand what he said but %HESITATION you just if you Sandra had like whatever you were talking about phosphorescence in the blog which in these weeks quella the west’s people call that night angland and the lights in the book anyway I’ve never seen and unseen and save it on the ball and I was saying like why do people not know about it you know and people it doesn’t exist I was always here so it’s always there it’s on there all the time he C. N. these people meant is that I can’t cats you just said it really clearly I came out of nowhere and I was just like oh my god this perfect man for the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life and %HESITATION that was just really easy yeah and it made sense it was like perfect for for all the different beliefs different concepts of thinking about it he said it better than I could ever say you know and then in other circumstances I’d like with the interview this morning I had loads of freezes taken out you know and it’s look looking at how they work exactly and if I decide I want to make something with text and %HESITATION I wanted to be like boxes this is like this this is the same so I knew if I wanted to make a light box that square certain words are going to fit it on this one was a replica of a sign that hung in a cafe in the road three bars cafes and then you’re wanted to make a light boxes in dimension with the same materials our inch nineteen seventies orange perspex but then the dimensions I don’t know I can’t remember what it that is it’s like two meters by three quarters of a meter or something that meant that only certain phrases with fact well you know so it’s like a graphic design really important in New hello so some decisions are made yeah you know I’m not one it is it is the darkest come again with almond says Emma yeah which is it’s a concept that she will be here when I first read doc the first thing to send me a picture of it and %HESITATION it’s also makes he sank from the target come again because it’s so again it’s very simple words simple phrasing but there is something you can take that’s much better trump because he go yes you’re right it does keep coming again but it’s the past tense I think it’s well you know when you read I mean I sort of got a English literature background is also analyzing the words and really EMT satellite itself quite interesting to me and the past tense it has come again the idea if it happened again and you know it will come again but that’s not the one that says this is a hot come again and then saw its experience show or something %HESITATION almost places G. and a position of experiencing but the darkness had come again you know there’s some reason that could apply to so many and it could be poetic it could be figured of darkness it could be all sorts of things you know loss of memory and and I suppose in a way that’s what would happen with that story it wasn’t just that it was a literal retelling of of being lost in the jungle it was that there’s probably going to be captain the memory of sock is what was real and what wasn’t because this person had this entirety individual experience in the service of the sedation involved in sight on the engine because of the situation because it was a couple of days and stuff and you know box but it’s just a fascinating thing can pick to simply make up a very old lady you know because often colored people’s and it fits so well with the neon because it stopped kind of tone is not a site kind of popping bright color almost garish UN’s gonna grab your tent yeah a lot of the big thing for me is supposed to like my subject matter is you know the coast and you know very earthy the saying the lines and then my materials are neon perspex vivid digital video and then even within individual videos I would use like send fantasizing resigns and like very crisp ships that break my footage as well but that’s all to do with like traditional figures well into I can coaches are trying to make them see things or trying to courage them to save it use and the like urban urban aesthetic and I’m also it’s a great representation like a contractor sense what it feels like to swim you know really rough weather or to to be lost in the mists and not falling into the gold it is associated with really dark fairy stories you can’t replicate that so I’m not going to even attempt to you know represented in a representational way but I can I can kind of use these materials more effectively it’s hard to describe but I mean underline everything is for me is %HESITATION kind of terror to do with that you know six climate %HESITATION day that that comes from humanities disassociation S. Adnan like disloyalty to the natural patterns and habitats all those things so I find it it’s it’s it’s it’s a problem that like most a lot of artists are having to deal with my work everyone is concerned about it not everyone a lot of people are concerned about the client and felis responsibility to make work about it and they want to make work about it because it’s like at the forefront of their minds blocks it’s so hard to eat if you’re preaching about it and taps here it just becomes boring and it’s already like dating all these ways make a market by the time it took me a moment our guests who did it so quickly so it’s just having to kind of ignorant for me this like I think they and the neon as well comes to from M. and Kelly bags and only goal it’s a fishing port in kind of very disturbing discussion black I don’t eat meat or fish but thank goodness sizes fashion phone systems are fine on it and %HESITATION so Kelly bags is a weird place for for me when I go through it if this kind of gray you know the the blackness of the same as always great beautiful you know but there’s stag you know the the railings along the harbor the stock is your car fallen energy stuff you tripped and it’s their their candidate in this extremely honest sincere holler nice okay hi this is Orange she on Iraq I just a couple years ago I went to it’s like so seductive and shock and like shock and doing laundry it’s the greatness of the environment and I I just loved it was yes adoptive I’ve just completed used by it and I saw it I mean it’s always there always painted railings red and orange and stuff but I think because of modern pigmentation you know that things there’s fluorescence is more arriving to more cheap cheaper to reproduce so I did go back and I walked ten o’clock PM to mean it was really expensive like a hundred quid or something like that for ten I’ll never get through at all if anyone wants any present or too much of it but that was our service service turning point for me you know you start using these really bright colors yeah like to it and in shock because I suppose that that’s a element is safety restraint of a terror and there’s a it’s it’s warning you know it’s there’s a warning that there could be danger here there and you’re talking about swimming in the sea and these are choppy seas and a very cold season we’re talking points so there’s going to be the inter so there’s S. carried it off pretty specs and places %HESITATION E. yeah she talks a lot about that piece it’s nature back on its my more holes through each other and she’s from Derry originally in one parent was Protestant bonus Catholic and shipping to see images also thank and you know super hot this very strange childhoods for a G. two childhood and she’s very drawn to the folks and %HESITATION losses C. swimming and stuff and talks about eight the precarity of thought this is the D. injure that’s involved the times when that’s almost part of the thrill is I’m I gonna survive the swim especially if it’s a nine member some sun it’s really immersive and Coles and but exciting there Sir it’s thrilling and it created really evoking the place three words and a you know I’m thinking and remembering reading up there when I’m seeing your images hearing you talk about your own experiences of surveying and things like that the neon orange and stuff that element to being so visceral with the land and the sea you know and it’s almost like it’s as if you more lives because of the prospect of the danger the thoughts was coming across to me at least yeah I like that edginess yeah you know so it’s very interesting that you’re talking about bringing up the list of color because it’s not for the sake of it it’s these are colors that were nearby it something more as you stand like and in the middle of a what would be considered maybe a Blake the staff you know sort of land sea scape there’s up pop of color that saying what no we actually can’t be complacent about an exit it’s a kind of %HESITATION the bodily thing is well liked in the wavy neon and light boxes have an effect on your body when you come into their space like they light spills on the floor and they see fit so %HESITATION that’s the way it what it does to rising very broadly and on the whole link to club culture and dancing in the body and all of that is simple you know important references well for me just thinking about the names of your shows this file we’re talking about works that were attached to shoes that were named things like lost not lost I cannot use of language sociology coming in their their socks make six variance I mean I always come back to this because that was a lot of my research but I think so many of us from this place you from this island from the city from this time we have some sort of geology always because you know certainly of our age being young peoples and a complex you know where it was very sectarian it was split up and it was one side against another site and that kind of thing so that it’s probably boring for people that I always come back to that but I dispense many years being in not that you know it feels like there’s no escape to even if it’s nothing to do with that but it’s the idea of this thing and you’re not saying that’s the opposite of it you know I feel like last coming three quite a lot in your work to you soon I’m just that idea of what your loss but you’re also not lost yes I will definitely I mean I I wouldn’t really think about that someone’s going to make it work but it needs to sense like and I’m I’m from %HESITATION mix March not only as well so there is dot Canaan okay Irish music but I didn’t know anything about Irish music girl went on EFC has the whole world there yeah I sort of be your fit in two different places I’m not Kennett sense of belonging when and your family being kind of separated because just of people going to England to find work you know that sort of things well unlike where I feel very rooted here but not everybody does and yeah yeah it says free faucet as well to hear but it’s not just the freedom almost at the fiddle playing his seem to prop up the bar during %HESITATION I hadn’t really come across and they hate paid their way by offering the chain before or at least you’re not and the contemporary context you’re not doing it right now I mean did that come about organically free for you high eight hi missile to this very performative you know it’s very %HESITATION present very live and then it’s hi planned this out you know is an intention or is it just %HESITATION I’ll play a song I feel if I can all right I don’t have the money although it’s not in my mind and flat trend today in reading my way and if this is right you know it takes like it’s just a battle is this amazing man really partial to like especially in Norway I think I went to a lot of residencies in Norway and when I was there you know because it’s like you’re just another person you just another artist Dan whenever you play fiddle everyone starts paying attention to you and you’re playing Irish music that everyone loves and so then people are drawn over two years and once you get all the %HESITATION it like opens up conversations with someone she you’re having conversations with people you can ask old where would I go to find we’re going to go to go for a good walk and then they’ll be like I’ll take you and then you know and then I met or yet yeah I don’t know isn’t everyone in in G. as the artist who also plays fiddle and then their interests not more than you know people can relate to music it’s like a much less Ilion N. then the art scene and it’s it’s totally social as well or as artists whose solitary so we’ll get out the post but Jen Norway like cheese I mean it was because of my music that I would have gotten to know a particular guy I ended up going out with you know through him you know we had games we started out by me gaze and then add in you know in that way more people that way and he would have brought me out in the boat and yes very or organic but and it was when I went to it when I was like %HESITATION gold like sixteen I went to the %HESITATION it’s you know it’s should we cherish already is change and when I was there I was playing classical music it was in the school of music orchestras and everything you know I didn’t I. Anne are she’s going to but when I went in there as we would go to the pub every night like it’s me isn’t your it was legal to drink as a teenager when you’re sixteen they’re worse here with eighteen days Boise’s and the Manson on them there were these songs were planned and that you were in the U. S. team and they were thank you why drover and whiskey in the jar and stuff Qatar and that is this is there is a girl from school music right recognized but she managed to obviously learn a few these songs and everyone wanted to be their friend and everyone wanted to buy them drinks yeah and I was like I have to get in we went away and they just learned things like rocks and then I got more into it but it it was then I realised the kind it open it’s like a passport or something you know it’s not like I’ve traveled like a member going to China with someone M. many years ago I remember my fiddle and no one was cast may soon you know so it it depends on the society you know wooden competition on people as well yes yes there’s a reason okay yeah it’s it’s on the relationships that I’ve dealt with people through music have a lot of people have totally like been my muses and like all the fads and all aspects of my creative attention on the experience that we are good to go for walks of people because when those people have met through music through all all I you know is there anything about eight year practice you want to talk about it that I don’t know because I I’ve come to you fairly recently you know there’s a lot I don’t know and you know hooked around in your website in things you’ve got lots of stuff there but is there anything maybe what you’re working on at the minute or anything do you feel has really emerged that surprise she knows or anything sort of about your work that I need the house and picked up on %HESITATION haven’t notified or anything that you think you’d like to talk about I don’t think so I mean it I think it’s pretty hard for me to talk about America’s really varied and yeah are quite diverse I don’t fix and that I’m not like a sculptor or video artist I do does the things like my life she was an audio installation on two big massive blown off screen print of underwater photos that it took you know they weren’t where as previously at Lowe’s he wouldn’t have known me a stand video worked out Seoul Addison really neatly it’s not easily categorized book but yeah I think yeah well we liken categorized yeah my focus is I mean maybe you do want to go over this but it might be I do may be helpful for some people you did your MFA while we were in lock dines and human at the height of the pandemic stuff I mean they can Bach on quite a bit of that no way what was out like three G. sync it brought eight actually challenges are G. sync you know the limitations actually benefits not maybe necessarily the right words but maybe some yeah it’s almost like I mean there is there is no party and no longer no exceptions I just went to college all the time it was amazing I got so focused nine it didn’t faze compromised if you know what I mean you know it didn’t I was just a fluke but then at the same time we didn’t and we were like to go in college like we we we thought we were being rolled because we could only go in from nine to five Monday to Friday another call this is everywhere or just closed yeah I’m always stand there trying to make their art in their bedrooms yeah we were it also leaves for Iraq okay and but we and we had our creek synergy showreel and you know it was quiet unfortunately a lot of people didn’t come in a lot of people were nervous and just like set up studios at home anyway share so it took if there is a better a lot of grief even up I thought realizing that you know the three people who came in every day that was kind of it we had our own sort of smaller community but you know everyone can enter their crafts and we did have our final show but no one could come in and see our final Chong surely side and it’s like you know we work the imac you’re you’re in control as the exhibiting environment the article is your you install everything yourself so I mean it you know I had this beautiful dark room and everything was pristine and exactly how I wanted it and it was really immersive and yet no one could experience it we had like video %HESITATION terrors and everything in those people attended who were not authorized you know like curators from France and France from Canada and Australians I thought for guys who it was and he is now a book NEO had to had to kind of mourning the loss of our final show which will never never be recreated again like I I mean my light box that I need for that that was just one element of this whole project that I was presented with video and audio in the darkness so don never be recreated spoke with sign yeah they’re always great craft the bank opens it yeah when I was living here and that was one of the highlights of the year was that yeah the shooting shows mmhm at the college so that’s a real shame but that’s why it like do you wanna said banning glass exhibition that’s kind of felt like for me %HESITATION %HESITATION like a the final show that I never I never had because of so we celebrate every and there’s so many people of all different ages and and it was exciting yeah yeah the muezzin yeah R. J. definitely and it was really nice inclusion you know in the light the idea of the light boxes just fit so well because there were so many thank you honest thinking was that the the rich so many like boxes for the studios in the U. TV bill them for it was that had been taken dining roommates and there is this visible absence you know this absent present so if there used to be a light box there and so to have your light boxes and that’s basic it really complimented it’s everything else that was going on and you know again this types of color because while they’re not neon we would describe those colors as neon she itself those colors you know so that if they had to flee if you find tax useful with your podcasts we’ve got two options for you you can subscribe to the audio visual cultures podcast on U. shape for captioned videos and you can visit audio visual cultures dot com and click the transcripts top both sites are linked in the show notes along with information like this episode last season I mean aspen so coast to I know you did your studio that’s so exciting do you have nieces she’d like people to go to see more about your work silly website and social stuff where people can actually see some of what we’re talking five yeah my website is season use artist dot com a lot has pretty comprehensive archive of the projects have been doing over the last few years on Oct there’s also a link to a blog or where I’ve been doing writing over I don’t ten years %HESITATION from different locations Ryan conte dying in Donegal and Norway and Iceland and then I’m on Instagram as well asked Susan Dorothy Hughes path that that’s crazy and yet do you go and tackle those like kids yeah your works very co author I am a big fan thank you so much reading this and given me so much your time and sort of first name to people’s lives a little bit it’s a mess so it’s really kind of in yeah yeah thanks thank you for

transcript

Audiovisual Cultures episode 59 – Personal Film-making with Éanna Mac Cana automated transcript


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hello and welcome to the audio visual cultures the podcast exploring arts and cultural production I'm Paula Blair and I'm really happy to be joined this time by Ian McKenna he talks to us by his moving image practice many thanks to membership Petri on dot com forward slash AP cultures for your continued and much appreciated support the podcast is free to access but not to make and distribute they say this into the end to find out more ways to be part of audio visual cultures for now I enjoy the discussion my and I'm gonna so my slash mark great for circa aren't quite as I had the pleasure of Lincoln street quite a lot of your work because you've been putting it on he changed a lot of the work that you had and installations and and film festivals that's really exciting so you've been mostly making short form films so far is that right yeah at the moment I would like to push on to more long form projects not been writing a couple things that are beyond anything I've done so far one of the reasons as a financial our financial because you can only afford so much short forms good for audience attention things like that when you're in the autumn exceptional or if it's online you know people tend to not watch too much for too long especially in the sort of the phones that I like I'm a big fan of slow cinema and that's what and that sort of culture that's a bit more difficult I think then it might be useful to try and get an idea if it seems and she said come through in your work by talking first of all may be a bite when your most recent film set you up loaded so last week he uploaded I read a short animation called screen I find that one really striking visually as well as the audio it's really fascinating we found some debate twenty five seconds it's all right I really love the way you focus on small details and you've got this recurring image of a hydraulic hospital bed space areas and so %HESITATION there's a sense coming three of it you use the shapes of things in their car abstracted but it's so clear what they are you know it's very minimal very pared back but I find it really packs a punch yeah it really conveyed a lot of isolation and it was quite intense but there's also this idea of busy ness and there's a lot of other stuff going on in the signed happy to talk about what it is you're exploring and not screening I sort of hit us like a and then between film from a terms of work lan's love my work I had a film at a while back %HESITATION enactors the bad racism but I'm also I I've written a short film that I sort of had in mind %HESITATION hasn't been made yet but it's close to other sort of static look good screen %HESITATION ready part Bach images I kind of want to choose have a teaser almost have something in mind or were introduced the next short film well I plan to shoot down short film estimated and block light so for me I was kind of just test out different ideas I like to focus on the one detail some some I'm a big fan of Theodor Dreyer's optional Joan of arc in the not so there's a lot of just it's like a bad against double cross got stalled so that sort of thing but was again excellent as well not only on screen but in previous work focusing on the details and %HESITATION singer objects I guess running and to me or what people take away from the previous when needed was it the rectory where specifics in a hospital is that it will migrate G. use of faulty camera for part of it and some of the tech is that right sure is that a different one I used to smoke the camera for the previous one and so in the beginning yeah yeah %HESITATION are you saying comment but I I bought a a number one for right tree vocabulary I used faulty camera soul download Sony small comment it fitted perfectly with the seams of mortality and the LX you know something Dan real I try and find a lot of my work but then withdrew right tray %HESITATION I bought the same coming because I love the last four that's a fact was brilliant and I I'm you know just a local blues like nineties nerds because Arnold films that came out this summer kind of silly but still like them you know like the Blair witch project yeah but I thought maybe aren't on it when I'm on the phone that works fine %HESITATION short amount for a tree news two films that way if you if you're from third thinking about grace the I. losing somebody and he's left behind and how it affects them themes range remembrance and directions you go through when you visit a gray area for around a week %HESITATION I was researching a lot in the last few years then to you know old Irish culture and the culture of this card for an interlock nowadays or if it's just sort of surviving as well %HESITATION interest in high changes over time and that sort of thing about the form the cane and work at it you know can instead of the mouth of the cease so archaic ritual work usually %HESITATION woman will perform it but it kind of died down there's a number of reasons why it doesn't work cups of church work too big of a fond of women home and sort of power quality G. number take place over to say stuff away usually they don't really like the I think there is an association are works for pagan rituals goes back a long way so it was nothing but I had met the in the lead up to a cause try to find someone to perform but eventually turned out to be just coincidence virtual someone speak Irish as well as waters I am not the Armagh Reimers and a member the log treatments Dara he was talking to me about it you know hi it's just a human response really sort of took the dog not study what I was getting out I was trying to there was no like sort of I guess like national sentiment it was just I was really talking about your expression of grief but I will talk to the man well sort of right now from a couple different perspectives sort of controlling but my own history but people you know the possible entrance with a little bit of research about eight point nine years ago and is described as a cry baby on the crying it was this signed it just came from my friend it did not say how a particular there aren't any necessary words to you or if it's just something that emerges the fading that could emerge the sign from the body yeah that's right most of my life I suppose it was like a sort of poem yes but I I did you know one man Francis Quinn what we're working to get her on the shoulder if you're getting into those sort of moments where the words are really coming up yeah you know just kind of like roll with it %HESITATION welcome those kind of conduct as you described in like manner not even just mumbles or you know cries all because Shiro it's electrical work but for the most part it is water going back to work the sort of history of I think there's like a lot of links to the Jewish and our cultures as well so in trucks fascinating what's the point of origin yes %HESITATION yeah yeah it came up actually and %HESITATION previous recording I did with an artist who's also based in Belfast she was born in Iran she was talking about practices that were really quite similar from her parents culture feels something just quite natural about it in a way it's a natural response to something I think visually that one because that's one where I thought the night vision use where it's quite a grain and then you've got these distortions are it's breaking up a lot of my work as well it's kind of just circumstance again with the calmer it was that's faulty common interest students good luck %HESITATION it suited the mood the night vision really the only light up what county that so if you just put a figure against a wall on the extra cost light across her uncle night vision that's great stuff but we can I can be very effective to go alongside the words so and was there might be some like pouches works but if they cannot just recording close we had recorded an accidental theatre that's right Shastri score %HESITATION cars go by so I was still a lot of the coast just to eliminate those so instead of the tween what Francis was Sam it came back around and worked in my favor because it sits commerce talent %HESITATION what she says will expose these things keep reemerging and other pieces so the rag trade one that has the bad images again but you've also got it seems like a young man visiting some sort of memorial and tying a rack on a trade going down the rabbit hole again there were old traditions and cultures for a lot of people still have probably more so than the actors gaining less someone from wells drilled visitor well technically well kept their rights or part of something the baby belongs to a person tie it to the right track selected hope I guess maybe it cools into by a pro or send a message something to someone I guess or something special %HESITATION so I'm so I'm not too sure that's true but there's plenty of holy wells and Arland specially hello source close just because something does on some some of them are just been lost over time as well so myself but this is just nice like simple act of documents on Oct but maybe this time yeah because there's a lot of focus on removing the grant and stay close up action of the hand stepping into water repeatedly it's almost like a cleansing part of the ritual I wonder if it's a failing %HESITATION if we separate from any religious connotation for a moment if it's an active trying to feel like you're doing something when you feel powerless in a situation of somebody isn't while or maybe in the process of dying and you're fading quite helpless about that so you it's there maybe doing something is what helps yeah I think you're right Justin something like simple lock blacked out whatever it may be it doesn't have to be connected to religious or you know it doesn't have to belong to the old Irish culture or anything like that in your state it's just a simple act of going to get someone's some sweets store and bring them to the person who's on world just visit and some of them talking to them structural work here this time you get more directly into the following a young person dating with grace and your fiction film removal that was a longer pay say is that right that you had a quite a few film festivals because again the Irish things are coming up and then to do with one part of it the aftermath lawyer %HESITATION decided some of that and so lot of Irish folk gospel so got it in Dublin that knows what and %HESITATION the contest you here I thank people who were maybe decide not here were able to connect to you know a bit more than what was brought so it's following a young man he seems to have a job as a roommate filled person maybe needs religious icons which manages to accidently damage some of them so there's quite a point it's thank you bye in faith and they act swiftly and stuff so he finds out about his father being taken now and he seems to just know that yeah I'm gonna miss her yeah but yes I see what you mean it by really appreciating so cinema and not it's a very quiet %HESITATION minutes very stale and so when there is action you really notice sets yes it's very considered and that's very internal type of foam nothing that's what I was really traffic across all like I think the average shot length and removal is quite long some shots that go on programs and kind of wild I guess for a short song yeah I was looking at a lot of collects in them %HESITATION I'd watch a lot of care star means work right now all right excellent I was also a hem that makes sense because there's quite a lot of journeying on roads and %HESITATION then remain so yeah that yeah yes run scheme where but said she found that one Armonk with a twist on that it was good from the Americans just not many people except in the roads and stuff yes Iran's held nearby that mom so that's a big part of the film yeah there's a woodland it's very K. E. N. N. he received something suddenly happens because he sort of just runs away from it the main character and then later on after time as possible after the way the main character is played by transaction he %HESITATION return slots for %HESITATION I guess it's like a appreciation for what it means and it went away you know you get like when places hold such meaning to sometimes fall for me at least I don't really hold any resentment or bitterness towards them I just kind of look at them and that's what the main character does so there is a better route right I wrote as well as a sort of big wave at the burgers when he returns he sees a communication tower and I was kind of Lincoln and %HESITATION earlier in the film or some %HESITATION so I was trying to pick up some from there I wasn't too sure what exactly transaction isn't comparable isn't because see it or feel it so it does feel like a lot of your films are trying to work through things do you feel that that's how your filmmaking is is just trying to work through things here especially the short films as well and part of the cane and someone to find the right in the car I guess they're just releases of you know what I want for in hospital I've been talking about the steps she frowns on stocks as well bush will make and it's a bit more difficult for me to find a release and settlement because it's not really about being creative when you're all set you have to get the job done film and %HESITATION and parts of that again for me are I don't really find a creative release the more maybe I'd like to write that sort of thing you know I think for the farmers they can go on stage and get that instant release boardwalk tractors or people are like expressing cells but also making nothing it's only when you're maybe writing or doing some smoke from a I find a release not since the tools to get it done yeah yeah I think there's no room for emotional so you kind of just need to get the job done at least if you're still short films I produce all of them as well I wish I didn't have to books maze runner online get a job it'll probably really important practical experience though because hopefully that sets you up if you want to expand and not sort of career because you are so very young you've got options and for what area you want to do because you're ready multi skilling at the moment with I have to remind myself up thank you you know when you're taking on the rails for a lot of the toxicity obviously learned a lot about that's good experience and I try and removal was a it was a tough shit I felt at the time I hadn't done a good enough job directing the things about but I guess just kind of part you know I suppose if you're if you're have a death spiral the house at the same time then realistically you know and you're very young film maker and it is a very difficult job today so to have me at at seventeen minute film doing about much of the work by yourself at your age that's pretty impressive in itself I mean unless they have seen worse I'm not damning it with faint praise it's a good phone but you know I've seen a lot worse buying more professional people so don't put yourself behind don't be hard on yourself I think all of us or at our whole lives are always constantly learn and it's good to be there to get things to go well I can do better I will do better next time because you know happened any mistakes but not that you made mistakes it's a really tight found fascist more just accept that you're young and you're gaining experience and you're doing it really well so there's a heart to take from what you're doing and it's very brave to do a lot of the same since well because you're looking at things that are quite mature for your age I think your generation are quite an interesting correct because he might have some more maturity because of things going on in your life so that people just a few years old and you might not have so I'm quite interested to learn about what's going on is people your age at the moment in there for a year at a time I what's going on I'm in my own little world whatever yeah like a lot of people my age are color to your name and stuff and I just kind of trying to figure it out I thank the detail a lot of people obviously comes with a lot of pressure on banks adding different people figured out I don't think any of this really truly figure it out just to survive he just couldn't hurry I think anybody ever says a good little sauce diet thing that probably lion to be honest you're asking me about a film education having been a content provider and thirty comments for some education and having had a background of film education he told me before that your son medication the center up to this because of health issues right you're going three year periods it seems to me from the right side of self educating and just staring at me in learning by doing it as far to say before I worked for al Qaeda back I went to Manchester for yeah twenty six and twenty seven ten studies from working there but before that I was making phone Burke I didn't even amidst a skill and I made films outside about and then %HESITATION yeah I came back and was in hospital for but I don't know I guess I just pop my color blinded by it you started filming and I sort of had these images from my house so I started to look back on capital C. phone services will soon I guess I've got experience from me I've definitely learnt the most just a muscle do you wonder hi the experiences compare it was clear heart broken in a way when I was teaching and I taught briefly at the university of Salford probably at the same time that you remind Chester yeah and I was a theory person attached to a a new film production degree you know we had so many excited radiant Tasiast sick young people the old one and three directors producers cinematographers so last and tell them they're probably at the end of your degree you'd have to go in as a runner anyway because it's not your discounts tracking yeah you know I always wondered about just the aspects of that that your film production education that's formalized an institutionalized because I worry that a lot of young people are going into it thinking that they're going to come right straight away B. in Tarantino or whatever ironically because he's not allowed to give those old phone apart from going to cinema and I feel like that's what's lacking is they're not going to the cinema they're just watch and stuff your TD which is fine but then thinking they're going to move to Hollywood or something when they're finished %HESITATION it's not very realistic so just wondering if what you're experiencing you're still in the middle of it so we're finding ice but yeah if you know your different experiences just gotten in there and just stay in it anyway I have good experience of my course managing what I go back in the I remember %HESITATION of course later said at the start of the collection phones good summer that was my mobile you know because I go to settle I watch a lot of that is I watch a lot of phones that's a big ass character you mention card you know he he worked in the TV rental store for years but I just watched like carrentals numbers or talks with watching films but part of it for me I guess some people go into unity I'm not gonna make excellent courses because they don't really know exactly what they want to be a generalist maybe some people are going to not work but A. S. film industry is a bit of a tricky one because again as you're saying it's like you graduate from a soul mate control but you're still going to have to take up an entry level and the film industry unless you called the connection to the ground I don't think people read enough about what the course entails they usually set up the course detailed enough before after it so you'll know what you're sort of getting into but I think people don't pay much attention and there's a lot of pressure school you need generally not just whistle that can you know look you gotta get out on your life and then further down the road that can cause a lot of problems it was that it is free for one moment we were in office he wants to direct this is when I was at Manchester I was surprised how many people didn't put their hands up you know I just take as a given the people up at the moment and course and direct short souls but a lot of people I guess maybe didn't know yet or maybe their trusted server settings what we're there to make films and stuff but there's a lot of farmers just yeah there's a huge amount today I think life experiences probably in a way more useful or been educated in other areas can be more useful as but I'm hearing on this and other podcasts that have a lot of people he fell foul kinds of production roles and it's just so fascinating the amount of different things the point of different expertise that goes into making one program or one found sharks I worked in our department for over so many different departments and crazy and journal folks a lot of moving parts so yeah there's a lot going on you'd be surprised special music productions check out the E. at the moment do you have to hustle for work is it a combination of your own projects and working for other people there how does that work for you at the moment so my heart was working in the art department in the summer well so my eyes and I like that little bit of the Jewish nocturnal wish the how to a more steady job or I wish that I called paid for what I want to do so much I don't really make too much money off my own phones are covered contact it's like production designer so that work for him usually you'll swing up sparkles I'm sorry I kind of just want to focus on my own thing but then I got side tracked I need a bit of money as well I'm hoping maybe script almost study job I guess but I'd like to do something in around what I'm interested in the is it okay to ask if I if this whole time he's gonna Seuss's the short documentary he's done with the artists Sharon Kelly he's got I think it's today they were recording at her expressions opening and the golden tried to gallery because it is an investor moments while the reason for the phone and her work is pretty stunning as well yeah it is she's done a great job they're not talking about you just came out of nowhere I came back from I had a residency in Hong Kong I came back from there talk with my mom about her show and stuff and I just sort of the idea and vision make some for southern %HESITATION started piecing together the show looks great my own such a going beyond our so she's such a big influence on the slim %HESITATION so it's nice to just make some four nine it was a free what's not because what she's doing is she's drawing in charcoal on translation papers so you get the sense of a delicatessen and circles just sitting on the paper it could slide off at any moment so sense of hate to have to go to it is to work with these very delicate materials and so thank you very any picked up and the camera work you've got a lot of different focal ranges going on around me for it you just recapture that precarity through the proximity the close ups and everything else going on three different lancers I have a fifteen on third and six and then I sort of rain just to work with so my mom still some really interesting things with Celtics all the work you know in terms of the medium she's working on connects to the subject matter of memory and you know I fraudulent so much of the work is I've been stolen right out of sorry right yeah and then bump stocks in there every five minutes as well so its rating of a subject matter because that's really into her own childhood is not what happens after this old place but there's something very tenuous by thought for memory that she seems to have been there's photographs made in a play I guess what a lot of my mom's records contemplate of offense I think she's going to leave however bucked and usual major bustled through these images to she found her child so she doesn't want to talk with articulate and events serious amounts of school or work as well with respect to the cut it should be treated as she speaks related to grief and silence of the truck made a specific source of inspiration doctors well you know she did your cheatin automation these are things I look to as well as references and grown up or under my daughter's focus on Nordic stirs I think it just kind of rubs off on June I'll look at things but if you're going about a project or visually Allah I'll I think there's a lot of lost an entrance from them on holiday compose events on paper or on the complex do you want to sending about the residency then in Hong Kong something very exciting S. R. four months months ago I applied because I was on the go away somewhere on my phone well I might as well do something with the rest and so on to look at and what's going to start a year pretty much for us Tomlin residents in Hong Kong and then %HESITATION over somewhere things just kind of started with capital murder so it's kind of interesting going into the you know because I wasn't I I wasn't aware of what was going to happen in Hong Kong and I wasn't really too public I guess at the time when I applied yeah I'm not alone to the phone call so it wasn't too bad to be honest but it was just sent trucks to be there at that time this is the time when there's major protests happening yeah I was there for the month of October and %HESITATION straits clan on the flight over I had just finished up by one round I'm not sold by the individual gets the collective a lot of them arrived into this place where people are fighting for their individual rights the same thing but you can so sort of big box it was very Allah cart make together what is your residency entail fun I wrote a script for bisexual myself right now and then I made some installation work about how to show that they're studying cold flu projects so I had to show that are accepted my video work you know what I just thought Hyundai controlled everything to a different expression titled that was just made up of these plaster cost plastic cups that collected while I was in hospital nurses with public schools thanks to them your tech tomorrow over the course of cost us to start collecting the I. cost those and made a split bad I'm just laid out on the floor I kind of disconnected from although I was like a spectator took what was going on in Hong Kong I didn't really want that so I wasn't interested enough so I I didn't really lucked out interfere with what I was doing to be honest with the video work and the installation again it kind of falls along to where I am creatively I can really well maybe outside forces made their way and and I didn't realize what the instruction book from A. I. this was to do with myself there was no room for me in Florence from what's happened in the old call because you you know a young person he's been through quite an ordeal that's a lot to work three and itself yeah yeah I find myself in my head a little yeah and there's an overwhelming amount of stuff going on in the world in general at the minute so it's really difficult to start getting ready and entrances and I agree and caring about one thing a lot of but all the other millions of things going on so it that's not a bad thing to be introspective Eric's sister overwhelming to them as well so I don't really know what's going on in the world I guess it's always been our best but when you go free I guess something traumatic and then you come out the other side you're not going to run you almost think the world will be peaceful but that doesn't just keep scrolling do you think you trying to find some sort of peace and yourself maybe it's not as active as possible yeah I guess I would like to thank thank most car helped me last year almost like a delay strengths are and what happened when I was in the hospital and I think things really struck me last year and I almost became a worked out towards the end when I came back to Hong Kong in Hong Kong where we can reach you that's great until residents need seem to have been doing quite well that getting your working savages and Belfast another but beyond this file is fortunate because I Peter Butler's Michael sabar trump he runs the %HESITATION password yes or a no time I got out of hospital and these videos to kind of want to do something with them right shoot for a few days and it scored one of his on court street none I thought to be honest I was kind of down the thought you know it was just it was a nice way of wrapping it up but then I don't remember too much of what happened but I I was able to get the crescent only a few months after on I did like a complete new body of work pretty much within two months and that was the homework in the king and %HESITATION I was running a cold front that after a committee it should come scratch you know I really like your work so that's frustrating because I'm trying to push things on them it's been difficult to get shown criticism thank installations with a lot of hard graft and patience keep at it and see how it goes we've done quite a lot and quite a short space of time Stampy pace with fast do you feel like you're exploring a sense of a connection to the Irish nicer Irish I tend to say because it feels like this is a question that's come up in a broader sense with people I think mostly because of what's going on lasts for accents after the referendum a few years ago and I feel like a lot of people from the north from north in Ireland from Ulster are reassessing their identity because I know I certainly have in the past few years I was just wondering if in a very personal sense because there is so much that we we've talked about it but CPOs practices that could be considered as traditional Irish practices but what a friend does that mean and %HESITATION what kind of direction you know there's a lot of question marks that come up from that but I just wondered if he had any thoughts on that or if that was part of what you were working through as well it is a great way to get it kind of brings back to what we're talking about earlier and that idea of human response to grief and relation to the king and I work under my Irish title and there's a lot of fiber strains from it are just human responses %HESITATION she came and things and I think that's what they should pay to be on a motor history works Gaelic culture these are just things that people go deal thanks I think to make it to you I'm not speaking about you I'm speaking generally to make a political is the wrong thing to the yeah that's fine I don't really think politics and identity in terms of my work ethic I don't really think about it too much at the moment I'm just kind of worked in truth my sort of demons %HESITATION trial almost get food %HESITATION there are locked there was just one of my friends after all but both techs society and %HESITATION I say it does make its way into your work one way or another I guess I'm speaking about hospital environment maybe something can be said about the lock of baths or things like that too and I chose them I think they always find their way in some parts but I don't really see doctor at political message I'm trying to send them through its an idea in a way maybe you have to renegotiate things with your own body because socks at the last count of what you were surprised when second impact said started because that was the first to be offensive what's yesterday this screen and it just struck me some action images of a and the signs of a shaky have status made just five cents of that isolation in a very busy environment I thought about that but I guess there's a contrast from Stalin do you have anything you want to plug is there anywhere on the internet you would like to direct people if they want to see your work the website and I maintain dot com but I think I'm going to be changed not sent yet somebody you should probably if you're older yeah to search for your name and it's crazy to find great SCO it's been really brilliant here for me to hear more about your work I run the query to say and how you work progresses thanks for optimal thank you very good luck with everything and get a her exhibition you've been listening to audio visual cultures it's me Paula Blair and my very special guest in the McKenna this episode was recorded edited and produced by polar bear the music is common ground by our tune licensed under creative Commons noncommercial three point zero license and is available for dine note on C. C. mixer dot org if you like what we do please help us make production and distribution costs with a regular payment to never pay dot com forward slash P. EA Blair or make one off donations to pay pal dot me forward slash PDA prior episodes are released every other Wednesday subscribe in your chosen app so you never miss a new release and do you remember that our backlog of episodes is all available on each tape visit audio visual culture shock wordpress dot com our fellow AT cultures politics on Instagram and eighty cultures on Twitter and Facebook for more information and useful links thanks so much for us then and catch you next time
transcript

Audiovisual Cultures episode 46 – Arts Education, Practice and Disability with Dr Jacqueline Wylie automated transcript


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hello and welcome to audio-visual cultures support casts and examines aspects of signed an image based cultural production I’m Paula Blair and today I’m in East Belfast and I’m just about to go and meet Jackie Wiley who’s an artist based in East Belfast my creative exchange studios so very lucky she’s gonna let me have a look in her studio we’re gonna record a chat about her work we’ll probably pick up on themes we touched on before to do with craft and value around art and issues around gender and disability in eard thanks so much for everybody who’s been sharing and engaging on social media and huge thanks to our patreon members please stick with us till the end to find out how to do all of those things tonight I’ll hand over to my tart with artists Jacqueline Wiley how do you like to identify it’s a tiered approach when they meet people using like face so to say oh I’m an artist and some people okay and then some people inquire you’re so I give them more information and it’s a bit like the Northern Irish thing I throw my castle which is a very sectarian very partisan area and so when I meet people I’ve got that Northern Irish thing where I say I come from Don gammon and they go oh I know done gallon we’re in zone or they say what school did you go to so I don’t think I’ve come from that I usually test and then sometimes I go through an entire conversation and nobody’s really inquired I know I did whereas if somebody’s interested I say I’m an artist and they say oh do you paint them so to most people I just say I’m a visual artist okay and then recently I finished doing the PhD so now I’m dr. Wiley and so I’m still getting to grips with when do I drop that little bomb in the conversation because I was an older woman I do find that people’s relations can be quite dismissive no taxi driver well what’s that what does that mean I said I’m a doctor philosophy what’s that what’s that he was pretty aggressive about it that’s all yeah I tend to be a bit out there so it’s like when to use it when is it useful like when I’m applying for jobs and things like that and dr. Wiley and when I’m doing art and I want my work online or four things I’m chuckling why lame for me but most of the time I’m Jackee so it really does depend on but yeah basically I’m a visual artist because I work conceptually it’s very ideas based and he’s socially engaged practice so it’s very much responding to issues around gender any age and disability those are the sort of topics and the ethics no my PhD was looking at social media my how are you social medium I’m really interested in the ethics of social media use so that’s the simplest way of describing what I do so there’s quite a lot of various we can think about because a lot of what you do seems to fall between fault lines of or at least it pushes up and twelve lines between arts and crafts yes you do quite a lot of knitting yes and you work yeah exactly and that appropriate nail for net talk that’s netted by my mum today all right that’s nice I like my school uniform was gray so I sort of see that lovely that salute like school uniform grey it’s lovely very good tensions I like that okay yes everybody usually compliments my mum’s tennis thank you you can see that because we don’t really think of knitting as an art form I think it is if I grew up my grandmother my mom’s mom used to knit beautiful dolls and all sorts and I thought think they are works of art I’ve still got many of them and the clothes and things that my mom does you I think their artworks so do you would have challenges then when you incorporate netting into artwork thinking your website you would suggest that you pinned with netting yes yes I call them lifted paintings I do large uniform they’re also like a series they’re all the same size so they usually like 86 centimeters by 86 centimeters I love the sort of size of a piece of knitting that I can do in about a month this time until I start getting border but I was just really interested in the fact that certain practices were gendered like high art you know the sort of ideas around the history of certain materials like oil painting was seen as high art and bronze casting to them textiles were seen as feminine but if you go back in history they weren’t it was men who did textile wow it was very noticeable I was knitting I’ve always knitted and I remember on my foundation art course she just not liking the fact that I was asking and I did a piece a small square like a Josef Albers square that’s what started it all admitted to small netted square with all grace she is blue and she just said but it’s not art is it because I put it in my sketchbook and they didn’t like the fact that I was doing this and then I was being pushed to apply to go to our College and they said well you all do textiles won’t you and I felt that the women were being pushed into doing if you were interested in art you do textiles a lot of one more hat we thought they didn’t have that kind of ego they didn’t feel confident enough to do fine art and I said I wanted to do fine art I even had a cheater saying about how it was a real shame I wasn’t going to do textiles because it was a real loss it was wasting my time for endo died also studied archaeology one of the essays that I did was on textiles and I really loved the fact that now they’re starting to I think I have a book somewhere about Coptic knitting I did a project in the Walker Art Gallery those four artists went in to look at the collection I make work in response to what was in the collection and I said can I look at knitting and the curator said we don’t collect netting and I was all like oh you don’t collect you don’t value it no no no it was too valuable in the past then they would attract them and remake them so then I started looking at shoddy and I just loved that word shoddy you know because something seems as shoddy material but it was actually valued so it was recycling I’ve always been interested in the history of textiles the way we value materials and how that’s changed in the past and so yes it wasn’t seen as our fine art practice and I got that very much when I was at foundation and then looking at works paying tank it was all the modernist stuff the kind of Jackson Pollock in France applying Sola which I think was at Stella Frank Stella Sol LeWitt nor leases we worked so I started making knitted pieces that killed or referenced painters one time in university I had a tutor come when he said they had to do a tutorial he said but I’m a painter I can’t talk about textile and I said can you not respond to it as a painting anyway oh I think I’m sort of sat back he was too I said respond to as if it was a painting and then he could talk about what I was doing the mark making and the way it was constructed and the shape of it yeah it’s like there was a block there when I find something like that that’s what I liked Wario aiya and so somebody said there’s a bit of a performative element to what I do because I’m making work that it’s deliberately pushing expectations and I quite like that I mean that’s why I like doing the research in social media because I’m in the 50s and they don’t expect me to know anything about using a mobile phone and using social media a few times people have said oh oh you’re on Twitter and I’m like yeah and Twitter oh you’re on Instagram and how many followers do you got and then I would say how many followers I’ve got but you’ve got more followers than I have you know that sort of thing and I like that even thinking about social media because I know you’ve incorporated social media and your Twitter followers and artwork that is displayed there must be a tension between feeling pressure to use social media to push your persona as an artist and your works very social media but also you’re crossing that boundary and you’re using it as art practice and as a platform do use it for all of those things or didn’t you know this is what I ended up writing about in my PhD thesis because I started off interviewing people who were using social media and I tried to get a wide range of Ages because I started focusing into digital natives and digital immigrants so I’m a digital immigrant because I remember a time before the Internet and the for social media and now we’ve got digital natives who’ve grown up with it and I kind of found in a couple of articles there was like a cutoff date of our own 1980-1981 when someone born after that time is it digitally yes they’ve never known anything like life without it and so even if they choose younger people do actively choose not to engage with it and that’s what was interested in the people that I interviewed some people are engaging with it some work and it wasn’t an age thing necessarily and then I got people to talk about why they were getting involved in it and like as I say some people didn’t like the fact that they were showing too much of their work whereas other people were very happy could see the line between using it to promote what they were doing and they would show teasers of our performance or an event they were involved in they wouldn’t show the work itself because then they were concerned about people not coming to an exhibition or not coming to a performance and so I ended up looking a lot at performance on my first interview between that about it and I find that was a really interesting parallel talk about how performance artists feel about how important it is for people to be there and the present when the performance is happening so I thought there was something like that happening with social media and I just felt that it was a whole new genre are a place and a platform for making art so that’s why in my research I was trying to identify artists who were using it so it divided into the yes artists were using it to promote themselves and I will do that and then there are artists who are actually using it as a ground for their work it was a artist who now I can’t remember seeing what border bumping and he made work about the mobile phone and the fact that when does a mobile phone pick up when you’ve gone you might go into France like he went to France but the mobile phone thought he was in Germany because it depends on where the what he called the tars are when it comes to Sicily call it border bomb pack and I like that that was art about the mobile technology itself so I sort of set out to make work about social media so that’s why I used the Twitter so I sort of made long letters of my Twitter profiles because I thought each day would be different because people would on the follow me knew people would follow me so the ideas each day it was a different piece of work and I turned it into a large text piece as well and put it on the wall and so it embodied something it was in ephemeral because I took screenshots of the people I was interviewing at all their Twitter profiles and like they’ve changed their profile pictures to change what’s on them I brought up issues about archiving Kaiser’s work archive I set out to make work about being on social media so then doing the PhD finishing it was incredible because I had far too much I had interviewed it people so I was analyzing their responses and then I’d done the literature search so I was talking about theories about social media and the internet and ethics and identity and place and then I also have my own practice so my own practice got almost written out of it it was so new and emerging I don’t think the PhD gives you the space to make work and to think about it and then make it again do you just have more time to do that so I did talk a little bit about my practice and I felt it really helped me I describe myself as a participant observer and the ethics really interested me towards the end of the PhD looking at tinder like dating site the dark aspects of social media I started looking at pornography because the legislation was changing and I was really struck by the fact that film the example I used was a film can be passed by the board classification as not x-rated but if you take a snippet of a picture of a film and then put it on social media that can be and so that effects artists you know what they’re sharing plus the fact that what you share on social media on the Internet is gonna be there for us like he told sterols she talks a lot about it’s gonna open live so those sort of aspects the fact that people sharing information that in ten years time or in a hundred years time how is that information going to be used I’ve been meeting people on dating sites and so I was making art around the conversations the online conversations taking screenshots so then it brings up issues of consent to use people don’t know that I’m copying it I then met a guy I’d met on a fetish dating website he was into robber so I met him and I’ve taken photographs of him no known him for about two years and on and off have the sessions with him dry stomping and I’ve gone to clubs in Dublin and in Cork it’s a whole world so I’ve really enjoyed it yeah give me Holies and then this year I’ve so been meeting people because I’ve moved here to Isabel fast and a meeting people in the community there’s a lot of loyalist band members here and I’ve become friendly with someone who’s in a lot of the bounds so I’m taking photographs and that’s what I’m gonna do this year take after him in all his regalia there’s a parallel there with the dressing up well I can’t I know there is well because some of the people that I meet on you’re into both I’m do you think then that’s there’s a sacred life he was telling me about when they join the lodge they go through initiation social culture at all homo culture homosocial so it homing social otter it’s all men all boys together my idea yes very majestic find a pin point over to something else yes but I would be very adverse to you exactly because a lot of no religious I think will be charged so I thought that that was very interesting my social media gives me a way into this but so I did last year I got a sign-up ground for a new camera which is brilliant and for new equipment some of the money was for some courses so I attended courses at Belfast expose so that’s been fantastic like I used to take photographs and if they were blurry I would check oh that’s a rubbish photograph and then they were saying no no I know a bit more about what I’m doing and I am able to appreciate now what to me what’s a good photograph you know what am I trying to achieve with my photography because I’ve been taking photographs since I was 14 yeah but I always used it more of a sketchbook kind of way of working my way into a subject taking photographs and then using motifs from the photographs to make work and so I never thought of them as works all right so then I’ve been printing things on juillet you know fine quality you know getting into the printing some of the courses were full Photoshop because of course I say because I’m a digital immigrant I mean I never learned how to use Photoshop or Lightroom or all that so so so I went on a couple of courses so now I feel a lot more comfortable I know how to size the photographs and how to added them and what I’m trying to achieve with them no I know I’m doing constructed photographs the ones I mean I’m meeting people and taking photographs of them they’re paranoid constructed photographs and then I’m also doing a lot of documentary photography because I’m going out and following the parades and taking photographs and the bonfires and all that sort of stuff and so that’s what I’m trying to do now because I want to do a photo book that’s the direction and kind of interested in so doing them not as like necessarily trying to print them up big because I have done that last year I printed some of these photographs really big like a old size and showed them in exhibitions just to test him to see how people responded to them but I really like the fact that you can build up a kind of narrative in a book because we looking at a lot of photo books now that’s what I’m realizing that’s what I think I really wanna do so there’s a course in Dublin core reading image so I’m applying for that but I’m also just trying to see where the work takes me yeah I think after the PhD after the level of theory and philosophy and so just to be back in the studio and just making work and as I say read em looking at some formal doing poetry and that’s tyre I tend to work the reading informs the ideas it’s been very much like after the PhD that was my goal for like five years and now it’s very tempting to put in another big project but I actually think I needed just time making new work and reading and like bought a house in East Belfast so it’s taking time to get used to living here does it feel like I’ve moved around a lot yes that was something I was going to ask because you were faced in Manchester for a long time and how was it firstly being under with an Irish person moving there and then having a life in Manchester and then coming back yeah well that’s why I think part of that High Line describing the work I’m doing documenting the bond because I sort of see myself as part of an Irish dysphoric I left school anyway 79 80 and that’s why at University there’s still the troubles so we were just encouraged to get out in Northern Ireland I went and I lived in Wales for about four years went to university there and studied archaeology history and archaeology and then I spent about ten years being an archaeologist I wasn’t an artist originally and I travelled around living in tents and then squats digging I had no plan no big career plans and then I ended up moving to Manchester partly because my partner I met him at university and his parents were in Manchester but I applied for a job in Macclesfield which is your side side so I lived for two years in Macclesfield working at the silk museum through the text is a studied archaeology and then did an MA in building conservation and that was my big passion was architecture and I think in another life if I’d been a boy an architect would be encouraged to go to school but this was a girl it was yeah I think you can take the only careers advice I got at school was take seven years to become an architect by not time you’d be married with children so I went okay then and so it was partly my not being persistent and not having but I come from a working-class back and I wasn’t encouraged to go I’m the only one in my father he’s going to use yeah so they think I’m a bit of a ball isn’t it but that’s a digression so I moved to Manchester to work as an archaeologist I’m and I ended up at the archaeology unit and the University worked there for two years that was great and then I did my MA building conservation and so a Goren recording all buildings and doing research documentary research and I loved it but I’d always had my interest in art but because it was not valued you know nobody encouraged me to go darn funny if I did apply to do foundation in Belfast and got accepted but I wanted to leave Northern Ireland so I went to university instead of going to taco so I like it so I worked there and then I did my art degree in stoke-on-trent I’d started doing a foundation course there as a mature student just get are died of my system and then got sucked in just again I was gonna do some pottery twice around certain classes and do some textiles and sewing and stuff and then got sucked in and then ended up no wonder my friends had to stoke and I went to visitor and talked to the tutors and they said you want to bring your portfolio I never soul encouraging and I took it down and I applied to a couple I got an interview at Goldsmiths I got an interview Chelsea didn’t get offered a place and then still controlled offered me a place so I thought just go I’m thirsty just get on with it just do it so fast knowing mm-hmm and I loved it and then I had a studio in Manchester at rogue studios yeah but I had part-time jobs so it was always very part time and I felt like I’d hit a point where it just wasn’t really again very far I’d always had the idea of doing the PhD and about 2000 I went down to London and talked to somebody at Goldsmith’s and they said yeah they would be interested in me doing and then that would have been about tax past I was doing a lot of knitting then just doing these big knitted pieces and then I started her by 2011 did a project with two of their artists it’s a very large building the B themt are in – oh oh yeah yeah we started doing this research a friend of mine ours friend is really into astronomy so she was talking about sundials so we started saying she said it’s a there’s a name for it but you know the bet in the middle of the sundial because the Sun hits it that’s what’s made my thunder it meant that a certain day and we took the summer solstice so wherever the Sun allowed that every year we marked the ours so we decided we would do this on social media as well so we had a Facebook page a Twitter page we had about 400 people following us on the day Guardian reporter turned up one was following us he said oh I find you I find you and the newspaper had done an animation of the damn thing they’ve done well and then there was a school a primary school were following us on Twitter I had never had anything that went viral yeah yeah so that was the kind of or intensive why I put together the proposal for the PhD to study this well what is happening on social media and then got it except I applied to Manchester because I was really quite happy just to stay there man to stand on it that didn’t get offered a place thank God for offered the place in Belfast because it’s a fully funded page thing so I moved I’d been in a long-term relationship and I had finished and so it was like a good time to move yeah like we’d split up for about five years before that and we had a lot of friends in common and go to openings and he’d be you know he’s an artist as well he’s an artist and a writer and we’d bump into each other and it was just so like just the idea of being in Balthus I my dad was ill so I came back to Belfast and was able to spend more time with my family so work died but yeah it was a big risk I thought long competed but I’d been coming back to visit my family regularly and I noticed that Belfast was becoming this sending interesting place to be are nice okay well why not and a husband a fantastic experience for me I have any access to a library again because I can Manchester I didn’t really have access to stuff and going to conferences I’ve never done that it was a whole world of going to things and then visual arts Ireland has been amazing so yeah they are so much more active in Manchester you just worked away in your studio and he doesn’t a small to stuff and you didn’t get to meet arts council people because guards casanova’s covers such and it was like up to Cumbria and it’s a huge area I had read some articles about high per capita artists here get more he’s bored it’s because there’s fewer artists I’m sorry it’s a brisk unlike now I’ve committed to staying here after finishing the PhD so it was five years doing the PhD with Corrections at the end and finishing at all I’m so we’re trying to make sense of it now like where do I fit into this art psychology I can now you make a living because it’s difficult at the minute I’ve got very little money coming in and I don’t have someone supporting me and I know that traditional model is I need people who come from middle to upper-middle class families and their parents will support them you know until they get with a gallery or get some kind of income and like I don’t have that kind of thing it can be very discouraging at times you know very worrying the end of the PhD I just ran out of money come here that’s because you end up having to get the extensions as my supervisor so I said well maybe I can get a part-time job and they said no no I’ll give you the extension because they only give you the extension on the understanding that you’re working full-time on the PC so if you’re doing like more than 16 hours a week they will give you an extension tonight it’s like trying to sort out five years later five years is a long time in the arm world things have changed and even the attitudes towards social media because when I started doing the research it was very sort of utopian oh isn’t this great but people understand now the problems with social media but that’s why I think the research that I’ve done is so relevant because looking at that ethics by designed and delivered a short workshop to some primary school kids here locally just getting them to talk about what social media platforms are they’ll do they know what the age limits are yeah because most unlike Facebook you have to be 50 I think that’s 18 no you know some of the higher or with parents concern no some of them did some of them I’m surprised that I’ve some of them were very well informed and if people strangers approached them trying to make Francis and what TJ and others were saying I want to talk to my mommy and I would discuss this with them who this person wasn’t what would you do if you’re being bullied who would you talk to I’m like a little bit more saying of yet they were being bully you know people have experienced bullying it’s a big important issue and then what’s happening is like some of the adults don’t understand yeah how important to say and I was kind of arguing that a lot of artists like teaching when I was doing PhD weren’t seeing the students activity on social media as part of their practice mm-hm and I was arguing that it that you need to engage with what these students are doing and saying usually it’s another aspect of the fact you know when you’re at our College we talk about you doing your artist statement and your CV but no they need to be talking about what is your social media the classical nine you still would say I remember a girl she was a girl in time and she was a curator and professionally inferring ambitious but she was posting pictures of herself like one time slumped on the you know with her friends like very very drunk mm-hm surrounded by heroes and I thought well if my potential employer so that they were so you know it’s it’s like managing yeah your profile and it’s not something that I’ve had to be very aware of like saying living in Manchester and working away there nobody knew who I was nobody knew I was doing yeah no I on social media I’m chatting to people across the globe and they do know who I am that’s what I liked about it it’s the access that you have to people is amazing but then you have to be responsible and careful because I fallen out with people and people have disliked comments that I’ve made on social media and then that affects them when I’m applying for things they don’t like something like maybe being critical of something on social media I have to learn to be a little bit bit more diplomatic with my opinion especially at night when I’ve had a glass of wine I know know personally in my practice it’s not just about making the work it is about establishing relationships with people curator salaries what came out of this thing on Tuesday when I went to the VA I talked was I don’t really know where I am and this trying to maintain relationships with people I don’t think I’ve been very consistent or I’ve had like a clear idea of what I’m supposed to be doing there’s probably been opportunities that I missed out on but I never saw it as a career choice I was just going from one interesting thing to the next and I did the Aces scheme got funding from Arsenal Northern Ireland that was like 2015-16 and that was really good yeah and I was saying then one of the best pieces of advice was like I was just doing a big project and then a we won and they said no you’ve got to stop doing that you’ve got to be more strategic and they were saying you need to be looking at which gallery so you want to be with me but I’ve got galleries I’d like to be with but I’m there’s no way I’m gonna get it you can’t think right you got to be more clear about where your work fits and don’t be approaching galleries that yeah there’s no way they’re not going to show you a kind of work but you need to be more clear about establishing relationships with people who are interested in the kind of art you know the way that you work working at them and I’ve not been not strategic yeah I suppose you’re right there that kind of person or you’re not and I wouldn’t be that sort of strategic person it’s just well I need a job so whatever comes along please but some people just seem to have the knock but yes they do they don’t pay they can really see how it works whereas I feel sometimes there’s like social cues it’s almost like a form of autism or something I go to openings and I can see there’s there’s a lot of subtle social cues going on yeah and I feel a lot of it goes over my head and I think a lot of people feel the same way as I do I’ve talked to artists who’ve like maybe being really really successful and have had a run of really big shows and doing really well and then six months later or maybe two or three years later saying you know I was really depressed and it was so much stress and so much pressure and you only see oh look they’re at a big opening and they’re drinking champagne at a nice suit but they’re saying yeah but couldn’t pay my bills and I’m supposed to be like yeah it’s a performance and I I think that I sometimes let myself down because I don’t do the performing and then I allow people to have prejudices about me and act on those prejudices and I think I’m beginning to realize yeah I need to manage that side of things a bit better I mean no it takes time I don’t think there’s easy answers to any of this sort of because you’re still trying to be inauthentic you know be the person yourself my art practice is only just a subset of me I’ve got my family and I’ve gone interests that aren’t nothing to do with art where some people just live hungry and that’s it’s thanks everyday I’ve never been nothing the person is saying I’m actually volunteering interests they’re doing a research project I’m learning Irish have been doing some Irish lessons and I got funding to do research into census returns during the war like Irish speakers in East Belfast Protestant Irish speakers and so I’m trying to do a day a week doing that see I did census research in the eighties well that was all on microfiche going through like card indexes and stuff worse this we’re doing it all online an excel sheet spreadsheet so it’s good for me to update my research yeah you’ll keep that – like this is so I just hope that something will come out of it as long as I can keep earning a bit money to take over it’s a crazy time at the minute with the branches and everything so uncertain especially here and in academia because a lot of the funding is European the universities are going tomorrow we get funding here in the studio we get some arts kinds of money and it’s been frozen last couple years and that’s an achievement even the fact that it’s frozen yeah because a lot of other organizations that she had to deal with cars and we’ve constantly because I’m not writing or the studio wraps and so we have to talk about how do we keep the cops teen and how would we deal with if in this round of funding if we get a cut because we’ve everything’s pared back as it is and it is quite scary climate with so many of the studios and art spaces having their funding entirely pulled when you’re thinking well he’s gonna be next and what about next year there’s still no Stormin and there’s still no budget and lot of practices because we’ve got that double whammy like you see we’ve got the banks of things bad enough but the fact that’s Donna that’s one of the big ass but you know that you’d asked of like coming back to northern I’ve I felt very much like I was like 1819 when I left yeah and I just walked away I was like this this place yeah it’s just horrible the fact that came back I gotta come to terms with a lot stuff that’s happened I don’t understand a lot of the politics because I lived in Manchester and I was used to working in a diverse work environment and we were getting training in gender awareness you know all the new legislation coming in I’m not used to living somewhere so white yeah so this is how I relate to the politics you know issues are an abortion issues around came our age well friends of my name I’m just about my I’ve gone to weddings and stuff and then to move here and people are still arguing over cakes a bit of a step back yeah because living in England I myself I just feel so frustrating that things are still so behind here when I come back yes I’m constantly monitoring yes what’s going on exactly I’m feeling this sense of urgency and when I find more and more that MPs over in England are taking seriously here they’re starting to listen because they can save I think if one good thing comes by the practice of actually is that the DEP you’ve had a public platform and people are seeing them from what they are yes a lot of MPs especially in England are becoming very sympathetic with what people are stuck with over here yes they see this I will you get the politicians you vote forward but that’s the problem it’s it’s not really that easy over here because people are voting for certain reasons and there’s power military involvement still and people are not voting because they’re sick of it all and you know so it’s a very narrow slice of the population that’s actually casting a vote it’s a very complicated scenario yes that’s not really gonna change I need something because recent in the last couple of weeks about the community worker in this area yeah and that was UVF involvement and I think it’s actually challenging a lot of people aren’t happy yeah happened and how it happened it’s revealing to people that a lot of it was around drugs that people were in debt because the paramilitaries are selling drugs to people so like you say it’s there’s complications and I’m beginning to start to understand talking to people yeah we’ve got a long way to go there’s a lot of attitudes here which haven’t been shot like in England people who have been challenging stuff but you’re talking about – that things that have been happening over the last 20 30 years you’re not just like a groundswell it was here you feel like people just haven’t got beyond the basics and I feel it’s more similar to the Trump phenomenon the people are voting for him and I feel like can you see the same person and I guess because I find him totally repulsive but there’s a whole big section in America you really like that convinced like don’t you believe in the accept him and they think that he’s doing a good job and that’s what’s really scary because it’s the same here it’s the DEP I’m looking at these people are terrible both there’s a big section thing it’s trying to understand that and finding ways it’s very gently paying them to thicken slightly a wee bit questioning a tiny bit face up Kelly I lived in a nice part of Manchester I mean I’m still a rough place to live in there was high crime risk but there were a lot of artists and musicians in the air and I loved controls and so it was a very sort of bohemian area and where’s here even just the street environment nobody really looks after the street yeah people don’t seem to put a lot of effort into the environment they live in and don’t seem to understand the connection it’s a lot of the house feels like there’s a collective depression and there’s a collective trauma yeah I agree I with the place and it does pass down and not a lot of younger ones we’d incest all the troubles that’s in the past it’s not gonna do with us but it is and whether they realize it or not this is sort of harshness and kind of quite a brutal attitude where people got sealed off and protected themselves and then there are little communities and they have to do that to survive but it can be quite like to an outsider it comes across as quite harsh and judgmental but I can see why the origins of it I mean the good example was when the Khans water they spent about eight million doing up along the river is beautiful when I first moved here it was like a building site and I didn’t know what they were doing and now I walk along it regularly and it’s great it’s a lovely mean take but two years ago they started building a bonfire in the middle and the ballpark’s just ruined the place and they also they’re doing no the last you see when I was a kid they were just sticks and bits of furniture and you could stand round them neither and these pallets that they build the one hand when I shall or I come from was like 500 feet high or something right it was over on earth but yeah he’s a dream Nicholas di and so when it started to burn it was so hot we all had to move really for it so I just try and take photographs couldn’t even go I need these what about so had two

yes modest culture and you know if you stop them from tanging you’re denying culture I want to breathe so I’m sort of doing the photography by going to the marches and marching season and taking photographs it’s part of like normalizing yeah I think it needs to become not but it’s on the margins

because one of my little bug bears is when they have the period last year I went along and it was an evening period okay bye I took photographs and then when they went and I just thought yeah this is your environment arrested in this whole conversation right gentrification yeah because people talk about gentrification as a bad thing but I actually think that anything that makes an environment I don’t agree with pricing people I do work yeah which is what’s happened recently with the cultural quarter you know a lot of people are moving here it’s a lot of artists moving to East Belfast quite a few see you groups have moved over your life I think there’s a lot to be said for improving people’s environment making that feel safe because it does affect issues aren’t depression there is a reason why there’s like really high suicide rates yeah yeah there’s a really high depression and it is partly an environment it’s also the fact that there are no jobs and no security since I’ve come back I’m sort of trying to come to terms that sort of stuff living in Manchester’s living in a big city so you can kind of feel almost like a bit above a lot of that stop filming your logo he Mian on please enjoy we’re here I feel a wee bit more the interview I’m living on an interface ooh two very different cultures we’ve been side by side and every night again but when that community worker in my camera boy second name is when he was killed recently finally a lot of people came from short strong came over so brought the two communities together which is quite good so we need more good things not that somebody has to get killed something a few felt and she isn’t talking about being a member of the studio group it’s not really important as a practitioner and you said before by fitting may be quite isolated in Manchester yes high important is the studio environment working yeah it became more important to me when I first graduated and because I studied in Staffordshire you know still contract I moved back to Manchester so I haven’t been at college there and so I didn’t really know people know stuff so for the first year I thought oh I don’t need a studio I can just work my work is all about knitting in the domestics and why do I need you do and then I have all these big pieces working everywhere that was like tripping over stuff I applied and got into rogue there were two men she do groups in Manchester then can’t remember the name but it was a panting core it mainly painters and then rogue was the fact that it was mixed with sculptors musicians it was a bit of a mix so I went in there with almond knitted pieces and I got a studio there so I was there for like 15 years and the end the shoe do really did work it was somewhere to go to work if I was at home I’d put the washing machine on and do domestic things whereas here all I can do is like get a book I think about things and it’s and also for manufacturing I really likes cutting up big bits of wood and Nathan frames and stuff was really mourned so the space is really good but I do like the fact that you come in and say no normally it’s quite quiet here normally people put their heads even because there’s only about 12 of us and it’s quite small so it rogue I got friends with people so when I went to openings I knew people and curators would come in and we did a open studio every year it was like an open weekend so we have this mound Friday night party loads of people drinking and then over the Saturday and Sunday people come in and I would sell a lot of work it was really good I would say limited pieces but I also sold works on paper until the last word a lot of art and that’s what I want to work on now is having pieces mounted and you know in an accessible piece that you use many price pieces yeah for me it was really good because then it was an indication of what people liked it made me feel like I was meeting my audience yeah and then of course the social media came in and that’s what I liked the fact that you had this link with your audience because book to that listen you didn’t have that unless you were exhibit and then you go to an opening and then you’d meet people it was harder to network I did some studio visits but I got into The Hobbit I he was working part time so I spent half the week working and a half the weekend to see you and I sort of got out of the way I was induced you to visit I was exhibit but after doing it for about 10 years as I say I think I lost a wee bit of momentum about 2005 I started so I’ve had about maybe six or seven years after graduating felt like okay I’ve done exhibitions so well what was the next sort of stage and then start doing the PhD and then now it felt important to get our studio I was very disappointed that I didn’t get a studio as part of the PhD and there’s a lot of criticism yeah and I think they missed a trick there because when I was doing my degree we worked in with the ma long the PhD locked I could go over and just have like a week tutorial with something used to in these days I find not really valuable yeah and I couldn’t believe that they didn’t want us in there but they were missing ion so there was some reason why that they didn’t want that so I got a studio I was at Pollan I had a desk clerics a tiny space but we have a big space that we could use for performances and stuff and that was great because we ended up doing several performances together as a group I learned a lot from yeah it really really did that trying to really kept me going but I had put all my stuff in storage when I knew from Manchester so it had been in boxes so then I got it all moved I moved my studio decided I was going to stay here this is where all these boxes are still boxes from like open the boxes and finding things that would be books something and it’s been quite sort of emotional really I’m trying to process all this stuff but like I need the space but this is good here because it has the heating and it has Wi-Fi and I need that I think before if you repeat it you just need it black must be yeah I went to see you guy beacons studio yeah when I was tiny dog going yeah I read his biography it’s in there somewhere and that was really interesting and he just had this just mess and everything was lived on top like he be working on something throw it aside words because I do the knitted pieces I have a croquet area and have a piece and I’m trying to do more paint and getting back into doing that again same thing I’ve got a lot of watercolors and I’ve gone chalks and parcels and things like that you see years ago they’re all here on the past or something I think it’s really important to have a studio practice yeah because it changes you know what I say sometimes I’m working on photography so because the minute I’m working on 11 laptop like trying to add it photographs I’m gonna crash the memory thing so that’s a lot of the time is spent on that I very little time actually making under the minute it’s a lot of its admin yeah stop so the Internet’s really important emails yeah so have you changed awhile from when I started it’s so being part of this GT groups really important because I feel I learn a lot about what’s going on elsewhere and I think it does carry a certain amount of credibility when you’re talking to curators you’re applying for things and you say you know that the fact that you got space that they can come and visit yeah yeah I think it’s actually on the board yeah yeah and I suppose then you file your own website and hash to do your website so I need to do a wee bit more work and make sure it’s all linked up and then what I also set up I said I set up a patreon but I haven’t done anything with it because I need product I need to be a head what is a dimension turn off for what am I trying to sell here and I’ve also been selling a lot of stuff on eBay for years I didn’t do that’s my little side hostel because I buy things at car boots are example but some other stuff in there

stop with like knitting I’ve got so many like oh if I see in all glassware so then I’m thinking I set up an Etsy site so I’m thinking of trying to sell some new stuff on there and some work in Manchester with a gallery from COMSOL I never sell work through them but like here I’m not with the gallery and and that’s how I think things have moved on so I look want to just sit here waiting for somebody to come and buy I need to get my turn sounds don’t you need to survive you know you’re not just making things for people that go isn’t that lovely and interesting and then move on you want things that people can actually have in their home we kind of do both and this is what they were talking about so if you’ve heard this ecology I make large pieces last yeah a knitted piece that was my degree work I had to take it off and just really start taking it off but that was it feet by 8 feet and there was three of those so they’re in there so that’s my degree show work in the box like saying the photography is a good example like I will do small prints and I will saw those quite cheaply but I want to make big prints I like the G like prints um museum-quality yeah and I do see the distinction between not making most of those knitted pieces were as I say bike 3 feet by 3 feet 8686 but I’m working on halfway through one which is going to be like a really really big one and I was working on that all the way through the PhD so just doing a wee bit every okay I need to get that finished yes but that would be wouldn’t the domestic piece it would puffed me her a big solo show so I want to do a series of those like big pieces and I’ve got here a lot of my work was this is all acrylic wool I’ve got here Aran well like really have spawned are so I want to make a couple of pieces you know what’s real really really nice wool so yeah I saw would see a distinction between making work that’s small domestic that people could buy I’m not fitting their homes and then bigger pieces that I would want to me you know really push the scale and you need to be commissioned sometimes I think doing the PhD also made me realize I really enjoy working on projects that maybe last the 18 months or two years rather than like sometimes you do pop pop things yeah people said would you want to put a piece of work in a group shelf and I actually feel dumb not and yeah I would much rather develop a body of work around a vein and then do like a solo show and that takes as I say two or three like say I remember kima home talking about week on writing tutor and they’d worked with that artist for three years yeah I supported that artists and about the war and that’s the kind of relationship that I’m realizing yeah yeah and it takes time to build the relationships it takes time to make the work and the work is a research process but just becoming it so in a very fast-moving world it’s not valued that much it’s trying to slow and I think as I get older I a lot more I realize I jumped about and I’ve tried to do different things but actually I’m looking back now on the things that have sustained me it’s nice the things that I’m really probably are to say the projects that I worked on like the PhD yeah I’m the show what the Walker got my bench might be a teen month because we did that work we put in the proposals me an artist sat on the CEO role I came up with this idea and then we approached them because it was for the biennial you know they have not agreed two years they are looking for proposals so we came up with the proposal so the idea was that the work would be there we worked over 18 months and I edited catalog to go with yet so that was a lot and we were fundraising and so that was like a really good project but then I got a video laughter as I got chicken I got chicken promise

and then realized that I would do these big projects and then just be so long oh all forget having chicken boy had chicken looks twice now it wasn’t yeah so I know the signs you know you can get shingles it’s any assistance during the PhD I was terrified that I would go the nice thing about the phd’s you can get up and work when you want to work or you can work that at night yeah you’re your own boss we’re saying zan I was doing that show well I have my job yes I’m trying to juggle using my annual leave to go and do and as I say bedded in the catalogue which I was really proud of and it really pushed me and I learned a lot from it it’s always kind of projects I’m really interested in otherwise I could just sit in here and Potter about and do things and that’s nice as well but I think I do like those big projects until now it’s trying to set what’s the next goal really but I would love to be doing postdoctoral research good find a project that I could work but like you say it’s so narrow I’m doing or put together a proposal and get funding here I don’t think anybody’s ever got a PhD because you’re either lucky enough to just get in their position that means you don’t really have to think about it or you end up having to drift because that chance never really came well I noticed the difference of some of the people I’ve seen the PhD with the proposal was written by one of the members of staff so they were animal obviously the student took it and yeah they didn’t do their own project but the member stopped sort of invested in it and they used their tutor worse it was my proposal I wrote it and they said oh we’re we’re interest I applied for one that they’d advertised they said oh we were also interested in justice back from cellphones and it was this battle that one that they accepted so then they just have to find somebody to supervise me I never felt that they really born to what it was I was in Germany and then I think then you wasn’t getting any teaching whereas they know a few people who got a better he’s marking helping with marking dissertations just that wee bit of experience yeah and if you put that on your CV loved a lot of talks about my work I like talking you know I really enjoy doing tutorials yeah and I’d love to do teaching on the foundations of course if I could gala but I just know that it’s loads of people going for a limited no more jobs that you pick weird ideas and the students heads things you don’t have p.m. to the pant I seriously worried I’m seriously would you probably leave here and you’ll be stocking shelves and Tesco’s when you leave here so just enjoy enjoy do what you can don’t think there’s gonna be a job but the end of it there’s not really enough for that but then the universities need the money coming in so they can’t be on us for those things I feel like I have total impostor syndrome hello yeah I totally don’t feel ever found I always felt like I got in you know I was getting one old-world every time I went in there and I would come up with these wacky ideas and nobody else was coming up why is nobody else suggesting these things I mean I am actually very creative very unique for what I do and I don’t value what I do why are they gonna value it because when I applied in the first year for that British console China program and I have three weeks in China oh when I got it it was really funny because I was sat in the department and oh [ __ ] into check me for your application no unfortunately you know you’re not successful he was like yeah we are pleased to spend three weeks in China and I was totally scared I realized now I had three weeks there and then it took me two or three weeks to get much back into and then I to do my vibe I thought it was a bit naughty of me to have done it my supervisor said at one point I hope we’re not gonna have to have the talk about gathering about I had had all those years of just saying mushy do working in an office and then suddenly I was like do whatever I want I’d like to have the free time to be able to apply for things cuz I’m finding it now you know there’s opportunities last year I wasn’t applying for a lot of stuff because I thought but I don’t know if I’ve got a job I won’t be able to do and now I’m justifiable yeah because last year I thought I would find I would have found some kind of part-time job but does it say yeah I think okay just now just apply for I want to do it yeah and apply for loads and loads of stuff and don’t worry and I was clearly stopping myself from doing things yeah she just did anyway cuz partly I made a kind of promises up when I did the PhD you got to start being saying it’s up to this because I don’t have the pension I said okay you do use PhD but afterwards you’ve only got a proper job because you’ve got to be saving money for your pension I’ve still not I know I haven’t got a lot of money put aside and you know you do have to be practical yeah but then at the same time you can that worrying about money stopped you from doing things it’s a really tricky one and you have to of your life that’s why you never know what’s gonna happen and when so we have to take every day I have the same fears well this is it everybody though I’m talking to people and I go oh yeah this is quite reasonable and then when I talk to her mom she’s in her eighties and she’s so really worried well at the same time I think I know one of my previous managers sort of said okay because there was a full-time job coming up I said I could do that and it’s great money she said yeah but six months time like in the middle of January and you haven’t get up really early in the morning you’re just and she’s right I do tend to let myself get sidetracked into proper jobs but I just want to try and keep this going as well as a possible but like you say it’s important to look after physical health and mental health there can be quite a lot of jealousy yeah I think artists are all nice and we’re all in this together but so no do you know people do gang up on each other there is bullying people resent yeah somebody made a joke I got this Daniel and they said oh I hate the fact that you can afford to have us do you know what were they coming from but I’m doing that without a lot of yeah I’ve got holes in my jeans and my socks I haven’t had a holiday yes I know my sister Suleman going away and I just said I just feel like I can’t go because I would be worrying about the money but you need to have holidays there’s a lot of stuff I could have but I’m not so I’m sacrificing a lot to do this it’s almost like they’re questioning your commitment or something when you strip it away it’s they’re commenting on themselves but they’re just you know but it’s hurtful at the time so sharing the flap last year and I had problems with someone who was very narcissistic I got a lot of abuse and that really undermined me a lot and I’d ask this person to lean and it was a real real real shock I learned a lot about okay I need to be not relying on other people’s opinion of me and be my own assigning board because there are people who will chip away at you you saying earlier on about the studio what was really important that rogue it was a big old mill and I never work so the December January February they write up because I had these big windows she’s lovely but there was like ISIL is I just I had water running down the inside at one time that’s why I’m paying a be next yeah because I have heating and I have the Internet and I’ve been much more productive having this dedicated space yeah it’s not having a studio would be a real big thing it’s very important and so that’s why it’s important to have studio groups here and yeah host because the wars talk of maybe having one big building in the center there was talk about the Arts Council funding some more I don’t know how feasible hours or how far I’ve gone but yeah a lot of them have moved I qss have moved oh yeah here and I’ve got the vault have you been to the vault haven’t been to vote didn’t December they had a tabletop yeah sale I brought some pieces of art and I also had some ornaments and odds and ends and collectibles and stuff was just trying to clear it though something very many entities as a car boot sale I sold my last food so I applied for a couple of residence season I’m going to apply for a few more doesn’t think like last year wasn’t really ready I don’t know an IV I can go I’ve got projects I’m working off so being able to go somewhere I’m working those in network with people working really good but so for a few months there I was like I had the flu in January I’m not really I was fine I was like I have no energy I couldn’t even like watch TV or read a book this is a low point it doesn’t get much lower than this but I survived I could tell yes the flu making you feel depressed and I’m menopausal so I have all that that’s been great journey it’s really important for me to find role models and interestingly that vai event that went and you see the woman who was leading it commented and the fact that it was all yeah do you know we feel we need that direction yeah careers cuz the path just isn’t the area and I do think there’s still easy the male model is a lot easier I know talking to people individuals it’s still

huge thanks again to Jackie for being so generous with their time and ideas you’ve been listening to audio-visual cultures with me Paula Blair and Jacqueline Wiley if you find the show and in particular episodes like this involving travel and interviews please support production with a small regular membership fee on patreon.com forward slash a V cultures that will also give you exclusive extras or you can donate to PayPal or with slash Pei Blair be part of the conversation with AV cultures on Facebook and Twitter please be it share and subscribe on your chosen platform to help others find the podcast thanks awfully for listening catch you next time