collage – audiovisual cultures

Show notes

Paula Blair speaks to Jordan Lam about being creative and developing a studio arts practice. In this fun and loose conversation you’ll get some insight into studying art at degree level, some details about graphic design and digital collage, and how it is to take a creative approach to life as well as to art. There are some details about Photoshop and other digital creative suites that the uninitiated may find surprising. We also touch on Jordan’s experience growing up bilingual and across two cultures, his interest in rap and reading, and why he likes to dress up as a banana. If you enjoy this chat, please give us a good rating and share with someone you think will like it.

Edited by Paula Blair with Audacity.

Recorded with Zencastr on 30 May 2022. Access Behind the Scenes recordings and see Jordan in his banana suit on Patreon.

Jordan Mode podcast: https://anchor.fm/jordanmode

Jordan and Paula connected via https://www.matchmaker.fm/

Automated Transcript

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and though you’re very welcome take audio visual cultures the podcast that delves into different areas FM media and the arts I am your host Paul left prior and in this episode I have a really fun and enlightening conversation with Jordan lamb but studying art developing a studio arts practice and generally being creative and having a good time having fun night if you’re one of our behind the scenes patrons over at Petri on dot com forward slash AV cultures there’s a special treat in store for you because as Jordan mentions he likes to dress up for special occasions and he considers doing a podcast recording like this to be one of those special occasions so for Phil video access to your conversation to look to see what Jordan is wearing do you join us at the behind the scenes here and you can see for yourself massive thanks to our amazing supporters are currently funding the website please see check out our latest audio visual cultures dot com everything you need sire and I updated it significantly back in may so please stay have a good price Orion %HESITATION salutes more stuff they’re noisy big thanks as well to each one of each for some lovely feet back on the seventeenth of may in twenty twenty two H. one that paid in an Instagram story Paul this podcast is full of so much heart and soul for the arts check out her episodes there’s something for everyone I really appreciate that too and I hope those sentiments come three again in this episode with Jordan as we talk by creativity and love for the craft D. enjoy while you can thank you yeah I’m a banana have always love the names you like when ants right from them is their very special very special things in the world yes they are so how are you doing this is Hey I’m good I’m good you know I I woke up today I wasn’t feeling that great I think I’m a bit say but I don’t know I just I remembered I can’t let P. down no I just can’t sell here I am that’s how you say it but if you’re not feeling well we can do this another time that is fine I’m committed committed Anna yes you’re very young as well so you’ve got your sights yeah by what gave it away I really appreciate it we’ll just let me know how you’re doing and if you’re not Feelin secrets we compose we can have a break whatever just whatever you’re comfortable with don’t feel like you have to pay straight because that’s not a good thing I did a lot of pushing straight when I was in my twenties and I aren’t tight catastrophic they so don’t do that to yourself okay okay Elena Fisher I can impart anything to the younger people don’t burn yourself side it’s not fun yeah I I understand I’ve burnt myself a couple times and that did not feel good so it is important to take breaks for sure so you’re very busy banana you got a lot going on which excels but more but the banana as stockholders to what you said earlier that you just love bananas sure yeah there’s a deeper meaning I guess it just represents my creative and find the side and just attitude about having fun and not caring what anyone else thinks because this in a way is a form of self expression now that is my artistic meaning but I also really like bananas so that is when it comes down to it you know I just love bananas that’s it C. love dressing entirely as a banana yeah yeah this very personal it’s door if it’s too personal it’s me going to wear places but do you have things you wear underneath your banana state today also have bananas on them %HESITATION is out for a price cut oh no no I’m just wearing a regular shirt and shorts because the okay the thing about the banana suit right in some kind of hot and stuffy I can’t even lie to you I don’t wear this every day you know I I I do it for important things important events you know warning I just wanna let you like it I guess yeah I like to have fun okay so it’s very hot and there were fights in the world are you Jordan I am in Sarasota Florida in the US of a I imagine that’s quite a warm place %HESITATION it’s really hot so you’re already warm and then you’re putting a really hot thing on your body after that so that its commitment I mean we need to adjust the distress a level of commitment we’re talking about here yeah I mean if AC did not exist I’ll probably have a heat stroke by now but now I’m fine so let’s keep it going you know push forward I’m hoping some of that heat radiates over to me because it’s spring time it’s late may I’m in the north east of England and it’s been very re in the in the cold here you know I’m wrapped up the scope a cardigan and cellphone because idea of dressing the same way as I was dressing most of the winter because it’s really cold here yeah while it’s spring in England it is somewhere here in Florida and is interesting wow yes well we we should be in summer but it doesn’t quite seem to want to test %HESITATION rife just yet okay we’re in summertime is it always cloudy there in England the part of England’s I list then it’s oxy a bit sunnier than some other places but because of where I am geographically we got very cold air a lot of the year the reason that we’ve had today is relatively rare it’s not as rainy as this usually is usually quite sunny but cooler I’m right beside the North Sea at which is a very cold spots on the arse the sort of arctic and Nordic air coming toing so there’s nice sunny weather can meet with the cold breeze sometimes so it’s a bit conflicted in this part but if you go to the northwest it’s really cloudy rainy rain at night a lot of the time okay it’s on the Irish Sea side it’s a lot more humid on that part I see yeah I want to visit one day and I’ve never been the state so I’m learning three people like you you know bumping into people like in the internet I’m learning notes by the United States so it’s great to be visiting Florida this time of mutually in LA or something like that on the internet so Lori this is different spin on things yeah you should visit if you like hot weather beaches Florida wild news I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Florida man but there’s a lot of stuff that happens in Florida that’s pretty crazy if you like hurricanes yes you you would have a fun time here in I think my associations with Florida and recently are from the good place you Jason Mendoza comes from Florida and the good place so it’s not the most positive depiction and then the Florida project as well so it’s like this immense wells decides to institutions so yeah I haven’t had a very positive spin on Florida yet yeah okay okay but if you like oranges that is what Florida has that’s positive right but they grow their own balance I I can’t answer that now maybe well they don’t really need taken several eating yeah I wherever I walk with the cost of one of the managers grows like from the ground CD going to bite and then so you’re saying you write for special things with the performance at TD your artwork and that what it what do you do in the real world in Europe and on the set well that’s that actually you gave me a great idea I should start doing that I should actually do this to create artwork I have a interesting relationship with this banana costume I’m a very naturally competitive person so when I get serious I put on the costume and it just seems like everything falls into place and everything just works out for me and then I win in the end every time S. sounds really weird but it’s like some people have their lucky charm right I have the banana so I do graphic design I’m studying to do studio are in the future N. when creating I don’t like I don’t wear anything not not life will need but like I wish certain into it you know right I wear clothing but not the banana suit because I need to be in a state of mind where I can just be free I’d try new things I think that’s when you create the greatest work of art when you are set with no limitations and you can go outside the your own box so don’t I try to trap yourself inside a box or try to contain yourself in in a cage with all these rules just experiment whether it be to Photoshop or podcasting in everything it all relates to one thing to another I was quite keen to learn more about your studies and what you’re hoping to say but you know what we are doing and you mentioned podcasting and hideouts links with your graphic design and you do make up the cast co Georgian modus alright yeah yes it’s quite fun I’ve listened to a few episodes at you know you seem to have conversations so I’ve been a bit Lacer with you I’ve tried to do mine tiny but like the way you do yours just go straight in the conversation %HESITATION rather than the structures interview it seems a bit more appropriate to just try and just give people a taster of the kind of thing that every day and you know it’s not very comfortable doing that because you know you you turn up and the way the each day and that remain she you don’t have to be serious %HESITATION professional right everything and being creative and I’m being a bit silly about fun it can be those things say so I think that’s a really nice reminder but which I like to tell folks about your podcast right yes so every time someone asked me when they were tells me when they listen to my podcast as find that kind of wild to believe like you really listen to my podcast that’s funny because I I just spew so much random stuff and I don’t want to swear on this podcast because I feel like that would just do whatever you’re comfortable with kids I I tend to try not to you just because I wanted to be as inclusive as possible by desire and therapist it’s where we desire more may be dealing with the topic where you’re coding something or it requires it %HESITATION it just slaps or whatever so just be comfortable just bear south okay my podcast Jordan mode is really just a journal for me for talking to people having great conversations throughout life I started it in December of twenty twenty one or is that yes yes I did okay end every conversation I’ve had since then has really changed me into the person I am now so it’s kind of interesting to think that it’s like a time capsule when you look at episode one you’re like oh I was so naive I was just a child when you’re up to the current episode and you’re like while what happened to me this is wild this is crazy and I I don’t take myself too seriously I just have fun having genuine conversations with people because everyone has a unique personality it is different in their own unique way you know everyone is in a different walk of life and everyone’s going to do something different so it’s interesting to understand how they came to be how they are and you know what they’re doing and you can learn so much from another person you can live through them vicariously you can stay in touch you can make a new friend you know relationships are so important and I learned about that in his speech or psychology class but either way both those classes have influenced me a lot because in speech if I never took a speech class in college I don’t think I would be this outspoken and speaking for a long period of time no I would just wait for the other person to respond or I wouldn’t be as outgoing as I am now so I think definitely more on the story is be yourself take classes if that interest you and just be creative test or not thirty N. I really admire that about eight the American in further and higher education system I mean there’s a there’s a lot of issues in terms of how much it costs and we’re following that increasingly in the U. K. but that you have these allow access classes that you can save quite early on we just don’t really have thought we don’t have those testers so you can share you can do this kind of class and I think that’s really fantastic the you can access something like that because I think here people think that you have to be super focused on what your degree pathway is and they don’t realize the merits of learning about other things like high must sign forms what is your pathway is you know that all these other things feed and slot so that’s pretty crazy here Hey did you go to college I did yeah I went to university articles three degrees %HESITATION while what degrees so my bachelor’s degree was in joint honors English and film studies so’s very traditional English as chair and I did a lot of Shakespeare lot of renaissance mature plays and drama and I did some Irish literature and fiction pieces I did some studies so fairly traditional from studies degree you know it was a lot of the old white European dates similar kind of sauce on it wasn’t tell a go into post graduate so they said it got a bit more interesting and you can go your own way a little bit more into your own research and things really right not timer starting to open up a bit more and people were going I think other kinds of people make films as well so maybe we could have a we look at those so it was starting to open night and get a bit more interesting then %HESITATION I started off saying and my masters in film he started off saying a lot more Asian cinema and a lot more now from cards from all over the world and a lot more women filmmakers use it was just getting a bit more diverse and stuff and then my PhD was summoned visual culture but it was yeah I was looking more assets convergence says between cinema and the visual arts more broadly so I was making more at video installation and live performance mixed media work and that sort of stuff so it really opens it out quite a bit well so you’ve always loved movies or films he had a life long ass to mazing while TV info my think it’s been a mainstay for majors I’ve always been so attracted to screens which isn’t you know necessarily the healthiest thing these days because our lives are just can change based grain culture the likes of a smartphone I mean not just was not a notion when I was a kid to so you know it’s weird to me that so many kids are just almost bored my smart phones in our hands a space right I remember a time when it was just long lines and that was it that made me so I think I spent like what you were saying earlier about conversations I think may face or where I’ve learned about the world and I’ve learned how to have empathy I’ve learned about other people’s stories and I’ve learned to buy other different types of people and because I grew up in such a very white yes and I was in the middle of a civil conflict as well as a young person so we were sure wind chiller we you know we nearby bets in pieces about what was going on in the world but we were pretty focused on ourselves as well it was a great SKF so it was a way of getting away from not but also just learning right this other stuff going on in the world to cease other types of people I fascinating SS no yeah now compared to when you were a kid do you find that you’re watching movies for the same reason I think so yeah I think learning from them is really important to me as much as being entertained by them I don’t expect to be entertained by phone but I hope to learn something from it if that makes sense right like the cinematography and the shots and how they all of that yeah yeah I’m I’m pretty much a nerd about all that stuff how are you I know nothing about making films yeah I I can like every time I watch a movie now I’m not looking so much as to be entertained I’m more looking at the shots and like what the director wants us to see is if you watch lake I don’t know if you watch the new doctor strange movie I don’t know if you’re into those I haven’t seen a memory in a behind on the the whole universe do you knows Sam Raimi %HESITATION yeah I know the summary Nancy I know he’s directed it yes so his like his style of directing like each back to what I was saying when everything’s connected right sorry my brain is literally like a multi verse you can tell it’s a Sam Raimi movie just by his style of directing his like he’s really into horror during the naval data right so and you can see aspects of that in the new movie exactly not a spoiler because he directed the movie but it’s also like you can tell what person created something whether it’s music whether it’s anything whether it’s movies TV anime C. N. do any creative medium you can just help because that’s their style is their personality and they’ve woven that into their creation and I think that’s just chef’s kiss so I love it yes I’m a I’m a real nerd for that safety because I really loved his spider man trilogy a lot of peoples and maybe like cat and spider man Terry I think it still stands up as probably one of the best probably the past spider man film of all of them there’s loads of Sam Raimi motifs sorry I thought I found loads of references loads of horror inflections you know things that are really quite similar to the the people that made base price combo of course getting account managers and stuff hello Hey I love noticing that because it makes you feel I think it makes you feel good to feed of noticing that stuff because it makes you feel quite clever that all yeah go that a lot one and yeah I got that reference the one thing Remy you sly dog so when you notice these references how happy does that make you feel these days it makes me happy because I went I remembered something while yeah I don’t know maybe it’s partly to do with some other personal stuff and party did you rest just pandemic general trauma but I really struggled with remembering things for the past couple of years and it feels good to just go I remember the thing for fifteen years ago I am so proud of myself today you know so it can be as simple as soft you know L. just fire something in me and there’s something deep dying because a lot of these movies when I was younger I watch them on harder Tatian you know they were comforting and the reputation mean gene you notice something different every time it’s slightly different maybe every time because she noticed something you didn’t quite pick up or before so their shot I I find a lot of pleasure in that it’s like a scavenger hunt that you’re you’re you’re finding things in every frame every scene okay I do like that too I think that for me I am so odd because I have a great memory I can’t even lie it’s so in order for me to watch a movie more than once it has to be really good because I I remember the gist I’m so late once the air again I am just feel as though once I’ve seen what a movie once I don’t need to see it again but that’s not for all please there is a a recent Marvel movie that came out was called more biz yeah that’s a movie I’m never going to see again I I thought it was bad yeah because I remembered at all but this time you will get back here yeah it’s you will not get back at you could spend your time doing something that leads me to another question did you ever walk out of the movie I have Sonya there was one by cost something just came from the recesses of my brain I remember walking out it is a short film that was being screened I went to it because some thirty students of mine hi it’s me it at and you I went to support them and it was the most misogynistic loaded on since like it was horrible it wasn’t just like these characters are like that it was the film itself was misogynistic so I think that’s a real big distinction there and I couldn’t spend any more time minutes company so I walked out of class I’m trying to think if there’s any examples from you something bigger mainstream or because usually I’ll I’ll end year or something because yeah you know I want to give it the time I wanna give it a chance cassette I think going to see something and certainly if you pay to go and say something and the sentiments very different from if you’re at home and you just now enjoying it and you give up and the theater I think I mean I don’t think I had since may be I was a kids I was just bored or something I don’t think that kinds as an adult I don’t think I’ve done not waste a feature length film okay so you have perseverance I can respect that I’ll try you know try and see it through to the end because I think you can really with us already say that was ater cock unless you go through it because you never know what’s going on the last twenty minutes you just never know and I returned it arrives you just come on give it a chance although I feel like if it was down to the last twenty minutes that is such a rare thing for it to turn it all around I mean there has been a movie recently that I did want to walk out okay but it wasn’t I don’t know how to describe it it was so I went with some friends he slept the entire movie so does give you an idea it was fantastic beasts three okay I thought that was so funny but I what I really wanted to see how it ended you know what you set up the whole plot I’m one of those people who are just so focused on the movie if I I can’t hear any distractions in the noon so I just but by the end I should have just walked out every everyone didn’t everyone wanted to walk out it just didn’t make sense a plot line didn’t make sense I’m not gonna go into it but you should watch it just over you should suffers a lot Polish yeah you understand what I’m see what I’m saying you know I’m very I haven’t seen any of those films yeah me neither I only lost third one okay think that was part of the problem do you need to have seen the first two of those possibly but at the same time it’s like if you really focus on her if you really like focus on each of the character threads like characters and stories brands even to someone who’s never seen the first two nine thank you can come to a conclusion where nothing makes sense okay you know it just falls into place perfectly like a dream and dreams don’t make sense it’s like that where something just pops into fruition even though it’s a magic movie like magic actually happens right so but it doesn’t make sense I don’t know how to describe it without spoiling it I’m sorry yeah now do you think you you’re drawn set maybe send stuff so much because of your graphic design and trusts you know you you you’re drawn to the veggie ology of things and high images are put together G. thing that’s where things are linking up for EA a start about that well before I got into graphic design as a kid growing up I’ve always loved movies so I guess yeah because I’ve always loved like visual stuff yeah I played a lot of games when I was a kid I was was fascinated by we’ll creating these moving images you know it was so cool only in L. I guess that’s what sparked my creativity the creative side and wanted to make graphics I love movies and my lover movies has played a part in my role in making graphic design and it’s also like spurred my love for other things other all forms of entertainment really it’s just it’s a it’s also a gateway drug really because once you start with one thing you exploring another then another then another so to answer your question I suppose so yes if you find tax useful with your podcasts we’ve got two options for you you can subscribe to the audio visual cultures podcast when you change 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 what CG at and your studies say Heidi failure studies are going at the moment I feel like I’m still a fledgling like that young Phoenix who hasn’t been re born yet so this doesn’t mean anything but I am certified in photo shop which basically means you know how to use Photoshop and I feel like I’m not at the level where I can design something as good as someone who’s been using or studying or doing graphic design in the field for analyte five years or something but at this point in my studies I’m still young but I still want to pursue this studio art thing and create R. N. up my skills you know because I wanna see where my potential wise I wanna create cool stuff and then again I’m still in the beginning stages and you don’t know where life’s going to take you and I do want to transfer to another university to further pursue my degree there so that that stage will probably be is so is there like a level after fledgling but before fully reborn that would be that okay thanks yeah in preparing for re first something like that yes like a volcano it worked eruption that’s interesting so should your practice so is this very practical things as well as computer based yeah creation A. K. A. ranges from the last time I looked it up on Google it was late photography ceramics graphic design painting all that stuff just in caps who waited in a broad term studio art and do you feel like you’re zoning tips check your things are you enjoying trying I different things so you still trying to find your way so the funny thing is I have been using Photoshop doing graphic design the visual aspects for not a long time I’ve only just begin and probably August twenty twenty one but I love it and it’s really helped me just appreciate how artists create things like visually and I love videos and films so that’s really got me into trying out video editing in stone S. I love photography to I think it’s cool plus you get so everything’s connected right you can use Photoshop to edit photos that you took with the camera N. you can honestly between video editing and graphic design you can interlace the two things you can edit say for example you can edit something in Photoshop and then put it in premiere pro and then vice versa and even with sound the entire adobe suite has not sponsored by them but they have this entire suite full of programs that you can use to do visual audio audio visual and it’s all connected you can honestly change things between different programs and that’s wild it’s crazy none that’s amazing yeah I think creative cloud is the dream if you can afford it so while you’ve got access to yet use the hallowed of it yeah that is really expensive when you’re on your own that’s great I know I think a lot of people don’t realize that a lot of photographs are added to you know a lot of professional photographs things that appear in newspapers and online articles and even photography competitions they are added its versions of the original image yeah of course I feel like at this point every time %HESITATION that photograph if it’s not edited it would have to be like the really just fresh like I was next to the photographer fresh for that not to be edited but yeah I mean definitely every photograph that’s like in a contest I mean it is not edited why is it there you know like it doesn’t look good yeah they did it because by editing I think remain as well it can just be coloring as you know yeah adding some coloration or just sharpening the lighting or you know it can be just that kind of thing and I think a bit you know a lot of people don’t realize that post production and film visual effects can be that sort of thing as well it’ll take a very realist image and just just tweak a color slightly and you know color great at sight they are out a bit more shadow or something like that that’s all based on the facts as well and we don’t just mean big C. GI Kashi Barney fights and stuff visual effects is a lot broader than all of that is just to make it because it just tweaking the color slightly you can change your major when you’re looking at the image I think so you know it can make you feel like all that C. is so deep and crisp and clear or thought sunset is so orange and red or paying or whatever I’ll just deep in that and that might make you have slightly more of an emotional response right Hey one time I took a class it was called color fundamentals and basically taught you the color wheel and in that class I learned that so each of the primary colors right so you get read orange blue those are probably not the primary colors but anyway either Hicks the point is great each shade of those colours is like invokes a different motion like connotation like light green that could mean that you know nature or something grass in blue you could probably think of water or call home you know it invokes different emotions I think that’s interesting and one other thing I wanted to say that yeah I don’t think a lot of people know how things get created and that’s like between like movies and stuff like that takes a lot of effort there’s camera work lot of production a lot of lighting and a lot of just scheduling also would like art anything with art you know they don’t know the specifics or even behind a podcaster right they don’t know how much Mike is or the shock mount that comes with it or the headphones you know it’s like it’s a lot and I feel like the who aren’t in in our field they don’t know just how artists create and hoping to change that it’s good to talk about it because I think I’m what I’ve listened to your podcast Adam sank thought has come up very much but it’s not something that you sometimes get and she is because she said you journal so do you talk about your pro sass do you talk about hate what you’re learning a month you try and what you feel out what works and that sort of stuff like in life or a lot of artists would say it’s all the same so it’s your artwork but it’s your license also okay folks true I don’t currently but I should not I think about it his arm I don’t really describe my process because I feel like nothing really changes how do I say this I don’t feel like enough changes for me to warrant me talking about my process no matter sorry I’m late really I can get in my head in the words just don’t come out so it’s like me describing my process now I don’t think anyone’s really interested in that to be honest it just short answer yeah in like no one asked me that so I’m I’m just like why should I bring it up thank you now yeah well well if I ask you know why can you give us a quick run through of your creative process what would you say how would you describe it well when I create something like visually like graphic design I just stare at the screen and then I close my eyes and I think what do I want to make today what do I want to do what can I do first of all let’s create let’s did make some layers right let’s put a splash of color let’s make some shapes you know let’s look at the internet let’s find some free images yes that was the term and let’s just build something mmhm and let’s be experimental with it and let’s just have fun with it and when I get burnt out I will take a break and I’m gonna come back to it so when I create R. I am very meticulous yes some people spend several days working on a project I do that as well I feel like once you feel like you can’t do anything more to it and you just you just feel that it’s in good good enough to your taste that’s when you’re finished that’s what I’ve learned about myself I’m very feel type of person I can be logical I guess but most of the time when it comes to creativity and art I just have to feel it C. ever very intuitive approach to what you make yes whether it comes to anything you know when I feel like I’ve done enough or maybe like when I feel that it’s perfect you know even if that night might not be perfect and nobody’s perfect or nothing is perfect it just to me when I feel like I can’t do anything more N. all my energy is just exhausted and I don’t want to work on this anymore because I put all my love and creativity and just thought into it then that peace is finished but signs thank you for calling the digital collage approach it’s not fair yeah that’s fair call us to me is always seemed like a very intuitive approach I knew like have been said collage workshops and people will Brady meticulously planned all right what they’re going to date before the second inning dying and I just rampage and then I go I’m gonna put that out there but not there and I’ll just do something and I’ll figure it out as I go you know and if I don’t like some sun I’ll get something else to cover it over you know on a layer it profits and tear it apart or something you know what I mean so I’m not I wonder if your digital collage approach as some similar but I suppose in digital it’s easy to tests Mason so late and that sort of thing so you know what what are the differences varying between like physically in individually yeah convenience and ease for digital yeah you can copy and paste so you don’t have to like get to more sheets of paper you know so it’s like it’s very easy with the simple keyboard click and the layers are just so easily manageable and you can really adjust the colors all in all you just like I it doesn’t compare to the feeling of actually physically and making a collage which is like really therapeutic but distillate I feel as though it’s just simpler and probably more either as or more time consuming because due to it being more easy or simple you like spend more time with it this could just be me like second guessing was this right what should I do this or do this instead right but at the end of the day both are lake trying to navigate out of the maze because when you reach a dead and you’re like oh wrong way I guess I’ll go the other way yeah so don’t trap yourself in a box pretty much basically %HESITATION N. in a collage physically you have scissors I guess known you don’t use scissors and actually you can cut I think in digital or info shop but don’t take my word on that I’ll probably have to see that when you create something she just leave it there and he just save and move on to the next saying or difficult boxes things and even just select them and go what was going on with me not say this or anything in there Sir that is true I I like add it to my portfolio and I like to look at it sometimes I’m like that and some kid are you know hi this is my own biggest fan and I went that relate to what you said yeah that is interesting what like what was I thinking when I created this most of the time I don’t create based on what I’m feeling I create on late what I can make what my skills at that level can create as weird as that sounds for an artist I feel like when you do different mediums for me when I do like graphic design I’m not doing it based off emotion I’m doing it based off of how cool can this look but you know but like when it comes to like music I feel like you can really get into your feelings when you know you told me before he died he topple and rock are you still saying a word yet still doing anything yeah so try yeah sorry I just sometimes I forget what I do %HESITATION yeah I love wrapping I’ve grown up listening to hip hop and rap because okay so the reason why I love rap is not because of well initially I listen to it because I thought it would make me cool something shall like that but as I’ve grown up I really fell in love with the interest like the skill of actually rapping like forget the B. in the music for a second let’s talk about the lyrics you know lyrics can actually invoke a lot of emotion and while you’re rhyming doing all these complicated rhyme schemes that’s crazy you know rapping is difficult I but I love it so much because there’s the pay off you know when you when you just go on to be to the music it’s almost as if you’re floating in the air because it’s just that it’s just that addicting that in there so much like to learn from their so much content out there and it’s like with the anything you know back to everything is connected when you when you see a person at the top of their game say arm who’s really good at graphic design for again okay okay he doesn’t do graphic design but van Gogh okay he has a great painting starry night okay your leg while that is amazing or Michelangelo you know and is on I can have so crazy like the way they did R. back then was at the top of their craft and the rap artists in the game right now like Eminem like his lyrics he’s been doing it for over thirty years his lyrics are so intricate and complicated it’s almost as though he just does it every day he actually read the dictionary just to come out with new words to rhyme and that’s crazy that’s dedication and I’m just I love this skill aspect of it I love the school aspect of anything that’s why I like to try everything because you never know what you might like and I feel like the more you try everything well you do everything the more well rounded you become and you become the best you can be in everything like contributes to each other right so if you’re good at podcasting you edit your own audio right so then that gives you experience into like making videos and making the audio sound perfect for videos right and then when you have experience in video editing right you could probably edit music videos and films or TV right so everything’s connected graphic design to for album covers for posters movie posters and books you know no one really thinks about books knowing like visually when the last time you read a book well I read quite a lot but yeah good right so it’s like books in wrapping is connected to poetry okay I firmly believe that because poetry is just or wrapping is poetry in motion right is rhyming it can be rhyming but I also cannot and it’s everything is connected is the what I’m trying to say and yeah that’s true New York City right and I’m I mean not point sets graphic design is just everywhere now you’re absolutely right because it covers it up send me pics are absolutely not dying that they their fate physical tics are so very very alive and well and the covers are more and more interesting and I think people and shops when they’re shopping for pics online and in stores retracted to the coverage more and more I think because they are more and interesting and having to get more interesting to compete with each other yeah you know and more expressive pieces of color and damages and everything did possibly the Iran you’ve got so many options open sea and it’s really refreshing to hear that you’re interested in lots of different things and you can appreciate that yes things sold so you can act up when’s that it’s not everything has to be side loaded off and write your specialist nothing that’s all you today because certainly in my academic life previously thought very much what it was like it was right but you’re the expert on thought one thing so you don’t get to talk about anything else but I know loads of stuff but lots of other things so you know it’s really great to hear somebody certainly younger than me I’m thinking and trusted and those to stuff and you know using that and really going for it and trying I stopped because I think that’s the ideal is people need to be able to have %HESITATION set things to figure it all Eyez to figure ites he can I be I want to bait what title for him I get asked and where do those things start to mock shock but knows that I could maybe make a living out of something you know so yeah it’s great to see hopefully on the postulates that journey yeah for sure I’m pretty much like an open book I go with the flow you know whatever it’s also just nice to wake you have something to fall back on you know right you’re just open about everything your interest in everything you know one feel doesn’t work out you go in another because you have experience in that field it’s all about having fun the end of the day and I do enjoy this learning everything on facts right so my podcast used to be called Jordan learns everything but I thought that was too long so I then I changed it to Jordan mode fun fact well there’s something in that suit Jordan modes mode is type of average at set way of playing it can be a type of something can be a way of doing something that is an interesting title and was it just that he felt the previous site was long gone K. or why that particular words what was it about that word the that’s a great question so basically my initial thoughts was to start off I was named after Michael Jordan the greatest basketball player of all time I firmly believe that and I like if you see them on the court weather videos or whatever he goes crazy and that’s why I think he’s the girl N. I just thought that’s Jordan mode right like nine ten plus I’m super competitive right soon if you’re on my team we’re gonna win so when I go crazy I’m also going Jordan mode so then those two aspects just like really brought out that title and I thought it was just perfect that’s very interesting there’s a lot of meaning I like to put meetings like double meanings I think that’s where it like my level rap comes from because in rap their lyrics that can have double or triple entendre sorry so I just started doing this recently but every episode title is modeled after a rap song it’s something little like that but I’d like to do those things because it it’s not fun for me Nina the plays with language that happened did you said earlier you did it a class in speech will say and this language in general something that you think about it do you speak other languages %HESITATION yeah yeah yeah I speak Chinese I am Chinese American I speak Cantonese N. as a different dialects from the main language which is Mandarin a lot of change he was being manner when I speak Cantonese which like the language of the south I’ve always been good at English growing up I’ve always been like terror want math so I think that’s played a part in this me being good at language arts English literature reading I’ve always loved that my parents forced me to read N. at the time when I was younger I was like I don’t want to read but then now I’m thankful because it’s given me so much valuable information and skill into the English language being able to differentiate your different words like they’re they’re they’re just being good at just communicating what else are they gonna say okay and not communicating right now but %HESITATION fun fact Eminem also is really good at English growing up so I believe that reading and being good at English that’s gonna level up your rapping skills it really is all connected and throw a bit of poetry in there right some poetry now therapeutic experience and I’m sorry what was the initial question I went off on a tangent I feel fine tangents are very welcome on the show because I usually have remember where I stay nice so yeah I think I was asking just generally about a language and because it you know because you’re dealing with visual languages as well in your artwork then you know you’re interested rocked and shoot just highly loaded language conveyed and rap and poetry and then I I wondered if he spoke other languages so you know that’s really useful to hear because I think that just expands what you can J. west language and whatever language you’re speaking it can expand it because she can learn other ways of saying things and the other language you know so I’m ready and trusted in hearing it’s also not from fire multilingual speakers all right yes also when you’re like bilingual I don’t think in Cantonese though I never think that I only speak Cantonese when I’m with my family is there Chinese SO like day to day I speak English because I was I was raised English pretty much I pretty much in school speak English day today speak English only time I speak Chinese is like at my house with my parents you gain a sort of appreciation for you have like two different sides of thinking almost great yeah I’d also like to different languages like more opportunities you know you can get by in in a different country and stuff so that’s pretty cool okay that’s interesting I’m a language learner rather than a multi lingual person just fumbling my way three other languages so three so I love hearing from people who’ve grown all bilingual or multilingual because I think he you have a very different mind sets you know and and and my experience when I know people he he have spots there may be more open minded about south there are very creative and the way they can express things can just stop in your tracks sometimes because it it’s a different way of thinking I think now the more Irish I learned to try and tap into pop side of me the mower sayings just open all right Anderson different understanding of a way of being S. out makes sense right is also like you learn about the differences and similarities between your culture and both of them are your culture so for example my Chinese culture and my my American like upbringing you can see the two sides you interact with different people and you’re just like while we have two different ways of life and that’s not bad it’s just different that’s just interesting and the cuisine you know when we have the food eats culture your lake while I know what I like and what I don’t like heck well B. E. definitely like bananas yeah do you dressed as a banana with your family ever no no not not outside of you told interest saying I I’d I’d rather go out on the street address of as a banana and Shania it’s not interesting where version of ourselves wherever we are is not it we’re always forming a version of ourselves and whatever situation we’re in yeah isn’t that interesting it’s like when you’re in front of different people you take L. version of yourself for example in front of your family you act a different way in front of your like close friends or a friend of a stranger you know it’s interesting I think the boulder things so we day we’re more likely to do it completely far away from our funds that he’s yeah it says here today it was strangers it’s not sure I’m okay Jordan is there anything we haven’t touched on that you were really hoping to talk about today how’s your day do you was I spending a lot of editing to say so wasn’t just saying that you brought that up earlier I’ve been seeing a lot of audio editing that is for to be passed on to video so that’s what I’ve been doing all day and %HESITATION almost lost track of time and it’s a really fun and shake projects so yes that’s what I’ve been doing I’ve been quite happy in my work eight a I did a couple of ours this morning and then I realize you know what I’m doing and that’s wrong there’s a better way for me to do this so then I started from scratch well started the added from scratch and it’s not going quite awhile so that’s my day Hey that’s good at least you like found or you like how I say it you found what you thought you were doing wrong and they you took action to find a solution to correct it and save more time yeah well I feel like a lot of people like they’re stuck in this routine right so they could be doing something and this isn’t just like for other people this also includes me as I am I have also been guilty of like doing the same thing over and over when in fact I could have done something different to save time right I could try something new right and that’s just just props you know that takes a lot to just be like I don’t want to do this anymore I’m gonna try something different I think that’s cool so and you’re just barely starting your day R. G. or you’re in the east coast asset so you’re just in the early afternoon hi yeah yes like one one PM right here okay yeah so if you got big stuff on the rest of the day %HESITATION some pride is also going to add it to set the nana Kamal for the editing yes there really is no way I today I will actually die you know so well I really enjoyed speaking with you it’s been lovely to have just to really relax interesting conversation and the see where it goes and it’s just been really good fun and that’s been a definitely a unique experience specially for me so for yeah yeah yeah why the first banana yeah my first banana hello hello I do have them a friend he’s an artist and her nickname is Joanna bananas so %HESITATION but she didn’t wear call shame for me right Jim Acosta information written songs on the electoral banana yes okay cool all right a yes thank you for having me on is an absolute blast you’re very welcome and yes one of the meeting it and ready get doc quests all of your studies and everything in here working on yeah and you too %HESITATION the podcast the key shot out the audio visual cultures podcast thank you yes until you go and check out Jordan moats and I’ll be linking to that and are shown to sparkle awesome

transcript

Audiovisual Cultures episode 77 – The Amabie Project with Johanna Leech automated transcript

4th Jan 2022 audiovisualcultures

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hello and welcome to audiovisual cultures with me paula blair i’m really super excited to be joined this time by artist johanna leech who is going to talk about the amabie project that she’s been working on and curating throughout the lock time period in 2020 and it’s hopefully going to culminate in an exhibition but it’s all online and you can see it on instagram so i’m going to let her explain more about it because she’ll explain that a lot more articulately than i can um huge huge thanks to our members over at patreon.com forward slash av cultures for all your really valued supports if you are interested in joining and there are three tiers of membership at the moment there’s to pay what you can which is one pound one dollar one year or whatever um and that’s that’s going to get you access a bit early to the new episodes that come out you’ll get to hear it a day before everybody else and then there are a couple of other memberships there’s a behind-the-scenes membership and a star supporter which will get your producer credit on any future stuff so do take a look through those if you’re able to help out and for other ways to support uh and just help out the podcast do listen right to the end and i’ll give you some other ways that don’t involve a membership um but do make sure you subscribe you hit that button just so that you never miss a new episode and i’ll help us out as well so this one was a lot of fun to record uh joanna is a it’s a very very good friend of mine and i’m really proud of all of her work it’s a really visual episode as well so if you’re listening to the audio only i have put the link to the video in the show notes and do make sure you go and see that um because um uh joanna actually shows us through quite a lot of the work that all of the artists involved have been creating and shows us through the instagram so if you’re able to see that i’d really highly recommend it so enjoy very much and i will see you on the other side

so i am super excited to be joined by my longest serving friend and artist joanna leach hello joanna hello how are we finding you today not too bad thanks just in limbo like the rest of us i think so trying to continue on at least try and do something productive excellent yes we’re gonna talk a bit about your productivity and what you’re keeping busy with and if it’s okay can i just ask you to explain to everybody a bit about your background i mean um i mean we first bonded over our mutual love of dinosaurs and i think that’s something that’s held us very close together all of these many very long years yes definitely and it’s in my artwork you know fascinating sinclair uh dinosaurs from the world’s fair absolutely um so would you kindly just talk us through a little bit of your own arts practice and then we’re going to talk about the really big project that you’ve been working on more recently sure so i’m a visual artist based in belfast and i also work as a program manager for a local cinema and arts center so sometimes a lot of those influences working quite um across lots of different art practices and arts fields and work can bleed into my practice a little bit um so instead of kind of having a sketchbook or kind of doing lots of drawings like every day like most artists would or quite frequently my thing was to collect objects collect stories and um making notes and taking photographs so you know like if you look at my iphone now there’s like 20 000 photographs that i’m kind of constantly referring back to so that that’s my sketchbook so it kind of gives you an idea of what kind of way i sort things in my head i’m also dyslexic so it just means that a lot of the time maybe written format isn’t as easy for me and the visual stands out really clearly because of that so it just means then i can have this amalgamation kind of like my work is almost like a little museum of its own you know you could have a look at my exhibition and there could be stuff that could be historical that i find something interesting there could be local lore and legend um or there could be just an experience or a place that i’ve been to so the working kind of become things where it’s maybe like more social practice where i’m maybe using the objects in a way to perform to an audience where like the object is shown in a way where it tells a story or it itself is quite humorous and you kind of look at it and it gives you a chuckle you know like i always like the work to be familiar to the audience and very much um kind of open for everyone to interpret um so my recent exhibition would have had things like a neon sign that said guns and gold and kind of like a really um particular lovely um neon golden color and that was a replica of one that i’d seen in america and just that ideas of those two words together um is it’s quite interesting and then i had wall drawings including wonderful dinosaur um and then i had stories about the dinosaurs that i’ve done work with and collected from all around the world so i had kind of display tables which had objects as well as stories all displayed together so it’s kind of it takes you on a journey and that’s kind of always say to people like i’m explore um showing you my discoveries essentially and then there was other things like photographs from kind of um attractions or places from around america so that that work kind of stands alone quite well just as a photography as a photograph um but um and then i’ll do sometimes just really kind of scale back drawings so it just it just really depends brilliant yeah and this has a really close connection with the current project that you’re working on so you’re curating this group of work of all kinds it’s it’s cross media and it’s artists working in all different modes and from different backgrounds and all sorts of things so um can you tell us a bit about the amma bay project please yeah so amabe is a japanese yukai and ukai is kind of like a mythical kind of magical creature within japanese mythology and this particular character would come out whenever there was sign of a pandemic or else maybe something to do with um crops and um different times where you know people would have worries about things they could look towards the emma bay for um some comfort so you know she’s a mermaid character and she kind of comes out of the sea and is very kind of mystical and i was just kind of really interested in that with the internet kind of in the era that we’re in now this character made a resurgence kind of through the start of the lockdown and it just meant that there was a lot of people kind of posting pictures of her or a lot of japanese people like taking a bit of solace you know to actually do a little drawing over or stick a little picture up of her in a window and with everything that was elsa it was happening throughout the internet and in the uk we kind of had all the kind of things so like help the nhs and the rainbow kind of became this icon of camaraderie and hope for a lot of people and that came from kids in america he just did it one time and you know then people started to kind of replicate that and it kind of spread like a virus but uh a very positive one and amabe was kind of doing a bit of that it was um kind of trading on kind of um if you kind of had like hashtag a mabe challenge and when i saw that i kind of thought oh you know but what i’m really interested in is i had been to japan last year and um i have connections through flex art studios where i’m based with a really cool art space called arts ongoing which is in tokyo and i kind of met those guys and i kind of always kind of thought oh you know what like what would i do if i went over and did a japanese residency so at this time where you know there’s pandemic i can’t go to japan as much as i would love to and looking at those connections and just i think the event manager in my head of kind of going what can i do you know i can’t go into the studio and you know it’s a really hard time to feel inspired how can i reach out and make that connection between that kind of sense of this viral connection but also bringing it back to artists practices but then looking at the connection between japan and belfast and especially because of flax art studio so they’ve been running for a number of years in exchange and one of the main artists who’s a really good friend of mine um shiro masayama um he is the only northern ireland artist based in japan and i was like me and him were like sharing each other like pictures of a mabe and being like oh you know we should get everyone in flax to make an imabe and then we’re like but why should i be kind of making that quite narrow so we owned it out because we wanted to share it with three artists arts ongoing and various other things like shearer would have a lot of connections um just you know to see if artists in general who are based in japan and uh the isle of ireland um or someone you know who’s still kind of connected to ireland are still connected to japan um what would they do and to kind of make it initially like an instagram that could become an exhibition so it was just to see like what would happen so i think it was something that kind of came up between me and sharon were like hey wouldn’t this be fun to do that and they kind of grew from there

and so um with the irish connection is there was there another mythical form from from irish mythology that you were looking at as well or was it just the mlp

well originally um i was talking to um close friend um martin boyle um and martin was kind of my sounding board and very thankfully and just about the right up and like how i was going to do the call-out and what he was interested in and what i kind of thought was it’d be nice to give people that option if they don’t want to do a mabe so whenever we did the call-out we kind of had it that it was if you could create a mythical creature to protect you what would it be and surprisingly a lot of people just did do your marble and that that’s cool too i mean she’s so beautiful and of course i did one of her but um i did like that idea of looking at art mythology and it just meant then if there was japanese artists who were like you know mommy’s quite a normal thing for them they could choose to do something different or an irish artist who feels very strongly with that now we didn’t get as many kind of ones that are quite irish-based we did also get one that was a beaver which i thought was really cool because um that person was just kind of had their own reason of thinking why he could be a quite an iconic character so it is it is mainly a mob but i think whenever we’re displaying that in the gallery you know it can maybe have a couple of different zones it was originally inspired by the irish connections of saint brigid and it was like the first of february and it was kind of the start of spring and how people would kind of um make woven um crosses that you would hang up on your door and there’s these kind of ceremonies called biddy boys and it was basically like you made like an effigy like this female character who sometimes was dressed in your grandmother’s clothes and again it’s this idea of bringing forth a good harvest and and hoping for the best which a mabe does as well and and i was just like when you look at the documentation of you’re like what’s so bizarre and then it brings in connections with mummers and the idea of going door-to-door connecting with your community and making these kind of woven hats and things they’d have on so there’s one of the pieces is me wearing a mummer’s hat and you know i think that could maybe be a bit of a project on its own and i think mabi kind of took over because i think a lot of artists were making work from home and it was probably a bit easier to do that so i definitely think that that could grow in a different way but there’s only maybe a few that are kind of included within that okay great it’s really fascinating and stuff so um so shall we should we take a look at some specific examples of this and the the really wide range of approaches that all of the artists took because you’ve got animators you’ve got people working in sculpture in different ways you’ve got people here illustrators and comic creators and all sorts of people so um shall we have a quick look at some of the examples sure we definitely had a you know a wide range of people but i think i’ll maybe just start off with the original image that is mainly known about a map so this is one that would have been like kind of in the local um news and kind of documented before so i’ll just share my screen here so you can see

um so you can see this here um which is just a really beautiful image and you can see kind of the three legs coming from the sea a beautiful man of hair and um i just thought this is a really good starting point because it’s it’s also that flexibility that people can can change her into anything that she wants to be so i’ve got the instagram here which is kind of the format of showing it visually online so we have um submission from different artists to despite 25 artists including two young people that have been included and i like that because you know it’s the fact that you’re in lockdown and your children are there so i really kind of like that one of the artists is like oh you know can i include my child’s one or you know someone was actually collaborating with her niece which was really nice so um as you can see this is just a really quick thing and this is just you know like uh shiro playing around with a new app that he’s brought together but it just it just worked so well and it’s that kind of again embracing the kind of online kind of quality of that so just for the audio can we just describe what was happening there sorry um

okay so with shiro’s um video he’s using this app and um can i turn the music on or would that i think yeah you should let’s try

so um he’s just made a little drawing of an amabe which kind of pops up in this app and then it kind of comes and scuttles around the floor so it kind of like moves around on the table which is just really sweet and then um we had some more stuff that was a bit more obscure so this one here i really like because there’s kind of a description here this is by chris watt and he kind of just looks at this idea of um stories of contorted human forms or similar kind of rock faces and the natural forces and the ancient humans and bones and you know um that one there i just thought was just really nice and quite unique um some quite a skeletal image that we’re seeing and um so it says he came up with a concept for the painting after visiting melon head on the very north coast of ireland so um yeah so there’s just this skeletal form that’s it’s almost like it’s embedded in the rocks it’s against the rock faces in a bit of a kind of fetal position yeah there’s a triangle protrading from an eye that kind of an obscure kind of um things in the foreground and kind of makes it quite dream like um really kind of bright neon colors and along with this really kind of strong blue blue and white for the skeleton’s body itself which is really nice um i will just see i could go on and talk about every single one let’s just have we scroll so you can see just like some of them against each other so um this is another japanese artist um which is absolutely gorgeous um sitting on buildings on fire almost yeah so emily um she’s actually just studying um at the moment and she’s studying in london but she’s japanese and she had a couple of versions there’s a couple of versions of this one um this is a collaboration with grace mcmurray and her uh five-year-old niece oh the embroidery little embroidery which kind of has a mermaid she’s got wings um and just like a couple of sequences i like as well it’s like just you know like weak cuts of purple and and blue so paula thought you’d enjoy a bit of embroidery so just really simple one um clinton patrick and again his one is more that kind of unseen unknown character because when you talk about the japanese uk sometimes they’re literally an inanimate object sometimes they can look almost human and sometimes it can be quite bizarre so i like that his was much more free in the way that was represented here we have an artist who bid on ebay for um something that was supposed to be made from a mabby’s hair right it was a brush on the internet so his kind of piece is um and he ordered it here it is in his home and he had done a residency in flax recently so he was over in belfast so it was just really nice to kind of have people’s work so um that was that one in particular was cool like you said about graphic artists yeah i have some graphic artists in here so we’ve got vanilla doran and we have um grace farley and then i think there was and molly henry in particular this kind of one too hmm as you can see you know there’s a real mixture of things um tomohiro tomahiro to also been to flax on a residency t and it’s weird because now that i’ve been in japan i’ve seen these kind of you know this is just outside a shop somewhere but i just love as well that it’s got it’s got the mask on so this is kind of like an everyday image someone who could have stumbled across this kind of um amazing kind of sculpture and then it being put with like there’s a kind of scroll to my bed it almost looks spry painted but obviously done on photoshop or something beside it so it just supposed in the tools i think is is really interesting definitely love these little guys with their masks so it is a real mixture of things so sometimes people made things in their homes some of them have done ink drawings or used like found objects like davies here um using hair um this is the image that i had mentioned before myself the kind of bummer hat on um so there’s kind of two in the series and i had actually taken these quite a while ago back in the america or back in the folk park i think it’s the one in belfast yeah so um is that the ulster folk and john smart museum yeah no one’s else’s [ __ ] transport museum so you can go there and there are often weavers i’ll kind of show you that and then if you want to look up mummers there is um different mummers groups from around think the main ones are in antrim and they still perform wedding ceremonies and do different things when i worked for um belfast photo festival a few years ago as a director we actually had an exhibition um by jim mcginn he actually went around and documented mummers over the years and looked at folklore but also looked at the traditional music he was very interested in traditional music so he has a lot of work that’s to do with those so i think that probably had placed it in my head originally um just looking at that um and then one little miniature performance um

this is just done over zoom oh actually we do have sign for this one let’s let’s try it again

so this and another worker kind of a gif so um what you have here is um she need brennan casuals doing a live performance on zoom to me and she has put in the background um like there’s a big kind of um mummified fish in the ulster museum so it’s in the background and you’ve got the ulster museum itself so she’s put on kind of like a sequined top um a nice long wig and has like a duck bake so she’s kind of wiggling around kind of as if she’s looking at herself you know um which i think is really sweet it’s kind of like just reminds me of the internet it’s like a weird kind of tick tock but an artistic tick tock or something um just really simple um which is nice so um and then we have some ceramic pieces like chris’s um here and then the more irish one um jim rick’s was one of the first ones but this was the kind of ones i was hoping for this kind of amalgamation of irishness as well and so he’s kind of muggy mutant various um kind of characters um and jim ricks is a he’s an irish um oh forgotten the name

he lives in america but he’s an irish i wrote this down didn’t i yeah he’s an irish conceptual artist so um yeah so that’s kind of examples i haven’t got all of the work up and the last one i’ll show you is my piece apart from so i have the irish piece which is the two photographs together and then this one is a drawing that i made and it was just that kind of like cathartic drawing and because i i like tracing things and drawing them over and over again and getting them really simplified but then whenever it’s locked down and you have to like stick it to your window it’s like coming through you know trying to draw it i kind of like that lockdown process i had because then you’ll have people here who yeah maybe you can’t go out and and make things i was surprised we did get as many ceramic things as possible so some of the artists might have changed to video pieces and we also have fantastic one um by amy mcgee and she has and i’m going to use it as the opening piece for when you go into the exhibition and it’s a video piece and she’s made puppets and she tells you dma by story and it’s just absolutely stunning wow really nice so i’ll hope by the date where we do hopefully show it i will have all of them online at the moment that’s just most of them and we also have um this have a video of how to make your own amabe by a japanese artist azuri um and that it’s about 15 minutes long so we have to just kind of uh link over to that and so he makes a little paper and a where the little bake is kind of in the paper and you can make her talk say whatever you like okay so you can see like it’s already such a wide range of work and there’s still more to come yes so you mentioned um a hopeful exhibition as do you have any more detail on that at the moment or um what do you know what can you tell us sure so um pollen studios uh based in belfast um had offered to do the exhibition with us so and um quite a few of the pollen artists all submitted as well so um they’ve been really tight knit with us on the project and with current lockdown methods there are some galleries are currently open at the moment but maybe some of the larger um organizations like the mac and the golden thread gallery and for pollen then um people will probably do it by appointment we’ll have an opening hopefully november 5th which is usually like a late night art where people come out um and we have we’ll have all the safety measures in place and you can basically book like an appointment to come along so i’ll probably put you know some weekend dates in and an evening each week that people can come along throughout november fingers crossed and um if it does get put back because naturally that’s what’s happening at the moment you know it’s kind of part of the project yeah in a way because the project was made during lockdown and it means that if you have to book in for an appointment see it it’s almost becoming a performance you know you’re becoming part of the exhibition by able by being able to come along and of course then with people who especially aren’t able to uh for health and safety purposes and things come out i will have the instagram up and i’ll maybe kind of do a bit more of like um an exhibition online and kind of look at that just for kind of access to make sure and especially for the japanese artists as well that they can kind of see all the work together and for my previous shows i always kind of shoot a video where i can talk through things and just means then that people who can come can still feel connected to it and um do you think you’ll have a lot of the physical works there or will it be you know because there’s quite a lot of sculpture for example um so would it be photographs of those or will the actual workspace and do you think to show so i’ve contacted each of the artists and kind of just had a chat with them and as well like i’m kind of self-funding this and i don’t have any funding for it but obviously i’ve been supported by the arts council for years so i don’t mind you know contributing some especially my own time but also some resources so i have a small budget for kind of contempo temporary prints um for some things and then a lot of the local artists i’m able to kind of go and collect the work but i just kind of ask the artist you know what way they want it shown because some of the video works obviously will go on screens and which particular one the beaver that i mentioned um which is lovely um it’s a gif and i think it would look really nice on on a tablet or on a phone so it’s kind of displayed in the way it was meant to be viewed but yes especially as japanese artists obviously i give them the opportunity if they want to post it they can post it over and i’ll return it but you know we don’t have unfortunately enough budget to kind of get that over um but we’ll be able to reprint some of those so especially like a zoo um which isn’t a zoo and the work that had the um amabe hair object don’t want to lose that on getting it posted over so um i think a print of the two beside each other so like the internet um image of it being sold and then the image of it in the house i think together would look really nice so um actually we will have quite a lot of the artists um are up for having the drawings or the ceramics physically there and then the rest of the stuff then we’ll kind of print um maybe in like a temporary manner or i thought about have mine displayed on the window because i’ve i do often have window drawings so i think it would work really well as a window drawing as well so you know the work will change a bit in the space too

and then i suppose you it must be a factor now you have to figure out how many people you can have in a space and how far apart your things you know that sort of stuff has to maybe be considered now as well in poland’s not a huge space so that’s quite complicated yeah i think it’s kind of um well then again in the millennium court art center that i went to recently it was like one bubble per half an hour so and then it would be frequent cleaning and things like that but because i’m coming from a venue i’m already used to doing that currently for my job and work so i’m very aware of all the exciting terms and conditions and health and safety policies um all over that so i can make it as safe as possible okay well fingers crossed that can go ahead but as you say even if it’s delayed it just adds more time and possibly more overlooking from the email base to help us out hopefully i know come on guys

um that’s brilliant joanna thank you so much for that um do you is um

before i ask anything else um shall we because we had those links of scream but just for the audio and do you want to point people just towards where to see these sure at the moment no worries so to find out more about the exhibition so it’s joannaleach.com and that’s spelt

j-o-h-a-n-n-a-l-e-e-c-h and then um you can do forward slice forward slash amabe so a m a b i e and on instagram it’s a mabe underscore project and that shows you all of the stuff that we’ve came in so between the two of those we’ll kind of have all the details we hope that we’ll create a facebook invitation page soon enough so otherwise um if you follow pollen art studios on facebook and they will then have that online i also have a facebook artist like page so if you just search for my name that i spelt earlier on um you’d be able to just kind of like my page and then those updates for things like the events and stuff will come up as well um i suppose just on this i mean how do you feel about exhibitions going online more and more because i’m personally loving it because it means i can see stuff in belfast and i’m stuck here in newcastle so um but how are you personally finding that and feeling about that as an artist i think it’s good and my previous um solo exhibition that i mentioned before um it was in millennium court arts center and it’s only you know about 40 minutes from belfast i think 40 minutes to half an hour away from belfast city center but there’s so many people who can’t drive um you’re artists mainly um i you know i didn’t learn how to drive until i was 30. so there’s just kind of there’s a lot of people here although it’s not that far away and on our transport system isn’t great that actually i realized even when i was doing an exhibition that was just outside of belfast um i did a recorded walk around of my exhibition which was called wanderlust and fantastic oddities so if anyone wants to look up you know what the work that i kind of described that showed a lot of my work was kind of like a little survey of everything i’ve done so far they can look it up online and there is like i have like a ton of photographs really good documentation and then just a little walk around with me with video and then that’s great because i can share that to people and i have artists that i work with in the states and you know even then all the people who are in belfast that just couldn’t get so there are you know three other reasons can have access to it and i think you know i discovered that before lockdown how important that was and i think it continues to be very important because there’s also even times where i maybe go to an art exhibition opening and you’re too busy kind of chanting whoever’s with you having a glass of wine and it’s quite busy and then you’re kind of like oh you know i’ll go back and then i’ll sit with the work or i’ll look at it for longer and sometimes you just don’t get that opportunity so i think the more that arts and things can go online i think it’s great but it doesn’t take away from that actual experience because a few weeks ago i mean i’ve been self isolating um quite a lot and working from home and um i just decided that when the mac reopened i went to see the exhibition at the mac and again you booked into a certain slot and it’s a huge space so you know it’s it’s a bit safer than maybe going to a small kind of gallery space and i also went to the golden thread to see their show um on the same trip and it just is like there’s no way like that buzz and feeling of going to a gallery you know it’s not as if you know all virtual stuff is going to make it worse or people won’t go out to galleries if they can look at it online that you never nothing can change that idea of just the silence of the space the concentration on an artwork the experience of the artwork being out of your house just you know you can’t you can’t it was just such an amazing experience it almost felt like i was going to a church and it was my religious experience like that’s that’s what it felt like for me was getting back into gallery and just gave my heart that little extra beat that i needed that’s you know like i think seeing art um in person will never be diminished essentially what i think yeah now that’s good to hear or is that very romantic romanticized yeah no it’s no it sounds good i totally understand you mean i imagine i’ll feel the same when i feel able to go to a gallery again um but for now it’s just not really for me and um but yes i i know the space as well that you’re talking about so i can just imagine it and it would be a bit i can imagine it would be a bit safer because they are really big rooms that you’re in um but also it must be nice to have peace in them because they’re only letting so many people in at the one time so that must be quite a nice element of it as well you feel like you have maybe a more intimate experience possibly yeah and i hope that’s what maybe the mabae project would be like because then if there’s people like you both of us are saying you know we don’t want to be you know gallivanting around with um everything that’s happening in the world right now whereas if i knew that it was just myself and my bubble going to a place for a specific time we know people have claimed it and you go in see the art and go away and like you said and have that piece to experience and for as long as you want um i think it’s really nice and um if it’s okay and you did mentioned about working at the strand art cinema as well so you’re used to that is it okay if i just ask you quickly about how that’s going and sure you know the cinema experience because that’s quite similar it’s another sacred art space that we need to protect and um how is that experience are you finding of working at a cinema but also people coming to that cinema again

like i think from i kind of had to make it kind of you know oh welcome back to the strand covert video um just to put out on social media just so people knew the experience and i mean like as far as any kind of covered procedures and things like we have every every box ticked and more you know we’ve changed our screen in times where it is and people coming in and out of the building and there’s um like special cleaning that we have like a fogger machine that antibacterializes the seats and everything never mind then you know just having cleaning stations and cleaning more so we we have that all kind of ticked so i actually have been to a few screenings while two screenings since lockdown because i know the strand is as clean as it can be and also we’re a small cinema and we’re in a rural space we’re not the city center so we’re never super busy anyway and then with we’re not particularly busy but it just means that you can book exactly where you’re sitting you’re socially distanced and so i was able to i went and saw tannen and um the other event i went to was a global film screening um which we’re doing at the moment and it was with green book and then we kind of had a discussion on kind of black lives matters and um different things like that so if yeah just give me that buzz because you know we’re kind of you know a vintage cinema um designed in 1935 so that kind of encompassing kind of red curtain feel and you’re sitting in half back seats and the experience is just so lovely and just being immersed in the film because i just thought no matter how many times i’ve watched inception um boogers for nolan i’ve forgotten half the time what happens in it and it’s because i just kept on watching it at home a few times or maybe had a glass of wine can’t remember the ending very well so it meant that with tenant i had that full attention span i went in no one not it it’s christopher nolan and you know there’s gonna be questionable things about it too but it’s gonna be an amazing cinematic experience so i did feel like i kind of said there maybe it’s because of my previously religious background but that kind of i’m that ultimate buzz of being like in your synagogue you know it’s like you know the room itself and the space and and just being spread out and and the feeling of being feeling safe because um people around you are further enough away and you just get to switch off and fully enjoy a film and i notice so many more things in green book than i did watching it at home because i missed it and the first kind of cinema release there was a few times with things i was like oh oh that’s not and i was like doing the talk afterwards like i was like i was noticing things more and i’m supposed to know more about the film so yeah i disagree if you’d like you know the experience of being innocent is never going to take away from watching those you know films on on netflix and whatever yes it is great that those um platforms are there so in the global film screenings i’ve made it that you can go on to the strands website and you can read like a resource about your green book so it has the recording of us doing the talk it also tells you that you can watch green book on amazon prime so i’ve kind of make packages afterwards and make it accessible to people who can’t go so they can still feel like they’re part of it so they can watch green book from the link and then um obviously they would need to you know pay for that or have amazon prime but then i would recommend and give links to the films that we mentioned in the talks because you always forget when you’re listening to something like that brilliant so i have resources of different films that are good to watch like moonlight um and then i have a connection with belfast which talks about frederick douglass who um you know would have been one of kind of the main people to kind of abolish slavery and he had been the belfast and that connection i had read an article about it in 2012 so i was able to like place that too so we’re in the strand we go beyond film sometimes and with special events then i can still bring in an online audience or i just give people that chance to go what was that film she was watching and then i can tell them about the original grain book and how it really was for americans um and you know recommended documentaries and stuff so um i think you should get get out there and support your local spaces if we can all stay open you know they’re closed in the south at the moment so um it’s good to support those spaces but uh not you’ll never get over that kind of cinema experience or um my partner was telling me oh we were talking about vr and he said you know you can get vr which makes you be in a cinema and then it projects your netflix film oh yeah but you have to wear a really heavy headset and you can’t it’s the smell of it too it’s other sensory things it’s the way the light is it’s the way the sound kind of almost hugs you because it’s um soundproofed and it’s all of those things you know it’s when the lights go down it’s like oh you know give a ticket you know he had all those things like um like i think uh there’s uh i was gonna say um mark cousins always talks about the romanticism the cinema but in the way he kind of describes it you know um like on how he he likes it i think he’d say like sitting in the front seat is it in a front row i like sitting in the front i like just ignoring if there’s other people i like feeling like i’m there by myself and it’s just for me with the big screen exactly well if people go to this round you might be um very small amount of people there and it will fill it likes your own screen if i could get your feedback probably exactly but the feedback you know from customers when i did that covered video and i got a couple of voxpos was one of them was like a guy who was a film student and um he was just desperately back he’s like i’ve been three times this week it’s like oh it’s so lovely and then you know it’s weird because the family audiences haven’t really came back so i think families have got so used to being in lockdown and getting to schedules i think you know i’m hoping there’ll be a time where those guys are able to come back and enjoy themselves and that bit of you know your parent as well okay you might be watching a kid’s film but you know your kids are going to be quiet hopefully beside you for an hour and a half enjoy it you know take the time for yourself to watch a movie and and enjoy it yeah it’s just worrying with so many outbreaks and skills at the moment so it’s very worrying to take children anywhere i think at the moment that’s one of the things but yeah we just have to find a way to help cinemas survive i think if we can yeah um and i think well the strand is spoiled because we’re supported because we are a charitable organization we’re supported by the arts council so loyalty burned

well just compared to maybe some of the other independents um who you know like my wage is funded by the arts council because i’m doing all this outreach and whenever it was locked down i was doing online videos and events and supporting artists and pain artists so we can kind of do that and we’re a bit luckier than some of the other spaces that might just be going on on solely the income they got in the door

right um is there anything else you would like to say put out there or anything before we go well no i think we’ve already talked about it so i had mentioned my website so if people want to see my work because they can save the exhibition at millennium court which kind of encompasses all of that and yeah keep an eye out for the amabe stuff you can get um most of a sneak break you get on the instagram at the moment there is most of the work there and so yeah so um just thanks so much paula for having me on the chat it’s been really good brilliant yeah no thank you for doing it it’s brilliant i’ve been following the project with interest and it’s such a lovely idea because it is just that idea of care and something looking after you but also a collection of people who are all spread out they’re all dispersed coming together to work on something like this it’s a really beautiful things it’s a lovely thing to be able to highlight and put out there really so thank you very much for showing us so much of the work it’s wonderful no problem

this has been a cosy pea pod production with me paula blair and my very special guest johanna leech the music is common grounds by airton license under a 3.0 non-commercial attribution and is available from ccmixter.org episodes release every other wednesday and you can get those anywhere that you find podcasts but also you can subscribe to my own personal youtube channel if you find pea blare you can see the full recordings now that we’ve been doing the video versions as well do please share and subscribe to help other people find the show be part of the conversation with av cultures pod on instagram and iv cultures on twitter and facebook we’re always happy to hear from potential guests so if you’ve got an idea for a show or something that you’re working on that you’d really love the world my tiny bit of the world to hear about then please do get in touch i’d really love to hear from you and if i’ve invited you and i haven’t heard back from yet i’ve got an open door policy so there’s it’s never too late and um everybody’s really busy and stressed so don’t worry about it um i’m always also happy to have suggestions from listeners about topics that you something that you think you’d like to hear us try to cover i do try to make those and i do keep a list um there are loads of suggestions that have been in the past i haven’t got to yet just because i haven’t been able to access this stuff and that is partly where your support comes in so even if you want to send us a dvd or access to something that you’d like us to see that would be really helpful so i do wear all the hats in the making of this program and um so if you could support my work and you there are the memberships and patreon as described earlier on but you can also drop me a fiver at buy me a coffee dot com forward slash p e a blair or you can give any amount so like a pound or something if that’s all you want to give at paypal dot me forward slash p e a blair and just anything at all really really helps so huge thanks for joining us i hope you really enjoyed this i loved making this episode keep well stay safe and as ever be excellent to each other and i will catch you next time