Gilded Chaos by Benjamin Murphy

After The Day After

Artist Rowan Newton interviews artist Benjamin Murphy ahead of his striking new body of work Gilded Chaos, showing at Beers London soon!

Gilded Chaos
Preview: Thursday 14 January 6-9pm
Exhibition: 15 Jan.- 13 Feb 2016

Why have you chosen electrical tape as your medium? When did this begin, and do you feel restricted by it?

I did it after a few too many beers one night around 6 years ago whilst I was doing an MA in Contemporary Fine Art at The University of Salford. I like it because of its limitations I suppose. There are no books about ‘how to draw with electrical tape’, so any techniques or solutions I need I have to work out for myself. 

Why do you always use black tape, as electrical tape comes in other colours too?

All of my work is black and white, even when I’m not using tape. It’s a much bolder and more striking aesthetic, the world is multicoloured and anything black and white stands out in contrast to it.

Your pieces have a confliction between life drawing and still life.  Often a nude study is at the forefront but in a staged environment with many still life objects dotted around in the background. What do you prefer, the still life or the life, and what is it that interests you about the both of them? 

I always have the ‘still life’ elements in the background, as a way of suggesting possible storylines for the main character of the artworks. They are both important but the background detail is only there as a way to add extra potential narritive for the subject.

What is your reason for so much pattern work within your pieces, is this because it looks pretty, or because it is a challenge to recreate such intricate pattern work; or is there something else to it? 

It is partly just a way of challenging myself and pushing my limits, and partly because I decided to make this new body of work as detailed and lavish as possible to resonate with the show title. (Gilded Chaos).

“I want to leave the works ‘meaning’ up to the viewer to determine”

There is a strong narrative to your work, is the message a direct one you wish to tell, or is it for the viewer to interpret for themselves? 

I’m always careful to suggest multiple possible meanings and messages, but in a way that their interpretations are multifarious. I believe in the pluralism of interpretation, as any viewer who looks at an image will see it in a different way. So for this reason I want to leave the works ‘meaning’ up to the viewer to determine. I like to hint at things, but ultimately I feel that most of the work should be done by the viewer.

Is there room for you in the art world for just pretty looking art, art work that is just there to be enjoyed for its attractiveness but not so much trying to convey a message? 

There definitely is a place for it, but I find that it doesn’t hold my attention for as long as works with more substance to them than their surface aesthetic. Craftsmanship on its own isn’t really enough without something else. 

Constanza

Within your narrative there are regular motifs that pop up, skulls, crucifixes but the one that stands out to me in the toilet roll, talk to me about toilet roll?

I thought that that particular work needed something that was almost plain white in the center to balance the image, and so my first idea was a skull. The vase of flowers and the urn obviously both already have strong death connotations so a skull would have been overkill. As it looks like it is in some kind of funeral parlor or something the toilet roll seems to fit in, also there’s something darkly comical about it, which I like.

Will we see toilet roll in this show?

Yes the toilet roll one is in the show, it’s called ‘In Praise Of Darkness’. It’s titled after a short story by Jorge Luis Borges, who has been a big inspiration for the show.

There is a play with perspective in your work, the angles of chairs not quite lining up with angle of the shelf or the bed or the table etc. What do these mean for you? 

My use of perspective is quite important and people rarely pick up on it, so I’m glad you have.

Perspective is utilized by the artist to transform a two-dimensional plane into a three-dimensional space. This brings the viewer beyond the frame and into the artwork, as what is seen in the foreground is imagined (through the use of foreshortening etc.) to be at the front of the image. Perspective in a two-dimensional image is an illusion, and its immobile vanishing points is something that is never seen in nature. This already makes the artwork static and artificial, before the subject matter is even considered. 

Perspective can be utilized to create feelings of unfamiliarity and otherness when used in the right way. When I draw the person in the artwork, they are seen from below, as if the viewer of the work is looking up at them. This is drawn in a contradictory way to the one in which I draw the background, as the background is seen as if the viewer were above it. 

This imbalance in perspective is what creates the subtle but very real sense of unease in the viewer, as it is not immediately noticeable to be the source of the uneasiness. This difference in perspective creates two ‘artificial’ viewpoints that occur from every singular ‘real’ viewpoint.

“Like a pop-up book, the character in the artwork is forced out of the confines of the frame and into the real world”

The way that the subject and background are seen creates the illusion that the subject is in fact a giant in their surroundings, and is much closer to the viewer than they appear, and that they aren’t really situated in the background at all, but on the viewers side of the frame. By placing objects in between the viewer and subject, the subject is then forced back into the background slightly, back into the picture.

Like a pop-up book, the character in the artwork is forced out of the confines of the frame and into the real world. The person depicted in the artwork is brought into the real world, and not the viewer into the artwork as is created with the correct perspective.

These techniques with perspective deny the viewers eyes from properly feeling that they can enter and explore the artwork fully, which the perspective appears at first glance to invite.

Which artists have influenced/inspired you with there use of perspective in their work?

I’m a big fan of the expressionists, many of whom do their perspective a little off; especially Vincent Van Gogh.

There is a voyeuristic nature to your work, as if you’re looking into private moments, what intrigues you about these moments? 

The work is voyeuristic in a sense, but it is intended in a totally non-sexual way. I am careful to make the subject non-sexualised and non-passive in her surroundings. It is more like the viewer is voyeuristically looking at someone going about their daily lives, but in no way are the subjects naked for the pleasure of the viewer. If anything seedy is going on it is the fault of the viewer and not the subject of the artwork.

I like the subtlety of how uneasy this makes the viewer feel. 

Do you feel now that we as people are being observed in voyeuristic manner, as we expose ourselves almost daily on social media, especially Instagram?

I suppose we are, but we put ourselves out there to be looked at. No one can see anything you don’t first decide to post. Instagram and facebook are inherently narcissistic, but then being an artist requires you to be a bit of a narcissist to begin with. 

Are you ok with that or do you feel you have to do it to help build your audience and try and connect with them on a more intimate level. If you did not have your artwork to expose, would you be on social media? 

I think I probably would still be on it, but I wouldn’t take it anywhere near as seriously.

More often than not your subjects are naked, is this to do with vulnerability? There are also kinky aspects to your work, corsets, suspenders, knives, are you turned on by your work? Is there a sexual releases for you in your work? Who are these women and do these settings exist? 

It is more to do with innocence than vulnerability in my mind. Lingerie and underwear tend to be sexy in a coquettish way, by suggesting that which they conceal. For me those items are more of a way in which to cover up something, which in turn is a way of making the work not so much about sex. I don’t like to draw fully naked character as its tough to have them still appear tasteful and non-sexualised.

What frustrates you about your art and the art world around you? 

The only real times I get frustrated with my work is when I can’t find time to be drawing, or when I’ve been drawing for so long that I can’t tell what works and what doesn’t. In the art world in general I’m most frustrated by the continuous rehashings of pop art that are so ubiquitous these days, Pop Art ceased to be interesting a long time ago.

Face to face how do you find talking about your work, is it something you are comfortable with, or shy away from?

I don’t mind it so much, I find that I often talk too fast and go off on tangents for far too long though. I’m much more coherent when I’m writing it down.

You have a solo show at Beers Contemporary coming up. What is the theme of this show and have you approached it any differently to past shows? 

I’m really excited about showing with Beers, they are a great gallery and have been amazing to work with this far. To be even listed as one of their artists is an honor.

There isn’t a theme as such, but all the works relate to one another in some way. There is a lot of detailed floral pattern running throughout the works, partially inspired by William Morris. These works have taken a lot longer to produce than the works for my previous shows, due to the level of detail et cetera. This in turn has meant that as I’m working for much longer, my inspirations are all the more myriad. 

What was the biggest challenge to putting this show together? 

The level of detail has been a big challenge, as the smaller you go the more difficult it is. It’s also hard to spend days drawing the same pattern over and over, it makes you go a little insane.

What do you want people to walk away with once seeing this show? 

I want people receive so many different and contradictory thoughts and emotions that they don’t fully understand them until they go away and ruminate on them. I also want the show to have a lasting impact in some way, be it positive or negative. Anything as long as it isn’t ambivalent.

Benjamin Murphy

Beers London

Rowan Newton

The story of painting rascal Ide André

“Everyone can say what they want, but I do hope that my work comes across as fresh, dirty, firm, crispy, dirty, clean, fast, strong, smooth, messy, sleek and of course cocky.” – Ide André

Somewhere between the concrete walls of the Institute of the Arts in Arnhem, a talented kid with a big mouth and an urge to paint was bound to challenge perspectives. Years later, he found himself rumbling in his atelier, experimenting with ideas and creating things out of chaotic settings. With a determined attitude and an open mind, he managed to turn everything into a form of art. Some people liked his work, some people questioned it; either way it got attention. Right now, he’s working on several projects all exploring the relationship between painting and everyday life with the carpet (yes, the carpet, I told you this guy can turn anything into art piece) as main subject. His work is a reflection of his personality: bold, impulsive, fun and with a fair amount of attitude. He however likes to use a couple more words when describing his own work. This is the short version of his biography, the end of my version of his story. If you prefer a more authentic one here’s the story in the artist’s words:

I once saw a show of Elsworth Kelly when I was a child. The enormous series of two-toned monograms clearly made a big impression on me. I remember staring with my mouth wide open at the big coloured surfaces. I’m not that much of a romantic soul to say that it all started right there, but it did leave an impact on me. I actually developed my love for painting at ArtEZ. I started out working with installation art and printing techniques, but I was always drawn to the work of contemporary, mostly abstract painters, until I actually became fascinated about my fascination with abstract painting. Because, let’s be honest here, sometimes it seems quite bizarre to worry about some splotches of colour on a canvas. Even though painting has been declared dead many times over, loads of people carry on working with this medium no matter what; from a headstrong choice, commitment or just because they can’t help it. I am clearly one of those people, and that fact still manages to fascinate me.

At ArtEZ you talk so much to your fellow students, teachers and guest artists, little by little you kind of construct your own vision on art. And that’s a good thing! All this time you get bombarded with numerous opinions, ideas and assignments, some of them (as stubborn as we are) that seemed useless to us and weren’t easily put on top of our to-do-list. Until there is that moment you realise that you have to filter everything and twist and turn it in your own way. Then there is that epiphany moment. That moment you realize you can actually make everything your own. I think that’s the most important thing I’ve learned during University: giving everything your own twist and constantly questioning what you are doing, subsequently always struggling a little bit but still continue until the end. Like an everyday routine.

I’m not going to enounce myself about the definition of art. That would be the same thing as wondering what great music is or good food. I think it’s something everyone can determine for themselves. I do think it is interesting to ask myself how an artwork can function and what it can evoke. There is this exciting paradoxical element within art. On the one hand we pretend that art should be something that belongs to humanity, something that is from the people, for the people; on the other hand is the fact that art has its own world, its own domain where it can live safely, on its own autonomous rules, and it doesn’t have to be bothered by this cold, always speculating world. There are pros and cons about both sides, and I think it’s impossible to make a work of art that solely belongs to one of the two worlds. As Jan Verwoert, Dutch art critic and writer, words it: “Art as a cellophane curtain”. Without getting too much into it (otherwise I’m afraid I’ll never finish this story), there is this see-through curtain between the two worlds. The artist is looking at the outside world through his work, and the outside world looks at the artist through his work. That’s how I see art and how I approach it.

My work often comes about in various places, with my studio as a start and end point. I buy my fabric at the market and from there the creative process really starts. I print on them, light fireworks on them with my friends, or sew them together with my mother at the kitchen table in my childhood home. I try to treat all these actions as painting related actions. Like a runner that goes to the running track on his bike; we could ask ourselves: is he already exercising running? On an average atelier day, I toil with my stressed and unstressed fabrics, chaotically studded around the room. Usually I don’t have a fixed plan. My process is semi-impulsive and comes from an urge. Often this causes little and mostly unforeseen mistakes, these ‘mistakes’ often prove to be an asset in the next project.

As for the future, (Lucky for me) I don’t own a crystal ball, so I wouldn’t dare to make predictions. And quite frankly I wouldn’t want to know. Young collectives, initiatives and galleries keep popping up and I think we continue to grow more and more self-sufficient. Of course there is that itch of our generation to always learn more, do more; an urge that I believe will never disappear, also not within myself. I will stubbornly continue to work on the things I believe in. Not because it offers me some sort of security (most of the time it’s the opposite)­­ but because I just can’t help it.

­

 Ide Andre

ArtEZ

Alexandra Uhart – real stories through the power of image

Since the last month of my masters, I’ve transformed my home into my temporary studio. I live in a newly built flat with big white walls, two of which at the moment are covered in photographs, sketches, sticky notes and diverse research material that I have been gathering for my latest work “Someone here”. I’m sitting at what used to be the dinning table, and now transformed into a desk. I have a laptop, books, a couple of pens and a glass of water in front of me. From here I face the window. It’s raining heavily outside, I’m happy to be working in today. If I were to photograph this, I would set up my camera on a tripod and shoot the scene from behind me. The photograph would capture me facing the window from across the table, showing the artist behind the work and the process behind the photos. I would maintain a certain mystery by facing away from the camera, giving the viewer an opportunity in doing so to connect the dots and make up their own story about the scene.

ROOMS' long time photographer Alexandra Uhart has just completed her Photography Masters at the London College of Communication, and her series Someone Here is the Winner of the Photoworks Prize 2015. With a mission to document real life, and an execution that is unique and compelling in every way possible, Alexandra stole our hearts and will soon devour yours too. 

When did you know you wanted to be a photographer?

Photography has always been a passion of mine. My first camera was given to me on my 9th birthday. It was a little Ninja Turtles themed film camera, which took photos that had a Ninja Turtle stamp in the right corner of every print. I remember photographing my toys with it; organizing them in groups and posing them amongst very elaborate settings. As I grew up and upgraded my photo equipment, I started photographing my friends. I would spend the afternoons borrowing make-up and clothing from my mom and styling photo shoots with them as models.

However it didn’t occur to me to study photography until years after I left college. I tried being traditional at first and went to law school for a couple of years, quickly realising that it was not for me. After that I decided to study Aesthetics. I really enjoyed it but I wasn’t sure where it would take me, since I felt like something was missing. It was not until I moved to Paris in 2009 that I decided to pursue photography, realising I wanted to be the one creating and not just theorising about other people’s creations.

Where do you go for inspiration?

I think everything can inspire me at a certain moment; inspiration can come from so many different places and I go and search for different things depending on the work that I am looking to produce. I would normally start by doing some research on an idea and moving forward from there. The truth is reality can be immensely inspiring.

When is a scene good enough to be captured?

I think every scene is good enough to be captured, depending on what you’re looking for. My work comes from a documentary and street photography tradition, from capturing the life around me and trying to understand it through images.

I’m motivated by humanity; how we interact with each other and with our environments. In my latest series “Someone Here” I’ve focused on different aspects of our current struggles with the environment. In this media-driven world that we live in, photography has the opportunity to be shared easier and faster than ever before, making photography an invaluable channel of communication in raising awareness. What we choose to photograph can actually make a difference in the world.

“What we choose to photograph can actually make a difference in the world.”

Your portraits have a very authentic feel to it. Tell me something about your process of shooting portraits. What is your goal, and how do you achieve it?

I really enjoy taking portraits. Most of the ones I shoot are set in people’s studios or houses, which helps give the photograph a more intimate feeling. However, the camera can be very invasive so it’s very important for me to make my subjects feel at ease quickly. My goal is to reveal something about them, to show an aspect of their personality. I have to say that the most important part of the process happens before taking the photo. I do my research, I prepare everything. Then I go to their homes or their working spaces. Once I get there I talk to them while setting up my equipment. I love getting to know people, having the opportunity to capture something special about them with my images.

I’m fascinated by your photo series 'mind trap'. It conveys however a very different style and feeling than the work you did in the beginning of your career. Can you tell me something about the concept?

‘Mind Trap’ was one of my first incursions into fine art photography. After years of working in more commercial areas of photography, I decided it was time to explore my personal interests and move to a setting that would allow me to freely express my views. I created this series when applying for the Photography MA at LCC. My inspiration came from a deep concern I have for our environment and its species. In the past years we hear of an increasing number of animals that are going extinct due to our careless appropriation and treatment of their ecosystems; with these images I aimed to mirror the way in which people have been confining them into man-made spaces where they don’t belong.

Any exciting projects in the future?

I just finished working on my new series “Someone Here” a documentary exploration of the Atacama Desert in Chile, where the rise of the mining industry has led to an alarming environmental detriment. As a Chilean artist, I think it is important for me to show the stories of my country and help raise awareness of its problems. I am currently exhibiting this work at LCC College as part of the MA Photography show. I’m thinking of creating a book with the body of work and some of the research that led to the creation of this project in the near future.

Since film is an area that I have also always been very interested in, I am eager to start working on a collaborated film project with Chilean-Swiss director Nicolas Bauer that will be shooting in Miami next year.

After that, I see myself continuing on the path I am now: combining fine art photography and film. However, as I evolve as an individual so will my way of looking at things and photographing them. It is essential to keep reinventing myself as an artist and photographer, but I hope to do this while still being faithful to what’s drawn me to photography in the first place: telling real stories through images, documenting life.

Alexandra Uhart

Dele Sosimi

Dele Sosimi stands out as one of the most active musicians presently on the Afrobeat scene worldwide. Here he talks about duty to Afrobeat, relentless performances and his latest CD.

His tutor and guru was one of the world’s most feted and controversial music icon - Fela Kuti, also known as Fela Anikulapo Kuti or simply  Fela - before his family, bandmates and friends and indeed the world was rocked by his passing on August 2, 1997, from  Kaposi's sarcoma which was brought on by AIDS. Nonetheless, this loyalist, representative and artist - Bamidele Olatunbosun Sosimi, known as Dele Sosimi, from teenage keyboard player for Fela Kuti's Egypt 80 to bandleader for his son Femi Kuti's Positive ensemble, was tutored and raised in Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s shadow and worked and travel around extensively with Fela around the world at the pinnacle of early 70s Afrobeat fever.  Picked by Fela to join his band at a somewhat tender age, he was still a young man when sharing Fela’s Glastonbury stage in 1984. But be that as it may, Dele Sosimi - born in Hackney, East London, raised in his native Nigeria from the age of four, refutes to slow down.  He is here and now one of the leading forces/important voices of Afrobeat holding fort the Afrobeat music on the Afrobeat scene internationally.

After Fela’s passing in 1997, Dele went on to concentrate on his solo career and, with meticulous endurance, sliced out his own Afrobeat trophy in London, where he now dwells. Totally, this Nigerian-British boy is done admirably well.  Sosimi has helped define the sound alongside some of its most iconic figures – he is an inspiration to many.  Check this out:   Vocalist? Tick.  Keyboard player? Tick.  Producer and Afrobeat giant? Tick.   And the founder of his own orchestra? Tick. In addition more recently he was the Musical Director & Afrobeat Music Consultant for the award winning musical FELA! Currently on a global tour. And what’s more?  Sosimi is an Afrobeat Composer, Producer, Musician, educator and instructor (via London School of Afrobeat) as a Visiting Lecturer at London Metropolitan University, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance - the UK's only conservatoire of music and contemporary dance and Cardiff University.

Once again an experience awaits with another marathon session (four-hour-non-stop) of keeping Afrobeat, the music, spirit & legacy of Fela Anikulapo Kuti alive in London at The Forge, Camden, UK

Saturday 28 November 2015.  The Dele Sosimi Afrobeat Orchestra are a gang that must be seen live in all its astounding fierceness. Dele is returning to London for his third Album lunch gig ‘You No Fit Touch Am,’ a 7-track collection of compositions – his third solo album and his first for 10 years that is immersed in socio-political messages and showcase classic 1970s Lagos song writing.  “You No Fit Touch Am” was recorded in London with a crew of long time players and producer Nostalgia 77 (Tru Thoughts) presenting a 21st century clarity to the mix. There's no silly compromises to the music here though, just a thoroughly modern sense of energy in the mix with an aptly heavyweight bass charisma.

Dele Sosimi: Afrobeat Vibration is my way of keeping Afrobeat music alive and accessible to Afrobeat music lovers and musicians in the UK bi-monthly, are creation of the spirit and ambiance of Fela's Afrika Shrine.

Why are you staging a four-hour-non-stop musical marathon? Why 4 hour non-stop and why the chosen venue? Can you really keep this up? 

Dele Sosimi: I stage it because it is a duty that must be done by me as an ambassador of the genre and culture. It is an experience hence it is 4 hours nonstop as we take you on a journey based on the repertoire selection for the night. We initially used the New Empowering Church in Hackney till November 2014 when the lease expired. Since then we used the Forge in Camden once before moving to Shapes in Hackney Wick May 24th 2015. We chose Shapes because it had the ambience size and potential for a late license till 5am. The importance! People or musicians who did not have the opportunity to listen to live afrobeat now have a regular bi-monthly platform that we have kept going for 7 years - last Saturday of January, March, May, July, September and November which is usually the anniversary month. We cover a wide range of Felas Classics and original new compositions featuring a wide range of guests and young musicians who have either attended one of my Afrobeat masterclasses or workshops. This year we are celebrating the 7th year of keeping it going.

Could you reveal names of guest stars contributing to this extravaganza on Friday November 28th? And what should fans expect?

Dele Sosimi: We never know who will turn up until the night itself bit we have had Tony Allen, PA Fatai Rolling Dollar, Cheick Tidiane Seck, Afrikan Boy, Breis, Shingai, Byron Wallen, to name a few.

Fans should expect to be delightfully Afrobeaten up.

You have a new album out - third album -”You No Fit Touch Am”. Tell us more about this album - and why the title; "You No Fit Touch Am?"? 

Dele Sosimi: Release earlier this year by WahWah45s on the 24th of May, the literal meaning is “You cannot touch it”.  On a conceptual level "the thing is too cool", "too tasty to be messed with", "you can't even come close", "and it is beyond you". "The jam just baaad", "don't look at it with common eye" with regards to what I do, what we do, the experience we provide, the spirit of music. Identity my 2nd Album was released 10 years ago, and I had made up my mind the third Album would have to wait for the right conditions, right record label at the right time with an offering of a clear development of the Afrobeat idiom, an important restatement of what Afrobeat is about, in the current scene where the term is used quite indiscriminately (and unfortunately confused with the rather more superficial “Afrobeats”). I strongly believe this is now the case.  Suffice to say its taken 10 years but once the record deal was in place from recording, production to release nine months as most of the songs had been written years ago. 

What is your message here?

Dele Sosimi: It depends on which angle you look at it from. Spiritually be open, tolerant and aware, appreciative and humble. Musically, there is a jewel of infinity contained here that will most likely be missed by many, who lack the ability to see the greatness in small things. On the other hand, beauty will be discovered and found here by many. Mainly the message draws attention to the state of things worldwide today with songs like "Na My Turn" (Elections worldwide with special attention on so called democracy in Africa pre and post elections) ~  “E go betta” (Despite facing abject poverty the admirable spirit of resilience and resolve to carry on and soldier on with the song of hope for a better tomorrow)~ “We siddon we dey look” – (Ferguson incidents, Boko Haram, ISIS and most recently Xenophobia) “Where We Want Be” (The intolerance prevalent in world society with the message being bring love back BIG TIME!) “Sanctuary”- (In line with Fela’s “Music is the weapon of the future” message. In this case music being the Sanctuary where you recharge your batteries to keep on) and “You No Fit Touch Am” as earlier indicated.

What drives Dele Sosimi?

Dele Sosimi: Breath, life, love and family drives Dele.

Dele Sosimi

Saturday 28 November 2015 
Shapes, London, UK
Shapes, 117 Wallis rd. Hackney Wick E9 5LN
Cost of Tickets: £10 Adv. £12 Otd

Tuesday 09 February 2016 
Kings Place, London, UK

Introducing: Nick JS Thompson

ROOMS presents: The Decline of Conscience by Nick JS Thompson

Curated by Benjamin Murphy | Hundred Years Gallery

19 - 25 Nov'15

The Decline of Conscience 

The Decline of Conscience

The Decline of Conscience

Nick is a photographer with a strong sense of social conscience, and his work is always both beautifully alluring and ethically charged. This duality is what balances his work perfectly in-between honest documentary photography and fine art.

Often his photographs show human-altered landscapes, long after the people charged with their intervention have left them behind. These ghostly but familiar images are both beautiful and almost frightening.

BM – Is photography a nostalgic art form, always documenting the past?

NJST – Not necessarily. For my work yes possibly; it is rooted in nostalgia. I create work that explores events that have happened in the past and what people’s actions have been. Maybe that is a nostalgic act but I still wouldn’t class my work as nostalgic. I think it depends on the type of photography though. Something like still life photography, which is created in the present with a certain purpose in mind, could be anything but nostalgic.

BM – Are photographers creating or recording a reality? And do you think you can do one without doing both?

NJST – That’s a hard one, I think both are true. Obviously if you are a photojournalist and covering a story, you should be recording reality as it happens or as it happened in the past. Photography is such a broad term that it encompasses things such as fashion photography where each situation is carefully controlled and created to evoke a particular emotion or put across an aesthetic which has been chosen by the photographer.

BM – Susan Sontag said that no two photographers can take the same photograph of the same thing, do you agree?

NJST – Yes I do, I think that even if two photographers are photographing the same scene at the same time the images will each be different. Every person has a different take on things, what their views are on the subject matter, and emotional insights, and biases that each person has. 

BM – How much control over the final image can the photographer actually claim, due to lighting changes, wind, shutter speed etc.?

NJST – Again this depends on what type of photography you are talking about. The phrase that Henri Cartier-Bresson coined is that of “the decisive moment” which he sums up by saying "the decisive moment, it is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression."  This is taking the chance events that are happening around you and trying to control them to the best of your ability in one image. This is true of documentary photography, or the street photography that Cartier-Bresson is famous for, but if you are creating a still life in a studio then you obviously have complete control of every aspect of the image.

Fanø

Fanø

BM – Should photographs only be viewed in print? As then the artist can control exactly how it is encountered. Screen brightness and quality affect how it is seen, is this a problem?

NJST – I definitely prefer people to see my work in print. Viewing work online also affects your concentration, people flick through thousands of images and don’t give them as much attention as they sometimes deserve. (I know I’m guilty of it.) It is very easy to become desensitized with an endless stream of images from your computer screen or smartphone. The display quality is also definitely an issue, presenting images, which have sometimes been compressed and the resolution reduced. These things can greatly influence and detract from the viewers experience with an image.

The sequencing of pictures in a series is also extremely important for me to tell the story that I want. In the digital world this is often lost; which is why the recent surge in self-published photo books, with people like Self Publish, Be Happy leading the way. I think that is an incredible thing.

BM – Do you think smartphones and the Internet have ruined photography?

NJST – With platforms such as Instagram, where images are presented in an endless list and shown on a small scale, on screen, like I said before I think has definitely affected photography in a negative way. I wouldn’t say that it had ruined it per se but the knock on affect for a new generation of photographers and artists viewing work in this format I’m sure will have repercussions down the line.

“it is really interesting to see how people alter things for purposes that maybe no longer matter or aren’t relevant any more”

Having said that, I think that digital has a place in the world of photography and obviously it is here to stay so we just have to look for ways to use it in different ways; to embrace it and use it in a way that compliments the technology.

BM – You take photos and make videos, what does photography have that video doesn’t?

NJST – They are such different disciplines for me. In my opinion, photography can be more powerful. A still image can be looked at for as long as you want, and is often seared into you brain. The length of time you can look at it and the attention you can give to it mean that it can have more of an impact.

Video for me is more of a whole atmosphere that can be created encompassing sound and images. This is more on par with a photo essay or series of images to make up a whole picture of events or what you want to portray.

BM – You take mainly portraits, but more specifically portraits within landscapes. What are the relationships between the two?

NJST – My work looks at the effect and marks that people have left on a landscape or surrounding. I think it is really interesting to see how people alter things for purposes that maybe no longer matter or aren’t relevant any more. My work on Fanø for example was documenting the huge number of bunkers that cover a small island off the coast of Denmark, built by the Nazi’s during WWII. Their purpose has completely changed, and they are obsolete. Their appeal to the viewer now is at first glance more aesthetic than functional, although they have undertones of what the original purpose was, and this adds a sinister layer of emotion to the work. Or the work that I have shot over the last few years around the Heygate Estate in South London, again is a record of how people have changed the environment in which they live and the constant changing of this for better or worse

The Decline of Conscience

BM – Are these the fine art photographs and your Cambodia ones more documentary?

NJST – Yeah, some of the work I shoot when I travel is more based in the traditions of documentary photography. The Fanø series is a lot more calculated and thought out over an extended period, where as the travel documentary photos are usually more off the cuff and going with the flow of what is happening around me at that particular time.

BM – Why do you choose to show the documentary works in a fine art setting?

NJST – Documentary work can definitely be shown in a fine art setting. It depends on what your thought processes are behind the images and work as a whole. For me, my work falls under fine art to an extent because of the ideas behind what I am trying to portray visually to people. I choose to show the work in a fine art setting because it gives me a space to explore the work and display the work exactly how I want it to be viewed instead of handing it over to a picture editor and letting them then edit and govern the work, possibly even changing its intended purpose to fit a particular agenda. I think it is maybe me being a bit of a control freak over the work and over people’s experience of viewing it.

BM – Do you think that once you have taken a photograph of something, that the act of you taking the photograph changes it forever or are you entirely a voyeur?

NJST – I like to think that it doesn’t change it, but I think possibly it does. It’s a question that I constantly ask myself. If you are going to enter a person’s personal space or environment to take a picture then I think that inevitably you are going to effect their behavior in some way. This is why I prefer to spend longer periods of time with people so that they become used to me being around and then almost forget that I am there. This is the ideal.

Phuomi

BM - Often your work is rather bleak, what is it about this kind of photography that attracts you?

NJST – For me it some of the most interesting human emotions are fear or distress. I don’t know what type of person this makes me (Laughs). They are extreme and when people are in these states it sometimes makes them behave in odd and interesting ways. For me putting myself in uncomfortable situations either as they are happening or after the event, pushes me to create work that reflect these extremes. 

I also find it interesting to see how viewers engage and react to work when confronted with images that are uncomfortable to look at.

BM – My favourite of your works are the empty rooms, what do you think these can say that a portrait can’t?

NJST – This links back to showing how people have altered their surroundings and the effect that this has on the atmosphere of a space. Vilhelm Hammershøi is a massive influence on my work, with his paintings of rooms with often-muted tones and somber ambiance.

It is documenting everyday life but when you take the people out of the image it slows things down for me, I can concentrate of the finer details of the scene that I think can be extremely telling in what that person is like. And this adds to it being a more complete picture.

Nick JS Thompson

The Decline of Conscience by Nick JS Thompson | facebook event

19 - 25 November at Hundred Years Gallery

Curated by Benjamin Murphy

Mr. Gresty : A brander in its most innovative interpretation

A brander by nature, an illustrator by heart, a curator by interest; but for everyone else just Mr. Gresty.

Being a designer for a multitude of companies, what makes you want to work with a brand?

A lot of my design work is branding start-up companies. I especially enjoy this area. Seeing the client’s excitement and enthusiasm towards my ideas and their new brand. I love working together on something like that, something new and fresh.

How would you describe your design identity and how does it show in your work for other companies?

I love to work with vibrant and positive colours and I always use a sense of humour and simple shapes in my work. In most cases my clients have seen other projects of mine and ask me to do my thing for them.

Tell us about the process of becoming the multitasking artist you are today.

I can’t let myself run out of things to do, if I do I feel lost. My system consists of working on all the commissioned projects first and then filling the gaps with all those personal projects. The variety of work keeps me stimulated.

You are a graphic designer, an illustrator, an author, a curator... How did you get involved with such a variety of work?

If I have an idea that in my opinion is worth trying, I’ll give it a go. As I work for myself and don’t have employees, I have the time and space to experiment. All those job titles share a characteristic; they are all creative solutions to a problem.

Many people say this is the future of the creative industry, the more you can do the higher you will get. Do you believe this is true?

I think that in the commercial world this could look good on a CV but on the other hand you can come across as a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. Some creatives will evolve their style and move on to the thing that they’re passionate about and pick up skills along the way. I believe I am one of those last creatives.

Working with typography a lot, what is your favourite font?

I don’t have one. Helvetica? No I don’t have one.

Is there a creative you are dying to work with?

I’ve never thought about it. To be honest I prefer to work on my own, but I am open to offers!

When did curating become a part of your career? What is it that attracts you to the field and what is the craziest idea you have ever had for an event?

In 2010, I started screen-printing and enjoyed it very much in Uni. I was in a bar in Clapton, Hackney, soon after speaking to the owner about the art on his walls, he said if I was interested I could put my work up! I said yes. At this point I had only created two typographic screen-prints. After a few solid weeks of printing lots of ideas from my sketchbook, I hung my first solo exhibition. Five years later and I’m getting ready to hang my 22nd exhibition. With the mixed exhibitions I enjoy seeing the variety of creative solutions to the same brief and like seeing my name in the line-up with artist who I admire.
The most creative and challenging exhibition was Whisper, based on the old game ‘Chinese Whispers’. I illustrated the first piece and gave it a title, I passed that title to the next artist and told them they could change the title slightly and that new title was their brief, then I passed their title to the next artist and so on!

You have been curating LHR exhibitions for the past two years. In your opinion, what is special about this 15th edition?

The 15th LHR Exhibition – The Things I Think About, When I Think About Thinking, has been the most open brief yet. I had been thinking about the mainstream media  and that if something is bland and non-threatening it does well. I have created a small handful of pieces over the last few years that I am happy with and others that I’m personally not keen on; I have noticed that these last ones sell really well and my favourite pieces not so much. So the brief was for the artists to submit their very own favourite personal piece, not following trends or public demand.

The LHR exhibitions have taken place in bars, the entrance doesn’t cost a penny and is open for everyone and the artists are as free as can be in the work they deliver. All these elements make for an experience that is everything but your everyday gallery stroll. What inspired you to create these events?

I wanted to be able to hang a collection of work, where lots of people would see it, hear about the artists and wouldn’t have to pay to see it. At the same time I wanted it to be available to purchase and when a piece sells for that artist to be able to keep 100% of the money. I don’t think a bar is the best environment for art but it helps me achieve the issue of cost. All it takes is some time and life is long, I have lots of free time!

The Things I Think About, When I Think About Thinking

November 6 - January 31, 2016 at The Hanbury

Line-up: Mr Gresty, Claire E Hind, Ian Viggars, Freya Faulkner, Shona Read, Emma Russell, VJ Von Art, Lee Bromfield, James Dawe, Jake Townsend, Wiktor Malinowski, Dan Buckley, Dan Huglife, Jeff Knowles, Dylan White, Simon Fitzmaurice, Steven Quinn, Ricky Byrne, Stina Jones, Silvia Carrus, Julian Kerr, Nathan James Page III, Sean Gall, Josh Bond, James Morley, Craig Keenan and Raiph Vaughan.

This is the 15th LHR exhibition and sadly my last. I will keep you posted.

LHR Exhibition curated by Mr Gresty. 2013 - 2015
gresty@mrgresty.com

Ilse Moelands : A touch of heart, a mark on paper

Dutch illustrator Ilse Moelands’ drawings awaken emotions in an utterly beautiful way. Freshly graduated, she’s on the verge of publishing a book and continues to translate her fascination for the Far North into stunning drawings.

Ilse Moelands: I’ve always doubted about my future and thus I had a lot of difficulties choosing the right study; would I become a doctor, an artist? I have always loved fashion and it’s influence on our culture and identity. To me fashion is about people and their characteristics and for a while I wanted to continue in that direction, ignoring the fact that I can’t sew at all. I thought I’d give it a go and ended up enjoying the drawing part the most. I wanted to draw all the time, so I decided to change studies and go for Illustration Design at ArtEZ. I like the directness of drawing and printing. Sewing and designing fashion is a much slower process. 

Tell me something about your drawing process.

Often my urge to draw awakens when I am fascinated or frustrated. Then my ideas flow out of me on paper. I like to draw when I am alone, because I really have to be focused and concentrated.

You use a lot of older techniques such as thinner press and lino press, this is quite unusual in our digital era. Why these techniques and how did you come in touch with them?

I like to start with something physical, so I can smell the material; I want to have paint and ink on my hands. I just love the imperfection. It’s not that I don’t like digital work. I think there are a lot of possibilities working digital, but it’s not my cup of tea. At the art academy we had a really nice printing workshop. During my last year I spent as much time as possible in the workshop experimenting with all kinds of techniques and became intrigued with the older ones.

Your work instigates deep emotions, from the love for family to shame and loneliness. Are these feelings you experienced yourself when working on your drawings?

Yes. I always start with a very strong emotion, because it’s the only way I can make satisfying images. I think the world is a weird, crazy place and making art is my way to deal with that. It’s like therapy. But I try to make my work for other people as well. Emotions are a good starting point, but I always try to twist it in a way, so a lot of people can relate to my stories and images.  

Where do your ideas come from and when is an idea good enough to execute?

People and their stories inspire me a lot. I am pretty hard on myself, so things aren’t good enough for me very easily. But I am still learning to let go of this perfection, and sometimes I overthink things and I stop myself from making art. But I always try to remember that small ideas can lead to big beautiful projects.

Talk to me about your fascination with the Far North, what is it that attracts you to it and inspires you to create illustrations?

I have worked and lived amidst the snow, polar bears, seals, and Inuit, I grew a fascination with the extreme living conditions those people have to deal with and how they remain a balance of sensitivity and strength. The hard, isolated existence and the respectful way these people treat nature provide the basis for the graphic story I’ve created for my graduation. The Inuit are very proud people however I can’t help but feel they are a bit lost, uprooted from their original culture as times have changed so much there. This idea had an immense impact on me and on my work. I went there with a lot of questions, but I came back with even more. I would love to go back there one day and maybe live even more primitively and remotely.

You went to Upernavik, Greenland for half a year. How did you end up there and what is the most important thing you’ve learnt?

A year ago I applied for the Artist in Residency Program in the Upernavik Museum. After waiting impatiently for a very long time, I was so happy when I received a letter saying they had chosen me to go there. The most important thing I learnt during my stay in Greenland is to be more calm and relaxed. Nature dictates the rhythm of life, so you either go with the flow or feel very miserable. I had to let go.   

You're currently working on a book with Julia Dobber; tell me something about this project?

Next to the Greenland project, I needed something else so that when I was stuck with one project, I could escape into the other. I met Julia through a mutual friend and I instantly fell in love with her stories. Her work is about people who get through things, but nobody knows exactly what. For my graduation we compile six stories and complimenting drawings. Finishing them we both felt that there needed to be more, so our plan is to make twelve in total. I can’t wait to continue our exciting project and have the finished product in front of me.      

Is there a particular artist you would love to work with?

Several. I really like the work of photographer Jeroen Toirkens. He’s a Dutch documentary photographer who followed several Nomadic cultures around the world for years. Also fashion collective ‘Das leben am Haverkamp’, which is founded by some of my old fashion classmates. I really like what they are doing and they inspire me to carry on. Maybe one day we can do a project together.

What is your plan for the future now that you have graduated?

I always hate this question... It feels very definite to talk about the future. I can only dream about it. I would love to have a little workshop with all kinds of presses so I can make special prints and books. I hope I can do more residencies and visit other countries. I went to Myanmar a few years ago and I really want to go there again to start a new project. But there are a lot of other things I dream about, for instance more collaborations like the one with Julia Dobber. I really like dreaming..

www.ilsemoelands.com

ArtEZ

Ten years of tales from foreign lands from Paul Solberg

Ten Years in Pictures, Paul Solberg’s fifth photographic compendium, catalogues a decade of ethnographic encounters. From Hanoi to Cairo to Sicily to Jordan, we meet a startling diversity of artistic topography. The book reads as a world portrait where each part makes up a whole; each portrait stands alone with a poetic, poignant potency whilst weaving itself into a photographic tapestry of humanity. Solberg hones in on the intricacies in his anthropological portraits; choosing to capture the spontaneous, subtler details of cultural expression; but instead of cataloguing these subjects with a flat, documentary objectivity, he infuses these details with a joy, a poignancy and a simple reflectiveness. Through his photographs, we see “a world in which Solberg lives and wish we could all live”… we see a world in which we live in, but haven’t drawn our attention to. You are standing in Solberg’s shoes when looking at his photographs. The Moholy-Nagy new vision approach reframes his scenes and subjects from an alternative angle; encouraging us too to look on anew and afresh with, and though, his hungry, curious eyes.

Ten Years in Pictures represents ten years of collecting and curating tales from lenses and lives abroad. Ahead of its launch, Suzanna Swanson-Johnston caught up with Paul in his Manhattan home as he catches a breath between countries to discuss what this book represents for him and to reflects on ten years of recording life in his lens.

The book begins in 2004; the beginning of your professional photography career. Set the scene.

I have always been plagued by that chronic question of ‘Who are we? If you live with that, then you tend to be drawn to subjects like Anthropology, Philosophy, Photography out of a yearning for an answer. I come from a family where photography was a hobby; a predominant hobby, but a hobby, not a career. I ended up going to study Social Anthropology at university in South Africa and moved to N.Y.C. afterwards. As a kid in that city you can afford to be lost and that afforded me wonderful space in my twenties to live, and reflect. I met a director there and I assisted him on a film he was making, whilst ‘fluffing’ on Wall Street; talking to old ladies about their money in order to make enough of my own. Quintessentially Woody Allen.  I moved to Nice when I was twenty-six to work for an ad agency. I loathed it. But I am adamant that being shown a lack of success and having it revealed to you what you hate and what you’re not good at, reveals to you what you are.  The camera was always the most natural thing for me. But it wasn’t till my thirties, 2004, I was told I had the potential of it being my profession. I was offered a book deal, and with that came the promise of a career. I guess that tension, intensity, and desire has exploded into ten years of a densely packed period of work – which this book charts a selection of.  

“you need a lifetime of experience to shape your eye”

Does marking this decade herald a different direction for your work now? 

A photographer’s best work is usually in their later years; you need a lifetime of experience to shape your eye. Studying photography after you’ve learnt the technical process never made sense to me. Being thirsty and curious and learning about your subject grows your eye and that is the best school for taking pictures. I feel I’m still closer to the beginning of this whole process. It’s about paying attention, and I don’t always do. I would like to do a singular, biopic exploration of one subject at one point. My travel schedule is very disjointed so I’ve never in one place long enough. I am never that calculated about my career; I try to just stay relaxed, do my business and put it out there in the most honest way possible.  

How have you seen the world evolve and change over the past ten years?

2004/2005/2006 were the last years where we were pre mass-media; people weren’t continually connected to technology. Now, we are all plugged in but entirely disconnected in being so; always partially listening or watching. We are so obsessive about documenting that we are never experiencing; we watch everything through the lenses of our iPhones. 

Photography is an interesting dichotomy of that document / experience binary. I try to be as attentive to the world as I can and my photographs come out of that as an emblem of that experience. Thus, I work very candidly and organically.

The book is composed entirely of ‘found photos’; ‘found’ driving from Jordan to the Dead Sea and having a cup of tea with a man looking after fifteen orphans; ‘found’ as the light stroke perfectly on the surfers coming through Munich [City Surf]; ‘found’ when you happen to have discarded polaroid film in your camera and the sailors come off the boats [Service]; ‘finding’ ballroom dancers in the snow at the St. Peterburg market. This book was an exercise in of going through some of the thousands of images I’ve never looked back on and curating them. Half the book is unpublished material.

But I am highly aware that the cultures I have been recording might not be there in the next ten years, or five years even. Throughout my travels, the moment that has stuck with me the most is when I was dropped from a helicopter onto Alaska’s largest body of ice; the Bering Glacier. When you’re on a planet of ice, to hear the crackling and moan of the ice melting, you realize with a new clarity, the looming dilemma that the planet is literally disappearing from under our feet.

Having seen so much of the world, has your faith in humanity been inspired or disillusioned?

Travel turns you into an optimist and it teaches you that you know very little. The old adage “the more you know the more you don’t know” is really true. You go to different ends of the globe, and you learn, as cynical as one can be, people are generally good. I always think, why doesn’t CNN feature – in the same four story loop that they repeat over and over – an enlightening story about someone, somewhere, anywhere. They’re not hard to find, I know from experience; I’ve been welcomed into enough stranger’s homes. It’s hard to find a negative story on the road, why don’t you hear a good one occasionally from the news? I guess the sad story sells, otherwise we would hear them.

So that’s what travel does. It gives you the real news. The unedited news. The Egyptian cab driver that saw I was digging his Egyptian pop music he was playing as we drove through Luxor, and he finds me the next day, to give me the C.D. of music. I guess these small stories don’t have a lot of show-business to them. They’re more fireside stories. But that’s what I seek to capture ; the small details, the intricacies, the moments, the smaller narratives.

“It’s hard to find a negative story on the road, why don’t you hear a good one occasionally from the news?”

There is an anonymity to your work; thanks to the reluctance to provide a narrative, title or context and the new-vision-alternative angle of your lens...

I like to keep ambiguity. If there is a story, it is a collaboration with the viewer and I leave it up to them to impose their own decisions about who this person is and what their story is – I find that the interesting part. The identities are in the objects, not the names and the titles.

I find it far more fascinating when you hone in on the details.  Under a microscope, suddenly the invisible becomes another world of mountains, rivers and new shapes.

What has travel taught you?  

My travel process tends to be pretty unplanned; that’s how you find the spontaneous moments, you have to let the experiences happen through exploration. Crossing roads with no street lights in Hanoi; the orchestra of activity in streets dense with pandemonium and the weaving currents of Cairo; the sensation of dry in the Atacama desert; the solitude and the beautiful lifelessness; invitations into familiar strangers homes in Jordan; floating in the Dead Sea; the matte black of Lanzarote.

I appreciate how lucky I am to have had the opportunity to travel as much as I have; it’s something everyone should experience. You can read to escape your mind but it doesn’t compare to actually being there. I’ve stood in the spot where the bombs dropped on Vietnam and met the same family that still lives there. The faces, and connections, and people. It is being present in moments like that that is your world education. Travel builds empathy and expands perspective. A life of travel makes you realize everything is relative to your little world, so you don’t usually sweat the small stuff. You are humbled when you understand how provincial your concerns are.

Paul Solberg

Ten Years in Pictures Review

We interview Frankie Shea, founder of Moniker Art Fair

Moniker 2014

Moniker Art Fair returns for its sixth year, on October 15–18 at the Old Truman Brewery, having firmly established itself as London’s premiere event for contemporary art with its roots embedded in urban culture.

Building on the foundations of five years experience and it’s continued success, Moniker Art Fair will be again venue-sharing with London’s leading artist-led fair, The Other Art Fair, in what will be a showcase of independent and established talent all under one roof in East London’s iconic Old Truman Brewery.

This exciting spectacle will attract 14,000-plus visitors to the capital’s East End, forming one of the major satellite events of London’s Art Week when 60,000 visitors descend on the city to form an unparalleled international art audience. The partnership emphasises both fairs formidable reputations for showcasing artists operating under the radar of the traditional art establishment. Over a period of four days and across 21,000 sq. feet in The Old Truman Brewery’s impressive interior, this compelling combination promises to generate much interest and exposure this coming October.

Kilmany-Jo Liversage, exhibiting at Worldart gallery

Renaissance is Now byToonpunk, as part of the Renaissance is Now installation

Master Warhol by Schoony

BM - Why did you decide to start an art fair? 

FS - The fair was started out of frustration.

I was running a gallery and representing several artists within the street art genre with great success. The artists I worked with had strong primary and secondary markets and I was keen to secure wider exposure for them but found it difficult to break into the UK art fair circuit. So in keeping with the ‘do-it-yourself’ street art ethos, I decided to form my own fair focusing on street art and its related subcultures.

BM - Does the name Moniker refer to the use of pseudonyms by many street artists?

FS – Yes. I was working with friend and artist Felix Berube (AKA Labrona), a Canadian freight train painter who told me all about Moniker Culture and the Hobos of America. I registered ‘Moniker Projects’ as a domain name before I even thought of the fair I think.

BM - What sets Moniker apart from all the other art fairs that are so ubiquitous this time of year?

FS – We’ve established ourselves as London’s premiere event for contemporary art with its roots embedded in urban culture. This is what ties the fair together and we have firmly put East London back on the art fair map in doing so. We’re an unpretentious fair, accessible and unpretentious. You won’t find many obscure pictures on white walls with gallery assistants glaring at you at our fair. Every day is fun, we are known for generating a friendly unintimidating art buying atmosphere. It’s become one of the highlights of London’s Art Week for many people.

BM - You have decided to accept Bitcoins this year, why is this?

Nick Walker, Decibel No.1 . Art of Patron space curated and produced by Moniker Projects

FS – A mixture of reasons. I met several people from the Bitcoin community this year who really sold the benefits of the digital currency to me. Plus they were genuinely nice people who welcome social change. I wanted to know more about the decentralised system so decided to curate a 50ft Bitcoin inspired installation that will integrate artworks by Ben Eine, Schooney and Toonpunk. Bitcoin will be accepted as valid tender throughout the fair, not necessarily because we believe Bitcoin will our saviour(!), but exploring possible alternatives to the current financial system is a good thing.

BM - How do you select the Moniker-represented artists?

FS – Initially I like their art and then I like them. Sometimes it happens the other way around, I like the artist and begin to understand their work and their paintings may grow more and more on me.

BM - Which are the most exciting artists that we should look out for at this years fair?

FS – I’m looking forward to seeing work by SA artist Kilmany-Jo Liversage, Betz from Etam Cru, French Street artist Bom.k who debuts at the fair and Apolo Torres. Legendary Bristol stencil artist Nick Walker will be exhibiting his brand new ‘smoke series’ body of work in the Art of Patron space along side multidisciplinary artist Lauren Baker. The Renaissance is Now installation is going to be off the wall.

Moniker Art Fair

Slow – Co – Ruption by Dineo Seehee Bopape

Dineo Seshee Bopape is one of South Africa’s most admired, unconventional artist. Her first UK solo exhibition at the Hayward’s Project Space, Southbank, can best be termed as surprising, unexpected, puzzling or wonderful that your brain cannot comprehend it. Too many gadgets going on at the same time. It’s like you are not supposed to grasp what the display is about?  Comprehending the works isn’t really the idea here I gathered. You walk into the space and you are challenged by a tremor of everything but the kitchen sink. From sculptural installation with video montages to constant flash photography, two TV set with no pictures flipping between analogue and digital visuals, a machine mix and re-mix ear-splitting sound. What is more? Timber, bricks, mirrors and plants, form multifaceted and wobbly configurations, often across the walls and on grass floor of the gallery, alongside a fresh sculpture conceived especially for Hayward Gallery Project Space. The presentation is overwhelmingly imposing.

Dineo Seshee Bopape
Video still from why do you call me when you know i can’t answer the phone, 2012
Digital video, colour, sound
Duration: 10 minutes 42 seconds
Photo credit: © Dineo Seshee Bopape. Courtesy of STEVENSON Cape Town, Johannesburg 

DSB: I was born in 1981 in Polokwane, South Africa. I was born on a Sunday. If I were Ghanaian, my name would be akosua/akos for short. During the same year of my birth, the name ‘internet’ is mentioned for the first time Princess Diana of Britain marries Charles; AIDS is identified/created/named; Salman Rushdie releases his book “Midnight’s Children”  bob Marley dies ‐ more events of the year of my birth are perhaps too many to have accounted for... I did my undergraduate studies in Art at Durban University of technology, South Africa, (2004), and attained my MFA from Columbia University, USA, in 2010. I work generally in a variety of mediums, mostly installation and video and drawing. My work has generally dealt with issues/ideas of representation so to speak... and memory, whilst some resist the pressure of having to mean something.

Here and now, what made you want to take part in Africa Utopia festival and what do you hope to pull off? 

DSB: I was invited to take part. And what I hope to attain is to brush up my talking skills, I get often nervous when I speak in public, and often unsatisfied after because there is so much stuff that remains unsaid. Perhaps agreeing to participate is a chance for another rehearsal for the next time.

How would you describe your art? Is it redemptive, ethical or relative and political. And when putting together your installations what is your end goal?

DSB: It depends on who the viewer is I guess. It can be redemptive. Whilst in the process of making a work, goal posts changes. There is a freedom of sorts that comes with not having a strict goal. The goal is an unamiable thing.  

Dineo Seshee Bopape
Video still from is i am sky, 2013
Digital video, colour, sound
Duration: 17 minutes 48 seconds
Photo credit: © Dineo Seshee Bopape. Courtesy of STEVENSON Cape Town, Johannesburg 

Dineo Seshee Bopape
Video still from is i am sky, 2013
Digital video, colour, sound
Duration: 17 minutes 48 seconds
Photo credit: © Dineo Seshee Bopape. Courtesy of STEVENSON Cape Town, Johannesburg 

Talk to us about your Africa Utopia exhibition at the London Hayward Gallery project Space?

DSB: "Slow-co-ruption" is the title of the show. I was thinking about data corruption, the data of narrative, of memory, of liberal socio-politics, self, language, sense and order and all thatcorruption implies… rupture... An interruption of a memory/a file/a story... about politics of space and the metaphysics of being... A death…  ‘Productive’ death…The show has 3 main works and 2 supports, so to speak. In the first room is “Same Angle, same lighting”, a mechanical sculptural work which I made in 2010 but is now in its 3rd incarnation. The first version had a light that was shining repetitively, back and forth on to a dark photograph (just looking over and over again). The 2nd version which I had shown in Cape town at Stevenson had a camera that was supposed to capture the information on a photograph and send it to a nearby monitor, but the machine kept on failing and what stood in the monitor with it was a pre-recorded video (showing the movement that was supposed to happen); an external memory of sorts…

(Flabbergasting response or what?) Rendered speechless.

Dineo Seshee Bopape
Video still from is i am sky, 2013
Digital video, colour, sound
Duration: 17 minutes 48 seconds
Photo credit: © Dineo Seshee Bopape. Courtesy of STEVENSON Cape Town, Johannesburg 

And now in its 3rd reiteration in Slow-co-ruption, the camera sends information to several monitors/screens (hosts). The camera goes back and forth scanning the information off the paper (a scanned colour photocopy of picture of a lush garden from a garden and home magazine from the early 1990’s). This machine is hosted on and by these wooden supports and shop display things. Around “same angle, same lighting”- (the other supports) are several copies of video grass green/sky blue and also slow-co-ruption (stickers of flowers and eyes) the flowers are an almost random selection of native SA flowers and some from the garden image in same angle…. The eyes are those of an anonymous person and also those of philosophers Biko and Sobukwe who are also known for having written much about a need for rupture – both mental and spatial (so to speak). In the other rooms are the video “why do you call me when you know I can’t answer the phone” a piece from 2013 which is itself about the rupture of meaning or sense, a corruption or narrative. Whilst “Is I am sky” also speaks of a thing of absence, self-presence and of a kind of a metaphysical death to make a very insufficient summary…

Dineo Seshee Bopape
Video still from Grass Green, 2008
SD digital video, sound
Duration: 6 minutes 52 seconds
Photo credit: © Dineo Seshee Bopape. Courtesy of STEVENSON Cape Town, Johannesburg

Do you have a favourite piece from this exhibition and what next for DSB?

DSB: Not really, I love the different pieces differently...but currently I must say I am most excited about the "slow-co-ruption" stickers. On what next?  I would like to show my work more on the African continent (abroad too), I would like to grow as an artist, to clarify my thoughts, for my work to be sharper, to continue being curious and continue to play... also to share with others... to remain healthy and able.

Southbank Centre

We meet fabric illusionist Yvette Peek

All keep track of upcoming designer Yvette Peek. The ArtEZ design alumni blew everyone away with her graduation collection, sending illusional masterpieces down the catwalk. As curious as we are, we had a talk with her about the story behind her first collection, her admiration for strong women with non-conforming elegance and being the assistant designer of Sharon Wauchob.

What made you realize you wanted to be a designer?

My biggest source of inspiration is my grandmother. When I was a little girl, she taught me how to sew. That led to her teaching me embroidery techniques and pattern making. We even stitched my first designs together.

What do you think are your biggest assets as a designer?

As a designer I challenge myself to find the unexpected in materials and textiles and I made that into my greatest strength. When I design clothing I always have a strong woman in mind, with non-conforming elegance and a luxurious approach to colour and fabric. My graduation collection is based on the insomnia drawings of Louise Bourgeois. One of the strongest and most inspiring women I have ever known.

Before you started with the collection, did you already know the outcome of the design concept?

I went to the exhibition of Bill Viola during my internship in Paris. This was one of the most exhilarating exhibitions I have ever seen. My eye caught on of his illusional art pieces ‘Veiling’ of Bill Viola. In a dark space, an unfocussed film of a man is projected through 10 translucent sheets of fabric, growing paler and larger towards the centre. Two projectors at opposite ends of the space face each other and project images into the layers of material. I became fixated on this video installation. And from that moment on I knew that I wanted to recreate that illusional effect with different kind of layers fabric in my collection. The elements of shape-shifting developed later on, during my drape sessions. After a few drape sessions I came to the idea that my collection had to represents the brain that is experiencing insomnia, and that’s where the insomnia drawings came in.

You interpreted insomnia with fabrics where Louise Bourgeois did the same thing with pencil. Why is it that your collection exists of tints of black, grey and white, while bourgeois’ work consists of colour?

The type of woman I made this collection for is elegant, unpredictable and psychotic. I have used darker tones to create that psychotic vibe. And the best way to create an unpredictable illusion through different layers is to use tints of black and grey.

Can you tell us a bit more about the design process behind the collection?

Quality of fabric and craftsmanship are my most important values when designing. Therefore I won’t be looking at the clock when working on my designs. My collection consists of a lot of different crafts that have to be meticulously conducted. One look required an embroidered top that consists of 460 small pieces of springs that I have formed in circles, and those springs and beads are all embroidered by hand. This took my approximately three weeks. The two last looks in my collection consist of 22 meters of tulle per outfit, all hand-printed with markers, and 4.5 meters of printed plastic. From of all the time I spent working on my collection, those looks were the ones that took up the most time.

You're working as an assistant designer for Sharon Wauchob now. How did that happen and what do you admire about her work?

I worked as an intern for Sharon Wauchob two years ago. During my internship I was assigned as assistant textile/embroideries designer. This was one of the best learning experiences I had so far as Sharon gave me a lot of opportunities to develop myself. After my internship I went back to school for my final year but I stayed in contact with her and I always came back to Paris to help the team during Paris Fashion Week. Sharon is a consistently talented designer who creates thoughtfully engineered garments. I admire her strong detail-focused aesthetic. The way she uses traditional techniques and delicate fabrics in her collection inspires me.

How do you see your career developing from now on?

I would like to gain more experience within the field of design. I hope to get the opportunity to learn a lot from Sharon Wauchob over the next years. It would also be interesting to develop myself within another creative luxury brand with a focus on textiles, but we should not jump to conclusions. You never know what happens and I am looking forward to every new opportunity!

 Yvette Peek

ArtEZ

Artists and Scientists at Music Tech Fest

Soft Revolvers by Myriam Bleau

Andrew Dubber, Music Tech Fest’s director, explains to me the freedom Music Tech Fest fosters in joining creative musicians and technological minds in an all-inclusive environment – the aim is to ultimately liberate the music technology scene and revel in the mayhem that ensues.

How and why was 'Music Tech Fest' conceived and what developments has it gone through to make it the internationally-reaching community it is today?

I wasn’t there for the first Music Tech Fest. It was something that came out of the European Road Map for the Future of Music Information Research. Michela Magas was the scientific director for that project - and was the founder of the Music Tech Fest. The idea was to bring together artists and scientists, academics and industry in a ‘hands on’ experimental environment - rather than just a conference. I came along to the second one and, like most people who now work for MTF - I basically just never went home. I was asked to take on the role of director of the festival, and we have had invitations - sometimes through some of my own professional connections - to bring the event to different cities. It’s different everywhere we do it, and we learn a lot by doing each one. But what makes it work is the fact that it brings together such a diverse range of brilliant and interesting people. It’s not a matter of controlling the outcome. You put them together in a room and watch what happens. 

Why do you think it is important for musicians working with technology to meet face to face in a world saturated by online ‘music technology’ content?

I don’t think it’s necessarily important for musicians to meet each other face to face. It’s nice, just as any personal human interaction is nice. But there’s a lot that can be done through online collaboration between people who have the same language and mode of working. What’s important is that they meet *other types of people* with different skills and frames of thinking. People who aren’t musicians, but bring something else to music. And to make that work, people need to build something together. If you want to innovate in music, you need creative technologists, designers, hackers, musicians, artists, product designers, music industry people - a whole range of different minds. That’s what the face to face stuff is for. You get people working collaboratively and it opens up all sorts of unimagined possibilities.

‘Music Tech Fest’ seems different in that you pride yourself on being ‘a community with a festival, not a festival with a community’ - why is it important to 'bring down' the hierarchy that a lot of creative ‘festivals’ have and somewhat ‘level the playing-field’ for musicians working with technology?

There are a few important things here. First - we want to remove barriers to participation. Anyone who wants to play music, make technologies, hack, research or find out about music technologies should not be prevented from doing so because of financial restrictions. Second, it’s important to us that things that happen at Music Tech Fest have a life beyond the festival. New projects begin, new businesses are formed, new art installations are imagined, new performances planned - that sort of thing. That’s what Music Tech Fest is for. It’s a catalyst for the community. Where people come together, get exposed to new concepts and experiences, meet new people, have interesting discussions, make new prototypes and so on - but then go off to develop those further and maybe come back and showcase those things on the main stage at a later Music Tech Fest.

A lot of the creative developments in the ‘music tech’ world aren’t solely to do with music anymore - how and why is cross-collaboration in artistic mediums important and how does ‘Music Tech Fest’ foster these concepts?

The edges where music stops and other stuff starts has always been blurred - but now more than ever. We’re interested in music for its own sake, because music is amazing - and we’re also interested in music as a tool for other things (social change, industrial innovation, education…). Music is something pretty much everyone has a relationship with in one way or another. It’s the bit that connects the tech-heads with the artistic people, the academics with the industry. We’re working with Volvo trucks and Philips lighting. Those organisations might not be thought of as music related, but they see the value of a transversal approach to innovation, and music as a galvanising force that gets young people interested in technology and engineering. The cross-collaboration in the arts is especially important in an age of computing because the artificial barriers between storytelling, music, film, visual arts - even taste and touch - are broken down in our increasingly synaesthetic and multi-modal world. 

The improvements and accessibility of technology in general is something that is obviously allowing more people to engage with it. How has the festival engaged with the issues of inaccessibility to technology to allow a wider engagement with music tech?

It’s a really important strand of what we do. For instance, we’re working closely with a number of organisations who are focused on using technology to remove barriers to participation for people with disabilities. We encourage our hackers to keep accessibility in mind when developing any new projects and we showcase projects that are about making music available to more people in more places - for instance, the One Handed Musical Instrument (OHMI) Trust, Drake Music and Human Instruments. It’s also a key part of our #MTFResearch network principles. The Manifesto for the Future of Music Technology Research, which came about as a response to the Music Tech Fest we held at Microsoft Research in Boston. See: http://musictechifesto.org

Music Tech Fest

All images courtesy of Andrew Dubber

Liggers & Dreamers : a new book by Josie Demuth

IT’S EXHAUSTING! Keeping up with three very resourceful artists at the same time for a Q&A session. Three of the creative arts' liveliest talents. First, Josie Demuth; a prolific author and the founding editor of La Bouche Zine. Second, Jason Gibilaro; a contemporaneous artist and the cover artist of Josie Demuth's new book; Liggers and Dreamers. And our third musketeer is illustrator extraordinaire Ian Wright whose visual art work has spanned four decades.  

Liggers and Dreamers by Josie Demuth, Cover artwork by Jason Gibilaro

Unusual combinations often produce the most interesting read, as you’ll see in this article. Now, we are gathered in the basement of the famed unconventional Vout-O-Reenees Art Club and gallery The Stash, to share their unique insights on preparing for their major test yet, of their life’s work and more importantly to talk about Demuth’s manic short story book titled Liggers & Dreamers; Tales from the London Art Scene. To complement, and celebrate, the book launch, there is an exhibition of Liggers and Dreamers art by Jason Gibilaro, and Ian Wright’s photos from his collection of Arts Herbert’s on show at The Stash Gallery.  Josie Demuth’s new book is innovative with no time for baloney. She goes for the jugular.  A very tongue in cheek, tickling and fiercely observed manuscript on an extraordinary scale about liggers (derrière -licking persons) and dreamers (groupies & sycophants) of the London art world.  A well written story on how they make their way through London’s elite art scene as well as the ruthless behaviour of a gang of intriguing and flamboyant personalities, as they diligently make their way all around London’s most fashionable gallery private views and bashes for the sole purpose of freeloading on champagne, decent wine and canapés “like a flock of seagulls”. Josie alleges that there are these individuals,  “uninvited freeloading party goers”; for who it’s the art of being seen and accepted at art exhibitions rather than a passion for the often hollow modern art on show.

Demuth said: “We are having the unveiling of Liggers & Dreamers on a Friday so that all the liggers can come, after all there wouldn’t be a book and exhibition without them”. In harmony with Demuth, the proprietor of Vout-O-Reenees Art Club Sophie Parkin affirmed: “I will be making extra canapés knowing how Liggers swoop in on any free food and drinks”.  Liggers & Dreamers is a fascinating work of creative writing by someone with tremendous imagination. However, some very identifiable famous individuals from the worlds of music and art also make an appearance in the novel. J. D. disputes strongly that any similarity is thoroughly accidental. Yeah right! We believe you Josie Demuth. Also, there’s a wry, shrewd narrative to her story that throws-up constant parallels with pale imitation celebrities and thespians, who regularly gate crash occasions for that chance to take a selfie and share via social media to prove that they have arrived...

Now welcome to the discussion with the three musketeers – oh yes, artists.  

This is a very audacious and highly speculative book with some mischievous narrative, which could easily attract extreme dislike towards you. Why was it important that you write this book?  

Josie Demuth: Whoa! That is severe. It is not an attack on freedom of expression. It is important for me to write this novel because it focuses on some very interesting characters. And being somebody that has been gallery hopping myself in the last few years, I found these characters to be very worthy of note in the gallery world. I felt and believe they must be documented. I initially started by writing short stories about them in The International Times, then when the list got produced in Cork Street gallery in a covert operation to blacklist these liggers – I thought right away this will be a great narrative for a novel. And my novel only focuses on about a dozen liggers for now. There are a lot more characters that I might report on in another book. A ligger is a freeloader. They go to parties and functions or corporate events with the view of getting freebies. I think everybody loves a freebie. But then again, liggers come in categories; there are some mild liggers and there are chronic liggers and there’re some arch liggers too. In my book you will find all sorts. And yeah, there are those who do gallery hopping that have substance, no doubt about that.  So I don’t see how anyone would direct any hate towards me.

I love Charlie by Jason Gibilaro. Acrylic on canvas, 118cm x 153cm, 200

Jason Gibilaro is the book cover artist of Liggers and Dreamers. How did that come about?  

Jason Gibilaro: let me answer that. I met Josie way back at an exhibition I staged and I am very interested in the team of liggers and dreamers. I did a small experimental drawing piece and sent it to a mate of mine and he ended-up sending it to Josie and others, and everyone liked it. One thing led to another and Josie liked the drawing and it ended up as the cover of the book. I am very proud of the cover.  

Collaboration can be a tad tricky. Was it easy working with Josie or would you rather not work with her again?  

Jason Gibilaro: Oh yes, she was nightmarish. (Just kidding!). I will work with her again if the opportunity arises. The final drawing on the cover was a consensus. Yes, we had several meetings with others, but at the end everybody decided that my painting was the one for the book. Initially I was for the image I did for the I love Charlie thing, but what the heck? This cover is very artistic.  I am an artist in my own right and it’s just a coincidence to work with an author. It’s an opportunity to do some exploring and add to my repertoire.  I see Josie as an artist who personally engages. 

Is Josie Demuth shrouding as one of the characters in this book? 

Josie Demuth: Yes someplace. The book mirrors and captures the spirit that I believe in. I have been gallery hopping myself for years, so I am in there somewhere and I have witnessed these sort of quirky little scenario situations, so to tell this sort of story, I have to be a part of the story. I implicate myself in things I do. For Liggers & Dreamers, there was no way I could have written it just standing outside saying look at this; this is good or this is terrible or whatever. 

Is it fair to describe J. D. as an eccentric, provocateur or just ridiculously over-dramatic with tremendous imagination? 

Ian Wright: Let me answer that question. (Why are you guys taking it in turns to answer for Josie, is hilarious) I know that to write this book took a long time and, of course, some imagination. It was a work in progress and I can also understand why some persons would conclude – especially the press like you, that she is being provocative and over dramatic. We are living in interesting times as far as the arts or creative arts are concerned. I think this is just a segment of the arts that she has hit upon and it’s interesting to inform the wider public what is going on in the art world. She is brutally honest about what she thinks, not at all over dramatic. I wouldn’t say she is provocative and dramatic. But if she provokes a debate or a response about freeloaders, great. We all like a bit of drama. I like a bit of drama too. 

The Collector by Jason Gibilaro. Acrylic on paper, 17.50cm x 27.00cm, 201

How does this ménage à trois work – professionally?

Ian Wright: We are eccentric in different ways. We all have our different interests but also have similarities too. It is fair to say that our eccentricity works greatly for us. And it is fair to say the book and the art exhibition is kind of a celebration of eccentricity. At the end of the day, be you a writer, painter, architect or poet, we are all artists in the creative arts. So why can’t we work together. It’s something we should see more and more and these boundaries will become very fluid.  

Photo by Ian Wright. The Painter and the Poet from The Art Herbert Series, 2009. 6x9 inch

Photo by Ian Wright. The all star Hackney Wick sand gang, 2015. 16x12 inch

...

This threesome Josie Demuth, Jason Gibilaro and Ian Wright seemed destined to be both notable polemicists and visionary creators. An avant-garde underground art movement of the modern era. They have been able to transcend the rather claustrophobic boundaries of the art world. About Liggers & Dreamers, I find it thoroughly frenetic and fresh - highly recommended. Read it and I bet, you will see freeloaders and hangers-on in a totally different light. And it’s not pretty. 

An exhibition of Liggers and Dreamers Art  by Jason Gibilaro & Ian Wright’s photos is on show at The Stash Gallery, 30 Prescot Street, London E1 8BB

September 11 - September 27

Liggers & Dreamers – Tales from the London Art Scene by Josie Demuth

Jason Gibilaro

Ian Wright

La Bouche Zin

Thin Man Press

In My Shoes: Switchst(d)ance

Photo by Tiago Reis

My name is Marco Antão, I was born and raised in Lisbon and I am one of the resident DJ’s at Lux Frágil. As a producer I am associated with the German music label Beachcoma. I am something of a collector of synths and admittedly it’s been a growing obsession of mine over the years. The name "Switchst(d)ance" came from my longtime love of skateboarding. If you remove the letter “d”, it’s the name of a trick that i spent my teen years mastering.  When you add the letter “d”, the word gains new meaning and symbolises the start of something new, a game-changer as it were, when I started DJ’ing.

I started spinning records at a friend’s party almost ten years ago, basically to keep the thing going. The feeling I got once I was behind the turntables was a turning point (excuse the pun) for me; it was a wicked experience, watching people dance to the music I was playing. After that night, I began playing in the bars of Lisbon and five years ago I became a resident DJ at Lux. I consider myself very lucky, since it only took me a couple of seconds to realise what I wanted to do with my life.

Photo by David Tutti dos Reis

Of course, it wasn't always easy. Looking back, the most challenging phase for me, artistically, was around 2008, when I was having a hard time finding gigs. This was because the kind of music that was popular in Portuguese nightlife at the time was really different from what I was playing.  However, the pursuit of new and original sounds always kept me going. And it was rewarding because now I have the privilege of playing for and connecting with some really great crowds, which for me is, hands down, the best part about making music. The beauty of music is that it is very communal, yet at the same time a hugely unique experience. Transmitting emotions and feelings through sound in a way that every single person can feel and interpret into their own private experience is a totally unique way of communication. It leaves me both proud and humbled to enable this and it is a big part of what inspires my style. 

For me the most important element to making music is creating something intelligent and, above all, something sensory.  I like music that gets inside your head because it has unique textures like interesting synth sounds, twisted arpeggios, off-key notes, that kind of thing. I like rhythm patterns that don’t sound like they were rigidly quantised to a grid, but help distinguish a track from your straight up "four-to-the-floor" dance floor fodder. Personally, I don't really rationalise my music and I try not to overthink it. Instead, I focus on mixing sounds that come together in a good way and I like to think I am always pushing the boundaries of what is already out there in order to create something distinctive and different. Even though the general opinion is that everything has already been created, composed, written, spoken or sung, I believe that the possibilities to create and grow remain infinite. And that's the really exciting part about doing what I do.

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Like Father Like Son.

An Intuitive tête-à-tête with Seun Kuti, the second and youngest son of that 20th century icon/super star, the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, at the UK’s flagship live jazz music venue – Ronnie Scott’s. Soho’s home of jazz welcomes Seun Kuti and Egypt 80 in a rare intimate outing with his band, celebrated as Seun Kuti & Egypt 80: FELA/AFROBEAT.  I was not sure if Ronnie Scott’s will be able to withstand the Afrobeat power, fury and constant swear words of Seun Kuti and Egypt 80, but it was fun finding out. Boy-oh-boy, it was absolutely mental. The audience was blown away by the power and the ferocity of the fire-raising Seun Kuti and the legendary EGYPT 80 band – one of the greatest live acts sound ever.  What would his father think of him performing at Ronnie Scott’s? Read on!

In 1997, Nigeria and Africa, and certainly it would not be a hyperbole to affirm that the music and political world lost a music legend and fearsome Afrobeat innovator Fela Anikulapo-Kuti; simple known as FELA and still rightly acclaimed as one of the 20th century most incendiary live acts. On the other hand a young man lost his father. It cannot be pressure - free being the offspring of a music Giant, nonetheless, Oluseun Anikulapo-Kuti (known simple as Seun Kuti) the youngest son of the Nigerian legend of Afrobeat and political protester extraordinaire, seems to have no worry stepping into the big size puffy unusual shoes of his father Fela Kuti. Five years after their inception, following the death of the legend – Fela’s original band EGYPT 80, made-up of a quarter-century of Afrobeat musicians now headed by Seun Kuti continues to travel musically forward and find themselves more and more loved by fans of Fela Kuti and fans of Seun Kuti. This just shows Seun’s ease with his inheritance. But Seun exclaims otherwise.

“It’s been a battle to get to where I am now”, said Seun. “There were those naysayers and detractors alike who denounced my choice to front my father’s band as both lead vocalist and saxophonist; (including the British press amongst others) who said it was shockingly arrogant of me and that I have a speck exaggerated pride or self-confidence to try and fill Fela’s boots. This was never my intention or ambition or aspiration. While my father’s influence cannot be underestimated, nobody can walk in Fela Kuti’s boots. No one can beat Fela Kuti. No one can replace Fela Kuti. Full stop. And who cares what critics’ think anyhow? Just kidding!” he sighs.  (Laughing hysterically) He adds: “The British press are cool with me these days. I love the British newspapers. I believe everything in them about me, good and bad. You have to work hard to remain in this business.”  Seun is been scripting and singing live in concert with Fela since he was a child. He maybe the son of a music icon but was and still is determined to do it his way, he tells me. He disputes any idea that he might need to intensify either his fury or racy moves on stage or with his soundtracks to stand out in the world of Afrobeat music still dominated by his late father.

When it comes to Afrobeat hopes are high and this is an unwelcome distractions I think Seun could do without or take on as a challenge. It’s a proverbial situation for kids from musical families. “Yeah. I’m definitely used to it. It’s f**king cool. I don’t mind it.” he tells me. “Fela will always be number one”, Seun said, letting the thought follow. “I do accept who I am considerately. You cannot be the son of Fela Kuti, a truly inspirational person without feeling that huge shadow over you. A renowned protest vocalist who orated against immeasurable suffering in his home country of Nigeria and across the continent of Africa, he asked?  A multi-instrumentalist, human rights activist, a revolutionary and political rebel for the less privilege the world over, he asked? “Nonetheless, it has not stopped me from doing my own thing while carrying the baton. Really and truly, if you be yourself, fans and critics alike will accept you for that” he enthused. Furthermore: “Afrobeat is more than just music. It’s a movement. It’s about politics, economics, social welfare, culture, anti-corruption – all of that and more besides in musical form. I grew up believing in good old African values set by my father: hard work, equality and freedom. I am never led by money or headlines grabbing regardless”. More than anything Seun wants the youths and followers alike to always do what makes them feel better about themselves. “You have to love what you do in other to be successful, he opined.

“What I want is for young people in Africa to believe in Africa, to come together for Africa. It’s horrible to hear about these stories of Migrants dying like mammals in the seas. African migrants in particular escaping to Europe with all the risks involved to come and build Europe more than anything else”. Seun is a strong contender for the angriest musician on the planet. He still rages and talk wildly and utter profanities profusely on stage like his father.  And he brought it on full throttle to the Ronnie Scott’s show. And the audience approved at every word. Once he was known for colourful costume trousers and funky boots just like his father, that were just as wild as his music, and a lifestyle of wide-eyed partying that rivalled any rock band in the western world. Seun (Angry) “I am just like you yeah! You are a journalist/reporter, observing, looking for breaking news and highlighting and analysing news worthy stuff and then put pen-to-paper. As a musician singer/songwriter I put the message out there in my lyrics to raise awareness about the untruth and the s**t propagandas politicians and big businesses do in Africa and if truth be told in the UK and the US put out there too”.  

“The vision of the Afrobeat movement is to challenge the way people think about the mainstream news they read by offering them different, wholesome and productive perspectives”. Seun believes that no matter what you do or who you are, you have to give back and his way of giving back is to educate the people, be it in Africa. UK or far-flung Australia. “We become teachers to the masses via our music-words. We’ve definitely been affected and continue to be affected by a lot of s**t in the world at the moment. I feel more comfortable in telling it as it is. We deliberately set out to challenge the governments in Africa for their ill-treatment of their citizens, however, we note and deliberately set out to challenge global perceptions of Africa and its people, because we recognise that Africa is misrepresented and underrepresented in global affairs and in global media because its stories continues to be largely told by the non-Africans who have never lived and research the continent properly. Africans are very resilient. What I want to do as a number one priority is to show young transnational Africans that their homeland is beautiful”.

“Yes, there is poverty-stricken people in Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia and England. Yes, there are Somalia’s that are struggling. F***k it. That story has been written in Western newspapers and broadcast on BBC-TV and Radio and American TV, over and over. It’s about time we talk about Africa’s growth rates. The economy may not be at a galloping pace, but they are surely better than those of many other regions of the world. Africa is going through remarkable changes. I challenge you to print this. We aim to educate the masses that there are different ways of taking in the news - more productive rather than the negative sensationalism news that is delivered currently in the western mainstream”.

There’s no doubt that SEUN KUTI & EGYPT 80 is one of the guiding voices of Nigeria’s and indeed Africa’s contemporary instrumental music scene. They are a band that deftly searches for untracked and thrilling musical spaces to occupy. But will Fela Kuti not turn in his grave if he is aware that his almighty radical youngest son (inheritor to the throne) performed at a mainstream/British establishment music venue – an avant-garde venue - welcoming the Mothership radical son to planet Ronnie Scott? Oh JMJ! 

This Liverpool university music graduate, described as ‘frighteningly intelligent’ said: “This is not just about music, I reiterate. Everything I write is personal. Topical lyricism.  I’ve got to feel something, fundamentally, I’ve to have something to say. I have to have experienced it before I go down that road to that stage, any stage for that matter to perform live". “People always ask, what’s the difference between Western audiences and audiences in Africa? I always say it’s not about the country. It is about the venue. I believe my father will part me on the back”.  

Seun first began performing with Egypt 80 at the age of nine, warming up audiences in Africa, UK and North America included with performances of his father’s songs. Though, Fela Kuti passed away over twenty years ago, his Afrobeat vibration is unbelievable booming as never before, thanks a lot to Seun and his brother Femi Kuti. Seun was 15 when he lay to rest his father in Lagos-Nigeria and also took over his band at age 15. His half-brother Femi was 20 years older, had already established a distinctive musical path of his own, but over the past 13 years Seun has cut his own unique musical path, incorporating contemporary influences into the traditional Afrobeat approach. And the older guys in the band (average age 60) help keep his ego in check. “The one thing I am is very humble. This is not the be-all and end it all. I still have a lot of work to do and that keeps me grounded”.

Grounded, perhaps, but unquestionably on the way up. Regrettably Seun finds himself challenging many of the same injustices his father battled in his glory days, from corporate self-indulgence chiefs to pugnacious leaders to the ever-futile battle on corruption and human rights.

A Gentle Misinterpretation, curated by Andrew Nicholls

Andrew Nicholls’ latest collaborative project, entitled ‘A Gentle Misinterpretation’, brings together a group of Australian artists for two separate exhibitions at the Brighton Royal Pavilion inspired by the cultural effect and meaning behind the ‘Chinoiserie ‘ tradition from the 17th century, up until the 1920s in the Western world. The first residency took place in July and now, busy in preparations for the second residency taking place during August and plans for an exhibition in Perth next year, Andrew Nicholls answers my questions regarding the issues surrounding the ‘Chinoiserie’ culture.

How did your personal interest in a project revolving around the topic of ‘Chinoiserie’ begin to form?

This project has been in the making for 11 years, since I first visited the Royal Pavilion and fell in love with it. It’s my favourite building in the entire world, and I spent a decade waiting to find the right group of artists to take there. Last year I approached the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery with a request to undertake a group residency there, and thankfully they agreed.

However, my art practice has always been concerned by histories of decoration, and how they reflect their social context – the way that seemingly-innocuous aesthetic traditions actually grew out of quite nasty historical circumstances. British ceramics have been a major influence throughout my career – in fact, the first time I visited the Pavilion was when I was in the UK undertaking a residency at the Spode china factory in Stoke-on-Trent - and yet that entire industry was formed by appropriating techniques from Asia during the 18th century in quite an aggressive way, so the idea of cultural theft has been a major interest for a long time.

The Pavilion is the perfect symbol of all this, because it is so seductive. It is spectacular, and opulent and beautiful, and yet so many of the cultural references are so clumsy…and then at the same time it comes with all of the glamour of George IV who is remembered as one of England’s most self-indulgent, decadent, scandalous monarchs. So it is the ideal location to talk about the decadence of imperialism, and how this fed colonial expansion.

Andrew Nicholls filming his work Gulchenrouz with model Luca Gatti. Image by Alexandra Loske, with thanks to the Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton.

Andrew Nicholls filming his work Gulchenrouz with model Luca Gatti and Dr. Alexandra Loske from the Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton. Image c/o Alexandra Loske, with thanks to the Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton.

Production still from Gulchenrouz by Andrew Nicholls. Image by Casey Ayres, with thanks to the Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton.

As a curator for this project, how did you go about finding or choosing appropriate artists for this residency? What qualities did you look for in the work of these artists?

I have a core group of artists I like to draw from in my freelance projects, all of whom enjoy taking inspiration from historical research, or in response to heritage sites. For this particular project I selected a number of artists from this group whose recent work has focused either on the relationship between Asia and 'the West', and the cultural and aesthetic legacies that this has inspired, or more broadly on tensions surrounding colonialism, nationalism and the crossing of national borders. The residency artists, Abdul Abdullah, Casey Ayres, Nathan Beard, David Collins, Thea Costantino, Travis Kelleher and Pilar Mata Dupont, have variously explored Eurasian identity, the experience of migrant communities in modern Australia, the marginalisation of minority groups within nationalism/colonialism, the plight of the refugee, and the legacy of colonial pillage.

Along with the eight residency artists, there are also four amazing senior Western Australian craft makers involved in the project, Sandra Black, Tanija and Graham Carr, and Marianne Penberthy, who will create works to complement the residency outcomes (in ceramics, leather and textiles, respectively). Each of these craft makers has drawn upon Asian tradition in one way or another in their works, and the objects they create will provide added opulence to the final exhibition. Given the George IV was such a significant patron of the arts, it feels appropriate to be commissioning new works by master craft-makers for this project.

You describe how ‘the sentimental’ is a ‘force driving mainstream culture’, which I find interesting. The concept of ‘Chinoiserie’ is almost the sentimentality of ‘Westerners’ between the 17th century and early 20th century for an ‘Asian’ aesthetic and culture. How do you feel this translates to artistry in our 21st century and why do you feel it is important to address this concept of ‘Chinoiserie’ now?

Chinoiserie was incredibly sentimental. It grew from an age when any international travel was difficult and dangerous, so the majority of designers, artists and writers who produced it had never been to Asia and probably had little desire to do so. Hence it was largely based on often-fanciful, second-hand accounts, and it often ended up being culturally insensitive or portraying Asian culture as primitive or brutal. But at the same time it was escapist, particularly for women who were largely tied to the domestic realm during that era. There is a lot of writing about the way that Chinoiserie provided escapism for women who would most likely never be able to travel the world themselves. From that sense it wasn’t ever really meant to be authentic in its portrayal of foreign cultures…not that that makes it alright!

In the 21st century I guess there’s a lot more movement between cultures, particularly in relation to materials and techniques, but I tend to be of the opinion that a lot of cultural content isn’t appropriate to reference. Non-Indigenous Australian artists are maybe more aware of this than most, because we sit alongside an incredibly rich legacy of Aboriginal art, that is absolutely not something we can appropriate or borrow from…but it will be a challenge with this project to walk that line between cultures.

Production still from work-in-progress by Casey Ayres. Image c/o the artist, with thanks to the Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton.

One of the residency artists, Casey Ayres (who is of Chinese-Malay descent) compared the Pavilion to Disneyland, as he had expected the cultural references to be a little bit ‘off’, but wasn’t prepared for life-sized iridescent dragons and pillars in the form of palm trees. I think he felt there was an affinity there to his own cultural identity, but I’m not sure yet exactly what it was. He spent a lot of time filming himself in various parts of the building, so I’m excited to see what he comes up with over the next few months.

As well as being curator for this project, you yourself are a multi-disciplined artist who will exhibit work in this residency. The aesthetics of your work with paper and ceramics display an Asian influence most immediately to me, but I wonder how you feel the Asian culture or aesthetic influences your installation and photography - if at all?

In terms of my broader work, I think the Chinoiserie influence will be realized more in relation to decadence and luxury the movement represented, rather than a specific Asian influence. During the first residency in early July I filmed a model in the Pavilion who was meant to represent a sort of spectre of Regency decadence, mixed with a character from William Beckford’s Vathek, (an incredibly lurid Orientalist-Gothic novel set in a mythical version of Saudi Arabia). I’ve challenged a composer I work with, Ewan Jansen, to write some Regency-inspired music for it that somehow points to a kitschy ‘Orientalist’ influence. I’m not sure how that will work out, or if it’s even possible to make it clear that the cultural appropriation is ironic. Probably it’s not, and we’ll have to abandon the idea, but that failure in itself may trigger something interesting.

Andrew Nicholls

A Gentle Misinterpretation. Australian Artists and Chinoiserie - Opening in 2017

Behind the Lens: Simon Butterworth

Pipe Dreams

Winning first, second, and third place respectively in categories including Professional Aerial Photography and Professional Nature Category in the 2014 International Photography Awards, and shortlisted in the Landscape category for this year’s Sony World Photography Awards, Simon Butterworth is a force in the world of photography who really needs no introduction.

With projects including a lengthy study of his childhood home in ‘Searching for Yorkshire’ and an exploration of the human cost behind Shanghai’s rapid modernisation and development in ‘Domicide Shanghai’, there seems to be no landscape too big, small, desolate or distant to escape Butterworth’s discerning eye; we got in contact to find out a little bit more about the man behind the lens.

B:  When did you first pick up a camera, and what initially inspired you to become a landscape photographer?

SB:  A love of the great outdoors is in my blood. My father and grandfather were both keen outdoorsmen. From an early age I was taken on long hikes in the English countryside, particularly the Peak District and Lake District. I admit that sometimes my participation was reluctant, but nevertheless I absorbed the atmosphere and grew to love the mental and physical freedom a day in the hills gives.

As an adult much of my holiday times became devoted to exploring the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. It was a dream come true when I relocated north of the border fifteen years ago. I now had the opportunity to visit the most remote parts of Britain at all times of the year...this was the catalyst for buying my first camera. It wasn't long before the focus of my trips into the wilderness was to take photographs rather than climb as many mountains as possible. At first I was satisfied with gathering images of majestic Highland scenes in glorious light, but my ambitions soon became more sophisticated. I discovered the camera was the perfect tool to pose important questions about how we live and what we do to the planet we live on. Since then, much of my time behind the camera has been spent looking at social and environmental issues as well as capturing the beauty of the natural world.

Propinquity. Hong Kong

Propinquity. Hong Kong

B:  Your projects have taken you to various stunning locations all over the world; is there anywhere you have particularly enjoyed photographing?

SB:  I am particularly fired up by Hong Kong at the moment. Hong Kong is the city of the future - but happening now! It's a place of huge contrast, high density living at its most extreme with a backdrop of jungle clad mountains and island studded seas, a mind blowing visual mix. It's also nice to work there, you can get around easily and it's safe. I like to work alone, so personal safety is a big issue. To absorb a location and get under its skin you need time to stand and stare without constantly looking over your shoulder. Also, I can work in short trousers - don't underestimate how utterly wonderful that feels after enduring a Scottish winter!

B:  It has recently been postulated that “photography is the most essential task of art in the current time”; please comment on this idea, and how you feel about it in relation to your own work.

SB:  As a photographer whose work contains a large element of social documentary I agree completely. The world around us needs recording, not just big physical things but also the small things, things that are important to individuals. Photographers train themselves to observe the world in a special way, searching for motivations and drivers that can ultimately shape society. These things aren't always apparent or easy to see at the time but with hindsight become vital to our understanding of who and what we are.

Home. Mumbai

Home. Mumbai

B:  Please give us a little insight into the general process of choosing a location to photograph, and how you go about deciding what projects to undertake.

SB:  The decision to commit to a photo project is a big one. The kind of questions I ask myself before embarking on something which could quite literally occupy me for years are...

Has this idea been covered by someone else?

Can I afford the necessary equipment?

Do I have the resources to get the shots I need?

Does it interest me sufficiently to spend the time necessary to complete it?

Is the end result going to be interesting to other people?

Is pursuing this idea going to end in divorce from my partner Lauren?

Am I going to be able to negotiate access for the shots I need?

Is it going to entail risking death or serious injury?

Ideally a project can be slotted into everyday life, as with the Yorkshire series. This was a double plus for me, it not only provided the motivation to visit my family, it gave me good outdoor exercise when I got there!

Blue Fields

Blue Fields

B:  Have you got any projects in the works at the moment? Is there anywhere in particular you have yet to photograph that you feel would make for particularly interesting/compelling subject matter?

SB:  It's important for my motivation that I have several projects on the go at any one time. At least one of these must be local to where I live and be something that I can pursue in free moments at home, ideally it should also provide some serious exercise (I hate going to the gym but like to keep reasonably fit) - as with the Full Circle project, I walked many, many miles looking for circular sheep folds!

This time next week I will be in Hong Kong following some ideas I've been working on for shooting various aspects of high rise, high density living. I can't wait to get my short trousers on after the wettest 'summer' of all time in Scotland! Later in the year I want to revisit India to follow up on a trip I did eighteen months ago. India really got under my skin in a big way, sensory overload hardly describes the assault on your mind and body that this amazing country provides 24/7.

Full Circle. Border Stell

Welsh Slate

All images © Simon Butterworth

We interview the CEO of FutureEverything Drew Hemment

A 20-year ‘art project’: Drew Hemment’s journey through digital art and innovation with FutureEverything leads him to Singapore

The FutureEverything festival began 20 years ago in Manchester as a hub for digital collaboration and innovation in the arts. This September, the festival lands in ‘the city of the future’, Singapore, ready to blow minds and challenge perceptions of digital art. FutureEverything CEO, Drew Hemment, discusses the implications of our ever-expanding digital culture surrounding the arts.

FutureEverything. Credit WeAreTape

How did you find your way into digital art and what led you to transition to focus more on curating it in a large festival setting?

I came across Internet art in the early 1990s, when I spoke at and helped organise the Virtual Futures conferences. Before that in the 1980s I got fascinated by networks when I was DJing and organising acid house parties. I set up the festival in 1995. I’d hung up the decks in ‘92 and in ‘95 I ditched the literary agent and book deal and threw myself into festival curation full time. 

This was an incredibly creative moment but there was nowhere people could come together. I wanted there to be an event that was about new work and practice as well as ideas. In secret, the festival itself has always been an art project to me, or at least an arts enquiry. 

Conference Image. Courtesy FutureEverything

Innovation Lab. Courtesy FutureEverything

Singapore Skyline. Image credit Toh Ming Zong

It seems to me that digital art is a lot more accessible for members of the 21st century public than more traditional or current experimental art forms. What is it about digital art that makes it more accessible and do you think its accessibility promotes or encourages accessibility in other artistic mediums?

Accessibility is a good thing, but it can also be a ruse. Many digital artists working today consume and replay interaction forms and images that saturate our lives, through advertising, social media etc. So digital art can be instantly familiar and accessible, in the same way pop art was before it. Any sense of a single ‘thing’ called digital art is decisively over. I am mostly interested in art, and design, which asks questions about the underlying codes that makes changes, leaving the world and the audience different to how it found them.

How do you focus on encouraging digital art and culture that creates a ‘moment’ or ‘event’ in a digital world that allows for instant access to a variety of archived artistic material and ideas? In other words, how can one innovate artistically and digitally in a world that uses technology to access an infinite amount of ideas and artistic endeavours?

We can access everything instantly; it is at our finger tips. This can create a challenge, however, because we have this overabundance of content and connectivity, people need to meet face to face. We need to focus really hard on one thing that is amazing and profound. We’ve seen music gigs explode because people need the live experience to give meaning to streaming and downloads. It’s the same in art, and ideas events, it’s a symptom of our time.

How important do you think artistic collaboration between individuals is in digital art and culture?

Collaboration, sharing and openness are central to the DNA of digital culture. People can collaborate with tens or thousands of strangers across networks to create original and beautiful media objects in which the results of individual creativity can be seen. Mobile networks enable swift and spontaneous collaboration across loosely connected groups. There are always new ways to collaborate with people from other disciplines using them as tools for new development. Having said this, collaboration does not always lead to good art. Solo practice and isolation can create exceptional things.

How has the FutureEverything festival developed since its conception to the upcoming festival in Singapore? Are you witnessing significant changes in the way technology is being used in collaboration with art?

FutureEverything Singapore does feel like something of a culmination of our journey. We have been on this 20 year rollercoaster, imagining the near future, making it and mucking around with it. Then we rock up in this city that is a city of the future, in so many ways. We have never done two festivals the same, we keep on reinventing it. In Singapore my ambition is that we hit the mark, we tap into deep and unexpected currents there and I feel like we can do something beautiful and profound.

Drew Hemment. Image courtesy FutureEverything

FutureEverything

Mark Mcclure | Neatly Ordered Abstraction

Mark Mcclure is an artist who utilizes reclaimed wood to create precise geometric artworks. Using both painted and untreated woods; his works have a crisp yet raw feel that exist symbiotically to create an ordered and balanced work. Sitting somewhere between sculpture, collage, and painting, his work is best interpreted when viewed in its relation to Constructivism.

BM – You combine both old and new materials in your work. Does the history of the materials ever dictate the aesthetic of the piece?

Not really. I tend not to do things that way round. I choose the materials for their colour & texture - in the same way a painter might choose from a selection of paints or charcoals. Texture, colour, and any remnants of past use - all contribute to a pretty broad palette. If I’m after specific textures or remnants to use - then I might stain the wood to adjust the colours slightly - but the history of materials never really takes priority.

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BM – There is a conflict between form and functionality, which do you think takes precedent? 

It’s interesting that you’ve preloaded the question suggesting that form and function are independent of each other. To me it’s all a sliding scale depending upon the context of a piece. 

If I’m creating a wooden mural then it would automatically adopt the function of a wall surface - whilst also being an artwork. If I put a hinged door in a sculpture - it becomes a cupboard of sorts.  It might be a bloody expensive & abstract cupboard - but it’s still got the potential to be a cupboard. It’s down to the context of the artwork - who owns it, how they perceive it, probably how much they paid for it as well.

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BM – You have mentioned to me before that you would identify yourself as a constructivist. The Constructivists believed that the true goal was to make mass-produced objects. Your work is very hands-on, how would you feel about others making it for you? 

The Constructivists had their own in-fights over the ideas of mass production. The likes of Rodchenko straddled the worlds of art & design - whilst others such as Naum Gabo believed in a purer approach that didn’t cross over into function. For me that goes back to the sliding scale & context of the artwork.

But mass production is a different beast to having other people involved in making artworks. The Uphoarding wall I created at the Olympic Park last year involved up to about 10 different people over a 10 month period - and in the future I’ll make artworks in materials I will never have time to master myself - concrete, metal etc. - So it’s inevitable that others will end up producing some of my work.

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BM – Would it still feel like your artworks if you didn’t get your hands dirty?

Yes - but without the emotional attachment that comes from being so involved at every step - an attachment that probably stems from the craft side of things. They’d be put on a different shelf in my mind - but they’d still be mine.

BM – What makes the Constructivists artists as opposed to craftsmen?

Many of them were craftsmen - in that they strived to be masters of their materials - producing clothing, design objects etc. with a view to targeting a consumer market. Others had less tangible, idealistic aims - challenging or celebrating aspects of the world they lived in - expressing feeling and emotion etc. and I guess that’s what makes them artists.

BM – The Constructivists’s aim was to make artworks that force the viewer to become an ‘active viewer’, how interactive is your work and do you intend for it to be touched?

Interaction is really important and working in such tactile materials has meant that it’s hard not to touch a lot of my work - which is totally cool. I love the idea of artworks in galleries being more playful and interactive - though interaction doesn’t always have to involve touch. This is something I’m going to play with more this year…. some exciting ideas on the cards. 

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BM – When you clad the floor or a wall, do you see this as a two-dimensional or a three dimensional piece?

2 dimensions. I’m not too sure where the tipping point is - probably somewhere around 4 inches thick.

BM – Is collage then 2D or 3D? Would you say your work is a type of collage? 

Potentially both - can we invent dimensional fractions here & now?  2.3 dimensions? I wouldn’t say my work right now is collage… though it has been. Collage to me is more layer upon layer than piece by piece - and involves a lot more glue.

BM – What exciting future projects are you working on?

A nice mix right now - a large bespoke floor and a few other fun pieces towards the ‘function’ end of that sliding scale we mentioned earlier - and also some new artworks for exhibitions & fairs over the summer. I’m also exploring some materials to add a new aspect to my work later this year. Some busy & exciting months ahead.

More of Mark’s work can be seen online at  www.markmcclure.co.uk

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An Interview with Ethiopian-American singer Meklit Hadero

Here comes a delightful music superstar with substance  - simply known as Meklit

I’ll admit, I didn’t get Meklit Hadero, the Ethiopian-born, San Francisco-based singer and songwriter when she burst onto the music scene some six years ago. But then one of her songs from her most innovative album to date, “We Are Alive” (Six Degrees Records), implanted in my brain. (The title track, ‘We Are Alive,’ with Meklit’s silky voice floating effortlessly above the guitar-driven song) quaked my foundation and my girl crush was born.  As a-matter-of-fact I love the raw ambition of the “We Are Alive” album – the preposterousness, the simplicity and also the fundamental intelligence. But, witnessing her live-in-concert was mind-blowing. Meklit Hadero is the business. She performed songs from her second solo full length album to a packed audience and critics alike at Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank, London.  This singer, musician, and cultural activist simply known as Meklit took us on a musical odyssey of Ethiopian traditional tunes and more besides: American-Jazz, Hip Hop, street-level Jazz, Rock, East African Folk and Ethiopian classics - the lyricist practice of her auditory mother country.  

Born in Ethiopia, from Ethiopian parents, she feels deeply African and deeply American and her records are deeply inspired by Mulatu Astatke, the Godfather of Ethio-Jazz. Her work builds upon the concepts pioneered by Astatke as part of the late 60s and early 70s Golden Age of Ethiopian music. Taking these principal elements of her heritage as introductory building blocks, she explores the cultural dreams happening as part of the arrival of the Ethiopian Migration en masse to North America. In spite of this, it must be celebrated that this artist's voice makes for compelling listening. Her performance on stage makes for compelling seeing. Her voice is earthy and soulful, supple and freed, and exudes all four.  If champagne were a person it would be Meklit Hadero. She is stunning.  In an alternate life, one where talent was spread out differently, this is the kind of music I would like to make. It’s subtle, contemporary and one of its kind, while being massively emotional. Oh well, fair enough! What is more?  There’s more to this woman.  We also find this touring performer, and a political science Yale University graduate, is a committed activist extraordinaire.

In 2011 she launched the UN Women's campaign for gender equality in Africa, and co-founded the “Nile Project” with dear friend Mina Girgis, an Egyptian ethnomusicologist, with background in hospitality experience, curating and producing innovative musical collaborations across diverse styles.  The Nile Project brings together artists from the eleven Nile countries that borders the River Nile,  namely, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt,  to make music that combines the region’s diverse instruments, languages and traditions. Meklit Hadero may not yet be your household one and you may not have heard Meklit Hadero's music before, but once you do, I promise it’ll be tough to get it out of your head.  

If champagne were a person it would be you in your fizzy performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. How would you rate that performance at the Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank, London?

We had an amazing time. The UK has always been good to me, and Southbank was just wonderful. And of course having the legendary Pee Wee Ellis there (long-time musical director for James Brown) was a life highlight, especially since the funk that he helped to create was so much part of the Ethiopian tune we played together, Tiz Alegn Ye Tintu. 

Where do you go in your head when performing on stage?

Well, in the best moments the “I” disappears entirely. You are consumed by the music and the sound, responding like lightning to your instincts for movement and voice, and to the band around you. 

Your band was downright superb on stage.  Now, have you always believed you could be successful but did not know how?

I think you have to believe in yourself like that, no matter what your vocation. But music is different because there is no definite path, especially now. Everyone in music is just making it up as they go along, and trying new things. That’s all you can do!

Is it reasonable to term your music as subtly modern and unique while being massively emotional, fierce, and brutal and a no-nonsense dagger in the heart?

Well if you describe my music that way, then I’m doing something right! I describe my music as the intersection of jazz, the singer-songwriter tradition, and Ethiopian music. I think of myself as reflecting my three sonic homelands, Addis Ababa, Brooklyn and San Francisco.

It’s a highly commercial world we live in today. Everything is a trip to profitability. Are you under pressure to produce commercial music and to put out only a money-making album?

Of course everyone is under pressure to succeed in a massive way, but I think producing for the market is tricky. If you do that, you lose what drew people to your music in the first place, which is your authentic voice in the world. I think the more deeply you go inside yourself, the more you reach the universal place that can appeal to people in a wide way. It sounds backwards, but it’s the only way to do this long-term, and I’m in for the long-term.

Wise Lady! You are involved in more than two projects. Tell us about your projects - how do you get so much done?

2015 has been so full. The Nile Project, which I co-founded with Egyptian ethnomusicologist Mina Girgis in 2011, brings together musicians from the eleven countries of the Nile Basin to learn about each other’s music, to create music together, and to bring that music to the Nile and to the world. We just finished a four month US tour, and are in the middle of our second album. What a whirlwind! After the last show, I caught a flight to the UK for a two week tour and residency, and finished off this period with a show in Zurich. I’m looking forward to spending the second half of 2015 in the Bay Area writing new music based in Ethio-Jazz. 

In the last two years refugees are streaming out of your country like ants – what is your perspective on this growing humanitarian crisis?  Were you a refugee at some stage?

It’s very sad…. Recently Ethiopians felt this in a huge way when 28 of our countrymen died in Libya at the hands of ISIS. They were on their way to cross the Mediterranean into Italy. There was a national mourning and a big light shone on how far people are going to search for a better life. Ethiopia has gone through a huge development leap in the last twenty years, but sadly folks are still streaming out. My cousin Teodros Teshome just made a film called Sost Maezen (Triangle) that I believe everyone should see. In it, he tells the story of a group of friends from Ethiopia and Eritrea who walk across Sudan to Libya, then take a boat to Italy, fly to Mexico, then walk to the US. It is a treacherous journey. Thousands attempt it and many die along the way. My family and I were refugees in a different sense. It was the early 80s, just after the revolution and the Red Terror in Ethiopia, and we left for East Germany, and then crossed at Check Point Charlie through Berlin. We then came to the US and spent years in a kind of limbo, adjusting to life in the US. But we were lucky. Movement takes its toll in many ways, some small and some big. Recently, we are seeing tragedy after tragedy. We are all very sad. 

Back to your recent album – We Are Alive – please describe it?

We Are Alive is a collection of songs about the big arc of life, the ups and downs, the magic and the absurd, the beautiful, the danceable, and the quiet. It is the through-line of life and living that crosses all our experiences. 

Recently the US R & B /hip-hop star Lauryn Hill cancelled a concert in Israel because she was banned from performing in the Palestinian territories. As one who know injustice first hand, if you were in her position, what would you have done?

I understand her position. Injustice anywhere reverberates outwards. It has also been interesting how many links are being made recently between injustices in Israel and those in the United States. For example, Ethiopians in Israel have been marching recently because of racist treatment and brutality by Israeli Police, and many have been making links to the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States. It’s all related. 

I know you have performed in Ethiopia on more than one occasion. How does it feel performing in your birth country?

I love performing in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian people have always been so supportive of me. And it will always be home, so it’s a homecoming! 

Most musicians claim that their music is inspired by heartbreak – how about you? What is your song-writing and music inspired by?  Do you write all of your own songs?

I like to think that music should be inspired by the widest of possible life experiences, from heartbreak, to the birth of a child, to the natural phenomenon in the world around us. You can write a song about anything! I write about 80% of the songs I sing, but we do reinterpret some Ethiopian traditional tunes like Abay Mado and Kemekem, and the occasional pop tune, by folks like David Byrne and The Police. 

People will always judge if you are good or just terrible – how do you cope?

You choose a select group of folks whose opinion you value deeply and you listen to their feedback. Beyond that, you can’t listen to what people say about you. And you have to know that you will never please everybody. 

Any obsessions at the moment? 

I'm always obsessed with music.... Right now Muluken Melese is on repeat. He's a classic. 

How many gigs do you roughly do a year? And do you do any in African countries?

Depends on the year but generally between 25-60 gigs a year. The Nile Project has been brining me to perform regularly in the Nile Basin as well.

Who does Meklit influence?   

I hope I am influencing young women, especially from Africa and the African Diaspora to find their unique voice and to sing it loud! We need more of those voices in the public dialogue, and I think we are at a tipping point where they will soon be much more present in the world sphere. I want to be there to support them!

Meklit