What kind of a year has 2024 been for you?
It’s been a jam-packed year full of new experiences, learning opportunities, and energising conversations with new and old friends who have enriched my thinking and outlook. I’ve particularly enjoyed meeting Rae Yen Song during their residency at Porthmeor Studios, and Jenny Salmean who I visited at Deveron Projects; and to continue really generative conversations with Dhaqan Collective, Kajal Modi and Jelena Sofronijevic who I met through Counterpoints Arts’ Climate and Displacement Group.
I spent two months in Glasgow this Spring undertaking a secondment at National Theatre Scotland as part of the Clore Fellowship. My work there looked at evaluation, the different ways it can, does and could happen, and how and what is valuable. I used the Rubbish Sculpture and Conversation method we use during MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh workshops to create a more equitable space. Different staff teams were invited to come together and converse about policy, organisational structures, capacity and how internal matters at work connect to external global issues.
After the Clore process I got back on the plumbing tools in the summer – that was tough and led me to reflect on my ambitions for myself, my need for money and relationship with work. Plumbing is fundamental, it’s about energy efficiency, keeping drinking water clean and wastewater heading in the right direction; it offers satisfying problem solving, and is at the forefront of lower-impact living. I really value the skills and knowledge I have to work in this area, and of course to earn money less precariously than by wholly relying on art earnings. But it is physically demanding and I really felt the burn after six months off.
2024 also marked the celebration of 10 years since the UK government recognised the Kernewek/Cornish as a national minotrity. Visual Arts South West invited me to write a piece about what Kernewek/Cornish national minority status means for me. It is something visceral and bodily, and utterly connected to the work and choices I make as an artist. Kernewek identity, and our guardianship of an indigenous language, is also political. It comes with a responsibility of solidarity, with indigenous people globally who are experiencing the heinous impacts of extraction and colonialism.
Particularly on my mind this year have been the people of Palestine. I committed to a Medical Aid for Palestinians fundraising walk in the early summer, and join Palestine Solidarity Cornwall events when I can. There are regular rallies in Penzance and Falmouth, and you can find out more via their Instagram.
What has changed for the better?
I received an Access to Work award and now benefit from having support workers who help me maintain my focus and manage my capacity. As a result I feel more able to communicate and deliver my approach and practice at a pace that works for me. This process has also fed into my ReWilding Arts Leadership thinking.
I qualified as a coach and have started to work with regular clients. This builds on my mentoring and tutoring work, all of which I find fulfilling and inspiring.
What do you wish had happened this year that hadn’t happened?
I’ve had a handful of days holiday this year and unsurprisingly I dipped into burnout by the late summer and needed to reassess my capacity – again. This is a pattern of sorts, and one that I really need to guard against, so I have already timetabled four weeks off next year!
I have experienced some brutal funding rejections (I’m currently on the third iteration of an ACE Project Grant) alongside some funding successes that have allowed me to develop and deliver a training programme for freelance workshop leaders in Kernow. This included Jess Mally’s course, An Introduction to Anti-Racism, and sessions I developed to introduce the MESKLA | Brewyon Drudh approach. In particular looking at facilitation of meandering and open conversation, and holding space for broad sharing of thoughts and experience.
What would you characterise as your major achievement this year and why?
I was commissioned by Hospital Rooms to work with Cornwall NHS Foundation Trust Redruth and Bodmin Community hospitals, running making sessions with patients and staff. We made and painted cardboard rocks together and these sessions informed the resulting art work I made for Cove Ward – MESKLA | Rag Porth/For Cove (Lewyow a Gernow). I loved making this work – all the engagement in the planning, and then the making – painting it, kind of live, on the ward, all the while chatting with people who are now living and working with the piece, really embodied all that the work was about. This commission connects so many important things for me and allowed me to bring colour, movement and texture to a part of the ward that doesn’t have natural light.
Anna Testar and Izzy Eastick of Hospital Rooms were brilliant to work with; I felt genuine care and interest from them – thank you.
I was pleased to publicly publish a final piece from my MESKLA 2022 project. It has been developing in the background for a while and it’s gratifying to see it ‘out there’.
How has the ReWilding Arts Leadership project grown from your Clore Fellowship experience?
A lot about how the arts and culture sector works has been reconfirmed for me this year. It’s unavoidable to see that while there’s vast potential for systemic change, the pace of that change is way too slow. I can find this disheartening, but I am committed in my determination to contribute as much as I can.
ReWilding Arts Leadership is a contribution from me to work being undertaken more widely that aims to bring about greater parity and equity in the arts and society. The project is a provocation and a proposition for the approaches and thinking of art making to be brought into art leadership and strategy. For the sector to be more fluid, relevant and fertile.
I’ve been invited to share at various events in Kernow/Cornwall after my Fellowship experience. Contextualising my thinking within the cultural sector in Kernow has been really fruitful. I’ve discussed my research with colleagues while presenting at events, speaking on podcasts, and hosted a roundtable activity at Clore’s Governance Now conference at UAL this Autumn.
Clore has been brilliant for opening up my access to governance, strategy and policy spaces. These are spaces that I have found are less available to independent artists, despite our key investment in the sector. I have now joined the board of trustees for Creative Kernow, a vital organisation for creativity and culture in Cornwall. I’m looking forward to learning more from the perspective of a trustee.
What are your hopes for 2025?
To achieve an Arts Council England Project Grant for the final stage of MESKLA, for co-created and collaborative activity in partnership with Counterpoints Arts, Kresen Kernow, and Institute of Cornish Studies, and with invited artists such as Areej Kaoud, Rachael Jones and Maria Christoforidou.
I would like to affirm a legacy for the project that offers anecdotal and creative data from non-conforming and non-traditional voices as a resource available for public access in perpetuity via Kresen Kernow, Cornwall’s Archive Centre. My ambition is that it provides an alternative narrative to those usually found and presented about and of Kernow. Making space for these narratives allows the profile of such stories and views to be more visible and valued. Again, this is collective work, and MESKLA contributes to work being undertaken by other groups, projects and artists such as Queer Kernow, Lowender, Re-Voice, Libita Sibungu, Laurie Huggett, and Kyra Norman.
I’ve tidied up my studio and I would like to realise some long held plans for new work. Being back in the studio more will be both a productive and supportive experience, and I am excited for it.
What does being a member of a-n mean to you?
Being a member of a-n has been important to me throughout my career, I think I first joined in 1999 when I graduated from BA. I see a-n as a space for sharing and community building, as well as for essential practical support such as the insurance, opportunities and bursaries. But perhaps the most important thing a-n does is its advocacy work. Who else has consistently spoken for, argued for and represented artists needs and voices than a-n?
Top image: Sovay Berriman visiting White Wood by Caroline Wendling
