Last year I was given a gopro for my birthday, ostensibly to attach to the dog’s harness but so far I’ve used it in my own video projects. Most recently an ink drawing on Chinese paper filmed with the gopro attached to my arm during the Spontaneous Creativity workshop 2017 (a Dover Arts Development/The Ha!Man coproduction). Soundtrack from the workshop with improvisation by the participants.
I had such a lovely time back as an alumna at King’s College Cambridge, with fellow artists Joanna Jones and Helen Lindon.
Despite the not-ideal screening conditions – the curtains just would not move and probably had not been closed for years – A Parable for Endeavour – went down well and prompted a truly inspiring and wide-ranging discussion covering everything from scale, to beauty, to collaboration, agency, slowness, the difficulties of interpretation, vulnerability and the importance of care.
“…the care was so visible that it was mesmerising to watch…”
“… the slowness of the first section ….. makes slowness important in a way that is refreshing….”
“… a story of paper trampled on and given a chance to shine again by three women” as if to say “you can’t trample us down, we are able to tell our story”
“… 3 women working with their hands … making art not food was powerful and feminist”
We all sat in on the panel discussion – women in academia and then glammed up for the evening dinner with a keynote speech by Kum-Kum Bhavnani about her work promoting human rights, social justice and the work that women do across the globe.
We stayed overnight which gave us a chance to find good places for breakfast and lunch and to go to the Fitzwilliam Museum to see the rather wonderful current exhibition Madonnas and Miracles, which was highly appropriate given the weekend’s theme. While at the museum we also went to the Sunday lunchtime concert and were bowled over by the young pianist, Julian Trevelyan.
We now have a website for A Parable for Endeavour and hope we can screen it again, perhaps as a visual paper at a conference or symposium.
A Parable for Endeavour, a collaborative film made with Joanna Jones and Helen Lindon is being previewed at my old college, King’s College Cambridge on 11 March for International Women’s Day.
Clare Smith's mixed English/Chinese heritage informs her perspective on issues of identity and categorisation. Her nomadic childhood and early adulthood have meant a somewhat ambivalent relationship to place, reinforced by the sense of ambiguity that comes from her mixed identity. Smith works with drawing, print media, collage and moving image to investigate this ambivalence, with references to craft, the importance of labour and the handmade. Through her choice of materials and approaches, she creates work which attempts to create a sense of unity, an interpretation of Homi Bhabha's "Third Space" - seen as a space in which different parts can come together to challenge dominant ideas of wholeness. Collaboration is part of Smith’s practice and she is also co-founder of Dover Arts Development (DAD) together with painter, Joanna Jones. This involves working with many different artists, curation, organisation, event management, creating networks across East Kent and influencing the public realm in Dover. Clare works from a studio in Dover. She has an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins and has exhibited nationally and internationally.
