Episode 2 of my creative conversation sees me concluding my chat with Hannah Sofaer and Paul Crabtree from the Portland Sculpture and Quarry Trust. On this show we talk about some of the fantastic exhibitions that went on at the Drill Hall over 2012.
The program – Stone Island Stone is Land – brought together art from many different disciplines and was part of Inspire mark London 2012.
We talk about the exhibitions they held, how they came about and their involvement in staging these exhibitions and putting this program together.
I was interested in the long term connections a few of the artists had with the trust. About this ongoing commitment. As artists like Mark Dunhill (whose conversation is the feature of my next show) and Jim Cooke associations with the trust stretches back many years, and whose involvement form part of the trusts ongoing dialog, which than helps inform their strategic decisions.
We go onto to talk about the next stage of the trust. Where Hannah feels it is all coming together at the right time at the right place.
Finishing up with Hannah talking about the rewarding aspect she has found in her connection with local people, with the quarryman who have worked the landscape.
http://creativedialog.wordpress.com/2013/01/25/cre…
Just editing a new edition of my creative conversations and have remembered one of the reasons I love doing this project is not just the luxury of having these exclusive 1-1 conversations, but in that they are recorded I can go back and re-listen. I can stop, rewind and hear again something that was said. This I find is a great luxury.
The other rewarding aspect, which isn’t really captured in the show so much, is the rambling conversation where I struggle to articulate my thoughts. How the conversations can go off in strange directions, depending on what people are telling me. I am tending to edit out these rambling aspects, trying to make them coherent to some extant. In a way I suppose I’m trying to imitate a professional radio show, but at the same time I’m not as I wish to give people the space to discuss things in a slow, relaxing conversation. Rather than editing a number of people together into one show and selecting the best sound bites to use.
Putting a recorder between you and and another is a great creative exercise , that I heartily recommend.
It has taken me awhile to find time to edit the conversations I have been recording. But I have finally finished editing and putting online the first in my new series of creative conversations!
I start this new series by talking to Hannah Sofaer and Paul Crabtree at Portland Sculpture and Quarry Trust (PQST). They have established a great centre on Portland, a place for discovery & learning that brings together people from different backgrounds through the exchange of skills & knowledge.
Before you hear Hannah & Paul speaking I introduce this new series. It last for approx 7min and you can skip this part and jump straight to hearing Paul and Hannah. I just felt it was important to establish why I had started these conversations. You won’t hear me so much on the shows following this.
Hannah & Paul give us an idea of the trust and its early days from Tout Quarry Sculpture Park to renovating the Drill Hall. According to wikipedia there is estimated to be over 70 different sculptures within the quarry. Hannah mentions some of the artists like Phillip King, Antony Gormley, Richard Wilson, Shelagh Wakely, Keir Smith, along with lesser known artists.
PQST are a fascinating organisation with strong links to the communities that live around them. They have working relationships with scientists, with artists and within the education sector.
They talk about how they have developed, about how the have researched the spaces made from quarrying the landscape and what might happen to these spaces afterwards. & how the Drill hall is an amazing resource that will provide them an opportunity to showcase not just artist work but also those from scientists, geologists and from the local community.
To listen to this show and read more about Portland Sculpture and Quarry Trust
http://creativedialog.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/creative-conversations-with-portland-sculpture-and-quarry-trust/
Preparing for a new series of my Creative Conversations. A follow up on my podcasts I put out last year, where I undertook a number of recorded conversations with local artists and arts organisations on their views on how the Olympics and the cultural Olympiad might affect their practice.
I have some great conversations recorded and ready for me to edit together. My aim is to put out a weekly, 30min show. Some of the conversations have been recorded over the summer of 2012, recorded in Weymouth and Portland during the Olympics and Paralympics. Some of the conversations I have had since the Olympics have left town. My aim is to put out 10 shows and I hope you come back weekly to listen to the shows being streamed from this site, or that you subscribe to my podcast.
The conversations I have lined up so far;
– Portland Sculpture and Quarry Trust;
– Mark Dunhill
– Paul Soulellis
– PopupDorset
– Artwey
– ExLab
– Rikki Sorbie
– Jim Cooke
– DIVA contemporary
(they won’t necessary be played in this order)
Before talking to them I start the show by trying to explain myself a bit; talking about where these shows started from, of how last year I was interested in the coming Olympics to the town and about the large sum of money that would be around to pay for the cultural Olympiad. I was intrigued to hear how local artists might see this; how might it effect their practice; what legacy did they envisage it might leave.
I was surprised at how many other people found these shows at all interesting, as I’d primarily made them for myself and didn’t think many people would want to listen to thirty minutes of artists talking about themselves, but people did! I found them immensely rewarding to do and personally forged many new connections, and was always glad to hear that other people did as well.
I’d always intended to go back and do these shows again, to try and talk to the people and organisations I recorded shows with previously, along with having new conversations with some of my new contacts. This I have now, finally, getting around to doing!
Watch this space to hear the shows – http://creativedialog.wordpress.com
