I’ve been back just over 2 weeks and after getting over acute jet-lag followed by a nasty bronchial cough/cold, I have the job of reviewing what I did in Banff and trying to get it ‘out there’.
I haven’t got anything pre-planned, so it’ll be a case of being pro-active, seeking out /following up opportunities and contacts. I’ve got a few ideas of people/places to approach and I will be putting together a proposal/package I can send out. The difficulty will be in making something coherent from all of this, especially the video work.
I always find this difficult to do, particularly with this work, to convey the best sense of what it is. This work is not conventional linear single screen video work that can easily translate to a few minutes on a single DVD. I always feel I’m compromising the work when I try and ‘package’ it for a proposal or exhibition opportunity and I think that I don’t always make the right choices to really give justice to the work or at least a clear sense of it.
I must get better at doing this.
The other difficulty is that although my work has a clear relationship to performance (after all, this is what I came to Banff to develop), I don’t feel I really fit into the ‘scene’ as my work isn’t ‘presented’ to an audience in the way that most performance works tend to get shown. The same goes with my use of photography.
I’m going to sign up for an Artist Advisory Session at ArtsAdmin to see if I can get some sound advice.
I’m also going to see if I can in the short-term see what’s possible through UAL (University of the Arts London), from whom I received some research funding for my travel to Banff. To honour this I have to give some form of public address. It would be good to give a talk/lecture in the first instance, but I’m also going to see if I can get some of this work shown in one or more of the exhibition spaces- afterall this work is research for their benefit too.
It’s been very odd to be back, not least because I’m currently in studio limboland after having had 5 very full weeks in a studio with 24hr access. Unfortunately the studio I was due to move into in Camberwell as soon as I got back has been delayed by a month- very frustrating as it makes it difficult to unpack this work both literally and metaphorically.
I’m missing seeing the mountain views and breathing in mountain air every day- London seems very grubby by comparison and overpopulated. It’s taking a while to re-adjust, but it’s also great to be back! I’m ending this with a last view taken form my studio in Banff before I left. I’ll be adding dates of related lectures/exhibitions once they are confirmed.
