I gave an artist talk in my studio with a little performative twist by changing my title t-shirts during each section. For example I started wearing my ‘Artist’ t, followed by ‘Tour Guide’ when talking about Manchester as a city of renewal. I briefly spoke about PAPER gallery and changed again into my ‘Curator’ t, finally ending as an ‘Official Researcher’. I was a little nervous about doing this especially with a small group, although people laughed about it. It wasn’t a gimmick and I felt really strongly that beneath the well designed presentation you got to see the real me. The only glitch I had was that the WI FI suddenly stopped working which meant that I could not show any videos of my performances. I have sat through performance artists talks before with no video finding it boring listening to long endless descriptions. However actually doing it during the talk really said more about what I do. I wanted to leave some time at the end for questions, especially in case there were things I said that did not translate.
I was asked why my work was changing since having a baby. I really want to be ambitious in my thinking and develop more sustainable relationships within the arts. This is not only something I want for me but also for my son. I don’t want to be inhibited by others or by money in my ideas. This may be naive but I have to dream big, I’m an artist and a mother what else am I supposed to do? Money is also an issue in Finland with artists having to pay to exhibit in galleries. Another artist mentioned that they had tried to make a partnership with Manchester gallery for a touring exhibition, however it never happened due to finance. The exhibition ended up in Germany instead. I got a sense from all the artists that international exchange was much wanted, however funding was the main concern. There are many residencies here, however we have very little in Manchester.
