BEHIND THE WHEEL
I was recently going through some old notes and found a planning document with a section entitled ‘SPILL into Suffolk’. I will often find these kinds of things lurking on my hard drive – little notes to self, imagining initiatives or possible programming strands. These ideas don’t necessarily come to fruition. At least not in the short term. But I seem to remember the thinking behind this phrase ‘SPILL into Suffolk’ was that having embedded myself in the town, and committed to Ipswich as home to the festival, it would be interesting to start exploring what SPILL might do in the future over this wider geographical area – or, as I phrased it in the document:
IDEA: Expanding SPILL beyond the borders of Ipswich into rural contexts…
OLDER (SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE POSH CLUB)
But with humans now living longer than ever before, many people alive today will be elders for forty years or more. Yet despite the fact that many of us will spend more years in elderhood than in childhood, old age still remains ‘…a condition to be dreaded, disparaged, neglected, and denied.’
YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'VE GOT 'TIL IT'S GONE
The title of this entry is of course a reference to the Joni Mitchell song that so articulately describes what it means to lose something of value. As you will see, the reference to a parking lot in that same song is also pertinent to what follows.
MY OLD SCHOOL
These images were doing the rounds on social media sometime around 2014, and at this time, I would often start my public speaking engagements by showing them, referring to the demolition of these buildings as a metaphor for arts education being ‘in ruins’. Since then, out of the rubble has emerged a new building consisting of hotel-like accommodation for Cardiff Metropolitan University students; clean, sleek and well appointed, this new usage is as far from my own rough, dirty, chaotic art school experience as it is possible to imagine
WE HATE IT WHEN OUR FRIENDS BECOME SUCCESSFUL
It took me ages to get round to it, but I finally wrote a curatorial statement. No great fanfare, no big deal, but the realisation is that writing a statement of intent as an Artistic Director is no easier than writing an artist statement. It has been interesting to see which of my concerns as an artist have carried over into my curatorial role - for example, exploring the relationship between the marginal and the mainstream.