At the beginning of November I was invited by Melanie Kidd, Head of Exhibitions at the New Art Exchange in Nottingham, to talk about the last 10 years of my creative practise. The talk coincides with my exhibition which is being shown there until the 7th of January 2023. We spoke before a full house and a couple dozen attendees online too - thanks to the entire team for making the evening run so smoothly.
After a six month course at the School of Myth this year, hearing ancient oral stories, a clearer language round my work has appeared - in Joseph Campbell speak, the business of severance, threshold & return - and the psyche work inherent in journeys through the otherworld, journeys akin to the great migratory adventures our species have repeatedly embarked on, like the footprints of my ancestors, now scattered on Black Country’s scorched earth.
The talk is busy with artistic references; the eponymous The Exiles, a 60s docu-drama following Native Americans who leave reservations for Bunker Hill in LA, from nature based ways to a pummelling in capitalist straitjackets; to Tracey Moffat’s searing recreations of early Aussie outback life, of Aboriginal families dispossessed of their children; to paintings by Cornelius Krieghoff and Frederick McCubbin of early European settlements in Newfoundlands. I could go on and do in the talk.
You can watch the talk below. I hope you find it nourishing.