00:00:00
We run well-being walks which you can be referred to by your
00:00:02
local GP. People tell us that they go to
00:00:04
the doctor less and say come on a well-being walks because of
00:00:06
the fact they feel more socially connected.
00:00:09
They've built confidence. So how does an outrail affect
00:00:13
the perception of your surroundings?
00:00:16
We saw these seashells broken on the path and I don't think we
00:00:22
would have noticed them if it wasn't the line.
00:00:25
So we if we weren't doing this sort of art hike and there were
00:00:29
so many that we presumed that birds brought seashells from the
00:00:33
water and just broke them blood to eat them.
00:00:35
Hello and welcome to Exhibition Nesters.
00:00:38
Welcome to another episode of the segment Art Insider.
00:00:43
This episode has a little bit of a background story.
00:00:47
Turns out that during this Christmas break, my family and
00:00:50
I, we went on an art hike. We visited The Line, which is a
00:00:55
public art trail in East London. It goes or it cuts across the
00:01:00
city from Stratford to Greenwich.
00:01:03
It is much more than just a walk from sculpture to sculpture.
00:01:09
You get lost in industrial spaces, crossing through very
00:01:15
old buildings, and you also visit a completely new part of
00:01:21
the city, specifically Stratford.
00:01:24
There's new buildings over there.
00:01:26
There's a whole new world that you wouldn't visit if you hadn't
00:01:30
decided to do an art hike. So today I'm welcoming the
00:01:34
recently appointed director of this project, Sarah Carrington,
00:01:39
and as usual, I asked her how she encountered art.
00:01:43
But more specifically, I was really interested in knowing the
00:01:46
specificities of this project, which is to take art beyond the
00:01:52
museum walls to unusual spaces where people literally run into
00:02:00
sculpture installations, perhaps even listening to the line audio
00:02:06
Experience. This is art in unusual places.
00:02:13
Unexpected encounters along an art trail.
00:02:23
Exhibitionist is an independent podcast created and hosted by
00:02:27
me, Joanna Pierre Nevers. Because we're all both actors
00:02:31
and spectators of art and life. Hello and welcome to Exhibition
00:02:41
Esters to another Art Insider episode.
00:02:44
Today, my guest is Sarah Carrington, director of The
00:02:49
Line. Sarah, thank you so much for
00:02:51
joining us here at Exhibition Esters in your very, very busy
00:02:55
schedule. Oh.
00:02:56
Thank you for having me, it's a pleasure.
00:02:58
It's been a long time coming. I've I've been meaning to reach
00:03:01
out for a long time because I'm really curious about this
00:03:05
project. I'm not sure many people beyond
00:03:08
London know it, apart from the artist that maybe you
00:03:10
commissioned a few works from. But first, I would love to, you
00:03:15
know, know a bit more about you and about maybe your first
00:03:19
relation with contemporary arts or art in general.
00:03:24
When did you encounter it? So I was lucky enough to have
00:03:28
quite a, I guess, creative family.
00:03:31
My mum's very artistic and my dad was quite involved in
00:03:35
supporting different arts organizations are very musical,
00:03:37
so it was just second nature to them that we would go and do
00:03:40
things at the weekends. One that I always seem to refer
00:03:43
to, but it really stands out in my mind is a visit to the
00:03:45
Burrell Collection in Glasgow. And I think I was probably 9-8
00:03:49
or nine. And I remember this display of
00:03:52
lace. And they talked about the makers
00:03:54
who made the lace and the lace was displayed so beautifully and
00:03:57
you could see this incredible intricacy to the work.
00:04:00
And they talked about the women who worked on the lace and that
00:04:03
over time many of them would become blind.
00:04:05
And the process of that and the labour that went into the the
00:04:08
making of this exquisite object which was something that was
00:04:11
then given to somebody else to wear and enjoy.
00:04:12
And I remember the way they presented it was so moving.
00:04:15
I think I actually did cry, but I think it really made me the
00:04:19
power of objects and making and artistry and the stories that
00:04:26
are embedded within them. And I'm making my parents buy me
00:04:28
a poster. Sounds very pompous, but of the
00:04:31
lace. So I had it in my room and I
00:04:33
always looked at it and I think, yeah, that was a real moment.
00:04:35
I think also just thinking about that, the interpretation, the
00:04:39
way that it was presented. So I think that was building
00:04:42
that connection around curating and how how that's managed and
00:04:45
the narrative that we are given by an institution around objects
00:04:49
was very exciting. But in terms of contemporary
00:04:53
arts, do you have a memory of the exhibition that kind of led
00:04:59
you to be more in tune with what is the art that is being made
00:05:04
today? That I feel like it's harder.
00:05:09
I mean, it's a bit of a cliche, but I remember going to
00:05:11
Saatchi's gallery in Boundary Rd. all those years ago and
00:05:17
probably when I was at sixth form maybe, and just thinking,
00:05:21
Oh my goodness, you know, I'm probably actually seeing Richard
00:05:23
Wilson's oil installate, you know, just thinking how I'm
00:05:27
actually getting goosebumps, which is really weird.
00:05:29
But just thinking this architecturally, the space was
00:05:32
so different to anything I'd seen before and it felt very
00:05:36
urgent and sort of the scale of the works was so extraordinary.
00:05:41
And that moment of the 90s and that kind of feeling of suddenly
00:05:43
contemporary art being something that people wanted to connect
00:05:46
with and that was provoking people to think in very
00:05:49
different ways, I think was probably quite formative, even
00:05:52
though I'm not, you know, I think there's definitely works
00:05:54
within that moment that I don't necessarily relate to as such,
00:05:57
but I think probably that that that space and that moment in
00:06:01
time was probably quite a big turning point for me.
00:06:04
But you know, you're not the only person because Ben and Luke
00:06:06
also talked about Saatchi Gallery as a very specific
00:06:11
space. And I'm really fascinated by the
00:06:14
90s. And we had a chat about that
00:06:16
because the 90s was such an important time.
00:06:19
It was not about loving the work, but it was also the fact
00:06:24
that me as an outsider, someone who was probably, you know,
00:06:29
between Lisbon and Paris at the time, and learning about this
00:06:32
later in curatorial studies, I'm fascinating by the fascinated by
00:06:36
the 90s in the UK in general, because it was a moment where it
00:06:43
touched the mainstream, didn't it?
00:06:46
Definitely, yeah. And it was like a fusion of art
00:06:48
and fashion and music. And, you know, I look back now,
00:06:51
you know, my, I've got teenagers, teenage children, and
00:06:54
they're obsessed with the 90s. And you sort of think I was so
00:06:57
lucky. It was, it was an amazing time
00:06:59
to be in London and to be studying and yeah, that
00:07:03
culturally magazines, writing and no Internet really.
00:07:06
You have to go to the places. You know, you had to be there
00:07:10
and you had to write everything down and read the articles and
00:07:12
reviews were so important. And, you know, it was, yeah.
00:07:16
I'm not saying that what we've got now is terribly bad.
00:07:19
I just still feel like that was to come of age in that context
00:07:22
was pretty special, I think. Yeah.
00:07:24
Yes, absolutely. And I'm also curious in knowing
00:07:27
what other kind of arts or what other practice has an impact on
00:07:34
your work with contemporary art. Is there any connectivity with
00:07:37
other areas of creativity for you?
00:07:40
You did start with LACE. Yeah, I mean heritage objects
00:07:45
and historic kind of decorative arts or everyday objects in that
00:07:51
sense. The kind of heritage and
00:07:52
storytelling within those is probably something I'm always
00:07:54
fascinated by things like folk art, and that's something that's
00:07:57
always been interesting to me. An artist that kind of connects
00:08:00
with those trajectories I think is really exciting.
00:08:03
I think fashion is always an inspiration, and I was lucky
00:08:07
enough to work with Roxander on a collaboration with Rana Begum.
00:08:10
And I think definitely growing up, like just Mag, I was
00:08:13
obsessed with magazines and fashion and the artistry and
00:08:17
Alexander McQueen are these kind of people that were really the
00:08:20
sort of performative elements of fashion.
00:08:24
And then thinking about how fashion draws on historical
00:08:26
references all the time and those interplays, I think it's
00:08:29
probably been a big in a way, probably more than I realized in
00:08:33
some ways. What do you mean by performative
00:08:35
aspects of fashion? So I guess in fashion shows, in
00:08:38
the way that shows are catwalk, you know, the way that people
00:08:42
particularly I guess someone like McQueen used music and
00:08:45
light and drama, you know, or Don Galliano, these kind of,
00:08:50
again, I've got everything seems very 90s, but those those are
00:08:53
very, yeah, extraordinary kind of platforms to experiment and
00:08:58
explore different cultural references.
00:09:01
When you think about it, it's true that I I'd never thought
00:09:04
about the catwalk as a sort of exhibition space, as a sort of
00:09:09
performative space, which is, now that you say it, the 90s
00:09:15
were absolutely about that. Going back to the latest
00:09:18
reference as well. But craft I think has always
00:09:20
been something I've been in terms of the link between art
00:09:25
and craft and thinking about ceramics and these kind of more
00:09:27
everyday materials and how those have kind of entered into
00:09:33
contemporary art and the flow between them and that.
00:09:35
I've always found that quite fascinating and that they were
00:09:38
historically often considered quite separated.
00:09:40
And and then people like William Morris in the way in which he
00:09:44
celebrated the potential of, of artistry and everything that's
00:09:47
around us and like, yeah, kind of hold on to a lot of those
00:09:50
ideas, I think. In your career you've you've
00:09:53
done very different things. So you've done curating but
00:09:56
you've done also managing. You Commission artwork, but
00:10:00
you've also organised boards and worked on funding.
00:10:06
You worked in Australia, you worked in the US, and each time
00:10:09
we'd kind of like grassroots or at least burgeoning endeavours,
00:10:16
let's say. So how would you define your
00:10:20
profile and how and can you also for our listeners, because I, I
00:10:25
do realize that people don't quite know what a curator does.
00:10:28
Can you tell us a little bit about how that's also
00:10:31
incorporated in the work of a curator sometimes, at least in
00:10:35
your case? Gosh.
00:10:39
I mean, in terms of defining my own profiles, I mean, that's
00:10:41
quite difficult. I mean, I guess just going back
00:10:46
to basics, I was always really fascinated with how art connects
00:10:49
with everyday life and where art can appear in ways that people
00:10:53
weren't necessarily expecting. So, for instance, I commissioned
00:10:57
art in a hospital for five years and worked with, you know,
00:11:02
project managers and clinicians and people who would very rarely
00:11:06
be talking about art and creativity as part of their
00:11:08
everyday. Can you tell us a little bit
00:11:10
more about that hospital 'cause it's a very specific time and a
00:11:13
very specific area of London? Yeah, so I was commission's
00:11:17
manager at Vital Arts and they are the arts charity for Bart's
00:11:20
Health NHS Trust, which is the Royal London Hospital and Bart's
00:11:25
in the City as well as a number of other hospitals and Newham
00:11:28
Hospital as well, and Whitscross.
00:11:31
And yeah, it was. So that kind of gave me an
00:11:33
opportunity to work in very much in within East London community,
00:11:36
but also with the East London artists.
00:11:38
And the hospital were often quite keen that we were always
00:11:41
working with artists that were local and that meant we could
00:11:44
call on all sorts of extraordinary artists that
00:11:45
happened to live in Spittlefields or Shoreditch or,
00:11:48
and a lot of them had a direct link to the hospital.
00:11:50
So, you know, our budgets weren't huge, but artists are
00:11:53
often incredibly generous because they felt very
00:11:55
passionate about the role that art can play.
00:11:57
I think that was sort of, you know, 22 and 7 to 2013
00:12:05
probably. I was there and I think now
00:12:09
there's a much, much richer understanding about the
00:12:11
potential of art in health. And I feel like we were doing an
00:12:14
awful lot at that time. Now there's much more research
00:12:16
that backs it all up. I mean, it was beginning then,
00:12:18
but it's, it's interesting to see now.
00:12:19
It's almost a given that hospitals should have art within
00:12:22
the buildings. But at the time it was ready, we
00:12:23
had to keep kind of reminding people in hospital, for
00:12:26
instance, it's, you know, it's got to function as a building
00:12:29
that's doing all sorts of other things during that time.
00:12:32
It's also in many ways a bit like installing art outside
00:12:35
because people behave in a hospital.
00:12:36
And it's, yes, particularly in White Temple, people behaved in
00:12:39
quite surprising ways. So we had to have everything
00:12:41
very, very robust and, you know, but also bringing joy and
00:12:45
bringing surprise and giving artists an opportunity to do
00:12:49
something extraordinary for them.
00:12:51
So having to balance all of those different things and
00:12:54
actually for me, I'm always like, what do you want to do as
00:12:56
an artist? I want to start from there and
00:12:57
push it as far as we can. But I've also got to be very
00:13:00
mindful of clinical demands for that space, what patients need
00:13:05
to feel like in there and what we can do to support that.
00:13:09
How the space needs to be cleaned.
00:13:11
Security, like really boring practical things.
00:13:14
Power, how you access power. If they want to work with neon,
00:13:18
what are the light levels? You know, all so.
00:13:20
And I find that, you know, it's incredibly challenging, but it's
00:13:23
also so fascinating. And every single Commission is
00:13:26
completely different. I'm really interested in knowing
00:13:29
a bit more about the difference between curating or
00:13:33
commissioning an artwork for a space where people are not
00:13:36
expecting an artwork, which is what defines I guess
00:13:41
contemporary, outside of the gallery, in the museum.
00:13:45
Are the parameters different? And also, do you have a sense of
00:13:49
the reaction of the public as well of the people who are
00:13:53
patients slash spectators suddenly?
00:13:56
We did things with sound. We worked with nature recorders
00:13:59
Chris Watson and installed his nature recordings alongside
00:14:03
Barbara Roberta Smith's paintings of national animals to
00:14:06
celebrate, you know, global heritage, which is again another
00:14:11
characteristic of East London. People from all over the world
00:14:13
live there. And yeah.
00:14:16
And then you kind of would get feedback from parents saying,
00:14:18
oh, my gosh, my daughter saw that on the way to surgery and
00:14:20
it lifted her spirits or it made her think about her relatives
00:14:24
elsewhere or just like little anecdotes like that.
00:14:26
And that's the kind of thing it's quite hard to sort of track
00:14:29
in data. But it's, it's very powerful to
00:14:31
know that and for the artist to know that that work has had a
00:14:35
because a lot of the time artists don't have that feeling
00:14:37
that their work has a kind of specific connection in a
00:14:40
particular moment for somebody's life.
00:14:42
And that's what art in hospitals can do.
00:14:44
And people like hospital rooms are doing that in an
00:14:46
extraordinary way now as well, as well as Vital Arts are still
00:14:49
doing amazing things as well so. So that leads us to the Line,
00:14:53
because The Line is a very, very special project.
00:14:56
You've just been nominated director a few months ago.
00:14:59
I believe Megan Piper was one of the initiators of the project.
00:15:05
And the line is basically, well, you could call it public art,
00:15:08
but it's a bit more than that because there's a real, there's
00:15:14
a real sense of wanting to be intentional about it and also to
00:15:19
create a puff in a very specific area of London.
00:15:23
So can you tell us a little bit very quickly about the history
00:15:27
and why it came about, but more specifically what it is and how
00:15:30
you can? Experience it.
00:15:31
So the line is a public art trail which runs from Greenwich
00:15:35
in the South up to Stratford. And it's almost 8 kilometres
00:15:39
long. And it follows the waterways of
00:15:41
East London. And it broadly follows the line
00:15:44
of the Greenwich Meridian as well.
00:15:46
And it was set up in 2015 by Megan Piper and Clive Dutton.
00:15:50
And Clive was head of inward investment and head of
00:15:53
regeneration at Newham and was part of the Olympic Games in, in
00:15:58
Stratford. And Megan was an art, a
00:16:02
gallerist and art dealer and had also worked at Momart.
00:16:05
So she was very aware of the artworks that were in storage,
00:16:10
not being seen by the public. And together they kind of, they
00:16:13
were from very different backgrounds, but they had this
00:16:15
incredible creative chemistry and they came up with the idea
00:16:18
to bring artworks along the route of the line and to draw
00:16:22
audiences to really connect people to place.
00:16:25
And initially it was a loans programme.
00:16:27
So there was a call out, they worked with a, a kind of a
00:16:30
selection panel initially. And there was a call out to
00:16:33
gallerists, an artist to suggest works.
00:16:36
And there was a, the first series of works with 10 artworks
00:16:38
on loan in 2015. And there was a huge fundraising
00:16:42
campaign that went on behind the scenes to get, get the project
00:16:44
up and running. And so it included works by like
00:16:49
Damien Hirst, Martin Creed, Edda Palazzi.
00:16:53
There was also dialogue with the GLA.
00:16:55
So a series of commissioned works that were at the Greenwich
00:16:57
Peninsula that had been installed for the Millennium
00:17:00
were also brought onto the line. So it kind of became almost like
00:17:03
a joining the dots of work of public art.
00:17:06
So I joined in 2019 and we built a new fundraising and sort of
00:17:10
engagement strategy around because I could just see how
00:17:13
much extraordinary potential there was that hadn't quite been
00:17:15
tapped because of, I mean, Clive actually sadly passed away two
00:17:19
weeks after the line opened. And so Megan was left kind of
00:17:23
figure out how on earth to keep moving forward.
00:17:24
So in many ways it was sort of fundraising to stay still for a
00:17:26
number of years, understandably. And I think I was able to bring
00:17:32
my knowledge of kind of health and well-being and the benefits
00:17:34
of that, of art for health and well-being, as well as
00:17:37
experience of working at Future City, working with developers
00:17:39
and thinking about, yeah, how much I knew people wanted art
00:17:43
within new developments and could see how much East London
00:17:46
was growing along that stretch. And the line is like this
00:17:48
perfect opportunity to kind of bring all of those things
00:17:52
together and also really think about how local people could use
00:17:55
the line more. And then COVID happened and we
00:17:58
found that people were just connecting with the line in a
00:18:00
completely new way because we're the only museum open in London.
00:18:04
And people were finding that they wanted to be by the water.
00:18:06
And then they discovered these artworks and, you know, they
00:18:10
wanted to use it for running or for their daily exercise.
00:18:12
And so it took on this whole new significance for people, which
00:18:15
we could never have planned for. And actually, it became an
00:18:16
extraordinarily busy moment for us 'cause we launched a new app
00:18:20
with Bloomberg Connects. We were like one of the, I think
00:18:22
we're in the 1st 7 organisations on Bloomberg Connects.
00:18:25
We launched a new website. How does it work so Bloomberg
00:18:28
connects app? So through Bloomberg Connects,
00:18:31
it provides audio aids. Yeah, to experience how does it
00:18:37
work. So you know, for, I guess for us
00:18:39
it was perfect. We couldn't have an audio guide.
00:18:40
There's no way we could give people devices to carry along
00:18:43
the line. So it just meant on your phone
00:18:44
you have an app and you can connect with artists audio.
00:18:48
We had a, we developed a meditation so people could do
00:18:51
guided meditation along the route.
00:18:52
We have got an audio guide from Bill Nighy talking about the
00:18:55
architecture and the heritage. So it kind of was this new layer
00:18:58
of of a way to experience the line whilst you're walking, but
00:19:01
also for people around the world if they want to learn about the
00:19:03
line, it's all there as a kind of audio experience.
00:19:06
So that was a really big moment for us.
00:19:09
And then we also started commissioning in 2019, which is
00:19:11
something that I bought from previous roles because it would,
00:19:15
it had remained alone primarily. And we commissioned Larry Action
00:19:20
Pong again. All through COVID, he developed
00:19:23
this extraordinary audio Commission in collaboration with
00:19:26
the Museum of London, which you listen to as you cross the cable
00:19:29
car on the line. I've created a new audio work
00:19:35
titled Sanko Time for the Line which really considers the the
00:19:40
history and the relationship between the Royal Dock and
00:19:43
Greenwich in London and the connecting Veridian line and its
00:19:47
relationship with Accra, the capital of Ghana in West Africa.
00:19:54
Between the water and the earth, skin and bones, death and
00:20:02
rebirth. These on earth histories are the
00:20:08
lines that connect us. Sanko Time is combining 2 words.
00:20:13
Of course, time and then the word sankofo, which is an
00:20:16
account phrase meaning to go back and get it.
00:20:20
Particularly thinking about going back and and retrieving
00:20:23
something that is lost at a certain point in time.
00:20:26
That could be in relation to 1's own identity or knowledge
00:20:29
especially. And so revisit certain points
00:20:33
that have happened within memory in order to think about what's
00:20:37
happening within the other present.
00:20:42
These Royal Docks were previously celebrated global
00:20:46
Center for innovation and the industry, but for many they
00:20:54
still represent the stain of colonialism.
00:20:58
The connecting thread amongst all of this is water itself.
00:21:02
And so spending a lot of time reporting water and even
00:21:06
thinking about the relationship of travelling across water,
00:21:09
there's been quite a big bill. That connecting point in the
00:21:12
line also reveals itself to histories that perhaps are not
00:21:16
really spoken as much about. I mean.
00:21:18
What a lot of people must understand in the British
00:21:22
colonies. But thank you though.
00:21:26
There weren't concern about. Blacks in Asia, we commissioned
00:21:33
Rana Begum to create a new sculpture, which again, we had
00:21:35
to do during COVID, and it was installed with a, we did a
00:21:38
performance with English National Ballet and a
00:21:40
collaboration with Roxander, which it felt like it was just
00:21:43
after one of the last lockdowns. And it was this amazing sunny
00:21:46
day. And it just really felt like
00:21:47
this kind of new beginning and point of connection.
00:21:50
And that was very special and actually really exciting to see
00:21:53
the connection between performance and sculpture.
00:21:55
That was the first time we'd done that on the line.
00:21:57
Events now, now that we're post COVID, is this something that
00:22:02
you also brought into this post COVID time, which is that you
00:22:07
devise activities around the sculptures because that how many
00:22:11
sculptures are there throughout these 8 kilometres?
00:22:16
Yes, we have about 24. It's different works at the
00:22:18
moment along the route and there's a kind of plan to get to
00:22:23
30 by that 2030. And we have yeah, we've
00:22:29
initiated other performative moments.
00:22:31
It's a really brilliant way to bring people together to create
00:22:35
a kind of connection collectively.
00:22:37
So obviously you can walk the line at any time.
00:22:38
It's open all, all day, everyday, all through the year.
00:22:42
But something about performance actually creates that momentum
00:22:45
and it's. So we did disco sailing in 2024
00:22:48
with Rasheed Irene, which was a a water based performance where
00:22:51
you you wear a said you're going to wear a top that makes you
00:22:55
become a human sail. And then you float on a disc.
00:22:58
So it's, it's not disco, It's actually the disc is the disc
00:23:01
you're sailing. You're sailing on the disc.
00:23:03
And Rashid turned 90 this year, last year, 2025, and it was the
00:23:09
first time you'd ever seen the work performed.
00:23:12
So that was a very special moment.
00:23:14
And again, this. Yeah, people, people
00:23:16
experiencing their body in space kind of becoming sculptural as a
00:23:21
moment. It's very, very exciting and
00:23:22
something we'd love to do again on the line because obviously
00:23:25
it's also that more immediate. You know, commissioning
00:23:28
sculptures takes a really, really long time.
00:23:30
And that performance, I'm not saying performance is
00:23:32
straightforward. Disco sitting was not
00:23:34
straightforward. At all, I can imagine the
00:23:38
production behind because that's also your profile is also being
00:23:45
able to understand the way things are made, what is needed
00:23:50
for the production of a of a, an artwork or a piece or an
00:23:54
activator or, you know, a performative act and then kind
00:23:59
of making it happen. So tell me a little bit about
00:24:03
the how long does it take, for example, to organise that
00:24:07
particular performance that you just mentioned?
00:24:10
Roughly 2 years and within that time we had to fundraise, we had
00:24:14
to secure permissions, we had to, we explored quite a few
00:24:17
different places on the lines. Each time you're exploring a
00:24:20
location, you have to do incredible amounts of research
00:24:22
and get people on board. And then sometimes it doesn't
00:24:25
work in that site. So you have to rethink.
00:24:26
So you have to kind of be, allow your mind to not be too fixed on
00:24:30
the outcome. Otherwise you'd be incredibly
00:24:32
frustrated. And then, you know, we had
00:24:33
planned to do 2 performances of disco sailing and the second one
00:24:36
would have to be cancelled very last minute because there was
00:24:39
very heavy rain and there was a sewage release into the into the
00:24:42
river in the Olympic Park and it was deemed unsafe.
00:24:46
And so that, you know, those sorts of things that might come
00:24:48
up when you're working in the public realm, you are at the
00:24:49
mercy of partners, land owners, whether there's so many
00:24:54
different factors, birds, you know, there's just like so many
00:24:56
different things that can happen.
00:24:58
Obviously it was really sad to cancel, but actually weirdly, we
00:25:01
got loads of, because people were quite, it sort of
00:25:04
highlighted the issue with water management in this country.
00:25:08
And yeah, so that was a weird that we could never have
00:25:10
anticipated that with the best planning in the world.
00:25:13
So, yeah, I think what I just, I just see it as each project,
00:25:16
there's just so much to learn and you have to find out who you
00:25:19
need to get who, who you need in the mix, whose expertise you
00:25:22
need and bringing people on that journey with you.
00:25:25
And you have to provide a lot of reassurance to different
00:25:29
partners because every time you do something, it's completely
00:25:30
new. You could never say to somebody,
00:25:33
oh, the, when we did the sculpture before with this
00:25:35
material or when we previously had people floating on the river
00:25:39
wearing these things, this is what happened.
00:25:40
We don't, you know, we, we. So you have to test everything
00:25:43
and build confidence, but you also have to allow people to,
00:25:46
you have to bring people on that journey to have a kind of leap
00:25:48
of faith, which they then have this extraordinary experience.
00:25:52
That's what I love is that people like in the hospital,
00:25:54
people would be like, I never thought we'd be able to do this.
00:25:57
And we've made this thing happen and people now have a completely
00:25:59
different environment. And that's, yeah, I'm not saying
00:26:03
it's kind of life changing, but I think it is is transformative.
00:26:06
Tell me a little bit about funding because you've all
00:26:09
throughout your career you've worked on funding and I think
00:26:12
this is sort of the nasty words of contemporary art in the sense
00:26:17
that it is difficult, it is necessary.
00:26:20
It is very different from context to context.
00:26:23
You know, if you're the Tate, obviously you have so many
00:26:26
arguments for funding, but then if you are doing something
00:26:29
completely different public, so you know, there for everyone
00:26:36
where there's it's, it's much harder to as you were explaining
00:26:39
before, to get feedback from the impacts in in regards to the
00:26:43
impact of of what you do, because people are just passing
00:26:47
and they may post something on Instagram, but they may not tag
00:26:51
you. So it is a difficult thing to
00:26:53
evaluate. So could you very quickly tell
00:26:56
me about your different experiences with funding?
00:27:00
You can vent a little bit. You're allowed to because I
00:27:03
think it's the most frustrating thing funding, but also the most
00:27:06
rewarding thing when it actually goes well.
00:27:10
Yeah. I think, I mean, I kind of work
00:27:13
on the principle that kind of money and support follows good
00:27:16
ideas. And you know, I guess a bit like
00:27:20
bringing people on the journey you, I think a lot of people are
00:27:24
wanting to be inspired and feel connected.
00:27:27
And yes, it's about impact, but it's also about goodwill and
00:27:32
people being excited about the potential of something.
00:27:35
And so I guess I've, so I've, in terms of my funding journey, I,
00:27:40
I think I mentioned I, when we, before we recorded, I applied
00:27:44
for an Arts Council grant when I was at university.
00:27:47
And I remember thinking for we did, we set up a little magazine
00:27:50
at Brighton University. And I was so blown away that we
00:27:54
were given money. And I think it was through
00:27:56
lottery funding, Arts Council, arts for all, it was called or
00:27:59
something. And I remember that feeling,
00:28:01
thinking, Oh my gosh, they believe in this and we've got
00:28:03
money to do this. Somebody actually wants to give
00:28:05
us money. And it was just such a
00:28:05
revelation and really exciting. And I think I've always had that
00:28:09
zeal of like, let's find a way, you know, let's find a way to
00:28:12
make this possible. And, and then I worked with
00:28:17
Louise McKinney at the Serpentine when I just finished
00:28:19
at the Royal College and learnt a huge amount from her in terms
00:28:23
of, yeah, all the different ways you can source funding from
00:28:27
corporate involvement, from cultural embassies, from trust
00:28:30
and foundations and, and Arts Council.
00:28:35
And then when I worked as a freelance curator, we did loads
00:28:38
of fundraising and we ran a curator partnership for six
00:28:41
years, completely funded through European money, Arts Council
00:28:44
funding, different British Council, different pots that
00:28:47
we've, you know, we did that entirely off our own and
00:28:50
actually managed to give ourselves a salary.
00:28:52
And that was a kind of amazing, again, a bit like, wow, we've
00:28:54
found a way, We've found a way. And a lot of it is about, you
00:28:58
know, telling a really good, not telling a story sounds like
00:29:00
you're not telling the truth, but telling, showing people,
00:29:05
showing people where you need to get to and how they can help you
00:29:07
get there. And you're absolutely right with
00:29:09
the line. It is really hard to track
00:29:11
feedback because we don't have any tickets, we don't have any
00:29:14
entrance or exit. But the principle of us being
00:29:18
available and accessible within a context that's incredibly like
00:29:21
has kind of historic structural inequality that's really
00:29:24
significant, has major health factors.
00:29:28
You know, there's lots within that context which is really,
00:29:31
really challenging. In particular, like around
00:29:32
COVID, they, it was one of the hardest hit neighborhoods in the
00:29:35
UK. And so we want to be able to
00:29:38
show how the line is trying to what, what we know about our
00:29:41
community in our context and how the line is trying to do all it
00:29:43
can to support people in different ways.
00:29:46
And then we show the impact. So it's more, I guess our
00:29:48
engagement program has been able to collect a lot of information
00:29:52
and feedback and knowledge and we listen to people and we
00:29:54
convey that to funders to say that we know that they enjoyed
00:29:57
it, We know that it meant this to them.
00:29:58
And we run well-being walks, which you can be referred to by
00:30:03
your local GP and people tell us that they go to the doctor
00:30:07
lessons, they come on our well-being walks because of the
00:30:09
fact they feel more socially connected, they've built
00:30:12
confidence, they've found connection to nature they didn't
00:30:15
have previously. And so those are quite
00:30:18
compelling examples, even though we're not saying we can tell you
00:30:21
what everybody who walked the line this weekend felt about it,
00:30:24
but we can give you quite solid examples of the way in which our
00:30:27
programming has impacted on people.
00:30:30
And similarly, we run a youth guides programme.
00:30:32
So we employ young people every summer and that was really set
00:30:35
up as a programme about skills and employability.
00:30:38
And each summer we do surveys to check how they've how they've
00:30:42
done and what they've gained. And they'll tell us about, yes,
00:30:45
they've learnt more about contemporary art, they've learnt
00:30:46
more about public speaking and about their neighborhood.
00:30:50
But they've also been telling us outside of these normal skills
00:30:52
questions we use, that they've actually their mental health has
00:30:55
improved because they've been outside, because they've been
00:30:58
off their screens, they've been with in nature with other young
00:31:01
people that they wouldn't have met otherwise.
00:31:03
And that was never the aim of the program.
00:31:04
But it's quite interesting that those things can start to be fed
00:31:08
back to you. And we do have a lot of people
00:31:10
who walk the line and then they feel they really want to see it
00:31:14
grow and see it thrive. I was wondering if you have any
00:31:17
anecdotes, little episodes that you might know in relation to
00:31:22
the physical experience of the sculptures in the whole circuit.
00:31:27
Because people's experiences of them or yes, and actually I
00:31:32
should do a plug from our book, which just recently launched in
00:31:34
November, published with Feiden Monocelli.
00:31:37
There's a brilliant essay in the book by Andrew Jones and he
00:31:42
explores all the ways in which the line connects with people
00:31:45
through our projects and programming.
00:31:47
He interviewed a number of people that we've always said
00:31:49
one of our youth guides, one of our well-being walk attendees,
00:31:52
different partner organizations we work with.
00:31:55
And that's a really beautiful reflection on the different
00:31:57
encounters and relationships people have through the line.
00:32:00
And one of them is Amar, who lives very near the line and has
00:32:05
this amazing little dog. He walks every day on the line.
00:32:08
And obviously it's useful for his dog walk, but he very much
00:32:11
talks about how the line has kind of, it's kind of part of
00:32:13
his Buddhist practice. And he, he had a really terrible
00:32:19
car accident a few years ago. And he uses the line as part of
00:32:22
his kind of mental and physical recovery, and that he loves the
00:32:27
fact that these works kind of provoke his thoughts and stop
00:32:30
hope, slow him down to reflect and think about the world and
00:32:33
himself in a different way. And that's something we do here
00:32:36
quite a lot in terms of that idea of kind of connecting with
00:32:38
your surroundings and connecting with yourself.
00:32:41
And that's what the line allows you to do, and it's sort of on
00:32:43
your own terms, which is probably different to what
00:32:46
happens inside a gallery or a museum.
00:32:48
Maybe it's that feeling of being outside in the elements and it's
00:32:51
a kind of journey of your own making.
00:32:53
I will put a link in the show's notes for people to go straight
00:32:57
to did the book and purchase it. I was also wondering about
00:33:05
something else which is based on this idea of the line being the
00:33:12
possibility of experiencing art in in a different way and to
00:33:16
incorporate art in the the fabric of the city and and
00:33:20
day-to-day life. I was wondering what kind of
00:33:24
exhibition or art or art experience it can be outside of
00:33:31
museum spaces. Yeah, you'd like to see in the
00:33:35
future or experience in the future.
00:33:37
It's simple without saying anything too specific that I've
00:33:39
got kind of my dream project, which is actually a real thing
00:33:43
that I'm really hoping will happen, which is part of this
00:33:45
thing of actually having to dream things and you just to
00:33:48
dream things into being, you know.
00:33:50
So if I I'll say it, but I won't give too many details because we
00:33:53
can't really talk about it yet, but I would love the idea that
00:33:56
we could. This is this is specific to the
00:33:59
line. Develop an artwork which somehow
00:34:01
reflects the specifics of the kind of landscape in the
00:34:04
wildlife along the route, which is so unique and extraordinary.
00:34:08
Within one of the dense, the most densely populated parts of
00:34:10
the UK, you can find 52 species of birds.
00:34:14
You can find seals, wildflowers, It's it's the sort of nature
00:34:18
thriving against the odds. And I would love to kind of have
00:34:22
an artist really capture some of that through.
00:34:25
I don't know how exactly I've got, I've got an idea, but I'm
00:34:27
not going to say it yet. And then to think about how we
00:34:30
could engage different partners like East Bank at the top of the
00:34:33
line in Stratford. There's now Saddle as well as E
00:34:36
the BBC choirs will be based there and recording facilities.
00:34:41
London quality fashion. Obviously VNA East and what they
00:34:44
have are these extraordinary collections and resources, but
00:34:46
they also have these enormous buildings.
00:34:48
And what we have is the the ground level, the public realm,
00:34:52
the kind of layers of experience you have from encountering the
00:34:55
public realm and our community connections that we have.
00:34:57
So I'd love to do something that would capture that wildlife and
00:35:02
something that's a physical outcome, but maybe also some
00:35:05
sort of extraordinary performance.
00:35:07
We once did a procession on the line with Sergey Tiqui Clottey
00:35:10
with school children from Newham, which was just the most
00:35:13
extraordinary moment of them kind of claiming the space and
00:35:17
dancing and processing along with surge and boats on the
00:35:20
Thames were Tooting at the children to say hello.
00:35:23
And it was this amazing transformation.
00:35:25
And I think the power of a procession is very exciting.
00:35:28
So I'd love to do another some sort of another procession on
00:35:31
the line of some kind. So that's very much about like
00:35:34
what I'd like to see on the line rather than in general terms.
00:35:37
So yeah, I don't know if that. Was it's funny because now that
00:35:40
you're saying that when I the last time I went, we saw these
00:35:46
seashells broken on the cuff. Yeah.
00:35:50
And I don't think we would have noticed them if it wasn't the
00:35:53
line. So we if we weren't doing this
00:35:55
sort of art hike. Yeah.
00:35:57
And there were so many that we presumed that birds brought
00:36:00
seashells from the water and just broke them there to eat
00:36:04
them. Yeah.
00:36:05
And it was so exciting. You see them all the way and I
00:36:07
can't the name of the bird now, but they dropped them to break
00:36:09
them open. Yeah, it's and there are
00:36:12
kingfishers, there's Karen. Yeah.
00:36:16
And cormorants that dry their wings on Helen Chemex Bridge.
00:36:20
So, yeah, I think it's so surprising and it's such an
00:36:24
industrial area that to somehow have all of that sing out
00:36:29
through a through a piece feels very exciting.
00:36:31
And also, I guess, considering how, you know, the climate
00:36:34
emergency and the changes that are happening and how we have to
00:36:36
live in cities and how we relate to nature, I think that's
00:36:40
becoming, you know, that's something we really want to
00:36:42
ensure is part of kind of key part of our program.
00:36:44
What is the balance between economy and the dream?
00:36:50
So the projects, how is it measurable?
00:36:54
Is it balanced at the moment? Is it always, is it always a
00:37:02
problem? Because I, I think that at the
00:37:04
moment we're kind of undergoing this revision of materials.
00:37:07
For example, you just mentioned the climbing, the climate
00:37:10
emergency and toxic materials, et cetera.
00:37:14
And we're also trying to leave less of a presence as humans
00:37:18
perhaps or impose ourselves less.
00:37:22
So of course, I'm thinking about that, but I'm also thinking
00:37:25
about the economic crisis. Everything's very expensive at
00:37:29
the moment. Import exports have kind of
00:37:32
broken the chain of availability in this country of materials and
00:37:38
and then food and and lots of things.
00:37:39
So I think that question for me was always important, but it has
00:37:44
become more urgent in some ways. How does the line provide a
00:37:50
vision on this, on this or or some answers on this question?
00:37:56
Yeah, it's a very good question, I think.
00:37:59
I think obviously within within projects, there's always a
00:38:02
balance between an artist's ambition and aspiration and then
00:38:06
what's actually affordable and practical.
00:38:09
And public art commissioning is not very cheap because you need
00:38:14
to create something that's really strong and robust and
00:38:19
often has to have quite complicated foundations and has
00:38:21
to be approved by structural engineers.
00:38:24
And, and so often if we're working with artists and it's
00:38:28
their first time working in the public realm, that's a bit of a
00:38:30
journey for them to go on. We definitely assess materials
00:38:34
from a sustainability perspective and try and ensure
00:38:37
that anything we're using is not.
00:38:39
Yeah, negative for the environment or has a kind of
00:38:43
negative or also think about how things the afterlife of works as
00:38:46
well if they're not on the line. I mean a key principle for us is
00:38:49
that we would, we just really want to make sure people are
00:38:51
paid to reflect the efforts and the time that they're putting
00:38:54
into things as much as we can. We are also really lucky that we
00:38:57
have quite a lot of pro bono support which really helps.
00:39:00
So things like our engineering is often provided by an
00:39:02
extraordinary engineer Arab who is just has a kind of wealth of
00:39:06
knowledge and incredible creative ability to work with
00:39:09
artists and help them navigate working outside.
00:39:12
So for instance, Rana Begum worked with him on her mission,
00:39:15
which he created a whole support structure for.
00:39:18
And it wouldn't really have existed in the form because she
00:39:20
wanted any support to be kind of effectively invisible.
00:39:23
And so Steve McKinsey came up with this system with her,
00:39:26
which, you know, allowed her to do that work outside that she'd
00:39:28
never presented that work outside before.
00:39:30
So, and that would have been phenomenally expensive for us.
00:39:34
So I think, and again, I feel like it's part of that thing of
00:39:37
trying to make something extraordinary and magical and
00:39:40
take everyone on a journey. Often people are just like one
00:39:42
that once they know there's an idea and a problem to solve, if
00:39:44
you get the right minds in the room, they will go above and
00:39:47
beyond to make that possible. I think that's a really
00:39:50
interesting point and I think it's really important to really
00:39:53
highlight the fact that sponsoring, you know, beyond
00:39:57
patronage, there's also sponsoring because a lot of
00:40:00
people say, oh, I don't, I don't have enough money to support.
00:40:02
I'd love to support artistic projects.
00:40:04
But actually you can also bring your own expertise and give a 2
00:40:09
hour, a few hours during the week or during the month to a
00:40:13
project and support an artist. And that's also a way of being a
00:40:17
patron. And that makes your work even
00:40:19
more admirable, because you have to.
00:40:23
You know, find all these people to support you.
00:40:26
But thank you so much. This has been lovely.
00:40:29
Thank you for your time and I hope you come back to
00:40:31
exhibitionistas. I hope so too.
00:40:34
Yeah. Thank you so much.
00:40:34
It's been a real pleasure. Exhibitionistas is an
00:40:36
independent podcast created and hosted by me, Joanna Pierre
00:40:40
Nevers. Because we're all both actors
00:40:43
and spectators of art and life.