By Brady Knight
This months FORUM talk at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff is
entitled ‘Wales in Venice’. Organised by Ffotogallery and WARP, the discussion this
month will focus on the opportunities and aspirations for Welsh artists and
creative practitioners to travel to Venice in an invigilation role, the hope
being to gather inspiration and experience from one of the world’s most
prolific and famous art cities and to further develop their artistic positions
and potential careers.
The Arts Council Wales offers positions in various cities
with bright artistic culture around the world, a popular and sought-after
opportunity for many artistic practitioners throughout Wales and FORUM this
month gathers several of them together whose city of choice was Venice to
discuss firstly the reasons behind their desired destination, their ambitions
and objectives leading to this choice and secondly the benefits and detriments
of taking this placement, how it has influenced their career decisions and
artistic practice.
Held in Chapter’s Stwdio space, we are welcomed warmly in
the bright and airy foyer where casual discussion begins as people outline the
topic for the evening and friendly banter takes place as the rest of the guests
arrive. The main discussion then takes place in the large, wide-open studio
space, where we arrange ourselves in a circle near the large projection wall,
where the speakers will stand. Darkened for the projections to play, the room
is ambient. As organisers and visitors of the Diffusion Festival will know, up
until an hour before the talk began the space was used for Gideon Koppel’s Borth film, his large projection meditatively documenting
the inward and outward coastline of the small island town of Borth in West
Wales, a juxtaposition of infinite seascape and dilapidated yet undeniably
homely architecture. Those aware of the show will already appreciate a theme of
travel and location for the talk.
Casual and friendly we settle into the talks quickly and
first to speak is Victoria Malcolm, a seasoned and observational art
practitioner, intelligent and focused she begins with her initial aspirations
for wanting to visit Venice. Interested in the strong African presence in
Venice and having a South African Background herself, doing a residency there
earlier in her career, she had an invested passion to explore and document this
finer aspect of the culture. It was also her hope to organise collaborative
workshops with African members of the culture that she encountered. Driven more
by passion in her interest in African culture in Venice she also had another
more intellectual interest in visiting; fascinated by the intricate sewer
systems of the city she was interested in exploring and documenting the
elements of a society built to civilise it, to help the everyday running of it
more efficiently, and she observes that the people of Venice have more of an
interest in this aspect of their society. Through her hands-on approach she has
become very knowledgeable on Italian culture; she enlightens us with insightful
information throughout her talk. Her visit to Venice was compelling and
successful; she describes this kind of opportunity as being able to give weight
to what you do in your practice, informing your position and status – to have
worked in Venice, and it seems evident from her insightful and passionate
approaches that she has been influenced by her experiences in Venice in this
way.
Some simple questions are directed at Victoria as she draws
her talk to a close, her concise account already covering most details of her
trip, and we then move swiftly on to the second speaker, Samuel Hasler. A
highly prolific and unique visual and performance artist, Sam has produced
hundreds of works throughout his young career. His approach is often one of
caricatures or personas, portrayals of people in a variety of precarious,
mundane or even crude situations; a subversive, ironic, perhaps satirical commentary
on a bunch of questionable individuals seldom observed in modern society, and
it is unclear as to whether Sam sees himself, or if we as viewers should see
him fit into this group or not; or perhaps his work speculates that we all
belong in this group in some way or at some point or another; his intentions
maybe unknown but his work certainly remains unusually potent.
His talk at FORUM certainly kept to this theme, regaling us
with an erotic, often graphic, occasionally poetic, sometimes-perverse account
of a man (we are unsure at first if it is Sam) and his wild fantasies and
experiences with the Venice prostitute community. Sam portrays this character,
nervous and shaking as he recounts the story, going into often-unnecessary
levels of details of the unnamed man’s thoughts and emotions. Several, also
unnamed, girls appear throughout his story, elevating them to the level of
Goddesses, he prominently refers to them only as ‘she’. Longing and full of
desire he is reduced to a animalistic, slave-like shell of a human being as he
obsesses over the attractive and lavishly decorated women of the night. The
only discernable theme of the talk, it continues for a seemingly long time
before fading into a short, sharp ending and we are left stunned by Sam’s unexpected
performance.
Singularly-themed and seemingly unrelated as though one huge
digression from the main theme of the talk, we wonder as to the value of Sam’s
speech in the ‘Wales in Venice’ FORUM discussion; but in light of the artist’s
background and practice we can begin to establish the meaning of his almost
inappropriate expression. Ever subversive in his approach, Sam has seemingly
inadvertently produced a strong piece of work through his experiences in
Venice. Fitting with his previous works, we see a character portrayed in his
performance; perhaps a satire of Venice tourism, we see the typical British
traveller bedazzled by Venice’s prostitutes, or perhaps simply a loner, a
voyeur, looking and desiring the beautiful ladies in Venice but too afraid to
go and speak with them, a typically more common persona of Sam’s works. Sam’s
entire visit to Venice seems like one large production of work, based on
experience he develops a new situational character. Although narrowly-focused,
not discussing any other aspects or experiences in this hugely artistic city,
his trip seems beneficial and successful to his practice, inspired by his
experiences he is able to produce more work.
Composing ourselves after Sam’s talk, and after the many
probing questions deciphering the meaning of his work, we come to the final
speaker, Nia Metcalfe. An artist and curator based in Cardiff, Nia had much
more practice-based intention behind going to Venice. Working in a curatorial
capacity with 4 other artists from Wales, she conducted research into the
boundaries between artist and curator and examined the possibility of
collaboration and producing work over long distances. She provides us with a
detailed, comprehensive account of her time there, focusing largely on her personal
experiences working with the artists and producing work, as well as some
light-hearted experiences as well.
Challenged by the diversity of her artist colleagues, she
needed to be flexible and diverse in her curatorial role. She had the
opportunity to work with various contemporary mediums such as Internet
blogging, in which she was employed by one of the artists to find something
interesting in Venice everyday and record it in a notebook. This proved a huge
commitment and initially presented as a challenge as she looked more for the
things that stood out, of which there are many, especially as a tourist, but
soon she fine-tuned her perspective to finding things more idiosyncratic and
personal. During her free time she would embrace elements of Venice culture,
she recalls experiences of visiting a local bar so regularly that the owner
started charging them the same cheaper price he charged the locals. Nia’s trip
to Venice proved extensive and diverse, a really educational experience, both
for her artistic practice and her knowledge of foreign cultures; of all three
speakers she seemed most changed by her experiences.
With the talks now over, comprising approximately half the
length of the event, the main bulk of discussion now took place with the rest
of the guests. Firstly we hear from a young woman currently in her final year
of university who also intends to invigilate in Venice, looking to conduct
primary research for her dissertation, and to see the iconic Biennale. We then
move into discussion about the application process for invigilating in Venice,
a member of the Arts Council fortunately also being present. It seems there is
a certain trepidation to invigilate for this and similar opportunities,
initially people explain that there is often a fear of declaring yourself an
artist, or creative practitioner, as if it were a more frowned upon career
choice in wider society and we humorously speculate that an Art Pride Movement
should be conducted to counter this. It is however a serious issue amongst many,
particularly younger, emerging practitioners and a significant reason why many
are reluctant to apply for such opportunities.
Another reason people are reluctant to apply is for the
perceived difficulties in meeting the criteria and beating the competition in
their application. The Arts Council member reassures people that each proposal
is left largely in the hands of the organisers and that there are no set right
or wrong criteria for being successful, you are judged based on your merits as
a practitioner and for your passion to pursue it further, and it being as
popular an opportunity as it is, competition is still no reason to be deterred
from applying.
Venice is the place to be for an artist, and is a fantastic
cultural experience as well. Although it is occasionally, more recently
perceived as becoming very industrial, art is becoming a local industry,
corporate and missing artistic ideals, it is argued here that it is not, that
it is all relative to your artistic context of experience, and remaining open-minded
you can gain very valuable experience there.
From the accounts of our speakers we can gather that it was
an extremely beneficial experience, if simply for no other reason that for the
cultural experience and knowledge gained. Victoria’s personal ambitions for
visiting were realised and sought out whilst there, adding weight to her
artistic position and gaining further knowledge into the culture of Venice. Sam
focusing on one aspect of the city found a platform to produce further work,
better inform his practice by increasing his repertoire of contextual themes
and sensations. Nia had a fantastic and challenging opportunity to work with
several artists on different projects and produce a large body of work in both
a practice and curatorial role, as well as embracing the inspiring culture.
Venice is definitely a worthwhile city to visit as a creative practitioner, any
deterring reasons people face are often unfounded and practically it is a very
real opportunity for people to undertake, and should be greatly sought after;
in any case the benefits far outweigh any detriments.
This month’s ‘Wales in Venice’ FORUM discussion provided
very detailed and useful information on the topic of invigilating in Venice,
and even though usually aimed at emerging artists or students, veterans and
established practitioners would certainly have found it informative also; an
enlightening discussion on a brilliant opportunity.
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