 Welau'r bydd ffordd eich llyn ar y gadew i gael yma yn y g Forbes. Felly wedi'i gweithio i'r Garen a Harold i gael i gael y gafelwch i'r gweithio ar gyfer gweithio ar gweithio yng Nghyrch Leol. Felly yma'r gweithio'n gwybodaeth ar gyfer amser maen nhw i'n eu pethau ar y Gwynhau. Roedd gwaith ymlaen i'r Gowdd ac mae nhw'r eich gweithio i gael y gweithio ar y gair, artist Harold of Fay. First thing my name is Karen Thomas and I'm community officer for Kettlejard in Cambridge. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Harold. I'm going to shortly introduce Harold and ask a few questions but as Rachel said please do you have a think about your own questions that you'd like to ask and submit them via the Q&A bottom at the bottom of your screen there. You might need to wiggle your mouse and it will appear in the toolbar so there'll be an opportunity to ask some of these at the end of our chat. So I've had the wonderful pleasure of working closely with Harold in 2017 when he was selected by communities in North Cambridge to be their third open house artist in residence with Kettlejard. He worked with Kettlejard and folks in our drinking hedges throughout the year exploring design and meaning inspired by the house and collection at Kettlejard. Harold of Fay is an artist living in South Cambridge and works nationally and internationally through a range of media including performance, video, photography, learning and social arts practice. He particularly explores historic narratives and contemporary culture. Recently Harold has worked with Tate Britain, Tate Modern, South London Gallery, Wising Arts Centre and Kettlejard. He's also worked in New York, France and Japan just to name a few. Additionally, very busy Harold currently teaches at universities in both Leeds and in London. So good afternoon and welcome Harold. Hey, hi Karen. It's really great to be here. Thanks to everyone for tuning in and yeah looking forward to the conversation. So I've given you a very very brief introduction. Perhaps you could tell us a little bit more about what inspires you to make art. Yeah, I mean I think, I mean I think the reason I'm an artist is that I'm sort of curious. I'm sort of really curious about the world and particularly curious about people and I think I realised, I was lucky enough to realise quite early on in school that doing art allowed you to explore questions. It allowed you to learn because it was very much about you like framing or posing questions and then finding ways of not necessarily answering them but exploring them, researching them and I think what I've increasingly found is that it's really interesting and useful to share those questions with other people and see what questions they have. So yeah. Curiosity is an important important thing I think for all of us. So that, so curiosity is what inspires you but then kind of thinking more about practical ways. How do you choose what media you then use to create your artwork? Like I don't know whether it's photography or film or performance. I mean that must be a really difficult decision. Yeah, I mean I think in some ways, you know, I mean different artists have different approaches, you know, some artists are very invested in materials, you know, whether they're working with like wood or bronze or obviously sort of paint and I think I've never sort of really been like that. I guess I've been more interested in situations and ideas and then often what comes out of that is an opportunity to work in a particular way. I mean I have sort of, sort of most often work with like photography and video and performance and often think about ways in which I might like role play things or test things out and I'm interested in like photography and documenting and portraiture. But yeah, I mean other projects have allowed me to, for example, you know explore ceramics and make objects. I mean that was one of the things we did as part of Open House, which I'm sure we'll talk about later, which is sort of Cattles Yard initiative that allowed me to work with communities in North Cambridge. So that was a really exciting opportunity to kind of sort of, you know, do something like that and there are occasions where I make sculptures and I've worked with textiles. So I really enjoy the variety. The variety is really important for me. Does that kind of keep it fresh for you then? Like a new challenge of working with a different material? Yeah, definitely, definitely. I think that freshness is really important. And sometimes I've just sort of found that it can be useful as well. Like what I don't know can be useful. So yeah, so definitely doing the kind of, you know, Open House, like being able to do like ceramics, which, you know, I mean I did at school and I always enjoyed but I don't really get a chance to kind of, you know, really make ceramics or glaze things. So that idea of shared learning is really important to me where I'm often sort of working with people that, you know, might have skill or we're together. We've never done it before and it's like a leveler, which is, I think, really important. So really interesting. So you've kind of mentioned your residency with Cattles Yard through the Open House programme but you've also undertaken residencies at Wising Arts Centre. So how does working in Cambridge inspire you? That's a good question. I mean, I think, I mean, I've been living in Cambridge and now just in South Cambridge here for, it's coming up, it'll be seven years in February and it's gone quite quickly. And I think what, I mean, I came from London and I think what I've been really heartened by is just the kind of like diversity and variety of people and places and situations that, you know, that's here in a relatively sort of small area. And I think I've been really lucky through, particularly through these residencies with Cattles Yard and Wising Arts Centre, in that they've become platforms for me to meet some of the most extraordinary people, you know, and organisations as well. So I think I feel like I'm really privileged in that I've got, had these amazing experiences and insights into individual people's stories or histories, people who are working in really interesting ways, often who've come from very different divergence or backgrounds. It's like a very rich place, actually, sort of culturally, you know. Yeah, so that's been really inspiring and continues to be as well, yeah. So is there, I mean, without naming names, are there particular people that you've met through those residencies or moments in those residencies that stand out for you? I mean, I think, I mean, definitely, I think a stand out moment was the kind of outcome of my residency with Open House in Cattles Yard, where we sort of staged this like gathering festival at North Cambridge Academy. And that brought together, I think, lots of the organisations and individuals that we've been working with. And I think just because it was just a big platform and there were so many people, you know, I think I was really sort of taken aback. I mean, there's an organisation called Rowan that we worked with. It was just amazing. And I don't know, one of the things I was sort of a bit sad about is that I kind of, you know, maybe I should just, I just, you know, the project was really great over, I mean, it was nine months, I think, or maybe even two, I don't remember, but I mean, looking back on it now, I was quite sure and I really enjoyed those kind of conversations, regular conversations that kind of came about and being sort of like feeling a little bit part of these existing communities. But yeah, oh God, I mean, there's so many. I'm not mentioning, I mean, there's loads of just even individual people as well, they're really just generous with their time and sort of just relaying their own experiences and stuff. Yeah, I could go on. My enduring memory of the Open House gathering is, of course, the amazing artworks. There was lots and lots of food, which was delicious that people bought and shared. Delicious bread that was being made by another artist, Anna Brownstead. But it was also really rainy. And all of these people came out and were so excited to share everything that they've made with Harold through that year, despite torrential rain. No, it was kind of classic because we had this amazing marquee. So everyone was like, huddled in this life marquee during the writing. I don't know, something very British about that. Huddled in a marquee while it's like really pouring outside. But in some ways, I think it brought people together. It was really great. I mean, Eddie from Cambridge African Network as well really supported that project. We had some great Ghanaian performers as well, which was a real highlight for me on top of the food as well. Yeah, so that was a really great experience. Yeah, it was such a celebration. So thank you. People come together in adversity, don't they? So recently, through another project with Kettlejad, you've been sharing your reflections from home, which is a project Kettlejad have invited artists to kind of share their experiences of working from home. And in that, you talk about creating photographs in your garden during lockdown and a strand of your practice which concerns the politics of posing and the visibility of the black body. And I believe this is something you'll be bringing to us at Kettlejad in January as part of their forthcoming exhibition, Untitled. Could you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, this is a really like long ongoing project that I've been doing over 10 years, in 2008, sort of where I've been really interested in looking at album covers in particular and how like sort of black performers, black singers are using the album cover to represent themselves through the photography, through the album artwork. And particularly looking back at this period of the 70s and 80s, where there's like a sort of, for me, like a heightened consciousness about it might be sort of black power or black pride or celebration or assertiveness. There's an opportunity to really think about how these performers are presenting themselves to audiences through these poses, particularly how do they pose and what does that mean? And so the series sort of started out by looking at, you know, singers like Grace Jones, mostly kind of like, it was mostly women to be with and soul singers. And the series that we're showing at Kettlejad is those series of female singers from soul disco genres. And then more recently through, I mean, maybe this is an opportunity to just very quickly share. Just so people have a bit of a reference, hopefully people can see this. Yeah, most recently it's turned to this series of album covers that I found of like 80s male soul singers. So this is Teddy Pendergrass. I miss album cover. I'm just really interested in like how, you know, particularly at this period, singers like Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson, I mean, this is a kind of bigger spread, but they're all adopting the same pose, which is this reclining pose. So it's an image of sort of black men trying to kind of project through these album covers, these photographs, something about their identity. Obviously album covers are to promote music and to draw people to the music, but it's interesting when this similar pose I think is kind of used. So I've been just really interested in what, you know, this pose says about like, you know, blackness and masculinity. And for me it's often, it's very 80s, you know, in this idea of kind of being sophisticated and relaxed. And it's about, you know, a certain kind of power. For me it's interesting the pose in art history. Western art history has a kind of long, you know, you'll see like Roman sculptures of reclining figures or Renaissance paintings, or, you know, even like Henry Moore sculptures. So it's a kind of power pose. And then what I did on the residency at Wising, so these are just photographs of me at Wising, which is a sort of rural setting just outside of Cambridge, is just like re-enacting these poses and presenting them in like, you know, different locations in the countryside and seeing how it changes it to kind of like put it in a different, slightly different kind of context. And then just very lastly, what I've also been doing as well at various opportunities is inviting other people is extending the conversation to like perform the pose. So working with a good friend and collaborator of mine, Eloise Calandria, we set up this studio just with a backdrop and we're inviting different people to kind of like perform this Teddy Pendergrass pose and interpret it. So we've got like this collection of different people kind of performing these poses. So yes, just some small photographs. It's so amazing. It's so interesting them doing the same pose, but some of their participants look super comfortable and relaxed and then other ones look so tense and uncertain. How did you feel doing that pose? I think what the particularly that Teddy Pendergrass pose is that it sort of looks like really relaxed because that whole thing about lying down is you're like chill now and you know being in control, but it's really uncomfortable because it's slightly awkward the way that he crosses his leg over the other leg and then this whole thing about doing that and the elbow. So it's not actually that comfortable to do, but I guess I was interested in like repeating it over and over again and seeing how it works when you put it in slightly unusual spaces or like you know yeah. So I mean and then obviously yeah I'm really interested in how other people have interpreted it and yeah some people being really uncomfortable. I should I should just say that they chose to do we had like three or four poses and people could choose which ones I wanted to do so it was not me asking them to do that against my will. Yeah, I think some people are quite surprised or less uncomfortable. The leg thing I just look at you do I thought oh that's actually very high up the leg that you're kind of crossing over. I don't know if I have to add it to the yoga pose. I mean it's kind of just like lots of stretching. It might not be able to get out of it again, that's what you're worried about. It's not something you want to do on the sofa for a while though. No. So clearly like from the images that you've shown us, collaboration interaction is a really important part of your practice but so how have you managed to do that when we're all being asked to be physically distant from each other? Is that still possible? It is, I mean it's difficult. I mean I think it's I think like everyone else and I'm sure you feel the same. You sort of it's made me realise the kind of you know the kind of quality of like being in the same space and sharing the immediacy of being in that same space as other people but yeah I mean I think what's happened is obviously like everyone else it's kind of been replaced by conversations like we're having now over Zoom and other platforms and I think that's been interesting actually because it's it's been a space where you're able to be a bit more kind of reflective perhaps and obviously you know with the various kind of lockdowns people have been really thinking about their situations and and that's sometimes led to I think hopefully more intimate or open kind of conversations about how we're kind of feeling. So yeah a bit of that has sort of transferred and I mean I've had a few projects that have been kind of postponed but they've been replaced by sort of conversations which have been really productive actually and there's been lots of sharing and exchanging of knowledge and references which is a really good thing. And is that with other artists or with the public or a mix? A mix, yeah a mix which has been really good you know and I guess one thing about even like working with sort of audiences and the public is that in some of the projects actually we've been able to bring people together who wouldn't necessarily be able you know like from different locations so people in different cities or we've been able to kind of sort of bring them together through this, through things like Zoom. Yeah so that's been a kind of upshot, a minor one but you know it's been good. Yeah I know actually you think this time last year you were over in Japan and that was my first experience of doing a remote event because you were leading a performance at Kettilwshad as part of the Cambridge show then and it was really interesting it was a steep learning curve and now it's like second nature that we're all kind of linked together through the internet and art is happening in this way and creativity is happening in this way and conversations are happening in this way and it's really exciting and you were there ahead of us. Just a reminder to everybody at home that you can submit questions via the Q&A so just tap on the toggle bar at the bottom you can tap away and we'll get round to asking those very shortly. I've got a couple of other questions Harold so I know that you've taught before that you've been really heartened by the discussion of decolonisation and sharing resources and readings in light of the Black Lives Matter movement and I know our partners at South Canyon Bishop District Council have also recommended readings and other resources as part of Black History Month. Are there any particular works which you would recommend to others to read and watch? Ah, give me if I'm just going into the... I've just acquired, I haven't actually properly started reading it but somebody recommended to me if I'll hold on. I might have to turn my background off because you're not going to say. No you're not going to say, anyway. It's a beautiful was sharing though. I'm not actually hiding it. Let me just switch the background off. Okay yeah so this book which hold on if people can see is called Decolonising the Camera Photography in Racial Time by Mark Seeley who's a really great writer curator and the book is kind of really looking at like the history of photography in relation to depictions of the Black Body, depictions of Black people through portraiture thinking about that and also thinking about how artists then have I so thought about kind of representing, you know, what does it mean to be photographed as a Black subject, you know? So I really recommend that and there's some really good, you know, like historical references to thinking about things like kind of colonial photography but then also thinking about kind of like early Black photographers as well who are kind of sort of taking control of kind of sort of image making. Sorry I wasn't planning this as well and this is also a really great book by this Marlion photographer from Mali called Malik Sederbe who was a studio photographer in the 60s and 70s so in Bamako in Mali he was sort of taking photographs of kind of sort of, you know, you know, people out dancing, you know, groups of friends, you know, even people sort of just kind of sort of swimming so it's a real kind of like amazing kind of depiction of sort of like every day. I love this one, people doing the twist, holding up a James Brown album. Yeah just kind of a really kind of great insight into kind of these West African, oh this is a brilliant one of like these performers with these flares. Oh my gosh, sorry. And I think, I mean, you know, while that is not explicitly about it's interesting Malik Sederbe is actually this generation of photographers that were depicting decolonised Africa so in that immediate period when African countries were becoming independent so for me there's an important thing about recognising these practices I think that emerged in the post-colonial period as well and unfortunately Malik Sederbe just very recently died but you know into his 80s he's beginning to kind of be recognised for this kind of rich documentary photography so we have this amazing archive I think of kind of images and I mean there are other lots of other photographers as well. I think that for me is also kind of part about the visibility, part of the decolonising project is about the visibility of these kind of performers and voices that have sort of like presented. The beautiful images, thank you for sharing to get on and on the bookstore line and have a look. Thank you. So we've had a few questions being shared and do keep on sharing. We've had one from Adele, Adele asks or says social arts is on the rise particularly through the pandemic or the pandemic has made us rediscover or refined the artistic self. How do you think social arts and arts as performance has changed since March and will it continue to change during these ongoing stop-starts periods of uncertainty? That's a really great question and sometimes I think it's slightly too early to say. I mean obviously the very obvious change that's happened is that you know it's been more difficult to have these shared space, physical kind of spaces and things have become sort of more mediated through like you know technology and video calls. But I think in some ways I think, I mean I can't answer this in two ways because I think there's an open question about how like social arts and performance arts will kind of go on at the moment as a bit of a kind of hybrid or there has been depending on you know the exact nature of the kind of lockdowns and you know over the summer as we opened up a bit there was a bit more kind of physical face-to-face interactions and now sadly obviously that's kind of retreating a little bit but and I suspect that will continue as long as we're in this uncertain period. But I think for me what's interesting is how like what interesting I say obviously it's coming out of a very difficult problematic time but is just how the everyday now is a bit like performance art in terms of like I mean I think about like every time I go into boots or a shop you know this this idea of like you're very aware of your obviously for safety reasons but in a way there's a kind of weird performance and choreography of that you're really aware of what does it mean to be in proximity to other people and I think that's going to be a legacy really in terms of um really thinking about our relationships to other people um and and I mean I hope it will mean we have a great appreciation about the things that we've been kind of denied and there's a kind of more of a value about what it means to be in in spaces with people or socialising with people um and we yeah we really kind of value and appreciate the worth of those things. Yeah I think that's really important and I know something that's been discussed a lot not only in in arts practice but also in kind of socials and social aspects and in community engagement as well so that kind of value of coming together and shared experiences. Um we've got another question from Liz and Liz says thank you lovely to see you and here you talk about your work um you talked about freshness and shared learning within your practice and wondered if or how you've managed to continue that in lockdown um is there anything you would recommend to see watch listen to do online that you've been inspired by during lockdown? Oh that's a good question um lovely to hear from you Liz I hope you're well um uh oh that's yeah gosh um I'm sure like lots of people I've been down sort of these like wormholes of kind of sort of research I just can't make up any right then what a top mind um I mean I've been looking a lot um just because I'm various projects that I've been researching at um I've been looking at this sort of like dance marathons um and histories of sort of like um yeah sort of people kind of coming together and dancing often in relation to kind of like causes though like you know HIV fundraising or but even more obscure like in the 30s like depression era sort of dance marathons um and I know that there've been some online dance parties as well which has been interesting like um so that idea of you know um like yeah DJ zoom calls where like one person is like the DJ and everyone's you know zooming in and everyone sort of dance up so I've been really interested in that as a kind of sort of like um social space for sharing I think that's been yeah it's been kind of super interesting yeah yeah I know I'm kind of thinking about works Christmas parties and stuff and they're going to be some dancing happening remotely I think it might be I hope not but yeah I hope not see it um so we've got another question um from Joanna or Johanna sorry if I've got the pronunciation wrong there um so they're asking about the pose that you used um in the motif in your latest project that you touched on and that you saw it as a manifestation of black identity particularly for males during the 80s what's your interpretation of that and what do you think the photographers or performers of this pose were trying to communicate and there is a like a follow-up question to that so I'll let you kind of digest that um did you feel you were communicating that same message when you yourself performed the pose in various settings it's a great question so I'm going to quickly answer Liz's question because I've just thought of stuff that I have I'm sorry okay which is I've been listening to a lot of um contemporary jazz music but there's a whole amazing generation of new jazz artists um black british female uh trumpeters so um I'd really recommend this great band called coca roco um and they formed a part of the virtual proms this year might be still an eye player but yeah I definitely recommend people check them out and they're the UK british jazz scene some people aren't up maybe put up by jazz but it's really funky it's a mixture of like afro b and high life as well as like you know kind of contemporary r&b as well it's really great um so definitely check out the UK british jazz scene and coca roco um so yeah back to back to johanna or johanna's question um it is um what do you think photographers and performers um it's a good question I mean I think um I guess you're asking what's at stake with these kind of poses and these sort of performances really what's um I mean A there's a kind of just an initial thing about um like how what does it mean to present yourself in a particular way um I think it's very difficult to kind of divorce it from the kind of context so I think you know those album covers that I'm looking at are very much coming out of the kind of politics of the 80s um and I think the artist choosing to adopt those poses is to do with like the politics of the 80s so so you know people like Billy Ocean or Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson they all represent like in in like popular music they're like crossover artists so like coming out of like um black genres like r&b and soul and reggae and and inter pop culture so I think they're adopting these poses that are often about being sophisticated and loungy is about I think often about them appealing to white audiences if I'm being honest is about them um so it's a particular strategy and so I think my idea about re-adopting these poses is to think about what does that mean now and what does and by I think when you represent something I hate the way of acknowledging or quoting history but it's also a way of thinking about how that history operates now for me amazing thank you so much Harold um so I thank you everybody for sharing their questions they're so thoughtful and considered so thank you um I so you meant we had a little chat before and you've mentioned another project you've you've got going on um that anyone can get involved with involving a spaceship so do you want to tell us a little bit more about that yeah I'm um I'm working with an organisation called bold tendencies who commission artists to make sculptures um that are cited on this multi-storey car park in Peckham in southeast London and every summer they have this kind of like free open sculpture park from May till September um obviously this year it was curbed quite heavily and um the project that I was doing was postponed um till next summer uh but I am going to be um building a replica of a spaceship by a musician called Sunra who's a uh who was an American jazz musician kind of known as the godfather of afrofuturism um and he made this like amazing film called space is the place in the 70s and it features this spaceship where which he lands um in um so I'm going to sort of make a scale model of that and and sort of Sunra was this kind of predictor of the future really thinking about like alternative futures of blackness and thinking about sci-fi and space as this kind of imaginative place um so I'm asking people to to think about predictions for the future um and you can submit um that as a recording an audio recording something that you might speak to it could be music if you make music it could be it could be a postcard um and you can submit that or you can make a small video um and then this big model of the Sunra spaceship is actually just going to be a big speaker we're going to play out um a mix tape soundtrack and then there'll be events where we'll be kind of like showing some of the images that have been produced so I think um and yeah if you go to kind of uh bold tendencies.com website there's information about the open call um and what you'll need to do um but yeah I mean for me it's about also the conversation about thinking you know it's been a very difficult year and I think there's a lot of questioning about what what we want to see hopefully and I do believe that we'll be at some point an end to you know the kind of current pandemic but what what do we actually want to come out of that what do we see what do we hope for the future um so yeah it's an invitation for people to speculate about the future and people can be as playful as people want as well so you know um yeah yeah humor and playfulness is very much part of your practice I know that absolutely but I think we're all curious about what the future might bring so um I'm definitely going to get my my thinking cap on and and have a go at submitting something to that so thank you um thank you so much Harold for your time um I also wanted to say thank you to Rachel and everybody at South Cambridge District Council for enabling this to take place today um also thank you to Eddie and everybody at Cambridge African Network for inviting us at Kettlejad to support their programme of events um thank you Harold so much for your time and talking to us today um as I mentioned at the start you can see Harold and his work is part of and untitled art on the conditions of our time which opens at Kettlejad on the 16th of January in 2021 so something to look forward to after Christmas um and other than that thank you everybody so much for joining us today and it will um share some of the links with um Rachel and the team at Southcown so perhaps they can also share that through social media um but thank you once again Harold for your time and we'll see you all soon thank you thanks Karen thanks everyone thank you so much thank you