Collaborating with key institutions, artists, directors and designers worldwide, our approach to concept design, exhibition curation and film making creates a synergy between these media to meet the ever growing and diverse audience demands, whilst fostering an environment for creativity and innovation to flourish.

Founded with rebellious spirit and ambitious objectives, the company strives to create content that informs and inspires, challenges pre-conceptions and stimulate appreciation for art in all its forms of expression, delivered to the highest professional standards.

Jessica Cottis, Orchestra Conductor

06th of July, 2020

What is your personal experience dealing with the virtual world before and since lockdown?

As a conductor, with all the travel and the complexities of working within different cultural contexts every week, my work life usually runs very fast. Pre-lockdown, the virtual world was predominantly a means to stay in touch with family, or to hold meetings with colleagues in different time zones. Now it’s our primary means to connect, for both work and beyond the home. Instead of conducting, I’ve used this time to teach and mentor, all done online, which has been very enriching.

Has the lockdown made you more intorspective,and if so, in what way?

I’m introspective by nature, and find a great deal of meaning in my work and interests. If anything, lockdown has made me question more the external structures within which we live our lives.

Art has always served a medium of connectedness in society – how do you see it work under lockdown?

I’m reminded of a line by John Berger. He said something like: “that we find a crystal or a poppy beautiful means that we are less alone, that we are more deeply inserted into existence than the course of a single life would lead us to believe”.

Marie-Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, Founder of Spirit Now! London

02nd of July, 2020

We have access to so many networks, so much information, but is there a real connection ?
We are deprived of physical contacts, of the feeling of experiencing things together as a ‘pack’, as a circle of friends.
In these unusual times, Spirit Now! London decided to create memories of these exclusive moments asking some artists we had met to make videos with us. Each video allows us to dive back into an artist’s world and features a special message for our community.
Some members of Spirit Now London (publishers, foundation directors, designers) also entered into the spirit of this project. Time has come to shed light on them and get the strength of our connection as a group back.

Gary Carpenter, Composer, Professor of Composition: Royal Academy of Music and Royal Northern College of Music. Ivors Avademy : Chair of Classical Comittee and Board Member

30th of June, 2020

What are the new forms of connectedness you are seeing emerging as a result of the confinement?
There are valiant attempts being made to connect to audiences by replicating concert events online – e.g. ensemble work to click track (some really good), concerts if partners and/or those in the household happen to be musicians. Artists are engaging with social media and confinement by exploiting its possibilities and seeking out new forms of expression and communication. Events like Wigmore Hall/BBC live concert streaming represent a tiny shoot of recovery.

Apart from the clarsach, I’m working with my friend and colleague, the saxophonist Rob Buckland on a new version of a piece for solo flute (Blue) for his solo recording project. I’m revisiting older pieces that never made it on the computer so I’m typesetting and revising: firstly a chamber opera I wrote with the poet Eve Salzman (One Two), then a String Quartet from 1989 and currently a large scale orchestral piece (Amethyst Deceiver) I wrote for the Hallé Orchestra in 1981. There’s no performance planned and it really is big (26 minutes and a large orchestra) so one one hand, it’s not exactly a ‘piece for our time’ but on the other hand, I wouldn’t be doing it if deep down there wasn’t still a sliver of optimism – and in any case, hope should never die!

Ann Ray, Artist

26th of June, 2020

I started working on collages entitled The End of Language I, II and III or a series of White Pages. I’m trying to translate the beauty of authentic contact, of a universal language.

I intentionally didn’t switch on my computer very often.

I’ve developed an aversion to the virtual world these past years. It’s a masquerade where overflowing messages oppress us. Where we watch ourselves turning our lives into punchlines or new images on social media which are social in name only.

These are powerful tools provided one uses them wisely to complete certain tasks. Not to discover art. A viewing room is useful  as a memorandum, an outline or a narrative tool – in the curatorial sense of the word. But the viewing-room is brutal, it doesn’t respect the geography of desire that is part of all exhibitions.

The word connect interests me as an answer, an intention, be it artistic. As a contribution to the world. I can’t be an artist without being a humanist first.

Claude Arnaud, Writer

23rd of June, 2020

How do you stay connected with your creative constituency these days ?

What is your personal experience dealing with the virtual world before and since the lockdown ?

I didn’t deal with the virtual world before or during lockdown. I am sparing with the time I spend on social media which amounts to nought. Lockdown didn’t alter my relationship to digital technologies.

Art has always served a medium of connectedness in society – how do you see it work under the lockdown ?

I strongly believe that a book sanctifies an encounter between two temporary solitudes. This meeting can only occur when there is silence. It can happen in a public place (train, bus, boat…) but one has to abstract oneself from it to become someone else (the writer, the characters he/she has invented, the creator he/she has written about, the work he/she has analysed…) for a little while. Whether you are confined or not, it is always enlightening to do some research on the internet and find out about an author, read interviews or lectures he/she has given, go through critical reviews he/she wrote or that were written about him/her. But I don’t think the lockdown is going to change our aesthetics or our relationship to images the way the Iconoclastic quarrel or the Council of Trent did. There is a risk that the situation puts many libraries out of business, accelerating the decline of the book which is more and more marginalised in comparison with the image.

Lore Lixenberg, Founder and leader of THE VOICE PART – also voiceartist and mezzo

19th of June, 2020

Nemanja Nikolic, Artist

16th of June, 2020

It has been inspiring to see how people broke limitations caused by quarantine using online platforms, live streaming, public talks and other solutions to keep creating content and communicating.

Still, for me, nothing can replace a face-to-face conversation or going to exhibitions, concerts and other art events in the real world.

I’ve used these days of isolation to do what I love most: drawing, painting and watching movies.

Hélène Delprat, Artist

12th of June, 2020

Ali M Demirel, Visual Artist

9th of June, 2020

As a visual artist, I am used to traveling frequently to different countries for festivals and exhibitions. But when back at home, I was quite enjoying being alone and isolated. I must admit that I enjoyed the certain ‘absence’ Corona brought to our lives. The ‘addiction’ to overdose activity and our dominant ‘presence’ in nature was something I was questioning in my artworks lately.

My latest solo show ADA at Arter Istanbul in 2018 was based on films I have made about human absence, how nature is taking over abandoned structures. It’s a strange feeling for me now to observe this is happening in our reality.

However, this doesn’t mean that I like what’s happening to humankind now. We are responsible for what is happening, this is not the fault of a little virus but the vulnerable weak system we have built. It is up to us now how to fix this and not repeat our mistakes!

As an artist, creating and reflecting is a way of existence for me. But personally, I am not very attracted to virtual alternatives being developed. It is very crucial and important that we can stay connected, create and share online but I also believe that we can build a higher quality of connection with micro-politics in physical space.

As an example of this, I had an idea to project video-art on my windows to my neighbours (whom I did not know and didn’t have a real connection before) and to individuals randomly passing through my street.

I asked artists whose work I like a lot, and all of them responded positively and with a great enthusiasm. I have already made some new connections within my neighbourhood and met new artists and showed them on my windows, which is the most exciting interaction I’m having during this period so far.

Alice Farnham, Conductor and Artistic Director of Women Conductors with the Royal Philharmonic Society

5th of June, 2020

How do you stay connected with your creative constituency these days?

Well there’s no conducting going on right now of course – no orchestra, and no operas.  But I am teaching.  I am making videos of exercises for my students, teaching on zoom and even running group workshops.

How has the confinement altered the way you communicate with your creative constituency ?

It is all done online, but I use FaceTime and zoom much more than I ever did.

What are the new forms of connectedness you are seeing emerging as a result of the confinement ?

Yes, in a way it has.  Some of us who have been so incredibly busy for so long now, have time to connect.  Conductors are generously sharing their thoughts on music and even running masterclass.

Do you foresee a change in the way we connect with each other post lockdown ?

Yes.  We will be much more comfortable with reaching out to people who are not physically close.  I have taught students in Australia and US, and it never occurred to me that I could continue to teach them whichever country I happen to be in.

Digital connectedness -via social media, videoconferencing, digital platforms- took a much more prominent position in communication strategies. how do you think this will affect the culture of consumerism in the future?

I think it will have a lasting affect.  However, I believe there is nothing better than live music.  I see it as a way of connecting people, and introducing them to new ideas and art forms as well as appreciating artists performing in venues we can’t reach.  But the real thing will be even more thrilling when eventually we are allowed to return.

What is your personal experience dealing with the virtual world before and since the lockdown ?

I am much more comfortable with it now.  But sometimes it makes me sad as I miss the real thing.

Has the lockdown made you more introspection? and if so, in what way? 

As a conductor I am used to periods where I am learning scores and don’t see many people.  These are much shorter than lockdown so far, but it is not as frightening and lonely an experience as it is for many.

Art has always served a medium of connectedness in society – how do you see it work under the lockdown ?

It is essential.  Art of all types.  I am a musician, but a passion of mine is painting which I have never had time to devote to it.  Since lockdown I have painting almost every day.  I also listening to radio dramas, podcasts, audio books and watch live streaming of plays.  I am finding music sometimes a little too painful as I want to hear it live, so other art forms are giving me real solace.

Stephan Balleux, Artist

2nd of June, 2020

How do you stay connected with your creative constituency these days ?

In a few emails I sent to friends from the art world I shared lockdown thoughts adding images of what I was currently doing in relation to the pandemic. I also published a few posts on Instagram.

I decided not to communicate excessively during lockdown. I don’t believe in sharing my internal personal journey, my doubts and my small victories on social media. I need some distance and I don’t like to show my emotions or actions on these platforms. Many galleries and institutions multiplied virtual exhibition tours and artist studio visits or online presentations. I followed almost none: my lockdown routine was linked to parenting as I have two young children. The time devoted to work and web surfing was drastically reduced.

Moreover, I like what happens on the internet when it is about sharing information but I don’t like it when marketing becomes too visible. It is obvious that big organisations have hired some staff to do their PR and that social media do well in time of pandemic but they make people with less means look amateurs.

What are the new forms of connectedness you are seeing emerging as a result of the confinement ?

I have been working since last September on a new website. It will be a dynamic communicating tool. I am planning to use it to show the work I have done over the past fifteen years. I also want to create sections where, like I a curator, I can establish links between the different parts of my work. I will also add texts  that I have written. I rely heavily on this communicating tool that I have neglected these last years. I  want to show and exhibit my art on the internet according to my own criteria, my own tempo… It will then be relayed in social media.

I also intend to invite more people to visit my studio to allow for direct contacts between them and my paintings. I don’t think this health crisis is going to change anything beyond the growing awareness that we can make do with what we have at home. I can see people becoming more resourceful. But my impression is that as soon as this crisis is over, we will go back to normal, equipped with a few more remote work tools.

What topics/people inspire you whilst in self-isolation ?

Because of this crisis, we have been forced to stay within the family unit – in my case it is a typical family with Dad, Mum and two children. The fact that we were together hugely influenced my work. To be constantly with my children, taking care of them more than usual, having time to enjoy these moments made me want to produce work with them, about them and through them. Opting for this orientation in my work has been on my mind for a long time but the current situation made me naturally follow this direction.

I do not have access to my studio anymore for logistical reasons so I designed a new, smaller one in one of the rooms of the house. The sizes of my pieces have shrunk and I am focusing on ‘poor’ forms of art : drawings on paper, watercolours, small oil on wood paintings. There are so many uncertainties about our future project that we have lost our bearings. But we have also been experimenting and I think it is a very fertile response. This is no time for self-assessment. It is time to let go and listen to what is coming to our minds without too much critical thinking. I must admit that what is coming to me pertains to the imaginary more than to a reflective approach. As for reading, I went back to authors I love such as Rebecca Solnitt or comic book writers like Ralf Koening who ferociously mocks the stereotypes ingrained in our societies. I also looked at legendary artists like Van Eyck and Giovani Bellini… a form of return to the sources.

Digital connectedness – via social media, videoconferencing, digital platforms-  took a much more prominent position in communication strategies. how do you think this will affect the culture of consumerism in the future. 

I believe that nothing will spare us from the subjection to the market law. Nothing.

That being said, all these digital tools existed before the crisis and we already used them a lot to communicate. What changed is the frequency, the fact that we now use them non-stop. I think that these tools are available to artists in order to create a self-sufficient and fascinating media. It is just a matter of investing time and money. It is true that the time devoted to communication impinges on the time devoted to creation. I personally decided to invest time in sharing my artistic approach, in creating my own media. More than a marketing strategy, it is about sharing elements on the challenges and questions which are so central to my work. It is also about expressing my thoughts without intermediaries.

Artists have a lot on their plates. They are in charge of their studio, the admin of a company, the archiving of their work, the logistics of their exhibitions, the promotion of their art, submissions for open calls etc… On top of all that, there is a social demand for transparency and a voyeurism of the artistic practice. It is time-consuming and we need to be very strategic about what we show and what we do not show.

What is your personal experience dealing with the virtual world before and since the lockdown. 

Lockdown has had an effect on my relationships to digital technologies but opposite to the majority’s. Digital education and communication tools like videoconferencing software have had a very negative impact on my body. I experienced violent headaches and an unpleasant impressions of dizziness after hours spent videoconferencing and teaching online. To me, physical human interactions seem more than ever the best way to communicate.

I know there has been a lot of buzz around art projects and creative content shared on the internet but I did not have much time to get involved. Taking care of my children was my priority. In normal circumstances, I can’t even deal with the huge amount of data created daily on the internet. I suffered in the past from a Facebook addiction disorder so I don’t use it anymore but I often check Instagram as its contents is not too prolific (you can’t click on links for example). It is a learning tool that I find very inspiring as it is a way for people to share personal thoughts for professional purposes.

It is weird: during lockdown, there has been a surge in phone calls and they lasted longer. I managed to paint while I was speaking on the phone. I have the impression that my friends were doing the same.

But as I said, I have not been very active on social media. I am suspicious of oversharing and outpourings of emotions online. I noticed that many online behaviours during lockdown were desperate calls for attention even though we are not visible anymore in the real world. The situation opened doors to news arenas in my practice. I will share them in due course, after stepping back and reflecting on this period which allowed me to take a break before going on.

I wanted to initiate a project during lockdown but it was impossible because the materials I needed were out of stock: I wanted to create VR artwork. I think we have reached a point where it has become easy to handle this technology. I can feel something coming, a revolution in the visual and sound experience. It is the pre-cinema stage. And that is where the future of shows lies. It is only an intuition and it is still very vague.

I am positioning myself at the two extremes of the spectrum: painting as a low tech and thousand-year-old practice and the VR of the future.

Rusen Gunes, Violist

30th of May, 2020

We are deeply saddened by the recent and sudden passing of Ruşen Güneş, violist. Our heartfelt condolences to his family and friends. We had the privilege to count him amongst our connect series contributors. Here are his wise thoughts.

How do you stay connected with your creative constituency these days?
My main channel to stay connected is the internet at the moment, I also stay in touch with my entourage via emails and keep on reading the news.

How has the confinement altered the way you communicate with your creative constituency ?
There hasn’t been much difference so far. In fact I prefer this so called lockdown as I feel my encounters with people are less intimating.
What are the new forms of connectedness you are seeing emerging as a result of the confinement
I used to enjoy meeting people for a drink and a chat, unfortunately everything is virtual now, so I am missing those days but I can bare it.

Do you foresee a change in the way we connect with each other post lockdown?
I don’t think there will be any major difference communication wise, everything is virtual but as humankind we still need to find our ways to stay connected.

Has the lockdown made you more introspection? and if so, in what way?
Introspection ? I still write, read and watch. My only concern is that I worry about my kids, They are all adults, all 4 of them. I am also worried for my young friends it will be a huge ‘operation’ to return back to the ‘normal’ AGAIN.

Art has always served a medium of connectedness in society – how do you see it work under the lockdown.
You can never kill art.

Sigrid Kirk, Co-Founder Association of Women in the Arts, cultural strategist and adviser

29th of May, 2020

I co-founded AWITA nearly 4 years ago with the vision of building a supportive community of professional women working in the arts, and to support this community through networking, mentoring and professional development,

Some of the challenges thrown up by the current Corona (Covid -19) public health crisis are quite unique, and it is clear the we way work, do business and socialise together is changing. Initially I spent a-lot of time reaching out and speaking to women across the entire arts ecology, asking how they were feeling, what impact Coronavirus was having on their businesses, work and home life, and what AWITA could do to help. It immediately became clear that what people wanted more than anything else was to feel part of a community, that a collective sense of ‘we are are all in this together’ was important. We launched AWITA C-suites, focused 30 minute sessions led by senior arts professionals.

These have included Navigating a New Era of Social Media, Sales Strategies in a Time of Crisis, Project Planning without a Timeline, Our Duty of Care and Communication Strategies. I was a little cautious about scheduling too many of these, as we watched the cultural sector stampede to digital and I was concerned about the over-saturation of online content, but the reaction has been incredible.

I’ve been overwhelmed by the generosity of senior arts professionals, giving their time and expertise with immense candour and warmth. Although the sessions are closed, we record and edit the content and post these online with key takeaways for a wider community of female arts professional to access. We feel that now is the time to share and support with honesty and compassion.

This has been a time to pause and reflect, but also an opportunity for us to try new things and reassess our mission and values. We may now be physically distanced but we can still be socially engaged. I feel compelled, now more than ever, to continue to build a strong network that supports and cares for professional women in the art world.  As borders close physically, it is important to extend our conversations collegiately and internationally. Our new familiarity with digital and virtual interaction has had some upsides, and means we can explore meaningful ways to build new relationships and online peer to peer mentoring.

To paraphrase Churchill ‘a crisis is a terrible thing to waste’, and as much as we can’t return to normal because normal was the problem, this pandemic has pushed us all to think about how we work digitally to create meaningful and content rich interfaces, and to consider who our audiences are. It feels like there are some fundamental shifts occurring in the way we want to work and live. Perhaps our workplace will no longer be a single location but an eco-system of a variety of different locations and experiences and we will make choices to support convenience, functionality and wellbeing.

Consumption has slowed down, there is no longer such urgency, and we have the time and space to pause and reflect. My hope is that we won’t race back to the old normal but that a different art world will emerge, and the global carousel of gas-guzzling carbon spewing art fairs and biennials that we were all spinning around on, won’t restart. Obviously I can’t wait to get back to Venice with a Bellini in hand, but with less of the artificial sense of urgency to see and be seen, to buy now and buy more. The fixed horizon feels less hazy and more precise. I feel I have a better sense of who I am, what I want and what I am good at, and what really matters. In a needs hierarchy where health and safety are priorities, it’shard to argue for the role of art. It has been interesting to see how artists have responded while in isolation – and wonderful to see so many working collegiately with care to support each other eg Matthew Burroughs #artistsupportpledge which has so far raised £20 million for artists through small online pay it forward sales. Keith Tyson’s Isolation Art School and Bob and Roberta Smiths art education are further examples alongside a more campaigning approach by Jeremy Deller, Peter Liversidge and Mark Titchener. Equally many artists are working quietly, in their studios and it will be interesting to see what emerges. Even if the work isn’t specifically about Covid-19, one imagines the stains or traces of this time will mark the work, even if in subtle ways, and historically this could be a significant period culturally.

Max Pugh, Film Maker

26th of May, 2020

So I look at the weeks and months ahead and find myself at peace with this new relationship, one which I fantasised about but never thought possible. There is more pressure from the digital, to the point that its infinite variety and complexity is at times overwhelming; as if the entire universe is multiplexed into a single piece of fibre optic cable which terminates in the bottom left corner of this 500 year old stone house, but I have found compensatory solace in watching the spring morph into summer outside. The baby swallows nesting under the eves of my roof have taken flight, even if the airliners still have not.

Julie Polidoro, Artist

22nd of May, 2020

This forced pause allowed nature and animals to breath again. I hope this forced pause awakens us to the urgency of protecting ourselves and protecting nature which amounts to the same thing.

I am not only a content in a container. What counts is my interaction with the environment. I cross over space and I merge with the elements.

My new series of paintings is entitled Going out inside (Uscire dentro in Italian, Sortir dedans in French).

The circumstances led me to a provocative gesture. I imagined an outside space which has to be framed under glass to stay outside and uncontaminated.

How to translate formally the act of looking a landscape without standing in front of it, watching it through a window like animals in a zoo ?

What does outside mean? Can the outside become part of the household ?

All of a sudden the landscape is not an external space anymore. It appears to me simply as a space where I feel welcomed, where I can find my place.

And instead of getting rid of the insect crawling on my hand, I look at it.

We are in something with the same intensity and strenght as it is in us.

I wish each of us feels immersed in an outside that is like a home.

Paul Harris, Clarinettist, Composer, Author and Educator

19th of May, 2020

But the virtual world is virtual, both in the sense of being both a simulated world and a world that we’re near, we’re virtually in, but not quite. There’s no doubt that it is a wonderful second best – but second best is probably as good as it can ever be.  It doesn’t quite allow us to sense and be affected by the concentration, intensity of thought, and on-going non-verbal signals of communication that make life (in this case, teaching and performing) so powerful and indeed, meaningful.

This interlude has given us the time and opportunity to connect with ourselves – it has allowed us to think inwardly, maybe to re-connect with our core values and passions.  So that when we do eventually reconnect with the real world, we can do so with even more energy and clarity.  There’s no doubt that we will have learned much in this strange but curiously necessary episode in our history.  And I’m sure we shall take the best of it to use in the future. But real connections must ultimately win over those that are virtual.

Virginia Damtsa, Visual Art Dealer and Artist Agent

15th of May, 2020

Online is not a substitute for the real experience of seeing art in galleries, museums, art fairs and auction houses. If anything it reinforces the need to see the real thing. The popularity of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre is due to its digital online promotion. But then we need to really see it, experience it, to be able to understand it and own it. Real culture is through experience. The experience of visiting an artist’s studio, going to a museum or to a gallery are irreplaceable.

For the moment, ‘Virtual art’ is the new normal norm but we are all longing for a real art experience again.

Rolf Hind, Pianist and Composer, Professor of both and Research Associate at Guidhall Schol of Music and Drama, piano professor at Trinity Laban.

12th of May, 2020

Alison Myners, Chair of the Royal Academy Trust

8th of May, 2020

How do you stay connected with your creative constituency these days?
The Royal Academy is an artist-led organisation. Founded by artists with artists still at the helm, lead by Rebecca Salter our fabulous President. Our Royal Academicians independently and collectively represent many voices and are involved in many activities at this extraordinary time . The Academy has a great virtual programme with life drawing classes, tours around some remarkable exhibitions such as David Hockney’s 2012 and 2016 shows and Picasso and Paper, activities for the whole family. And of course we are still running our Royal Academy Schools – the only 3 year postgraduate course which is free of charge for our students. It is tough not having them in their studios at the Academy but the teaching goes on virtually and we will still have their Summer show in June 2020. You may also have seen Grayson’s Art Club on Channel 4.

How has the confinement altered the way you communicate with your creative constituency ?
We are all virtual now! Emails, zoom, links of every form of communication to stay connected with audiences, participants alike.

What are the new forms of connectedness you are seeing emerging as a result of the confinement ?
Our digital presence has increased enormously. People want and need to stay connected and to participate in creative processes. Perhaps never more than now. This pulls together families and friends in shared digital activities, people in different locations who can create together or tour and discuss shows.

What is your personal experience dealing with the virtual world before and since the lockdown?
I am not wild about the idea of connecting forever through screens, I love people and personal interaction and the Royal Academy has a fantastic body of supporters and friends coming through the portal of Burlington House every day, I look forward to welcoming our Friends again.

However I feel very fortunate that we live in an age where we are able to stay connected in such unprecedented times. Imagine if we did not have this luxury! I have however spent more time ‘viewing’ shows virtually in different locations now than perhaps time might have permitted previously and have vowed to set aside half a day each week just to stand before the actual works – this is what I took for granted and what I truly miss.

Has the lockdown made you more introspection? and if so, in what way?
I have always been a bit introspective. I have worked for several years as a psychotherapeutic counsellor and being able to self-examine is a key part of this.

Art has always served a medium of connectedness in society – how do you see it work under the lockdown?
It is very challenging not to be in the presence of the actual works but I think the Royal Academy has such a brilliant group of supporters and friends and they have not only stayed with us but are also increasing their visits to our digital and virtual platforms in a way I might not have imagined. I know that there is something comforting and familiar in travelling with the Academy and we are all so grateful for the way in which we are able to stay connected with our audiences through our exhibitions and taking part in activities from the comfort of their homes. I have also had many email, calls and zooms with our Patrons and supporters.

“Don’t you dare to step into my dreams unless you have been invited to.

Now you know.” Ann Ray

Ray used the confinement in Paris to keep working in her atelier on her first series of collages – initiated in 2019. A few collages will be exhibitied as a worldwide premiere, along with various photographic works at the Gallery Sabine Knust, Munich.

View the Invitation

Exhibition: 15th October – 28th November 2020 

Gallery Sabine Knust

“A piece of “artist’s jewellery,” like a painting or a sculpture, is a work of art. Springing from the same creative approach, it possesses the same force, poetry and ability to provoke, sometimes even the same humor. It is only their ultimate purpose that distinguishes one from the other.”

Dates to be announced soon

While working as a goldsmith in Hatton Garden, Shaun Leane began a long-standing collaboration with the late Lee Alexander McQueen. United by a shared passion for craftsmanship, together they created breathtaking, provocative catwalk jewels with iconic status.Exploring the role of the jewel, they challenged femininity and fashion, and the perceptions of form, preciousness and meaning.

Please join us to a must-see group show of photorapher Ann Ray and jewellery designer Shaun Leane while celebrating his upcoming book.

London and New York Dates to be announced soon, 2020

The power of mind, the power of thought and the power of emotion trigger a chemical reaction in the body. This is a point where the unconscious takes over and the body reacts of its own volition with a physical symptom.

Pschosomatica explores manifestations of psychological trauma, and its overwhelming prevalence on human health -and consequently behavior- in contemporary society. It is a stage-essay preoccupied with the power of the mind, and its interplay with the body as referred to today in medical terminology as psychosomatic phenomena. The result is a humanistic attempt aiming at redefining the blurring lines between the concepts of physical illness and that of mental wellbeing.

To articulate the ‘unexplained physiological happenings’ featured in the interviews, Jocelyn Pook has created a series of musical movements interspersing observations of Dr Stéphanie Courtade with the ‘patients’ own stories – the music and lyricism of narrative, in constant dialogue with the moving image element generate an evocative immersive experience of what it’s like to live with psychological distress, breaking through to the corporeal self.

Currently in production

“Music can only express human sentiments. Often, it is true, these sentiments arise out of the political tendencies of an epoch. For this reason Beethoven’s music is different from Mozart’s, since by Beethoven’s time a new idea of democracy, not known in Mozart’s era, had arisen. But this is all merely historical. No music of any value can be written on a purely political basis, as some of the moderns in Russia and Germany would have us believe. Nor would I ever compose a single bar for esthetic reasons in order to try to create a new style. I write to express human emotions, solely. If music is really human, it doesn’t matter to me how it is conveyed.” Kurt Weill

Simon Lee is writing a new orchestration of Weill’s work, with an emphasis on his European output.

The nature of the material, and the freedom that the passing of the copyright into public domain allows, means that these performances could potentially take many forms – from simple chamber concerts for the ensemble, to larger, more symphonic concerts that still feature the core ensemble and any such incarnations would of course only benefit from the addition of film/projections, lighting, sound and ‘environment’ elements.

There also seems, to us, in a zeitgeist way, that there is an extraordinary resonance in this material with the current global political and migration crises. The repertoire will include Weill’s ‘greatest hits’ reimagined – Mack the Knife, Surabaya Johnny, September Song, Saga of Jenny, Speak Low – as well as the less familiar, including some of his French songs.

Pre-production for recording

” In turn or in parallel, cinema became Futurist, Cubist, Dadaist, Constructivist, abstract and surrealist… Freedom was these “artists-filmmakers” priority. “

During the roaring twenties a number of artists rebelled against moral, cultural and artistic conventions, challenging the traditional hierarchy between the arts : amongst others, Marcel Duchamp, László Moholy-Nagy, Luis Buñuel, Hans Richter, Fernand Léger, Francis Picabia, Len Lye, Man Ray, Walter Ruttmann, Dziga Vertov. They refused to reduce cinema to a documentary technique used to capture reality and to a narrative device modelled on Hollywood’s stereotypical stories. They thought of cinema as an art form, endlessly experimenting with the camera. Doing so, they turned cinema into a lab for artistic experimentations and echoed the other artistic avant-garde of the beginning of the 20^th century.

Release date: Date to be announced soon
Price: TBC

For orders and general enquiries, please email: info@artcinema.art

“The Signature of the invisible is the emerging cinematic form, a visual and dramatic evocation of preconscious and unconscious impulses that lie latent beneath words”

Ken McMullen’s adaptation of Hamlet is a radical cinematic re-interpretation of Shakespeare’s iconic play focused on creating a highly compelling visual score.

Over the past few years Ken McMullen has brought together a renowned group of actors, artists, international thinkers and high-level cinema technicians to carry out ‘concrete’, recorded research in a filmed process exploring the chasm between language, image and meaning.

This exploration aims to be resolved in a time-based moving-image work. As its focus this work began to explore, in close readings and dissections, the text of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and other closely related texts.

Release date December 2020

Opening Date: December 2020

Ken McMullen’s adaptation of Hamlet is a radical cinematic re-interpretation of Shakespeare’s iconic play focused on creating a highly compelling visual score.

Over the past few years Ken McMullen has brought together a renowned group of actors, artists, international thinkers and high-level cinema technicians to carry out ‘concrete’, recorded research in a filmed process exploring the chasm between language, image and meaning.

This exploration aims to be resolved in a time-based moving-image work. As its focus this work began to explore, in close readings and dissections, the text of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and other closely related texts.

The Signature of the invisible is the emerging cinematic form, a visual and dramatic evocation of preconscious and unconscious impulses that lie latent beneath words.

Art Cinema and Marquee TV are proud to announce the digital release of War Work: Eight Songs with Film, Michael Nyman’s creation commemorating the centenary of the First World War. A total artwork, it combines various visual, poetic and musical archives.

Eight songs form a song cycle inspired by the Belgian Gaston de Ruyter’s Chansons Vieilles sur d’Autres Airs (old songs to other tunes). Poems written by poets who all died during the war, except David Bomberg, are set to music based on emblematic tunes by Beethoven, Rossini, Schubert, Chopin and others.

Without a voice-over, War Work reveals the potency of images from German and French First World War film archives which have rarely been seen. The film element, edited by Max Pugh, unearths the bodies of war – mutilated and disfigured soldiers – which have too often been forgotten. War Work does not show the slaughter but the effects of war and its memory: the psychological trauma and the physical wounds caused by a humanitarian disaster after which nothing would be the same again.

“It’s a film without any dialogue, commentary or interviews, and it is basically raw visual material and raw sound material. It’s a thrilling way of making a film and a thrilling way of using images with intelligence. 

“This kind of stream of consciousness approach of being a quasi-documentary maker I think has been the most thrilling film project I’ve ever been involved with, and now I have a real appetite for taking this approach and making other films with available documentation.” Michael Nyman 2018

Digital release: Marquee TV, December 15th 2018

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Sexual desire takes a dangerous turn in Kubrick’s enigmatic swansong, starring Kidman and Cruise. 

Please join us at the BFI Southbank for the screening of Kubricks final film, music by Jocelyn Pook. Followed by a discussion with Katharina Kubrick, Jocelyn Pook and Matt Wells.
Eyes wide shut is an incredible display of precision and suspense, featuring a fragile relationship played out by (then) real-life couple Kidman and Cruise. When Alice Harford admits to her husband Bill that she’s having sexual thoughts about another man, it sets off an obsession in him to have an erotic encounter – which leads him into an unforgiving world that he isn’t prepared for. Shot over a mammoth 15-month period, and based on Arthur Schnitzler’s novella Dream Story, Eyes Wide Shut explores the seductive and dangerous sexual underbelly of New York’s elite..

Dir Stanley Kubrick
With Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack, Todd Field
159min
UK-USA 1999

Eyes Wide Shut Screening and Discussion

Friday 29 November 2019, 18:30
BFI Southbank, NFT 1

tickets on sale now

An enraging portrait of entitlement, opulence and corruption, The Kingmaker starts as a profile of Imelda Marcos but soon widens its perspective to depict a Philippines in peril…

Don’t miss the screenings of Kingmaker at the BFI London Film Festival. Art Cinema is proud to announce that the music has written by Jocelyn Pook.
Centred on the indomitable character of Imelda Marcos, The Kingmakerexamines, with unprecedented access, the Marcos family’s improbable return to power in the Philippines.

Dir Lauren Greenfield
Music by Jocelyn Pook
Prod Frank Ever, Lauren Greenfield
2019

Kingmaker

Monday 07 October 2019, 17:45
Curzon Soho Cinema, Screen 1
Wednesday 09 October 2019, 20:40
ICA Cinema, Screen 1

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A celebration of nature in music, inspired by the bestselling book The Lost Words. Pounding oceans, enchanted woods, threatened birds and the powerful words of Greta Thunberg …

Art Cinema is proud to announce Jocelyn Pook’s new original musical work composed for Prom number 49, featuring the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain and performed by the Southbank Sinfonia. Pook’s new piece sets words from speeaches by environmental activist Greta Thunberg to music. The concert celebrates the rich musical landscape of nature and is inspired by the bestselling book The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane which revives disappearing words describing the natural world. The concert will be accompanied by live painting by Jackie Morris.

Performance: Prom 49: The Lost Words

Sunday August 25th, 2019
17.30-19:30
Royal Albert Hall
Kensington Gore, South Kensington, London SW7 2AP, UK

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ComposHER is a new concert celebrating the best new music to moving picture, featuring a stunning roster of some of the best women composers writing for the screen today. The aim of the concert is not only to showcase this incredible talent in the UK, of composers scoring film, TV and more, but also to inspire the next generation of women composers and to seek to make this area of the industry as inclusive as possible for future generations.

Art Cinema is proud to announce Jocelyn Pook’s music being played as part of ComposHer concert series. With composition being one of the most unequal areas of the global music industry, much work to tackle this has already taken place: 2018 saw the launch of the UK Women Composers’ Forum, as well as a new global database of women composers writing for visual media on FreeTheBid.com.This concert seeks to continue to support and empower the UK women composers’ community, towards further progression and change in 2019.

Performance: ComposHer

Wednesday June 12th, 2019
19.00-23:00
EartH (Evolutionary Arts Hackney)
11-17 Stoke Newington Rd, London N16 8BH

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To coincide with “Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition” at the Design museum, the Jocelyn Pook ensemble will perform excerpts from Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut Soundtrack and other material on May 3rd as part of the Museum Late: The Sound Of Stanley Kubrick event.

Art Cinema is proud to present The Jocelyn Pook Ensemble performing excerpt from Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut Soundtrack, composed in 1999 by Britain’s most successful female composer: Jocelyn Pook. The Jocelyn Pook Ensemble will perform music from her albums Untold Things, Flood and selections from some of her film scores including Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 psychological drama Eyes Wide Shut.
The line-up will include stellar vocalists and regular collaborators: Melanie Pappenheim, Carnatic vocalist Manickam Yogeswaren, and Tanja Tzarovska from Macedonia, as well as cellist Sophie Harris whose sublime solo playing features on the soundtracks of The Wife, The Staircase, Eyes Wide Shut and Brick Lane; Jon Banks on gothic harp and the Arabic qanun, violinists Emma Smith and Alice Zawadski, and Jocelyn on viola.

Performance: Jocelyn Pook Ensemble

Friday May 3rd, 2019
19.45-20.30
The Design Museum Atrium
224-238 Kensington High St, Kensington, London W8 6AG

During the event the exhibition will remain open.

Opening Date: April 3 2019
Asia House 63 New Cavendish St, London W1G 7LP

The UK premiere of The Deserted, Tsai Ming-Liang’s 2017 feature length virtual reality (VR) film, is one of the highlights of the inaugural Taiwan Film Festival UK. The initial screening is on 3 April 2019, at a specially designed VR pop-up cinema at Asia House in central London, and will then be open to the public from 4-8 April, with seven showings a day.

The Deserted tells the surreal story of a man living in a ruined house in the mountains with two ghosts and a fish. Recovering from an illness and unable to communicate with the ghosts, his only companion is the lone fish who swims with him in the bathtub.
A lauded master of slow cinema, Tsai Ming-Liang chose this film to open the retrospective that he curated in close collaboration with Festival director, Aephie Chen for the Taiwan Film Festival UK. This includes a selection of his fiction feature-length films and shorts showing at the Tate Modern’s Starr Cinema from 5 – 7 April and Tsai will participate in post-screening Q&As, as well as lead a filmmaking masterclass at the Tate. This is a rare opportunity to hear him in conversation as Tsai has not been to the UK for over a decade.

The VR cinema is in partnership with Art Cinema and sponsored by HTC Vive Arts and MSI, the Festival’s virtual reality partners. The UK premiere of The Deserted will be shown in 8K resolution, which is a significant improvement on the 4K resolution of the original world premiere at the 2017 Venice Film Festival.

Director Tsai Ming-Liang collaborated with Taiwanese architect Rain Wu to create the cinema, incorporating visual clues from the The Deserted’s film set – a rural ruin with lush tropical nature visible through the wall punctures. High performance gaming computers from MSI and HTC’s groundbreaking VR Theatre Management System will be used to create a synchronised, immersive cinema experience where 20 people can watch the film at the same time. This technology has influenced the design of the physical space which resembles the lobby of a cinema, typically seen as a waiting space. It represents the area in between constant reality (the outside world) and a temporal reality (the cinema screen), a Purgatory space between the living and the dead of the film.

“Art Cinema is thrilled to work with Taiwan Film Festival and help stage the UK premiere of The Deserted by the highly-acclaimed Director Tsai Ming-Liang. This installation aims to bring the most thrilling experience to an array of audiences ranging from Film d’Auteurs lovers all the way to the most savvy explorers of virtual reality realms. Such encounters establish what 21st-century paradigms of art display and engagement are all about.”
Art Cinema founder, Myriam Blundell Phillips

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Myriam Blundell Phillips is the founder and the managing director of Art Cinema. An international impresario and independent multi-media producer, her experience encompasses inter-disciplinary curatorial consultation and talent management as well as content conceptualization and production. Between 2005 and 2016, Blundell Phillips ran her own talent management agency providing both commercial and creative guidance to an eclectic pool of artists, including internationally acclaimed British composer Michael Nyman (for whom she acted as global manager and producer); Belgian artist, writer and theatre director Jan Fabre, British filmmaker Martha Fiennes, Canadian artist and filmmaker Jody Shapiro and French artist Ann Ray. Since 2011, Ms Blundell Phillips produced and released two art house documentaries entitled: NYman with a Movie Camera and “War Work”. Her previous non-executive achievements include leading the Friends of Signy and Olaf Willums Foundation in Aix-en-Provence, sitting as the founding chair of the international collectors forum as well as joining the board of trustees the Contemporary Art Society in London.myriam@artcinema.art

Dominique Païni is the former head of the Cinémathèque Française and director of multidisciplinary projects and Film at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. He brings an extensive and wealth of knowledge of curating the intersection between visual arts and film. His expérience as a seasoned essay writer and publisher is a huge contribution to Art Cinema’s focus on producing the highest standards possibly achievable in the fields of writings and Publishing. Dominique Païni’s latest exhibition Godard- Picasso : Collages is currently on display at the Festival des rencontres Photogrpahique d’Arles until September 23rd 2018.
dominique@artcinema.art

Topi Lehtipuu In addition to a career as a tenor of international renown, Topi has developed a sharp expertise in conceiving and producing high-caliber productions involving multi-disicplinary approach to culture promotion.  He was Director of the Helsinki Festival from 2015 to 2018 following on  artistic directorship of Turku Music Festival as well as of Joroinen Music Days, a chamber music festival in eastern Finland.topi@artcinema.art

Alix Agret is an art historian. She holds a MA in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art and a PhD in Fine Arts from the Royal College of Art. Visual culture, representations of the body and eroticism were at the core of the MA in History and the MA in Film Studies she earned in France (Paris-Sorbonne University and Paris West University Nanterre la Défense). She has worked as an assistant curator on several exhibitions in France. She regularly writes articles for art magazines.
alix@artcinema.art

Elif Karlidag has a background in composition and music business with a classical music education in piano, composition and conducting. She has worked as a performer and she also has experience working with artists, musicians and establishments, planning, project managing and curating events. As Arts Cinema’s creative producer she is responsible to work within PR and marketing where she creates, develops and produces content and strategy across all media.
elif@artcinema.art