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I accept known Iain and Jane and been a fan of their work for over 15 years. I am continually amazed past their endless curiosity, thirst for noesis and ability to chart new waters.

They have an incredible ability to see opportunities where others come across obstacles. Whether it's performance, curating, producing films for the movie house or Boob tube, they are meticulous in their planning and collaborative processes, in extending themselves and others to become beyond the imaginable. They are experts at spotting and mining the real potential, interrogating identity and getting to the heart of the matter. They think big and they always evangelize. Their honest answers are cogitating of their preferred style of working – straight talking, ascension to the occasion, enabling others.

Photo: Paul Heartfield

Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard are artists and BAFTA-nominated directors working beyond film, installation, operation, sound, documentary, and Goggle box drama. Working collaboratively since meeting at Goldsmiths in the mid-nineties, their piece of work has been exhibited around the world and is collected by museums and institutions including Tate and the Authorities Fine art Drove.

Their debut feature moving picture, 20,000 Days on Earth , won 2 awards at Sundance and nominations from BAFTA and the Contained Spirit Awards. In 2015 Iain & Jane received the Douglas Hickox Laurels for best debut director from the British Independent Film Awards.

Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard with Nick Cave, on the set up of xx,000 Days on Earth, 2013. Production Even so Amelia Troubridge

What are you doing, reading, watching or listening to now that is helping you to stay positive?

We try our best to aid each other to keep things in perspective. But with all the perspective in the world, it tin still be tough to stay positive. We've been trying Transcendental Meditation, and that'due south been helping. Nosotros're finding that TM works for us better than mindfulness. The book 'Communicable the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity' by David Lynch is an inspirational read.

One affair that's been amazing to see is and so many friends creating these incredible communities online. There'southward Ballad Morley's #FridayFilmClub, where people watch a motion picture at the aforementioned time and and then discuss it later. Sue Tilley's life drawing classes have kept going on Facebook and Noel Fielding's #NoelsArtClub on Instagram every Saturday 3-5pm is giving kids and adults a creative outlet. Tim Burgess' #TimsTwitterListeningParty have taken on a momentum all their ain, and Jarvis Cocker is helping the nation drift off to sleep with his #BedtimeStories on Instagram.

Nosotros don't avert the news equally much equally we'd similar to, but we effort to residue it with equal amounts of comedy, satire and funny true cat videos.

The Dali & The Cooper, 2018, Episode in Sky's series Urban Myths, outset aired on 3rd May 2018. Directed past Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard, featuring Noel Fielding as Alice Cooper, David Suchet as Salvador Dali, Sheila Hancock as Gala Dali and Paul Kaye as Cooper's manager, Shep Gordon. Original score composed past Richard Hawley and Jarvis Cocker

What are yous working on and how has the lockdown affected your ideas, processes and chosen medium?

The hardest part is fighting the feeling of frustration. About all our work has fallen away, with petty hope of whatever of information technology returning anytime presently, and that's an enormous weight on the mind. Nosotros also feel the weight of knowing full well that this long period free from many of the usual daily distractions should be an ideal time to be artistic. It's particularly frustrating, as an aspect of our practise involves scriptwriting, and on paper, isolation should be the ideal time to write. But so much energy is needed but trying to stay stable and sane, that the focus isn't there. It'due south especially tough working collaboratively, as our brief periods of productivity never seem to coincide. It'south a daily challenge, merely we battle on!

At that place's a couple of 'strategies' nosotros've tried to implement. We're forever making lists of films we want to lookout man or encounter once more because they relate to a detail project or idea. Merely it'south 1 of those things we've rarely plant fourth dimension for. And so, at the outset of the lockdown, we committed to watching one film every mean solar day. The discipline of it is useful, and the 55+ films we've watched so far has left us feeling enriched.

Another projection we've undertaken is using the time to accept stock. We're going through more than than ten years' worth of hard drives, making sure our masters are properly archived. Forth the style, nosotros've unearthed some fantastic memories. We've shared some of them on social media.

The Earth Won't Listen, 1998, sixty minutes, Live performance featuring The Still Ills

What do you usually have or demand in your studio to inspire and motivate you?

People! Our work relies on meeting, talking to and collaborating with others. If anything, people are the "stuff" of our do. That'southward what we're missing the most correct at present. Sure, in that location are other ways to communicate. You proper name it, we're using it; we're Skyping, Zooming, hanging out in Google Hangouts, chatting on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, getting annoyed with Teams and fifty-fifty Houseparty-ing. Of course, we're lucky to have all these options, just none of them beat being in the same room. And while it'due south possible to keep talking virtually our work, then far, we haven't constitute any way to continue actually making it.

I of our biggest inspirations is books. Our studio (and habitation) are full of them. But our studio is also a very practical space, with whiteboards and everything on wheels so we can quickly reconfigure. Since nosotros moved into our studio at Somerset Firm, we've discovered that the absenteeism of things is equally of import. Domicile is full of distractions. Oh, and cats. Same matter, actually.

Affiche for twenty,000 Days on Earth, 2014, Characteristic film, 97 minutes, Manager: Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard; Writer: Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard, Nick Cave; Producer: James Wilson and Dan Bowen; Composer: Nick Cavern & Warren Ellis; Starring Nick Cave, Ray Winstone, Blixa Bargeld, Kylie Minogue, Susie Cavern, Arthur Cave, Earl Cave; Cinematographer: Erik Wilson; Production Stills Amelia Troubridge

What systems, rituals and processes do you use to aid y'all go into the creative zone?

In our quarter-century (bloody hell!) of working together, we've learnt quite a bit about the nature of creativity. We've been lucky enough to witness it in some remarkable people and talk to them near it.

Here's something nosotros know we know, something we learnt from Nick Cave. Creativity is non difficult. Anyone can practice it. You can accept the tiniest idea and, providing y'all stick with it — put the time and endeavour in — it will grow into something. Y'all must do the work and trust the process.

And hither'south something nosotros know we don't know, inspired by Gil Scott-Heron. Creativity is elusive; it comes from somewhere else. Gil would say it came from 'the spirits'. The name doesn't matter, just you do have to understand that information technology comes from the side. Somewhere out of view, oft from the darkest corners at the dorsum of your mind. Sometimes in the shower. Sometimes only when the fuse is lit by the inventiveness of others. It'south sparked by many things and will bounciness hither and thither, as you try to grab information technology. It'south elastic, elusive and electric.

In our experience, inventiveness is also obstinate. It refuses to be tied to a specific ritual or circumstance. To us, creativity seems to be ninety% endeavor, maybe nine% bloody-minded cocky-conviction and one% pure magic.

Who is Gil Scott-Heron?, 2015, sixty-infinitesimal feature documentary

What recurring questions do you return to in your work?

There's a line that pretty much sums it upwardly for us. It's from an oftentimes-quoted Albert Camus essay:

"When we are stripped downwardly to a certain point, zilch leads anywhere anymore, hope and despair are equally groundless, and the whole of life can be summed upwardly in an image. A man'south piece of work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover through the detours of fine art those two or 3 cracking and simple images in whose presence his heart beginning opened".

In our film 20,000 Days on Earth, Nick Cave elegantly describes the process of song writing equally chasing after "those moments when the gears of the heart really change". And, while we're throwing around the quotes similar an art student on an essay deadline, we should also mention our fondness for these words from Rainer Maria Rilke's 'Letters to a Young Poet': "Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart… you demand to live in the question."

That'southward what we're trying to do; live in the question.

What do you intendance nearly?

We intendance most the arts. This is the stuff that we build lives around. Many of the states construct our very sense of self through our human relationship to arts and culture. They are a powerful tool, able to effect great change. And when the going gets tough, the arts are a lifeline. Who isn't feeling even a petty bit less isolated right now past climbing inside a book, playing neat music, watching movies or playing video games? Yet equally a order we seem to exist giving upwardly. We're literally letting go of the stuff that makes us who we are. It's a ending.

In 'Know Your Identify', his essay on grade in the art world, Dan Fox puts it perfectly succinctly: "Art is for everyone, but participation in its professional systems is not." He goes on: "I find art profoundly interesting but, despite 18 years in the concern, I feel alienated by the games of hierarchy that play out effectually me, because they involve forms of classism that few volition admit to." It's well worth a read in full.

DOUBLETHINK, 2018, Video installation, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Tudor Square. Photo Henry Rees

What risks have yous taken in your work that paid off?

Risk is such a hard thing to talk about. There are artists who've taken a risk by introducing a new color into their palette. And there'south artists who've taken a risk by getting themselves shot. There isn't a 'gamble scale' that makes whatsoever sense to depict comparisons.

Likewise, how practice we quantify whether a hazard has 'paid off?' In our minds, it simply makes sense to talk about take chances if in that location'due south something genuinely at stake. Peradventure if you've built a commercially successful practice past doing one particular thing, and then anything that deviates from that is a risk to your steady source of income. Merely considering nosotros've never had that, we've never had to face those sorts of risks.

For sure we've taken chances. We've borrowed money to make up shortfalls in project budgets. We once completely changed a proposal that had been agreed past a museum, and somehow managed to convince them to come with us on a completely different artistic journey. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes it backfires. But artmaking should exist a process of constantly taking creative risks. Without that, what's the point?

What risks take you taken that perhaps did not go so well but y'all learnt the about from?

When things haven't gone well, it's usually because we've pushed things also far. But we feel duty-spring to practice this. Possibly if our practice had evolved with a specialisation, we'd feel different. But our interest is in what information technology's possible to achieve as an artist. That ways we're always going to try to break things.

Probably the first fourth dimension we understood the value of this was while we were making a series of live fine art projects in the nineties. With 1 projection, we establish the breaking point for that set of ideas. But by existence pushed to confront failure we were able (eventually) to reformulate that strand of our piece of work into what became our biggest and well-nigh successful alive project. Perhaps information technology's too much to say information technology would never have happened without the before mistakes, merely it was absolutely improve for what we'd learnt forth the way.

Such a mixed practice has given us an amazing range of experiences, even if nosotros've learnt it's a hard way to brand a living. We've worked with alive functioning, directing movie and television, video editing, scriptwriting, curation, sound installations, collaborated with musicians, writers, actors, technologists, scientists, even magicians. And although what we cull to experiment with frequent changes, nosotros enter each project with the same heads, minds, and hearts. For u.s.a., that's what being an artist is all about.

Silent Sound, Installation view and operation, St. George'due south Hall, Liverpool, 2006/vii

What is your favourite exhibition, result, or performance y'all have participated in and why?

Like children (and so we're told) it'southward difficult to pick a favourite. Just the projects nosotros relish the most are invariably the ones that scare us the about. Fear is important, it's the fuel in the tank.

Silent Sound, a live operation and installation we made in Liverpool in 2006. It was the first time those 2 sides of our practice came together, with the gallery component of the piece created, quite literally, overnight. This was also the first (and to engagement only) projection which involved the states personally performing. Bated from the huge adrenaline blitz, the piece of work besides felt like information technology was entering new territory for us. A lot of subtle psychological trickery went into a piece that was ultimately rather honest and exposing.

It would exist impossible not to as well mention xx,000 Days on World. This film allowed united states to work through and so many experiments. It was making this that nosotros met the cinematographer Erik Wilson, who nosotros continue to piece of work with. He'southward truly inspirational. And of grade, the pic has opened doors to projects we would have previously never been able to realise. So, it's very love to united states.

20,000 Days on World, 2014, Feature motion picture, 97 minutes, Product Notwithstanding Amelia Troubridge

What would you lot hope that people experience from encountering your piece of work?

Put simply, we want to brand piece of work that tin can brand someone else feel the fashion we take felt in the presence of transformative objects and experiences. We want our work to have an immediate effect and leave a lasting impression.

Could you tell us a bit more than nigh at a fourth dimension when you felt stuck and what you lot did to assistance yourself out of it?

Whenever someone desperately lets u.s. down it throws the states off our tracks. When you've put and so much of yourself into a project, it can striking hard. We've been in some real ruts over the years. Information technology'southward rare, but when information technology happens, it's the most anti-artistic state of affairs we've ever found ourselves in.

There's something debilitating most feeling like you lot accept no command over annihilation anymore. And that creates a completely different kind of crippling fear. Information technology's tough to claw your way back from feeling and then powerless.

Very early in our career, we did a project with an 'artist-run' space. We'd agreed to split up the costs of making the piece of work 50/l. But when the bills started coming in, the gallery e'er had a reason why they couldn't pay their share. We scraped by and borrowed coin to clear the debts, hoping their contribution would somewhen come through. Information technology never did. For a pair of babe artists, just finding their way in the world, that was so destructive. To this day, we detect ourselves occasionally being unhelpfully distrustful in a manner that nosotros know traces straight dorsum to that experience.

At that place'south no sure-fire ready that we've been able to observe. In time, you lot dust yourself off and start to effort things. Play. Fail. Daydream a little. Slowly you existence to bounce ideas off other people. And bit by bit, you lot become unstuck.

Doublethink, 2018, Two screen video installation (15 mins, looped), Filmed at Somerset House Studios, London

What kind of studio visits, conversations or meetings with curators, producers, writers, press, gallerists, or collectors do you bask or get the almost out of?

The best visitors are those that bring a bank check book! (Sorry, not sorry.)

Okay, flippant answers bated, the best meetings and studio visits are with those who can push you beyond the things you ordinarily say. Those stock phrases you collect about your work that act as a crutch when you're forced to talk nigh it. Nosotros've never believed that we're the experts on the theory surrounding our work. Nosotros know what nosotros're trying to do or say, but that doesn't mean nosotros're succeeding.

Listening to someone you trust completely tell y'all something you never realised about what you exercise is incredible considering with this new insight we're able to progress, refine or change what we're doing.

If someone enters a dialogue with an open heed and an open heart, we volition become along just fine. Nosotros give a lot of ourselves when we meet people, and it's rewarding when that'south given back.

Multigraph 013 (Paul Kaye), 2018, C Type Fuji Flex, 32.5 x 48 x 3.5cm (framed), Edition of 3

If y'all work with a commercial gallery how does this relationship affect or inform your work and life?

We are represented by a commercial gallery (Kate Macgarry), and nosotros accept a manager/agent who looks after our movie and TV projects. Working with a gallery has helped become our work placed in museums and public collections, but we've never really establish our feet with private collectors. We know we're not an easy fit for the art market. But every bit much as we wish that wasn't the case, making work that tries to hunt the market just isn't for us.

We're never been an like shooting fish in a barrel fit in any of the industries that nosotros have worked in. We tend to operate in a fashion that never quite fits the models for success. Despite their often-modest budgets, we find institutions are a good setting for us because our ambitions tend to align. We are always interested in bringing new and diverse audiences in to experience our work.

With moving-picture show and Tv condign function of what nosotros do, we now have a manager. He is a vivid sounding lath. Someone who will e'er tell it to usa directly, even when information technology is not easy to heed to. Perhaps because film and Idiot box are inherently collaborative mediums, nosotros accept plant that world a piffling easier to navigate. And so much of the art world seems to go on behind airtight doors, or at least doors we have never learnt how to open. We oasis't made things piece of cake for ourselves.

Poster for File Under Sacred Music, 2003, unmarried channel video, 22 mins

Do you have a trusted muse, mentor, network, or circle of friends you consult for critical feedback?

In 1993 at 'A Fete Worse than Death' we met Joshua Compston. He became the closest thing to a mentor nosotros've ever had. Nosotros would run into most Sunday mornings in Shoreditch and tape tape our conversations. These blew our minds wide open up. Joshua wanted us to document his ideas, but we became hooked on his cocky-belief and the scale of his ambition. His ventures were a heady mix of brilliance and bullshit, but he taught us more in the brusque time earlier his death than anyone else.

Since then, there's not been a single figure, although certain individuals at dissimilar times have been important to us. For case, the body of live piece of work we produced early on in our career would have been incommunicable without Vivienne Gaskin, who at the time was Director of Live Arts at the ICA.

Beingness two people ways nosotros have an inbuilt, and constant, level of cocky-criticism. Nosotros know ii sets of instincts are ameliorate than i. And when they naturally align, we know we're onto something worthwhile. Only for us that simply works at a project level. Regrettably, we've never been able to apply those instincts to any sort of career strategy.

Things are a little different in flick. The art world seems so firmly bought into the idea of the autonomy of the creative person that it seems to be just after something has been completed that people footstep forward to tell you what they think of it. Producers and executive producers in moving picture are always able to exist consulted during the making procedure. Most of the fourth dimension, that'south a good affair! Maybe commercial galleries can provide that for some artists, but we've never had those kinds of relationships in the art world.

Our friends are brilliant — always open to reading a script we're developing or watching a crude cutting of something. So, at that place'southward a handful of people we render to when we need an outside voice.

Bish Bosch: Ambisymphonic (with Scott Walker), 2013, 25 minutes, Ambisonic sound installation, Sydney Opera House for Vivid Festival

Which artists or creatives do you feel you are work is in chat with?

To be honest, we have never thought of our work in that way. Even some of the pieces we have made that very directly riff on existing artwork, such as 'Walking After Acconci', were never about a chat with the original creative person. It's the dialogue with an audition that's important to us.

Of course, at that place'southward a sense in which all our work is in conversation with swain creatives. That might exist the more than subtle collaborations that accept place between us and, say, a cinematographer. Or sometimes the collaboration is more overt, such as the project nosotros made with Scott Walker for Sydney Opera House. These existent and direct conversations are incredibly important to us and our piece of work.

Osculation My Nauman (still), 2007, 4 channel HDV projection, silent, duration: 47 mins

How do you make money to support your practice?

It's rarely talked virtually, but i of the well-nigh difficult things is that the projects we're best suited to are normally larger scale, working with public spaces. Fifty-fifty when the budget to realise the piece of work is at that place, it rarely covers the true fourth dimension, endeavour, and resources that the projection requires. Every bit the artist, you're expected to be the most committed person in the room. Nosotros take no problem with that, we piece of work stupidly long hours every unmarried day. Merely when anybody around yous is on a salary and your artist fee isn't covering fifty-fifty shut to minimum wage, it's tough.

There'south such a strong sense in this state that the arts are a luxury, and that if you don't accept a individual income to support yourself, then you should go and exercise something else. How do we even brainstorm to fix that?

For almost twenty years, we supported our practice with function-time jobs. Initially in the book trade then, for 12 years in the record manufacture. Nosotros weren't able to fully reshape our working life until after the success of our first feature movie. Although it brought usa footling in the way of hard cash, the doors opened have been immense. Nosotros've been able to incorporate film and Tv work into our practice. Every bit glamorous as this perhaps sounds, nosotros're only able to take on a minor amount. Information technology'southward gruelling work, and we're not right for the sort of conventional projects that enable directors-for-hire to make a practiced living.

So, there's even so no single or solid source of income in our life. We try to continue enough plates spinning in the hope that some eventually pay off. We've never liked the lack of transparency in the art world, and then let us put our money where our mouth is and requite y'all an idea of how we've made money over the past year.

It's been a real mix: Small-scale development fees for scripted projects that may never move beyond development; some income for work on a Nick Cave exhibition which was due to open in Copenhagen only is at present on hold; a pct of the predictable income for co-curating an exhibition that has now been postponed; tiny amounts from royalties and prototype licensing; an executive producer fee for mentoring a friend through the procedure of directing her offset feature documentary.

Other than that, there may be an occasional small-scale fee for a mentoring day or something like, but information technology's shaky. And we're at present seriously concerned most making it through this yr and the electric current pandemic, as we fall through the cracks of about all Government support.

David Suchet as Salvador Dali in The Dali & The Cooper, 2018

What compromises have y'all made to sustain your practice?

Nosotros haven't pursued creating a family. it has never felt financially viable, and we don't accept the starting time clue how we would navigate that equally well as working as a collaboration. Around us, nosotros've built up the near wonderful community of friends and peers, who we value immensely. Peradventure this is our compensation for not having a larger family of our ain.

We work incredibly long hours, typically 12 hours a day, and always 6 days a week. More when nosotros need to. It'due south the only way to fit everything in, particularly when juggling part-time job commitments.

We've compromised ourselves financially in every fashion imaginable. Everything that comes in, goes back into the work. We've had one 'holiday' in the terminal 25 years. Don't get usa wrong, that isn't meant as a sob story. We're incredibly lucky to be able to travel often with our work, and we've often tagged days off onto the end of a piece of work trip. But in that location's no doubt we could've had a better standard of living with a more conventional choice of career.

What advice would you requite your by self?

Oh, we'd have been far too stubborn to heed. Worry less, peradventure.

Something we'd love to have understood sooner is this, a quote from Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli "The best grammer for thinking most the globe is that of change, non of permanence. Not of being, just of condign."

Sheila Hancock as Gala Dali in The Dali & The Cooper, 2018

Can yous recommend a book movie or podcast that you lot have been inspired by that transformed your thinking?

It's attitudes we autumn for. Anyone who refuses to accept at that place'due south a mode things ought to exist. But it's a kind of alchemy, you have to be an active element in the inspiration equation.

Ii books we'd heartily recommend are 'Lanny' by Max Porter and 'Waiting for the Last Motorbus' by the Right Rev. Richard Holloway. The 2 Shot Podcast hosted by actor Craig Parkinson is a wonderful series of brutally honest conversations, by and large with actors, but they reveal so much about creativity.

The films we return to most often are 'F for Imitation' past Orson Welles and 'O Lucky Human!' by Lindsay Anderson. Both accept been transformational.

Visit Iain and Jane's website and find them on socials @iainandjane and at Kate Macgarry.
All images c/o the artists and Kate Macgarry

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And do feel free to email or contact the states via socials @cerihand

Coming Next...

An interview with George Vasey, a curator at Wellcome Collection and writer. In 2017 he co-curated the Turner Prize at Ferens Art Gallery, Hull. His writing has been published in Art Monthly, Burlington Contemporary, Frieze, and Mousse mag. He is a trustee at New Contemporaries, an Artist Adviser for Jerwood Arts and on the executive commission for AICA UK.

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Source: https://www.artistmentor.co.uk/blog/

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