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This explorative
trip to Beijing has acted as a focus, there’s something about moving from the
earth to the sky, and then re-emerging onto a new bit of earth which zooms in
and out, gives clarity to details, repositions facets into viewable parcels.
The parcels I’ve
been viewing have been threatening to overwhelm and engulf me, so large and out
of focus had they become. This is my first year of working as an artist, and my
first year of working as an artist since becoming ill with ME. It’s difficult to
explain the impact that becoming ill has had on my professional practice. It
changes everything, but not necessarily in the way you might expect. The world becomes enormous, your part of the
world becomes tiny, your influence in the world becomes microscopic, your
knowledge of what your mind and body can achieve changes forever, it is unknown
and unknowable.
In this context,
working as a composer and producer, overcoming the usual issues of balancing
projects and workload become a constant dilemma. What if I can’t?
This was the place
from which I set off, my biggest question was “Can I reach China intact? Can I
take part in this process, this incredible opportunity, will my new boundaries
allow it?”. Incredibly, my body and mind gave me an enormous YES. Perhaps it’s
obvious, but it turns out that working in China, is much the same as working in
the UK, but with different everything. For me, this is the most enormous
learning point, that I can afford to say YES, that there is always a way for my
body to function, in any context, it’s just about finding it.
So the ICE
Fellowship has already given me this, a huge opening of confidence, of self
knowledge, of trust that I can take part, that I can keep pushing my world.
But what of China?
All this introspective stuff is all very well, but what of China? What of Hua
Dan? What of the work?
This parcel of
colour, sounds, smiles and energy opened me creatively. I’ve recently been
struggling with a commission, which had grown stale, closed and over planned.
An encounter with Hua Dan’s evaluations director Linda Yi, sparked a
spontaneous creative response, we holed up in a hotel for a few days and made
our sonic response to our conversation. This instantaneous work frees me, and I
begin to see my creative process in a different light. Perhaps, in a desire to
‘produce’ I have pinned down the space for creativity too much, I have over
decided with my head before my heart had a chance to chip in. I think I can
afford to say “I don’t know yet” and trust that, as an artist, something will
come.
If this were my
only ICE Fellowship trip, this would be enough, to open my capacity to say yes,
remove limitations based on my physical circumstances, and to rediscover my
creative process through spontaneity. That’s enough.
But amazingly,
there is more to come. There is more collaboration, more exploration, more
thinking, more learning, more discoveries that I didn’t expect, more context,
more inspiration, more confidence, more networks, more people, more colours,
more sounds, more engagement, more growing and most of all more amazing food.
