LOCKDOWN JOURNAL: COVID-19.12 (BasementArtsProject)
Paloma Varga Weisz at the Henry Moore Institute closed it doors to the public on Tuesday 17th March
Looking back on the last couple of weeks, it feels like the art world was ahead of the government in terms of the Coronavirus and forced a change of course before it would actually have happened.
On Tuesday 17th March the decision was made by the Henry Moore Institute, the place where I work, to close its doors to the public in light of this current health crisis. One suspects that, had a similar decision not been made by numerous public venues, galleries and such like, up and down the country, that we may still be waiting for the government to make its first real move. Over many weeks leading up to this point reports had suggested being careful, keeping one’s distance from others, looking out for symptoms in yourself and others around you, but ultimately the message was, as they say, ‘keep calm and carry on’.
Lou Hazelwood | Landscapes of the (Un)known closed it’s doors early on Monday 16th March
After the point at which many of the art institutions closed their doors on that Tuesday evening it was only a matter of two days before the order came that schools would close their doors on Friday afternoon for the foreseeable future. In reality, as a major vector for the spread of viruses, school closures should have happened long before this point. I can speak about this with some degree of experience, having endured roughly ten winters of viruses being brought home from school by my own children. Even at this point two weeks on from the closure of schools, the advice has been confused, weak and seemingly based entirely around saving the economy first and people second. I am not saying this from the point of view of a political bias but purely based on the evidence as we see it presented to us through the lens of news media.
But this is not a political post, this is a post that is designed as a marker, inserted into the timeline of 2020, allowing us to place exactly where we are at a point in time and that tells people what we were doing. All normal activity has been suspended, people have found themselves in the most difficult of situations, there is a body count and it is increasing rapidly, and everybody is trying to look so much further down the road to see if they can predict where all of this is leading.
Over the course of the last eleven posts we have presented, through the Lockdown Journal, a series of posts by different artists, some that we have worked with in the past and some with whom we have never worked before. The intention behind these posts is to give artists an opportunity to take hold of a platform that has a reasonably large mailing list and social media outlet, and tell people out there what they are doing. Whilst we may have been forced out of the real world, an essential place in art terms, life does have to carry on. Of course things cannot carry on as though nothing is happening, we are all affected by the current situation economically, psychologically, physically and spiritually.
ALAN DUNN: DAY THREE
Alan Dunn Day 3 – Carly Simon – meets – Bryan Ferry – Boys in the trees – cocktails by the – brown – ochre – pool – another time, another place – Newcastle – help me make it through the night – The Animals – you got to drink if you live there
In taking part in this journal artists have chosen many different ways in which to express what their lives have become in a very short space of time, with posts involving film, artwork, photography and text, some featuring all at once. The various posts have been both brief and lengthy, personal and expansive: all have been enlightening.
I am going to speak in this post about what is, for me, a positive aspect of this lockdown. I will also declare upfront my acknowledgement of this being a position of privilege, not available to many at this point, but a position that I feel the need to talk about in terms of trying to find some clarity around our perception of what normality normally entails.
In a normal week, I would work four days out of seven at the Henry Moore Institute and three days from home as BasementArtsProject. Around this I would also be attending to the needs of my family; cooking, cleaning, parents evenings and such like. And alongside all of this an afternoon a week spent working on art projects with a South Leeds Refugee group.
ESOL Art Group: tie-dying
Over the years I would admit that I have ignored my health in favour of getting projects done. BasementArtsProject has had an intense programme of local, national and international projects for nearly a decade now, and as the founder member and organiser of the Peripheral artist collective another six years before that. Having worked seven days a week for the majority of that time I had neglected all matters relating to my own health; physical and mental. Over the years I have always tried to do things such as go running or swimming whenever I got the time. The chances of this becoming in anyway routine though were always scuppered by more and more ‘things that needed doing’. Eventually last year I managed to get a routine going in so much as I would fit in a run at 6am before taking the children to school and then going to work myself. For several months this seemed to be working with faster run times and longer distances.
After finally being overwhelmed by exhaustion from this routine and the sense that something was eating away at me I resolved to visit the doctors. Upon doing so I discovered various health problems such as hypertension and diabetes alongside a diagnosis of depression underlying all of this. Having started taking seven pills a day including Sertraline for the depression my routine came to an end in mid-January as I no longer had the energy to continue. Fast forward two months to late March and we find ourselves being in the position of being quarantined as a nation. I have to admit that the introduction of Anti-depressants at the point at which I started taking them was maybe a good thing and it has allowed me to see, perhaps, a bit clearer in terms of what is needed in life. For myself and in terms of what is considered normal.
Over the lips and round the gums, look out system here it comes
Having been stood down from my job with pay I have had the opportunity to observe life without the usual restrictions. Two weeks in and admittedly I am trying to create a routine but, slowly, it is happening. Trying to work out how I make myself useful to the company that employs me is a hard one as my job is one that deals with a mixture of admin and the public. With both of those aspects on an enforced hiatus with me it is difficult, but I am slowly coming to some conclusions and seeing a different kind of value in what I do. With every other aspect of life things, due to restrictions of a different kind; isolation, social-distancing etc . . . have brought about a different viewpoint.
Something that is not possible when you work seven days a week is local shopping; using the Dewsbury Road greengrocer, the Polish bread shop and such like once every three / four days rather than queuing at the supermarket after work every night to get just enough to get you through tea that evening. We do not own a car and bulk shopping for full weeks is therefore not possible. Also cooking from scratch every night and lunchtime has allowed a healthier, cheaper and more varied way of eating. Going out for a run in the middle of the day in sunshine, rather than in the darkness of early morning definitely has a difference on ones spirits; although winter sunrise over Crossflatts Park is quite lovely.
I also realise, even more now than ever before, how much importance I place on the idea that people need real world access to art, whether it be through the Henry Moore Institute, BasementArtsProject or any of those other organisations out there whose work is based around helping people understand, appreciate, engage with, and maybe even get involved with art and creativity.
Two weeks in and the ‘LOCKDOWN JOURNAL’ has become my contribution, and the contribution of all of those that have engaged with the idea this far, towards trying to keep creative practice and the work of artists in the consciousness of those looking for points of interest during the closure of the outside world; a place of necessity to all of us.
So to Dr Alan Dunn, Phill Hopkins, Clare Charnley, Obie Butcher, Nicholas Vaughan, Dr Rebecca Wade, Richard Taylor and Lou Hazelwood thank you for your contributions to the first ten posts. Over the coming weeks I have posts lined up from; Alice Bradshaw, Beyond Photography, Mark Staniforth, Lina Bentley, Scott Senogles, myself as an artist, maybe? and more . . .
Sitting at the open bedroom / temporary office window with the sun streaming in, incense burning and a playlist of Spiritualized, Sonic Youth, Pogues, Smashing Pumpkins, The Streets, Stereolab and others coming from the stereo I feel thankful for the opportunity to reflect on my own health and do something about it. And also to consider what happens when things return to normal, whatever that may be. In some respects this may be an opportunity to truly reflect on a larger scale as to the direction of our world up to March 2020 and whether a different future is possible and / or desirable.
As I prepare to sign off from this, admittedly lengthy, post I would just like to mention that one of the large topics of the last couple of days has been the fact that Boris Johnson was admitted to hospital with COVID-19. As you can image the internet has been on fire with comments both of support and the extreme opposite. I am not the kind of person to demean myself by wishing ill on someone else but I will say this though; I do hope that Boris Johnson recovers in the same way I would hope for anyone to recover from this, but . . . I also hope that this episode in his life, that has coincided with his childhood dream adult reality of one day being Prime Minister, changes his outlook on what it means to be part of a society that has needs. If he is to become a true leader he must use this experience to gain empathy and rid himself of the old Etonian sense of entitlement and privilege.
To all of those frontline staff out there THANK YOU, we salute you and support you.
Bruce Davies | April 2020
“The next time you see me it won’t be me!” Little Man From Another Place. Twin Peaks
#BasementFM playlist - Music for a 6am run
The Dark Orchestra NKISI
Cage Version Zonal
Perdonare Alessandro Cortini
Now It’s Between You and G-d Alec Empire
Kassidat El Haka SEXWITCH
And Then Aryu Jassika
Wrecked Zonal
Shrine Flame 1
Her Mighty Waters Run Matana Roberts
Deadbeat Protest Moor Mother
Intro Farai
Chrome Gaika
After Images Moor Mother
Murdered Out Kim Gordon
Earth A Kill Ya Gang Gang Dance Version King Midas Sound
In A Cage (Featuring Moor Mother) Zonal
Shannera (Feat. Bobo Secret and Lama3an) Fatima Al Qadiri
The Sinner Farai
Red Bats With Teeth Angelo Badalamenti
Ashrams Hieroglyphic Being, Sarathy Korwar & Shabaka Hutchings
Pre-Menstrual Music Nurse With Wound
Replica Riddim Aryu Jassika
Niobium Beat OD Bongo
#BasementFM is a regular hashtag on @BasementArtsPro Twitter account documenting the music on the go over here