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What is the thread that pulls your ideas together? And how do you develop ideas and allow them to grow?

 

I’ve recently been reading about automatism, a surrealist term drawn from Freud’s theory of the unconscious mind and our ability to access and source inspiration, ideas, insights and creativity etc. from a collective resource pool.

 

How does Automatism apply to your work?

 

I think Automatism was a useful term that I was searching for within my practice. I had previously thought of my methodology as being intuitive but this term Automatism clarifies a way of working or making work that does not require a detailed process plan or defined outcome. This is why sketching with the camera is so crucial to my way of working because it allows me to randomly record visual phenomenon in more vivid detail than what my memory could potentially hold onto and retrieve. In that respect, the photographic sketches become a mnemonic tool and offer a source of memory, ideas, inspirations and reflections that I am able to return to again and again. To me, a photographic sketch book later acts as a kind of found object. 

 

What kind of ‘found objects’ are you drawn to and why?

 

I don’t think there is an exhaustive list of found objects that I could conclusively name or identify, however I am interested and drawn to objects with character and that have a story to tell through their experience and ageing process of the object. I am also interested in the colour palette of an object.

 

Could you make reference to any objects that have drawn your attention recently? And if so, why?

 

Well, yes, I found an Afro comb with a figurine on one end and the sculpture gave the appearance of a person with the medical condition of Albinism. Now I of course have no idea what the original maker of the object had intended, however the found object offered new narratives to a project that I have been working through rather than on. People living with Albinism are now being positioned as white Africans in the same way as farmers in Zimbabwe were identified when they faced large scale removal during Mugabe’s controversial Land Reform. The Afro comb is a poignant reminder that people living with Albinism in Africa carry out the day to day practices of their cultural and social environment. In other words, they comb their hair with an Afro comb, they sing their traditional songs and dances and cook and eat their foods in very much the same way as other rural or urban Africans do. 

 

In all of your ‘socially engaged’ projects there is a theme of connecting with people and communities that have been considered ‘Outsiders’, is this a conscious decision?

 

Surrealism has been helpful here as well in so far as Surrealists were not necessarily focused upon ‘Outsiders’ but were interested in all aspects of life and most especially the cohesion of life from its continual fragmentary onslaught by the rational reductionist and positivist project. So that Surrealists were interested in a reconnection between human and nature, human and animal and plant life, and in dissolving the Cartesian split between the mind and body. Surrealists also gave voice and value to the irrational, the primal and I would imagine also the Outsider.

 

Could you say a bit more about the choice to focus your attention on a community with Albinism as opposed to say the Bourgeois stronghold or more privileged sectors of society?

 

Well, first of all, the so-called Bourgeois with probably the best intentions in the world, run or at the very least finance many of the international charities and NGO’s in say Africa in this instance. However, as I stated earlier the projects that I have chosen or to be more accurate, have chosen me have occurred through the chance encounters that the Surrealists gave credence to within their poetic lives. The story behind the art residency in Tanzania with the Ukewere Mother’s Action Group began with an interest in documentary film. The Fopp store in Covent gardens is a place where I am able to pick up relatively cheap documentary DVD’s on a wide variety of themes. It was from there that I picked up the film ‘In the Shadow of the Sun’ a documentary that was filmed over the course of six years and tells the story of two men whose lives are impacted by their medical condition of Albinism. It was in response to the plight of a collective of people with this condition that I opted to reach out and offer support to the International charity ‘Standing Voice’ incidently the director of the film, Harry Freeland is also the co-founder and CEO of ‘Standing Voice’.  

 

Could you say more on the ‘encounters’ that inform your art practice?

 

Perhaps ‘encounter’ is a term that is usually used to refer to human encounters, however I at least am making a much broader reference to unexplained synchronicities with all phenomenon that exist within the potential realms of our collective universal experiences.

 

Your practice draws on themes and connections to the environment and to the planet, can you say more about this?

 

Further to a growing interest in Surrealism, I learned that they were also concerned with nature and her ecology. Freedom is implicit within the Surrealists movement however not as a legal or moral infringement on persons but rather as a broader collective responsibility to stand up for justice. In that respect as human beings and even as artists we have a collective voice in improving the conditions of our planet and waterways.

 

Perhaps you could say more about your particular interest in waterways?

 

As well as travelling to Lake Victoria in Tanzania I also made the journey to Lake Tana in Ethiopia as I was flying to and fro with Ethiopian Airlines. Both lakes have acted as source to the Nile Rivers. The Nile is depicted as a Blue and a White Nile river. I am also interested in the Lake District which has recently been designated a world heritage site, and the role of Beatrix Potter in ensuring the future protection of this place of cultural and literary inspiration. More recently in recognition of the need to work local as well as to act global I am engaging in walks along London’s canals and rivers. I may also though, pick up Kayaking and wild swimming in places such as the Women’s pond in Hampstead Heath. I have made to bids recently to join up art practice with ecology and social engaged practice.

 

What would you like the audience to read through your work?

 

The beauty in working with found objects and photography installations is that the narratives become more open to dialogue and the human imagination. However, I am also keen within the work that I am engaged with to share visual reflections and connections that emerge along the way. 

 

Is an audience important?

 

The term ‘audience’ is drawn from old French and Latin and in essence means to hear or to listen. Art is simply a form of communication and so the question is to whom are we communicating with through our making and shaping processes. According to the Surrealists, Art on the whole was owned and controlled by the Bourgeois establishment. Have things moved on since then? How are we to measure this? I do however feel when the process of art formation is drawn from the creative matrix poetry of life then there is a real opportunity then for the work, the assemblage of life to resonate with an audience.

 

Nadia Francis in conversation with Jacqueline Ennis-Cole, July 2017