After Corona? - VISUAL ARTS

In this episode, to accompany our other interrogations of the creative industries such as theatre and music under pressure, we’re looking at visual arts. Some might assume the visual arts world has fared OK in lockdown, nothing like the industry of performance and festivals reliant on people gathering together. We've read commentary on why crises are good inspiration for painters and makers, especially when critical theory always likes to consider movements and scenes in historical contexts - aligned with big moments in the human experience. But with galleries disrupted, art fairs shut and everything trying to replicate itself online - have artists actually struggled to make sense of this, have they been unable to show their work and engage with audiences? When the visual arts is often the barometer of what people are thinking, feeling and raging against at any particular time - what will contemporary artworks say about the year 2020 when we have the luxury of looking back? Answering our questions are three special guests - Dan Thompson is one of the UK’s leading community artists, writers and social activists based in Margate; Hayley Dixon is Deputy Director of Focal Point Gallery in Southend-on-Sea and Anna Dumitriu is a multi award-winning visual artist, writer and researcher working at the cutting edge of BioArt and the exploration of infectious disease and synthetic biology through sculpture and digital media. -- Useful links: https://mrdanthompson.wordpress.com/ https://bridgepointrye.com/artists/dan-thompson/ https://www.fpg.org.uk/ https://annadumitriu.co.uk/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Dumitriu — For more information on how you can get involved with The Possibility Club – an inclusive community of professionals working out what’s next, have a look here. We’d also love to know what you think. Please review and share your responses to this podcast on your favourite podcast platform. This is an always possible podcast. The interviewer was Richard Freeman for always possible and the producer was Chris Thorpe-Tracey for Lo Fi Arts.