A commission for the Royal Opera House Bridge organisation

This piece was made in response to a report that detailed the barriers felt by young people when it comes to approaching art and culture. What particularly caught my attention were the consistent comparisons made between sport and art in the young people’s lives; this in turn got me thinking about the contrasting treatment of sport and art in the public eye. I realised that even as someone who isn’t a particular fan of sport, I come into contact with it so often. If I go to the pub there’s usually football being shown, if there’s a major tournament or competition on I’ll undoubtedly be made aware of it through watching the news, reading a newspaper or even just walking down the road and seeing flags on houses. I think it’s great that people are so passionate about this, especially since participating in sport is beneficial to our health, but why is art not as celebrated and utilised?

I started to think about what it would be like if art were to take the place of sport; if the Venice Biennale was to be as promoted as the football World Cup; if people gathered in the pub to watch the Turner Prize and if young people were encouraged to partake in the after-school sculpture club. I wanted to make images that would be recognisable as mimicking the following sport has, but alluded to art and culture.

The Art Part is set 5 years in the future, after art has seen a great revival and has become much more of a prominent feature in popular culture. Estie.B, a celebrity artist who helped initiate the changes and gained notoriety because of it, explains the barriers that faced art enthusiasts pre-revival and the huge transformations that all areas of the art world has seen and been involved in post art revival.

The interview is shot in such a way, with myself acting as both the artist and the presenter, because this is the embodiment of the type of scenario I imagine taking place in the future; the questions I hear myself being asked and the stories and memories I imagine myself retelling. This film incorporates reoccurring factors that I like my work to have: a clearly stated reference to an existing artist’s work, a format that follows a typical TV show and autobiographical content relating to the subject.