Sonia Boyce

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book, and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:44

My castaway this week is the artist Sonia Boyce. She was just 25 when the Tate made her one of the youngest artists and the first black woman to enter its permanent collection. Last year she represented Britain at the world's oldest international art show, the Venice Spionale. She took home the coveted Golden Lion Award, the first British artist to win the top prize in 30 years and the first woman of colour to represent the UK. She was born in London to parents who arrived as part of the Windrush generation, and as a child she drew incessantly. Her art teacher spotted her talent and suggested she give life drawing a try.

Presenter1:21

She's used performance, film, installations and sound in her work, but says her true medium is people. She's a collaborator and has taken the stories of domestic violence survivors to the Serpentine Gallery, the voices of black female singers to the Venice Biennale, and the memories of a local community to a mural running for two kilometres alongside the New Elizabeth Line in London.

Presenter1:43

She says, Whenever a door is opened, I ask myself, If I am in this place, what is possible? What will enable something to change so that others can benefit from me being here too? Sonia Boyce, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Thank you.

Presenter1:58

So talk to me, Sonia, about the excitement of collaboration. It's something that's engaged you for many years. What do you love about it?

Sonia Boyce2:05

You know, there's this idea that as an artist you work on your own. But I always get very inspired by how other people take to a situation and what they do. They always do something really unexpected and they've come along on the journey not knowing necessarily what that journey might be. I'm thinking

Speaker 12:17

Duh.

Sonia Boyce2:22

I am so grateful for them just thinking, yeah, this might be interesting.

Presenter2:28

That must be quite a a wave to ride though as an artist because you have to be very brave to allow things to unfold in unexpected ways.

Sonia Boyce2:37

I'm always anxious in projects that I do. And also the people that I work with, because I don't really you know, I kind of made a decision not to direct people. I mean, there have been many times when I've thought I've brought all these people together, I'm not sure anything's going to happen. People are going to just sit here for ages just looking really worriedly at each other. To not have a plan.

Sonia Boyce2:56

Just to know that we're all going to be in a space and something's going to happen and then seeing where it goes. And usually it just goes off in such spectacular ways that I'm kind of now addicted, you could say, to the non-plan plan.

Presenter3:11

The non-flood plan. I love it. So, Sonia, let's get cracking with your first disc then. What have you got for us?

Sonia Boyce3:17

So I always feel slightly embarrassed about this.

Sonia Boyce3:20

I must have been about six, seven, eight, possibly even nine.

Sonia Boyce3:25

And I saved up my pocket money to buy this record. And I was so chuffed with myself that this was my record because, of course, we had records in the house, but they were either my brother's, sisters, parents' music, but I actually had my own record. So this first record is Meet Me on the Corner by Lindis Farn. And I still love it, even though I say I'm a bit embarrassed because it being a folk stroke hippie kind of song. But it does, it makes me happy still.

Speaker 43:56

You oughta met me and you soon forget So don't mind me tugging at your sleeve

Speaker 14:06

Uh

Speaker 44:06

I'm asking you if I can fix a round of

Speaker 14:06

Mass

Speaker 44:11

For your dreams are all I believe.

Speaker 44:17

Me on the corner when the lights are coming on And I'll be there I promise I'll be there

Presenter4:27

Linda Sfarn and Meet Me on the Corner. Sonia Boyce, you were born in London. Your father, Donald, came from British Guyana and your mother, Edna, came from Barbados to study nursing. So tell me about your dad first. He was one of the Windrush generation. How did he adjust to life in London?

Sonia Boyce4:42

His first job was as a projectionist in cinema in Camden. He'd actually been a tailor before he arrived in the UK and I think it was just the first job that he got when he arrived. And after doing the job as a projectionist, he went back into tailoring. And my mum, before she was a nurse, she was a dressmaker. And we were all of our family were always making things because there was loads of bags of cloth in the house. I always think that my mum, if she'd been born at another time, more my generation, I think she might have become a fashion designer because she you know she was always making clothes for us. I often thought that they were very weird in terms of the materials that she would use because they were kind of off cuts from what she you know, she would do a lot of piecework at home. And so there was always these very weird kinds of bits of fabric that she

Speaker 15:23

In terms of materials actually, which

Sonia Boyce5:34

would say, oh yeah, I think I'll make you a dress out of that.

Presenter5:37

So it'd be like an offcut or things that she'd put together that sort of weren't meant to go together, but she'd find a way to make it work.

Sonia Boyce5:43

Yeah, and I remember lots of very scratchy dresses.

Presenter5:49

So, your parents separated when you were very little. What was your relationship with your dad like?

Sonia Boyce5:56

I didn't s see my dad again until I was in my teens, about fifteen, sixteen. No, he lived in London, lived in Highgate, had a very lively life in Highgate. Uh so I used to go and see him with my sisters.

Presenter6:09

Lively in what way?

Sonia Boyce6:11

Well, he would talk about having celebrity filled parties where the bath would be full of champagne with ice. And were these toll tales or true stories? No, no,'cause he was very involved with the Labour Party. So there'd be MPs and all sorts of celebrities who'd be at his bashes, whatever they were.

Sonia Boyce6:29

He was quite gregarious as a a a great charmer. I could see how he kind of was charming to my mum, but they're very different personalities in terms of she was very much about getting things done and doing things in the right way.

Presenter6:44

I can imagine why it would have been ir irritating for your mother to hear about that as well. She had was left to look after you guys.

Sonia Boyce6:51

She wasn't um she was no longer enamoured with him. And, you know, my parents split up just as my mum got pregnant with the last child. And so there was five of us that she was keeping going. But she was very determined to make sure that we got a good education. She was, you know, she was always convinced that, you know, whatever was out there in the world we should go and get.

Presenter7:16

Yeah.

Sonia Boyce7:16

Disc number Yeah.

Presenter7:16

Two, what have we got to hear next?

Sonia Boyce7:18

Yeah.

Sonia Boyce7:18

So we're going to hear there's a track that reminds me very much of my elder sister Marietta who subsequently died. And we always used to all pile into her house and she's got five children and there was always music playing and this particular track reminds me of the 70s and being in their house and there being lots of food and lots of noise and lots of people in and out of the house and it's a track by John Holt called Help Me Make It Through the Night.

Speaker 47:48

Come and lay down by my side.

Speaker 47:54

Till we curl the morning light.

Speaker 48:00

All I'm taking is your chance.

Speaker 48:06

Help me make it through the night

Speaker 48:12

I don't care who's right or wrong.

Presenter8:19

John Holt and Help Me Make It Through the Night. Sonia Boyce, when your parents separated, your mother moved the family to a tenement block in East London. You lived very near to the renowned Whitechapel Art Gallery. Did you ever go inside?

Sonia Boyce8:33

Part of me wonders whether I

Sonia Boyce8:36

First went to the Whitechapel Art Gallery because of a school trip.

Sonia Boyce8:40

Because I don't remember the very first time, but I remember I would go in there quite often.

Sonia Boyce8:46

On my own.

Sonia Boyce8:47

And just kind of wa because it w because I'd been there before, I would just walk in.

Sonia Boyce8:51

So, you know, about seven, eight years old, I would just kind of walk into the gallery and seeing. I really liked the scale of the building. I really liked the light that was in there, and there were all these things that were on the wall. I don't remember any specific paintings or drawings or images or objects. I just remember like I just liked going in there. Whenever I was kind of off walking on my own, I would just.

Speaker 18:56

But you're seeing

Sonia Boyce9:14

Walk in there.

Presenter9:15

And what about when you were at home? I know that you love drawing and would use any available surface.

Sonia Boyce9:21

much to my mum's real kind of frustration. Um when I was at school, I was always drawing the margins. When I was at home, any surface, I was just always drawing. And I wasn't even particularly

Sonia Boyce9:34

conscious of the fact that I was drawing. It's just something that I always did. What were you drawing? I mean, it's doodling really. Faces, names, you know, if there were patterns, I would draw little patterns.

Presenter9:45

This idea of motif and particularly wallpaper has recurred in your work throughout the decades. That presumably then goes back to your childhood. Tell me a little bit about the story behind all of these patterns and papers that you're surrounded by.

Sonia Boyce9:59

Uh

Sonia Boyce10:00

I had this thing where I w particularly I'd kind of wake up in the middle of the night and I was always convinced that the wallpaper was moving.

Sonia Boyce10:08

that I could see things in the wallpaper. And I do think that wallpaper or repeat pattern has a kind of otherworldly quality about it now. But as a child I was just always a bit scared of the wallpaper and by the time I was doing my degree in using those images I started to kind of get to love more than fear what a repeat pattern can do.

Presenter10:31

Time to go to the music, Sonia. It's your third choice today. What are we going to hear and why have you chosen it?

Sonia Boyce10:35

This is a particular I was really into reggae and lovers rock and this particular track by Louisa Mark, Caught You in a Lie for me absolutely captures that 70s moment with me and my friends and how we all used to go to parties or clubs, youth clubs or town hall clubs and we all sing along to these songs and dance to these songs. I suppose it's another way in which I'm thinking about how I've congregated with people around music.

Speaker 411:10

Uh

Speaker 411:19

We all could break

Speaker 411:26

I've got you in a lie.

Presenter11:35

Louisa Mark Ann caught you in a lie. So, Sonia Boyce, when you got a bit older, one of your teachers spotted your artistic potential. She really took you under her wing. Tell me what happened.

Sonia Boyce11:47

Mrs Franklin, uh who was my art teacher wore lots of purple. She was very much part of that kind of bohemian what I imagine to be bohemian to be about.

Sonia Boyce11:56

and she saw something in the drawing that I was always doing and said, Okay, you need to go to art school. I'd never heard of art school before. I was fifteen at the time. And most most young people don't go to art school until they're about eighteen.

Sonia Boyce12:12

And she wrote my mum a letter.

Presenter12:14

Mm-hmm. If that

Sonia Boyce12:16

Uh I think she was a little concerned'cause she didn't really know what it meant.

Sonia Boyce12:19

But she said, Okay, if your teachers said that you should do this you should

Presenter12:23

Yeah.

Sonia Boyce12:24

Go, so Yeah.

Presenter12:24

So she had that kind of sense of respect for a professional opinion.

Sonia Boyce12:25

So she

Sonia Boyce12:28

Yeah, almost the teacher's voice was the law for her and

Sonia Boyce12:33

It was like this world opened up because I had no idea about art school before then.

Presenter12:36

Yeah, what were you what were you expecting?

Sonia Boyce12:38

Mom. Yeah. Uh

Presenter12:39

Yeah.

Sonia Boyce12:39

A stick.

Presenter12:39

They like

Sonia Boyce12:39

My first day was it was hilarious. So I'm you know, coming from school and at school you knock on the teacher's door and they say, Come in and you can go into the classroom. So I I get to East Ham College and I'm told where the life drawing class is and I knock on the door and I stand and I'm waiting for someone to say, You can come in and

Sonia Boyce12:59

People are coming in and going out of the room, but nobody said you could cover it. So I was just standing for ages. I stood there, I stood there at least for half an hour.

Speaker 113:03

So it's just that

Speaker 113:07

Mahala.

Sonia Boyce13:08

And this person who'd come in and gone out a few times looked at me and said, You know, you can just go in and I kind of walked into this room and then you know, this this room full of about, I don't know, twenty, thirty people seated with these easels, and there's this man standing there with no clothes on.

Sonia Boyce13:27

And I'm like, what is going on? I didn't know where to look and then Arthur, who is the life drawing tutor, said, Oh, just set yourself up and I was like, What is going on?

Sonia Boyce13:39

Why has this man got no clothes on?'Cause I had no idea what w what happened in art school. Um, and my mum had no idea. I mean, it's the reason why I needed to have her to sign permission for me to go, because of life drawing.

Sonia Boyce13:52

Letter your fourth music choice today.

Presenter13:54

Uh What if

Sonia Boyce13:55

Pigong Fossen

Presenter13:55

Yeah.

Sonia Boyce13:55

Uh

Sonia Boyce13:56

When I was young, about 10, 11, I was obsessed with the Old Grey Whistle Test. Actually, I was obsessed with two programmes, Old Grey Whistle Test and the Open University programme. So they'd always happen late at night, midweek, and I learned a lot about kind of new wave bands that were emerging and a particular band Talking Heads and this tracks Heiko Killer I first saw on Old Grey Whistle Test.

Speaker 414:23

I can't seem to face up to the facts I'm tense and nervous and I can't relax I can't sleep cause my bed's on fire Don't touch me, I'm a real live wire

Speaker 414:39

Psycho Killer, Castesi, Ba Ba Ba Ba

Speaker 414:45

I better run, run, run.

Presenter14:53

Talking heads and psycho killer. So Sonia, in 1980 you started a degree. Fine art was your course at Stourbridge College of Art. Did you find your creative feat there?

Sonia Boyce15:03

When I was on Foundation, I was very interested in kind of feminist art practice. Feminist art practice often spoke very much about social issues. And I was coming in all guns blazing, wanting to talk about the social issues. And with other female students, we formed a feminist student group. were very concerned about the fact that there were no female tutors on the course, but fifty percent of student body was was female. You know, particularly those of us that were part of that group would often, you know, any time we spoke there'd be kind of the raised eyebrows and almost the yawn, it's like, oh god, here they go again, kind of. But actually we were trying to fight for something better.

Presenter15:47

It must have got quite, um, serious'cause it is it true they wanted to expel you?

Sonia Boyce15:52

Yeah, by the end of my first year, into my second year, they wanted to expel me. And so basically I was throughout my second year I was on continuous assessment. And I was terrified to tell my mum. And so I did I just didn't tell her and just kind of she would have because she would have told you to

Presenter16:10

To do what you were told? To do what I was told. Did you at any point think, oh, I'm just gonna do what they told?

Sonia Boyce16:16

they want me to do? No, I did. I was doing what they wanted me to do. I was doing these very formal, abstract drawings and learning in the process, learning a lot about paper and materials.

Sonia Boyce16:29

To a certain extent I had been browbeating, you could say, into getting through the course.

Presenter16:36

Everything changed for you, though, Sonia, in nineteen eighty one. So you saw a poster for an exhibition at the Wolverhampton Art Gallery, and it featured work by a group of young black artists. What impact did the art have on you when you went to see it?

Sonia Boyce16:50

It was very raw, it was very DIY, it was very energized. I could tell that the artists were were young because of the nature of what the subject matter it was all about subject matter.

Presenter17:01

And this became the Black Oak Group. I think they were all in their teens, right? When they were

Sonia Boyce17:04

were in their teens.

Presenter17:05

And what was the subject matter? You mentioned the sub matter.

Sonia Boyce17:07

I I remember w a series of drawings and a series of collages that were about the Susslaws because young people were really feeling that experience. There was something to be said and it couldn't be suppressed any more. And for me it was like I

Presenter17:22

Yeah.

Sonia Boyce17:24

I like literally woke up. The the ground shook.

Sonia Boyce17:28

For me. That's your thunderbolt. So, what did it do for your sense about your own art? I went back to the art school and I just ripped up so much for the work that I'd done and thought, right, this is it, I'm going for it.

Presenter17:29

Asked your thoughts.

Sonia Boyce17:42

If they fail me, they fail me, I don't care, I'm just going to do it.

Presenter17:48

Sonia, I think we'd better hear your next track before we find out in the next chapter in your story, number five. What is it?

Sonia Boyce17:54

This track by Dennis Brown, Wolf and Leopards, is part of that moment in reggae where there's a sense of consciousness raising about being in the UK but also being from the Caribbean and that question of a colonial past that had brought us to the UK. For me it's very much about that social moment, this track.

Speaker 418:18

Come along, yeah, and I dig my song

Speaker 418:26

Too much water is

Speaker 418:30

Too much antagonist

Speaker 418:33

Wolves and leopards are trying to kill the sheep and the shepherd. Yes.

Speaker 418:40

Wolves and leopards are trying to kill the sheep and the shepherd.

Presenter18:48

Dennis Brown, Wolf and Leopards. Sonia Boyce, you graduated in nineteen eighty three and you started making art your own way. Your work took on subjects like colonialism, feminism and organized religion. What did your mum think of it?

Sonia Boyce19:02

She'd say, Oh, couldn't you do something nice? Couldn't you just p paint some flowers? or or or do a portrait? And when I first graduated, I moved back home, moved back to London.

Sonia Boyce19:12

And she let me use one of the rooms in our house as a studio. And one day I came home and she had the neighbours in the studio kind of talking through. So it was quite contradictory. I was furious. It's like people are not allowed to come in the studio. And she's going, well, you know, they just wanted to know. And people started asking whether I could do their portrait. And I said, well, actually, I don't, that's not quite what I do. So it was kind of mixed. On one level, her being very proud, but also her, I think, feeling really scared. She was worried about.

Presenter19:46

Be being disruptive. In 1985, one of your drawings featured in an exhibition called The Thin Black Line. Now, you called the piece, Mr. Close Friend of the Family, Pays a Visit Whilst Everyone Else Is Out. And it shows a man reaching out to touch a young girl. We can't see his face, just the open neck of his shirt and his crucifix peeking through. That young girl is you. What's the story behind that image?

Sonia Boyce20:11

Well, I was remembering this incident that had happened at home where um man who was a close friend of the family had had come round to the house. Nobody else was in the house. I'd let him in and and he tried to rape me. I would have been twelve, thirteen, something like that.

Presenter20:15

Where?

Speaker 120:15

Uh

Sonia Boyce20:28

And I never spoke about it. Had you thought about it a lot since? Uh

Presenter20:32

I Or is it something that came back to you when you started

Sonia Boyce20:34

I think it just came back to me. And I didn't really talk to anybody about what I was going to make for the show. I just kind of turned up with this.

Presenter20:34

I am

Sonia Boyce20:44

Thing rolled up in a tube and put it up and then ran home because I just kind of felt I just need to say this at this moment.

Presenter20:51

Did anybody know in in your life what had happened, what you've been through?

Sonia Boyce20:54

No. And I was very aware when I was constructing.

Sonia Boyce20:58

The image that the female figure who's looking out is looking out directly to the audience to acknowledge her presence. Did it help? Yes, it did. I mean, I think that's part of the whole thing about making art is that somehow you you're able to process

Sonia Boyce21:17

things. Uh and so yeah, it did, it did help.

Presenter21:20

Let's go to the music, Sonia. It's your sixth choice. What are we going to hear next?

Presenter21:25

Yeah.

Sonia Boyce21:25

I wanted to

Sonia Boyce21:27

Choose something.

Sonia Boyce21:28

that was about me and my partner, David. This particular track reminds me particularly of us having a holiday, a break in an Amsterdam.

Sonia Boyce21:40

and we'd gone to a record shop and we both went for this record by Gil Scott Heron, a track called Is That Jazz. David is convinced that he bought the album. I'm convinced that I bought the album.

Sonia Boyce21:54

It's never going to be resolved because we both feel that we own that album. But really, I bought it.

Presenter21:58

Yeah.

Presenter21:59

Well, and you've got it on your island, so there you go. Sorry, David.

Speaker 422:04

Lacy was never really commonplace.

Speaker 422:08

Always measures ahead

Speaker 422:12

And Ellington was more than number one for the music and things that he said.

Speaker 422:19

Bird was the word back when tennis was heard from Kansas right up to the Prairie's Leicester Yard.

Speaker 422:26

Really was really the queen of a scene that keeps echoing on in my head What it has, well should it last but this thing just

Presenter22:38

Gil Scott Heron and Is That Jazz? So, Sonia Boyce, as I said at the beginning of the programme, your career has included many, many firsts. You were the first black woman to have a piece of work collected by the Tate in 1987. You were just in your mid-twenties at the time. The first black woman to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale. How, I wonder, do those firsts sit with you?

Sonia Boyce22:59

I love that people recognize me and and recognize the things that I'm doing.

Sonia Boyce23:04

But when I'm told, Oh, you're the first, I kind of think, Oh, they weren't expecting me or anybody like me. That's part of my

Sonia Boyce23:14

Frustration is you know f so f when I was when I in the run-up to doing Venice and the British Pavilion, that's all that got said is the first back British female artist to represent Britain. But nobody knows what I do. If you just say that, it doesn't matter what I do. Literally you're just looking at me and not the work that I make.

Sonia Boyce23:36

Yeah.

Presenter23:36

In 2018, you hit the headlines, Sonia. Some of the staff you were working with on a project in the Manchester Art Gallery chose to temporarily remove JW Waterhouse's painting, Hylas and the Nymphs, from the wall where it was hanging. Now, the decision to take it away came out of a wider conversation about who decides what work will be shown. Why was this painting in particular singled out to come down?

Presenter24:00

What the s

Sonia Boyce24:01

Staff who public facing staff.

Sonia Boyce24:04

kept saying was

Sonia Boyce24:06

Well actually there's a kind of culture that is developing around this painting where young teenage girls come and take selfies and then there's a kind of cruising culture that happens where a lot of mid middle age men gather also around those girls who are taking photographs of themselves. And as the conversations developed and you know there were members of staff

Sonia Boyce24:29

That's to be said, there were mainly male members of staff who thought, Oh, this is not actually that serious. You know, I think maybe you're exaggerating a little bit until for the very last session when we were all sat there there was about thirty of us by this point this man came around and he had an iPhone.

Speaker 124:34

Yeah.

Sonia Boyce24:45

where he was filming all of the paintings and sculptures where there were naked or semi-naked women and making these very guttural sounds of like, oh, that's really gorgeous and obviously he was recording something. And then he stops at this painting, Hylas and the Nymphs, and he's still making these guttural sounds. And another member of the general public, another man, comes up to him and says, You do know that they're meant to be pre-pubescent girls and he goes, Oh, that's even better.

Sonia Boyce25:14

At which point everybody who was sat there we were all sat there in the same gallery space said, that painting has got to come down. So that's why that painting came down, as part of a performance where there were lots of other things that happened.

Presenter25:27

Exactly, and then in in the performance, so it comes down for a week and then in it was replaced by post-it notes.

Sonia Boyce25:34

Where people could talk about representation.

Presenter25:35

where people could kind of have their say and they could put their voice, as it were, on on the gallery wall. So the removal of the painting caused, you know, a fair amount of outrage, hullabaloo. So on social media, some sections of the press. Were you surprised by the response? Because it was it was massive.

Sonia Boyce25:54

It was massive. It was global. I was getting messages from all over the world. There were death threats to the staff.

Presenter25:54

It'd be a single

Sonia Boyce26:00

Did you get death threats? No, but I got a lot of quite horrible emails getting hounded by certain people for well over a year. Um you know, the police got involved at one point.

Presenter26:13

How did you deal with that?

Sonia Boyce26:14

I was really scared by it.

Sonia Boyce26:16

For members of staff to receive death threats because of an action which didn't hurt anybody.

Sonia Boyce26:24

A painting came off of the wall, and then it went back up.

Sonia Boyce26:28

And people were asked to respond. That doesn't, in my books, doesn't warrant.

Sonia Boyce26:34

A death threat.

Presenter26:37

Let's have some more music, Sonia. Your seventh choice today. What's it gonna be?

Sonia Boyce26:38

Yosef

Sonia Boyce26:41

It's a song for my girls. I've got two daughters. This is a track by Corinne Bailey Ray. Put Your Records On, and I love.

Sonia Boyce26:50

this track and the girls love this track. And what I love about it is the kind of message of just step into your own beauty that is just joyful.

Speaker 427:01

Will they stay the same? Ooh, don't you hesitate. Boo, put your records on. Tell me your favourite song. You go ahead, let your head down.

Speaker 427:16

Sapphire and vanity jeans. I hope you get your dreams. Just go ahead and let your hand down.

Speaker 427:26

You're gonna find yourself some

Speaker 427:30

See you.

Presenter27:30

Um

Presenter27:31

Corinne Bailey Ray and Put Your Records On. Sonia Boyce, you've been working steadily for forty years, but your success at the Venice Biennale put you in the international spotlight. Your winning entry was called Feeling Her Way and features improvised performances by five black female musicians. What did this recognition mean to you?

Sonia Boyce27:51

I was genuinely confused about what emerged in terms of Venice.

Sonia Boyce27:56

being asked in the first place to do the pavilion and then

Sonia Boyce28:00

Been awarded the Golden Lion.

Sonia Boyce28:03

And I remember, you know, on the stage just thinking, I don't know what's going on right now,'cause I just kind of You were quite emotional too, I think. I was very emotional. It goes back to this thing about being the first whatever.

Presenter28:14

Um

Sonia Boyce28:14

On the steps of the British Pavilion and seeing hundreds of people queuing.

Sonia Boyce28:21

to come to see the show.

Sonia Boyce28:23

It broke me. I just kind of thought.

Sonia Boyce28:26

I'm really I understand I'm really feeling the the weight of history right now and really saying

Sonia Boyce28:33

Please don't mess up, Sonia. Please don't mess up.'Cause I didn't, you know, I I knew that I love what I was doing, but I had no idea how my work was going to be judged. But just suddenly thinking

Sonia Boyce28:43

Oh, I think this is a big deal.

Presenter28:46

Your mother at the beginning of your career was anxious about you kind of making making trouble, making yourself heard, maybe causing trouble. Did you keep any of your

Sonia Boyce28:56

Pieces.

Sonia Boyce28:57

Huh.

Sonia Boyce28:58

Sorry.

Sonia Boyce28:59

This must have been in the eighties.

Sonia Boyce29:02

She asked me to to do a picture for her.

Sonia Boyce29:06

And I thought, oh, oh, that's lovely.

Sonia Boyce29:08

And then she handed me a postcard of a poor Gauguin and she wanted me to do a copy of it.

Sonia Boyce29:15

Which I did. And so when my mum she had dementia.

Sonia Boyce29:20

Um in later years and

Sonia Boyce29:22

Ended up having to go into a nursing home and

Sonia Boyce29:27

the thing that she wanted to come with her was that picture.

Presenter29:30

Oh.

Sonia Boyce29:32

it was quite an emotional thing. It's like

Sonia Boyce29:35

This was her painting. I think she'd hopefully she'd have gone back, Paul Gogo, by that point. But yeah, it's curious. I think she had come round in some ways, not just because of that particular work, but because of the fact that she realized that

Sonia Boyce29:51

other people took it seriously what I was doing. You know, I really feel that she was quite proud.

Presenter29:59

You're very sociable, Sonia. I mean, a lot of your work, obviously, as we've discussed, involves collaborating with other people. But I'm afraid I'm going to send you to the solitude of the desert islands. How do you think you'll be on your own?

Sonia Boyce30:12

Yeah.

Presenter30:13

Uh

Sonia Boyce30:13

I'm quite good on my own.

Sonia Boyce30:15

I think it was because I I there's always a lot of family in the house and lots of people in the house when I was growing up that I would go to the quiet room and lock myself and be reading or playing records, whatever.

Sonia Boyce30:29

And I can do long stretches on my own because I spend a considerable amount of time daydreaming.

Presenter30:36

Well, we'd love to hear one more track from you before we send you to your island, Sonia Boyce. What's your final choice going to be?

Sonia Boyce30:42

It's Joan Armour Trading, Love and Affection.

Sonia Boyce30:46

I love the opening line to this song.

Sonia Boyce30:51

This idea that you're looking at somebody and they're looking at you and they I could be persuaded. It du it does actually remind me of the relationship between me and David, that kind of interplay between will you, won't you? Shall we, shan't we? Which we still do.

Presenter31:06

Yeah.

Presenter31:07

Even thirty years

Sonia Boyce31:08

So, even 30 years on, we're still that kind of little game. But also, when she says, you know, make love with affection.

Presenter31:08

So

Sonia Boyce31:17

Seeing someone that you want and that you're kind somehow. I love that.

Sonia Boyce31:25

I am not alone.

Speaker 431:30

But I'm open to persuasion

Speaker 431:35

East Or West Where's the bear?

Speaker 431:41

For romance

Speaker 431:46

With a friend

Speaker 431:49

I can smile.

Speaker 431:51

But with the love I could hold my hair back

Presenter31:54

Joan Alma Trading, Love and Affection. So, Sonia Boyce, the time has come. I'm going to send you away to the island. I'm giving you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take one other book. What are you going to choose?

Sonia Boyce32:08

Uh

Presenter32:08

Uh

Sonia Boyce32:08

I think it might be Charlie in the chocolate factory.

Sonia Boyce32:11

I won it as a prize at junior school. So it was the very first book I owned that I didn't have to take back to the library. I could read it whenever I wanted to.

Sonia Boyce32:23

And of course Charlie being ever hopeful and the moment when he thought he was going to give up.

Sonia Boyce32:29

He hit gold.

Sonia Boyce32:31

It's yours.

Presenter32:32

You can also have a luxury item.

Sonia Boyce32:34

What will that be?

Sonia Boyce32:35

I am partial to champagne.

Presenter32:37

Oops.

Sonia Boyce32:38

So, um if there could be some champagne there?

Presenter32:41

Oh, I'm sorry.

Sonia Boyce32:42

I mean that would ha that would ease the fact that there's nobody else.

Presenter32:45

Never the wrong thing to take.

Sonia Boyce32:46

Yeah.

Presenter32:47

Yeah.

Sonia Boyce32:47

Yeah.

Sonia Boyce32:50

I mean, I'd miss everybody, but you

Presenter32:52

Yeah.

Sonia Boyce32:52

Twitter

Presenter32:52

Up to a point.

Sonia Boyce32:54

Ah

Presenter32:54

He then.

Presenter32:56

You gotta do what you gotta do.

Presenter32:59

And finally, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us to day would you save from the waves?

Sonia Boyce33:04

is that jazz by Gil Scott Harron. This history upon which he draws from his poetry with that history. Also the connection between me and David and yes I do own it David, it's mine. But the song itself. It's a love story to all that's gone past.

Presenter33:24

Uh

Presenter33:25

Sonia boys, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you, that was amazing.

Presenter33:51

Hello, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Sonia. We'll leave her to enjoy those bubbles and hope they do take her mind off the isolation. We've cast away many artists, including Steve McQueen, Tracy Yemin, and Lubena Himeed. You can find these episodes in our Desert Island Discs programme archive and through BBC Sounds. The studio manager for today's programme was Jackie Marjoram, the assistant producer was Tim Bannow, and the producer was Paula McGinley. Next time, my guest will be the comedian and actor Robert Webb. I do hope you'll join us.

Speaker 134:36

Please, I beg you in the name of God. I need some assistance from you.

Speaker 434:40

Who is worthy of our trust? I just thought this is very, very shady, and there's something definitely wrong about this.

Speaker 134:50

If they didn't believe me, I said, Well, I'm not a scammer, I'm not a bad person.

Speaker 434:54

Join me, Matthew Side, for the latest season of my BBC Radio 4 podcast, Sideways. Seven new stories of seeing the world differently and the ideas that shape our lives. I need to figure out a way to really compensate him, or else I'm going to be the scammer that I accused him of being. Sideways on BBC Sounds.