Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Turner Prize-winning artist known for exploring black identity and the African diaspora through immersive installations.
On the island
Eight records
Well, Beyoncé is fabulous. There's something very important being said here about how...
Well, I'm very interested in, for all sorts of reasons, in madness. Artists are often described as mad. That's a mad idea. Or had this mad idea to do this or that. And I love this song because I listened to it a lot in 2017. And it reminds me of my assistants, Matt Birchall and Teo Lashley Burnley, who are the opposite of the Bedlam Boys, really. They are the sort of sensible bit of our team. But yeah, it reminds me of them.
Well, this song totally reminds me of my mother. My mother's still alive. She's getting on for 91 now. But it reminds me of her and living in the city. She never wanted to live anywhere else but in the big city. And this song is just it, really.
Well, it's difficult with Joni Mitchell. I would have all the songs by Joni Mitchell in a way. But a case of you, I'm very fond of falling in love, I suppose. And I've been listening to this record for decades and decades. And it's that wonderful kind of warm, gentle feeling that washes over you when you hear this song.
Well, Kaya Keita is just a brilliant, brilliant young musician. And there's something about her voice, about the way she sings, and especially this song, that has that kind of sense of danger. I can kind of feel the chill of what it's like to be the wrong person, really, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Renée Fleming, Diana Damrau, Munich Philharmonic, Christian Thielemann
Oh, well, yes. This is the kind of even more old romantic me. This song is so much about kind of the happiness and sadness of falling in love late in life. That kind of challenge that you have knowing that you haven't got that many years left to be with this person and that though years have gone by and maybe everything took too long. This whole opera, Rose and Cavalier, absolutely sums up the kind of sweet sadness of understanding love late in life.
SuzanneFavourite
Well, again, I could have had every song being Nina Simone. I love Nina Simone's political songs, but when she sings Leonard Cohen, Suzanne, ah somehow it's full of rich, deep colours. And again we're talking about someone on the edge of madness, someone on the edge of being here and not being here.
Well, a long time ago I used to go to a restaurant on Sunday evenings with a man I used to know. It was a Portuguese restaurant and when we were in there eating extraordinary food, this is way back in the probably even the late 1970s, these amazing Portuguese singers would be performing in the restaurant. And then I came across Mariza and her amazing song Chuva, which is about the rain. And of course I live in Preston. Preston is the rainiest city in Britain. But there are artists there that are the artists that sustain me. And this song just reminds me of them, reminds me that the important things are kind of in the everyday, you know, in that rain really.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:43Where do you look for the stories that you want to tell?
Well, I guess I listen to people, I hear about their families, listen to them talk about their past, I read a lot of books, and I suppose I've tried to sort of be kind of invisible and work a bit like a writer, spying on people, I guess.
Presenter asks
5:06What's been missing? [in painting black women's lives]
Well, what's been missing is that we're just ordinary, you know. We do what other women do. We feel what other women feel. We're not super sexy or super dangerous or heroic. We're just ourselves. And I think that's the challenge. You know, I've seen too many movies or TV things where the black woman is dead in the first 10 minutes. You know, we're not tragic either. We're just ourselves and that's what we want to be.
Presenter asks
6:20Tell me a little bit about the inspiration for the piece. [Naming the Money]
I'd seen some astonishing paintings in La Rochelle many years before that were paintings of black slave servants who were presents from the King of Spain to the King of France. And so they were beautifully dressed and they had these sashes going across the front of their costumes that said, you know, my name is Jean-Pierre and I am a brilliant lute player. And so really I lifted this idea, combined those two sorts of ideas about paintings, about ownership, about servants, about naming and about money, and made this hundred-piece installation.
The keepsakes
The book
Marge Piercy
Well, it's really one of the, I think, one of the most amazing books ever. It's a book by Marge Piercy called Woman on the Edge of Time. And it's a book again about madness and about how the world could be. I think it would give me a lot to think about.
The luxury
Because when I'm rescued, which I hope will be after about 10 minutes, I need to look my best.
Presenter asks
7:06What were your thoughts about that when you won the Turner? [being the oldest and first black woman]
Much remarked upon. Yeah, the being the oldest was really a killer because although I can count, you know, and I knew how old I was, it was shocking to me to actually understand how old I was because I'd lived 63 years and then I didn't have 63 years left. But it helped because I thought, okay, I've got probably 15, 20 years worth of standing up and making that I could do, so I'd better really do the things I want to do. Yeah, the being the first black woman to win it was a bit bittersweet really because there were many black women who've been up for it in the whole recent history of the prize. I was happy to win it, but it was bittersweet, really.
Presenter asks
18:45You're a mixed race kid growing up in London in the sixties. Were you aware of your ethnicity at school?
Yeah, very aware. Yeah. Not because horrible things particularly happened to me, but it was the sixties. And so, you know, there were uprisings, there were killings, there were political things happening in the States. I guess there was a kind of moment where I heard on the news about the church in Birmingham, Alabama being blown up and children being killed. And it struck home. You know, I really understood the kind of … not so much in Britain at the time, but the danger of being black. But at school I used charm to get by.
Presenter asks
26:21In 1997 you went back to Zanzibar for the first time. How did she persuade you?
She persuaded me to do it like she persuaded me to do most things actually. She just said we're going. You've got to, you know, face the fear and do it anyway. So I did as I was told. Yeah, I'd been afraid to go because, you know, by the time I was 10, there was a kind of pretty bloody revolution there. A lot of my relatives had left Zanzibar. And then I never learned Swahili and found that I was kind of ashamed and embarrassed about that. And then I never had very much money. So on and on and on went the kind of excuses, really. But really, I was just afraid of the place. You know, I'd left, obviously, in a sort of state of trauma, even though it wasn't me that was traumatised. And I just couldn't really face it. I'd spent years and years making paintings that were trying to understand the place. I read about the place. I'd seen photographs of the place. I'd been to other places that were very kind of dangerous and mysterious in a way that I imagined Zanzibar was. And then when I arrived, I got off the plane. It was just like being in Manchester. Do you know what I mean? It's so familiar. And I so understand who I am being here. It just felt right. Everything about it felt right.
“I'm trying to paint the perfect grey painting and failing.”
“We're just ordinary. We do what other women do. We feel what other women feel. We're not super sexy or super dangerous or heroic. We're just ourselves.”
“People actually said to me, Black people don't make art. And I said, Well, I'm making art and I know other people making art.”
“I got off the plane. It was just like being in Manchester. Do you know what I mean? It's so familiar. And I so understand who I am being here. It just felt right. Everything about it felt right.”
“But the important thing is that we need to keep building on these changes and not think, oh, well, it's okay now. In every kind of walk of life, we just have to keep vigilant and just make sure that everything is as fair as it can be. That's all I'm really interested in. Let it just be fair.”