Barby Asante & Sonia Boyce - Mixing It Up
Channel: NewWorkNetwork
Date: 2012-05-14

New Work Network (NWN) and Artquest are pleased to present the fourth film of the 'Mixing It Up: An Intergenerational Perspective' series: a dialogue between the two artists Barby Asante and Sonia Boyce, filmed by Fiona Melville.

Barby Asante is an Artist, Curator and Educator based in South London. She studied Fine Art at the University of East London, where she began making work in film, photography and installation, placing herself in the frame as a means of confronting the audience with the perceived problem of her image. Asante is interested in creating works that stimulate dialogue around the cross-cultural and multicultural and how we view and frame these questions in contemporary Britain, often using familiar or popular culture triggers as a means to begin the dialogue. Recently Asante has been working on projects exploring music and its cultural and social significance, with particular emphasis on black music and it's importance in the creation of a post-war British cultural identity.

Sonia Boyce came to prominence in the early 1980s as a key figure in the burgeoning black British art-scene of that time -- becoming one of the youngest artists of her generation to have her work purchased by the Tate Gallery, with paintings that spoke about racial identity and gender in Britain. Since the 1990s Boyce's practice has taken a more multi-media and improvisational approach by bringing people together to speak or sing about the past and the present. Since 1983, Boyce has exhibited extensively throughout the UK and internationally and has completed an AHRC Research Fellowship at Wimbledon College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London with her concluding research project the Future is Social.

'Mixing It Up: An Intergenerational Perspective' interrogates the sustainability of artists' practices (financial, motivational, environmental, political) and creates opportunities for intergenerational learning between the artists as well as a better understanding of these practices for audiences.

The last film of the series will be published next week:

21st May: Hunt & Darton -- Richard Layzell

Filmed and edited by Fiona Melville. Fiona studied as a fine artist prior to working on documantaries at Carlton Television. Fiona studied Documentary Direction at the National Film and Television School and has since directed, edited and filmed observational documentaries for the BBC, Sky and Channel 4.

Music by Robbie Lockwood.

Supported by Arts Council England, University of the Arts London and Student Enterprise & Employability

New Work Network's blog: www.newworknetwork.info