Mixing It Up: Katharine Meynell and Aaron Williamson
Channel: NewWorkNetwork
Date: 2012-10-17

New Work Network (NWN) and Artquest are pleased to present an additional sixth film to the 'Mixing It Up: An Intergenerational Perspective' series: a dialogue between the artists Katharine Meynell and Aaron Williamson, filmed by Fiona Melville.

Aaron Williamson's work as an artist is inspired by his experience of becoming deaf and by a politicised, yet humorous sensibility towards disability. Mostly, he devises unique artworks that are created on-site immediately prior to their public presentation. These consider the situation he encounters and represents, in part, his response to it. A constant theme is to challenge and subvert the romantic valorisation of social 'outsiderness' and thus he portrays himself in performances and videos in the guise of sham-shamans, pretend-primitives, hoax-hermits, fake feral children, charlatan saints and dubious monsters. With these figures he explores and devises humorous or absurd actions that reference and pay homage to the 'classic' period of performance art in the 1960s and 70s.  In the last ten years he has created over 200 performances, videos, installations and publications in Britain, Europe, Japan, Greenland, China, Australia and North America.

http://www.aaronwilliamson.org

Katharine Meynell has been working as an artist since the late 1970's. She studied at Byman Shaw School of Art and the Royal College of Art where, in 2000, she also completed a doctoral thesis on Time Based Work in Britain since 1980. Her works drift between material media, emerging as performances, bookworks, video installation and drawings. These are often in series, as records of precarious things. Her work has been shown both nationally and internationally in spaces such as Franklin Furnace, Cabaret Melancholique, Serpentine Gallery, De La War Pavilion, Ikon Gallery and Tate Britain and her films are included in Luxonline with a monograph essay by Dr Andrea Phillips.

http://www.luxonline.org.uk/artists/katharine_meynell/index.htm

'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 complete series include:

Ellie Harrison with Jordan McKenzie

Robbie Lockwood with Stefan Szcselkun

Yoko Ishiguro with Fiona Templeton

Barby Asante with Sonia Boyce

Hunt & Darton with Richard Layzell

Fiona Melville studied as a fine artist prior to working on documentaries 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