the producers
Clockwise from top left: noble and silver This Show Isn’t Possible Without You; Alex Bradley and Charles Poulet Whiteplane_2; Municipal Construction and hAb Still Running; Third Estate Panopticon
front of audiences with whom you have no previous history, to re-encounter the work through the eyes of others, to constantly test and reshape the work as it evolves anew. Again, I guess this is the outsider in me, driving a desire to get away from the security of the institution, whilste perversely, as an insider, I want to bring all that we have learned back home. The producing methodology I have evolved through Breathing Space and the projects that have followed is a long and delicate process, taking place over numerous conversations and small forays. I have always liked ideas at the early stages, at that point of uncertainty, when the balance between what is possible and what is not is constantly being redrawn. 32000 Points of Light and Whiteplane_2 are works that have emerged from this indefinable alchemy, where I invited artists to undertake small, informal improvisations and some kind of chemistry took hold. As producer, it is my job to recognise this moment, to spot the possibilities, to listen to the dreaming, to replay the thinking, until the work takes shape and becomes real. I am then there to bring that work to an audience and a sector who will test it before it moves on. Both 32000 Points of Light and Whiteplane_2 took over two years to reach fruition. At their start we could not have imagined we would be working with motion simulators and ambisonics. Nor could we have foreseen the different lives of the projects presented in major art spaces in the UK, warehouses in Japan or churches in Mexico City. And lastly comes the most significant project of all. In 2001 I initiated Inbetween Time. Originally intended as a small, one-off event, Inbetween Time has in fact developed to become a major UK festival where we are able to bring together the incongruities and anomalies that make up the body of international, experimental performance work. It has increased Arnolfini’s funding base, collaborations and international profile, and has pervaded the imaginations of all those who connect with it. When are we next going to fill a space with pepper, pig’s blood, and petals? Inbetween Time has entered Bristol mythology, it seems, and the solid and certain walls of Arnolfini have shifted
on their foundations once again. All these projects, even the early ones, have pushed and pulled me towards my growing realisation as a producer. They each started as a small idea that shone with potential at an early stage, and they have forever changed my approach. I was able to work in my capacity as a producer to get them started and develop them on their path. They would not have evolved as they did without me, and neither they nor my career would be as they are without the institutional back-up from Arnolfini. They would be festering in the backs of our minds somewhere still, potentially never to happen at all. Arnolfini is a remarkable and unusual institution. It has at turns both supported me, and torn its institutional hair out at my unusual producer-like goings-on, yet there is no doubt that our relationship has been mutually beneficial. Over what is now nearly ten years, I have been remoulding and rewriting, scratching and digging the performance programme into the very fabric of the building, and through the work we do both inside and outside, Arnolfini is now felt to be one of the most important performance contexts in the UK. So, what’s going to happen next? After ten years as an outsider working both within an institution and beyond its boundaries, where does this leave me? I feel at a crossroads, on the brink of something, and I am not sure what shape it will take. The questions and challenges for my future are numerous, but the strategies stay the same. I wish to deepen my approach as a producer, to create a structure that will allow more time to create specialist and extraordinary projects. Perhaps I am a late developer, but in my view it really does take that long to mature as a producer. Whatever happens next, I will continue to intervene with institutions who invite me, and to be there with the artists at the beginning. Because I believe with all my heart that the right idea can reach fruition, no matter how impossible it may seem, and I know that with the right artists, audience and conditions, I can help make extraordinary things happen that would not be possible without me. <