Transcription

Shae Myles: Okay, so!! This is the first ever episode of our new series called “In Conversation With…” I’m Shae, and I have with me, my gorgeous partner in crime Georgia. We’re part of the Jiggle n Juice collective, and we also have our first guest, Jody! So Jody do you want to start off with a little introduction as to who you are, and a little bit about your practice as well?

Jody Mulvey: Yeah! It’s always really difficult when you get asked these sort of questions! But I am Jody Mulvey, I graduated from Edinburgh College of Art last year, where I studied Fine Art MA, which is a five year course that combines history of art and art, and I specialised in painting. My practice was concerned with responding to institutional spaces and basically using colour, form and materiality to investigate spaces and subvert them. Since graduating, my practice has just [gone] to the back-burner essentially, just because it’s been really difficult to actually make the kind of work that I was interested in at university. So I’ve been mainly focussing on drawing and collage since graduating, and also since graduating, I have started @sadgrads2020, which is a community building platform to support art school graduates who have had their degree shows cancelled due to COVID-19. So that’s been mainly what I’ve been working on, and I’ve had some exciting projects through that too, such as the @sadgrads2020 zine, which was released last year. And yeah, that’s kind of what I do now, it consumes my life in the best way!

SM: I love that! I love the fact that coming out of art school you didn’t know how it was gonna be, and it turned out to be such a beautiful project. Like it’s not just yours, you’ve opened up that platform for everybody, and I just love that. Because it’s part of your practice, I feel. 

JM: Yeah, I definitely feel your practice doesn’t necessarily need to be something that you physically need to make, I feel like @sadgrads2020 is my project that I work on. Yeah! I love it! I honestly never expected that something like this would happen, which makes it kinda wild any time I think about it! But yeah, I love it so much!

SM: Honestly that is such a lovely thing to hear, the fact that it’s something you enjoy doing because I feel like people think, obviously it’s based on social media, it’s based on Instagram at the moment, and I think there’s a lot of misconceptions about social media being “hard” to do. Like, it’s a one man band that you’re orchestrating, so you say it consumes your life, and I’m not surprised that it does!  

JM: Yeah, I think the reason I kind of wanted to keep it as just me, I’ve wanted to expand the team, but for various reasons I felt bad asking for that amount of labour from people for starters, because I know how big a job it is. And also it’s quite nice to be able to get to know everyone on the platform, I just enjoy sitting and reading people’s DMs, you know, getting to know everyone that submitted to it, which is really nice. I think if you had a larger team working on something you would kinda lose it being so personable. So yeah I just really love it because I feel like I just meet so many cool people through it! Yeah, it’s great!

Georgia Tooke: Totally! Yeah I feel like, so many people don’t know how much work goes into running a social media account like that. I was wondering what it was like, from the very start of this account when it was your first idea, you put it out there and then it just like, the snowball went, and it was like growing and growing and growing, and got so big, like what was that kind of timeline like, that process for you, what were your like “oh my gosh I can’t believe this is happening” moments?

JM: Yeah it was, it was so like that! I mean, I started it back in March last year, so it’s gonna come up to be like, one year, and it’s also my birthday as well at the same time, so it’s gonna be like a big birthday weekend! But I basically just put up a post on my own Instagram, being like, I would really like to start an account, just because everyone was feeling so isolated from not being at art school, and having to move home, and just being so removed from the community that you love at art school. So then I just put up a post and was like “would people be interested in this?” And so many people were like, “yeah!! let’s do it!!!” And I didn’t have a name for it, but my friend Natasha messaged me and was like, “just call it sadgrads!!” And I was like “that is genius!!!” So I went straight on, got the username and that was it, it started! I had it in my head, I was like, see if there’s only fifty people that follow this, that’s still nice, it’s still a community, we can all just look out for each other. And then it just sort of went wild, I think it was when The White Pube shared it, very early on, my friend George sent them a message being like “oh my friend started this page, why don’t you share it!” And they were like, “yeah!! let’s share it!” Then it just grew and grew and grew, and I was asked to be in articles in 10Magazine and The Elephant Mag, and then I was reading an article by The White Pube, on DAZED, and there I was, in the article!! And I was like ~??!!??!!~ How has this happened in the space of like a month or two months. It was just wild, it grew so much and then also the zine came about, Ruben, who had been [featured] on the platform, he messaged me and was like “oh yeah, what about if we do a zine and I design it.” And yeah, it just grew so much! And it’s been amazing, yeah!

SM: I feel like it was probably quite a good time for something like that to happen, not just because everyone was in the same boat, packing up studios, relocating, or didn’t know the fate of our degree show, or even our degrees at that point, like I remember just sitting, I had packed up my studio, and was just sitting at home like “okay so I cry now… that’s what happens right?!” And so I think…

JM: At that stage, I was also like “oh two weeks it’ll be over, let’s just go into isolation right now, and then degree show will happen”, ~lol~, like a year down the line, how could I ever think that would be the case.

SM: Literally, like the most optimistic mindset ever to be like “oh this is just fake news!”

JM: Yeah!!!

SM: So, I've seen on the @sadgrads2020 account, you’re opening it up for 2021 grads, like the situation is still on going, so what made you want to do that, and how do you think that’s gonna look?

JM: Basically, I just kinda thought that maybe universities would learn from the mistakes they made last year, but I’ve been hearing from people in the year below me, and it seems like they really haven't, and the [students] have really been struggling this year. At least I had my studio for half a year, and I didn’t have to do my dissertation while we were all in isolation, but the year below, they’ve had to deal with this for a full year. And yeah I just, was getting so many concerned messages, and people wanting to be involved who were graduating this year. I think your instinct is to want to help people, like, you see people going through the same situation that you’ve been going through and you know how difficult it was, so you kinda just want to help in anyway that you can, and I’ve got this platform, and it’s quite well recognised within the arts as well, so I feel like I should just open it up. Why wouldn’t I?! I feel like it would be really horrible to be like, “no. you can’t be part of this!!” I’m not really sure how it’ll manifest itself right now, putting the 2021 grads on, because I know how difficult it was last year, receiving so many submissions. Which is why I decided to change the submissions to, like, you just put #sadgradscommunity and then I just share from that, it’s a lot easier to do, and it means I can quickly repost people onto the platform and feature them. But last year the formatting, like receiving so many emails, and just making sure I was featuring everyone, it was just really difficult, I was receiving about 20 emails a day, and at the very beginning I was featuring about 10 artists a day. It kinda slowed down a wee bit luckily, but it was like that for a good month or two. 

SM: Also, at this point, you were still doing your degree right?

JM: Yeah!! I didn’t finish until May, I’m not really sure, that full timeline of last year was just a blur to me!!! It just feels like —> finished degree… abyss, essentially!!! But yeah it was just pretty wild I just need to think about how much capacity I have to be able to do this sort of stuff, so I’m gonna take a few months to figure that out, then hopefully I’ll be ready for the people that need it. 

GT: I feel like it’s so good that you have like kind of an understanding of how much work goes into it, how much of your capacity you can put into it. It’s just been such a crazy learning experience for you!! I can’t believe you were doing 10 posts a day!! 10 different artists, like that actually just blows my mind, that is so much work!!!

JM: It was a lot of work. I think sometimes, as you said Shae, you don’t really understand what goes into a social media channel sometimes. When you’re in the midst of it, you’re like, “what on earth have I decided to do this for?!” But yeah, it was good though because I got to see so many submissions from people that I would have never seen otherwise. Cos usually the only degree shows I would go to would be Glasgow and Edinburgh, because they’re the most accessible for me to get to. Then I was seeing submissions from all across the UK, which was really cool. It was just nice to feel like, we’re all part of the same graduating year, not part of a specific uni, we’re all 2020 grads.

GT: Kinda going off what you just said, I feel like, you’re obviously very passionate about highlighting opportunities for your audience and up and coming artists, so @sadgrads2020 is such an amazing opportunity, but do you have any other things that you’re working on, like your other show, was it called Alt…

JM: Yeah, Alt-D yeah, that was mainly last year, we decided to build our own website for our degree show because we were quite unhappy with the one that our university had made. It just wasn’t very easy to navigate. So we decided to build our own website, we were a committee of 17 at that point, yeah we took 100 graduates and put [them] onto the website, and from that, we also got a physical show at Zembla gallery which is in Hawick. We did a poster exhibition so we could fit 63 graduates, I think it was, into one exhibition, from lots of different specialisms, and then, also from that we got a collaboration with Jack Arts which is a billboard company, and we got to show 84 graduates on a billboard in Edinburgh, which was pretty cool, these really cool opportunities that we wouldn’t have [had] otherwise, from the typical degree show. So it was really exciting to be a part of that as well. As well as doing @sadgrads2020. 

SM: Do you want to go into like, any more about your experience with your degree show and with ECA? Like what can you tell us about that?

JM: It was just pretty upsetting, the full thing. When I first saw the website I actually cried, just because it was so upsetting to see it. Your full time at art school, which for me, was five years, which is longer than your usual degree that you would do at an art school, you feel like you’re building up to this one point, and your family comes, and it’s lovely, and you get free booze, it’s just a really fun occasion. You basically need that degree show to show in proposals and stuff like that, for opportunities as well, and to lose that, you just actually feel like your full career in the arts is doomed. I was actually like “I don’t know what I'm gonna do now.” So when I saw the website, I was like “what is this?” Like it just felt so sad, and then I’m sure other people felt the same about their degree shows as well. I mean, your one was really good!! You were at Aberdeen!!

SM: Yeah!! My one was really good!! I feel like, this is something that I thought about recently, because I was doing a little bit of research into virtual spaces and virtual degree shows, and the way that exhibitions have been transformed to suit online, and like there were all these lists of the best art degree shows across the UK, and I feel like Gray’s just wasn’t there!! There were ones that were featured that were just portfolio websites, and I was like.. “what?!” The collaboration between Gray’s, Look Again, and Design and Code was like insane. They did it like that ~snaps fingers~, they absolutely fucking smashed it, and I feel like there’s been little to no recognition of that, apart from obviously the grads who feel proud and lucky.. like god, I'm so lucky that I had that opportunity to exhibit in a different way. But that was just a side note… but yeah totally, I feel like when I went onto, cos obviously I went onto that degree show [ECA’s] … “degree show,” to me that was just not what that was, and I remember messaging one of my pals, and was like “have you seen this…?” And they were like “…yeah I wasn’t gonna say anything.” And I was like “… okay.” I remember feeling like if that was me, I’d be like… I would be crying, like you said.

JM: Also, so my work wasn’t uploaded properly…

SM: We love that…

JM: … Other people’s work was in the wrong specialism, and they were judging awards from this. So you did essentially feel like your career was doomed, from [seeing] that website. Like, losing your degree show, and then you see the website you’re like.. ~face palm~ “what am I meant to do here?!” But yeah, Aberdeen completely smashed it, completely. The amount of time I’ve said Aberdeen was the best version of a virtual degree show, like, you should get recognition for that! Also, like people like Manchester, even though it was just a website, they collaborated with former pupils to be able to design the website and I thought that was cool as well. I feel like you need that level of collaboration, and listening to student, and what they want. You have so many skills within the graduate cohort as well, you should definitely use the people that are your students because it just shows the amount of talent that you have in that university.

SM: It doesn’t make any sense to me, for your degree show, like you as a person, and it’s your show, and you are seeing it for the first time on opening night. And there’s no mention of collaboration, there’s nothing,… it just doesn’t make sense to me. So, my next question was gonna be, what do you think institutions this year need to work on for degree shows, and I feel like you’ve definitely answered that…

JM: I think definitely listening. To the students. Listening. 

SM: Like, yeah!!! Honestly, and also like welcoming it to be.. obviously yeah I understand it’s a big project, it’s a really big deal for people, so you do wanna be a little bit like, how do we actually manage all of these people, with all of these different ideas, but at least fucking try!! You know??!

JM: I think sometimes there is a sense of wanting to bury your head in the sand and just ignore the issue. And especially when, like.. digital art has progressed so much, there’s all these websites that you can build virtual degree shows on, or virtual exhibitions. Like I even taught myself how to build a virtual exhibition for like an Alt-D show, so I know you can do it. So like, the technology is there, why not use it? I know also there’s difficulties with capacities of websites and stuff like that, but I just feel as if you should at least give the opportunity to your students to be able to decide how it looks. 

SM: Yeah, I totally agree.

GT: So, I’m from Canada, and degree shows are so different in Canada, like there’s such a different weight on them. So our grad shows were completely just cancelled, because our semesters were a bit different, so we were supposed to have ours in April, but like right after the pandemic [broke out], everyone just packed up their studios, got outta there, and so there was just no chance of having a degree show, even putting together a virtual one, so it was just completely cancelled. I feel like, at least from what I’ve heard in the UK, you have your degree show, curators come from other places, like looking for up and coming artists, and the New Contemporaries show that happens like a year later, that’s kinda scouted at degree shows… I could be making this up, let me know if I’m totally making this up.

JM: No no no this is true, yeah.

GT: But like that just doesn’t really happen in Canada, I feel like a lot of the bigger galleries are on the other side of the country, and its more like “you did it!!!” ~pat on the back~ “you got a degree, show your work and like, have your families come and like have a lil celebration,” that was kind of it. So I was wondering, like, since there’s so much more weight in your degree shows, like how you were saying “my career is stunted because I’m not brining my work to these curators.” Do you feel like there has been any institutional support from galleries or curators reaching out to young artists or do you think that that’s not happening at all? Like, what is this new landscape of virtual degree shows and that kind of stuff?

JM: So, RSA New Contemporaries has actually been delayed until 2022, which is a very long time to wait until you can show your work. I mean, I feel as if the support isn’t really coming from institutions as such, it’s mainly coming from independent/grassroots organisations. I mean, quite a few of us got scouted for The New Artist which is an online platform where you get featured for a week, I think, on a website, and that was an independent curator. I haven’t seen as many opportunities come from larger galleries. The RSA New Contemporaries being cancelled.. they didn’t even put a virtual version of it together for this year, it’s just been cancelled until next year. So yeah, I definitely feel as if [opportunities are coming from] more independent people, or just coming from the students themselves, to organise and create opportunities for themselves. But yeah, we actually haven’t heard much about having a physical show, it’s still kinda looming there in the background that we might have a physical show in the future. But I definitely feel as if nobody really got that many opportunities from degree show, I mean, me personally, I didn’t really get that much from degree show really. It was mainly from our year organising ourselves and then getting opportunities through that, and just doing it by ourselves essentially. 

SM: That’s fair. So like, with all of this in mind, all of these things that are positive and negative, and just your entire experience of the last year or so, what have you learned about the nature of the art world?

JM: When I was looking over these questions, I wrote “even though institutions fail us, we can still succeed.” Which I feel has been my motto for the past year, because I think, with your degree show being cancelled, it does really feel like your career is doomed, but I feel like this year has really shown that you can do it for yourself, and I really feel like you should just be bold and just send an email. Just if you wanna do something, try do it. The worst thing that is gonna happen is you’ll maybe get ignored or something, nothing bad’s gonna happen. But sometimes you do feel as if institutions should be the ones supporting you, but I feel like this year has shown that it really doesn’t work like that. Maybe you [don’t] necessarily want to be part of institutions, because it’s kinda brought to light some really bad and insidious things within institutions. Like for example the past year with the BLM protests, it [was] really highlighted how racist institutions are. And you see all these platforms cropping up where they’re critiquing what happens within institutions as well. Maybe it’s best just to exist out-with these structures. But yeah, that’s what I think, and that’s what I feel like this full year has shown me. 

SM: I totally, totally agree with that, and I know Georgia does as well. That honestly is probably so refreshing for past grads to hear, but then also, I’m just thinking about this years grads, and even the year after that. Like this is gonna still be effecting people for a long time, so I just think that’s something people really need to keep in mind, and I think the whole structure of art school, and the way that your future, if you wanna be an artist, is proposed to you when you’re in that environment, just doesn’t work anymore. It just doesn’t work, and I don’t think people, like you say, wanna be part of that. So I think, if you’re gonna take anything from this conversation, like that… so iconic. 

JM: Yeah, I wish I had been told that when I was at art school, just because you do basically balance your career on degree show, and you balance your career on getting accepted by big institutions, and I just feel like maybe that isn’t the route anymore. And that you can create opportunities for yourself, and if you want to support other people as well. Yeah, that’s what I’ve learned!

GT: I know, I think that’s one of the best things that we’ve all learned is just like, going and making your own opportunities, and really utilising social media, and reaching out to your peers. Like you said, we’re all in this together … the graduating class of 2020, no particular place [or subject.] So I think that’s our advice to anyone, if you want to do something, go out and do it. Make the post, make the account, do your online show, like do whatever you need to do. 

GT: Before we run out of time, I really wanna talk to you about your work that you were making in school, because I did a lil Instagram and website stalk of you, and I just love watching your collages, into paintings, and when you did your big installations!!! Like everyone needs to go look at your website and look at these installations, they are so beautiful and I’m so sad that no one got the opportunity at degree show to go and walk through your sculptures and be in your spaces. So I’d love for you to talk a little bit about your art school process or your progress and what that means to you… just tell me about your work!!

JM: I mean, yeah, I just loved making these big installations in spaces. I feel like the worst thing that ever happened to me was seeing Phyllida Barlow’s work in London, because as soon as I saw that I was just like “I need big work, I need to make big work that I can walk through!!!” And honestly, that was the tipping point for me, I just loved these big spaces you can walk through. They’re usually made from really mundane materials, which is why I love using paper and building these big grand spaces out of really cheap material. And that are really just joyful, and fun, and I love being able to have exhibitions and have my friends sit in the space for ages, and it’s really fun.  It was really difficult to translate that into a virtual show, I felt like I could never capture what it was like to actually exist within these spaces even though I made little models of what I was intending to do. I mean, in first year I never used colour, that was like my goth phase. I was always such an emo in high school and I hated colour, and I was doing all these paintings about death and stuff like that. And then I got into art school, and I think it was in second year, I discovered gloss paint, and that was when I found colour, and I loved it. And then my full wardrobe became colourful, and I was just like my artwork… like a walking, talking artwork! Then it sort of translated into making these big installations, and yeah I think I just like, imagine my work in spaces, which I think is why it’s so difficult for me to work with digital software. I’m also pretty bad with technology anyway, which is funny because I run a social media account, but I really am not good with technology!! I always need to be doing stuff, like I need to be [busy using] my hands, I can’t do it on a computer. 

SM: Georgia do you have anything else you wanted to ask about Jody’s practice?

GT: I just wanted to say that, first of all, I just love hearing what ~ah ha~ moments artists have that just completely change their whole practice, and their whole outlook on everything. But I think it’s such an interesting path from your practice which was kind of critiquing institutional spaces by having these big installations to walk through, into @sadgrads2020 which also critiques institutional spaces. I feel like there was such a seamless transition that maybe you can’t quite see right away, but when you think about it, it’s such a perfect path for you.

JM: Yeah!

GT: And I love so much, what you said about how anything that you’re doing is kind of a part of your practice, because I feel like sometimes Shae and I think of Jiggle n Juice as separate from our practice, but I feel like it is - we’re putting our time and energy into this, and it’s something we’re making, even if it’s not a physical thing. That was all, Shae do you have any more questions?

SM: My last question was just going to be, if you were to - we’ve touched on a couple of things that I’m hoping people will maybe, like, take away from this conversation - but do you have any advice for emerging artists and the graduates coming this year? What would you say to them if you could grab them by the shoulders and be like ~ahhhhHHHhhh~

JM: Firstly, don’t let your result define you. Because this is something that has gripped me for the past year. I found it really difficult to make work because I didn’t get the grade I wanted, so don’t let that ever define you. And just don’t compare yourself to others, especially on social media, because it’s not the entire story. People can’t be creative all the time, and sometimes social media can make it look like you’ve got a really solid output every single day, but that’s not the truth. It’s okay to take a rest, and maybe not feel creative for even months at a time. It’ll come back to you at some point. And yeah, just be bold as well. If you want to do something, just send an email. As well as not comparing yourself to others on social media, Ellie Pennick, who runs Guts Gallery, wrote this really good essay ("The Importance of Collaboration") about not seeing others as your competition but as your collaborators. That really changes your mind about what you can do in the arts, instead of seeing another persons skills as competition to your own, see them as someone you could collaborate with and use your skills together to make a really cool project. So yeah, just come out of art school and feel proud of what you achieved. The world is your oyster now that you’re out of it! 

SM: Yep, honestly just amen to all of that. I have LOVED talking to you, and all the amazing things going on in your brain, just hearing that all come out is so refreshing!!

JM: You too, thank you!! 

SM: Is there anything that you want to plug? Like your socials or where we can find your work?

JM: Find me at @sadgrads2020 or my own page which is @joddddddy

All in adorable unison: YAY!!!