Six Artist Stories, a series of six short films commissioned for our Document project from award winning filmmaker Bill Newsinger, is now available to view online!
Bill worked with Document artists Andrew Bracey, Geoff Litherland, Jessica Harby, Kajal Nisha Patel, Tim Shore and Tracey Kershaw over a period of 18 months to record their experiences of pursuing their arts practices and maintaining their livelihoods. Spending time with them in their studios, homes and at work, filming and photographing them making work and engaging in related pursuits, he sought to capture their reflections, highlights, challenges and aspirations in an honest and authentic way. He questioned them about their career paths, networks, resources, politics, livelihoods and importantly, their motivations, which keep them – sometimes against all the odds – making art.
The films have been screened at events in Nottingham, Wirksworth, Derby, Lincoln, Loughborough, Leicester, Northampton and Corby to audiences of artists, students, academics and members of the public. We hope that the films tell the stories of these artists, succeeding in the East Midlands, at this time, in their voices, go some way to demystify a world that can seem impenetrable and hard to navigate, show that there is a multitude of ways of being an artist and indeed, more than one art world and speak to practising artists and artists of the future, to organisations that work with artists, and to those who are simply interested in what it is to be an artist.
All the films are subject to copyright. If you would like to discuss screening them, please contact us.