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Join performer Rachel Mars, Professor Tim Cole (University of Bristol), artist, activist and elected representative Cleo Lake, and sound artist, poet, and writer Ralph Hoyte in a discussion about contemporary issues and questions relating to memorial, public space, and the place of art interventions relating to difficult histories in Bristol, and the UK. This talk took place as a part of FORGE's presentation here in Bristol to help further contextualize the piece.

This Mayfest we are delighted to be able to share 3 Horizontal Conversations recorded by Raquel Meseguer Zafe with Bristol based creative producer Roseanna Dias, visiting artist the vacuum cleaner, and Bristol-based creative leader Anna Starkey. The premise of the Horizontal Conversation is that lying down together makes for a different kind of conversation, most likely a more intimate or a dreamer conversation. The conversations are part of Raquel’s interest in horizontality as process, site of spectatorship and a different way of being together in public. They have grown out of her project A Crash Course in Cloudspotting which invites the audience to lie down together to experience an audio installation and performance about people’s attempts to rest in public and that traces the connections between us.

This Mayfest we are delighted to be able to share 3 Horizontal Conversations recorded by Raquel Meseguer Zafe with Bristol based creative producer Roseanna Dias, visiting artist the vacuum cleaner, and Bristol-based creative leader Anna Starkey. The premise of the Horizontal Conversation is that lying down together makes for a different kind of conversation, most likely a more intimate or a dreamer conversation. The conversations are part of Raquel’s interest in horizontality as process, site of spectatorship and a different way of being together in public. They have grown out of her project A Crash Course in Cloudspotting which invites the audience to lie down together to experience an audio installation and performance about people’s attempts to rest in public and that traces the connections between us.

This Mayfest we are delighted to be able to share 3 Horizontal Conversations recorded by Raquel Meseguer Zafe with Bristol based creative producer Roseanna Dias, visiting artist the vacuum cleaner, and Bristol based creative leader Anna Starkey. The premise of the Horizontal Conversation is that lying down together makes for a different kind of conversation, most likely a more intimate or a dreamer conversation. The conversations are part of Raquel’s interest in horizontality as process, site of spectatorship and a different way of being together in public. They have grown out of her project A Crash Course in Cloudspotting which invites the audience to lie down together to experience an audio installation and performance about people’s attempts to rest in public and that traces the connections between us.

This Mayfest we are delighted to be able to share 3 Horizontal Conversations recorded by Raquel Meseguer Zafe with Bristol based creative producer Roseanna Dias, visiting artist the vacuum cleaner, and Bristol based creative leader Anna Starkey. The premise of the Horizontal Conversation is that lying down together makes for a different kind of conversation, most likely a more intimate or a dreamer conversation. The conversations are part of Raquel’s interest in horizontality as process, site of spectatorship and a different way of being together in public. They have grown out of her project A Crash Course in Cloudspotting which invites the audience to lie down together to experience an audio installation and performance about people’s attempts to rest in public and that traces the connections between us.

I am reading from a book called Blind spot by Teju Cole. I like how he writes about photography and has changed for me the way I engage with pictures. Anyway he writes 'the body has to adjust to the environment to the challenges in the environment. The body isn't wrong, isn't disabled, the environment itself, gravity, a solidity or the lack offered, etc, is what is somehow wrong or matched to the body's ability mimical to its verticality, stability or mobility. She said, her husband had said their infant daughter whose mind is conventional, but whose limbs struggle to accomplish their given task on earth is in the sense like an astronaut far away from home coping'

It takes courage courage to live wildly and boldly and to to ourselves. It takes courage to dream. It takes courage to stay on the path. It takes courage to play. It takes courage. to remember how to be soft and gentle with ourselves. It takes courage just to be human right now. Courage.

I just returned from spending 10 days with people as meeting for the first time. It was a beautiful experience. Also a very daunting, in that it was a bit hot, we had to be careful, we had to sanitise, we had to wear masks all the time. And that was strange. And also just the realisation that it's almost two years in the pandemic, and we have been interacting virtually. Also, I realised that we were just digitally fatigued. So thinking about how this time has affected our social engagement, the use of the virtual space or digital space? How does it affect our bodies? What are the long term effects? If there are any, how do we recover from it? Our voluntary participation in a way of our private being public, because we're finding ourselves creating more and more in our personal spaces. Why what is the cost to us? And what I thought around privacy, I guess yeah.

I'm reading an interview on Ipress.com. It was written on May 2018. By Etienne Hatt, with Luc Delahaye, it's called 'A Position in Reality'. Like, guess what is being asked here? The question is how do you articulate the question of beauty and the subjects that are at the heart of your work? And Luc says, The image of pain is the poem of humanity said money, the only real subject, I do not know what the exploitation of misery is, I see beauty in the image of suffering, as a particular difficulty for the artist, and as a help for the intelligence of the viewer. It is the simple idea of a simple man. Beauty is necessary, it has the power to redeem the world, and it must be sought in everything. It is a belief, no doubt. And as I am a materialist, I would say that it is not beauty itself that has the power to change the world, miraculously. But the real confidence of everyone in the positive illusion. I see this from a social angle, almost as a political position. This is why it is said that an artist today, Luc's ridiculousness in pronouncing the word beauty, he who can lift the veil on offsetting insignificance, that leaves us insensitive to the world. I believe in this idea in this attitude, and I have no difficulty finding beauty in my path, in the harshness of the world and bring it up in my images.

What excites me about the process of image making is the dance, the performance that happens between collaborator and photographer conversation that goes beyond the technicalities of image construction, the movement of the photographer, the collaborator, the lines, the patterns, the light, is all these things that makes the process a beautiful experience. It is the moment when a person is seen, heard and understood. Also, the understanding of the moment the image is created the realisation that the image will live beyond that moment.

Khanyisile Mbongwa - Final Thoughts by MAYFEST RADIO

Anyway, I just called to say, I love you.