Nurturing Collaboration

Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00] Muriel: I just don't think like the artists should be isolated from other disciplines in the world, you know, in life. Like, I feel there's this big, like the secluded artist is alone and doing their own thing or there's, you know, residencies only for artists. It's like, why not have residencies for, you know, different disciplines and create projectstogether with these different mind frames and everybody can bring a part of them on the table. And I think that's so amazing. and I think I'm really pushing this idea of like this, the residency

[00:00:30] Muriel: where I would like to create my own vision of the residency, more something multidisciplinary, So to start my own kind of artist run space,

[00:00:40] Muriel: But first, I'm going to, I'm taking this year to kind of understand like what I really want to be doing. I need to like take every box. Like, do I want to take a business degree just to know how to run my thing?

I don't think so, but if, if that's a key that I need to get in order to do my own project, then I will here I'm really like hands down. I have a vision I want to get there. You know, what are the steps for me to get there? this is why here I'm in the U S working is like, I need money to get to my thing.

you brought up this idea of all the things that you want to learn and how you're going to take this year to reflect and experiment. you mentioned, you know, learning a bit more about business.

but what are the things that you're really excited about diving into?

I work like twice a week at this artist gallery and it's her own gallery. So it's interesting to see that. What she decided to do, rather than like having her work in another gallery where they take a huge cut, like what? there's more, I need to know that I probably don't know about this business side of the arts.

[00:01:36] Muriel: like, okay. You know, I think I'm still in a moment in my life for like I'm going to grab any opportunity. I have to learn a lot of things because I don't have a child. I don't have, you know things to worry so much about, it feels really good and invigorating. And I feel when I was in university, I was really worried about where I was going to be and what I was going to do.

[00:01:56] Muriel: That's why, like, I'm like forced myself to do so much so that I wouldn't regret. In a way it's, it sounds really strange and kind of spooky. And but that, that's just me, like always doing a lot, a lot, lot. but it got me places, you know?

This is Art Is… a podcast for artists where we visualize the future of the art world and the creative industry. This season we're even getting the topics and ideas introduced in season one, through conversations with emerging artists, creative change-makers and leaders from beyond the art realm in the tech industry design world and startup space.

[00:02:38] Isotta: The mission of Art Is… a podcast for artists, has been to encourage emerging artists, students, and early career creatives to seek out possible futures for the art world. One where our creative ambitions and professional needs are.

[00:02:50] Isotta: Part of this mission is recognizing the power and value of our stories and experiences. Not only for our own creative and professional growth, but for our collective community development today, I'm speaking with Muriel Mcintyre a mixed media installation artist, Muriel shares her creative practice with us explaining why she loves collaborating with other artists, how she leaned into the local community of a small French town to deal with the isolation and loss of opportunity caused by COVID-19

[00:03:22] Isotta: And her experience working on the curation of the upcoming Corona culture exhibition in Berlin, where she helped select the work of 80 artists. I love it. Talking to Mariel about her aspirations, what she's working on and what she has planned for the future. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

so my name is Muriel Mcintyre. I'm a recent grad from the masters in fine art from Edinburgh college of art. And I'm a French American artist, who is now in new Orleans, Louisiana in the us,

[00:03:56] Muriel: I think like on a personal with you, like I started university and I had no idea what was. Like I knew, you know, like my favorite artists was would, you know, like I knew I would go to the museum. I mean, I was very in touch with the old masters art. but I had no idea and I get to university and it's like, Like, what is this?

[00:04:18] Isotta: Okay.

[00:04:19] Muriel: Like, this is the most intense thing ever. It's so it's amazing. It's thrilling. It's but it's, it got way too much and out. And I remember like I had to go to therapy for a year because like, what is going on? I think really what university does, arts education in university. It gives you a list of contacts. Like really like now look, we're, we're having this because we met each other through university. Right. And all the, all the collaborations I've done were through university. So I think like there are some cherries on the cake, however There's no preparation on like what you want to do, but I feel then it's up to you to kind of like do your own prep because they're not prepping.

if you do, aren't like, you know, you're going to have to do your own path. It's not going to be giving to you. It's not oh, you do math and you know, at the end you're going to, you know, you can either do X, Y, Z here.

[00:05:13] Muriel: It's like, okay, you do art. You have no clue. Like what you're going to do. You could, you know, go into tutoring or. Curation you like, there are some, some set paths, but I feel like, at least for me, I don't want to really do those set paths. Curation is something that's interesting, but I'm integrity more into like my practice as exploring space.

[00:05:36] Muriel: So yeah. I don't know every art education, I just feel like maybe in the way for our future, like I'd like to meet. Facilitate a space for art, but I wouldn't call it education because you don't educate somebody with, for arts.know that you just went through the whole experience of the online degree show. I was wondering if you could bring us into your world a little bit and share how these last few months shaped your creative practice. And you're thinking about the next steps moving forward for you as an artist.

[00:06:12] Muriel: I work with like large scale installations that explore space. For this final semester where I was gonna work on my art. I decided to stay in France at my parents' house because Scotland was shut down and I thought just space and opportunity wise.

[00:06:27] Muriel: It was best for me to stay at my parents' house, and to work in my basement. and it was kind of starting from scratch again, cause I had no materials, no, tools. so it was really interesting. I knew what I broadly wanted to do. so I really had to engage with my community, like my neighbors and things, asking them for, you know, their wood cutter asking this person to bring me to a place to get that object and kind of fun to yeah.

[00:06:55] Muriel: Engage with the community in that sense to help me out. and little by little, I. Really felt yet stuck in, in this basement And I had to get out and put my work outside. And then I'm looking around, you know, spaces where I could put my work I mean, it was during the pandemic. So a lot of little businesses were shutting down, which created a lot of vacant spaces. And I was like, I need to put my work there because you know, they have it's like the window shop shop windows and enables a space for my work to be placed there and people to see it.

[00:07:26] Muriel:

[00:07:26] Muriel: Because I think like during the pandemic, what became. You know, the museum in a way was the windows of people, right? how the grandma displays her little flowers and cat sculpture is that's the new art display. So kind of playing around that. I contacted this Car license shop that had to shut down and the guy was like, yeah, you can totally use it.

and I placed my work inside and it was really fun. So for four days it was kind of a performative installation that I did there.

[00:07:56] Muriel: Then I worked in an empty room at a friend's house. and then finally in aabandoned warehouse. I wanted to place them in a, in a transient space. I think that was really interesting to me. and then that's, that's kind of what I decided to do for my degree show was to install my work in vacated spaces, definitely as a response to, to the pandemic.

[00:08:19] Muriel: I think that's a big thing in my work is to make work in different spaces in places. rather than like building big and strong roots in like one place.

[00:08:27] Muriel: Like I go to Berlin quite a bit and make work there. And then I did this exchange in South Africa and made work there then Canada then.

I feel that if I would have been in Edinburgh, if it had been a normal situation, quote unquote, I would have made something much more like classical in a way that, you know, I would have had a space and I've worked in it and that would have been it.

[00:08:52] Muriel: Whereas here, like I was exploring different spaces, engaging with people, talking about what my work is like. This was in a rural town in France, in Alsace. for people there, I feel art is more like a pretty painting on a wall or like a Rodin sculpture. It's not an, a femoral installation made out of pig feet and vertical blinds.

And it was really great to actually talk about what I'm doing and also be confronted with them. You know, it's not your tutors that know you, it's not your peers that you all know what you're doing, and they've seen your evolution here is like people that you're really coming plopped there.

[00:09:28] Muriel: And. I think it really strengthened me and it was really good. And also because I was at my parents' house, I felt I was already in that situation kind of post university where you're like, what am I going to do now? Or I'm really destabilized cause everything I've just, you know, the carpet was pulled in underneath my feet.

so I was already feeling that I already had graduated in January really and already thinking about like already applying to residencies already looking for, you know, grants and things. I think not being in the university setting, I was just over it already.

[00:10:01] Isotta: One of the aspects I admire most about Merial's practice is her interest in collaboration. Here she is explaining it further.

[00:10:09] Muriel: I just think like a lot of my work in our work, obviously many, many artists gets nourished by the conversations that go with them. and because of that, I think it always like sparks new ideas and sometimes these new ideas. Are better facility to buy these two people that had the, the conversation.

and for example, in Canada, I collaborated with this girl, Robin she's a movement artist and I really was looking for some, a movement element within my very stable. Corporate installations. And she was able to thenwalk through and like do her work within my work. So that was really interesting to collaborate the, in, in that way.

and then So my sister, Claire is in Berlin and we work collaboratively on, on like digital , collage works and , Yeah, challenging kind of norms and values. Um, we also like question a lot, like the idea of art and what, what it is, what is higher, what is lower, what all these kind of questions.

[00:11:08] Muriel: these collaborations are very dear to me. Like the relationships I create with these artists, women, artists are very strong and I think they don't just happen for the luck collaboration in the end. I feel they happen for collaboration and.

[00:11:22] Muriel: The conversation continues and then it get nurtured by more things. And then we might meet somewhere else and do something else and one of the recent projects that I know you've been working on with your sister is Corona culture. Could you introduce us to the project and what it is and what it's going to be.

[00:11:38] Muriel: on the 20th of May last year, I was. Back in France quarantining in my parents' house. And I, it was planned to go to Berlin, to work collaboratively with an artist duo Helen Allen. Calla Krueger in Berlin. they wrote up a work contract. So I was able to travel from France to Germany, and then I got to Berlin and Berlin was, you know, open, I mean, quote unquote open.

and the idea first was that me hella, and I would just work together collaboratively on different projects. We had some idea with music and things like that, and it turns out they live. at ultimate answer, which is a cultural center in thiscultural hub in the center of Berlin.

[00:12:23] Muriel: So just next to Alexandra plants on the sh plenty on the canal or river. Yeah. and it's a really beautiful place. Then, like a little cafe, but they also have like really cheap studios for artists. And then they have other, like more events spaces that will then pay for the low low studio rent.

[00:12:41] Muriel: And then they have like a different social enterprise working things. but they also have this huge exhibition space and it was available for us to use during the summer. and Tilly and Alex are very energetic artists couple. And they were like, let's do an exhibition because they were very affected by the pandemic being that their jobs more focused on a music festivals or cinema.

[00:13:06] Muriel: And obviously they were all canceled. so all their community was also counseled basically. So they wanted to do this huge exhibition. And we were so grouped before it was my sister, Claire, Helen, Alex, and I were the core group that started the critical exhibition.

so Corona culture, what the fuck? just happened was the original title. And then we changed it to what the fuck is happening because actually dependent or kind of lasted. And the aftermath was even more than the actual first whatever it was, the lockdown or whatever. so it was really from like walking within the space.

[00:13:40] Muriel: Deciding on a theme, deciding on what we wanted to have our viewers feel and see and experience what narrative did we want to bring to do we want to bring a narrative? Did we want to represent this kind of idea of chaos do we want to suggest solution?

[00:13:57] Muriel: Did we want to suggest You know, like what are the important things at the end of what this pandemic taught us? so how the narrative went is, you know, first is like chaos. Then it's like a digital age, then it's coming back to light. Then it's about community. It's about love. It's about people. It's about connection.

[00:14:15] Muriel: And at the end, it ends up on it's about the earth or like the nature that the nature is just going to keep on growing and. Yeah, the exhibition was gonna open up in November and it got postponed to April and now it's postponed to September for October.

an online version got launched in April. Mid April or may. which was in of itself a piece of work. We had a really great coder and graphic designer Kelly. She did this whole digital exhibition experience where you can enter different rooms.

[00:14:52] Muriel: And it's quite interesting. And really well-made. the digital exhibition is now the new norm thing. but how do you make it interesting. How do you make something digital? Interesting, rather than, you know, you could take any exhibition space in the world that we know and put your work in it.

[00:15:06] Muriel: And it's like, okay, you know, I can have my work in the moment say but you know, If you can do it digitally, why not make it even more crazy? Why not? Like put it, in this world that doesn't exist, you know, why should it be something that's already there? That's already old institution vibes. so I think, yeah, Corona culture in that way, did it something really good?

then I did kind of take a step back because I was working on my dissertation than my degree show. So the team got bigger and , um, just really exciting to see. You know how it evolved what artists are in it now. and yeah, I, I do have my work there with my sister as our collaborative practice, Mary Jane Chanel.

so I was more playing the role of the curator and kind of artists liaison picking. But this was crazy because we could have like 80 hours. And it was literally like, okay, Mirial come up with like a list of artists. I am like in the center of Berlin in this massive space and I need to choose people.

[00:16:05] Muriel: Like it was, really crazy. This was like, which work do I feel as good? Like why, w why would it be me? Like, and, you know, it's really, it puts you in a lot of questioning. Like it's pretty intense. And yeah, who, who's an interesting artist in Berlin that has exhibited in spaces.

[00:16:21] Muriel: I appreciate maybe I can contact them and we did get like the stiffen, glad you for example an artist to work with us. So it was just, yeah, it was, it was a crazy experience. It was something I really enjoy doing. and maybe I will continue doing that maybe in a year or two. But it's definitely something I'm really happy I did.

[00:16:40] Muriel: And I really value every time and moment. what is an attitude or a habit that you're hoping to change or to reconfigure within the art world or something that you're really excited about, working on and developing as a professional artist.

continuing developing the collaborative aspect of my work and still to always nurture the ones I've had in the past. That's really important for me to build like the stronger community. Like, I was very worried that I hadn't built like a, like a strong, like artist community in like one time.

[00:17:18] Muriel: And kind of that like very romantic idea that, you know, we would be a community living in a house and like doing the artwork and like, it would be really fun. And I do know people that have had that have that right now. And I'm like, wow, that like seems very like, you know, 1970s tripping on your asset and like, like, you know, semen 40 vibes.

[00:17:44] Muriel: It's just so different for everybody. And you just. I have the, the network and I just want to continue yet really feeding it and

[00:17:53] Muriel: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. so the next step is Too. It's, it's actually quite open. either it's going to be more in the north of, of the United States. and if not, then I get back to Europe straight off the plane I'm in Berlin

[00:18:10] Muriel: And then I would like to head over to Athens Greece. That's kind of my, my next step. Because they are full greases, full offenses, full of vacated space. And is to really start my own thing on my own. literally like my studio, my own like little exhibition space and have open to the public and have people there, but that's like, starting from scratch.

[00:18:35] Muriel: But I am really thrilled to do it, and I think it could be really fun. And if it doesn't work out, doesn't work out. It's fine. You know? so yeah, that's kind of like jumping into the big ocean. So I have an Instagram page, which is Mirial McEntire, fine art. And I have a website that's linked on my Instagram page, which is mural this MacIntyre. Thank you for listening to art is season two, episode nine. This is a podcast for artists. And I get to make the show freely and independently because of your support, without anyone telling you what to do or to say, I make it because I too, I'm an emerging artist and care about the future of our industry and want to work to make it better.

[00:19:16] Isotta: So if you want to support the work I do here at the show, you can donate through the link in the episode description while you're there. Check out the artist bookshop for selection of the best professional development resources for creatives.

Thank you, Muriel MacIntyre for your openness and enthusiasm. And for sharing your stories and experiences with us Before you go, please leave Art Is… a podcast for artists a rating and review in apple podcasts. It really helps others find the show. Thanks so much and see you soon.