Art Cast

Art Cast
Series 4 Episode 5: Juno Calypso

Art Cast is a podcast series of informal discussions with professional artists and designers, presented by Matt Gee, Programme Area Manager of Fine Art, joined by students from Morley College London - Chelsea Centre. For this episode, Matt is joined by Juno Calypso.

Juno Calypso is a British photographer known for her distinctive self-portraits, her work is a powerful exploration of feminism, isolation, loneliness, and self-sufficiency. In addition to her personal work, Calypso also makes her mark as a commercial photographer. In 2016, she was a joint winner of the British Journal of Photography International Photography Award. Two years later, she received the prestigious Vic Odden Award from the Royal Photographic Society. Working solo, Calypso has crafted highly stylized photographs of herself while adopting the persona of "Joyce," a fictional alter-ego. These self-portraits take place in surreal storytelling settings. Her self-portraits as "Joyce" are the cornerstone of her work, portraying a "bored, frustrated, lonely housewife of her imagination." These images transport us to unfamiliar and over-the-top landscapes, providing a commentary on the restrictive aspects of femininity and societal expectations.

Calypso's work explores the rituals of seduction and the pursuit of a "perfect vision of oneself." One of her noteworthy series, "The Honeymoon," features her alone in American couples-only honeymoon resorts. This collection exudes a sense of claustrophobia, blending frustration with loneliness, as noted by critics. Calypso has aptly commented on her own work, highlighting her intention to critique the construction of femininity. She once said, "I used to take pictures of Joyce as a way of making a critique on the laboured construction of femininity, but now I’m starting to see that the problem isn’t the make-up and bizarre body improvement devices, but the way society treats women who invest so deeply in their appearance." You can check out her work at the Welcome Collection in the Cult of beauty exhibition on to 28th April, 2024.

Welcome to Art Cast Season 3. Art Cast is presented by Matt Gee, Programme Area Manager of Fine Art, at the Chelsea Centre at Morley College London.

We are very excited to welcome Polly Morgan to open our third series. I am joined by students Inigo Farah from our Fashion Diploma and Evelina Yakoleva, from our HE Access to Creative Industries and we delve in to a wide range of topics including taxidermy, casting, being a professional artist and managing income.

Polly Morgan is a British artist living and working in London. Self-taught with no formal education in art, Polly works in taxidermy, concrete and polyurethane. She is interested in creating deceptions, with sculptural facsimiles made from painted casts and skin, as a way of exploring false narratives in our increasingly polarised and digitised society.

You can now listen to the previous two series on streaming platforms such as Apple and Spotify, just search Art Cast Morley Radio.

Art Cast is a podcast usually presented by Matt Gee, artist and Subject Leader for Fine Art at the Chelsea Centre, Morley College. But today it will be presented by HNC Fine Art student Phoebe Ingleby and Fine Art Foundation student Barbara Cserny.
The guest for this podcast is Jeremy Deller. Jeremy is a conceptual artist who works across mediums with a huge emphasis on collaboration. In 1997, he produced Acid Brass, a musical collaboration with the Williams Fairey Brass Band from Stockport. It was a project to mix the music of a traditional brass band with acid house and Detroit techno. His work has a strong political aspect, in terms of the subjects dealt with and also by involving the public in the creative process. Folk Archive was a tour of so called “people’s art” and has been exhibited throughout the UK including at Barbican Centre.

Sacrilege, a 1:1 bouncy replica of Stonehenge created for the 2012 Olympic Games was toured around the UK.
Deller staged The Battle of Orgreave in 2001, bringing together almost 1,000 people in a public re-enactment of a violent confrontation from the 1984 Miners’ Strike. The re-enactment was filmed by director Mike Figgis for Artangel Media and Channel 4. The Battle of Orgreave was ranked second in The Guardian’s Best Art of the 21st Century list, with critic Hettie Judah calling it a “monument of sorts, the performance was at once participatory ritual, spectacle, living archive and a space to mourn”.
In 2004, for the opening of Manifesta 5, the roving European Biennial of Contemporary art, Deller organised a Social Parade through the streets of the city of Donostia-San Sebastian, drafting in cadres of local alternative societies and support groups to participate.
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Deller produced the documentary Everybody in The Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984–1992 which covered acid house and rave culture, and political turmoil in Britain in the 1980s and early-1990s, first shown by BBC Four on 2 August 2019.
Deller was the winner of the Turner Prize in 2004 and he was selected to represent Great Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2013.

The guest for this episode is Russell Shaw Higgs. Russell was born in Oswestry Army Camp. Based predominantly in London, Russell has a long history as being an artist but also a political activist. In the late 80’s he was engaged as a frontline civil disobedience activist with campaigns such as ACT-UP and Outrage. Act up was a political group working together to end the AIDS pandemic, and continues to work on medication, treatment, legislation and public policies. He was a frontline Civil Disobedience activist and chaired the inaugural meetings of queer activist group Outrage in 1990 which was set up to advocate that gay, lesbian and bi-sexual people have the same rights as heterosexual people and to end Homophobia.
In the early 90’s Russell moved into Contemporary Dance which included performances at the ICA, with his contemporary dance group 2MEN and with Manact at Londons Place Theatre. In 2010 his improvised self portrait video compilation was shortlisted for a Guggenheim and Youtube prize and projected outside the museum in New York. Since 2013 he has focused more on the streets, pasting up works and engaging in the world of street art and graffiti. Russel is also very much engaged within the world of British Politics, and for the elections in 2015 and 2017 he stood as an independent candidate for Hackney South and Shoreditch.

In this episode, Matthew is also joined by Jasmine Walsh a student at Morley College London, Chelsea Centre for Creative Industries.

The guest for this episode is Miami-based muralist Douglas Hoekzema, aka Hoxxoh. Hoxxoh attempts to show us a different way of viewing time through a means of exploring its natural fabric. His work creates a new foundation and approach to evaluating and appreciating time. The oscillation of the pendulum paints time through gravity’s natural pull. Expressing how we can be pulled in one direction, when we are really meant to be going in another. How resistance creates a struggle and a false sense of control. Where if we follow the natural flow of times predetermined, yet unseen path, an experience of beauty and pure form will take shape.