Skip to main content

Laura Whiting from DIRECTIONS-BAS (podcast)

I just had a really interesting conversation with Laura Whiting who founded DIRECTIONS-BAS in 2019.  The formative project, aimed to begin conversations about the town of Basildon in relation to art and urban life, started out with a very successful film night.  Basildon Film Shorts was held on the 12th October 2019 in The Craft Shed in Basildon.  The evening proceeded with a short introduction from the filmmakers:- Aaron Shrimpton, Maz Murray, Chris Michael, Robyn Murray and Stuart Whipps, preceding each of their films.  More can be found out about this, including links to the films based on Basildon, here.  It ended with great conversations between the filmmakers and the audience and it turned out to be a spectacular evening.  Laura is planning to do another night like this in the future.

We spoke about how the film night came about, the quality of the evening compared with watching film online.  We also spoke about the town and its lack of spaces or venues in which to do such events.  Laura also spoke about the importance of having MULTIPLE narratives to a town, and not relying on common tropes.

Why not have a listen to our conversation that also expanded to other related areas.

https://directions-bas.com/






Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

I've got lots of news to shout about. 1. Just one day to my talk at Keene Hall, Watchouse Road, Galleywood. The talk will commence at 8.00pm, please arrive about 7:45 if you plan to go. Fun fact! I was actually born seventeen years to the day after Basildon New Town came into existence. Basildon New Town was born on (so to speak) 4 January 1949 and I was born on 4 January 1966. Don't you think that is odd?! A bit spooky! 2. A lot is happening behind the scenes towards Basildon Writers' Group's second anthology. Very exciting! But it's not my place to say more, except that I have a story in said book. 3. My musical son has a lovely voice, just thought I'd get that in there! I recently thought of when I was in the community play for Basildon in 1989 called  Beorhtel's Hill,  that was thirty-four years ago now! That is history, relatively speaking. I sent some photos to the  Basildon Heritage Group  for their archives. Photographs from behind the scenes and the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rose Cleary - How to be a French Girl

  I interviewed Rose Cleary on 30th March 2021 in what was still the lockdown periods. I chose to do podcasts at the time to widen my narrowing world. Rose Cleary has her debut novel out now called  How to be a French Girl . Rose Cleary, born 1990, is an author and writer from Essex. Her writing has been previously published in the New Socialist, The Southend's Twilight Worlds, Hyperallergic and TOMA. She has exhibited her art internationally at galleries including Nahmad Projects and The Vaults in London, and Backlit Gallery in Nottingham. How to be a French Girl is her debut novel. You can follow her on Instagram and visit her website  http://rosecleary.com/   3:AM Magazine has printed an extract from the book here . Read a post by Rose on the London Review Book Shop where she talks about the process of writing the book   here . https://www.lisajhorner.com/
Post a Comment
Read more

Metal Culture's Zoom Event - Quite a Few Faces from the Past!

I have known about Metal Culture, the one that is based in Southend, and their events for some time.  I have often thought of joining one of their events but didn't get around to it.  Last night I plucked up the courage to join their Zoom meeting called 'BASILDON, what next for the Creative Industries in South Essex?'  It was really good actually, I imagined that I would sit observing, feeling too awkward to join in, but in fact I did get involved and added something to the various debates that were going on. To start with we watched six speakers; Aden Hynes from Sculpture Studios who showed a film.  Moira Brock from La Danse Fantastique who showed a film.  Joseph Brennan, an architect.  Clare Mortimer from The Craft Shed.  TIME - Therapy in Musical Expression, who showed a film and then Laura Mauro a writer.  It was really interesting, although I already knew about Sculpture Studios and TIME. There were about forty participants and what struck...
2 comments
Read more