Rieko Whitfield is a multidisciplinary artist based in London. She has recently been an artist in residence at the Tate Galleries and has gathered a following through live performances at galleries in London, such as the Victorian Albert Museum and the Institute of Contemporary Arts.
In this episode, Rieko shares how she balances her different artistic disciplines, how her new pop album fits into her art practice, and how a chance encounter with fellow multi-disciplinarian David Lynch supported her journey.
Instagram: @riekowhitfield
Website: www.riekowhitfield.com
Rieko Whitfield is a multidisciplinary artist based in London. She has recently been an artist in residence at the Tate Galleries and has gathered a following through live performances at galleries in London, such as the Victorian Albert Museum and the Institute of Contemporary Arts.
In this episode, Rieko shares how she balances her different artistic disciplines, how her new pop album fits into her art practice, and how a chance encounter with fellow multi-disciplinarian David Lynch supported her journey.
Instagram: @riekowhitfield
Website: www.riekowhitfield.com
Matt: Hello, and welcome to the Teach, Inspire, Create podcast. I'm your host, Matt Moseley, Chief Examiner for Art and Design at UAL Awarding Body. Each episode, I speak to artists and creative industry leaders about three main themes. Teaching, inspiring, and creating. We talk about their experiences of teaching and being taught.
Matt: Who or what inspires them and we explore how they foster creativity in their work with the hope of showing you that there are infinite ways to be creative in the arts. Today my guest is Rieko Whitfield. Rieko is a multidisciplinary artist based in London. She has recently been an artist in residence at the Tate Galleries and has gathered a following through live performances at galleries in London, such as the Victorian Albert Museum and the Institute of Contemporary Arts.
Matt: In this episode, I'm gonna be talking to Rieko about how she balances her different artistic disciplines, how her new pop album fits into her art practice, and how a chance encounter with fellow multi-disciplinarian David Lynch helped her. There is a transcript available for this episode. Please click the link in the episode description so you can read as you listen.
Matt: Hello Rieko, thanks very much for joining us today.
Rieko: Thanks for having me today.
Matt: It's brilliant to have you. We're really interested to hear about, uh, your [00:01:30] practice and your journey to where you are. Now, so we like to start at the beginning. Where was your, sort of, earliest interactions with creativity or any sort of teachers or teaching environments that inspired you to get creative?
Rieko: I think as soon as I had the motor skills to pick up a pencil or a pen, I was just drawing constantly. It was obsessive. It was unusual for a toddler. It's never stopped, [00:02:00] I guess. And I was really into creating these very strange spiritual drawings since I was really young. And then this kind of progressed. I started to get into music at a very young age as well. I started to play violin at the age of four and then that was where the love of music began for me. So this kind of parallel creative practice between visual art and music has always been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.
Matt: [00:02:30] Brilliant. What excites you so much about that relationship between the visual and the sonic, drawing and music?
Rieko: I think the way that I work is really synesthetic. So, as soon as I write music, I instantly see a visual world that goes along with it. Anytime I make any kind of visual artwork, the sound element or the music element always comes with it. It's not separate. In the same way that I even, if I have a live show, I tend to incorporate elements of scent. All of these sensory inputs are all jumbled in my brain and it's all part of this multi-sensorial world building practice that I have.
Matt: Are these mechanisms and tools that you're actively using to try and get people to understand a message in the work, or is there something that you're trying to explore with your audience through the things you do?
Rieko: I think a part of me is really drawn to music [00:03:30] because it's such an immersive medium. So everything that I do, even if it's the way I write or the way that I create visual works or my presence on a stage, I always want to touch people on an emotional level first. And then the message and the conceptual ideas behind it come along for the ride, but I think always my art I always wanted to have this visceral emotional impact [00:04:00] on the audience.
Matt: You know, we've been listening and looking at your work through various different platforms in preparation for this and there's so much that you've designed and thought through. How does that process begin?
Rieko: So a lot of what I do actually just comes from these meditative visions that I have and then the way that I work is super intuitive. And even for me, like coming into the art world or coming into the music industry, it's not like I [00:04:30] really had a lot of, necessarily like, professional experience or a whole Rolodex of contacts. Like I've just kind of figured it out. And that for me is really exciting because then I can, I have these little inklings of what I like, what I want things to be, how things should look and feel, and then I can pull in collaborators as well to help make this a reality on the level of professionalism that I want it to be [00:05:00] to the audience.
Rieko: And I think also that too, when picking collaborators, I have a very intuitive sense of people. And I think that comes into play when I'm also… I also curate often as well and it's just this intuition. There's nothing too intellectual about the process.
Matt: No, no, that's, that's, that's it. So there's something in there about trusting yourself, isn't there?
Matt: Something that students often struggle with is about coming up with initial ideas. [00:05:30] They spend a lot of time ruminating or considering a potential starting point for something and you mentioned that meditative process. Can you talk us through a little bit about how… how do you do that?
Rieko: I think for me, my whole life, art has been a way of surviving almost like having this kind of safe place for me to go to, whether it's within drawing or whether it was writing or whether it was music.
Rieko: [00:06:00] And that means that my whole creative practice, art practice becomes a spiritual practice for me. And there's been times in my life that I wasn't even working as a professional artist, and even then, even when I wasn't necessarily in the art world or in the music industry, I was always looking at myself as a character. Even when I was living in Tokyo and working at a political advocacy organization, completely unrelated to art and [00:06:30] putting on a suit every day, going to a Japanese office, it just, that was also a role I was playing, always have had this distance with identifying too much with one thing.
Matt: Does that come with some difficulties and challenges? You know, I often look at an artist like Marina Abramovich, who's, again, is sort of in the work so fundamentally and is that protagonist for what's happening and the vehicle through the ideas that she's communicating. [00:07:00] Because there's obviously massive vulnerability and that isn't there as well?
Rieko: Definitely. Yeah, those are good questions. I'm still figuring out myself how to, how to navigate that. I've always been writing music and performing but never really anticipated to do this professionally, which is a funny thing to be here doing this now. So I'm still navigating that because it's having this kind of stage persona, even though it's still my [00:07:30] name in my face, I switch into a separate kind of.
Matt: So you do have some partitions between the person that arrives and performs and your own personal life. I think sometimes it's scary, isn't it? To share your work. What I'm hearing from you is about that you can create some strategies within your work that enable you to share and be vulnerable, but also have some, some parts of [00:08:00] yourself that you protect.
Rieko: Definitely. It's interesting that you bring this up because these are all things that I'm definitely thinking about right now, especially that I've released my first musical release a month ago or so. And I think the way that I began doing this kind of in an art context was through performance art. So I actually created this alter ego that I would embody, and this entire project that I've been working on, this, this EP called Regenesis, it [00:08:30] really started as a project in world building that I called speculative mythology. So I pulled from creation myths, from Shinto, Japanese storytelling mythology, and then embodied a character and went off and made up, made my own version of the story but I would, it wasn't me, it was an alter ego that I was embodying. Then I could suddenly, like I was able to write music super quickly. Like if I was coming [00:09:00] from a perspective of another entity, even though that entity is still a part of me. So it's really funny because then suddenly it's not as scary to go on a stage. It's not as scary to be this super weird person that does these weird performances. And then also it's not as scary to tell a very vulnerable story because, of course, at the end of the day, it's all drawing from my own lived experience, but somehow it makes it easier to share [00:09:30] that universally relatable experience or emotion. It's so much easier to do that when you have an alter ego to do it through.
Rieko: I always wanted to go to art school one day, but besides that, my first exposure to the art world was a six month stint at Central St. Martin's as an exchange student that I applied to at the [00:10:00] very last minute. It wasn't like a plan for me to do this, and that's when I was first exposed to the contemporary art world. The way that I grew up, it was just, okay, cool, you're good at drawing. What are you going to do? Paint people's pets, like for commissions. Like you should probably study other things and maybe get a real job.
Rieko: The kind of like I had, I had access to great tutors and teachers when it came to technical training, but it was never, it was always with the idea [00:10:30] that, well, you're also good at other things, so you might as well hone the skills that'll actually get you a job and so coming to London in my undergrad, doing this for, having this first exposure to art school, it really, it freaked me out in a way because I was like, I have no idea what is going on. But then at the same time, it gave me, as you say, this total freedom to just follow my instinct and that's honed over time. And as every year I [00:11:00] get older, I've realized how important it is and what a gift it is to just trust yourself. Because all of these art schools and institutions, they can give you the tools or they give you some context of the discourse at the time of whatever wherever you are, but at the end of the day as an artist, you have to follow your gut.
Matt: That's one of the hardest bits to do, isn't it? Do you ever have to say stop listening to the noise, I'm just gonna do this thing now.
Rieko: Every single day I have to tell myself this, I have to give [00:11:30] myself a little pep talk. Every time, still, every time I step on a stage, I get terrible stage fright, so I do have to be like, okay, you got this, like, you know what you're doing.
Rieko: And I've just embraced being like a little bit delusional, even. Because hopefully, you know, if I can embrace that side of myself and just embody this, like, confidence that I need to do what I do, then maybe I can also inspire other people to do the same.
Matt: As we said, [00:12:00] make yourself vulnerable and share something creative, which can be incredibly personal, is really difficult, particularly in those first instances.
Matt: Do you, are you finding that it's getting easier over time?
Rieko: I think it is getting easier. And also, I've surprisingly found that the gap between myself and this alter ego that I started out with... it's starting to become smaller and smaller as I keep putting out work and sharing parts of [00:12:30] myself with, with an audience.
Rieko: So I think it is getting easier and it's also, I'm also, like, developing a more intimate relationship with the side of myself that is more public facing or more performative, which has been an unexpected part of this journey.
Matt: You were doing a philosophy degree. Is that right?
Rieko: I was, I studied a lot of things in my undergrad. I transferred from [00:13:00] a school in San Francisco to a school in Paris, I did the six months at Central Saint Martins. So I went to three different schools. I designed my own major, so I mixed together my background in philosophy, my more technical background in graphic design, and then I combined those with my now, I guess, after CSM, my interest in… that's when I knew, okay, one day I want to be an artist. One day I want to go back [00:13:30] to London and do my Masters and become an artist. Whatever, whatever that means, because I guess you're always an artist, but in my head, I was like, that's when I'm going to be an artist. So then I self designed my bachelor's degree, it was called visual practice and critical theory, but I tailored it knowing I would need something like that to get into a Masters, not having a formal arts education, BA, I knew I had to do that to, maybe I didn't have to, but in my head I [00:14:00] had to do that to get into a fine arts master's.
Matt: You’re thinking, so you already, it seems as though you'd sort of set a goal. You've had the kind of foresight and the confidence to be able to build a journey for yourself that would eventually deliver you to your, well hopefully deliver you to, to your destination.
Rieko: Confidence or just an ability to commit to one thing because I've just always been, I've always been shifting from one medium to another, to another, to another, and that's just how my brain works. And I think [00:14:30] in society, like, you're pressured to specialize in one thing and just stick to one thing. But that's never how I've been. So I've struggled with accepting that about myself, I still kind of do. Even now, to some people, they might be in the art world, whatever that means, they might be like, what are you doing? Why are you now suddenly putting things out on Spotify? Like, what are you, it's a career shift. But in my mind, it's all the same thing. These silos that we have. They don't really exist.
Matt: Was there anyone that kind [00:15:00] of inspired you or opened your eyes up to the fact that you can have multiple practices within a singular art practice?
Rieko: So in that six months that I was at CSM, I went back to visit my, my, the university that I ended up graduating from in Paris. And in that weekend that I was there, David Lynch happened to agree to speak at the university and somehow... I was selected as the MC of the event, even though I wasn't necessarily a student at the [00:15:30] time at that university. And I was so excited because David Lynch, at that time of my life, was my idol and not just because I love his films, but also because he, I saw a lot of myself in him or what I aspired to be because he's so free with the way that he works.
Rieko: He's a filmmaker. He's also a painter. He designs furniture. He makes some music like he's so, he's not limited to [00:16:00] one medium and I also really felt kinship in the way that he thinks. It's very intuitively led. He also has a meditation practice that ties into his creative process, so that was all really inspiring to see someone like him and to finally meet him in person and have a conversation with him, really was a crucial turning point for me, especially at the age and the time of my life that [00:16:30] I was in. And I asked him, I said, I have so many different things I want to do, I want to be an artist, I'm also interested in music, and I'm also, I'm a designer. What am I supposed to do with all of this? He said something along the lines of, you don't need to pick one thing. Like if your heart feels called to something, follow your heart, follow your intuition. Don't feel pressured to stick to one thing. I think he said something like you don't need to get married right now, like you can, you can date a little bit, you can [00:17:00] fall in love and that's okay. David Lynch probably has no idea that he had that impact on my life.
Rieko: To him, it might have been a ten minute conversation in a glass of wine. But for me it was so much more than that.
Matt: Yeah, that's a green light, isn't it? To go for it with all the different aspects and just see where they take you. Do you find that there are... unifying aspects of your kind of creative approach that you apply across all of them.
Matt: You mentioned meditation as a maybe as a starting point. Are there other [00:17:30] things that you find that you do which are consistent across music, visual arts, filmmaking?
Rieko: Only in hindsight that you look back, that you realize, oh this and this is connected and that's connected. To give you a sense of who you are as a person and what you stand for as an artist. And for me, I can, I can say this in fancy terms and like art speak and my, like the way I would write in an artist's bio, but I think on a personal level, what connects all of my work together is the intention behind it. [00:18:00] And I think, I'm always really, I'm always really mindful of connecting with the audience that is relating with my work and the message that I want to always get across, or the feelings that I want to convey, is the sense of healing. Giving the space for the person interacting with my work to feel what they need to feel, and like it’s ok to be sad, it’s ok to grieve.
Matt: So I was going to ask you whether or not you felt like your interest in philosophy still plays a role in your creative process.
Rieko: I had this one philosophy teacher when I was at my school in Paris and that's when I had decided I wanted to be an artist someday, right? So that's when that idea was planted. And I [00:19:00] kept trying to find these philosophical justifications for what my work meant or why I was making the work, and there was something that my teacher said, he said something like, the whole point of philosophy is to get you to a point, and then you let it go, because there's, art making is a different way of philosophizing.
Rieko: It's like a dog digging for a bone, versus describing the bone, or speaking about the bone. There's so much [00:19:30] more to praxis than to just talking about something, and it took me a while because I was such a, I've always been a good student, like, I like to read and I like to write and I've just always been into that. And now, I just see it as something that plants a seed, it gets an idea going, but as an artist, I don't feel the need to justify what I do with some kind of [00:20:00] clever text, I guess, but it did help me. I think it's helped me become a better writer, become a better thinker and be able to articulate my thoughts better.
Matt: Yeah. So, so moving forward slightly in your journey, you did an MA at the RCA, and so what sort of work were you exploring during that time?
Rieko: So I did my Masters in, uh, the contemporary art practice program at the Royal College of Art. And when I came into the school, I [00:20:30] mean, I wasn't really a practicing artist when I applied. I came into RCA with completely different ideas of what I wanted to do or what I thought my life was going to look like as an artist.
Rieko: And then the minute I got to London and basically three months into my course, we were hit with the pandemic. So then most of the time that I was at the RCA, I was at home. I didn't have any studios or facilities or [00:21:00] anything to really guide me. Obviously, I had great teachers and mentors and the tutorials of what I could do from Zoom I did, but it was a really hard time personally, but also just as an artist, I didn't really know what I was supposed to do. But then out of that came the work that I'm doing now. So for me, I'm really grateful that this, in a way that, that I had this time to myself really look at the fundamentals [00:21:30] of what am I doing? What’s available to me, what are my skills that I can lean into? And at the very beginning of the pandemic, I, I had just come to London so I went on Gumtree and I found a used keyboard and a guitar, and I bought a green screen backdrop off of Amazon or something. And I just, I started writing songs and then I filmed myself performing them in front of a green screen. I made [00:22:00] these costumes and started playing with, with chroma keying or using the green screen to create these portals to other worlds, all out of my living room and then that's how this, that was the seeds of the EP that I just released.
Matt: It's amazing. I mean, it's so, so much like resilience in there. So you returning to music at that point that had you not, you hadn't been making music through your art practice before that.
Rieko: I hadn't written a new song in [00:22:30] years.
Rieko: I've had this very nomadic lifestyle until I moved to London. I had come, I had just moved from Tokyo from a corporate job. I was really into music, I was always writing songs when I was younger, but I guess I never thought it would lead to anything professionally so I just gave it up even though I loved it, which to me now is inconceivable that I would ever do that again, but I guess I was just figuring out who I was and… yeah, so I [00:23:00] returned to music in that time. And I think that says a lot about the relationship I have with music because it is it's always been for me a means of surviving in the world and processing my emotions and at those points that I've been low in my life, I've always turned back to music to help me process and at that time, grieve and, and get through a difficult time and then to alchemize that into something beautiful that other people can [00:23:30] relate to.
Matt: It's so interesting that, as you say, in the incredibly difficult moments, you returned to things historically from your childhood that you've, you felt sort of safe in or secure in and then, and then they've grown into this kind of practice.
Matt: Now, so it's the EP that you've just produced. Can you tell us a bit about that?
Rieko: Yeah, so Regenesis is my debut EP that I released in October, 2023. And it's a, essentially it's an EP, but it's [00:24:00] also a world building project. So this all started from inspirations in Shinto creation myths and something that I call speculative mythology, which I then created into a sonic world that's intended to be a meditation on life and death and rebirth in kind of this sense of vulnerability and also the sense of optimism, even [00:24:30] within the face of collapse. So that's the kind of thinking behind the EP. Sonically it's really experimental because it's, it's masquerading as experimental pop, but at the end of the day, a lot of the techniques I use are rooted in sound healing. So I'm actually, I've actually woven in specific frequencies that are meant to heal within the music. I've [00:25:00] also used a lot of elements of water, a lot of sounds of water that are distorted and then created into samples. So it's this, it's experimental pop music, but the roots of it are sound art and the roots of the story are in performance art.
Rieko: And I think somebody the other day I was doing a Q&A and somebody asked me, do you ever feel pressured to kind of, like, oversimplify or like almost dumb down the work because it is pop music? But for me, [00:25:30] I, I would never do that because I do think that we're… everybody is a lot wiser than we give ourselves credit for. I'm not afraid to shy away from topics that are philosophically complex, as long as the end work, the output, is something that you can listen to, and it's something that is not necessarily, like, catchy, but it's just something that's not written to be overly complex to experience.
Rieko: But because of the [00:26:00] format of music itself, and the fact that you can listen to it anywhere, you can listen to it in a club, you can listen to it in your bedroom, you can listen to it on your headphones in the train, it is an accessible art form, which is something that I really love as a concept because you don't, suddenly it takes my work out of the limitations of a white cube gallery or an art institution.
Matt: Yes. That's, that's it. I just wanted to understand a little bit more about, you [00:26:30] mentioned some of those kind of early myths and stories, are there particular ones that you return to regularly in the work? When you talked about the character that you embody as well, where does that kind of come from?
Rieko: There was a really specific mythology that I was inexplicably drawn to. Around the same time that all the, kind of, music just came to me in these visions, like the melodies and the lyrics and even the title, Regenesis, just kind of came to me all at once. At that same time, I suddenly became interested in [00:27:00] this one very specific creation myth in Shinto mythology about this goddess who gives birth to the world and then burns to death, and then is banished to purgatory forever while her male counterpart, her brother, goes on to rule over the rest of the world.
Rieko: This story really stood out to me and then I was wondering, like, what if I wrote another [00:27:30] story about the continuation of this Goddess that just disappeared? What if this Goddess came back to the earth in a time maybe after the apocalypse, and breathed new life into the earth or kind of re-evaluates what is this thing that I've created after it's been destroyed?
Rieko: So, it's, the starting point is a mythology that exists and then I create a new story or an extension of it. Just because I think [00:28:00] storytelling and mythology is super powerful because it so shapes our perception of who we are as a society, or as people, or as individuals. The fact that we can rewrite those stories or remix those stories, I think, is a really powerful way of coming to terms with the fact that we can be the authors of our own script, and that's a way of living that, to me, is more exciting and more...
Matt: You become [00:28:30] limitless.
Rieko: You become limitless in a way.
Matt: Also, you undertook a residency at the Tate. Could you tell us a little bit about that?
Rieko: So I was a workshop artist in residence at the Tate, within the learning department at both the Modern and the Britain. So Tate Modern, Tate Britain. And [00:29:00] basically what I did every single week, I would put on workshops for visiting schools, reacting to pieces in the Tate collections that resonated with my own practice. Naturally, I got really experienced at giving workshops, but also, you know, these students would come in often from underrepresented backgrounds or from neurodiverse backgrounds as well, and I just love week after week being able to work with these students coming into [00:29:30] spaces that are quite, I mean, they're public institutions, but at the same time they're, they feel inaccessible.
Rieko: And being able to work with these students, I would put on these workshops where we would start with meditation, maybe some automatic writing exercises or, or drawing, and then at the end of each workshop, all of the students would either create some kind of collective installation in the Tate, or they would do some kind of public performance in these [00:30:00] extremely public spaces. And at the end of each workshop, I always say something like, thank you so much for sharing your story, sharing your art and your perspective at the Tate, and this is just as valid as anyone else's work that's been exhibited in this space, and I always tell the students we can go home and tell your family that you just made work at the Tate.
Matt: Yeah, you've exhibited at the Tate. I mean that and in that is this idea of breaking down a barrier, isn't there? You had the opportunity to engage with a sort of mentor [00:30:30] through the Tate, is that correct? Who did you get to work with?
Rieko: I had several mentors throughout the program. I've been able to work with David Zou from the record label Eastern Margins, and he's been a really great mentor to me because, I guess, before that mentorship, I really didn't know anything about the music industry and he sat down and helped me map out a plan for myself, and he was like, you need to, you have so much more [00:31:00] potential than you see for yourself.
Rieko: So make yourself a three-year plan of where you want to go, and I'll help you figure it out from there. So that's been a really incredible relationship I've been able to build from that program. That was the first time I had a mentorship program where I could choose my own mentor and then the institution would invite the mentor in to work with me. So that was really helpful for me because [00:31:30] then I could hand pick who I would want to work with, that's been the best way of tailoring my own, like, growth as an artist.
Matt: I think there's something in that for listeners about that it is important maybe to visualize where you want to go to and to plan actions and activities along the way that will help you reach your destiny.
Matt: I mean, do you agree with that? Do you think proactively planning things is important?
Rieko: I mean, I'm the kind of person that makes like ten-year plans, I [00:32:00] definitely see value in that. I think, like, also my upbringing is I grew up in California and it's very, like, spiritual town and I think that's been planted in my head from a very young age that you can kind of, like, shape your future if you, if you do it in this like very creative way, and I think it's super important. But at the same time, I've also embraced the spontaneity of life. Like if, if I look at the ten-year plan, I made [00:32:30] for myself six years ago, five, six years ago, it would not be… I would never have foreseen where I am now.
Rieko: So it's also, there's a, there's a balance between making a plan for yourself, but then also being open to life because life happens.
Matt: During your time at the RCA, you also created a performance platform. Could you tell us a bit about that?
Rieko: Yeah. So the performance platform that I co-founded is called Diasporas Now, and it's an expanded performance platform for [00:33:00] artists of the global majority and it's really, the ethos of it is celebrating identity and cross diasporic solidarity. When we started the platform, it was actually, again, during lockdown, during COVID, and we wanted to create a platform for exposure, but also for opportunities for artists who work across performance at a time when there was no audience or no stage or nowhere where we can actually gather.
Rieko: So we started off as a live streaming platform, [00:33:30] and then as soon as lockdowns lifted, we were just booked for live shows and we just had to pivot again. I mean, now essentially, we're like a live event production platform. We just did an open call as well so we're doing our first national tour and we're leading up to our final homecoming show at the ICA, the Institute of Contemporary Art, in February, and we just nurture a community of artists that work very [00:34:00] broadly across whatever performance means in this day and age. It's very fluid and yeah, I guess the ethos of it is really just about creating a safe space again to experiment and express identity without necessarily catering to a specific kind of institutional gaze. Yeah, I just feel really grateful to be able to then create those opportunities for other artists and [00:34:30] grow that community.
Matt: Is it great to be at a point in your career development where you're in a position to pay you back now?
Rieko: Absolutely. Absolutely. Especially before I just, I had no conception of what it meant to be a working professional artist, which kind of kept me from pursuing this path for a long time. And it's not easy necessarily, otherwise everyone would be doing it, right? But the fact that I've gotten to a [00:35:00] point that I can live and also create opportunities for other people in a relatively short amount of time, since I've graduated, is to me, it's like such a blessing. Of course, the art making is the key of it, right?
Rieko: Like your, your sacred process of putting that artwork out into the world, creating it, but then there's the other half of like reaching the audience and how do you, you know, market it, even though that's a dirty word, but you have to…
Matt: Of course, you have to create that connection. You have to create the [00:35:30] opportunity, don't you, for the person to engage with your work?
Rieko: Even like coming from a background of being a designer, and really thinking about what is, like, the optimal experience of the work for the audience. If that helps get the work out there, not just my work, but the work of other artists, then why not use those strategies?
Matt: Yeah. Hey, I'm with you, I think that's great. So with each of our guests, we like to [00:36:00] ask them to offer a provocation to the listeners. So it can be a call to action. It can be a thought you'd like them to consider, or it can be just a concept that you want to put out there. Have you got something that you would like our listeners to do?
Rieko: Okay, so the homework. I want you, the listener, to set your phone timer to 10 minutes. And for that entire 10 minutes, I want you to write [00:36:30] nonstop. So don't put your pen down, keep your hand moving, keep that pen connected to the paper. You can type it, but it's better to write it with your hand.
Rieko: And spend that 10 minutes, write down every single detail of what your life could be, what you want your life to look like, if you are delusionally confident. Limitless. If you were, if you were limitless, what would you want your life to look like? Feel like? [00:37:00] What do you look like? Where are you living?
Rieko: What's your day-to-day activities that you do? Every single detail for 10 minutes, write non stop, and then after that 10 minutes is up, read it back, and then just hold on to that piece of paper, and you can keep adding to it, but just hold on to that, and then see maybe in 5 years or 10 years how your life might have developed along those lines, or something completely different, but I think it's a nice exercise to check in [00:37:30] with yourself. It's being, it's looking at your own life as an artwork and being creative in a different way.
Matt: Brilliant, and that's automatic writing, is it? That's what you were mentioning when you, when you worked with the students at the Tate.
Rieko: Yeah, that's, that's an element of across the board of all my workshops so far. So, meditation, automatic writing, this free subconscious writing, free writing. It's always the starting point for me for my own work, but also for the workshops that I do when I guide other people in their creative [00:38:00] practices.
Matt: Perfect. I'm excited to see what, what people write. Fantastic. Thank you ever so much. Your practice is just, it's so diverse and the work that you're doing. It's really powerful and really your insights and your generous insights into your practice has just made me think so much about creative experiences, conversations, moments I've had, so I hope that the listeners will get the same from us but thank you ever so much for your time today.
Rieko: Thank you for having me.[00:38:30]
Matt: Thank you for listening to this episode of Teach, Inspire, Create. Thank you to Rieko for her time today. It was so brilliant to just hear how simple you can make really complicated art and how important it is to try and pay back to other artists when you can. I'll be going away to have a listen in depth to the new EP, and in that time I'll be thinking about what my 10 year plan might be.
Matt: If you want to know more [00:39:00] about Rieko and her work, you can follow her on Instagram at Rieko Whitfield or visit her website, riekowhitfield.com and diasporasnow.com. You can find links to these in our episode description.
Matt: We really hope you've enjoyed this podcast, so please do subscribe and why not share it with a friend. Please do rate and review us where you get your podcast as it's really helpful for us to understand what you think of the show. Thanks for listening, and until next time, take care.[00:39:30]