Audio Transcript: Darren Almond introduction

Verity S:
You’re about see Darren Almond’s room. It’s a video-work so please be aware of other visitors as you listen to the commentaries about it. And as you go in, please find a quiet place to stand.

PAUSE

Darren Almond’s been shortlisted for the Turner Prize for his films, photographs and sculptures. His work often addresses the themes of time and place - looking at personal history and collective memory.

Here he is talking about this four-screen video-work, If I Had You:

Darren A:
“If I Had You began when I was visiting my grandma a few years ago. She was in hospital she’d just had a mild stroke. And when I visited her she mistook me for my grandfather and this was the starting point of the piece. I decided to take her back to a ballroom in Blackpool tower where she used to dance with my grandfather. When she’d had the stroke she kind of leant into my ear and said that she missed him and that she’d like to pass away and return to dancing with her husband. And her body’s failing her but her mind wants to be away with him. So this piece is about a portrait of a widow caught between the present and the past in some sort of field of memory.

There are four projections all shot in Blackpool at the time of the Illuminations: we’ve got one large screen which is the illuminated windmill, which is signifying work and the passage of time; you’ve got a smaller, candy-lit fountain of water - the elixir of life, obviously! You’ve got the footsteps of an unknown couple. And on the fourth screen you’ve got my grandmother, watching it all and recounting her past through the subtle changes of expression across her face.” (1’37”)

Verity S:
Darren Almond’s champion is Masimiliano Gioni, the Director of the Nicola Trussardi Foundation in Milan. If you'd like to hear him on the theme of memory in If I Had You – press 20 and play now.

And to hear Turner Prize judge, Kate Bush, on why Darren Almond’s work has been nominated for this year’s prize, press 25 and play.

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Audio Transcript: Massimiliano Gioni - champion - on Darren Almond

MG:
"If I Had You, to me, is really like a family album in motion - like stepping into the story of one life and of course it's the story of Darren Almond's life and particularly his grandmother, but it's also a story and history we can all relate to.

Darren Almond always plays and evokes very basic feelings in a way and experiencing If I Had You is really something to do with coming to terms with your own memories, your own personal visions of your family - even your ghosts. I always thought If I Had You has something ghostly in the sounds of the dancers, the distant music - it's at the same time a tribute to your own family and your own memory and on the other hand there's something haunting, like a distant voice from the past calling you over and over again.

When Darren started talking about this piece and he told me about Blackpool, the first thing is to start discussing with him what Blackpool is like. Because if you see it reflected in his own work you imagine Blackpool as this legendary holiday destination, that has a lot to do with romance and decay and memory again. And then it happened to me actually quite recently that I've seen a documentary about Blackpool which now looks like, I don't know, a disco version of Las Vegas, only cheaper! And I don't know which one is the more realistic depiction of it but I don't care because the great aspect of Darren's work is that he looks at places and he looks at geography but completely transforms them." (1'40")

Verity S:
If you’d now like to hear more about If I Had You and why Darren Almond’s work has been nominated for the Turner Prize - from jury member, Kate Bush - press 25 and play.

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Audio Transcript: Kate Bush - judge - on Darren Almond

Kate B:
“Darren Almond was shortlisted for the Turner Prize this year because the judges really felt that the body of work he’s created over the years is not only really adventurous in the forms of art that he works in - the fact that it ranges from photography, pieces made in real-time broadcast, to sculpture and then the large piece that he’s showing here - If I Had You - a complicated video installation. But despite the fact that the pieces often look very different from one another, they’re extremely well-connected with one thought running through the work. And if I were to sort of précis what that thought is: I think it’s an interest in time and space but how time and space intersect with history. And sometimes that history is a really epic history - it’s a history about the twentieth century, a lot of his work has been based in Poland and Auschwitz - but sometimes it’s a very personal history.

So this particular video installation for example, picks up on a very personal encounter that he had with his grandmother. But you can see the continuation of some of those ideas in the way that he’s arranged the video screens in the space - again you know the mapping of time and space. And here time is the time that’s evoked in his grandmother’s mind and it’s obviously a very poignant piece. But there are still also those other issues about how human life unfolds and how we remember it.” (1’29”)

Verity S:
And if you’d now like to hear more about the theme of memory in If I Had You – from Darren Almond’s champion, Massimiliano Gioni – press 20 and play now.

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