Journalist at RFI (ex-DW, BBC, CBC, F24...), writer (on art, music, culture...), I work in radio, podcasting, online, on films.
As a writer, I also contributed to the New Arab, Art UK, Byline Times, the i Paper...
Born in Paris, I was based in Prague, Miami, London, Nairobi (covering East Africa), Bangui, and in Bristol, UK. I also reported from Italy, Germany, Haiti, Tunisia, Liberia, Senegal, India, Mexico, Iraq, South Africa...
This blog is to share my work, news and cultural discoveries.
Absolutely wonderful documentary. The content is more than powerful and meaningful, but the direction and editing are also brilliantly taking.
Must watch:
Versus - The Life and Films of Ken Loach - BBC Documentary 2016
Ken Loach, who has been making socially aware dramas and documentaries for over 50 years, reflects on his often controversial career, with comments from colleagues, friends and family. Successes like Cathy Come Home, Kes and Palm d'Or winning The Wind that Shakes the Barley are matched by tales of projects shelved or pilloried, a stage play cancelled during rehearsals, and a personal tragedy. -
As you are doing it you're thinking 'how
can I shoot this in such a way that it is
credible? So that I really believe it?"
Versus: The Life and Films of Ken Loach Synopsis
One of Britain’s most celebrated and controversial filmmakers, VERSUS: THE LIFE AND FILMS OF KEN LOACH presents a surprisingly candid behind-the-scenes account of Ken Loach’s career as he prepares to release his final major film I, DANIEL BLAKE later this year.
Director Louise Osmond was granted exclusive access on set and uses this as a starting point to assay Loach’s career, from his early work as a farcical theatre director, to his TV dramas and later as an award winning feature director.
As well as interviews with Loach, Osmond talks with a host of his friends, adversaries, colleagues and collaborators including: Cillian Murphy, Gabriel Byrne, Paul Laverty, Nell Dunn, Alan Parker, Melvyn Bragg, Sheila Hancock, Ricky Tomlinson, Chris Menges, Crissy Rock, and Barry Ackroyd.
This year will see Ken Loach celebrate his 80th birthday, release his 50th major work I, DANIEL BLAKE, and commemorate Cathy Come Home’s 50th anniversary in November. VERSUS: THE LIFE AND FILMS OF KEN LOACH is more than just a document of Loach’s work but a playful study on the process and struggles of creating such a unique career and body of work.
If you follow this blog, you know how much I've loved this creation... I wrote about it in French and I mentioned it in my long article on Il Grande Cretto to be published in the coming issue of the Public Art Review (in the US).
This incredible event also brought me to Sicily, which was as powerful in my life as discovering Mexico in 2012. A feeling of complete belonging...
A film has been made out of the shooting of the performance by Giuseppe Lanno and Giancarlo Neriand is to be shown at the Naples' Arte Cinema Festival early October.
Here are the details:
AUDIOGHOST68
Teatro San Carlo
Giuseppe Lanno, Giancarlo Neri
Italy / 2015 / 9'
Nel gennaio del 1968 Gibellina fu quasi completamente rasa al suolo da un violento terremoto. Alcuni
anni dopo la città venne ricostruita a pochi chilometri di distanza e il sindaco, Ludovico Corrao, volle
coinvolgere nella ricostruzione architetti, urbanisti e artisti di fama internazionale. Alberto Burri non
volle intervenire nella “nuova” Gibellina ma propose una gigantesca opera che avrebbe completamente
coperto le macerie: il Grande Cretto. L’opera fu realizzata tra il 1984 e il 1989 e ultimata nel 2015 in
occasione del centenario della sua nascita. AUDIOGHOST68 è un evento per luci, suoni e mille attori, appositamente concepito per il Grande Cretto dal musicista Robert Del Naja edall'artista Giancarlo Neri:
mille lucciole bianche si muovono e danzano nella notte tra le “vene” del Cretto, mentre nell’aria si
sentono i suoni e le voci di quel 1968 che segnò la fine di Gibellina.
—
In January of 1968, Gibellina was nearly destroyed by a violent earthquake. A few years later, the city
was rebuilt a few kilometers away and for the reconstruction, the mayor, Ludovico Corrao, wanted the
involvement of internationally renowned architects, town planners and artists. Alberto Burri was
unwilling to work on the “new” Gibellina but proposed an enormous work which would have completely
covered the ruins: the Grande Cretto. The work was conducted between 1984 and 1989 and completed
in 2015 to mark the centennial of Burri’s birth. Audioghost68 is an event for lights, sound and a thousand
actors and was especially created for the Grande Cretto by the musician Robert Del Naja and the artist
Giancarlo Neri: one thousand white fireflies move and dance in the night in the “veins” of the Cretto
while the air is filled with sounds and voices from that distant 1968 which marked the end of Gibellina.
Marx & Engels writings on Civil War still provocative 155 years later
With a presidential candidate on the Republican side who is the darling of neo-Confederates, old style KKK-types, and alt-right white nationalists, there's no time like the present to review the United States' troubled history with racism. International Publishers' new and completely updated edition of The Civil War in the United States by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels is an opportunity to do just that.
What makes this collection of writings by these two giants particularly interesting, however, is not just the commentary they offer on the Civil War. As Professor Andrew Zimmerman, who edited this edition, says in his introduction, "Readers will not find a Marxist interpretation" of the war in this book. Instead, what it showcases is Marx and Engels in the process of applying their methodology of historical materialism to an event of world-historic importance as it unfolded.
The book thus carries a relevance beyond the interest it might arouse among Civil War buffs or historians; it represents a milestone in the development of Marxism as a method of social and political analysis.
International first offered this title nearly 80 years ago, edited and introduced at the time by Herbert Morais (under the pseudonym Richard Enmale). In this edition, Zimmerman has expanded the selection of texts to include new writings by the primary authors, but also added relevant material from figures such as Union Army officer Joseph Weydemeyer, a comrade of Marx and Engels, as well as African-American scholar W.E.B. DuBois.
Zimmerman's introduction to the book and his commentary for each individual chapter provide a background that is rich in detail and tailored to a contemporary audience. Marx and Engels' newspaper articles and private correspondence are situated within the historical and political debates of their day, but their place in the ongoing development of Marxist political economy is also chronicled. As Zimmerman points out, Capital Volume 1 would appear just a couple of years after the Civil War, so the selections in this book are examples of Marxism in its own process of development.
A fundamental conclusion that Marx and Engels return to throughout is the undeniable reality that the Civil War was, fundamentally, a social revolution against the institution of slavery. Efforts by some at the time (and subsequently by revisionist historians) to paint the conflict as being fought solely over tariffs or "states' rights" trade disputes are exposed as one-sided and usually self-serving interpretations. The economic nature of the conflict was certainly key, but it was economics in the form of slavery which informed every aspect of not only the Civil War, but of U.S. and global industrial development.
As Marx observes in one excerpt, "Direct slavery is just as much the pivot of bourgeois industry as machinery... Without slavery you have no cotton; without cotton you have no modern industry. It is slavery that gave the colonies their value; it is the colonies that created world trade, and it is world trade that is the precondition of large-scale industry." Slavery, then, was "an economic category of the greatest importance."
The American Civil War, for Marx and Engels, was a class conflict - not just a military one. Following on the insights of DuBois and others, Zimmerman rescues Marx and Engels' arguments from the mechanistic "Marxist" interpretations of the war which have characterized it as simply the victory of a bourgeois revolution and the freeing of capitalism from its slave fetters. In Zimmerman's words, the war was, according to Marx and Engels, "a workers' revolution carried out within a bourgeois republic that was finally undermined by that bourgeois republic." That undermining of course, was the counterrevolution against Reconstruction.
Zimmerman does not shy away from the shortcomings of Marx and Engels in his introductions or his selection of texts, however. He is blunt in his critique of their propensity to underestimate and not properly recognize the central role played by slaves and former slaves in fighting for their own emancipation. Though Marx and Engels are consistently anti-slavery and unreservedly on side with the fight for freedom, black workers and slaves play only secondary roles in most of their discussions of labor's struggle against slavery. The addition of DuBois's 1933 essay, "Karl Marx and the Negro," as an appendix serves as an important remedy.
Marx and Engels' analysis of Abraham Lincoln's halting but steady evolution from reluctant anti-slavery warrior to a new kind of democratic leader destined to "lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world," makes up another important component of the book. It holds lessons for how activists today must strategically evaluate political figures and leaders.
Finally, the lessons Marx and Engels drew from the Civil War are reflected in their writings on the role of racism in England's colonial domination of Ireland and on the class struggle nature of revolution which was displayed in the Paris Commune. The latter "Civil War in France" was described by Marx with the same language that had colored his earlier descriptions of the fight against the Confederacy. The Commune, he said, was yet another example of "the war of the enslaved against their enslavers."
This book stands as an example of how the two masters of critical political economy grappled with the rapid development of capitalism and the upheaval of social revolution in the mid-19th century. The insights of the selected writings on offer are matched by the succinct but illuminating introductory texts by Zimmerman. The volume holds importance for not just students of Marxism or the Civil War, but for political activists and academics broadly.
The Civil War in the United States by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Introduction by Andrew Zimmerman. 219 pp. $14.00, ISBN: 978-07178-0753-6. Available in paperback from International Publishers.
Editor's Note: International Publishers is hosting a book talk with Andrew Zimmerman to discuss this new edition on Thursday September 22 at 7pm at Brooklyn Commons, 388 Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn, NY.
--
As I've written here before, years ago, I've work with Raoul Pack to help him on the research he needed to write his film's synopsis about Karl Marx.
The film became years later a fictional project and will be out next year.
It's called The Young Karl Marx, has been shot in between France, Belgium and Germany in French, English and German, and will be out in 2017.
Here are more details:
26 year-old Karl Marx embarks with his wife, Jenny, on the road to exile. In 1844 Paris, he meets Friedrich Engels, an industrialist's son, who investigated the sordid birth of the British working-class. Engels, the dandy, provides the last piece of the puzzle to the young Karl Marx's new vision of the world. Together, between censorship and the police's repression, riots and political upheavals, they will lead the labor movement during its development into a modern era.
Berlin: Raoul Peck Set to Direct August Diehl in ‘Young Karl Marx’
Haitian vet helmer Raoul Peck is on board to direct “The Young Karl Marx,” a period drama chronicling the turbulent youth and friendship between Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
The ambitious project has lured two German stars: August Diehl (“Night Train to Lisbon,” pictured above) for the role of Marx, and Alexander Fehling (“Inglorious Basterds”) for the role of Engels.
Pic is being produced by Agat Films and Velvet Film in France, Rohfilm in Germany and Artemis Prods. in Belgium.
Films Distribution, Nicolas Brigaud-Robert and Francois Yon’s Paris-based arthouse company, has acquired international sales to the film.
Written by Peck and Pascal Bonitzer, “The Young Karl Marx” opens with 26-year old Marx who goes with his wife, Jenny, into exile, and depicts Marx’ encounter with Engels, the son of a textile factory owner, in 1844 Paris.
Set against the backdrop of the 1848 rebellions, which culmintaed in police raids and riots, the movie charts Marx and Engels’ journey to complete Communist Manifesto, which gave birth of the labor rights movement.
“Avoiding the habitual caricature of the old bearded revolutionary icon, this film is the coming of age of two young and daring intellectuals who will have an extraordinary impact on the world of the 20th century and beyond,” said Peck, whose latest “Murder in Pacot” will be playing in the Berlinale Panorama Special on Feb. 10.
“The Young Karl Marx” is backed by pay TV Canal Plus, pubcaster France Televisions (France 3 Cinema), as well as Germany’s Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (MBB) and Mitteldeutsche Medienforderung (MDM). Diaphana and Neue Visionen will release the movie is France and Germany, respectively.
7 TRACK EP FEATURES UK RAP FIGUREHEAD CASISDEAD, MASSIVE ATTACK’S ROBERT DEL NAJA’S “EUANWHOSARMY”, RUSSIAN ARTISTS WOODJU AND SYAVA, AND KIKO KING & CREATIVEMAZE
OBIA EP RELEASED VIA FALSE IDOLS 30TH SEPTEMBER.
1. WOODJU - Damballah 2. Euanwhosarmy Feat. Lyndsey Lupe – For Nothing 3. Syava - Nenaviju Izmenu 4. Kiko King & creativemaze - Tin Man 5. Tricky Feat. CASISDEAD - Does It 6. Kiko King & creativemaze - Wolves 7. WOODJU - Irradiant
The ‘OBIA EP’ is Tricky’s latest release, out via his own False Idols imprint on Sept 30th. The seven track collection showcases works by established and young emerging artists including CASISDEAD, Kiko King & creativemaze, WOODJU, Syava and Euanwhosarmy Feat. Lyndsey Lupe.
All the artists featured have been specially chosen by Tricky with the main purpose to provide a platform for them to be heard, where – in contrast to most UK and US labels – music does not have to be in English language.
It includes a powerful collection of tracks one that stretches from soulful electronic and hip hop sounds of Russia’s underground to the grooves of Berlin’s young talent, including artists discovered by Tricky on his travels and touring around the globe.
The EP is framed by two tracks by WOODJU, opening with ‘Damballah’ and closing with ‘Irradiant’. Both him and Syava, who contributes the track “Nenaviju Izmenu”, are Russian artists that struck up a strong relationship with Tricky, once again on his travels and have now been provided with a platform to shine.
Next up, Tricky provides Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja (a/k/a 3D) an opportunity to showcase a new track entitled ‘For Nothing’, produced by Del Naja and Euan Dickinson under the name Euanwhosarmy and featuring the vocals of Lyndsey Lupe. The pair’s current creative bond should come as no surprise, as Tricky recently returned to perform alongside the Bristol band this summer to much media attention.
Los Angeles- and Berlin born Kiko King & creativemaze who now both reside in Berlin and have supported Tricky on German dates, add two tracks, “Tin Man” and “Wolves”.
‘Does It’ is a new take of a track that originally appeared on Tricky’s ‘False Idols’ album in 2013. This version features new verses from one of UK rap’s most elusive and enigmatic figures CASISDEAD who delivers his trademark distinctly British and macabre delivery with snatches of story bound lyrics that are socially poignant.
There’s a clear organic and unforced feel to the OBIA EP with the contributors granted license to grow with a native wild approach. We see Tricky taking a visible supporting role to artists that he wants to see flourish.
OBIA EP is released through False Idols September 30th.
Extraordinary filmmaker, Adam Curtis is an eye-opening storyteller, deeply interested in describing our reality as never presented before. His commentaries alone are worth many listens. His use of video and still images is always fascinating.
He is back with a very striking film, to be shown on the BBC's web platform, the iPlayer, in one month.
The film will premiere at 9pm on Sunday 16 October.
Ever get the feeling that things are increasingly difficult to understand? That information, despite it being everywhere, is increasingly difficult to process? That power systems and their infrastructures are impossible to decipher and even harder to penetrate? You aren’t alone.
In his new film HyperNormalisation, journalist and vital filmmaker Adam Curtis (Bitter Lake, All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace) explores the complexities of modern life and traces a journey from 1975, beginning in New York and Damascus, right through to today’s Trump-dominated media landscape, exploring simply what is real anymore and asking the question “how did we become lost in this fake world?”
As with all of Curtis’ films, an unnerving soundtrack complements the film’s overarching theme – not just that we are being unsettled, but that it’s happening deliberately.
Acclaimed filmmaker, Adam Curtis brings his new epic film, HyperNormalisation to BBC iPlayer this October. The film will premiere at 9pm on Sunday 16 October.
HyperNormalisation tells the extraordinary story of how we got to this strange time of great uncertainty and confusion - where those who are supposed to be in power are paralysed - and have no idea what to do. And, where events keep happening that seem inexplicable and out of control - from Donald Trump to Brexit, the War in Syria, the endless migrant crisis, and random bomb attacks. It explains not only why these chaotic events are happening - but also why we, and our politicians, cannot understand them.
The film shows that what has happened is that all of us in the West - not just the politicians and the journalists and the experts, but we ourselves - have retreated into a simplified, and often completely fake version of the world. But because it is all around us, we accept it as normal.
HyperNormalisation has been made specifically for BBC iPlayer. It tells an epic narrative spanning 40 years, with an extraordinary cast of characters. They include the Assad dynasty, Donald Trump, Henry Kissinger, Patti Smith, the early performance artists in New York, President Putin, intelligent machines, Japanese gangsters, suicide bombers - and the extraordinary untold story of the rise, fall, rise again, and finally the assassination of Colonel Gaddafi.
All these stories are woven together to show how today’s fake and hollow world was created. Part of it was done by those in power - politicians, financiers and technological utopians. Rather than face up to the real complexities of the world, they retreated. And instead constructed a simpler version of the world in order to hang onto power.
But it wasn’t just those in power. The film shows how this strange world was built by all of us. We all went along with it because the simplicity was reassuring. And that included the left and the radicals who thought they were attacking the system. The film reveals how they too retreated into this make-believe world - which is why their opposition today has no effect, and nothing ever changes.
"BBC iPlayer offers an extraordinary place to experiment and to tell stories that allow you to explore and explain the strangeness of our modern world in a new way". Adam Curtis
Victoria Jaye, Head of TV content, BBC iPlayer says: ““Adam is a brilliant storyteller and film maker, who has taken full creative advantage of BBC iPlayer to produce ambitious, groundbreaking new work. HyperNormalisation is both timely and important and builds on the huge success of Bitter Lake which attracted over 1.8 million requests to the platform. So far this year, iPlayer first titles have attracted over 75 million requests, which is a significant contribution from a select few titles and we expect to see this rise as we look to premiere more and more content on the service.”
Adam Curtis says: “BBC iPlayer offers an extraordinary place to experiment and to tell stories that allow you to explore and explain the strangeness of our modern world in a new way. Complex, interwoven stories that reflect the new complexity and unpredictability of our time.”
HyperNormalisation builds on the success of Bitter Lake, Adam Curtis’ first iPlayer commission and The Rack Pack, which attracted over 1.2m requests on iPlayer before being broadcast on BBC Two.
Notes to Editors
BBC iPlayer is available on over 10,000 devices in the UK for free, from computers and smartphones to tablets and Connected TVs. BBC iPlayer and BBC iPlayer Radio saw a record-breaking 3.6bn TV and radio programme requests in 2015 - with nearly 3 billion TV requests, and 0.7bn radio requests, across all devices.
HyperNormalisation: Adam Curtis BBC documentary to look at why the world is so hopelessly f*cked
'We have retreated into a simplified and often completely fake version of the world'
Revered filmmaker Adam Curtis has a new film coming to BBC iPlayer that will explore our increasingly false perception and presentation of the world around us.
The official blurb from the BBC explains it very nicely, so I’ll get straight to that:
'HyperNormalisation tells the extraordinary story of how we got to this strange time of great uncertainty and confusion - where those who are supposed to be in power are paralysed - and have no idea what to do. And, where events keep happening that seem inexplicable and out of control - from Donald Trump to Brexit, the War in Syria, the endless migrant crisis, and random bomb attacks. It explains not only why these chaotic events are happening - but also why we, and our politicians, cannot understand them.
'The film shows that what has happened is that all of us in the West - not just the politicians and the journalists and the experts, but we ourselves - have retreated into a simplified, and often completely fake version of the world. But because it is all around us, we accept it as normal.'
HyperNormalisation will draw upon a maelstrom of stories, attempting to weave them together and ascertain how today’s fake and hollow world was created.
One need only glance at social media to see how the world and its many complex issues have been simplified, so it will be interesting to see a documentary maker as talented as Curtis - the man behind Bitter Lake - tackle this.
Spanning 40 years, the narrative will include the Assad dynasty, Donald Trump, Henry Kissinger, Patti Smith, the early performance artists in New York, President Putin, intelligent machines, Japanese gangsters, suicide bombers rise, fall, rise again, and finally the assassination of Colonel Gaddafi.
HyperNormalisation will be released on BBC iPlayer on Sunday 16 October.
Our article on the newest Banksy theory received lots of views with some agreeing with Craig William’s claim that Banksy was in fact 3D from Massive Attack. One of those who disagreed was Melissa Chemam, a writer from France who has a book on Banksy, Bristol and Massive Attack. Following this, we thought it would be great to sit down with Melissa and find out more about her book.
Her book Out of the Comfort Zone – Massive Attack to Banksy, the story of a group of artists, their city, Bristol, and Their Revolutions focuses on how the community that you come from can inspire you throughout your life. The book also addresses the rumour that 3D from Massive Attack and Banksy are intertwined. INTERVIEW:
What sort of background do you have? I’ve been a journalist for 12 years, I studied at a university in Paris. I studied European Literature, political sciences and journalism. I started working for magazines when I was 24, about culture, music and literature mainly, and then I was hired on a news channel and I have been a reporter about international affairs for about 10 years. It’s a very competitive environment. I think what helped a lot was the chance to be an intern, to be there quite young even if you’re not really paid. Later, I lived in Miami, where I was reporting about the Obama campaign in 2008, and then I worked with the BBC Work Service from 2009 about African News and that’s what I’m doing mainly right now through different media in Europe and America. How did you manage to get into journalism? Well when I was a child, I had this passion for my little globe and I wanted to travel everywhere and I wasn’t sporty or very good with my hands so I was better at things like having a great memory so I thought the best way to travel would be to be a writer or a journalist. When I was in high school I had a huge passion for history and social studies and interaction with different cultures and I had a strong appeal for the English language so I wanted to live abroad. The Eurostar came about when I was 16/17 so my first trip abroad without my parents was when I was in London and so I started writing for very local things. Tell us about the book you’ve written on ‘Banksy and Massive Attack, Out of the Comfort Zone – Massive Attack to Banksy, the story of a group of artists, their city, Bristol, and their revolutions’ what was the inspiration for this book? I wanted to write about Massive Attack especially because I knew they had a strong relationship with their city so I thought I could write something special about the environment where they come from and the society at the time in the UK through them. I was involving their relationship with their city and why Bristol at the time was so special. Also I thought that it was a very positive story it’s about being very young and using hip hop and music you could express your own view on the world. It’s about expressing who you are from the start, though you are not what the society considers "important". Also I’m a big of their music and I know all their albums by heart.The lead singer from Massive Attack is a graffiti artist himself and I knew that he inspired Banksy, yet I realised that most people had forgotten about it! Banksy has become this own huge phenomenon so I thought it might be interesting to go back to that and both of them have a very strong view on political issues, on the world around them, they’ve travelled a lot and they’ve tried to express that through what they create. What is it that you like about Massive Attack? What attracted me a lot was that when I was younger, I had a passion for soul music and RnB and then growing up and as a teenager you become oh so much more interesting and then I was very much into Radiohead, very rockish music, but very deep. Massive Attack had all of that. What is it about Banksy that you like? It’s the political message that appeals to me first because I’ve travelled to Africa and I’ve worked with the BBC and I was really always very inspired by the fact that an artist or musician could make so much noise about an issue that I’ve struggled with as a journalist. They can force people to go and have a look at what’s happening in the world. They do it in a very inspiring way. The mystery of Banksy being so powerful yet nobody knows who he is, it’s obviously a great story. What do you think about the popular opinion that Banksy, rather than being one person is a group of people? I ask around and I understand the thought because he’s done so much and has been to so many places and has gotten away with it. He’s got away with stuff you can’t do like he put a manikin in Disneyworld figuring Guantanamo Prison, how could somebody do that on their own? I asked the question to the people who saw him arise from Bristol and they told me “No he’s one person!” It doesn’t mean that nobody was ever with him. But he is himself, he’s one person. What do you think of the claim that Craig Williams made of Banksy being part of Massive Attack? Well I’m very surprised that Craig William’s blog has been spread out so widely. I had seen it a few months ago and it was just a blog and then suddenly, because I think Massive Attack were playing back home in Bristol for the first time in a decade, the Daily Mail and the Sun picked up the blog so that they could probably attract people on their website. Because Banksy is such a big thing for media, anytime you say something funny about him, it just takes people along. If you look at the little evidence of who Banksy could be, for example when he appeared on his film and he was masked, he appears a little younger and a little taller, he’s a different person. Do you think there is any connection at all between Banksy and Massive Attack? Obviously what is interesting is that there are very strong links between Banksy and the band, he is a very big fan, he’s been around them quite a lot, he said in his own book. And in Massive Attack’s visual history (3D and The Art of Massive Attack), he’s quoted saying that Massive Attack's leader, 3D, who is a graffiti artist, massively inspired him as a kid because of what he did with the walls and the murals as different from tagging your name, it was a passion and it was already very political so it’s an inspiration. There’s a spin of inspiration between the two, they foster a lot of energy from each other. They have a strong link that’s for sure but there’s no real trace that they could be the same person, absolutely not. Maybe he’s just a fan, maybe he’s just a friend. If you compare what they create as visual artists, it’s very different. Of course Banksy has been inspired by the use of stencil by 3D, when he was really young. At the time in the mid 80’s, stencil was considered cheating - it was too easy, it was the era of free-hand. But because 3D was a mini hero in Bristol, he was able to do anything he wanted, he used stencils to apply very famous figures inside his murals, like Robert de Niro, Marylyn Monroe, Margaret thatcher. It was playful and I’m pretty sure that it was this, among other things, that inspired Banksy. But apart from that, 3D has really moved on with his work. Artistically they’ve evolved so differently. On a whole, your book focuses strongly on the art scene in Bristol, how was it that you got into that? Well I think that the starting point was when I was reporting in the Central African Republic two years ago about a civil war, when I came back home, it was difficult to adjust again, I was a bit depressed because of the impact of journalism. It was at this time, when I had this feeling that I didn’t connect with my city anymore, Paris, this feeling of being alone and it was the very same week that Massive Attack travelled to Lebanon to support Palestinian refugees. Suddenly I had this feeling that we shared so many values.
I lived in London years ago and I really liked London because it’s really big and really mixed, and Bristol is too. I suddenly had this conviction that all their intellectual view son the world came from their city. Nothing has been really written about Bristol, I think people had forgotten about it. Bristol has a strong music scene, all the street art there has a very strong impact of the Caribbean culture and I thought it deserved to be in the spotlight. As a magazine, we try to promote journalism as a career path for young people and help them get on their way. What advice would you give to those wanting to join the industry? My main advice is that to be a journalist or in communication you have to be really passionate, you have to write about what you like and what you know. Trust your gut, pick a topic that is strong to you, always try to remain true. If you’re really true to what you believe in, work really hard and stay who you are, it doesn’t come easily at first but then one day it’ll pay off, it’s got meaning. What our society needs nowadays is journalists that are really fighting for something that they really think is important. It’s about being committed to the community.
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The book is a fantastic read and will be of interest to anyone who enjoys art, music, literature or just wants to learn more about the culture that Bristol has. For our readers who are aspiring journalists, Melissa provided us with a great insight into the world of journalism and we would definitely heed her advice when thinking about joining the industry.
