Melissa on the road

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.

05/05/2020

Arnolfini: Exhibitions to come post lockdown!

Bristol’s International Centre

for Contemporary Arts.

We are delighted to announce plans for our major exhibitions post lockdown, sharing the common, pertinent theme of portraiture, family and friends, with Chantal Joffe and in Hassan Hajjaj’s The Path, a touring exhibition by New Art Exchange, Nottingham, curated by Ekow Eshun.

Whilst we can’t yet confirm when these exhibitions will open we wanted to share them with you and give you an insight into what’s next at Arnolfini, and hopefully give you something to look forward to. Alongside this we are working on our plans for how we can open safely respecting all of the requirements for social distancing and visitor safety.

In the meantime, please read on as to what will await you and what we have for you ahead of then.

Podcast - Ep. 3: A Quarantini with Rosedale House

New episode!!

THE QUARANTINI PODCAST
Listen here: Episode 3

Episode 3

FULL

Published on:

4th May 2020

A Quarantini with Rosedale House

This week we 'visit' Rosedale House, a care home for people with dementia. Manager Julie Edwards and Deputy Manager Nikola Penevski tell us about life under lockdown and how the residents and staff are getting on.

We also have our usual round up and excitingly we bring you a recipe for a quarantini made by Derek Brown, author of Spirits, Sugar, Water, Bitters: How the Cocktail Conquered the World.

Music:

Covid 19, La Guerre, Patrick Sese Buluku

Merci Pour Tout, Vanessa Paradis

Opening and closing music: Hot Flu, The Old Bones Collective

Hosts: Melissa Chemam and Pommy Harmar

Producer: Pommy Harmar

-

THE QUARANTINI PODCAST

Listen here: Episode 3

Episode 3

FULL

Published on:

4th May 2020

03/05/2020

MINIBABE | BOOK WALKS IN LOCKDOWN: WALK WITH MELISSA CHEMAM

Latest from, with, for the wonderful Arnolfini gallery

MINIBABE | BOOK WALKS IN LOCKDOWN

Sunday, 3rd May 2020 to Tuesday, 30th June 2020, 08:00 to 18:00

In response to the government’s guidelines about exercise during the Covid-19 lockdown, we invited three local artists and writers to share with us where they’re walking.

MINIBABE | LOCKDOWN WALK with MELISSA CHEMAM

Arnolfini Writer in Residence, freelance journalist/reporter, radio producer and writer, Melissa Chemam shares with us her stories around walking in Bristol.

Water Once Washed Away My Pain, Now I See That It Also Liberated Me From Fears…

From the very first day I came to Bristol, I developed a strong attachment to the areas along the Floating Harbour…

After my nocturnal arrival, I walked into town the next morning for interviews, from Stokes Croft to Clifton then the city centre. On the second evening I arrived at Pero’s Bridge and the Arnolfini for the In Between Time Festival. I almost didn’t need to look at a map, as I felt that the city’s shape was naturally leading from the hills to the harbour. After a week, the Watershed and the Arnolfini had become both landmarks and headquarters for me. I knew I would have to come again.

Since then, walking in Bristol has been my only way to travel in town.

By the end of March 2020 however, as for everyone in here, in the country, in Europe and in most of the world, my outdoor activities came to a standstill. The epidemic that most of us (and myself, at first) had tried to overlook put the whole world under arrest.

And our lives changed, mine included.

We were suddenly faced with a choice: to keep on going out and jeopardising lives, or to abandon what we loved the most to protect our selves and others. Whether our job, our businesses, our friends or our favourite hobbies…

Like all lecturers, I could no longer teach in person to “my” students. As a freelance reporter, I could no longer work and investigate or interview people. As a citizen, I could no longer walk everywhere, no longer participate in the joys of Bristol’s great art and theatre scenes.

Living away from my hometown of Paris, the hardest part for me is that I cannot help my mother, alone in her social housing, and can’t be of any support to my sister, a doctor in an intensive care unit. Compared to their solitude and burden, I know I’m extremely lucky… Online teaching has been put into place, and I can keep on practicing journalism online and through my writing.

Sitting in my room in a shared house, what I’ve learned so far from this health crisis and lockdown is a valuable lesson: I have finally overcome my fear of loneliness… Because, for years, like so many people, I had dreaded solitude, but I could not admit it.

I’ve lived abroad a good 8 years. In Prague, Miami, London, Nairobi, then in Bangui in Central Africa, often days felt a long stream of loneliness. Or I felt estranged among the local citizens. I loved reporting but couldn’t feel that I belonged. Some nights I couldn’t even sleep. When posted in Bangui, for a mission with the World Food Programme, we were never allowed to go out alone, or to travel outside of a UN car… And we had a curfew. It was by far the worst lockdown I ever lived through. My family feared the risk of civil war; I was more afraid of being alone for so many hours in the soulless room I was put in… But I didn’t mention it.

In Bristol, over the past five years, I’ve finally learned to overcome that fear of solitude, a fear deeper for me than others.

I came here to write a book, my oldest and dearest dream, and that could not be done in a multitude; it had to be a solitary activity, after the magnetic and fascinating moments of reportage and interviewing. In and out of Bristol, somehow, the city cured me of my fear… I can witness this nowadays: the lockdown is not painful for me.

I believe that my cure was strongly linked to my walks along the Harbourside, alone, near water. I think about the magic of that cure, and must admit the proximity of water really calms me. Does it do the same to you?

In many forms of European symbolism, from pagan mythology to poetry, water is seen as an embodiment of emotion, but also of purification and healing. Purification of emotions, perhaps… I had already had this experience in Miami, when after a month of hard work took time to plunge in the ocean, a 20-minute walk away from my building.

For me it became even more real one day in January 2016, while in Bristol. Before a short trip to Dublin, I stopped on the Harbourside for a special ritual, to try and recover from a loss that had been haunted me for years. I wrote final words of goodbye on a piece of paper, burned it and threw the ashes into the water. I let my ghost depart and probably then slowly began to conquer solitude, progressively feeling liberated.

Crises, slowly, gradually, force us to overcome our limitations.

I know we’re living through the deepest crisis Europe has known since 1945, and I know how hard it is for many people. But personally, I focus on the fact that we’ll get through this, and we can learn from this. I’m hoping we’ll sooner or later have multiple occasions to make our world, our country, our city, better places – cleaner, more respectful of the environment, less marred by inequality. If we take the time to slow down and reflect on our human mistakes so far, we may get there, eventually.

I now live in Southville. I don’t live alone, my housemates are amazing and that helps tremendously. My heart goes to the ones left alone in their flat, like my mother, my best friend, and many thousands of others. But walking alone along one part or another of Bristol’s Harbourside has become an almost-daily personal ritual.

The light at dusk especially amazes me, as well as the beauty of the Marina, the quietness of the Baltic Wharf, the view on the Underfall Yard, the loveliness of Hannover and Capricorn Quays under this gorgeous sunny weather, of the whole area around Bathurst Basin and Redcliffe Bridge. The Floating Harbour has become my sanctuary, in my delectable lonesome strolls, a symbol of my inner upmost happiness, in harmony with the sound of the birds, the smiles of some of my fellow walkers, the beauty of the flowers, the general calmness of the area. Whatever happens, politically or socially.

And hopefully, for those of us still in pain and afraid, my story will be of some help to move towards more peaceful territories, to overcome fears, alone but, in a way, together too.

The Harbourside under the lockdown in pictures:

28/04/2020

3D-printed plastic clasps to improve masks for NHS staff

Solidarity at work...

Here in Bristol a few groups of people have started producing PPE and related items for NHS workers and carers.

That includes a team put in place with the help of Massive Attack's 3D - aka Robert Del Naja, using his personal 3D printer to produce plastic clasps to was the discomfort due to prolonged face mask use.

"We have been 3D printing ‘comfort’ clasps for the nurses at Southmead hospital. They take the mask from the backs of the ears and reduce irritation and sores," a team member described.

The plastic clasps are to share with NHS workers in Bristol, to help with improve the use of face masks.

A new design means they can potentially print 1000 a week.

They are washable and re-usable.

Even though we are following protocol here, they recommend whoever receives them disinfecting them before using or distributing.

The team has new batches of two types of clasp and can post them forward.

More details about producing 3D-printed PPE here.

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Get in touch if you know anyone in need of these clasps:
mchemam@gmail.com

'Teardrop' @ 22

So much to say about this song...

Where to begin?

With the music and the video, of course:

Massive Attack - 'Teardrop' (Official Video)

The third time I went to Massive Attack's studio, in July 2015, my goal was to talk more about their third album, Mezzanine... I knew it wouldn't be easy, because the band cherish mystery... And this album finally broke them apart.

The irony of such a peaceful, harmonious song ending up creating deep divided always saddens me. But there was more that the personal conflicts. The album was born out of sonic conflicts... i.e once more out of the band's "comfort zone".

In the meantime, I had been able to visit Christchurch Studios, in Clifton, to meet lengthily with Neil Davidge, and to run into Elizabeth Fraser and Damon Reece in a few Bristol streets...

Happy 22 'Teardrop', beautiful marvel.

Massive Attack: Out Of The Comfort Zone

Melissa Chemam

Rough Trade Books of the Year 2019 No. 15

This book is dedicated to the history of the band Massive Attack and to their relationship with their home town of Bristol, a city built on the wealth generated by the slave trade. As a port Bristol was also an arrival point for immigrants to the UK, most notably the Windrush generation from the Caribbean in the 1950s.

Author Melissa Chemam's in-depth study first focuses on the influences that led to the formation of the hi-hip collective The Wild Bunch and then Massive Attack. It looks into Bristol's past to explore how the city helped shape one of the most successful and innovative musical movements of the last 30 years.

The book is based on interviews, meetings, encounters, discussions, exchanges, emails, research and more... With about 30 Bristol artists, from Robert Del Naja to Mark Stewart, Ray Mighty and many others, including Tracey Thorn, Tricky and Martina Topley-Bird.

It examines the band's inner tensions between the founding members of Massive Attack - 3D, Daddy G and Mushroom - their influences, collaborations, art, shows and politics. It also retells the way they opened the door for other Bristol musicians and artists from Tricky, Portishead and Alpha, but also Gorillaz and street artists such as Banksy.

27/04/2020

The Quarantini Podcast: Episode 2 !!

Hello good people!

Here is the Episode 2 of The Quarantini Podcast!!

The Quarantini Podcast: Episode 2 !!

We interviewed my friend Ben Richardson, director of the charity Caring in Bristol this week! to find out how they help the homeless, notably by working with chefs in the city (including Josh Eggleton from the Pony and Trap, next on our list of coming interviewees as part of Bristol Food Union!)

They work hard to feed Bristol’s homeless and the most vulnerable people, and look for solutions for them in long run.

You'll also here our round up of positive responses to the coronavirus and a couple of musical surprises!

Email us with your thoughts, stories and suggestions: thequarantinipodcast@gmail.com
And tell us how you’re responding to life in lockdown, what you think of the show and listen here or find us through your favourite podcast provider.

Have a good week and stay safe,
melissa & pommy x

This week we feature Ben Richardson talking about the work of Caring in Bristol, whose aim is to end homelessness in the city. Ben talks about the kitchens they have set up with the help of local chefs, to provide 6500 meals per week during the pandemic, to feed Bristol's vulnerable homeless population.

Music:

No Time for Love Like Now, Michael Stipe

Spiritual Data, Jimmy Galvin

Hosts: Melissa Chemam and Pommy Harmar

Producer: Pommy Harmar

Opening and closing music: Hot Flu, The Old Bones Collective

Episode 2

FULL

Published on: 27th Apr 2020

About the Podcast

The Quarantini

A refreshing cocktail mix of ingenious and creative responses to Coronavirus together with a dash of the outrageous.

A weekly round up of the extraordinary ideas dreamed up by people from across the globe, served up by hosts Pommy Harmar and Melissa Chemam to entertain, excite and inform you!

BRISTOL ARTIST’S BOOKS EVENT - AT HOME

"See" you soon online for this!

MINIBABE | BRISTOL ARTIST’S BOOKS EVENT AT HOME

Monday, 4th May 2020 to Friday, 8th May 2020, 09:00 to 18:00

Every other year, in collaboration with the Centre for Fine Print Research at UWE, Arnolfini hosts BABE, the Bristol Artist’s Book Event.

The next BABE is scheduled for 2021, but this spring we’ll be presenting a mini version via our website, exploring ways to enjoy artists’ books during the Covid-19 lockdown.

Expect a range of artists’ books shared online, new pieces by local book artists and writers, and suggestions for creative activities you can try at home.

We’ll be presenting MiniBABE through a series of blog and social media posts Monday 4 through to Friday 8 May 2020.

Come and have a browse!

Image: Artists’ books by Cathey Webb