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Who is Sean Burn?

Writer, performer & outsider artist with a growing international reputation, who also actively involved nationally in disability arts. Fifteen poetry films have now received many screenings worldwide, as well as at tate modern and national film theatre studios, london. His interdisciplinary text-based installations / performances have been developed and toured with arcadea; cesta, czech republic; dada-south; dash; the door (birmingham rep); fotofeis and grampian hospital arts trust; fold and fred; gulbenkian canterbury and lit up; humber mouth festival; interarte, germany; lancaster university and lancaster litfest; new word order; odins glow; ovada; shout festival. Skrev press www.skrevpress.com) are launching a third full-length collection of his writing – wings are giving out – (isbn 978-1-904646-56-3) november 2009.

Your film is about?

A response to the tumultuous events in london this spring at the time of the g20 meeting/protests and very much inspired by brechts poem spring 1938. Film of bae systems here on tyneside is intercut with that of a branch from our estate already snapped off, that i managed to regrow for a while, and close-ups of a discarded plastic bag. While not comparing our times to the coming world war that brecht wrote about we are nevertheless all losers in the invididious if subtle war currently taking place against our environments, our freedoms, our joy

How did you start with film? And do you have an educational background in art or film?

Outsider artist using creativity of all kinds - writing / performing / sound / visuals to climb out of illness. I’m still climbing.

Could you explain how you work, what themes or concepts and what is important to you?

Artistically i like layers, many many layers, working intuitively, putting things together seeing what works / what doesn’t. Concepts - injustices in the world, illnesses, and finding moments of poetry despite it all.

Where do you get your ideas or influences from?

Anywhereandeverywhere - dreaming, coffee-drinking, walking the dog, listening to music, shouting at the news

How does the title relate to the work, and how do you find a fitting title?

They fall into a title or the title falls into them

How important is sound in film, and if you use sounds, do you create your own or use existing?

Crucial - i always wanted to be a musician. Worked with words instead. Found visuals too. Now i’m adding sounds - my own. I also love working with musicians (especially improvising ones) but my film soundscapes are all my own.

How do you finance your projects (by yourself, sponsors or subsidy)?

Some projects get small amounts of support - grants/commissions and the like - mostly its done without support.

Nowadays everyone with the right equipment can create videoart, good, bad or ugly?

Too right

Video broadcasting platforms on the internet, why or why not?

As long as the quality is there and the branding isnt!

In what category would you place your work; cinema or art. And is there a difference between those?

Cinemart / artinema / cinmart

How important is the reaction to your film by the audience?

Audiences plural - different peoples from across cultures, genders, sexualities, classes, dis/abilities etc - but rubbing along together and responding to film (and other arts) - very.

What is your next project about?

Cake (medovnik specifically - an amazing czech cake) - but also the prague spring, charter 77, velvet revolution, czech artists eva švankmajerová and vĕra chytilová, and the ’undercovered’ everywhere


Copy the interview with Sean Burn