Making ‘Never At Sea’: An interview with Cat Hope and Kate McMillan
Never at Sea
June 21 - 27, 2023.
St Mary le Strand Church, Strand, London
Film still from Never At Sea by Kate McMillan
Kate McMillan’s Never at Sea features music by Cat Hope, choreography by Sivan Rubinstein, dancer Lydia Walker, Australian percussionist Louise Devenish, and German soprano Marcia Lemke-Kern.
A review of the premiere performance can be found here.
Never at Sea is a creative intervention by Kate McMillan that explores the intersection between forced migration and climate change across performance and installation modes. The project further explores the role of creativity in creating a safe space for empathy, imagination, interdisciplinary conversations and collaborations around often divisive issues in an associated symposium.
Here Cat Hope and Kate McMillan discuss their collaborative process and the development of Never at Sea when preparing for the opening on June 21st 2023, concluding Cat’s visiting professorship at Kings College London.
“We must urgently talk about how crucial the nuanced space that culture can create is, in a world that otherwise seems so divisive”
CH You and I have collaborated on several installations together - I am thinking of Lost (Curtin Gallery, 2008), Islands of Incarceration (Sydney Biennale, 2010), and installations that feature live performance: Moments of Disappearance (Carriageworks, 2014) with the London Improvisor’s Orchestra and The Past is Singing in Our Teeth (Berlin, 2017) with percussionist Louise Devenish. What appeals to you in having live performance as part of your work as is the case with this new work Never at Sea?
KM One of the main goals in my work is to create experiences that stay with the viewer for a long time. When I think of times that this has happened for me, it has always been via theatre and live music. I also like to see my sculptures transformed into instruments, and my textiles into costumes. Playing with the meaning of things and the porous spaces between disciplines excites me. I would never want to limit myself to the conventions of visual arts.
CH For the music to the main films in the installation element of Never at Sea started with a composition that was performed by Ruthless Jabiru and Decibel new music ensemble in the ‘The Holy Presence Of’ program at the Brunel Tunnel in London in December last year. The focus of that program was on climate change. What was it like being at that performance, knowing it would be part of the upcoming work?
KM It was certainly a different kind of listening. The atmosphere of the Brunel Tunnel was incredible, so it was difficult to imagine it as the soundtrack for my films at the time. Listening to the score attached to the films now, removed from the baggage of the odd nineteenth century tunnel and the physicality of the musicians – it is almost an entirely different work.
CH I see them as closely related, as the sound of tunnel remains in the recording as I use for the film soundtrack. When I made this composition, I used the idea of being in water, submerging and re-emerging, experiencing weather from that perspective as starting points for the piece. I remember showing you the draft score when you visited my studio at the Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study, where I was working at that time. We talked about drawing - and found we had been making quite similar drawings in response to the idea behind this piece. I turn my drawings into the score – how do you use drawing in your work?
Screenshot of an excerpt of the original orchestral score for ‘Never at Sea’ (2022) by Cat Hope.
Sketches by Kate McMillan, made in 2022.
KM My drawings function as maps for work I am making and memory triggers for ideas. I don’t have a drawing practice as such, but I have meticulously kept visual diaries for more than thirty years. They contain sketches such as the one above, which I made when I was thinking of endangered species in the Thames river, but also lines from books and poems, and ideas for works I have never made.
CH The original piece featured a bass guitar part which I played, but I am using a recording made without it. It just seemed too unwieldy, and we decided to use voice and percussion instead. I have significantly ‘remixed’ that Brunel Tunnel recording through a process of editing and layering, to create the 20 minute loop, that you edited the film to. It will also feature as a part in the live performance piece, which is a new approach for me. I am still developing that composition, but am working from the idea of the work, not your images or films – which is how you started work on this piece, right?
KM My preferred way to work is in response to a particular site. Increasingly I find the idea of making work for a museum or gallery quite boring. I like to draw from the history of a place and fill it with my work – almost like I am haunting it. So the work began with the church which was then stuck in the middle of a traffic island – aptly referred to as an island church. Of course I have been working with island sites for twenty years so this immediately appealed to me. I knew I wanted to make films for the space. I like the lightness of film – again it makes me think of a haunting. The church is also the patron church of the Women’s Royal Navy – the WRENS – so I have taken their motto to name the work Never at Sea. I wanted to make further ‘light’ interventions so I have re-made all the prayer cushions various WRENS have made over the years using still images from my films.
CH I am thrilled that your cushions will be used as a rest for the gongs and bowls in the percussion instrumentoirum, it’s as if the instruments are melting into your images. Like I want the live music parts to melt into the orchestral recording.
KM Yes I am very interested in giving objects multiple roles, to create a sense of unknowing and ambiguity for the viewer – is this a sculpture, a prop, or an instrument? Can something be all of those things? I like that Louise will give my sculptures a voice. The choreographer, Sivan Rubinstein has worked in a somatic way to the ideas in the work. To begin with she was thinking about the rhythm of swimming, but over time we have developed ideas around the bodily sensation of being ‘at sea’. This will form the dancer’s journey through the work.
CH I’m glad about that, as my music has no ‘rhythm to it’, and the video is so fluid. You mentioned the Australian percussionist Louise Devenish, who is coming to be part of this piece. She worked with us on The Past is Singing in Our Teeth, where she played your objects on a ‘percussion tree’ you made, but you also directed her performance actions, like you do in this work. The singer in Never at Sea is Marcia Lemke Kern, who I directed in the recent European premiere of my opera ‘Speechless’ – so they both understand my approach as we move to finalise the work in the space.
KM Indeed. This has been a tried and true way of our collaboration which on one hand is slightly anxiety inducing, but we have done it often enough to know this works. We are also both open to new things unfolding when we tie down final choices. The creative process is happening right up until the final opening. In fact, it goes beyond this, as once I can step back from the work, new things emerge and already I am thinking of ideas for our next work.
A trailer for ‘Never At Sea’ by Kate McMillan.
CH I am fascinated about the workshops you did with refugees as part of the preparation for this work. How much of that has come into the final work?
KM I wanted this aspect to shape the final feeling of the work. Prior to the workshop my sense of what it must feel like to leave ones home and to remake a life in a new language and culture was really limited to my own, far more privileged, experience of doing this. The workshops helped confirm the sense of being ‘at sea’, or the role of absence and loss. Of never really feeling ‘at home’. This has shaped the final edit of the films, the objects I will place in the church and the instructions I have given to Sivan for the choreography. It is sadness and loss, but also beauty and hope.
CH What are your aspirations for the symposium you have set up as part of this project? I think it is really valuable to provide a forum to discuss art and activism – I think people can really take more away from the work by discussing it. We are both passionate about art and activism – for me it seems like the only choice right now.
KM I agree. We must urgently talk about how crucial the nuanced space that culture can create is, in a world that otherwise seems so divisive. I have deliberately invited people from across different cultural sectors – I want to see how we are all working away, often with the same goals of embedding change, but also kindness, into the world we occupy. Some times I feel like art is the last refuge. In many ways, it has been my only refuge. I hope Never at Sea creates that feeling for people who visit.
INFORMATION
Exhibition dates: 22 – 27 June 2023, Opening times 10am-6pm daily
DETAILS: Never at Sea Private View and Public Programme
· Private View (free but ticketed). Wednesday 21 June, 6.00-8.30pm.
· Performance (ticketed £5): Thursday 22 June 6.30-8.00pm
· Artist Talk (free but ticketed): Saturday 24 June 3.00-4.00pm
· Symposium (free but ticketed): Monday 26 June 11.00-5.00pm. Including a performance, and speakers from Dryden Goodwin’s Breathe project ArtRefuge and more.
Booking Link for all progams HERE
SUPPORTED BY:
The Refugee Council, King's Sanctuary Programme, King's Culture, King's College London, AHRC, Science Gallery London, St Mary le Strand Church, Sir Zelman School of Music and Performance, Monash University, the Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study, and the Australian Research Council.