Lubaina Himid (notes from a BBC interview)

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In this post, there is a list of the advanced words and phrases from the BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs interview with Lubaina Himid - an artist known for her interactive and thought provoking pieces, often focussing on cultural history. Aggie and I are currently creating a podcast (in which we will explain some of the words) and it will be launched on 11th October!

You can listen to the interview here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005mfp

INTRO
00:47 made headlines when she won the Turner prize

00:52 decided to eschew set design for different kind of theatre    

1:01 walk the walk (her immersive installations)

1:05 must weave amongst (people in one of her exhibitions) 

1:11 black identity 

1:18 lives of the people of the African diaspora  (recurrent themes of her work)

2:10 Tried to be invisible, work like a writer

2:17 Audience is central to your design 

2.28 In a play you have to feel the heat from the audience

2:53 sets of stories collide in the room (the exhibition space). Stories from the audience and the piece. 

3:03 exuberant (Lubaina’s work)  LL

4:01 Use music not to sink into more to paint against

4:10 Just an eager listener (not an expert in music) 

4:15 Beyonce is fabulous 


BEHIND HER WORK (PART OF BLACK WOMENS LIVES THAT NOBODY’S BEEN PAINTING) 

5:20 We’re just ordinary (black women) 


HER TURNER PRIZE WINNING PIECE

6:24 sashes going across the front of their costumes 

6:36 I lifted this idea (a piece she saw many years earlier of slaves being given to a king as a present) 

6:44 Made this --- piece, installation 

7:20 Really a killer (being the eldest person to win a turner prize) 

7:49 Bit bittersweet (to be the first black woman to win) 

8:03 Lauren Laverne asks ‘whats the legacy’ of the win

8:16 We have to hang onto it [hang onto something] to keep something and build on it (the fact that things are changing) 

HER SECOND SONG (reminding her of her team in 2017)

8:26 Interested in madness (artists being mad) 

HER MUM 

9:36 wild (describing her mum and her sister)

9:55 get the record player serviced (before their parties) 

10:19 The party spread all the way up the stairs 

PARENTS 

10:40 Come to do a course at University College from Zanzibar (her father) 


11:01 He sent for her (her father to her mother, she sailed to see him and married him after 6 weeks of travelling) 


11:25 He died of malaria (her father) 


11:51 How devastating it was (she didn’t realise until years later - her father’s death) 




12:00 Still very pained by it (her mother over her father’s death)


12:12 That kind of melancholy (surrounding her mother) 


12:17 Kind of soaked that up in a funny sort of way (Lubaina Humid saying she took in her mother’s sadness) 





12:45 Getting on for 91 (her mother) 


STILL HER MOTHER + HER CHILDHOOD 





13:39 A very tight-knit unit (Lauren saying this is what she grew up in, with her mother and her aunty)






14:19 Tried to treat her well in that old fashioned way (Lubaina for her mother) 






14:40 hours spent looking at clothes in shops 






14:50 My mother was very judgemental about what people were wearing 






15:09 Pattern is kind of some secret language to say all kinds of secret things you can’t say in a figurative way 






15:26 How comparable was the experience (department store vs museums/galleries) 











15:38 You sort of perambulate around (department store and a museum) 










15:39 Everything is beautifully laid out 
















16:00 The taking in of culture 






FOURTH TRACK 






16:17 Fond of falling in love 






16:32 The warm gentle feeling that washes over you (when you listen to this Joni Mitchell track) 











EXPERIENCE IN SCHOOL 






17:36 Went through school thinking I was stupid 






17:47 Wasn’t really that naughty 






18:02 How to roll my skirt up (she learnt other things being in a class with the wild girls) 






18:11 How to cause havoc on the top of a bus 










18:13 Potential was there, why was it missed (Lauren Laverne saying this to Lubaina) 







STILL HER CHILDHOOD 






18:52 Were you aware of your ethnicity 






19:04 There were uprisings, killings, political things happening (it was the 60s - in the states





 






19:17 The church in Alabama being blown up 






19:27 It struck home (the danger of being black, not necessarily in UK)











19:36 At school I used charm to get by 






19:51 I had an early sense that all was not right in the world 






20:17 I didn’t get beaten up 






20:48 I can feel the chill of what its like to be the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time [talking about the fifth track]







FUTURE AFTER GRADUATING WITH A BA






21:45 As a disaster (what she saw her future as) 






21:49 Think my tutors thought I was pretty hopeless






21:58 Putting scenery together






22:05 Destroying the set 






22:16 Sort of vague and a chasm was opening up (realising she didnt belong in theatre) 





22:41 Knew that I’d be some kind of artist or designer 



ORGANISING EXHIBITIONS (after 1982) 






22:52 You attended the first National Black Artists convention 






22:58 A quote from you that just floored me (Lauren Laverne on the quote she’d read “in the 80s I had to argue that there was such a thing as a black artist) 






23:26 Not in the TV or the newspapers unless something drastic or dangerous had happened






23:37 The idea of black people making art or being artists was completely alien to the UK art industry 






23:58 It was frightening (when she got her first show) 






24:05 A big ego and low self esteem (Lubaina describing herself and how she feels about her art) 






24:40 Falling in love late in life (about her sixth track) 






25:02 The sweet sadness of finding love late in life (again sixth) 







1997 RETURN TO ZANZIBAR 






26:28 Inspired to go by your late partner (Lauren to Lubaina) 






26:45 You’ve got to face your fear (what Lubaina’s wife had said to her) 






27:07 I’d never learnt Swahili 






27:18 Left in a state of trauma (as a child from the country) 






27:23 I couldn’t really face it (the idea of going back) 







27:47 Its so familiar (Zanzibar) 


27:59 I relaxed (having felt comfortable in Zanzibar) 


29:05 Full of rich deep colours 





29:12 Somebody on the edge of madness 





PROFESSOR FOR 30 YEARS AT UNI 





30:29 In Britain as a whole (some really exciting and interesting young artists) 





30:39 Doing the essential thing of talking to each other (the young artists) 





30:43 Rather than thinking of themselves as isolated geniuses





30:49 Younger curators (the good things) 





31:36 Eating extraordinary food (with her friend in a Portuguese restaurant, how she discovered her eighth track) 




32:01 There are artists there that sustain me (in the place she lives in UK, Preston) 






LIFE ON ISLAND 




32:59 I’d be pretty desperate 





33:11 I’ve never been camping 





33:15 You’re going to have to learn on the fly (Lauren to Lubaina about camping) 





33:51 Endless supply of self-ironing of Japanese shirt