Momo is commissioned by the Bournemouth Christchurch & Poole creative event to help celebrate its tenth year – by meeting eight creatives from the local scene, each sharing a walk of art with the Southbourne music maker. Safely, of course.
Covid 19 may have changed everything, but for many performing creatives and indie artists it has been devastating. If art can be a place of refuge or defiance, processing or simply play, how might ordinary creatives make sense of this chapter of crisis? It’s a question at the heart of Arts By The Sea’s new podcast series with Timo Peach, Talking Distance.
As the bloke from Momo:tempo, a music maker and creative himself and voice of the futursim research cast Unsee The Future, Timo is interested in art’s place in ordinary life and how it helps us shape the world around us. So he jumped at the chance to spend some personal time with people from across the creative sector to hear something of their experiences dealing with crisis, work and inspiration.
“Getting outside has been one of the lifelines of lockdown,” he says, “and everyone in this part of the world knows it is a privilege point. Art too is often a lifeline, so I was keen to hear different experiences of artists hustling for health and wellbeing as much as rent right now.”
The podcast takes presenter and listener on a forty minute “walk of art”, exploring somewhere locally that’s been significant to each Talking Distance guest on their creative journeys – the theme of this year’s festival.
“It’s been a just lovely experience” says Mr Peach.”Our guests are ordinary people dealing with an enormously weird period in history, like anyone. But their art has given them different ways of dealing with and testifying to the difficulties – and we all managed to find fun together amid the fears.”
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BRANDING A RAMBLING CHAT
After he’d had the invitation to jump into the project from Andrea Francis, festival director of Arts By The Sea, Momo had to devise a whole format for this listen, which was right up Timo’s street, of course.
“I am contracturally obliged to point out wherever I go that the lovely first lady of Momo actually came up with the name,” he says. “I may bite my knuckle at not having thought of it, but she pulled a blinder there, we all love it. And I got to play about with visual and sonic branding to bring it alive.”
This included a slightly odd musical identity.
“Y’know, I just decided not to question it as it came out of me,” he says, “I wanted something playful and eclectic and it turned out sort of wonky Art Of Noise. It’s not like Timey Blimey, the signiature tune to Unsee The Future, which I took enormous delight in turning into a live piece for the band, but it’s sort of joyfully distinctive. And I’ve still woken up with it as my morning earworm a few times.”
“I couldn’t be hoping more that we find a way to do many more of these episodes,” Timo concludes. “Art helps people move between deep and silly easily in conversation, everyone has been so positive but open to share. And there are just so many figures I can think of and so many I want to meet making real creative sense of life in this part of the world.”
Talking Distance will be sharing a new episode every morning of festival week from Monday September 28 2020.