-> scroll down for transcript
I was carrying a Pentax 17 with Kodak UltraMax 400 ISO
Martina’s website is here & instagram here
Martina wanted you to go here after listening
but also here
[the sound of students playing ye olde music outside the entrance to the royal college of art]
G
Perfect. Imagine if I'd done the whole thing and only one was recorded.
[jingle]
G
Hello and welcome to the fourth episode of the Art Dates podcast. My name is Gabrielle de la Puente, and this is the show where I visit exhibitions with interesting people, people who I've never met before, people who I sort of know and want to meet and this is like my elaborate excuse to make more friends. Today's episode is a very good example of the happy I visit the Royal College of Art MA degree show with Martina Daniel Telgmaa or mdt. Martina's been like an Internet friend for a while now. I think we came together because of knitting. I think we did a yarn swap at one point and she used like this vintage mohair that I sent her to make like the most amazing cable knit jumper. And she was one of the names that I had originally put on my list of people that I wanted to do art dates with. And yeah, sort of gone from like seeing the jokes that she makes and holiday pictures and her thoughts about films and stuff like that to, yeah, downloading the real person and I was thinking on the bus after this art date that like, yeah, she's gone from this collection of images into a real person where she's like a whole river and I can't feel the bottom. Yeah. Not to get too poetic, but it's a nice bonus of doing a project like this.
So join me as I meet Internet friend Martina Daniel Telgmaa at literally the noisiest degree show I've ever been to, and honestly don't think I would go back to it because it was simply just too much.
--
G
When did you do your MA?
M
Two years ago.
G
And you said that you've not been back since you've not been to the degree?
M
Actually, I came last year.
G
OK.
M
Because I knew some people that were doing it. But yeah, that was my first experience of seeing the degree show as like an audience member, which was quite hectic. So it made me think like, oh, so this is what people felt like during my degree show and I'm showing like my best work ever and like wanting people to engage and feel fun. We can go up from here.
G
Especially because like the type of work that you make takes a lot of time. The idea then that like someone just like, is quickly hitting it on the way through like 200 students or whatever it is, doesn't really make sense.
M
But also then it's like, it just happens. I remember when I was graduating or like our degree show was on and then going to see other like similar degree shows and everyone has like a whole room to themselves. It's like that and it's like.
G
Isn't the RCA like pick one thing, or there's enough space for that or something? I don't know.
M
Yeah, it very much is like do your one thing that you can do, because you'll see when we're here now everybody just has like a little corner to show.
G
So what did you do for your degree show?
M
I did an installation and performance. So I was actually here in this space. I had this wall and a little bit of this space and then one of my friends was showing on this wall. There was chrome all over the walls on the floor and loads of yarn coming down the wall and loads of knit panels on the wall. And then the performance would be me knitting a sweater, like, onto myself. So it was kind of about like, taking from one thing and through, like, unravelling something I've already made, learn and become something else. So all about like new spaces and environments bringing me more knowledge about myself and something to kind of take away as well physically. It was a lot. It was a lot to think about.
G
How did you -- how much time did you spend in the space? Was it like full shifts?
M
Like 2 to 4 hours every day. I had like little stints.
G
And like, so that was two years ago. What was the last thing you made?
M
I did a performance in December of last year -- actually the year before last -- where I finished knitting a sock that I'd only knit to find out if I can knit one or not. And I finished it during the performance and then gave the sock some time to speak, and then the sock was talking about how, like, it's so fucked up that I'd only create one sock and never give it, like, a pair, and then it was really sad about being alive.
[laughing]
G
Are you still in touch with the people you did your MA with?
M
Yes. I got a really, really good friendship group from here that like our, our teachers kept saying the best part about the course is going to be the people. But I always thought that was kind of funny that they said that. I thought that's going to be inevitable because you're bringing together a lot of really fun, creative people. That shouldn't be the premise of the course, paying 14K to make friends, but well, I did.
G
But you did [laughing]
M
And we still talk to this day.
G
It's funny, I was just with Zarina and she was like, have you prepared questions? And I was like -- I read your bio on your website. I was like, didn't really have any specific questions, just the discovery that you'd done a drama degree. And I was like, wait, what? I don't know anyone in my life who's done a drama degree.
M
That's me. Well, when I was in Estonia, I was obsessed with theatre and I was going to -- my first life plan was: I'm going to become an actor and then after about 5 or 6 years of acting, I'm going to start directing, and then after like 10 years of that, I'm going to start writing, and then I can do it all, and I'm like the most, the, the most famous Estonian theatre person ever. And I was going to be like a scholar of it and everything.
G
Oh my God.
M
But that obviously didn't work out. But I still like really enjoyed theatre. And that course is actually where I found performance arts because doing it at Queen Mary, they have a very strong performance art lean in the drama department and I was like, you know, it was love at first sight with Marina Abramovic and like, that's, that's how everything has happened.
G
What, what did you get from the course then? Like what -- what do you do in a drama course? Well, is it -- how similar -- because obviously fine art is so open. What were you doing on a day-to-day basis?
M
It was -- so our course was split between like theory and practice. So we would have courses on like theatre and culture, or like theatre and justice, or like race and racism, and then also making theatre where we would look at different theatre-making styles and then copy them or like try and see what goes on. Like we were looking a lot at devising, group devising. There's a collective called Complicité who are very famous for collectively devising all of their works. So yeah, we would like learn about these things theoretically and then have group assignments to kind of like come up with our own pieces trying to think like these theatre makers think. And then when the like live arts and performance got into the mix, then we were just doing performances and thinking about stuff. So it was very like -- the first year kind of presented to you like this is all that you can do. You can look at like Shakespeare or like Brecht or like very, very openly like theatre, theatre, theatre. Or you can start learning about live art, performance art, because they also do performance art MA, a live art MA. So yeah, it was very fun.
G
How many people like went that way then towards the live arts stuff?
M
I think it was like half and half actually, because it is really exciting. You get to -- it opens a lot of I guess avenues of like what performance can be, whereas theatre, even though it is quite wide as well, often it's very traditional, especially in England actually, it's very still tied to like Shakespearean's England, all of that, which I'm not like -- I'm not a Shakespeare boo.
[laughing]
M
So I was very happy to find my live artists.
G
So you said Marina Abramovic, who else?
M
Yeah, I really liked Bob Flanagan.
G
Who's that?
M
So he makes work around his chronic illness, which was cystic fibrosis. So I also had a tutor on that course called Martin O'Brien, who also makes work around the illness and about breathing and about sickness, which always felt to me like, really raw, really interesting. Like you're digging into like this really, like daily part of yourself and you still have room to make art about it as well, that then speaks to like so many more people than just your own experience.
G
So what was he doing? Like what was his actual...
M
He had really long performances where he would -- so here's one that I can remember. He had one where he would do a lot of stuff that releases mucus in the lungs, because that's what the disease does. It creates like a lot of mucus, so you can't really breathe. And he would collect this mucus during performances. So he'd either like, jump on a trampoline or like, beat his chest and then cough up the mucus and like, keep it in jars to like show and have these crazy durational performances.
--
G [back at home]
On that later, Martina sent me a clip of Martin O'Brien speaking on the Wellcome Collection's Instagram. I just ripped the audio so that I could play it here, so enjoy.
Martin O'Brien
Hi, I'm Martin O'Brien. I'm a performance artist. So I was born with cystic fibrosis, and as I was growing up, I knew that I would die by the time I was 30. What happens? What do you do with your life after that point? Like, how do you make sense of mortality when you think you should be dead? In order to do that, I came up with this idea of zombie time, or the kind of temporal experience of living on when you thought you'd already be dead. So zombie time, it's a little bit tongue in cheek that I say that now I'm a zombie. I'm both dead and alive at the same time. The piece I'm performing tonight at The Welcome is called This Unending, and it plays with an idea of a kind of purgatory somewhere between life and death, and I'm just stuck in this constant loop going around and round and round this thing that just can't end, that keeps going on. So it's about my own mortality, but it's much about your mortality is about mine. It's saying we're all going to die. None of us get out alive. So that's kind of the politics of the work, like the philosophical and political implications of living on with death.
G
I do think that like the most live art I've seen has been by disabled artists. Years ago, maybe like 2018, 2017, I remember seeing Claire Cunningham perform at the Unity Theatre in Liverpool. And she'd been using crutches and I think she'd been like doing dance with crutches, you know, dance in the slower serious meaning not jazzy dance. But there was a point in that performance where like she stood still, dropped the crutches and like, stood until she couldn't stand anymore. And I remember being really like, like not moved, but like, it really left an impression on me. And then years later when I got COVID and I got long COVID and it gave me POTS, which is an illness where like I feel sicker and sicker the longer that I stand for. It was like it was -- it felt so lucky to me to have that reference to Claire Cunningham's work in my mind, even if like even if POTS isn't something that she has, I don't know. I've got no idea. But just like being able to see what happens to a body when they've got no support basically. I think it probably helped me feel that it was instantly serious and it was something that I had to share with other people in the same way that live art with disability comes with the dynamic of automatically having an audience. And yeah, all these all these sentences are sort of ending on an uptick because it does -- I don't know -- I'm working this out as I'm saying it out loud. Yeah, I think, I think performances like that meant that I wanted to always show other people what was happening inside my body in a live art sense because I knew the potency of that and the relevancy to me even before I was disabled. And I'm feeling less disabled now because of medicine and certain things that are going on with my health. And yet I know what it could always happen again, and I could always get worse, and it could happen to the person next to me and it could happen to the person that I live with because we all exist in very vulnerable bodies and we all get old and we all change. And yeah, I think there's this feeling that like, I get excited to talk about live art because it just feels like the most relevant thing. And I think it, I think it did a lot for me at a time in a way that I just never would have expected.
--
[back on the date]
M
And there's also one that I was obsessed with at uni called Cassils. So they talk a lot about gender, about bodies, about how we see bodies. They've had a performance, I can't remember the name of, where they were stood in front of an ice panel that was the length and shape of their torso, and they would keep pressing their torso against it until it was melting, and then, like, it would get the indent of their torso and the performance would last until the whole ice block was melted. And they also did one where they were boxing with a huge mound of clay in a performance and it was completely in the dark except for the photographer's flashes. So both as the documentation, you see only the like moments where the photographer is being taken, but also as an audience member you only get those like flashes.
G
I love -- don't you feel like it's like someone telling you a bit of gossip?
M
Oh my god, yes, this is what I like about performance as well. It's like, it's so ephemeral but you really have to be there. But also it's so fun to talk about afterwards because you only can really explain what you understood, like what you got from it.
G
True, true, true. And someone else would tell the gossip in a different way.
M
Yeah, exactly. Like, what was what was the important part about your experience as an audience member?
G
Of those examples that you just said, did you get to see any of them live?
M
I've seen Martin O'Brien's work live one time, but that's it. Cassils did come to speak at our uni one time which I was like fangirling, but yeah.
G
I suppose then, like you were drawn to performances where someone did something that had something to do with endurance and like time and like, they're, yeah, pushing themselves to the limits. And then did you then put that in yours? Is that why you were like doing these long knitting performances?
M
I really like the idea of kind of duration and time being like a key element of it. Be it like short or long or even just the time being like a factor that you understand within the piece itself. So I've done really quick pieces where you can kind of feel that there's been a lot of work, a lot of time has gone to make that happen. So I did a performance called Tearing Myself at this like cabaret might, which was me like getting undressed, and the last part was me unravelling a dress I'd made as I was wearing it. So that one, even though the performance itself was like 6 minutes, I've obviously made the dress. just for this.
G
So then I suppose it's like: why? Do you know what I mean? And maybe this is like a conversation I've had in episode 2, the one I filmed the other day and now this, which is like, why do the artists put themselves through these things? Because, like, we have a choice, sort of, to do something easy or go like, the found object route, or -- you know what I mean? But actually I think personally I'm most drawn to the artists who do things like this.
M
Yeah, I think I also just like people thinking about exactly that, about stuff that I've done, because I used to always think about why I'm making things. Like why am I making another pair of mittens even though like 1 already exists that I can wear? And then realising that like I want to make like -- I want the process of making things and I sometimes don't even want the object itself. I'm just making to make it, and then what if I made it to destroy it? It's like, now, why has it existed? It's still got a purpose in the artwork, but not as it's like intended purpose as a garment. Start thinking about all of that...
G
Destruction.
[camera sound]
G
Oh, it's like a like a paper doll thingamajig. Oh, it's like magnets. Oh and behind, oh my god, look, someone's made like a picture of themselves on a magnetised board and then like paper doll style life-size items that you can pick up and put onto the the body, the naked body. Wait, wait, wait. Let me take a picture. Wow. Nice. I would wear this.
M
She's beautiful.
G [back at home[
Cha-ching, if you can hear me taking film photos and this is maybe your first episode of Art Dates, I'll let you know that you can see all the photos that I take on these dates on the art dates website, which is just artdates.co.uk. I looove taking film pictures and this was my first time using the Pentax 17, which I am liking because I'm enjoying half frame cameras. I used the auto mode the entire time out of fear and I'm currently working through a second roll where I, you know, have read the manual and now I know what to do. So we'll see what the second roll looks like. Cross your fingers. All the pictures from the Art Dates episodes are developed at Take It Easy Lab, which is a film development company in Leeds. I send my roll off to them, they develop, they scan, they send me digital scans of everything and then they send me prints back in the post. They are very kindly doing the development for Art Dates for free and they've also provided the code ARTDATE10 for 10% off to you.
[camera sound]
G
You feel like you'll ever go back to the theatre stuff?
M
I'd love to, yeah. I'm like constantly thinking about it, that I want to do this, I want to do that. It does like take a lot of practice to kind of get back into it, but I am like writing plays all the time.
G
[gasp] what?
M
Just as like a hobby.
G
What are you writing plays about?
M
Just anything. The last time I wrote about this couple going to the middle of a field that one of them has has always gone to as a child. Now there's been like a tragic event in the families that they're trying to like, do something to like commemorate it. And it's this couple, and they're getting into a fight, and one of them realises that they forgot to bring the tent, but they're too scared to say. And then everything is kind of like unravelling around.
G
Oh my god, I can't believe you write plays as a hobby. That's such good lore.
M
I just like they're putting words in people's mouths.
G
Oh my God, how long are they?
M
Usually like 45 minutes?
G
Do you ever let anyone read them?
M
I submit them to like competition sometimes, but I don't really. I used to, like when I was more serious about it, when I was like, I will win this thing, then I'd get feedback and I feel like that's something I just like doing. I think at one point I got really frustrated, probably, like during the time when I was still streaming, that every single thing that I was doing creatively in my head, I was like 'how do I turn this into a stream?!' Or like how do I turn this into like something that I can make money off of or like something that's like part of my practice, and then I just really wanted to find stuff that I could call a hobby do.
G
Do you know what, I knew that you'd done a bit of streaming, but I don't know what you were streaming.
M
Just anything really. Anything that I can think of.
G
Was it games or was it talking?
M
Sometimes it was games, but it was more like, yeah, like I'd be crocheting or painting or embroidering or just -- we literally used to have streams where we were watching paint dry because I'd do like one layer, and then, OK guys, talk amongst yourselves. Like, well, actually talk to me.
G
Do you know who was watching it?
M
Yeah, I was quite lucky because I had a very, like, loyal, small community. A little lamb. So yeah, everybody kind of knew each other.
G
Was it in English or Estonian?
M
English.
G
Yeah, and then you stopped streaming.
M
Yeah, just because I like got a life [laughing] and not only me, but like other people as well so there were less people watching, which then made it a bit more boring to like, actually do the streams. But I really did enjoy it while it was like something that I could devote loads of time to. And like by getting a life, I mean like COVID finished and like I actually had to be outside.
G
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you -- I don't know, there's something -- did you ever do it in character like, was there anything performative about the streams? We've been this way, haven't we, shall we go -- wait, have we?
M
We can go to sculpture downstairs. I think it was never really in character, but it was more like a camera version of me, a bigger version of me. But I did have a character in my performances.
G
Yeah?
M
When I was doing drama and me and my friends came up with a character called Jennifer Eels
G
OK?
M
who is like a famous woman, like ageless with a black short bob.
G
A famous woman what?
M
She's ageless.
G
Ageless. OK.
M
And she like has a story about everyone, and she's friends with everyone, or like enemies with everyone. And it's just like this crazy lady. So yeah, me and my friend, we were both Jennifer Eels, and we would do these like take these videos during COVID of us like running around Victoria Park and like rolling down the hills and like doing tarot readings or skateboarding. And then when I was in uni I would do performances as her also where I was like just -- well I did one during the degree show where I was just walking around and like critiquing everyone and then --
G
Oh my God.
M
I think we also did one where I was singing an ABBA song and saying that I was actually meant to be a part of ABBA and it was going to be called Jabba, but I had to go away because I was going to film Star Wars or something. And then, yeah, she's a bestie. I do miss her.
[laughing]
G
Do you want Jennifer Eels to come back now and do the degree show?
M
My God, I think she'd love, she'd love, she'd love coming around. She's love to come out of the house for once.
G
Oh my god, isn't it weird when you make a character and like miss them?
M
I know, but what I found so insane about that whole experience was that people like got it so immediately and everyone in my course was acting as if they're seeing a celebrity and like people were gasping like, Oh my God, you know who's here? It was so fun. And but obviously they were all like introduced to her throughout the year because we also did -- we had an amazing chance to showcase stuff at one of the Tate Lates. So we had a film screening and the live radio show. And during the radio show she was a guest. So Jennifer Eels has performed the Tate Modern, that's real. That's like, fully packed.
G
Stop it. Has she got her own website?
M
No, but she's got an Instagram.
G
Has she, good?
M
She does. So, yeah, everybody was like informed of the fact that this is a really famous woman obviously, I felt like people should be intrigued.
G
For the Tate performance, was it you or the friend?
M
It was me. Yeah, it was me. We did one together --
G
But it was her. It was Jennifer.
M
It was her, obviously. We did one together that I think it's still like been one of my favorite performances ever where it's a Late Show, like a late night talk show and where like one of the Jennifer's is the host and then the other one is a guest. But then also they swap over in the middle where one becomes again the guest. So we did like, at first, the first Jennifer is on the show because she's shooting a film with Tarkovsky, who's like come back from the dead to shoot this film with her or like something or other, I don't remember. Something really, really special. And then it swapped around because it was the 100th episode of Late Night with Jennifer Eels, and now she's getting interviewed. She's done this crazy show. Everybody loves it. Yeah, it was just so fun. And we obviously ended up with like synchronized thanking each other and the audience. Oooh.
G
Oh my god, what?
M
Big Bunny. With three ears. She's listening.
G
It's huge. I want to take a picture.
M
Wow, and the ears from the ceiling.
G
Oh god yeah,
M
Should we do a size comparison?
G
Oh, it's speaking.
M
It's speaking. Wow.
G
What's it saying?
M
I can't really tell.
G
I can't hear it. Wait, where's the speaker? Who did this?
M
[laughing] Who's done this?
G
Who did this? I'm genuinely impressed.
[back at home]
The hare piece that we're discussing was a giant sculpture by the artist Ivan Ko. Oh my God, it's so good. I recommend going to look at the film photos so you can see Martina and the hare. And yeah, that scale, it was great. I just wish I could have had what it was saying.
[back on the date]
G
Oh my God, I'm obsessed with Jennifer Eels.
M
See. It works.
G
I don't know why. I wasn't even there for the performances. Why is it worked? But then it's the gossip thing again.
M
Yeah, yeah.
G
It's exactly that little legacy of the performance where it sounds so unbelievable. It's like, why did you do this? And also, like, how did you get away with it?
M
I mean, it was just everybody loved it and I thought it was -- what was really interesting was that when I was doing like -- I don't remember which way to go from here -- when I was doing like tutorials with my own tutor and I like introduced her to 'oh, I also do this other thing.' Then they were like, oh, what? Like this is so crazy. Like I was not expecting this of you. And then when I had another tutorial specifically about Jennifer with one of our tutors who also had a performance background, I told her everybody's been really surprised to hear about this. And then she told me 'the first daw I saw you, I said she's a performer.'
G
Awww. Why is that so nice?
M
It's really lovely.
G
I mean, yeah. Do you know, I was speaking to students yesterday on the sound arts course at LCC, which is the only sound arts course left in the UK. Apparently they're just getting shut down everywhere and across Europe. But I was speaking to this one artist and he just said to me he was like, what was the factor that like, you know, made you get into arts? Like why are you here? And I was like, honestly, I think it's because when I was younger, like really young, and I started to learn how to write, someone said, 'oh, you've got good handwriting.' And I was like, thank you! Thanks! It was like a stamp of approval. And it was like also, yeah, like someone believing in me in a way. And he said the same thing had happened to him with like learning the violin, and it was like being like someone giving you a big thumbs up and then you can just carry on -- that you're allowed to carry on. You're allowed to follow it. If someone says to you, 'she's a performer' --
M
Yeah, so you can like, you can see this, and I feel like it, so it's fine. I feel like I've had this like weird -- what is it -- like contradiction within me when from when I was growing up because I was really shy, which I don't think people would think about me anymore. But like I know about me -- I know about me that I still feel like I'm shy even though I've gotten over it. So every time I was trying to do some kind of performance in my head, I was like, oh, this is so contradictory because like, I'm shy.
G
I'm a liar.
M
But yeah, so it was really fun to hear like. Or maybe she just meant like you're an attention seeker.
G
Mmm, I mean, does it matter? I don't know if it matters.
M
Oh, there's pee in here, of course.
G
Is there? Oh no, oh no.
M
Say it says down here, piss. Piss, glass jars, wood.
G
It's called Wide Mouth by Korissa Frooman.
M
I guess like sometimes you like you have to do it.
G
I won't ask to take a picture of you next to the piss jars
M
No, thank you very much.
G
I do get the sense though that like a lot of shy people end up in performative roles or like are musicians and stuff.
M
Oh yeah.
G
It feels quite normal.
M
Yeah, I think there is a like a very clear difference between being good at being yourself in like an extroverted way and being a performer. So yeah, perhaps it's fine. Maybe I can go back to being shy.
G
True. The next thing is you just destroy the performer.
M
Yeah, woah, that's going to be big, but I think I'm going to leave that till I'm like maybe 60.
[camera sound]
M
I'm feeling nostalgic for my school times. I was thinking about like if that feeling would come about. But like, quite genuinely, the only things I missed from that MA was the time and space to spend thinking just about my art. And also knowing that if I'm like thinking about something, and it's really, really intriguing me, I can just go to the studio where the most interesting people are and we can have a cup of tea and a biscuit and talk about it, and it would just be like amazing. And that's what me and my friends, we say this all the time, like sending each other voice notes and then being like, oh, this conversation needs like a cup of tea and a biscuit and a couch. But it is lovely that that happened.
G
It's funny because that on paper, shouldn't be that hard to recreate but it just is.
M
Yeah.
G [back at home]
We moved into the painting department and I'd been so excited. You know, I think like with endless money, I would enjoy doing a painting MFA at the Royal College of Art. Er, after seeing the degree show, I don't know about that. And it wasn't necessarily because of like the quality of the work. It was just like 1000 students. I think I spoke to someone afterwards and I think they said it was 150 students. They've all got one year to get this work done. I don't imagine there are 150 tutors. But it felt, it just felt too intense for me. It's not my -- it just wasn't my pace. I saw one piece that I'm still thinking about now. It was by Alexander Koch or Alexander Peter Lorenzo Koch on Instagram. Yeah, this piece of like a sort of strange image of a giant stamping down into hedges shaped like -- I was going to say gum drops, but it's not as saccharine as that -- it's like a bad dream, and there's a bit of a hedge maze and a bit of graffiti of a dragon, I think, kind of like heavy colours. I got told afterwards that this is an artist who is always referencing the same dream that they had when they were a kid. I'd really like to have seen more paintings from them but because there were 1000 students, there wasn't space for that. But I will keep an eye out for what they do in the future. It was very good. And I think we were like trying to carry on the conversation, but it was it was like, 'excuse me, can I just get past? Oh, I'm sorry.' Like the whole time. As we were walking out, though, Martina was speaking to me about how difficult it is to feel creative when so much time and energy is taken up by a nine to five job. And I was wondering then, like, you know, how many students here were also doing an MA on top of a nine to five? Like, is that is that contributing to this feeling of, oh I don't know, like the air feeling a bit trapped in that building? It didn't -- not -- OK, let me be a critic for a minute. It didn't feel like that much was new to me, and I think that's why I was a bit disappointed. So we're speaking about this difficulty with creativity and time and space, and then I remembered that there's this other part of Martina's lore that I've seen on Discord, but I've never really asked her about it.
G [back on the date]
How creative do you feel like it is doing the choir stuff?
M
Oh that is really fun.
G
Do you like lead the choir? Are you choir master?
M
Choir master.
G
Is it just called like the Estonian choir?
M
Estonian -- I think it's London Estonian Mixed Choir. But yeah, that is like very fulfilling musically. And they really allow me to like, let loose and sometimes like test stuff on them in like -- to make them sing like things I've written.
G
So I didn't know that.
M
[laugh] Another hobby of mine.
G
What type of stuff do you do then for that?
M
Well, I've written a couple of choir songs, like exactly for that purpose. Like me and another girl wrote a a call and response song for our choir to sing together. And then I also wrote us like an anthem, and then I've dabbled in like arrangements, and I feel like I kind of know my choir now and I know what they like to sing, what they like to do. And then I have sometimes like kind of deceived them in a way where I've had them sing a song that I've arranged, but then I'll put like 'arrangement unknown.'
G
Really?
M
Because sometimes I think like, you don't have to know that I did this. So I don't want you to think about it differently, and it's like a part of it where I'm like, well, now I'm going to be anonymous because I really want to see what you have to say about this song. Because they're not going to be shy when they don't like something.
G
How has that been? How's that gone? Have there been moments when they've said, oh I don't like this one, can we do something else?
M
Not like that, but I can see, well, sometimes when people say, oh, this part, like it's hard because it doesn't make sense, for example, that like the jumps in the music, they don't make sense, which like, quite often it happens that it doesn't, or like when chords come together, it doesn't really sound very satisfying for the singer. Like, I just like to know that without them feeling like, they don't want to say that to me. And yeah that definitely like -- I think if I didn't have that, I'd be lost.
G
So you were, I imagine, part of the choir first and then became the choir master?
M
Yeah, it was just -- I was in a very lucky position where we really needed someone to come and lead because we just couldn't find anyone after Covid and I suggested well, this was five years ago, so I've like recounted the story so many times after I keep like changing little details without realising it --
G
I won't know whether you're telling the truth.
M
The main gist of it was that I suggested, well, we need to find someone, some young person that's like doing music anyway who wants to try. And then the other people in the choir committee said, why don't you try? And then I was like, OK, Oh my God.
G
That's kind of amazing.
M
I think that the choir thing really is the most like, fake it til you make it, like stepping up and really trying something completely out of my depth, thing I've ever done. But it's gone really well. I went to do a course at the Latvian House because they have a lot more choirs and singers around the UK. So they had a conductor come in and do like a conductor's course for their people, and because we have a connection with all the other Baltic choirs in London, they also invited me along because they knew that like, I'm kind of like new to this whole thing. And in there -- I think this is very similar to that, like, you're a performer or like you have nice handwriting comment where the teaching conductor afterwards came to me and said you are a musician. And I was like, guys, I really needed that.
G
That's very special. Like also for them to witness it in you.
M
Yeah, it's just really nice.
G
And they're like coming up to you and saying, I can see it.
M
Yeah, that really gave me a lot of confidence.
[performance by UK Estonian's Mix Choir ÜHES: Laulik, Mart Saar/rahvaluule, Salvestatud October 2024, directed by Martina Telgmaa]
G
I'm so scared of breaking something in this room of ceramic and glass and lots of people. Not as much fibre art stuff as I saw in the degree shows last year when it was everywhere.
M
When it was in. Last year or the year that I was graduating and we'd go and see other courses work, me and my friends would always try and find like alternate universe versions of ourselves or of each other.
G
Oh my God.
M
It was obviously easier for each other when we point someone's workout and be like, Oh my God, this is alternate universe you.
G
Where you were the ceramicist?
M
Yeah, it's like this is what you would make. And then one of my pals really, like, put his foot in it one time because we went to see the UAL show. And I was saying that like, well, we found one for you and we found one for our other friend, but there wasn't anyone for me. And then he went, Oh, no, there was this girl doing like a pointless performance.
[gaps, laughing]
M
He was like, no, no, no, no. You know what I mean? I mean like --
G
Pointless philosophically.
M
It was like, mate it's okay, I've been hurt before. It's fine.
G
That's cute.
M
I have to say that I'm not feeling incredibly inspired today.
G
No, no.
M
Which is like exactly what I felt last year and it like making me feel like that's just how it is in these things. And like, I don't think it's the fault of the audience member. Like a degree show more so is for you as the student to do something and not for the poor viewer to try and like glean the most meaning out of every single piece that they see. Like that's just impossible.
G
Yeah, you just have to sort of walk around with like a sieve in your eyes and if something sticks, something stays, like one thing, then it's good. I just sort of like the experience of like walking around not really paying attention to anything until something makes me pay attention to it. What would Jennifer Eels have done for her degree show? Or did she just not -- she didn't go to art school.
M
No, she wouldn't have gone to art school. She would have had enough to say without it. I think we decided that she like, didn't have a childhood. She didn't grow up. She just like appeared as this woman. Yeah, we never discussed like education or things like that because she just didn't need it because she just already like appeared perfectly.
[camera sound]
G
Here's a question that I've been asking on the episodes. Are there any good myths in Estonia?
M
Oh, like folklore?
G
Mm, I'm just collecting them.
M
There's one, and I might be butchering this right now --
G
Yeah, that's how it goes.
M
But there's one that I really enjoy is that, on all All Souls night which is in November 2nd of November, you are supposed to leave the sauna ready for all of the ancestors souls to go and have a sauna. And if you stake out and like see them, you'll see them as these cute white chickens in the sauna.
G
That's not what I was expecting to you to say.
M
Well, yes, there's the film called November that is based on like a lot of these like crazy old Estonian beliefs, but kind of like twisted to be even more crazier that says the story about a girl who is also a werewolf and then about falling in love as a werewolf and then the person you love falling in love with someone else and then making deals with the devil and all of that. But it's all in black and white, but not only in black and white, but also like shot in like night vision so it's the most black and white movie that I've ever seen. The coloyr is really, really strange and it's really like funny but also terrible and sad, but that really delves deep into like the the witchy parts of the Estonian myth and folklore, because there's also like cutesy stuff like little fairies and like just more fun stuff.
G
Why are the ancestors chickens?
M
I don't know this actually.
G
I ask in case you say like, well, chickens symbolize this thing and I'm like, OK, then it makes sense.
M
Like, I wish I knew. Yeah, they probably do symbolize something, but quite often something just is that way because it has been.
G
I want to watch the film. Yeah, you should.
[camera sound]
G
That's the end of the degree show.
M
Wow, that's been done.
G
Okay, final thing for the podcast episode is, is there like a link online that you want to send people to at the end? So they've finished listening to this conversation and now they're like, what do I do next on my phone? What is the link that you send them to?
M
I am stuck between my choir's Instagram. Yeah, which is @londonestonianchoir. Yeah, that's just it.
G
That's a good one.
M
Or then the Wikipedia game Redactle, which I really love.
G
I was playing Redactle last night for so long, Zarina didn't know what it was and neither did her boyfriend and we sat on the couch and instead of watching the football, we played three back-to-back games of Redactle.
M
That's so good. I think it kind of ties into this as well because I was also putting my uni friends onto and I remember us all sitting at Gugan Gill’s studio space staring at the screen being like 'write 'woman.' OK write 'man.''
G
Explain what Redactle is for listeners.
M
It is a game where you need to guess the title of a Wikipedia article, but all the words that aren't like 'and,' 'so,' bla bla bla, are redacted. So you need to start guessing all the words and then trying to get to the title as quick as possible.
G
My strategy is War, America, Money.
M
Mine is World, Study.
G
World War II study is in almost every Wikipedia article I've ever done. Okay, Redactle's a really nice one to end it with. Also the choir. Okay, I'm gonna stop recording. Thank you for listening. Bye!
[jingle]