Matthew Stone and friends interview Ebe Oke.

• Matthew Stone: What do you have faith in?

Ebe Oke: Love, friendship, the overriding benevolence of the universe and the inherent goodness of every human being no matter how wounded or flawed - also, we can heal ourselves of illnesses great and small, I’ve done it!

• Boo Saville : What do you think happens when we die?

EO: I’m not afraid of dying having come close before - I am in love with and lust for life but death is a comforting thought - I believe my spirit will remain, my intelligence will become a feeble footnote and I will harmonise with friends and loved ones: those of the same frequency or spiritual family - I don’t believe in heaven or hell unless it’s self imposed - the inability to forgive is a surefire anchor to the flames.

• Nicola Lane : What does success mean to you?

EO: Ultimately for me it means to accept myself and to love without reservation or fear - it also means to have the freedom to work with whomever I choose whenever I choose and to have access to great resources for my work in different mediums, be it musical, visual or literary - finally it means to have the financial freedom to travel and explore, homes in a city and isolated countryside of my choosing and being able to share it all with the one I love.

• Jack Brennan : What film fits your vision of the future best and why? (The film needn’t be set in the future)

EO: Orlando: the opening scene! I would like to spend my future writing poetry on a rolling hill under a great oak! Tilda Swinton is the ageless, time traveling, gender bending, noble hero(ine) and I can think of no better ticket to the future than that - exploring your anima and animus with lovers of both sexes as both a man and a woman, possessing an otherworldly beauty and charm and being portrayed through the eyes of a brilliantly poetic female director; you can’t go wrong.

• Iphgenia Baal : What is the one thing about you that undermines all the opinions you have made above?

EO: I have a pronounced dark side that through years of honest investigation I have become more conscious of - I faced a lot of adversity earlier in life which caused me to accumulate fears and insecurities which once seemed insurmountable - simply recognising this dark side and the minions in its thrall is a start but something has to occur which grants you enough perspective to see that you actually have a choice not to act from your shadow but from your shine (so to speak) - having mapped out the terrain of my dark side through poems, songs, visions and the mirror of intimate relationships (etc.. ) and realising I have a choice has freed me immensely to embrace a lighter spirit and personality - It’s been a real blessing to visit such extremes.

• MS: What question should be added to this list?

EO: What unique gifts do you have to offer to this world ?

Nicola Lane pictured with Jack Birkett (The Incredible Orlando).

Nicola Lane’s 2006 film SPLITSCREEN funded by Arts Council England will be showing throughout April 19th –20th at the Lighthouse, the Chubb Building, Wolverhampton, as part of the 2008 Wolverhampton Disability Film Festival.

www.artsunwrapped.com
www.kingsgateworkshops.com
www.adornequip.com

Matthew Stone and friends interview Nicola Lane.

• Matthew Stone : What is most important to you?

Nicola Lane: Love for my family and friends and making art.

• MS : How can we change the world and what is there to be done?

NL: The world is being changed all the time- change is the engine that drives the universe. What needs to be done is more thinking about change: can we co-exist with each other, other animals and environments?

• Norman Rosenthal : Why are we alive at all? It is after all a very strange state to find ourselves in.

NL: To me being alive means consciousness and I remember the moment when I was 4 years old and realized I was me and nobody else. It was very strange and wonderful. One theory is that consciousness is the firing between connections in the brain. Whatever it is, it is marvellous and I do not know why it exists.

• Steph Raynor : Are we anywhere near where we need to be?

NL: The planet is having a mid-life crisis.

• Boo Saville : What do you think happens when we die?

NL: I think that the moment of death (perhaps as long or as short as a dream) is a journey away from consciousness and that the journey is meaningful.

• Matthew Stone: What question should be added to this list?

NL: What does success mean to you?

 

Matthew Stone and friends interview Sir Norman Rosenthal.

• Matthew Stone: What do you have faith in?

Sir Norman Rosenthal: Love, art, music and letters.

• MS: How can we change the world and what is there to be done?

NR: By converting everyone in the world to love, art and music.

• MS: Do you hope to be remembered and what for?

NR: I believe in the ephemeral, which is why I like making exhibitions. They disappear as everything will sooner or later.

• Todd Hart : What’s the best example of Art really changing the world for the better?

NR: I don’t really believe in the concept of best, except at the subjective moment of confrontation with a work of art when maybe there is an illusion of “best”. My tastes in art happen to be very eclectic as they also are in music.

So one minute before doing this little blog for you I was listening to Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations and if everybody would listen to that simultaneously it would change the world for the better, but equally it might be a drawing or a social sculpture of Joseph Beuys.

 

Photo by Scottee

Matthew Stone and friends interview Kate Moross

•  Matthew Stone: What do you have faith in?

 Kate Moross: Space, time and complex carbohydrates. Right now they are the only three things I trust. I am not a spiritual person. Instead I indulge in science and theory to satisfy my curiosities and answers to life’s questions. Carbs, carbs are amazing, if they didn’t exist myself and the rest of the human population would have withered away.

• MS: How can we change the world and what is there to be done?

I have no interest in all this global-warming-save-the-planet bullshit. Its going to happen. Yes the world will end. I’m sure “destroy the earth” is written into our genetic code. We are the selfish race after all. So I say, lets go DIY, and start at home. Say please and thank you, be nice to the bus driver, care for our old, care for our young and our sick. Its simple really, the only effects we can really have day to day are through the little things, the beauty is in the details, right?

• Steph Raynor : Are we anywhere near where we need to be?

I’d say, Yes. If we substitute “we” for “human race” I think we are pretty awesome. Focus on the bad things, corruption, war,bla bla bla and you are likely to think that we are a complete mess. However look at what good is happening, it seems that as a race, collectively, we are reaching even higher levels of Maslow’s pyramid. I think there are a lot of amazing investigations and experiments ongoing in science and the arts, that make me proud to be a human. You only have to watch a handful of the TED talks to realise that it is genuinely really exciting to be alive.

• Todd Hart : What’s the best example of Art really changing the world for the better?

Art will never change the world. It may nudge it and morph it in places, but like matter it can never be created or destroyed. Art it is formed out of what is going on and is then eventually reabsorbed, in one way or another.

• Boo Saville : What do you think happens when we die?

 Sweet Fuck All. We die. We get eaten by worms, and then we make the grass greener. Dying is simple. Its the grieving thats the hard part.

• MS: What question should be added to this list?

Kate Moross: If you had the choice between either being able to manipulate space or time which one would you choose, and what would you do?