Shock Waves

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Shock Waves: Artist Katie Paterson

Artist Katie Paterson

BBC Radio 4 - Shock Waves, Artist Katie Paterson

Artist Katie Paterson explores how the pandemic and lockdown have affected her creativity.

Artist Katie Paterson explores our relationship with time on a cosmic scale. But when the time continuum is interrupted with a pandemic, what happens to artistic inspiration?

Katie Paterson is one of the leading artists of her generation. Much of her work explores our place on earth in relation to geological or even cosmic time. As the pandemic brought many aspects of our lives to a halt, and caused various projects and exhibitions to be cancelled or delayed, she’s been exploring how this break in life’s continuum is affecting artistic creativity. 

Based outside Edinburgh and with family, staff and studios to support, there was the pragmatic issue of dealing with shrinking finances. But also, with this involuntary pause, a pent-up force of new ideas was released. She’s back in her studio creating an urn made up of collected layers of matter from the dawn of time up until today and is currently deciding which layer should represent the pandemic. She's also creating incense from the first and the last forest on earth.

Comparing notes with other artists - including Edmund de Waal, who's had his most creative year ever, and Peter Liversidge, who saw a gallery that he'd been preparing an exhibition for close - she reflects on the artistic shock waves of the pandemic and its unexpected consequences.

Producer Neil McCarthy

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

Five artists chronicle how they have responded to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Five artists chronicle how they have responded to the Covid-19 pandemic. Dare they dream and imagine what work might emerge out of the crisis?

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