Episode 7: Hilary Powell
Fiona Reilly, 2021
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Hilary Powell works with hidden histories and overlooked techniques in acts of imaginative salvage - valuing the seemingly mundane and highlighting and creating the extraordinary in the everyday. Her work is led by materials and places – working in partnership with them with contagious curiosity and experimentation and inviting others into the process – be this collective roller skating in urban precincts (Air/TFL commission) or creating alternative wild operas in industrial hinterlands (during the Acme Stephen Cripps Award at High House Production Park, Royal Opera House Purfleet).
Recent projects involve collaborative acts of making - from a public production line making an erupting pop-up book history of the London Olympic site (collected by V&A and MoMA NY) to pulling off a Bank Job- setting up a Bank, printing money and literally exploding debt (the feature documentary film of which is nominated for a Grierson and BIFA). The work is a constant process of deconstructing grand narratives and finding ways behind the scenes to both reveal and build new stories – during the pandemic this has led to examining the realities of manufacturing and container shipping with projects supported by Museum of London and Ffotogallery.
Her belief in the power and necessity of artistic and cultural action to challenge an increasingly unjust system and imagine another way of living has led to long term collaboration with Daniel Edelstyn. They have set up both a community interest company Optimistic Foundation dedicated to anarchic, joyful cultural production and a co-operative energy company in their new project POWER.
Powell completed a post doctoral AHRC Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts at the Bartlett, UCL and was Leverhulme ‘Alchemist in Residence’ with UCL Chemistry. She shares her work widely with academic institutions and arts and community organisations, most recently as visiting tutor in Visual Communication at RCA.