Millie Player - Intermedia
"Being very alone while making work for such a long time has just taught me to be less precious about it, to just have fun."
What is your graduation project about?
My current practice is a means of reconnecting our quantitative idea of time to bodily experiences. It is a means of punctuating the falsity of past and present. I view time as an empty vessel, into which we may pour our perception of it.
How do you best like to work?
Days are started off best for me when I can come into the studio early and sit in the big windows and just sit and spend time alone. It seems a simple thing but giving myself a moment to think in the quiet, when my thoughts are still sleepy and I have a whole day of making ahead, makes me so grateful for the time and space I do have to be creative.
Can you tell us about some of the things which inspire you and your work?
Living with my grandmother through the disarray of the previous two years brought about two textures of time within my work.
As the outside world de-contextualised, we were able to talk and build a present experience of her past. I roamed through objects spanning four of my own lifetimes. Documents, schoolbooks, and fabrics evoked discussions of memories; a seemingly meaningless jotting became a talisman of a different existence. My drawings, sculptures and animations are measurements of conversation, the discursive experience becomes the artwork, and therefore becomes time itself.
I aim to capture the quiet resonance I feel in viewing the daily markings of my grandmother’s life. Many of the sketches were made collaboratively, as she was prevented from studying art at my age. She has added, following the path my hands had taken as I followed hers. I hope to create a gently surreal narrative that makes the viewer question the passing of time.
What have been the highlights of your time at ECA and Edinburgh?
Having a space in which everyone’s passions and interests are condensed together, seeing what really drives people to make, the importance of freedom and community in these spaces. Learning to understand the importance of art existing and being shown outside of an institutional context.
How have the events over the past two years affected your work?
Not having a studio, facilities or workshops for nearly two years pushed me back to drawing. It was something I could do anywhere, and I found a new joy in doing it that I hadn’t really felt since being little.
However, when we did have access to everything I wanted to experiment and take my work into as many forms as possible. Being very alone while making work for such a long time has just taught me to be less precious about it, to just have fun.
Have you got plans for after graduating?
I’ve applied to some graduate residencies, but I will be working full/part time in Edinburgh as a solid plan. Finding an affordable studio space would be great, and I’ve also applied to some travel grants as I’d love to visit all the places that my grandmother grew up in France and continue to make work with her.
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