AN INTERVIEW WITH VICTORIA POWELL
Here’s an extract from my conversation with Dr Victoria Powell on my podcast, Do Good & Do Well.
To listen to the whole conversation click here.
Dr Victoria Powell is a writer and lecturer in modern and contemporary art. In 2021, she set up The Gallery Companion, a CK publication, which explores the ideas about life, culture, history, and politics that you find in art.
She aims to break down the perception that contemporary art is hard to understand by avoiding confusing arts speak and talking about it in a language that makes sense.
Sarah
Hello Victoria and welcome to the Do Good and Do Well podcast. How are you today?
Victoria
I am very well. Thank you, Sarah, for having me.
Sarah
Oh, you're welcome. It's lovely to meet you and I'm really looking forward to our conversation. So first off, tell us about yourself. What do you want people to know about you?
Victoria
Well, I am a writer. I write about contemporary art. I also have a podcast and I'm a teacher. I work in international education, so at a higher education level. So, yeah, I'm all of those things. I suppose I'm really interested in what people think and why they think those things.
I'm interested in questioning ideas and, you know, the assumptions and beliefs that we live by. And that's what I write about by the lens of art. The feedback that I get the most from my writing is that it's thought provoking, which is, for me, I guess, the ultimate, brilliant. Because if I were to describe what my writing is broadly about, I would say it's about the way in which power circulates. In our world. And how it operates, the dynamics of power. And I'm really interested in politics and contemporary events, you know, stuff that's going on in the world.
So I write about, I speak about that, I teach that. And I just like to have discussions about what's going on and, you know, kind of look at things from different angles.
Sarah
How did you arrive in this place where, you know, it is clear that that idea of being thought provoking and having discussions around what's happening in the world through a contemporary art lens, how did you arrive here?
Victoria
I suppose the influence of my dad, you know, he died last year and we always had the most amazing conversations. You know, I'm broadly left of centre. And he was right of centre and we always kind of had these interesting discussions where I would come at him with something and he would just give me in the most kind of generous and thought-provoking way, another perspective.
And, and so I, I've come from that, you know, all of my life I've been kind of in conversation with one person seeing another view. But I guess the art stuff comes from-, you know, I did my undergraduate degree in history of art and then started my career I worked for back in the early 2000s.
This is showing my age. I worked for an art gallery, a .com art gallery. Part of that kind of bubble, you know, of the early 2000s when, you know, there was all of this kind of excitement around dot coms, and a lot of them went bust and in fact, that one did. But I kind of got started in the art world from that.
And then, I moved into marketing in the arts sector. So I was marketing quite difficult to sell, contemporary arts events, you know, dance, world music, contemporary opera, all the hard stuff. But it was really kind of interesting because pretty much every night of the week in London I was going to some amazing new show or event.
So I've sort of been steeped in the arts right throughout my career. And then I got to the end of my, twenties and I, I just thought I need to do more, I need to go back to studying. So I did an MA in the History of Design, Royal College of Art. And from that, I fell into teaching.
I started to teach in higher education in London, teaching art students about, critical and contextual studies. Basically the sort of essay part of fine art degrees or design degrees, bits that most artists don't enjoy. But I got into that and then I started a PhD, which ended up just being a social history project, but it did start off being a kind of design history project.
And I've sort of done that ever since really. That's how I kind of-, that's where the art element comes into it. You know, I've just sort of been steeped in visual culture. And when I'm thinking about, what's going on in the world? You know, I listen to a lot of podcasts. My way of receiving information is largely through listening to radio, listening to podcasts, and reading. I don't watch much TV. I just find myself thinking about, artists who have. You know, who are addressing those issues in different ways. So they kind of bring alternative perspectives to debates. And I think that's sort of quite interesting, really. Like, the artists are able to, frame things in a way that is beyond words because it's visual, but quite often can hit, don't know how, very powerfully, a kind of an emotional connection that is very persuasive. And so yeah, I'm sort of tying all of these things.
It's taken a while though to really kind of understand what I'm doing. You know, I do lots of things, but this is the Gallery Companion, which is my blog and my podcast, has evolved over time and it's become this thing which really, you know, fills a lot of my head.
And, although I also do other stuff, I just find myself needing to express ideas in a certain way through writing and through speaking that, you know, gives another perspective.
Sarah
First of all, I wanted to take a moment to think how powerful that was for you and your dad to be able to kind of have those conversations and for you to be held in that way that was non-judgmental and that you could both get curious together.
I mean, what a gift. That made me go tingly when you talked about that and I really enjoyed your-, or the way that you talked about these things that are driving you and how you have come to this point. How your career has been steeped in art and then when you talked about how artists can present a different perspective, and sometimes it's not about how we logically think about it or consciously think about it.
It can get you right in the gut and make you feel a certain way. It really reminded me of the work that I did in my community arts, socially engaged, days, where we would work with artists to talk about things like love and hope and connection and kindness to make it more impactful and help people to feel those things, through art. So that totally resonated. Everything you said then really, really resonated.
I'm really curious about this idea, you know, you are kind of-, I'm hearing this need, I suppose, for you to put these ideas across and I wonder, what's your why? What are you hoping to achieve through that? Both perhaps for yourself, but also for a wider audience?
Victoria
Well, I guess for myself, I've always found that the process of writing helps me kind of sift through different moral positions and it helps me to kind of clarify what I actually think about something. So one of the recent stories that I wrote about, was the proposed legislation on immigration that's currently going through the House of Parliament put forward by the Tory government and you know, obviously immigration is a really hot topic, one that absolutely divides opinion. And what I wanted to be able to do was to talk with absolute clarity about what I thought about Sue's legislation and that involved looking at that legislation and what exactly is being proposed.
And, you know, that for me is a really valuable thing for me to do, that's what I get out of it. There's a lot of hot discussion and I don't want it to be surface level for me personally. I wanna talk with authority about what I think and why.
And that's always been something that I've valued. So writing has always really really been an important thing for me. And what do I hope other people will get from it? Ways of thinking differently about something, about a subject, an opportunity to just to have your thoughts proje provoked to, to challenge people's thinking on, on, on subs. I suppose I come from a, you know, because I come from a teaching background, so. That's what I do all the time. You know, I put forward ideas for discussion and, you know, I, I'm absolutely not interested in going, it's like this, this is what you should think.
What I want to do with my writing and my podcast is to get people to sort of see two sides of the story because there always are two sides of a story, aren't there? And again, just going back to my dad, you know, he would move me and I certainly moved him in the way that he thought.
And I think, you know, at the moment in our current, political discourse or public discourse about stuff, there's so much alienation isn't there? And there's so much dismissal and there's so so much shutting down. And actually, subjects are not black and white. There's never a clear answer. You know, things are uncertain.
And I put forward ideas, but I also try and present other ideas as well and ask people to respond to it. I always finish with, you know, an invitation to share your thoughts on the subject. And I want to know what people think and I respond to what people think as well.
It's not just a sort of invitation. You respond and then it goes out into the-, I always respond to everyone. And I've learned so much from doing that. I mean, I've learned so much from doing that in my teaching. And that has come through in my writing as well and the way that I want to engage and have my thoughts challenged or have other people tell me a different perspective.
Sarah
I'd love to dig a little bit deeper on this if that's all right. So you've talked about new perspectives, you've talked about that challenge. You like to be challenged, you like to challenge, not that there's something about gentle persuasion moving people from extreme positions. Why is that important to you?
Victoria
Why is that important to me? It's a good question. And I suppose I do have various answers to that one, which is, you know, that I'm a gay woman, and have been at the end of not so nice experiences, including within my own family, and over the years, I've tried various ways to engage with extremes of position. And when you are hostile, it never works.
When you are very reasonable and rational, you see people move and recognise common humanity, the things that we share rather than the differences that divide us. And I suppose that's why it's sort of ingrained in me really to find the things that we have in common rather than the things that separate us.