Creative Adaptation: An Interview with Alec Finlay
One role of art is to describe, and thereby to represent – through framing, materials, and context – and this representation includes experiences which have been erased, or repressed from shared consciousness. This becomes especially acute in a time of identity politics and the fraying of trust in the collective. The book, descriptions, is an act of witness: ME has never been represented in an accurate way, and this has been deliberate. The consequences stymie research and potential treatment. I composed the poem from 300 people’s answers to a series of detailed questions; it was the hardest, most painful project I’ve worked on, and the most personal, though only five words are mine. It’s a work of poetic collective biography.
Alec Finlay interviewed by Katy Wimhurst.