Unit X: Hetain Patel

Today I attended a lecture from the artist Hetain Patel. His practice is based in performance art varying between film and live performance. Performance art is not something I know much about so I was intrigued to see what his work entailed. And since as part of this unit we've been encouraged to deviate from our usual field, this genre of art could provide inspiration for our final outcome.

Hetail Patel frequently dabbles in collaborations with artists outside of his field. Such as in the performance piece 'Sine Language' 2007 where he worked with a Beat-boxer to present a sort of rhythmic conversation between two practitioners from opposite fields.

However, his work primarily deals with the notion of cultural identity, most significantly his own. For example, his latest piece 'Be like Water' 2012 talks of how he came about overcoming his childhood embarrassment of having to wear traditional Indian dress by associating it with the costumes of Kung-fu warriors that he admired as a boy.

Much of his work is a reaction to his personal experiences of culture and identity. I think this is what makes his work so accessible as to a degree we have at some point in our lives questioned what it is that makes us who we are, be it cultural practices or our individual idiosyncrasies that define us.

After the lecture we were asked to make our way back to Hilton House so that we could speak to the artist as a group and possibly get some feedback from him about our work. It was a bit odd to have to trek all the way back to Hilton House for this but I suppose the first years have been given a sort of nomadic status since the beginning of this unit! At this stage I didn't have much work to show Hetain Patel but I was interested in what he had to say about collaboration and the general process of working with other artists and practitioners.

There weren't many present from my group, or even from other groups as a matter fact. So we joined forces as a bit of a super-group! We all got chatting (or winging about Unit X) and by the time Hetain came over to speak to us we had a really nice and relaxed atmosphere going.

Below are some of the questions we asked him about his practice.

How do you go about securing venues/ gallery exhibitions to showcase your work?

• Make a proposal that is relevant to the venue
• Approach the venue owners how you would want to be approached- do not send the same proposal to all venues.
• Visit galleries and openings- get to know curator and let them be aware of you and your work
• Avoid cold calling!
• Get to know curators! Go talk to them in their curated exhibitions and gallery openings.
• They will be happy to listen to what you have to say about them.
• Know that this is something that takes place over a period of time; it is inappropriate to simply approach curators and ask for an exhibition!

How do you approach the artists that you want to work with?

• These could be people who's work you've seen and are inspired by so it may be a simple case of asking them to meet you for a coffee/ an informal setting so that you can get to know them and their practice. It might be that nothing comes of it, but it is simply a case of having a conversation with them and finding things you are both interested in pursuing before beginning a project.

How do you approach working with people outside of your discipline and how do you reach a mutual decision in regards to the direction of work?

• Have a series of informal conversations with the other person
• Its all about having empathy for their practice
• Try to find links between your interests as a point on which to move forward
• Treat it like a relationship- compromises have to be made!

How do you make contacts in your field?

• Attend conference events for artists. This is a chance to meet not just other artists but also producers and directors.

• These events are specifically for networking so be sure to swap cards.
• Then add these people to your mailing list. It is a way of making people aware of what you do. i.e. email them any time you do some thing even if it is to put up or change a website. That way they will subconsciously register your name and remember you if you ask to work with them in the future.

Do you begin your projects with an idea of the kind of outcome that you want?

• Not necessarily, I may choose to work with different mediums at the same time. This is an important process of trying things out and seeing what works best in saying what you want to say. In some cases only certain processes will work, in others all might have successful outcomes.

Are your performance pieces rehearsed?

• For some pieces it is important for the act to be improvised and 'in the moment'. Often the interaction that takes place during the performance is what the work is about.
• Alternatively, Sine Language was mostly improvised but had a pre-determined structure due to the subject matter (i.e. there was a set rhythm pattern).

It was a bit of a faff to get to and from Hilton House and there was a lot of waiting around but I would say it was worth it in the end as Hetain Patel is a very nice and down-to-earth guy who gave us a really good insight into his practice as a collaborative artist. Having begun his career from a Fine Art background, where much the focus is on the individual, he was able to sympathise with our situation and give us good pointers about how to develop a successful collaboration. He spoke very much about the importance of having a series of simple informal conversations with the person you are working with and generally making the effort to get to know them and finding common ground with them. He stressed that for this to happen, we must have empathy for their practice. I think that is perhaps the most relevant piece of advice we've be given for this unit!