Happy New Year All.
‘Short film on view at Hackney Museum zooms in on the life of painter Paul Dash’
A Hackney Wick artist who migrated here in 1957 is the focus of a poignant and fascinating short film about black identity
Paul in his studio.
Paul Dash began painting as a way of reconnecting with his Caribbean identity.
In 1957 he found himself in unfamiliar surroundings. He was an 11-year-old boy who had just left his home in Barbados to join his family in Oxford.
Filmmaker and journalist Martha McAlpine has documented Dash’s struggles to live as a migrant in post-colonial Britain in a short film now showing at Hackney Museum.
You can read the rest of this article here
I am proud to look back to the end of last year and the documentary project I worked on about artist Paul Dash. I met Paul as I was wondering around Hackney Wick during (Hackney Wicked Artist Open Studios 2015) looking for artists to interview for ‘portrait’ style documentary films.
As I got to know Paul I discovered that he had had a very interesting life so far and he was also incredibly modest about it. Luckily for me, Paul agreed to be filmed. After a long day filming with (filmmaker Andrew Bull) in Paul’s Britannia Works studio, I had enough footage to cut a short film about him and his work.
Whilst I was still working on the script and story for the film, Hackney Museum got in touch. For their upcoming exhibition, they had also met and interviewed Paul and had plans to feature some of his art in the space. They felt the film I was making would complement what they had already done and they offered to house a short ‘snippet’ of it.
The resulting film is now installed in Hackney Museum in the ‘People Power: Black British Arts and Activism in Hackney 1960s- 2000s’ exhibition and as well as here on my site you can view it until the 21st January.
The aim now is to produce the longer version which I hope to get commissioned.
Paul and the film have also been featured in Repeating Islands and on the CARISCC blog.
