Dear Artist / Love Audience

This letter has been shared across the world and has evolved into a simple film work. Read the letter and watch the film below.

DEAR ARTIST

This is a love letter. To every artist out there

To you whose practice is alive and up close

To you who are feeling under-valued, unheard, uncertain or overwhelmed

To you who are angry, placeless, anxious or alone

To you, the seer, the doer, the alchemist, the explorer

We need you more than ever right now. To be at the heart of this storm

TO BE BRAVE. TO BE HERE

To be strong, and fragile, and precise, and abandoned, and funny, and scared, and clever, and real, and raw and attuned

To be precociously skilled, and right on the edge of dropping, or forgetting, or failing, or falling, or running out

To be alert to the beauty, and cruelty, and pain, and privilege, and fear, and guts, and brilliance, and hope in our world

TO BE TELLING THE TRUTH

To be shouting down the lies

To be focusing our attention on all the things we can’t bear to look at, but so desperately need to see

To be piercing our armour, screaming in our faces, rubbing our noses in it

To be putting yourself in someone else’s shoes

To be fighting with our bodies, and imagining with our hopes, and fearing with our terrors, because we are not yet brave enough to do these things ourselves

TO BE SHOCKING US, IMPLICATING US, COMPELLING US

To be ripping out our hearts, making our pupils dilate, our blood flow faster, our tears sting, our throats run dry

To be showing us we are not alone, we are with others, just like others, like no others

To be making us feel special, and inconsequential, and always an important part of something bigger than us

To be standing right up there, in the silence, in the full glare of the lights

To be lunging, and diving, and leaping, and twisting, and scowling, and clenching

TO BE KEEPING IMPOSSIBLY STILL

To be playing air guitar in your pants, not really caring what you look like

To be persuading us to play air guitar in our pants and to not really care what we look like, alongside you

To be leaking, and dripping, and oozing, and gathering in pools

To be turning the full force of our gaze right back on us

To be spitting right in our faces that what we do next really counts

To be ensuring that we will never, ever be the same as the people we once were

To be crafting the kind of experiences that we will always utterly fail to put into words

To be showing us this time we have, this life we live, is a gift and a responsibility

To be helping us become as strong, and fragile, and precise, and abandoned, and funny, and scared, and clever, and real, and raw and attuned as you

I KNOW THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE

But you see, if you can be all of this, then we can too

In return we will be there. In the blur. Beyond the lights. With you

We will bring ourselves, our persistence, our resilience, our commitment, our energy, our generosity, our time, our care, our belief

We will be messy, and fleshy, and unpredictable, and determined. We won’t necessarily always follow your rules

We will bring our own stories, our breath, our skin, our blood

We will leave our tiny flecks, our tears, our sweat that flies across the room

We will be kind, conversational, intimate, inter-active

We will come ever so slightly too close

We will be there in those moments when your dust is dancing, and your skin is alive

We will feel your loss, mark your endings, love your costume changes, notice your brave leaps, and curtain calls

WE WILL CHANGE

We will fight

We will give you our bodies and minds

We will see you. We will hear you

We are anonymous, out there, in the line, crouched against the wall

We are the bums on the seats

We are the ones alongside you

Your stories live on in us

We are still out there. Waiting

Until we meet again

LOVE AUDIENCE