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Desert Island Discs

Sonia Boyce, artist

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.413.7K Ratings

🗓️ 26 March 2023

⏱️ 35 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 2022 Sonia Boyce became the first Black British woman to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale exhibition. She also took home the coveted Golden Lion Award for her installation Feeling Her Way, which combined video and collage with improvised performances by five female musicians. Sonia was born in London and grew up near the renowned Whitechapel Art Gallery. As a very young child she would visit the gallery, often alone, relishing the light and space inside the building. In 1985, two years after graduating from Stourbridge College of Art, she completed her drawing Missionary Position II, which was acquired by the Tate two years later. She was just 25 and was one of the youngest artists and the first Black woman to enter its permanent collection. In 1999 Sonia started work on the Devotional Collection, an archive of sound, ephemera and wallpaper relating to black British women in music, ranging from Shirley Bassey to Neneh Cherry, and celebrating their contribution to international culture. Sonia lives in London with her partner, the curator David A. Bailey. She has taught Fine Art studio practice for more than 30 years in several art colleges across the UK. She was awarded an OBE in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to art. DISC ONE: Meet Me On The Corner - Lindisfarne DISC TWO: Help Me Make It Through the Night - John Holt DISC THREE: Caught You In A Lie - Louisa Mark DISC FOUR: Psycho Killer -Talking Heads DISC FIVE: Wolf & Leopards - Dennis Brown DISC SIX: Is That Jazz - Gil Scott Heron DISC SEVEN: Put Your Records On - Corinne Bailey Rae DISC EIGHT: Love and Affection - Joan Armatrading BOOK CHOICE: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl LUXURY ITEM: Champagne CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Is That Jazz by Gil Scott Heron Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Paula McGinley

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

0:04.9

Hello, I'm Lauren LeVern and this is the Deser Island Disks Podcast.

0:08.6

Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them

0:13.9

if they were cast away to a desert island.

0:16.5

And for right reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast.

0:21.2

I hope you enjoy listening.

0:30.1

Music Radio Music

0:44.6

My cast away this week is the artist Sonja Boyce.

0:47.8

She was just 25 when the tape made her one of the youngest artists and the first black woman

0:52.8

to enter its permanent collection.

0:55.2

Last year she represented Britain at the world's oldest international art show,

0:59.2

the Venice Biennale.

1:00.8

She took home the coveted Golden Lion Award, the first British artist to win the top prize in

1:06.0

30 years and the first woman of colour to represent the UK.

1:09.6

She was born in London to parents who arrived as part of the Windrush generation.

1:13.7

And as a child she drew incessantly.

1:16.5

Her art teacher spotted her talent and suggested she give life drawing a try.

1:21.4

She's used performance, film, installations and sound in her work, but says her true medium is

1:26.9

people. She's a collaborator and has taken the stories of domestic violence survivors to the

1:31.8

Serpentine Gallery, the voices of black female singers to the Venice Biennale and the memories

1:37.2

of a local community to a mural running for two kilometres alongside the new Elizabeth line in London.

1:43.8

She says whenever a door is opened I ask myself if I am in this place, what is possible,

...

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