indy-sanders

<div class="host-info">Asia Stewart, podcast host.</div>
<div class="guest-info">Indy Sanders, artist guest.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: Welcome to Open Studios, a podcast brought to you by PerformVu, the digital home for experimental performance. My name is Asia Stewart. I'm a performance artist and the founding artistic director of PerformVu, and I'll also be your host. Every episode, I'll be sitting down with a different artist to take a virtual step inside their studio to learn more about their practice and motivations.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: This episode is going to be slightly different. I'm joined by Indy Sanders and they are the founder of PerformVu. Welcome, Indy. Hello!</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: How's it going?</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: Yeah, I'm doing pretty well today. You know, not too hot, not too muggy. Can't complain. How are you?</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: Good. Yeah. Just preparing for New York storms that I think are coming very soon.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: Ah, yes, yes, yes. Well, Indy, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: Definitely. Um, so yeah, Indy Sanders is my name. Uh, I was born in London. I actually, uh, left school at 13 and spent much of my teenage years on the international tennis tour. So that's on the junior circuit and the professional circuit.</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: Um, those days of playing tennis came to an end, sadly, due to a pretty severe back injury. But I found myself able to go to university, I studied politics. From there I drifted around in the law scene for a bit, had ambitions to be a barrister, but, uh, decided to move parts. Um, took a few jobs in the world of tech and found, uh, that although I really liked the skills that I was using in that environment and just tech generally kind of gave me a bit of a boost. I didn't necessarily feel that I was giving enough impact to the world around me. So I wanted to be a bit more intentional with where I put my energy and where I focused my career. So that was kind of where I was at when I started looking for a new project and stumbled across the problem set that led to PerformVu being developed.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: Okay. Okay. And what is PerformVu?</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: Yeah, so PerformVu is the digital home for experimental performance. It's a space where audience members can explore, watch, and support experimental performance generally, including the artists and the video content that they produce through their incredible work. Um, and we're launching from the 6th of July. Amazing.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: And, uh, for listeners who aren't really familiar with performance or experimental performance, what does that mean in your mind and how do you define it?</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: Yeah. So, an artist called Natasha Volyakovsky said this really well recently, said that they use performance to deliver a message. And I think that's really interesting. The idea of turning lived experiences, whether that's anything from, uh, gender, sexuality, race, or living through COVID and that kind of whirlwind that we all went through and turning that into a performance and using movement, um, either the artist's own body or other performers that the artist is working with, using materials, using sculpture creation, and all of those sort of different disciplines to deliver that storytelling, I think is, yeah probably the best way for me to explain it, but, um, that's my take.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: Yeah, no, I absolutely agree. And I think what separates performance art from other disciplines is the fact that the body is at the forefront of the work. The body is the medium through which the artwork is, is built and created and often shared as well.</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: I think it's just really exciting. You know, we've got some awesome work that we're showcasing. You have anything from, uh, a queer ballet to, um, someone doing something in, in kind of the glacier landscape of Norway, or someone doing something in a studio space with an audience live, and they're kind of engaging with the audience.</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: Um, so I think it's really cool that it spans across loads of different spaces and interpretations and mediums. Um, it's really exciting stuff. Mm hmm.</div>

<div class="host">Uh, and as you mentioned, you have had a pretty eclectic career and, and background. So what motivated you to create PerformVu? Could you tell us a little bit about that story?</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: Yeah, so I guess probably good context to land here as well is that you and I are married. Um, and you're an incredible, you're an incredible performance artist. Um, so my experience of being surrounded by you and this world of, uh, experimental performance kind of gave me exposure to a few key problems within that landscape.</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: Firstly, just artists are constantly having to apply for grants in order to produce work, and those grants don't cover the cost of living. So you've got artists that are doing incredible work that are still working three jobs on the side just to make a living to put their art out there. Um, you also have this kind of localized landscape of performances happening in some key cities around the world, but if you live on the outskirts of those cities or, you know, far away from them or in different countries, you don't get access to the work that's being produced, and that's a problem.</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: And then the third one is, you know... All these artists are performing live, or they're performing for a camera, uh, and they produce this incredible video work, but they don't know where to put it. They can put it on existing solutions, like Vimeo or YouTube, but it doesn't necessarily connect them to the audience that they desire.</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: And most importantly, it doesn't compensate them in the way that we would want it to. Um, so those are kind of the problems that were uncovered. Uh, and I kind of remember specifically that you and I were on a phone call one day, uh, I was walking up a very steep hill in the U. K. And I remember thinking, why doesn't this exist? Why don't we create it? And that was, that was a while back, and it took us a little pathway to get here. Indy Sanders: I started building properly last year, and have since been, you know, full time on this for a good few months now. And you've come on full time as well as Founding Artistic Director, and we've got a really awesome team around us that's driving a few different areas.</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: And yeah, I think it's just been really, really exciting. And despite, you know, the lack of sleep that we've had in the past few weeks and months, we've been able to speak to incredible artists all around the world and hear their stories, which is kind of the purpose of this podcast, just to get those stories out there. But it's so inspiring and it's, it's really energizing and I'm really happy that we're driving this forward.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: And, if you, you know…In your, in your ideal world, what could PerformVu grow to be, or what would PerformVu achieve?</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: Yeah, so I think it's really important that we pen the motivation or the kind of the one liner is the, uh, creating the digital home for experimental performance.</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: And that's really important to differentiate from just being a streaming platform or a video platform because we have so many ambitions beyond just delivering video content that you'll start to see kind of trickling through releases in this summer on the tech and later this year. So what we see it to be is just a space to grow that community and connect audiences that are all around the world to artists that are equally all around the world, to share work, to share experiences, to potentially have some kind of deeper connection to what we can have right now.</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: I know I won't give too much away around what exciting things we're working on, but, but that's kind of the main, the main goal. And ultimately we want to create a model that prevents artists from having to work three jobs. My dream would be that PerformVu gives a baseline sustainable income to artists. Maybe they need like one job on the side or maybe that's enough. And that would be incredible for us. Because think of how much, how much more work could be created. How much more work could be shared with the world. And the impact and the ripple effect of those stories just getting out there could be huge.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: I absolutely agree. I mean, I think from my perspective as an artist, at times my practice feels incredibly unsustainable because I'm doing 5 different things on the side in addition to attempting to create work in addition to attempting to show up for live performances. And there's also so much time that's required to just, you know, think and live and move through the world and imagine what other performances or works could be to you.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: So this sounds like it could be something that's, you know, really transformational for the community. And could you tell us a little bit about some of the challenges that you've encountered, in trying to launch PerformVu and get it off the ground?</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: Um, I think there's three key challenges. First one is funding. Uh, this, you know, we've, we've got some funding through the door now, but this was self funded for a long time. So with that, you've got to think really tactically around where you can put the money that you have. And what's really important to the early stages of the development. So that was, that was a bit of a challenge.</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: Second one is infrastructure. I think tech infrastructure, I won't get into too much detail here, but, um, two things are really a priority there. One is speed. How do we make sure that the streaming experience and the video delivery is really high quality across anywhere in the world, so you can be sat in Antarctica and get the same speed as you're, as if you're in New York with us. And so we're, we've been focused on that and that, that's been a challenge to overcome.</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: Um, the second one on that kind of lens is security. So what we heard from a lot of the artists that we're speaking to and I know this is an experience you had in yourself and for yourself and you actually exposed in one of your recent performances, um, is this, this kind of download of content and that's because it's sitting on platforms at the moment that aren't dedicated to enjoying art and enjoying this performance work.</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: They're dedicated to a load of different, um, artists. Different work, different videos, so the dilution of content means that these platforms are not actually prioritizing the work itself and prioritizing protecting it. So that was really important for us to make sure we, we didn't repeat. Um, so we have a really good base point in terms of security of the work and we're, in the next three months, we're going to have a next level of that. Uh, so that's been something we've had to deeply think through and have the structure around us and build that out.</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: I think the third challenge is just audience. So our ambitions for this is to expand the audience for this work beyond the “in the know” community. We would love and will be welcoming on the “in the know” community, the people who are engaging in these performances in their cities, in their day to day lives. But what's that kind of next step for us is how do we create an accessible platform for the people that haven't come across this work? This work is inaccessible because of that localized issue I stated earlier. So, um, people like even myself before I met you, Asia, um, who didn't have exposure to this work, wouldn't know where to find it, don't know the names of any artists.</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: That's a problem that exists for so many people across the world. But when they get exposed to it, suddenly they're hooked. Like me, I've now, you know, created my whole career around this work. Um, so we feel pretty strongly that there's a lot more people out there like that. And we want to make sure we're building with a focus on bringing them into this space. And that's, uh, that's an ongoing challenge we're going to face, but we're already making good strides towards it.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: I'm really curious…what hooked you, right? So you were, um, as you said, you know, before you met me, you didn't really know that much about experimental performance or performance art. Uh, maybe you went to museums, you know, a few times a year or so, but it wasn't something that you were fully immersed in. So what is it about performance, about experimental performance that really draws you in, that engages you?</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: I think it's the, it's the impact of it, which stems from the stories it's, it's telling, right? So, um, We're surrounded by so much content, particularly digital media in the digital media space, right? Um, suddenly we have so many people trying to tell us things all the time, but so often it's just meaningless. And you scroll through TikTok, you go on Netflix, and you can watch stuff that's enjoyable, gets your serotonin levels up, but doesn't spark much questioning within yourself, or doesn't give you insight into something that's been a lived experience of someone else around the world.</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: Um, so I think that was the real trigger for me. It was like, wow, this stuff is so powerful. These artists are doing incredible things and I want to help them.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: Really interesting. Um, and I'm also curious too, do you find that there's any relationship with your professional career as a tennis player that draws you or connects you to the experience of putting on a work that that takes so much from the body, right? That that draws from the body…And a lot of the performances that you've seen over the past few weeks, months and years require such levels of endurance and discipline and demand so much from the body as well.</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: Yeah, that endurance factor is definitely there. I think, you know, tennis players, uh, any athlete has to know their body so intimately, and there are certain signs that you can understand and learn to understand. You know when to push, know when to hold back, uh, and I think, you know, when you go through a six hour tennis match, uh, and you come out the other side, you've learned so much more about yourself, and you've challenged yourself to new limits that, um, otherwise you hadn't, you hadn't pushed to before. So I think that through, uh, experimental performance work, particularly the endurance stuff, you really see that, you see that coming through.</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: You see the artists testing themselves, learning, uh, and you kind of, when you're watching it as well, you go on that journey with the artist, even though your body's not in that same space. So, um, I definitely see a lot of that in, as a parallel. And I also just see like, you know, hustle culture. Tennis players, athletes are constantly hustling, constantly working to improve, constantly fighting for the next opportunity on the tennis court. Uh, and you see that in artists as well, I think. You know, the,  determination that artists have to get their work out there to the world despite all these problems that we've spoken about is, uh, is pretty impressive.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: Yeah, absolutely. No, there is…It's difficult. It's difficult out here being an artist, but I'm hoping that PerformVu can change some of that, right? And can make a substantial difference in the lives of the artists who are part of the community and also for the discipline as well. It'll be really interesting to see how users and subscribers engage with the platform to even go so far as to tip the artists for the, for the work that they've seen and hopefully enjoyed as well.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: The other thing that you made me think of when you were talking about, uh, the sort of experience demands of, of professional athletes, I was thinking about how isolating that that world and what I'm assuming that experiences as well. And I think so much of the, the active of creation and generation as, as an artist is quite isolating as well.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: You're often working in your studio. Or at home, you know, whatever space you have available to you, uh, creating work on your own, or maybe with your collaborators. And then you finally get to the point where you're sharing it outwards with the world. And, uh, something that I imagine is really wonderful about perform view is the fact that it's fostered and facilitated the sense of community, um, of artists who are based around the world too.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: And, uh, something that I find really inspirational is the idea of artists coming together to showcase their work together and to use the strength of the collective to draw in viewers and engagement and ultimately to be in a place where they're actually sharing resources and support and funds together too. So, it's really, really wonderful to imagine, and I guess we'll very soon see after the launch on the 6th, uh, you know, what PerformVu can be and do and drive.</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: Yeah, that kind of community, community working together to create a better future is definitely what we, what we've tried to push and what we're already seeing from the artists that we have on board. So how can we make sure we not only change how their work's getting out there and how they're communicating with audiences, but also that community and give them that support system that, um, they're not, they're not receiving.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: I think something that you alluded to was also the sense of, like, competition, right? And, uh, I think that that sort of competitive nature, that environment is something that pervades the art world. And so what does it look like to move, or operate in a sense that's cultivating abundance, right? And this idea that we can share and we can grow together as artists within the community.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: And yeah, really excited to see what that looks like and what that feels like. Thank you so much for your time. And I think we're coming up to our final question. Which two works that are currently available on PerformVu would you recommend, and why?</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: But if I'm going to choose two today, it probably changes every day. I love Stein Henningsen's The Boat. So in that performance, Stein, or prior to the performance, he restored this old rowboat. Stein lives, um, in Norway, surrounded by glaciers, and he took this old rowing boat in this incredible setting, rowed the boat across this glacial landscape, and then set it on fire while he was rowing it. And I think it's, you know, just such a visually powerful piece. I think it took him two years or so to find and restore the boat, so that's really awesome as well, and just to see that journey in terms of what went on before the production. And then the piece itself is really awesome. So I think that's my first one.</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: Second one, let's go with Christopher Williams' Narcissus. And that is a queer ballet that is reimagining this Greek mythology. And within all of Christopher's pieces, there's incredible costume design. I know he works with a few folks to make that happen. But it's a long piece. It's incredibly moving. It's great to see ballet in a different light than we normally see it. And I just really love how he's presenting this mythical world with modern day queer folks. It's powerful and, and yeah, I really look forward to all of Christopher's work. Absolutely.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: I absolutely agree. And I think what's remarkable about Christopher's choreography and approach to every performance is that they really are transcendent and transport viewers or audience members to this other fantastical realm or world. And it's really incredible to behold. Fantastic recommendations.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: Well, any final words that you want to share with our listeners before we say goodbye?</div>

<div class="guest">Indy Sanders: No, I think just, you know, go check it out for yourselves. PerformVu is launching the 6th of July, depending on when you hear this, maybe before or after we've. We've got lots of big ideas. So this is just the beginning. And we welcome feedback. You know, send it to us. Tell us what you want from the platform. Tell us what you want to see. Tell us how you want to connect to your, the artists that you're watching. And if you are an artist, get in touch. We're continuing to build our list of artists that we're going to be releasing throughout the year. And yeah, let's just be on this journey together. Let's make a change. Let's make an impact and let's get this incredibly powerful work in front of a load more people.</div>

<div class="host">Asia Stewart: This episode of Open Studios was produced by me, Asia Stewart. If you are interested in watching incredible performance work, I highly recommend that you check out PerformVu. Head to www.performvu.com</div>