Bonus Episode: Morag Myerscough on Colour, Belonging and Chasing Sunbeams

Welcome to Make Good Things Happen, a podcast for Makers in Business, presented to
you by Angela D’Alton and Renee Baker.
Hello, dear listener. This is Angela D’Alton speaking. This is a bonus episode of
Make Good Things Happen, the podcast. I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity
to interview Morag Myerscough, a London -based artist known for bright colours,
bold installations and massive outdoor activations, including places like Coachella.
With massive thanks to Belinda and Hayley and the gang at the social crew, I was
given the opportunity to interview Morag about the Sunnyside project,
which is happening at the Ballarat Mining Exchange and surrounding activations in
Ballarat from the 6th to the 23rd of November. There is an activation at the
Unicorn Collection featuring Fontella the Zine Machine and of course the installation
by Morag Myerscough in the Ballarat Mining Exchange called Chasing Sunbeams where she
has collaborated with local musician Raul Sanchez on an amazing soundscape. Tickets
are on sale through sunnysideart.com.au. And as I said, it is on until the
23rd of November. So get along to the Ballarat Mining Exchange and have a look and
listen and experience the chasing sunbeams installation and, of course,
all of the other bits and pieces that are happening as part of the Sunnyside
Project. I hope you enjoy this chat that I had with Morag. It was really fun to
get to know Morag a little bit better and to talk to her about how she feels
about

Welcome to make good things happen today. I have the honour of talking to Morag
Myerscough, a London -based artist who is in Ballarat for the Sunnyside Project and
working on an installation inside the Ballarat Mining exchange called chasing sunbeams
full of colour and I’ve just had a little peak and let me tell you folks you’re
in for a treat I am going to be talking to Morag a little bit more about that
project today but first of all Morag how are you how are you finding Australia so
far I’m very well and it’s really nice but I thought it was going to be a little
bit warmer so apart than that everybody’s been amazing so I’m very happy and we’re
getting the project finished, which is most important. Excellent. For people who might
not know anything about you or who have come across your work for the first time
as a result of this incredible project, tell me a little bit about how you would
describe what you do and what drives you to transform these big spaces into these
incredible installations. So I make, I’d say site -specific installations that want to
connect with the community and has a sense of belonging, but also very colourful,
impactful. They involve words often and yeah,
I think that’s sort of how I would describe it. And when I was doing some
research, I noticed that you have a bit of a thing for typography and fonts and
letters. Tell me a bit more about that in your practice. When you choosing a font?
How do you go about that? Well, I mean, I did do typography and graphics and
everything when I was at St. Martin’s and Royal College. So I’m very specific about
fonts. And back then, I always said I was only ever going to use Franklin Gothic
caps. And weirdly, now I almost only use,
it’s not Franklin Gothic, but it’s caps. I’ve sort of settled on a font that I
like. And every time I think I’d change it, I think, oh, I still quite like that
one. So, yeah, so I think that’s from looking at fonts for years and years, and I
still like a particular slab font. Incredible,
the difference a font choice can make in the finished product. In terms of the
collaborations that you’ve done over the years, you’ve worked with Tatty Devine
you’ve worked with Mini, you’ve worked with Coachella, you’ve collaborated on a a
massive amount of huge progress.
come on sort of all different guises as well. So some people,
it’s maybe more commissioning than collaborating. And all of it is a lot of trust
and a lot of respect for each other and giving different people’s space.
So with Tatty Devine, they wanted to do a range of my work. And so we talked about
projects I’d all previously done and then together we made this set of items but
they were it was a new thing because it was jewellery I’ve got it I’ve got some
on now but it was it was sort of taken from my archives and then made into
collaboratively made into jewellery and that’s where Tatty Devine knew how to make it
into jewellery but other ones where I work with communities that’s like a completely
different collaboration Thank you.
of the work rather than maybe initiating the whole of the work because of the way
the process is. But in this instance here, it’s amazing because the work has
absolutely completely come from the workshops. So that’s a different process,
which isn’t always possible. People like Mini, well, Mini was just an amazing.
I don’t work with big brands very often, but I had an electric car. My original
one was a G -Wiz. I really believed in electric cars from very early on. And then
they came to me and they said, would you do the launch of their new electric car
in London? And I just thought, well, you know, that is what I agree with electric
cars. And I had a Zoom meeting with them initially and I just went away from that
Zoom meeting and had a visual in my head of city and countryside merging together
so cities became much more organic and plants were as big as houses and stuff and
that was just sparked from having that call but that doesn’t always happen sometimes
it takes a little you know it’s a it’s a different process so something like
Coachella and Mini, they’re my visions of life experience,
sort of of always living in London, then I moved out a bit and particularly the
Mini one was a response to that. And Coachella, although there was, there is an
audience of Coachella, that wasn’t one where I could do workshops and things.
How I approach that is what would be exciting for people to see.
and how they respond to my work and then to give them something that is in
response to the music to them and also me what I’d like to see there as well and
I wanted to have movement there so I had lots of moving signs and stuff which was
because if you’re given a Coachella to do or if you’re asked to do a Coachella
you’ve got to take it to the thousand percent You know, you’ve got to do what
you’re dream. And I’ve always wanted to do moving things, a big moving thing. So
then I thought, well, this is my opportunity. So you have to take those
opportunities at different times. Absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. I love that you
had that opportunity as well. Yeah. Just sort of like go to the extreme. Because
they called me when I was doing Hadrian’s wall. And I knew, I’ve seen loads of
amazing Coachella thing. So I didn’t really know the process of how you do a
Coachella. I assumed they always asked you, but actually people do submit. So I was
really lucky that they asked me because so that when I was at the,
at Coachella and there were possible new people for the following year, they came
along and they, and I was like, oh, oh, so there is this process. And so I think
I, yeah, I was very lucky. That’s amazing. For chasing sunbeams, as you mentioned,
it’s a unique situation where it’s coming from the workshops as opposed to
necessarily from a vision that you’ve had or an opportunity. How do you create those
conditions in a workshop space for that co -creation to ensure that the community
members and the people who you’re working with aren’t necessarily intimidated.
Like Little Ballarat, Regional Ballarat, and, you know, UK artists, Morag Myerscough, how is there a moment of, oh, how is this going to work?
Or are you very, you know, experienced and able to walk into a room and go, okay,
folks, this is how it’s going to go? No, I suffered from massive anxiety I have no
idea and you can never predict. I work in lots of different communities around the
world and you should never assume anything. And it depends on the group you’re
working with, the country you’re in, what people, how people respond.
And so for me, you can only try it. There was an initial thing here,
rather than doing a pattern workshop, which I often do, I felt
workshop more round nature. But I didn’t know how people would respond and doing the
workshops is partly for people to communicate with each other in the workshop, not
necessarily about I don’t really tell people what to do and I don’t know what I
want from them and I don’t know how it’s going to turn out and I don’t like
interfering too much with what people are doing and there’s no right or wrong. I
sort of let everybody just
grey would no doubt be a huge part of what you do because you don’t know what
something’s going to look like really, really, until it’s in the space. I mean, I
know that you create models and mackets and you have a very clear understanding of
your design. There’s nothing, you know, haphazard about that whatsoever. But
ultimately, nobody knows what it’s going to look like. No, I mean, I do, from
experience now, because I build a lot of things, I do sketches and then I build it
in hand -drawn sketches, then I build it in sketch -up and with the building around
it. So when it’s in situ, as long as it looks like my original thing,
then I know that that’s right. And what I did know here, which was an unusual
situation for me, because I you work outside. I was excited to work inside because
I could then use different materials, which is what we’ve used here, much more
sustainable materials like cardboard, which I can’t use outside. I mean,
maybe in places where it doesn’t rain, but I often do things or they’ll fall over
or something like that. So I tend to, you know, usually work a lot in wood. But,
you know, it’s really great to be liberated and to be able to make structures from
cardboard posts and things like that. So I did know that I was in the mine
exchange and also that the mining exchange is a historic building as well. So that’s
an interesting starting point of how do you respond to that building and it was a
great space with great height. I did say to Belinda from social group that it’s got
to have height. I can’t really work in a space that’s low. I know more about
working outside, which I don’t have any limitations. And I realise, like, when a
Coachella was like 30, 40 metres, I mean, it was like a double height building. And
I’ll make sure there’s photos of that and show notes too. If people haven’t seen
the incredible structure that the more I built for, Coachella, it is really quite
something. Let’s talk about colour. Obviously a massive part of what you do and I
understand.
more comfortable using in those spaces? Colour goes back to, my mother was a textile
artist and at home we were surrounded by fabrics and threads from all around the
world, you know, beautiful silks from India and my mum went through and other places
and my mum went through lots of phases, macrame, you know, weaving, you know,
lots of things and we witnessed all those experiences at home and I was really
really obsessed when I was a little girl into embroidery and textiles and I wanted
to do my sitting guilds which is like a was at that time a growing up exam and
there is one piece that I put in my talk that was from when I was 12 years old
and it was very similar colours that I use now and when I went to college they
everybody was just using yellow, black and red or something and I liked secondary
colors and I always included secondary colours. So I think there’s always been a
journey of that. Then more recent years I did lots of projects in schools and I
transformed the interiors of schools with architects and at that time I did loads of
paint testing and putting colours together and I think partly doing that then I
found the colours that I liked because I use standard domestic paints and people are
quite funny about that because obviously you’re not mixing your own colours but at
the same time if you’re making something that’s in the public realm if it’s going
to last a long time or whatever people need to be able to just repaint it quickly
so and also the colours from domestic paint companies have developed so long and
they last.
colour palette. Yeah, there’s, I work on wood. Materiality is important for me.
I like showing wood as well and I lay my paint very flat but I like the fact
that it’s painted and not printed. Well, it’s layering as well because sometimes and
some colours like red, although the resin paints are absolutely fabulous that we’re
working with today and I usually have to do like five layers of red, four to five
layers of red to get it really flat. You had to start with a really flat base and
then, and this one, so Rizine, thank you very much.
You, I’m back into red again, yeah, red is amazing because, and green is a
difficult color. Sometimes, you know, you get used to different, difficult colors. I
think this one, chasing some beans, is a slightly different palette and that is a
response and I like it. It’s very, it’s much more, it’s a more citrusy set of
colours and that is again in response to people’s drawings and also my response.
I also did a big sketch after I had the workshops and those colours came to mind.
So I do have an underlying lot of colours. I think people sometimes think certain
colours are put in one box and certain colours, and actually they’re a little bit
more subtle. So they do have pastels mixed in and different emphasis on different
things. I wanted to talk to you about the idea of belonging. This is a theme that
has run like a bit of a thread through your practice. And I would like to know
what belonging means to you personally, but also how you translate that feeling into
a physical space. What is it that you take into consideration to give visitors,
viewers, your audience a sense of belonging? Yeah, you can’t make people feel
belonging. Usually it’s when people are part of the project.
So they start, eat them in workshops and then can be taken through to painting the
actual work. So I’m doing a project in Germany at the moment where we did lots of
workshops and then people painted and then they feel like it’s their project.
Because I don’t live, you know, if it’s more of a permanent project, I don’t live
in Munich, so it’s there and I want people to, it’s theirs. You know,
I’ve done it for them and with them and so I want them to love it. And it
becomes
So, you know, my mum, an artist, my uncle a musician, my great -grandfather was a
clown in circus. And a very intense family, my grandmother was French, a little bit
different, yeah. So I really fitted in at home. Home was amazing, but school and
everything was okay, but it was more home. Then when you leave home, how do you
find how to fit in? And being a female, wanting to do my own thing,
you know, running my own studio, doing things like that. You know, it has over time
sometimes been quite lonely because the people around me who were running things and
stuff were men. You know, when you leave home, you have to search for what is
actually your own belonging and what you want to make your own life to be. And my
own path wasn’t getting married, having children, I realized, and that can be,
like I said, a little bit lonely because you’re not doing those things that other
people are doing. And then when I got to,
observed that and just felt that I wanted to be completely independent and have my
own space and everything and also I was one of three girls I was the middle one
and we used to all sleep in the same bedroom and then I didn’t really have any
space so I think space was really really big for me and there was this moment
where I thought okay oh right okay I’ve been searching for all these things thinking
I children thinking I should do this, thinking I, and then suddenly I moved into
this place and I thought, oh no, this is, this is belonging to me. And then I
realized belonging isn’t maybe even the same as you’d been brought up with for
yourself. You know, belonging is a different, is different for everybody.
And then that made me think, okay, this, and we’re in this complex world at the
moment and belonging used to be easier because people belong to churches or or
things like that and then or you find your tribe so but it’s also how do you
bring all those people together and make work and so that that’s it then really
after that it became a bit of a mission with all my projects to find out what
belonging means to people and The project I did in Germany where a sense is poem
about belonging and it’s probably the most people I’ve asked and the most age,
you know, diverse group of people. And a little six -year -old’s answer was the same
as an 85 -year -old’s answer. They wanted peace. They wanted love.
They wanted friendship. They wanted to share. And so, You know, I think it’s really
important that people don’t dismiss separate age groups that these people think that.
And they don’t. Of course, they have, you know, we’re all human beings and we think
much more similarly than we think than people think. But I think the world,
the media and everything try and separate people out, you know, particularly at the
moment with all the different Gen Z, this, that and the other. They’re saying, well,
if you’re in this bit, you’re all the same. And it’s like, well, I don’t know.
somebody in the mid -60s.
local musician who is also very much involved in soundtracks, but most people will
know as the guitarist from Magic Dirt. So how did that collaboration come about?
And tell me a little bit about how sound interplays with the visual world that
you’re creating in that space. Yeah. Well, I’ve got to, you know, Belinda Collins at
Social Crew, I mean, she is the whole mind behind this. And I said to her that I
really want to make a sound piece. I want to make it with the voices of the
community that I’ve spoken with. Again, it was doing a belonging poem. And I really
love, I’ve always loved 70s concrete poetry, so sort of repetitive words. And then I
said, you know, is there a possibility we can make a big soundpiece? Because more
and more when I have the opportunity if it’s outside it has its own sound usually
and not really very easy to put layers of sounding depending where it is well I
did do one outside where it was a quieter place and I had birdsong and basically
I’ve been obsessed with birdsong for quite a long time and I’ve done two
installations with birdsong so when I came here which I think is always really
important when you’re doing projects if you if possible it’s good to come and we
went and you know I had my First Nations initiation and so I went round on a day
of understanding and the sounds of your birds and bats are so noisy they’re really
not happy are they so yeah so in my garden I which I’d I live in London.
I live in London. I have just like a beautiful cacophony of swifts and black birds
and all that. And then I came here and it’s like, and then it’s the bats, the
fruit bats as well and all the things. So I just, you know, there is the sound of
this city that you can’t ignore really, I’d say. And so it felt like we needed to
during the and I mean when we’ve been installing we’ve heard them anyway so I’m
sure they’ll join in when they hear the other ones inside yeah so Belinda got Raoul
who has just been incredibly amazing and we you know there was just some
communication about aspirations really and it’s completely him they gave me the piece
to listen to and it’s just unbelievably amazing, very moving,
actually, people’s words and the repetitive with the sound coming through. And he’s
made, I mean, it’s more than I even hoped for. You know, it’s such a fantastic
piece. And obviously, in the space, you won’t be able to get the,
well, you’ll get a full thing, but it’s actually something that would be worth
listening to through some headphones because it has a beautiful rhythm to it and it
changes its rhythm.
them a platform to express themselves within it so it’s not controlled by me. I did
some nature workshops and then she did pattern workshops with her groups of people
and that was brilliant because in a way it was the outcomes would I don’t know if
they’d been different if I’d done if they’d been similar if I’d done them I don’t
know but I think it’s quite nice that she just took on my workshop and then did
it in her way down one of the laneways there’s going to be a beautiful installation
of
that as well within the work. Well, I mean, I don’t want to predict anything about
what people think when they see the work. What I would say about it is, you know,
nature is something that we all come together on. And actually it was the beginning
and we go through this other stuff and we’re back there again where we really need
to think about nature and how we’ve come together on keeping our world.
Chasing sunbeams asks visitors to, I guess, enter the space with an open mind.
What do you hope they take away from the invitation that you’re giving them in that
space? I wouldn’t like to, as with my workshops or anything,
like to say how people will respond to it. You know,
like if you go and see a film and when you go home, you’re with, maybe you’ve
gone with a friend or something and you chat about it when it’s good, or you
discuss it or see it. Even when you see a bad film, you might discuss it because,
but if you see something that doesn’t do anything to you, just sort of ignore it.
And that is what I don’t want to happen. You know, so I think I don’t mind what
think. Yeah. So and and it’s about sort of I hope it will stay in people’s minds.
I hope it will people will have some debate about it. People might you know sit in
there and feel different things particularly with the sound as well because it’s a
full on and sound you know physical and sound experience. I hope some joy.
You know it’s it’s a very layered piece of work. So if you just come in and you
just see it, be it you like it, hopefully if you don’t, that’s okay too,
you know, but you experience something and then after that then there’s all the
layering of the voices, the pieces, you know, there’s several pieces in there that
are from the workshops that I’ve incorporated, you know, that I’ve made the
structures from and then some of them are mine, some of them, you know, that mine
are in response to being here.
local artists participating so closely with you and you responding to their work,
you know, just, I guess it moulds it all together into something that it’s not
really, I mean, yes, it’s your project. You’ve got all of these lovely little spices
and flavours that you’ve added from other locals to create and kind of reinforce
that sense of belonging and ownership from the local people. I mean, it’s It’s
completely collaboration. This one is really in depth. I mean, in a way, it’s the
community first and then me. You know, it’s about me taking their things and getting
the bigger and bigger and taking them from the paper into the physical space as
well to experience. Yeah. So, and then you mentioned Tegan And Siobhan,
their zine machine is also involved. So because we’ve got the, we’ve got that, which
is there’s, it’s amazing. And they did zine workshops as well on the basis.
And then there’s a shop with lots of stuff in it. Yeah, so the shop is actually,
and for those of you who’ve listened before, will know that I am heavily involved
in Ballarat Evolve as one of the board members. So the Sunnyside Social Space is
also going to be hosting a pop -up that will feature Fontella, the zine machine,
which is.
in your practice after decades of making and these, what I would consider sometimes
quite challenging projects. Because of the, I think because people always ask me,
what’s your dream project? And I don’t have any dream project. Well,
I have always wanted to build a big conservatory, but that’s a, so that was one
dream project. But I don’t, it’s when people come to me, like Belinda, who just
says, Morag, I, you know, I’ve got this project. I hadn’t thought about it. And then
I’m like, okay, that sounds exciting. And then that gets me excited because it’s
something I haven’t done. It’s a new thing. I have to understand, I have to learn
things. Because I always hope that every time I might be able to put use what I
learned from the time before, and It never works out that, you know,
I bought, built a big piece on Hadron’s wall. You know, it’s very unlikely I’m
going to ever build anything on a UNESCO site again. So that, all that I learnt
there isn’t going to go to use again. So for me, sustaining joy and curiosity is
because I’m not doing the same thing every time. I think that’s where I don’t
really just want to draw triangles or something all the time. It’s actually, for me,
the more exciting thing is is not always the final piece. It’s actually the
experience and how you can bring communities together and the effect that you can
have surprisingly on communities. You know, I did a children’s hospital a few years
ago and I raised money and I put, I also made a piece in the garden the joy
guard and I managed to get money from a project that I did, they sponsored it.
And then just before I came out, they rang me, they go, oh, my, I go, we want to
use your work in the branding, is that okay? And I was like, no, that is
absolutely brilliant because all the kids, because the graphic design is a bit like,
but it’s your, you know, it’s your patterns and stuff. And I said, no, no, Because
they went, they did all the surveys. And these bedrooms have been in place since
2017 and the gardeners been in place since 2021 or 22.
It’s a children’s hospital. So all the children love it. And they want that to be
the branding. And then that for me is like job done. You know, that is what I’ve
always tried to connect things together. And that’s connected itself by them coming
and asking me. And I said, absolutely, do, you know, not yourself.
in the library and it’s quite a smallish project but that’s good you know for me
because I’m I don’t have an age and it’s absolutely down if I like a project I
will do for show notes and more so this is all about a seed bank and grow seeds
and this has been a dot -baked up session at the moment and then the big project
the third place project I’ve been doing in Munich where we made the big outside
space last year there’s a tree house inside and so we’re going to be building that
tree house and that will be finished early February and then there’s a sort of book
might be happening but I know that’s very exciting because I’ve never done a book
and then I’m making tiles for the out I’m getting a kiln and I’m going to make
tiles for the outside of my house which might put the value of my house down but
I don’t get so I can’t say that actually being the result well I want to thank
you very much more like for the generosity.
that working with local people who maybe don’t have the opportunities. I know that
they all would very much be incredibly appreciative of having the opportunity to work
with you on this incredible project. So if you are in the Ballarat region,
make sure you get yourself a ticket to come along and see Sunnyside, the Chasing
Sunbeams installation that is happening in the Ballarat Mining Exchange this November.
there is a website, which I will put in the show notes, where you will be able to
learn more by tickets. There’s workshops. There’s all sorts of really amazing things
happening in Ballarat, as always, but in particular, in November this year. Thank you
so much for your time, Morag. It’s been an absolute pleasure having a discussion
with you. Thank you. I really enjoyed it. It’s really great. Thank you.

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