ART, WHATEVER IT TAKES

Since the early pandemic in 2020, Rome Art Program has conducted a series of interviews, “Art, Whatever It Takes.”
Artists, Art Critics, and Art Historians living in Italy, the U.S., and U.K., share their insights during these powerful times.

Interview with Jo Stockham

Jo Stockham is an artist based in London working with a range of media exploring language and materiality relating to archives or sites. Professor at the Royal College of Art, London, she was Ampersand Fellow at the British School in Rome (2022).

RAP: Art is dynamic and regenerates itself... how does it change, and how did it change us?

Jo Stockham: I am interested in Art as a tool to increase understanding and equality, to expose hidden histories and tell new stories. I find it changes me all the time from encountering the anamorphic painting in Triniti di Monti in Rome to studio visits with fellow artists at the BSR, every encounter shifts my understanding in subtle ways.

RAP: How have the new technologies and media culture changed art today, improving or worsening it?...challenges?

Jo: New technologies transform the way in which images are circulated, this has positive and negative aspects. Easy access to video, sound, and time based means of circulation is hugely enabling and generative. But spatial and material practices can be misrepresented, literally flattened on screen. My challenge is to express my ambivalence to technology in the work itself.

RAP: Which is the real role of Academies and Art schools today? What can artists learn from these institutions today?

Jo: Being in an Art School both as a tutor and a student is a gift. They remain spaces where images and objects are both made and questioned which is productive as it reminds us that the world could be put together differently. Encountering different disciplines and people gives an insight into the many questions; technical, philosophical, social which bring people to make, study and view art.

https://bsr.ac.uk/meet-the-artists-jo-stockham/