bye bye going to Chile for a month 🇨🇱

I got Arts Council England funding earlier this year to help complete a book I am working on, and in order to finish it, I have some research to do in Santiago, Calbuco and Chiloé all the way over the other side of the world in Chile. I am about to head there for a month! Alone! I was nervous but then so much is going on in my personal life that the stress has sort of been displaced to other areas, and now the whole Chile thing just feels unreal. But maybe arriving leaden with emotion will help when it comes to the writing. Ya veremos.

I won’t say too much about the plan here in case a very dedicated murderer comes to get me, but also the plan is likely to change and I don’t want to inconvenience the murderer. I have the month sketched out but I am leaving room in the schedule for 1. getting sick 2. discovering new leads 3. meeting people who I realise are important to this work or 4. something happening with the planes and the fuel and flights being cancelled or whatever. I haven’t done a trip alone for this long with POTS and, coming off the back of so many heatwaves in England, my stamina is not quite what I want it to be so again, ya veremos.

I’ll be doing residencies at Galeria Meteoro in Santiago & at MAM in Chiloe at some point. And, on top of the writing, I will be recording more episodes of the Art Dates podcast. I will also be filming some stuff while I am over there for a work I’ll be exhibiting in Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh come the end of the year. So, lots to get done, and that’s before personal missions including ‘buy a shitload of alpaca yarn,’ ‘find a pudu,’ ‘go to a volcano,’ and ‘use chilenismos without sounding like a caricature.’ I can’t wait to hear what my Spanish sounds like after this month is done.

Book three is going well. 42K words in. I know what’s happening in the second half though with that I also will leave room for plans changing. Part of me thinks this is the most important thing I’ll ever do, so thank god I got the money to do it.

Also, here’s a pudu.

Praying to the POTS gods that my health holds up.