Bryony Kimmings (attempted) Interview Excerpt

My original pitch for the individual interview assignment was to speak to UK performance artist Bryony Kimmings while she was in Melbourne.

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I’d seen the show she made with her partner Tim Grayburn, ‘Fake It ‘Til You Make It‘, at the Adelaide Fringe Festival and saw it again in Melbourne. I was really nervous about speaking to Bryony, and our correspondence had initially been just about meeting up to have a general chat about her work and what she does – more of a mentoring session than a clear-cut interview.

 

We met up in a really noisy café, and I was still so nervous about asking direct questions or being really frank about ‘doing an interview’ that we ended up having more of a rambling chat. I ended up with unusable tape, that’s cluttered with the background blare from the café and a very meandering conversational style that sounds more like a blind date than an interview.

 

I certainly learnt about technique, and certainly learnt that it’s best to be really forthright about wanting a straight-up interview, even if it is with someone I really admire! Luckily I had conducted the interview well in advance of the deadline, so I was able to organise another interview subject in a quieter location with a clearer and more direct line of questioning.

 

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