Composed, directed and produced by Callum Mintzis, this performance is a multimedia adaption of his new album, And the Wind was my Dear Friend, Once Again. Featuring movement-artist MaggZ, electronic artist Tilman Robinson and string quartet (Madeleine Jevons, Georgia Cartlidge, Dana Lee & Jack Ward), the work reflects a longtime interest in the process of connection, and the notion of accepting that which we repress, judge, and push away. 

“When I was a young boy, I used to feel that I could talk to the wind. I’d stare openly into the trees and to the fog of the early morning. I’d watch the breeze carry the air from our world into the vastness of the skies, and the smoke rise into the light. If I could look to the air and forget myself, the eyes might resonate – and there would be no more division between myself and the world. 

Several years later and I have come to understand this experience in a different light. It seems that I had been able to stay with the space of unknowing, of emptiness - and find comfort there. In letting go of oneself and the desire to know, the world came alive. 

In my attempts at writing music, something which I still feel very much a beginner at, I often wonder what meaning it has. My view has always been that there is no reason to speak of what music is ‘about’ – that to do such a thing would be the same as to describe what a well-cooked meal is about (it’s there to be experienced). And yet, I am still always wondering, as if asking the music, ‘who are you?’ 

We find ourselves in a strange world. A culture which seems so dislocated from itself, it has forgotten it’s values, pushing further into the abstract and away from what is here. The helpless pursuit of technology, novelty and stimulation appear symptomatic of a yearning for something which is absent. A closeness to oneself and so, a closeness to others. Hundreds of years of so-called advancement has culminated in a place which has forgotten the value of deeply knowing oneself. This disassociation has implications as far-reaching as the climate crisis, polarisation and division, a mistrust of emotion, narrow conceptions of self, and a profound confusion about the nature of well-being. We are lost. We see this in the blatant mistreatment of nature, disrespect for the indigenous peoples of this world, addiction to stimulation, a refusal to look at oneself, a fear of the ‘other’ and a need to control what is unknown. 

This situation fills me with a great sorrow and has become the incentive for all the work that I do. As Andrei Tarkovsky saw it, ‘art has the potential to pierce through the intellect and move the soul.’ He saw it as a means to explore the profound aspects of human experience, to contemplate the mysteries of life, and confront the fundamental questions about our purpose and place in the world. If we are to find ourselves once again, we must feel deeply.”

— Callum Mintzis