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Seamus Murphy
193 Plays6 years ago
"Seamus Murphy grew up in Ireland and is based in London. He is the recipient of seven World Press Photo awards for his photographic work in Afghanistan, Gaza, Lebanon, Sierra Leone, Peru and Ireland. He received The World Understanding Award from POYi in the USA for his work from Afghanistan and a film he made based around this work was nominated for an Emmy and won the Liberty in Media Prize in 2011.
His work has been published and exhibited widely. He has made films for The New Yorker and Channel 4 Television in the UK.
He is the author of four books including 'A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan' (Saqi Books. 2008) is based on 12 trips to the country between 1994 and 2007 and is a chronicle of Afghanistan’s extraordinary recent history. 'I Am The Beggar of the World' (Farrar Straus Giroux. 2014) offers a rare glimpse into the lives of Afghan women through their anonymous Landay poetry.
He has collaborated with musician PJ Harvey on projects for 'Let England Shake' and 'The Hope Six Demolition Project,' for which he won a Q Award for Best Music Film in October 2016. Patti Smith listed Murphy’s film for Harvey’s 'The Words that Maketh Murder' as one of her Top 10 artworks, saying “... this unheralded piece (directed by Seamus Murphy) is a wisp of humanity celebrating the small things. “
Murphy and Harvey together published 'The Hollow of the Hand' (Bloomsbury. 2015) a book of his photography and her poetry. An exhibition and live presentation of 'The Hollow of the Hand' work took place at the Royal Festival Hall, London in 2015 and at Les Recontres d’Arles in France in 2016.
His latest book 'The Republic' (Allen Lane. 2016) is an immediate and personal portrait of Ireland and was exhibited at The Little Museum in Dublin in 2017.
His latest film 'A Dog Called Money,' another collaboration with Polly Jean Harvey, is currently screening around the world.
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Transcript
Introduction to Sheamus Murphy
00:00:15
Speaker
Okay, we're on the podcast something rather than nothing and it is wonderful to have Sheamus Murphy photographer and director with us and
00:00:30
Speaker
He's had some incredible books which display his images and photographs.
Exploring Notable Works
00:00:37
Speaker
One is called The Darkness Visible, Afghanistan. Also another collaboration with Polygene Harvey called The Hollow of the Hand, The Republic, which covers his homeland, Ireland. And I Am the Beggar of the World with Eliza Griswold.
00:00:55
Speaker
and which includes his images with some land die poetry. In addition to those printed works, he has films including the videos for Polly Jean Harvey's Let England Shake and another some other short films and more recent one called Dog Called Money. I wanted to welcome you Seamus to the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast.
00:01:26
Speaker
Lovely, thank you very much.
Childhood and Early Interests
00:01:29
Speaker
The first question I asked guests is, what were you like as a young child? A monster. No, I wasn't. I guess I was an average kid. I grew up in Dublin in the 60s, 70s. I think I was one of six kids and I was the youngest.
00:01:55
Speaker
I think it was benign neglect, I think they called it. My parents were very loving, but they let us get on with things. When I look back on it, it was glorious in many ways. We lived in the city of Dublin, and we were able to be on the street, and it wasn't worrying too much about the dangers that are out there now.
00:02:21
Speaker
I played football a lot. Football was my thing as a kid. How would I describe myself? I think just sort of, yeah, average little, what they call in Dublin, a little courier, which is, it comes from the French guerre, you know, like war warrior. Right, right. And it's a kind of a
00:02:46
Speaker
It's not a good thing to say about somebody, but people use it affectionately, so a little Dublin courier. Yeah.
00:02:54
Speaker
So up to mischief and that kind of stuff, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, did you did I mean, were you snapping photos at a young age? Were you drawing yourself with an artistic band? No, absolutely nothing whatsoever. I mean, you know, my thing was football. I was I was you know, I was a football fanatic and all I sort of thought about was football and and and it was physical, you know, always. I remember I remember sort of
00:03:24
Speaker
there used to be these shops near me and you'd be sent to buy something in the shop and you're just running all the time. It was very physical, always running, running, running. That's all I remember as a kid, was running all the time. I never walked, I always ran. And I think everyone around me was the same way. It was an incredible energy. This is all pretty very rose-tinted and looking back on your childhood, but I just seem to be running all the time. Very physical, very conscious of being
00:03:53
Speaker
healthy and fit and didn't really have any artistic events. But I mean, you know, in Ireland, it's like everyone's talking and telling stories. And and I think it's almost instinctive thing that we we we there's an artistic
Discovering Writing and Journalism
00:04:08
Speaker
vein and everyone and it comes out in different ways. So did you you mentioned you mentioned stories and you're a storyteller, you know, visually and in particular with the collected images in in in a film.
00:04:24
Speaker
Um, is that something you picked up that, that entire time, the stories you heard and your connection to the environment and talking and conversation as, as I'm reading. Oh, sorry. That's, that's phone that normally never rings. Someone is it's better. I bet it's a sales call or some, some ambulance chasing lawyer. Yeah. Um,
00:04:51
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, not consciously. I mean, I just think, you know, we know. I think, you know, I grew up in a generation in Ireland when art and anything like that was largely seen as probably being very pretentious. And, you know, you were very kind of full of yourself, if you call yourself an artist. And yet, you know, we all loved music. We all loved to read. I just think it was less we were less conscious of that kind of stuff. You know, we weren't
00:05:19
Speaker
You know, these days, everyone's an artist and we appreciate things far more and we've got deeper, deeper feelings for things. Or at least we tell ourselves that, but not consciously. No, no, not constantly an artist. Well, but now you are. So why, why do you, why, why do you feel that you create now? I mean, did, did it, was all of a sudden there was a drive to capture what you were seeing, what you were hearing?
00:05:48
Speaker
you know, writing, probably from, you know, early teens, I discovered that I really enjoyed writing. And I really, really, I did quite well at it. If I probably probably one of the only subjects I did well in was was English, you know, and, you know, English literature and writing, and essay writing. So, I guess that was the beginning of understanding that, you know,
00:06:12
Speaker
expressing yourself beyond just telling stories and playing football and doing the prosaic stuff of an Irish childhood. Yeah, not consciously so, but anyway, English and reading and books. And I wanted to become a journalist. I think that then was the thing that drove me as I was heading towards leaving school and what I was going to do with either studying or education.
Venture into Photography
00:06:43
Speaker
thought about becoming a journalist and I tried to get into the journalism school in Dublin and I didn't get in because I think someone told me that well you know you're supposed to have had written stuff for a local newspaper and even if it meant going to a football match and taking out the scores you know and parents I guess that were pushy and understood this were encouraging the kids to do that mine didn't they kind of let us get on with things and I didn't get into the journalism college but I got into something probably far more interesting which was the first
00:07:13
Speaker
communications course that was set up in Dublin and by doing that I got introduced to cameras and radio and it was a very general course but it opened up a world that I didn't really you know I wasn't I wasn't aware of before which was the camera and using the camera for that kind of stuff I found myself after college in America
00:07:40
Speaker
And I lived for a while in San Francisco and there was a public dark room down the street from where I was living. And I went and sort of joined up there and started printing my pictures. And I think that's where it really took off, you know, where you could take a photograph, you know, shoot a roll of film and then go and print it and see the results. And I learned so much from that. And so that was how I got introduced to cameras.
00:08:10
Speaker
So you take a camera, you've traveled for the listeners, you've traveled to a lot of locations around the world, including those in conflict in war. And when you've done that, are you trying to capture what you see? Are you trying to document?
Documenting Conflict in Afghanistan
00:08:39
Speaker
Yes. What are you trying to express? Yes. I mean, certainly initially, you know, when I when I started doing that work, which was, you know, I was interested in journalism, I was never attracted to war or war reporting. It wasn't it wasn't something that, you know, I was I was particularly motivated, you know, to get into to get into journalism and become a photographer with, you know, that came later. But I started learning the craft and eventually I started getting work and
00:09:09
Speaker
getting some newspaper work in London. I was living in London at the time. And I guess I was beginning to sort of, yes, I was beginning to sort of, you know, read reports of stuff happening in other places. And Afghanistan was somewhere that my eldest sister had been to on the hippie trail, you know, and she used to say that actually Afghanistan of all the places that she went to was the most fascinating and the most unexpected. And, you know, I just heard all these amazing stories about this country. And of course, there was this
00:09:37
Speaker
After she'd been there, the Soviet invasion and all the stories that happened, all the stuff that happened to Afghanistan became at a particularly interesting place. I had the opportunity to go there in 1994. That was my baptism of fire when it came to a conflict. Actually, the year before I'd been to Eritrea, the war was over. There was a referendum.
00:10:01
Speaker
I spent a month there and it was a very interesting time because they'd had 30 years of war, Eritrea and Ethiopia. It was a country post-conflict and I was suddenly understanding, my God, when a war goes on, these things happen and then you start realizing all the consequences and talking to people about their experiences.
00:10:20
Speaker
You know, seeing people walking around with, you know, limbless and, you know, being introduced to concepts like landmines, you know, people standing on mines. And, you know, it was a whole world that I hadn't really, hadn't really given a lot of thought to. And,
00:10:38
Speaker
The idea that society is ripped apart and people's lives are so deeply affected, and there's physical scars that you see, and that intrigued me. I came back to London after that trip, and as I say, fairly shortly afterwards, I had the opportunity to go to Afghanistan, and I jumped at it, because it was a combination of this exposure to this post-conflict world, but also my sister, who had told me about
00:11:08
Speaker
that extraordinary country. I went to Afghanistan. Really, I wanted to experience the country and report back what I was seeing. Before I went, I learned that it was like a forgotten war.
00:11:27
Speaker
Soviets had withdrawn in 89. This was 94. Actually, the country was more at war than it ever was, you know, since. And yet everyone thought the war was over, that Russians had left, you know, it must be peaceful. And it was a forgotten war. So I wanted to see that and I wanted to try and show that and bring that back. And so it was very journalistic. I wasn't thinking about art. I wasn't thinking about aesthetics so much. I was really thinking about
00:11:56
Speaker
you know, um, performing the, the, the, the work of a journalist. And I went with a writer who was a journalist and it was for a newspaper. So it was very much a photo journalistic trip. And so do you see yourself having a transition from that? So, I mean, I'm the, I'm the viewer. Like if I take a look at, uh, you know, your book and the images with, with the lives of Griswold, right? And you have, um, your photography there.
00:12:23
Speaker
And both of your collaborations are with, you know, they contain poetry that's connected to the other one with Polly Jean Harvey. Do you feel, I mean, I see your images as poetic. I see as these two things working back and forth between each other. And in my mind, it feels deliberate that the language that is being used and connected to your photos
00:12:49
Speaker
I think it's important that it is poetry and that the land dies in kind of short pieces. Is that something that
00:13:01
Speaker
So I'm talking about your images Did you feel like if words were gonna be next to your images that they would be of that form? Of a poetic well, the funny thing is yeah, the funny thing is I mean I I do work as poetic, you know and the funny thing is that darkness visible that book and and I think there's probably images there certainly could be images in in in the land I book and also the book with Polly the the the Hall of the Hand and
00:13:30
Speaker
that were taken on that very first trip in 94. Now I was going with a journalistic cap on. I wasn't thinking about poetry. I wasn't thinking about art. But I did get pictures that I see now as being very poetic. And I think also the country inspired me. It was incredibly, incredibly saturated with color. And yet I was shooting black and white on that first trip. Mostly I did shoot some color, but I was shooting black and white.
00:14:01
Speaker
I think that probably helped too, because there was an abstraction to it. And I was thinking in black and white. But I am very conscious that my work is poetic. And I strive for that now. I absolutely embrace that. But on that first trip, if you'd asked me, is your work poetic, I would have thought, no, I'm being a journalist. But in actual fact, I
00:14:31
Speaker
I, um, I, you know, I, I did, um, I did seem to achieve some kind of poetic imagery. And, um, I guess, you know, I did that and I look at the work and, and, uh, uh, I, I would have come back to London off that Afghan trip and I would have gone back to working for newspapers in London. I used to work for a Swedish newspaper as well. And, um, you know, poetry was the last thing in my mind.
00:14:58
Speaker
But then the next time I went back to Afghanistan was in 1996. I was again being a reporter, but the pictures I got were poetic. It's sort of an instinctive thing, I think. Yeah, and they're quite beautiful.
00:15:16
Speaker
I want to engage in a little bit of speculative.
Collaborations with Polly Jean Harvey
00:15:19
Speaker
I'm maybe making a mistake of not having seen the piece of art that I'm going to talk about. A dog called Money. But the question that came to mind, which was really fascinating to me, and I hope you can maybe shed a little light on it.
00:15:40
Speaker
What I've read in the descriptions and seen the trailer and bits and pieces of it is that there's this dynamic that's going on with Polly Jean Harvey and the locations that she is in creating song and then going into the studio. At the same time, you're an artist, you're depicting her connection between those two things. How do you create the art and what environments are creating it? So I see a both kind of,
00:16:09
Speaker
imagine both of you working in trying to describe that process or depict that process. On your side, what was it like to try to document another artist's process of creation?
00:16:30
Speaker
Well, I wasn't, I certainly wasn't in the field. You know, when it came to the Somerset House, the recording studio, which, you know, I should explain also that that was quite an interesting, unique experiment, which was she wanted to create almost like an installation, an art installation. And in the in the depths of this big old palace, the Somerset House, which is on the Thames in central London.
00:16:56
Speaker
inside a very, very large room, they built another smaller room which had windows. And so that structure was the recording studio. The area outside that studio was the bigger room. And an audience could come in and look through the windows at the process of the recording of the album. The people inside, the musicians and the producer and the technicians couldn't see out. It was like a one-way glass.
00:17:26
Speaker
But the people on the outside could see it and they could also hear what was being said because everyone inside the room was wearing a lapel mic. So it was being broadcast outside. And so that was something I was allowed as the only person inside to film that and shoot that. So in that way, I was very consciously sort of recording the process. When I was in the field with Polly,
00:17:53
Speaker
I was going about my work and she was doing hers. We were setting out to do two things. One was to, well, three things. One was to eventually, hopefully, have a book of her poetry in my pictures. The second thing was that she was writing what she was hoping was going to become an album. And the third thing I was doing was I was going to try to make a film of the whole collaboration. So I was just getting on with things. It was a bit of a struggle at times because
00:18:22
Speaker
On the one hand, I was trying to get good images still and moving. And because I was traveling with her and we're friends and we're both sort of quite private in ways, I didn't want to be kind of asking questions and she wouldn't have been answering questions. She's not that type. So I had to, I had to just go about my work and she went about her work. And then every so often I would film her in these environments, but it wasn't a kind of a very conscious,
00:18:50
Speaker
you know, thing of, I am documenting this person writing her songs. You know, I was, I was just going about my work and actually documenting it. I did the same thing with a Landi book. I was documenting and photographing what I saw. And that would fit into the overall scheme. You know, with, with the Landis, which are, which are poems mostly written by women, but certainly they're sometimes written by men, but they're, they're, they're sort of written in the voice of a woman. It's a strange thing.
00:19:20
Speaker
But they're always describing women's lives. And as a photographer in Afghanistan, especially a man photographer, male photographer, you're not supposed to photograph women in traditional places. And if you're walking down the street and you're being seen photographing women, you'll get people giving you a hard time. It might actually become quite dangerous. And you might even also endanger the woman, because it might be seen that even though she's not colluding any way, that she might be accused of looking for this attention from this photographer.
00:19:50
Speaker
ever tried to photograph the women for that for that project I decided that well actually I'm photographing what the women see they're writing about what they see in their lives so if I photograph Afghan life then that's what they're seeing either through their their eyes or through the burqa because some of them are wearing the burqa all the time so so it was it was it was a it was a funny sort of
00:20:16
Speaker
position to be in. But in the end, I was just I was just going about my work. And I just thought that with with the film and with the books, you know, with editing and with layout and with structure, this is how the story will be told. And it'll be told in the voice of the woman. So, you know, the land dies, you're kind of seeing what the world the Afghan world through the woman's eyes. And I suppose with with Hall of the Hand,
00:20:45
Speaker
and I don't call them money. It is the world seen through all of this and my eyes. This is a collaboration. I'm sorry in a don't call money because on one hand
00:21:00
Speaker
We're looking at Afghanistan, Kosovo, Washington, D.C. We get to know certain characters in those places, their stories, their backgrounds. Then we see Polly sometimes interacting in those places, taking notes, talking to people. Then we hear her notebook that she's written. I use as a voiceover her notes from her notebooks. I took out the sentences that I thought were kind of meaningful.
00:21:28
Speaker
in certain contexts of the film. And it's literally the first thing that she wrote down in her notebooks. So sometimes with a song, she would read at that or discard a line, discard a word. What I've got as the, as the, as the voiceover in the film is directly, you know, the first thing that she, the first, the first draft of history, almost, you know, she's, she's an Afghanistan with me. We're looking at something and she's putting it onto paper. And that's what you're hearing in the film.
00:21:55
Speaker
And then you then you go into Somerset House and you're part of the audience watching this process. Then at times I leave the inside sanctum and I go outside with the crowd and I look in and I'm seeing what those people see inside. So there's a lot of different and you know the film starts with it. Sorry you haven't seen it, but the film starts with a young boy staring through the windshield of the car that we're sitting in and you're just seeing this very
00:22:24
Speaker
big close up of this boy of about eight, eight, 10 years of age, looking straight at us. Um, so there's a lot of things about reflection observation, um, authorship, um, experience witnessing, uh, being conscious of this, um, voyeurism, you know, how we're, how we're voyeurs. I mean, she's got this great song called dollar dollar.
00:22:52
Speaker
and it describes how we're sitting in the car in Kabul and the traffic means you're not moving and the beggars are out and this kid was begging looking through the windscreen and she talks about that horrible feeling you have when you're in that situation where you're trapped, you can't move, you can't really close your eyes. That's about all you can do if you want to escape the gaze of somebody begging.
00:23:19
Speaker
And, you know, you've been told by people, don't put down the window and give money because it'll it'll create a crowd of kids will come and it'll be dangerous and and all the rest of it. And that horrible feeling you have, helpless feeling. And she she she conveys it so well in that song. And so there's, you know, there's a voyeuristic aspect to to, well, all our lives, but you you you particularly feel it in places like Afghanistan where you are this you are this outsider and
00:23:48
Speaker
So there's lots of emotions going on So but but you know that sounds very complicated and it sounds very deep actually I Went and I did my work. You know, I got on with the work, you know, the ideas are there the ideas will The ideas came into play before we even left, you know the country to go traveling but you know Afterwards you you gather you gather the the material and then you start making sense of it. I mean, I'm very much a
00:24:17
Speaker
of the feeling that, you know, when I'm working, it's I'm in another zone. And I'm sort of, you know, I'm just I'm just it's it's I'm not really thinking too deeply at the time I'm working. Afterwards, you know, you almost go into you go into another another state. And you're gathering, you know, you're gathering and you're, and later on, you'll make sense of it.
00:24:42
Speaker
Yeah, and I really appreciate your description of that. And, you know, part of the question is to, you know, to really understand that.
Art and Philosophy in Conflict
00:24:52
Speaker
And I mean, you shared a lot there. And yeah, I really appreciate the insight to the process. One of the things that really struck me
00:25:02
Speaker
with your images in, say, the poetry that was there is that it becomes quite apparent, particularly within the Land Dyes and in other situations, images and poetry that folks, yourself, Polygene, other people you collaborate with, the folks who are in a war-torn country are engaging in art that could get them killed.
00:25:25
Speaker
that the land dyes are so incisive, so powerful, so short, they capture the reality in a nutshell. And they're amazing pieces, but what is apparent is that death is potentially all around and there's significant risk in creating that art.
00:25:51
Speaker
It that feelings palpable in both the images that that that you have in in the poems themselves is because I think You know even without it being described to you that this is dangerous work Yeah, I think it's also the environments, you know, like the place the place Afghanistan is it is it is a it's a beautiful place and it's it's the people are extraordinarily hospitable and warm and generous and
00:26:20
Speaker
But it is quite dangerous and it's a tough place. It's a tough life. And in fact, the tradition and the religion of
00:26:34
Speaker
the land eyes are, it's Pashtun, it's Pashtun and Pashtun culture is very traditional and very fatalistic. I mean, you know, these poems are, you know, they sort of dismiss death and they make fun of death. And it's a hard life, you know, that they're describing.
00:27:03
Speaker
It really comes across, I think, in the work. I suppose the thing that makes it easier and even possible at times for these women is that it's anonymous. They don't put their names to it.
00:27:30
Speaker
they don't reveal who, who wrote the pieces. Um, and, and that's a, that's a form of protection. I mean, that's another reason obviously why I wouldn't be photographing, for example, the person who wrote this, this poem, because, um, that would be revealing their identity, which, which, which could be very dangerous. Um, but, um, I mean, we, we, um, in the making of, um, of, uh, I'm the beggar of the world, uh, there was a group of women
00:27:59
Speaker
who ran a poetry society in Kabul. And, you know, Kabul is a different matter. They're able to walk down the street with their head covered, but, you know, they're not wearing burkas. In part, most of the rest of the country, that would not be possible. But there's a slightly more
00:28:22
Speaker
more opportunities for that in Kabul. But they ran a phone-in where women could ring in with their poetry. Poetry is a huge thing in Afghanistan. And there was a story about this girl who was an incredible poet, and she was ringing from Helmand, which is a really remote and very traditional and very repressive part of Afghanistan. And they would, when she'd ring in,
00:28:52
Speaker
There was excitement in the studio with this group of women because she was such a great poet. And she would be creeping out and borrowing her older sister's phone to make the phone call. And meanwhile, her brothers apparently were watching that she wasn't making phone calls to men. Very repressive situation. Anyway, in the end, this girl killed herself. And the story that we heard was that
00:29:21
Speaker
She had, she was being forced to marry somebody that she didn't want to marry. But also her poetry was, I think it was a problem. They found out she was writing poetry, which was seen as a sin. So it's a really tough world, you know, it's a really tough world. And they write about it, as you say, with such frankness and humor.
00:29:45
Speaker
But it's very black humor. It's quite gallant humor. Yeah, very dark humor. And like I said, I think there are 22 syllables, if I have it correct. That's right, yes. Yeah, they're just condensed, which I think is an outcropping of you're not going to have John Milton tomes. You're going to have these kernels of the truth that they're experiencing.
00:30:15
Speaker
Seamus, I got a couple more abstract questions away from the material of your work, and I ask all guests these, and I get some great answers. One of the big two is, what is art? Art, I think, is many things, but it's life, for sure. It's been critical.
00:30:44
Speaker
I think you can be poetic and still be very critical. I think it's appreciating what's around you. I think it's shining a light on the stuff that makes life worthwhile. It makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning. It makes life civilized.
00:31:13
Speaker
Uh, it makes the winter bearable. I could go on. Yeah. It makes the winter bearable. Yes. Yes. Um, uh, and I, I love the variety of the answers. Uh, I, I, I get to that because, you know, art is a driver for, for many of my guests, whether it's no overtly creating pieces of art. And I've had, you know, musicians, uh, you know, photographers, painters.
00:31:41
Speaker
Hip-hop artists within music and and I just love hearing What what what that means for folks I had mentioned that you know, I've studied philosophy and you know, I've studied that question for months But then that didn't end I kept kind of looking at that question and wondering, you know, you know what what it was and another philosophical question which of course is the the title of the podcast and
00:32:11
Speaker
I always give the opportunity to answer this question in the context of creation, when you create something, or just in general, the general question in this world, why is there something rather than nothing? Is there nothing? I don't think there's ever nothing. There's always something. I think the main thing is that something is good.
00:32:39
Speaker
And I think if you can create something to fill the vacuum because if you know if I think if if if If you create something and you you are in control of that something then that can be something good, you know Something beautiful something interesting The idea of nothing is I can't imagine that actually I can't imagine nothing. Yes. Yeah, I
00:33:07
Speaker
Yeah, and if there was a state of nothingness, then surely the first thing you do is you do something to make something, you know, you do something to make it the way you want it. And I think that's actually another description of art is that we try to make the world the way we would like it to be, tell stories so that, you know, people learn things and behave better and, you know,
00:33:37
Speaker
make life, make life better. I mean, I think art makes life better. Yeah. Yeah. Seamus. Um, a couple more quick ones, uh, who, uh, you, you're around a lot of folks, you must encounter a lot of artists. Who else would you like to hear, uh, answer, answer these questions? My mother.
00:34:02
Speaker
She's no longer with us, but I'd love to hear what she has to say about about these things. Yeah. Who else? Did your mom love art? She did. She did. You know, she she painted a little bit. She read a lot. I think she she gave me some kind of
00:34:31
Speaker
um, sense of aesthetic, which I think is, is, is, is, you know, it's, it's apparent in my work. So I think I owe her a lot. Yeah. And finally, um, you know, and this is, this is for you.
Accessing Murphy's Works
00:34:48
Speaker
Um, uh, is, is there anything you can let listeners know about how to, you know, encounter your art? I know you have a website, uh, which contains the videos, including all the videos for,
00:35:00
Speaker
let england shake in some of your shorter videos i believe uh... one or two might have been shown on the bbc and uh... yeah there's something that was in in um... in the new yorker i did a film short film for a couple of short films to the new yorker actually one was one was during the the london olympics in two thousand twelve they got in touch with me and said you know would you like to film on the olympics but don't go to the olympics just just do london during the olympics so that was an interesting project
00:35:30
Speaker
And that's on the New Yorker site. It's called Went the Games Well. Another film which I did for the New Yorker is called Home is Another Place, which is a short film about my return to Dublin on the 50th anniversary of the death of JFK. Because I actually saw JFK when he visited
00:35:58
Speaker
Dublin visited Ireland in 1963, a few months before he was assassinated. And so I combined that memory of seeing John F. Kennedy in Dublin as a three-year-old boy, must be my first memory, with my own return to Ireland having not lived there for years. And so that's on the New Yorker's site. Yeah, and as you say on my own website, shamersmurphy.com,
00:36:25
Speaker
s-e-a-m-u-s murphy.com. There's films and there's photographs. And then there's the books. A Doctrine is Visible Afghanistan, The Hollow of the Hand, I'm the Bigger of the World, and The Republic. Yeah, and they're just really beautiful works and I'm hoping to track down
00:36:52
Speaker
A Dog Called Money. I know it's shown at, and of course that's your newer film, I know it's shown at a couple kind of independent film fest over here in the United States. And it's been released. It's getting a release in the UK November the 1st. It gets a UK release all over the country and there's a number of venues in London. And then in Ireland, Republic of Ireland, it opens later in November.
00:37:22
Speaker
Germany, I think it's got a limited release. It's it's slowly getting there. And it's doing some festivals. I mean, I've done all the major festivals. I'm off to Vienna tomorrow. But the Vienna are they and then I go to China in December for festival in Beijing. And it'll be out then on on DVD Blu-ray. I think in December it's out on on that release.
00:37:47
Speaker
I very much, I very much look forward to it. And, um, I gotta tell you, uh, Seamus, uh, it's, it's, it's really been a thrill to, to talk to you. And I, I deeply appreciate, um, your time, you know, uh, spending some time on the podcast with these questions that, uh, yeah, that, uh, I just, I've really got a, uh, I've enjoyed talking to you and I really love the work and I felt propelled to contact you and I just,
00:38:15
Speaker
Again, the deep thanks for me, but also everybody that will listen just to hear about your works and about your process. And I really look forward to your incredible images and in films to come. So just really wanted to give you a deep thanks, Seamus, for spending time. Thank you very much. You have a great evening and thanks again.
00:38:46
Speaker
you are listening to something rather than nothing.