LCAB Artist Residencies: Theo and Julia reflect on their collaboration

Theo: When you collaborate with someone, you are working to someone's whole way of working and you learn a lot from that process. You also learn a lot about yourself and your own way of working. Collaboration is a nice thing to do, I think with PhD work that, if you let it, it can be just you, by yourself, doing your own thing.

I liked the idea that the project wasn't set in stone from the beginning; it was open to see where it would go over time. Keeping things open until the end is important, you don't really know how things are going to turn out. For me, the process is as important as the end result. We are both learning new things from working together, it has been inspiring.

Julia: Collaboration is central to my practice, as a composer and community artist. I value the opportunity of combining different perspectives and skill sets to explore and engage with an idea and the potential to develop it in ways beyond my own imagination. The creative journey is a shared one. There is a potential for synergy, which I believe is enhanced when all parties have a sense of ownership and responsibility for the project.

Theo: A number of things have helped our collaboration: regular communication with each other (online and in person); my being involved in technical processes, like recording and editing, has given me a sense of agency in our project; and Julia compiling a mix of my field recordings last year, which showed me the type of thing we could produce.

Julia: Collaborating with Theo has brought depth to this project; he took up my initial sketch of an idea and fleshed it out into something richer and more meaningful. I am enjoying this collaboration very much.