Financial Times, August 14 2010
I’ve noticed a steady contraction in my weekend leisure options since becoming a father for the first time three years ago. Where once I’d spend Saturdays shopping, browsing East End galleries or just having a drink on the roof of Shoreditch House, now I’m limited to the parks and open spaces of north London. On clement days, a hike across Hampstead Heath or a stroll through Highgate Wood beckons, my three-year-old son beside me teetering along fallen trees and searching the undergrowth for badgers. Often, though, we just settle for the proximity of the local playgrounds at Highbury Fields or Clissold Park.
As a consequence of these outings, rather than any deliberate effort on my part, I have become a member of what I’ve taken to calling the Clissold Park Fathers’ Club. We are an informal – and occasionally reluctant – network of dads, thrust from our homes on weekend mornings by the twin imperatives of spending more time with our children and giving our partners a lie-in. Entry requirements are not stringent. Just turn up with a kid of your own and you’re in. Dress code is informal. Hair is worn tousled. Clothes rumpled. Chins bestubbled. You will find similar gatherings at parks all over London.
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The Independent Friday, 22 January 2010
A major retrospective of Chris Ofili’s work opens at Tate Britain next week. Ekow Eshun talks to Ofili about his new-found ‘sense of freedom’
Ekow Eshun: We’re in your studio in Trinidad, so what brought you here and what took you away from London?
Chris Ofili: I felt in some way things had closed down. London was an exciting place to work at one point, because socially it was very progressive – a catalyst. There were very interesting artists making all types of work, but it got to a point where the social aspect became claustrophobic. The fact it was all happening in London became counter-productive, and highlighted the fact that there’s a big world out there, and places where there isn’t so much vanity about the cultural scene. It also got to a point where I felt the work was really known in a public sense, that the division between public and private was like a thin membrane. And I didn’t feel that gave me a greater sense of freedom. The public is not within my control, but the work is, and I wanted to make changes within the work. That couldn’t happen in an arena that was familiar to me. more
