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- [00:00]
A
Hello guilty feminists, this is Deborah. Well, I was absolutely thrilled to be able to talk to Tracey Emin about art, life and feminism and we really did go there. I think you'll find it a very interesting, sometimes funny, sometimes moving episode. Well, I want to say a huge thanks to Harry Styles who curated the Meltdown Festival and invited us, and to all the people who made the Meltdown Festival possible, as well as Harry Weller, Tracey Emmons, right hand man, and Gina Dicio, my right hand woman for pulling all of this together. I can't wait for you to hear the episode. We are back at Soho Theatre tomorrow night with another Edinburgh preview show featuring Alice Fraser, Katie Pritchard, Rosie Holt and Jess Robinson. If you're not going to get to the Edinburgh Fringe this year, but you're in London, this is a microwave fringe. You're going to feel like you've seen a great spread of feminist shows at the front fringe. If you are going up to the Fringe, this is a great taster set. You can come along and see whose shows you'd like to see the full hour of. We are at the Ventna Fringe and the Isle of Wight on the 18th of July with Felicity Ward, if you live on the Isle of Wight or you can get there. And we'll be at wilderness festival on 2 August doing some wonderful stuff with Annie Lennox and the Circle. And we're at the Edinburgh fringe on the 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd of August 10th. Tickets are going very fast, so get some now. We'll be doing some great Road to Gilead shows there. Also, you would be doing me a massive, massive favor and a feminism a massive, massive favor if you were to follow or subscribe right now wherever you get your podcasts because it really helps other people find the podcast. It makes a big, big, big difference and it helps us keep the podcast going. You can rate and review any episode anytime. So you can do that every week if you like. And that really also helps other people find the podcast, especially if you give us a five star review. You could also join our Patreon and you could get ad free episodes. These are all different ways to support the podcast. All the podcast episodes are free. You can listen to them anytime. And my new book, six Conversations We're Scared to Have is not free. Please buy it. It's out in paperback now so you can afford it. It's also on Kindle and audiobook and again, please review the book and and I'd love you to give it five stars. It helps other people to find it. Thank you so much for listening, as always. And now on with the podcast.
- [02:31]
B
Live from Harry Styles Meltdown Festival at the Queen Elizabeth hall on the south
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A
bank in London, the Spontaneity Shop presents the Guilty Feminist with me, Deborah Frances White and my very special guest, Deb. Dame Tracey Yemen.
- [03:07]
B
Well, already they're impressed, which I'm delighted by. Our guest today is one of the most influential and celebrated artists working anywhere in the world. For more than 40 years, Dame Tracey Emin has created work that is intimate, fearless, feminist, and utterly distinctive. It's hard to think of a medium she hasn't mastered, including installation, painting, sculpture, bronze, drawing, textiles, film, writing and neon. On a global stage, Tracey has consistently transformed personal experience into art that speaks to something universal. Love, desire, grief, vulnerability, resilience, and what it means to inhabit a female body. Her landmark exhibition, A Second Life, now at Tate Modern surveys four decades of work and what a body of work it arrives. After profound personal change. The loss of Tracy's mother, a life threatening cancer diagnosis, major surgery recovery, and the founding of the Tracey Emin foundation and TKE Studios in Margate, where she is supporting a new generation of artists. Throughout her career, Tracey has challenged assumptions about what art can be, whose stories deserve to be told, and how women can feel free to represent themselves. Today we're talking about creativity, survival, love, feminism, and why the female experience, in all its pain and glory, should never hide in shame. Please welcome Dame Tracey Emin. I hope that introduction wasn't too long. Whenever anyone gives me an introduction that long, I always think, am I dead? Is this my obituary? I really had to think about what I wanted to say, and I have been to your new exhibition a few times now in preparation for this, and once I stayed so long I was thrown out and I'm a feminist. But I admit I said to the attendant, could I just finish watching this video? I am interviewing Tracy, so I need to be prepared. And the attendant just said, yes, well, we're closing up now and fuck off. So she could not have been less impressed. Tracey, very socialist. Absolutely right. But I was really moved by it. I was knocked out by how feminist it is. So could we start with the title, A Second Art After Survival? It's very evocative. What does that phrase mean to you personally?
- [05:59]
C
Yeah. Can I just say something? Yeah, go for it. So we've just been sitting back in the green room talking about, do you get nervous before doing a talk? No, I never get nervous. No, I never get nervous. Suddenly, after that introduction, I'm just Like. Like thinking, oh, my God, what am I going to say? So I'm a little bit nervous.
- [06:23]
B
Everything you say is delightful and we will love to hear whatever you've got to say.
- [06:27]
C
Happy, Tracy, What was your question? Deborah?
- [06:37]
B
So, Second Life, it's just such a wonderful, evocative title. What does it mean to you?
- [06:46]
C
Well, in all seriousness, I really feel like I have been given a second life because I think I really sort of slightly fucked up the first one, big time. And I'd look back on my life and have this sort of like, big elements of regret. One of my biggest regrets in my life, which I often say is smoking, which I'd never, ever smoked, and that was before I had cancer. I just hate the fact that I ever smoked and change, smoked and everything. I went to my doctors, this is like a few years ago, for a heart check, and he said to me, never smoked. And I went, yeah, I have. He goes, no. He said, mother smoked. And I said, yeah, my mum smoked. He said, mother had a heart problem. I said, yes, she did. He goes, you've never smoked? And I said, yes, I have. And he goes, how many? And I said, 50. And he said, oh, that's a lot. And he said, a week. That's a lot. And I went, no, a day. Right. So my smoking wasn't like just like, elder social cigarette. I was totally addicted to nicotine. So it's one of my biggest regrets. And the other big regret, which I always say, which sounds really crude, but I mean it metaphorically as well, is always taking it up the wrong hole. And so long in my life I did this. And then one day I just thought, why not just make love?
- [08:06]
D
Yeah.
- [08:07]
C
But I don't feel that. In all seriousness. In all seriousness, the second life came about because it came about at a good time. First of all, I'd had cancer that was so bad that I was given. I probably had six months to live and I had to go through this incredibly big surgery. And then even after the surgery, there was a really good chance it wasn't going to work. It was more like extending in my life for about a year, year and a half. Most people don't survive that surgery or that kind of cancer. It was incurable cancer. And the only way you couldn't have chemo, couldn't have radiation, the only thing I could have was to have it cut away. And often they cut it away and they leave a tiny bit. And so about a year or so later, you find out, oh, the cancer's back, but it's not back. It never left. So for the first five years, I mean, it's six years. Six years now, yeah. First five years, I just wasn't sure if it had gone, if it was ever coming back. And when I first found out that I might die, they said that I would have until Christmas. I become sort of like deliriously happy. I just thought, fuck it, let death. Death looks after itself. But life, you have to work a bit hard at it. And I started to become happier and happier and happier because always throughout my childhood, my teenage years, I'd been really nihilistic, sort of like semi suicidal nihilistic, black, dark, looking, always at the dark side of life. And then suddenly I thought, fuck, I've only got six months left. Probably I better sort of like join in a bit. And unfortunately it was locked down, so there wasn't that much to join in on.
- [10:03]
B
The timing could not have been worse,
- [10:04]
C
but actually the timing was fantastic because if anybody. Loads of people in the audience have had cancer, I'm sure, right. When you have cancer, the worst thing is the fact that you are missing out and the fact that you don't know how long you're here for. And the fear. And the good thing about it being locked down was I didn't have to share any of that with anybody. I was just in my own little bubble in a way. I didn't miss out on parties, didn't miss out on red carpets, didn't miss out on openings or social events, birthdays, nothing. I just had to make sure that I was calm and in a good place to try and sort of like, I couldn't heal myself, but what I could do was just try and enjoy myself and the immediate things that were around me. Comfort, home, you know, all those kind of things. And I became much happier and it didn't stop. So the second life is about the fact that through the cancer, through this kind of strange twilight time of like, near death, everything, a near slow death that didn't happen, I become a much better person for it and do it. And then suddenly I didn't decide I wanted to do the right thing. That's a bit crass, but I was just doing the right thing. And if you're doing the right thing at the right time, in the right place, you will feel better. And that's what's happened. So that's why I've had a second life.
- [11:45]
B
What struck me at the exhibition was how much I got to know you better. Like parts of your childhood. It's so autobiographical and it's not in some kind of sequential order. Your work is from all different times. But it's like an autobiographical film. You glean things here and pick up things there. I got the lovely book that goes with it that I do recommend. Cause it's like being able to take the exhibition home and remember things. I loved the writing pieces that you'd done that there were so many. It's not what I was expecting. Because I think of you as a painter and installation artist and I loved them. Is it all right if I read a little bit? So this is Tracy Emin CV transcript. And this is from 1995. And it says, Conceived in Ireland, 1962. Same time as my twin brother. It was the last time my mom and dad were supposed to have spent together. July 3, 1963. Born 10 minutes after Paul. Croydon Wayday Hospital at 10 to 7 in the morning. Spent the first six months of my life sleeping in a wooden drawer. I thought that was so lovely. Then 1965, moved to Margate. Mum and dad opened Hotel International. And then you go to Turkey. And then you come back to Margate. Went to Holy Trinity Infant School. Stopped talking Turkish. Bit Mrs. Mann on the elbow. Ran away. Spent the next five years becoming more and more strange, which I absolutely loved. And then there's another bit here that I love that 1973-1974, had a birthday party. Paul and I, our friend Mario wasn't allowed to come because he was Greek and we were Turkish. The year me and Maria killed the dinner lady. Now, I do have to ask about that. Did you in fact kill a dinner lady?
- [13:38]
C
No, we didn't. We didn't. And I've got to sort of say this. I feel like, you know, like as an artist you make work and then afterwards you think, maybe I shouldn't have done that with Mrs. Edwards, who was the dinner lady. She was only kind and she used to tell us off all the time because we never. I never ate my dinner. I never ate my lunch. I never. I was just. And I was. You know, I was 10 or something and incredibly thin. And the reason why I was thin is because I was being sexually abused. The reason why I was thin is because my mum used to work at nights and everything and during the day and we spent a lot of time alone and alone at the weekends. And the reason why I didn't want to eat is because I didn't eat anyway. And I'd sort of lost a lot of my teeth, were all rotten and different things. I don't know. I can go into it or much more. But Mrs. Edwards was trying to look after me and Maria. She was concerned about us. And we would just say, Mrs. Edwards, we wish you were dead. Mrs. Edwards, we wish you were dead. And then Mrs. Edwards got kicked in the head by a medicine ball and she fell back and she died. And the thing is, me and Maria were convinced that we'd killed her. So it's not funny. It's actually quite weirdly tragic. But at the time when I was making this work, back in the 90s, no one understood it, no one looked at the layers of it. People only just saw the surface of it. And I think. What's it called? Political Magazine. Good one, Ian Hislop, all of them.
- [15:24]
B
Oh, Private Eye.
- [15:25]
C
Yeah, Private Eye. Private Eye did a whole thing about it and was asking me, like, did I really kill the dinner lady? And of course I didn't kill the dinner lady. I was 10. Right. It was like, you know, and it was a way of me explaining work and life and everything. And then if people then had gone to the next piece of work, they would have read about maybe me being sexually abused, or if they went to the next piece of work, they'd see about me and Maria still being friends when we were 22 or whatever, like sisters. So it's much more complex. And back in the 90s, nobody wanted to understand that complexity of it at all.
- [16:05]
B
So I did read it all. I read the whole book and I absolutely. But I loved the sort of gear shifts between this sort of quite sort of childish recollections. I didn't really think you killed the delay, but just the way that children speak, that you were writing sort of a diary in retrospect. And I also loved then the way you could gear change and suddenly you'd be, like, in love with somebody who was saving you from the ocean and then trying to push you off a cliff. And I was like, my God, you've had such an extraordinary life. It's remarkable what a life you've had.
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C
I'm a cat. Nine lives.
- [16:42]
B
I think that's the case because there's just so much depth in those and there's people standing in front of them trying to read them and you sort of having to be a bit pushy to read the next one along.
- [16:54]
C
Yeah. But back in the 90s, nobody believed it. I had a show at White Cube, Baby. White Cube. And it was like a lot of the work was my memorabilia, so there were all these objects and then next to the objects was text pieces and the Press and different people just thought that I'd made the whole thing up. No one really believed that it was really my life. And I've got so much. You know, we all look back on life and we all have. When we look back, we will. Everybody in this room will remember something different about tonight. But to us individually, that was the truth of what we saw, what we remembered. So my work is about my truth, what I saw, what I remembered. And what's really interesting is sometimes I'll revisit those subjects and see it totally different because I have a different perspective through age and experience. And, you know, it's like my tent, for example. Everyone I ever slept with from 1963 to 1995, I don't think I'd make that tent now. I wouldn't. I'd censor myself because I wouldn't want to hurt people's feelings. I would be afraid of being spiteful and. You know. But not to the guy who raped me. Not to this person or that person, but to maybe someone else's boyfriend that I slept with or something. I wouldn't want to be cruel and put their name in my tent. So in a way, it's kind of good that I made that work when I was very young, because there was a gullibility and innocence on my side. To think that I could just do that. And I did it, and the tent burnt. So no more names, nothing, until I get really old and write my memoir
- [18:45]
B
that will fly off the shelves. But that's very interesting that you say that. The willingness of the young artist to just be completely transparent and open up the chest and say, this is who I am, alters as you get older and wiser. And do you think that makes your art better or do you think it inhibits it?
- [19:07]
C
I don't know. I mean, some people think I've got really boring. David Hockney thought I'd got really boring when I was. No, when I stopped smoking. He said, you're no fun anymore.
- [19:19]
B
Well, you've outlived him, haven't you? So.
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C
Oh, no, it's not funny.
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B
Oh, I'm just.
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C
I'm not funny. Not funny. I cried and cried and cried.
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B
Well, you all did. We all do.
- [19:31]
C
Greatness has gone. And David Hockney's fucking brilliant. He flew the flag for so many people evenly. Chainsmokes. Yeah.
- [19:41]
B
A moment's cheering for David Hockney. The work that.
- [19:47]
C
You regret saying that now, don't you? I'm a forgiver. Yeah.
- [19:52]
B
Yeah. I mean, the thing with comedy is in the moment, You've always got to take the risk and it doesn't always pay off. Nine times out of ten it does. And then when it doesn't, I mean, in that one I got the laugh. Then I felt bad. So it's a bit this and that. It's hard to say. They know that I love Hockney. I was only saying that because he'd told you you were no fun and I was being a bit protective of you. The video work that I thought was just knocked my socks off and I kept on watching it and I kept on going back to it, was why I never became a dancer in 1995. Because for 1995, like, we live in a world now where feminists say this kind of thing. In 1995, if you're a young person, just give us a cheer. If you don't remember 1995, okay, my God, was it a different world? We'd never heard of slut shaming. We had never heard of, like the way that the newspapers and the magazines went after people and that went on long after 1995. So this is a work that I just sat there thinking, to make this in 1995 is such a bold and feminist piece, but it's also such a sort of gut wrenching piece of art. So this is the story. It's a video. And when what we're watching is lots of images of Margate and it looks a bit like Cine 8 film. Like old fashioned images. There you go, Super 8 film. And the story you're telling over the top of that is about discovering sex at the age of 13.
- [21:30]
C
Yeah, I don't think I discovered sex at 13. I think it was the time when I decided to have sex when I was 13. I was having sex before I was 13. Not penetrative sex, but lots of other sex, which Light makes, I think is really, I mean, tragically sad in lots of ways. Like, had no innocence. And I always say this. Oh, this is really. Can I just say something really quick? The other week I was at a. What's it called? Margate. Margate Gardens. Right. And it's in Northdown park and it's all these lovely little allotments and you could buy some plants. It was like their little summer fair thing. And I went with my friend Rob and I was holding some plants and everything, and this woman came up to me and said, you won't remember me, but we were at school together. And I went, I'm sorry. I said, I can't remember. She goes, you wouldn't remember Because I was a few years older than you. But you were in the same year as my sister. She said, but the reason why I remember you so well is because you were on the netball school netball team. And she said, and then Rob went, netball. Looking at me. And then this woman said, yeah, Tracy was really good at netball. And I suddenly went, yeah, I was really good at netball because I've always said this thing. One minute I was playing netball and the next minute I was being shagged by 25 year olds. Literally like that. Two memories, me playing netball, me on my back being fucked. Really important thing. Was I choosing to have sex when I was 13 or 14? Or was it something which I thought would empower me because of what had happened to me when I was younger? Well, obviously that is the case. I didn't have to go and see a therapist to work that out.
- [23:29]
B
You talk in the video about, you look back now and like, who were these men who were abusing and discarding you? And you talk about material.
- [23:40]
C
Yeah, but I think it's more complicated because some of those men were like 20, 25, 19, 18, 29, not 29, it's too old, but 26 or whatever. And I was like 14, whatever. And they were breaking the law number one. Number two, they should have known better. But number three, I really wanted to have sex, I was desperate for it. So it's really complicated. Was I groomed and wanted sex? Was it because I wanted revenge on the people who had sex with me when I was little? It's a really complex thing. And one of these men came, arranged a meeting with me to apologise, and he said that he had two daughters and he imagined, tried to imagine what it would be like if someone had sex with them, 20 year old had sex with them, or 25 year old had sex with them. And he was appalled by himself and just realized how wrong it was. And he apologized to me. And the reason why he apologized to me was because a number of these men had also had extremely rough lives. One of them I knew had grown up in an orphanage. Another one, the one that apologized to me, was homeless since he was 16, completely homeless. So I'm not defending them, but what I'm saying is that it's brutal, it's not always straightforward. People suffer and that suffering creates a chain reaction to things as what we're seeing right now in the world, a chain reaction to suffering which is appalling. The bully, bullies, the bullied becomes the bully, that kind of thing. So I, with my Philosophy in life. If I can forgive, I've always done this before the second life. I promise you. I try to forgive and try to understand how these things happen and how they happened. So if you have someone that may be. How do I know that these young men hadn't been having sex since they were 12 or 13 or whatever, which I think probably some of them maybe was true. I think they'd probably been sexually abused as kids too. So it's really, really complex. And the thing you have to do, which I've always done, is talk about this and open the subject up with my work. So when you go to the Tate Gallery, you think you're going to go and see an art exhibition and you might come out telling your mum that so and so had sex with me when I was 13 or I was. Had to give so and so a blowjob when I was 16 or whatever it is, or I had an abortion, I never told anyone, whatever it is. My work is to open up subjects and make everything available and everything open, because secrets are sometimes the most evil, rotten, disgusting cesspit that we carry around. So I have no shame. The people who have shame are the people who try to shame me in that video that you're talking about.
- [27:05]
B
Yes, because you. Say in the video that you're on the dance floor in a dance competition and you're 14 and you're dancing and you're a really good dancer and then these men come around you and start chanting slag. And then you run off the dance floor crying. And then the twist in this is you say, and what's incredible about it, again, can't stress this enough, in 1995, you name the men who did that and you say, Shane, Eddie, Tony, Doug, this one's for you. And then you dance and dance and dance and at this point you're in your early 30s and you're fabulous and you're dancing on your own in like a dance studio, just time of your life to a disco song called you'd Make Me Feel. And it really twists the idea of how you make me feel. And you're just. It's just the most glorious thing. And it makes you want to dance as well when you watch it. And you're just saying, I didn't let that shame me, I didn't let that change me. I didn't hide the dancer in myself, but it's why I didn't become a dancer. But you're showing. I still am a dancer and I still have this joy. And there was something so impactful about you naming it. And of course, as you say, the systemic horrors that this trauma has passed down from one generation to another, it's passed on through poverty and disenfranchisement. But you at that point leave Margate at that time and say, I'm not going to stay here anymore. And it's such a liberation, that film. It's a really important piece of work, I think.
- [28:50]
C
But you know what? When I made that work in 1995 and it got shown or later on, there was reviews and the reviews said, oh God, then we have to see Emin prancing around. I wasn't prancing around exactly what you were saying. I was showing that I was defiant and strong and even them calling me slag on the dance floor wasn't going to stop me from dancing. And it's a metaphor for. It's not going to stop me from succeeding. It's not going to stop. It's not going to my shame. You know, I slept with more people between the age of 13 and 15 than I have done the rest of my life. How's that? And they weren't boys at school behind the bike shed, a bit of tit up. No, we're talking full blown fucking sex in the back of vans, this, that, whatever, you know, like men laughing at my vagina, things like that. When I was 14 or 13, pointing at me, going, look at that ugly cunt. I made work about this and the work's called you'd're the ugly cunts. But you know, I want to say something because when I was making this work 30 years ago, people thought I was moaning. I got accused of moaning. Oh, there she goes again. So much narcissism. It's all about herself. Of course it wasn't about me, it was about a whole, you know, like in Margate, where I grew up, there was loads of places to have sex and so it happened all the time. And there's loads of underage pregnancies. When I say underage, I mean girls, 14, 15, pregnant. It wasn't like your middle class suburbia where something awful happened, you know, and everyone's gossip, it happened all the time. And where I grew up, being raped was called broken into. So you go, oh, did you hear? You know, so and so got broken into last night and they weren't talking about their house being broken into, they were talking about their fucking vagina. I'm being broken. And people go, oh, did she? Yes, she did. That was the end of the conversation. It was never Rape. It was never unwanted sex. It was deemed as. That's, you know, the state. That's what happens.
- [31:22]
B
And being able to talk about it at that time, sort of years before the feminist movement became something where people started talking about this in living rooms and pubs. It is quite a remarkable thing when you look back on it, because, honestly, nobody else was saying this. This was a time when, after a celebrity had a baby, she was weighed on national television to see if she'd put on. She'd lost the baby weight. This was a time when women had big red rings around their cellulite if they went on a holiday and the paps would catch them. This was a time of such constant shaming of women. Did you feel that the press treated you differently from your male counterparts?
- [32:04]
C
Yeah, totally. I always make this joke about it. There's this review that describes as, I bustle in through the gallery with my cleavage before me. Oh, God.
- [32:16]
B
Where were you meant to have your cleavage?
- [32:17]
C
Yeah, exactly. Draped in gold like Moll Flanders, you know, swaggering around the room or whatever, covered in Westwood from silk, from head to toe, this kind of thing. And I always say, always say this thing, they never go. And Jeff Koons entered the room in his shot pink suit, his balls cut up tight, you know, with a sharp French seam. You know, it's like. They wouldn't dare. They wouldn't dare.
- [32:47]
B
Swinging his cock as he shuffles round the floor.
- [32:51]
C
No, I'm not talking about swinging cocks, I'm just talking about someone walking into a room.
- [32:56]
B
Yeah, no, but that's what I'm saying. They don't say that about men. They wouldn't think to say it.
- [33:02]
D
So
- [33:04]
B
how were you able to disentangle the kind of Tracey Emin in the press that was so huge in the 90s? I mean, I remember it so well. I was at university when you won the Turner Prize.
- [33:15]
C
I know I didn't win. I know I didn't win it.
- [33:17]
B
I. I know that, but I accidentally said it. And I have a joke with Tracy that everyone always thinks she won the Turner Prize, so why correct them? But when you were nominated for the Turner Prize and should have won.
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C
Can I just interject and say I'm very proud to lose against Steve McQueen, who actually is one of Britain's greatest film directors, whose Oscar won. He won an Oscar. So he won an Oscar for being a film director. And I think this is brilliant for someone British to do this in America. So I'm quite happy to lose against him.
- [33:57]
B
Good company. But I remember at that time I remember thinking you were so cool and you were sort of changing culture. It was that time, that sort of Cool Britannia time, when there were so many artists just reshaping in lots of different fields and mediums. And I remember thinking you were so cool. But looking back now, in the light of the exhibition, I don't think I realized how much the kind of being Tracey Yemen was probably in a position.
- [34:28]
C
I was doorstepped by the Daily Mirror. You know, I was doorstep. I was following. I'd come out of a restaurant and there'd be like, you know, maybe 30 paparazzi with cameras. And they'd be trying to trip me. I'd be drunk, and they'd be trying to trip me up so as I'd fall over so as they'd get a great photo. And at that time as well, there were photographers that when you got out of a taxi, they'd be laying on the floor so they could get a shot up your skirt, stuff like that, which now would be completely illegal. It would just be, you know, not allowed. So we are talking about completely a different time in history to the way in which women were treated. And somehow. Sam Fox said something really good. Her son, Page three model. She said, like, if you don't want to get photographed coming out the restaurant, go to your local Indian. Don't go to the Ivy. And she was so right. She was so right. And this. And I was thinking, oh, maybe if I go places where they're not, I can just live my life. And that's what I've been doing probably for much longer than the last, since I had cancer, because I have a house in France. And before fucking Brexit. Don't start me on that. I spent really lot of time in France. Maybe about four. For four months a year, at least five months a year painting in my little studio there. I was so happy painting there. I don't speak a word of French. I try. I can't. And I was happy. And it's in a route, it's remote. It's in the middle of a nature reserve and really beautiful. And I just painted. Me and Harry, who I work with, we just were there alone all the time. And that was really groundbreaking for me. It changed my life because I realized, oh, yeah, I know. I would have these exhibitions where I'd invite the gardener or I'd invite, you know, whatever, you know, just a handful of people, and I'd put all my paintings in the trees or in the olive grove or whatever, and I'd have an exhibition. And I was so happy doing this. And then it was at that point that I realized as long as I paid my tax, as long as I kept my house clean, I could just paint and I could just work. And I didn't need a museum, I didn't need a gallery. I didn't need any of those things. What I needed more than anything was just to make my art, because that is. Art is the right thing for me. More than anything. I love art more than anything. I dedicate my whole life, my whole being to art. You know, I'm not married. I don't have children. My cats, their children. But, you know, I live a very sort of, like, alternative life. I don't live within the rules of convention at all, and I never have. And that's got nothing to do with sexuality. That's got nothing to do with who I fell in love with or who I didn't fall in love with. It's just that I wanted to love art more than anything. And as I get older, that's what more and more obvious and more and more true. Because I've sacrificed stuff for art. I've sacrificed love for art, I've sacrificed having children for art. I've sacrificed many things. But it's now, as I'm older, it's not a sacrifice. It is a balance. Because art has always looked after me. I could be at my lowest, lowest ebb, and art has come flying in to pick me up and look after me. So I've forgotten what we were saying.
- [38:17]
B
No, I'm just loving listening to this, and I absolutely understand that. It's the work, the creativity that is your life, and it's your lifeblood, and it's circular. It feeds you. You feed it. And there is something so symbiotic about that, I think, something that the tension between love and pain is in your work. Throughout this exhibition, and I think throughout your work. There's a neon that I love that says, I could have loved my innocence. And for me, there's both the love and the pain in that. And I feel like a lot of what I see in your work is you expressing pain, but it's sort of like a sweet pain. It's something about the loss of love or the desire for love, the longing, the yearning, as young people say.
- [39:11]
C
Now, with love, I mean, I spent. It's really funny, in the last 25 years, I spent most of my time being celibate. And this was by choice because I chose not to have sex. And also, I really just want love. I Can't just have sex. I can't just have some. Not because I'm older. I was like this when I was younger. When I was 15, I called it the age of reason. I decided that I didn't want to have sex anymore if I wasn't completely in love when I was 15. I have fucked up a bit since then. There was a few, but, you know, that's another thing of regret. You know, I really, really regret some of the sexual encounters that I've had. And then also I regret maybe some that I never had. So it's like a balance. But for me, love and pain is about. I always love people I can't be with, for example. And that's because I'm an artist. So if I was with someone all the time, I wouldn't be able to make my art. And this is like with my cats, for example. It's so lucky I never had children. Oh, my God, my cats. I just. I won't get out of bed if pancakes laying on top of me, you know, I sort of go, oh, I can't move. You know, all that kind of thing. And I just know that if I'd have had children, who knows? But I think I'd either have been the best mum in the world or the worst mum in the world, you know, I can't stand that I'd ever have a halfway solution to that because my art takes over everything. So I might have stopped making my art and just looked after my children and then resented my children, or just looked after my art and my children would have resented me. But I could never see a halfway house on that. So this goes back to pain and love again. My whole life has been like that, of extremities of thought. But right now in my life, I'm not particularly. I haven't felt very well recently, so that's really pissed me off. But I'm actually probably the most stable and the most happy that I've been for a long, long time. And I say that. Praying that it stays that way.
- [41:38]
B
I hope so.
- [41:40]
C
I hope so.
- [42:00]
B
You talked about pancake in bed. And I know that your. I know that your most famous work is my bed. And it's an extraordinary work. I heard you talking about recently saying it's different every time that you bring it back, but I hadn't realized, again, how many beds are in your work. Like the blankets?
- [42:21]
C
They're sort of beds.
- [42:23]
B
Yeah, the blankets are beds. So many beds in your painting. So many prone figures lying down in repose. Are you aware of how much bed is in your work.
- [42:36]
C
I am aware. Thank you, Deborah.
- [42:43]
B
Just seems like a lot. It's. I think because I have one of those brilliant limited edition prints from the Carl Friedman gallery of a woman in bed. And I hadn't put that together. It's so bed heavy. And I love it. I mean, I write in bed, I work in bed.
- [43:03]
C
Yeah, well, I have a film company with my friends Liz and John, and it's called Boffis Films. And people go, boffis, that's a silly name. And I go, no, it isn't. It's really cool. And they go, sounds like office. And I go, yes, sounds like it, but it's not. And they go, well, what's the B for? And I said, work it out. And when they suddenly work out, there, it's bed. Because we sit in our Boffis. Some work all day long. I text Liz, I go in the office. In the office. Because this is, if you like me, if you live with limitations and you have a disability and you have to carry a giant big bag of piss around the whole time in bed is actually not a bad place. It's kind of safe, it's good, it's not tiring. You have everything around you and you can work and you have your cats and you can think. And I love my own environment. I like my own company, I like my own environment. And if you have to say to me what was my hobby? My hobby is thinking. I love thinking. I think. So I have to wake up very early in the morning to think. No, because once you start on everybody else's day, you're thinking. You have to think in the mainstream. You have to think like a salmon. You have to go down. You can't. There's no, you know, you have to go the way the stream goes. You can't turn around and come back. Actually, salmons do do that, actually. They do actually, yes. But you know, you know what I mean? I have to. To keep my individuality and to make my art and to make my work, it's essential that I spend quite a lot of time alone. So there's the bed one bed thing. Another bed thing is when I paint or draw, I'll start off by drawing like maybe a triangle shape, maybe a rectangle shape and split it in half. I'll start off with the golden section and then I know I can swing or hang anything off of that in painting or drawing. I don't have to think about what I'm doing. And when I paint the bed at an angle on the canvas. It's a perfect shape for me to be able to flip and to turn into anything that the painting looks like. So I start off with this sort of shape and then I'll throw some paint on it and some drips on it and some colors on it, and then I'll start looking at it and then it starts to feed into me, what it is. So the bed is a very good shape to do that.
- [45:41]
B
Interesting.
- [45:42]
C
But I don't think about that consciously. It's just the way that I work and what I work with. But. But of course, the bed is a fantastic poetic metaphor for life, death, birth, everything. Everything we want. Bed can be there.
- [45:56]
B
Yes, yes, of course. Your first, probably, you know, your first part of your life. You're in bed a lot as a baby.
- [46:03]
C
Or a drawer.
- [46:04]
B
Or a drawer. Yeah, Or a drawer bed. A drawer working as a bed. And you often wouldn't. You have a deathbed, you have sex in bed. If you conceive someone or you are conceived, it's probably in a bed, and so on and so on. It makes so much sense. But I just suddenly started seeing. I went, oh, my God, there's the bed, the famous bed, my bed. There's the tent. Everyone I've ever slept with. There's so much bed work. And I just went, oh, wow. And bed is my favorite place. As I say, I work in bed. I just. I love bed. So I think maybe it's one reason I'm very drawn to your work.
- [46:37]
C
Yeah. But I spend maybe three days a week in bed. And like last week I had 48 hours in bed completely because I didn't feel well. And if I'm not feeling well, I know that bed is the safest place for me.
- [46:55]
B
It's the nest.
- [46:56]
C
Yeah, absolutely.
- [46:58]
B
You mentioned children and the decision not to have children before. One of the most poignant and works that has really stayed with me is there are two little chairs, like children's chairs in the gallery. And it says, sit on these at your own risk. So I did. And then I put these headphones on and there was a little old TV there, like an old fashioned tv. And there was an incredible conversation between you and your mother in which she says repeatedly, I didn't ever think you should have children. I don't want you to have children and I don't want you to get pregnant. Tell us about that work and about that conversation with your mother, because it's quite a remarkable conversation.
- [47:37]
C
Yeah. I think I was either 30. I think I was about 36 or 36.
- [47:42]
B
Did you say 36?
- [47:43]
C
Yeah, when I made that film with my mum. My mum put me on the pill when I was 14 and my mum said to me, I can't stop you from having sex, but what you're not going to do is destroy your life by having a baby at 14 or 15. You're not going to do that. And she was, like, adamant about it. She wanted other things for me. She wanted me. I know what she wanted exactly. But what she didn't want me to do was, was to be a mother at a really young age, which, of course was a strong possibility. So. And I always said to her, mum, that's all right when I was 14 or something, but I'm 36 now, surely it's time. And she would always say, no, mustn't destroy your life, Trey. Mustn't destroy your life. And partly she said that because she felt that she not lived her full potential or her life. And she always said that when you have children, you love them. But part of her always wished she was going to have an abortion with me and my twin. She didn't know there was two of us, right, and she was going to have an abortion and she was just about to have the anesthetic problem and she changed her mind. And she was 30, she was 36 then, and she changed her mind and got up and said no, and left the abortion clinic. And then in 1963, it was illegal to have an abortion, but my mum, and then my mum, also in her favour, she was having an affair with my dad. And my dad was Cypriot, but my dad's really, really dark skinned, like, because my great grandfather come from the. From Nubia, from the Sudan. So my grandfather was black and my dad was really dark. And so my mum, in 1963, she was having an affair with a married man. She was married and she was pregnant. And it really. When she was almost really, really heavily pregnant with my dad, she was spat on in the street and called lover, which is pretty, Diane. She was so scared about how me and my brother were going to be treated as we grew up and everything, and how people would accept us. This was in 1963. I've made so much work about this. I made so much work about it back in the 90s, back in the 2000s, for some reason, I do not know why, no one noticed. But that work is in the tape now. You can see it. My first project I did for Freeze magazine in 1993 was called Looking For My Father. And it's pictures of me with all these sort of Turkish looking men and it's called looking for my father. And people just didn't get it. It was me, like in a tailor's in Istanbul, me somewhere else in Turkey or whatever. And one, of course, with my real dad, but people didn't even think my real dad was my dad because he was so dark. And then my dad collapsed once and my dad was much. My dad was like, no, he was 44 when he had us, so he was like in his 80s. And I was actually at the Tate and my dad collapsed and everyone's, oh, this old man's collapsed, this old man. And I ran. I was like, daddy, Daddy. You know, like, trying to see if he was right. And the security people came and move me away, like dragging me. They said, leave it, we're calling the ambulance, you know, whatever. And they said, stay away from him. And I said, he's my dad. And no one could understand unless they knew that this man on the floor with really dark skin was my dad. Because nobody put these things together. And I'm not complaining. I've never peanoes. Occasionally on a form I might put mixed race or Cypriot or something, but I've never, like, especially back in the 80s and stuff like that, you know, I didn't think that I was going to get in the Royal College of Art because my great grandfather was from the Sudan, you know, I didn't think that was going to help me at all. It's never been a thing. But I can really see now. And my work tells you, looking at the tape, like, when you think about growing up impoverished, single parent. My mum was Roma Gypsy, my dad's from Cyprus. Single parents like all of this stuff. My dad never went to school. My dad only had two years at Qur' an school from when he was nine to 11. All of this stuff, you know, doesn't really set you up in life to be like a superstar artist. And somehow I battled through all these things and my work is to tell people as well that you can do it. You know, everybody in my life told me, no, no, you can't do this, you can't do that. And I wanted to be an artist. And look, I am an artist. It is possible. You can smash, smash through everything.
- [52:59]
B
And of course, the way it does help you to become a remarkable artist is that you have something to say because you've lived an extraordinary life and a marginalised life, so it doesn't open doors. But if you can kick down the doors, my God, you've got something to say when you're in the room. And that's what you've been able to do. And your work, I think, speaks so much to. I mean, it seems to speak to everyone, but it speaks so much to women, these issues of these themes of parenthood, motherhood, childlessness, abortion. There's some really strong work in this about abortion and a doctor who refused you an abortion and so you had to have a much later stage abortion than you would have, and how traumatic that was. That's never going to leave me. But also incredible. That incredible quilt about. It's like the A to Z of abortion that's called the Last of the gold.
- [54:00]
C
Yeah.
- [54:00]
B
And it says it's equal.
- [54:04]
C
Equals, Equals. Equals. Yeah.
- [54:06]
B
Equal.
- [54:06]
C
Yeah. And everyone goes, what does that mean? I'm like, nothing, really. Just like, read the blanket. And it's the A to B of abortion, about how to have an abortion and why you should and why you can and who to listen to, what advice to get. And also there's one bit of advice that if you really want to have the baby, don't listen to anyone. Don't let anybody put you off. Because there's a lot of women that get pregnant and they want to have a baby and they're boyfriends. Like my boyfriend that I had back in the. Early in the. No, in the 80s. He patted me on the tummy when I told him I was pregnant and said, hello, we're going to kill you. Which is not like what you want to hear when you tell someone you're pregnant.
- [54:54]
B
Oh, my God.
- [54:55]
C
So I was not encouraged at any point to have that child.
- [55:01]
B
There's a dreadful thing as well in that remarkable video, a piece of art that's just extraordinary where you ring the doctor because you know there's something wrong after the abortion and you're really unwell and you have an infection. It's not worth it.
- [55:14]
C
It's sepsis.
- [55:15]
B
Sepsis. But the doctor says to you, well, you've just had an abortion.
- [55:20]
C
Yeah.
- [55:20]
B
What do you expect?
- [55:21]
C
What do you expect after having an abortion?
- [55:23]
B
Do you expect to feel good?
- [55:25]
C
Yeah.
- [55:25]
B
And doesn't. Doesn't listen to you. And it turns out, I mean, had you not gone in, I mean, I
- [55:30]
C
could have died because I was pregnant with twins. So when I had the abortion, only one foetus left and I still had one inside me, just rotting. So two weeks later I was just like. Or whatever. Ten days later, I was just yellow and so ill. And I felt so guilty from having the abortion because they weren't they wouldn't sign the papers for me. It was only when I said that I'd do it myself or have a backstreet abortion that they finally got someone to sign the papers. So I don't, you know, I didn't expect to talk about this much, but what I'm saying is this kind of stuff stays in your head, stays in your mind. So if I repeat my subject matter again and again and again, it's because this subject matter will reappear in my life and come back in a different guise in a different way. And right now, when I'm talking about it, I know that I was in the right, I was totally in the right with my choice, the way I behaved, what I did. And I know that doctor was definitely in the wrong. And so the equals squeak or mequals blanket is telling people, giving people advice on how to handle that situation. Loads of people like talk about abortion. They're men, they're never going to be pregnant. What the fuck do they know what it feels like? Lots of women talk about abortion. They've never had one, they'd never want to have one. It's only us women who have had abortions who know how it feels. And that's what my film is called, at the Table is how it feels. How does it feel to have an abortion? Who helps you? Who talks to you? A lot of women, they leave work early, 2 o' clock in the afternoon, they go and have an abortion and they go back to work the next morning and they say nothing to anyone. How do you think no woman wakes up and thinks, I want to have an abortion. Even the women that can't don't want to have a child. You don't want to have an abortion. It's Hobson's fucking choice.
- [57:50]
B
Yes, you say that, you say in the video no one wants to have an abortion. They just, they've decided they can't have a child.
- [57:56]
C
Yeah.
- [57:56]
B
And it's. But what made you someone who, in the 90s, when really no one was talking about that, what do you think has made you such a shame free person? Because you say in the video in the 90s, like that doctor should feel shame, I shouldn't feel shame. That's the essence of it. What made you somebody who was able to make that kind of work, that feminist discourse, that bold feminist work that said none of you should feel ashamed, Go and dance, don't be slut shamed. If a doctor's put you in that position, that doctor should feel the shame. The Giselle Pellico idea of shame should change sides. What made you that kind of person, do you think?
- [58:43]
C
Well, I think my mum and dad, regardless of my upbringing and all the problems, I was really loved. And also I was. Through my upbringing, I was given this really great level of independence. And also I had no boundaries. So I set my own boundaries and my own dissonance and my own right and wrong. So if someone. Supposing someone calls me a liar, I'll fucking defend myself and prove that I wasn't. Someone says to me, you can't have an abortion. And I know that if I have that child, the vision of me is jumping off Waterloo Bridge, holding that baby, throwing my bike. First, I will tell that doctor, I will tell people and I will say to them, if I have this child and anything ever happens to me, I've warned you. I told you, I am not a suitable mother. I am not a suitable parent because I know myself to a certain degree or a certain level that they don't know. So I would trust myself in that situation not to have the child as opposed to having the child. So I think that having a voice and opinion about yourself is quite a healthy thing. Yeah, of course we're going to make mistakes, but, like, look at the reality of the situation, you know, and at that time, I knew what the reality was that doctor didn't. And also that doctor hadn't been brought up poor with a single parent, with just what, you know, my mum or whatever, and understood like that impoverished level. Also, I'd been put on the pill when I was 14, not to become a single mother. Also, I just finished the Royal College of Art and fought my way through there to get a Masters in painting. And that's what I was holding onto and that's what I wanted to be an artist as well. And of course, when you're pregnant, you want to be a mother, don't you? Because you can feel it all. And all the people that know me really well know that I wouldn't harm anything or anyone, especially something tiny growing inside me. So that decision I had to make was so fucking hard. And that doctor didn't help me. He made it a million times worse for me. And that always puts me on the moral high ground every single time my body, as I say, my choice. I knew how I felt. Well,
- [61:23]
B
Thank you for making such feminist art. Like literally decades before other people felt able to say these things, or we did feel shame, we wouldn't have said. And I feel like there's this second life retrospective. It really puts it into perspective. We need to take some questions from the audience now. Does anybody have a question? And microphone will be brought to you, I believe.
- [61:48]
C
Hi. Thank you, Tracey. It's hard to know what to say. Just incredible. So we just saw the exhibition today again, so thank you for that. I guess what I was drawn to was I just wondered if you could just say a little bit about what it's like to be a twin. I don't know if people know that about you. Lots of people know that about me. So my twin brother, Paul, he's born 10 minutes before me. He's much bigger than me and he's much darker skinned than me. When we were little, Paul spoke fluent Greek and English, I spoke some Turkish. We were really. We were ambidextrous, both of us. And when we went to school, all of that got knocked out of us. And Paul is. Paul's a really good carpenter, brilliant gardener, really good cook, which I'm not really. And we're definitely telepathic on lots of different things. And I like being a twin. It's really difficult, but I like it. And I think, you know, I'm. It's like it's different. I don't know, but I imagine it's very different from just a sibling because you grew up in the womb together and Paul and I had our own language as well until we were about three, which no one could understand. So I like being a twin and I like my brother very much. He's extremely proud of me, which is
- [63:30]
B
really lovely, really nice. Any other questions?
- [63:39]
D
Hi.
- [63:42]
B
One of the things in your exhibition which really connected with me was that passage where you've got photos of you post your bladder surgery and then photos of you as a younger woman. It really got me thinking about body image and my relationship, you know, with the body and our relationship with the body. What would you say to a young person who maybe struggles with body image? And what advice would you give to someone who's maybe in a battle with their body?
- [64:12]
C
I'm smiling because what would you say to an old person who struggles with their body image? You know, when I was young, I weighed six and a half stone, I weighed 45 kilos. And I loved my body. I loved the less of my body, the happier I was. This is the biggest and the heaviest I've ever been in my life. I'm a size 16, I'm 63, nearly, and I fucking hate my body. I hate my rolls of fat, I hate this, I hate that or whatever. But I'm still Sexy. I'm still like. Can still look good if I really have to. My skin looks really young, apart from my horrible chin thing here. My face is okay. I like my hair grey. You know, it's a balance to things when you're young. My mum said this. Brilliant. My mum said so many good things. My mum said to me. She said to me, this is like before. About not long before she died. And she said, so it's about 10 or so years ago. I was sitting in a flat, I was sort of like. Like this. And she goes, trey, what's wrong with you? I said, mum, I said, I just feel so old. And she. She's like about 86. And she goes, tracy, look, look, this is old, this is old. And she's said to me, you don't. She said, you know, I was about, like, maybe 50, 52 then. I know, whatever. And now I wish I was fucking 52 and look like I did then. And I know that when I'm 80, I'm going to be going, oh, my God, I wish I looked like I did when I was 60 or whatever. I recently saw a documentary, Marian Faithful Documentary, and I looked, first of all, when she comes on screen, I was like, oh, my God, like Marion Faithful. She's in a wheelchair, she's bigger, she's got. But her face is so beautiful and what she says is so poignant and fantastic. And guess what? She's Marion fucking Faithful. And it's like when I'm painting, when I'm in my studio painting and really loving it and everything, do you think I give a toss what I look like or what my body image is like?
- [66:37]
D
No.
- [66:43]
C
So I would say exactly the same to a young person. If you have body dysmorphia like I have, and you look in the mirror and you hate what you see, look a bit further than the mirror. Look further. Look inside your mind and try and work out if you're a good person, a beautiful person. Try and work out if you're doing the right thing or the wrong thing. And I promise you, if you're doing the right thing, you're going to like yourself so much more and there is nothing to worry about.
- [67:18]
B
We've got someone up there. I don't want to do all front section privilege as well. There are probably people up there that I can't see. So anybody that the great people with the microphones.
- [67:27]
A
Yes.
- [67:28]
B
There you go.
- [67:28]
C
Hi.
- [67:29]
B
Thank you so much, Tracey. I'm quite nervous also. I'm almost 40. And your work is in some ways New to me and your exhibition really blew my mind. And I have a question which may not be original, which may just be something I haven't heard you say yet, but I wonder, do you see yourself as a feminist? And if yes, what is your definition of that now where you're standing now? And if no, why not?
- [67:57]
C
When I first had an interview for art school back in 1983, they asked me, what do you think of feminism? I was sitting there with back combed bouffant hair, great big earrings, great big red bow lips, eyeliner up to here, a dress that I'd made out of a pair of curtains the night before, stiletto heels and all my nails painted really long. I painted them especially for my interview. They must have wondered what the fuck was walking in and they said to me, what do you think about feminism? And I said I don't. They said, what do you mean you don't? I said I don't think about feminism, I just do what I want to do. Now I wouldn't say that now. I would say a feminist. Of course I'm a feminist, 100%, always, forever. Because even when things are good for me, I would say this. Just round the corner, down the road, there is a woman who is either being smashed into hell by her partner, there's a woman down the road about to be set alight that we'll never hear about. There is a woman who's locked in a cupboard and she's only allowed out to clean, who we'll never hear about. There is a girl of 12 that's being fucked every day by at least two or three people that we'll never hear about. The list is endless and endless and endless. So hooray for the comfortable middle class, a class students who feel protected or whatever. I actually want to speak up for the people that have no voice, that have no protection and the people in a position who can speak up for other women should do because it's not over yet. And while we're on the subject right now in Britain, we're in the world actually, but let's just say Britain, we're on the brink of something catastrophic politically. And the people who can really change that more than anything are women because majority of women don't vote. And if all women come out and vote and vote for the right things, honestly, we'll be living in a completely cool different country within five years.
- [70:54]
B
I co sign that, absolutely endorse that. Anybody else? We've got lots of different. We've got a hand here.
- [71:03]
C
I Just wanted to say a huge thank you. I really struggle.
- [71:08]
D
Some days I can't get out of
- [71:10]
C
bed because of my illness and to go home, renaming it and reframing it as a boffice and having that acceptance just makes me feel really visible. So thank you. The bottles fan.
- [71:28]
B
People with mics. Can you put the mic in front of someone with a hand? Thank you.
- [71:35]
D
Firstly, I actually want to give Tracey M an apology. In the 90s, I was an early teen and I remember looking at the unmade bed and thinking, oh, my God. Well, that's a load of rubbish. And then life happened. I had an abortion, I had cancer, I had a stroke, I've had addiction. And I took my daughter to go and see that exhibition and it was absolutely stunning. That bed spoke to me. So I apologise. And I also want to thank you so, so much. I had the most amazing conversation with my daughter. Do you feel validated now more than you did in the 90s?
- [72:29]
C
Well, of course I do. I'm. Hey, I'm Dame True. How many Dame traces are there? It's a new time, new beginning, and it's good. Like, you know, some people think it's a bit wanky, accepting these accolades and stuff, but, you know, I'm a role model for girls from my background, for girls with, like. I'm going to say this word, but no one else can. You know, I've got a bit of a pikey accent and it doesn't stop me from talking, doesn't stop me from writing. Like Deborah said earlier about my writing, you know, I wrote for the Independent newspaper for four years, I wrote for gq. I wrote recently for the Evening Standard. You know, the fact that I left school at 13, cannot spell, have no idea of grammar whatsoever, doesn't stop me from writing. And the fact that I have this accent and this voice and everything, doesn't stop me from talking and doesn't make my voice. I'm not going to be quiet because people might not like the sound of my voice. My voice was on the tube the other day as well, for people with disabilities saying, move up, let people like me sit down. And people told me that it sounded warm and friendly. Yeah. So it's not about validation, it's the fact I've been doing what I've been doing for 40 years and now they're going, well, she's not going away, is she? And I'm going to carry on doing it as well. I want to, you know, like in Margate, you know, all the stuff we're doing in Margate is so brilliant. Margate was a boarded up seaside town, you know, 15 years ago. Now it's like, it's so cool and so brilliant and fantastic, so creative. And recently we made a bid for like island of Culture, Isle of Sannet, right? And we didn't get it and everyone was disappointed and I was going like, for Christ's sake, you know, Margate. If you say to people, margate, what do people think? They think art Turner me. You know, beautiful sunsets, galleries now, great restaurants, everything. They don't think that Margate's slumming it anymore, do they? The city of culture is given to a city or a town that needs to be brought up. But Margate, through art, brought itself up. And I'm really so proud of that. So back to the validation thing. It's not just about, you know. Yeah, she's all right now. It's because I'm working really hard. And this goes back to your first question about the second life. When I didn't die six years ago, when I didn't and I woke up and thought, fucking hell, I'm still here. This is amazing. I thought, someone's given me another chance and I better not fuck this one up. I better get it right. And since then, all I've tried to do is do the right thing, not the wrong thing. And through art I can extend, extend those ideas and do the right thing. I'm never going to be a politician, I'm never going to be this, I'm never going to be that. I'm never going to be an academic, I'm an artist. But through art we can change things. I believe art is a really good thing. Good, good, good. And by doing good things, the world can become a better place, not a worse place.
- [76:12]
B
Off the back of that, can you just tell us a little bit about what you're doing with young artists in Margate? Because what you've done in Margate with a community is not gentrified it, but the opposite of that. You've brought the people of Margate, you've made it a local place where exciting things are happening. What are you doing with artists in Margate? Young artists?
- [76:32]
C
It's not just young artists. I mean, we have an art school and it's Tia Tracy M in artist residency. Very convenient. And people can apply from all over the world. At the moment we have nine artists there. The countries are where they're from is Mexico, Brazil, Ethiopia, Nigeria. Oh my God. Russia. Oh my God, I'm going to forget someone oh no, India. And so it's completely international. I fund the whole thing myself. And we get some people give donations, like a few people, but only on the condition that they can't tell us what to do. And I sold a painting at Christie's for two and a half million pound and I put all that money into my foundation and we make money as well. We have like a sort of small income from the street studio rents. But the people on the tier project program, they don't pay any studio rents. It's all free, all the tuition's free and it's kind of like a masters, but actually a lot more tougher. Really, really critical and really tough. And we have great people come in, you know, we've had like, I don't know, my brain's gone dead. But like loads of different. We had Anson Keifer, came last week. If anybody knows who that is. We're talking about a king of art, right? Common sort. Everybody we had, you know, we had people from the Tate, we have people from the auction houses, we have patron groups, we have artists. We had like lots and lots of different artists, really good artists. But the trick is nobody gets paid. Everybody comes there and teaches because they believe in art and that's how it works. So the whole thing is like funded by me and also funded by people's generosity in their belief in art. So we've got this really brilliant sort of like art school thing. Then we've got artists studios and all the artists in the studios now lots of them are showing internationally, working with galleries and they weren't when they first came, came. I'm about to open up, about to building, renovating an old sea pavilion in Westbrook and that will have an art gallery, a restaurant, lockers, hot showers, a sauna. So it will be for winter swimmers as well. It'll have yoga, everything. All of this is self funded by me, but non profit. So I don't. Once I've bought the building and I renovate it all, I just say goodbye to my money. And the reason why I'm doing this is because I don't need all that money. I don't want a jet, I don't want. I've lived, you know, the spangly lifestyle, I've done the red carpet, I've mixed with all the fame and touched, you know, all of that stuff. And actually it wasn't necessarily good for my work at all, but it's fun. I enjoyed it all when I was young and now that I'm older, all I want to do is focus on art. So the more my work sells and the better I become, or whatever it is, the more I can invest in what I believe in. And I believe in art,
- [80:06]
B
but that's a real. It's a real legacy. And it's also something that I don't have any children either. And I tried to have children, I couldn't. And I made a decision. I thought, I don't think I want this enough. And I think sometimes people underestimate the legacy you can have to a wider variety of people. If you don't have children, you find ways to be.
- [80:24]
C
Yeah, but it's like meerkats.
- [80:27]
B
Meerkats.
- [80:27]
C
Yeah, because meerkats, when meerkats are under attack, the mother meerkats don't look after the cub meerkats. It has to be meerkats that don't have cubs or children, because otherwise the mother meerkats would obviously go to protect their cubs, their babies, not everybody's. So I think someone like me is like, I'm in the world looking after art. Art is like. Art looks after me. But it means, also from a selfish point of view, someone said to me, why are you doing this, Tracey? Years ago, and I said, because I don't have children. And when I'm 80 and I'm walking up from Morrisons carrying my shopping bags, someone young is going to go, oh, look, there's Tracy. Let's help her. Because I deserve.
- [81:27]
B
And I have no doubt that they will. They will. All of Margate loves you. I've been shopping in Margate and had people say lovely things, heard people saying lovely things about you and what you've done for the area. I think you are much loved there. And it's such. It is a special place. It's a really, really special place. Somebody else. We've got time for just like a couple more, I think.
- [81:49]
D
Hi. Hi. I'll stand up. Firstly, thank you, Tracey, you are an inspiration to so many of us. I won't carry on just to say I've seen the exhibition at the Tate twice. I'm actually going again on Friday because I can't help but bring my friends and keep bringing my friends. The second time. One of the. One of the main reasons I wanted to see. I really wanted to see the bed for myself in. In person, because I'd heard so many people say that, oh, it's not valid, etcetera, And I thought, I have to make my own decision and the only way to do that is to see it in real life. The second time I saw it, I was really drawn by the two suitcases at the back that are tied. Tied up in chains. And it felt to me like there was something quite important about that. Sorry, it's not such a philosophical question, but I was really intrigued by those suitcases. Is there something important about that?
- [82:54]
C
Yeah, there's stuff inside the suitcases, but you can't open them. It's locked inside. And the suitcase with the old suitcase is a suitcase that I left home with, actually, not when I was 15, but when I was 17. And then the Samsonite suitcase is. I bought the case to go to Canada. I was in a show in Canada, and I've never had an expensive suitcase before, and I bought that suitcase and when I was packing it, I said to myself, when I come back, my life is going to be different. And it was. So the suitcases are chained together because there's like a one leaving home when I was younger or leaving home when I was older, but both of them are like. They're sealed completely. And inside is like the journeys in between and everything. It sounds pretentious, but that's why they look so good, because it's so real to me. And the bed in the Tate at the moment is the saddest bed I've seen out of my bed. That version of it is so sad. And when Harry and I put it together, we were wearing Hazmat suits and we were placing all the stuff. There's a film of it somewhere, and we were placing all the stuff. And Harry could see that I wasn't feeling good, I was so sad and having to stop myself from crying, and I said, oh, my God, it's so sad. Whereas in Margate, when I installed it at the Turner Contemporary, it was like, really sexy and really raunchy and like, whoa, rumpy, bumpy. And then at the Tate, this time, it's so sad. And I said to Harry, I don't understand why it's so sad. And he said, because this is the first time I touched all the things and put it back together since being very ill. So I have a completely different reaction to my bed, because that bed I nearly died in in 1998, I nearly died in that bed. I was so close to dying in that bed. And that bed saved me. And usually with the bed, it's more like when I see it and I'm making. It's like a rejoicing thing, like meeting of an old friend or something. But this time at the Tate, it just filled me with absolute sadness. And I kept saying to Harry, why does everything look so little? Why is the paper all crumbled? Why is everything like this? Or why is everything like that? And it's because there was a really deep sadness involved in it. And I'm sure when I show the bed again somewhere else, it will look completely different again. And the reason why the bed is. See, for a lot of you that are really young, when the bed first went on show at tate Britain in 1999, everything from EastEnders to Coronation street, everything. Who do you think you are, bleeding? Tracy? Tidy up that room. Everywhere, Absolutely everywhere. And it got lodged in the psyche, you know, and there's not many female artists or artists that can make a piece of seminal work which lasts throughout history that has meaning for people. So, you know, and back then, as well, every taxi driver, oh, my God, they had something to say about my bed. It was like, you know. And so it's kind of. It's sort of interesting. And the bed is totally valid. The bed is really important. And I'll tell you why it's so important, because it's still here. And it's been shown at Tate Modern just down the road.
- [86:37]
A
One more.
- [86:38]
B
Okay, one last one. Somebody has got two hands up.
- [86:42]
C
I've got a microphone.
- [86:43]
B
There's somebody.
- [86:44]
A
How's that?
- [86:44]
C
Hi. I'll be very quick. I think Deborah's spoken really beautifully about your legacy, and everything that you've managed to achieve in your lifetime is phenomenal. Is there anything that you feel that you're yet to create? Do you have, like, a burning desire? Is there one piece of art that you still think that you haven't quite completed? I'm really curious to know. Oh, my God. That's a really good question.
- [87:09]
D
Yes.
- [87:17]
C
So at the moment, all I do, you know, like, so great Egyptians, they built their pyramids, they built their, you know, the Valley of the Kings, they built their tombs and everything, and they got ready for the next life. That's all I do now is get ready for the next life. Everything I'm doing, everything I build around me is getting ready for the next life. So that is like. So I know that my studio in Margate's going to be a museum. I know the house I've just bought is going to have a sculpture garden. I know this. I know that the house that I live in in Margate is going to be a place for other people's art. I already worked out where you'll go into the museum. There's going to be afternoon tea served. I'VE thought about all of this. I think about it all the time. That is ego, right? You know, it's my. I go to bed thinking about, wake up thinking, yeah, that would be really good. Like little kiosk here and stuff here and whatever and blah, blah, blah. So in terms of the great piece of art, I'm getting ready to leave the planet. I'm getting ready to go to another place. It might take me 20 years or 30 years to get there, but I'm definitely going to be ready. So that's what I'm working at at the moment. That's the great work of art.
- [88:39]
B
Good question. That's a really good place to end. I did promise double hands. Can you say your question in five words or less? Fewer.
- [88:52]
C
I'm here with my best friend, working class. We never thought we sat here doing these things in our life. I think differently. I had three children and a stepchildren. 50, menopausal. How do you tell the people in your life, I've done it all now for you all. But I need to make art. This is my time. I'm afraid I need to leave the kitchen and everything. Everybody's okay now, but I seriously need to make art. How do you tell people in your life?
- [89:22]
B
So if you couldn't hear that, how do I tell the people in my life who I love? I'm sorry, I love you, but I need to make art now, Tracy.
- [89:33]
C
Oh God. You just have to make it and you have to make your space and you have to make your breathing time. And so I'm going to answer this, really. I could be very jokey here, but I'm not going to. You have to create your own space and your own time. And the first thing I would do is go and join a life drawing class so you can go and learn something outside of your domestic environment where nobody can touch you or get to you. That's what I would do. And then you'll be surrounded by like minded people and then you'll be able to have good conversations and you can look forward to it. There you are.
- [90:15]
B
Great, great advice. I posed for a life drawing class once in order to explore my relationship with nudity and the bodies. The very first episode of the Guilty Feminist. I highly recommend it, especially, especially if you have body issues. It's very empowering. Tracey Emmons incredible exhibition. Second Life is at Tate Modern, very close to here. Until 31st August 2026. Do not miss it if you are in this room or if you are listening to the podcast and you can get to London or you're in London. Do not miss this exhibition. You really will regret it and spiral into depression and alcoholism if you don't get there. I can only assume I do need to say enormous thanks to Harry Styles. That's right. So often I find myself thanking Harry Styles for inviting us to join the Meltdown Festival. Are you in, Harry?
- [91:20]
C
No.
- [91:23]
B
Rosie Townsend, Jane Bees and all the incredible team at Southbank Center. Harry Weller, Tracy's right hand man and creative director at Tracey Emin Studios and Jean Odicio, my right hand woman. And more than that, I have to say thank you to all of the staff here tonight, your good selves for coming. You've been an absolutely terrific audience and you asked some wonderful questions. And it just remains for me to say a huge thank you to Tracey Emin.
- [91:54]
C
Thank you.
- [92:02]
A
You have been listening to the Guilty
- [92:03]
B
Feminist with me, Devon Francis White and
- [92:05]
A
my very special guest, Dame Tracy Emin. The recording engineer was Grundy Lazyndra. The Guilty Thunders theme tune was composed by Mike Hodge. The producer was Tom Stielinski from Spontaneity Shot. Thanks to Harry Weller, Gina Dicio, Zaynab Muhammad, Harry Style Styles, everyone at the Meltdown Festival and everyone at the Southbank center as well as all of you for listening. For more information about this in other episodes, visit guiltyfeminist.com.