Podcast: The making of Motherland

I sat down with Julius Ponten to talk in depth about my work for this year's edition of CANVAS at TivoliVredenburg. This 10 minute podcast episode covers how I came to be part of the project, how my search for a lost family connection inspired the work, and the unique challenges of creating an animation for projection mapping as opposed to for screens.

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Transcript

Julius Ponten: Dear listener, welcome to the Canvas Talks 2025. Nice that you are listening. In this series of conversations, we talk with the creators who have made a new work for the third edition of CANVAS, the large video wall in TivoliVredenburg at Park Six. This edition has the theme 'What Family Really Means To You'. I am Julius Ponten, filmmaker and the curator of this edition, and together with Mr. Beam, we made the selection and supported the artist to create a work of art. Now, I am here with Pip Williamson. Born in the UK and a 2D animator, you have made a colourful piece, Motherland. And, it's about losing a family connection. Thanks for coming over, Pip. And my first question to you - this is the first talk we are recording - so my first question in this series is: What was your first thought when you read the call for this new work? ‍

Pip Williamson: Well, first of all, thanks for having me. Really happy to be here. I did get really excited when I first read the call. It was actually sent to me by a friend because she knew that I was already starting some research into my family and my family history anyway. That's something that I wanted to do as part of my growth into being a more independent artist. And it kind of was a perfect opportunity really, for me to have a framework in which to explore those themes that I was already interested in.

Julius Ponten: And what kind of creator are you? Can you make make it more specific because 2D animator is really... you can do everything.

Pip Williamson: Yeah, it is quite broad. So I'll start with a little background. Actually, I started my career in motion graphics, and over the last 5 - 7 years I've been slowly moving myself more towards more independence. And that includes moving from more traditional design-based motion graphics into a more expressive, character-based animation practice. At the same time as going freelance and becoming more independent, I also wanted to move away from the commercial projects into doing more art based pieces as well.

Julius Ponten: Is this your first independent work or do have you done more pieces of work?

Pip Williamson: Actually, yes. This is my first independent work. Yeah.

Julius Ponten: And how does it feel for you to deliver this?

Pip Williamson: It's actually really nerve-wracking. Because it's a lot of unknown territory. For example, I know how to communicate to our audiences as I have learned in my career, but I have never communicated in an artistic way before. And so I'm quite nervous to see if it works. Like, if people get the message when I'm talking in a more artistic sense.

Julius Ponten: And was it new for you to not have - how do you say - a person who asks for your work who's delegating, like I want this or I want that because you had kind of total freedom. You know, the work needs to be between 1 or 3 minutes, and there's a theme, but for the rest, you could do whatever you want.

Pip Williamson: Yeah. Honestly, that was quite a challenge for me. Because it's that sort of unbridled freedom that I've really never had before, and it can be quite disorientating to not have any guardrails. So I really had to do a lot of writing and a lot of thinking to try and help myself along that process, because I didn't have anyone telling me what to do, which I'm very much used to.

Julius Ponten: You made a colourful piece. I really liked it. It touched me. I still have to see it on the big screen but, now it's still small on my laptop. But, can you tell a little bit how this idea came along?

Pip Williamson: Okay, so Motherland is about wanting to connect to my family, but also more broadly, wanting to connect to my heritage and my culture. So, for context I am mixed race, but I grew up in the UK. So my family is a mix of White-British from my mother's side and Black-Caribbean from my dad's side. My dad is a child of people who emigrated to England in the 1960s. But unfortunately, my grandparents died very young. So that connection to the homeland, to Jamaica is... yeah, it's lost a little bit, it's a bit severed. And over the course of time, generations and, you know, the stresses of day to day just raising children, we've become more detached from our family in Jamaica. And that for me is... it can be a little painful and also quite confusing because I know that there is a part of me that I still don't fully understand, and I still don't fully know because I feel that I don't know my Jamaican side quite as well as I know my British side.

Julius Ponten: And how did this process of creating this piece of work, deepen that thought, or made it more clear, or did it do something with your - how do you say - with your life expectations?

Pip Williamson: Yeah. Actually, making the piece has given me an excuse to ask my dad more questions, and it's given me sort of... a reason to to go looking and to go searching for it, reaching out and making those connections with the other side of my family. Luckily, the production schedule of this project fell over Christmas time. So I was with my family over Christmas time, and so I had some more chances to really ask my dad a lot of questions about what he remembers about his parents, his uncles and his time in Jamaica, as well as our time in Jamaica. Because I have visited, but only once as a child.

Julius Ponten: What was the challenge? Because now you have to make something for a big wall. How did this interact with your 2D laptop screen? Can you tell a little bit about that process, how you visualise that?

Pip Williamson: I decided that it was really important to involve the shape of the space in the creative process from as early as possible. So I took a screenshot of that space and started doing most of my sketches, just straight onto that shape, so that I could use it in my storytelling. And so, for example, I've decided to put certain elements in certain blocks on the space. But also I really wanted at some point to use the entire canvas for one image to make a larger impact, I just wasn't sure at that time early in the process what that would be.

Julius Ponten: And can you tell a little bit about the challenges you had during the process?

Pip Williamson: I think the largest challenge I had was remembering that it is indeed a space that not everybody sees every part of the screen at all times. So I had to make sure that I was telling a story that didn't hinge too much on one specific image in one specific part of the screen, in case people couldn't see that. So it was more about spreading the tone and the message of the film across many different vignettes that were dotted all over the space.

Julius Ponten: Okay, That's nice. And you created a small character for this piece of work. Do you think this character will will continue living somewhere on screen or do you think this project is closed now or has it started it something you want to explore more?

Pip Williamson: I think it might continue, but I will level with you and say that it's completely autobiographical. So the character essentially is me. She's very, very close to my life story. So maybe I will be making more films that are based on my life. But I will say that since I started talking to my dad more, I'm actually really interested in his stories too, and stories from his childhood and his brothers and sisters. And because there are practically no photographs from his childhood, I think I would really like to use my work to express some of those stories, too.

Julius Ponten: That's that's really nice to hear. So, Pip, thank you very much for coming over. I have a final last question for you. When do you think you will visit Jamaica again?

Pip Williamson: I really hope that it's going to be this year, but we'll have to see.

Julius Ponten: Okay, I think we will record this piece of work so you can send it over to your loved ones there so they can see it as well. Canvas can be seen, every Friday at Park Six in TivoliVredenburg. The soundtrack for the piece of work was made by Sjamsoedin and the podcast technologies made by Menno de Meester. There will be a new call for canvas this year, so if you would like to contribute to this call, send an email to canvas at tivolivredenburg.nl and keep an eye on the socials where we will inform you about this piece of work. Thank you very much and we will come back with a new talk.

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