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Features04.2504.25High, Soft & Open: Rita Conry on Reclaiming Women’s Health Through Documentary Film

“If we really want control of our own bodies, we have to fight for it.” A quote taken directly from the 1970 seminal feminist manual, Our Bodies, Ourselves. Although half a century on from its original publishing, the book is still being used to challenge medical dogma, energise the reproductive rights movement and, for documentary filmmaker Rita Conry, as reference to how far (or little) we have come. To celebrate the release of her latest documentary; High, Soft & Open, UNCLE partnered with Rita to deliver the film and its message of conversation deep into the streets through flyposting.

Infuriated by the ignorance between medical professionals and patients, Rita’s films have always had a focus on women’s mental health. High, Soft & Open is a hybrid documentary that delves into the often-overlooked mental health side effects of hormonal birth control. The film weaves together a tapestry of eighteen anonymous women whose shared, yet often silent, struggles, are reconstructed for the screen through actors within London environments. The film holds up an ornate mirror to the audience and is a poignant reminder on the importance of peer-to-peer knowledge sharing among women.

In the interview below, we asked the documentary filmmaker, Rita Conry, to take us through her intentions with High, Soft & Open and her other films, and to share her perspective on London and how the city has shaped her career. Through opening up with us, Rita hopes the same of those who see her work.

WHAT IS THE REASONING BEHIND THE FOCUS ON WOMEN’S MENTAL HEALTH?

Growing up, me and my friends were pretty tuned into our mental health, especially to the negative effects that taking hormonal contraception could have on it. Despite having never been told this by any medical professionals, it was widely accepted that the contraceptive pill could negatively affect your mental health. When I read that a Danish study had found a link between teenagers taking the pill and also taking antidepressants, I wasn’t at all surprised. But it did make me question this gap in knowledge between medical professionals and patients. Why weren’t we being informed of this major side effect when prescribed the pill? It was infuriating.

WHAT GOT YOU INTO DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING? HAVE YOUR FILMS ALWAYS HAD A FOCUS ON WOMEN’S MENTAL HEALTH?

I think I’ve always been interested in real life and real people’s stories, so documentaries made sense for me to focus on when coming out of film school. In the final weeks before graduation we went to Sheffield Doc Fest. You basically sit all day every day for a week watching documentaries. I loved that you could come out of the screening with a totally new perspective about anything from the drag queen Divine to the Hadron Collider in Cern.

Although the catch with making documentaries is you have to find something interesting to make them about! Which isn’t easy. With documentary filmmaking you end up with filmmakers and non-filmmakers working together out of pure passion for the topic. At Doc Fest I’d sometimes come across a Q&A after the film where the director would say they aren’t actually a filmmaker, but they had just been compelled to tell this particular story, so I knew I would have to wait for the right thing to come to me.

So that’s kind of how I ended up making two films about women’s health. My first doc was The UTI Documentary. I’d been struggling with a chronic UTI for almost 13 years and a friend was writing an article about the lack of understanding around UTIs and suggested making a film.

YOUR FILM SHEDS LIGHT ON THE EXPERIENCES OF 18 DIFFERENT INDIVIDUALS WITHIN YOUR FILM, WHAT IS YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH WOMEN’S MENTAL HEALTH OR HORMONAL BIRTH CONTROL?

As with the UTI documentary, I have my own link with the subject matter. I’ve always found taking hormonal birth control has come with more negative side effects than positive, whether that’s the pill or the mirena coil, but luckily nothing as severe as some of the people I interviewed.

OUTSIDE OF THE FRIENDS, FAMILIES, AND COLLEAGUES YOU INTERVIEWED, HOW DID YOU GO ABOUT FINDING THE OTHER WOMEN WHO ARE FEATURED IN YOUR FILM?

I tried really hard to reach out to different groups and strangers but it can be quite hard to get people to open up about their mental health when they don’t know you. Some of the women I interviewed in the film came about completely organically to my search for participants, which made our interviews more natural I think. I made friends with one of the participants through volunteering and she then introduced me to a group of quilters, which is why there is always a hum of a sewing machine in the background of their scenes!

DO YOU FEEL LIKE THERE IS STILL A TABOO-CULTURE TO DO WITH WOMEN’S MENTAL HEALTH?

I started making the film in 2016 and I think conversations were really starting to kick-off around mental health in general. Now that I’ve finished the film a lot of attitudes have changed and I think a lot of care has gone into normalising and prioritising your mental health, especially at work. But I think it was always easier for women to discuss their mental health; it’s the men’s mental health which seems to have had a huge change in attitude towards it.

WHAT DO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO TAKE HOME FROM HIGH, SOFT & OPEN?

I think I’d like people to feel like they’re not alone if they’ve been suffering with these negative side effects from hormonal birth control. I’d also like it to be a way for people to understand the issues better. Hopefully people can show this to their partners so they can better understand what they’re going through.

I think the other big message of the film is how important leaning on one another is, and how much we learn from each other when we’re just hanging out at the pool or pub, or when we’re at work. It’s like a never-ending exchange of information and I’d like to celebrate that a bit with this film.

HIGH, SOFT & OPEN ISN’T THE FIRST DOCUMENTARY YOU’VE CREATED, CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE UTI DOCUMENTARY, AND ANY OTHER FILMS YOU’VE BEEN INVOLVED IN?

The UTI documentary came about through a project called Healthy Scepticism, which is a Wellcome Trust funded, interdisciplinary project focusing on sustainability and reform in health care. UTIs are really misunderstood and mistreated, and as someone who has suffered with them for my whole adult life, I thought I’d be a good person to try and shine a light on these gaps in awareness. It was sort of a blueprint for High, Soft & Open, as the themes were so similar: repeatedly going to the doctor with a problem, doctor saying nothing is wrong, leaving feeling deflated and stuck, etc…

HIGH, SOFT & OPEN IS VISUALLY VERY BEAUTIFUL AND GROUNDED IN ITS VISUALS, HOW HAS YOUR TIME IN LONDON SHAPED THE FILMS STORYTELLING AND VISUALS, AND HOW HAS THE CITY SHAPED YOUR EXPERIENCE AS A FILMMAKER?

I was born and raised in London and still love living here. I love massive, over-crowded cities, I find them weirdly comforting and couldn’t live anywhere else. I love how every type of person exists here and are all just getting on with whatever we need to do.

All the interviews in the film happened with Londoners, so it was important to reflect this with the visuals. I also needed to convey the various environments and situations that these conversations around mental health and birth control can take place. Which turns out, is basically anywhere. I wanted the audience to feel like they were weaving in and out of these environments and capturing snippets of conversations all around London.

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO SEE YOUR WORK IN THE STREETS AS A PHYSICAL FORMAT?

It’s such a personal project that to see it out in the wild among the public is so surreal and exciting! I’m telling all my friends to keep their eyes peeled!

WHERE CAN PEOPLE WATCH HIGH, SOFT & OPEN?

You can watch the film through the Girls in Film website or through my website and vimeo.
www.girlsinfilm.net/videos/high-soft-open-film
www.ritamariaconry.co.uk

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Features02.2403.24Grief and resilience as designed by artist Annie Frost Nicholson for show “All of Your Textures Live Inside of Me”.

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Annie Frost Nicholson (an artist formerly known as The Fandagoe Kid) has been building anticipation for her captivating exhibition, “All of Your Textures Live Inside of Me”. The show itself is an exploration of grief and how these thematic underpinnings can be used as a force for good. The show’s genesis being Nicholson’s own experience with loss, something she has now turned into a “a brightly coloured sanctuary where you can calmly reflect on what’s been and what is”.

Her work itself has been characterised with a fusion of visuals and prose, bold patterns and geometric shapes, often drawn and inspired by culture of the urban landscape. Her artwork blends together various communication mediums, ensuring that people can interpret them on multiple levels. This flexibility not only distinguishes her work but also enables it to transcend mere interpretation, having an allure that invites deeper analysis, whilst also holding steadfast in its personal motive.

UNCLE partnered with Nicholson to get eyes on streets in Liverpool with a flyposting campaign that we paired with an interview and studio shoot to get the full 360 on the story. We delved into her creative psyche and how she uses layers of personal history to fuel her work.

HOW DID THE NAME ‘ALL OF YOUR TEXTURES LIVE INSIDE OF ME’ COME TO BE?

It’s really an ode to both life itself and the family I’ve lost, whose stories and particularities of our lives lived together I carry around with me wherever I go. This strong interior world has kind of lined my body for the hard knocks of survival, following the loss of all of them when I was younger. Holding them in this way has also impacted how I view the world, my fascination with small details, found objects, polaroids and ephemera, and how we bring through the past into the present in landscapes, architecture, rituals, food and navigating space.

WHAT IS YOUR ASPIRATION FOR THE SHOW?

I would like to take people into their own interior world, a safe one, where they can just exist, as they are—a brightly coloured sanctuary where you can calmly reflect on what’s been and what is, and draw them closer to one another. I’ve loved creating this work, it’s been a chance to fully immerse myself in the safety of my practice, it’s long been my mode of survival and peace, but rare that I’ve had the chance to work in such a dedicated way on a solo show. The experience has been so profound, a real chance to be alone with some family characters that I miss so dearly, to commune with them, but also to bring them with me into my present life, which is a hard earned happy one. I’ve loved the chance to merge worlds, it’s been strangely all the more life affirming.

WHY IS THIS SHOW DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHER PUBLIC ART YOU HAVE DISPLAYED BEFORE?

In many ways, this is probably the most personal work I’ve made to date. It’s felt like a real excavation, and a cleansing, to go within, rather than reach outwards, as I have done for so many years with the public art (which has been and continues to be a very important part of my practice). I’ve discovered that I need to work more in this way, that I take so much energy from being able to burrow away in my thoughts and create a personal body of work, which doesn’t ask the same questions of its audiences as the public art. It’s a gentle invitation into an interior world, without solutions, but hopefully with the promise of some calm once you enter the space.

WHY IS GRIEF A PROMINENT THEME THROUGH YOUR WORK?

Grief has been a part of me for the past 12 years since losing many family members in a short space of time. It’s almost become another family member itself, I know it so well and my relationship is ever changing and evolving (and sometimes regressing, as is the nature of it!). It has been something to integrate, to work with, as there’s been no side stepping it. It’s taken me to depths I’m fairly sure I would never have gone to if these tragic events hadn’t happened to me and it has changed me, forever. Grief lives inside of me and because it’s so inextricably linked to those people I love, who I can’t be with, there is also some bittersweet joy within it, as it’s a portal into a world with them.

WHAT DO YOU HOPE YOUR WORK IS ABLE TO CONVEY?

I am interested in how memory works, particularly as a kind of fictionalising device. My specific use of place and geography – store fronts, train platforms, doorways; glimpsed, recorded, half-remembered – act as portals to access the past, but altered, reimagined, and subject to my own fantasies of colour, light, texture. In a sense the paintings are my way of accepting that we can’t reinhabit the past truly as it was, but we can create something other in its honour. The show as a whole hovers on a sentence from WG Sebald, ‘the thin piece of silk between life and death’— we never really lose anything dear to us if we know how to hold it carefully within ourselves, and so I would like to think this may be a hopeful, joyful offering on one level that prompts people to think about the many experiences, decisions and fateful events that have led each of us down our own path to make the life we have.

TELL US ABOUT HOW YOU FOUND YOUR STRIKING STYLE AND THEMING CHOICES?

I’ve always been drawn to bold palettes and geometry—I love language and the science of language and I’m a linguist, so my choices in life were either to be a translator or an artist (I’m sure my parents would have worried a lot less with the first option). I feel like it was then inevitable for language to appear so much in my work, and there’s a real fascination with structure and the architecture of language too. Sottsass’ use of colour and form has been a huge influence, along with Jenny Holzer’s political and playful use of text. Sophie Calle is also a hero of mine, she totally changed the way I see the world, the unabashed way she mines her own autobiography, and lays bare some of the worst times of her life, but also the mundane, the bizarre, the comedic and the tragic. Then there’s one of my best friends, Camille Walala, who I’ve known since I was barely an adult, and I probably became a woman within the years of our friendship – her approach to scale, pattern and palette, and her impeccable taste, will always inspire me. My parents were very bold dressers, the whole family has always been quite audacious in their sartorial choices, as was their taste in interior design, and most aspects of their lives! So I think I’ve learnt to pay attention to detail early, and I also learnt the art of living well from them, and much of that to me means living with colour, in colour, trying to make a living from what you love, and paying attention to very small moments, mostly ones that are free and fleeting.

WHY ARE YOU DRAWN TO THE STYLISTIC CHOICES YOU ARE? INSTALLATIONS, COLOUR ETC…

I am a city person, through and through. I don’t know if it’s because I grew up far away from one, and longed to get into the action since day one, but when I left home, I never looked back — I love sharing a cityscape with other city dwellers, I love noticing details and nuances in architecture and all of the energy that passes through a city space, all of the stories you are told, that you overhear, that you’re sometimes lucky enough to be a part of. It’s the total lifeblood of my being and so I really enjoy creating work that speaks to our daily tempo and all that lies beneath it, all the strata that form us and allow us to get up and tackle a new day, no matter what we are carrying. I like to think about space and how we can find outlets for complex and often taboo conversations to unfold within our busy lives, right where we are, so all of the work I make hopes to be an invitation to show up as you are and take some time for you, to go inwards. The use of colour and form come from long standing influences (as I’ve mentioned above) and I think they often defy expectations and juxtapose the subject matter, so this may come as a surprise! But again, I want people to access these complex themes and intersections of grief as they choose, as they are on any given day, without prescription.

DOES CULTURE AND CITY LIFE PLAY A KEY PART IN YOUR CREATIVITY?

Even before my preoccupation with life and death, I’ve always been fascinated by the human condition – and how other artists, artforms, places, architectures, people, and cities respond to its complexities is central to both my understanding of what life even is(!) and my practice. I’ve just come back from a long-awaited trip to Mexico City, which really was a dream and I found so much joy in the architecture, the light, the patterns, the food, the Barragan houses! In London, I love to go for walks through the neighbourhood, in Nunhead, Peckham, where my studio also is. I love Review Bookshop in Peckham. Over the past few years especially, I have found a lot of inspiration in fiction, particularly really visual writers like Deborah Levy. I recently totally immersed myself in Baumgarten by Paul Auster, which felt like such a powerful response to grief. I was sad to leave his world when it ended! Another key ritual for me is going to Roti King on Lower Marsh in London, followed by a trip to the BFI—I recently saw Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daughter, which gave me lots of ideas for my next collaborative project, a feature film about my mother. I feel often so lucky to have such amazing cultural resources right on my doorstep, it feeds into my creative process greatly. The best show I’ve seen recently was Sophie Calle, A toi de faire ma mignonne, in Paris—everything about it left me in awe.

WHAT IS YOUR INTENTION WITH THE POSTER DESIGN?

The poster design feels very 70’s as is this body of work, which is all about detail and how we form our interior worlds through memory, place and dreams. The poster itself takes elements from some of the tufting work that features in the show; the brilliant Bon Tuft translated my designs into wall pieces. I think I want people to stop because they may see something joyful or fun in the design and then learn from the text and QR code that they are being invited into a world where they can pull away some of the armour we carry with us on a daily basis to stay afloat.

WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO DO THE SHOW IN LIVERPOOL?

I’ve known Ali and Jim at Dorothy for a while and always loved them and what they stand for. It’s really so special to bring this work to Liverpool, a city where I really feel at home. I’ve had so many friendly encounters here and I often get told some great stories here, by strangers, with brilliant humour. My dad was from Blackpool, and left home at 15 to go into the navy—Liverpool was the place he sailed out into the world from, his first time leaving the country for many an adventure, and so he always spoke so fondly of the city. We have a lot of family memories here. Last year, I discovered I have a sister I didn’t know about and we met in Liverpool for the first time, and visited Dorothy! So it feels very fitting as so much of the work is a kind of unravelling of new emotional landscapes from the past year or so.

WHAT ARE THREE THINGS YOU LOVE ABOUT LIVERPOOL?

I love the people, the humour, the storytelling that I’ve been so lucky to be invited into on occasions.

I love the wild mix of architecture – the way the city wears its history right on the surface. When I was last here, an old friend, mentor and Liverpudlian, Eddie Berg, founder of FACT, who has some great insider knowledge on the city, told me to go to Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. It blew my mind.

I really enjoy Dallas Buyer’s Club and Malay for food and there’s a brilliant bagel shop called the Bagelry, all of which I will be revisiting during the show. It really is a special city.

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Features12.2312.23UNCLE X flyingleaps collaborate to bring artist Magda Archer’s new work to the streets.

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UNCLE has teamed up with flyingleaps artists’ street poster project to deliver a bit of wry hope and critical humour to a wall near you. UNCLE selected a brand new and achingly topical artwork by Archer as their 2023 festive message: ‘WORLD PEACE IS COMING (otherwise we’re screwed!)’ will be on display across numerous UK towns and cities.

In some ways it’s a heart-warming image, especially if you appreciate the unconditional love dogs can give us. Okay, it’s the just the hormone linked to positive emotional states present in both dogs and humans but hey, the world could do with a great deal more unconditional love. Dogs don’t go around inventing reasons not to get on, but it’s a trait humans excel in.

Sometimes with just a few deft brushstrokes and her superbly honed gift for wit and economy with words, Archer makes art that addresses the terrifying ironies of existence. Her paintings and prints are kitsch meditations that sometimes make you want to hold your head in your hands and weep at the gross stupidity of humankind. And at other times wonder at the innocence, the solace, the capacity for empathy to overcome the worst of us. Her work can untap hope as well as warmly warn against slipping into cynical despair.

And she manages to do all the above without being po-faced, preachy, or didactic. This is amply borne out by the name and impetus behind her most recent exhibition. In connection with Archer’s current show – ‘I Don’t Know’ at Helm Gallery, Brighton (9.11.23 – 24.12.23) – the artist explained, “The title is a perfectly valid response to just about any question. Embracing uncertainty leaves you open to a much broader experience of life, a bigger picture. For me, not knowing doesn’t lead to anxiety, rather to a sense of calm and a re-setting of my head to all of life’s possibilities.”

As the artist has kindly let us use one of her most recent works as UNCLE’s festive message, we thought it would be a good idea to have a catch up and chat IRL. Q&A here we go…

COULD YOU TALK US THROUGH YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS?

I like to have ideas lying around, they’re in notebooks but I’ve also got a lot of scraps of paper with one line or an idea, I don’t know how it’s going to evolve but at some point an image will collide with the text. Usually the text comes first but not always.

AND HOW DO YOU HANDLE CRITICISM OF YOUR WORK, WHO’S FEEDBACK DO YOU VALUE?

Criticism!? I don’t hang around to hear it. I’m sure it’s out there. Actually, the only place I’d hear it is social media. You know, I’ve had some stray remarks, or the odd sour commentator. Once in a while if I see the same name, I’ll remove them. If it seems they’re just there for sport rather than wanting to engage with the work. Regarding feedback that I appreciate, there’s a couple of my friends, and my children.

WHAT INSPIRES YOU, KEEPS YOU MOTIVATED TO MAKE YOUR PAINTINGS? AND YOUR PRINTS? HOW DO YOU VIEW THEM IN COMPARISON TO YOUR PAINTINGS?

Inspiration wise, I think it’s the news, modern culture, all of what’s going on around me. To put it baldly, it’s difficult not to think of the prints as a way of making money to pay for the painting. Painting is just such a slow, slow burn. In a year I might sell four or five. Another year I might sell one. You can’t live on that sort of money. Unless you’re super successful. But I was thinking earlier today, in a way not achieving huge financial success as an artist has been good for me. The way I think of my career is, I don’t want to use the word ‘failure’, but I’m certainly not up there with some of my male contemporaries. But, as I say, on reflection that’s probably been good for the way I think and the way I make stuff, because it doesn’t get in the way. I haven’t got a lot of money to think about. But then I don’t want to be on the phone to my accountant every day, being bothered with that, so there’s upsides.

HOW DO YOU HANDLE PROJECT DEADLINES AND TIME MANAGEMENT?

I’m very good at that, you know, everything else might be chaos, my studio is chaos a lot of the time. Deadlines? I think because I spent ten years as an illustrator, unhappily as an illustrator, I can do a deadline.

What’s been your experience of the business side of being an artist, dealing with people in that regard?

Well, in a word, it’s been tricky. Bloody tricky. I’ve had problems where people don’t want to pay me. And I’ve had problems where I know at the time I’m being ripped off, and then I discover a couple of years down the line you realise, no, you were really, royally ripped off. It’s quite a rare thing when someone comes to you and says, I really like your work and I want to be honest financially. Actually, it’s quite nice when people say, I haven’t got any money to give you but I want to use your work on this. It’s when people are underhand, I won’t name names but it’s a wind-up. So, it’s happened, and it keeps happening.

To offer some context, back-end of 2022 Magda had to finally sue several companies who were reproducing her work without permission. She won all the cases, but she explained this had been an emotionally and financially draining process. Obviously winning meant being awarded costs but there was very little by way of compensation.

You’ve recently teamed up with Jo Brooks PR – who works with Banksy, Lucy Sparrow (aka @sewyoursoul), David Shrigley, etc. – how do hope that will develop?

Well, if you read the small print as it were, Jo does the PR for Banksy and Shrigley but with Lucy and myself she’s our manager. And, as far as I know, she only manages female artists. How do I think it’s going to go? I think very well. Because she’s honest and a good person. And she’s funny.

HOW DO YOU BALANCE YOUR ART CONCERNS, ARTISTIC INTEGRITY IF YOU LIKE, AGAINST COMMERCIAL PRESSURES WHEN IT COMES TO COLLABORATING WITH OTHER PARTIES: FASHION DESIGNERS, BOOKS, MERCH., ETC.?

I’d say with the Marc Jacobs collaboration it went very well, they were very sensitive about how I felt, constantly saying, ‘What did I think about this, what did I think about that?’ If I didn’t like something, they’d take it out. Without any fuss. And the Idles book, Joe Talbot just said, ‘Do what you want.’ I didn’t believe him. Because people never really mean that, they say, ‘Do what you want, do what you want…’ But then they come back and say, ‘Ooh yeah, but don’t do that!’ No, I had to keep checking with Joe and he kept saying, ‘I like it all.’ Which you don’t hear very much, so you don’t believe it. Now the book’s out, and it looks great. I’ve described it as having like a ‘ready brek glow’, the imagery and lyrics resonate.

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT A PARTICULARLY CHALLENGING PROJECT AND WHAT YOU LEARNED FROM IT?

Well, again that would be the many years of illustration work, that’s why I’m not an illustrator, because I hated it. It’s just people pushing you around, grabbing the work and not even saying ‘goodbye’ or ‘thank you.’

HOW DO YOU HANDLE CREATIVE BLOCKS OR MOMENTS OF SELF-DOUBT?

I don’t have creative blocks. I might have a time, a period, when I feel flat emotionally. It might be exhaustion, it might be things that are kicking off around me with friends or family. And because I don’t particularly want to work with all these thoughts, I stop. I might still be in my studio every day, but I will stop making.

CAN YOU TALK ABOUT A PROJECT OR PIECE OF WORK THAT YOU’RE PARTICULARLY PROUD OF?

I’m proud that I’m still doing it. You know, what with all the other responsibilities of being a mother, running a home, you know, laundry, kids’ problems, blah, blah, blah. But despite it all I’m proud of myself for persisting.

You’ve collaborated w. flyingleaps artists’ street poster project several times since 2016 and this year your ‘WORLD PEACE IS COMING (otherwise we’re screwed)’ work’s been chosen as UNCLE’s festive message to the nation… What would you say about flyposting as a medium to show your art?

It’s become a favourite medium. Because, well, I’m not going to say it’s a leveller, and it’s a cliché to say it’s the street as art gallery but it is. People are not intimidated as they might be going into a fancy gallery. It’s there, and it’s public, and it’s sort of a bit ‘shouty’. I can’t fault the medium. I love it. I think it’s a collision between my background in graphic design and my wish to be considered a serious artist.

FINALLY, HOPES, DREAMS, AMBITIONS FOR 2024 AND BEYOND…?

Ooh, mmm. I want to make some music. And I want to, there’s a few things I want to do. I’ve got a new keyboard and I want to master that. Also, I want to do something else, and I want to say performance art, but it is, and it isn’t. More things that aren’t painting or print making but will have my physical presence as part of the piece. I want to do things that I’m a bit frightened of. I’d like to try and tackle the subject of ‘wonder’ creatively, like Yoko Ono.

So, whether it’s paintings, prints, collaborations with cool musicians and fashion designers, making more of her own music or the mysterious proposed move into work that will feature the artist in some way, Magda Archer it seems will go on challenging herself while at the same time continuing to delight, intrigue and provoke an ever-growing audience for her art. And, of course, with all that we wish her well.