Time for tea – and art

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Published

04 April 2024

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A film by University of East London lecturer Dr Paul Greenleaf has been shown at a conference hosted by the Camberwell College of Arts, part of London’s University of the Arts. Say When formed part of the programme for the college’s two-day Tea’s Time conference, which examined links between photography and tea, such as the processes of extraction, exchange and reciprocity with an emphasis on their colonial histories.

The conference was specifically designed as a response to the Horniman Museum's new exhibition, 茶, चाय, Tea, which explores the origins of tea and its connection to imperial practices through a decolonial lens, with the aim of inspiring conversations about the UK’s colonial past.

Dr Greenleaf’s film was developed while completing his doctorate in fine art at UEL. It was inspired by memories of his grandmother reading tea leaves to gain insights into everyday concerns. He said, 

Throughout the film tea leaf reading, or tasseography, opens up narratives set around an area of the Kent coast: underwater sound recordings at the site of obsolete cross-channel telegraph cables, memorial benches along the promenade and prophetic graffiti on the sea wall.

Say When blends history, observations of contemporary life and premonitions of the future, synthesising visual and audio ideas through the fractured lens of memory and media. The film reflects on the UK’s post-Brexit loss of connectivity with Europe alongside personal grief and imagines the demise of the fast-fashion retailer Primark. Beached ruins of the retail outlet emulate the Statue of Liberty in the film Planet of the Apes and stand as a critique of the present from the perspective of an imagined future. It has already won an award for sound design at the Folkestone Film Festival.

Dr Greenleaf works across film, sound and photography, splicing dream-like visions with everyday realism. Drawing on influences from science fiction and popular culture he explores the territory between personal experience and collective memory. His cinematic installations question notions of time as he pursues links between histories, contemporary issues and imagined futures.

His research interests include photography, fine art film, sound design, sonic arts, electronic music, contemporary fine art, popular culture and science fiction. His supervisors at UEL, Dr Debra Benita Shaw, Dr David Chapman and Dr Guy Harries supported him in completing his doctorate.

Dr Greenleaf’s work has been widely shown, at The Photographers’ Gallery, the Midlands Art Centre and Hestercombe Gallery, among other places. He won the Bar-Tur Photography Award, an Artquest Bursary and has been short-listed for the Catlin Art Prize. Another recent film I Will Become More Powerful Than You Can Possibly Imagine was nominated for best UK Short Film at the Open City Documentary Festival 2020.

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