Interview With A VAULTER

THE IDEA -

In early spring of 2020 many of us were learning to live with our first experience of a lockdown. Covid-19 had arrived and began changing the world in extreme and unforeseen ways. School was cancelled, work was cancelled, shops were cancelled, outside was pretty much cancelled and physical contact with anyone outside of your immediate household was definitely cancelled.

Our family was at home, in our teeny house, figuring out how to adjust, tentatively living by new unfolding rules and generally waiting whilst trying not to worry. I can't remember who came up with the idea, most likely it was Leo, to use the Vault socials as a way for the Vault community of artists to connect with each other and the outside world. We couldn't be together physically now but we still needed to be together somehow, so we adopted the newly appealing world of online, in this case, Facebook mainly as a platform for the artists holed up in their lockdown homes.

The Interview With A Vaulter series started in April 2020 and ran throughout the duration of the first lockdown. It comprises an unknown number of Vault artist interviews, most recorded in text and images but also some as recorded songs, films and videos. These interviews were a lifeline to me personally at the time and I know others felt the same. They're a little time capsule from a period that people now have trouble remembering. What was that place? When was it? Where was it? It's not something we really talk about now but yet it did happen, it was significant and it changed the world in big ways.

So, here are the interviews, rescued from the depths of Facebook, downloaded, tidied up a bit and saved here in the Vault’s online Vault. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

- Laura, Feb 2025

Jamie Harper at home. *Interview With A Vaulter* Self-portrait, 2020.

THE PREMISE -

Leos text from early April 2020:

“Hey Vaulters.

I hope you are all enjoying the sunshine if you can.

Me and Laura have put together a short text based interview doc that I would like to start posting out next week. It would be great to get some stories of how people are coping during this very weird time and we aren't just looking for the Hell-Yeah everything is a great kind of story that artists normally put out. Times are strange and that is worth acknowledging. If you are having a deadly time then of course you are free to talk about that too!

The idea is to post one interview per day on our various social media sites. Feel free to skip any of the questions that you don’t like or add questions of your own. This is a good time to promote your online practice and it is fine to talk about making money or post links to online shops. If you are a visual artist please attach a minimum of 3 jpegs. If you are a performer please link to a performance you want to share. If you just want to promote a website please attach at least one picture to go with the link.

Cheers, Leo.”