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Artist Profile - Jane Farley

As an artist I inevitably find myself making political and social comment. My work is mainly about protest to stop injustice and anti-capitalist pieces. However I feel happiest doing work that is promoting good in the world rather than fighting the bad.

Brought up by socialist parents my childhood was steeped in politics. Aged 8, I entered the class cake competition with an anti-war cake, a tank with bloody soldiers dead or dying. I came second, which for me only went to underline the injustice. Aged 17, I was the ‘People’s March for Jobs’ photographer, my first ever commission. After gaining my fine art degree I went on to creative actions and life as a direct activist.

I have lived in various anarchist communities across Europe, creating anything from climate change actions to Prague 2000, disrupting the IMF World Bank summit. My work is usually in visual art but I have also created performance pieces, including playing the terminator seed, protesting against Monsanto.

I have squatted Planet Hollywood, Amsterdam in broad daylight with a Samba Band, where we created an autonomous social centre called The Cineak, producing a programme of artistic events until being evicted by the Police.

In the US and Canada I helped create Eco Villages, building straw bale houses, sculpting and carving shapes in the wall with a chain saw. Although that wasn’t strictly art it was a very creative and liberating time.

In 2003 I returned to the UK to learn filmmaking and started at First Take where I still work, primarily as a Director of Photography. The ethos at First Take is to make films for social good. There I have made short films: ‘The Angel and The Whore’, a lesbian western, vimeo.com/29254701, ‘Enough Rope’, a political action thriller. vimeo.com/29258585. And feature length films: ‘Pink: Past and Present’ and ‘Big Society The Musical’ vimeo.com/47942994. I am presently working on a short on Liverpool’s Collaborative History, which I am hoping to develop into a feature on the positive alternatives to capitalism.

Video: The Angel and the Whore, Photos from Big Society and Enough Rope.

The Angel and the Whore from first take on Vimeo.

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