Kate Hutchinson is an art and culture journalist of The Guardian covering various genres from interviews of celebrities such as Kate Mckinnon to reports of music festivals.
Also, she works as DJ in various types of programs, such as Worldwide FM.
This time, I hunted her opinion and view to such a diverse London art scene, especially focusing on how she tries to tell people these through media.
She started her career as the youngest section editor at TimeOut, where she ran the clubbing and nightlife pages.
Kate, what is “Art” for you?
“I am always looking for arts that are reacting to kind of the norm or mainstream.”
“Arts I especially like to look are opening up culture to different audiences and different ideas. I am really interested in people and arts that push things forward.
“I think culture is about expressing ideas in different mediums. Somebody who makes dance-works, somebody who develops DJ sets and somebody makes a piece of art all express their view to the society in the world they/we live.
“That’s is I am always trying to hunt.”
What is your concept as an “art/culture journalist”?
“I introduce arts in my articles to turn people to be exciting.
“Of course, there is another style/way of reviewing works of artists, such critiques.
“For example, if we have a theatre show that charges people quite high price to get the tickets but the quality is not so good, the journalists specialises in critique may tell people their honest assessment of the show. (I myself sometimes publish these sorts of reviews.)
“But my major style is focusing on taste-making of arts, giving people recommendations and discussing ideas/concepts of the contents on the articles.”
JOURNALISM/WRITING
How do you get to know about artists that you introduce in your works?
“I usually listen to a lot of the artist’s music to get what the artist wants to talk about.”
“It includes a message which directly talks to the listeners.”
What kind of preparation do you do before highlighting one specific artist’s work?
“Looking at their social media is helpful to get their opinion, hobbies, etc.
“Of course, I definitely read a lot of information, such as presses and sort of info emails to prepare how to talk about a subject they are interested in and how to describe what they show/express to listeners. Reading the past interview articles of them, as well.
“Also, I speak to the artist him/herself about the reason why they decide to make the piece.”
How to prepare questions for interviews with artists to write about them in media?
“Questions I prepare for interviews with artists are made by combination of points which would be interesting as a topic of art/culture journalism and themes of what artists want to give their response.
“I often try to know their opinion to big picture stuffs rather than ask personal questions
through my interview articles, I would like to show the artists differently from their artistic output.”
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