10 things that changed my life with Edinburgh Art Festival director Kim McAleese

1 The Spanish language

A FATEFUL holiday to a Spanish island when I was a very young child introduced me to the Spanish language, and I fell in love.  From that moment on, I was completely hooked, and when

I eventually arrived at secondary school my focus was on how I could officially study this, knowing that it could open up a world to me in the future.

After an A-Level and upon reaching university, all of my formative years were spent with tutors specialising in Argentinian poetry and short stories, and Mexican visual art, and there started  another obsession.  I want to shout out Roberta Quance, who is still in contact with me to this day and supporting me.

2 The North of Ireland

I GREW up  in Belfast  during the Troubles, and people are fierce. The women in my family have taught me a lot, as you need to be made of strong stuff to be able to handle an Irish woman. This especially goes for my Aunt Josephine, who showed me how tenderness and compassion go hand in hand with strength, resourcefulness and determination.

READ MORE: Comedian Marjolein Robertson on the 10 things that changed her life

Belfast is where I cut my teeth as a curator, working across numerous artist-led spaces, and self-organised collectives.  Austerity had hit hard, Northern Ireland was always forgotten about across the water by the UK Government and funding structures, and the DUP made it very difficult to do anything progressive. So we were subversive, ambitious, determined and we did some  incredible work.

At Catalyst Arts as a director, I learned what it meant to get stuck in, to do everything in an organisation as a collective: to install shows, to work as a tech, as well as cleaning the toilets for  an opening. 

So many Turner Prize artists came through our organisation as fellow directors, and did the same things I did, so I am proud to be in that club.  I still take this with me now to [Edinburgh Art Festival], as I am never happier than up a ladder but the job means that I often am delegating this to  someone else.

3 Mexican women artists

I LOVE painting so much, and living in Mexico City changed everything for me. I had been studying Mexican art history in a strange roundabout way, so the first time I saw a painting by Frida Kahlo (below) in real life in her context everything shifted for me. 

(Image: Supplied)

I also became obsessive about her contemporaries, but more specifically the surrealist European exiles who moved to Mexico during the Second World War, like Remedios Varo and  Leonora Carrington. 

I plan on travelling back later on this year, to see if there is a way I can get into Leonora’s house – it was meant to open to the public but Covid pushed that back, so let’s see!

4 Eoin Dara

MY closest collaborator, and my compass for anything that I do. He worked in Scotland as the head of exhibitions at Dundee Contemporary Arts for years, and now is in Dublin running the Irish Arts Council Collection.

We met in Catalyst Arts when we were babies, making our first show together in 2011.  Since then, we’ve run a gallery from our house, travelled the world together for work, written a million texts together, seen hundreds of dance floors with  one another. 

He introduced me to all the queer theory I need, and how to be in the world and lead with conviction while nurturing kindness, and taught me that politics and parties can go hand in hand.

5 Vita Sackville-West

I DEVOURED her writing, and her queer love letters in my early 20s, alongside Virginia Woolf.  This then led me to Vita’s writing about gardens, and when I moved to Birmingham and had my own gardens to tend I spent my time reading these, alongside anything else I could find about the Bloomsbury Group.

But, acknowledging how English and upper class this set were, it led me to other writers like Jamaica Kincaid foregrounding colonial histories and empires through plants and gardens.

6 Music

I CAME from a musical family of singers and performers, and was quite comfortable turning it out on demand.

As a teenager, like most of us, I found my people through the music scene, which for me was in Belfast. I was surrounded by people with no money putting on gigs, supporting their friends and collaborators, hustling to do things after hours across weird venues, houses  and spaces.

I was 14 when the Good Friday Agreement came into force, so suddenly a “post-conflict” world of possibilities opened and moving in public space became different. 

In my 20s that’s all we did every night – go to punk, indie and noise gigs, and that energy to just make has informed everything I do. There’s always a way to make it happen.

7 Swimming

I WAS a swimmer from a young age, was in a club from primary school and competing a lot. At one stage it felt like I spent more time in water  than walking. 

READ MORE: 10 things that changed my life with comedian Rosie Jones

It’s still in my bones now, and living beside the sea in Edinburgh is a conscious choice.

I swim any time of year, and it keeps me sane.  I also use the pool, and the sea, to remind me of what my body is capable of, as working in the arts at a desk means it’s very easy to forget what a bodily sensation of moving can be!

8 Céline Condorelli – The Company She Keeps

PUBLISHED in 2014, I found this book after I left Northern Ireland and moved to Birmingham. This book was a revelation, and shaped by curatorial practice going forward. 

In this book, five conversations with friends explore working together, who and what they choose to spend their time with, and what this might mean. 

They discuss friendship as a form of solidarity, which may take place between people, but also with ideas, with books and other things both present  and absent.

9 TV as an art form

I AM unashamedly in love with TV, which I feel like is a deeply unpopular pastime for people in the arts, or at least they don’t want to admit it.

I find it meditative, a perfect way to relax and switch off and to mark the end of a  working day.  My life and job feel so fast-paced and consistently in dialogue with artists, thinkers and makers that sometimes I want to passively observe something for 30 minutes. 

Where would I be without Tony Soprano, Homer Simpson, Bob Mortimer (above), below, Logan Roy or Jen Shah?

10 Cooking for loved ones

GROWING up, my mother had zero desire to cook for us, and to this day she bloody hates it. It was never an enjoyable experience.  So, when I moved out and was looking after myself, I truly learned the joy of food.

I devoured recipes, finally understood vegetables and all types of fish, seasoning and spices. 

But, most importantly, I can chart my life through dear friends and loved ones who have taught me their home recipes; or the places

I have visited whilst on my travels and learned how to imitate those meals I experienced there.  Making food for people is one of the best ways to spend time for me – I just need to find a flat in Edinburgh that has enough space for a dining  room table!