Tate St Ives: Come as you Really Are, Hetain Patel with Artangel

 This film was shown for a week in November 2025, ending with the Winter Festival.

I really enjoyed this film and watched it twice through.  Hetain worked with craftspeople and hobbyists across the country, cataloguing the things people do quietly, often behind closed doors, for their own well-being.  These things are of huge value and give a sense of identity.  

The film takes excerpts of people doing their activities, practicing their crafts and the things they make.  It's meditative and full of a quiet joy.  There is so much beauty in the things people do.  I think it would be easy to focus on the traditional too but there were plenty of aspects from both male and female groups without an attempt to make things unisex.  The car fanatics were male, stood looking stern with their beautiful cars and the wild swimmers were female and joyfully cold.  Crafts featured included needle felting and a potter making tiny vases but also painted miniature figures used in gaming and an intricate miniature railway setup.  

The film was just visually beautiful.

Accompanying the film, there is an exhibition and a series of events, but only tomorrow for the winter Festival.  I had hoped the exhibition of objects would be open when I went, but it was not.  Tomorrow there will be talks and workshops as well as the film and exhibition.  It looks like fun!  

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