My name is Kathryn Morrison, I’m 19 years old. From 2017 to 2019 I attended Junior College and studied French and English A-level, which I consider an immense part of my growth as a person both culturally and creatively. After my A-levels, I started studying for a degree at MCAST ICA in Creative Media Production, of which I am currently in my second year.
Those are who I am from an outside perspective, but I identify as an artist. My work spans multiple mediums, through film, writing, photography, graphic design and music. My work is bold, colourful and seeks discussion. I am a self-taught guitarist. My father was a guitarist himself, and taught me how to appreciate multiple genres of music, especially different sub-genres of metal (our favourites). I had always admired my favourite musicians and wanted to play guitar, only never had the opportunity. At 13, I decided that I did not want to wait any longer and borrowed my dad’s guitar. I fell in love, and practiced for many hours after school in my bedroom for days on end. I remember being in class in secondary school, and daydreaming about going home and picking up the guitar. I would learn off of YouTube, and if a song was too hard, I would simply play it very badly until I got it right.
This was not an easy task, but I never gave up, and I am eternally grateful that I persevered despite the difficulty of learning an instrument alone. What kept me inspired was gathering inspiration from musicians I love and picturing myself playing on stage one day, or making my own music. Over the years, my technique improved, and 6 years later in 2021, I can confidently say that I am able to improvise, learn by ear (a skill which I did not pick up until years later) and am continuously practicing and improving every day. I regularly post guitar videos on my Instagram to document my progress.
I am an activist and exercise my democratic right as a citizen. In an artistic sense, I am exploring activism (or, artivisim) through documentary work. Currently, I am directing and producing a documentary about the Maltese NGO ‘Young Progressive Beings’. I enjoy documentaries which explore people and ideas, such as the works of Agnès Varda, the first female French New Wave director who explored activism through her films. Before lockdown happened in March 2020, I made an unreleased 8-minute video essay with a colleague detailing her and her works for an exhibition, that was sadly never exhibited to the sudden impact of COVID-19. This was done thanks to the extensive collaboration, help and support from two lecturers of mine. Culturally, my previous works all have a form of philosophical and psychological background to them. My favourite work is “Stigma”, a short video dealing with the topic of androgyny and the public’s attitude towards this.
Another work of mine, created in quarantine, is titled “Am I enough?” is based off of the Sartrian concept of existentialism, referring to the notion that “existence precedes essence” and moreover that one can create meaning for themselves and apply this towards self-confidence and love. I enjoy creating projects that are strange but can offer depth through this strangeness, and I am to bring that to light with my Artivisti project.