Vivienne Dick: the experimental feminist film-maker digs back into New York's 1970s no wave scene

"Often women artists do all their best work when they're older

You feel stronger, you feel like you've got nothing to lose"



Experimental film-maker Vivienne Dick moved from Ireland to New York in the late-70s and was at the heart of a scene called no-wave, an avant-garde music and art movement where people like director Jim Jarmusch, artist Basquiat, photographer Nan Goldin and musicians Sonic Youth and Debbie Harry mingled together.





Inspired by this DIY community downtown, she picked up a Super 8 camera and started shooting the women around her, in films like Guerillere Talks and She Had The Gun All Ready. Lydia Lunch, one of the most charismatic of Vivienne’s subjects, described No Wave as a “collective caterwaul that defied categorisation and despised convention."





Presenter Kate Hutchinson first heard Vivienne’s name in the song Hot Topic by dance-punks Le Tigre, which reels off a list of artists, writers, activists and feminist firebrands, putting her alongside the likes of Yoko Ono and Sleater-Kinney.



Vivienne is still an experimental film-maker to this day and has never sold out her vision. The Last Bohemians visited her at her Dublin home, as she was putting the finishing touches to her latest film New York, Our Time, which has since won the Film Critics Circle Award for Best Documentary. It transports Vivienne back to the city she left in 1982 and sees her reconnecting with some of her old friends.



Our story starts, however, in Donegal, Ireland, where a young Vivienne couldn’t wait to leave...






This episode was produced by Ali Gardiner.





Music in this episode (sourced via Bandcamp, freemusicarchive.org and archive.org):

Tryad – The Rising

Blue Dot Sessions – Campfire Rounds

Fields Ohio – Anti-Saloon League

Gallery Six – Moel

Plastic Sunday – No Tomorrow

Chocolate Billy - Assedic No Wave

Lee Rosevere – Ennui

Revolution Void – Someone Else’s Memories

Phlox.s – Obey The Sun

Gallery Six – Hydroscope

Chris Zabriskie – Virtues Inherited, Vices Passed On

Chris Zabriskie – Heliograph

Chris Zabriskie – Candlepower

Chris Zabriskie – Oxygen Garden






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The Last Bohemians is an award-winning, critically acclaimed podcast that meets maverick and radical women in arts and culture and takes listeners on an evocative trip through their extraordinary lives. From subversive musicians and style icons to game-changing artists, these are women who have lived life on the edge and who still refuse to play by the rules. The series was created in 2019 by host and journalist Kate Hutchinson and is produced by a team of rising women and non-binary talents in audio, with photography by Laura Kelly.Season 1 features Molly Parkin, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Pauline Black and more; Season 2 stars Judy Collins, Gee Vaucher, Zandra Rhodes and P.P. Arnold; Season 3 is with Maggi Hambling, Cleo Sylvestre and Dana Gillespie; Season 4 goes to LA with Angelyne, Gloria Hendry, Linda Ramone, Penny Slinger, Johanna Went and more. In 2020, The Last Bohemians published a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović and the series returns in 2025 with the late Nikki Giovanni.The Last Bohemians has been a podcast of the week in the Guardian, Observer New Review, The Financial Times and on Radio 4. It has been featured in The New Yorker, Frieze, Another, Dazed, Refinery29 and many more. The podcast won silver for Best New Podcast at the British Podcast Awards 2020 and was a finalist for the Grassroots Production Award at the 2021 Audio Production Awards.Follow us at http://www.instagram.com/thelastbohospod.PRAISE FOR THE LAST BOHEMIANS “This series is a delight… Run to this podcast right now” The Observer "Unusually intimate portraits of spectacular lives… Buoyed by exquisite production, these conversations are atmospheric, contemplative and fabulously candid" Financial Times "A beautifully intimate set of portraits made by an all-female audio team – what more could you ask for to celebrate International Women’s Day?" The Guardian Feisty, heartfelt and bursting with wisdom" NME "A rhapsodic, necessary retelling of trailblazer stories" Dazed

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