Imaginary Solutions: A Film about Barry Flanagan

The new film ‘Imaginary Solutions’ presents Flanagan’s diverse experimentation with materials and passionate commitment to redefining sculpture’s parameters. His inventiveness and versatility are illustrated with interviews and archive recordings. These include Flanagan’s television appearance on The South Bank Show with Melvyn Bragg in 1983 and an interview with artist Andy Holden that was broadcast on Resonance FM in 2008.

“I prefer working with the essential stuff of sculpture rather than my own “ambitions” for it. This way I hope to find things” Barry Flanagan, 1969

Interviewees include artists and collaborators who knew Flanagan for years; Bruce McLean, a fellow student from St Martins, Jerry Hughes, AB Fine Art Foundry Manager who worked closely with him for decades, Mark Jones, artist and metal worker who assisted Flanagan at the foundry. Swiss artist Sophie Bouvier Ausländer who first encountered Flanagan’s work as a student and describes the lasting effects on her thinking, and Director of the estate of Barry Flanagan Dr. Jo Melvin.