10 Questions: Tom Marshman

Tom Marshman is a Bristol artist who creates projects in a wide range of mediums including performance, photography, installation, publication and film.

On February 12 and 13, Tom will be helping to transform the Red Lodge into a dating site, taking inspiration from chats on dating apps, secret histories and fantasies that reveal all. Tom, Timberlina and Catherine Hoffman promise one-off steamy nights as they weave through truths and fictions.

For tickets and more information, visit www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/red-lodge-museum/whats-on/hot-dates-with-the-past/

1. What was your earliest ambition?
To be Princess Leia.

2. How physically fit are you?
I had a six-month break from the gym but I have returned now fighting fit. I’m a paid-up member of Easton Community Centre.

3. If you were the mayor of Bristol for the day what would you do?
I’d like to organise a mass picnic and see what develops.

4. Where is your favourite holiday destination?
I love going to the Canaries in the winter months. I hate the cold and dark days so if I can I will escape for a week or so in winter. I have a soft spot for all-inclusive resorts, with bad entertainment and eat-as-much-as-you-like buffets. I even went on a holiday to Lanzarote as a research trip and made a one-man show about it called A Place in the Sun which I have been touring over the last year.

5. What is your biggest extravagance?
I am always in charity shops buying up clothes I like the look of, even if I can’t fit in them. I sell a small range of clothes in a barber shop in London’s Exmouth Market called Barber Streisand. My range is called Shirt Cobain and Courtney Glove.

6. In what place in Bristol are you happiest?
I am really happy in my new flat in Old Market. I’ve been there for a year and the novelty of having my own space has not worn off. Old Market is a great place to live. There is a sense of community there and it’s so convenient.

7. What ambitions do you still have?
I am very interested in ambition. Does it dwindle as you get older and if it does is that because of social constructs? This year I hope to start working on a new show which I have given the working title Middle Aged Ambition. I will explore this theme through charting the development of a friend who has the ambition to be the oldest stunt woman in the UK.

8. What is the greatest achievement of your life so far?
I was really proud of putting an event at Bristol Museum called The Bad Taste of the Town in response to the Hogarth show in May 2015. It was such a privileged to be asked to do that and I was overwhelmed by the amount of people that came and the positive responses. I gave an opening speech where I said: “When I was asked to curate a night of artworks in response to 18th century living with prostitutes, gin drinking, drug addictions, poverty and sexual transmitted disease, I said to myself, ‘why me?’”

9. Can you sum up Bristol in a sentence?
Bright and breezy, free and easy.

10. What’s your favourite secret spot in Bristol?
I really like sitting on the roof terrace at Colston Hall. It’s so under-used but it’s a great place to sit among the rooftops, have a coffee, look at the city and piece the histories of the buildings together.

Photo by Paul Samuel White

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