South African artist Candice Breitz talks to Ben Luke about the artists, writers, musicians, film-makers and other figures that have influenced her and inspire her today, and the cultural experiences that have defined her life and work. Breitz is a film-maker whose work, mostly in the form of video installations, explores selfhood and identity, community, race and gender, and reflects on how mass media like television, cinema and music shape our response to them. Among much else, she discusses her recent work Digest, and how it was influenced by the Middle Eastern folk tales One Thousand and One Nights and On Kawara’s Today series, or date paintings. She reflects on the power of Octavia Butler’s speculative fiction and her complex response to the South African novelist JM Coetzee. She talks about her video works telling the stories of refugees and sex workers. And she discusses growing up in Apartheid South Africa and its bearing on her choice of subjects and media. This episode is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects. 

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