Case Study

Simone Seales

Dearest

At a Glance

Simone sought funding from Innovation Studio to engage in research and development for their debut poetry-music album Dearest, centred around their experience of first queer love, trauma, and forgiveness. A classically-trained cellist, Simone’s practice incorporates free improvisation, live looping, and spoken word elements.

Initially, Simone intended to explore their relationship to being Black; however, through mentoring from award-winning poet Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Simone realised they felt much more drawn to framing the album within the context of nostalgia and warmth of their first queer relationship.

While undoubtedly shaped by the trauma of racism experienced in that first relationship, Simone’s exploration shifted focus to honouring the good times after having spent many years reflecting only on the bad times.

The Creative Exploration

Simone described the process of developing the poetry for this album as far from smooth, taking much longer than expected due to the vulnerability needed to dive into the dusty memory boxes of their past relationship.

The first session with Victoria was eye-opening because Simone’s poetic practice prior to the project was underdeveloped. No one had looked over their poetry with any guidance or seriousness since they left high school. In that first meeting, Victoria asked Simone to consider being more minimalist, avoid over-explanation, and be strange with their metaphors and descriptions.

None of these tips were new to the musician. Still, in the context of the album, they had not realised how much they relied on explanation to ensure that people didn’t misunderstand. First queer love is complex and confusing, and it has taken Simone years to fully understand what happened. Trying to share snapshots of it through their poetry, they were simply saying too much.

Victoria also gave the invaluable advice that has become the foundation of the album: let the music carry the emotional weight.

This led the artist to really consider what this album might be and how they wanted it to function. For the last 16 years, they used the cello as their voice, expressing grief, joy, confusion, rage, queerness, tension, and various other emotions and states of being. Poetry and text became a window, an invitation to listeners that helps contextualise the sounds Simone makes on their instrument.

Through the research and development process, Simone also managed to put together a team for the album. The next steps will be to write the music and then get in the studio with the music producer and performer, who will deliver the poetry for another development period. They also envision expanding Dearest into a zine and a short film.

Gallery

Innovation to their Practice

Through the initial R&D process and Victoria's mentorship, Simone developed a clearer understanding of poetic writing devices, gained the confidence to experiment with form, and began developing a method for incorporating musical notation into written poetry. Putting themselves in a space that felt uncomfortable at first, they developed a unique process to elevate their existing creative practice, using poetry to contextualise their musical expression.