Kirsty Hall is a singer/songwriter/pianoplayer based in Howdon, North Tyneside, delivering storytelling, poetic and political lyrics with ethereal sounds tinged with folk and country.
Having previously been in various bands and collectives over the years Kirsty found herself at a musical loose end in early 2022. Jumping into a Zoom call, ‘Barriers to Creativity’ she received some encouragement to try out playing and writing for herself, she gave it a go and never looked back.
Kirsty released her third single PAS, on all platforms on the 18th Oct 2024. Kirsty often covers the difficult subjects in her music and this single is no exception. PAS stands for “Parental Alienation Syndrome” and the song is a POV piece about one woman’s journey through the family court, after fleeing domestic abuse. PAS is a controversial concept often levelled at women who allege domestic abuse, or the mothers of children who express a wish not to see their fathers. The two previous singles, Lola Says and Eliza Bethel have drawn on themes of dystopia/land/housing/connection, and family history respectively. Lola refers to a Lola Olufemi, a black writer, activist and organizer from London. Kirsty is a big fan, particularly of Olufemi’s books, Feminism Disrupted and Experiments in Imagining Otherwise. See links below for further information about these tracks.
The forthcoming EP Beautiful Child, out on 29 Nov, includes a spoken word piece about housing, the song Missing- written around the issues of young people going missing from care, and the title track which explores the barriers placed on mothers trying to love their children in a neoliberal, patriarchal society.
Kirsty is also a multi-media artist with a background in academic research. From 2015- 2023 Kirsty was completing a PhD and then subsequent Fellowship at the Centre for Research into Violence and Abuse at Durham University. The main research topics were how children who live with domestic abuse view and understand the idea of home, and broader issues re housing, home, land, inequality and children. In Nov 2023 Kirsty curated her own exhibition called What is Home? at Laurels, Whitley Bay. The exhibition displayed quotes and images contributed by research participants in an artistic way. For example, quotes from participants who had experienced domestic abuse in childhood were placed within the windows of a big house on the wall. The event also included scheduled spoken word followed by a performance of three songs reflecting some of the subject matter. This event is something Kirsty is looking to build on, creating a bigger and better version in 2025.
A recent exploration into digital art is one way there will be added value to any event in the future. Kirsty said:
I had never done Art before. I started doing it for my own music covers and enjoyed doing them so much that I started to create pieces that had nothing to do with my music. I’ve now photographed all my research from the exhibition, and I have started to incorporate them into digital art creations.
The art has already been displayed in a local exhibition by City Park Studios supported by @northshieldsculturalquarter. Kirsty has secured mentoring from Helix Art to support her development as an artist and identify potential funding for future events and collaborations:
I’m hoping to work with someone to write some conversational pieces based on some of my research to bring the scenes to life to create thought provoking live art.
So, the individual experience of struggling to find home, is contextualized within broader issues regarding land ownership. I’m trying to find more effective ways to share the findings of academic research and place them in bigger contexts that are not always discussed.
