My father worked for the government so we moved a lot when I was a child, but mostly around the London area. I originally studied painting in Liverpool in the 1980s. I then spent a couple of years in Egypt and Canada (for the contrast), eventually ending up in France in the mid-90s where I resumed my art studies. I got into making short films (via installation pieces using video projection) which are shown in art exhibitions and film and video festivals internationally. I teach film editing part-time at Strasbourg University.

Identity is a complex concept that provides endless possibilities in artistic terms concerning one's own identity as a person, or an artist but also in relation to other people, one's ancestors in the past or else the family, the group the neighbourhood, the nation, culture, religion and so on. At the present time, some of these elements are becoming overly politicized and therefore decisive and dangerous, and this provides equally important material for artistic exploration. I have some experience of this in that I'm an expatriate Briton living in France with two French children and am now in a precarious situation as a result of the Brexit vote.

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"There's often a telescoping between microcosm and macrocosm and a paralleling of personal and family history and wider historical events."

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WEBSITE: SIMON WELCH FILMS