From putting together the iconic windows of Selfridges to performance art, James Barnett takes us through his visual proccess.

What’s it like working for Selfridges?
I feel incredibly privileged to work for Selfridges. The company treats its staff really well, and the head office on oxford street is just this vast warren of storerooms and offices with a bit of Ugly Betty glamour thrown in. The windows team is based in the visual studio on the sixth floor. We’re a very close knit group, and it’s a horrible cliché to say that we all get on really well, but its true. We socialise together at the end of installing each scheme, and we’re all really relaxed around one another. During the install process, the production team (that’s me and two others) turn nocturnal, because we install the windows at night time when the store is shut. Us three spend a very intense week together during that time, working proper hellish hours, normally having to do some really weird things that a window requires. We listen to a lot of rubbish radio at 4:30am! Why do they play only minimal beats at that time?!! There’s always lots of food on night shifts – oh yes. Sometimes its the only way through. With the Christmas scheme we’ve just installed, which took us a week of nights, I realised just how important the Selfridges windows are; along with the lights on Oxford Street, they are one of the biggest draws to London over the festive period. It’s really dawned on me just how much responsibility I have to ensure they look good!

What’s been your favourite display to work on thus far?
I’ve liked bits of every window I’ve worked on, but I’ve got a bit of a thing for a scheme called Technicolourology, which is best described as a childish surrealist nightmare on acid. We used loads of hybrid mannequins with massive arms and giant furry legs and each window was this warped landscape. Proper trippy. White Christmas is probably the best I’ve worked on though, just because its so high-end editorial, and the overall finish is almost perfect. It’s just sleek and beautiful. Next years schemes are shaping up to be pretty spectacular though. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been experimenting with stuff they’ve never done before, and if we can pull it off its going to look immense, and then there is the scheme that I’ve co designed which will be going in early next year, but I’m obviously going to love that.

Now, you work with a girl called Hannah Jerrom tell us more about what she does…
Hannah Jerrom is my partner in crime. She is well good at illustrating and dancing. Especially the dancing. Anyway, she works as one of the designers in the event team for the Secret Cinema collective. They put on screenings of classic films in weird and unconventional locations over London and Europe. The point is that the audience don’t know what film they are going to see until they turn up to the location. It has a major cult following – literally thousands of people will go to a screening over the course of a few days. When the audience arrive at the venue it becomes an immersive theatre piece, so for One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, they turned an abandoned hospital in Ladbrook Grove into the mental home from the film, and each ward had the cinema screen in, and there were ‘nurses’ and ‘patients’ walking around and individual rooms had installations and performances taking place. It’s really cool. Hannah helps design and organise these events, which are massive. She’s been really proactive at being a good freelance installation artist too, doing things like the Common Sounds festival and loads of others.

How did you meet and form this bond between you?
Hannah and I met whilst we were studying on the Performance: Design and Practise course at Central Saint Martins – she was this funny little thing from Kent and I was this tall skinny tit from Surrey. It was perfect. It’s disgustingly portentous of me to say this, but we sort of see the world through the same filter. It’s really odd. Its like we know what the other one is thinking. We’ve had dreadful arguments and stressy times before, but we’ve pulled through in the end. She is both awkward and hilarious, shy but extrovert – which is sort of how I feel sometimes (minus the hilarious – I never make anyone laugh). In January I’m going to her mums fiftieth. It’s going to be immense. It in a hall.

And what have you two been working on together?
Since our final year together at uni, we’ve collaborated together on small performances, videos and photography. We like to create little scenarios out of found objects and recycled artefacts. There’s a lot of leotard involved. We wanted to explore how are bodies moved so we shot a documentary called “Learning to Move” and danced to Single Ladies and Holst’s The Planets a lot. We’ve wanted to produce more original work for ages, so we’re doing a SEQUEL of sorts to our original work, working from the best bits and going from there.

Now box heads was a really interesting project that got you into Love Magazine, how did that all start?
The Box Heads. These were actually costumes me and Hannah designed and made for an interpretative dance version of Nial La Butes play ‘The Shape of Things’ whilst we were at Uni. Hannah and me had only just started working with one another. We wore them on the street so we could get used to being in them, and the stylist Katie Grand saw us in them because the LOVE offices were right next to our St Martins studio. She photographed us then posted the pics on the LOVE blog. We found out a couple of days later that they’d tried to get into the CSM campus to speak to us but weren’t allowed! Eventually, we took them to their offices and the LOVE editors and journalists all wore them in a fantastic shoot introducing the editorial team to all the new readers for the first issue of LOVE. We had no idea how major that publication would become and it’s very funny to think we are featured in it.

How is London helping you to achieve your goals?
This question is really hard. I’ve always felt really detached from London – its massive and insurmountable and you need to be brave and ballsy which I’m not, I’m parochial and cowardly and am scared of a lot things. I like routine, and I think you have to be prepared to chuck that type of lifestyle away if you live here. BUT. But, were it not for me living here, I wouldn’t have the understanding or the arts and fashion industry that I’m exposed to daily now. I’m a much more informed and ‘on it’ person because of living in London. But its aged me. I know that its important to be here, but I’d prefer to live in a shack in a field in the middle of nowhere and just make art there. I feel I’ve sacrificed friendships, family, health, sanity and a bit of happiness being here.

So what’s the dream?
The dream. The dream is simple: to finally nail what it is I can do for myself that makes me happy. Somewhere in that dream is my family, my friends, lots of money, some owls and being able to make people happy and think through the work or art or theatre or images that I’ve created.

What will we see from you next?
Next up will be the second documentary from Hannah and I, in which I’m taking my twin and my 70 year old parents to New York City in January and subjecting them to Brooklyn in minus 15 degrees whilst I watch them survive and video it. Its called SEQUEL. At Selfridges, its more top secret. But the scheme I’ve designed (its luxury menswear) comes out in March. Check out my blog for more.