In recent years, we have held events focusing on the intersection of finance and culture, minimalism across the arts, women in contemporary British film-making, poetic experimentation and politics, terror and migration, poetics and globalisation, and cross-media performance. Staff regularly collaborate with artists, writers, and cultural institutions in Southampton and beyond.
Show Me the Money: the Image of Finance, 1700 to the Present was an art exhibition exploring the cultural and visual history through which we have understood and represented money and finance. It was shown in five locations across two years and included over 50 educational and public engagement events. It included new commissions, international loans, an innovative app, a fully-illustrated book, site-specific and archival curatorial research and was seen by approximately fifty thousand people.
Minimalism: Location Aspect Moment was a two-day expanded conference (14-15 October 2016) organised in conjunction with Winchester School of Art and the John Hansard Gallery. Comprising critical panels, an art exhibition and live sonic performances, Minimalism: Location Aspect Moment brought artists, writers, sound practitioners, academics and local audiences together to explore the meaning and potentiality of minimalism across the arts.
Beyond the Gene, an AHRC-funded project led by Professor Clare Hanson, held a workshop and public event at the Linnaean Society headquarters in London, at which Tim Spector, Evelyn Fox Keller and Jeannette Winterson gave talks. Beyond the Gene is the result of a collaboration between English and researchers in the Faculty of Medicine.
In September 2012 the Centre supported a symposium celebrating the centenary of the poet F. T. Prince. This brought scholars, editors, and poets together for conference papers, an exhibition of Prince's work, and a poetry reading. Video recordings of the talks and readings are available from the Prince Centenary Symposium page.
Many writers have visited the Centre in the past few years, including Donna Hemans, John Agard, Helen McDonald, Samuel Solomon, Tracy Chevalier, Verity Spott, Philip Henscher, Stephen Thompson, Sophie Robinson, Horatio Clare, Lila Matusmoto, Shena Mackay, Gary Younge, Rachel Seiffert, Courttia Newland, Brian Dillon, Mirza Waheed, Redell Olsen, Charles Bernstein, Maggie O’Sullivan, Amitav Ghosh, Sophie Seita, Bruce Andrews, Sophie Robinson, Rachel Blau Du Plessis, Judith Henneghan, Claire Fuller, Rae Armantrout, Carla Harryman, Eley Williams, Michael Davidson, Nisha Ramayya, Trevor Joyce, Rana DasGupta, Tsitisi Dangeramba, Judith Butler, Tyler Keevil, Peter Manson, Deborah Levy, Tessa Hadley, Evelyn Fox Keller, Jay Bernard, Laura Marcus, Christopher Ricks, Mirza Waheed and Jeanette Winterson.
Between 2007 and 2010 Caroline Bergvall joined us as an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded Creative Writing Fellow. Her project was entitled Writing in Tongues: Multi-Media and Poetic Projects and led to exhibitions at the Arnolfini in Bristol and the John Hansard Gallery in Southampton, as well as a volume of poetry.