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The University of Southampton
Winchester School of Art

WSA Staff Appearing at Southampton Literary Festival

Published: 19 October 2017
Jane Birkin and Calum Kerr
Jane Birkin and Calum Kerr

Members of WSA staff, Dr Calum Kerr and Dr Jane Birkin, will both be taking part in the So: To Speak Southampton literary festival which starts on 19th September and runs for a 10 days.

SO: To Speak: Southampton's Festival of Words was created by Southampton Festivals to celebrate and promote the talent and creativity in the city in theatre, literature and writing, Spoken Word, flash fiction and film. It is a collaboration of individuals and organisations committed to making things happen and supporting these arts in the city.

Artists and WSA Research Assistant, Dr Jane Birkin, along with WSA alumnus Walter van Rijn, will be discussing art and archives, words and images, descriptions and lists, titles and text as art. This will take place at Tower House on Saturday 21st October at 2pm.

As well as her role at WSA, Jane works on exhibitions in Archives and Manuscripts at the University of Southampton Library, as exhibition designer and curator. Her own research functions at the intersection of text and image, combining media culture, conceptual writing and techniques of the archive, as well as contemporary discourse on photography. Working around the ‘archived’ image, her practice utilises the flat, institutional language forms of visual content-based description.

Walter Van Rijn is an artist and researcher who proposes a dispersal practice, whereby the distribution of art is integral to the making of art. His practice critiques the conventions of the art object, and is a cross media practice dispersed through audio, blogs, books, fonts, videos, websites, exhibitions and public art. Recent work includes digital archives of artwork titles, which speculate about people and objects (re)directing a flow of art.

Van Rijn studied Landscape Architecture in the Netherlands and, like Birkin, in 2015 he completed a practice-based PhD at WSA.

Tickets for this event can be bought from: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/so-to-speak-art-with-walter-van-rijn-and-jane-birkin-tickets-37383994534 

And you can read more on the festival website: http://www.sotospeakfestival.org/event/art-with-walter-van-rijn-and-jane-birkin/ 

 

 

Dr Calum Kerr, is Teaching Fellow in Creative Writing, and also a renowned writer of flash-fictions and Director of the UK's National Flash-Fiction Day. He will be involved in four separate events over the festival. 

These include readings as part of the Southampton Showboat: Whisper, Speak, Shout! event at The Stage Door on the evening of Friday 20th, and Words on Wheels, a bus full of writers reading their works as it tours the city, on the afternoon of Saturday 28th.

In addition he will be hosting a Flash-Fiction Showcase, with fellow writers David Swann and FL Morris, with added open-mic slots, on the evening of Friday 27th, and will be running a flash-fiction workshop at Central Library on the morning of Saturday 28th.

More about the various events can be found on the website using the links below:

Southampton Showboat: Whisper, Speak, Shout!
20th October 2017 20:00
The Stage Door
http://www.sotospeakfestival.org/event/southampton-showboat/ 

Flash Fiction Showcase
27th October 2017 19:30
Mettricks Old Town
http://www.sotospeakfestival.org/event/flash-fiction-showcase/ 

Write Flash Fiction
28th October 2017 10:30
Southampton Central Library
http://www.sotospeakfestival.org/event/write-flash-fiction/ 

Words on Wheels
28th October 2017 12:00
Western Esplanade
http://www.sotospeakfestival.org/event/words-on-wheels/ 

 

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