The Text Festivals - the Book

On occasion, I think, people interested in the ideas we have been working with in Bury have been stymied by my preference for the next project rather than the past project. But the Text Festival has been breaking new ground since 2005 so maybe inevitably it has developed a history that needs to be acknowledged. The Text Archive developed by Holly Pester through the AHRC funded partnership with Birkbeck Contemporary Poetics Research Centre responded to  that imperative. And now hot off the Plymouth University Press, "The Text Festivals: Language Art and Material Poetry". You can acquire this must-have publication from here or via Bury Art Museum shop (slightly cheaper). Tony Lopez has done a great job - not least getting me to do my bit for it. As he wrote in his blog the field of enquiry that the festival has opened up urgently needed focused secondary work which can inform and develop the ongoing dialogue. Phil Davenport's seminal anthology The Dark Would clearly operates in this capacity.

The new book includes new essays by me, Derek Beaulieu, Christian Bök, James Davies, Philip Davenport, Robert Grenier, Alan Halsey, Tony Lopez, Holly Pester, Hester Reeve (HRH.the), Carolyn Thompson, Carol Watts and Liz Collini - whose work is also on the cover. (Indulge me, I can't resist quoting the Plymouth site): 

"It is a remarkable phenomenon that the foremost among recent sites of this interrogation of boundaries has been a series of festivals located in Bury, on the outskirts of Greater Manchester. World leading artists and poets have been brought together in a range of exhibitions and performances that demonstrate a new and productive collision of different cultural enterprises and expectations."

Anyway, now the Light Night is done and the Sculpture Centre announced, my next job is completing the curating of the future Festival opening in May 2014 (which got delayed by the other two); being part of this 'remarkable phenomenon' should be in your diary already.  

The Dark Would Northern Launch

THE OTHER ROOM presents the Northern launch of THE DARK WOULD Anthology of Language Art, featuring:

MIKE CHAVEZ-DAWSON

LAWRENCE LANE

JO LANGTON

CAROLYN THOMPSON

NIGEL WOOD

DATE: 16TH OCTOBER 2013, 7PM
VENUE: THE CASTLE HOTEL, 66 Oldham Street, Manchester M4 1LE
FREE

Mike Chavez-Dawson is an artist-curator based at Rogue Artists’ Studios, Manchester, UK. He instigated and curated the critically acclaimed shows ‘Unrealised Potential’ and David Shrigley’s solo show entitled ‘HOW ARE YOU FEELING?’ for the Cornerhouse (2012–13). More recently his extraordinary proposal ‘Beyond the Medium, A Rake’s Dream…’ made the 100 favorite proposals for Artangel ‘OPEN’ 2013. He also judged (alongside Laurie Peake, Paul Stolper and Iain Andrews) and curated the neo:art prize 2013.

Laurence Lane is an artist and curator. In June 2000 he co-founded The International 3, a gallery space in city centre Manchester that developed out of the city’s artist-led activity. He has exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally, and as a curator he has commissioned, produced and presented work by many artists involved in a broad range of contemporary art practice.

Jo Langton is the author of ZimZalla object #015, PoeTea, consisting of handmade bags with text instead of tea. Her work has appeared in Department, 3.A.M, Otoliths, and Catechism: Poems For Pussy Riot. She also sub-edited and appeared in The Dark Would language art anthology, and has a MA in Experimental Writing from the University of Salford. She might have a cheeky chapbook before autumn, providing koi carp and terror cats don't steal her soul along the way.

Carolyn Thompson is an artist whose interests lie in developing pre-existing narratives into new adaptations that reference the original in either content or form. She uses found objects, images and printed matter (text, books, maps and diagrams) as source material, in order to evoke a sense of memory, history, nostalgia and humour. The resulting adaptations are new visual versions in the form of artist’s books, collages, drawings and installations that reflect, or work in contrast to, the stories, histories or language of the original ephemera, whilst responding to sculpture, drawing and architecture. http://www.carolynthompson.co.uk/

Nigel Wood is a poet and musician based in Manchester, where he edits and publishes Sunfish, a magazine of exploratory poetics. His chapbook, N.Y.C. Poems, was published by Knives, Forks & Spoons Press in 2011. More recent poetry has been published in Department, Gammag, blankpages and The Red Ceilings.

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www.otherroom.org