Film: Single Use Only by Sarah Alwin and Patrick Wray

This piece started with the music, composed and produced by Patrick Wray at the start of 2023. It seemed a little sci-fi to me. Also it conjured for me a sense of Elsewhere, coincidentally the name of this journal, a place other than here. I thought about the places which evoked the early series Star Trek technicolour aesthetic and for me and these were definitely fairgrounds and seaside resorts. These spaces do have out-of-season periods too where the atmosphere changes.

The photographs are from Blackpool, Llandudno, and Sheffield and were all taken by me during the summer and autumn of 2022.

Last year I posted a picture of a sock I was knitting on Twitter and someone asked if I would photograph the sock turned inside out so they could see how I had constructed it. I felt like that was a really personal request, unseemly almost, like being asked to undress, and I resisted. Here I wanted to show some of these images inside out, from behind, as a kind of concession to the potential curiosity about the process, even though you never asked for it.

This is a companion piece to Surprise View.

***

Patrick Wray is an artist and bookseller based in London. He recently published 'Ghost Stories I Remember' with Colossive Press. For more about his work visit his website.
Twitter / Instagram

Sarah Alwin is a special needs and English tutor and writes about domestic space in South East Asian literature. She lives in Sheffield and co-produces and co-hosts a weekly review programme, Radioactive, for community radio at Sheffield Live 93.2FM.
Twitter / Instagram

Film: Surprise View by Sarah Alwin and Patrick Wray

By Sarah Alwin:

When I come here it is not the quiet of the landscape that I experience but the residual resonances of the city which unsettle my head and my heart. It is a place of outlandishness and of natural and stinging beauty. Its impertinence is overwhelming. This space is full of busyness and clarity and colour. 

My friend Patrick Wray made the music for this piece, knowing that there was noise and strangeness in this. His music glues this work together.

I took these photographs from the end of 2019 to the start of 2023 at Surprise View, a ten minute drive from my home in Sheffield. I filtered the digital images with my printer and scanner and by stitching into them. What used to be a source of frustration (my beleaguered printer running out of ink) has become, for me, a new way of seeing this beloved place.

***

Patrick Wray is an artist and bookseller based in London. He recently published 'Ghost Stories I Remember' with Colossive Press. For more about his work visit his website.
Twitter / Instagram

Sarah Alwin is a special needs and English tutor and writes about domestic space in South East Asian literature. She lives in Sheffield and co-produces and co-hosts a weekly review programme, Radioactive, for community radio at Sheffield Live 93.2FM.
Twitter / Instagram

when the silence comes: a short film by Liang-Hsin Huang

We are extremely pleased and proud to be able to share on Elsewhere the work of Liang-Hsin Huang, an animator whose short film when the silence comes is a beautiful and poetic work about the silent moments in a relationship and the places where they are shared. A Taiwanese animator and director, Liang-Hsin Huang focuses on 2D and hand-drawn animation inspired by poetry. She says: “I love to explore how emotions can present in moving images and how they react in the spaces. when the silence comes is a film about these themes. When you are with others, there are always some awkward moments when you don’t want to say a word and the space turns silent and unreal.”

You can read more about Liang-Hsin Huang’s work via this interview with It’s Nice That, and you can explore her website and follow her on Instagram here.

Landscape With Man And High-Vis Jacket And Alpaca

A film poem by Daniel Bennett:

'For the last ten years, I've made the same train journey through the Hampshire countryside, from London out towards the coast. The landscape has become a familiar companion during this time, although remaining remote and elusive, trapped beyond glass. One night, on a diversion forced by bad weather, the train pulled along a remote area of track, where a high tensile fence had been strung across a patch of flooded marshland. Through the steam on the window, I could make out a man wearing a high-vis jacket staring back at me in front of a tent, an alpaca grazing by his side. This weird, fleeting glimpse into someone's life formed the basis of a long poem, taking in themes of rootlessness and austerity, one of many poems about place and landscape in my first collection, West South North, North South East.'

***

Daniel Bennett was born in Shropshire and live and work in London. My poems have been published in numerous places, including The Stinging Fly, Black Box Manifold and Structo, and I'm also the author of the novel, All The Dogs. You can find more of my work online at Absence Club.

Film: Ness, by Adam Scovell

Image: A still from ‘Ness’ by Adam Scovell, an adaptation of the book by Robert Macfarlane and Stanley Donwood

We have long been fans of the writer and filmmaker Adam Scovell here at Elsewhere, from his wonderful debut novel Mothlight (Influx Press, 2019) to his regular contributions on place, landscape, cities and film for a variety of outlets including Caught by the River, Little White Lies and the BFI. So when we heard that Adam was making a film adaptation of the book Ness by Robert Macfarlane and Stanley Donwood (Penguin, 2019), we were interested indeed.

The setting for the book and the film is the evocative landscape of Orford Ness in England, something which the film completely captures. Adam shot the film on a variety of different Super-8 stocks which, in his words, “is an enjoyably organic patchwork suitable for Robert’s porous prose, Stanley’s grainy illustrations and the landscape as a whole.” We wholeheartedly recommend you head over to Adam’s website Celluloid Wickerman to read more about the process of making this wonderful and atmospheric film, and we are really pleased and proud that Adam has given us his blessing to share it here on Elsewhere.

Adam’s second novel How Pale The Winter Has Made Us will be published by Influx Press in 2020, and you can find him on Twitter here.

Edgework Artist Profile #1: Layla Curtis

Newcastle Gateshead, 2005 by Layla Curtis

As part of our collaboration with Edgework an artist-led cross-disciplinary journal and store with an emphasis on place, we are running a series of monthly profiles of the artists here on Elsewhere. Where better to start than with Layla Curtis, founder of Edgework and previous contributor to our blog:

Layla Curtis’ practice has a focus on place, landscape and mapping and often examines the attempts we make to chart the earth, how we locate ourselves, navigate space and represent terrain. 

Polar Wandering, 2006 by Layla Curtis

 Layla’s works include Trespass, an app for iphone which maps an oral history of a northern English edgeland and tempts the user to trespass in order to access the work (and which we featured here on the Elsewhere blog); Polar Wandering, a 27,856 mile long interactive online drawing charting her journey to Antarctica with the British Antarctic Survey, exhibited in solo shows at New Art Gallery Walsall, and Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast; and Tong Tana, a moving image work made while trekking with nomadic hunter-gathers in the Borneo Rainforest and exhibited at Matt's Gallery, London. 

 As well as featuring in international collections including the Tate Collection and Government Art Collection forthcoming projects and exhibitions include the collaged map The United Kingdom, currently on display in Ideas Depot at Tate Liverpool, UK (until 21 July).

Tong Tana production still, 2012.

A documentation of Trespass will also be included in the forthcoming exhibition This Land is Our Land at PAPER, Manchester, UK (curated by Edgework contributor, and PAPER curator Simon Woolham) from 29 June - 3 August 2019. Curtis is currently working on a series of new commissions for Tate shop to be launched later this year.

Layla Curtis on Edgework
Twitter
Instagram

Uncanny Waters: Upcoming events in London and Hastings

Photo: Katrin Schönig

Our editor-in-chief Paul Scraton is heading to the UK next week for a couple of events that bring writers, filmmakers and musicians together to explore the topic of uncanny coastlines and waterways, from the Baltic beaches of Paul's book GHOSTS ON THE SHORE (Influx Press) to the canals of London and the coastlines of southern England. The events will take place at The Social in London on the 28 February and at the Electric Palace in Hastings on the 2 March.

Paul will be reading and presenting, with filmmaker Eymelt Sehmer, the short film IN SEARCH OF GHOSTS, a lyrical portrait of the book. Alongside Paul and Eymelt, Gareth E Rees will read from his new book THE STONE TIDE (Influx Press), his novel about tragedy, folklore and eco-apocalypse in Hastings, with a live musical performance of U118, a psychedelic invocation of the town’s infamous beached U-Boat. Finally, Gary Budden, author of HOLLOW SHORES (Dead Ink) and contributor to Elsewhere No.01, will explore the emotional geography of Kent's coastline and London's haunted canals with a reading and GREENTEETH, a wyrd fiction super-8 film directed by Adam Scovell based on one of Gary's stories.

In Hastings, they will also be joined by Rebecca E. Marshall who will be presenting her immersive documentary GLITTER AND STORM, which evokes the magical joys of sea swimming.

If you are anywhere near London or Hastings, we would love to see you at one (or both!) of the events. You can find out more information and get tickets using the following links:

Uncanny Waters - The Social, London - 28 Feb 2018 / Facebook event page / Buy tickets
Uncanny Coasts - Electric Palace, Hastings - 2 Mar 2018 / Facebook event page / Buy tickets

Borders and their consequences: Introducing 'the corridor'

Image: Vera Drebusch

The Corridor is a new project from Ireland exploring borders and their consequences. One of the founders of the project is the Elsewhere Books Editor Marcel Krueger, who we asked to introduce the project and the first events and actions that will be taking place in the coming months:

Who needs borders anyway?

For a year now, my wife Anne and I live in Dundalk in Ireland. We moved here for a variety of reasons: to live and work in a smaller town away from the molochs of Berlin and Dublin (where renting out has become impossible anyway), to live by the sea, to be close to my office. We knew that we would be moving next to one of the main Brexit-faultlines, the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The longer we live here, the more we've become fascinated with the history of our new hometown and worried about what the future might hold for the communities north and south of the border. As a writer & journalist and a curator & arts manager coming from a country which was defined by a border for several decades, we now want to explore the area through both our fields of expertise, and have created 'the corridor'.    

'the corridor' is an interdisciplinary and discursive project that which explores borders and their political, social and cultural consequences through a series of public talks, screenings and exhibitions. With artists from all fields, historians, sociologists, contemporary witnesses and other experts we want to discuss the history of the Irish border and the future challenges of the upcoming EU border for this area. Our first event series is a collaboration with the 1. Deutsches Stromorchester (1st German Electrophonic Orchestra), and you can find more details on our website. Coming events will include a fish dinner with fishermen from both sides of the border initiated by German artist Vera Drebusch, and an exchange about walking borders between Elsewhere editor-in-chief Paul Scraton and Irish writers Garett Carr and Evelyn Conlon. 

To paraphrase Jan Morris, if race is a fraud, then nationality is a cruel pretense. There is nothing organic to it. As the tangled history of the corridor between Belfast and Dublin shows, it is disposable. You can find your nationality altered for you, overnight, by statesmen far away. So who needs borders anyway?