Return to the Trades Club: Music & Literature with Caught by the River

Our friends at Caught by the River are following up their recent sold out event at the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge with a follow-up double-header on Saturday 6th July. The daytime event will be Caught by the River’s first ever fiction-centric event, with a fantastic line-up of established and up-and-coming writers. In the evening, music takes centre stage with performances from Dean McPhee and Andrew Wasylyk, after which Heavenly Jukebox DJs will spin tunes ’til chucking out time.

This looks like a wonderful day of music and literature and well worth checking out for anyone within striking distance of Hebden Bridge, where the walks heading out from the the town will be the perfect way to clear your head on the Sunday. Here’s some more detail about what’s going on:

FICTION: READINGS AND CONVERSATIONS

The daytime event (doors 10:30am) will feature:

Jessica Andrews - reading from her hotly anticipated London/Donegal-set debut novel Saltwater (published in May by Sceptre), and discussing it with journalist and short story writer Anna Wood.

Wendy Erskine - talking about and reading from her debut short story collection Sweet Home, originally published by Stinging Fly Press in 2018, and due for a Picador reprint in June 2019. Wendy appears in conversation with author David Keenan, who wrote of Sweet Home in the Guardian: ‘Erskine’s arrestingly original debut short-story collection bears the ghost of 68-98, as she writes about the magic, ferocity and surrealism of contemporary Protestant Belfast.

David Keenan - presenting his recent Troubles/punk rock/Perry Como-laced second novel For the Good Times, and answering questions put to him by writer and broadcaster Emma Warren.

Helen Mort - reading from and discussing her debut novel Black Car Burning (Caught by the River Book of the Month for April 2019) with Wendy Erskine. When reviewing Black Car Burning for the CBTR site, Erskine said: ‘[in this] layered and watchful novel, the stuff of people’s lives – trivial, quotidian, messy, painful – is rendered with imaginative precision and poise’.

Anna Wood - recent winner of the Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize - reading a selection of her published and unpublished stories.

MC duties for the daytime event will be taken on by longstanding Caught by the River contributor Emma Warren.

MUSIC: ANDREW WASYLYK

The evening event (doors 8:00pm) will feature an intimate live performance from Andrew Wasylyk, who presents songs from his acclaimed third album The Paralian - ‘a conclusion embued with blue and golden melodies that land in a territory akin to experimentalists such as Robert Wyatt and Brian Eno. Through which, Wasylyk weaves the listener along a contemporary-classical, ambient and jazz library-dream shoreline of Scotland’s east coast.

Support comes from West Yorkshire solo electric guitarist Dean McPhee (‘Simultaneously soaring and depthless, soothing and unnerving, solemn and joyful, McPhee’s excursions feel weird, unknowable, as if the path we’re on is both bright and labyrinthine, a certain route to the unknown’ says MOJO), with the Heavenly Jukebox DJs ’til close.

Tickets for the daytime event cost £15 (Trades Club members £12); evening event £12 (Trades Club members £10). A limited number of combined tickets are available for £23.

Buy your tickets
Caught by the River
Trades Club

Exhibition: Queer Spaces at Whitechapel Gallery

Ralph Dunn / Public Toilets / 2004 / Photograph: Courtesy the artist

How has the London cityscape influenced the social life of the LGBTQ+ community in the past thirty years? And what are the effects of the current redevelopment plans on queer spaces? These are the core questions explored in the exhibition Queer Spaces: London 1980s – Today, which opened at the Whitechapel Gallery on 2 April.

The exhibition includes the ongoing research on queer venues compiled by UCL Urban Laboratory from 1986. Parallel to this archive, works focussed on the recent past are presented by contemporary artists like Tom Burr, Evan Ifekoya, Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings, Prem Sahib and Ralph Dunn.

Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings / The Scarcity of Liberty #1 / 2016 / Cork board mounted on wooden frame,magazine pages, pins / Courtesy the artists and Arcadia Missa

In the past decade around half of the LGBTQ+ venues in London have shut down due to rising rents and capitalistic ventures. This exhibition aims to show why identity-specific cultural infrastructures are important and what is threatening them, and how the diverse queer community contributes to London activism, creativity and self-expression.

Queer Spaces: London 1980s - Today
Whitechapel Gallery, London (Google Maps)
2 April - 25 August 2019
Exhibition website

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?

Event: Disappear Here Launch in Coventry, 16 March

We have recently discovered a fascinating project in which a collaboration of 18 artists have produced 27 films about the Coventry ring road as an inner city superstructure that crosses the boundary between Modernist and Brutalist architecture. Sounds interesting? Well, on the 16 March the work of the last few months will be launched at The Box - Fargo in Coventry where there will be a screening as well as a Q & A session with the artists and the organisers of the project.

Here are a few words from Adam Steiner, the Project Lead of Disappear Here:

“It’s been a great experience to work alongside emerging and established artists from Coventry and beyond to reimagine the ringroad through a series of poetry films. Coventry ringroad is one of the city’s most iconic (and notorious) physical landmarks , acting as both city wall, orbital conduit and dividing line. 

I feel the ringroad deserves to be celebrated as well as criticized – it is the duty of artists and citizens to engage with issues of public space, control of architecture and the human experience of our built environment – to shine a light on the fantastic, the boring and the universal in the everyday. Coventry has always been underrated as a place to live, work and create – so I hope the films will encourage people to visit and seek inspiration where they can to read, write and attend more poetry events!”

You can watch the trailer here and all important links are below:

TRAILER - DH will launch in Coventry - 16/3/2017 - 7pm - @The Box, Fargo - CV1 5ED 18 Artists - 27 poetry films exploring the Modernist/Brutalist superstructure of Coventry ringroad. FLUX/BARRICADE/SPEED/FUTURE/SCULPTURE/ENERGY/HISTORY/STONE/TRASH/SPECTATORS/BRICK/LOSING/FINDING/LOVING /HATING/MONSTROSITY/DIVIDING/CHANGING /HOMELESSNESS/UNITING/DESTRUCTION /CREATION/EMBRACING/ALIEN/ ENDLESS www.disappear-here.org https://www.facebook.com/events/401720276828167/ https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/disappear-here-launch-tickets-31223025911

Disappear Here Website
Disappear Here Facebook page

Launch Event on Facebook
 

Edinburgh and Elsewhere at the Artists' BookMarket

We are extremely pleased to be taking part at the Artists’ BookMarket at the end of this month, a two day celebration of books and artist-led publishing that is hosted by the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh. We are being represented on a stall titled ‘Edinburgh and Elsewhere’, and as well as the many different stalls featuring a wide variety of artists and publishers, there are also talks and workshops to take part in.

‘Edinburgh and Elsewhere’ at the Artists’ BookMarket brings photography, illustration and publishing together with a special emphasis on place in all its forms, including the imagination. Edinburgh-based artist Catherine Marshall will be launching her book Fleetway, an imaginative story based on a failed roll of photographic film taken at the Cammo Estate in Edinburgh. Elaine Robson will be showing her artist book inspired by Japanese urban landscape and found text, Under City. As the Scarrow press co-founder, she will also present the contemporary photography 'zine Simulacra.

Husband and husband team O'Brien & Chiu will showcase their illustration and photography projects. 'Drawings in a Time of Dreaming' by Gerald O'Brien, features tiny mixed-up buildings and invented structures, humorously subversive in their resistance to daily life norms and expectations. In 'An Unexpected Return on my Journey to the West', Yi-Chieh Chiu embarks on a personal photographic journey in his partner's home country. He finds an Ireland suffused with colour and abstraction, finds poignancy in the everyday; a way back home even as he is far from his real home in Taiwan.

We are extremely pleased and proud to be in such company, and we think that if you are going to be anywhere close to Edinburgh on the 25th and 26th February you should certainly check it out.

The Artists’ BookMarket at the Fruitmarket Gallery
25-26 February 2017
Sat: 11am – 6pm
Sun: 11am – 5pm
Free Entry
Website

Elsewhere No.04 - Launch Event in Berlin

We are really excited to publish Elsewhere No.04 next week and to celebrate, we have organised an event in our hometown of Berlin for Wednesday 5 October. We decided to do something a little different for Elsewhere No.04, in keeping with the loose theme of cartography and maps that can be found within the pages of the journal. One of the map-related projects we highlight in Elsewhere No.04 is the series of tours known as London Trails. These are guided walks using old maps, and inspired by the idea we decided to do a historic map walk of our own.

The walk takes place at 5pm on 5 October, is free to join and open to anyone. We will be meeting inside Berlin Friedrichstraße station outside the Edeka supermarket, and from there we will make our way through the streets of north Mitte and into Wedding using a streetplan from 1902. Along the way we will pass traces of Berlin's cultural, industrial and political history, talk about the dramatic growth of the city in the second half of the 19th century, and specifically about the political, social and economic stories of Wedding. We will end the tour at one of our favourite breweries in Berlin, Vagabund, where we will have copies of the journal on sale. So even if you won't make the walk, come down to Vagabund where there will be a gathering of Elsewhere editors, contributors and readers... it would be great to see you.

Help us spread the word by sharing this post or heading over to the event page on Facebook and sharing that as well.

And if you can't be with us in Berlin, you can still be among the first to get your hands on the journal by ordering your copy directly from us now and we will send it out on the 28 September.

Exploring Place: Along the Outskirts – Marc Atkinson and Ken Worpole

There are many ways to explore and document place, and we wanted to draw your attention to a project that captured ours from the United Kingdom. For a year the artist Marc Atkinson walked the surrounding edgeland of his home city of Peterborough. The result was a collection of photographs, films, catalogue and website that reveal the hybrid new landforms and erstwhile woodlands that can now be found encircling the rapidly expanded city. Along the Outskirts combines material that Marc gathered with interviews with local walkers, residents, itinerant travellers and edgeland workers.

From the project introduction:
 
“Peterborough like many English cities, has a complex relationship with its surrounding landscape. The project highlights the multiple uses and evolution of a terrain, that appears to be in constant transition. The outer edges reveal the alternative experiences and histories of our cities, whose identities are usually projected from touristic, fixed and centre based perspectives. Through reflection and recollection, our landscapes can still be easily read and reveal to us the traces of our past, the issues of the present and the possibilities of the future. 
 
It can be argued that there is an increased urgency in the current climate, to highlight these ‘uncharted’ areas, in order to consider the impact both positive and negative of town planning, housing developments, migration and increased geographic mobility on our landscape, heritage, wildlife and communities.”

A series of the photographs from the project are presented in the limited edition catalogue for Along the Outskirts alongside an essay from the celebrated writer Ken Worpole, who writes:

“Banishment, or self-withdrawal, to the margins of the city is a long-standing trope of English history, though it is found in many other cultures.  It is there in the fable of Robin Hood, in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in a myriad of fairy stories, as well as in modern horror cinema. What may be different about the modern version of this trope is that where there was once a strict boundary between city and country – especially in the walled cities of medieval society – today that boundary is much more porous, giving rise to a deep anxiety or ambivalence over what can and can’t be allowed to happen in the urban edgelands, as they are now most commonly called.”
 
The catalogue is available from the project website, and a selection of the photographs and a 60 minute film are being shown as part of an exhibition being held at the City Gallery, Peterborough until the 28th August. To find out more about this fascinating project of place, head over to the project website here: Along the Outskirts.