The Arts Institute Explorations Featuring
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
guide exhibition film music performance talks Jan-Apr 2019 the arts institute explorations featuring Welcome to the Explorations season. Welcome to our spring brochure. This season we have shaped our programme around the theme of Explorations, an apt subject given that Plymouth is known as Britain’s Ocean City, where many an epic journey first began. Working with our wider city partners, including The Box, two historical anniversaries stand prominent in our shared cultural calendars: the first expedition of HMS Endeavour with Captain James Cook in 1768 to observe the transit of Venus across the sun and to search and map Terra Australis Incognita, and the setting sail of the Mayflower from Plymouth in 1620, resulting in the founding of the so-called ‘New World’ by the Pilgrim Fathers. The University of Plymouth’s own history is also founded on maritime exploration, set up as a School of Navigation in 1862 and now renowned for world-class research 01 02 03 across maritime, science and art. With such a rich history and expertise at our finger tips our programmers and academic colleagues in The Arts Institute have looked at Exploring landscapes Antidote to the usual Travesty and tradition notions of exploration from many different angles. Exhibition and talks Films and talks Films and talks From explorations of creativity within music, looking specifically at Beethoven’s The genre of Nature Writing in The Celluloid Psychology series The 18th Century was an era artistic leaps of innovation as presented by Dr Robert Taub and a special performance Britain has been going through explores the mind and brain in of tumultuous change on both by the London Mozart Players, to quieter more personal journeys that change the way a renaissance. With less fanfare, cinema. Each event is curated sides of the English Channel. we observe and think about the world in which we live, as seen through the eye of such preoccupations have also and introduced by a specialist In France, the values of the old photographer Jem Southam in the exhibition Birds, Rocks, Rivers, Islands. Curiosity flourished within the visual in human behaviour, who order – the ‘aristocratic’ pursuit and the thirst for knowledge and understanding often provide the first impetus for arts, in particular fine art and will discuss how their area of of luxury and pleasure – were exploring, and whether ground breaking or taking baby steps, exploration is without photography programmes in expertise can shed unexpected challenged by enlightenment doubt an essential part of being human. universities such as Plymouth. light on the psychological and revolution. In the Whigs, Birds, Rocks, Rivers, Islands questions explored in the film. Powder and Paint: The Dr Sarah Chapman shows new work for the first Some screenings might provide Eighteenth Century in Art, Film Artistic Director, The Arts Institute time, from Jem Southam, one a new perspective on familiar and Fashion series of talks of the UK’s finest landscape works, whereas others will and films, current thinkers will photographers. introduce lesser-seen gems explore this fascinating period that perfectly illustrate an idea in history. or phenomenon. Regular Features Contemporary Music Festival 22 University of Plymouth Orchestra Spring Concert 31 University of Front cover image: © Mark Cocker Plymouth Choral Society Spring Concert 32 Mary Jacobs Memorial Lecture 32 Christopher Durston Memorial Lecture 33 University of Plymouth Student Composers Concert 34 2 3 exhibition JEM SOUTHAM: BIRDS, ROCKS, RIVERS, ISLANDS Fri 18 Jan – Sat 16 Mar Mon-Fri 10:00-17:00, Sat 11:00-16:00 The Levinsky Gallery Free admission The genre of Nature Writing in Britain has been going through a renaissance. Birds, butterflies, streams, pastures, moors, beaches and seas around us fill many bookshop shelves and the pages of critical reviews. Such preoccupations have also flourished within the visual arts, in particular fine art and photography programmes in universities such as Plymouth. Jem Southam, who was Professor of Photography at the University of Plymouth until 2018, and one of the UK’s leading photographers, has contributed enormously to this field with a series of extended photographic works which explore the social and cultural legacies of post-industrial landscapes. The Red River 1982-87 and The Pond at Upton Pyne 1996-2002, are tightly structured narrative works which have been exhibited widely. In this exhibition he shows, for the first time, a number of smaller studies which he has been making while travelling and walking over the past few years. Roosting Wagtails looks up into a plane tree in the centre of Exeter in which large numbers of pied wagtails spend the winter nights. After the First Flood is a series of pictures made of the minutiae of materials brought down by river flood and knotted about the stems of riverbank plants. The Wintery Heavens are pictures made of the rising of Jem Southam winter dawn light on a pool of swans, geese and ducks on the River Exe. For Gannets and Other Seabirds he visits many of the key nesting colonies around Britain and Ireland. Bite size As well as reflecting back on 300 years of natural history studies in Britain, the Landscapes Exploring exhibition is also a demonstration of possibilities offered by the photography medium JEM SOUTHAM itself. The work in the exhibition was made using a wide variety of cameras and capture systems, and the prints themselves vary from tiny framed contact prints to ARTIST TALK large wall-mounted sheets. Wed 30 Jan 13:00 The Levinsky Gallery Free admission Running time: 45 mins This is a partnership exhibition delivered by The Arts Come along to this bite size talk to hear Jem Southam speak about his work and Institute and The Box, Plymouth. interest in the landscape. A second iteration of the exhibition will be shown at Kestle Barton, Manaccan, Helston, Cornwall, from 13 April - 2 June 2019. 4 5 Family workshop Talk WILD ABOUT PLYMOUTH MARK COCKER Sat 19 Jan ROOST: BIRDS, PLACE AND ART 13:30-15:30 The Levinsky Gallery Tue 12 Mar £4.50 per child (accompanying adults free), booking essential 19:00-20:00 Jill Craigie Cinema Recommended for children aged 5+ £6/£4.20/Friends free Help the wildlife in your world and get creative with The Box, Plymouth. Come along The habit of gathering at dusk by birds - especially crows, starlings, thrushes, to an interactive workshop and make a bird house or mini-beast hotel for your and gulls - shapes their lives, but the birds themselves can also radically alter the garden or local park. Those with curious minds can take a closer look at some of the physical landscape itself. For centuries naturalists and artists have responded to this taxidermy from our natural history collections too. remarkable avian behaviour. In turn both the birds and their human observers help inform the way all of us see place and nature. In a mixture of words, photographs and moving images, British author and naturalist, Mark Cocker, explores these issues in a Bite size presentation uniquely written for The Art Institute. In 2018 Mark released a new book Our Place on the fate of British nature since the beginning of the 20th Century, and JOSHUA JONES AND SYMEON MAKRIS completed 30 years as a Guardian country diarist. His other books include works of GEOLOGY IN MOTION: ROCKFALLS IN THE SOUTH WEST biography, history, literary criticism and memoir. Wed 6 Feb 13:00 -13:45 The Levinsky Gallery Free admission Joshua and Symeon, PhD research students in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, explore how the geology and environment of the South West coastline can interact to produce the dramatic rockfalls captured by Jem Southam. Film KES (1969) Photo © Mark Cocker Mon 11 Feb Landscapes Exploring 19:00 Jill Craigie Cinema £6/£4.20/Friends free Talk Dir. Ken Loach Running time: 113 mins. Cert U TERAH WALKUP Cast: David Bradley, Brian Glover, Lynne Perrie, Colin Welland ARTISTS AND SCIENTISTS: A SHORT HISTORY OF A In Ken Loach’s iconic film, Billy Casper suffers abuse both at home and at school. LONG COLLABORATION At home his brother beats him, and his family neglects him. At school, most of his Thu 14 Mar teachers ridicule and reject him, especially sadistic Mr Sugden. 19:00- 20:00 Theatre 2 Like other downtrodden children in an outmoded social system, Billy appears headed £5, booking essential for a menial job with no future and with no motivation and nothing to look forward to, The photographs of Jem Southam unearth a long history of artists engaging with the until the day he finds a wild kestrel. The bird, a fledgling, is akin to the boy, who must natural world. Many artists have looked to scientific method and inquiry in order to withstand winds of his own. He raises, nurtures, and trains the falcon and its wildness inform their practice, while historically, there were scientists whose only entry into the and beauty gives him a joy and hope that his life could be different. field was through artistic practice. Terah Walkup, Art Curator at The Box, will explore this changing discourse around art and science from antiquity to the present day. 6 7 Film Talk DARK RIVER (2017) PROFESSOR ANGELA WRIGHT Mon 18 Mar 'NEARLY IN THE SHADOW OF MY OWN VAMPIRE': MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN 201 YEARS LATER 19:00 Jill Craigie Cinema £6/£4.20/Friends free Tue 22 Jan Dir. Clio Barnard 19:00-20:30 Theatre 2 Running time: 89 mins. Cert 15 £6/£4.20/Friends free Cast: Ruth Wilson, Mark Stanley, Sean Bean ‘How I, then a young girl, came to think of, and dilate upon, so hideous an idea?’ Following her father’s death, casual farm labourer Alice returns home to Yorkshire for Frankenstein, 1831, Preface by the Author.