HASTINGS
Outreach activities during the Coastal Currents Festival - weaving and reminiscence workshops with poet Jackie Wills and weaver Laura Thomas; creative writing workshops with Anne Rouse, and poetry and video workshop with Brendan Clleary and Fin Lynch.
Footwork's interactive writing project on a busy September Saturday afternoon. People walking through the main square in Hastings were asked to write about their place of birth which was highlighted on a world map.
Over 50 countries were represented. The work was exhibited on The Coast Line strung between the lampposts. The more work that appeared, the more people came to look and read, and the more people wrote about place of birth meant to them.
Visualisation of the Hastings projection - and images from the actual Project poetry! event on Hastings sea front, projecting onto the front of St Mary in the castle.
Catherine Smith's poem Second Skin is about Grey Owl, the Canadian Indian who was in fact an Englishman born in Hastings. Artist Gregg Daville produced a range of stunning images to accompany the poem.
REVIEW
Poet Jackie Wills watched this unique launch event for the Project poetry! series.
Beneath a full moon the life of Hastings conservationist Grey Owl was played out in poetry, images and music at St Mary in the Castle arts centre, on Hastings sea front on Friday 12 September.
Each image, whether it was an owlıs piercing stare, the curious eyes of a boy, or the man himself in native American headdress, was projected onto the façade by high power projectors (courtesy of Blitz, the UK's leading a-v rental company) while writer Catherine Smith performed her specially commissioned poem, "Second Skin", and musician Risenga Makondo played the flute.
Grey Owlıs transition from "pale-skinned boy, stone-faced/ in that stiff suit" to "dark-skinned man, rock-faced/ and feathered up" was explored in Smithıs moving narrative and exquisite images by digital artist Greg Daville, Smithıs collaborator.
To the audience, gathered for this fascinating open-air performance, it was as if Smith and Daville had summoned up the very spirit of Grey Owl "the one who walks by night, /through a cathedral of trees" Their collaboration was a moving tribute to one of the townıs most eccentric characters.
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PROJECT DOCUMENTATION:
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