Join us for the third instalment of Antidotes to Chaos, the ongoing RAFT Salon presented by The Light & Shadow Salon, followed by a screening of Tereza Stehlikova and SJ Fowler’s 2021 film Disappearing Wormwood
[ID: Image shows a black and white illustration depicting a group of figures on a raft. In the back of the illustration we see tall buildings and the moon. There are starts in the sky. The right hand side of the image contains text announcing an upcoming event.]
Doors: 3pm
Tickets: £7 - £15
This event is part of the Raft Festival programme (see the main festival page on our website for full listings).
One-off tickets are available for every Raft event on a sliding scale basis. We encourage you to consider purchasing a ‘festival pass’ bundle ticket which will allow you, at a reduced rate, to access a given number of events across the full programme (either 5 events, 10 events, or all 30 events). See the link below for more details about these options!
The Light & Shadow Salon presents: Antidotes to Chaos - A RAFT Salon
PART III: CITY THEATRES
The Light & Shadow Salon is a place for artists, writers and audience to meet and share ideas about the past, present and future of the moving image in all its forms. This salon will feature the words, music, images, thoughts of filmmaker Nicholas McArthur, writer/illustrator/theatre-maker Robert Poulter, writer Marius Kociejowski, and sculptor Zahed Tajeddin.
Robert Poulter will present Jeptha Thorndyke (or 140 Years of Fortitude) a production of his New Model Theatre. This performance tells a tale of the English Industrial Revolution, with a touch of magic realism thrown in… Robert Poulter has taken the traditional medium of toy theatre as a starting point and written and designed original productions which use movement, light and sound to create a new theatrical experience in miniature. Since 1980, his performances have taken place in many art galleries, museums and festivals, both nationally and internationally. Robert has also organised six major festivals of paper theatre, two juxtaposing live theatre with model theatre. He has also written, designed and directed three large open air spectacles and worked on numerous street theatre events.
Nicholas McArthur is an artist working with video, performance and drawing, based in Sofia and London. Moving through brownfield sites, motorway junctions, and overflowing fly-tips, McArthur's current video work takes us on a journey through the inhospitable zones of the city. These liminal spaces turn out to be far weirder and more fascinating than at first they seem. Three recent works by McArthur will be included in this salon:
Don’t Bury My Heart Here [2022, 13mins] - A solitary inventor shows us how his homemade device (similar to a metal detector) can tune into the voices of the rubbish he finds.
The Breathing Machine [2022, 6mins] - We are led by a similar character to the centre of a traffic junction overwhelmed with cars. This man's contraption can actually breathe, transforming foul air into a cacophony of sonic howls.
Writer Marius Kociejowski will read from his 2014 book God’s Zoo: Artists, Exile, Londoners. God’s Zoo is the record of a journey through the world cultures of contemporary London. More specifically, it records a series of encounters with individuals who, although otherwise very different from each other, have three things in common; they are all displaced from their homeland or their origins, they have all become, in some sense, Londoners, and they are all, in their own fields, creative artists. This is a book about many things; it bears witness to the difficulties encountered by people who have left behind not only a homeland but also family, culture and language. It is also a portrait of a city: London being the main character as it sits and watches silently.Above all, it is a testament to the enduring value of art and creativity in human lives.
Marcus’s reading will be followed by a conversation with Syrian sculptor Zahed Tajeddin, one of the book’s subjects.
The salon will be followed by a screening of Disappearing Wormwood, a 2021 film by Tereza Stehlikova and SJ Fowler. Filmed over the last half decade, it explores the overlooked aesthetic power of Willesden Junction, Wormwood scrubs, Kensal Green Cemetery and The Grand Union Canal, Disappearing Wormwood is a cinematic witnessing of London as it experiences great change and 'dies’ in the process. The film enters into dialogue with its genius loci, by capturing and preserving London on camera before it is transformed beyond recognition by the notorious incoming Old Oak redevelopment. See the trailer below.
Tereza Stehlikova is a Czech/UK artist working in moving image and performance. She is the head of visual arts department, University of Creative Communication, Prague. She holds a PhD from the Royal College of Art, where she researched the tactile language of moving image. Tereza is engaged in a cross-disciplinary research, investigating how moving image can be used to communicate embodied experience, by exploring multi-sensory aesthetics.
SJ Fowler is a poet, artist, curator & vanguardist. He works in the modernist and avant-garde traditions, across poetry, fiction, sonic art, visual art, installation and performance. He has published seven collections of poetry and been commissioned by Tate Britain, the British Council, Tate Modern, Highlight Arts, Mercy, Penned in the Margins and the London Sinfonietta.
Trailer for ‘Disappearing Wormwood’