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Helen de Sybel: Borders.  25 June – 8 July. 

Highgate Gallery is pleased to host Borders, an exhibition of paintings by Helen de Sybel.  Working in acrylic, oil, collage, charcoal and mixed media, she creates intense and forceful images, with an emphasis on the figure depicted in landscape or cityscape.  Colour, dynamic line and challenging themes forge a powerful connection with the onlooker.

Borders first grew out of a deeply felt reaction to the plight of the refugees in the ‘Calais Jungle’ (2016).  Through the medium of oil paint and collage she references the conditions of war and displacement that have driven many of these individuals and their families from their countries of origin to seek a better life.

“In this body of work, I have become interested in the separation between the figures which struggle to remain ‘whole’ and the surrounding hostile and unstable landscape in which they find themselves.”

The characters who populate these canvasses are highly ambiguous, in singles and in pairs, sometimes running, sometimes hiding or following or being followed.  Much is left open for the viewer to interpret in these charged, vital, expressionistic works.

As the series evolved, Helen has continued to delve into the interior world of metaphorical boundaries, of transgressions and borders crossed, of personal alienation.

About the artist     Helen de Sybel studied Art History in Italy and went on to train at Harrow and Camberwell School of Art where she gained a BA (hons) and was selected as part of Christie’s Pick of the Graduates.  She works from her studio in East London and exhibits regularly with galleries and as part of the Shoreditch Community.  She is currently Artist in Residence at St Martin`s Church, Gospel Oak, London, where she will be exhibiting an installation of twelve paintings based on the Old Testament.

Recent exhibitions include Works on Paper at the Shipton Gallery, and British Paintings II at the Project Space, Bermondsey.  Major projects have also included a series of collages based on Milton’s Paradise Lost, now in private collections in the UK and the US, and Urban Journeys (oil and mixed media), an exploration of the human condition depicted through uncertainty and isolation.

Gallery Talk: 6 July, 3.30-4.30pm      The artist will talk about the background to, and evolution of her work, including her techniques.  Chris Brice, Chair of the London Churches Refugee Fund, will discuss the work of this important charity, which will receive 30% of all artwork sales (www.lcrf.org.uk).  To book tickets:  www.hlsi.net/highgate-gallery.

For further information please contact:  helencdesybel@yahoo.com

Website:  http://www.helendesybel.co.uk

Highgate Gallery open Tues-Fri 1-5pm, Sat 11am-4pm, Sun 11am-5pm; closed Mon.

 Cuillin Bantock – Hiraeth. 10-23 July 2021

Described by Bantock as ‘a summation of over fifty years of painting’, most of the work in this wide ranging exhibition is new, and seen here at Highgate Gallery for the first time.  The pastel drawings and watercolours were made during the lockdowns of 2020 and the oil paintings this year.

The exhibition falls broadly into three categories.  The landscapes are in part duneland ‘plein air’ studies in conte or black ink, based on the Harlech Morfa duneland in North Wales, and part non-depictive acrylics and watercolours, also based on maritime Harlech.  The third category is made entirely from memory; chalk pastel drawings of Harlech Morfa and gouache paintings of Barnt Green, the Worcestershire village where the Bantock family lived when not in Wales.

All the work conveys a sense of ‘hiraeth’, a Welsh word which cannot be translated exactly, but implies an absence, a longing for homeland that can never be resolved. The external and interior landscapes, whether depictive or abstract, are never nostalgic, but always rigorous in their mark-making, interrogating the ambiguous balance between form and shape, light and space, representation and abstraction.  The studies show the gradual simplification of an aesthetic; as Bantock himself once commented, “possibly echoing the composer Chopin’s 1848 remark, ‘Simplicity is the final achievement’.”

Though retaining strong links with his native Wales, Bantock is based in Crouch End and has shown at numerous exhibitions in UK, Canada, USA and Italy.  He was Director of the Art in Perpetuity Trust from 1995 to 2015 and has contributed to many art publications as well as being the author of books on Cytogenetics and Evolutionary Ecology, having trained originally as a zoologist.  His work is in private and corporate collections in UK, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, USA, Canada, Pakistan, Greece and Mexico.

Bantock’s recent autobiography, ‘Landscapes in the Grain – Recollections of a Zoologist-Painter’, is published by First Servant Books.

Further information: cuillinb@yahoo.com.     www.cuillinbantockpaintings.com

Catalogues will be available at the show.

Highgate Gallery open Tues-Fri 1-5pm, Sat 11am-4pm, Sun 11am-5pm; closed Mon.

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.

 Cuillin Bantock – Hiraeth. 10-23 July 2021

Described by Bantock as ‘a summation of over fifty years of painting’, most of the work in this wide ranging exhibition is new, and seen here at Highgate Gallery for the first time.  The pastel drawings and watercolours were made during the lockdowns of 2020 and the oil paintings this year.

The exhibition falls broadly into three categories.  The landscapes are in part duneland ‘plein air’ studies in conte or black ink, based on the Harlech Morfa duneland in North Wales, and part non-depictive acrylics and watercolours, also based on maritime Harlech.  The third category is made entirely from memory; chalk pastel drawings of Harlech Morfa and gouache paintings of Barnt Green, the Worcestershire village where the Bantock family lived when not in Wales.

All the work conveys a sense of ‘hiraeth’, a Welsh word which cannot be translated exactly, but implies an absence, a longing for homeland that can never be resolved. The external and interior landscapes, whether depictive or abstract, are never nostalgic, but always rigorous in their mark-making, interrogating the ambiguous balance between form and shape, light and space, representation and abstraction.  The studies show the gradual simplification of an aesthetic; as Bantock himself once commented, “possibly echoing the composer Chopin’s 1848 remark, ‘Simplicity is the final achievement’.”

Though retaining strong links with his native Wales, Bantock is based in Crouch End and has shown at numerous exhibitions in UK, Canada, USA and Italy.  He was Director of the Art in Perpetuity Trust from 1995 to 2015 and has contributed to many art publications as well as being the author of books on Cytogenetics and Evolutionary Ecology, having trained originally as a zoologist.  His work is in private and corporate collections in UK, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, USA, Canada, Pakistan, Greece and Mexico.

Bantock’s recent autobiography, ‘Landscapes in the Grain – Recollections of a Zoologist-Painter’, is published by First Servant Books.

Further information: cuillinb@yahoo.com.     www.cuillinbantockpaintings.com

Catalogues will be available at the show.

Highgate Gallery open Tues-Fri 1-5pm, Sat 11am-4pm, Sun 11am-5pm; closed Mon.

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.

 Gallery Talk: ‘From the Olduvai to the HLSI’.  11 July, 6-7pm including questions.

Cuillin Bantock will talk about his show, ‘Hiraeth’ (10-23 July) and how his own work relates to that of earlier painters.

To book tickets:  www.hlsi.net/highgate-gallery.

Free to HLSI members though donations welcome.  £5 to non-members.

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.

The class is suitable for beginners and is friendly and inclusive. Style is Hatha yoga with various influences – gentle, but still delivering strength and flexibility.   Come and try a class to enhance your sense of wellbeing, release stress and tension and to experience deep relaxation. Mats provided, free parking (for now, but check signs!) no need to book – just turn up. The class is in the beautiful church – it’s set back a bit and has big blue doors. The class is mixed level/mixed ability/mixed age. I am a registered BWY teacher and fully insured. For more info about me/my yoga, have a look at my website 

 Cuillin Bantock – Hiraeth. 10-23 July 2021

Described by Bantock as ‘a summation of over fifty years of painting’, most of the work in this wide ranging exhibition is new, and seen here at Highgate Gallery for the first time.  The pastel drawings and watercolours were made during the lockdowns of 2020 and the oil paintings this year.

The exhibition falls broadly into three categories.  The landscapes are in part duneland ‘plein air’ studies in conte or black ink, based on the Harlech Morfa duneland in North Wales, and part non-depictive acrylics and watercolours, also based on maritime Harlech.  The third category is made entirely from memory; chalk pastel drawings of Harlech Morfa and gouache paintings of Barnt Green, the Worcestershire village where the Bantock family lived when not in Wales.

All the work conveys a sense of ‘hiraeth’, a Welsh word which cannot be translated exactly, but implies an absence, a longing for homeland that can never be resolved. The external and interior landscapes, whether depictive or abstract, are never nostalgic, but always rigorous in their mark-making, interrogating the ambiguous balance between form and shape, light and space, representation and abstraction.  The studies show the gradual simplification of an aesthetic; as Bantock himself once commented, “possibly echoing the composer Chopin’s 1848 remark, ‘Simplicity is the final achievement’.”

Though retaining strong links with his native Wales, Bantock is based in Crouch End and has shown at numerous exhibitions in UK, Canada, USA and Italy.  He was Director of the Art in Perpetuity Trust from 1995 to 2015 and has contributed to many art publications as well as being the author of books on Cytogenetics and Evolutionary Ecology, having trained originally as a zoologist.  His work is in private and corporate collections in UK, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, USA, Canada, Pakistan, Greece and Mexico.

Bantock’s recent autobiography, ‘Landscapes in the Grain – Recollections of a Zoologist-Painter’, is published by First Servant Books.

Further information: cuillinb@yahoo.com.     www.cuillinbantockpaintings.com

Catalogues will be available at the show.

Highgate Gallery open Tues-Fri 1-5pm, Sat 11am-4pm, Sun 11am-5pm; closed Mon.

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.

 Cuillin Bantock – Hiraeth. 10-23 July 2021

Described by Bantock as ‘a summation of over fifty years of painting’, most of the work in this wide ranging exhibition is new, and seen here at Highgate Gallery for the first time.  The pastel drawings and watercolours were made during the lockdowns of 2020 and the oil paintings this year.

The exhibition falls broadly into three categories.  The landscapes are in part duneland ‘plein air’ studies in conte or black ink, based on the Harlech Morfa duneland in North Wales, and part non-depictive acrylics and watercolours, also based on maritime Harlech.  The third category is made entirely from memory; chalk pastel drawings of Harlech Morfa and gouache paintings of Barnt Green, the Worcestershire village where the Bantock family lived when not in Wales.

All the work conveys a sense of ‘hiraeth’, a Welsh word which cannot be translated exactly, but implies an absence, a longing for homeland that can never be resolved. The external and interior landscapes, whether depictive or abstract, are never nostalgic, but always rigorous in their mark-making, interrogating the ambiguous balance between form and shape, light and space, representation and abstraction.  The studies show the gradual simplification of an aesthetic; as Bantock himself once commented, “possibly echoing the composer Chopin’s 1848 remark, ‘Simplicity is the final achievement’.”

Though retaining strong links with his native Wales, Bantock is based in Crouch End and has shown at numerous exhibitions in UK, Canada, USA and Italy.  He was Director of the Art in Perpetuity Trust from 1995 to 2015 and has contributed to many art publications as well as being the author of books on Cytogenetics and Evolutionary Ecology, having trained originally as a zoologist.  His work is in private and corporate collections in UK, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, USA, Canada, Pakistan, Greece and Mexico.

Bantock’s recent autobiography, ‘Landscapes in the Grain – Recollections of a Zoologist-Painter’, is published by First Servant Books.

Further information: cuillinb@yahoo.com.     www.cuillinbantockpaintings.com

Catalogues will be available at the show.

Highgate Gallery open Tues-Fri 1-5pm, Sat 11am-4pm, Sun 11am-5pm; closed Mon.

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.

 Cuillin Bantock – Hiraeth. 10-23 July 2021

Described by Bantock as ‘a summation of over fifty years of painting’, most of the work in this wide ranging exhibition is new, and seen here at Highgate Gallery for the first time.  The pastel drawings and watercolours were made during the lockdowns of 2020 and the oil paintings this year.

The exhibition falls broadly into three categories.  The landscapes are in part duneland ‘plein air’ studies in conte or black ink, based on the Harlech Morfa duneland in North Wales, and part non-depictive acrylics and watercolours, also based on maritime Harlech.  The third category is made entirely from memory; chalk pastel drawings of Harlech Morfa and gouache paintings of Barnt Green, the Worcestershire village where the Bantock family lived when not in Wales.

All the work conveys a sense of ‘hiraeth’, a Welsh word which cannot be translated exactly, but implies an absence, a longing for homeland that can never be resolved. The external and interior landscapes, whether depictive or abstract, are never nostalgic, but always rigorous in their mark-making, interrogating the ambiguous balance between form and shape, light and space, representation and abstraction.  The studies show the gradual simplification of an aesthetic; as Bantock himself once commented, “possibly echoing the composer Chopin’s 1848 remark, ‘Simplicity is the final achievement’.”

Though retaining strong links with his native Wales, Bantock is based in Crouch End and has shown at numerous exhibitions in UK, Canada, USA and Italy.  He was Director of the Art in Perpetuity Trust from 1995 to 2015 and has contributed to many art publications as well as being the author of books on Cytogenetics and Evolutionary Ecology, having trained originally as a zoologist.  His work is in private and corporate collections in UK, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, USA, Canada, Pakistan, Greece and Mexico.

Bantock’s recent autobiography, ‘Landscapes in the Grain – Recollections of a Zoologist-Painter’, is published by First Servant Books.

Further information: cuillinb@yahoo.com.     www.cuillinbantockpaintings.com

Catalogues will be available at the show.

Highgate Gallery open Tues-Fri 1-5pm, Sat 11am-4pm, Sun 11am-5pm; closed Mon.

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.

 Cuillin Bantock – Hiraeth. 10-23 July 2021

Described by Bantock as ‘a summation of over fifty years of painting’, most of the work in this wide ranging exhibition is new, and seen here at Highgate Gallery for the first time.  The pastel drawings and watercolours were made during the lockdowns of 2020 and the oil paintings this year.

The exhibition falls broadly into three categories.  The landscapes are in part duneland ‘plein air’ studies in conte or black ink, based on the Harlech Morfa duneland in North Wales, and part non-depictive acrylics and watercolours, also based on maritime Harlech.  The third category is made entirely from memory; chalk pastel drawings of Harlech Morfa and gouache paintings of Barnt Green, the Worcestershire village where the Bantock family lived when not in Wales.

All the work conveys a sense of ‘hiraeth’, a Welsh word which cannot be translated exactly, but implies an absence, a longing for homeland that can never be resolved. The external and interior landscapes, whether depictive or abstract, are never nostalgic, but always rigorous in their mark-making, interrogating the ambiguous balance between form and shape, light and space, representation and abstraction.  The studies show the gradual simplification of an aesthetic; as Bantock himself once commented, “possibly echoing the composer Chopin’s 1848 remark, ‘Simplicity is the final achievement’.”

Though retaining strong links with his native Wales, Bantock is based in Crouch End and has shown at numerous exhibitions in UK, Canada, USA and Italy.  He was Director of the Art in Perpetuity Trust from 1995 to 2015 and has contributed to many art publications as well as being the author of books on Cytogenetics and Evolutionary Ecology, having trained originally as a zoologist.  His work is in private and corporate collections in UK, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, USA, Canada, Pakistan, Greece and Mexico.

Bantock’s recent autobiography, ‘Landscapes in the Grain – Recollections of a Zoologist-Painter’, is published by First Servant Books.

Further information: cuillinb@yahoo.com.     www.cuillinbantockpaintings.com

Catalogues will be available at the show.

Highgate Gallery open Tues-Fri 1-5pm, Sat 11am-4pm, Sun 11am-5pm; closed Mon.

 Cuillin Bantock – Hiraeth. 10-23 July 2021

Described by Bantock as ‘a summation of over fifty years of painting’, most of the work in this wide ranging exhibition is new, and seen here at Highgate Gallery for the first time.  The pastel drawings and watercolours were made during the lockdowns of 2020 and the oil paintings this year.

The exhibition falls broadly into three categories.  The landscapes are in part duneland ‘plein air’ studies in conte or black ink, based on the Harlech Morfa duneland in North Wales, and part non-depictive acrylics and watercolours, also based on maritime Harlech.  The third category is made entirely from memory; chalk pastel drawings of Harlech Morfa and gouache paintings of Barnt Green, the Worcestershire village where the Bantock family lived when not in Wales.

All the work conveys a sense of ‘hiraeth’, a Welsh word which cannot be translated exactly, but implies an absence, a longing for homeland that can never be resolved. The external and interior landscapes, whether depictive or abstract, are never nostalgic, but always rigorous in their mark-making, interrogating the ambiguous balance between form and shape, light and space, representation and abstraction.  The studies show the gradual simplification of an aesthetic; as Bantock himself once commented, “possibly echoing the composer Chopin’s 1848 remark, ‘Simplicity is the final achievement’.”

Though retaining strong links with his native Wales, Bantock is based in Crouch End and has shown at numerous exhibitions in UK, Canada, USA and Italy.  He was Director of the Art in Perpetuity Trust from 1995 to 2015 and has contributed to many art publications as well as being the author of books on Cytogenetics and Evolutionary Ecology, having trained originally as a zoologist.  His work is in private and corporate collections in UK, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, USA, Canada, Pakistan, Greece and Mexico.

Bantock’s recent autobiography, ‘Landscapes in the Grain – Recollections of a Zoologist-Painter’, is published by First Servant Books.

Further information: cuillinb@yahoo.com.     www.cuillinbantockpaintings.com

Catalogues will be available at the show.

Highgate Gallery open Tues-Fri 1-5pm, Sat 11am-4pm, Sun 11am-5pm; closed Mon.

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.

Summer Flower Show – come along and marvel at the amazing exhibits of flowers, fruit and vegetables shown by our members and enjoy our famous afternoon teas!  New members and exhibitors are always welcome – see our website for details.

www.highgatehorticulturalsociety.org.uk

 Cuillin Bantock – Hiraeth. 10-23 July 2021

Described by Bantock as ‘a summation of over fifty years of painting’, most of the work in this wide ranging exhibition is new, and seen here at Highgate Gallery for the first time.  The pastel drawings and watercolours were made during the lockdowns of 2020 and the oil paintings this year.

The exhibition falls broadly into three categories.  The landscapes are in part duneland ‘plein air’ studies in conte or black ink, based on the Harlech Morfa duneland in North Wales, and part non-depictive acrylics and watercolours, also based on maritime Harlech.  The third category is made entirely from memory; chalk pastel drawings of Harlech Morfa and gouache paintings of Barnt Green, the Worcestershire village where the Bantock family lived when not in Wales.

All the work conveys a sense of ‘hiraeth’, a Welsh word which cannot be translated exactly, but implies an absence, a longing for homeland that can never be resolved. The external and interior landscapes, whether depictive or abstract, are never nostalgic, but always rigorous in their mark-making, interrogating the ambiguous balance between form and shape, light and space, representation and abstraction.  The studies show the gradual simplification of an aesthetic; as Bantock himself once commented, “possibly echoing the composer Chopin’s 1848 remark, ‘Simplicity is the final achievement’.”

Though retaining strong links with his native Wales, Bantock is based in Crouch End and has shown at numerous exhibitions in UK, Canada, USA and Italy.  He was Director of the Art in Perpetuity Trust from 1995 to 2015 and has contributed to many art publications as well as being the author of books on Cytogenetics and Evolutionary Ecology, having trained originally as a zoologist.  His work is in private and corporate collections in UK, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, USA, Canada, Pakistan, Greece and Mexico.

Bantock’s recent autobiography, ‘Landscapes in the Grain – Recollections of a Zoologist-Painter’, is published by First Servant Books.

Further information: cuillinb@yahoo.com.     www.cuillinbantockpaintings.com

Catalogues will be available at the show.

Highgate Gallery open Tues-Fri 1-5pm, Sat 11am-4pm, Sun 11am-5pm; closed Mon.

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.

The class is suitable for beginners and is friendly and inclusive. Style is Hatha yoga with various influences – gentle, but still delivering strength and flexibility.   Come and try a class to enhance your sense of wellbeing, release stress and tension and to experience deep relaxation. Mats provided, free parking (for now, but check signs!) no need to book – just turn up. The class is in the beautiful church – it’s set back a bit and has big blue doors. The class is mixed level/mixed ability/mixed age. I am a registered BWY teacher and fully insured. For more info about me/my yoga, have a look at my website 

 Cuillin Bantock – Hiraeth. 10-23 July 2021

Described by Bantock as ‘a summation of over fifty years of painting’, most of the work in this wide ranging exhibition is new, and seen here at Highgate Gallery for the first time.  The pastel drawings and watercolours were made during the lockdowns of 2020 and the oil paintings this year.

The exhibition falls broadly into three categories.  The landscapes are in part duneland ‘plein air’ studies in conte or black ink, based on the Harlech Morfa duneland in North Wales, and part non-depictive acrylics and watercolours, also based on maritime Harlech.  The third category is made entirely from memory; chalk pastel drawings of Harlech Morfa and gouache paintings of Barnt Green, the Worcestershire village where the Bantock family lived when not in Wales.

All the work conveys a sense of ‘hiraeth’, a Welsh word which cannot be translated exactly, but implies an absence, a longing for homeland that can never be resolved. The external and interior landscapes, whether depictive or abstract, are never nostalgic, but always rigorous in their mark-making, interrogating the ambiguous balance between form and shape, light and space, representation and abstraction.  The studies show the gradual simplification of an aesthetic; as Bantock himself once commented, “possibly echoing the composer Chopin’s 1848 remark, ‘Simplicity is the final achievement’.”

Though retaining strong links with his native Wales, Bantock is based in Crouch End and has shown at numerous exhibitions in UK, Canada, USA and Italy.  He was Director of the Art in Perpetuity Trust from 1995 to 2015 and has contributed to many art publications as well as being the author of books on Cytogenetics and Evolutionary Ecology, having trained originally as a zoologist.  His work is in private and corporate collections in UK, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, USA, Canada, Pakistan, Greece and Mexico.

Bantock’s recent autobiography, ‘Landscapes in the Grain – Recollections of a Zoologist-Painter’, is published by First Servant Books.

Further information: cuillinb@yahoo.com.     www.cuillinbantockpaintings.com

Catalogues will be available at the show.

Highgate Gallery open Tues-Fri 1-5pm, Sat 11am-4pm, Sun 11am-5pm; closed Mon.

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.

 Cuillin Bantock – Hiraeth. 10-23 July 2021

Described by Bantock as ‘a summation of over fifty years of painting’, most of the work in this wide ranging exhibition is new, and seen here at Highgate Gallery for the first time.  The pastel drawings and watercolours were made during the lockdowns of 2020 and the oil paintings this year.

The exhibition falls broadly into three categories.  The landscapes are in part duneland ‘plein air’ studies in conte or black ink, based on the Harlech Morfa duneland in North Wales, and part non-depictive acrylics and watercolours, also based on maritime Harlech.  The third category is made entirely from memory; chalk pastel drawings of Harlech Morfa and gouache paintings of Barnt Green, the Worcestershire village where the Bantock family lived when not in Wales.

All the work conveys a sense of ‘hiraeth’, a Welsh word which cannot be translated exactly, but implies an absence, a longing for homeland that can never be resolved. The external and interior landscapes, whether depictive or abstract, are never nostalgic, but always rigorous in their mark-making, interrogating the ambiguous balance between form and shape, light and space, representation and abstraction.  The studies show the gradual simplification of an aesthetic; as Bantock himself once commented, “possibly echoing the composer Chopin’s 1848 remark, ‘Simplicity is the final achievement’.”

Though retaining strong links with his native Wales, Bantock is based in Crouch End and has shown at numerous exhibitions in UK, Canada, USA and Italy.  He was Director of the Art in Perpetuity Trust from 1995 to 2015 and has contributed to many art publications as well as being the author of books on Cytogenetics and Evolutionary Ecology, having trained originally as a zoologist.  His work is in private and corporate collections in UK, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, USA, Canada, Pakistan, Greece and Mexico.

Bantock’s recent autobiography, ‘Landscapes in the Grain – Recollections of a Zoologist-Painter’, is published by First Servant Books.

Further information: cuillinb@yahoo.com.     www.cuillinbantockpaintings.com

Catalogues will be available at the show.

Highgate Gallery open Tues-Fri 1-5pm, Sat 11am-4pm, Sun 11am-5pm; closed Mon.

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.

 Cuillin Bantock – Hiraeth. 10-23 July 2021

Described by Bantock as ‘a summation of over fifty years of painting’, most of the work in this wide ranging exhibition is new, and seen here at Highgate Gallery for the first time.  The pastel drawings and watercolours were made during the lockdowns of 2020 and the oil paintings this year.

The exhibition falls broadly into three categories.  The landscapes are in part duneland ‘plein air’ studies in conte or black ink, based on the Harlech Morfa duneland in North Wales, and part non-depictive acrylics and watercolours, also based on maritime Harlech.  The third category is made entirely from memory; chalk pastel drawings of Harlech Morfa and gouache paintings of Barnt Green, the Worcestershire village where the Bantock family lived when not in Wales.

All the work conveys a sense of ‘hiraeth’, a Welsh word which cannot be translated exactly, but implies an absence, a longing for homeland that can never be resolved. The external and interior landscapes, whether depictive or abstract, are never nostalgic, but always rigorous in their mark-making, interrogating the ambiguous balance between form and shape, light and space, representation and abstraction.  The studies show the gradual simplification of an aesthetic; as Bantock himself once commented, “possibly echoing the composer Chopin’s 1848 remark, ‘Simplicity is the final achievement’.”

Though retaining strong links with his native Wales, Bantock is based in Crouch End and has shown at numerous exhibitions in UK, Canada, USA and Italy.  He was Director of the Art in Perpetuity Trust from 1995 to 2015 and has contributed to many art publications as well as being the author of books on Cytogenetics and Evolutionary Ecology, having trained originally as a zoologist.  His work is in private and corporate collections in UK, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, USA, Canada, Pakistan, Greece and Mexico.

Bantock’s recent autobiography, ‘Landscapes in the Grain – Recollections of a Zoologist-Painter’, is published by First Servant Books.

Further information: cuillinb@yahoo.com.     www.cuillinbantockpaintings.com

Catalogues will be available at the show.

Highgate Gallery open Tues-Fri 1-5pm, Sat 11am-4pm, Sun 11am-5pm; closed Mon.

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.

 Cuillin Bantock – Hiraeth. 10-23 July 2021

Described by Bantock as ‘a summation of over fifty years of painting’, most of the work in this wide ranging exhibition is new, and seen here at Highgate Gallery for the first time.  The pastel drawings and watercolours were made during the lockdowns of 2020 and the oil paintings this year.

The exhibition falls broadly into three categories.  The landscapes are in part duneland ‘plein air’ studies in conte or black ink, based on the Harlech Morfa duneland in North Wales, and part non-depictive acrylics and watercolours, also based on maritime Harlech.  The third category is made entirely from memory; chalk pastel drawings of Harlech Morfa and gouache paintings of Barnt Green, the Worcestershire village where the Bantock family lived when not in Wales.

All the work conveys a sense of ‘hiraeth’, a Welsh word which cannot be translated exactly, but implies an absence, a longing for homeland that can never be resolved. The external and interior landscapes, whether depictive or abstract, are never nostalgic, but always rigorous in their mark-making, interrogating the ambiguous balance between form and shape, light and space, representation and abstraction.  The studies show the gradual simplification of an aesthetic; as Bantock himself once commented, “possibly echoing the composer Chopin’s 1848 remark, ‘Simplicity is the final achievement’.”

Though retaining strong links with his native Wales, Bantock is based in Crouch End and has shown at numerous exhibitions in UK, Canada, USA and Italy.  He was Director of the Art in Perpetuity Trust from 1995 to 2015 and has contributed to many art publications as well as being the author of books on Cytogenetics and Evolutionary Ecology, having trained originally as a zoologist.  His work is in private and corporate collections in UK, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, USA, Canada, Pakistan, Greece and Mexico.

Bantock’s recent autobiography, ‘Landscapes in the Grain – Recollections of a Zoologist-Painter’, is published by First Servant Books.

Further information: cuillinb@yahoo.com.     www.cuillinbantockpaintings.com

Catalogues will be available at the show.

Highgate Gallery open Tues-Fri 1-5pm, Sat 11am-4pm, Sun 11am-5pm; closed Mon.

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.

The class is suitable for beginners and is friendly and inclusive. Style is Hatha yoga with various influences – gentle, but still delivering strength and flexibility.   Come and try a class to enhance your sense of wellbeing, release stress and tension and to experience deep relaxation. Mats provided, free parking (for now, but check signs!) no need to book – just turn up. The class is in the beautiful church – it’s set back a bit and has big blue doors. The class is mixed level/mixed ability/mixed age. I am a registered BWY teacher and fully insured. For more info about me/my yoga, have a look at my website 

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.

Opening: Saturday 10 July, 5 – 8pm with an opening performance. No booking required.

Acorn (2021) is a new moving image work taking its inspiration from the world and characters in Octavia Butler’s prescient science fiction novel Parable of The Talents, which describes the utopian community of Acorn under siege in a dystopian future dominated by far-right religious populism. Rather than adapting Butler’s story this film utilises the ‘world’ of Parable of the Talents, its conditions and characters to develop new narratives and meanings.

Drawing on tools from Stanislavski’s acting method; his notion of ‘Perezhivanie’ or lived emotional experience; and the methodology of ‘playworlds’, adopted from Vygotskian pedagogy, in which imaginary spaces for improvisation and exchange are created, Acorn is a unique work of ‘event-cinema’, maintaining the liveness of a theatre production through participants’ emotional focus in real time. The resulting collectively produced work explores scenes set in a near future rural Wales, as a group of people living together in a small rural community struggles to survive within a world of economic and ecological breakdown and authoritarianism. It attempts to imagine new forms of collective life and the challenges of creating a utopian community within a dystopian world.

Acorn was devised and performed by Switchers, a theatre/film group and collaborative framework composed of a network of young people from London and Mid Powys, Wales. Its members are Jamie Baker, Merlyn Hawthorne, Ellis Holt, Ruth Oshunkoya, Prince Owusu, Mary Yekini and Caitlin Williams. It was directed by Emanuel Almborg the group’s facilitator and filmed in Mid Powys, Wales and at Chats Palace, Hackney, London.

The script was co-written with Melissa Dunne, Set design and costume: Ksenia Pedan, DOP: Ben Marshall. Camera operators: Alex Shipman and Laura Seward, Sound recordist: Jack Cook, Technician: Jordan Wilkes, DOP in Wales: Tom Hall, Production: Pundersons Gardens, Colourist: John Alexander Lowe, Sound design: David Gülich, Music: Hans Appelqvist, Graphic Design: Mia Frostner, Actor training: Lavinia Hollands.

Produced with funding and support from: Kungl. Konsthögskolan, The Elephant Trust and P.G. Film.

Switchers originally developed out of a youth theatre exchange initiated in 2018 by artist Emanuel Almborg. Previous projects include The Nth Degree (2018) a film commissioned by Cell Project Space, and Switch (2018) a play performed at Mid Powys Youth Theatre, Llandrindod Wells, Wales.

The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Almanac Projects who will present the next iteration of the project in Autumn 2021.