Other Exhibitions, Collaborations and Events

May 1st-28th Walpurgis. Dog & Pony, Munich. A collaborative exhibition with Pamela Tait, Brian Serway, Hazel Ang, Miriam Frank, Rysz Merey, Mario Klingemann and Alexandra Lukaschewitz themed around the imagery of Walpurgis, 31st April, which in Germany is associated with witches, particularly in the Harz Mountains

 

9th-29th November 2017 Bards, Idols and Liars. Room 700 Leeds Central Library. A collaborative exhibition with Jane Carlisle Bellerby, Frances Payne, Becky Cherriman, Sandra Storey, and Nicola Turner. The work was inspired by the library’s rare book collection. My contribution was a series of flash fiction stories.

2016 Cherish Life by Hillary Cartmel. Hillary had been commissioned to create a piece of art for the new Sowerby Gateway. She invited members of my writing group ThirskWriteNow to contribute poems or short pieces of fiction.

2016 Munich Stories. I’ve had a close connection to Munich since 2007 and in 2016 I was invited to collaborate on the Munich Stories project. The premise was each writer was paired with an artist. I worked with my regular collaborator, Hazel Ang.

The pairs worked together for four weeks. At the beginning of the week each person chose a topic and created a story or piece of art. On Wednesday they gave the other person their creation (the writer gave the artist their story/poem, and the artist gave the writer their artwork). For the rest of the week they make something inspired by their partner’s creation. At the end all the work was collected together into a book. It was an intense process, with a fast turnaround, but very satisfying and produced some fantastic work.

2015-2016 Orthros, Orthros was a collaboration with Lynn Bauman-Miller that started as an event at Ilkley Literature Festival, and continued as series of evenings at Hyde Park Book Club. There focus of Othros was unsettling, prose. Both myself and Lynn write darker material and our spoken word formed the focus of each event. At the Hyde Park Book Club we also included time for a story only open mic. This is unusual as most open mics are geared toward poetry.

2013 Runs on the Board. I was commissioned to work with Lucy Carolan, a photographer from the Wideyed Collective on a new body of work for Runs on the Board, a Cultural Olympiad legacy project celebrating over fifties cricket in Yorkshire. For my contribution I wrote a series of flash fiction pieces,  partially drawing on my lack of knowledge of cricket which allowed me to explore the specialist language in the cricket laws in different ways. The work was exhibited at the Doubletree Hotel in Leeds, The Orangery in Wakefield, and collected together in a book.

October 31st 2010. An Evening Of Dark Delights. This event was hosted in collaboration with the artist Bridget Tavener at her Box of Delights studio in Thirsk. As well as readings by myself, it featured performances by Helene Crawford, Becky Cherriman, a live painting demonstration by the artist Louis, artwork by Phil and Layla Legard, and tarot readings. The sellout evening succeeded in being atmospheric without being clichéd