‘Ecology is about Intimacy’ (Ulrich Beck in ‘Risk Society’)
Ruth Maclennan Encounter, Polar Museum from The Polar Museum series Photograph, C type print, archival paper, 2019
The evening begins with a reading aloud performance by Ruth Maclennan and others, reading from books in the Arctic Library in Pushkin House, part of the exhibition Icebreaker Dreaming. The readings will take place in Bloomsbury Square and in Pushkin House, bringing the intimate act of reading into public space, and sharing the urgent ideas and feelings expressed by the books in the Arctic Library.
These include fiction and memoir that take the reader to the real and imagined Arctic: from Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire, the glaciologist Peter Wadhams’ A Farewell to Ice, to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Following the readings, Ruth Maclennan whose exhibition Icebreaker Dreaming occupies the spaces of Pushkin House, will be in conversation with Gareth Evans, writer, editor, producer, and Whitechapel Gallery adjunct film curator. They will discuss the works in the exhibition, and the questions they raise, from filming landscape in the Anthropocene, to art and activism.
5.00 - 8.30: Exhibition opened for view
5.30 - 6.45: Reading on Bloomsbury Square
7.00 - 8.30: Ruth Maclennan in conversation with Gareth Evans
Ruth Maclennan is an artist whose exhibition ‘Icebreaker Dreaming’ is open at Pushkin House from 21 November 2019 until 8 February 2020. Her work includes films, video installations, photography, bookworks, performance and curatorial projects. She is currently Research Associate at Scott Polar Institute, Cambridge University. Solo exhibitions and commissions include Anarcadia for FVU and John Hansard Gallery, which toured nationally and to international film festivals, The Faces They Have Vanished, ICIA and James Hockey Gallery supported by a Joanna Drew Award. Her interdisciplinary, collaborative projects include State of Mind at London School of Economics (Wellcome Trust, ACE funded), and Leverhulme residency in the LSE Archives, and the site-based project, Archway Polytechnic. Group exhibitions include Somewhere Becoming Sea (FVU, Hull City of Culture), Interspecies (Arts Catalyst, Cornerhouse), Central Asian Project (Cornerhouse, SPACE), The Body. The Ruin. (Ian Potter Museum, Melbourne). Her work has been exhibited widely in Europe, USA, Japan, Australia and Central Asia, Korea and Taiwan. Her work is held in public and private collections, including Wellcome Collection and Centre Pasqu’Art, Biel. She has a PhD (RCA), MFA (Goldsmiths), and MA (Cambridge). Her work is included in numerous monographs and she has produced several bookworks. LUX Artists’ Moving Image distributes her films. Ruth Maclennan is currently Research Associate at Scott Polar Institute, Cambridge University. She also teaches Moving Image at Central Saint Martins and Open College of the Arts.
Gareth Evans is a London-based writer, editor, film and event producer and Whitechapel Gallery’s Adjunct Moving Image Curator. He is co-curator of Porto's Forum of the Future, Cinema Qamar in Jordan, Estuary, Flipside and First Light Festivals, Swedenborg Film Festival and Whitstable Biennale.
He produced the essay film Patience (After Sebald) by Grant Gee and has executive-produced the feature-length artists’ works Erase and Forget (Andrea Luka Zimmerman, Berlinale Panorama 2017), World Without End (Jem Cohen); Unseen (Dryden Goodwin); By Our Selves (Andrew Kotting) and In Time: an Archive Life (Lasse Johansson).
He conceived and co-curated Utopia 2016 at Somerset House. He created and programmed PLACE at Aldeburgh Music for its four year series there, is co-director of production agency Artevents and has curated numerous film and event seasons across the UK including ‘John Berger: Here Is Where We Meet’ and ‘All Power to the Imagination! 1968 and its Legacies’, and the first festivals devoted to Armenian cinema, Gypsy films and the work of J.G.Ballard and Paul Celan.
He worked on the film pages of Time Out from 2000-2005, edited the international moving image magazine Vertigo from 2002 – 2009 and now edits Artesian and co-edits for Go Together Press and House Sparrow Press, whose recent publications include original titles by John Berger and Anne Michaels. He has written numerous catalogue essays and articles on artists' moving image.
He is a Mentor on UCL's Documentary MA programme, a visiting lecturer at RCA, NFTS and many others; is Chair of the Longplayer Trust, and a Trustee of Common Ground and Hotel.
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