LAUNCHES

‘Visiting Exile’, my new Shearsman collection, is now out. On 6th November I read from the book at Souheil Sleiman’s studio here in Hackney. I’ve already described (see five or so posts back) Souheil’s sculpture ‘All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Go’ and its role as a powerful presence in the book. Also on the programme were two short films. Ruth Dupre showed her film ‘Les’, a portrait of a committed smoker. She is an artist specialising in glass who has recently been making films and this is one of a number of film portraits she has done which manage to be very intimate, but non-intrusive. Her ‘Childsong’, a poignant account of an early 19th century educational experiment where a group of children were brought from Sierra Leone to Dulwich where a school was established for them can be seen on the net. Her website is http://www.ruthdupre.co.uk/. Secondly there was ‘Exit’ by Palestinian film-maker Mohanad Yaqubi, a film reminiscent of a performance art piece, set in a totally deserted London Underground, where a dancer enacts a sense of entrapment. And then to finish music from Hyberbolic, a group one of whose members is Souheil’s son.

Then on 15th November Tom Lowenstein and I joined forces to launch our respective collections at Tom’s house in Stoke Newington. Tom’s new book is ‘Conversations with Murasaki', also available from Shearsman.