Culture Diary w/c 27-05-2019
Our pick of this week’s arts, design, film and music events from around the North of England and the rest of the UK – and loads of it’s free!
Tuesday – Kubrick’s London 6.30pm @ the Design Museum, London – £12/concs
Join Kubrick’s daughter Katharina and exec producer Jan Harlan as they discuss London as a source of inspiration for the auteur. Kubrick (a location photographer and props buyer on Barry Lyndon, Full Metal Jacket, and The Shining) and Harlan (who worked on the unrealised Napoleon, among others) will discuss how London – “the dystopian backdrop to A Clockwork Orange, and the battle scenes from Full Metal Jacket” – shaped his movies, and vice versa.
Wednesday – Ericka Beckman: Double Bill 6.30pm @ FACT – FREE
If you’ve visited FACT during the run of their Ericka Beckman & Marianna Simnett pairing, this screening of two of the former’s films will no doubt excite. Beckman, associated with the Pictures Generation of artists in the 1980s, employed emergent media technologies to critically explore image and perception. Tonight’s double-bill includes We Imitate; We Break Up (1978), one of a trilogy of films she shot using the then new Super-8 sound film, described as having “the vitality of primitive cartoons, and are filled with comic violence and dreamlike condensation”. Read our review of Beckman & Simnett.
Thursday – Dayglo: The Poly Styrene Story 8pm @ British Music Experience – £34.50/£28.50 (with book) and £12/£6
“I started with nothing but a few melodic lyrics and a lot of determination. I got a band together and within a very short space of time we were internationally famous and in the charts!” Born Marianne Joan Elliott-Said, what the world wouldn’t do for a figure like Poly Styrene and a band like the Slits right now. Tonight, Poly’s daughter, singer-songwriter Celeste Bell, and writer/artist Zoë Howe sit down to discuss their book Dayglo: The Poly Styrene Story, which includes the input of Vivienne Westwood, Don Letts, Neneh Cherry, The Slits’ Tessa Pollitt, Thurston Moore and Jon Savage.
Friday – Exhibition Opening: Molly Palmer – Nine Nectarines and Other Porcelain 6pm @ Tŷ Pawb, Wrexham – FREE
Latest exhibition presentation from Wrexham’s Tŷ Pawb. Using handmade props, sets and costumes to produce layered video worlds, Molly Palmer combines music, choreography and dialogue to explore the strangeness concealed within ordinary things.
Saturday – Stories from She Punks + Q&A 6pm @ Home Manchester – £9.50/concs
Doc’n Roll Music Festival hits Manchester with a bang. Tonight’s screening, Stories from She Punks, is built around interviews with female musicians from the 1970s, including band members of The Slits, The Nips, The Au Pairs, Dolly Mixture and The Raincoats. The screening is followed by a Q&A with directors Gina Birch (The Raincoats) and Helen Reddington (The Chefs). Excellent companion to Thursday night’s Dayglo: The Poly Styrene Story event in Liverpool.
Sunday – Exhibition Closing: David Ferry: The Invader’s Guide to the Museum (and other places) @ Grosvenor Museum – FREE
A contemporary of collage artists Peter Kennard and Linder Sterling, David Ferry emerged against the backdrop of punk in the 1970s. But, according to curator Stephen Clarke, it is theatrical entertainment which runs most deeply through his aesthetic – perhaps informed by his Blackpool birthplace. In Chester, the artist exhibits a selection of prints and books alongside his own interventions into the space, informed by the city and its Grosvenor Museum.
Mike Pinnington
Images from top: Saturday is Match Day, David Ferry (2019); We Imitate; We Break Up (1978) film still; Stories from She Punks film still
