Posted By: Laura Stimson, 29 August 2011
At the beginning of September I will be travelling with three regional live literature artists to Melbourne, Australia, to take part in a number of activities and festivals as part of a special residency with The Wheeler Centre.
The live literature exchange with Melbourne is a culmination of a long term project for us. From 2007 to 2009 Luke Wright and I worked together managing a live literature programme for the East of England. An aim of the programme was to connect up opportunities for artists on a local, regional, national and international scale. As a legacy of that work, we have developed an opportunity to do just that.
The opportunity to work with
Melbourne Writers Festival arose through our bid to become a UNESCO City of Literature. In 2008, our Director visited Melbourne with a group of literature sector workers (festivals, publishers, libraries and others) alongside staff from the Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust. Through links made during this trip, WCN were able to set-up an international exchange with the city, drawing on Melbourne’s exciting live poetry and performance scenes. At the heart of this vibrant scene is Melbourne Writers’ Festival, whose offices are based in the Wheeler Centre; a hub for literature activity in Melbourne.
Melbourne Writers’ Festival chose to work with three regional artists;
Tim Clare,
Hannah Jane Walker and
Luke Wright. All three are well known in the region and across the country, having spent the summer up in Edinburgh with solo shows. Working with Melbourne Writers’ Festival offers these artists an international platform. But it’s no holiday, we’re working them hard!
The three artists will be engaging with and delivering a huge schedule of events, workshops and education activities. They’ll be performing to 150 young people, as part of the Melbourne Schools Programme, giving poetry readings, taking commissions (one of which based around INXS’s pop/rock masterpiece Kick!) performing solo shows, basement shows, shows in cinemas and working together to deliver a workshop around how to construct a solo show.
We’re really excited that Tim Clare’s
Poetry Takeaway will be given a temporary home at Melbourne’s Rose Street Market as part of the city’s
Overload Poetry Festival. We’ll also be upping sticks for a couple of days to visit Sydney, home of innovative poetry organisation
The Red Room Company, with whom we’ll be doing strange and wonderful things.
And all this in 13 days… Keep you posted.
