18th Dec. 2009, 6 - 10pm at St John on Bethnal Green200 Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9PAE
A night of artist films, performances and moving image interventions to celebrate the darkest days of the season and to welcome in the ghosts that inhabit them. With moving image installations around the foyer and belfry and a screening of artist films on a movie-sized screen in the nave.
Plus, as a finale a screening ofMario Bava's 1963 classic, 'I tre volti della paura: La goccia d'acqua’
Recently BBC Radio 4 broadcast a short discussion between James Buchan and Jonathan Sutherland on whether ghost stories are a credible form of storytelling in these sceptical times. Both argued in favour of ghosts and their timeless ability to make us aware of those issues we’d rather like to forget. Ghosts are remnants of suppressed memories, but they can also speak of desires we don’t dare acknowledge or of dreams we have given up dreaming. Ghosts are ephemeral, changeable and intangible but they are also eternal. They are a flighty presence but often they are tied to a specific place. They are domestic creatures but they travel lightly by word of mouth.Ghosts, of course, have evolved over the centuries and early on the ghostly entered science and technology. Soon after the first photograph had been taken, the first ghost appeared in print. Photographic and later film and video cameras were used to trace, and also to create, their ephemeral and flighty presence. These days, film and video are joined by the digital with its sheer infinite possibilities. With advances in technology images of ghosts become less and less believable, but ghosts, whether in stories or images, are as popular as ever. Whether one believes in them or not they continue to be a credible form of story-telling commenting on and exploring the changing memories and dreams of contemporary times.GHosting aims to address the various roles ghosts play in contemporary culture by bringing artists, writers, curators and researchers together for two workshops, so-called ‘hostings’ and an exhibition of moving image art. The hostings will take place at the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies and the exhibition will be hosted by St Johns on Bethnal Green.
Artists:
Glenn Church, JoWonder, Geraldine Swayne, Daisy Delaney, Sinead Wheeler, Magnus Irving, Sarah Doyle, Tessa Garland, Lisa Fielding Smith, Gail Burton, Rebecca Feiner, Sam Treadaway, Katja Tukiainen, Sarah Breen Lovett, Calum F Kerr, Anne Charlotte Morgenstein, Andrew Graves-Johnston, Mason Stone, Richard Mansfield, Fernando Cestari, Mikey Georgeson, Reverend Marc Vaulbert de Chantilly, Geoff and the Daughters of Moroni, Miyuki Kasahara, Jo David, Julian Wakeling, Derek Jordan, and David Buckley on the ORGAN
Visit our website for more info: http://host-a-ghost.blogspot.com/ or join our Facebook group
GHost has been supported by:
St John’s Church on Bethnal Green, the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies (University of London), Betting on Shorts, Paul Dillon, Jonathon McKay, Cosimo Trisolini and Intellect Books
