skying : art, landscape and renewable energy
Alec Finlay in Conversation with Malcolm Fraser and Owain Jones

Alec’s Leverhulme residency at Northumbria University is now underway. The focus of the residency is the contested identity of the windmill turbine in the contemporary landscape. To mark the occasion, he will be joined by award winning Scottish architect Malcolm Fraser and cultural geographer Owain Jones, to discuss the various identities – political, social, aesthetic, ecological, architectural – of the turbine in contemporary society and culture.

Venue: Gallery North, Squires Building, Sandyford Road, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8ST.

Time: Friday 20th May 2011 3.00 – 5.00 pm

To print-off an invitation, which includes a map:
<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1599958/Skying%20conversation%20invite%5B1%5D.pdf>

The Road North : A matsuri Festival
This Sunday at The Hidden Gardens, Glasgow

This Sunday, join Alec and fellow poet Ken Cockburn for a matsuri festival at the Hidden Gardens, Glasgow. For the past year Alec and Ken have been travelling through Scotland, guided by the Japanese poet Basho, whose Oku no Hosomichi (Narrow Road to the Deep North) is one of the masterpieces of travel literature. On 15 May their year-long journey will come to an end, and to celebrate they have invited some of those they met along the way to join them for an informal afternoon in the gardens. At 3pm, alongside performances by Gaelic singer Margaret Bennett, poets including Gerry Loose, Larry Butler and Colin Will, will read 100 haiku: heard together, the poems form a word-map of contemporary Scotland.

Venue: The Hidden Gardens, 25 Albert Drive, Glasgow G41 2PE.
<http://www.thehiddengardens.org.uk/flash_content/flash_content.html>

Time: 12pm – 6pm; Reading and songs at 3pm

Print-off an Invitation:
<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1599958/Matsuri%20Public%20Invite.pdf>

The Road North:
<http://theroadnorth.co.uk/>

Modern Empire : La Scatola Gallery, London
Featuring a new paper-work by Alec

This is Modern Empire’s first public exhibition, at La Scatola; it includes original drawings, paintings, collage, photography, and sculpture, and will feature Alec’s new paper-work word-mntn (1000 Munro, Corbett and Marilyn), alongside Specimen Colony, his 2008 collaboration with Jo Salter. Other featured artists include Vicki Bennett, Charlotte Bracegirdle and Sandy Grant. The Exhibition Runs 24.05.2011 – 04.06.2011. Private View Tuesday 24.05.2011 – from 6 to 9PM

To print-off an invitation:
<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1599958/Modern%20Empire%20Press%20Release.pdf>

Modern Empire:
<http://www.modernempire.co.uk>

re:place Symposium : ‘Curating the Rural’
Reading from White Peak | Dark Peak by Alec Finlay and David Troupes

In 2009, re:place commissioned white peak | dark peak, for which Alec and a team of fellow poets such as Linda France, Geraldine Monk and Alan Halsey mapped the Peak District National Park, using a combination of walking, letterboxing, renga ‘word-maps’ and field-recordings.

The re:place symposium will explore how contemporary art practice can interrogate, illuminate and reshape the ideas of Derbyshire and of the rural; Alec will read from white peak | dark peak, the book cataloguing his project and containing additional commentary and poems. You can find white peak | dark peak on our Amazon store: <http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/shops/storefront/index.html?ie=UTF8&marketplaceID=A1F83G8C2ARO7P&sellerID=A2K5GHRHWY9FJE>

Venue: Gothic warehouse, cromford, Derbyshire

Time: Fri 27 May, 11am – 4pm

To reserve a place email <info@re-place.co.uk>

white peak | dark peak website:
<http://www.whitepeak-darkpeak.co.uk/>