< 2016

A thank you to everyone who has made my 2016 a remarkable series of encounters, adventures and collaborations. Whatever the wider context of the adversarial world, I have been immensely fortunate to engage in the many things below. Happy new year.

Performances at festivals beyond my home island, including (these links include travelogues and videos) 
- Hay Festival: Arequipa, Peru
- Times Lit Fest: Bombay, India
- Dhaka Lit Fest and teaching Chittagong for British Council, Bangladesh
- 10tal’s Stockholm International Poetry Festival, Sweden
- Airwaves Festival: Reykjavik, Iceland
- Bjornson Festival: Molde, Norway
- Poetry International Vlieland, Holland
- Krokodil Festival: Belgrade, Serbia
- TextWorld at Forumstadt Park: Graz, Austria
- Milosz Festival: Krakow, Poland
- Tbilisi International Literature Festival, Georgia
- CCTSS Festival: Beijing, China
- Iskele Poetry Festival, Cyprus
- El Tercer Lugar, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Ovinir and the Library of Water: Iceland

Commissions, projects and residencies

States of Mind at Wellcome Collection: curating and speaking at three events in July for the major exhibition on consciousness. The events were remarkable explorations of neuroscience and art involving Barry Smith, Srivas Chennu, Daniel Margulies & many others. www.stevenjfowler.com/statesofmind

BBC Radio 3's The Verb: The Worm in its Core commissioned as a new text in response to Hearing the Voice - a project which explores, and demystifies, auditory verbal hallucinations. www.stevenjfowler.com/theverb

The Soundings project: working with Wellcome Library via Hubbub group, new sound and conceptual collaborative performances with Phil Minton, Sharon Gal, Tamarin Norwood and Patrick Coyle, all documented by Ed Prosser. www.stevenjfowler.com/soundings

Jerwood Open Forest: collaborating with David Rickard for his ‘Returnings’, a proposed sculptural installation in Kielder Forest. Work with David was exhibited at Jerwood Space in Southwark as part of the project. www.stevenjfowler.com/returnings

Hubbub –The first ever Hub residency at Wellcome Collection, amongst many collaborations I co-curated a project entitled Respites for people claiming benefits and appeared on the Anatomy of Rest BBC Radio program with Claudia Hammond. www.stevenjfowler.com/hubbub

J&L Gibbons residency: a third year in residence with the groundbreaking landscape architects, included the Shifting Ground publication www.stevenjfowler.com/gibbonsresidency

The Singing Bridge: new texts for Claudia Molitor's audio installation on Waterloo Bridge as part of Totally Thames festival. www.stevenjfowler.com/singingbridge

Manners Maketh Man for Forum Stadtpark: new video poem installation commission exhibited in Graz. www.stevenjfowler.com/graz

Lunalia: An entire lunar cycle, one month, in sound collaboration with the brilliant Maja Jantar, responding to the moon through aberrant auditory artworks www.stevenjfowler.com/lunalia/ 

StAnza Festival, Scotland: New book destruction performances and workshop with Camarade for wonderful poetry festival in St Andrews. www.stevenjfowler.com/stanza

Publications:

House of Mouse: a new collaborative poetry collection with Prudence Chamberlain published by Knives Forks & Spoons press. The project also included a series of performances and magazine publications. www.stevenjfowler.com/houseofmouse

Tractography: a new limited edition pamphlet with poems about neuroscience from Pyramid Editions. Launched at the Proud Archivist in London.

40 Feet: a new collaborative publication with David Berridge published by Knives Forks & Spoons press. Launched at Essex Book Festival. www.stevenjfowler.com/40feet

& poems and artworks were published this year in magazines including Poetry Magazine, Gorse, Test Centre, Poetry Wales, Oxford Poetry, Poems in Which, Revolve:R, Queens Mob Teahouse, Berfrois, The Clearing, Karawa (Germany), Wazo (Spain), Boto Cor De Rosa (Brazil), Enchanting Verses (India) as well as anthologies including Long White Thread for John Berger (Smokestack) and Hwaet: 20 years of Ledbury Festival (Bloodaxe).Exhibitions:

The Night-Time Economy with Kate Mercer: Extended exhibitions of photography and poetry in both Newport's Riverfront Theatre & Arts Centre and London's Rich Mix exploring the often fractious energy and environment of Newport, Wales' nightclubs and pubs. Supported by Arts Council Wales. www.stevenjfowler.com/nighttimeeconomy

Rest and its discontents at Mile End Art Pavilion: an exhibition to close the Hubbub residency at Wellcome Collection, featured a video work with excerpts from Soundings project. 

Conceptual Poetics exhibition at Saison Poetry Library: Performance works included in this group exhibition 

Curatorial:

English PEN Modern Literature Festival: a privilege to curate a new festival where 30 English writers celebrated 30 writers at risk, currently supported by English PEN, and to celebrate Khadija Ismayilova with a new work www.stevenjfowler.com/englishpen

The first ever European Poetry Night: part of the European Literature Festival with over 20 poets from across the continent, included a new performance with Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttirwww.theenemiesproject.com/epn

The University Camarade: from my ongoing lectureship at Kingston University a new event to create collaboration between creative writing students across the UK.www.theenemiesproject.com/unicamarade

South West Poetry Tour: co- curated a five date tour across Cornwall, Devon and Somerset with Camilla Nelson. Over 70 poets involved, new collaborations with Matti Spence, Annabel Banks, JR Carpenter and John Hall. http://www.theenemiesproject.com/southwest

Kakania: Two remarkable events in Berlin and one in London, including a symposium, Kakania celebrated Habsburg Vienna in experimental style with dozens of new commissions. Supported by Österreichisches Kulturforum Berlin and Austrian Cultural Forum London. www.kakania.co.uk/ www.theenemiesproject.com/kakaniaberlin

A World without Worlds: curated with Lotje Sodderland, this event series exploring neuroaesthetics, neuroscience, the brain and language closed at Apiary Studios www.theenemiesproject.com/aworldwithoutwords

With the Enemies Project I also curated or co-curated collaborative events for the Rich Mix Anniversary celebrations, UNESCO Edinburgh City of Literature, The Essex Book Festival, Apiary Studios, the Poetry School Camarade and Ovinir: Icelandic Enemies, Mtrebi: Georgian Enemies and Enemigos: Argentinian Enemies.

Performance:

Celebrating Cesar Vallejo at Hay Arequipa: a new experimental performance in Peru, evoking the great poet. www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlL4sH28gjo

Celebrating Aleksandr Wat at Milosz Festival: a newly commissioned collaboration with Weronika Lewandowska and Tom Jenks, loosely based on Wat's Moj Wiek or My Century www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWR-FPmTahI

Celebrating Jerome Rothenberg at Contemporary Poetics Research Centre, Birkbeck: A new performance celebrating the great American poet to mark his visit to London.www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD-rn0E-9JQ&t=15s

Praxis at Parasol Unit: a new conceptual performance with Maja Jantar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCW9cJ-Itfo&t=537s

Other new live work included for the The The the reading series, Lexicon at Marsden Woo Gallery and at the Library of Water. Iceland.

Articles:

If you're down this far, you are a good egg. I’m grateful to have worked with so many generous folk in 2016. There is more to come in 2017. Hope your year starts brightly, Steven