A note on: The Singing Bridge at Somerset House

9 – 25 September 2016 at Somerset House
Free audioguide. Headsets collected from the New Wing
https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/visual-arts/singing-bridge 

The Singing Bridge by Claudia Molitor is an audioguide of newly commissioned compositions that leads the listener across Waterloo Bridge and its surrounding environment. The project explores the rich and largely unearthed social history of the bridge and its rebuilding during World War II by a predominantly female workforce. It includes new poems of mine commissioned specifically for the project, about the bridge's history and set to Claudia Molitor's music.
 
Free to pick up from Somerset House, the Singing Bridge is part of Totally Thames that runs from 1-30 September. For more information visit totallythames.org.

A note: my commission for The Verb on BBC Radio 3 - January 15th broadcast

A new page for my second appearance on The Verb, a brilliant, inspiring day at Media City in the company of Ian McMillan, Charles Fernyhough, Jennifer Hodgson and David Morley. 

www.stevenjfowler.com/theverb 

Amazing to be able to write this new piece of poetry, or theatre / performance as I see it, for The Verb and on such a wonderful topic and project. One of my favourite commissions I’d say.

"The Worm in its Core was commissioned as a new poem / performance by Radio 3's The Verb, hosted by Ian McMillan, for broadcast on January 15th 2016, in response to Hearing the Voice - a project which explores, and demystifies auditory verbal hallucinations. A great privilege to write something responding such a vital and intelligently conceived project, and to share it on The Verb, which has always maintained a laudable balance between all forms and modes of literature, bringing them where they belong, together, in brilliant conjunction."

A note on: upcoming in 2016

Thanks to everyone who has made 2015 so special, a few highlights, upcoming, for 2016

The final a World without Words event takes place January 9th at Apiary Studios featuring a host of neuroscientists and artists.

I'll be on BBC Radio 3's The Verb with a new commission responding to the Hearing the Voice project in January. 

Ovinir - The Enemies Project: Iceland, includes a big Camarade reading in Reykjavik where I'll be collaborating with Valgerður Þóroddsdóttir, supported by Reykjavik UNESCO city of literature. Then a reading in London, on January 30th, with over 30 poets, where I'll be presenting a new work with Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir

February sees a reading in Buenos Aires, hosted by El tercer lugar, curated by flavia pitella, thanks to the British Council.

The Soundings project will continue with 7 new collaborative performances including works with Tamarin Norwood (February), Sharon Gal (March), Patrick Coyle (April), Phil Minton (June), all responding to prompts from Wellcome Librarians.

I'll be attending the StAnza festival on the weekend of March 5th, speaking at an event on the body and poetry, responding to a film about bp nichol and leading a workshop / curating a Camarade collaborative event.

I'll be curating the English PEN Modern Literature Festival over one day on April 2nd, featuring 50 writers writing new works responding to some of PEN's writers at risk cases. Free to attend, but signing up for membership encouraged!

Very happy to be attending the Tbilisi International Festival of Literature in May 2016, thanks to the British Council, Writers Centre Norwich and the International Literature Fund, beginning a Georgian Enemies project: Mtrebi, which will return to the UK in July, where it'll visit the Ledbury Poetry Festival and the Rich Mix in London.

I'll be curating a Camarade for the Essex Book Festival on March Sunday 20th and I'll be curating further innovative Camarade events, including the University Camarade, on April 23rd, where students from five different creative writing departments (including my own at Kingston) create new collaborations across institutions.

Alongside both Croatian & British collaborators I'll be attending Vicenza's ArtBox reading series in May, curated by Marco Fazzini.

I'll be attending the Milosz Festival in Krakow in June, writing new collaborations with Polish poets / artists, thanks to UNESCO Krakow City of Literature, The British Council & co.

The Kakania project will return with readings in Berlin and London, from February to September 2016, all featuring new commissions of poets and artists responding to figures from Habsburg Vienna.

I'm happy to be part of the ambitious CROWD project, which crosses Europe next summer, travelling from Finland to Cyprus, over many months, with lots of interchanging poets on a bus. I'm doing Graz to Belgrade in June 2016.

Lots more publications, events and projects to be announced next year.

announcing Kakania! a brand new project begins Nov 25th

Thanks to the Austrian Cultural Forum, I’m delighted to announce a new project that celebrates the culture of Habsburg Vienna a century ago, with commissions of contemporary artists from 21st century London. Kakania - over 4 events, each in different venues, 4 original publications and an array of contemporary artists working in poetry, visual art, sound & conceptual art - aims to not just to evoke the Habsburg era, but to envelope it, to transpose it, to avoid nostalgia and in its stead bring the intensity and innovation that marked the last days of the Habsburg era. www.kakania.co.uk

Each artist is creating new work based on one specific figure from that time. The website features an artists section where you can see the full list of commissions, which include Emily Berry on Sigmund Freud, Colin Herd on Oskar Kokoschka, Caroline Bergvall on Gustav Klimt, & George Szirtes on Arthur Schnitzler, amongst many others, including, in time, works on Stefan Zweig, Robert Musil, Egon Schiele, Gustav Mahler, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Alma Mahler, Joseph Roth & many others.

The first event takes place in just over two weeks and is completely free to attend.

Kakania
November Tuesday 25th – 7.30pm
the Rich Mix Arts Centre – Main space – Free Entry
http://www.richmix.org.uk/whats-on/event/kakania/
Featuring brand new commissions from:
Sharon Gal on Anton Webern
​Jeff Hilson on Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ariadne Radi Cor & Diane Silverthorne on Alma Mahler
Dylan Nyoukis on Raoul Hausmann​
Stephen Emmerson on ​Rainer Maria Rilke
​​​​Maja Jantar on Lou Andreas-Salome
​
The following three events will take place on:
​
January thurs 22nd at the Freud Museum
http://www.freud.org.uk/events/75773/kakania/
Featuring brand new commissions from:
Emily Berry on Sigmund Freud​
Damir Sodan on Gustav Mahler​​
Jeff Hilson on Ludwig Wittgenstein​
& many more

​
​February thurs 19th at TBC
Featuring brand new commissions from:
Caroline Bergvall on Gustav Klimt
​ Stephen Emmerson on Rainer Maria Rilke
​Tom Jenks on Otto Gross
Colin Herd on Oskar Kokoschka​
Martin Bakero on TBC
​Morten Sondergaard on TBC

​​March thurs 26th at the Austrian Cultural Forum

Featuring brand new commissions from:
George Szirtes on Arthur Schnitzler
Joshua Alexander on Paul Wittgenstein
Jeff Hilson on Ludwig Wittgenstein
Emily Berry on Sigmund Freud​​​​
Marcus Slease on Max Kurzweil
Stephen Emmerson on Rainer Maria Rilke​​

Kakania is an ambitious project which explores the legacy of the Habsburg past through decidedly contemporary, original works of text and art, which will attempt to be as complex and genre testing as the works, and the people, they are responsive to. Please come out to support the endeavour.


Kakania is also partnered by Pushkin Press, who will have books to sell at the events & who publish vital Habsburg figures like Stefan Zweig http://pushkinpress.com/ & the website is ever growing with new works of art and poetry published online, as well as information on the project and its commissions, so please check back regularly www.kakania.co.uk All thanks go to the Austrian Cultural Forum http://www.acflondon.org/