Spirits of Place – a one-day event of fascinating talks and presentations – October 2024
SPIRITS OF PLACE 2024 As part of Material Matters Artists Collective and Co-operative‘s five-month INTO THE WYLDE residency at the Williamson Art Gallery & Museum Birkenhead, SPIRITS OF PLACE is an exciting one-day programme of talks and presentations.
Exploring the connections between the region and the medieval poem Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, SPIRITS OF PLACE brings together a wide range of guest speakers across the fields of academia, literature, art and archaeology, following an acclaimed first symposium, held in Liverpool in 2016.
Stories are embedded in the world around us; in metal, in brick, in concrete, in wood, and in the very earth beneath our feet. Our history surrounds us, and the tales we tell – true or otherwise – are always rooted in what has gone before. The ‘spirits of place’ are the echoes of people, of events, and of ideas which have become imprinted upon a location.
SPIRITS OF PLACE’s speakers will delve deep into the incredibly rich folklore and history of the Gawain poet’s “wyldrenesse of Wyrale”, the North West, and beyond.
SAT 12th OCT 2024 Venue
Williamson Art Gallery & Museum
Slatey Road
Birkenhead
Wirral
CH43 4UE
Approx running time
10am – 5pm
Ticket Price
Early Bird – £12.00 (£15.00 from 1st August)
Student – £10.00
carolynelarrington.wordpress.com
Carolyne Larrington brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to our event. With a DPhil in Old English and Old Norse from Oxford University, Carolyne has made significant contributions to the field of medieval literature.
As an Official Fellow at St John’s College and Professor of Medieval European Literature, her research spans medieval English literature, Old Norse mythology, Arthurian literature, and the study of emotion in the medieval period.
Adam Scovell is a writer and filmmaker from Merseyside, now based in London. He completed his PhD in Music at the University of Goldsmiths in 2018. In his film work, he has collaborated with the author Robert Macfarlane in adapting his books Holloway and Ness.He writes regularly about film and culture for the BFI, the BBC, and many other magazines and outlets. He is the author of Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange (2017, Auteur), and three novels, Mothlight (2019), How Pale the Winter Has Made Us (2020) and Nettles (2022), all published by Influx Press.
John Reppion is an author and Folklorist born and based in Liverpool.
In 2016 John organised and hosted the original Spirits of Place symposium, held at the Mansion House in Calderstones Park, Liverpool. The event was so well received that John went on to edit Spirits of Place the book, published by Daily Grail publishing the following year.
