David Quentin: Silt

 

The 4 Windmill Street gallery in Fitzrovia (guess the address) is briefly (20 March-13 April) hosting Silt an exhibition of photos by David Quentin with accompanying text by Robert Mcfarlane. The photographs themselves are a collaboration between Quentin and Mcfarlane as photographer follows writer on his walk along the Broomway the dangerous path to Foulness over Maplin Sands. Mcfarlane describes the walk in the Silt chapter of his recent book The Old Ways (2012) and an ebook (boo!) edition of the chapter with Quentin's photos has been put out by Penguin (it was originally an essay in Granta 119: Britain, pedantic pop pickers).

Robert Mcfarlane spoke about the walk with Marco Werman on PRI’s The World programme, combining his personal experience with some of the history of the place, revelling in its spectral qualities:

James Wentworth Day

Wild Fowling in the Fens with James Wentworth Day

James Wentworth Day* was 'firmly of the Agrarian Right school and essentially a High Tory' notes the 'pedia that is Wiki'd - crypto-fascist others might suggest, 'impressed by Mussolini,' writes Robert Innes-Smith in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, but 'persistently warned of the danger posed by German ambitions and criticized the Nazi regime'.

Noted here for his affection for East Anglia and a raft of books about its lands and peoples, with a hat tip to Mr Easterbrook for drawing our attention to the gentleman.

*Not to be confused with Wentworth's Day a short story by HP Lovecraft and August Derleth in the Cthulhu mythos.

The Estuary in Winter

Issue 1 of Managed Retreat print edition will include artwork by Stephen Jordan, from his recent exhibition 'The Estuary in Winter'.

'When Country Life published a guide to the English counties in 2003, and compared them they gave Essex 0 out of 10 for landscape value. This exhibition is an attempt to challenge that cruel criticism of Essex culture and landscape! Southend has given Britain a unique voice, and a language- Estuarine. Southend’s proximity both to London and to the English channel, makes it a 'borderline territory', on the edge, in which it is always wise to look to the past and to the future: to Eastend jollies, to metropolitan values as well as to utopian ideals' - Stephen Jordan

Bleak and Solemn

 

Heuristic England's location hunting for a documentary based on Mark Fisher's "Bleak And Solemn... the hauntological landscapes of M R James".

Out of Essex

Dr James Canton speaks about his new book 'Out of Essex: Re-Imagining a Literary Landscape' from University of Essex on Vimeo.

"Local's Guide to Essex"

 

Essex begins at Dedham Vale according to The Guardian in a travel article which manages to sneak into Suffolk, and runs in fear from the working-class:

"A timeless rural landscape punctuated by the steeples of centuries-old churches, where cows graze knee-deep in mist in the water meadows, it's a far cry from the industrial wastelands of the Thames estuary or the caravan parks of Clacton-on-Sea" 

Talking on Water - 16 March 2013

 

A day of talks, readings and presentations on the theme of water, bringing together artists, writers and scientists. Contributors include artist Maggi Hambling, writer James Attlee, and writer and journalist Caspar Henderson, with additional contributions from Marina Warner, James Canton, Adrian May and Philip Terry of the University’s Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies. Part of the 2013 Essex Book Festival www.essexbookfestival.org.uk/