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BIRKBECK ARTS WEEKS 2021

Birkbeck School of Arts launches annual festival of arts and culture

This is a picture from artist Bartek Dziadosv
Credit: Bartek Dziadosv.

From 3-21 May the School of Arts at Birkbeck, University of London will host Birkbeck Arts Weeks 2021, its annual festival of talks, readings, screenings and performances.

As in 2020, Birkbeck Arts Weeks 2021 will take place entirely online. All the festival’s offerings are free of charge.

The opening week’s events are now announced, with the second two weeks of events to be announced soon.

In the first week of the festival, 3-7 May 2021, live event highlights include:

  • Playwright and screenwriter Jack Thorne (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, This is England ’88 & ’90, The Aeronauts), in conversation with Birkbeck playwright David Eldridge.
  • Artist Joscelyn Gardner and curator Temi Odoumosu consider the afterlives of colonial Caribbean visual culture.
  • Writers Lily Dunn and Zoe Gilbert discuss their creative practice with participants leading to a new anthology of recovery stories and tell the story of its publication.
  • Workshop with Silke Arnold-de Simine (Birkbeck) and Diana Polpescu (King’s) on the uses of digital and immersive technologies in mediating difficult histories.
  • Panel discussion about the Museum of Transology and the Museum of Homelessness with their founders E-J Scott and Jess and Matt Turtle.
  • Poets Keith Jarrett, Nick Makoha, Miriam Nash and Laila Sumpton perform new work and discuss the power of poetry to uncover the history of colonialism.
  • Jeremy Atherton Lin discusses his celebrated new book Gay Bar: Why We Went Out (2021) with Birkbeck’s Katherine Angel.

Alongside its numerous live talks, performances and workshops, Birkbeck Arts Weeks features in-house Peltz Gallery’s digital exhibition Lessons from Lockdown, companion videos to live conversation events, and a series of new writings from Birkbeck academics and guests entitled Missing London, about long-gone and more recently lost aspects of our city – all available online.

Throughout Birkbeck Arts Weeks, attenders and mailing list subscribers will receive weekly events round-ups with additional content. The mailing list can be joined here. All events can be booked on the Arts Weeks website here.

About Birkbeck Arts Weeks

Established in 2012 and hosted by Birkbeck's School of Arts, Arts Week is an annual event that showcases the creativity of research and teaching in the arts and humanities at Birkbeck. Every year, a wide range of work from academics, researchers and performers is presented, displayed and performed for the public to enjoy.

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