Headingley LitFest: August 2009

Tuesday, 25 August 2009

Wandering Abroad - Corinne Silva

This notice follows on from the first of the events of the Headingley LitFest 2009 - on The Hounding of David Oluwale, when Kester Aspden and Ian Duhig spoke (and read) at the Yorkshire College. Scroll down to see the blog entry for it. Some of those who came are likely to want to visit Leeds Art Gallery.

9 October 2009 – end January 2010
Leeds Art Gallery: previews 7 October

David Oluwale came to England from Nigeria as a stowaway in 1949 with dreams of studying to be an engineer in Leeds; twenty years later he was found drowned in the River Aire. Subsequently two police officers were found guilty of assault.

This new film installation by Corinne Silva, which receives its premier at the Gallery, relates to Oluwale’s journey down the river, his final journey, but also narrates a journey through the city, a journey through times of change and transition, resonant with the contemporary development of the city and the experience of migration in our own times.

The story - of migration; prejudice; isolation; and the forming of communities, runs parallel to a story of urban regeneration in a post-industrial city with its concept of ‘readymade’ communities, ‘new developments’ and those left behind in their wake - is told through a collage of sound and image. Interwoven and sometimes contradictory accounts recount the tragic tale of David Oluwale: fragments of memory and experience from other migrants who also chose to settle in Leeds in the 1950s, interspersed amongst a soundtrack of music from the time, recorded in England by musicians from Africa and the Caribbean and played at the dance sessions attended by young West African immigrants striving to create a foothold and a community in what was often a hostile city.

Corinne Silva, born in Leeds, is a photographic artist with degrees from the Universities of Brighton and Nottingham Trent. Past commissions include From War to Windrush, from the Imperial War Museum (2008) and Róisín Bán from Leeds Irish Health and Home (2006), about the Irish Diaspora.

Wandering Abroad, her first moving-image commission, is commissioned by Leeds Art Gallery with support from Arts Council England.

LITERARY HEADINGLEY

Headingley is just the place for it! Don't expect a big circus with marquees, though: we're not at that stage yet. We're all volunteers as well.

Our venues include the HEART Centre on Bennett Road, the New Headingley Club on St Michael's Road, friendly cafés, historic local cinemas, Headingley Library, people's houses and the historic Leeds Library in Commercial Street, city centre.

Headingley's Literary Links

Headingley has strong connections with many writers:

Arthur Ransome was born in Headingley, J R R Tolkien lived at 5 Holly Bank and also at 2 Darnley Road, West Park when he was reader in English Language at the University of Leeds 1920 - 25, Alan Bennett lived over a butcher's shop opposite the Three Horseshoes, now Royale Dry Cleaners.

Lucy Newlyn has published poetry about her early life in Headingley, George Orwell stayed at 21 Estcourt Avenue with his sister Marjorie and her husband Humphrey 'Humpy' Dakin (with whom he visited the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth), T S Eliot used to visit his mother-in-law in Weetwood Lane, William Fryer Harvey was brought up in Spring Bank, Trevor Griffiths lived just off Victoria Road on Winstanley Terrace, Jon Silkin's first office of STAND magazine was his flat at 144 Otley Road, Sir Geoffrey Hill lived in Shire Oak Road, Peter Redgrove lived in Headingley between 1962 and 1965 when he was Gregory Fellow of Poetry at the University of Leeds, and playwright Kay Mellor still lives near The Hollies in Far Headingley.

Wilson Barrett, the charismatic first manager of the Grand Theatre, Leeds (a prolific playwright as well), lived in Beech Grove Terrace, Woodhouse in the 1870s. His house was a meeting place for many writers, artists and visitors to Leeds - such as W. S. Gilbert, George Grossmith and Atkinson Grimshaw.

Headingley LitFest 2020 was the thirteenth. The fourteenth will take place from March 2021 and will be adapted to the rules of the Covid pandemic. We are now a proud part of the annual Leeds Lit Fest.