The Weimar Poetry Film Award has partnered with the Poetry Festival of Singapore to showcase a selection of the finalists and winners from the competition, including my film 'Blue Flash Flash' which was awarded the Jury Special Mention.

I'm working on a video installation piece for this exhibition happening next week in Reading at the Brock Keep Gallery at OpenHand OpenSpace studios. It is titled 'Time: real & imaginary' and is inspired by the poem of the same name by Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

Time, Real and Imaginary
AN ALLEGORY
 
ON the wide level of a mountain’s head
  (I knew not where, but ‘twas some faery place),
Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails outspread,
Two lovely children run an endless race,
      A sister and a brother!
      This far outstripp’d the other;
  Yet ever runs she with reverted face,
  And looks and listens for the boy behind:
      For he, alas! is blind!
O’er rough and smooth with even step he pass’d,
And knows not whether he be first or last.

and a line by Chris Kraus from her book I Love Dick –
‘Playing the vibrations between here and there and then and now’

(written when Kraus was in her 40s as I am now). Time is as an absolute yet as I have grown older it feels utterly elastic.

This event is the culmination of a series of workshops held over recent weeks by Desperate Artwives. I was part of the third workshop last Saturday led by Katy Howe, and hosted by Platform 1 Gallery at Wandsworth Common Station. Really enjoyable and thoughtfully planned day.

I began the day thinking about control of space and objects in relation to family and the home. This came out later in a series of imaginary floorplans in which I stepped and invited others to step in. The floorplans will be recreated in a larger scale across the floor of the Gallery for the performances and activities that will be happening this Saturday.

Come and see! FREE to attend, South Hill Park Arts Centre, Bracknell.

Putting the final touches to my talk. 

 Come and join me to discuss what is art, how A New Dictionary of Art came about, and hear about what the visitors to South Hill Park have made of the question 'What is art? - Monday 18th June at 6pm, FREE to attend.

Today I've been sorting through some of the responses to the 'What is art?' installation piece currently at South Hill Park. We've had almost 1,000 interactions with the display with a couple of weeks to go. This image is of one of my current favourites:

"I think art is .... something to let your yellings out and have a fun time"

That definitely works for me.

The Weimar Poetry Film Award happened on 2nd June, in association with the Backup Festival and the Bauhaus University in Weimar in Germany. My film 'Blue Flash Flash' was shortlisted and was one of 15 films shown at the evening screening. I am delighted to say that it was awarded a Jury Special Mention.

Here are the Jury's comments:

Blue bubbles are filling the screen and our mind. What are we seeing? In Blue Flash Flash director Jane Glennie interprets in an innovative and highly aesthetic way the ´One Breath Poem´ of writer Julia Bird. We are taken to a crucial moment in a child´s life – learning a new word – ´octopus´. Out of the thicket of sounds evolves the new word, travelling over the synapses, manifesting itself for ever in the brain. The magic moment of enlightenment!

The film reflects on this very complex process with a exact montage and the hybrid use of media. We are witnessing an important step of identity building by acquisition of language in a playful way."

The curators will be showing a selection of the short-listed films at the Singapore Poetry Festival in July.

Sadly I wasn't able to make the trip down to Cornwall for the Newlyn Film Festival. I would have loved to have been able to hear Lucy English talk about her Book of Hours project as well as see some of the other films and talks. However, I am proud to say that Blue Flash Flash was screened in the Poetry Film category, and also the exciting news that I am about to become one of the filmmakers for the Book of Hours project which is nearing its completion date in October.