INSIDE OUT FESTIVAL 2010
When: Monday 25 – Sunday 31 October 2010
The Inside Out Festival is set to return this October in association with New Statesman with an even bigger and better programme of talks, debates, exhibitions and performances.
The popular annual event celebrates the exciting and often unexpected contribution made by London universities to the cultural life of the capital. This year festival-goers will be able to hear from some of the most inspiring and experimental thinkers, writers and artists of the day and get creative themselves.
Goldsmith’s, Birkbeck, Central St Martin’s, the London College of Fashion, the Courtauld Institute of Art and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama are amongst the nine university institutions throwing open their doors for the week of public events which will include film screenings, music and theatre performances, art and fashion exhibitions, and talks with well-known academics and high-profile commentators. The events will take place all over London at cultural venues such as the Barbican, the National Portrait Gallery and Somerset House, and in rarely-seen spaces in the universities.
Sally Taylor, Inside Out Festival Director, said: “There is certainly no shortage of festivals in London but this is an arts festival with a distinct twist. The sheer breadth of talent in the nine universities involved is staggering. We want as many people as possible to come and enjoy the fruits of this talent and passion in October. From the art of Cézanne to the art of war, from the abuses of contemporary history to the history of men’s underwear, this year’s Inside Out Festival will be a feast – a cultural ‘pick and mix’ – for bright thinkers and art lovers, young and old.”
Jason Cowley, Editor of New Statesman, said: “We are delighted to be associated with Inside Out. As a magazine, we like to look beyond the obvious and seek out the unusual, the witty, the irreverent and the thought-provoking. In this festival we have found all of these things and more.”
Festival highlights will include:
* A debate on New Labour Literature with author and academic Blake Morrison, comedy scriptwriter John O’Farrell and Robert Hampson, Professor of Modern Literature at Royal Holloway. Chaired by Jonathan Derbyshire, Culture Editor of New Statesman
* The Art of War – a panel discussion on war as entertainment led by Iain Burnside, Guildhall School academic, pianist and Sony-Award-winning radio presenter, drawing on his current theatre piece Lads in Their Hundreds. With human rights barrister Philippe Sands QC, veteran war reporter Kate Adie and official Iraq war artist Xavier Pick
* An exhibition of Japanese fashion at the Barbican Art Gallery including a talk with experts from the University of the Arts London
* A debate on the uses and abuses of contemporary history with historian and former journalist Peter Hennessy, Tessa Jowell MP, and Professor Timothy Garton Ash, Professor of European Studies at Oxford University
· The launch of a new history of men’s underwear by Shaun Cole, principal lecturer in history and culture at the London College of Fashion
· A Q&A with Harvey Cohen of King’s College London on his new book Duke Ellington’s America followed by music from the Guildhall Jazz Band
* Exclusive late viewing of the Courtauld Gallery’s landmark Autumn exhibition of portraits by Paul Cézanne
* Publishing a first novel – an opportunity to hear from recently published authors Penny Rudge and Kristan Hawkins, literary agents Judith Murray and Caroline Wood and tutors from City University’s highly successful Certificate in Novel Writing, as well as an opportunity to compete to have your work read by a literary agent
* A London film history walk led by expert Professor Ian Christie followed by an illustrated lecture at Birkbeck’s state-of-the-art cinema in Bloomsbury
* Creative writing workshops led by academics and writers from Birkbeck
* Minute Maestro – a conducting masterclass, following which participants have the opportunity to conduct a string quartet
The Festival will open on Monday 25 October with a high-profile panel debate – ‘Should the university survive in its current form?’ – at the University of London Senate House. Panellists will include David Willetts MP, Minister of State for Universities and Science, May Chien Busch, former COO of Morgan Stanley Europe, Professor Geoffrey Crossick Vice-Chancellor of the University of London and Professor AC Grayling, Professor of Philosophy, Birkbeck University. The event will be chaired by political columnist Anne McElvoy.
Booking for the Inside Out Festival is now open at www.insideoutfestival.org.uk