Arts

Antarctica in Essex

Arts on 5 has unveiled a programme of events which explore the world’s archetypal blank canvas - Antarctica.
 
Central to the programme is the new exhibition on display in the University Gallery from Friday, 26 February - Chris Dobrowolski: Antarctica.
 
Colchester-based artist Dobrowolski spent three months as artist in residence with the British Antarctic Survey, creating works which respond to the romantic myths and heroic failures of early polar exploration and explore his own role as an artist in the frozen wilderness.
 
The centrepiece to his exhibition is a 12ft Nansen sledge which Dobrowolski crafted from ornate gold picture frames. Alongside this epic vehicle are photographs of carefully arranged vintage polar explorer figurines, adrift in the Antarctic snow. Intimate and humorous, the photographs accentuate the difference between the myth and the reality of the early polar explorers.
 
Two talks and a film accompany the Antarctica Exhibition. In Dobrowolski’s The Great Escape on Friday, 19 March at the Lakeside Theatre the artist, with his unique and engaging storytelling style, will recount his extraordinary experiences of going south.
 
Another Antarctic artist in residence, Neville Gabie, will give a talk at the Ivor Crewe Lecture Hall on Tuesday, 9 March, displaying the extraordinary film work he created by attaching cameras to kites high above the spectacular frozen landscape.
 
Dobrowolski has also selected a rare and unique film to give wider context to his exhibition. The Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition documents in beautiful 16mm the first expedition to cross the Antarctic via the South Pole, made between 1955 and 1958.

Rhyme and race

Playwright, poet, performer and MBE for services to literature, Lemn Sissay brings his latest show Why I Don’t Hate White People to the Lakeside Theatre on Saturday, 13 March.
 
A lyrical and polemical whirlwind tour of race, as seen from one man’s unique and intensely personal perspective, Sissay spins surreal stories of hilarious and unexpected race-related situations. Poetic, challenging and funny, Sissay’s show is a tour de force of taboo-busting humour.

Essex at the Book Festival

The University is heavily involved in next month’s Essex Book Festival.
 
On 9 March Matthew Poole, of the Department of Art History and Theory, gives the Burrows Lecture in the Lakeside Theatre at 7.30pm where he will explore the issues and dilemmas around the county’s cultural representation.
 
The Vice-Chancellor Professor Colin Riordan will join Germaine Greer and Sarfraz Manzoor for a discussion on identity, immigration and diversity in Essex on 17 March at the Central Baptist Church in Chelmsford at 7.30pm.
 
On 20 March, University researchers will stage a series of thought-provoking sessions at Colchester Library and on 23 March there is a talk in the Lakeside Theatre on Phil Allingham, brother of the more famous Margery. The talk will coincide with a private viewing of the Margery Allingham archive in the Albert Sloman Library.
 
For more details and tickets visit: www.essexbookfestival.org.uk.