A note on: upcoming in 2016

Thanks to everyone who has made 2015 so special, a few highlights, upcoming, for 2016

The final a World without Words event takes place January 9th at Apiary Studios featuring a host of neuroscientists and artists.

I'll be on BBC Radio 3's The Verb with a new commission responding to the Hearing the Voice project in January. 

Ovinir - The Enemies Project: Iceland, includes a big Camarade reading in Reykjavik where I'll be collaborating with Valgerður Þóroddsdóttir, supported by Reykjavik UNESCO city of literature. Then a reading in London, on January 30th, with over 30 poets, where I'll be presenting a new work with Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir

February sees a reading in Buenos Aires, hosted by El tercer lugar, curated by flavia pitella, thanks to the British Council.

The Soundings project will continue with 7 new collaborative performances including works with Tamarin Norwood (February), Sharon Gal (March), Patrick Coyle (April), Phil Minton (June), all responding to prompts from Wellcome Librarians.

I'll be attending the StAnza festival on the weekend of March 5th, speaking at an event on the body and poetry, responding to a film about bp nichol and leading a workshop / curating a Camarade collaborative event.

I'll be curating the English PEN Modern Literature Festival over one day on April 2nd, featuring 50 writers writing new works responding to some of PEN's writers at risk cases. Free to attend, but signing up for membership encouraged!

Very happy to be attending the Tbilisi International Festival of Literature in May 2016, thanks to the British Council, Writers Centre Norwich and the International Literature Fund, beginning a Georgian Enemies project: Mtrebi, which will return to the UK in July, where it'll visit the Ledbury Poetry Festival and the Rich Mix in London.

I'll be curating a Camarade for the Essex Book Festival on March Sunday 20th and I'll be curating further innovative Camarade events, including the University Camarade, on April 23rd, where students from five different creative writing departments (including my own at Kingston) create new collaborations across institutions.

Alongside both Croatian & British collaborators I'll be attending Vicenza's ArtBox reading series in May, curated by Marco Fazzini.

I'll be attending the Milosz Festival in Krakow in June, writing new collaborations with Polish poets / artists, thanks to UNESCO Krakow City of Literature, The British Council & co.

The Kakania project will return with readings in Berlin and London, from February to September 2016, all featuring new commissions of poets and artists responding to figures from Habsburg Vienna.

I'm happy to be part of the ambitious CROWD project, which crosses Europe next summer, travelling from Finland to Cyprus, over many months, with lots of interchanging poets on a bus. I'm doing Graz to Belgrade in June 2016.

Lots more publications, events and projects to be announced next year.

A note on: A Language Art - teaching at Tate Modern

An amazing experience, to continue my work with Tate Modern after a Talking Performance, to teach a six week course, each lesson in a different gallery, surrounded by the works being referred to. I had the privilege to share ideas, concepts, history and methodologies that cross both avant-garde writing and modern art, from Concrete poetry to Asemic writing, from Sound poetry to Collectives, from the Painted word to Poster art, to show how interlinked they are, how fundamental to both arts (even if one has embraced the theoretical, emotional, social and political developments of the latter 20th and early 21st century, and the other hasn't). The course was global and allowed me to explore further than ever before the profound reasons behind most of the innovation so definitional to the work I am most excited by. We even had a session in the Tate stores and I was able to bring out original artworks / poems by Henri Michaux, Christian Dotremont, Karel Appel, Cy Twombly, RB Kitaj, Jenny Holzer, Tom Phillips, Ian Hamilton Finlay and others who have influenced me so much. The course was attended by particularly generous and sophisticated artists, poets, book makers and people in advanced study, so it was a engaged, full of new works and ideas and really generously supported by an brilliant curatorial staff at Tate Modern, led by Joseph Kendra. Really a pleasure to do, I gained much from the weeks and a privilege to share those hours in Tate Modern with fellow artists. www.stevenjfowler.com/alanguageart

A note on: The European Camarade & collaborating with Endre Ruset

All but 2 pairs had never met each other before the night itself. From the 18 poets participating, travelling in from 12 nations across the continent, virtually none had established friendships. Yet, by the end of the night, a night that went on long after I went home, it was clear that a community had been made and relationships which would last years had begun. I can't emphasise enough how the collaborative creative act and the diffusion of energy away from the singular, representative, pre-written poetry, creates closeness and community and energy and openness. Quite amazing to witness on this night, almost the perfect evidence for what I spend quite a lot of my time talking about, theorising behind the Enemies project. The most gratifying thing was the poets themselves feeling they had had a generous and memorable experience, one where they were treated with hospitality and due respect. For me it was a great privilege to see so many friends,  Christodoulos Makris, Gabriele Labanauskaite, Christoph Szalay, Valgerður Þóroddsdóttir, Ville Hytonen and co, whom I had only known before in their countries, or during a festival. And to meet so many new poets. Every collaboration was distinct and dynamic in it's own way and many remarked it was the best Camarade they'd been to. All the videos are here: http://www.theenemiesproject.com/europeancamarade

And working with Endre Ruset, a friend for many years now, was wonderful. We had written a poem with ascending lines corresponding to the Fibonacci sequence, and then planted lines with other poets in the audience, so as our collaboration grew in number, so the number of voices would multiply too, and become intermittently choral. 

It capped a great run for me with events and performances, each one has been a special experience and motivating to keep on, keep curating and creating together. And keep travelling, extending reach and asking poets from all over the world to visit us in London.

Published: Poetry Wales - a collaboration with Joe Dunthorne

A beautiful new issue of Poetry Wales edited by Nia Davies, and the first time I've been in the magazine. Delighted for that debut to be with Joe Dunthorne, with our collaboration, Iceland, about the nation and the supermarket.

The work was written for Gelynion, which Nia and I curated and has a special feature in Poetry Wales, including great work by Zoe Skoulding, Ghazal Mosadeq and others the tour commissioned. Check it out and buy this issue!

http://poetrywales.co.uk/currentissue/

Published: a Tapin2 Playlist. Why I record events/performances & 13 highlights from the last year

Tapin2 is a brilliant journal, a hub for the European sound poetry scene I've been so pleased to be a part of over the last few years and edited scrupulously by Julien D'Abrigeon. Julien kindly asked me to put together a playlist from my youtube channel, covering the last year with a series of highlighted performances and why I keep such a resource the way I do. http://www.tapin2.org/playlist-5-sj-fowler

There are three ways to consider the lack of documentation that’s apparent for much of Britain’s post-war avant garde poetry and performance art scene. The first, it is a deliberate gesture, that the works were meant to be ephemeral, only existing once. Second, that technology was prohibitive, ie camera’s weren’t easily available. Third, that people didn’t consider it. The first I respect but obviously don’t personally subscribe to. The second no longer exists. The third is a crime. So it was for me, discovering so many reports, whispers of works from the modern avant-garde, when I started to organise projects and events, knowing if I were able to watch them, to study them, that my own work would grow and become infused with those who came before. So I decided to setup a youtube channel and record every reading and performance I commissioned / witnessed / participated in. Four years later the channel hosts nearly 1400 artworks and performances. I hope people use it as a resource and it’s true value is in the future, as well as the now. It’s worth noting that much of what I commission with the Enemies project is about collaboration, and that this playlist is a highlight of videos captured in the last year, from November 2014 to November 2015, and that there’s much much more in the archive.fowlerpoetry sur Youtube

The videos include performances from my events and my own work, from all over Europe.

A note on: Maja Jantar, a bear suit, shamanism & a church for Soundings III - November 18th 2015

I'm not sure how much can be said after the fact of this collaboration without yet having the video that shows Maja's operatic voice, as beautiful a sound as the human voice can create, entering the vast and mostly empty innards of St.John on Bethnal Green, a large, morbid, enchanting Victorian church in the heart of East London, without her being their in person, as I mimed a bible reading from Mircea Eliade's book 'Shamanism'. Or how to describe the look on the dozen in attendance on a cold wednesday night when she entered the church body wearing a huge bear suit that sat upon her shoulders like a crown, as a priestess, singing, as I spoke silently. And her crowning me with that suit and connecting us via red thread. Or our conversation after that, in pure bestial bear noise and free language glossolalia. And the priest was the first to congratulate us on the performance.

It was one of the highlights of my year to collaborate with Maja, an artist so distinct and powerful as to be both utterly entrancing and intimidating at the same time. It was lovely too to be able to host her in London, after our first meeting in Paris, in a circus, in 2014, and to spend time with her, walking London, in discussion about our collaboration. I'm grateful to those who attended and to the Hubbub curators who have put a lot into the Soundings project so far www.stevenjfowler.com/soundings

A note on: Globe Road Festival Walking Tour - November 15th 2015

A really open, generous, honest and fascinating morning, walking the length of Globe road in East London, from Mile End Road to Bethnal Green. I was so pleased to be leading the walking tour for the Globe Road Festival with Gareth Evans, Elaine Mitchener, Adam Bohman as the commissioned artists, each presenting extraordinary and varied works, from Adam's hand written scores of found language, to Gareth's lyrical poem, to Elaine's heartfelt conceptual poem, read just a stone's throw from her childhood home. The many people in tow, kindly sharing their morning with us, followed on into York Hall, for a small reading kindly arranged by Jonathan Mann, where Richard Scott and Stephen Watts also read. You can find out all the details and watch all the performances here http://www.theenemiesproject.com/globeroad 

"A unique live walking tour performance experience, as part of the Globe Road Festival, the Enemies project presents a stroll down Globe Road itself, in the company of poets, sound artists and vanguardists. Stopping four times, at designated places on Globe Road, the artists will present a talk or performance completely original to the walk, in response to Globe Road. With their own lives entwined to the history and culture of this stretch of East London, this will be an original outdoor insight into the most interesting and often underground avant garde artists of contemporary London."

A note on: The EVP Sessions & The Black Dinner performance - November 14th 2015

The original EVP tour was a major turning point in my work with performance, being able to tour the UK with really wonderful artists like Hannah Silva and Ross Sutherland, and with the support of Nathan Jones and Tom Chivers (www.stevenjfowler.com/evp) When the opportunity to do a one off commission for the same project, at Shoreditch Town Hall, I had a clear thought to what I might do, melding both my original work for the project with a tradition I've had for three years now, being painted as a skeleton on or around the Mexican Day of the Dead. I first did so in Mexico City and try to do so every year in homage to my friends in Mexico, and because much of my work is about the symbology of death.

For this performance I was really lucky to have the amazingly generous artist and make up artist Amalie Russell paint my face professionally. I had then spent a few days covering a whole banquet of food in black paint and lacquer, and my performance, a fluxus meal of sorts, was to set the table and invite diners to join me. I waited outside the fire exit of the venue on a typically vapid Shoreditch saturday night and felt it appropriate to wait in the rain. The performance was accompanied by a track made in collaboration with the remarkable musician Alexander Kell, who did an incredible job mixing my reading of Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo, one of the authors I had discovered in Mexico.

"Electronic Voice Phenomena returns with a series of electrifying live sessions featuring the very best in hauntology, spoken word, glitch noise and performance. The EVP Sessions takes its inspiration from Konstantin Raudive’s notorious Breakthrough experiments of the 1970s, in which he divined voices-from-beyond in electronic noise. Enter the labyrinthine basement of Shoreditch Town Hall and experience a “mind-boggling”, “perplexingly good” avant-garde cabaret of human, ghostly and machine voices. http://www.electronicvoicephenomena.net/index.php/shoreditch-town-hall-london/"

A note on: The Frontline Club, a World without Words IV - November 13th 2015

A really resonant and powerful evening at the Frontline Club. The highlight of what has been a wonderful journey so far, curating www.aworldwithoutwords.com with Lotje Sodderland and Thomas Duggan. During this night It became clear to me what this project was really about, there was a sense of clarity and the brilliant Professor Barry Smith and I both came across it in our discussions before the event. It is about will. A will to life, an affirmation of the continency of language, on life, and how Lotje represents to me, in the most deferent, humble, inciteful and beautiful manner, a pure engagement with being alive. And so through her presence, the lynchpin of the project, so my work, the films of Vincent Moon and insightful thoughts Barry himself shared, to a sold out room of over 100 people, became about that - a celebration or affirmation of life and language. An amazing chance for me to be associated with an institution I have been going for many many years too. Such a privilege, a very special and dear evening to me.

 

From Sufi rituals in Chechnya, to ancient folk songs in Columbian’s pacific rainforest, we experienced how the brain ascribes meaning to music and sound - even when words are obsolete through a selection of Vincent Moon’s short observational documentaries — shot around the world and capturing local folklore and diverse musical rituals. They were screened in alternation with an informal discussion by the director of London’s Institute of Philosophy Dr Barry Smith, who explored the neural correlates of meaning, music, and language in the context of each film, to offer the audience an explanation of the role of language in subjective mental life.

A note on: OVADA, Brook & Black & a visit to Oxford on November 6th 2015

I was very generously invited to participate in a Symposium on collaboration in Oxford thanks to artists Brook & Black, whose exhibition Arkitektoniske Kramper made collaboration with Christina Bredahl Duelund and Natascha Thiara Rydvald was opening at OVADA. 

Really a beautiful day discovering people's work and listening to insights on the collaborative process. Lovely too to share the stage with longtime collaborator / friend, Tamarin Norwood, and to feel the unity of the scene in Oxford. That, and the hospitality and enthusiasm, was palpable. 

The large scale sculptural exhibition, which closed last week, was quite stunning and what an extraordinary space OVADA is. Do visit / support both the artists and the gallery if in Oxford. More info here. http://www.ovada.org.uk/arkitektoniske-kramper/

A note on: Nemici, one of the finest Enemies, & the irrepressible Alessandro Burbank

I first met Alessandro Burbank in Venice, and did so under the auspice of his old world hospitality. To the restaurants without tourists, like me, to readings where Venetians made up the audiences. A man so Venetian precisely because others, because of his surname, that of an American father, marked him out as not quite Venetian. But if ever I’ve met a man who allowed me to rediscover, to understand for the first time, a city, it is Alessandro. And meeting him, through the Incroci di Voci project, curated by James Wilkes and Alessandro Mistrorigo, through chance operation and not a decided search is the way in which I met almost all the Italians involved in the Nemici project. All 12 of them, through readings, events, friends of friends. The plethora, the size of Italian poets, artists and writers doing interesting things across Europe, made itself known to me, and demanded an event to celebrate such intensity and variance. So the event itself proved, huge somehow, intensive, generous, hospitable, energetic. Over 100 people packed into the upper floors of the Rich Mix to witness 12 new collaborations from Italians and British based poets and artists, covering everything from performance, to video, to lyrical poetry and translation, to theatre. It was an event which almost precisely evidenced the reasons for Enemies, for its format – that collaboration pulls down singularity and subjectivity, makes people kinder, makes a community, that by celebrating a nation across nations in this way, nationalism dissipates and individuals true idiosyncracies and creativity comes to the fore, in structure as well as content. That people want to enjoy readings as events, as artworks, that they need to be curated as an exhibition would be, and that those involved should be asked on their attitude to the world as well as their work. The generous create waves of generosity through their work, and people leave feeling something special, but powerfully transient, has occurred. And that’s what happened on November 7th 2015, at the top of Brick Lane, where Alessandro and I took hold of the camera, translated each other through jargon and noise and I got to yell at him ‘you are a roman god’ with half-irony. You can check out all the videos http://www.theenemiesproject.com/nemici

Upcoming: Four events - aWwW / EVP / Globe Road / Soundings

Nov 13th: A World Without Words IV
Nov 14th: Electronic Voice Phenomena
Nov 15th: Globe Road Festival Walking Tour
Nov 18th: Soundings III

November Friday 13th - A World without Words IV at the Frontline Club: 7pm
The fourth event in the series exploring neuroscience, aphasia, the brain and language, this time at the incredible Frontline Club. With a talk by Professor Barry Smith and the screening of a series of anthropological short films from Vincent Moon. Curated by Lotje Sodderland, Thomas Duggan and I. http://www.frontlineclub.com/screening-and-discussion-a-world-without-words/

November Saturday 14th - EVP Sessions at Shoreditch Town Hall: 8pm
Electronic Voice Phenomena hits London once again, I'll be presenting a new commission in full skeleton embodiment, exploring disembodied voice and death http://shoreditchtownhall.com/theatre-performance/whats-on/event/theEVPsessions

November Sunday 15th - Globe Road walking tour for the Globe Road Festival: 11am
A Sunday morning stroll up Globe Road in the company of Gareth Evans, Elaine Mitchener and the Bohman brothers, all of whom will present brand new performance commissions related to the road itself, finishing with a reading in York Hall with Stephen Watts, Richard Scott and Jonathan Mann www.theenemiesproject.com/globeroad

November Wednesday 18th - Soundings III with Maja Jantar at St Johns on Bethnal Green: 7pm A collaboration with the incomparable Maja Jantar for a new sound poetry / avant-garde music performance as part of the Soundings project with Hubbub at Wellcome Collection responding to prompts from the Wellcome Library. St Johns on Bethnal Green, an early 19th-century church, is an amazing venue too. www.stevenjfowler.com/soundings

A note on: Launching Fights 2nd edition for Pugilistica at Apiary Studios

There are occasional nights when the feeling one might be seeking in writing and reading and organising comes together into one satisfying whole. This is one of the most distinct experiences of satisfaction I've had in sometime, in no small part because I was surrounded by many of my most generous friends but also because some of the most extraordinary boxing writers contributed and seemed genuinely enthused by the mixing of modes and forms towards the same goal - that is the celebration of the sport of boxing, in all its paradoxes and contradictions.

Veer books did a great job with the 2nd edition of Fights, it's a far better book, slimmer and more powerful. Every speaker (you can see all their readings by following the link below) presented fantastic work, from fiction to journalism, poetry to art history. Everyone enjoyed the others contributions, in the contrast, in the varied specialisms, so the strength of each art came to the fore. I'm sure this won't be the last event celebrating boxing that we'll do. All the videos are here www.theenemiesproject.com/pugilistica

And the new book is available here http://www.veerbooks.com/filter/veer-books/SJ-Fowler-fights-2nd-edition and my new webpage dedicated to it: www.stevenjfowlers.com/fights

FIGHTS: a book of boxing poetry

Fights, published by Veer Books, is a book of modernist and experimental poems, broken into cycles, each celebrating / reflecting on the life of a 20th century boxer, from Jack Dempsey to Antonio Margarito, from Yuriorkis Gamboa to Edwin Valero. 

Originally published in 2011, a new 2nd edition, extensively revised and featuring an introductory essay, remarking on the changing nature of the sport of boxing, in light of studios into brain injury in the sport and on the changing fate of the boxers featured within, was published nearly five years from original publication, in October 2015.

Each cycle within Fights uses a methodology that somehow represents the character of the boxer in question. The book employs a significant use of concrete poetry, collage, sound poetry, typographical experimentation and found text.

Fights was launched at Birkbeck college, University of London, in 2011, alongside new readings and talks from Kasia Boddy, Lynda Nead, Patrick Coyle and Tim Atkins. In it's second edition, Fights was launched at Apiary Studios in November 2015 alongside new readings and talks from Don McRae, Sarah Victoria Turner, Oliver Goldstein, Anna Whitwham and others.

  • New functions for the jaw. Poetic histories from all possible angles, and then some. Its about time boxing - the basis of all sport - was understood from the viewpoint of the poetic mind. Slam it into your mouth and read it out LOUD. Sean Bonney
     
  • ‘... a new beginning and one that is so much the swiftest, the widest, balanced. One hesitates to use the word pure, but’ A dazzling, visceral, proficient, kinetic work. Fights runs its combinations in formal excitement and trenchgut force.                                                                                           Maggie O’Sullivan

Upcoming: November 2015 - Events, Performances & Projects

My 'A Language Art' course runs on Monday nights throughout November with sesssions exploring the intersections of avant-garde poetry and modern art in the galleries of Tate Modern and in the Tate stores.

November Wednesday 4th - Pugilistica at Apiary Studios
A chance for me to launch my book Fights, in it's 2nd edition from Veer Books, alongside some amazing journalists, novelists, poets and art historians, all exploring the literature of boxing. www.theenemiesproject.com/pugilistica

November Thursday 5th - Mondo: global avant-garde poetry at Poetry School
A new course at the Poetry School, this time exploring avant-garde movements from Japan, Nigeria, Canada, Brazil and Syria / Iraq. Still a place or two left! Book here

November Friday 6th - Symposium: Pulling Together/Pulling Apart: Forces in Creative Collaboration, OVADA, Oxford
Thanks to artists Brook and Black, I'll have the chance to discuss collaboration at OVADA, alongside Tamarin Norwood and others http://www.ovada.org.uk/arkitektoniske-kramper/

November Saturday 7th - Nemici: an Italian Enemies project at the Rich Mix
A really ambitious Enemies project I'm curating with ten Italian artists and poets visiting London, each writing new collaborations with British poets. I'll be presenting a new work with Alessandro Burbank. Should be special www.theenemiesproject.com/nemici

November Friday 13th - A World without Words IV at the Frontline Club
The fourth event in the series curated by Lotje Sodderland, Thomas Duggan and myself, exploring neuroscience, aphasia, the brain and art, this time at the incredible Frontline Club. With a talk by Barry Smith and anthropological short films from Vincent Moon. http://www.frontlineclub.com/screening-and-discussion-a-world-without-words/

November Saturday 14th - EVP Sessions at Shoreditch Town Hall
Electronic Voice Phenomena hits London once again, I'll be presenting a new commission in full skeleton embodiment, exploring disembodied voice http://shoreditchtownhall.com/theatre-performance/whats-on/event/theEVPsessions

November Sunday 15th - Globe Road walking tour for the Globe Road Festival
Happy to be leading a Sunday morning stroll up Globe Road in the company of Gareth Evans, Elaine Mitchener and the Bohman brothers www.theenemiesproject.com/globeroad

November Wednesday 18th - Soundings III with Maja Jantar at St Johns on Bethnal Green
So excited to collaborate with the incredible Maja Jantar for a new performance as part of the Soundings project with Hubbub at Wellcome Collection responding to prompts from the Wellcome Library. St Johns on Bethnal Green is an amazing venue too. www.stevenjfowler.com/soundings

November Friday 20th - The European Camarade at Freeword Centre
A mini festival of European poetry in collaboration, so pleased to have the chance to curate this night and present a new collaboration with Endre Ruset. Some of these poets are doing the most exciting work in their nations, not to be missed www.theenemiesproject.com/europeancamarade

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Upcoming: Nemici - Italian Enemies on November 7th at the Rich Mix

Really excited for Nemici, an Italian Enemies project, taking place November saturday 7th at the Rich Mix Arts Centre. It's one the most ambitious international Enemies projects we've done, with 24 poets in 12 pairs. I'll be collaborating with the amazing Alessandro Burbank, the Burby of Venetian fame, and all the collaborations will be intense and dynamic, so many crossing mediums as well as language, covering performance art and video especially. Poets and artists have travelled from all over Europe for this, should be magic. www.theenemiesproject.com/nemici

Published: a blog for the Rich Mix on my play Dagestan

http://richmixlondon.tumblr.com/post/131017660468 Poet and martial artist Steven J Fowler writes about his first piece written for theatre:Dagestan. See it performed here on Friday 16th and Saturday 17th of October. 

“Dagestan is a real place, or so I might read, or be told. At the moment, in Britain, it might as well not be, for our relationship to that place is non-existent. So it has been for many nations, until we have a reason to know they exist. What if we found something in Dagestan we needed, or wanted? What if something happened there that led us to announce our presence, and so define our relationship to this new and exotic place, this idea of the place? How do we do our announcing in a world after Iraq and Afghanistan, after the 21st century has begun, and where private military companies, with their own internal cultures, their own ‘special’ checks and balances, might be the first boots to hit the ground?

This is the context of my first play, a hypothetical question. But just as all professions seem to have their own internal language and logic, so Dagestan is also really about a closed, internal world of physical training, through the martial arts, and playful, innovative language. It is a play in the tradition of Beckett, or Pinter, and as Beckett said, “a play is not a simulation of life outside, any more than football is, or the circus, or a game of chess, but an activity in itself.” So it is with Dagestan, not merely as a snapshot of the world, but a way to represent aggression and vulnerability, strength and weakness, expression and physicality through the material of the theatre, that is, with the audience acknowledged, and with the actors switching from exhausting performance to energetic dialogue.

“A play is not a simulation of life outside, any more than football is, or the circus, or a game of chess, but an activity in itself.” - Samuel Beckett

With my own background in martial arts, it’s been an amazing experience developing a work-in-progress version of the play, something both physical and literary, working with brilliant actors Robin Berry, Maya Wasowicz, Steve North and Gareth Tempest, director Russell Bender and producer Tom Chivers, to make something we hope is truly unique. A play where knives and chokes sit comfortably with paradox and poetry.

Dagestan has become a non-place in this play, an idea, with its own internal logic, its own presence, that isn’t really real, but perhaps closer to the truth of something for that, for it is not pretend. It is wonderful to have the chance to take risks in theatre, to build upon ideas not immediately obvious or easy to digest, and that are far richer for that fact.”

A note on: Global Cities at London Literature Festival & Londonist Article

A great pleasure to host and curate an event for the London Literature Festival in partnership with Southbank Centre and Literature Across Frontiers last night. The panel included Iain Sinclair, Livia Franchini, Jana Purtle Srdic and Karlis Verdins and we had a really busy crowd on a friday night. www.theenemiesproject.com/globalcities In reference to the event, Kyra Hanson wrote a small writeup for the Londonist https://londonist.com/2015/10/do-you-feel-like-an-outsider-in-london

"In cities like Paris, Berlin and Mexico City the nature of 'belonging' is well defined. In London you have the whole world crammed into a city. This is the view of writer SJ Fowler, who suggests that in London there are few outsiders, purely because everyone is an outsider.

Despite growing up in Devon and curating over 150 events in 18 countries Fowler feels most at home in London. His latest event Global Cities, created for the London Literature Festival, suggests that London is a city shaped by those who venture here. "Iain Sinclair, the absolute archetype of a Londoner is actually Welsh," says Fowler, "yet he's more rooted in defining contemporary, artistic and literary ideas about London than nearly anyone else."  

In Fowler's experience, the only way you can become an outsider is to make yourself one. "That feeling," he says, "can only relate to how that person defines the insider, so it's always about perception." But what of the crucial aspect of language? What if English is only your second, or third, or fourth language? Doesn't that make you an outsider in London? "It's a paradoxical advantage if you come to London and you speak English," says Fowler, "you're not really speaking 'Englishness', you're speaking the world language.

"You're learning the way to speak to someone from Serbia, Japan, China." Personally, Fowler can't resist the allure of Polish shops and likens walking down a London street to travelling. "Growing up in Devon might be the reason why when I'm walking down a street and see a Polish shop I go in and talk to the person." "It's like being surrounded by growth, different cultures, different backgrounds, different childhoods, different languages, different approaches to thinking." 

On 9 October Steven J Fowler comperes a discussion with writers Iain Sinclair, Jana Putrle Srdic, Livia Franchini and Karlis Verdins about London from from an outsiders/insiders perspective. Global City London Inside Out is part of London Literature Festival at The Southbank Centre.