Ali Smith + Sarah Wood: Spring/Azure/Boat People

We are honoured to have with us the author Ali Smith and the artist filmmaker Sarah Wood.

Sarah will be presenting her two remarkable short films, Azure with text by Ali Smith and Boat People.

Both films are well placed in questioning our country’s current climate divided against itself.

Ali Smith will be reading excerpts from her forthcoming book Spring that is due to be released poignantly on the eve of the mess that is Brexit. This is part of the Seasonal Quartet that began with the bestseller and Man Booker shortlisted Autumn, followed by Winter. This is the next instalment for this once-in-a-generation masterpiece.

Azure

Azure is the colour of the sky on a clear summer’s day. Azure is a colour that suggests openness, ease, possibility. Azure is the name of the card given to the people who arrive in Britain seeking asylum. This short essay film accompanies Boat People in a questioning of the meaning of hospitality.

Director: Sarah Wood. Text/voice: Ali Smith. UK, 2016, video, 7 mins

Boat People

‘Homelessness is coming to be the destiny of the world’ suggested Martin Heidegger in 1946, in a discussion with Jean-Paul Sartre and in the immediate aftermath of the mass movement of people created by th