Citybooks Sheffield: Diary of Events
Citybooks Sheffield is not just about the finished product, it is also about the creative process. The project will run over a period of 18 months and during this time the artists will work with each other, with students and with the people of Sheffield (and beyond). This progamme of activities has a number of scheduled events, but it will remain flexible and leave open the opportunity for additional activities.
On Friday 14 October our Sheffield’s ‘local’ citybook poets Agnes Lehoczky and Helen Mort read from their work during ‘Off the Shelf’, Sheffield’s annual festival of writing and reading. For the occasion they teamed up with a third Sheffield poet, Alan Payne. This evening with a Sheffield theme showed that local can never simply be equated with the familiar but often triggers a movement far beyond the immediately visible or the supposedly well known. For Lehoczky Sheffield blends with other places visited including her home country of Hungary and for Mort the local offers an opening to an unfamiliar dream world beyond. The evening was presented by Adam Piette (University of Sheffield, School of English).
Abdelkader Benali (Rotterdam/Amsterdam)
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Literature and TranslationAbdelkader Benali will visit Sheffield in November 2011. He will be involved in a Virtual Dutch translation project as well as in the literature and culture modules within Germanic Studies. |
Public ReadingBenali will read from and talk about his work in a Public Reading on Wednesday 23 November 2011 at 4pm in Jessop West, SR07 |
Agnes Lehoczky (Sheffield)Poet |
Prose Poetry
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TeachingAgnes Lehoczky will contribute to the Germanic Studies citybook Project Module:Narrative and Identity in autumn 2011. On 14 October Agnes will read from her citybook during the Sheffield Off the Shelf Festival |
Rebecca Lenaerts (Brussels)Writer, actress and visual artist 26 March - 6 April 2011 |
Language and Art
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PerformancesPresentation of student workshop: Monday 4th April 2011, 7.30 pm, Jessop West Exhibiiton Space. Rebecca also gave n audio-visual talk about her own work on Wednesday 6th April, 4.00 pm, Jessop West, Seminar Room 7. |
David Bocking (Sheffield)Photographer |
Photography
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Public ShowingIn addition to citybooks electronic photo gallery, David Bocking's city images are scheduled to be included in a citybooks exhibition in one of Sheffield's galleries in April 2012. |
Helen Mort (Sheffield)Poet |
Poetry
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Public PerformancesOn 14 October Helen will read from her citybook during the Sheffield Off the Shelf Festival |
Joost Zwagerman (Amsterdam)Novelist and publicist 15- 26 November 2010 |
Literature and Translation
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Public ReadingJoost Zwagerman talked about and read from his work on Thursday 25 November 2010, 4pm in Jessop West, Seminar Room 7 |
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Novelist, poet, playwright, publicist
Agnes Lehoczky is a new Sheffielder, having been born in Hungary. She has lived in the UK since 2002. For her citybook, Agnes has explored Sheffield's urban landscape as an outsider: detached yet fascinated at the same time. Past and present, the real and imagined fuse in her prose poems.
David Bocking is a Sheffield born and bred artist and for citybooks he wants to record the nature of the city by showing the character of Sheffield people at work and leisure. He is specifically interested in recording some of Sheffield's working class folk who, he believes, are often not celebrated. In addition he also wants to give an impression of Sheffield's remarkable landscape.
Helen Mort was born in Sheffield but at the moment she is 'out of town' as she is currently the youngest ever poet in residence at The Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere. For citybooks Sheffield she has revisited Sheffield in her dreams, 'a kind of midnight sleepwalk around the city centre, a sort of dream history'.
Joost Zwagerman was involved in the Germanic Studies Dutch programme. He offered seminars on Dutch literature and contemporary society for students of Dutch at all levels. An extract from one of his novella Duel formed the basis of the Virtual Dutch Translation Project.