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Wish You Were Here – Travis Elborough

Sunday 17 May, 11.30am-12.30pm

Horsebridge Centre, 11 Horsebridge Road, CT5 1AF

£5

“In many ways, our national character has been defined by our relationship with the seaside – and in tracing its development, we can see how our ideas about health, wealth and happiness evolved. Our aspirations and snobbery, our attitudes to sex, our keen sense of fair play, our chequered relationship with national pride and our ability to laugh at ourselves have all been played out against a backdrop of stormy skies, pebbly beaches and sticks of rock. Ranging from Jane Austen to Agatha Christie and the Prince Regent to Aleister Crowley via Billy Butlin and Brighton Rock and Morrissey, Travis Elborough presents a pop cultural tour of the English seaside.”

Link here:

http://www.whitlit.co.uk/?p=1067

‘A film programme selected and introduced by Travis Elborough, featuring Runners (2014) directed by Ivo Gormley and Matan Rochlitz; and What Have You Done Today Mervyn Day? (2005) and Monty The Lamb (2006) directed by Paul Kelly. The screening will be followed by a presentation about Gormley’s community exercise initiative, Good Gym, and a discussion with the filmmakers.’

This event is free to attend but booking is advised. To reserve a place, please click here:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/travis-elborough-offsite-picture-a-park-films-on-running-football-and-the-pre-olympic-east-end-tickets-16317938393

‘Beginning at the London Bridge Alcoves – a fragment of the London’s transport network repurposed as ornamental benches for Victoria Park – Travis Elborough leads a walking tour exploring the social histories of the park’s playing fields. Guest speakers include the poet Tim Wells, Elizabeth Wilson, author of Love Game: A History of Tennis (Serpent’s Tail, 2014); Clive Bettington, Chair of the Jewish East End Celebration Society; and Trenton Oldfield, activist and co-founder of This is Not a Gateway, a not-for-profit organisation that creates platforms for critical investigations into cities.’

The walk is free but to reserve a place click here:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/travis-elborough-offsite-a-tour-of-victoria-parks-leisure-clubs-tickets-16317803

‘HOW WE USED TO LIVE begins in 1950, one year before the Festival of Britain, with the emergence of the National Health Service, the Welfare System, a new language of the commons. It ends in 1980 with Margaret Thatcher’s bellicose model of Two Nation Toryism in the ascendant. A tender ode to postwar London, a bittersweet memory waltz, an affectionate trawl through little-known footage owned by the British Film Institute, this marriage of city symphony and archive film is also a protest movie that offers a vision of the metropolis far from that of the plutocratic present. “We had a very good Socialist model in this country,” says Kelly. “And it’s being dismantled for no good reason.”

HOW WE USED TO LIVE is narrated by Ian McShane (Deadwood), directed by Paul Kelly (Lawrence Of Belgravia, Take Three Girls), written by Bob Stanley (Saint Etienne) and Travis Elborough. The original score was composed by Pete Wiggs (Saint Etienne).

TRAVIS ELBOROUGH is the author of The Bus We Loved: London’s Affair With The Routemaster (2005), The Long Player Goodbye (2008), Wish You Were Here – England On Sea (2010), and London Bridge In America: The Tall Story of a Transatlantic Crossing (2013). He writes for many publications including The Guardian, The Observer and Kinfolk. He is currently the Chisenhale Gallery Victoria Park Residency artist.

Copies of the Colloquium’s limited-edition 2013 publication NOTHING’S TOO GOOD FOR THE COMMON PEOPLE: THE FILMS OF PAUL KELLY will be available for purchase after the screening. (“Everything about this publication is great – the look, the layout, the writing” – Stephen Pastel)

‘The symmetry feels important somehow, symbolic even. That there are two alcoves from the Old London Bridge in the far north eastern end of Victoria Park encourages me to indulge in the fantasy that they are actually keeping each other company. Here they sit, these former aged retainers from the City’s founding river crossing, now enjoying a lazy retirement in the closest thing London has to the countryside.’

Read on here:

http://chisenhale.org.uk/offsite/offsite_event.php?id=30

Link to my interview with The Idler here: http://idler.co.uk/article/the-idler-questionnaire-travis-elborough/