Small Finds and Stories That Matter
Melanie Giles in conversation with John Wedgwood Clarke

• Saturday 10 June 2017, 6.00PM to 6.50pm
• Free admission
  Booking required
• The Lakehouse, Ron Cooke Hub, University of York (map|getting to campus)
• Wheelchair accessible

Event details

From the everyday and mundane sherds of pottery infilling a prehistoric ditch, to gleaming swords and chariot burials, to graffiti on walls and second hand furniture, objects offer their stories to those who are willing to listen. 

Join archaeologist Mel Giles and poet John Wedgwood Clarke as they share, in conversation, their experiences of working with words and things in a range of projects, from excavations and installations, to collaborations with other poets, writers and filmmakers.  Mel, of the University of Manchester, and John, a poet and  lecturer at the University of Hull, will discuss the relationship between people, places and things, as well as the landscapes of the Wolds and East Yorkshire, about which both have written extensively. Questions from the audience will be warmly encouraged.

About the speakers

Dr Mel Giles is a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Manchester. She has written extensively on prehistory, the Iron Age and the Yorkshire Wolds, including the celebrated volume A Forged Glamour: Landscape, Identity and Material Culture in the Iron Age. Mel is a regular contributor to BBC programmes such as A History of Ancient Britain and Meet the Ancestors.

Dr John Wedgwood Clarke is a poet and prose non-fiction writer who also regularly collaborates on interdisciplinary projects with artists, curators and scientists. Recent residences, commissions and projects have included a Leverhulme Trust Artist’s Residency at the Centre for Environmental and Marine Sciences, University of Hull; a ‘Celebrating Place’ commission from Chrysalis Arts; and an Arts Council writing award for a project titled ‘Dump’, about landfill sites, midden and mounds. In 2016 he was commissioned by Surrey Arts to write a new sequence of poems for the Greensand Way.

John has recently presented the BBC1 and BBC4 documentary Books That Made Britain. He will be presenting a new documentary for BBC4 about the poet Philip Larkin and photography for transmission in July 2017. His latest commission, a poem for the Humber estuary, will form part of the Offshore exhibition at the Ferens Art Gallery & Maritime Museum as part of the Hull 2017 City of Culture programme. John is a Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Hull.

Tickets