Colour & Poetry: A Symposium is a cross and interdisciplinary four-day event held by the Slade in celebration of International Colour Day, World Poetry Day and World Pigment Day. 

The symposium hosts a range of speakers representing the arts and humanities, science and industry, drawing upon knowledge from within and outside of the UCL community, it includes presentations, readings, performance and practical workshops.

Colour/Collage/Poetry Exhibition

Colour/Collage/Poetry, an online exhibition accompanying the symposium, curated by artist Rebecca Loweth.

The show's theme is inspired by the use of collage in Lisa Milroy’s designs for the symposium posters. Slade staff, students, alumni and guests were invited to produce a single postcard size collage that interprets the subject of celebrating colour and/or poetry.

View Colour/Collage/Poetry

Colour and Poetry Posters

Lisa Milroy has designed a series of posters for the event, photographed by Thomas Jenkins and set by James Keith. The pdfs can be downloaded below:

Colour and Poetry 1
Colour and Poetry 2
Colour and Poetry 3
Colour and Poetry 4
Colour and Poetry 5
Colour and Poetry 6
Colour and Poetry 7
Combined (all 7 posters)

---

Programme of Events

Symposium Director: Jo Volley

(Please note the programme may be subject to change)

Download Programme pdf

You may book the full programme here via Eventbrite, or individual sessions by clicking on the Eventbrite links listed under each session.

Friday 19 March
Saturday 20 March
Sunday 21 March
Monday 22 March

Friday 19 March

Morning Session: Book via Eventbrite

10.00 Introduction  -  Jo Volley Slade Deputy Director (Projects) & Coordinator Material Research Project & Network

10.15 Keynote: Painting Hinemihi By Numbers  -  Dr Dean Sully , UCL Institute of Archaeology & Slade Scientist in Residence 2019-20

11.00 Poetry Reading - Professor Sharon Morris, artist & poet, Slade Deputy Director, Head of the Doctoral Programme

11.30 The Other Side of Blue: A Cyanometer for an Ecological Age - Dr Henrietta Simson, artist

12.00 Synonyms for colour names within and across languages - Dr Dimitris Mylonas, Associate Professor in Computer Sciences, New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University & Chair of Study Group Language of Colour, AIC

12.30 Colour & Emotion: Measuring Wellbeing Creatively: Co-production of a Non- Verbal Wellbeing Measure . Dr Nir Segal, artist and mother.

13.00 - 14.00 LUNCH

Afternoon session: Book via Eventbrite

14.00 Seedbeds, outposts, avantgarde, vangarde, ivory tower: UCL’s Small Press Collections - Liz Lawes, Subject Liaison Librarian: Fine Art and Small Press, University College London

14.30 The Colour of Iron -  David Dobson, is a geologist, mountaineer and print-maker, Professor UCL Earth Sciences, Slade Scientist in Residence 2018-19

15.00 Frida’s color - Calor de Frida  Alvaro Barrington, artist 

15.30 Curating Collage -  Rebeccca Loweth, Artist and curator of Colour / Collage / Poetry

16.00 Winton - whys and wherefores -  Mark Cann, Technical Excellence Manager, ColArt

16.30 Investigating Colour - Studies and research from Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, Milan - Professor Maria Cristina Galli, artist & Vice Director &  Ilaria Mariotti, Professor of Contemporary Art History.

---

Saturday 20 March

Morning Session: Book via Eventbrite

10.00 Metachromasia: a stain on life -  Rob Kesseler, artist & Emeritus Professor of Arts, Design and Science, Central Saint Martins

10.30 Albers in Practice -  Malina Busch, artist

11.00 The walking experience of colour - Prof Yannis Ziogas, artist  & Dean of School of Fine Arts, University of Western Macedonia

11.30 The beyond that is a beneath: renewed intertextualities in Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red - Sara Borga, artist and researcher

12.00 The  C olour of  W ords - Jane Bustin, artist Lives and works in London and is represented by Copperfield, London; Jane Lombard, New York; Fox Jensen, Sydney & Fox Jensen McCrory, Auckland. 

12.30 Red + Gold - Medieval + Modern - Prof Clare A. Lees, Professor of Medieval Literature, Director of Institute of English Studies, SAS

13.00 - 14.00 LUNCH

Afternoon session: Book via Eventbrite

14.00 Predicting Colour - Kate Hopkins, artist

14.30  Poetic Interlude – various speakers

15.00 Voice Scores for Hearing the Inside of a Rock (insects, minerals, various poems) - Sean Borodale

15.30 Taking Shape: Seeing Through Colour - Dr Sara Choudhrey, artist & Associate Lecturer, University of Kent

16.00 Conversations of Colour within the Collection of the National Gallery, London
Rose Davey, Artist & Art historian

16.30 The Silence of White - Elizabeth Mead, Artist & Professor of Art, College of William and Mary

---

Sunday 21 March

International Colour Day & World Poetry Day

Morning Session: Book via Eventbrite

10-10.15 Machines Have Lucid Dreams - Ivan Kashdan & Blithe Germ. A performance brought to you from the digital world of Machines Have Lucid Dreams, including original music, words, and actual footage of the sky.

10.15 -11am Marbling with James Keith, artist & Slade Print Technician

11am -11.15am Notes for a Poem - Fabian Peake

11.15am -12noon MORE POUR an exploration of pouring mediums and colour mixing with Gabriela Giroletti, artist & TFAC demonstrator.

12noon Poetry reading - Mataio Austin Dean, artist, poet and activist 

12.15 Poetry reading - Rhun Maredudd Jones

12.30 Incantations - Geraldine Snell. A live performance using looped vocal observations of her immediate environment with devotional and presence-aiding intent.

12.45  Poetry reading - Benjamin Arthur Brown, artist, poet and curator at Van Gogh House London

13.00 - 14.00 LUNCH

Afternoon session: Book via Eventbrite

2pm The Poetry of Colour - George Szirtes is a poet and translator.

2.30pm Primary Triad - Ian Rowlands artist & TFAC demonstrator.
This workshop explores the crucial attributes of colour; hue, value and saturation and argues the case for the restricted palette as a highly empowering experience. The primary triad is capable of creating harmony and diversity.

3.15 Reading - Ishwari Bhalerao & Leonie Rousham

3.30– 5pm Poetry Shed -The Poetry Shed at the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, is an on-line resource and forum for creative writing across the school. 

-------------

Life Drawing Class in Colour

(Places are limited and must be booked via this Eventbrite link. This is separate from the afternoon session )

5.30 - 7.30pm Life drawing with Andy Pankhurst, artist
While drawing from a clothed life model you will learn some basic principles of colour mixing by drawing directly with the colourful medium of coloured chalk pastels. Further details: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/events/colour-and-poetry-2021-life-class

---

Monday 22 March

World Pigment Day’s 1st Anniversary and Longplayer will be streaming live

Morning Session: Book via Eventbrite

10.00 Welcome to World Pigment Day’s 1st Anniversary - Jo Volley & Ruth Siddall

10.15 No Blue Until the Neolithic - Dr Ruth Siddall, UCL Geologist & Slade Scientist in Residence 2018-19

10.40 Poetry Reading - Andy Leak, Emeritus Professor, UCL French Dept

10.50 Charles Booth's London Poverty Maps - Julian Szego

11.00 Searching for Slade Green - Kim Selveggi, Slade Conservator in Residence, MSc Conservation for Archaeology and Museums at the Institute of Archaeology.

11.30 Collage workshop with Rebeccca Loweth, Artist and curator of Colour/Collage/Poetry

12.00 Chasing Winsor & Newton 19th-century colours for the preservation of our cultural heritage - Dr Vanessa Otero, Researcher at the Department of Conservation and Restoration of the NOVA School of Science and Technology, Lisbon (Portugal)

12.30 Acting out colour: Science, spiritualism, and orientalism in Beatrice Irwin's work - Dr Alexandra Loske, art historian, writer and curator

13.00 - 14.00 LUNCH

Afternoon session: Book via Eventbrite

14.00 The Volatile Hues of Silver Halide - Joy Gregory, artist

14.30 Nothing Rhymes with Orange - Dr Edward Winters, writer and artist 

15.00 51°43 33.56 N 3°07 58.63 W - Dr Onya McCausland is an artist and senior research fellow at the Slade School of Fine Art. 

15.30 Colour spaces and Ostwald- Stephanie Nebbia, artist & TFAC Global Manager, & Cris Cosgrave, chemist and Innovation & Development Manager,  Colart

16.00 Colours from light and shade’: how George Field smuggled Aristotle into modern Japan - Paul Smith is Professor of History of Art at the University of Warwick

16.30 End of event with Kieren Reed, Slade Director & Jo Volley

Please note all times are GMT
Please note the programme may be subject to change

---