In partnership with Eros Press and Gaia Project, we are delighted to host the exclusive launch of Sally O’Reilly’s hotly endorsed debut novel, Crude.
Sally O’Reilly will be treating us to readings from her new novel and revealing her research methodologies. Power, the politics of narration, the potential of satire and the role of the fantastic in contemporary critical/creative writing will be core themes explored in her presentation. Sally will also be doing a book-signing, and Crude will be available to purchase from our Bookshop at a special launch price of £10.00.
Introduced and chaired by Gaia Project curator James Brady, ARTFUL… RESISTANCE! is set to be a rather lively complement to the unveiling of Crude. The platform will be handed over to art-environmentalists, Hayley Newman (artist and member of Liberate Tate) and Jai Redman (artist and Creative Director of Engine). From personal reflections on ‘being an artist in an activist’s world’ to creative dissidence against corporate oil sponsorship of the cultural sector, you can be sure to expect some polemical performance, a bit of healthy ranting and even a protest sing-song! To conclude, Brady, Newman, O’Reilly and Redman will convene for a playful discussion and Q&A on the complexities and ethics of artful resistance and disobedience, and on the collective struggle against the insidious neoliberal machine.
Praise for Crude
“In Crude, Sally O’Reilly sets up a relationship between academia and the oil industry. What emerges in this ingenious novel is an ever-expanding exploration of how art historical and literary theory can become embedded within our everyday realities. O’Reilly utilises the double-meanings of its title in order to explore the slippery and sticky underflow of rhetoric, social networks and in-fighting within the art world. The result is a work that oscillates between fiction and reality. Crude is a revelation.” Hans-Ulrich Obrist
“…an extraordinary novel.” Lisa Le Feuvre
“Very funny and quotable.” Mark Wallinger
Artist Biographies
Sally O’Reilly writes for performance, page and video, interleaving academic research and technical knowledges with the comic, the fantastical and the psycho-social. Besides contributing to several art magazines and numerous exhibition catalogues, she has written the novel Crude (Eros Press, 2016), the libretto for the opera The Virtues of Things (Royal Opera, Aldeburgh Music, Opera North, 2015), a monograph on Mark Wallinger (Tate Publishing, 2015) and The Body in Contemporary Art (Thames & Hudson, 2009). She was writer in residence at Modern Art Oxford (2016) and is Editor at Large for Cabinet magazine.
Jai Redman is a visual artist whose practice extends across sculpture, painting, digital illustration and socially engaged public art. His work deals with his personal experiences as an environmental direct activist and social justice campaigner in the UK over the last 25 years. As such it forms a unique, honest, emotional and often satirical commentary on our dislocation from politics and planet. He was Founder and Creative Director of the activist art/design collective, Ultimate Holding Company (2003–13), and he is currently Creative Director of arts production company, Engine.
Hayley Newman is a performance artist interested in humour, fiction and documentary practices. She is committed to working collectively around the current economic and ecological crisis and is a member of the band The Gluts (pictured above) whose eco-electro musical Café Carbon was taken to the Copenhagen Climate Summit 2009. She is a tutor on the doctorial studies programme at the Slade School of Fine Art, London. In 2011 she declared herself self-appointed artist-in-residence in the City of London and wrote the pre-Occupy novella, Common (Copy Press, 2013). Newman is a member of the activist art collective, Liberate Tate.
James Brady is an independent curator, artist, publisher and bibliophile. His artworks are often ephemeral and explore corporeal relationships to matter and environments through the application of performance, video, text, field recordings and earthy organic substances. What drives his curatorial activity is a desire to facilitate interdisciplinary dialogues and to take collaborative risks. His curated projects include partners such as Liverpool Biennial, Green Party, FACT (Liverpool), Cape Farewell, and the Society for Ecological Restoration. In 2014, Brady founded Gaia Project, an independent art/ecology publishing initiative. He is Editor of Elemental: an arts and ecology reader (Gaia Project, 2016).