NIGHT WALKING NORTH KENT Art Festival | April 19th – 22nd 2018
“the city (and countryside) is at its most earthly and unearthly at night.” (M. Beaumont NightWalking 2017: 2)
This unique festival of nocturnal walking, offers 4 nightdays of curated walks, art, talks, workshops and exploration across North Kent. By bringing the Inspiral Metropolitan Trail experience back to Gravesham, we reimagine together the long-distance night walks of Dickens – from central London out to Gads Hill – creating ‘other journeys of wild, ludic and untrammeled adventure’ that begin to reclaim the night terrain on foot. This festival brings together a collection of informative and entertaining public walks, with artistic events and an exhibition display at Gravesend Library (30 March – 30 April). The display reveals the ongoing mapping of the InspiralLondon Metropolitan Trail while celebrating the themes of night walking.
Across the whole festival associate artists will be presenting unique responses to the metropolitan trail experience, in being a part of and observing the city by night. Beginning the journey at Kings Cross, we launch the unique Inspiral Trail map. Inspiral Director Anne Robinson will talk about her new work Darks and on being a flaneuse – ‘Only One’s a Wanderer.’ The evening culminates with unique ‘Night Walking with Dickens – The road home’ guided by Keith Turpin as we head from the spirals centre toward Kent.
Then on Friday evening (20 April), we arrive at Gravesham Art Centre for Sarah Sparkes’s GHost Hostings 19: Of Ghosts and Spirites Walking by Nyght with Scott Wood (London Fortean Society), Giles Abbott (story teller) and a sonic performance from Breathing Space Collective. Then join the HiLight night walk to Northfleet, illuminated by Mollett and Morris’s new magic lantern encounters with the Rosherville Pleasure Gardens. As the evening progresses you will be invited to reclaim the night together with – dotdotdash – Birgitta Hosea’s collaborative light action.
On the weekend 21/22 April, LV21 and Gravesham Arts host video installations by Richard Couzins, Sarah Sparkes, Anne Robinson and counterproductions, alongside discussions and talk including: a live introduction of Rachel Gomme’s street tree-twinning project and counterproductions open Rosherville HiLights making workshop. Or discover Caroline Gregory’s Talismans, a collection of lucky charms and artefacts that evoke protective deities, souvenirs of the sea that offer protection from the darkness. On the Saturday evening, LV21 provides a suitably Estuarine venue for a talk introducing our Long Hoo Night Walk, with nature writer and conservationist. Carol Donaldson, celebrating the North Kent Marshlands. Carol’s first book, On the Marshes was published by Little Toller in 2017 and follows a journey across the North Kent Marshes meeting people who have chosen to live in unconventional ways. While sound artist Grant Smith (soundcamp) will introduce us to ways of experiencing soundscapes remotely. This 26-mile walk through the night takes place in another zone, a nocturnal Slow Walk inspired by Deveron Arts’ annual Slow Marathon event held on the same day (22 April). This marathon night walk is a 21st Century version of Charles Dickens’s treks to Gad’s Hill. As we walk out into the night to explore the unique botanical diversity of the marshes, we prepare ourselves for discussing birds of the night and all things orniphilosophical with Inspiral’s unique ornithological expert J D Swann.
As Gravesham Artist and Inspiral Director Charlie Fox argues: “Walking, a practice of on the ground mapping, allows us to imagine together other cities, different times, and worlds, as we confront the reality of our ever-changing metropoles.” In opening up the Inspiral Metropolitan Trail to a wider public, this 300-mile artist designed trail explores and exposes the unique connections that crisscross the expanding hinterlands of the Metropole. Offering walks for all ages, interspersed with performances, events and artistic intervention. The Night Walking is an inclusive, fun way to explore our urban/semi-urban lives as we range across Gravesham, the Hoo and Northfleet, knocking on the night ground, turning up the unexpected, the uncommon and uncanny. Come and join us as amateur naturalist, expert historian, pleasure-seeker, archaeologist or simple nightwalker, to scour the night time, and prepare to be enlightened, amazed, challenged, as we explore together the rich and overlapping natural and cultural histories of North Kent.
More info @ https://inspirallondon.com/2018-inspiral-night-walking-festival/
Or email contact@inspirallondon.com
Director Charlie Fox mob. 07748655103
This Festival and Artistic Commissions are supported financially by ACE (Grants for the Arts), KCC, Metropolitan Trails and counterproductions. With generous support of Gravesend Library, LV21, GAC, The Grand, CGP London, soundcamp, GHost Hostings, Deveron Arts, CoolWalks, Walking Artist Network and Walking Women.
Skedule on Friday 20th April
Meet at Gravesend Arts Centre
6.45-9.315pm at GAC Sarah Sparkes N.Kent GHost Hostings with Scott Wood + speakers!
9.15-11.30 Light Walk – Night Walking North Fleet – part 1: Portland Pleasure Histories
Combining tales of Portland Cement Mines with the pleasures of Rosherville Gardens – leading a light walk from Gravesend Pier to Centre of Northfleet, stopping to reimagine the extraordinary pleasures of Rosherville Gardens before descending to Ebbsfleet Intl.
Performing artists include Nicole Mollett, Birgitta Hosea, Inspiral Menagerie
Note last train to return to St Pancras London is 23.35 taking 19 minutes to London. We plan to end part 1 walk to arrive at Ebbsfleet International for the train before at 23.05