Bold Tendencies

Join us as we mourn the death of Cassini, lament the loss of our eyes on Saturn and celebrate exploration both scientific and artistic.

After nearly twenty years in space and countless discoveries made, on the 15th September 2017 the Cassini Spacecraft will be sent the command to plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere — destroying it completely and resulting in a fiery end to the mission.

Funded by the Arts Council England and in partnership with writing agency Spread the Word, Ella Frears has been Poet in Residence at Royal Holloway University responding to the final months of the mission; working towards elegy and asking what the death of a machine one billion kilometres away might mean to us.

Curated by Ella and hosted by Stuart Silver, the evening will feature poetry written during the residency, a live performance of a newly commissioned Space-Funeral March by composer Rufus Isabel Elliot, and new works by Architect/Designer Emma-Kate Matthews and filmmaker Louis Rizzo-Naudi. This will be followed by the wake: DJ, drinks, dancing.

Ella Frears is a poet, visual artist and curator. She has had work published in Poetry London, The Rialto, The Moth and The Stockholm Review of Literature among others. She was a Jerwood/Arvon mentee, was shortlisted for Young Poet Laureate for London, and has completed residencies for Tate Britain, The National Trust and the Olympic Park. Ella’s debut pamphlet Passivity, Electricity, Acclivity is forthcoming with Goldsmiths Press Nov 2017.

Stuart Silver is a Bafta nominated, Perrier award winning writer/performer/director working solo across film, theatre and gallery venues, television, radio, public spaces and in creative educational and mentoring contexts. He created the acclaimed monologue with bluegrass ukulele ‘You Look Like Ants’ and is the co-founder of (nobleandsilver) – the multimedia performance group.

Rufus Isabel Elliot is a composer. Rufus’ works have been performed in venues such as the Tate Modern, LSO St Luke’s, London, and the Chisenhale Art Gallery, and have been used collaboratively by artist Benedict Drew as part of the fortnight-long ‘Slow Boat’ project, in which a canal barge was studded with contact mics and brought from Birmingham to London.

Emma-Kate Matthews is an architect, artist and musician. In 2012 she founded EKM Works; a creative practice which promotes cross-disciplinary design with a focus on the boundaries of innovative technologies. Emma-Kate has exhibited at the Royal Academy and the RIBA, she also teaches at the Bartlett UCL.

Louis Rizzo-Naudi is a filmmaker living in London. In 2016 he graduated from King’s College London and received the Film Studies dissertation prize for his essay on the sublime in footage of the International Space Station. He is currently working on two projects to be filmed in Malta and London.

Doors: 7pm / Performances begin 7.30pm

Dress code: Space-Funeral (whatever you feel is right)

If you are on a low income, would like to come along and are not able to afford the ticket
price, please email farewell.cassini@gmail.com with your name, email address and one of
the team will get back to you.