Habitat

CURRENT AND UPCOMING SIGHTINGS:

January 23 (Thursday)
The Shipping News Room, Queenborough, Isle of Sheppey, Kent

Free - no booking needed - everyone welcome!

Thursday February 23 at 1.00pm sharp
at Castle Connections Community and Art Centre
(alongside the castle mound, near the train station)
Railway Terrace/Well Road, Queenborough, Isle of Sheppey, Kent ME11 5AY

Following Germander Speedwell’s residency in The Shipping News Room sited on Queenborough Town Quay, she will present her word piece inspired by the shipping and boating movements seen in the harbour and creek.

At 1.00pm Germander will introduce and read her piece, following which everyone is invited to come on a sociable stroll down to the Creek and Harbour, where Germander will point out some of the fascinating activity and surprising links she has found in Queenborough or visible from the Harbour.

The café will be open for refreshments to have before or take in to the event.

About the project: From January 21 to Feb 3, Germander used ROOM, a converted shipping container, as the base for a ship-spotting and boat-noting project, surveying container ships, rowing gigs, fishing boats, dredgers and tankers. All sorts of floating vessels seen in or from Queenborough Harbour and Creek were recorded on the chart, which was updated daily with subsequent movements noted, using also marine tracking systems to follow the local, national and international journeys of commercial vessels.

Local people and visitors got involved in reporting vessel sightings, helped with information and research, and we showed them how they too could track vessel movements over the internet.

This project is part of an artist's bursary scheme organised by Art at the Centre, Swale Borough Council.

March - June 2012
Writer-in-Residence at Surrey Docks Farm:
Germander has won a place on the Vodafone World of Difference scheme to continue her work at Surrey Docks Farm. She will be organising events to get people involved in exploring all aspects of the farm and its site, and describing their findings and observations creatively and playfully to collaboraratively create new written work about Surrey Docks Farm. Full details will be on the Surrey Docks Farm page - see the menu.

PAST SIGHTINGS:

Performance venues
e.g. The Klinker, the Bonnington and the Vortex, London Canal Museum, St Ives Arts Club and Festival events, as well as various Thames-moored waterborne venues.

Resonance FM 104.4fm - several guest appearances on London's art radio station, including:

  Jubilate Agno - reading on Resonance FM 104.4fm
  A recording of this epic poem by Christopher Smart, read by Frank Key of Hooting Yard with Germander
  Speedwell. Originally broadcast on Resonance FM on December 27, 2007 (the first ever complete reading
  of this work?), it is still available to listen to as a podcast. Christopher Smart was an 18th C religious poet,
  who wrote this bizarre, all-encompassing and sometimes unintentionally hilarious epic while in a period of
  madness.
  Read Frank Key's article and listen to links at the Public Domain Review.
  Go to http://podcasts.resonancefm.com/archives/877 to hear it in podcast form.
  Or go to the Internet Archive, for a review and downloads: www.archive.org/details/JubilateAgno
  Read about it here: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/12/for_i_will_consider_jubliate_a.html
  Link to the actual text: http://www.hootingyard.org/?p=290

SW1 Radio - Passport show
Regular guest appearances on SW1 Radio's 'habitat for the unexpected' - the Passport world music show, hosted by Phil Hogg.

The Sea Sheppey Maritime Festival
Annual weekend heritage festival on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent - participated in 2005, 2006, 2007 - see Diagrams 1 page for photos and details.

Atlantic Basin Project
Germander is one of the artists featured on the Atlantic Basin Project, based in Newfoundland and launched in December 2007. See www.atlanticbasinproject.com .
 
Soundings from the Estuary
See Thames Estuary Project in the menu, where there is also a link to a feature on Guardian online.

Wayward Walks
Germander regularly leads guided walks featuring curiosities of language and image in the city - see Wayward Walks in the menu.

Dockyard Dictionary walks at the Museum in Docklands
Germander led wordy wanders for the Museum of Docklands for World Poetry Day in March 2010, linking curiosities found around West India Dock with her spoken word pieces on strange ship names, curious cargoes, strange occupations and odd dockyard language.