Thursday, 7 November 2019 at 5:30 pm – Thursday, 7 November 2019 at 6:30 pm

Refugee Tales: Viewing the Belgian Refugee Crisis of WW1 through the Lens of Contemporary Experience

* * * PLEASE NOTE THE DATE OF THIS EVENT HAS CHANGED FROM 6TH NOV TO 7TH NOV * * *

Screening of ‘Breakable’, a film by Steve Dixon and Johnny Magee from the Manchester School of Art

Date: Thursday 7th November 2019

Time: 5.30pm – 6.30pm

Location: LB02, 70 Oxford St, Manchester M1 5NH

Tickets: Free – Available on Eventbrite

Through a poetic narrative, ‘Breakable’ evokes the harsh realities of the refugee experience, as well as the humanity of the refugees themselves (evoked by the creative acts of making) and their sense of hope for a safer future.

The film takes a poem which has evolved through writing workshops with the refugees and is at the heart of the narrative. The poem itself is given through the Lens of Contemporary Experience ‘physicality’ with each letter being made into a ceramic form. The letters are created, wrapped, unwrapped, formed
into words destroyed and reformed as an allegory of the journey undertaken and the memories recalled, lost and faded.

The music in the first section of the film is by Franz Schubert. He wrote his String Quintet two months before his death (age 31). The piece is from the romantic era and is considered to be sublime. Here
only the first violin is recorded using piano with the other four instruments left out.

The final section of the film is set to Gabriel Fauré’s In Paradisum – from his requiem. All parts are played on the piano but with no choral accompaniment. The piece in this context is intended as a memorial to memory.