Material Matters presents Into the Wyld: a festival of contemporary art exploring the continuing legacy of the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and its unique connection to the Wirral.
Into The Wyld will feature a residency by the Material Matters Collective, and work from over 20 invited artists across the region. There is also an associated programme of performance art, poetry readings, children’s workshops, film screenings and a symposium.
Material Matters’ artists will respond to key themes in the Gawain poem across three exhibitions:
Gawain is a masterpiece text of the Middle Ages. The poem tells the story of King Arthur’s headstrong young nephew who after a dramatic bargain with a mysterious figure faces a long journey in which he must, quite literally, keep his head. Sir Gawain’s quest ‘into the wilderness of the Wirral’ is a fourteenth century narrative that will be given a radical 21st century interpretation by the artists.
Featured artists for Into the Wyld include: Angelo Madonna – Silvia Battista – John Elcock and Patric Rogers in collaboration with Amodali – Abbie Bradshaw – Nick Ball – Alice Colquhoun – Kris Darby – Will Dickie – Ryan Gauge – Anna Jane Houghton – Adrian Jeans – Oak Luca – Brendan Lyons – Izzie Major – Piotr Marchewka – Paul Mellor – Margaret O’Brien – Attila Olah – Nicky Perrin – Eleanor Rees – Sarah Jane Richards – Andrew Shaw – Craig Sinclair – Camille Smithwick – Pierce Starre – Angela Stringer – Serah Stringer – Catherine Swire and Niamh Tam.
Professor Sarah Peverley (Liverpool University) will open the programme on the 3rd August with a talk on the poem’s history and textual brilliance and the real and imaginary landscapes that Sir Gawain passes through. Each exhibition will offer a family workshop led respectively by artists Madeleine Smart and Alexandra Hales. Associate Professor Catherine Morris (Liverpool Hope University) will moderate artists’ conversations with the public at the end of each exhibition.
The symposium Spirits of Place will take place as part of the programme on 12th October – find out more and book via the link below.
Material Matters is an artists’ collective and co-operative engaged in artistic and curatorial practices that explore the inter-relationship between materiality, aesthetics and performativity under a collaborative praxis the artists call ’emotional minimalism’.
Into the Wyld is supported by Wirral Borough of Culture 2024 and Liverpool Hope University.
2nd August – 21st December