Ian Hamilton Finlay: Little Fields, Long Horizons
This two-day symposium will explore new critical and interdisciplinary perspectives on the Scottish poet, artist and avant-gardener Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006).
As Finlay’s reputation worldwide continues to grow a decade after his death, we wish to ask searching questions about the boundaries of his practice, its philosophical, political and cultural dimensions, and its legacies and affinities across a range of media, disciplines and geographical boundaries. A number of attendees will also have the chance to visit Finlay’s poet’s garden at Little Sparta in the Pentland Hills for an event in its new workshop space.
Keynote speakers
- Susan Stewart, Avalon Foundation University Professor of the Humanities, Princeton University
- Stephen Bann, Emeritus Professor of History of Art, University of Bristol
- Drew Milne, Judith E Wilson Lecturer in Drama and Poetry, University of Cambridge
Topics for discussion include, but are not limited to:
- Finlay and late modernism(s)
- Little Sparta and ecology
- Finlay and poetics, including objectivist/concrete/visual/new-media poetics
- Finlay and visual/conceptual art
- Finlay in context: encompassing movements/milieus/cultures; associated figures
- Finlay and the political, including Finlay as revolutionary/counter-revolutionary, Finlay and the French Revolution, Finlay and the Third Reich
- “Flytings” and “Battles” as aspects of avant-garde practice
- Finlay as collaborator/Finlay’s collaborators
- Finlay and European romanticism
- Finlay and the (nuclear) sublime
- Neo-classical and pre-Socratic re-armaments
- Finlay and (inter)nationalism
- Finlay and Northern Renaissances
- Wild Hawthorn Press and small-press publishing as creative practice
- Finlay and landscape architecture/garden design
- Ongoing and contemporary creative responses to Finlay’s work
Check your accommodation options
Find out about places of interest in and around Edinburgh
Speakers
Programme
Thursday 13 July
50 George Square, University of Edinburgh, EH8 9LH
| Time | Title | Speaker |
|---|---|---|
| 9am-9.30am | Registration | |
| 9.45am-10am | Welcoming Remarks | |
| 10am-11.30am | Panel 1 - Avant Cottage Gardener: Finlay, Concrete Poetry and the 1960s | |
| Ian Hamilton Finlay and Augusto de Campos: Two Concrete Trajectories | Nancy Perloff | |
| ‘auf dem land’: Space, Place and Nation in Ian Hamilton Finlay and Ernst Jandl | Nicola Thomas | |
| A New Cohesive Element: Ian Hamilton Finlay, Dom Sylvester Houédard and Abstract Art | Natalie Ferris | |
| 11.30am-12noon | Coffee break | |
| 12noon-1.30pm | Panel 2a - From Line to Constellation: The Early Work, its Contexts and Legacies | |
|
From Stonypath to Little Sparta: Compass of the Non-Secular |
Calum Rodger | |
|
Mansie Considered |
Alistair Peebles | |
| Ian Hamilton Finlay, Edwin Morgan and Brazil: Virtual and Concrete Exchanges |
Viviane Carvalho da Annunciação |
|
| Panel 2b - From Concrete to Landscape: New Materials and Media for Poetry in the 1970s and Beyond | ||
|
Poetry in the Public Space: Ian Hamilton Finlay |
Fiona Becket | |
|
A Concrete Coalition of Language Environments |
Camilla Nelson | |
|
Word-Things in Space-Time |
Charlie Jarvis | |
| 1.30pm-2.30pm | Lunch | |
| 2.30pm-4pm | Panel 3 - Battles, Flytings, Revolution | |
|
Walled Gardens: Little Sparta and Spandau |
Greg Thomas | |
| Revisiting the Third Reich: Affects, Ethics, Poetics (extended slot) | Yves Abrioux | |
| 4pm-4.30pm | Coffee break | |
| 4.30pm-5.45pm | Keynote - Finlay’s Battles: A Cultural and Historical Context | Stephen Bann |
Friday 14 July
50 George Square, University of Edinburgh, EH8 9LH
| Time | Title | Speaker |
|---|---|---|
| 10am-11.15am | Keynote - Symbiotic Poetics: Ian Hamilton Finlay and the Politics of Nature | Drew Milne |
| 11.15am-11.30am | Break | |
| 11.30am-1pm | Panel 4 - The Political Pastoral | |
| Little Sparta: A Voyage Home From Modernism to Myth | Adrian Evans | |
| Gates and Stiles: Reading Finlay’s Boundary Poetics through the Long Eighteenth Century | M.C. Hyland | |
| Et in Arcadia Ego: Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Complex Pastoral | Stewart Smith | |
| 1pm-2pm | Lunch | |
| 2pm-3.30pm | Panel 5a - Long Horizons: Creative Responses to Finlay’s Work | |
| “Ecology is Nature-Philosophy secularized” Ecologies of Form in the Garden-works of Thomas A. Clark & Ian Hamilton Finlay. | Alice Tarbuck | |
| “Detached Sentences on Gardening”: Ian Hamilton Finlay and Alice Oswald | Jack Thacker | |
| IHF: Man of Letters | Nick-E Melville | |
| Panel 5b - Models of Order: Finlay, the Visual Arts and Craft | ||
|
Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Subtle Poiesis |
Diana Leca | |
|
WAVE |
Kendra Sullivan | |
|
The Stitching of Her Wake: The Collaboration of Pamela Campion and Ian Hamilton Finlay |
Lila Matsumoto | |
| 3.30pm-4pm | Coffee break | |
| 4pm-5.15pm | Panel 6 - Imaginary Portraits: Recollections and Reminiscences | |
|
Circumnavigation: Ian Hamilton Finlay at Little Sparta and Rousay |
Malcolm Fraser | |
|
Music, Time and the Suspension of Disbelief – Collaborating with IHF (with time to listen to John Purser’s Carrier Strike music) |
John Purser | |
| 5.15pm-5.30pm | Break | |
| 5.30pm-6.45pm | Keynote - Between Spoils and Gifts | Susan Stewart |
15th July
Day trip to Little Sparta
| Time | Title | Speaker |
|---|---|---|
| 9.30-10am | Registration at 50 George Square | |
| 10-11am | Travel to Little Sparta | |
| 11.15-12noon | Talks in seminar room | |
| Welcoming remarks | Andrew Patrizio, Little Sparta Trust and Alexia Holt, Sharing Little Sparta | |
|
Behind the Scenes: Curating a Concrete Poetry Exhibition at the Getty Research Institute |
Nancy Perloff | |
| 12-1pm | Time to explore the garden | |
| 1-1.30pm | Lunch served in seminar room | |
| 1.45-2.30pm | Readings and works in response to Little Sparta residences, seminar room | |
|
Peter Manson |
||
|
Sarah Rose |
||
| 2.30-4pm | Time to explore the garden | |
| 4-5pm | Travel to 50 George Square |
This event is supported by the British Academy.
Ian Hamilton Finlay: Little Fields, Long Horizons
The University of Edinburgh