Reading as a Contemporary Art at the ICA was a sell-out in the Friday Salon slot on the 5th of July. An enthusiastic audience participated in group reading (aloud and silent) with St Augustine and Forbes Morlock, did a dictation by Sarah Wood (who also organised the day), looked at the visual traces left by Kate Briggs’s reading of Henry James, heard a series of striking reading-performances by Sharon Kivland, watched a book-shimmy by artist-philosopher Hester Reeve, heard a talk that was also a reading of part of his new ‘Field Guide to Proust’ by poet Peter Jaeger, listened to scholarly and highly inventive papers from Brian Dillon and Nicholas Royle, and heard about how Stephen Benson and Clare Connors teach MA students creative critical reading at UEA. It was diverse and engaging, and drew in literature people, fine artists, readers of theory, art writers, non-academics, undergraduates, PhD candidates and others. There was engaged discussion during the day and afterwards in the ICA bar.
Dr Sarah Wood coordinates successful ICA ‘Friday Salon’
