Reimagining Loneliness: In Conversation with Iain Sinclair and Chris Petit

Please join us for the final event in our ESRC-sponsored seminar series offering new insights on loneliness.

We are delighted to welcome Iain Sinclair and Chris Petit who will be guiding us through written, spoken and visual imaginings of loneliness, as expressed through their work in literature, film and the visual arts.

This early evening event will conclude with a drinks reception and opportunities for networking.

Iain Sinclair has lived in (and written about) Hackney, East London, since 1969. His novels include Downriver (Winner of the James Tait Black Prize & the Encore Prize for the Year’s Best Second Novel), Radon Daughters, Landor’s Tower and Dining on Stones (which was shortlisted for the Ondaatje prize). Non-fiction books, exploring the myth and matter of London, include Lights Out for the Territory, London Orbital and Edge of the Orison. In the ‘90s, Sinclair wrote and presented a number of films for BBC2’s Late Show and has, subsequently, co-directed with Chris Petit four documentaries for Channel 4; one of which, Asylum, won the short film prize at the Montreal Festival. He edited London, City of Disappearances, which was published in October 2006. In recent times, he has published Hackney,That Rose-Red Empire (2009), Ghostmilk (2011) and American Smoke (2013). Sinclair’s account of a one-day walk around the orbital railway – London Overground - was published in June 2015. He performed in two feature films, Swandown and By Our Selves, which he co-wrote with Andrew Kötting. A documentary feature by John Rogers, based on London Overground, was premiered at the East London Film Festival in 2016.

Chris Petit is an internationally renowned writer and filmmaker, called by Le Monde the Robespierre of English cinema. His feature films include Radio On (once described as ‘a film without a cinema’), Flight to Berlin and Chinese Boxes. His film work has been the subject of foreign retrospectives. His novels include Robinson, The Hard Shoulder and The Psalm Killer, which was reissued in 2016 as a Picador Modern Classic, with an introduction by Allan Moore. His latest book, The Butchers of Berlin had been optioned for development, as has his last novel, The Passenger. He is the founder of the Museum of Loneliness/Museo de la Soledad whose work includes GoogleMeGod; Fragments of the Lost Civilisation; a vinyl album; remixes and performance (Lee Harvey Oswald’s Last Dream; MoL live, Kino in Die Brücke). He has collaborated extensively with Iain Sinclair. Their films include Asylum, London Orbital and The Falconer.