INVITATION to rehearsed reading of theatrical adaptation of ‘Hidden’ 15 June 2017

HIDDEN by Vickie Donoghue. A stage adaptation of Miriam Halahmy’s novel.

When & Where? 2.30pm, Thursday 15 June 2017, The Harlequin, Portsmouth Guildhall, Guildhall Square, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO1 2AB

You are invited to attend a reading of playwright Vicki Donoghue’s adaptation of Miriam Halahmy’s book, Hidden (2010), nominated for a Carnegie Medal and a Sunday Times book of the week. Hidden tells the story of two fourteen year olds Alix and Samir, who both live on Hayling Island near Portsmouth, she native to the island, he a refugee from the 2007 Iraq war, having lived in Baghdad until the age of 9. Vickie Donoghue, recently included in the BBC’s talents of 2017, is under commission with Nabakov and is an Associate Artist at the Mercury Theatre. The High Tide Festival at The Bush produced her first play, Mudlarks, to critical acclaim.

Funded by the House Theatre initiative and Arts Council England, director Stuart Mullins and producer Rebecca Laughton, working with Iraqi Young Producer Temor Alkaisi, aim to reach a young audience and offer a space to discuss the refugee crisis and immigration in general, by creating a viscerally challenging 60 minute play, that excites, engages and inspires.

By adapting the book we invite young people to explore the issues arising from the refugee crisis, looking at arguments for and against the current asylum process. We want to tackle the current fracture in communities that occurs in areas where there is fear and ignorance surrounding the whole issue of immigration. To do this we need strong partners and are very lucky to have the involvement of Journeys Festival International, Counterpoints Arts, the Quarterhouse in Folkestone, Kent Refugee Action Network, The Spring Arts and Heritage Centre in Havant, the Guildhall in Portsmouth and the Thameside Theatre in Thurrock.

RSVP rebecca@hiddenproject.co.uk

www.hiddenproject.co.uk

 

REMINDER! CFP – Featured section in History in Africa: Archives, the Digital Turn and Governance in Africa

Deadline for abstracts: 29 September 2017

This featured section of History in Africa will address the wave of digitisation of archives in Africa over the last fifteen years. With the rise of information technologies, an increasing part of public – and to some extent private – African archives are being digitised and made accessible on the internet. This wave of digitisation is usually seen as a progress with the help of ambitious initiatives applying new technologies to cultural heritage of humanity such as the rescue of the manuscripts of Timbuktu or the Endangered Archives programme at the British Library. Yet as much as these new technologies raise enthusiasm, they also prompt discussions amongst researchers and archivists, which go from intellectual property to sovereignty and governance.

First, in the digital era, the issue of the ownership of these documents is crucial since the very definition of an archive is being challenged: from unique hard copies of documents, they can now exist in a variety of formats reproducible at will. Second, technical and economic issues at stake are also key to the discussion and intertwined with that of sovereignty: institutions elaborating a digitisation programme may do so under the pressure of donors or non-African scholars. All in all, beyond the discourse of transparency, whether to the benefit of governance or that of scientific research, this matter is eminently political. These archives are thus concerned with negotiations which go far beyond their sole technical and scientific aspect.In the field of history, archives are usually addressed as sources for research, and questioned as such because of their documentary aspect. More rarely are they approached as historically constructed systems combining intellectual and physical aspects, as archival science theorises it. Yet digital archiving disrupts archival norms and practices, opening up a field of reflection relatively little explored by historians. The digital turn of African archives is therefore an object of study in its own right, located at the crossroads of political and economic interests. This featured section seeks to reflect on the practices of digitisation of archives in Africa (pre-colonial, colonial or postcolonial) and to engage both with history and archival science.

Submission instructions

If you wish to contribute, please submit a 500-word abstract of the proposed paper as well as a short CV by Friday 29 September 2017 to digital.turn.africa@gmail.com.

Notifications of decision will be sent by Friday 27 October 2017. Selected authors will then be expected to send their full-length paper (no more than 10,000 words, including notes) by Friday 16 February 2018. All completed papers will be subject to peer-reviewing process in accordance with History in Africa requirements. Please address any query you may have to digital.turn.africa@gmail.com