Writers Reading the City … in Surrey

Isn’t it intriguing that Surrey Art Gallery is featuring urbanity more than, um, some others.   Makes sense, actually, when you consider that it’s places like Surrey that are engaged in the process of becoming urban.

Among the Plazas and the Courts: Writers Reading the City

Sadhu Binning, Jeff Derksen, Cecily Nicholson and Matthew Stadler

Surrey Art Gallery

Co-sponsored by Kwantlen Polytechic University’s English, Creative Writing, and Fine Arts Departments

March 8, 6:30-8:30pm

How is the changing nature of urbanization shaping how writers portray the built environment? How is new art about the city influencing how we think – and write – about the city?

Helma Sawatzky Constructionsites Phase II: Morgan Crossing, Surrey BC, 2009.

This event features readings of poetry and innovative prose that address the complexities of urban spaces, and the relationships between the centres and peripheries of the new multi-centred city. The conversation will explore many different subjects, including how writers and artists depict the daily realities of ‘ethno-burbs’ (culturally diverse suburbs), and how the changing nature of work and gender is shaping the spaces of the city.

Readers include local writers Sadhu Binning, Jeff Derksen and Cecily Nicholson, and Portland-based writer, Matthew Stadler. Following the readings, each writer will present a short talk on writing the city in the context of Metro Vancouver, Surrey and related cities.

There will be time for open discussion, and for the audience to meet the writers over refreshments.  Admission to the event is free (donations are gratefully received).

Among the Plazas and the Courts: Writers Reading the City is organized in conjunction with the group exhibition Beyond Vague Terrain: The City and the Serial Image, presented at the Surrey Art Gallery until March 18.