Talks
Munch and Listen
Enjoy our free monthly lunchtime talks programme - just bring your lunch and listen! All welcome.
Please note: there are no talks in August and December.
The Ray Swain Memorial Lecture
- Monday 30 September, 12.15pm
Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites in Tottenham: The collection of Benjamin Godfrey Windus.
By Margaret Burr (Friend of Bruce Castle)
BG Windus was an important patron of British art and owned over 200 Turner watercolours as well as Pre-Raphaelite paintings including Ophelia (Tate Britain), The Scapegoat (Lady Lever, Liverpool) and The Last of England (Birmingham). He opened his art collection to the public in his house at Tottenham Green from 1840 onwards. The Victorian art critic John Ruskin acknowledged that access to these paintings enabled him to write 'Modern Painters'. This talk is a shorter version of the one given at the National Gallery earlier this year.
Doors open 12 noon. Refreshments available.
Kindly supported by the Friends of Bruce Castle.
Hear Here
Our free evening monthly talks programme is on the last Wednesday of each month. All welcome.
Please note: the next monthly evening talk programme will be on Wednesday 2 October, and will be a film screening starting at an earlier time:
Film Screening: The Nine Muses
- Wednesday 2 October, 7pm
By Smoking Dogs Films. Running time: 92 mins
Directed by John Akomfrah and produced by Lina Gopaul and David Lawson, ‘The Nine Muses’ traces the history and imagery of black and Asian immigration to Britain after World War Two, during the 1950s and 1960s.
Inspired by the narrative of Homer's Odyssey, it is based around the names of the nine Muses in Greek myth. They were the daughters of Mnemosyne, goddess of memory. The Smoking Dogs Film combines archive materials, with literary and musical quotations, to create a film on memory, migration and exile.
More about the film-makers Smoking Dogs Films (external link).
Doors open 6.30pm. Refreshments available.
Kindly supported by the Friends of Bruce Castle.
A Special Event - Celebrate the end of Black History Month in Haringey at Bruce Castle
Talking About Textiles: Celebrating the Crafting Genius of Althea McNish.
A panel discussion led by Rose Sinclair, Goldsmiths College.
- Thursday 31 October
- From 6pm - A Musical Celebration and Welcome - with music from Haringey Young Musicians, speeches and refreshments
- At 7.30pm - Talking About Textiles: Celebrating the Crafting Genius of Althea McNish
To mark the end of Black History Month in Haringey, come along to this special evening at Bruce Castle where we can celebrate the young and emerging talents of Haringey Young Musicians and honour our very own internationally-renowned Windrush generation legend from Tottenham – Althea McNish.
Althea McNish (external link) is a living icon in the world of textiles. Since she started designing over sixty years ago, her designs have graced a myriad of spaces.
Althea made Tottenham her home. She is regarded as part of the Windrush Generation, and as such her contribution to the design culture and couture of British textile design, and beyond in the wider arts is being constantly being reassessed and brought to the fore.
Talking about Textiles: Celebrating The Crafting Genius of Althea McNish is a panel discussion and presentation led by Rose Sinclair of Goldsmiths College (external link), which celebrates not only the work of Althea McNish located at Bruce Castle Museum, but also those inspired by her work. In this presentation and discussion, we seek to look at the place of textiles through the black British design and female lens, and ask questions of the design icon Althea McNish. We also seek to ask what is it to craft and design as a black woman and what are the legacies of Althea’s work in the 21st century?
All welcome.
