Screening: The Devil's Plantation & Arild Tveito Publication Launch

Join us for a screening of The Devil's Plantation by May Miles Thomas and the launch of Tveito's new publication Elucidations produced as a result of his HIGHNORTH residency in Glasgow.

The Devil's Plantation is a haunting psychogeographic journey into the past: 66 films, two life stories and an ancient secret revealed. In the 1980s archaeologist Harry Bell came to believe that Glasgow ­ a city built and re­built on over centuries ­ was laid out to a hidden design. For years he investigated the lost corners and invisible history of the landscape, plotting his Secret Geometry. Unknown to Harry, psychiatric patient Mary Ross also wandered the city, visiting many of the same significant places. Her medical case file reveals a poignant quest to understand her troubled past and present. The Devil's Plantation unites the lives of these two strangers and by retracing their steps to complete Harry’s quest, unfinished at the time of his death, The Devil's Plantation tells a timeless story of how we all live.

The publication Elucidations brings together photographs of marionettes shot at one of the world’s leading puppet masters; John M. Blundal's Collection in Glasgow. With philosophical essays and short stories by Tromsø­born philosopher, luminous stylist and wit, Peter Wessel Zapffe. Poet, dramatist, novelist and short story writer, Heinrich von Kleist from Frankfurt. The obscure Greek lyric poet Sappho of Lesbos and Glaswegian author, publisher and activist Alex Trocchi.

May Miles Thomas was born in Glasgow and a graduate of Glasgow School of Art where she studied design and photography, May Miles Thomas’ film making career began in the mid­ 1980s at BBC Television, London. In 1995 she formed Elemental Films and made her first feature, the multi award ­winning One Life Stand in 2000 and a second, Solid Air in 2003. As a pioneer of digital cinema, May was awarded a NESTA Fellowship in 2000 and in 2007 won the Creative Scotland Award to create The Devil's Plantation, an interactive website and multi­media project that explores the secret geometry of Glasgow.The project won the Best Interactive category at the BAFTA New Talent Awards in 2010. In 2013 the project was re­worked as a feature ­length film and selected for the 2013 Glasgow Film Festival and was nominated for the BAFTA Scotland Cineworld Audience Award.

Arild Tveito was born in Oslo, studied in Oslo, Kokkola, Vienna and Munich. and received an MFA from The National Academy of Art in Oslo, 2010. He was the first out to take part in the artist exchange High­North residency from July to December 2013, with the CCA, Glasgow Sculpture Studios, the Baltic in Newcastle, Tromsø Centre for Contemporary Art and the Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art. Tveito has remained a tourist in Glasgow, completed Elucidations and invited May Miles Thomas to screen The Devil's Plantation which he got to know by coincidence after picking up a book called A Guide to Mysterious Glasgow. Upcoming and recent exhibitions include: The Gutenberg galaxy at Blaker (upcoming); Christian Andersen, Copenhagen; Charlottenborg Kunsthal, Copenhagen; The 55th Venice Biennale, Venice; Kunsthall Oslo, Oslo. Tveito is also a member of the artists’ group Institutt for degenerert kunst and the artist ­run space Diorama in Oslo. The High­North recidency project has been coordinated by NABROAD and supported by the Arts Council Norway, and the Royal Norwegian Embassy London.