Hull UK City of Culture 2017 today announces details of its fourth season Tell the World, which runs from October to December. The response to the year has exceeded expectations and the city’s thrilling journey as host to the nation’s cultural quadrennial continues with major new commissions and celebrated artists.
Working with a host of partners, including Hull City Council, which successfully bid to secure the title in 2013, Tell the World brings theatre and live performance, literature, visual art, festivals, spectacle and more. There are events and activities across the city to entertain, challenge and bring people together, cementing Hull’s reputation as a cultural destination, with a profile that is growing nationally and internationally.
New commissions with Hull Truck Theatre include The Last Testament of Lillian Bilocca, written by the award-winning actor and writer Maxine Peake, a site-specific commission that will take place at Hull’s historic Guildhall, and a brand new play by acclaimed writer James Graham (This House, Ink, Privacy, The Vote), a behind the scenes comedy about the City of Culture year, which is due to open in 2018. Hull Truck Theatre also has the world premiere of award-winning writer Tanika Gupta’s adaptation of the best-selling novel A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, directed by Mark Babych.
Visual art includes Turner Prize 2017 at Ferens Art Gallery, which runs until 7 January 2018, with awards night on 5 December. A partnership with international photography co-operative Magnum sees Martin Parr and Olivia Arthur’s photographic study Hull, Portrait of a City at Humber Street Gallery. British Council and Royal Institute of British Architects are partners for the spectacular Look Up public art commission, A Hall for Hull, in historic Trinity Square. Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull, a Principal Partner, presents works from the Government Art Collection in An Eyeful of Wry.
Hull 2017’s commitment to innovative and experimental new work, supported by Arts Council England’s Ambition for Excellence, sees the culmination of the epic year-long project Slung Low’s pioneering multi-format Flood, as well as Blast Theory’s landmark 2097: We Made Ourselves Over and curious directive’s virtual reality project Frogman, which has just premiered in Edinburgh.
Also embracing technology are virtual reality wizards Marshmallow Laser Feast, whose A Colossal Wave is a major partnership commission with the British Council and Partenariat du Quartier Spectacle, Montreal, and the world renowned Jason Bruges Studiowork their innovative light-based magic in Hull’s Old Town with Where Do We Go From Here?, a new art installation that runs into January 2018.
Tell the World builds on the city’s strong literary heritage with an unprecedented number of nationally renowned as well as local writers, poets and spoken word artists coming together for a variety of events to suit all tastes and ages. Kicking it off, on National Poetry Day (28 September), Contains Strong Language, produced by the BBC alongside Hull’s own Wrecking Ball Press and the annual Humber Mouth festival, plus many other partners, is the UK’s biggest poetry and spoken word festival.
Tell the World also reflects on how Hull is redefining itself, celebrating the qualities that make it a fabulously unique city. In December Substance brings together artists, thinkers, commentators and creative mavericks and visionaries for a weekend of art, performance and debate that focuses on Hull and the North’s future as a dynamic cultural and creative powerhouse.
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