SANQUHAR ARTS FESTIVAL 24th and 25th May

POETRY of the NITH

A weekend across three venues in Sanquhar celebrating the River Nith including walks, art,
nature and crafts inspired by the Romantic Poets.

FREE FOR ALL VENUES, with tea, coffee and biscuits at the Community Centre.

No need to book, just turn up!

VENUE ONE: SANQUHAR COMMUNITY CENTRE (Station Road, DG4 6BT)
EXHIBITIONS, FILMS and PERFORMANCES throughout Saturday & Sunday 11:00
4:00pm

‘Inspiration along the Nith’
Sixty illustrative displays and short films. Artists, writers, sound artists, performers and
photographers draw out poetic links to the Nith landscape from Romanticism to the
contemporary Sublime.

Nith TV films
Curated by Edward Ryan. Films made by local kids with stories that take charge of the
environment to represent their future. Hands on filming opportunity.

Contemporary Sublime
Films of Charles Jencks at work on his Multiverse and an interpretation of the life and
work of Kurt Schwitters by Paul Brightwell with Merzspiel.

SPECIAL EVENTS – SANQUHAR COMMUNITY CENTRE – SATURDAY 24th
MAY

DOCUMENTARY FILM – RIVER OF INVENTION Screening at 2:00pm
Episode of Paul Murton’s Scotland’s Rivers made for the BBC tracing industry from the
Nith’s source to the Solway. Paul introduces Sanquhar knitting, the invention of the
bicycle and Robert Burns; poetry, finding inspiration at Ellisland and Dumfries.

PERFORMANCE, LUCY DOIG – Lament tae the Lassies, Commencing at
3:00pm
Tremendous script and performance by researcher and actor Lucy Doig unravelling the life and
resiliance of Jean Armour, Robert Burns wife.

SPECIAL EVENTS – SANQUHAR COMMUNITY CENTRE – SUNDAY 25th
May

FEATURE FILM – RED ROSE, Screening at 1:00pm
Writer and producer Mairi Sutherland introduces her film of Roberrt Burns. Burns takes work
as a tax and excise officer, but the outbreak of the French Revolution puts him at odds with his
patrons among the aristocracy.

PERFORMANCE, HUGH McMILLAN – Renga at the Crawick Multiverse,
Commencing at 3:00pm
Hugh McMillan is a well published, anthologised and broadcast poet, writer and performer who
lives in South-West Scotland. With local kids, Hugh hascomposed a Japanese Renga verse form
whose long flowing style fits well with descriptions of nature, rivers, sea and mountains.

VENUE TWO: MERZ Gallery, (Queens Road, DG4 6DH)
Open Saturday & Sunday 24th & 25th May from 11:00-4:00pm

MERZ mail art EXHIBITION
Bringing post card scale painting, collage and words from international artists together with kids’
responses in picture and the Scots language

with

ART on a SMALL SCALE
an exhibition of work by Gilbert & George

VENUE THREE: Museum of Model Art (MoMA), (St Mary’s Street, DG4
6BW)

Stained Glass in Construction Sunday 25th May 3:00-4:00pm
Pop along and see work in progress on the new MERZ stained glass window for Whighams’ Inn
celebrating the Poetry of the Nith.