Every weekend, Express presents a selection of exhibitions, performances, workshops, events and other historic, creative and delicious content to help islanders get their weekly dose of culture.
Here’s this week’s offering…
The Importance of Being Earnest
This weekend is your last chance to see Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ at the Arts Centre.
The iconic “trivial comedy for serious people” features two happy-go-lucky bachelors, Jack and Algernon, who each lead carefully constructed double lives.
However, when Algernon discovers that Jack has been posing as a man named Ernest to escape to the city, he decides to travel to Jack’s country abode to pose as Ernest himself!
Chaos ensues with whimsical ingenues, jealous love rivals, overbearing dowagers and the most famous handbag in theatre history.
The performances run at the Jersey Arts Centre until Saturday 10 June, starting at 19:30 each evening,
Tickets can be purchased from the Jersey Arts Centre website.
Pop up pottery
This weekend, local artists June Gould and Ruth Baier-Rolls will be presenting their Pop Up exhibition at Greve de Lecq Barracks.
June Gould is a potter, painter and sculptor who trained at Harrow College of Art and Design and Goldsmiths University of London. Her current ceramic work is an investigation into the qualities of pure porcelain. Her oil paintings, using a knife, are equally explorative with colour and texture giving a sense of landscape, allowing for interpretation.
Ruth Baier-Rolls trained and worked during her career as a painting restorer. In recent years she changed her focus to ceramics and became a student of June’s. They will be presenting their work together. Last year, Ruth attended an international ceramics course at ‘La Meridiana’ in Italy (International School of Ceramics, Tuscany). Her pieces are often experimental in approach and execution. They are unique, both functional and nonfunctional.
Parking is available at the beach carpark which is a 5 minute walk away from the site. Disabled parking is available on the parade ground in front of the exhibition space.
The showcase will take place at Greve de Lecq Barracks on Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 June 2023, from 10:00-17:00 on both days.
Sunset Concert
Next weekend, islanders are invited to enjoy live music across two days in the beautiful setting of the natural amphitheater at Grantez overlooking St. Ouen’s Bay.
Saturday sees local band The Jersey Bounce supported by RoodMood with a ‘Glastonbury Legend’s’ themed set including the likes of Barry Gibb, Kylie Minogue, Dolly Parton, Neil Diamond, Shirley Bassey, David Bowie, Sir Tom Jones, Paul Simon, Lionel Richie, and many more.
The site at Mont Grantez Headland opens each evening from 17:30, with music continuing until sunset.
Parking is available adjacent to the site but attendees are encouraged to use public transport or walk or cycle where possible.
All monies raised from ticket sales go towards the National Trust’s Coastline Campaign which pledges to acquire a further 1000 vergees of unspoilt coastline by 2036.
Tickets are available via Eventbrite. Attendees are invited to bring a picnic and leave nothing but footprints…
‘Playtime’ by Will Lakeman
The work in Will Lakeman’s ‘Playtime’ exhibition recreates the strange hold that childhood spaces have on our adult memories, all centred around the Jersey childhood mecca of old Fort Regent. It runs for free until until Sunday 2 July at ArtHouse Jersey’s Capital House in St. Helier.
This Saturday 10 June boasts the opportunity to hear from artist Will as he talks through the images on display in the exhibition, all of which are an attempt to recreate his childhood memories of Fort Regent Leisure Centre. Picturing things not as they were, but in the strange ways they appear his dreams and hallucinations.
In this free talk, Will discusses the works on display, his artistic processes, as well as his use of artificial intelligence and its implications in art.
The talk takes place at the exhibition on Saturday 10 June, 11:00-12:00.
Free tickets are available via Eventbrite.
Five impossible moments
Inspired by memories of Fort Regent in its heyday and employing a variety of techniques culled from magicians, con men, card sharks and Bar school, Richard Pedley will present a series of solutions to five impossible questions. Maybe six. Certainly no more than seven.
The performance is described as “a show with magic, rather than a magic show”.
The show takes place at Capital House on Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 June, from 19:00-20:30 each night.
Tickets are available via Eventbrite, with a small allocation of tickets available as a pay-what-you-can option for those who might struggle to meet the cost at this time.
Sonic artists
Scotland-based sonic artists, Samm Anga and Sonia Killman will be performing in Jersey next week.
This exciting evening of music will feature two performances by the artists who have spent two weeks in Jersey developing new work spanning both visual arts and music. For this one night, they will both present their work-in-progress to the public.
Samm Anga is a sound artist and musician, whose work explores mythology and an interrelation between physical and digital realms. He enjoys using precise sound design to create visceral sonic spaces for live performances. Through a combination of dance, textiles, music, and visual glitch, he will attempt to submerge the audience into an aural environment.
Sonia Killmann is a Glasgow-based composer and multimedia artist from Belgium. Her current project Digital Skies explores the phenomenon of light pollution in cities. Projected onto a giant lampshade, the visuals move between abstract city footage and dream-like images created by an AI. The sounds of the piece support the visuals and create an immersive experience through live saxophone, voice and synth.
Their performance takes place on Thursday 15 June from 19:00-21:00 at ArtHouse Jersey’s Capital House.
Tickets are available via Eventbrite. A small allocation of tickets are available as a pay-what-you-can option for those who might struggle to meet the cost at this time.
Rag Trade
Potty Eco Pots’ next ‘Rag Trade’ event will be held on this Saturday 10 June at West Centre, with islanders invited to bring along any unwanted clothes and accessories to be taken home by someone else for free.
Founder Kalina Le Marquand explained that there are “no rules” to the event, which has already attracted interest from over 600 people on social media.
“You can bring along clothes and not take any, or you can take clothes and not bring any with you!” she said.
“An absolutely huge amount of unwanted clothes are thrown into the waste stream every day. This is a way to reuse them.”
After the success of the intial clothes-based rag trade, the event now also includes household item, plants, plant pots, food and toiletries.
The event will run from 10:00-18:00 this Saturday at West Centre, near the cow statues.
