Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email stefani@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

The charismatic Paban Das Baul – together with a selection of musicians - is returning to the U.K. to promote his latest CD and to perform at William Dalrymple’s Nine Lives Tour in Gateshead, whilst his partner, Mimlu Sen, will be launching her book The Honey Gatherers, describing her travels in the company of these mad, marvellous and mystical musicians.

The Bauls of Bengal belong to one of the oldest extant traditions of ecstatic oral music in the world. The word 'baul' meaning ‘mad’ or ‘possessed’ denotes a wandering minstrel whose life is entirely given over to music, song and dance and to a set of beliefs that distinguish the unconventional Baul life-style from the ordinary lives of others. The Bauls’ beliefs are a syncretic mix of Islamic Sufism, Tantric Buddhism and variants of Hindu Vaishnavism developed in a part of the world where these different faiths have interacted closely for many centuries. The Bauls defy all forms of classification, professing to be ignorant of – or uninterested by – attempts to explain their origins, beliefs or practices in western historical terms or indeed in any terms other than their own. Their only focus of interest is the intersection of the human body with the present moment, since those two intersecting arcs define the sole possible stage of actual liberation. The Bauls unite to sing and dance in the company of spirited friends aiming at nothing less, during the course of an evening together, than the enlightenment of the body by ecstatic song.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available
Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

	Garry Lachman

Throughout his long and sometimes turbulent career, the psychologist C.G. Jung insisted that he was first and foremost a scientist. Yet from the start, Jung's interest in the human psyche had a decidedly paranormal, even occult slant. From his early days attending séances to his last pronouncements on a dawning 'Age of Aquarius', Jung moved in territories most scientists ignored, when they didn't ridicule them outright. Jung himself, though, had a very ambivalent relation to mysticism and the occult.

While in his personal life he embraced a variety of occult ideas, as a 'scientist' he downplayed his involvement, and it was not until late in his career that he came 'out of the closet' and made public his belief in esoteric notions like synchronicity, his belief in a coming New Age, and his use of magical practices, like the Chinese I Ching. Although working in the shadow of his one-time friend and mentor Freud for much of his career, today Jung is one of the founding fathers of the 'new consciousness' movement, and his mystical and occult investigations have been responsible for the huge interest in many of the 'alternative' ideas widely popular today. Gary’s talk will chart Jung's 'occult history', look into the reasons behind his early reticence and later advocacy, and ask whether Jung was really a scientist at all.

Gary Lachman is the author of several books on the meeting ground between consciousness, culture, and the western esoteric tradition, including Politics and the Occult, Rudolf Steiner: An Introduction to His Life and Work, In Search of P.D. Ouspensky, A Secret History of Consciousness and The Dedalus Book of the 1960s: Turn Off Your Mind. He is a regular contributor to several journals, including the Independent on Sunday, Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, and Fortean Times, and frequently broadcasts for the BBC. As Gary Valentine, he was a founding member of the rock group Blondie, and wrote some of their early hits. His New York Rocker: My Life in the Blank Generation is an account of his years as a musician, and in 2006 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His most recent book is Jung the Mystic: The Esoteric Dimensions of Carl Jung's Life and Work.

This lecture is part of a series to be held at the October Gallery on the last Tuesday of each month (excluding August). Please check back to these pages for further details of the upcoming programme or email drdluke@gmail.com to be added to the series' mailing list.

"Nestling in the intellectual heartland of Bloomsbury, the October Gallery is an intimate hub of artistic innovation and exchange. 

Its sumptuous rooms, Mediterranean courtyard and vibrant gallery with café host the 2010 Music Village’s lunchtime Talks and Performances.

A stunning exhibition Ecstatic Flow by Paris-based Sufi artist Rachid Koraïchi provides an ideal backdrop for a stimulating mix of opportunities to engage more deeply with this year’s festival theme." 

Food available from October Gallery cafe.

Wednesday 30 June
1.30pm Performance:  Ensamble Criollo. A unique instrumental line-up with Latin harp, cuatro and caphachos

Thursday 1 July
12.30pm Talk: Citizen Ethics: fanning the flames of a vital debate - Madeleine Bunting, Associate Editor, The Guardian

1.30pm Performance: Zahra Rezaei Afsah with Arash Moradi - Stories from ancient Persian illustrated manuscripts with musical accompaniment.

Friday 2 July
12.30pm Talk: Intercultural engagement as a foundation for a free and fair cosmopolitan society
Ranjit Sondhi, Chairman, Heart of Birmingham Primary Care Trust. Visiting Professor of Diversity, Cohesion and Intercultural Relations at Coventry University

1.30pm Performance:  Kathy Hall – London Jing Kun Opera Association - Chinese stories from the well-known Beijing Opera performer

Tuesday 6 July
12.30pm Talk: Understanding how community-led initiatives build Community Cohesion
Vaughan Jones and Alex Sutton, Praxis

1.30pm Performance:  Vayu Nadu
Theatrical storytelling from South-eastern India

Wednesday 7 July
12.30pm Talk: The Last Mughal: the fall of Delhi 1857
William Dalrymple, author

1.30pm Performance:  El Andaluz
Leading London exponents of classical Arabic and Andalusian music

Thursday 8 July
12.30pm Talk: The Role of London’s heritage in the making of a World City - Wesley Kerr, Chair, Heritage Lottery Fund Committee for London

1.30pm Performance: Mr Gee - Live poetry from this acclaimed spoken word artist and radio presenter

Friday 9 July
12.30pm Talk: World City in a world setting
Doreen Massey, author of ‘World City, Professor of Geography, Open University

1.30pm Performance: Tuup - Traditional stories from Swaziland and Lesotho

FESTIVAL WEEKENDS
Chill to the rhythms of the world in two of London’s best-loved outdoor settings.  8 performances each day.
1-9pm daily

VICTORIA PARK
SAT 3 & SUN 4 JULY

HYDE PARK
SAT 10 & SUN 11 JULY

FREE ADMISSION

For further World City - Music Village events and information see
www.culturalco-operation.org

Union Chapel, Islington, N1 2XD (NOT AT OCTOBER GALLERY)
Get your ticket from tinyurl.com/URURANGI
Preshow Tickets £12.50 + booking fee
On the Door £20.00

October Gallery wants you to know about an upcoming event at the Union Chapel, Islington, N1 2XD on Sunday 20 June 2010. URURANGI features two of our Pacifican artists Rosanna Raymond (Sistar Spacific) and George Nuku. URURANGI is a fundraising event for the London Maori Culture Group, Ngãti Rãnana and an afternoon of fantastic Pacific performances and culture.

The line-up for the event is something very rarely available to a larger audience in London, as it shows, maybe for the first time, how vibrant and active traditional and contemporary Polynesian culture is in the city.

The event feature talents drawn from across the South Pacific region: log drums and dancing by Beats of Polynesia; the soulful sounds of LA Mitchell; spoken word from Sistar Spacific; art by George Nuku; a dance performance by Ana Lavekau and the grand finale by Ngãti Rãnana themselves.

Ngãti Rãnana has been invited to compete in an International Performing Arts Competition, Te Manahua, where they will be up against other groups from Hawaii, Sydney and the Pacific Islands. The concert at Union Chapel is one of many events the Club are holding to raise funds to help pay for the travel to Hawaii.

Doors: 6:00pm for 6:30pm
£7

Sufi Soul – the Mystic Music of Islam follows William Dalrymple on a personal journey into the mystical and musical side of Islam as he charts the traditions of Sufi music in Syria, Turkey, Pakistan, India and Morocco. Director, Simon Broughton is the co-editor of the Rough Guide to World Music and editor of the World Music magazine Songlines. Simon will introduce Sufi Soul and hold a Q&A after the film.

Rachid Koraïchi will be talking about his new works, celebrating the lives and teachings of Sufi Masters, in the setting of the October Gallery.

The Exhibition Ecstatic Flow runs from 11th June - 10th July. For more information click here

Entry £5 Donation, 3:15-5pm
For further details and booking
For further information please contact Joanna Ellis 01737842541

In the mid 1990s adventurer, writer and photographer Chris Bradley walked solo and unsupported along the full length of the longest wadi in Arabia. The route was along a 500 kms dry river valley through South Yemeni towns, villages and tribal regions. Little known to the outside world, South Arabia is rich in culture and history, mentioned in both the Bible and the Koran. This lecture will highlight the important towns of Seiyun and Tarim, the amazing mud-built skyscrapers of Shibam, and pilgrimage site of Qabr Hud. After three weeks of walking Chris eventually arrived at the Indian Ocean near to the coastal town of Seihut.

Chris Bradley is the author of the Discovery Guide to Yemen; Insight Guide to the Silk Road; and several Berlitz Guidebooks including Libya, Cairo, Abu Dhabi and Egypt's Red Sea. He is a lecturer, adventure tour leader, writer and photographer. This special fund-raising lecture is on behalf of the 'Friends of Hadhramaut' charity.

Entry: £10
For more information and reservations email: the.sound.bath@gmail.com

The sound of Tibetan singing bowls of gongs have a soothing quality
that helps the body to enter into a state of deep relaxation and calms the mind.

The bowls used produce sound specially for massage, and are high quality instruments with therapeutic properties. Each bowl is designed to resonate with a particular part of the body enabling healing on a cellular level, releasing tension and releasing energy blockages.

Both sound massage therapists are trained in the Peter Hess Method.
The session will last for about an hour and will begins with a short introduction.
Please bring your own blanket for warmth and comfort.

Precautions: the session should not be attended by women in the first three
months of pregnancy, or by people under the influence of alcohol or
psychotropic medication.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available
Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

	Damien DeBarra

After 12 long years rummaging through the bowels of the internet, Damien DeBarra takes us on an anthropological journey through cyberspace: specifically looking at the 9/11 conspiracy theories, in an attempt to understand how conspiracy theorists and their detractors have engaged in a running cyber-battle - with each group seemingly claiming to be the guardians of 'the truth'.

Using theory from the nascent field of 'virtual ethnography', 'Blather, Rinse, Repeat', looks at the processes by which conspiracy theorists, their debunkers and the media have adapted to the shifts in meaning-making brought about by the rise of social media. Who is telling the truth? Does the phrase 'the truth' have any meaning any more? And, perhaps most importantly, have these conspiracy theories mutated from an exercise in harmless online speculation, to become the vehicle for an altogether more sinister agenda?

Damien DeBarra grew up in Clontarf, north Dublin, Ireland but moved to the UK in 2002. He then decided to chuck it all in and leg it somewhere warm, spending a year and a half going slowly mad in Valencia, Spain. After a terrifying experience in an illegal Valencian all-night kebab shop/night-club (involving hallucinogenic sun-tan oil, dehydration and a woman in an Elvis suit) he scarpered back to the UK and now lives in London. He doesn't talk to anyone and passes his time smiling at people on the tube.

He's been writing for blather.net since 2002. His key interests are
archaeology, technology, graveyards and graverobbers, and "things that go bump in the night". In recent times his work has focused on the "anthropology of conspiracy theories", specifically the 9/11 conspiracy theories.

This lecture is part of a series to be held at the October Gallery on the last Tuesday of each month (excluding August). Please check back to these pages for further details of the upcoming programme or email drdluke@gmail.com to be added to the series' mailing list.

Friday 14th May
5.30pm to 9pm
Admission: Free

In partnership with Museums at Night 2010 and Culture 24, October Gallery will host a late night opening of exhibition
KENJI YOSHIDA: A CELEBRATION OF LIFE.

Come and experience magnificent forms and colours, make origami peace cranes in our garden and listen to musicians from the Orsino Ensemble compose pieces inspired by our exhibition.

Don’t miss this opportunity to see these fabulous works in the spring evening light.

2pm at THE INSTITUTE FOR CULTURAL RESEARCH
see www.i-c-r.org.uk/events/lectures.php for details and booking

	John Allen

The biosphere is “the place on earth’s surface where life dwells” and biomes are the ecosystems within it. In this talk John Allen, renowned ecologist and engineer, metallurgist, adventurer and writer will use his experience of build- ing man-made closed ecological systems and his uniquely poetic, spiritual vision to explore the complex inter-relationships of the biomes that make up our world: deserts, forests, grasslands; coral reefs and marshes; world cities and agriculture.

Entry £10. To reserve your place, please contact Bo on bolutos@gmail.com or call 07503 571 024.
www.lutoslawscy.eu – blog: http://boleslawlutoslawski.blogspot.com/

During the workshop, I will use the original photographs from my exhibition at South Bank, London as examples. This show was a portrait of a performance by the Opera Factory, from conception of the work to the opening night. I will also briefly touch on the importance of portraits when printed in related publications, like photographs of Michael Vyner or Tom Stoppard.

• Understanding of stage, lighting, & nature of stage design.
• Restrictions and opportunities for access to the action on stage.
• Cooperation with director and actors.
• Knowledge of performance.
• Theatre / Opera.
• Dance.
• Subsequent choice of camera and exposure setting.
• Presentation / publication.
• Design, visual awareness and composition.

• Ability to observe and to anticipate events on stage (like reportage).
• Sensitivity to various light setting (like in a studio, but without having any control).
• Being in the right place at the right time (like in field games).
• Sense of the architectural qualities of stage.
• Being in tune with the performance.
• Working smoothly in order not to disturb anybody (they are very, very tense and tired).

• Type of access
• Timetable and places of individual events
• An option of using one or two cameras with different lenses or a zoom
• Purpose

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available
Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

	John Allen

Join us for an evening with the luminous mind of John Allen. Described as a “visionary, engineer, adventurer, avant-garde theatre producer, systems ecologist and all-round unique individual” (R.U. Sirius), Allen has told his story in Me and the Biospheres: a Memoir by the Inventor of Biosphere 2, which will be a background to his talk. In it, John Allen unfurls “both a warning and a call to action” (Tim Smit) and navigates the reader through his engaging account of the largest laboratory for global ecology ever built.

Biosphere 2 covered three acres of Arizona desert and included seven model biomes: An ocean with coral reef, and a marsh, rainforest, savannah, desert, farm, and micro-city. Eight people lived inside this structure for two years (1991-1993) and grew their own food, and recycled all air and waste.

His talk will introduce you to his extraordinary way of thinking and approach to biospheric states of consciousness, referring to some key people who have provided essential sources of inspiration to understanding our world of life, including: Richard Evans Schultes, Albert Hoffman, Yaqui Shaman, Amazonian Shaman, Anil Thakkar, Sergeant Jackson, and Hamid the Deaf and Dumb Magician. John will discuss how to distinguish different biospheric states of consciousness.

John Allen is an accomplished total systems scientist, poet, philosopher, and inventor who started making Biosphere 2 by assembling together five “smaller” projects: The creation of a ferro-cement sailing ship (R/V Heraclitus) to study ocean and river ecologies and cultures; the development of a rainforest restoration project; a savannah regeneration station; a theatre group that performed on six continents; and the October Gallery, venue of this talk series, showing transvangarde art from around the world, and others. These projects, whose success led to Biosphere 2’s awe-inspiring construction and operation, demanded the efforts of a diverse team of international scientists, engineers, artists and thinkers with whom John Allen worked closely for decades. They included members of the National Science Academies of Russia, Great Britain, and USA.

This lecture is part of a series to be held at the October Gallery on the last Tuesday of each month (excluding August). Please check back to these pages for further details of the upcoming programme or email drdluke@gmail.com to be added to the series' mailing list.

7:30 pm (Doors open 6:00 pm)
Tickets: £5/£3 conc.

Artist of the Soul, is a documentary celebrating the life and work of Japanese artist Kenji Yoshida (1924-2009).

Directed by Ghanaian filmmaker Ishmael Annobil, Artist of the Soul is a visually rich film, including a definitive interview with the artist before his death in 2009. There are contributions from friends and curators, his agent and friend, the late José Férez Kuri, and Lawrence Smith, Keeper Emeritus of Japanese Antiquities at the British Museum who gave Yoshida his solo exhibition in the Japanese Galleries in 1993.

To reserve a place please RSVP to press@octobergallery.co.uk

3:00 pm
Tickets: £FREE

	La Vie, 1998 Oil and metals on canvas, 130 x 97 cm

The first anniversary of the passing of Kenji Yoshida, the October Gallery is pleased to announce a special exhibition of Yoshida’s work that will celebrate the extraordinary life of this remarkable man and outstanding artist. The exhibition, A CELEBRATION OF LIFE, will display works from the different periods of Yoshida’s career, including the incandescent etchings he made at Stanley Heyter’s Atelier 17 in Paris in the early 60’s, inks, calligraphy and paintings on paper from the 70’s onwards, as well, as the distinctive oils on canvas that are his characteristic contribution to contemporary art, deftly-sketched portraits of the created universe itself.

Lawrence Smith, Keeper Emeritus of Japanese Antiquities at the British Museum will speak about Yoshida’s extraordinary life and career.

To reserve a place please RSVP to press@octobergallery.co.uk

6:30 pm (Doors open 6:00 pm)
Tickets: £8/£6 conc.

	John Allen and Anthony Blake

Don’t miss this last round of dialogues which have been going strong since 1994!
Continuing a thought-provoking series of discourses, Allen and Blake, two outstanding contemporary thinkers, exchange views about human existence.

Anthony Blake
Anthony Blake’s early training was in physics at Bristol and the philosophy and history of science at Cambridge. He worked for more than fifteen years with John Bennett, one of the leading proponents of Gurdjieff’s ideas. Following a meandering path through consultancy, publishing and educational research he co-founded the non-profit DuVersity and authored books on Time, Systems, and Intelligence. His last two books were ‘The Supreme Art of Dialogue’ and ‘A Gymnasium of Beliefs in Higher Intelligence’. Married, with six children, he is currently living in Scotland.

John Allen
John Allen is inventor of Biosphere 2, engineer, author, poet, dramaturge, and co-founder of the Institute of Ecotechnics, a UK registered charity which is particularly interested in projects that advance the ecology of technics and synergize body, brain and behaviour in humans.

To reserve a place please RSVP to press@octobergallery.co.uk

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available
Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

	Greg Sams

Across the world our local star was once understood to be a living entity, and appreciated as our source of life energy. In the Western world today we see it as a senseless ball of fire, giving more thought to sunglass styles than to the nature of the Sun itself. We are even taught to fear it, though nothing could be more important to us and planet Earth. It was not the application of science that branded belief in a living Sun as primitive and ignorant it was the triumph of the prophet-driven religions that controlled our schools and universities for centuries.

In the light of solar science, ancient (and not so ancient) cultures appear to have been correct: a living Sun makes more sense than a hot rock. Recognition of stellar consciousness is THE big missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle of our cosmos. From the logical exploration of this realization it becomes apparent that consciousness pervades the entire cosmos, and that our Universe is a bottom up construction that is filled with intelligence and design, yet in no need of an Intelligent Designer.

Tonight we will be taking the lid off the longest running cover-up in history and bringing the Sun back in from the cold. The implications are stunning!

Gregory Sams has been bringing novel concepts to the culture from the age of 19, when he and his brother Craig opened the historic Seed Restaurant in 1968 London. Within a few years his Harmony/Whole Earth Foods was the countrys first and foremost source of natural and organic foods. In 1982 he created and christened the original VegeBurger, then in 1988 moved from food to fractals, opening a shop dedicated to the new chaos theory, publishing and licensing fractal art worldwide. This led to his first book Uncommon Sense: The State is Out of Date, exploring the lesson of chaos theory for humanity. His new book Sun of gOd, has just been published by Weiser Books, in which, as he puts it, the biggest elephant-in-the-room that you could ever imagine is unveiled.

www.gregorysams.com

This lecture is part of a series to be held at the October Gallery on the last Tuesday of each month (excluding August). Please check back to these pages for further details of the upcoming programme or email drdluke@gmail.com to be added to the series' mailing list.

2010 Programme

6:30 pm (Screening 7pm)
Tickets: £5/£3 conc.

Aubrey Williams was born in 1926, Georgetown, Guyana, on the Caribbean coast of South America. In 1952, Aubrey arrived on England to devote his time fully to painting. He attended St. Martin’s School of Art and became associated with the New Vision Centre. By the late 1950s and 1960’s, he was winning acclaim in the UK for his abstract canvases. By the early 1970s and 1980s, he worked and exhibited regularly overseas, in Jamaica, Guyana and Florida. The subsequent Olmec Maya series, drew deeply on his broad knowledge of historic Central and South American cultures.

The film follows Aubrey to Guyana’s capital city Georgetown, where he restored one of his murals, at Timehri International Airport. The visit was poignant, as Aubrey was to travel on to Hosororo in the far north-west of the country, returning to the source of his inspiration for the first time in forty years.

Imruh Bakari, born in St. Kitts, Eastern Caribbean, is a graduate of the National Film & Television School, Beaconsfield, England. He was a founder and director of Ceddo, the film and video production and training organisation in London [1982-93], and a director of Kuumba Productions. From 1999 – 2004, he was Festival Director of Zanzibar International Film Festival [ZIFF] and is a founder and director of Tanzania Screenwriters Forum. As a producer and director his credits include fiction and documentary films, most recently: Mwalimu – The Legacy of Julius Kambarage Nyerere [Documentary, 2009 – Tz] – Producer; and African Tales - Short Film Series [Fiction, 2005/2008 - Tz] – Script Editor/Producer. He lectures in Film & Media Studies at the University of Winchester, UK and has published works on African cinema.

To reserve a place please RSVP to press@octobergallery.co.uk

6:30 pm - 9 pm
ADMISSION FREE – ALL ARE WELCOME
Refreshments – Tibetan food served

Dedication Prayers will be held in memory of the brave Tibetan Women who sacrificed their lives for the Independence of Tibet on 12th March 1959 and those women who are still suffering in prisons under the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

A talk and discussion with Dechen Pemba
Dechen Pemba graduated from University College London with a BA in English and German Language and Literature. After over three years lobbying and campaigning on Tibetan issues in Berlin, Germany, Dechen moved to Beijing in September 2006 to study Chinese at the Central University for Nationalities and lived in China until July 2008. Dechen completed a Master’s in Chinese Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in September 2009. Dechen is the editor of the website High Peaks Pure Earth, on which Tibetan blogs written in Tibetan and Chinese are translated into English.

Further info, please email: uk_twa@yahoo.co.uk

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available
Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

	Dr Serena Roney-Dougal

Advaita Vedanta, Kashmiri Shaivism and Mahayana Buddhism all teach that Consciousness is eternal, infinite and the ground of all being: reality in all its different forms. Consciousness is also our highest ideal, our morality and ethics. This philosophy enables a much clearer understanding of exactly what is mind and the place of psychic phenomena (e.g. telepathy) in our world-view.

In the 1970’s a theoretical framework for parapsychology, known as the psi-conducive syndrome, was developed from Patanjali’s yoga sutras. At the psychic level we experience mind not limited by time, space and the senses, as potential omniscience and omnipotence, considered by some as attributes of the divine, and called the siddhis in yogic philosophy. Patanjali says that these develop automatically as we become aware at the deeper levels of consciousness, called samadhi.

Serena Roney-Dougal did a PhD thesis in Parapsychology at Surrey University, and is the author of the books Where Science and Magic Meet and The Faery Faith. She has spent over 35 years studying and experiencing scientific, magical and spiritual aspects of the psyche, and has lectured and taught courses, seminars and workshops in America, Europe, Japan and India. For the past six years she has been researching the relationship between meditation and psychic awareness with Yogis and Tibetan Buddhists in India. This research is now continuing at Samye Ling Tibetan Centre in Scotland.

This lecture is part of a series to be held at the October Gallery on the last Tuesday of each month (excluding August). Please check back to these pages for further details of the upcoming programme or email drdluke@gmail.com to be added to the series' mailing list.

Small group, so booking is essential (£25 per student). To reserve your place, please contact Bo on bolutos@gmail.com or call 07503 571 024

• space (outside on a street, in a theatre, at home, during an interview at the office, in a studio)
• light (natural, artificial, mixed) & ability to control it
• length of time available (I had 5 min to photograph Paloma Picasso, 2 hours for Michael Palin and a day for Sir Ernst Gombrich)

• Dynamic and overpowering by nature
• Shy and withdrawn
• Easy going
• Performing
• Surprising

• What is available during the session
• Visual experience and likes
• The importance of hands, eyes and lips

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available
Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

	Andy Roberts

Andy's book, Albion Dreaming: A popular history of LSD in Britain (Marshall Cavendish, 2008) was born from a desire to chronicle the history of this intriguing drug. Andy's talk, illustrated by powerpoint and DVD takes you on a history picnic to sample everything from the drug's arrival on these shores in 1952, through the medical and military experiments, the counterculture, to the sad death of Albert Hofmann. It is probably the only talk on LSD in which you'll hear the words of the Reverend Ian Paisley.

Andy Roberts is the author of several books on folklore, UFOs, cryptozoology and popular culture. His overall interest is in the strangeness of the multiverse and what and why people choose to believe. Besides his books Andy has written for numerous magazines including Fortean Times, where he currently co-writes a monthly sceptical UFO column. His magazine articles have dealt with cults, the Grateful Dead and telepathy, the search for the Death Ray and a great deal of other weirdness. He once edited an Incredible String Band fanzine and is really quite obsessive about the Grateful Dead.

His interest in LSD stems from his first acid trip in 1971 when the ultimate force of evil foretold the future to him. He's still waiting for that particular future to manifest but followed the Prince of Darkness' strange invitation into the labyrinth of 1970s counter culture to see what he could find.

This lecture is part of a series to be held at the October Gallery on the last Tuesday of each month (excluding August). Please check back to these pages for further details of the upcoming programme or email drdluke@gmail.com to be added to the series' mailing list.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available
Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

	Dr Andy Letcher

For those who have encountered magic mushrooms, the psilocybin experience is like an ancient codex whose glyphs are at once baffling and clear. To make sense of it, each person must perform an act of translation or interpretation by which the strange is rendered familiar. But how should this be done? In the post-war period alone an original psychological framework has given way to that of mysticism, itself replaced in turn by the language of shamanism.

In this talk, Andy Letcher will encourage us to move away from the mushroom experience itself the usual province of trip-lit , to a consideration of how it has been interpreted throughout history. For, contrary to received wisdom, very few cultures have decoded the mushroom as we do. Along the way he will ask whether magic mushrooms bring genuine transcendence, or if the experiences they occasion forever bound by culture.

Andy Letcher is a freelance writer, academic lecturer and folk musician living in Oxford, UK. He lectures at Oxford Brookes University and Bath Spa University on subjects as diverse as neo-Paganism, shamanism, and theory in the Study of Religion. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom and Mad Thoughts on Mushrooms: Discourse and Power in the Study of Psychedelic Consciousness, published in the journal Anthropology of Consciousness. Known for his iconoclastic style, and with doctorates in both Ecology and the Study of Religion, he challenges us to question received wisdom about psychedelics and psychedelic history. A prolific song-writer, tunesmith and exponent of English Bagpipes, he fronts psych-folk band, Telling the Bees.

This lecture is part of a series to be held at the October Gallery on the last Tuesday of each month (excluding August). Please check back to these pages for further details of the upcoming programme or email drdluke@gmail.com to be added to the series' mailing list.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available
Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

	Gyrus

Over the past couple of decades there's been a wave of revisionism, in academia and popular books, attempting to upend the hoary old idealization of the Noble Savage. From Steven Pinker's suggestion that the world today is, relatively speaking, more peaceful than it's ever been, to Steven LeBlanc's claim that no indigenous culture has ever lived sustainably, the idea that civilization itself is the source of all our ills has taken a battering.

Having just ploughed through much of the recent literature to satisfy his own curiosity, Gyrus has written a new work analyzing this recent debate, and tonight hopes to guide you through this thicket of polemics, false ideals, and dodgy statistics. Starting with a fresh look at the roots of this ideological battle in the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Hobbes, we'll go through the behind-the-scenes stories of recent scholarship.

Is the murder rate among the !Kung, the "harmless people", really higher than that of New York? Is conservation something that only the modern world has practiced? What can we actually know about the 94% of our species' existence spent as hunter-gatherers? And will Gyrus give answers, or just ask more questions? Come along and find out...

Gyrus is an independent publisher, free range scholar, and freelance web developer. In the 1990s he edited and published the rather acclaimed journal Towards 2012, and while doing so grew pretty bored of the whole 2012 thing. He may have to u-turn on this quite soon in order to cash in. His main interests are prehistoric art and culture, altered states, occultism, and everything in-between. He recently published his first collection of essays, Archaeologies of Consciousness, and abandoned the other rather acclaimed journal Dreamflesh after one issue to focus on "a book". He gets by pretty well in London

This lecture is part of a series to be held at the October Gallery on the last Tuesday of each month (excluding August). Please check back to these pages for further details of the upcoming programme or email drdluke@gmail.com to be added to the series' mailing list.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available
Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

	Dr. Christina Oakley Harrington

This is a night of tales, reminiscences and reflections on three intersecting cultures in Britain today, and a few of the most challenging ideas run through them: the ecology movement, the consciousness / entheogen subculture, and the community of European Wicca. These three communities share some values: the sacredness of Nature as a living, sentient being; the value of alternative perspectives; and an appreciation of experience of the material word in its sensuous glory. The differences are less obvious, but run deep, and tonight's speaker considers these. There are so many imponderables, it can be overwhelming. Questions seem to outnumber answers, and the over-confident hardly inspire certainty in those who value nuanced insight.

How can today's European witches, reciting Shelley in BBC accents in the elegant Sussex downs, claim anything in common with Balinese medicine men? How can taking drugs make you believe you can heal others? Can you speak of The Feminine Principle and not, actually, objectify women? What difference does ritual really make (or is it just self-indulgent). What difference does recycling make, when people are dying of loneliness? Awkward questions with no easy answers show us the rough edges of these various paradigms. If anyone can see us out of this morass, she suggests, it is people like David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous, and the indications in Husserl's philosophy. And some good food and drumming. Maybe. Tonight's talk is a lecture, a stream of consciousness, a standup routine, a one-woman show.

Christina Oakley Harrington is a Wiccan priestess who has been intimately involved with modern paganism for over half her life. She was raised in West Africa and in a closed society which largely excluded Westerners in Southeast Asia. She has lived in the West since her teens. Her mother lives in the deep countryside, does organic gardening, was a pioneer in healing with vitamins and alternative health in the 1960s, and can forage for natural food. Christina herself lives in London, drinks too much coffee, struggles to identify recycling categories. She has, however, been known to recite Shelley to the blowing winds on the Sussex downs. She has a PhD in medieval history, is a former university lecturer, and is the founding director of the legendary Treadwell's Bookshop in Covent Garden.

This lecture is part of a series to be held at the October Gallery on the last Tuesday of each month (excluding August). Please check back to these pages for further details of the upcoming programme or email drdluke@gmail.com to be added to the series' mailing list.

Entry £Free 3:00pm

	Rosanna Raymond Beaten

A day of celebration to mark the end of the exhibition, with the UK based Polynesian community and artists George Nuku and Rosanna Raymond, featuring artists’ talks, performances and a final closing ceremony. Traditional Polynesian food and drinks will be on sale.

Entry £Free 6:30pm

	Lisa Reihana Maui

Rosanna Raymond, Lisa Reihana and George Nuku will discuss their work. Shigeyuki Kihara will perform ‘Taualuga: the Last Dance’.  A traditional Samoan dance of celebration, the artist uses the taualuga’s principles of storytelling to reference history and current global issues, combining photography, dance, sound and historical costume. ‘Taualuga; the last Dance’ has been performed at selected venues including the 4th Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane Australia; Musée du Quai Branly, Paris and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Entry £15 /£10 Concessions, 10am - 7:30pm (Food and Drink included)
Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

	Shigeyuki Kihara Launiu Maiden

A day of talks and discussion entitled nau te rourou, naku te rourou ka ora te manuwhiri (with your food basket and my food basket the people will be fed).

Led by Oceanic artists Rosanna Raymond, George Nuku, Shigeyuki Kihara and Lisa Reihana. The Artists’ Forum is a unique opportunity to reconsider the representation of cultural policies in museums and galleries.

After a formal Polynesian welcome, Rosanna Raymond will weave performance and visual arts together, looking at words as concrete artefacts and textiles in a session shared with spoken-word artist Malika Booker. George Nuku will speak on the theme of diversity in cultural institutions in a session shared with artist Noel Wallace. Shigeyuki Kihara will present a talk and a film about Fa’a fafine; Gender & Sexual minorities in the Pacific. Lisa Reihana will screen selected video projects, sharing a session with artist and film-maker Isaac Julien. This diverse and multi-disciplinary event aims to stimulate critical conversations and to explore new understandings between cultures. Artists, students, performers and scholars from the UK and Polynesia will discuss the issues and challenges faced by cultural leaders, artists, researchers and curators in today’s global art markets. These themes are developed in the ethKnowcentrix exhibition, which focuses on the ways in which artists reclaim and subvert the ‘ethnographic gaze’ historically applied to Polynesian culture in the West. The day will end with a more informal but nevertheless very important aspect of Polynesian protocol, a shared meal and entertainment from UK based Polynesian performers.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available
Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

	Dale Pendell

Dale Pendell is the author of the award-winning Pharmako trilogy on shamanic ethnobotany (Pharmako/Gnosis, Pharmako/Poeia, and Pharmako/Dynamis), Inspired Madness, a book about Burning Man, and Walking with Nobby, a book of conversations with the philosopher Norman O. Brown. Works in progress include The Great Bay, a futuristic novel of a post-collapse society, and Stealing Fire, a new book of poems.

He and his wife Laura and a familiar cat live in the foothills of the Sierra in California, where they grow pine and oak trees, along with some manzanita. Their performance group, Oracular Madness, most recently appeared at Burning Man.

This lecture is part of a series to be held at the October Gallery on the last Tuesday of each month (excluding August). Please check back to these pages for further details of the upcoming programme or email drdluke@gmail.com to be added to the series' mailing list.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available
Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

	Robert Wallis

Studies of prehistoric art tend to objectify this ‘material’ evidence in a process of disenchantment which has limited interpretative scope. This talk will draw on the theorising of ‘new animism’ in anthropology and religious studies which moves beyond the problematic attribution of spirit to matter and anthropomorphism in the work of Tylor and in other Victorian imaginations of religion, to consider animist ontologies as those which conceive of a world which is filled with persons, only some of whom are human. I argue that this relational approach enables new, re-enchanting insights into Neolithic art in the passage tombs of the Boyne Valley in Ireland, the study of which has tended towards an anthropocentric concept of ‘the social’ and neurotheological analysis of altered states of consciousness. Animist ontologies effectively disrupt the subject/object dichotomy of Western thought, challenge reductionist neurotheology, and offer an extended understanding of agency and personhood. I focus particularly on ‘hidden art’ to demonstrate how a variety of animist ontologies (from animist-totemist to totemist-animist) may have operated at the Neolithic/Bronze Age transition.

Dr Robert J. Wallis is Associate Professor of Visual Culture and Director of the MA in Art History at Richmond University, London, and a Research Fellow in Archaeology at the University of Southampton. His research interests consider indigenous and prehistoric art in shamanistic/animic communities, and the re-presentation of the past in the present by contemporary pagans and neo-shamans. He is author of Shamans / neo-Shamans: Ecstasy, Alternative Archaeologies and Contemporary Pagans, and co-author of the Historical Dictionary of Shamanism and co-editor of Permeability of Boundaries: New Approaches to the Archaeology of Art, Religion and Folklore and, most recently, Antiquaries and Archaists: The Past in the Past, the Past in the Present. He is currently working on a monograph on art and shamanism.

This lecture is part of a series to be held at the October Gallery on the last Tuesday of each month (excluding August). Please check back to these pages for further details of the upcoming programme or email drdluke@gmail.com to be added to the series' mailing list.

Doors open: 6pm-10pm. Tickets: £12
Pay bar, complimentary finger foods by Joy Fenikowski

Bookings - rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

Take a journey through Contemporary Pacific artistic landscapes when London based Pasifikan artists Beats of Polynesia, Brian Fuata, Jerome Kavangh, Moana Pember and Rosanna Raymond come together to present a night of performance based spoken word, embellished with visual art, sound and movements.

“Thrillingly contemporary yet rooted in a deep and ancient culture,
this is powerful performance, rare and wonderful and like nothing else to be seen in London”

Luke Dixon, Artistic Director of the International Workshop Festival

Don’t miss this Artist Fundraising Event for the artists participating in the exhibition ethKnowcentrix - Museums Inside the Artist, which opens this September.  Words become art, projected on walls; poems are rendered in the language of dance and sound; chants and traditions are rendered creating ritual spaces, bringing the past into the present. Experience a sensual and provocative night of living art and culture.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available
Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

	Erik Davis

One of the most vital aspects of human consciousness is the dimension of the imagination, a broad domain that can be said to include the overlapping worlds of dream, fantasy, creative visualization, hallucination, and the spectres and phantasms of the paranormal. Any genuine engagement with spirituality and religious experience must take the imagination seriously. This is also true of any attempt to engage nature on a holistic level, for it is through the imagination that nature speaks, and the wilderness without can touch the wildness within. In this talk, Erik Davis will explore different theories and practices of the imagination, and will relate them to visionary experience, magic, dreams, and our ordinary engagement with “reality.” An engaging and entertaining speaker, Davis will follow his talk with a discussion.
Erik Davis is the author of the cult classic TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Information Age, also The Visionary State: A Journey through California’s Spiritual Landscape, and a critical volume on Led Zeppelin’s fourth album. A frequent lecturer at universities and festivals alike, Davis has contributed articles and essays to scores of books and publications, and posts regularly at www.techgnosis.com. He lives in San Francisco with his wife.

This lecture is part of a series to be held at the October Gallery on the last Tuesday of each month. Please check back to these pages for further details of the upcoming programme or email drdluke@gmail.com to be added to the series' mailing list.

Entry £FREE, 3pm - 4pm (approx)

Ablade Glover will be giving a gallery tour and talk to accompany the exhibition Ablade Glover: 75 Year Anniversary

Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

Ralph Metzner, Ph.D. who has a B.A. in philosophy and psychology from Oxford University and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Harvard University, has been involved in the study of transformations of consciousness ever since, as a graduate student, he worked with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (later Ram Dass) on the Harvard Psilocybin Projects. He co-wrote The Psychedelic Experience, and was editor of The Psychedelic Review.

During the 1970s, Ralph spent 10 years in the intensive study and practice of Agni Yoga, a meditative system of working with light-fire life-energies. He wrote Maps of Consciousness, one of the earliest attempts at a comparative cartography of consciousness; and Know Your Type, a comparative survey of personality typologies, ancient and modern. He was the Academic Dean for ten years, during the 1980s, at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he taught courses there on “Altered States of Consciousness” and “Developing Ecological Consciousness.” He is now Professor Emeritus.

He maintains a part-time psychotherapy practice, and conducts numerous workshops on consciousness transformation, both nationally and internationally. His books include The Well of Remembrance, The Unfolding Self, Green Psychology, and two edited collections on the science and the phenomenology of Ayahuasca and Teonanácatl.

This lecture is part of a series to be held at the October Gallery on the last Tuesday of each month. Please check back to these pages for further details of the upcoming programme or email drdluke@gmail.com to be added to the series' mailing list.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available
Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

	Graham Hancock

Modern technological societies value only the alert, problem-solving state of consciousness, and have demonised trance states brought on by the consumption of psychedelic drugs. But in his book Supernatural, the background to his talk at the October Gallery, Graham Hancock presents staggering new information that experiences induced by plant hallucinogens may have played a vital role in the evolution of our species – opening our ancestors to supernatural realms and making us truly human for the first time. It all happened very recently.

Less than 50,000 years ago mankind had no art, no religion, no sophisticated symbolism, no innovative thinking. Then, in a dramatic and electrifying change, described by scientists as ‘the greatest riddle in human history’, all the skills and qualities that we value most highly in ourselves appeared already fully formed, as though bestowed on us by hidden powers. In his lecture, Graham Hancock sets out to investigate this mysterious ‘before-and-after moment’ and to discover the truth about the influences that shaped the modern human mind. His quest takes him on a journey of adventure and detection from the stunningly beautiful painted caves of prehistoric France, Spain and Italy to remote rock shelters in the mountains of South Africa where he finds a treasure trove of extraordinary Stone Age art.

He uncovers clues that lead him to travel to the depths of the Amazon rainforest to drink the powerful plant hallucinogen Ayahuasca with Indian shamans, whose paintings contain images of ‘supernatural beings’ identical to the animal-human hybrids depicted in prehistoric caves and rock shelters. And Western laboratory volunteers placed experimentally under the influence of hallucinogens such as mescaline, psilocybin and LSD also report visionary encounters with exactly the same beings. Scientists at the cutting edge of consciousness research have begun to consider the possibility that such hallucinations may be real perceptions of other ‘dimensions’.

Could it be that the human brain is not just a generator of consciousness, but also a receiver of consciousness, and could the ‘supernaturals’ first depicted in the painted caves and rock shelters be the ancient teachers of mankind? This new approach strongly suggests that human evolution is not just the ‘blind’, ‘meaningless’ process that Darwin identified, but something else, more purposive and intelligent, that we have barely even begun to understand. By criminalising and demonising the consumption of psychedelic drugs it may even be that our societies are blocking off the next vital step in the evolution of our species.

Graham Hancock is the author and coauthor of a number of best-selling investigations of historical mysteries, including Fingerprints of the Gods, Supernatural, The Sign and the Seal, Keeper of Genesis, Heaven's Mirror, The Mars Mystery, and Underworld. His books have been translated into 27 languages and have sold more than 5 million copies worldwide. www.grahamhancock.com

This lecture is part of a series to be held at the October Gallery on the last Tuesday of each month. Please check back to these pages for further details of the upcoming programme or email drdluke@gmail.com to be added to the series' mailing list.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available
Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

	Jay Griffiths

Jay Griffiths will talk about her book, “Wild: An Elemental Journey” which describes her journeys to wildernesses of earth and ice, water, fire and air.  This book is the result of a seven-year odyssey among Native people, listening to their philosophies; meeting cannibals; anchoring a boat to an iceberg where polar bears slept; joining Inuit hunters on a whale hunt; drinking shamanic medicine with Amazonian healers; visiting sea gypsies and journeying to the freedom fighters of West Papua.

She will discuss the songlines of the earth, the paths in the Papuan highlands remembered in song, and the ethereal music of shamans, as well as the songlines of Aboriginal Australia.  The talk will explore the words and meanings which shape ideas of wildness and it will illustrate the anarchic nature of wildness, as well as the kindness of what is wild, both in nature and the human mind. The talk will also explore some of the political resonances of wilderness and the corporate invasions of indigenous lands, arguing for the essential freedoms, and the necessary wildness of the human spirit, everywhere. 

Jay Griffiths is the author of two works of non-fiction “Wild: An Elemental Journey” and “Pip Pip: A Sideways Look at Time”.  She has also written a long short story, “Anarchipelago” based on the road protest movement of the 1990s.  She is the winner of many awards, including the Orion prize and the Barnes and Noble award for the best first-time author.  She lives in Wales.

This lecture is part of a series to be held at the October Gallery on the last Tuesday of each month. Please check back to these pages for further details of the upcoming programme or email drdluke@gmail.com to be added to the series' mailing list.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available
Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

	Dr. Rupert Sheldrake

According to Rupert Sheldrake's hypothesis of formative causation, all self-organizing systems, including crystals, animals and societies contain an inherent memory, given by a process called morphic resonance from previous similar systems. All human beings draw upon a collective human memory, and in turn contribute to it. Even individual memory depends on morphic resonance rather than on physical memory traces stored within the brain. This radical hypothesis implies that the so-called laws of nature are more like habits, and evolution, like human life, depends on an interplay between habit and creativity.

Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D. is a biologist and author of more than 80 scientific papers and several books, including A New Science of Life (new edition, February 2008). His web site is www.sheldrake.org.

This lecture is part of a series to be held at the October Gallery on the last Tuesday of each month. Please check back to these pages for further details of the upcoming programme or email drdluke@gmail.com to be added to the series' mailing list.

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available
Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

	Paul Devereux

Did the ancient American Indian soul leave its mark on the land? In this profusely illustrated presentation, Paul Devereux will argue that it did by exploring a range of sacred geographies scattered through the Americas. From the Nazca lines to many other "lines", from the spirit paths of the Kogi Indians to the giant ground drawings of California and Arizona, to the vision quest places of the old shamans, to the strange "place where God sits" in Canada. And more. A unique travelogue that traces an interior journey.

Paul Devereux's main areas of interest are archaeo-acoustics (study of sound at ancient places), ancient and traditional lifeways, the anthropology and archaeology of consciousness, sacred sites and landscapes, general consciousness studies including psi phenomena, unusual geophysical events, and what are loosely termed 'earth mysteries'. This is work he has been involved with at a 'front line' level for almost four decades. Paul has published oodles of books, most recently The Long Trip: A Prehistory of Psychedelia, and Mind Before Matter: Visions of a New Science of Consciousness. www.pauldevereux.co.uk

This lecture is part of a series to be held at the October Gallery on the last Tuesday of each month. Please check back to these pages for further details of the upcoming programme or email drdluke@gmail.com to be added to the series' mailing list.

Entry £8 /£6 Concessions
6:30pm (doors open 6:00pm, refreshments available)
Reservations email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk
or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

Hugh Brody will be present for a brief Q&A session at the end of the film.

Hugh Brody’s new film, The Meaning of Life, is about a prison. It is also a film about redemption, spirituality and the possibility of finding meaning in defiance of some of the worst kinds of personal violence and institutional cruelty.

The prison is high in the mountains of western Canada, on the territory of the Chehalis people; over half the inmates come from First Nation backgrounds. For ten years the prison and the Chehalis community have been engaged in a unique partnership. Security and daily management of the prison are carried out by the Canadian Correctional Service; rehabilitation is inspired and led by Chehalis elders, following their ideas of spirituality, ceremony and healing.

One of the inmates in the film says: “You commit yourself to death; you’ve taken away your life by taking a life… Where do you go from here?”

In this film, we see the lives and listen to the voices of those who have experienced loss of life and the attempt to find somewhere to go, some way to find meaning. And the film asks, by implication, the difficult question: is there a justice system where we can find forgiveness and redemption?

Some comments from people who have seen the film

The Meaning of Life” by Hugh Brody brings to “life” and brings “life” to those who have had their life taken away … More important, this film highlights how communities can work together to create a positive relationship and healing that benefits everyone.
The Honourable Gwen Point, Chatelaine of British Columbia.

This is a profoundly moving film that makes its point … in a subtle, understated way that lasts long after the viewing is over.
Marcus Banks, Professor of Visual Anthropology, University of Oxford

If you think that you know what it means for our society to sentence some people to life imprisonment, perhaps you need to think about it again. Better still, you should watch Brody's film about the "Meaning of Life", not that you are going to find in it any easy answer. Our collective struggle to find some meaning in all this is not over yet.
Yvon Dandurand, criminologist and Associate Vice-President,
University of the Fraser Valley

Entry £7 /£5 Concessions, Arrive 6pm for a 6:30pm Start - Wine available
Please reserve your place as space is limited.
Email rentals@octobergallery.co.uk or call 44 (0)20 7831 1618

	Dr. David Luke

This talk discusses both the scientific and the mystical understanding of people's experiences of visionary encounters with discarnate beings. In all times and places people have had profoundly real experiences of deities, demons, angels, elves, aliens, and ghosts. Sometimes these occur when a person is in altered state – dreaming, on drugs, or is near death. The connection between the altered state and the 'visitation' is explored in a vivid illustrated talk, which takes a personal tour through folklore, mythology, neurochemistry, magic, shamanism, the Luciferian witch cult, brain anatomy, Tibetan demonology, the pineal gland, art, the Reg Veda, psychoactive toads and a cauldron full of other odd ingredients. A lively slide lecture format followed by discussion.

Dr. David Luke lectures in psychology at several London universities and is a writer and researcher with a special interest in parapsychology and altered states of consciousness. He has studied paranormal phenomena and techniques of consciousness alteration from South America to India, from the perspective of scientists, shamans and Shivaites. He lives life on the edge, of Hackney.

This lecture is part of a series to be held at the October Gallery on the last Tuesday of each month. Please check back to these pages for further details of the upcoming programme or email drdluke@gmail.com to be added to the series' mailing list.

Screening 3:00 pm (Doors open 2:30 pm)
Tickets: £8/£6 conc.

In this astonishing new award winning documentary, Director Nik Sheehan, a custom made Dreamachine in tow, takes us on a journey into the life of Brion Gysin - his art, his complex ideas, his friendships with some of the twentieth century's key counterculture figures.  Taking the dream machine as the basis of its explorations, FLicKeR asks crucial questions about the nature of art and consciousness, and imagines humanity liberated to explore its creativity in complete freedom.

Featuring greats like Burroughs (in archival footage), singer Marianne Faithfull, singer/artist Genesis P-Orridge of Psychic TV, poet John Giorno, punk rocker Iggy Pop, filmmaker Kenneth Anger and artist/turntablist DJ Spooky, and many more, FLicKeR is a hypnotic documentary. Two longtime Gysin collaborators who are interviewed in the film, Terry Wilson and Udo Breger, will be present at this screening. Film courtesy of Makin' Movies and the National Film Board of Canada.

Screening 7:30 pm (Doors open 7:00 pm)
Tickets: £8/£6 conc.

In this astonishing new award winning documentary, Director Nik Sheehan, a custom made Dreamachine in tow, takes us on a journey into the life of Brion Gysin - his art, his complex ideas, his friendships with some of the twentieth century's key counterculture figures.  Taking the dream machine as the basis of its explorations, FLicKeR asks crucial questions about the nature of art and consciousness, and imagines humanity liberated to explore its creativity in complete freedom.

Featuring greats like Burroughs (in archival footage), singer Marianne Faithfull, singer/artist Genesis P-Orridge of Psychic TV, poet John Giorno, punk rocker Iggy Pop, filmmaker Kenneth Anger and artist/turntablist DJ Spooky, and many more, FLicKeR is a hypnotic documentary. Two longtime Gysin collaborators who are interviewed in the film, Terry Wilson and Udo Breger, will be present at this screening. Film courtesy of Makin' Movies and the National Film Board of Canada.

6:30 pm (Doors open 6:00 pm)
Tickets: £7/£5 conc.

	John Allen and Anthony Blake

Continuing a thought-provoking series of discourses which began in 1994, Allen and Blake, two outstanding contemporary thinkers, exchange views about human existence.

Their premise this evening:
Thinking takes one to the edge of consciousness and is liable to arouse sleeping demons. Comforting rationalisations are its betrayal. It is luciferic, given to pride and an enemy of all authorities.

Anthony Blake
Anthony Blake’s early training was in physics at Bristol and the philosophy and history of science at Cambridge. He worked for more than fifteen years with John Bennett, one of the leading proponents of Gurdjieff’s ideas. Following a now ‘normal’ meandering path through consultancy, publishing and educational research he co-founded the non-profit DuVersity for development of free intelligence and authored books on Time, Systems, Intelligence, Dialogue and Methodologies of Thinking and is currently working on a book examining the idea of Higher Intelligence. Married, with six children, he is currently exiled in Scotland.

7:30pm - 10:00 pm
(doors open 7.00pm)
Minimum £10 (£8 conc)
all proceeds go to sustainable development programme. Booking advised. Please contact rentals@octobergallery.co.uk

INDIGENOUS PEOPLE PRESENTS !Gubi Family Tour –Indigenous San from the Kalahari Desert, Namibia, performing traditional music and dance, accompanied by a film by award winning film-maker

A wonderful opportunity to witness a rare treasure of Namibia who will perform In order to raise subsequent funds to set up a sustainable development programme.

In order to build awareness of one of the oldest cultures on our planet, the !Gubi family have been travelling and performing enchanting music throughout Britain. 

This film is about the Africa that exists in the hearts and minds of people who are from Africa or have lived, travelled or worked there. Amongst the 20 interviewees are the artist, Yinka Shonibare MBE; actor, Chiwetel Ejiofor; author and playwright, Biyi Bandele and Mourad Mazouz, founder of the restaurants Sketch and Momo. This film was commissioned by the Africa Centre.

	Karel Nel, Stellar Grammar, 2007. 540 million-year-old carboniferous dust from Gondwanaland and salt from the atlantic ocean on a wooden base.

3:00 pm
Free Admission - booking recommended 0207 242 7367

Distinguished South African artist, Karel Nel will speak about his work. He will be introduced by Chris Spring, Curator of the African Galleries at the British Museum and author of Angaza Afrika – African Art Now. This will be followed by a Q & A.

As one of South Africa’s foremost and internationally renowned artists, Karel Nel has long been fascinated by the relationship between art and science; Nel’s works directly challenges the view that these two disciplines are radically different. Using site-specific materials, such as carboniferous dust from dinosaurs in Gondwanaland and coco de mer palms from the Seychelles, Nel is able to impart important aspects of the world and the universe through innovative and beautiful artistic expressions.

An Associate Professor of Fine Art at the University of Witwatersrand, Karel Nel is represented in most major museums and public collections in South Africa. His work is also in the collections of the Smithsonian and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

	Chili Hawes. Photo: Gonzalo Arcila

7:00 pm (Doors open 6:00 pm)
Tickets: £6/£4 conc.

A Gal and Her Gallery, produced and directed by Suzanne Campbell-Jones tells the story of Chili Hawes, Director of the October Gallery, and of how, with a synergetic approach and with a team of artists, adventurers and friends from around the world, she rescued a derelict building in London and turned it into a pioneer gallery of the transvangarde: contemporary, cutting edge work of extraordinary artists from around the planet.


Enquiries to:
rosalind@octobergallery.co.uk
or tel 0207 831 1618

For further information about the film please see www.mostlymovies.co.uk

Shang Orientheatre’s new production, Bardo Todel marks the third season at the October Gallery of a stunning dance-sound performance group from Taiwan.

Drawing inspiration from Tibetan Buddhism, and in particular, The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Bardo Todel is the story of the journey from death to reincarnation and rebirth.

Director Sun Li-Tsuei's style is influenced by shamanism, Qi Gong, Tai Chi, the mime of Marceau and Le Coq and Chinese martial arts. The ensemble has performed to critical acclaim in Taiwan, Spain, Belgium and the Festival of Avignon OFF in France.

Commissioned by the Africa Centre, this film is about the Africa that exists in the hearts and minds of people who are from Africa or have lived, travelled or worked there. Amongst the 20 interviewees are the artist, Yinka Shonibare MBE; actor, Chiwetel Ejiofor; author and playwright, Biyi Bandele and Mourad Mazouz, founder of the restaurants Sketch and Momo

Free Admission - booking recommended Booking Contact: rosalind@octobergallery.co.uk
Tel: 0207 242 7367

Chris Spring, curator of the African Galleries at the British Museum and author of the book Angaza Afrika - African Art Now, will discuss contemporary African art with particular emphasis on the artists featured in the exhibition. He will be joined by several exhibiting artists. The talk will be followed by a Q&A session and Chris will be available to sign copies of his book.

Art Dubai takes place every March at the Madinat Arena. As the first contemporary art fair in Dubai, the Fair has become a cornerstone for the rapidly growing art community of the Middle East.

The 2008 fair will host nearly seventy galleries from the Middle East, Asia, Europe, North and South America, North Africa and Australia. The October Gallery exhibit can be found at Stand A35.

October Gallery artists exhibited include: El Anatsui, Ira Cohen, Romuald Hazoumè, Rachid Koraïchi, Elisabeth Lalouschek, Hassan Massoudy, Laila Shawa, Wijdan, Gerald WIlde and Kenji Yoshida.

For further details please see www.artdubai.ae

October Gallery will be exhibiting at the first African contemporary art fair held in Johannesburg. On sale will be the largest collection of African and South African contemporary art the world has ever seen - 5000 square metres of the Sandton Convention Centre have been booked for the event.

October Gallery artists exhibited include: El Anatatsui, Romuald Hazoumè,
Ablade Glover, Owusu-Ankomah, Rachid Koraïchi, Sandile Zulu,
Julien Sinzogan, Nnenna Okore.

For further details please see www.joburgartfair.co.za

7:30 pm (Doors open 7:00 pm)
Tickets: £6/£4 conc.

	Ira Cohen 'Reclining Baba'

Kings with Straw Mats is an extaordinary portrait of sadhus at India’s greatest sacred celebration, the Kumbha Mela, which takes place every 12 years. Produced by Ira Cohen with cinematographer Ira Landgarten in 1986, the film follows the sadhus in their path of insight and devotion, intoxicated on the divine, evoking the mythic, silencing themselves in poverty and solitude to reach the unlimited world of shamanistic ecstasy.

All screenings are co-presented by
Arthur Magazine and Universal Mutant. For more information or to order Ira Cohen DVDs, visit Arthur Magazine’s website:
http://www.arthurmag.com

7:00 pm (Doors open 6:30 pm)
Tickets: £6/£5 conc.

	John Allen aka Johnny Dolphin

Adventurer, Ecologist, Philosopher & Poet, John Allen (aka Johnny Dolphin) will read from his new book of memoirs Me and the Biospheres (Synergetic Press). For one night only, a unique opportunity to hear John Allen, FRGS, FLS, inventor of Biosphere 2, the controversial laboratory of global ecology.

Co-founder of Theatre of All Possibilities, Allen has also designed innovative scientific projects and led explorations around the world. His extraordinary life story and travels have been chronicled in his novels, poetry, short stories and plays written by his alter ego—Johnny Dolphin.

screening 7:30 pm (Doors open 7:00 pm)
Tickets: £6/£4 conc.

	‘The Snowflake Syndrome’ from ‘The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda’

Ira Cohen’s legendary 1968 film The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda is a “languidly opiated costume ball - so High ‘60s that you emerge from its vision perched full-lotus on a cloud of incense, chatting with a white rabbit and smoking a banana” (J. Hoberman). Invasion is a psychedelic bullet to your third eye.

Paradise Now: The Living Theatre in Amerika, a film of The Living Theatre’s historic 1968 American tour. The Living Theatre, led by Julian Beck and Judith Malina, triumphantly returned to America from years of self-imposed exile in Europe with their theatrical breakthrough Paradise Now. The result of this shared voyage is the spontaneous creation of a temporary anarchist collective - free from the enslavements of war, violence, the State, money and the self.

introduced by Ian MacFadyen
7:30 pm (Doors open 7:00 pm)
Tickets: £8/£6 conc.

	Ira reading his poetry at October Gallery 2003 Photo © Ishmael Annobil

Ira Cohen, poet, photographer, filmmaker, traveller was born in 1935 to deaf parents. In 1961 he took a Yugoslavian freighter to Tangiers where he lived for 4 years and published Gnaoua, a magazine devoted to exorcism introducing the work of Brion Gysin, William S. Burroughs and other members of the interzone mob. He produced Jilala, a mythic recording of trance music by dervishes, recorded by Paul Bowles.

In 1970 he went to the Himalayas where he started the Starstream poetry series under the Bardo matrix imprint in Kathmandu, publishing the work of Paul Bowles, Charles Henri Ford, Gregory Corso and Angus MacLise and developing his art of bookmaking working with native craftsmen. In 1972 he spent a year in San Francisco reading and performing and then returned to New York mounting photographic shows.

Cohen is the artistic director of Universal Mutant, Inc., a foundation established with the help of Judith Malina, Gerard Malanga, and Will Swofford in order to promote and protect the works of insolite / occult / alternative writers, filmmakers and interdisciplinary artists.

Allan Graubard is a poet, playwright and critic. Books include: From the Mylar Chamber: Photos of Ira Cohen and Fragments From Nomad Days.

Eric Andersen is a singer and songwriter from New York who has recorded 25 albums of original material, and is a writer of short stories. He has contributed essays and articles for the Rolling Stone Book of the Beats, the William Burroughs/Tom Waits collaboration of The Black Rider for the Norwegian National Theater, Freedom Is A Constant Struggle (reminiscences of the 1960’s Civil Rights movement), and the National Geographic Traveler magazine.

Ian MacFadyen’s published essays include Ira Cohen’s Photographs: A Living Theatre (Cynthia Broan Gallery) and Machine Dreams: OpticalToys and Mechanical Boys. He has written about the work of William S. Burroughs for many years and is currently co-editing Naked Lunch @ 50.

3:00 pm
Free

	Photo by Teresa Angell

This film focuses on the life and teachings of the revered Ojibwe Medicine Man James Jackson Sr. (1913-1992). Jackson devoted himself to bringing health to Indian people, using traditional medicine and prayer, psychology, love and humour. Utilising interviews with Jackson, friends, family, and Ojibwe people who benefited from his knowledge and wisdom, Norrgard’s award winning film presents a powerful story of cultural integrity, survival and truth of the Ojibwe way.

	Andrea Carlson 'Vaster Empire'

Andrea Carlson talks about her work.

Born in 1979, Andrea Carlson grew up in Minnesota, and is an MFA graduate of Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She has been the recipient of a McKnight Foundation Fellowship (2007-2008), a Blacklock Nature Sanctuary Fellowship (2007), and a Minnesota State Arts Board, Cultural Community Partnership Grant, in collaboration with the Soo Visual Arts Center (2005). Carlson was awarded Best in Show, Ojibwe Art Exhibition at Leach Lake Tribal College, Bemidji, MN (2004), and has been widely reviewed.  She lectures regularly at the University of Minnesota.

	Star Wallowing Bull 'Seal of Approval'

Leading scholars and artists give short presentations on aspects of their work. The presentations will be followed by questions from the audience and discussion.

Speakers:

Andrea Carlson, featured artist. Carlson's discussion will focus on the artist's view of objects as surrogates for memory and story.

Dr. Jean Fisher is a lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London, and is Professor of Fine Art and Transcultural Studies at Middlesex University. She studied Zoology and Fine Art, later becoming a freelance writer on contemporary art and issues of postcoloniality. She is the former editor of the international quarterly Third Text, and the editor of the anthologies, Global Visions: Towards a New Internationalism in the Visual Arts (1994), Re-verberations: Tactics of Resistance, Forms of Agency (2000) and, with the Cuban curator Gerardo Mosquera, Over Here: International Perspectives on Art and Culture (2004). A selection of her essays, Vampire in the Text, was published in 2003.

Dr. Stephanie Pratt is a Native American historian of the Dakota tribe, Reader in Art History at the University of Plymouth, and co-author of Between Worlds, published to accompany the recent exhibition of the same name at the National Portrait Gallery. Pratt will discuss the visual representation of Native Americans and their art, mainly in North American and British examples.

Dr. David Stirrup is an English and American Studies Lecturer at the University of Kent. His most recent research focuses on 20th century Native American fiction. He is currently working on a monograph on community and narrative in contemporary Ojibwe fiction.

7:00 pm (Doors open 6:30 pm)
Tickets: £6/£4 conc.

	Photo by Gregory Bayne

In this award winning documentary, filmmaker Heather Rae presents the engaging life story of Native American poet-activist John Trudell. 'Trudell' begins in the late sixties when John Trudell and a community group, Indians of All Tribes, occupied Alcatraz Island for 21 months. This created an international recognition of the Native American cause. In 1979, while protesting the US government’s policy on Native Americans, John burned an American Flag on the steps of the FBI headquarters in Washington DC.  Within a matter of hours his pregnant wife, three children and mother in law were killed in a suspicious arson fire on a Nevada reservation. It was after this that Trudell withdrew from politics and found his voice as a poet, and later as a musician. The film combines interviews with his allies from the entertainment community, the ‘movement’ days, and his friends and family with archival and concert footage from all over the world.

7:00 pm (Doors open 6:30 pm)
Tickets: £6/£4 conc.

	Photo by Jill Sabella

Winner of many awards, including the Sundance Film Festival's Audience Award, 'Smoke Signals' is the first feature written, directed, co-produced and acted by Native Americans. When the parents of Thomas (Evan Adams) are killed in a fire, he is rescued by Arnold Joseph (Gary Farmer), the father of Victor (Adam Beach). When Arnold dies, Thomas offers Victor funding for the trip to collect Arnold's remains, on the condition that Thomas goes with him. The interactions between the stoic Victor and the light-hearted Thomas alternate between humour and rage during their bus ride to Phoenix. When the boys arrive at Arnold's trailer, they meet neighbour Suzi Song (Irene Bedard); her friendship with Arnold reveals a tragedy that shaped the lives of both Victor and Arnold.

6:30 pm (Doors open 6:00 pm)
Tickets: £7/£5 conc.

	Allen and Blake

Continuing a thought-provoking series of discourses which began in 1994, Allen and Blake, two outstanding contemporary thinkers, exchange views about human existence.

John Allen is inventor of Biosphere 2, engineer, author, poet, dramaturge and co-founder of the Institute of Ecotechnics, a UK charity which is particularly interested in projects that advance the ecology of technics and synergise body, brain and behavior in humans.

Anthony Blake trained in physics at Bristol and the philosophy and history of science at Cambridge. He worked for more than fifteen years with British scientist, mathematician and philosopher John Bennett and is currently working on a book examining the idea of Higher Intelligence.
Allen and Blake will discuss the Death of the Future, that key invention of Western Civilisation. The decks have to be completely cleared of a fiction that supports a striving away to escape the present. This may open up a region where we can see ourselves as fictions within a dramatic story being written by humanity.

3.00 to 6.00pm

An illustrated talk on the effects of the abolition of slavery on the formation of a modern African metropolis. Speakers :Giles Omezi, Executive Director, Bukka; Sola Ogunbanjo, Director, Bukka Research; Kaye Whiteman, Former Editor West Africa.

Part of Bukka’s Lagos Future City Programme

	Strange Fruit (California Newsreel)

‘Strange Fruit’ is a documentary which explores the history and legacy of the Billie Holiday classic. The song’s evolution tells a dramatic story of America’s radical past using one of the most influential protest songs ever written as its epicenter. The saga brings viewers face-to-face with the terror of lynching, even as it spotlights the courage and heroism of those who fought for racial justice when to do so was to risk ostracism and livelihood if white - and death if black. It examines the history of lynching, and the interplay of race, labour and the left, and popular culture as forces that would give rise to the Civil Rights Movement.

For further information and bookings please contact

	Shifting Shelter (ABC TV)

October Gallery Australian Film Series

SHIFTING SHELTER 3 (2006)
Director: Ivan Sen
Duration: 30 minutes
ABC TV

Directed by award winning film maker Ivan Sen (‘Beneath Clouds’, ‘Yellow Fella’), ‘Shifting Shelter 3’ follows the lives of four Indigenous Australians growing up in rural New South Wales, in the vein of the ‘Seven Up’ documentaries.

In ‘Shifting Shelter 3’, Ivan meets with the four individuals for a third time. The program recaps Ivan’s earlier visits with Willy, Cindy, Danielle and Ben and looks at the turbulent journey they have faced since the first programme was made. Now ten years since they first met, dreams are remembered and forgotten, while new hopes evolve as they build new shelters for their own families. Directed by award winning

Followed by:

	Plains Empty (Flickerfest)

PLAINS EMPTY (2004)
Writer/Director: Beck Cole
Duration: 26 minutes
Flickerfest

Selected, Sundance Film Festival ’05.

A young Aboriginal woman has recently moved to an isolated mining town with her man. When he has to set up camp at a far-off mining site, she is left to spend more time on her own, but she begins to question whether she is really alone.
‘Plains Empty’ is a ghost story but it is also a film about the common experiences of Aboriginal women in the remote areas of outback Australia.

For further information and bookings please contact

October Gallery Australian Film Series

7:30pm
(Doors/bar open 7:00)
Director: Rolf de Heer
Duration: 91 minutes
Vertigo Productions
The Works Distribution
BOOKING ADVISABLE

Winner of Special Jury Prize,
Un Certain Regard, Cannes 2006.

For those of you who missed ‘Ten Canoes’ at the London Film Festival, October Gallery and The Works Distribution present a free screening of Rolf de Heer’s award winning film.

This film, starring the Yolngu people of Ramingining and David Gulpilil is the first full-length feature film made in Australia entirely in an Indigenous language. In the distant past, Dayindi (Jamie Gulpilil) covets one of the wives of his older brother. To teach him the proper way, he is told a story from the mythical past, a story of wrong love, kidnapping, sorcery and revenge.

For further information and bookings please contact

	Empire (ABC Films)

October Gallery Australian Film Series.

EMPIRE (1997)
Director: Michael Riley
Duration: 18 minutes
Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Indigenous Programs Unit

Michael Riley was an internationally renowned artist, photographer and filmmaker. In his acclaimed work, ‘Empire’, he takes us on a journey through the decaying British Empire in Australia via stylised images and symbols of desolation. There is no narration except for a short archival recording at the end and a specially commissioned score performed by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.

Followed by:

	Urban Clan (Music Arts Dance Films)

URBAN CLAN (1997)
Director: Michelle Mahrer
Duration: 55 minutes.
Music Arts Dance Films

Multi-award-winning documentary ‘Urban Clan’ explores the background of the three brothers, Stephen. David and Russell Page; how they grew up as urban Aboriginals and developed as individual artists who later came together through the Bangarra Dance Theatre when Stephen took over as Artistic Director in 1991.

The theme of family is the anchor point of the film. Three worlds interweave: the Pages’ own family; the wider background of the traditional Aboriginal family and the present family of Bangarra Dance Theatre.

For further information and bookings please contact

	HHH #8 Fiona Foley 2004 Ultrachrome print on paper.

Acclaimed artist Fiona Foley talks about her exhibition ‘Strange Fruit’
Free Admission

Followed by:
Film: Boomalli—Five Koori Artists (1990)

Director: Michael Riley
Duration: 28 minutes
Film Australia

4:30pm
Free Admission

Boomalli Artists’ Cooperative was founded in 1987 by urban Aboriginal and Koorie photographers, painters, sculptors, designers and filmmakers. This film focuses on contemporary rather than traditional work and ways of life. We see the work of clothing designer Bronwyn Bancroft and the sand sculptures of Fiona Foley. Tracey Moffatt discusses her film about Aboriginal girls, and the painters Raymond Meeks and Jeffrey Samuels discuss the thematic approach to their art and how they incorporate aspects of traditional Aboriginal painting. The artists also talk about Aboriginal identity and how this is expressed in their work.

The cultural, intellectual, artistic and social diversity of Bloomsbury will be celebrated in a new arts festival to be held from 20 to 22 October 2006 in the ‘Bloomsbury Quarter’, the area between Euston Road, Gray’s Inn Road, Theobalds Road and Southampton Row. One of London’s best kept secrets, this area has been home to artists and intellectuals for generations and is still at the forefront of artistic and cultural innovation today.

Gallery opening hours during the Bloomsbury Festival:
Friday 20th 12.00pm-7.00pm
Saturday 21st 12.00pm-9.00pm
Sunday 22nd 11.00am-6.00pm
www.bloomsburyfestival.org

6.00pm-9.00pm
There will be a charge for food and wine.

October Gallery and Kennards Good Foods invite you to join them in the October Gallery courtyard for an evening of Australian barbeque food and wine. Marc and the staff from Kennards will prepare delicious gourmet treats with fine Australian wines provided by ‘The Wine Guy’.

After your meal wander through the Gallery to view Fiona Foley’s exhibition ‘Strange Fruit’.

4:00 pm (Doors open 3:30 pm)
Tickets: £7/£5 conc.

	Allen and Blake

Language is more intelligent than people and never came out of grunts. It is the magic that evolved humanity. Language’s alien power shows us that more actions exist in heaven and earth than people and things. It is our worst enemy and our best friend, a parasite and a medicine, an enigma that baffles perhaps becasue it comes from elsewhere.

Could any of this be true?

Anthony Blake
Blake studied physics at Cambridge and became drawn to the enigma of how science arose in Europe in its now accepted form. He studied the Gurdjieff method with John Bennett and meandered in many paths, including the art of dialogue and has written various books - on time, intelligence (and higher intelligence), systems, dialogue and is aiming at writing a book on forms of thought. He notes he is still very puzzled by everything.

John Allen
Allen studied anthropology and history; mining and metallurgical engineering; finance and organisation at Harvard Business School, became an entrepreneur, but enjoys travelling the world to meet interesting artists and thinkers. Allen shares Anthony Blake’s passion for Dialogue. He has written various books on biospheric science as well as poetry, novels and play

FREE ADMISSION

Talks: 12:15-12:45pm
Spoken Word: 1:15-1:30pm
Concerts: 1:30-2:00pm

Wednesday 28 June
Talk: ‘ Challenging Extremism through Creativity’ Fuad Nahdi
Spoken Word: Bengali experiences by Sanchita Islam, BANGLADESH
Concert: Angam al-Rafidain, traditional Maqam from Baghdad IRAQ

Thursday 29 June
Talk: ‘Islamic Arts & Sufism’, Zarah Hussain
Spoken Word: Sufi stories by Rita Ali
Concert: Rani Khanam, Sufi Kathak dance from INDIA

Friday 30 June
Talk: ‘Searching for Art & Identity in the Muslim World’, Navid Akhtar
Spoken Word: poems by Mimi Khalvati, IRAN
Concert: Sultan Mehmet Fatih Ensemble from Sarajevo, BOSNIA

Tuesday 4 July
Talk: ‘Attar's Conference of the Birds’ Raficq Abdulla
Spoken Word: Folk tales from BANGLADESH, Shamim Azad,
Concert: Mehr & Sher Ali Qawaali from Faisalabad, PAKISTAN

Wednesday 5 July
Talk: ‘Street Food & Islamic Culture’ Anissa Helou
Spoken Word: stories from the MIDDLE EAST, Alia Al Zougbi,
Concert: Aissawa Brotherhood of Said Guissi from Fes, MOROCCO

Thursday 6 July
Talk: ‘Global Trend towards Local Fundamentalisms’, Kamila Shamsie
Spoken Word: street, culture and religion, spoken word by LITTLEman
Concert: Dao Lang Maqam, Uyghur ensemble from Xinjiang, CHINA

Friday 7 July
Talk: ‘The Holy Mountain: Islam, Christianity and Judaism in the Middle East’ William Dalrymple
Spoken Word: stories from PALESTINE, Rasha Hammami,
Concert: Sheikh Yaseen el Tuhamy from Assyut, EGYPT

Friday 7 July at 7.30pm
Concert: Dolan Muqam, Ughur ensemble from Xinjiang, CHINA

For further details of these events, please call 020 7841 0500 or see www.culturalco-operation.org

7:30pm (Doors open 7pm)
Tickets: £8/6 concs
UK Premiere!

Director Sun Li-Tsuei’s style is informed by shamanism, Qi Gong, Tai Chi, and the mime of Marceau and Le Coq. Shang Orientheatre was founded in the autumn of 2001 in Yanmishan, Taiwan. For a year, the members studied and lived like spirits, practicing physical training and voice in the woods.

The company’s new piece, the Odyssey of a Shaman, is based on a two thousand year old Chinese story, “San Hai Jing”. The traveller wanders through an ancient landscape, encountering a world both natural and magical. “The chaser of the phoenix and the bird itself are one, the chaser chases himself in his dreams”. Masks, paintings and movement portray a mystical quest for the origin of life.

6:30pm (Doors open 6pm)
Tickets: £8/6 concs

	Jack Cohen

Jack Cohen is the world’s foremost expert on the physiology and behaviour of aliens- that is, if they were to exist. World-renowned reproductive biologist, author, and alien design consultant extraordinaire, he approaches the question from both evolutionary biology and fiction. Be prepared to hold on to your seats for a thrilling and fast-paced intellectual roller coaster ride.

Jack was advisor to the Science Museum’s recent exhibit, The Science of Aliens, and authored (with Ian Stewart): Evolving the Alien, What Does a Martian Look Like?, Ebury Press 2004.

3:00pm
Free entry

	Epeli Hau’ofa

Hau’ofa, having just flown in from Fiji for our exhibition, will elaborate his vision of the present and future of Oceania art. Joined by the six participating artists, Hau’ofa will present an unprecedented preview of their experimental arts movement, which creates a new future amidst the global warming and exploitative economics that threaten the magnificent ecology of Oceania.

‘Oceania’ connotes a sea of islands with their inhabitants. The world of our ancestors was a large sea full of places to explore, to make their homes in, to breed generations of seafarers like themselves. People raised in this environment were at home with the sea.. Theirs was a large world in which peoples and cultures moved and mingled unhindered by boundaries of the kind erected much later by imperial powers. (Epeli Hau’ofa)

7:30pm (Doors open 7pm)
Tickets: £7.50/5 concs
UK Premiere!

	The land has teeth and knows the truth... - A Rotuman Proverb

Dir: Vilsoni Hereniko (2004)
Dur: 87 min. Country: Fiji / USA
Language: Rotuman / English

Shamed by her village for being poor and the daughter of a convicted thief, Viki is inspired and haunted by the Warrior Woman from her island’s mythology. The lush tropical beauty of Rotuma, Fiji, contrasts with the stifling conformity of island culture as Viki fights for justice and her freedom. The Land Has Eyes is winner of the Premiere Festival Prize in New Zealand’s inaugural Waiora Maori Film Festival.

3:00pm
Free admission

Gallery Talk

	Family Lines by Fiona Omennyo

In conjunction with the exhibition, 'Uncharted Territory', Sue Ryan, Director of the Lockhart River Art Centre will give an informal talk in the Gallery about the Art Gang, the Lockhart River community and the works on display. She will discuss how the paintings relate to the cultural beliefs, the landscape and lifestyles of the artists. Lockhart artist Adrian King will be present.

7:00 pm (Doors open 6 pm)
Tickets: £4/£3 conc.

Read by Johnny Dolphin

Johnny Dolphin, (aka John Allen) explorer, author, poet, playwright, scientist, inventor of Biosphere 2, has read poetry and prose around the world including at Shakespeare & Co., Paris; Greene Street Café, New York accompanied by Ornette Coleman on the saxophone; Caravan of Dreams in Fort Worth, Texas; and October Gallery (with poets Ira Cohen, Sebastian Barker, Jack Hirschman, Pops Mohammed, Jegede, and Aidan Andrew Dun), and at City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco.

3.00 pm
Tickets £4/£2 conc.

Storm Boy
Dir: Henri Saffran (1976) (G)
Dur: 94 minutes
Daro Film Distribution

	Storm Boy

Best Film AFI Awards 1977, Moscow & Tehran Children’s Film Festivals

With David Gulpilil and Greg Rowe

This popular children’s film is based on the novel by Australian author Colin Thiele.

Storm Boy lives with his reclusive fisherman father on South Australia's lonely and beautiful Coorong coast, a pet pelican, Mr Percival, and his Aboriginal friend, Fingerbone Bill for company. Storm Boy, growing up, is forced to choose between a life of continued isolation and the challenge of the world outside.

The October Gallery gratefully acknowledges the support of the Australian High Commission, London

7.30 pm (Doors open 7.00 pm)
Tickets: £5/£4 conc.

Yellow Fella
Dir: Ivan Sen (2005) Dur: 25 mins.
CAAMA Productions Pty Ltd
Official Selection Cannes – Un Certain Regard 2005

	Yellow Fella

The latest documentary from award winning director Ivan Sen (Beneath Clouds, Dust, Wind, Tears), featuring Tom E Lewis and Angelina George.

“I’m not black, I’m not white, I’m a yellow fella and I’m gonna stay that way”.

In 1978, Tom Lewis appeared in the Australian feature film, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith*. The life of the character he played was hauntingly close to his own, a young, restless man of mixed heritage, struggling for a foothold on the edge of two cultures. Tom’s mother is a traditional Indigenous woman of southern Arnhem Land, his father a Welsh stockman who he never really knew.

Yellow Fella is a journey across the land and into Tom’s past, as he attempts to find the resting place of his father and to finally confront the truth of his most inner feelings of love and identity.

*The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith premiered at Cannes Film Festival in 1978.

Green Bush
Dir: Warwick Thornton (2005)
Dur: 26 mins
CAAMA Productions Pty Ltd
With David Page (resident composer for Bangara Dance Theatre) in his big screen debut.

	Green Bush

Winner Panorama Best Short Film, Berlin International Film festival

Local DJ Kenny realises his job at the Aboriginal community radio station is about more than just playing music. Kenny jokes that his Green Bush show is broadcast to a ‘captive’ audience – namely the local prison. While taking requests from those on the inside and out, Kenny has to cope with the results of a wild night outside and learn his place in the circle of violence.

Green Bush is a celebration of an era of music, working for the cause and getting things done – but not in the way you would expect.

The October Gallery gratefully acknowledges the support of the Australian High Commission, London

Free Admission

3.00 pm
THE INDIGENOUS ART MARKET IN AUSTRALIA
Talk by Lauraine Diggins of Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne

Melbourne based dealer Lauraine Diggins is a specialist in 19th and 20th century Australian painting, Aboriginal art, sculpture and decorative arts.

Lauraine has dealt in Aboriginal art since 1983 with a particular focus on bark and Western Desert dot paintings. She actively promotes Australian Indigenous art through her participation in international exhibitions and art fairs.

Lauraine will speak about the development of Australian Indigenous painting and the expectations of the art world, whilst exploring stylistic, cultural and conceptual differences between European and Aboriginal painting traditions.

4.30 pm
MR PATTERNS
Dir: Catriona McKenzie (2004)
Dur: 54 minutes
Film Australia

	Mr Patterns

In the 1970’s in Australia’s Western Desert, a teacher named Geoff Bardon helped start one of the most significant art movements of the 20th century. Working with the Aboriginal community at Papunya, he encouraged the people to paint their traditional dot designs using western materials. In defiance of white authorities, Bardon also encouraged the artists to value their work commercially as well as spiritually, believing that by selling paintings the people could become independent of welfare, and bring Indigenous art to the attention of the wider community. This is his story.

The October Gallery gratefully acknowledges the support of the Australian High Commission, London

6:30 pm (Doors open 6 pm)
Tickets: £7/£5 conc.

	Allen and Blake

Continuing a thought-provoking series of discourses which began in 1994, Allen and Blake, two outstanding contemporary thinkers, exchange views about human existence. John Allen is inventor of Biosphere 2, engineer, author, poet, dramaturge, and co-founder of the Institute of Ecotechnics, a UK registered charity that creates hands-on educational programmes and conducts research and development of ecological projects. Anthony Blake is a philosopher, specifically interested in the history and philosophy of science and practical metaphysical and educational systems, author of A Seminar on Time, The Intelligent Enneagram and Structures of Meaning and founder of DuVersity, a non-profit organisation hosting dialogue workshops and seminars.

	Liliane Lijn with Gemini Close

6.30pm Doors open 6 pm

£7/£5 conc.

Liliane Lijn speaks about her experience this summer when the Arts Council England awarded her the first artist residency at the Space Sciences Laboratory at University of California at Berkeley. Her fellowship was funded by Arts Council England's International Artists Fellowship Programme and the Space Sciences Laboratory, with support from NASA and the Leonardo Network.

Lijn is one of the foremost exponents of kinetic art using plastics, mixed media, liquids and light. She has featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Britain, Europe and Japan, and is represented in important public and private collections in Britain, France, Australia and the United States. Her work was featured in the exhibition 'Art and the 60s: This was Tomorrow’ at Tate Britain during 2004, and in 2005, the Mead Gallery at Warwick Arts Centre held a retrospective of her work through to 1980.

A part of the Club Ecumene Series of events at the October Gallery

2.00-6.00 pm
Doors open 1.30pm

An afternoon of talks, demonstrations and discussion to explore the creative potential of fire as both a tool and metaphor in art-making practice. A panel of speakers will cover the history of pyrographic arts and explore ideas surrounding the contemporary use of fire in performance, conceptual and process-based art. Artists Sandile Zulu and El Anatsui have made extensive use of the fluid and fertile potential of fire as a conceptual element within their work. Following a chaired discussion with open debate and question time, El Anatsui will give a practical demonstration of his technique. As a diverse range of ideas are raised by this subject, there will be an opportunity to continue any heated debates over a buffet of flame-grilled delicacies in the Gallery's courtyard from 5pm.

Tickets £5 (£10 with BBQ). Student Rate: £4 (£8 with BBQ).
Limited Places. Booking advised. Pay Bar.

	Bedevil

19:30

BEDEVIL (1993)

Dur: 90 mins Director: Tracey Moffatt. Debut feature from Tracey Moffatt (Nice Coloured Girls, Night Cries) and the first feature directed by an Aboriginal woman. A trilogy of ghost stories, 'Mister Chuck', 'Choo Choo Choo' and 'Lovin' The Spin I'm In', all set in Moffatt's highly stylised Australian landscape.

'A stunning visual assault which envelops the ideas she initiated in her short film, Night Cries' Tait Brady, Melbourne Film Festival.

Tracey Moffatt is a renowned photographer and filmmaker now living and working in New York. In 2003, a retrospective spanning thirty years of her work was held at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art.

	Black and White

19:30

BLACK AND WHITE (2003)

Dur: 101 mins Director: Craig Lahiff with David Ngoombujarra, Robert Carlyle, Charles Dance, Kerry Fox, Colin Friels, Ben Mendelsohn. Screenplay by Louis Nowra. A drama based on a 1958 trial in Adelaide. David Ngoombujarra plays Max Stuart, an illiterate fairground worker convicted of the rape and murder of a young girl. Young immigrant solicitor David O'Sullivan (Robert Carlyle) convinced Stuart's confession was obtained under duress, battles to save him from the gallows and finds himself pitted against the establishment. A young Rupert Murdoch (Ben Mendelsohn) rallies public opinion behind O'Sullivan in a landmark case which reaches the Privy Council in England. 'It slices open the social (black) heart of this society merely 50 years ago, to reveal it as not only racist and sexist but class-driven to boot' Andrew L. Urban

19:30

GULPILIL: ONE RED BLOOD (2002)

Dur: 56 mins Director: Darlene Johnson. During an acting career spanning 36 years, David Gulpilil has starred in some of Australia's most successful films including Storm Boy, The Last Wave, Crocodile Dundee, Dead Heart, Rabbit Proof Fence and The Tracker. This documentary examines the life of a fascinating and highly respected Australian actor, contrasting Gulpilil's traditional life as a Mandipingu man in Ramingining, Arnhem Land with his career as an internationally renowned film star. Darlene Johnson is an award winning filmmaker whose credits include the documentaries Stolen Generations and The Making of Rabbit Proof Fence. Her portrait of David Gulpilil, One Red Blood was nominated for a Logie Award.

Followed by:

WALKABOUT (1971)

Dur: 100mins The Re-released Director's Cut. Based on the novel of the same name by James Vance Marshall, Nicholas Roeg's cult classic stars a young David Gulpilil in his film debut, with Jenny Agutter and Lucien John. Two children are stranded in the desert after their father attempts to kill them and then commits suicide. Their survival is dependent on an Aboriginal boy (David Gulpilil) on walkabout during his initiation into manhood who guides them back to civilisation. A sexual tension develops between the girl and the Aboriginal boy, both on the threshold of adulthood. Roeg's film has multi-layers of meaning and contains minimal dialogue. The cinematography is a visual treat capturing the harsh beauty of the Australian outback.

The Australia Day Foundation and the October Gallery are proud to present an Australian Film Season

Doors open 7.00 pm - Films start 7.30 pm - All films £5.00 - Bar

Bookings: 020 7831 1618

16:00 Performance with full presentation by Hodson and Archer, followed by high tea and champagne. A unique performance by three dancers. Originally performed in 1911, Nijinsky's lost ballet, Jeux, has been newly reconstructed based on original choreographic notes by Nijinsky, discovered in December of last year. Dance historians Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer have done meticulous detective work, finally proving that this ballet, long called his 'Bloomsbury Ballet', was indeed about Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, and have faithfully reconstructed to Nijinsky's choreography.
£25

14:00 Performance and short presentation of the history of the ballet, by Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer.
£15

18:30 Continuing a thought-provoking series of dialogues which began in 1994, Allen and Blake, two outstanding contemporary thinkers, will exchange views about human existence. John Allen is co-founder of the Institute of Ecotechnics, inventor of Biosphere 2, engineer, author, poet, and dramaturge; Anthony Blake is a philosopher, specifically interested in the history and philosophy of science and practical metaphysical and educational systems, author of A Seminar on Time, The Intelligent Enneagram and Structures of Meaning and founder of DuVersity, a non-profit organisation hosting dialogue workshops and seminars.
£7/£5 concessions

18:30 This illustrated talk will give a brief introduction to the esoteric and highly ornate iconography employed in Tibetan Buddhist art, entering into a wide-ranging discussion of the various levels of symbolic meaning contained within its imagery. Beer, the author of several authoritative books on the subject, including the monumental work, The Encyclopedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs, has studied and practised Tibetan thangka painting for more than thirty years. Over the last two decades, Beer has concentrated on an extensive series of iconographical drawings depicting the major deities, lineage holders, and symbols that occur in Tibetan art, and his evident passion for the subject makes him one of only a few western speakers able to traverse this fascinating yet complex field with an insight gained from detailed practical experience.
£7/£5 concessions

19:00 Robert Irwin is the author of six novels and five works of non-fiction. He is an editor at the Times Literary Supplement, a fellow of the London Institute of Pataphysics, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His most recent book is Alhambra.
£7/£5 concessions

18:30 Film showing and book launch. Brion Gysin, painter, writer, sound poet, is best known for his invention of the cut-up technique with collaborator William Burroughs and the invention of the Dream Machine. Brion Gysin Loves Ya, a film by Marie Harding documenting Gysin's first October Gallery exhibition, will be shown. Writer Terry Wilson will read from his new book, Perilous Passage (Synergetic Press) an account of his apprenticeship with Gysin. In it, he details the extreme psychic 'Third Mind' effects known as The Process.
£7/£5 concessions

19:00 If one cannot tell the dancer from the dance, how can dance be recorded? Each dance tradition has at least one unique form of notation, but these have never been an artform in themselves. Can video-dance and new technology break this tradition? Can dead dance forms be resurrected from written records or is cultural salvage impossible? And is there a universal language of dance constrained by biology, or do different cultures reinvent ritual movements independently. With UCL neurobiologist Daniel Glaser chairing this illustrated discussion, three choreographers from contrasting traditions will use body doubles to tell their stories.
£7/5 concessions

18:30 In 1966, artist Gustav Metzger organised the international Symposium of Destruction in Art (DIAS) in London. It was attended by many visitors from Europe and America, including Yoko Ono. Ten years later, punk emerged, highly influenced by the ideas and practices of DIAS. A panel, including Metzger himself, discusses the development and relationship between the punk movement and autodestructive art.

18:30 Houghton, a long-time student of Oriental movement, is one of the founders of Core of Culture, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the documentation and preservation of the world's cultural heritage of ancient dance. This talk will be illustrated by footage that documents the ancient tantric dance tradition of Ladakh, and Core of Culture's most recent project to analyse and catalogue the dances of an entire country, the Kingdom of Bhutan, over the next several years.
£7/£5 concessions

20:00 Theatre of All Possibilities and The Vasulkas collaborate in a demonstration of digital art and performance work based on a new type of electronically-generated emoting robotic characters. Theatre of All Possibilities is a 35-year-old company devoted to the exploration of new work, performing worldwide. The Vasulkas are pioneers of electronic art.
£8/£6 concessions

19:00 UK premiere of a new film by Marie Arnaud and Michele Decoust, about the conception, launch (in 1975), and ecological work of the Research Vessel Heraclitus. With its multicultural crew, the ferro-cement Chinese junk is commissioned by Planetary Coral Reef Foundation (PCRF) to map and assess the health of reefs worldwide. Question and answer session led by Abigail Alling, Director of PCRF. All proceeds from the event will go to support the work of the foundation.
£8/£6 concessions

19:30 Fenley Is one of modern dance's living legends. After a critically-acclaimed season working with her company in New York this September, Fenley makes a rare appearance, joining her friends at the October Gallery to launch Dance Up Close. She is known for an inventive and energetic style. Fenley founded her dance company in 1977, and has worked with composers such as Phillip Glass and John Cage.
£12/£10 concessions

10:30 Introduction by John Allen, co-founder of the October Gallery. Slide presentation of the work of the October Gallery: 25 Years On, by Chili Hawes, Director, and Elisabeth Lalouschek, Artistic Director.(Doors open at 10.00 for coffee/tea) 11.30 Round table discussion led by John Picton, Professor Emeritus of African Art at SOAS, with Augustus Casley-Hayford, Rose Issa, Robert Loder and Sajid Rizvi. 13.00-14.00 Lunch with speakers and artists. 14.00-15.00 Guided Tour of exhibition in the company of artists of the Transvangarde.
£5.00/ £12.00 with lunch included

19:00 - 22:00 Metaphoric Fireworks of Words with some of the world's wildest poets: Ira Cohen, Johnny Dolphin, Ruth Padel, Aidan Andrew Dun, Emmanuel Taiwo Jegede, Simon Vinkenoog and Sebastian Barker who will also offer a tribute to Tambimuttu, Editor, Poetry London 1948-1983.
£8/£6 concessions

October Gallery celebrates its 25 year anniversary this Autumn, launching Intelligence Now!, a spectacular exhibition of work by contemporary artists from around the planet, on 4th November, 2004.

Anniversary festivities will also include seminars, poetry, performances and installations, introducing new directions for the gallery.