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The Ocean's Skin - talk by Philip Hoare

Philip Hoare is obsessed with the sea. He swims in it every day - winter and summer. In his talk, The Ocean's Skin, drawing on his new book, RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR, he looks at the way we humans relate to the sea's natural history - its whales, its birds, its tides, its myths.

From his home in Southampton, England, to Cape Cod, in New England; from the mid-Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, Philip looks at how our human story intertwines with watery mysteries and other species: the singing humpback, the shape-shifting selkie, the gothic cormorant. He swims with sperm whales and walks remote beaches in the footsteps of philosophers. And in these collective pasts and presents - human and animal, threatened and celebrated - and especially in the shape of the whale - we see the future, contained beneath what Melville called 'the ocean's skin'. The sea is our future. But what kind of future does it hold?

Philip Hoare's book Leviathan or, The Whale won the 2009 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. It was followed in 2013 by The Sea Inside. His new book, RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR is published by 4th Estate and has been acclaimed as 'a masterpiece' by The Observer. An experienced broadcaster, curator and filmmaker, he presented the BBC film The Hunt for Moby-Dick, filmed in New Bedford, Nantucket and the Azores. He is a regular contributor to The Guardian. He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Southampton, UK, and curator of the Moby-Dick Big Read, a free online and international version of Melville's book read by Tilda Swinton, Sir David Attenborough, Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephen Fry, Fiona Shaw, Witi Inimaera, Simon Callow and many others. It has received 5 million hits to date.

Sponsored by the Cawthron Foundation and special thanks to WORD Christchurch 2018 for bringing Philip Hoare to New Zealand. This lecture is not to be missed! Tickets are free, however a donation at the door on the night is requested. Volume will have copies of Philip's books available, and there will be an opportunity for a book signing at the end of the lecture.

ORGANISATION

Cawthron Foundation

VENUE/DATE

Auditorium, Nelson Centre of Musical Arts

48 Nile Street

Nelson, 7010

7:00pm Mon 3 September, 2018 - 8:30pm Mon 3 September, 2018