A special screening of Dr Gideon Koppel’s award-winning film Sleep Furiously, introduced by the Director himself, will be the preamble to the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods’ (WISERD) annual conference, held in Swansea next week.
The screening, followed by a Q&A session with Dr Koppel, will take place at Swansea University’s Taliesin Arts Centre at 7.30pm on Monday, June 27.
It will precede WISERD’S two-day annual conference held on June 28-29, at Sketty Hall, which as Changing Wales: Social, Economic and Political Perspectives as its theme this year.
WISERD – a collaborative initiative between the Universities of Aberystwyth, Bangor, Cardiff, Glamorgan, and Swansea aims to establish itself as a sustainable research institute built on the active engagement of social science staff from across the Welsh HE sector and the involvement of a complex set of audiences/users in the public and private sectors.
The 94 minute film charts a year in the life of the remote Welsh farming community of Trefeurig in mid-Wales.
Commenting on why its screening is appropriate as the conference’s opener, event spokesperson Dr Heike Doring said: “Gideon Koppel’s documentary is a beautiful and melodic portrait of life in a village faced by the forces of change. The film takes our attention to rural lives, beleaguered in similar and different ways to other parts of Wales, such as the post-industrial lives in the South Wales Valleys.
“It resonates with themes explored in the work of WISERD. Researchers have engaged with substantive topics raised throughout the film, such as economic change, aging and declining communities but above all the power of landscape and a sense of place.
“At the same time, the question of how we experience and know the places we research has been a guiding theme for WISERD and researchers have experimented with image, sound and movement.
“Gideon Koppel’s film combines these elements and he has described the role of film in this endeavour, adding that ‘The filmic image has a sort of painterly quality that is evocative of a world rather than merely signifying it’.
“In its pursuit of evocation the film presents a fitting opening to the conference which does not merely aim to show but to engage participants with different perspectives on ‘Changing Wales’.”
For further information about the Sleep Furiously screening event and ticket prices, contact the Taliesin Arts Centre on 01792 602060, email: office@taliesinartscentre.co.uk, or visit their website.
For more information about WISERD and the conference click here.