Crossroads Salon – featuring a film by Flora Skivington and an Open-Mic on ‘Place’

Join us for the Crossroads Salon, a forum for writers/artists who have Irish or Irish-American heritages or are interested in exploring Irish-American themes, as well as for readers/viewers who want to participate in this exploration.

This meeting of the Crossroads Salon will take place in Oakland near Lake Merritt on Sunday, December 13^th, from 3-5 pm, at a private residence. Please RSVP to receive the host’s address.

Our featured artist is Flora Skivington who will show her film, Oscar and Isabelle, about the relationship between a former music hall singer and her beloved 150 year-old Irish house. It was filmed on location on the north Antrim coast. (25 minutes in length) Flora Skivington is a filmmaker, writer and artist whose films have been shown at film festivals, art galleries and other venues in the U.S. and in Europe. She has an MFA in Film from San Francisco Art Institute and a PhD in Fine Art (Film by practice) from University of Oxford’s Ruskin School of Art. Flora Skivington’s films aim to conjure the particular atmosphere of a place, and explore each place’s ability to engender an emotional and imaginative response. She has an entwined interest in representations of time in particular places. Her rural based films offer an alternative view to an idealised and nostalgic representation of a rural place dominated by the past. Instead, they seek to reveal each place’s present time, less-than-ideal, complex atmosphere.

We ask that participants bring work or questions related to the theme of place. How do you relate to place? How does place inform your sense of self, community or belonging? How does a sense of place relate to Irish or Irish-American identity and the books we choose to read/art that we choose to view? In addition, please bring work from a writer/artist about a relationship to place that especially resonates with you. We ask that each participant’s offering is limited to 8-10 minutes long.

To RSVP or for additional information, please contact: [email protected] or call 707-235-9858

We look forward to seeing you at the Crossroads Salon!