Breaking Through to Faerie 2022

EVENT Breaking Through to Faery: Re-enchantment and the Gothic Folklore of Fungi, 19th November, 2022

Breaking Through to Faery: Re-enchantment and the Gothic Folklore of Fungi has been conceived to create a sense of wonder in the everyday and to re-enchant the local landscape after the confines of lockdown and the pandemic. This free event is developed around the themes of folklore, fungi, enchantment and the gothic. It celebrates a unique collaboration between the Open Graves, Open Minds research group (OGOM) at the University of Hertfordshire and the newly launched Centre for Folklore, Myth and Magic in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. Audiences will engage in a range of activities and be introduced to a new concept of ‘botanical gothic’. This event draws on the research into Gothic Faerie and enchantment that was celebrated at our recent conference, ‘Ill met by moonlight’: Gothic encounters with enchantment and the Faerie realm in literature and culture, held in April 2021

Our event is funded by the Being Human Festival 2022. Being Human is the UK’s only national festival of the humanities. A celebration of humanities research through public engagement, it is led by the School of Advanced Study at the University of London, the UK’s national centre for the pursuit, support and promotion of research in the humanities. The festival works in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy to support humanities public engagement across the UK.

Our schedule is as follows:

10.00-11.00 Breaking Through to Faery (Part 1)
(families and adults)

Storytelling walk: In search of fungi and enchantment in the local landscape), led by Holly Elsdon (Head of Centre for Folklore

11.00-1.00 Breaking Through to Faery (Part 2)
(families and adults)

11.00-1.00 All morning drop-in Family Craft Activity – ‘Build a Mushroom Forest in Papier Mache’

11.00-11.30 Tea and Toadstool-Inspired Cakes (made by local business Thyme for Tiffin, using locally foraged edible flowers)

11.30-12.00 Gothic Flash Fiction Writing (40 words on the theme of enchantment) with members of the OGOM Project.

2.00-5.00 Breaking Through to Faerie (Part 3)
(adults and children over 12)

2.00-3.00 Fungi Identification Activity (Roze from Thyme for Tiffin)

3.00-3.30 Tea and Toadstool-Inspired Cakes (made by local business Thyme for Tiffin, using locally foraged edible flowers)

3.30-4.15 Exhibition – Photographing Fungi (original photographs by Holly Elsdon with words by Clare Slack)

4.15-5.00- Illustrated Talk: ‘A Journey into the Botanical Gothic’ (with a special focus on fungi) with Sam George, botanist and gothicist, Associate Professor of Research, Convenor of the Open Graves, Open Minds project.

Venue

Centre for Folklore, Myth and Magic

65, Halifax Road, Todmorden OL14 5BB

BOOKING This event is free but please book tickets via the link below to attend and reserve a place for your chosen activities as numbers are limited.

Booking Link opens 3 October 2022