In Indra's Net - Slippery Knowledge / Panel discussion

In this exclusive event at HOXTON 253, artist Justin Coombes will give a short presentation on his exhibition and will be joined by two experts, Maitreyabandhu and Dr Michael Pocock, from the fields of Buddhism and ecology to discuss its themes.

PANEL CONTRIBUTORS

Dr Justin Coombes is a visual artist and writer. Most of his art plays on the relationship between word and image. He works across poetry, drawing, photography, film, installation and publishing. Key themes are love, mythology and memory; his fictional characters range from kingfishers and crows to Hindu deities. His work is in a large number of collections in the UK, Russia, France, India, Canada, Japan, the USA and China. These include the British Government Art Collection, Ernst and Young, and the David and Indrė Roberts Collection. Prizes include the £20,000 BOC Emerging Artist Award and the Flash Forward award, Magenta Foundation. Grants include Arts Council England, Fenton Arts Trust, AHRC and Oxford University’s Research Centre in the Humanities. He is a visiting tutor at the University of the Arts, London and the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford.

Dr Michael Pocock is an ecologist based at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. He researches how environmental change affects species and their interactions, and the benefits people gain from connecting with nature including through taking part in ‘citizen science’. Previously he held a Research Fellowship funded by the Natural Environment Research Council at the University of Bristol, and he is chair of the A Rocha Conservation Science Advisory Council. He has appeared on BBC television's Countryfile and The One Show to promote his citizen science work.

Maitreyabandhu was ordained in 1990 and has written three books on Buddhism and three poetry collections with Blookaxe Books. His books on Buddhism include The Journey and the Guide: A Practical Course in Enlightenment. He is the founder of PoetryEast, an ongoing series of cultural events at the London Buddhist Centre exploring the meaning and value of the arts, whose guests have included Anthony Gormley, Marina Warner, Colm Tóibín, Don Paterson, Rowan Williams and Arundhathi Subramaniam. His poetry has won the Keats-Shelley Prize, the Basil Bunting Award, the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize, and the Ledbury Festival Poetry Competition.

Read more about the exhibition: www.hoxton253.com/in-indras-net

The exhibition and associated programme is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.