Pushkin House

Join us on our second guided walk introducing Bloomsbury and the forces that have shaped its identity, from its beginnings in the grounds of an grand aristocratic house, through the building of Georgian streets on the surrounding fields, the establishment of one of the world’s great museums and the growth of a sprawling university, right up to the attempt to give it a 21st-century rebrand as “midtown”.

Starting at Pushkin House and Bloomsbury Square, right on our doorstep, the tour weaves a route through six more of the many squares the area is known for, ending at nearby Red Lion Square. It tells the story of how Bloomsbury developed as a distinctive part of the city, providing a home to the rich and not so rich; lawyers, politicians, architects, theatre people, philanthropists, foundlings and students; the writers and artists of the Bloomsbury Group; and rioters, outsiders and religious dissenters. Along the way we’ll discover the area’s beautiful Georgian housing, notable listed buildings and striking 20th-century designs, as well as some fascinating facts about its varied and sometimes violent history.

Does home have four walls? Does it sit on the tongue? Does it live fixed in land or does it float across bodies of water? Does home have a pulse? If it wriggles and changes and transforms, can we ever truly trap it on a page? In this zine-making workshop we will attempt to pin down the lifted edges of what home means to all of us. Using Dadaist influences and the power of intuition we will be creating collage-zines by tapping into our subconscious desires, fears and memories to reconcile our experiences with our own displaced, migrated or split sense of home. 
 
We will be exploring the history of DIY publishing, zine making and ‘cut-up’ techniques to create your own zine and arm you with the tools to experiment past our workshop. 

Elida Silvey is a self taught Mexican-American poet, writer and editor living in London, UK. Her self-published zines Home in Limbo, Southwest and her self-published book Nothings explore cinematic poetry centered around those closest to her as an exploration of the effects desire, language and memory have on identity. She is currently the Poetry Editor at Sunstroke Magazine where she occasionally writes, writer for Hard of Hearing Magazine and a part of the Gobjaw Poetry Collective and the second iteration of Un Nuevo Sol. She is also the Assistant Editor at Montez Press. Find her at www.elidasilvey.com and her works in the Pushkin House Bookshop.