Impact

What happens when a poet takes up a Fellowship in an Earth Sciences Department? This unique event includes an exhibition of text, rocks, provocations and panel discussion between poet Alyson Hallett, volcanologist Prof Alison Rust and planetary scientist Dr Simon lock

Exhibition launch event (in person):

18:00 - Opportunity to view the exhibition 'Impact'

18:30 - Panel discussion with Alyson Hallett, Alison Rust and Simon Lock followed by Q&A

19:30 - Opportunity to view the exhibition 'Impact'

Alyson Hallett is a prize-winning poet who has published more than twelve books of poetry and prose. Collaboration is at the heart of Alyson's work and she has co-authored books with a walking artist, physical geographer and fellow poet, as well as collaborating on projects with dancers, visual artists, geologists, glass makers and composers.

In 2022 Alyson was appointed EarthArt Fellow #8 in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol where she worked on the project 'Impact: the Ries Nördlingen Crater, Germany' led by volcanologist Professor Alison Rust. The Ries Crater was initially believed to have been made by a volcano, but when tiny diamonds were found in the stones of churches and houses in Nõrdlingen (a town built inside the impact zone) it became clear that it had been made by a meteorite. Alyson's Fellowship in the School has been largely based on conversations with with lecturers, researchers and students. She has explored what impact means on a personal and scientific level; the various natures of meteorites and volcanoes and how mistakes can open up new ways of thinking.

Alyson has waltzed to the stars and back during her six-month Fellowship. Her understanding of what life is, was and can be, transformed. It has expanded, become more complex, more exciting, more baffling, more known and unknown. New registers of language collided with familiar ones and interfused.

Ensconced in Sir Steve Spark's old office, Alyson read books and wrote, dreamed and sketched and made experimental duets with rocks. The room itself became a collaborator, an oasis that pulsed with decades of scholarship, internationalism, enquiry and community. Her exhibition offers a glimpse into Alyson's working processes and some of the poems and texts she has written.

More about poet Alyson Hallett: www.thestonelibrary.com , www.alysonhallett.com

More about volcanologist Alison Rust: https://www.bristol.ac.uk/people/person/Alison-Rust-c9232e7c-c5e8-49d6-872d-8484f34093e7/

More about Simon Lock: https://www.bristol.ac.uk/people/person/Simon-Lock-9fc527c3-d0d2-4e5e-aa4f-d6a810f5258b/

More about EarthArt: http://earthart.org.uk

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Wills Memorial Building, School of Earth Sciences, EarthArt Gallery, Queens Road, Bristol, United Kingdom