19 . 10 . 14
Who’d have thought that you could pack an exhibition into a medium-sized hold-all bag? As we planned our exhibit for the 2014 London Surf / Film Festival the first major problem that we were faced with was how to get it to the capital. James was busy running a “Build-Your-Own” workshop week and unable to make it along to the event, and Mat already had his train tickets booked.
The thought of him changing plans and driving up to and through London, to the festival’s new venue at the Genesis Cinema in E1, wasn’t particularly appealing so we needed to come up with an alternative. Mat was already loading himself down with a case of camera kit and an weekend-away bag, and the suggestion of also carrying a wooden surfboard and display stand on the train and tube had him looking a bit panicked. The solution that we settled upon was to display, alongside some of our imagery, the inner framework of one of our surfboards; the core that very few people see and yet the component that often arouses the most curiosity. We packed up three framed images, a postcard holder and a box of postcards into James’ beloved Millican bag alongside the pieces for the frame of one of our 6’4″ Woodburners and waved Mat off on the train.
By all accounts this year’s London Surf / Film Festival was a resounding success, filling a new (much larger) venue, welcoming 5x Women’s World Champion Stephanie Gilmore and WCT surfer Laura Enever and screening a number of World, European and UK premiers. Alongside the fantastic line-up of surf films there were talks and workshops (from legendary photographer Tim Nunn and a writers forum featuring surf scribes Tim Baker, Tom Anderson, Lauren Davies, Ed Temperley and Chris Nelson), a performance by Stringer Bessant and a “Lines on Water” gallery show featuring the narrative-inspired work of eleven outstanding artists. It was great to be invited to be a part of this year’s festival again, and wonderful to see the event continue to grow in popularity. Thanks to the organisers Chris and Demi for sharing the stoke with the city and having us along. We’ll see you there again, same time next year!
Screen 1 at the Genesis Cinema echoed to the sound of hooting surfers for four nights straight.
Photographer Tim Nunn presenting a selection of his spellbinding photographs and sharing the stories behind them.
The Otter Surfboards exhibit in the “Lines on Water” gallery, sharing a corner with Mat Arney Photography.
Riz and Grant from Riz Boardshorts, who featured an interview with James on their journal over the weekend. Check it out here.
Rolling up to the beach to see a calm sea and one other surfer out, we had no idea we were about to luck into some lovely little peelers...
A lumpy low tide mush fest, complete with dumpy close out barrels...
