Release date: Wednesday 7 February 2024, 5.00 pm. Swedenborg House YouTube channel 

As part of the programme for the exhibition, Swedenborg’s Lusthus: On Memory and Place, the Swedenborg Society is proud to present Antenna: Iain Sinclair & Stephen McNeilly in Conversation at Swedenborg House (40 mins.).

Filmed at Swedenborg House in the winter of 2022-23 by filmmaker Jacob Cartwright, and featuring artefacts from the Swedenborg Society’s archives as well as still photography from Anonymous Bosch, Antenna sees writer Iain Sinclair in conversation with Stephen McNeilly. McNeilly is the curator of the Swedenborg’s Lusthus: On Memory and Place exhibition, and editor of the new Swedenborg’s Lusthus book, which features Iain Sinclair’s piece ‘The Moveable Lusthus’.

Iain and Stephen talk about the background to Iain’s involvement in the summerhouse projects, as well as some of his earlier publications, including Lud Heat, Radon Daughters, Blake’s London and Several Clouds Colliding. The pair discuss the importance of Swedenborg House, both as a cultural event space and a possible centre of mystic London, and the discussion features plenty of interesting stories about literary figures, many of whom have been drawn to Swedenborg, including William Blake, John Clare, Brian Catling, Vernon Watkins, Alfred Tennyson, A S Byatt and W B Yeats.

Contributors

STEPHEN MCNEILLY is an editor, writer, artist, curator and museum director of Swedenborg House, and one of the leading scholars on Swedenborg in the UK. He has curated numerous exhibitions and events, the most recent being Concerning an Idea about Place (2023) and is the editor of numerous books including Swedenborg’s Lusthus.

IAIN SINCLAIR is considered one of London’s greatest chroniclers. Iain’s early work consisted mostly of poetry which he published on his own small press, Albion Village Press. His novels include Downriver (winner of the James Tait Black Prize and the Encore Prize) and Dining on Stones (shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize). Non-fiction books, exploring the myth and matter of London, include Lights Out for the Territory, London Orbital and Ghost Milk: Calling Time on the Grand Project. For the Swedenborg Society he has written Blake’s London: The Topographic Sublime (2011); Swimming to Heaven: The Lost Rivers of London (2013); and (with Brian Catling) Several Clouds Colliding (2012).

Filmmaker: Jacob Cartwright

Film Audio: Alex Murray

Archive and Research: James Wilson

Social media and event planning: Rebekka Cartwright and Anya Reeve