Literature champions Wordlife have been bringing events, publications and projects to Sheffield and across Yorkshire since 2006. See below for some video highlights of past Wordlife projects – including literary projections on a Sheffield landmark, poetry in a brewery, and more.

Digital Poet-in-Residence
Wordlife applied to the ‘Year of Making’ for one of their large-scale commissions to celebrate the history and culture of making in Sheffield through poetry. They created four poet-in-residencies across the city, appointing Charlotte Ansell as poet-in-residence in Portland Works, Genevieve Carver as poet-in-residence in Hope Works, James Giddings as poet-in-residence in Archipelago Gallery and Gav Roberts as poet-in-residence in Abbeydale Brewery.

Each poet explored the concept of making through poetry and produced two pieces of work. One of these was filmed in 360 degree film by Epiphany VR and turned into a VR poem film. Another was advertised on an open call to be turned into a poem film for large-scale projection. The filmmakers were Annie Watson, Kira Zhigalina, Marsha Balaeva and Matt Williamson.

Bronte Light Night – Emily the Diver
Bronte Light Night was Wordlife’s second large-scale projection project for Off The Shelf Festival of Words. Off The Shelf commissioned acclaimed singer-songwriter Nat Johnson to write a song exploring Emily Bronte. Wordlife then ran an open call for filmmakers to work with Nat Johnson’s song, selecting filmmaker Al Reffell to turn the song into a music video designed for large-scale projection.

The short film was then projected onto the frontage of the Upper Chapel building as part of a wider event celebrating new responses to the Bronte’s and it was also projected onto the front of Cast in Doncaster.

Poetry Light Night 2015
Word Life commissioned poets Tony Walsh and Rommi Smith to create original poems inspired by John Ruskin’s writings. John Ruskin was a prominent writer, social activist and philanthropist who was extremely influential and wrote on a huge and varied set of subjects as diverse as architecture, poetry, classical texts, politics and much more.

Rommi Smith and Tony Walsh researched John Ruskin’s works and were tasked with writing an original poem based on their interpretations of his writings. These poems were then given to two filmmakers, Annie Watson and Rob Speranza to be turned into film poems that were then projected onto the frontage of the Upper Chapel building.

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