BLAKE, GINSBERG & “AH! SUNFLOWER”: FILM, MUSIC & CONVERSATION

As part of the Allen Ginsberg at 100 celebrations, curated and produced by Jesse Goodman in collaboration with the Allen Ginsberg Estate, The Bureau of Lost Culture and the Southbank Centre, Swedenborg House is delighted to host a screening of Ah! Sunflowerfollowed by a conversation around the William Blake–Allen Ginsberg lineage. The screening will be supported by a panel discussion involving Iain Sinclair, Barry Miles, Camila Oliveira, and moderated by Stephen Coates.

Steven Taylor, who worked closely with Ginsberg on his settings of Blake to music, will close the evening with a short set of Blake songs, and also join Camila for a conversation on Ginsberg’s recording and performance of Blake. Everyone attending the event will get a copy of AH!MERICA by ISOLARII.

Curated and produced by Jesse Goodman & Peter Hale in collaboration with the Allen Ginsberg Estate, The Bureau of Lost Culture, and Swedenborg House.

IAIN SINCLAIR is considered one of London’s foremost contemporary chroniclers. For Swedenborg House he has written Blake’s London: The Topographic Sublime(2011); with Brian Catling, Several Clouds Colliding (2012); Swimming to Heaven: The Lost Rivers of London (2013), and edited Gifts Returned by the River (2025). He has curated two exhibitions at Swedenborg House, Histories & Hauntings (2023) and Pariah Genius: John Deakin, The Psychobiography of a Photographer (2024).

STEVEN TAYLOR is a musician, poet and songwriter. He has published two books of poems and a musical ethnography. He has composed music for the theatre, film and radio drama. His articles, reviews, essays and poems have appeared in various anthologies and zines. From 1976-1996 he collaborated on music and poetry works with Allen Ginsberg, and has toured and recorded with Anne Waldman, KenwardElmslie, and the New York hardcore band False Prophets.

BARRY MILES is the bestselling author of numerous biographies and cultural histories of the Beat Generation, the Beatles, the Sixties counterculture and its musicians. His books include Allen Ginsberg: Beat Poet (1989); William Burroughs: El Hombre Invisible (1993); Jack Kerouac: King of the Beats. A Portrait. (1998); The Beat Hotel: Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Corso in Paris, 1957-1963 (2000) amongst others. He lives in London.

CAMILA OLIVEIRA is Trustee of The Blake Society and Blake Cottage Trust. She holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and King’s College London on the translation of William Blake’s Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant of Albion to Portuguese and biblical intertextuality. She is currently writing the monograph William Blake and Contemporary Music.

STEPHEN COATES is host of the Bureau of Lost Cultures podcasts, pilot of London band The Real Tuesday Weld, curator of Salon for the City and co-curator of the annual London Month of the Dead festival amongst other cultural endeavours.

JESSE GOODMAN is a producer and curator working across music, film and performance. He has worked with the Allen Ginsberg Estate since 2002, when he helped spearhead the launch of AllenGinsberg.org. With Peter Hale, he co-produced The Fall of America Vol. I & II, internationally collaborative music projects created for the 50th anniversary of Ginsberg’s landmark poetry collection. With Hale, he is producing the international Allen Ginsberg Centennial programme (2026–27).

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