Public Talk by Colin Browne: “What is Thinkable is Also Possible: Surrealists on the Northwest Coast”

In this talk, co-sponsored by the UBC CMS Narratives Research Group, Colin Browne will reflect on the journeys of surrealists Kurt Seligmann (Swiss), Wolfgang Paalen (Austrian), Alice Paalen (French), and Eva Sulzer (Swiss), to Alaska and British Columbia in 1938 and 1939 to experience firsthand the monumental and ceremonial arts of the Indigenous cultures of the Northwest Coast. What were they seeking, what did they find, who did they meet? How were their lives and their work impacted by their experiences? And what are the challenges associated with writing a book about these pilgrimages?

Bio: Colin Browne is a poet, editor, documentary filmmaker, film historian, and Professor Emeritus in the School for the Contemporary Arts at SFU. His book about Paalen will be published by Talonbooks next year.

Featured image: Alice Paalen at the foot of a Tlingit pole, Wrangell, Alaska (Ḵaachx̱aana.áakʼw); Photo by Eva Sulzer, with permission by Andreas Neufert.