kavan.land

Anna

webpage, 01/04/2012

This body of work by Heather and Ivan Morison draws on the life and works of 20th century British novelist Anna Kavan (1901-1968). Kavan, born Helen Ferguson, produced a large body of elusive and strange work that operated somewhere between biography and science fiction, drawing on her own turbulent life. Anna is an allegorical piece of object theatre that tells a brutal tale of love and loss set against the approaching threat of ‘the ice’.

A Stranger on Earth by Jeremy Reed

newspaperArticle, 07/07/2006

On the cover is an old snap of Anna Kavan tinted to make her look like somebody she never could have been. Before colour photography, it was a profession: tinting photographs, flattering the sitter. If it was the novelist herself who agreed to this enhanced Anna, then the picture is probably a witness to another of her attempts to be just like everybody else, and that is painful.

Anna: A Love Story For Puppets | ...ment

webpage,

Puppet show based upon the novel Ice and the life of the book’s author Anna Kavan. First performed at Eastside Projects, Birmingham on 9th September 2011. The voiceover artists were Dermot Keaney as thehe Warden, Victoria Lewis as the Girl, and Rain Peak Morison as the Child. The puppeteers were Owen Davies as the Girl and Ivan Morison as the Warden.

The Strange Case of AK

blogPost, 03/07/2007

The first blog entry I ever wrote had something to do with Anna Kavan; I think I was reading her book "Let Me Alone" at the time. I've just finished George Saunder's "In Persuasion Nation" -- funny, cynical, nasty, and ultimately touching -- and tonight, waiting anxiously for a thunderstorm that is taking its own sweet time arriving, I'm following it up with Kavan's "Mercury."

Portrait of the Artist as the Books He’s Loved

blogPost, 11/10/2011

My first encounter with Anna Kavan came via an image found trawling through a friend’s flicker page. There is a lovely group of really wonderful women I have met online via my obsession with the 60s & 70s films of the fantastique, and “Oola” is one acquaintance I was particularly bewitched by. She seemed to have impeccable taste and a wonderfully exciting life (from what I could see of it online), so the combination of my experience with the owner of the book and the cover of the book itself, I immediately requested the book from inter-library-loan (at the time, Kavan’s Julia and the Bazooka was out of print).

Mercury by Anna Kavan

blogPost, 06/07/2012

I thought from what was said about Anna Kavan's Mercury that it would be litfic uncomfortably fitted into the fantasy genre. This was largely confirmed when I saw that Doris Lessing had written the foreword, and what she had said about the book. Litfic and I seem to have an uneasy relationship. I generally don't like it, I'm getting the feeling I must be some sort of literary philistine.

My Last Heather and Ivan Morison Puppet Show

blogPost, 06/06/2012

As part of their exhibition, Anna, at The Hepworth Wakefield, Heather and Ivan Morison asked a number of Visitor Services Assistants to enact their (the artists’) interpretation of the novel Ice by Anna Kavan (following strict instructions) using specially created puppets. The show was 22 minutes long and took place every Saturday and Wednesday at 3.00.

In the Frame for May

blogPost, 08/05/2012

Having recently seen a body of contemporary artwork work by Heather and Ivan Morrison inspired by the life and work of the novelist Anna Kavan (1901-1968), on display at The Hepworth Wakefield until 10 June, the Archivist has written the following about Kavan’s portrait of Luz, the ‘elusive protagonist’ of her novels Ice and Mercury: