Press Release

Last Writes

An exhibition celebrating the written word

An exhibition at Florence Arts Centre, Egremont will mark the passing of the printed word - and the arrival of the digital age with its ebooks and iPads.

Last Writes, A Requiem For The Printed Word is being staged by journalist Alan Cleaver during April 2013 and will feature calligraphy from Eden Valley Scribes.

Included in the exhibition will be:

• Cumbria's oldest piece of writing: A 6th century lullaby that can still touch your heart
• Books for burning?: Not all books have been loved and some have been banned
• The art of calligraphy: Cumbria's finest calligraphers demonstrate how the written word can also be the beautiful word
• Libraries – an old-fashioned idea no longer needed or an valuable institution about to be reinvented and rediscovered? Cumbria's most beautiful library revealed – and what school libraries should look like.
• Hold the front page: Some of the best – and worst – headlines of the last 100 years
• The world's first ebook museum. You may think the ebook is brand spanking new. But meet the clumsy, cumbersome antique ebooks from the 1990s.

Organiser, Alan Cleaver, 53, of Church Street, Whitehaven said: “I hope the printed word and ‘real’ books have many more years of life in them but I didn’t want society to sleepwalk into the digital age without honouring the many good things that printing has given us over the years. And I also wanted to flag up the dangers of storing all our knowledge only in the ephemeral world of pixels and binary digits.”

The exhibition will be staged at Florence Arts Centre, Egremont from April 6 to May 18 (Monday to Saturdays 10am to 4pm). See www.florencemine.com for more details.. Admission is free.

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Picture at http://www.flickr.com/photos/alancleaver/8395908990/

Picture caption: Alan Cleaver sits with a Kindle in front of an ‘old-fashioned’ library. The Kindle holds more books than sits on the shelves. Alan’s exhibition, Last Writes, will look at the battle between the printed word and the digital one.

Contact: Alan Cleaver 01946 595130 (daytime mon to fri); evenings and weekends: 01946 696907. Email alanjcleaver@gmail.com