Two forthcoming Wallace events

A small selection of visual artist Fred Langford Edwards' Wallace-related photographic artwork will be on display at the Hebden Bridge Arts Festival in West Yorkshire from Saturday June 13 to Sunday July 12. The following has been taken from the Festival's website http://www.hebdenbridgeartsfestival.co.uk/  (click on 'Exhibitions' on the right-hand side):-

Festival Shop,

Albert Street,

Hebden Bridge

Monday to Saturday 10.30am-5.00pm

Sunday 12.00am-5.00pm

In 2007, artist Fred Langford Edwards was awarded a grant by The Wellcome Trust for a 30 month project to research and promote the contributions of Alfred Russel Wallace to the theories of Natural Selection and Evolution. In London on July 1, 1858 , at the first public reading of the Wallace and Darwin papers on Natural Selection, Wallace and Darwin were given equal status and recognition.

During 2009, much media attention is being given to Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. Darwin is celebrated whilst Wallace has faded from the popular history of scientific thought. Fred’s project is to generate artworks, publications and activities which will reinstate Wallace as a major contributor to the ideas and processes which explain how species gradually change to create new types of beings.

Working with Dr George Beccaloni of the Natural History Museum, the project has taken Fred to the Amazon Basin and the Malay Archipelago. The resulting work explores the life, ideas, and surviving collections of Wallace, and the physical hardships he endured during his travels. This is a stunning photographic exhibition charting an important chapter in natural history.

My Brazilian colleague Prof. Ildeu Moreira informs me that during the Annual Meeting of the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science (SBPC) on July 13, the replica Wallace plaque which the Wallace Fund recently donated to INPA (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia) in Manaus will be officially unveiled. Randal Keynes will give a talk about Darwin, Prof. Nelson Papavero will talk about Darwin, Wallace and natural selection and Prof. Moreira will talk about “Wallace and the Amazon”. Giant carnival-style puppets of Darwin and Wallace will be in attendance.  For more information see http://www.sbpcnet.org.br/manaus/arquivos/jovem.pdf and http://www.sbpcnet.org.br/manaus/arquivos/programacao.pdf