Upcoming Events: Posters, Talks and the Rituals of Cinema

Over the next few months, I will be taking part in several events exploring film posters not simply as publicity materials, but as cultural objects that preserve the memory and rituals of cinema.

The first is The Ultimate Trip: 2001: A Space Odyssey in Posters, held at Capitol Theatre, Singapore, alongside three screenings of Stanley Kubrick’s film under the Classics at Capitol programme. The exhibition will feature six original posters from my collection, most of which are being publicly exhibited for the first time. Half have also been freshly framed for the occasion.

At a moment when films are increasingly encountered through streaming platforms and thumbnail images, displaying these posters within a working cinema offers an opportunity to recover something of the older cinematic ritual: arriving at the theatre, encountering the artwork, and allowing anticipation to build before the lights go down.

On 2 August at 4.00pm, I will also be giving a talk at the exhibition space on the posters, their histories, and why such objects remain important to cinema.

In early September, I will present a talk at Druggists Singapore on Thai horror cinema, using posters from the 1970s to the present day. The session will explore the cultural memory of ghosts in Thailand, how supernatural beings have been visualised on screen and in poster art, and why these images remain important markers of cultural identity.

Later in September or early October, I will also be joining another social group for a conversation about film posters, accompanied by selected artefacts from my collection. More details will follow.