Verdurin /vəʁdyrɛ̃/ is a project space in East London hosted by Pierre d’Alancaisez and programmed with friends.

Verdurin presents an idiosyncratic mix of events, courses, and exhibitions addressing urgent cultural, political, and philosophical questions through visual culture.

Verdurin is also a concept store providing the essentials an aesthete will need to survive cultural doomsday: daring literature, artefacts deserving of perdurance, and artisanal provisions.

d’Alancaisez was first inspired to marshal an audience to discuss politics, art, and ideas critically in response to the failure of institutions and the breakdown in the cultural order following the pandemic.

The name Verdurin is borrowed from Proust’s literary character Mme Verdurin who in À la recherche du temps perdu hosts a literary salon. Verdurin today carries on her spirit of conviviality and mutual edification.

We are happy to receive pitches and ideas for events, performances, book launches, screenings, talks relating to art, culture, politics, and philosophy.

Team

  • Pierre d’Alancaisez

    Pierre d’Alancaisez

    Pierre d’Alancaisez is a curator and critic, and the founder of Verdurin.

  • Amir Naaman

    Amir Naaman

    Amir Naaman is a novelist and a personal trainer. He is involved in Verdurin publishing and events.

  • Daniel Neill

    Daniel Neill

    Daniel is a writer, and protégé at Verdurin.

Artists, contributors, guests

  • Bertie Marshall

    Bertie Marshall

    Bertie Marshall is a writer and performer of plays, poems, and fiction.

  • Ester Freider

    Ester Freider

    Ester Freider is a writer and ‘creative academic’.

  • Alexander Raubo

    Alexander Raubo

    Alexander Raubo is a critic and philosopher writing about internet art, modernism, America, technology, and Christianity.

  • Rupert Read

    Rupert Read

    Philosopher Rupert Read is Co-Director of the Climate Majority Project.

  • Noah Kumin

    Noah Kumin

    Noah Kumin is a writer and the founder of the Mars Review of Books.

  • Jack Hunter

    Jack Hunter

    Jack Hunter is an anthropologist exploring the borderlands of consciousness, religion, ecology, and the paranormal.

  • Ann Snelgrove-McKerracher

    Ann Snelgrove-McKerracher

    Ann is a co-instructor at Theory Underground. She is interested in the question of the ‘Good Life’.

  • Jack Jacobs

    Jack Jacobs

    Jack Jacobs is an actor and audiobook narrator.

  • Georg Kurz

    Georg Kurz

    Georg Kurz is a German politician associated with the Die Linke.

  • Quentin S. Crisp

    Quentin S. Crisp

    Quentin S. Crisp is the author of Hamster Dam and many other novels and short story collections.

  • Rose Lyddon

    Rose Lyddon

    Rose Lyddon writes about history, theology, and adventures.

  • Bryce Nance

    Bryce Nance

    Bryce Nance always wanted to go to college. Not for a degree or career, but to be “a man of letters”.

  • Elena Louisa Lange

    Elena Louisa Lange

    Elena Lange is a philosopher, Japanologist, writer, former musician, and former assistant professor. She is the editor of Café Américain.

  • Fraser Myers

    Fraser Myers

    Fraser Myers is the deputy editor of Spiked magazine.

  • Yotam Feldman

    Yotam Feldman

    Yotam Feldmam is a writer, filmmaker, and editor and a (self) trained metaphysical detective.

  • Stephen Adubato

    Stephen Adubato

    Stephen Adubato is a writer and host of Cracks in Postmodernity.

  • Simon Fanshawe

    Simon Fanshawe

    Simon Fanshawe OBE is a broadcaster, writer, and activist. He was one of the founders of the LGBT charity Stonewall.

  • Aaron Moulton

    Aaron Moulton

    Aaron Moulton is a curator and anthropologist. His research in ‘The Influencing Machine’ charted the impact of the NGO movement on the visual culture of Eastern Europe in the 1990s.

  • Dougal Verinder Gedge

    Dougal Verinder Gedge

    Dougal Gedge’s practice reflects a reality experienced compulsively online.

  • Anna Sebastian

    Anna Sebastian

    Anna Sebastian’s painting practice follows alternative and imagined realities, myth, history, and religion.

  • David Moulton

    David Moulton

    David Moulton is a writer and independent researcher.

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