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 and publisher, 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, launches, screenings, talks relating to art, culture, politics, and philosophy.
Team
Pierre d’Alancaisez
Pierre d’Alancaisez is a curator and critic, and the founder of Verdurin.
Amir Naaman
Amir Naaman is a novelist and a personal trainer.
Nina Power
Nina Power is a philosopher and critic.
Daniel Neill
Daniel is a writer, and protégé at Verdurin.
Travis Jeppesen
Travis Jeppesen is the author of numerous books and the creator of object-oriented writing.
Emma Bielecki
Emma Bielecki is a lecturer, writer, and researcher. She splits her time between London and nineteenth-century Paris.
Lola Salem
Lola Salem is a researcher and cultural strategist.
Artists, contributors, guests
Sam Jennings
Sam Jennings is an American writer in London.
Carl Abrahamsson
Carl Abrahamsson is a Swedish author writing on occulture and magico-anthropology.
Ben Cobley
Ben Cobley is a writer and journalist.
Simon Fanshawe
Simon Fanshawe OBE is a broadcaster, writer, and activist. He was one of the founders of the LGBT charity Stonewall.
Edmund King
Edmund King is a writer and senior lecturer in English Literature at The Open University.
Jo Bartosch
Jo Bartosch is a journalist and women’s rights campaigner.
Sophie Barshall
Sophie Barshall is a writer and artist, and the editor of The Toe Rag magazine.
Jacob Koster
Jacob Koster is a researcher who explores socially engaged art and social movement practice, as well as aesthetics and the philosophy of art.
Isobel McCrum
Isobel McCrum is an AI systems architect.
Rose Lyddon
Rose Lyddon writes about history, theology, and adventures.
Alexander Adams
Alexander Adams is an artist, critic, and poet.
Tim Abrahams
Tim Abrahams is an architecture critic, publisher at Machine Books, and host of the Superurbanism podcast.
Alexander Raubo
Alexander Raubo is a critic and philosopher writing about internet art, modernism, America, technology, and Christianity.
Ofri Ilany
Dr. Ofri Ilany is a historian, journalist, and literary critic.
Chris Bateman
Chris Bateman is an award-winning game designer, philosopher, and an intellectual mercenary fleeing the smouldering ruins of academia.
Jamieson Webster
Jamieson Webster is a writer and psychoanalyst, and a founding member of Das Unbehagen.
Anna Sebastian
Anna Sebastian’s painting practice follows alternative and imagined realities, myth, history, and religion.
Aimee Armstrong
Aimee Armstrong’s work portrays modern relationships in a post-internet, post-woke, post-infographic world.
