David Lan

Playwright, Filmmaker and Theatre Director

David Lan was born in Cape Town where he trained as an actor. He began to write for the theatre and directed at Athol Fugard's theatre The Space. He was appointed artistic director of the Young Vic in 2000 where he established the Genesis Directors Project, the Jerwood Directors Award and the Young Vic Award.

Liverpool Coast Expedition, March 2009

David Lan joined artist David Buckland and Matt Wainwright in March 2009 on a remarkable dog team expedition, traversing East Greenland's remote Liverpool Coast. This expedition was part of our programme of activity with the Tate and the Sublime Project.

Why the Liverpool Coast?

The east coast of Greenland was first charted by the Reverend Scorsby in the 1820s. He charted the coast north of Scorsby Sund in remarkable detail naming each headland, bay and island after well know Liverpool figures. He changed the physical ‘objective’ landscape into a personal one of nostalgia and in doing so made it heroic. The subsequent annexation of Greenland by Denmark changed this act of poetry and supplanted it with a simpler ‘matter of fact’ chart whose prime aim was navigation and pragmatism.

The significance of this wild and isolated coast is now up for review as in many ways it is now a global epi-centre of climate change.

In September 2007 Cape Farewell attempted to make landfall on this coast but were beaten back by sea ice and horrendous weather patterns, it was a heroic effort which nearly ended up being entrapped in ice.  The Liverpool Coast remained elusive despite additional efforts and the expedition eventually landed on the coast of Greenland some 150 miles further south.  In 2009, David Buckland, David Lan and Matt Wainwright will travel together with an Inuit guide and dog sleighs north from Constable Point traveling along the Sea Ice of the Liverpool Coast in the High Arctic.

“The young Reverent Scorsby couldn’t have predicted this as he named this coast 180 years ago – an age when our atmosphere was unpolluted and climate change was not anywhere near anyone’s imagination. What he did imaging from this frozen coastline was the safety and warmth of home – people he revered and whose names he brought to these harsh rocks. He had the need to imaging this coast subjectively, a place he imbued with emotion and now, 180 years later, it is time to revisit this place subjectively again. It is the front line of climate change; the geological strategic command centre on our emotional climate radar and it deserves to be an artwork. The Liverpool Coast”.
David Buckland, Artist

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