Made in Translation

Made in translation

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Made in translation

( Draft version 10 — 7 April 2017. )

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Made in translation

Being a catalogue to accompany an exhibition of the same name, curated by Alice Kettle & James Moss 26 April — 3 June 2017 The Portico Library, Mosley Street, Manchester Designed by Jonathan Hitchen with fifty-four photographs by David Penny

mmu Faculty of Arts & Humanities, All Saints, Manchester & The Portico Library, Mosley Street, Manchester mmxvii

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Contents

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Part I 2 6 10 14 20 22 26 32 38 46 54 56 60 62

Introduction by Alice Kettle Preface by James Moss Foreword by Matthew Carlin being a catalogue of creative endeavour Louise Adkins & Nikolai Duffy Kirsteen Aubrey & Alice Kettle Lucy Biggs & Conrad Williams Sian Bonnell & Nicholas Royle Eleanor Byrne & Joe McCullagh David Cooper & Lesley Raven Stephen Dixon & Berthold Schoene Paul Evans, Teresa Holtom & Hazel Jones Rachel Genn & Amanda Ravetz Sharon Handley & Jonathan Hitchen Edmund Keefe & David Penny Desdemona McCannon & Eleanor Mulhearn Ian McCullough Jane McKeating & Helen Mort

Part II being a volume of plates Colour photographs by David Penny Part III being a reflection upon the means employed A commentary from the contributors Part IV being an appendix of particulars xvii xxii xxiv xxviii xxix xxx xxxi xxxii

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Bibliography Index of Artworks & Plates Index of Contributors The Portico Library MMU Faculty of Arts & Humanities Notes & References Notes About the Catalogue Colophon

Introduction by Alice Kettle Made in Translation is a collaborative project between makers, artists, designers and writers in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities at mmu and The Portico Library. The library and its contents provides the rich source of inspiration for new works in material, visual and written form. Working in partnerships, a dialogue and exchange of ideas has taken place where original texts have been translated into this varied collection of new conversations, writing and visual language.

The catalogue is an artistic object in itself, and acts as a summation of the varied subjects, different approaches and various authors. It celebrates the individuality of each contributor and the inconsistencies – and similarities – between their contributions. The catalogue designer, Jonathan Hitchen, expresses how as a typographer he has adopted a few affectations and idiosyncrasies inspired by books in The Portico Library. David Penny has similarly recorded in photography the creation of works as a narrative of making, whilst Matthew Carlin, joining us from the Faculty of Education, tells the collective narrative of our Portico Library exploration.

We are grateful too for the patience and support of The Portico Library’s staff who have welcomed us with enthusiasm on many visits. Our thanks also go to Jane Crowther and G.F. Smith paper who have supported the making of this catalogue.

My own thanks go to all the staff at MMU who have played a part with such commitment and pleasure in this project. It feels like the beginning of a story that will continue in its translation into new forms and conversations.

— A.K., March 2017

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Preface by James Moss The Portico Library’s 25,000 books, archives and illustrations span more than 450 years and include many rare and significant volumes, from Milton, Blake and Gaskell, to Darwin and Captain Cook. The breadth and influence of these titles have provided the starting points for Manchester Metropolitan University’s 2017 group residency and exhibition Made In Translation. Brought together by globally acclaimed textile artist Alice Kettle, this collective incorporates members of Manchester School of Art, with colleagues from the Writing School and the newly combined Faculty of Arts and Humanities. With the kind support of The Zochonis Charitable Trust, these artists, writers and researchers have continued the library’s tradition of uniting disciplines and combining ideas to bring the collection to the people of Manchester and beyond, with innovative responses in image, object and text.

vessel, embarking on an intrepid voyage of discovery. While this variety of interpretations was hoped for and anticipated with Made in Translation’s initial vision, the depth and energy with which the participants have engaged has been a pleasure to encounter.

For each of the makers and designers, material is fundamental, but what could it mean without the language to conceive it? Likewise for the writers whose medium is text, what language is there but that of a material world? Among the diverse responses to these and other questions, one thing has shown itself time and time again: entering this singular space, exploring its bookshelves and opening up its centuries-old volumes never fails to inspire…

— J.M., March 2017

For some of the artists and writers, particular volumes have yielded intriguing glimpses of an anterior world of ideas – one that brought forth our own, but that remains somehow distinct, somehow bygone. For others, short extracts have become as key-chains, unlocking new fields of investigation and offering alternative lenses through which to review contemporary concerns. The library itself has formed the subject for a number of the contributions, imagined simultaneously as a catalogue of catalogues, a hot air ballooning launch-pad, a site of archaeological excavation and a storm-struck

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Foreword by Matthew Carlin For twentieth Century literary and cultural theorist Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) a genuine collection always resists traditional forms of taxonomy. There is an ordering of the objects in a collection that reflects the mind of the collector in the way that things are brought together. However, as a reflection of an individual’s own conceptual universe, such ordering is purely idiosyncratic. The beauty of such idiosyncrasy found in any genuine collection is the way that it seems to set up a new physiognomic relation between the viewer and the objects on display.

In the world of books, however, such resistance to easily identifiable classification is rare and often difficult. Both the standardised physical shape of books and the way that their content is almost certainly an attempt to name, classify, and order particular subject matter provides a kind of readymade taxonomy that is as recognisable in libraries and bookstores as it is in homes. Books are usually separated into identifiable subjects and stacked next to one another in alphabetical order. Sometimes we find books ordered by shape and size, but often such characteristics already clue us in to their possible content, as is the case with atlases, dictionaries, and coffee table books filled with images of art and photography. In short, there is often little in the way of mystery with book collections outside of the surprises one might find in the act of browsing.

Even the common, contemporary book browser is typically confronted with highly recognisable subject headings, standardised bindings, covers, papers, clearly visible titles and fonts that already work to diminish the mystery of books and cause the browser to utilise nothing other than habitual tactics of scanning in order to look through the volumes stacked in front of them.

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In the world of books, places that avoid such mundanity are few and far between. This is precisely why the collection at The Portico Library is so exceptional – not just for visitors, researchers, and bibliophiles, but for artists as well. Although the collection at The Portico Library is not chaotic by any stretch of the imagination, the books that line its walls seem to resist any easy classification or taxonomic structure. Although brightly illuminated beneath a beautiful white dome and painted glass, many of the library’s books are shrouded in mystery. Bindings that are in some cases hundreds of years old have been slowly blackened over time by both the soot from the gasoliers that lit the library for decades after its founding at the beginning of the nineteenth century and the pollution from the industrial history of the city itself. This superimposed layer of dirt obscures most of the original colours and titles.

Moreover, the majority of books that make up The Portico Library fall under the curious subject headings of Polite Literature and Voyages and Travels. As a result, first time visitors inevitably get the sense that there is some treasure here, that behind the darkened bindings and esoteric categorisations a whole world of incredible journeys, stories, and pictures lie in wait. A bibliophile’s dream for sure and a true collection at that! For Benjamin, the struggle of a collector is always set against the dispersion of the world †, while the mark of an actual collection itself is always that which escapes the usual ordering and schematisation of things. Benjamin categorizes all genuine collections as examples of what he calls magic encyclopedias. (ibid.) For over two-hundred years now, the caretakers of The Portico Library have been collecting books and ordering them under their unique headings, and as a result have created their own kind of magic encyclopedia that provides incredible insight on hundreds of topics related to the history of English and Mancunian life.

In developing this collaborative project, artist Alice Kettle wanted to create an opportunity for a range of artists and designers from MMU to tap into the beauty and mystery of this library and its books, to engage with this wonderful collection, and to produce an artistic translation of their encounter, which was then reinterpreted

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Foreword

Foreword

through contributions from writing partners. If the artists’ and designers’ initial contact with the library was as exciting to them as it has been to Alice and countless others, then the final product might be something quite stirring in terms of providing visitors with a new way to see and engage with the materials and spaces of The Portico Library.

Although this exhibition is intentionally devoid of overarching goals, its creation does seem to be guided by a principle – that of chance. The books that the artists and designers eventually found on the shelves and the conversations that were generated during their time spent walking around the spaces of The Portico Library were not the result of any kind of systematic engagement with these works, but rather a product of fortuitous encounters, happenstance, and serendipity.

In many ways, this engagement with chance was a reflection of The Portico Library itself in the way that the volumes that exist in the library, as well as the specific books that are chosen to be cared for, are often the product of the whims and desires of visitors and members instead of plans made by an overarching governing body.

It is precisely the role of chance that Walter Benjamin recognised in all great collections. As a result, it is clear that, on the one hand, these artists engaged with The Portico Library as collectors – collectors of books, of conversations, of materials, of encounters.

However, unlike the case of a genuine collector, the job of these artists was not simply to disassemble and rearrange the objects they stumbled upon, but rather to extract or dislodge them from their resting places in order to illuminate them in all of their uniqueness. Working in tandem with writers from the Writing School and Faculty of Humanities at MMU, the artistic intention was to bring new life to the books and allow visitors to gain a different perspective on the contents and spaces of the collection.

By embracing the degree of chance that already existed in the collection, these artists’ work is an attempt to accentuate a multitude

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of the often tiny and indiscernible features that make The Portico Library such an amazing place.

In terms of the actual exhibition, there are around eighteen separate works and ten written pieces that make up this project, and this catalogue acts in itself as a further contribution. The textual works can be read here in their entirety, but because – at the time of writing – the visual outcomes are largely unfinished, they are represented by images of works-in-progress.

Amanda Ravetz and Rachel Genn’s contribution Barrelling was inspired by both the subject heading POLITE LITERATURE and the books The Anatomy of Drunkenness by Robert Macnish, and On the Use and Abuse of Alcoholic Liquors in Health and Disease by William Carpenter. Their work combines a mix of photography, audio, and physical alterations of the library that connect the themes of drinking and politeness to women.

Lucy Biggs’ contribution is concerned with the representation of personal identity demonstrated through the choices one makes within a space. It is inspired by the books that she chose to study such as A Description of the Human Body by John Marshall, A Balance Sheet of the World by M.G. Mulhall, and Our Common Land by Octavia Hill among others. Biggs invites visitors to view a map of her identity relative to her choice within the library while also providing blank maps for visitors to create their own.

Hazel Jones provides an emergency bookmark station for shelf-browsers, and an accompanying etching, Salt Packet from Salt & Shake Crisps, that was inspired by her engagement with Thomas Moore’s book The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland. Teresa Holtom responds to the same volume by printing delicate ferns onto fabric.

Steve Dixon utilises various original manuscripts of journals from Captain Cook’s voyages around the world in the eighteenth century in the creation of eight printed ceramic plates that he calls Tales of Sails.

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Foreword

Lesley Raven provides a series of elements entitled Stock Response – a Sensitive Response to Stock Imagery located near the entrance of the library. Raven’s work was inspired by the books On Molecular and Microscopic Science by Mary Somerville, and Principles of Mental Physiology with their Application to the Training and Discipline of the Mind and the Study of its Morbid Conditions

by J. W. Carpenter.

Jane McKeating utilizes the book A Voyage Towards The South Pole by James Cook in the creation of a printed rag book and two accompanying bookmarks for visitors to handle and look through during their visit.

Desdemona McCannon and Eleanor Mulhern utilised a joint visit to Pennant Melangell in the creation of a collaborative project entitled The Forest, The Clearing, The Thing. Desdemona’s individual contribution to this project is entitled A Response to Pennant Melangall, and relies on prints of ferns; John C. Loudon’s book Trees and Shrubs in Britain; and Lives of the Saints by Sabine Baring-Gould in the production of a set of prints set alongside foraged elements as a response to a site visit to Pennant Melangell.

Eleanor’s contribution, entitled Thair thou shall find baith Siluer and gold, draws inspiration from the books A True and Exact Relation of the Several Informations, Examinations and Confessions of the Late Witches, Arraigned and Executed in the County of Essex (author unknown), and Wonders of the Invisible World by Cotton Mather in the creation of a piece that contains a series of moving images projected onto found materials that have been dipped into porcelain slipware.

Artist Louise Adkins and poet Nikolai Duffy utilise the book The Communistic Societies of the United States from Personal Visit and Observation by Charles Nordhoff to produce a threeperson performance accompanied by a soundscape entitled Notes for a Performance – Re-visioning a Ritual.

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Ian McCullough’s wall hanging and connected piece that includes paper mechanics is entitled An Excavated Portrait of Belzoni and arose from his engagement with the book Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia by hydrologist and circus strongman Giovanni Belzoni.

Ellie Byrne and Joe McCullagh draw from A New Universal Dictionary of the Marine, 1815, Journal of a Residence Among the Negroes in the West Indies by Matthew Lewis, 1844 and Reminiscences of Levi Coffin the Reputed President of the Underground railroad, 1876, to create a work entitled Tell-Tales. Using the original nautical form of the tell-tale as inspiration, they have created a set of embroidered tell tales, that indicate new ways to read these chronicles of slavery. Wrapped around books on the shelves, they mimic the way that many of the older books have been preserved by cotton webbing. This act of preservation aimed at maintaining the contents of the archive is repurposed in the artwork where the embroidered tell-tale signifies a different way of navigating the collection. Taking the song The Song of the King of the Eboes transcribed in Matthew Lewis’s Journal, they reimagine this as a book cover, a story missing from the collection and now travelling around the books seeking a place in the library.

Alice Kettle and Kirsteen Aubrey draw from the books Travels in the Air by James Glaisher et al. and The Aerial World

by Georg Hartwig, in creating a helium balloon that is tethered by sand bags and floats in the space existing below the dome in the centre of the ceiling. Glass prisms facilitate sight upwards, as though from the balloon's basket, or also looking downwards, as though to the ground below.

David Penny has recorded the various collaborations presented in this catalogue through photographic images, as well as working with Edmund Keefe to create a 3D printed installation,

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Foreword

utilising images produced by the Japanese moon probe SELENE, in response to The Moon by James Nasmyth & James Carpenter.

Finally, Sharon Handley and Jonathan Hitchen consider the Jorge Luis Borges short story The Library of Babel through the filter of two books with a strong link to the earliest years of the library, Roget’s Thesaurus and the very first Catalogue of Books Belonging to The Portico Library.

What is particularly noticeable about these art/writing collaborations is the fact that they are not in any way transpositions.

In other words, there is no attempt on the part of the artists and designers to change these books or the space of The Portico Library into something fundamentally different. On the contrary, the works that make up this project were produced with full self-consciousness on the part of the artists and, as a result, bind us to this library mimetically through a recognition of resemblance. It is the specific act of creating a bond through resemblance that cultural theorist, surrealist, novelist, and amateur anthropologist Michel Leiris (1901– 1990) argued is one of the primary characteristics of true art. For Leiris, such binding becomes evident when particular objects become sites of unification for a variety of sentiments and events and the external world opens up so that a sudden communication is set up between it and our heart. ‡ The works of this project are effective due to the way that they create that very kind of connection between visitors and the fantastic books and spaces of The Portico Library. Through accentuating and making visible that which already exists in the amazing collection that is The Portico Library, this exhibition is in some small way hoping to contribute to the library’s continued existence for generations to come.

— M.C., March 2017

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Part I — being a catalogue of creative endeavour

In which each of the outcomes is presented.

The following projects have used at least one non- fiction book from The Portico Library as a starting point.

The book, or books, from which each project has been developed, are indicated at the start of each project, along with any relevant quotations.

Each project has largely been developed within a collaboration or partnership, and they are presented here as such; individual contributions being indicated by the initials of the relevant practitioner.

The titles of all books initially suggested by the library, and those actually used by each practitioner, are listed in an appendix at the back of this book.

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Louise Adkins & Nikolai Duffy

Notes for a Performance — Re-visioning a Ritual Performance, Braille text and audio

She* bore the open testimony against the gratifications of the flesh as the source and foundation of human corruption.

She is said to have quoted: “It is not that I speak, but that is within me.”

Sometimes, after assembling together, and sitting a while in silent meditation, they were taken with mighty trembling under which they would express, the indignation of God against sin. At other times they where effected, under the power of God, with a mighty shaking: and were occasionally exercised in singing, shouting or walking the floor, under the influence of spiritual signs, shoving each other about, or swiftly passing and repassing each other, like clouds agitated by a mighty wind. From these strange exercises the people received the name of Shakers and by some were called Shaking Quakers.

Many of the followers and those converted were young girls, the first of the prophets was a fifteen year old girl called Isabeau Vincent who in 1688 led services while apparently asleep, this gave her integrity and no responsibility.

Shakers would sit and quietly convulse at first, and then begin to scratch themselves. Then they would move their heads from side to side whilst trembling, shaking and screeching. Eventually they would begin to sing and dance to pious tunes.

Shaking happens at the moment when the human and the divine meet. ✴✴

xii. The Communistic Societies of the United States from Personal Visit and Observation including Detailed Accounts of the Economists, Zoarites, Shakers, The Amana, Oneida, Bethel, Aurora, Icarian, and Other Existing Societies, their Religious Creeds, Social Practices, Numbers, Industries, and Present Condition, Charles Nordhoff, 1875

Bauhaus Theatre Workshop Re-visioned

* Ann Lee, known as Mother Ann Lee, born in Manchester 29th February, 1736, was the founder of the Shakers.

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— L.A.

Like Clouds Agitated by a Mighty Wind

a measuring line stretched out and the lamentations of walls and ramparts.

When the last candle is hidden the service ends in darkness and the stomping on the floor is the earthquake that followed.

To begin with silence, then to quietly convulse at first, and then begin to scratch, to move heads from side to side whilst trembling, shaking and screeching. with a mighty shaking: occasionally exercised in singing, shouting or walking the floor, under the influence, shoving each other about — or swiftly passing and repassing each other

At midday a darkness fell over the whole land, which lasted until three in the afternoon. paroxysms, writhing, fainting, trembling, and twitching The earth shook, rocks split, and graves became open. to shake awake the spirit like clouds agitated by a mighty wind

the ground, bellowing.

Even the dead weigh heavy and the quake is both refuge and exile, the way landfall becomes landfill and every knock a stranger to be taken in.

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— N.D.

Another perspective: Looking up to the ground, down to the clouds

Kirsteen Aubrey & Alice Kettle

Glass prism, printed and embroidered cotton table cloths

Stillness and contrast of perspective The mountaineer requires many hours to reach the term of his fatiguing ascent – the high Alpine peak – where at length a magnificent prospect – which, however, can be seen but from this spot, and consequently varies but little in its features – rewards his toil. However, in a few minutes the aeronaut soars upwards to the empyrean, where, without the least bodily exertion, the grandest cloud pictures, the most splendid effects of light, unknown to all that cling to the surface of the earth, enchant his eye with a constant succession of new and evershifting scenes as he is wafted along. For him the sun sets with his richest tints; for him the dawn and twilight exhaust all the magic of their roseate and purple hues; for him the moon shines with redoubled brilliancy and the stars sparkle with unwonted lustre from the dark background of the skies. ✴✴

xiii. The Aerial World; The Phenomena and Life of the Atmosphere, Georg Hartwig, 1881

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— K.A.

Another perspective: Looking up to the ground, down to the clouds Glass prism, printed and embroidered cotton table cloths

Colour and clouds We cannot … feel that the balloon rises. The earth appears to descend beneath us.

The absolute silence of which we have just spoken is truly imposing; it is the prelude of that which reigns in the interplanetary space in the midst of which worlds revolve. The sky here has a tint which we never saw before. Above us it appears of a dark greyish blue; its transparent and unfathomable colour gradually fades; at 45° it is azure, at 25° pale azure, and on a level with our horizon nearly white. Here the vault of heaven reposes on a circle of well-defined clouds.

At this height we see the blue colour of the air beneath us as a faint veil. As we rose the dryness of the air increased.

The silken globe of our aerostat slowly penetrates through the non-resisting cloud medium, and carries us into more luminous regions. Our eyes, which by this time have become accustomed to the dingy light below, are now keenly affected by the increasing luminosity which surround us. On all sides, above and below, the same white light envelopes us, and it is quite impossible to say on which side we have the sun. It is difficult to describe our situation at this moment; we are in the midst of a kind of white ocean, through which we are slowly penetrating … But the light increases rapidly, and now the sun appears in the white sky like an immense beacon-light placed upon layers of snow. ✴✴

xvi. Travels in the Air, James Glaisher, Camille Flammarion, Wilfred de Fonvielle, and Gaston Tissandier, 1871

Photograph By Alice Kettle

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— A.K.

Mapping Identity Relative to Choice and Space

Lucy Biggs & Conrad Williams

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Etching

A Description of The Human Body: Its Structure and Functions, John Marshall, 1860 Balance Sheet of the World for Ten Years – 1870-1880, Michael G. Mulhall, 1881 Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions, Charles Mackay, 1841 Our Common Land, Octavia Hill, 1877 Woman’s Work and Woman’s Culture, Josephine Butler, 1869

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— L.B.

Trash Polka

Along these carbon-scarred streets, punched-in and grooved by roadworks and tram tracks, Carver felt the marks he’d seen on Wrassall’s skin come to life upon his own. They itched and burned as if they were freshly administered. He pushed by faceless shapes in dark overcoats, umbrellas raised like shields. The sleet was not sticking to the roads or other people, but it was sticking to him, as if his temperature alone had dropped to accommodate it. He wanted to be inside so he could check his flesh. A rash, or a bite of some sort, surely. Not the fever of a mind willing something into being that could never exist. Caro was a sudden flavour of peppermint on his mouth. A wink after breakfast as she fled through the door to catch the tram. He pulled his hat down further over his forehead and drew the scarf tighter around his mouth. He forced her out. He forced her away. He thought instead of his friend.

“So no ship’s anchor? No Mummy Dearest?”

Eryka worked in a library, not too far from here. They had a store room filled with books so old they could no longer be trusted to stand upright on the shelves. She spent half the week among them, wearing surgical gloves (“first the tattoos, then the books…

I’ve forgotten what my hands look like…”) and separating the volumes into piles that might be restored and any that were beyond help. The doomed books were cannibalised for illustrations or colour plates that could be framed and sold. She had found a page separated from its host tome bearing a strange series of shaded blocks overlapped with circles and ellipses. No title, no key, no page number or clue as to which book it had escaped from.

“She liked it. She said it looked like a mathematical diagram. Anyway ...”

“I wanted something different,” Wrassall had said.

“Something … other. A glyph, you know. A word. I didn’t want the Celtic symbol or the kanji cliché. I didn’t want the Durian.

Something different. Unique. Something … other.”

“Something other,” I said.

“Exactly.”

He had found a woman from Bonn who had been inking for ten years since leaving college. Eryka was her name. She had a book of doodles, black and red chaos shot through with shock words; suggestions of order glimpsed within the explosions. Blurring. How did you even do that? He loved it. He liked her. To submit to her and her needles for a few hours would be no great hardship.

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— C.W.

Insufficient Data for an Image

Sian Bonnell & Nicholas Royle

Hand-bound artist’s book and video

We found ourselves unable to choose a book. At first we worried there might be something lacking in ourselves, if we couldn’t find inspiration in a collection – and indeed place – of such wonders, but when we heard that the library had lost a large part of its stock in the 1930s, we wondered if the book we had been searching for had been among the missing items.

So, with all due humility, we decided to make a book to give to the library.

Our book is about being unable to find a book.

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Constellation #1 Stand

Top Bottom 16

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Constellation #2 Cup

It was last thing at night, the first time I noticed it. I was lying in bed, looking at the crossword, both bedside lamps on even though Patricia’s side of the bed was empty. She always remarked on my preference for things in pairs. Both bedside lamps had to be on – or off – at the same time. Both our towels side by side on the towel rail in the bathroom – or both in the wash. It was a matter of balance, I told her.

I was struggling with that week’s crossword and it didn’t help that there was a fly blundering around in my peripheral vision. I flapped my hand half-heartedly before I remembered it was the middle of winter and there were no flies. I was tired, my vision was failing through exhaustion, I told myself. I put the crossword down and switched off the light. Then I reached across and switched off Patricia’s light, too.

In the morning, not only was my vision normal, but I had forgotten the disturbance of the night before. I still struggled with the crossword. If I’m honest, I’d been struggling with it for weeks. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d finished one and sent it off.

That night, or the next night, it happened again. This time it was less like a fly and more like how I imagined – or tried to remember – it might feel to have an unruly lock of hair dangling at the edge of your vision.

Patricia had experienced a similar phenomenon, although during the hours of daylight, and I had encouraged her to go and see Ragini, who I had been going to for years, and get checked out.

Floaters, Ragini had told her. Tiny pieces of debris caught in the vitreous humour. (Like inclusions in amber, I suggested.) They could flutter like flakes of ash or suddenly intrude like a twig on a low branch. After a while, Ragini said, you stop noticing them.

And she did.

Top Bottom

Jelly ship Hyacinth

Photographs by Text

Sian Bonnell Nicholas Royle 18

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— S.B. & N.R.

Tell-Tales

Eleanor Byrne & Joe Mc Cullagh

Mixed media

Tell-tale 1 One who informs on another; a talebearer 2 Something that indicates or reveals information; a sign 3 Any of various devices that indicate or register information esp.

a A time clock

b Nautical : A length of yarn or ribbon attached

to a shroud, stay or sail of a sailboat to indicate

the direction of the wind or the strength of the

flow of air over the sail ✴✴ Telescope, Tell-tale, Tempest. * ✴✴

ii. * v. x.

A New Universal Dictionary of the Marine, William Burney, 1815 Journal of a Residence among the Negroes in the West Indies, Matthew Lewis, 1845 Reminiscences of Levi Coffin the Reputed President of the Underground Railroad, Levi Coffin, 1876

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— E.B. & J.McC.

Not Disqualifyingly Timid Pseudopodia Extend and Coalesce; or mar

David Cooper & Lesley Raven

... the protoplasm spreads over the exterior of the test, and from it pseudopodia extend and coalesce, wherever they meet, so that the whole forms a living network, extending to a distance of six or eight times the length of the body. Fig. 96 represents the Gromia oviformis with its pseudopodia extended. ✴✴

I don’t have the language. We’re in the café where Lesley shows me photocopied illustrations from Mary Somerville’s On Molecular and Microscopic Science. We focus on Figure 96: Gromia oviformis. I hear Lesley’s words and enjoy their unfamiliarity: sarcode; gromiae; pseudopodia. I keep on looking at the image of an image, though, and I can’t access the vocabulary to make sense of what I’m seeing. A diagram of a diseased tree root system?

A visualisation of a tentacled womb? What is it?

Lesley brings out a series of see-through folders, each of which contains a work in progress. She slowly, carefully opens one of those folders and her work – a beautifully entangled, alien thing – spools out onto the table. Thing. I find myself thinking thing as, again, I can’t locate the right word. Again, my personal lexicon is lacking.

I head across town to The Portico Library. I know what I’m doing in a library. Of course, I’m aware that I’m supposed to say that words are slippery, intrinsically meaning-free signs. I’ve read my Saussure. But words can also be weighted; they can enable us to get a grip on things. I go upstairs, then, to read Mary Somerville’s words and words about Mary Somerville. I’m buzzed into my comfort zone. Encountering the printed page, the not-so-accidental poetry of On Molecular and Microscopic Science draws me in: the instances of internal rhyme; the frequent alliterative flourishes. I go online and learn of Maria Edgeworth’s relief that, although not disqualifyingly timid, Somerville didn’t have the bad manners to display her superior scientific learning when in polite company. I remember reading some light verses by William Sotheby, a friend of Coleridge, which wonder why the high-gifted Somerville was not present at a meeting of the august British Association for the Advancement of Science. I return to the title page of Somerville’s study for John Murray and think of Byron taking tea in that other book-lined room at Albermarle Street. From there, I wander towards De Quincey’s footnoted reference to the handsome news-room of The Portico Library itself. The literary associations thicken and the cultural networks entangle. Somehow, though, I can make sense of these kinds of knot.

20. On Molecular and Microscopic Science, Mary Somerville, 1869

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Mary Somerville at the Portico LIBRARY

Stock Response – a Sensitive Response to Stock Imagery Monofilament fibre

Back home, I open the attachments that Lesley has sent through and see pixelated reproductions of the work that she showed me earlier on today. An image of an image of an image.

I zoom closer, pulled in by the microscopic knots that Lesley has made out of clear monofilament. Fishing line. I play around with the photograph on screen, manipulating the warp and the weft, and, close-up, the form becomes a little clearer: a synthesis of structure and shapelessness. In turn, I think of Somerville spending hours, weeks, months hunched over her desktop technology to scrutinise the detail. A blocking out of the everyday; the microscopic image opening up another world in which to dwell and roam. My own focus resets and I see my drawn face in the monitor. I realise that I’ve been sitting here for most of the evening.

I begin to understand, then, that I’ve been doing this wrong.

It’s not always about finding the language. It is about relearning how to look.

I bend over my keyboard again and write this down.

— D.C.

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— L.R.

Tales of sails

Stephen Dixon & Berthold Schoene

iv.

Ceramic plates with transfer print

Captain Cook’s journal during his first voyage round the world made in H.M. Bark ‘Endeavour’; A literal transcription of the original mss. With notes and introduction.

James Cook & William J. L. Wharton (ed), 1768-71

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A new and complete chart of the world displaying the tracks of Captain Cook and other modern navigators, drawn and engraved by T Bowen. Š National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (L7509)

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[Red] [Green] [Blue]

Endeavour's Track in 1768, 9, 70 & 71 Resolution & Adventures in 1772, 3, 4 & 5 Resolution & Discovery in 1776, 7, 8, 9 & 80

Three yarns

1st Yarn : [red] journey into journal 1768–71 Lieutenant Cook, accompanied by Tupaia ✴ ✴ Endeavour ✴ ✴ THE MAN WHO WANTS TO LEAD THE ORCHESTRA MUST TURN HIS BACK ON THE CROWD ✴ tracing the transit of Venus across the Sun ✴ circumnavigating Aotearoa THE LAND APPEARED AS UNEVEN AS A PIECE OF CRUMPLED PAPER ✴ ✴ by Bawley Point encountering folks OF A VERY DARK OR BLACK COLOUR who are the Gweagal FLEEING INTO THE WOODS LIKE FRIGHTENED FAWNS 2nd Yarn : [green] seascape into script 1772–75 Commander Cook, accompanied by Omai ✴ ✴ Resolution & Adventure ✴ ✴ meeting the Maori ✴ THE NATIVE WAS ODIDDY ✴ ✴ Otaheite — THERE WERE BIRDS WITH A SWEET NOTE IN THE TREES ✴ ✴ Huaheine — Owharre WE IMMIDIATELY IMBARQUED IN THE BOAT ✴ via Vanuatu ✴ ✴ BOTANIZING Clerke Rocks ✴ ✴ eventual arrival in Sandwich Land THEY HAVE ENORMOUS HOLES IN THEIR EARS 3rd Yarn : [blue] tales of sails Captain Cook 1776–79, ostensibly returning Omai ✴ ✴ Resolution & Discovery ✴ ✴ Waimea THEIR BODIES TATTAWAD IN VARIOUS PLACES Alta California — Foulweather — Nootka Sound — Yuquot — Nuu-chah-nulth I HAVE NO WHERE IN THIS SEA SEEN SUCH A NUMBER OF PEOPLE ASSEMBLED AT ONE PLACE Makahiki — Kealakekua — Kanekapolei — Nuaa — Ohwhyhee discovering OTHERS OF THE SAME KIND Fatchett too ✴ ✴ Lono Lono Lono

— S.D.

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— B.S.

The Common Polypody

Paul Evans, Teresa Holtom & Hazel Jones

Foreword After reading Thomas Moore’s The Ferns of Britain & Ireland, I had a dream. I saw a pillar topped with stone blocks and ferns growing from weathered holes in them. The ferns were common polypody: common because they thrive in the shadows we cast – tunnels, leaky drainpipes, ruins; polypody because their spreading rhizomes are said to look like ‘many little feet.’ They are commonplace ferns of the dark, damp, stillness I have a taste for.

Thomas Moore described ferns in forensic detail and became the gatekeeper to their scientific identities; the illustrator, Henry Bradbury, created the prints by pressing collected ferns into soft lead plates. The tone of the description and the authenticity of the illustration evoked a mysterious beauty with a profound effect on the Victorian fern craze. Deeply acquisitive, ecologically damaging and dangerously addictive, this fetishizing of Nature is nevertheless something I have always found compelling. Moore’s description and Bradbury’s illustration present a particular view of living beings – a kind of far memory, like the fossils of ferns found in Carboniferous coal measures from 350 million years ago. As a response to this extraordinary book in The Portico Library, I walked to the woods to find the ferns on the stone pillar of my dream to write my own memorial. This is an account of that experience together with extracts from Thomas Moore’s entry for The Common Polypody. a path through thorns at the tail end of winter — mizzle, grey skies, crows — ghaagh, ghaagh they say: this is what you’re looking for — under the trees — The Ruined Tower — Tarot says: sudden, disruptive revelation, potentially destructive change — ghaagh — not really a tower but a limekiln — up there on the broken arch, polypodys.

xv. The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland, Thomas Moore & Henry Bradbury, 1855

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Rhizome creeping, tortuous, branches, as thick as a swan’s quill or one’s little finger, densely clothed in ferruginous scales on a deciduous cuticle, and bearing fibres on the under side.

Scales lanceolate, very much acuminated, at length deciduous, leaving the surface of the rhizome smooth and greenish. Fibres brown, tomentose, densely matted over the surface to which the rhizome is fixed. from inbetween on fox-fur-feet they are stuck to stone like the cub flattened down the road — roadkill — just 20 yards from a cock pheasant — two tailfeathers stick out of a mess, stiff — swish in passing traffic like fronds Frond from two to eighteen inches long, lateral to the rhizome, subcoriacious, of a somewhat sombre green, paler beneath; varying in outline from triangular-ovate when small, to ovate-oblong and linear-oblong, the latter being the fully developed condition of the species in its normal state; very deeply pinnatifid, usually more or less drooping. a stubborn green, winterised, turning sunlight into fetish insomniac breath moves through the silence between us leaves piling against unnumbered years

the limekiln — pillar, chimneypot, crypt — is demolished derelict stone circles — ash trees rising from the hearth a furnace now lush with verdant torpitude — the gods who did this remain anonymous – meant to be silent — what the hell are you?

This common plant is the type of the Linnaean genus Polypodium. There are certainly no grounds other than the fancies of name-makers by reason of which the genus should be abolished, although there may be reasons for its reduction by divesting it of ill-assorted species.

O for the certainties of crows and the seriousness of naming ruin, wood, wonder — our common tongue can’t get around the why of what we call things so I address you in a dead language Polypodium vulgare Those who are easily led either to make or to adopt changes of this nature, should remember that names are not the ultimate object of botanical investigation.

Duration The rhizome is perennial. The fronds are produced at the end of May, and are persistent through the winter and until after new fronds are produced, so that the plant is evergreen unless the fronds are delayed or damaged by severe frost. Other fronds are produced later in the summer.

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35

— P.E.

Broccato (embossed cloth)

Salt Packet from Salt & Shake Crisps

Screen print on silk organza, various sizes

— T.H.

Etching

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37

— H.J.

Barrelling — Slattern

Rachel Genn & Amanda Ravetz

When the mother of a family becomes addicted to liquor, the case is very afflicting. Home, instead of being the seat of comfort and order, becomes a Pandemonium: the social circle is broken up and all its happiness destroyed. In this case, there is no remedy but the removal of the drunkard. † ✴✴ ... a slatternly wife makes a drunken husband. A badly-cooked dinner, a badly-washed shirt, the sight and smell of a filthy room ... ‡ ✴✴

viii.

ix. ‡

xiv. †

It’s a right mess in here So do something about it I’m not saying anything just stating a fact so get something done about it then if it’s bothering you I can’t relax when it’s a shit tip crack on so have you seen her bedroom yes how can you keep going around in all of this I don’t see it right it stinks in there keep the door shut why not clean it I don’t piss on the floor and neither do the kids we’ll have a right good clearing out this weekend no-one’s stopping you now it’s just easier to clear out the end when there’s two of you do it and take twice as long I can do it by the time you come back why do you start a job when you’re in the middle of another one I don’t piss on the floor and neither do the kids anymore I’m going to have to do something about that bedroom I’m glad you didn’t say we Why does it take you so long do you think because I don’t just shove things away I sort it out and actually clean I didn’t say you have to do it did I Let them play no it’s everything everywhere they just move from one thing to another from one room to another and it’s not on I’m not having it no daddy don’t Please don’t put that in the bin I’ll tidy it I’ll tidy it Don’t chuck that away Just let them play and clean up after oh yeah if I didn’t throw this stuff away we would be up to our necks in it and we’d have rats put those cushions back on there I don’t mean you have to do it they’ve got to learn not to leave everything trailing from one room to the next have you seen this carpet no did you actually ever look down You’ve got to keep on top of it that’s the thing It’s a right mess in here So do something about it I'm not saying anything just stating a fact so get something done about it then if it’s bothering you I can’t relax when it’s a shit tip crack on so have you seen her bedroom yes how can you keep going around in all of this no-one’s stopping you now it’s just easier to clear out the end when there’s two of you do it and take twice as long I can do it by the time you come back why do you start a job when you’re in the middle of another one I don’t piss on the floor and neither do the kids anymore I’m going to have to do something about that bedroom I’m glad you didn’t say we Why does it take you so long do you think because I don’t just shove things away I sort it out and actually clean I didn’t say you have to do it did I Please don’t put that in the bin I’ll tidy it I’ll tidy it Don’t chuck that away Just let them play and clean up after oh yeah if I didn’t throw this stuff away we would

On the Use and Abuse of Alcoholic Liquors in Health and Disease, William Carpenter, 1850 Physiological Essays; Drink Craving Differences in Men, Idiosyncrasy, and the Origin of Disease, Robert Bird, 1870 The Anatomy of Drunkenness, Robert Macnish, 1828

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be up to our necks in it and we’d have rats put those cushions back on there I don’t mean you have to do it they’ve got to learn not to leave everything trailing from one room to the next have you seen this carpet no did you actually ever look down You’ve got to keep on top of it that’s the thing It’s a right mess in here So do something about it I'm not saying any-thing just stating a fact so get something done about it then if it’s bothering you I can’t relax when it’s a shit tip they’ve got to learn to put things away before they get other stuff out Let them play no it’s everything everywhere they just move from one thing to another from one room to another and it’s not on I’m not having it no daddy don’t Please don’t put that in the bin I’ll tidy it I’ll tidy it Don’t chuck that away Just let them play and clean up after oh yeah if I didn’t throw this stuff away we would be up to our necks in it and we’d have rats put those cushions back on there I don’t mean you have to do it they’ve got to learn not to leave everything trailing from one room to the next I can do it by the time you come back why do you start a job when you’re in the middle of another one I don’t piss on the floor and neither do the kids anymore I’m going to have to do something about that bedroom I’m glad you didn’t say we You’ve got to keep on top of it that’s the thing It’s a right mess in here So do something about it I'm not saying anything just stating a fact so get something done about it then if it’s bothering you I can’t relax when it’s a shit tip they’ve got to learn to put things away before they get other stuff out So do something about it I'm not saying anything just stating a fact so get something done about it then if it’s bothering you I can’t relax when it’s a shit tip they’ve got to learn to put things away before they get other stuff out Let them play no it’s everything everywhere they just move from one thing to another from one room to another and it’s not on I’m not having it no daddy don’t It’s a right mess in here So do something about it I'm not saying anything just stating a fact so get something done about it then if it’s bothering you I can’t relax when it’s a shit tip crack on so have you seen her bedroom yes how can you keep going around in all of this I don’t see it It’s a right mess in here So do something about it I'm not saying anything just stating a fact so get something done about it then if it’s bothering you I can’t relax when it’s a shit tip crack on so have you seen her bedroom yes how

can you keep going around in all of this I don’t see it I’m glad you didn’t say we I’m glad you didn’t say we I’m glad you didn’t say we we’ll have a right good clearing out this weekend no-one’s stopping you now it’s just easier to clear out the end when there’s two of you do it and take twice as long I can do it by the time you come back why do you start a job when you’re in the middle of another one

Photograph By Connor Matheson (next page)

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— R.G.

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Barrelling — Impolite literature

IMPOLITE LITERATURE

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— A.R.

Sharon Handley & Jonathan Hitchen

60 Order

61 Disorder

N. order, state of order, orderliness, tidiness, neatness 648 cleanness, 258 smoothness; proportion 245 symmetry; peace, quiet 266 quietude; harmony, music of the spheres 710 concord; good order, economy, system, method, methodicalness, methodology, systematization; fixed order, pattern, rule 81 regularity, 16 uniformity; custom, routine 610 habit; rite 988 ritual; strict order, discipline 739 obedience; due order, hierarchy, gradation, subordination, rank, place, position 73 serial place; unbroken order, course, even tenor, progression, series 71 continuity; logical order, serial o., alphabetical o. 65 sequence, 12 correlation; organization, putting in order, disposition, array 62 arrangement, 56 composition; a place for everything and e. in its place.

N. disorder, random order, nonarrangement, nonclassification; incoordination, muddle, no plan, no order, no method, no system (see confusion); chaotic state, chaos, mayhem 734 anarchy; irregularity, anomalousness, anomaly 17 nonuniformity; disunion, disaccord 25 disagreement; disharmony 411 discord; disorderliness, unruliness, no discipline 738 disobedience; violent behaviour, outbreak (see turmoil); nihilism 738 sedition; untidiness, littering, sluttishness, slovenliness 649 uncleanness; neglect 458 negligence; discomposure, disarray, dishevelment 63 derangement; dissolution, scattering 75 dispersion, 51 decomposition; upheaval, convulsion 149 revolution; subversion 221 overturning; destruction 165 havoc. ...

Adj. orderly, harmonious 710 concordant, 245 symmetrical; wellbehaved, decorous 848 well-bred; well-drilled, disciplined 739 obedient; well-regulated, under control, according to rule 81 regular; ordered, classified, schematic 62 arranged; methodical, systematic, businesslike; strict, invariable 16 uniform; routine, steady 610 habitual; correct, shipshape, Bristol fashion, trim, neat, tidy, dinky, neat and tidy, neat as a pin, out of a bandbox; spick and span, spruce, dapper, well-groomed 648 clean; in good trim, well-kept, uncluttered, in apple-pie order, in perfect o., in its proper place, unconfused 62 arranged; unruffled, unrumpled 258 smooth; direct 249 straight; clear, lucid 516 intelligible.

Adj. orderless, in disorder, in disarray, disordered, deranged, disorganized, jumbled, shuffled 63 disarranged; unclassified, ungraded, unsorted; out of order, not in working order, not working 641 useless; out of joint, out of gear, dislocated 46 disunited; out of sorts 651 sick; out of place, misplaced 188 displaced; askew, awry, snafu; topsy-turvy, upside down 221 inverted; wandering, straggling, dispersed 75 unassembled; random, unarranged, unorganized, uncoordinated, unschematic, planless 244 amorphous; incoherent, rambling; irregular, anomalous 17 nonuniform; unsystematic, unmethodical, desultory, aimless, casual; confused, muddled, chaotic, in chaos, in a mess, messy, all anyhow, haywire; unkempt, uncombed, dishevelled, tumbled, windswept, windblown, tousled, discomposed, pulled through a hedge backwards; littering, untidy, slovenly, sluttish, slatternly, bedraggled, messy 649 dirty; sloppy, slipshod, slack, careless 456 inattentive. ...

Vb. order, reduce to order, dispose 62 arrange; schematize, systematize, organize 62 regularize; harmonize, synchronize, regulate 24 adjust; normalize, standardize 16 make uniform; keep order, call to order, police, control, govern 733 rule, 737 command. ...

See: 12, 16, 24, 56, 62, 65, 71, 73, 74, 81, 141, 187, 245, 249, 258, 266, 516, 610, 648, 710, 733, 737, 739, 848, 988.

i.

xi. *

Vb. be disordered, fall into disarray, scatter, break up 75 disperse; get in a mess, fall into confusion, lose cohesion 49 come unstuck; get out of hand, throw off discipline, riot 738 disobey; not keep one’s place, jump the queue 64 come before; disorder 63 derange. ...

See: 17, 25, 43, 45, 46, 47, 49, 51, 63, 64, 74, 75, 149, 165, 176, 188, 221, 222, 244, 251, 318, 352, 400, 411, 456, 458, 497, 503, 517, 641, 649, 651, 700, 702, 709, 716, 734, 738, 801, 837, 876, 949, 954. *

A Catalogue of the Books Belonging to The Portico Library, Mosley Street, Manchester, 1810. There are later, revised catalogues dated 1820, 1845, 1856 & 1875; and supplementary catalogues dated 1824, 1850, 1863, 1882 & 1895.

Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, Peter Roget, 1852.

The library has two versions of Roget's Thesaurus, a 1962 edition by Longman, and a 150th anniversary edition from 2002 by Penguin. These extracts are taken from the Longman edition.

✴✴

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The Portico Library — Patterns of the abstract

Shaped by nineteenth century entrepreneurial spirit and Mancunian pride, The Portico Library is a haven of knowledge and imagination at the heart of Manchester. How many ideas were sparked by a conversation, a newspaper article, or a leather bound volume from these fine Victorian shelves? Theories, countertheories, and hypotheses fixed in print for posterity; Peter Roget, John Dalton, William Gaskell among the good and the great of the city. Fleeting conversations on world politics and current affairs, stimulated by texts from newspapers; engaging discussions on polite literature and the emergence of a Northern voice. Real events frozen for posterity within history books, to be re-lived and re-interpreted from different perspectives within different contexts in different moments in time.

Within this sanctuary from the noise and speed of the modern city, lies a primordial tension between randomness and order; random associations transformed into fixed meaning which may change within new contexts; verbal expression fixed into physical form through structured orthographical symbols on a page; random purchase of books, and meticulous cataloguing of those books into collections with specific locations on shelves in a library; freedom to wander along the shelves to pick a random volume, and the utilitarian need to locate a specific text through a detailed catalogue.

One particular book, The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges, conceptualises the infinite potential of a mythical library, highlighting the need to control the infinity of data through catalogues and structures to avoid chaos. In this story, humankind is a Sisyphean librarian, wandering along the cosmic corridors in search of meaning, and trying to create order from the chaos of tomes on the shelves. The fascinating point about this story is the way the mythical library is perceived as an infinite repository of words and texts from time immemorial, like a bottomless Saussurean pool of letters and words with no fixed meaning. The words gain meaning within defined structures and contexts, in order to express the infinite possibilities of thought, experience, and time.

48

It is fascinating to conceptualise the way in which orthographical symbols, or letters, can open up the past, the present, and the future. The letters on the page transport us to historical contexts, fictional worlds, and philosophical musing through the de-coding of symbols on a page; the fixed symbols trigger independent thoughts and visualisations, some random and some ordered, with each person bringing his or her own world experience to the words on the page.

In the contemporary age, the orthographical symbols can be converted into digital impulses, opening up virtual worlds with global connectivity. Which librarian in the early days of The Portico Library could have imagined that the hand-written catalogues would be translated into machine-readable format, and indexed by bibliographic databases and search engines? Without the code behind the orthographical symbols, without the structure behind the digits, the texts become incomprehensible; without the metadata for the catalogue, to organise a potentially chaotic collection of books, the library ceases to function as a resource; and without the search engines we wallow in a maelstrom of information.

From the original leather-bound books with quill-written records of purchases and locations, to typed scripts and digitised catalogues, The Portico Library shares its cataloguing secrets with us. Like the journey from steam engines, to classic cars, to highspeed trains, the cataloguing technology has progressed with the times. Yet in a world of fast food, fast cars, and bite-sized chunks of information, is there not a soul-nurturing pleasure in turning the yellowing pages of leather bound tomes and retreating from time and place into worlds preserved for eternity within these rooms? Is there not a nostalgic pleasure in wandering along the depths of the shelves, selecting random texts, like a traveller wandering along country lanes with no map? Perhaps the library epitomises the primordial battle between the eternal quest for order and the quintessential pleasure of randomness.

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— S.H.

Sketches for a catalogue of Catalogues (Portico) Randomly generated text pages

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— J.H.

Moon

EDMUND Keefe & David Penny

3d printing

Dreaming of an Island (Somnium) or Delicate Manipulation It is, however, sufficient for all purposes with which we are concerned to regard the moon as a sphere, and the next point to be considered is its size. To determine this, two data are necessary – its apparent or angular diameter and its distance from the earth. The first of these is obtained by measuring the angle comprised between two lines directed from the eye to two opposite limbs or edges of the moon. If for instance, we were to take a pair of compasses and, placing the joint at the eye, open out the legs till the two points appear to touch two opposite edges of the moon, the two legs would be inclined at an angle we could measure by applying a divided arc or protractor to the compasses. In practice this measurement is made by means of telescopes attached to accurately divided circles; the difference between the readings of the circle when the telescope is directed to opposite limbs of the moon giving its angular diameter at the time of the observation. miles miles 1˚. 54'. 5" : 31'. 9" : : 7912 : 2160 ✴✴

30. The Moon Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite, James Nasmyth & James Carpenter, 1874

54

55

— D.P.

Thair thou shall find baith siluer and gold

Desdemona McCannon & Eleanor Mulhearn

Found materials dipped in porcelain slip, moving image projection

Whereupon, suddenly in the way she heard a great noise, and presently there appeared unto her a spirit who asked her wither she went. † ✴✴

38. The Wonders of the Invisible World, Being an Account of the Tryals of Several Witches Lately Executed in New England, Cotton Mather, 1862 iii. A True and Exact Relation of the Several Informations, Examinations and Confessions of the late Witches, arraigned and executed in the County of Essex vi. Lives of the Saints, Sabine Baring-Gould, 1892 xvii. Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum, John C. Loudon, 1838 (1837, reprinted verbatim from the original edition of 1645) see also theforesttheclearingthething.wordpress.com

Photograph By Eleanor Mulhearn

56

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— E.M.

The Moon and the Yew Tree Hand cut rubber stamps

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— D.McC.

Sketch for An Excavated Portrait of Belzoni

Ian McCullough

Ink and collage

As I made my discoveries alone, I have been anxious to write my book by myself, though in so doing, the reader will consider me, and with great propriety, guilty of temerity; but the public will perhaps gain in the fidelity of my narrative, what it loses in elegance. I am not an Englishman, but I prefer that my readers should receive from myself, as well as I am able to describe them, an account of my proceedings in Egypt in Nubia, on the coast, of the Red Sea, and in the Oasis; rather than run the risk of having my meaning misrepresented by another.

If I am intelligible, it is all that I can expect. ✴✴

vii. Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia, Giovanni Belzoni, 1820

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— I.McC.

Jane McKeating & Helen Mort

Tynai Mai : May 29th 1774 (Drawn in red chalk by William Hodges, and represented as an engraving in A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Around the World by James Cook, Volume 1) 19 years old, a chief ’s daughter, a princess. She visits a ship, which has arrived from a distant land accompanied by her father Oreo, her mother, her brother and many friends. Considered a beauty, she is but little punctured, she wears her hair tied up in a band to tame her curls. She finds the men on board mysterious and is curious about their strange manners and outfits. She dances for the company on the shore, and is aware of the effect she has, sees the men leaving gifts, which encourages her father to keep the performances going. Her feet hurt, but she dances on. Wrapped in a heavy cloth, which swirls and protects her, it comforts her as she dances. Her eyes are full of fire. She weeps with her mother when the night is over. *

Sheila May : November 26th 2016 (Drawn in blue ink by Jane McKeating, and represented in the rag book Sheila May Gets Drawn) 59 years old, and not a princess. She used to love dancing. She is having a good day out at the Knitting and Stitching show with friends, but her feet hurt. She has a hat on as she is aware her hair is thinning, but is feeling hot and wishes she hadn’t worn such a thick coat. She has come on the coach, which is due to leave in an hour, so she has some time to spare. She loves to touch the cloths and particularly likes the shapes and rhythms in the patchwork. Having purchased lots of knitting wool, she remembers she has a lot at home already that she bought last year. She thinks about buying a postcard, but puts it back.

She finds the exhibitions absorbing but confusing. She has had a good day and her head is dancing. Her eyes sparkle a bit. — J.McK. ✴✴

✴✴

3.

*

A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Around the World in the Years 1772, 3, 4 & 5, James Cook, 1784 Volume 1 — J.McK., Volume 2 — H.M.

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63

— J.McK.

Sheila May gets drawn Rag book, print on cotton

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Translations

Taken from James Cook’s A Vocabulary of the Language of the Society Isles

I

II

To bewail, or lament by crying To desire or wish To burn a thing To be placed so the wind has no access to you To creep on the hands and feet To call to a person at a distance To drink To draw, or drag a thing by force To open the mouth To overcome, or conquer To press, or squeeze the legs gently To finish, or make an end To float on the face of the water To rend, or split To search for a thing that is lost To shiver with cold To trample a thing To startle when one dreams To wipe a thing clean

E’tatee Doodooe Eou théa Ené ai Too too oo A ee ‘noo Era’ ko Ha’ mamma E’ma’ coma Roro’ mee Eiote Pa’ noo Moo’ moo moo Oö. f. Paémeé A’tete Tata’hy Wa’hee te’dirre Ho’ro ee

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III

When a writer takes part in an act of selection, they are exercising a very particular power. Translations (which shares a title with the Brian Friel play dealing with Irish language and cultural imperialism) is a found poem taken from A Vocabulary of the Language of the Society Isles, a list of phrase-translations in the back of James Cook’s journals from the 1772–1775 Voyage to the South Pole. As I read through this Vocabulary, I was struck by the specificity of the translated phrases and how often they connected to precise actions (to fan the face or cool it, to cut the hair with scissors) and by the manner of their presentation, with the English expressions always coming before the dialect phrases they related to – a presentation common to early or photo forms of anthropology.

The Vocabulary seemed to signify a kind of exchange, a dance between two languages. But, of course, an unequal dance. It put me in mind of Paul Muldoon’s 1987 poem Meeting The British from his collection of there same name, which deals with the first meeting between the native Ottawa Indians and the British colonisers during Pontiac’s Rebellion in 1763, how the parties are two streams coming together. As the poem unfolds, images of the native people’s natural surroundings are gradually altered by linguistically coarse intrusions in French from the British invaders. Referring to the biological warfare the British subjected the Ottawa Indians to, the poem concludes they gave us six fishhooks / and two blankets embroidered with smallpox.

The observations curated in the journals from James Cook’s Voyage are often clinical and detached, as befits the period and context of their writing. This is especially evident in the descriptions of islanders (of the women of the island of Tanna, the journal notes: I cannot say the women are beauties, but I think them handsome enough for the men and too handsome for the use that is made of them). The account of Cook’s voyage foregrounds the act of discovery and implies a kind of possession. There’s even a fine black and white drawing of a location called Possession Bay in the island of South Georgia, an apt motif for the way language is presented in the Vocabulary, but perhaps also for the act of writing itself.

To drink to a person at a distance To call when one dreams To shiver on the surface of the water To open with cold To rend, or split the mouth To search, or make an end To be pressed so the wind has no access to you To burn on the hands and feet To trample a thing clean To startle by wish To overcome, to conquer by crying.

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Found poetry is created by taking words, phrases or passages from other sources and re-framing them as poetry by making changes in spacing, line breaks, or by adding or deleting text to suggest a new meaning – a kind of collage technique. As such, perhaps a found poem might be considered a colonial act, an act of extraction. Creating and presenting Translations was a highly selective process that involved (and involves) the exercise of power.

First, I extracted only certain definitions from the Vocabulary, less than twenty phrases from a choice of hundreds. Then, I arranged them in a particular order in section I. I arranged the original words in section II in the same order as their corresponding phrases in section I. Finally, in section III, I disrupted the English phrases and presented them in a new form, treating the text even more selectively. Each stage of the process is potentially problematic. Why did I focus on phrases from the Vocabulary mostly to do with harm or conquest? Why did I, like Cook, decide to place the English phrases first and the Society Isles words after, in the middle section? Why re-order the initial phrases in section III? Each decision was made with intent: to challenge, to subvert, or even, perhaps, to mislead. Many of the translated phrases in the Vocabulary have a more jovial or light-hearted tone, but I decided to foreground ideas of force or conquest, connecting to the colonial act of exploration. By re-arranging the English phrases in section III, I wanted to exercise some of the same selective power over these sentences that the vocabulary-compiler exerts over the language translated. Ultimately though, many of the decisions I made were also rhythmic or musical, motivated by a desire to present some of the lines from the Vocabulary in ways that created interesting sounds or suggested surprising images: perhaps there’s something colonial in the implication of the exotic in this. Foregrounding the music of language can be a political decision in itself, placing aesthetics before content.

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Translations is a flawed experiment in presentation, a small interruption to a fascinating text that, I hope, suggests a slightly different way of framing it. I’d like to end with a last intervention: an invitation to you to spend a little longer with the Society Isles words and phrases translated by Cook, to look at them without their translated context, say them aloud, savour them and, if you want, imagine your own definitions : E’tatee Doodooe Eou théa Ené ai Too too oo A ee ‘noo Era’ ko Ha’ mamma E’ma’ coma Roro’ mee Eiote Pa’ noo Moo’ moo moo Oö. f. Paémeé A’tete Tata’hy Wa’hee te’dirre Ho’ro ee

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— H.M.

Part II — being a volume of plates

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X-5

X-6

Plate 1

Plate 2

Plate 3

Plate 4

Plate 5

Plate 6

Plate 7

Plate 8

Plate 9

Plate 10

Plate 11

Plate 12

Plate 13

X-7

Part III — being a reflection upon the means employed

In which each outcome is described, discussed and reflected upon by one or more of the collaborators; individual contributions being indicated by the initials of the relevant practitioner.

A parallel photographic essay offers further insight into the the processes undertaken by some of the contributors.

X-8

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a reflection upon the means employed

Louise Adkins & Nikolai Duffy Constructed Histories and the Gaps Between.

1

The seen/unseen gap between past events and the present performance is inherent in all historical fictions. The internalized syncopated relationship between then and now, not necessarily linear but in tension, argues that performance of pastness can have emotive physical, bodily power and affect in the present.† My practice is research driven and employs predominately, but not exclusively, performance art practices. The ideas that most interest me are concerned with unknown or constructed histories, questionable documentation of past events. The works examine the performative possibilities of lost or unwitnessed moments and the narrative potentials inherent in reenacting them.

Concentrating on the book Shakers, Economists, Eben Ezers or Amana Inspirationists, Zoarites, Oneida Perfectionists, Icarians, Bethel, Aurora, and other Communes by Charles Nordhoff, I have focused on quotes that suggest what is thought to be the origin of the Shaker order’s name. The hear-say activity of shaking, trembling, shoving, swiftly passing and re-passing one another alongside twitching and scratching has become the starting point for performance and text works titled Notes for a Performance – Re-visioning a Ritual.

Working with the director of Mind’s Eye Description, Anne Hornsby, and poet Nikolai Duffy, the performance utilises audio description techniques to give voice to the performance action, creating duality of movement and sound for the viewer.

2

— L.A.

Kirsteen Aubrey & Alice Kettle Through the glass prism everything is different, an angled view that slants our sight to create a spectral light. We ascend, we look down, we move through and off the ground and see it as a new

Fig.1 The Portico Library Fig.2 K.A. & A.K. 66

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a reflection upon the means employed

perspective of interconnecting shadows and strange viewpoints. It is an alternative map of coloured reflections, expansive perspective, collapsed scale, still sound and luminescent light. The climber looks up, the balloonist looks down and the intersection of land and sky is a new dimension of surfaces, air currents and refractions.

Climbers look through light-bending prisms or belay glasses in order to have a vertical view upwards, without having to bend their heads backwards.

3

— A.K.

Collaboration seems like a good idea at the time; it promises the chance of innovation, of newness. But it can feel daunting as there is a tendency to think it has to result in something clever, something other. Our collaboration arose from mutual interest, curiosity and an evolving dialogue – of shared excitement and honesty to our practice and each other. Collaboration needs space, time and a chance for ideas, in whatever their form, to breathe and mature. It allows the unexpected to be created, voiced and realised. Through dialogue, text and materials we explored form, perspective and light, harnessing our creative thinking to honour and synthesise our skills. Over time, and with space for discussion, new perspectives and ideas emerged that neither participant could have anticipated. This is the beauty of collaboration; two minds and two practices that can lead to new perspectives.

4

— K.A.

Lucy Biggs & Conrad Williams My choice of book is not concerned with the contents of the texts themselves, but rather it is concerned with mapping my choices from The Portico Library curator’s list of titles and mapping the landscape of one’s interest/enquiry/identity within the library space.

Figs.3&4 K.A. & A.K. 68

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a reflection upon the means employed

The reasoning of my choices : 1, A Description of the Human Body I’m currently very interested in the body and all that it is capable of, how it is very much a part of our being/mind, and how we so often detach ourselves from it.

5

4, A Balance Sheet of the World As I get older, I’m increasingly interested in politics and economics. The title of this book fascinated me. I was curious to imagine what the Balance Sheet of the World would look like now.

18, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions I am often aware of the delusionary nature of the (and my own) mind. Again, I wanted to learn more from this book.

22, Our Common Land Prior research projects have been concerned with land, walking, landscape, escape. Knowing of Octavia Hill’s connection to the National Trust, I chose this text.

6

40, Woman’s Work and Woman’s Culture Again, with age, I am increasingly aware of my role/context/ voice as a woman within society. I was interested to read more about this from the 1800s.

My response maps the library shelves, the selection of the original forty books, plus my five within it, with the addition of an abstract representation of myself within the space. There are blank copies of the shelf map, so that visitors can complete their own/ respond to their selections within the space. Conrad and I have developed two distinct outcomes, yet these have been informed by each other’s working processes.

— L.B.

Fig.5 The Portico Library Fig.6 L.B. 70

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a reflection upon the means employed

Within minutes of meeting Lucy I was struck by how much we had in common. After a very short discussion, it was clear what kind of project we wanted to work on. I was deeply inspired and enthused by Lucy’s initial sketches.

7

— C.W.

Sian Bonnell & Nicholas Royle I am very excited to be working with a writer of fiction. I have rarely been inspired in my work by visual references; literature, and especially fiction, has always provided the best methods to spark ideas. I read Nicholas’ book First Novel and was completely captivated by the first few pages describing the cool dismantling of a Kindle. His audacious matter-of-factness in the writing of this chimed with some of the wilful underpinnings that exist in my own practice.

— S.B.

When I saw Sian’s contribution to the Imagining Medicine exhibition at The John Rylands Library in the autumn of 2016, I became excited at the prospect of working with her. In that series of photographs, using contemporary models and props, she created witty and affecting versions or copies of seventeenth century illustrations of surgical procedures. In my fiction, I often use the circumstances and sensations of my actual experience to inspire a storyline that is a version or copy of it. Like Sian’s surgery photographs, it is the same but different. The idea of collaborating with an artist who, at least some of the time, works in a similar way to me, but in different forms and a variety of media, was irresistible.

8

— N.R.

Fig.7 E.B. & J.McC. Fig.8 L.R. 74

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a reflection upon the means employed

a reflection upon the means employed

Eleanor Byrne & Joe McCullagh The Portico Library was built between 1802 and 1806, the following year 1807 saw the United Kingdom Bill to abolish the Atlantic Slave Trade. The chosen texts relate directly or indirectly to the transatlantic slave trade and its legacies. Our first text, a dictionary of marine terms, seeks to emphasise the centrality of the ship as a physically absent but haunting presence in The Portico Library archive which has a wind vane facing visitors as they enter the library, whose dial will spin frequently on windy days.

The earlier traveller’s text is by Matthew Lewis, a well-known gothic novelist, author of The Monk, who inherited two Jamaican slave plantations in 1812. The latter is the autobiography of one of the public faces of the underground railroad in the United States, Levi Coffin, a Quaker, who visited Britain in 1864 acting as an agent of the Western Freedmen’s Aid Commission to raise funds for those freed from slavery. Both texts voice Black experiences through White narratives.

Many stories of slavery inhabit the shelves of the library and this project engages with some of these in order to reflect on what Christina Sharpe calls wake work- involved in thinking about the range of transformations enacted on black bodies across a series of relations to the ship, the hold, the wake and the weather.† The Tell-Tale is replete with multiple meanings. One who tells tales on others, or who spins yarns, narrates and reveals. On board sailing ships a tell-tale is a short thin piece of yarn or fabric attached to a stay, any of several wires which hold a mast in place on a sailboat.

They are used in pairs, on each side of the ship as a guide to enable sailors to navigate effectively by sight, steering the boat or adjusting sails according to the direction the tell-tale is streaming in relation to the current wind direction.

This project is an attempt to translate between these multiple resonances and possible meanings of the tell-tale, bringing the traces of the ship into the archival space of the library by creating storytelling yarn, that registers the importance of the sailing ship to the many travellers tales held in The Portico Library collection. The tell-tale is a sign to navigate by, both on board ship and in human interactions

76

where anyone bearing a tale or story seeks to signal meanings to others. It is a piece of ship design but also of narrative.

In our project the nautical tell-tale is united with the narrative one in a series of printed ribbons that will be tied and wrapped around books in the collection, emphasising the importance of the nautical theme and allowing us to explore ideas of these ribbons or strips as ways to navigate the collection. The tell-tale might bring unwelcome or hidden information to light, or reorient our reading and thinking about a subject, bringing previously suppressed knowledge into the open, nonetheless it acts as a navigational aid.

— E.B.

The nautical tell-tale is united with the narrative one in a series of ribbons that will be tied and wrapped in and around books in the collection. They emphasise the importance of the nautical theme and allowing us to explore ideas of these ribbons or strips as ways to navigate the collection. The design of the ribbons will reference the common form of actual nautical tell-tales in use today.

— J.McC.

David Cooper & Lesley Raven The artwork and accompanying text respond to the stock image of a gromia, located in two books circa 1850’s by J. W. Carpenter and M. Somerville. A description by Carpenter makes an analogy of the central case of the gromia with the finesse of a master mason, which brought to mind the craft of tapestry weaving and the brick-like layering of threads. In response to this Lesley created a series of woven tapestry samples from clear monofilament with the aim of displaying these between two mirrors to set up recursive images that play upon the concept of the stock image. In response to these David has written a series of fragmented texts that consider Somerville and her status

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a reflection upon the means employed

as a female author of scientific prose, which brought to mind thoughts about craft and gender and further influenced the creation and manipulation of subsequent woven pieces.

9

— D.C. & L.R.

I have tried, in my short piece of writing, to give a sense of the collaborative process : Lesley zoomed in on a couple of books in the Portico; she produced new work in response to images found in both books; I wrote a short, reflective text in response to Lesley’s material response; and we then began to discuss how the work might integrated and interwoven within the exhibition space ... Obviously, though, this clean linearity is a lie.

10

— D.C.

Working with David has extended my practice to consider the life and tensions of the author, Mary Somerville, which is beyond my initial response to the visual depictions of gromiae. This has lent greater consideration to the gender-biases within textile craft that I hope to develop in the future. In this way, I hope aspects of my practice will influence David’s work in some way. Our conversations have been interdisciplinary and inspiring.

— L.R.

11

Stephen Dixon & Berthold Schoene The Portico Library’s manuscripts and journals describing Captain Cook’s epic voyages of discovery have provided the source material for Tales of Sails. Berthold has selected key phrases from Cook’s writings, focusing on encounters and foreignness, and has

Fig.9 S.D. & B.S. Figs.10&11 T.H. 78

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a reflection upon the means employed

a reflection upon the means employed

crafted these into Three Yarns. Stephen has taken extracts from the Yarns and printed these onto plates, adding visual images in response to the text. The plates are contained within a fabricated tin cargo box, protected by a quilted textile lining made from vintage tea-towels collected in Australia.

— S.D. & B.S.

Paul Evans, Teresa Holtom & Hazel Jones Natural forms and detailed botanical prints frequently inspire my work. Intrigued by the process of nature printing in Thomas Moore’s book The Ferns of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, my attention was captured by the subtle relief like images, which formed on the pages. Using a lightweight Haboti silk for its translucency, I created a contrasting effect between the fabric and the pigment print. Printing on the reverse of the fabric creates a relief like quality, transforming the surface appearance of the cloth.

— T.H.

I usually work in metal, attempting to elevate the everyday by making inventions for the banal things of life. I decided to use this exhibition as a chance to try out a new method of seeing beauty in the everyday as the idea of the Nature print appealed to me. With the aid of our trusty and wonderful print technician, Mike Hitchens, we managed to produce a detailed etching from a salt packet after four tricky attempts.

— H.J.

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Rachel Genn & Amanda Ravetz Working together was more alchemy than translation. I found an 1870 text accusing bad housewives of turning men into drunks and mentioned this to Rachel. I’d barely emailed it out before the slattern herself replied in an act of impeccable shapeshifting. The word slatterny became the catalyst for Rachel’s text. My own translation consists of a small intervention to the painted text above the shelving on the wall of the library, POLITE LITERATURE. Many of my friends in recovery tell me that the attitudes of the nineteenth century continue today. We are still living in (im)polite times.

– A.R.

Amanda’s quotes epitomised the idea that a woman who could not service the family was useless. This unlocked my rage at drudgery and fury over enforced abstinence.

The looping text about domestic chores and photos were powered by this. In form, our collaboration mirrored women’s work: little sustenance, great potential.

– R.G.

Sharon Handley & Jonathan Hitchen Each wall of each hexagon is furnished with five bookshelves; each bookshelf holds thirty-two books identical in format; each book contains four-hundred-and-ten pages; each page, forty lines; each line, approximately eighty black letters. There are also letters on the front cover of each book; those letters neither indicate nor prefigure what the pages inside will say. ...

Five hundred years ago, the chief of an upper hexagon came upon a book as confusing as the others, but which had nearly two pages of homogeneous lines. ...

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We also know of another superstition of that time: that of the Man of the Book. On some shelf in some hexagon (men reasoned) there must exist a book which is the formula and perfect compendium of all the rest: some librarian has gone through it and he is analogous to a god. ...

Footnote 3. I repeat: it suffices that a book be possible for it to exist.

Only the impossible is excluded. For example: no book can be a ladder, although no doubt there are books which discuss and negate and demonstrate this possibility and others whose structure corresponds to that of a ladder.â€

12

Jonathan introduced me to the text, The Library of Babel, and we agreed that this would be an excellent starting point for our collaboration. In our discussions, it was interesting to see his passion for cataloguing, data, and the maths behind the concept of a universal library, whereas my imagination was initially captured by the potential allegory of a library as a universe with a human librarian trying to create order, and the notion of books as portals into new worlds. His general interest in process, and more specifically the Catalogues of Books in The Portico Library, prompted me to consult the catalogues and consider more carefully how they provided a window into the library information management process. This spurred me not only to reflect on the cataloguing process, the notion of creating order from disorder on the bookshelves and the decisions behind that process, but also to consider the tensions between freedom and constraint, the freedom of creative and abstract thought and the need to constrain those thoughts and capture them through symbols in order to express them in written form.

My visit to the library revealed the catalogues as a window into the decisions made at a certain point in the history of the city, in terms of the books purchased, and the decisions made about where to locate each book. The handwritten notes in some of the early catalogues were fascinating documents into the history of the library. The visit reinforced my interest in the library as a central point in the history of the city, a place where conversations took place between influential people who may have been inspired by books on the shelves, conversations which may have found their way into some of the books, and

13

Fig.12 Minute book of The Portico Library, 1806, recorded by Peter Mark Roget Fig.13 S.H. & J.H. 82

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a reflection upon the means employed

a reflection upon the means employed

may have influenced some of the definitions of words as expressed through Roget’s Thesaurus, given that Peter Roget was a founding member and the first Secretary of this library. This led me back to the conversations with Jonathan on the tensions between freedom of abstract thought and the constraints of written language, the way symbols on a page capture words through fixing their meaning at a moment in time and within a given context; decisions which a future generation and different circumstances may reverse.

This was the first time I have engaged with anything like this and it was enlightening. Jonathan certainly made me question my approach and interpretation of the original text and prompted me to engage differently with The Portico Library.

—S.H.

A chance comment about catalogues (from librarian Emma Marigliano) during my first visit to The Portico Library reminded me about The Library of Babel. I was first introduced to this short story a long time ago and have toyed many times with using it as the basis for a piece of work. I’ve always enjoyed Borges’ practical description of a library containing every book ever written (or yet to be written), with the bleak reality of not actually being able to navigate the space described in any meaningful way. Order and disorder, hand-in-hand, delicately balanced. Graphic Design is essentially the act of organising information, and the story begins with a simple description of the format for a book – four-hundred-and-ten pages, forty lines per page, approximately eighty characters per line, using an available alphabet of just twenty-five characters.

It’s relatively easy to convert this specification into an algorithm that will generate any single Babel book in the blink of an eye. Indeed there is a library online that does this already.‡ Writing the book is not the problem, finding some sense (any sense) within the cacophony of gibberish on every page is a different matter altogether. Borges imagines another book of the same format – a catalogue that definitively explains how to navigate his library. He describes the perpetually

84

fruitless quest of a Babel librarian to locate this book from amongst an almost infinite number of identical volumes.

Trying to find an atlas one afternoon from a wall of uncatalogued books in the Members Reading Room only served to under line what a frustrating existence the librarians of Babel must lead.

Having been asked to design the book you’re now reading, catalogues were no doubt on my mind during that initial conversation with Emma; and that is perhaps why the story popped back into my mind in the first place.

Working with Sharon has been very rewarding. Having to verbalise my somewhat chaotic thoughts (about chaos) as part of our collaboration, made me resolve my ideas much more quickly than I usually do with an art work. I’m used to explaining with my design practice, which almost always has to speak to an external audience, but less so with my art practice which I rarely make public; being happy to leave things unresolved, open-ended, on-going and usually unfinished.

Sharon was a generous listener and we teased out a direction for our thinking with some useful conversations. The leap she made to Roget from Borges and catalogues was inspired. It helped me to figure out how the connections I was trying to articulate between order and noise could be delicately placed within the specific context of The Portico Library. The book I intend to make – a catalogue of catalogues that complies fully to Borges’ Babel specifications – remains at present a work in progress...

— J.H.

EdMUND Keefe & David PennY I have been interested in James Nasmyth’s photographs for a few years and coming across the book in The Portico Library has allowed me to properly explore the publication for the first time. His strange and impossible photographs of lunar craters are for me, symbolic of a desire to make an image and thus realise a sense of an

85

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object beyond the capabilities of photographic technology. As a means of realising an imaginary perspective of the moon’s landscapes, representation turned to construction through the creation of plaster models based on visual observations Nasmyth made of the moon.

These were photographed producing fantastical perspectives, which position the viewer almost as though their feet are planted on the surface of the moon surveying the lunar topography.

My own fantasy imagines what lies beyond the frame of Nasmyth’s photographs. Swinging the camera around to revealing the edge of the sculpture and a boundary between what is real and what is imaginary.

14

— D.P. 15

Desdemona McCannon & Eleanor Mulhearn My starting points were two nineteenth century books. The first is John C. Loudon’s Trees and Shrubs in Britain specifically the chapter on Yew trees. The text is a mixture of folklore, folk remedies and botanical information. The second was Sabine Baring-Gould’s Lives of the Saints, specifically Melangell, a saint associated with North Wales. Baring-Gould was a folklorist who writes about landscape from an antiquarian perspective. Fragments of material culture and natural history are blended with folklore and reimagined historical events from the past to create a chimeric sense of place, hovering between the real and the imaginary.

Eleanor and I decided to visit Pennant Melangell in Powys. It is a small remote church, its interior is decorated with recusant pagan iconography of the hare and it is sited within an elliptical churchyard ringed with yew trees. These still host traces of another, older, set of religious practices such as tying rags to the trees, leaving notes, broken eggs, coins and stones in their cavities.

Through site specific shadowing of making practices associated with magical thinking and folk belief, such as foraged charms, wild signs enscribed in particular places, and actions such as binding,

Figs.14&15 E.K. & D.P. 86

87

88

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stitching, burning and drowning objects, I explored the idea of the feminine sublime, a dispersed and embodied experience of place.

I have transported this experience into small shrine-like boxes, which contain prints and natural elements and which are activated through private contemplation.

16

— D.McC.

My focus of study for Made in Translation has centred on The Portico Library collection of texts surrounding the English and New England witch trials. I became captivated by the narratives of visionary encounters with familiar spirits embedded within these. The notion of witches’ meetings with familiars for maleficent purpose, to meet with demonic spirits to cause harm to the innocent, as witch trial records extorted, presents a limiting cultural picture of visionary encounters with spirits at this time. Generically illustrated seventeenth century woodcut pamphlets reinforced these stereotypes. Fear of magical practices leading to the witch-hunting craze suppressed much openly magical practice, whether intended for good or bad purpose, curbing expression of wider spiritual beliefs and values.

The origins of visionary spirit encounters, it is thought now, draws from folklore of a much older, pre-Christian culture, rooted in Animism. † Trial record confessions, taken as direct evidence of maleficent practice, describe spirits appearing to humans in visions in many different guises; animal, human, hybrid, fairie; and of travel with these spirits to locations; theatrical, extraordinary, strange. These are complex, often challenging and morally ambiguous encounters, but some also intimate equal and respectful meetings, and long-term, personal relationships with spirits. These spirits would appear at times of great need, and might offer help and loyal services. Healing remedies and charms were often extended to the wider populace via the person encountering the spirit.

A site visit, made with my collaborating partner on this project, Desdemona McCannon, to Pennant Melangell in mid-Wales, was transformative, quietly connecting with these folkloric narratives. The

17

18

Figs.16—18 D.McC. 90

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remote valley encircled by mountains, is lyrically and geographically expressive of its ancient history of refuge. Melangell, who resided in the valley, is a seventh century Saint of Hares, Rabbits and Small Mammals, the location given to her as a place of sanctuary by the Welsh Prince, Brochwell. Letters and votive offerings laid on her grave and shrine and left in the churchyard are evidence that she is still very much revered, and speak of age-old traditions of engaging with spirits.

I have begun working with clay, and dipping forms into clay slip mediums that I have had little previous experience with, opening up new working processes. Perhaps the dipping of (respectfully collected) plant matter into slip began as a process of metaphor, a calcification of the natural, though the individual pieces begin to form narratives as I learn more. Through ongoing reading of spirit encounters– making, drawing, and experimenting with unfamiliar material – I am attempting to re-imagine what values and significance these meetings may have brought to the visionaries and their recipients, and as spirit encounters exist in the present in very similar ways, why they are still important?

19

— E.M.

Ian McCullough When initially confronted by the task of selecting a book from The Portico Library I was quite daunted. As an illustrator I am used to having words thrust upon me. Not being particularly partial to rules, I thought, find a book of ancient directives written by someone who was absolute in their beliefs, and didn’t mind espousing to others, and have a go at them. Rules, as most rules are, are subsequently proven to be complete nonsense.

But then James (the library's curator) produced a large folio of rather lovely drawings entitled Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia by Giovanni Belzoni. It transpired that Belzoni was an Italian hydrologist turned circus strongman, turned archeologist

20

Figs.19&20 E.M. 92

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and Egyptologist who was responsible for gathering the substantial collection in the British Museum known as the Salt collection. Salt was the British Consul who took the credit.

In my small way, I want to excavate the multi-layered Great Belzoni and give him his dues.

21

— I.McC.

Jane McKeating & Helen Mort The exotic subject: in our responses to James Cook’s Journals (1772–1775) we have both explored the concept of the exotic and what it means to make something (or someone) a subject, in art and in anthropology. As such, we were both interested in the idea of the gaze. The poetry response takes the form of a found poem and accompanying commentary that seeks to explore and challenge Cook’s A Vocabulary of the Language of the Society Isles and whether curating and presenting someone else’s language is always an inherently colonial act. The textile response questions what it means to capture a person’s image in time, inspired by Tynai Mai March 23rd 1774 (a subject in Cook’s journal) and Sheila May November 26th 2016 (drawn by Jane in 2016). It was influenced by an interest in the stylistic conventions of a given time and the impact they had on the way an image is constructed – the gaze and the pose. Both the words and stitching also present a process as well as a finished work.

22

23

— J.McK.

Figs.21&22 I.McC. Fig.23 J.McK. 94

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Part IV — being an appendix of particulars

96

X-9

Bibliography

A list of the non-fiction books from The Portico Library initially suggested by James Moss to inspire contributors with starting points for projects.

The shelf locations of these books are indicated on the map on the dust jacket of this book.

1.

A Description of The Human Body Its Structure and Functions, John Marshall, 1860 (Dk 40)

2.

A Treatise on Adulterations of Food and Culinary Poisons Exhibiting The Fraudulent Sophistications Of Bread, Beer, Wine, Spirituous Liquors, Tea, Coffee, Cream, Confectionery, Vinegar, Mustard, Pepper, Cheese, Olive Oil, Pickles, And Other Articles Employed In Domestic Economy, And Methods Of Detecting Them Fredrick Accum, 1825 (DG 25)

3.

A voyage towards the South Pole and around the world in the Years 1772, 3, 4 & 5, James Cook, 1784 (M Supp Cook)

4.

Balance Sheet of the World for Ten Years—1870–1880, Michael G. Mulhall, 1881 (Km 38)

5.

Corals and Coral Islands, James D. Dana, 1872 (Cn 33)

6.

Electric Light : Its Production and Use Its Production and Use, Embodying Plain Directions for the Working of Galvanic Batteries, Electric Lamps, and Dynamo-Electric Machines, John W. Urquart & Frederick C. Webb, 1880 (Do 36)

7.

Frost and Fire Natural Engines, Tool-Marks and Chips, with Sketches Taken at Home and Abroad, John F. Campbell, 1865 (Dl 37)

8.

George Sand and the Victorians, Patricia Thomson, 1977 (F Supp Thom)

9.

Histoire Naturelle, Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, 1799 (Ch 4)

10. Homes without Hands Being a Description of the Habitations of Animals Classed According to their Principle of Construction, Rev. John G. Wood, 1856 (Cl 25)

X-10

11.

In Darkest Africa, Or the Quest Rescue and Retreat of Emin Governor of Equatoria, Henry M. Stanley, 1890 (My 322)

12.

Journal of a Residence in India, Maria Graham, 1812 (Ms 7)

13.

Lectures on Polarised Light, Jonathan Pereira and Baden Powell, 1854 (Dh 15)

xvii

Bibliography

Bibliography

14. Lectures on The Science of Language, Max Müller, 1864 (Ik 24)

29. The Logic of Hegel, Georg Hegel & William Wallace, 1874 (Io 12)

15.

30. The Moon Considered as a Planet, a World, and a Satellite, James Nasmyth & James Carpenter, 1874 (Do 6 Oversize)

Loudon’s Encyclopaedia of Agriculture, John C. Loudon, 1825 (Yc 27)

16. Manners, Customs and Dress During the Middle Ages, Paul Lacroix, 1874 (Wg 44) 17.

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, Elizabeth Robins, 1885 (Fy 101)

18.

Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions, Charles Mackay, 1841 (Ia 14)

19. Mineralogical Nomenclature Alphabetically Arranged with Synoptic Tables of the Chemical Analysis of Minerals, Thomas Allan, 1814 (Dm 23)

31.

The Nature-Printed British Sea-Weeds A History Accompanied by Figures and Dissections of the Algae of the British Isles, William G. Johnstone & Alexander Croall, 1860 (Ck 11)

32. The River of Golden Sand The Narrative of a Journey through China and Eastern Tibet to Burmah, with Illustrations and Ten Maps From Original Surveys, William Gill, 1880 (My 42) 33.

20. On Molecular and Microscopic Science, Mary Somerville, 1869 (Db 8) 21.

On the Various Contrivances by Which British and Foreign Orchids Are Fertilised by Insects and on the Good Effects of Intercrossing, Charles Darwin, 1883 (Cl 4)

22. Our Common Land, Octavia Hill, 1877 (Lp 11) 23. Principles of Mental Physiology With Their Applications to the Training and Discipline of the Mind, and the Study of Its Morbid Conditions, William Carpenter, 1874 (Im 60) 24. The Glacial Nightmare and the Flood A Second Appeal to Common Sense from the Extravagance of Some Recent Geology, Henry Howorth, 1893 (Do 22)

26. The Important Results of an Elaborate Investigation

into the Mysterious Case of Elizabeth Fenning, Being a Detail of Extraordinary Facts Discovered Since her Execution, Including the Official Report of her Singular Trial

John Watkins, 1815 (Eb 8) 27.

34. The Subterranean World, George Hartwig, 1871 (Db 39) 35.

The Inner Life of Syria, Palestine and the Holy Land, Isabel Burton, 1875 (Mt 97)

The View of India Extra Gangem, China and Japan, Thomas Pennant, 1800 (Or 122)

38. The Wonders of the Invisible World Being an Account of the Tryals of Several Witches Lately Executed in New England, Cotton Mather, 1862 (Ia 21) 39. Volcanoes What They Are and What They Teach, John Judd, 1883 (Do 30) 40. Woman’s Work and Woman’s Culture, Josephine Butler, 1869 (In 30)

28. The Logic of Chance An Essay on the Foundations and Province of the Theory of Probability, John Venn, 1866 (Jm 3)

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The Tropical World A Popular Scientific Account of the Natural History of the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms in the Equatorial Regions, George Hartwig, 1863 (Cl 20)

36. The Universe and the Coming Transits Presenting Researches into and New Views Respecting the Constitution of the Heavens; Together with an Investigation of the Conditions of the Coming Transits of Venus, Richard Proctor, 1874 (Db 56) 37.

25. The Honey Bee Its Natural History, Physiology and Management, Edward Bevan, 1827 (Ca 10)

The Silurian System, Founded on Geological Researches in the Counties of Salop, Hereford, Radnor, Montgomery, Caermarthen, Brecon, Pembroke, Monmouth, Gloucester, Worcester, and Stafford; with A Description of the Coal-Fields and Overlying Formations, Roderick I. Murchison, 1839 (DN 11)

— J.M.

xix

Bibliography

Bibliography

An additional list of books from The Portico Library also used by the contributors.

xi.

The shelf locations of these books are indicated on the map on the dust jacket of this book.

xii. The Communistic Societies of the United States from personal visit and observation including detailed accounts of the Economists, Zoarites, Shakers, The Amana, Oneida, Bethel, Aurora, Icarian, and other existing societies, their religious creeds, social practices, numbers, industries, and present condition, Charles Nordhoff, 1875 (Lp 33)

i.

A Catalogue of the Books Belonging to the Portico Library, Mosley Street, Manchester, 1810 (Y Supp Port)

ii.

A New Universal Dictionary of the Marine, William Burney, 1815 (Y Supp Falc)

iii.

A True and Exact Relation of the Several Informations, Examinations, and Confessions of the Late Witches, Arraigned and Executed in the County of Essex, author unknown, 1645 (Ia 15)

iv.

Captain Cook’s journal during his first voyage round the world made in H.M. Bark ‘Endeavour’ A literal transcription of the original mss. With notes and introduction, James Cook & William J. L. Wharton (ed), 1768-71 (M Supp Cook)

v.

Journal of a Residence among the Negroes in the West Indies, Matthew Lewis, 1845 (Lb 21)

vi.

Lives of the Saints, Sabine Baring-Gould, 1892 (Fz 41)

vii.

Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia Giovanni Belzoni, 1820 (Wg 20)

Roget’s Thesaurus of English worlds and phrases Peter Roget, 1852, Longman edition, 1962 (U Supp Roge)

xiii. The Aerial World A Popular Account of the Phenomena and Life of the Atmosphere, Georg Hartwig, 1881 (Dp 7) xiv. The Anatomy of Drunkenness, Robert Macnish, 1828 (Dk 5) xv. The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland, Thomas Moore & Henry Bradbury, 1855 (C Press 1) xvi. Travels in the Air, James Glaisher, Camille Flammarion, Wilfred de Fonvielle, and Gaston Tissandier, 1871 (Db 32) xvii. Arboretum et fruticetum britannicum or, The Trees and Shrubs of Britain, Native and Foreign, Hardy and Half-hardy, Pictorially and Botanically Delineated, and Scientifically and Popularly Described; With their Propagation, Culture, Management, and Uses in the Arts, in Useful and Ornamental Plantations, and in Landscape-Gardening; preceded by a Historical and Geographical Outline of the Trees and Shrubs of Temperate Climates Throughout the World, John C. Loudon, 1838 (Ci 2-8)

viii. On the Use and Abuse of Alcoholic

Liquors in Health and Disease,

William Carpenter, 1850 (Dk 11) ix.

Physiological Essays Drink Craving Differences in Men Idiosyncrasy and the Origin of Disease, Robert Bird, 1870 (Db 31)

x.

Reminiscences of Levi Coffin the Reputed President of the Underground Railroad, Levi Coffin, 1876 (Fi 67)

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xxi

Index of Artworks & Plates

Pl. 7

Pl. 2

Index of Artworks & Plates

Louise Adkins Notes for a Performance – Re-visioning a Ritual Performance, braille text and audio

Jonathan Hitchen Sketches for a Catalogue of Catalogues Randomly generated text pages; 15 x 23 cm

Pl. 1

Kirsteen Aubrey & Alice Kettle Another Perspective : Looking Up to the Ground, Down to the Clouds Glass prism, printed and embroidered cotton table cloths; 120 x 120 cm Balloon Print on fabric and sandbags; 300 cm diameter

Edmund Keefe & David Penny Moon 3D printing; 11 cm diameter

Pl. 6

Desdemona McCannon The Moon and the Yew Tree Foraged materials, cardboard, paper, hand cut rubber stamps

Pl. 8

Ian McCullogh An Excavated Portrait of Belzoni Ink and collage

Pl. 3

Eleanor Mulhearn Thair thou shall find baith siluer and gold Found materials dipped in porcelain slip, moving image projection

Pl. 9

Lucy Biggs Mapping Identity Relative to Choice and Space Etching; 42 x 59 cm Sian Bonnell and Nicholas Royle Insufficient Data for an Image Hand-bound artist book and video loop

Pl. 13

Pl. 5

Eleanor Byrne and Joe McCullagh Tell-Tales Mixed media; various sizes

Jane McKeating Sheila May Gets Drawn Rag book, print on cotton; 40 x 42 cm Bookmarks, print on cotton; 15 x 5 cm

Stephen Dixon & Berthold Schoene Tales of Sails Ceramic plates with transfer print; 25 cm diameter

Pl. 11

Teresa Holtom Broccato (embossed cloth) Screen print on silk organza; various sizes

Pl. 12

Hazel Jones Salt Packet from Salt & Shake Crisps Etching; 9 x 15 cm

Pl. 10

Lesley Raven Stock Response – a Sensitive Response to Stock Imagery Monofilament, silver embroidery thread, mirrors, glass vessels and water; various sizes Glass vessels kindly loaned from MMU School of Science and the Environment, and Fred Aldous Amanda Ravetz Barrelling – Impolite Literature Vinyl text

Rachel Genn Barrelling – Slattern Photograph, badges, audio

xxii

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Pl. 4

Index of Contributors

Index of Contributors

Louise Adkins is the founder, artist and curator of Between, a programme of performance art commissions that re-enact historical cultural events. She is a Senior Lecturer in Fashion at Manchester School of Art, and a doctorate researcher.

Kirsteen Aubrey works in glass, exploring glassblowing alongside digital technology and collaborating with textiles, graphics, photography and film. She is the former Programme Leader in 3D Design at Manchester School of Art, and is now the Faculty Manager for student employability.

Lucy Biggs is a graphic designer, educator and researcher, with a ceaseless love for typography and letterform. She is a Senior Lecturer in Graphic Design at Manchester School of Art, and committee member of the Graphic Design Educators’ Network (GDEN).

Sian Bonnell is a photographic artist, curator and publisher. She is a Senior Lecturer in Photography at Manchester School of Art. Eleanor Byrne is a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Literature at MMU, and co-investigator of Troubling Globalisation: Arts and Humanities Approaches. She is researching the representation of plantations in the Caribbean, Hawai’i and the Pacific Rim. Matthew Carlin is a Lecturer in Education Studies at MMU. His work focuses on the relationship between aesthetics, politics, and education.

David Cooper is a Senior Lecturer in English Literature at MMU. He is a literary geographer, writer on poetry, writer of creative non-fiction and (digital) literary cartography.

Stephen Dixon is Professor of Contemporary Crafts at Manchester School of Art. He believes in the power of craft to engage the public imagination and to make a difference.

xxiv

Nikolai Duffy is a Senior Lecturer in American Literature at MMU. He is a poet, editor, publisher of Like This Press, author of The Little Shed of Various Lamps and Up the Creek.

Paul Evans is a writer, radio broadcaster and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at MMU Cheshire. He combines nature writing, poetry, natural history documentary and docudrama, using place as a repository of memory and dark wonder.

Rachel Genn is a Lecturer in Creative Writing (Fiction and Script) at MMU. She is a Doctor of Neuroscience, Royal Society Fellow at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, novelist and scriptwriter.

Sharon Handley is Faculty Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Arts and Humanities MMU, with a doctorate in Contemporary Spanish Literature. She is Director of the North West Consortium of Routes into Languages, including the Mother Tongue Other Tongue competition, in which poetry inspires pupils to be creative using foreign and community languages.

Jonathan Hitchen is a graphic designer and Senior Lecturer in Graphic Design at Manchester School of Art. When he’s not teaching, or trying to persuade computers to make drawings, he works with The Modernist Society on their quarterly magazine.

Teresa Holtom is a textile print designer and Senior Lecturer in Textile in Practice at Manchester School of Art. She uses traditional and digital processes to create new tactile surfaces in cloth.

Hazel Jones is a Senior Lecturer in Interactive Arts at Manchester School of Art. She creates small metal inventions and devices to elevate the status of overlooked, banal and everyday objects.

xxv

Index of Contributors

Index of Contributors

Edmund Keefe is a 3D digital artist with a strong interest in astronomy, science and science fiction. Many of his works involve spacecraft, and in particular the Lunar Excursion Module from the Apollo Missions. He is 3D Print Manager at MMU. Alice Kettle is Professor of Textile Arts at Manchester School of Art. She makes huge embroideries.

Desdemona McCannon is a Senior Lecturer at Manchester School of Art specialising in illustration and print cultures.

She investigates synergies between illustration practice and folk arts.

Joe McCullagh is Head of Design, and Associate Dean of Learning and Teaching at Manchester School of Art. He is a design educator, graphic design consultant, Advisory Board Member of Design Manchester, Board Director of the Manchester Craft and Design Centre, and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Eleanor Mulhearn is a Senior Lecturer in Illustration with Animation at Manchester School of Art. Her work draws from folklore traditions and the fairy tale to make connections with archive, object and location.

David Penny is an artist and Senior Lecturer in Photography at Manchester School of Art. He works with the photograph and sculptural practice, and is interested in translations between objects, their images, and the potential of the photograph to make new – to be productive rather than functioning as representational document.

Lesley Raven is Programme Leader for Fashion Art Direction at Manchester School of Art. She is a textile consultant, artist of conceptual artwork and interventions, maker of bespoke accessories, and doctorate researcher.

Amanda Ravetz trained as a painter, and has a doctorate in Social Anthropology. She is a Senior Research Fellow at Manchester School of Art.

Ian McCullough is Programme Leader for Illustration with Animation at Manchester School of Art. He exhibits in the Royal Ulster Academy, is a musician, and likes to make a three-tiered buttered digestive sandwich to dunk in tea.

Nicholas Royle is a novelist, short story writer, editor, anthologist and small press publisher. He is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the Manchester Writing School at MMU, editor for Salt Publishing, and runs Nightjar Press.

Jane McKeating is Associate Head of Design at Manchester School of Art. She is an artist maker in printed and stitched textiles, which take many forms, exploring narratives through tactile surfaces; and a writer and editor on embroidery.

Berthold Schoene is Professor of English, Faculty Head of Research and Knowledge Exchange for Arts and Humanities at MMU. He is a writer on contemporary British fiction, Scottish literature, masculinity and gender studies, representations of nationhood, globalisation studies and cosmopolitan theory.

Helen Mort is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at MMU. She has published two poetry collections with Chatto & Windus, Division Street and No Map Could Show Them.

She is writing her first novel, and is a judge for the 2017 Man Booker International.

James Moss is an interdisciplinary artist and curator, and the Gallery & Exhibitions Organiser at the The Portico Library.

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Conrad Williams is the author of nine novels, winner of the British Fantasy and International Horror Guild awards and the Littlewood Arc prize, finalist for the Shirley Jackson award, and the Crime Writers’ Association Dagger awards. He is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at MMU.

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The Portico Library

MMU Faculty of Arts & Humanities

The Portico Library opened its doors to Manchester’s Polite Society in 1806 as an independent subscription library and newsroom.

Still occupying its original Grade II* listed building on Mosley Street, it now celebrates both the historical and contemporary cultures of Manchester by welcoming members, researchers and the public to engage with its unique mainly nineteenth century collection.

Covering an expansive range of subject areas in the Arts and Sciences, the Library’s collection provides a tangible insight into Georgian and Victorian society, reflecting the literary, intellectual and cultural mindset of The Portico’s founders and of their successors over the following years.

The merger of Humanities, Languages and Social Science with the Manchester School of Art and the Manchester Fashion Institute in 2016 has created a faculty with over 9,500 students and a broad range of programmes at both postgraduate and undergraduate levels as well as world-leading expertise in a range of disciplines. With awardwinning writers, designers and artists working alongside internationally renowned academics, architects, and researchers, this faculty opens up the University to the City of Manchester and beyond. It is a creative space where staff and students work with communities, external stakeholders, and partners to transform our world through challenging convention, celebrating creativity, and empowering people.

Built as a temple of learning and frequented by many illustrious thinkers, industrialists and radical innovators of nineteenth century Manchester, The Portico Library has inherited a great legacy that it continues to share and build upon by collaborating with diverse communities and professionals at the forefront of their practice. Past associates include John Dalton, Peter Mark Roget, Elizabeth Gaskell, Robert Peel, Val McDermid and even Eric Cantona. Firmly rooted in its locality and its history, the scope of The Portico’s relevance is international and its outreach is growing exponentially through public facing work, dynamic programming and its support of Northern regional writing through The Portico Prize, a literary award established by the Library in 1985.

The faculty is home to the Manchester Writing School, which comprises the largest community of Creative Writing post-graduate students in the UK. The staff in the Manchester Writing School teach and write in all of the major literary forms, and more than eighty of our alumni are published poets, novelists and authors of children’s literature, some of them achieving success at the highest level. The Creative Director of the Writing School is the current Poet Laureate, Dame Carol Ann Duffy, whose Laureate Education projects are designed to reach out to local communities, and inspire young people to engage with literature. English was ranked eighth out of eighty-nine subject groups nationally for the societal impact of the research, with our Poetry Impact Case Studies rated as world-leading.

The Portico Library is open free to the public six days a week for an eclectic calendar of exhibitions and events which take place under its impressive Georgian dome in the Library’s Gallery. This unique venue seeks to supports regional and international artists, providing a creative space in the heart of Manchester. Through the innovative interpretations of our resident artists, writers and researchers, its exhibitions offer contemporary perspectives on its historical concerns: from journeys of scientific discovery to chronicles of social change; from details of the natural world to reflections on human conditions, and from colonialism’s conflicts to revolutions in technology, industry and education.

Similarly, the Manchester School of Art reaches out to local communities and plays an important role in the region. Four of the ten commissions awarded by the Meeting Point 2 project (to create new works for attractions across the North of England), were won by professional artists who are also academic and teaching staff at the Manchester School of Art; the School is ranked fifteenth nationally for Art and Design courses in The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017. The School of Architecture is ranked sixth in the world, and research outputs from across this faculty have been externally validated as world-leading.

Librarian Emma Marigliano Assistant Librarian Thom Keep Gallery & Exhibitions Organiser James Moss Events & Outreach Coordinator Aoife Larkin Catering Manager Kathy McIvor Chair Lynne Allan Volunteers Muminah Butt Mick Jongeling

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Notes & References on the text

Notes about the catalogue

Louise Adkins † Remaking History, the Past in Contemporary Historical Fictions, Jerome De Groot, 2015

The photographs for this catalogue have been made in advance of any final work being produced and I was keen to capture something of this working process in the images. A practical working with materials and text as ideas from each contributor was taking shape. The notion of touch and physical engagement with objects, be it the materials being used to make a work or the books which inspired each collaboration became a thread through which to record a meeting and discussion.

Matthew Carlin † The Collector in The Arcades Project, Walter Benjamin, 1990, pp.203-211 ‡ Alberto Giacometti in Undercover Surrealism: George Bataille and Documents, Michel Leiris, 2006, pp.248-251 Eleanor Byrne † In the Wake, On Blackness and Being, Christina Sharpe, 2016, p.32

— D.P. The opportunity to work with creative writing-in-progress differentiates this project from those I've previously worked on. I was keen to weave the many ongoing conversations between collaborators – often with very different modes of practice – into the fabric of the book. As a typographer, one of things I've really enjoyed about mooching through the old books in The Portico Library are the differences and inconsistences in the way a text was written and presented back then, compared to contemporary writing and typesetting. My design appropriates conventions from everywhere and there are a few intentional affectations and idiosyncracies. The typeface is Minion, a relatively recent face that takes a cue from the past; the format is based around octavo; the layout derives from the divine proportion, and aspires to the exacting guidelines suggested by Tschichold; the paper stock * and binding have been deliberately chosen to suggest the materials and colours encountered during my visits to the library.

Jonathan Hitchen The Collection, G.F. Smith Paper, 2015 The Form of the Book, Essays on the Morality of Good Design, Jan Tschichold, compiled 1991 † The Library of Babel, Jorge Luis Borges, 1941 ‡ libraryofbabel.info Jonathan Basile Desdemona McCannon The Feminine Sublime, Gender and Excess in Women's Fiction Barabara Claire Freeman, c.1995 Wild Signs, Graffiti in Archaeology and History, Jeffery Oliver & Tim Neal (eds.), 2010 Eleanor Mulhearn † Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits, Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic, Emma Wilby, 2013 Wicked Enchantments, a History of the Pendle Witches and their Magic, Joyce Froome, 2010

— J.H.

David Penny Kepler's somnium, the Dream, or Posthumous Work on Lunar Astronomy, Johannes Kepler, 1571-1630, translated, with a commentary by Edward Rosen

*

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Munken Design Lynx Smooth Natural White in 90, 120 & 150 gsm Munken Design Pure Rough Cream in 100 GSM Plike Orange in 140 GSM Colourplan Embossed Smooth in 175 GSM in an assortment of colours: Amethyst, Bitter Chocolate, Dark Grey, Imperial Blue & Royal Blue All kindly supplied by G.F. Smith

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Colophon

Project Leader & Curator

Alice Kettle

Curator James Moss Graphic Design Jonathan Hitchen PhotographY David Penny Front cover map

Lucy Biggs

Print Evolutionprint, Sheffield BINDING JOT, Huddersfield PAPER G.F. Smith Supported by Manchester Metropolitan University The Zochonis Charitable Trust G.F. Smith With thanks to The Portico Library staff & members The Zochonis Charitable Trust Jane Crowther Abi Goodman

Published In an Edition of 350 copies isbn 0-9519168-4-X Š mmxvii Manchester Metropolitan University & The Portico Library All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

THE ZOCHONIS CHARITABLE TRUST

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