{"id":13050,"date":"2019-11-05T10:54:23","date_gmt":"2019-11-05T10:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/demo.brandingbay.com\/ARL\/?p=13050"},"modified":"2019-11-05T10:55:49","modified_gmt":"2019-11-05T10:55:49","slug":"write-us-a-letter-filling-the-void","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/demo.brandingbay.com\/ARL\/write-us-a-letter-filling-the-void\/","title":{"rendered":"Write Us A Letter \u2013 Filling the Void"},"content":{"rendered":"

Public Art Participation Project \u2013 \u00a0Armagh\u00a0Georgian Festival \u2013 Join in!<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Together with the citizens of Armagh, three leading contemporary artists explore and celebrate the legacy of Archbishop Richard Robinson to create an exhibition, audio installation and a legacy pen-portrait of modern Armagh, whether they are warty and worldly, or wishful hopes, dreams and wonderings.<\/p>\n

Splendid<\/strong>\u00a0The Congress of The Beasts \u2013<\/em>\u00a0an exhibition of \u00a0new art works from artist Helen Sharp inspired by the menagerie of animals to be found within the books and prints of the Robinson Library.<\/p>\n

Liberal<\/strong>:\u00a0Filling\u00a0the\u00a0Void:<\/em>\u00a0Archbishop Richard Robinson had all his letters burned after his death. With the citizens, Maria McManus creates an epistolary legacy of new letters to\u00a0fill\u00a0the\u00a0void, from the professional to the confessional, from love to loathing and from the curious to the confirmatory.<\/p>\n

Lofty\u00a0<\/strong>Whispering from the Sky \u2013\u00a0<\/em>a sound installation by composer Simon Waters and modern citizens of Armagh on the 1770 census of Armagh \u00a0which is archived in the Robinson Library.<\/p>\n

Maria McManus (Poet)<\/strong>\u00a0is the author of\u00a0Available Light<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(Arlen House, 2018),\u00a0We are Bone<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(2013)<\/em>,\u00a0The Cello Suites<\/em><\/strong>(2009) and\u00a0Reading the Dog<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(2006)<\/em>\u00a0(Lagan Press). She has collaborated extensively with others producing performance pieces for choir (18,<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0with composer Keith Acheson) dance (TURF<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0DUST<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0with Eileen McClory) and multi-art form collaborations. She is Artistic Director and curator of\u00a0Poetry Jukebox<\/em>, an on-street audio installation of contemporary poetry.<\/p>\n

Maria wrote the following message:<\/p>\n

Archbishop Richard Robinson (1708- 1794) was a most significant figure in the history of Armagh and as a consequence all of Ireland. He founded the stunning Armagh Robinson Library, a hospital, the\u00a0 Armagh Gaol, Palace Demesne and the Armagh Observatory.\u00a0 He enlarged the Royal School and had it built like an Oxford College. His aspiration was that Armagh would be a university city \u2013 so far, that particular aspiration has not yet come to fruition, but \u2026 perhaps \u2026 who knows?<\/p>\n

The Armagh Robinson Library building \u00a0may look formal, but the welcome is warm and hospitable. Always.\u00a0 At present I have the great privilege of undertaking a writing residency at the magnificent Armagh Robinson Library. Built, curated and opened by Robinson in 1771, the library is a vibrant, elegant, light-filled, evocative place. The motto carved in stone above the door translates from the Greek, as The Healing Place of the Soul<\/em>.<\/p>\n

There is a copy of a first edition Gulliver\u2019s Travels Swift was a frequent visitor to Armagh and the library copy is annotated and corrected by Jonathan Swift himself. Further, there are two of Swift\u2019s handwritten letters; one is an intervention on the purchase of a horse, the other relates to practical arrangements on a land survey.\u00a0 Another letter in the archive written by Arthur Conan Doyle argues matters of religion and spiritualism, and one by Florence Nightingale relates to the war in Crimea. However, Archbishop Richard Robinson\u2019s own archive of letters were, in accordance with his will and directions, and as was the custom of the time, incinerated following his death \u2013 \u00a0creating a void in the record of the quotidian.<\/p>\n

Through this project, we want to fill the void left after the letters of Archbishop Robinson were burned. We want to create a contemporary epistolary archive written by citizens \u2013 especially the citizens of Armagh, but also from all over Northern Ireland, the border area, the island of Ireland, Britain, Europe and the whole world. Everything in a letter tells something \u2013 \u00a0the handwriting, post marks, the subject matter, the demographic and concerns of the writer: the letter is a\u00a0 point in time pen-portrait. \u00a0We are also interested in receiving correspondence which for some reason has personal significance to the donor. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0We want letters, preferably hand-written, from people of all ages and ethnicities, from anywhere in the world, on any topic they wish to record. Then we will include it in our exhibition and archive in the beautiful Armagh RobinsonLibrary for posterity. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n