Digesting History
Director: Malaika Cunningham
Designer: Bethany Wells
Poets: Joe Kriss, Kayo Chingonyi and Rachel Bower
Producer (Poet in the City): Ruby Baker
Producer (The Bare Project): Linda Bloomfield
Commissioned by Poet in the City and the British Library
An interactive package to be dissected in each audience member’s home, inspired by the things we inherit, the artefacts which survive and Anglo-Saxon feasting.
Our partnership with Poet in the City began in late 2019, when we were approached to curate an interactive performance event to showcase the new poetry which had been developed over the course of the Digesting History project. Kayo Chingonyi, Rachel Bower and Joe Kriss had all been working with communities across Sheffield to create new works which responded to the British Library’s Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms exhibition. This work had lead to the creation of a whole collection of poetry exploring identity, Britishness, the evolution of language, the invisible women of history and inheritance. This project was to culminate in a night of feasting, poetry and performance at the Sheffield Central Library on the 26th and 27th March 2020. Our role in the project was to create the performance spaces for these poets to display their work, design moments of interactivity and to curate the journey the audience would go on over the course of the evening.
A week before the performance was to take place, a national lockdown was enacted.
Once the dust had settled and it was clear that post-postponement could be indefinite, the final event was re-imagined. The final event became a night of film, conversation and feasting, to take place in the homes of the audience. Award winning film director Eelyn Lee created a film inspired by the project, but also incorporating the new, COVID-laden reality, by celebrating the work of food-banks.
For this event, Bethany and Malaika reimagined their plans for a live event into a package, delivered to audiences in advance of the event. This package contained a series of carefully designed parcels containing poetry and ancient recipes. Audiences were invited to re-create an Anglo-Saxon feast as part of the final event.
An interactive package to be dissected in each audience member’s home, inspired by the things we inherit, the artefacts which survive and Anglo-Saxon feasting.
Our partnership with Poet in the City began in late 2019, when we were approached to curate an interactive performance event to showcase the new poetry which had been developed over the course of the Digesting History project. Kayo Chingonyi, Rachel Bower and Joe Kriss had all been working with communities across Sheffield to create new works which responded to the British Library’s Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms exhibition. This work had lead to the creation of a whole collection of poetry exploring identity, Britishness, the evolution of language, the invisible women of history and inheritance. This project was to culminate in a night of feasting, poetry and performance at the Sheffield Central Library on the 26th and 27th March 2020. Our role in the project was to create the performance spaces for these poets to display their work, design moments of interactivity and to curate the journey the audience would go on over the course of the evening.
A week before the performance was to take place, a national lockdown was enacted.
Once the dust had settled and it was clear that post-postponement could be indefinite, the final event was re-imagined. The final event became a night of film, conversation and feasting, to take place in the homes of the audience. Award winning film director Eelyn Lee created a film inspired by the project, but also incorporating the new, COVID-laden reality, by celebrating the work of food-banks.
For this event, Bethany and Malaika reimagined their plans for a live event into a package, delivered to audiences in advance of the event. This package contained a series of carefully designed parcels containing poetry and ancient recipes. Audiences were invited to re-create an Anglo-Saxon feast as part of the final event.
Director
Malaika Cunningham
Designer
Bethany Wells
Poets
Joe Kriss, Kayo Chingonyi and Rachel Bower
Producer (Poet in the City)
Ruby Baker
Producer (The Bare Project)
Linda Bloomfield
Commissioned by Poet in the City and the British Library
