Quotidian Current Projects
earth
earth A collaboration between science and the arts, at the IFGS at QUB with literary arts production company Quotidian.
What is the earth project?
- the start of something big
- artistic interventions to inspire and connect the IFGS and the wider community within and beyond QUB
- creative interventions with students and staff
- experiments between artists and scientists
- enhancing the environment and working context of the School of Biological Sciences and through the arts, to make it an even more attractive place to work and study, celebrating its open, dynamic, progressive and authentic commitment to its core mission
- creating connections to the wider public, to the upcoming generations of students, and finding innovative ways to share science with the wider public, with children and young people
The Once Barefoot poems, a 2020 Poetry Jukebox curation on climate and environment are being relaunched in the context of the earth project.
Look out for more details on the Earth Project’s new Poetry Jukebox curation, which will be available soon!
BIND
“Carved in stone over the entrance to Armagh Robinson Library is an inscription in Greek, which translates as ’the healing place of the soul’. The creative team must surely have had that phrase in mind as they set about devising this hypnotic, soothing dance-poetry film, in which three dancers delicately flit and flutter along shelves and through pages, as though ‘on the powdered wings of butterflies.” Jane Coyle
Quotidian is delighted to present BIND at the Belfast International Arts Festival. A sumptuous poetry and dance film set in the exquisite Robinson Library in Armagh, BIND explores the legacy of binds between past and present, the tension between elevation, elites and access to knowledge, progress and change, the visibility and constraints on women, and how a visionary institution contributes to progress in the modern world.
This innovative contemporary dance and poetry film has been created in the Armagh Robinson Library, to celebrate its 250th anniversary. When he died, Archbishop Robinson requested that all his personal correspondence be burned and destroyed. In 2019, the poet Maria McManus ran an international letter-writing campaign to ‘fill the void’ left behind, with new letters. Hundreds of letters were received from people of all ages, and from across the globe. The subjects written about included contemporary issues, and also letters to the dead, the lost, the imagined, to the future, to the past, to the inner self, and to public figures.
The film explores the theme of ‘binding’ in several ways – the binding of books, as bonds across time and generations, in the costumes, and metaphorically linking corsetry to constraints on women and access to education and expression of the body, written and spoken words. The Robinson Library is also a character in the film, which was recorded there in July 2021
BIND is a collaboration between choreographer Eileen McClory, poet Maria McManus, composer Katie Richardson, costume designer Úna Hickey, and filmmaker Conan McIvor. The dancers are Ryan O’Neill, Clara Kerr and Rosie Mullin. The poet Bebe Ashley translated the chosen lines to sign language, which formed the basis for development of the movement sequences. Voice-over is by Roisín Gallagher.
Photo credit: Michael McEvoy Dancer: Claire Kerr
Supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland from National Lottery Funds
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Acts of Commission
Quotidian brings you two newly commissioned poems; What Pa Saw at the Benders by Sinéad Morrissey and The Vocation by Nick Laird.
In specially commissioned editions of ‘The Attic Sessions’ digital video podcasts, ongoing throughout the Belfast International Arts Festival 2022, Poetry Ireland editor Nessa O’Mahoney talked with Sinéad Morrissey and Nick Laird.
Tune in to the podcasts below to hear them read and discuss their poems and creative processes.
Pocket Poems – a playful, fresh and innovative limited edition ‘business cards’ for your wallet or pocket.
These collectable cards include a scannable QR code link to the poets’ audio recordings – Free copies were available at the Belfast International Art Festival 2022. Save them! Gift them! Play them!
Supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland from National Lottery Funds & by Poetry Ireland
