Ancient Objects – New Writing

Thanks to funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund, we commissioned four North West based artists to develop new writing in response to objects they selected from within the Manchester Museum collection. These new works were presented for the first time along with each selected object at four Manchester Libraries throughout Journeys Festival International Manchester in 2018.

The festival popped up at Manchester Museum to celebrate the launch of our Ancient Objects – New Writing project. There was the chance to meet the four artists who created new pieces of work inspired by ancient objects in the Manchester Museum’s collections. Audiences were invited to come along and learn more about the artist’s creative processes. People also had the chance to respond to the artists work by creating their own piece of writing and making origami cranes, all inspired by the artists’ work.

Throughout the festival the Museum objects were displayed alongside the new writing in four local Manchester libraries. The artists performed their work and talked about the project along with members of the Journeys Festival International and Manchester Museum curatorial teams.

A Message of Peace by Mahboobeh Rajabi was performed at North City Library.

The Object’s Whisper by Abas Eljanabi was performed at Wythenshawe Library.

The Persian Bow (A Trilogy) by Vahid Davar was performed at Longsight Library.

I’m Torn To Pieces Dear Poet, Come to my Resuce by Firoozeh Fozouni was performed at Central Library.

The Zine

The new work was compiled and presented in a limited edition zine that we distributed throughout the festival at the libraries and museum. Please have a look at the digital version of this below.

We would like to thank the National Lottery Heritage Fund and National Lottery Players for supporting the project.