14 – 29 October 2011 26 Treasures Exhibition
Welcome to
Level 5 Gallery of Applied Arts 1. Prisoner of Love 2. Venice Chair
26 Treasures at the Ulster Museum 1.
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Discover Art 3. Irish Man 4. Toby Jug The Hull Grundy Collection 5. Bog Oak ‘Tara’ Brooch Level 3
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If the Ulster Museum’s most precious objects could talk, what stories might they tell? It’s a question many of our most successful poets, writers, artists, designers and photographers have pondered. 26 pairs of writers and visual artists have hustled, bustled and negotiated their way to creating personal responses to these intriguing objects. And you can discover exactly how and why they were inspired in the exhibition in The Belfast Room. But first, follow the trail of treasures in the museum. Beginning with the Prisoner of Love in Applied Arts, try to find each of the objects. Take a moment to ponder how they make you feel, imagine who might have made or used these amazing treasures and what those peoples’ lives might have been like all those years ago. As you make your way back to the ground floor, visit the exhibition in the Belfast Room. There, you’ll find a wonderful mix of visual and verbal responses to these special artefacts that have so many stories to tell about who we are and where we come from. You might even be inspired to write your own 62 word response. I hope you will.
As one of the foremost cultural and learning institutions in Northern Ireland, it is very appropriate that National Museums Northern Ireland have developed this exciting partnership with “26”. In bringing together some of Northern Ireland’s most creative talent, we hope that this initiative will encourage visitors to use, in new ways, the treasure house that is the Ulster Museum. Paddy Gilmore
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Nicholson & Bass is delighted to support this wonderful exhibition. As a printing company we are fascinated by how powerful communication can be when there is a rich fusion between the traditional and the modern, between craft and technology. We feel that there are many treasures in life, one being the printed word and image, hence our passion for print and our support for this exhibition.
Ice Age Staircase 9. Mammoth Tusk 8.
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Writer. Organiser of 26 Treasures at the Ulster Museum
Managing Director, Nicholson & Bass
Level 2 Early Peoples 10. Stone Club 11. Malone Hoard 12. Gold Lunula 13. Downpatrick Hoard 14. Drumbest Horns Takabuti Gallery 15. Mummy 16. Isis & Horus Saints & Scholars 17. Clonmore Shrine 18. Shoemaker’s Last 19. O’Neill Seat 20. Iron Helmet 21. Bog Butter Armada 22. Salamander 23. Silver Jug Spout
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Plantation to Power Sharing 24. Beggar’s Badge 25. Air Raid Siren Discover History 26. Chinese Puzzle Ball Level 1
Please enjoy the 26 Treasures. Jonathan Megarry
Window On Our World Walkway 6. Ivory Basket Seller Living World / Earth’s Treasures 7. Meteorite 8. Spar Box
Director of Learning & Partnership National Museums Northern Ireland
Gillian Colhoun
www.26treasures.com
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26 Treasures Ulster Museum
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Introduction Index
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Window On Our World 27. Basalt Column
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1. Prisoner of Love
2. Venice Chair Desdemona’s lament to the negative space
LIP LIP
O sleek and discreet. How we loved to play! That you were night and I was day Hadn’t fazed us at all. Till the ship went south. Equals you said. Take those razors from your mouth. Love and lust such unlikely bedfellows? No whore, I Lost before I had a chance to fight for Our all consuming, carnal dance. Weak. Vain. Moor.
SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP CUP CUP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP ROSEHIP ROSEHIP ROSEHIP ROSE SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP SLIP GRADE DEGRADE GRADE DEGRADE GRADE
Verbal Response Gillian Colhoun Visual Response Peter Anderson
AHEM AHEM AHEM AHEM HAW HAWTHORN HAW BILL COO BELCOO BILL COO BELLEEK Verbal Response Paul Muldoon Visual Response Frank
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Level 5 Applied Arts
26 Treasures Giovanni Fontana: The Prisoner Of Love
26 Treasures Venice Chair
Level 5 Applied Arts
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3. Irish Man
4. Toby Jug
The oul blood pressure. That nurse, you can see the reading in her face after she puffs the thing up and then lets it aff. Can’t look you in the eye. ‘Cut down the drinking, don’t pile the spuds on your plate, no cheese.’ And salt. In the name of God. If only somebody could design a saltcellar wi no holes.
We’ll use the Fillpot. Spoutly tricornered, A pot with its own pot; warming his clay-dried, toil-cracked hands. The grueling, ponderous brew leaches, Through the potter’s beard (of a Potter’s Pot). Sat squat on his pedestal; comforted by leafy stew. An outlandishly devised container. Pouring from his own selfless hat, His vertebrae (shielded) stands a scalding to bring a common cup.
Verbal Response Bernard MacLaverty Visual Response Cara Murphy
Verbal Response Richard Weston Visual Response Sonya Whitefield
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Level 5 Discover Art
26 Treasures Irish Man Stoneware figure by Jill Crowley
26 Treasures Toby Jug Stoneware by Peter Meanley
Level 5 Discover Art
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5. Bog Oak ‘Tara’ Brooch
6. Ivory Basket Seller
Verbal Response Ciaran Carson
How can I like you carved so painstakingly out of shameful ivory? But I am embraced by your smile charmed by your face Weighed down by your baskets yet unburdened Your body is your shop everything has its place Jostling for favour eager to please and protect Intricate weavings and details a stark contrast to your simple life How I envy you
Visual Response Jamie Neely
Not the original unearthed from
brooch mourning
a bog but
a layer of
a Victorian copy
bygone time
carved from bog oak
where forest once grew
as worn by
Verbal Response Rosamond Bennett Visual Response Tandem
over centuries
Victoria
hewn down
in Ireland funereal black
the stumps preserved by
brooch
the acid soil
gold pin
until dug up
& catch
& cut into
the lynch pin
this design
Knot 8
Level 5 The Hull Grundy Collection
26 Treasures Bog Oak ‘Tara’ Brooch
26 Treasures Ivory Basket Seller
Level 3 Window On Our World Walkway
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7. Meteorite
8. Spar Box Poor Man’s Treasure
Before here.
Worth nothing to anyone. Worth everything to someone. Mantelpiece star. Miner’s showpiece. Coal’s more exciting, less valuable cousin displayed in the talked-about-box; the when-peoplecome-round-to-visit pride and joy. Added to by Da’s underground toil. Curated by Mam’s over-the-top enchantment. Now in a museum. Curated by an actual curator. By ‘eck , would you ever have thought it?
Deeplocked in another place smithereened not now there. Shatterings blizzarding skyward one flake pockmarked, burnished, black floating weightless alone on gravity waves shunning countless suns pulled towards ours and us. Punching through the blue fiery stonebird hissing, screeching, slamming into desert sands now held fast in another place.
Verbal Response Mike Fleming Visual Response Peter Richards
Window to the past timestretching mindopening once more at rest. Until again. Verbal Response Jim McGreevy Visual Response Mammoth
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Level 3 Living World / Earth’s Treasures
26 Treasures Meteorite
26 Treasures Spar Box
Level 3 Living World / Earth’s Treasures
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9. Mammoth Tusk
10. Stone Club
1. Annually, a clipper fleet gathers.
What have we here? Fred Flintstone’s hurley? Barney Rubble’s baseball bat? Finn McCool’s toothpick? A Neolithic nightstick? A Stone Age shillelagh? A totem pole for the little people? A prototype Irish boomerang? Probably not, though it could be all of the above. Urged to explore, engage, enjoy, we’d really rather extrapolate. Even a blank slate stone club can sire a shaggy story.
2. Nestled in a frosty inlet, civilisation arrives, shattering the silence. 3. The gathered houses, enjoying an isolated solitude broken but once a year, sit barren, icy cold. 4. Beneath the towering mountain. 5. The fir-lined cove lies empty. 6. The third bay beckons. 7. The twin coves, icy and inhospitable. 8. Until the secluded silence is forever stolen by the steamer’s embrace.
Verbal Response Stephen Brown Visual Response Hamill Bosket Dempsey (HBD)
Verbal Response Chris Murphy Visual Response Rob Durston
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Level 3 Ice Age Staircase
26 Treasures Mammoth Tusk
26 Treasures Stone Club
Level 2 Early Peoples
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11. Malone Hoard
12. Gold Lunula
In coffeeshops on the Lisburn Road we eat with mobile phones beside our plates: our shiny black talismans. Sixteen-year-old girls lol-ing, hoarding our trove of digital images; text and symbol. Uploading, but less loading up treasure – not to grind an axe – than laying the present moment, heavy and useless, ceremonially in the thick dust of itself. Our lives, bright relics.
Insular Gold. See the maker. Feel the idol. See the faithful gazing, loving, obsessing. See change charge ahead, trampling over life and death alike and wait with confidence for the heat of the sun. Centuries of lying lost, tucked away, hidden, forgotten under Ireland’s layers of infinite green has no bearing. They continue to worship. This faith will never be shaken.
Verbal Response Leontia Flynn
Verbal Response Catherine Minford
Visual Response Thought Collective
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Visual Response Hurson
Level 2 Early Peoples
26 Treasures Malone Hoard
26 Treasures Gold Lunula
Level 2 Early Peoples
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13. Downpatrick Hoard
14. Drumbest Horns
Worn by? No idea. Worn how? No idea. Worn why? Ah, yes, Our ancient need To decorate And beautify. Millennia Later, these are Still glorious; Of course they are. In our deep core We are the same. But what will we Leave in a hole On Cathedral Hill, Downpatrick, That will produce Some thousand years Hence, the lively Pleasure that these Do?
Breaking News Born to deliver sound All tones and moods Joy, sorrow, warnings and news News of birth, death, war, harvest, rain, hope, despair Trumpeting my master’s bidding. Borne on the wind I share my news with all who listen I command you; listen and respond Reverberating with joy. Sonorously and gloomily I weep for the fallen Listen to me, simply listen. Verbal Response Alastair Fee Visual Response Bag of Bees
Hear the sound of the horns at: www.bagofbees.co.uk/26treasures
Verbal Response Carlo Gebler Visual Response Carole Kane
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Level 2 Early Peoples
26 Treasures Downpatrick Hoard
26 Treasures Drumbest Horns
Level 2 Early Peoples
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15. Mummy
16. Isis & Horus
and once when I woke in the night and could not sleep again for fear of the dark, of all that might be lying in wait, he came and knelt by my bed and said you are the best girl in the whole world, and you know that I will be there for you, always always always, because I am your daddy
Goddess Holding A Fly-Whisk Prithee, unpin me. All movement lays us bare, Of the sage-coloured cloak, The tawny velvet cape, The breast-cloth, The transparent apron. The blue god Is kissing spines With the shoulder-blades of God. Her lying-in girdle And fine bearing-sheet Were sewn with a human bone Needle for making sails.
Verbal Response Glenn Patterson Visual Response Mark Chambers
A quarter of an angel Means an indulgence Of 26,000 years And 30 days. Verbal Response Medbh McGuckian Visual Response Stephen McGilloway
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Level 2 Takabuti Gallery
26 Treasures Mummy
26 Treasures Isis & Horus
Level 2 Takabuti Gallery
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17. Clonmore Shrine
18. Shoemaker’s Last
Look again. Inside my whirligig wallplates & once-jewelled roof I hold proof of Heaven. Aye: to your eye bone-chips & toenails, greasy hair-twists, shrivelled skin. But God sees what we cannot: seeds of transcendence. We will arise, as these Saints have risen, transfigured, imperishable as flesh is perishable. I promise you: Believe in me, and though y’are dead, yet shall ye live!
Shoe Last Shoe last, and last you have these thirteen centuries past Plucked from the bog, cleaned, treated and restored to lasting beauty, of a woody sort Crafted with care, this left foot now so rare Former of shoes low boots, and slip-ons icons of early-Christian fashion wear
Verbal Response Lucy Caldwell
One question stands, unanswered down the years Whose soles have you saved from Antrim’s claggy soils?
Visual Response Atto
Verbal Response Alan Morrow Visual Response Colin McKeown
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Level 2 Saints & Scholars
26 Treasures Clonmore Shrine
26 Treasures Shoemaker’s Last
Level 2 Saints & Scholars
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19. The O’Neill Seat
20. Iron Helmet
Throne Alone
Officer Fitztightly
Hewn with axes, bludgeoned without thought an angry ton of drunken stone lurching into
Officer Ruperde Fitztightly was not sure about the new helmets.
history. This rock, this hard fought place, with no between, fit for The O’Neill who knew his
The eyepiece was meant to look less ‘military’ but the angry peasant didn’t seem too convinced.
reign was fleeting. No easy seat, no lounging here with goblets of blood wine late into
“Go back to England you Norman bastard!”, he screamed. “And from there go back to France and from there go back to Norway, where your lot belong.”
the night. This cold Tyrone throne, made for men on the edge, ready for flight.
Dear Christ, Fitztightly groaned. Would this crap never end?
Verbal Response Owen O’Neill Visual Response Sparks Studio
Verbal Response Newton Emerson Visual Response John McDermott, AV Browne
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Level 2 Saints & Scholars
26 Treasures The O’Neill Seat
26 Treasures Iron Helmet
Level 2 Saints & Scholars
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21. Bog Butter
22. Salamander
All Bog Butter Byzantium Biscuits Apple Flesh Fried in a Fresh Bog Butter Burning Perch à la Beurre Tourbière Four and Twenty Blackbirds in a Bog Butter Pie Hot Bog-Buttered Tollund Man Toast Jugged Hung Hare with Bog Butter Beans Lime Frog Legs in a Bog Butter Sauce Utterly Bog-Butterly Cloudberry Scones
Do you remember me turning over a stone That stayed wet beside the skinny waterfall, And showing you, when you were a girl, A sleepy stone-coloured salamander? Can you startle it, now you are a woman, And make of it a shipwrecked golden creature, Its three rubies quenched by sea dark, its empty Six holes filling up with sand and sea water?
From The All Ireland Bog Butter Cookbook (1555) Verbal Response Michael Longley
Verbal Response Ian Sansom
Visual Response Sarah Longley
Visual Response Slater
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Level 2 Saints & Scholars
26 Treasures Bog Butter
26 Treasures Salamander
Level 2 Armada
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23. Silver Jug Spout
24. Beggar’s Badge
Bacchus, God of Wine
Entitlement?
Bravado – it’s just an Act to Cover up the Crying out of my Heart and mask my dread. Unable to function without you, Safe in your embrace and feeling Good, no great – for a while. Of course it won’t last, but Don’t spoil it with truth. Out of my Fears grow need, then shame. Watching myself Implode and Needing you Even more.
Stood by the Palace Havin’ a beer Along she comes again Doesn’t remember how long I have been here Same script every time ‘Sorry’ I say ‘All out of change’ We both know it’s a lie Thanks me and leaves, it’s always the same But I suppose she can only try Time moves on, attitudes change Are they any better off now?
Verbal Response Mark Dougherty Visual Response Liam McComish
Verbal Response Gillian McKee Visual Response Alan Jackson
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Level 2 Armada
26 Treasures Silver Jug Spout
26 Treasures Beggar’s Badge
Level 2 Plantation to Power Sharing
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25. Air Raid Siren
26. Chinese Puzzle Ball
Interior, Belfast, April 1941
Song of the Puzzle Birds, Delicacies of Conception
A woman at a kitchen sink remembers a lost lover, Her reflection caught in the window’s fading light. Her husband watches the curve of her neck, Silent behind a slow blue dance of cigarette smoke. Outside, a sudden scatter of leaves. A dog barks. Somewhere a gloved hand enfolds a siren handle, As the heavens fill again with the music of Thor.
This puzzle ball has bowled me a Google-y… About ten million of them in under a second This puzzle ball has bowled me a googly… Twenty of them from one solid sphere of ivory And maybe more than ten million turns Of mind and wrist to carve such intricacies, Such delicacies of conception, of sleight of hand, To make your head spin
Verbal Response Gary McKeone
Verbal Response Tim Cooke
Visual Response John McMillan
Visual Response Ross Wilson
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Level 2 Plantation to Power Sharing
26 Treasures Air Raid Siren
26 Treasures Chinese Puzzle Ball
Level 2 Discover History
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27. Basalt Column Once… I was dense… rich… delicate… Bone, soil, verdure. Once… I grew… I moved… I lived. Once… I was consumed, and, in turn, devoured the landscape– A tide of destructive speed and unfathomable heat. Wrathful, glorious life. . . . Now… No longer fearsome, No longer swift. Wrenched from antiquity. You peer and shuffle, While ever still, Ever silent, I sit… and I remember ‘once’. Verbal Response Shelly Wilson
Creative Partnerships
A special word of thanks
Paul Muldoon / Frank Gillian Colhoun / Peter Anderson Bernard MacLaverty / Cara Murphy Richard Weston / Sonya Whitefield Ciaran Carson / Jamie Neely Rosamond Bennett / Tandem Jim McGreevy / Mammoth Mike Fleming / Peter Richards Chris Murphy / Rob Durston Stephen Brown / HBD Leontia Flynn / Thought Collective Catherine Minford / Hurson Carlo Gebler / Carole Kane Alistair Fee / Bag of Bees Glenn Patterson / Mark Chambers Medbh McGuckian / Stephen McGilloway Lucy Caldwell / Atto Alan Morrow / Colin McKeown Owen O’Neill / Sparks Studio Newton Emerson / John McDermott Ian Sansom / Slater Michael Longley / Sarah Longley Gillian McKee / Alan Jackson Mark Dougherty / Liam McComish Gary McKeone / John McMillan Tim Cooke / Ross Wilson Shelly Wilson / Simon Mills
Many people were instrumental in bringing 26 Treasures at the Ulster Museum to life. A special word of gratitude must go to Nicholson & Bass and Northside Graphics.
26 Treasures Ulster Museum
www.26treasures.com
To Richard Weston for sharing his design skills as well as his writing talent. HBD for their generous design support (special mention to Alice McKee). To Pearlfisher for the 26 Treasures identity. To Dan Oparison for his web mastery. Liam McComish for his enthusiasm and good ideas. John Simmons for his ability to make us not only write better, but think better. To Paddy Gilmore for his vision and ongoing encouragement. To Sara Graham for her outstanding contribution to lost causes. To Rob Self-Pierson for the original idea (thanks Rob). And to all the people who contributed to the exhibition, on behalf of 26, I would like to thank you for your generosity of spirit and for sharing your talent and thoughts so freely. Thank you. Gillian Colhoun
Visual Response Simon Mills
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Level 1 Window On Our World
26 Treasures Basalt Column
www.26treasures.com 26 is a collective of writers, editors and language experts who share a love of language. Find out more at www.26.org.uk 26 Treasures is generously supported by:
Design by HBD Printed by Nicholson & Bass