Ordsall Hall Is On The Ball

Words By Kim Hutson

Browsing an old notepad recently I discovered a list I had made as a depressed data-inputting literature graduate. It was a list of things I would like to do:

-        Work in a library, museum or university

-        Go travelling

-        MA in Creative Writing (Ha!)

I applied for hundreds, if not thousands of jobs and just when I thought my soul might break, I landed a job with Salford Library Service working with toddlers as a Bookstart officer. Even though the job didn’t last very long, it was just what I needed: the exact opposite of the awful (but necessary) admin jobs I’d been doing. Through the world of children’s books I came to hear about the Manchester Children’s Book Festival in its first year. It sounded amazing – I signed up to volunteer immediately.

I enjoyed every minute of the festival. I can’t even really remember what my official roles were: a bit of welcoming, a bit of ushering, a bit of tidying but mainly I remember being in awe at hearing Carol Anne Duffy reading The Princess’ Blankets, being transfixed by Cathy Cassidy as she read from her books and taking to Sherry Ashworth in the green room about the MA in Writing for Children. I told her how much I had dreamed about it but how it was really just a pipe dream as I’d never be able to afford it. A conversation followed about spreading the cost of the fees which would no doubt be very dull to you but made a metaphorical light bulb ping on above my head. I could do it, I really could.

Three years on and I don’t know what I’d do without the support and motivation provided by my lovely group. We are all currently very excited to have stories being published (and beautifully illustrated) for the forthcoming Timelines anthology which will be launched at the John Rylands Library on Saturday 19^th October at the Manchester Literature Festival.

After my Bookstart job, I started working at Ordsall Hall, a historic house in Salford whose oldest parts date back to the 1360s. One of the main priorities of the Hall is to engage with the local community as well as visitors from further afield so as well as being open to the public as a museum 5 days a week we offer school learning sessions, children’s activities in the holidays and workshops of all kinds.

Ordsall Hall recently became a member of the Manchester Creative Learning Network and a partner for the MCBF. As a result of this we were recently able to link up with Archives+ to offer a ‘Creepy House’ day of events, its name taken from the theme of Manchester and Salford Libraries’ Summer Reading Challenge. The Archives+ team offered a spooky craft activity and the Ordsall Hall team donned their Tudor costumes and did some creepy storytelling. The day was a huge success and we can’t wait to work in partnership again for MCBF 2014.

Twitter: @TheOrdsallGhost

Facebook: www.facebook.com/OrdsallHall 

The War Boys

Neil Harrison speaks to Open Eye Gallery's Artistic Director, Lorenzo Fusi, ahead of the forthcoming exhibition Tim Hetherington: You Never See Them Like This.

From Infidel by Tim Hetherington

It is an enduring truth about the nature of war that human stories are routinely overlooked in favour of an often-intangible grand narrative. Now, one war photographer's exploration of intimate narratives within the everyday life of modern warfare forms the basis of a new exhibition at Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool.

Merseyside-born Tim Hetherington was a multi World-Press-Prize-winning war photographer and documentary maker, who was tragically killed along with three fellow journalists whilst working in the Libyan city of Misrata in 2011.

The new show, Tim Hetherington: You Never See Them Like This, derives its title from observations he made during his year spent embedded with American soldiers in Afghanistan's deadly Korengal Valley during 2007 and 2008. From this project came perhaps Hetherington's most celebrated pieces of work—the acclaimed feature length documentary Restrepo (co-produced and directed with Sebastian Junger), and the book Infidel, upon which the forthcoming exhibition is partly based. The gallery's Artistic Director, Lorenzo Fusi, explains further,

“I had been thinking about presenting Tim's work in Liverpool for quite some time and it became even more important to do so since he passed away. The time seemed now ripe for a tribute—and not solely in response to his tragic death. We can now look at his work with some distance and measure his many achievements, not only emotionally”.

“The show focuses on some of the projects accomplished by Tim shortly before he died. These represent a concluded body of work. Infidel(the photographic series) and the video-installation Sleeping Soldiersare inter-connected as they were shot in the same location, and at the same time. The video, Diary (2010), completes the presentation, framing the above works within a broader context that is Tim's entire career and continuous quest for finding meaning in his profession or, rather, in the way he was conducting himself in a war zone or areas of conflict”.

Relaxing in a war zone: US soldiers pass the 

time in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley

Returning to the show's title, it is reported by Junger that, whilst recording Sleeping Soldiers, Hetherington also remarked “...when they're asleep they look like little boys. They look the way their mothers probably remember them”. It is clear that work such as this is far from 'traditional' photojournalism. Tim Hetherington actively distances his subjects from their 'warrior' personas, instead portraying them intimately as vulnerable, emotional, bored, fearful, human—“little boys”. Does his work in particular, therefore, lend itself to exhibition? Is it journalism or art? It is obvious that Lorenzo does not favour such labels:

“The ambivalence and universality of these images was, in first instance, the reason why I was attracted to this body of work and these are particularly suitable for a gallery presentation. To be frank, one needs to know nothing about Afghanistan and the political motivations that led these American soldiers to the Korengal valley to fully appreciate and unpack the complex interplay of emotions and social dynamics [that] Tim's photos convey”.

“I want Open Eye Gallery to be a site for visual culture; this includes "art" and photojournalism, as they are both expressions of the times we live in and the cultural and intellectual responses we produce in response [to] the crisis we create for ourselves. I am up against any dogmatic reading and interpretation of this culture and the areas that interest me the most are grey and uncertain—I am highly suspicious of any self-assertive category”.

Immersive experience

The photographs on display appear courtesy of Magnum Photos and The Tim Hetherington Trust. Lorenzo explains how the gallery aims to provide an extra dimension to an already successful body of work,

“[The Show] gravitates around a central three-channel video installation that represents an immersive experience. The photos have no frames or glazing and greatly vary in size. You are continuously pulled inside the images and then you are offered some distance for reflection. The show concludes with Diary displayed on a monitor, which is a moment of intimacy—as if Tim would be whispering to your ears his most intimate and personal reflections”.

“I think Tim is a great moral, professional and human example for us all. Until a comprehensive survey of Tim's oeuvre [is] staged I think our show will be a seminal event and reference point for anybody interested in exploring his work further”.

Tim Hetherington: You Never See Them Like This is at Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, from 6^th September - 24^thNovermber 2013, for more information visit openeye.org.uk

Neil Harrison is studying Social History at Manchester Metropolitan University. He is an aspiring journalist and a terrible guitar player. Read his blog LooseRiverand follow him on Twitter @LooseRiver