Launch of the Carcanet Exhibition on Manchester Digital Exhibitions
06 Feb 2025
Curator Jess Smith discusses the Carcanet Press digital exhibition.
"In the middle of March 2020, I was busily planning a launch event for the opening of an exhibition to celebrate the 50th anniversary of poetry publishing house Carcanet Press, who's archive the Library has held since the 1970s. The exhibition opening was planned for a Wednesday. On the Tuesday, The University of Manchester staff were sent to work from home, for what we thought could be a few weeks. As an archivist, the adaption to working remotely took a little time. It had never occurred to us that an archivist could really work away from their collections.
When it became clear that the Library would need to remain closed for a significant period, we started to explore new methods of digital access and promotion. John McAuliffe, Professor of Poetry at the Centre for New Writing, and editor at Carcanet, suggested that another means of marking the anniversary might be to produce a podcast. Additionally, two artists produced creative responses to correspondence in Carcanet’s email archive, as a remote project.
The material amassed through these alternative routes has made for a richer, more interesting picture of Carcanet in its 50th year, and the Carcanet exhibition has now been launched digitally.
The exhibition focuses on a pivotal moment in Carcanet’s history: the destruction of its offices and papers in the 1996 IRA bombing of the Corn Exchange. It considers the gap created in Carcanet’s archive and records, the poetry it inspired, and the ripple effect on the city. Featuring poetry and correspondence, the final showcase also includes art works by Gregory O’Brien and Mary Griffiths, produced during the pandemic.
Manchester Digital Exhibitions allows the Rylands to curate its digitised and digital collections in an accessible and innovative form, and I am delighted that we were able to finally provide an anniversary celebration for Carcanet Press and its outstanding archive."
- Jessica Smith, Creative Arts Archivist, and Exhibition Curator, The John Rylands Research Institute and Library.