If you were a writer with gothic inclinations, chancing upon a collection of old bones would light a fire under your imagination. Yet when Jenni Fagan found a stash of them, they didn’t just inspire the stories she was magicking — she decided to put words on them.
During her time as poet in residence at the Edinburgh arts venue Summerhall, formerly the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, Fagan was shown the osseous matter left behind when the vets moved premises. She painted them black and etched refrains on the surface with gold paint. “Tattooed angels walk among us,” is written on one. Beside it, another reads: “They are fallen please be kind.” The use of the gold feels like an elegantly morbid nod to the Japanese art of kintsugi, which involves a broken object being mended with gold leaf, the result being even more beautiful than the original object.
Fagan’s work, Library of Bones (the library also inspired her most recent acclaimed novel, Luckenbooth) is part of a new online exhibition called 10 Years of Summerhall. Much of the show is inspired by the building and its history, including a striking piece by Jenny Mason, who was last year given various items found in an old drawer. Her installation, Accretion, is composed mainly of 1,000 tiny specimen tubes (so thin as to almost resemble splinters) and 3,973m of crocheted yarn cord.
“I set out to combine the dusty veterinary equipment, hard-edged and precise, with my woolly, visceral, organic work,” explains the artist, who has recently taken an interest in ideas of blood and connection.
Verity Leigh, the Summerhall programme manager, says many of the artists chosen for this show responded to an open call, and what they had in common was that their work would have to function well on the website, given that the organisers were unsure when the physical space would be open.
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One piece she found particularly moving — and so will you if you have any fondness for the cultural vivacity of Edinburgh in August, or have ever experienced the early flush of love — is a brace of poems by Andres Ordorica, Memories Triggered on a Run and We Are Young and Still Have Time.
“I wasn’t expecting it to make me cry, but it really did,” Leigh says. “In one, the narrator is running past the building and it’s all shut. It’s nice to know someone I’ve never met feels such a connection with the space.”
Another emotional piece is Summerhall and Mamoru (. . . And Gavin) by the theatre maker and performance artist Mamoru Iriguchi, who, as Leigh puts it, “uses technology in a very untechnical way”. Iriguchi uses an unusual approach (filming a computer screen) to tell the story of how he met his future husband while performing at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Other notable contributions include Tammy Watchorn’s Lego model of Summerhall and Peter Dibdin’s portraits of artists, performers, venue workers and one or two dogs of character — all faces that arts lovers will be yearning to see again soon. His offering also includes a photograph of a horse and rider from the 2014 vintage cabaret show Les Amis D’onno Equine.
Until then, do read Luckenbooth if you haven’t already, and prepare to soak in the very bones of Edinburgh.
summerhall.co.uk
What else is on this weekend
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Puppet Animation Festival
Puppetry performances, animated films and workshops are among the online offerings for this charming celebration of creativity. Until Apr 17, puppetanimationfestival.org
Ray Harryhausen: Titan of Cinema
If you missed this spectacular exhibition celebrating the work of the stop-motion animation pioneer, cut short by the pandemic, now’s your chance to see it repackaged in online form, with a few added extras. Until Feb 2022, nationalgalleries.org
Kazuo & Naomi Ishiguro in Conversation
The novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 2017, discusses writing across the generations with his daughter. Both have new books out. Interview by the journalist Razia Iqbal. Until Apr 12, southbankcentre.co.uk
