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News | Events & Exhibitions | Manifesto | About the Museum Become a Friend | Souvenirs | Contact | The Museum Recommends... |
As part of a commission by artists Damian and Delaine Le Bas, Simon Costin will be talking about the Museum of British Folklore at the Stade Hall, Hastings on May 6th at 6pm.
April 2012 sees the second in the Museum of British Folklore’s two-year collaborative exhibition programme. Hosted by the Museum of East Anglian Life, The Doc Rowe Archive: 50 years of Focusing on Folk, will present the importance of a unique and comprehensive archive, unmatched anywhere. Known within the folk community for many years, Doc Rowe has been a familiar face at hundreds of seasonal customs and traditions. Recording, photographing and collecting, Doc has amassed a vast amount of folklore related material and his archive is unparalleled in its broad scope and its comprehensive nature. The exhibition will provide the public with an opportunity to view an important record of cultural history – an archive which continues to evolve and grow, just like folklore itself. Some of the folk festivals depicted no longer take place, whilst some have grown exponentially: living proof of the contemporary interest in folklore.
The Doc Rowe Archive: 50 Years of Focusing on Folk, will consider the importance of archives in general, in the context of our digital age. It will demonstrate the process of collecting images and sound with analog equipment as an exploration of Doc Rowe’s working practice. With examples of photographs and field recordings, visitors will be able to see why Doc Rowe’s material gives such a rich insight into an often overlooked area of British culture, with a special emphasis on East Anglia and its singers and traditions.
The Museum of British Folklore is privileged to have been invited to present 'The Doc Rowe Archive: A 50 years of Focusing on Folk’ as the inaugural exhibition at Abbot's Hall, which will form the centrepiece of The Museum of East Anglian Life when it re-opens this April 2012.
The exhibition is due to open to the public on Wednesday 18th April and run until Saturday 30th June 2012.
This exhibition, the first of its kind, explores Britain's November the fifth celebration through the history of Fire Festivals, the Gunpowder plot of 1605 and the astonishingly vivid advertising and packing of domestic fireworks from the 20th century. The History of Fireworks in Britain will be vividly brought to life by the Museum of British Folklore, in their first collaboration with Compton Verney.
The main body of the exhibition will look at the vital artwork connected to the design and display of 20th century Fireworks. This eye-popping display of vintage boxes and fireworks has been collected over many years by Maurice Evans, who has been an avid firework collector since childhood and is now in his eighties. “It all started with my father who was in munitions in the First World War,” explains Maurice, “He had a big trunk with little drawers, and in those drawers I found diagrams explaining how to work with explosives and it intrigued me. Then came World War II … there were loads of shells lying around, so we used to let them off.” After the war, Maurice teamed up with a pyro technician from London and they traveled the country giving displays which Maurice devised, achieving delights that transcended his childhood hunger for explosions.
This part of the exhibition promises to be a nostalgic sweetshop of delights for visitors, with fireworks from all the main UK companies, such as Standard, Pains, Wessex, Brock’s and Astra on display. Visitors will recognize well-known firework names such as Jack in a Box, Mine of Serpents, Traffic Lights and Screech Owl, as they walk through a charted history of the British firework industry.
Other themes explored within the exhibition include the celebration of Guy Fawkes Night and its significance to British culture since the failure of the Gunpowder Plot of 5 November 1605, in which a number of Catholic conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, attempted to destroy the Houses of Parliament in London. From its origins in an Act of Parliament called The Thanksgiving Act, which made it compulsory until 1859, to celebrate the deliverance of the King of England, Scotland, and Ireland to the long standing tradition of fire-festivals across Britain which will be brought to life in a multi-media display.
The exhibition has been curated by the Museum of British Folklore team in collaboration with Compton Verney and designed by Simon Costin.
Jonny Hannah, who designed the identity for the museum, is to have a folk inspired one-man show at Hornseys Gallery in Ripon, which opens on June 18th and will run until the 18th July.
This promises to be a weekend to remember. Not only will this be the first solo show by Jonny Hannah in the north of England, but it will tie-in with events at Newby Hall as well. The Museum of British Folklore (in its caravan) is scheduled to visit Newby for a weekend of fun and frivolity on Saturday and Sunday of the 18th and 19th June, http://museumofbritishfolklore.com/. We've tried to have the private view as close to the Summer Solstice of the 22nd June to pay homage to British folklore, myth and ritual. The exhibition will include paintings, original prints and other assorted oddities and we are hoping that other special guests will make a trip north for the event. An original screenprint will be made to mark the event, part of the profits of which will go to the upkeep and development of The Museum of British Folklore.
These are some details:
Jonny Hannah Unleashed...
White Horses and Unquiet Graves
Opens: 18 June 2011
For further information contact Daniel Hornsey on 01765 602878
Email info@hornseys.com.
Click here to visit the Newby Hall website events page.
On the 6th of this month, the museum director paid a visit to Haxey, historically in Lincolnshire but now in Humberside. Every year the village hosts one of the oldest and most vigorous customs in England known as the Haxey Hood.
The events of the day culminate in a kind of game but before that are some interesting customs surrounding it. Starting off in the Carpenter's Arms in Westwoodside, supporters gathered, along with the Lord of the Hood, a Chief Boggin with ten other Boggins and a Fool. The Lord carried a 'wand' made from thirteen willow sticks which are tied together and finished with a piece of red ribbon at one end. The 'Hood' itself, is a tightly rolled piece of leather about 46cm long and 8cm in diameter and this later plays a major part in the game.
Inside the pub, the Fool had his face blackened and then three songs were sung in swift succession; John Barleycorn, Drink England Dry and The Farmer's Boy. These three songs were then repeated in each pub that was visited before the game. Before everyone moved off the museum's director was able to chat with Dale Smith who has played the Fool for some twenty odd years and he kindly agreed to donate his old Fool's costume to the museum's collection.
Simon also met up with Doc Rowe and his partner Jill Pidd who were there as usual to record the event. Once the teams moved into Haxey and visited several pubs, the Fool was seen to try and escape as he ran down the lane beside the church. The Boggins caught him and carried him aloft to a stone set before the church, known as the Mowbray Stone which is in fact the base of an old stone cross. Here the Fool delivered his speech and was 'smoked' by having damp straw set on fire behind him. Apparently in the past a real fire was lit and the Fool was unceremoniously swung over it and eventually dropped, having to scrabble out as quickly as he could. Having completed his speech the Fool finished with the traditional words:
Hoose agen hoose
Toon agen toon
If a man meets a man
Knock im doon
But do'ant 'ot 'im (But don't hurt him)
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