Doctoral researcher Lucy Power reports on the opening of an unusual exhibition devoted to a writer’s group in Chorlton, South Manchester…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shhh! The Chorlton Writers\u2019 Cafe Library Exhibition<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was a joyful atmosphere last Thursday evening at Chorlton Library, when members of the Chorlton Writers\u2019 Cafe gathered to celebrate the launch of our first exhibition of creative writing in the main library space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the winter months, our team of Cafe volunteers had worked tirelessly to edit, format and design the exhibition, before mounting the writing on large panels throughout the library space. The show includes short excerpts from writers\u2019 new work, page-length poems, and extracts from the Writers\u2019 Cafe anthology, that we created in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to the new writing, members had created a set of library book reviews to exhibit in the lending area, emphasising the creative relationship between our writers and the library\u2019s collection. This part of the show gave Cafe writers the chance to hone their critical writing skills, producing a eclectic selection of short reviews of books, ranging from fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis and Rutherford\u2019s translation of Cervantes\u2019 Don Quixote, to Matt Goodfellow\u2019s children\u2019s book Final Year, and, of course, our own The Writers\u2019 Table anthology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we started designing the show, the library manager, Sally Dadhwal, explained that the library was keen for exhibitions to showcase the newly-refurbished space \u2013 particularly the atrium area with its circular elevated walkway tracing the internal rim of the building\u2019s Edwardian domed roof. However, we realised that this beautiful vertiginous balcony, with its narrow staircase and no lift, could not be reached by visitors with limited mobility, which created a quandary for our exhibition: how could we make sure that all of the writers\u2019 work would be accessible, whilst also making use of the stunning atrium space?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To address the problem, we made a spoken word recording of the whole exhibition that can be accessed at the library\u2019s audio booth. And the wonderful, unplanned consequence of creating a sonic version of the show is that we have also made our exhibition fully accessible for visually impaired library visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The exhibition can be viewed during library opening times throughout February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chorlton Library, Manchester Road, Chorlton, M21 9PN<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Doctoral researcher Lucy Power reports on the opening of an unusual exhibition devoted to a writer’s group in Chorlton, South Manchester… Shhh! The Chorlton Writers\u2019 Cafe Library Exhibition There was a joyful atmosphere last Thursday evening at Chorlton Library, when members of the Chorlton Writers\u2019 Cafe gathered to celebrate the launch of our first exhibition […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":242,"featured_media":3314,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8,54,14],"class_list":["post-3304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-events","tag-english-at-salford","tag-lucy-power","tag-salford-pgr-students"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n