The new site-specific show, On Corporation Street, was devised by an Irish theatre company and was commissioned by HOME, whose theatre programme is run by a German artistic director. Anú and Walter Meierjohann have put together a memorable piece of work which responds to the twentieth anniversary of the IRA bombing of Manchester’s city centre.
The international aspect of their collaboration feels doubly appropriate today, as the referendum result sinks in. The commemorative focus of the show seems foggier than the way it considers the long-term impacts of a narrowly nationalist ideology through a series of stunning images, one of which, a foreshortened room whose ceiling is hung with useless keys to destroyed buildings resonates with the UK’s imminent departure from a club which had wanted it as a member.
It is not unusual, or a recent development, for northern English cities like Manchester to mix together workers from many different countries, and anyone who has recently visited the schools of these cities will know that the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the past month’s campaign will mean nothing to the coming, globalized generations of English voters. We see this too in our inbox of submissions from all around the world, and in the diverse backgrounds of the writers and artists we publish in this journal. And we are delighted that the republic of letters continues to generate such interesting communications.
Among all the great work here, we hope you will enjoy Aliyah Hussain’s images, Janet Wolff’s great essay on Scarlett O’Hara’s border-crossing dress and the Canadian poet Nyla Matuk’s London night out:
We drink at The Gun, spot
Tracy Emin’s ‘International,’
and then the thundering of the storm.
We’re hurried up; it’s time.
John McAuliffe