Tragedy captured in fine Art degree show

MANCHESTER Metropolitan University art students are famed for their contemporary creations which hang coolly in trendy galleries like the Cornerhouse, Cube and the Sandbar.

But ‘class of 2002’ graduate Jocelyn Briscall has turned not to modernity but to the distant past of Derbyshire for her inspiration.

Jocelyn’s ‘The Imaginary Circle’, which showed in Manchester’s Holden Gallery* last week is a modern take on the tragic history of Eyam, the Derbyshire village synonymous with the Black Death.

Her stunning glass and PVC frame, in stark white, reveals a circle, depicting the mile-radius cordon which represents the self-imposed hell of the 17th-century villagers.

Inside the circle are the 260 names of those who died, every single name, in the order in which they died.

The work is both a personal tribute to the bravery of those who sacrificed their lives to halt the bubonic plague in its tracks, but also a geometrical feat in itself - much of Jocelyn’s effort was to conceive of how to get 3,720 squares inside a circle**.

Oddly, the Fine Art student, who is from Stockport, had not visited Eyam until as recently as two month ago, when she visited the Eyam Museum. She is now considering offering the artwork to the museum.

Jocelyn, 65, who graduates in July, and is a former literature graduate from Trinity College, Dublin, said: “I was struck by the drama of the place. The fate of Cheshire and Derbyshire rested on these unsophisticated souls, who decided to cut themselves off to save their neighbours.

“Conceptually it is very interesting because the roles are reversed; normally we think of people staying inside a circle for protection not the other way around. The names, like their tragic bearers are static, stuck inside the circle.

“I drew a link too between Eyam and the people of New York, who according to US State Department plans, would be circled by a line of troops, should an anthrax attack hit the city.”

Jocelyn, who spent four years on the BA Fine Art course at Manchester Metropolitan University is hoping to stay at the university to complete her MA.

Ends

* The Holden Gallery, on Oxford Road, hosted MMU’s Art & Design degree show from June 14-20.
** The number of characters in each name, including the spaces.

Eyam, near Chesterfield, was cut off from the world from September 6, 1665 to November 1, 1666 after villagers voted, to stay in the village to stop the plague spreading, inspired by C of E minister William Mompesson. 260 of them died. The only contact they had with the outside world was via food drops organised by landowner, the Duke of Devonshire. In the Great Plague outbreak of the late 17th century 70,000 people in London alone perished.

Jocelyn Briscall can be contacted on 0161 480 2769