Description
Haunting Ashton Court is part map, part torch, part shadow. It is an invitation to join us in thinking differently about history: which stories make the cut, who is given permission to tell them, and how we might re-shape them. Inspired by a community theatre project investigating Bristol’s Ashton Court Estate, Haunting Ashton Court challenges prevailing historical narratives through writing, conversation and performance, and urges you to do the same.
This collection is 230 pages of full-colour, stunning design by Patrick Fisher of Makina Books. It includes new writing commissions from Zakiya McKenzie, Tom Marshman and Saili Katebe responding to the gaps in the Ashton Court archives, a script from a live performance by young Bristolians; a creative toolkit to help you make your own journeys into collective history-making, edited by Elinor Lower and Jack Young and an afterword written by Professor Samantha Walton.
History belongs to us, and if history as it is currently told hides our stories, we must remake it.
“A genuinely exciting piece of art: irreverent, radical, experimental and collaborative. I loved it. All artefacts of stolen and hoarded wealth must be haunted! This handbook is an excellent blueprint for all who agree”
Yara Rodrigues Fowler,
author of there are more things
“It will take generations to address our country houses’ many colonial connections – from East India Company activity to transatlantic slavery involvement – but this book provides some excellent starting points for groups and individuals who want to explore those histories in an historic house near them. This is sensitive history, and the book’s productive melding of evidence-based research and creative practice leads the way. ”
Corinne Fowler, author of Green Unpleasant Land: Creative Responses to Rural England’s Colonial Connection
