Future Folk Archetypes

This newly commissioned trio of works by Lucy Wright imagines modern folk archetypes, embodied and present in the Portico Library, Manchester, representing the diversity of folklore not currently included in the collection.

The history of folklore has a representation issue. Folk collectors in the nineteenth and early-twentieth century often overlooked or disregarded traditions associated with women and other marginalized people and privileged rural areas over urban ones as the sites of ‘authentic’ folk practices. The industrial northwest, in particular, was neglected by scholars despite being home to a rich and unique folk culture, extending into the present day.

The three works in the series draw on and reimagine existing folk customs and characters as gender-flipped and manifestly 21st century beings with a northwest flavour. The pneumatically foliate Garland Queen borrows from various ‘Jack-in-the-Green’ celebrations held across the UK on May 1st as well as the eponymous Garland Day in Castleton just over the border in Derbyshire. Made with more than 300 hand-sewn leaves and flowers crafted from holographic fabrics more often associated with carnival morris performers (a tradition specific to the northwest), she rides atop a bedazzled mobility scooter, pointing towards the continued lack of positive disability representation in the English folk canon. 

The cheerfully grotesque Impette, made from ceramic and felt, takes inspiration from the Lincoln Imp, a medieval carving found in the Angel Chapel of Lincoln Cathedral, nodding to the artist’s birth city while also sporting the so-called ‘Scouse-brow’ of her long-time home region. 

Finally, the duelling hobby horses, Pink ‘Oss and Blue ’Oss as the centrepiece of the show are based on guising customs in the southwest of England—particularly the Padstow ‘Obby ‘Oss—but reimagined in northwest vernacular style, as fierce, feminist archetypes.