IAA - The Islandmagee Witches 1711 Project: Exhibition

Dr Andrew Sneddon (History), Dr Helen Jackson (Interactive Media), and Dr Victoria McCollum (Cinematic Arts), have partnered with Mid and East Antrim Borough Council and Carrickfergus Museum to host the first exhibition dedicated to the history of Irish witchcraft on the island of Ireland. It will run from September 2023 to December 2023, with the possibility of moving on to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum (UFTM) and the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland’s (PRONI). It centres on Ireland’s last witch trials, that of the 9 Islandmagee witches at Carrickfergus in 1711. This community-based exhibition employs traditional curatorial methodologies (labelled artefacts and information panels) but also showcases the unique, innovative, creative and digital outputs generated by the Islandmagee Witches Project, 1711 (PIs: Dr McCollum, Dr Sneddon). This collaborative, interdisciplinary project draws on staff and student expertise from AHSS, and uses creative reimagining and digital technologies to bring the story of Ireland’s forgotten last witch trial to larger audiences and explore themes of gender violence, social exclusion, and otherness. The project has: created an interactive website and hub to the project w1711.org.; digitised rare, original trial records; written and produced an animated film with leading NI animation company, EnterYes; written and published (in hard copy and digital formats) a new graphic novel; and designed and written a Virtual Reality (VR) Application that allows users to experience what it is like to be bewitched and be accused of witchcraft in 1711. The seed money will be used to buy the technology needed to provide public access to the project’s outputs at the Exhibition site: VR headsets, tablets loaded with bespoke user interfaces and allowing access to digitised documents, the graphic novel, the animation, and the project website. The animation will also be shown in a timed loop, and projected onto a wall in the exhibition space. The seed money will employ a developer to design bespoke media for the tablets to allow users to further explore the project and exhibition’s themes and assets at a pace and in a medium that suits them. It will also be used to print high quality copies of the graphic novel for use of people participating in the four planned public tours and workshops; one of which will be a targeted at local women’s groups. The exhibition represents a sizeable investment by the council and museum in terms of: provision of space; on-site security; staff present to manage and monitor the exhibits and use of the technology; and the professional curatorial input of museum staff. The UU team will be involved at every stage of the process: planning, development, implementation, launch and feedback. They have advised museum staff on the location of objects and literary material to display in cabinets and will provide the text for captions and information panels.