University of St Andrews

BODY BAGS / SIMONIDES

PHOTOGRAPHS BY NORMAN McBEATH AND TEXTS BY ROBERT CRAWFORD

Two and a half thousand years ago the Greek poet Simonides wrote epitaphs for western soldiers killed in conflicts that involved the territories of modern Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. The greatest poems of Simonides are body bags; zipped inside them are the remains of human lives.

This exhibition juxtaposes new versions of texts by Simonides with the timelessness of black-and-white photography. Using the Scots tongue, poet Robert Crawford takes the language of Simonides away from generals and politicians, bringing it closer to the speech of vernacular Scots. This also raises questions about dead or dying languages, as well as about what language is fitting for remembering the dead. Norman McBeath’s black-and-white photographs are meticulous in their combination of timelessness and contemporaneity. They show not battlefront carnage, but quieter images that resonate alongside the poems to communicate a profound meditation on death, losses, and remembrance.

Selected for the 2011 Edinburgh Art Festival, and commissioned by the University of St Andrews as part of its 600th anniversary, Simonides was the focus of a BBC Radio 4 programme nominated for a Sony Radio Academy Award. A beautifully produced hardback, 'Simonides', printed and bound in Italy, accompanies the exhibition. It contains all the photographs and texts as well as Robert Crawford’s essay, ‘Simonides and the War on Terror’. The book will be available during the exhibition and can also be bought online at www.easelpress.co.uk.

Simonides was recently shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry and will be shown at Yale in September.

NB: Admission to the reception is free.