Riddle 57

PRINTMAKING, POETRY & ANIMATION

For Double Elephant Print Workshop’s public engagement programme during Covd-19, I produced a project that brought together poets, historians, animators and printmakers to turn a 1000 year old riddle from the Exeter Book into an animated encounter that can be “played” by the reader.

Riddle 57 is one of the many riddles from the Exeter Book, a tenth-century anthology of poetry in Exeter Cathedral’s library, recognised by UNESCO as one of the world’s principal cultural artefacts. The riddles are playful little windows into the past.

We collaborated with filmmaker Luke Hagan, medievalists Professor Chris Jones (University of St. Andrews), Dr Megan Cavell (University of Birmingham) and poet Jacob Polley, Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University to create a interactive riddle.

We publicised the opportunity online and over 180 prints/ drawings/ paintings from across the world were submitted. The project is one of Exeter City of Literature’s Associated Projects and was featured on the BBC’s Culture in Quarantine. It was so exciting to collaborate and approach the poem playfully. Jake’s poetic prompts created evocative suggestions to inspire the prints and we still use the project as a basis for printmaking workshops in schools.

Play the riddle here!

The photos below show The Exeter Book at Exeter Cathedral and The King and Queen viewing the Exeter Book and learning about the project in 2020.