This summer will see the UK premiere of MONUMENTS: a short, looped twenty-minute performance in which voices, texts and photos meet around a real territory, Newfoundland, and an imagined road trip.

Audiences of five at a time will be taken on an intimate journey from the eastern tip of Nova Scotia to Newfoundland. Award-winning Québec poet, author and performer Vanessa Bell takes audiences on the ferry, camping, fishing, walking the tundra, and experiencing the cold waters of this fertile island. MONUMENTS is a performance and installation based on the book of the same name, published in August 2022 in collaboration with photographer Kéven Tremblay by Éditions du Noroît.  

Vanessa Bell is a poet, author, performer and curator who creates work in which a multitude of women’s voices are heard alongside a strong focus on the natural world. Her writing is charged with sensuality, desire, and often anger. Bell has performed extensively in Québec and Europe. She has won several prizes including the Artist of the Year Award of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec in 2023 and is the first francophone Canadian to be supported by the Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Rising Stars program (2022).

Please note that tickets for each slot are extremely limited. For this reason we encourage you to invite your friends and attend as a group, although individual and smaller groups are of course welcome. Please do return your ticket to us if you can no longer make it, with a micro-audience, no-shows are impactful. Please note that there may be filming and photography at the Festival of Libraries events. If you have any access requirements please let us know via Eventbrite when booking your ticket.

This event is hosted in partnership with Alliance Française de Manchester at the library in their Portland Street home.