Hope Strickland
In 2020, the phrase social distancing entered our vocabulary. Commentators such as Adam Tweed at abilitynet.org.uk have suggested replacing it with the term physical distancing in recognition that maintaining full social lives throughout lockdowns is essential to health and welfare.
Part of an ongoing project with the local Caribbean community in South Manchester, Home Soon Come by Hope Strickland (www.hopestrickland.com) explores diasporic movements, memory-placing through games and domestic objects, and what it means to find ourselves at home in the people around us.
Developed with support from HOME, Manchester and La Junqueira Residency, Lisbon with thanks to the North West Film Archive and Nuria Lopez de la Oliva.
For Fun & Games, Hope has also begun work on a new illustrated article on the social history of dominoes in the Caribbean, which will be published on the Library’s Off the Shelf webpage in January 2021. The Portico’s collection contains many colonial-era books on the region, plus opinions on dominoes from writers such as Joseph Strutt, who listed it under the category of ‘Sedentary Games’:
“Domino is a very childish sport, imported from France a few years back, and could have nothing but the novelty to recommend it to the notice of grown persons in this country.”
“Most people think of dominoes as a quiet and delicate children’s game of matching numbers, but there’s another world of dominoes—a game of passion, intrigue and high-decibel action.”
Listen to Benjamin Zephaniah’s full programme on the passion, community and history of Britain's high-octane Caribbean domino clubs on BBC Sounds here.
Libraries are not just repositories of books but social spaces where communities come together. Playing games in libraries has a tradition going back to the 19th century when the Portico was founded.
Read Livia Gershon on gaming in 19th-century libraries at JSTOR here.
The Portico Library’s collection of board games that anyone can play when the Library is open, including dominoes, chess, draughts, cribbage, nine men’s morris and backgammon.