
Fortune Magazine cover, April 1938, by American illustrator John O’Hara Cosgrave [1930-1970]
As you may know, the Agincourt Project is an academic exercise [though don’t let that put you off] into the relationship between story-telling and place-making, that is, between narratives and their physical settings. To date, more than a hundred people have contributed to the Agincourt story: creating characters, designing landscapes and buildings, enriching the collective exercise, and (not incidentally) playing in the realm of historical fiction.
For the time being, The Project exists in several forms: this blog (which, up to now, has been written by the project curator, yours truly); a series of sketchbooks (also by me); the scattered remnants of designs produced by students, friends and family; two fabulous musical compositions by Agincourt’s semi-official Composer-not-in-Residence Daron Hagen; and a butt load of oral history shared between and among us at coffee, over a meal, in the elevator, or at an adjacent urinal; any place where two or three are gathered in the Project’s name. Regrettably, your curator (me, again) has done a poor job or recording all this; something that has to change. To this last point, let me invite your participation.
Here are some of the things we need:
- More participation! This is an open invitation to come play in the sandbox with us. If you have an idea—a building type that interests you; a character you feel needs to be woven into the fabric of our narrative; a period of community history as yet undeveloped—message me at MrPlantagenet@gmail.com and open a conversation.
- A Digital Presence: My skill set is severely restricted to reading, writing, and making the occasional non-verbal scrawl in a sketchbook. But I’m bold (or vain?) enough to think that Agincourt could be more completely accessible on the web. How can we give this project a presence here which will allow fuller exploration of its history and physical evolution? And carry that development farther? [See: below]
- A Future? During the eleven years of its existence, Agincourt has existed largely in my mind. But beside greater participation and expanding its audience, Agincourt may last only as long as I do. At seventy-plus, I won’t last forever, but I’d like to think that the project will not simply linger on, but thrive after me.
The unspecified “need” here is clearly money. While I don’t want yours, two exhibits, two musical commissions, model-building, etc. haven’t come cheap. [The musical compositions were outright gifts, and only incidentally commissions.] If you can contribute your skills, your creativity, your enthusiasm and support, the citizens of Agincourt will be grateful—and express their thanks in some modestly effusive way.