Imaging the Great Irish Famine: Representing Dispossession in Visual Culture (International Library of Visual Culture)

The Great Irish Famine: Dispossessionand specatorship -- Figuration and the site of famine -- Leaving the famine: The spectacle of migration -- Sites of memory and the others of history -- After-images: Temporary commemorative exhibitions on the famine -- Grief, graves and signs of the dead -- Beautiful places: Commemorative tourism and grievous history -- Imaging the Great Irish Famine.;The depiction of historical humanitarian disasters in art exhibitions, news reports, monuments and heritage landscapes has framed the harrowing images we currently associate with dispossession. People across the world are driven out of their homes and countries on a wave of conflict, poverty and famine, and our main sites for engaging with their loss are visual news and social media. In a reappraisal of the viewer's role in representations of displacement, Niamh Ann Kelly examines a wide range of commemorative visual culture from the mid-nineteenth-century Great Irish Famine. Her analysis of memorial images, objects and locations from that period until the early twenty-first century shows how artefacts of historical trauma can affect understandings of enforced migrations as an ongoing form of political violence. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of museum and heritage studies, material culture, Irish history and contemporary visual cultures exploring dispossession. List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Preface Introduction The Great Irish Famine: Dispossession and Spectatorship The Horror of Hunger Grievous History, Difficult Heritage Landscapes of Mourning and Dark Tourism Figuration and the Site of Famine The Place of Pain: Vulnerable Bodies and a Portrayal of Starvation Locating Representations of Irish Poverty: History Painting and Illustration in the Nineteenth Century Somatic Society: Hunger in Art of the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty-First Centuries Seeing Hungry Bodies Leaving the Famine: The Spectacle of Migration Dispossession and Teeming Berths The Ship Motif in Art Performed Memory: Replica Famine Ships Moving Subjects; Authentic History Sites of Memory and the Others of History Otherness, Empathy and Post-Colonial Heritage Intimate Encounters with Disruptive Objects: Food Relief in Focus Disobedient Nationalism and the Houses of Heritage Between History and Memory: Manufactured Worlds After-Images: Temporary Commemorative Exhibitions on the Famine The Politics of Perspective The Silent Centenary and Imaginative History Travelling Memory and Critical History at 150 Years Artistic Intention, Curatorial Strategies and Collective Remembrance 5 6 Grief, Graves and Signs of the Dead Famine Graveyards: Signs of the Dead or Symbols for the Living? Marked Remembrance: Cemeteries and Anticipated Signs Framing Emptiness: Wilderness as Witness Photographing Absence: Unmarked Burial Sites Loss, Representation, History Beautiful Places: Commemorative Tourism and Grievous History Walking after the Famine: Place and Reciprocal Memory Heritage Trails and the Search for History The Shadow of Workhouses and Relief Works Landscapes of Remembrance Conclusion Imaging the Great Irish Famine Representation as Dispossession Visual Culture and Secondary Witnessing Notes Bibliography The depiction of historical humanitarian disasters in art exhibitions, news reports, monuments and heritage landscapes has framed the harrowing images we currently associate with dispossession. People across the world are driven out of their homes and countries on a wave of conflict, poverty and famine, and our main sites for engaging with their loss are visual news and social media. In a reappraisal of the viewer's role in representations of displacement, Niamh Ann Kelly examines a wide range of commemorative visual culture from the mid-nineteenth-century Great Irish Famine. Her analysis of memorial images, objects and locations from that period until the early 21st century shows how artefacts of historical trauma can affect understandings of enforced migrations as an ongoing form of political violence. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of museum and heritage studies, material culture, Irish history and contemporary visual cultures exploring dispossession. Examination of how visual culture facilitates the memorialisation of the Great Irish Famine.