A Debt to the Dead? Ethics, Photography, History, and the Study of Freakery

Nicholas, Jane

doi:10.1353/his.2014.0006

Cited by 8 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 15 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…I began this essay outlining that academic scholarship sometimes has limits on what can be done in response to postmortem bodily rights abuses from the past. Nicholas (2014) highlighted this impasse in her own work when encountering photographs in the archive of nameless children who worked in historical freak show spaces. They ask their readers to contemplate what ethical duties do we have to the dead “even [when] we may not know now exactly who they are” (p. 141).…”

Section: Conclusion: How Do We Decolonize Ungrievable Life?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Lions Attacking a Dromedary: The Verreaux brothers, imperial taxidermy, and postmortem bodily rights

Niittynen

2023

Curator The Museum Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Lions Attacking a Dromedary created at Maison Verreaux brings up a larger discussion about representations of racialized bodies (real and synthetic) in the history of museum display. Looking to the history of racialized bodies on display, I outline how taxidermied animals and racialized mannequins oscillate to reinforce continual colonial projects of the present. I show my reader how the construction of a ‘specimen’ is used in the dehumanizing processes that shapes who and what is human: a recognizable being that is (borrowing from Judith Butler) grievable upon death. Since the discovery of real human remains inside the racialized mannequin, the group is now redisplayed at the Carnegie Museum alongside educational insights that seek to ethically interrupt the colonial violence that the display narrates. In order to push this discussion further, I seek direction from decolonial artists and scholars on the best approaches to take in response to postmortem human rights abuses (past and present) and to show the ways that art can be both a destructive and reparative exchange.

show abstract

Section: Conclusion: How Do We Decolonize Ungrievable Life?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Lions Attacking a Dromedary: The Verreaux brothers, imperial taxidermy, and postmortem bodily rights

Niittynen

2023

Curator The Museum Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In particular, how do I respect the dignity of the sitters, how do I avoid perpetuating stereotypes, and how do I promote social justice? Moreover, how do I navigate audiences who attend the exhibition out of a morbid curiosity to gawk at PWID, as well as those who seek out salacious stories of abject anguish and travails of torture (Gagen 2021;Nicholas 2014)? These ethical concerns became central to guiding my curatorial approach with regard to selecting the images and stories from the casebooks, as well as led to my adoption of the principles of the Sites of Conscience movement to provide a 'safe and responsible staging' (Gagen 2021:48) for the viewers to engage with the exhibition.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The duration of To Be(Hold) in Revere: An Exhibition of Historical Photographs of People with Intellectual Disability

du Plessis

2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this article, I discuss my curation of a photographic exhibition of people with intellectual disability (PWID) who were institutionalised at the Grahamstown Lunatic Asylum, from 1890 to 1920. The exhibition titled, To Be(Hold) in Revere, aimed to display affirmative photographs and humanising stories of PWID obtained from the Asylum's casebooks. The Sites of Conscience movement influenced the exhibition's aim. The movement seeks to recover the agency and personhood of those who lived at a site of human suffering in order to establish a collective memory of their voices and experiences. This article details my curatorial approach; it provides a telling of the life stories of seven patients and outlines how I adopted the principles of the Sites of Conscience movement in facilitating exhibition walkabouts with the public. A key facet of the walkabouts was encouraging the public to witness the personhood of the Asylum's PWID, as well as to explore the current issues faced by today's PWID and advocate for their human rights.

show abstract

Patients, Power and Representation: Clinical Photographs in Focus

Clark

2019

de arte

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A Debt to the Dead? Ethics, Photography, History, and the Study of Freakery

Cited by 8 publications

References 15 publications

Lions Attacking a Dromedary: The Verreaux brothers, imperial taxidermy, and postmortem bodily rights

Lions Attacking a Dromedary: The Verreaux brothers, imperial taxidermy, and postmortem bodily rights

The duration of To Be(Hold) in Revere: An Exhibition of Historical Photographs of People with Intellectual Disability

Patients, Power and Representation: Clinical Photographs in Focus

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About