Thursday 16 June 2016

Research Point - Paul Seawright - Sectarian Murders


The piece presents a series of images with sub titles which provide background information on the murder which was carried out at that specific location.

The viewer is presented with the image, which is a normal image, the sub titles provide the context for what you are seeing, the narrative however is driven by the viewer as they are asked to provide an emotional response to both the image and the information. You are allowed to feel emotions and thoughts on both the surviving families of the victims and for the people who found the bodies. We are at no point given much information on the victim or if the murder was investigated and the perpetrators convicted, this gives me a feeling of imbalance which drives the context and the narrative.

During the video the artist states clearly that in this series he is providing nothing more than the information and that the viewer provides the narrative, I feel that this is correct.

Personally I struggled a little with these images, as I grew up in a divided sectarian environment and I have taken a lot of emotional steps to get away from this environment, so my emotional response to these images was both sadness and negative as once again I failed to understand why people do this to each other.


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