The Curator's Camera:

Interconnected worlds: thinking across the Library's collections

via britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk

 

Morning all, just wanted to draw this to your attention. I've put up a post over at the British Library Americas blog and wanted to share it with you here. Two reasons for this, first, to promote an event I'm hosting on Monday and, second, to talk about the above image.

First, the re-blog is talking about a show and tell I put together with other Library colleagues for Black History Month. The event showcased the Library's African, Caribbean and South Asian collections while attempting to illustrate the connections that exist between them. There's more available via the link above. I also put the post up as I'm hosting an event called 'Our Memories of the Uprisings' at the Library on Monday (25th October) eve.

The event draws together a panel and members of the public who experienced the unrest in Brixton, Toxteth, St. Paul's and other sites in the U. K. during the 1980's. The evening should be very interesting, especially as many of the issues at the heart of the 1980's unrest are still relevant today. If you'd like to come you can order tickets here.

Lastly, this being Unfinished Worlds I wanted to talk about the image above. The illustration was produced by William Clark, an artist and plantation manager in the 1820's. Clark stood to loose much from the changes being wrought in the Caribbean as the slave trade was abolished and slavery itself was wound down. In reaction to this he was one of a number of individuals seeking to articulate a counter-narrative to that of the abolitionists, asserting that slavery was not as bad as portrayed. As part of this process he produced a series of views of Antigua, of which the above is one.

 

Exterior of the Boiler House is striking in this context as it was meant to make the structure look like something other than the hell hole it was. These were infernal spaces, characterised by crippling heat and unimaginable industrial accidents - as the abolitionists noted the prce of sugar was high, paid for dearly in blood. This image stands out to me therefore as even though it is highly idealised by Clark it still looks like hell, with fires buring into the darkness and labour toiling infernally through the night.

 

Less than twenty years prior William Blake had invoked the imagery of 'dark satanic mills' back in England. The fact that Clark's idealised vision of the boiler house in Antigua still resonates with this is indication of just how violent that space must have been.

Exploiting the BP Oil Spill to Sell Self Tan Bronzing Gel

via marginalnotes.typepad.com

This image is used on a post over at Marginal Notes (an interesting blog, I'd highly recommend having a look) and the accompanying notes made me think of the recent visual economy posts here. I particularly like the comment, "[p]erhaps, ecofeminists and ecosocialists will have to rely less on dense historical and material analyses to illuminate the connections between violence against women; appropriation and domination of social reproduction and substinence; and exploitation and destruction of the planet".

All told the photoshoot speaks to the myriad connections made, maintained and evolved by photographs in our image world. The commentary on Marginal Notes also asserts how much images can communicate without drifting into the density of other materials, as suggested above.

I'd recommend heading over there for a look at the whole piece, it's quite striking stuff.

The Image World of Kim Jong-Il?: Our Visual Economy Pt III

North Korean propaganda, commodified as Western art. Via the BBC

Carrying on form the previous posts about our visual economy, this post will pose some questions about what anchors our visual economy and gives it a sense of self. To do this I'm going to use North Korea as an example, partly because the state's use of visual propaganda is an interesting case and partly because the Guardian is annoying me (more on that later...).

First off, North Korea's use of visual propaganda is not unique and it has commonalities (in terms of use, aim and iconography) with German, Russian and British WWII and Cold War propaganda, as well as the visual culture of many post independence Latin American states. Secondly, the continuing use of visual imagery by the state to make a sometimes exaggerated or overly assertive point is a tool not solely deployed by North Korea. Indeed, Singapore, the U. S. and the U. K. all use similar visual aids, even if largely these are deployed for (seemingly) more benign public health reasons.

This is interesting as there is a distinct trope deployed by the Western media in discussing North Korea, its attempted isolation from much of the rest of the world and its particular, state defined visual culture. This trope attempts to ridicule this visual culture and highlight its attempts to mask the physical and economic reality of life in North Korea under an aesthetic veneer. In particular North Korea's agricultural propaganda has recently come under fire due to its stark contrast to the social reality of famine that is prevalent in the country.

 

North Korean Agricultural Propaganda inviting workers to continue to increase their yields. Via dprkguidebook.org

Now, to be clear, I'm not being a conspiracy theorist here and denouncing the veracity of the Western media's claims about North Korea. What I am problematising is the way the West reports North Korea's use of the visual. Specifically, thinking back to the previous posts, is the conceit embedded in these images any different from the conceits underpinning our own visual economy?

The function of the above images is to set up mental associations in the viewer which then become frameworks for perceiving the world around them. In the case of North Korea they establish an understanding of the citizen's place in the world which is horribly at odds with the material reality of poverty and famine prevalent in the country. This is no different form the operation of our own visual economy, which peddles the conceits discussed previously; namely that appropriate consumption defines for us a positive and content place in the world.

North Korea and its visual culture is held up by our press as a pantomime in which there are terrible mortal consequences for those directly involved with it. This is true, but this pantomime is not separate from the one in which we are involved and which plays out in the press's own advertising sections. Instead both the populations of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and our own democratic states have to eternally question the Plato's Cave in which we exist when consuming the visual. Through this questioning of the image world and the visual economy, potentially we can throw off our chains and escape in the heightened reality beyond the cave - but it is a big cave to find your way out of.