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Paul Seawright Sectarian Murder
Research Point
The course notes have asked us to look at Paul Seawright’s Sectarian Murder a series of images taken in the late 1980’s that revisit sites of sectarian murders during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Catalyst: Paul Seawright from Imperial War Museums on Vimeo.
How does this work challenge the boundaries between documentary and art?
The images in Seawright’s work are each a landscape of the location of a sectarian murder during the Northern Ireland Troubles – and each is captioned with newspaper caption from the time of the murder, with any reference to the religion of the victim removed.
In 1988, when these pictures we taken, the troubles were still at their height, with sectarian murders happening on all to frequent basis. However, this body of work is a differing more reflective viewpoint than pure photojournalism.
The murders, in this case, had happened over 15 years previously so Seawright is not just recordings what had happened, they are more akin to David Campany’s concept of “late photography” as Campany says in Safety in Numbness ‘not so much the trace of an event as the trace of the trace of an event.’ (2003). In my opinion feel that once an event such as a murder has happened in a location a trace of that event will always remain even it just because you are told it happened.
Seawright says that work that is very close to the reality of an even is nothing more than photojournalism. To turn Photojournalism into art is giving the viewer a story that develops in front of them, encapsulating the distance and mystery within the image so that the meaning of the picture grows. As opposed to a magazine image which has a much more obvious narrative as it has to deliver in 15 seconds, art does have to deliver this quickly.
With Sectarian Murder, Seawright is providing the viewer with a clear context for the image and allowing the narrative to reveal its self slowly, like peeling an onion. He is providing this complex layering by giving us an image of the location of the murder in a still akin to a Fine Art landscape and far removed from a journalist image. Even when you compare this with the Joel Meyerowitz consider shots of Ground Zero, these very far removed.
The images are all dark and moody, there is a feeling of remoteness to them and given what we know from the caption that happened there they give an initial feeling of uneasy / uncomfortableness to the viewer. And this one of the many layers it provides to me were I feel an empathy for the victim in that it feels a lonely place to die. Sectarian murders were by there nature one side against the other to provoke fear, however, as the context does not show the religion of the victim it is just drawing us to the inhumanity of the act – who every views these can only feel compassion.
What is the core of his argument? Do you agree with him?
As discussed Seawright main argument is that art should give up it secrets slowly in contrast to something like photojournalism which as 15 seconds to make it point heard. He is trying produce work that is not too direct nor too ambiguous. And of close assessment of Sectarian Murder, I believe he is right.
For many people art is about beauty, something that you hang on your wall, but this is just a superficial way of looking at it. Art is another way to tell a story, order your feelings on a subject it should be a talking point. Something to provoke thought and arts that unveils its self slowly provides that.
If we define a piece of documentary photography as art, does this change its meaning?
No. We have discussed the magazine journalistic photograph gives up it meaning quickly and deliberate art projects like Sectarian Murders do so slowly. However, just because the meaning is given up quickly, doesn’t mean it cannot be art nor does it make that meaning change if it art. However, when it placed in a to art environment will be discussed and analysed differently so that the obvious mean maybe question overlooked by someone looking for a deeper meaning.
Bibilography
Seawright, P. (2018). Sectarian Murder. [online] Paul Seawright. Available at: http://www.paulseawright.com/sectarian/ [Accessed 27 Jan. 2018].
Vimeo. (2014). Catalyst: Paul Seawright. [online] Available at: https://vimeo.com/76940827 [Accessed 27 Jan. 2018].
Campany, D. (2003). Safety in Numbness: Some remarks on the problems of ‘Late Photography’ – David Campany. [online] David Campany. Available at: http://davidcampany.com/safety-in-numbness/ [Accessed 22 Jan. 2018].