Output details

The Silent Village: Humphrey Jennings, Peter Finnemore, Rachel Trezise, Paolo Ventura”

Curated Exhibition with an international tour.

ISBN of accompanying text: 978–1-872771–81-6

Research Context

The curation of this exhibition and associated texts were based on research addressing the contemporary relevance and historical specificity of Humphrey Jennings’ original film ‘The Silent Village’ (1943) made for the Ministry of Information.

Research Imperatives

For this new interpretation, the curatorial research context concerned methods of reconstructing histories through a contemporary critical response to the original film, its themes and methods. The main focus was how atrocity has been/might be represented, and what roles visual art and literature might play in this through medium of exhibition.

Project methods

Accompanying essays by Roberts and Berry contextualised Lidice and Jennings’ film, establishing parallels that were developed further in the work of Finnemore, Trezise and Ventura. Here are potential strategies for alternative memorials, historical method, reflections on the politics of national identity and narrative possibilities to explore emotional proximity to such traumatic events. The cumulative effect is a creative approach to deconstructing historical narratives that anchors Jennings’ film firmly in Wales and the Czech Republic as sites of resistance and trauma.

The outcome was a curated multi-media exhibition with an international tour, accompanied by three volume boxed set publication with essays by curator Russell Roberts, film historian David Berry, ‘Album’ an artists’ book by Peter Finnemore and a novella ‘A Child Called Lidice’ by Rachel Trezise.

Dissemination

Ffotogallery, Penarth, Wales (2010)

Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno, Wales (2010)

DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague (2012)

International conference "Making Histories, Recreating Memories", DOX Centre for Contemporary Art (2012)

Public reading at Lidice Memorial Museum (March 10th 2012).