Visit Hot Springs announced Wednesday that it will host an international exhibit of photographs depicting life in Ireland dating back to the 1850s at the Hot Springs Convention Center in conjunction with the First Ever 17th Annual World's Shortest St. Patrick's Day Parade.
"A Photo Album of Ireland," consists of 85 photographs that depict "all aspects of Irish life from the perspective of private individuals and families." The exhibit will open Jan. 18 and run through March 18.
"We are really pleased that this exhibit of life in Ireland will be on display in Hot Springs in the days leading up to and including our famous St. Patrick's Day Parade," Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs, said in a news release announcing the exhibit.
"Our parade has generated tremendous worldwide attention for Hot Springs, especially in Ireland and among those Americans of Irish descent. We think 'A Photo Album of Ireland' is really appropriate for Hot Springs and our visitors," he said.
"We brought this exhibit in prior to St. Patrick's Day to remind people that there is more to the Irish people than a one-day celebration on March 17. These 85 images just begin to tell that story."
Organizers of the exhibit describe it as "a celebration of ordinary and extraordinary histories, viewed from the perspective of private individuals and families," Visit Hot Springs said in the release.
The photographs in the exhibit are "from the earliest photographs taken in the 1850s to the advent of the digital era in the early 1990s," the organizers said. "These images reveal details about how people lived, worked, and gathered that official historical records may have overlooked."
"Taken as a whole, this collection of more than 80 photographs creates a rich tapestry of images that tells of the triumphs and turmoils in the life of a nation," according to the Culture Ireland's International Culture Programme, the release said.
"From quotidian scenes of pastoral picnics, holiday celebrations and parlor portraits to snapshots documenting the impact of The Troubles in the North; from joyful wedding parties to solemn funerary processions; from the documentation of Irish historical sites by the world-renowned Shackleton family to the unheralded efforts of an anonymous family photographer, 'A Photo Album of Ireland' presents the people's account of history that is at once personal and powerful."
The exhibition represents an "extensive range" of digitized images from early Ambrotype portraits and informal Box Brownie images through to 35-mm documentary photographs and Polaroid images. "The overall exhibition design concept will emulate that of a family photo album, with images of various sizes installed salon-style," it said.
Local on 12/05/2019