March/April 2004
News

A curious phenomenon at University Gallery

A unique installation and exhibition bringing together the worlds of science and the arts at the University was visited by almost 1,000 people during the four weeks that it was held.

Visitors to Gallery II were able to explore the curious phenomenon of 'bog bodies' and bog lands through a variety of media including photographs, performances and talks by professionals in the fields of archaeology and the arts.

Exhibition Curator Dr Christine Finn joins contemporary photographer Stephen Vaughan at the recent 'Strange Powers: Bog Bodies and Bog Lands' exhibition at the University's Gallery II.

The strange powers of bog water have preserved human bodies that have lain in bogs for more than a thousand years, capturing the imagination of archaeologists, artists, film-makers, photographers, and poets worldwide.

Visitors were able to view the original 'bog body photographs', which were taken in the 1950s by Lennart Larsen of the National Museum of Denmark. The exhibition and installation served as a celebration of Larsen's contribution to the book 'The Bog People' by P.V.Glob and this same book inspired Nobel prize winner Seamus Heaney to write his remarkable poems 'Bogland', 'The Tollund Man' and 'Punishment'. Spoken recordings by Heaney of these works also featured in the exhibition.

'Strange Powers: Bog Bodies and Bog Lands' also featured a series of large-scale photographs of bog landscapes by contemporary photographer Stephen Vaughan. Vaughan grew up with a fascination for that landscape of watery earth, and his black and white and colour works of English and Danish boglands resonate with an otherworldliness.

As well as the images on show, there was a related performance piece directed by Sazzadur Rahman called 'Shikha' (meaning sacrifice) which explored the themes of encasement and confinement (pictured left)

Staff and researchers from the University's Department of Archaeological Sciences also gave lectures on a range of related themes, from Celtic death ritual to bog body science.

The exhibition was curated by Dr Christine Finn, University Writer-in-Residence and Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Archaeological Sciences.

She has authored a book on Heaney's response to archaeology, 'Past Poetic: Archaeology in the Poetry of W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney' (Duckworth, March 2004) and hosted workshops on the theme.

One such workshop on poetry and archaeology was held as part of 'World Book Day' on Thursday, April 4, 2004 - the worldwide celebration of books and reading, which was marked in over 30 countries around the globe last year.

Christine also directed the installation, and introduced two contemporary films with the bog landscape as their setting.

She said: "This event has been a long-held ambition, and I am delighted that the University made it happen. The aim was to illuminate the bog body discoveries for new audiences combining a powerful mix of art, history, literature and forensics. I certainly think we achieved that."

16 April 2004

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