Joanne Quinton-Tulloch wrote:
> Has anyone had any experience of, or know of any research done on the use
> of controversial or shocking images in exhibitions?

A few years ago, I curated an exhibit about World War II.  The focus of
one of the exhibit rooms was about the experiences of people from the
Dallas, Texas, area during the war over-seas.  In this exhibit hall, I
displayed a very large Nazi/Swastika flag that had a number of small
"shoulder patches" layed across it.  The patches were the Star of David,
a pink trinagle, and several other "patches" that the Nazi's made
minority and oppressed groups wear to identify themselves.  To go along
with this display, the text mentioned the purpose and identity of each
of the various patches.  The juxtaposition of the patches with the flag
made for a very striking and emotional exhibit.  The only negative
feed-back I received was that the label copy was too small!

In this same exhibit hall, I included photographs that a man frpom
Dallas had taken during the liberation of a concentration camp.  The
3'x4' photograph of a boxcar filled with the emaciated corpses of
prisoners was directly across the hallway from the flag and patches I
mentioned earlier.  There was also a life-size photo of a man in uniform
giving a salute to the camera.  Upon closer inspection, you noticed that
the "hand" giving the salute was actually a hook.

The point of all this is simple.  The use of contoversial or shocking
images can be an effective teaching/learning tool, if presented in a
factual, frank manner.  Be sure to include the proper context of the
photo, and convey this in as straight-forward a manner as possible.  You
will be amazed at the results!  (I received a lot of extremely positive
feed-back on this exhibit, from individuals as well as educators, with
most of them mentioning the fact that the exhibit made them stop and
re-think what happenned during WWII.)


Jim

--
Jim McCrain
Museum Consultant
Web-Page Design
[log in to unmask]