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Exhibition lifts veil on ‘truths’

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Stephen McKinley

The current Bloody Sunday exhibition at New York City’s International Society for Photography has been entitled “Hidden Truths: Bloody Sunday 1972.”

The title is an unusual one, given that much of the exhibition is given over to the now-infamous photographs taken by several witnesses on Jan. 30, 1972 — but perhaps the curators’ point is that in the ensuing storm of 30 years of controversy, an essential truth of what happened that day has been lost.

This is a successful attempt to redress that, by showing not just photographs, but also artifacts belonging to the victims. There is 17-year-old Michael Kelly’s chocolate bar, preserved by his family since the fateful day. There are notebooks, a T.Rex album, the grief-stricken telegram of the Jim Wray, another of the 13 dead.

Speaking louder than the calls for justice, these photographs and artifacts reveal the humanity of the victims in their tragic essence. These artifacts reveal a new truth, because, according to the exhibition curator, Trisha Ziff, they “have undergone a remarkable transformation from news, to evidence, to icons.”

The public can also access the Saville Inquiry’s unique Bogside “virtual walkthrough,” which is being used to create a three-dimensional map of the area where the shootings took place.

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The exhibition “Hidden Truths: Bloody Sunday 1972” is on view through March 17. The International Center for Photography is at 1133 Avenue of the Americas, at West 43rd Street, NYC. Open Tuesday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Details, (212) 857-0045, www.icp.org.

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