Assessing how to curate my exhibition brought me back to looks at a previous exhibition I visited. The ‘Art of the Troubles’ in Belfast’s Ulster Museum. One of the specific works was a haunting yet beautiful installation piece by F. E. McWilliam. The artwork acts as a centrepiece to this conflict filled section. ‘Woman of Belfast 5’ is a bronze sculpture of a woman caught in the1972 bombing of the Abercorn Tea-Rooms in Belfast, in which 130 people were injured and two women were killed.
The show itself relied on people moving in a counter clockwise direction, this was implied by the positioning of the work but was not a requirement, on a second viewing I took the other direction, this proved more confusing and required me backtracking to get to other work.
The McWilliam centrepiece was the most powerful, in my opinion, due to its realism, the work was just under full scale giving it the impression of being far away, even whilst standing near, this was perhaps to insinuate helplessness, the viewers inability to come to the aid of the figure or to keep their distance.
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Daniel Berry Art 