An international exhibit of photographs depicting life in Ireland will be on display at the Hot Springs Convention Center for two months in 2020, including the date of Hot Springs’ world-famous World’s Shortest St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
A Photo Album of Ireland, consisting of 85 photographs depicting all aspects of Irish life from the perspective of private individuals and families, will open January 18 and run through March 18.
“We are really pleased 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,” said Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs. “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.
Organizers of the exhibit describe it as “a celebration of ordinary and extraordinary histories, viewed from the perspective of private individuals and families.” The 85 photographs in the exhibit are from the earliest photographs taken in the 1850s to the advent of the digital era in the early 1990s, revealing details about how people lived, worked, and gathered, that official historical records may have overlooked.
“Taken as a whole, this collection 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. “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, A Photo Album of Ireland presents the people’s account of history that is at once personal and powerful.”
The exhibition will present an extensive range of digitized images from early Ambrotype portraits and informal Box Brownie images through to 35-mm documentary photographs and Polaroid images. For more information, call 501-321-2027.
