Through whose eyes?
Whilst The Eye As Witness is an excitingly creative use of technology to reconsider the past, its purpose is chillingly contemporary.
When you see an image or video posted on Twitter or Facebook today - of a victim of war or member of a particular minority group - ask yourself who recorded it and why. If pictures are worth a thousand words, then fake news is 1,000 times more sinister in photographic form.
As we approach Holocaust Memorial Day 2020 and the 75th anniversary since the Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen death camps were liberated, this exhibition invites critical thinking. It asks you to understand the visual cunning of the Nazis and how propaganda helped permeate and arguably legitimise anti-Jewish hate — and to think critically about the same propaganda techniques being used on social media today by the Hard Left and the Hard Right alike.
Images shape the way we remember history. Everyone has seen images of Nazi racial persecution and the Holocaust. But through whose eyes are we seeing this past?
© National Archives, Washington, Stroop Report Image No 89835b
One of the 100 most iconic images of history according to Time Magazine. This photo shows Jews held at gunpoint by German soldiers during the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in May 1943. It was taken by German propaganda photographers.
This exhibition takes a fresh look at this problem, contrasting Holocaust photos taken by perpetrators with the perspectives of victims.
© Mendel Grossman, Henryk Ross working in the photography darkroom, 1940 - 1944, Art Gallery of Ontario
Virtual Reality allows us to step into a famous Nazi photo, to explore what is not seen, and to critically examine the role of the official propaganda photographer.
© Paul Tennent/University of Nottingham
This is a screenshot from the prototype of the virtual reality created for the exhibition by the Mixed Reality Laboratory of the University of Nottingham. It is based on a photo from the Stroop Report 1943.
Photos taken by victims, which are the focus of the exhibition, tell a different story.
©The National Holocaust Centre and Museum
Secret Note written by Victoria Ancona-Vincent documenting each stage of her ordeal in various concentration camps between 1943 and 1945.
But there are, necessarily, gaps too. These are reflected in an installation that award-winning artist Lina Selander has created for the exhibition. At the close of the exhibition visitors can take action in recording their own responses to Holocaust photos, and photos of victims of violence and persecution today.
Different elements of the exhibition will be on show at each venue in addition to the main panels. Please see the venues and dates page to find out where the virtual reality, Lina’s contemporary art and The Forever Project showcasing interactive survivor testimonies will be on display.