Curator LUCY WINTERS DURKIN provides these comments about the images projected above the stage during the performance of THE PEACEMAKERS by the Rochester Oratorio Society, April 5, 2019. The presentation and these notes are copyright ©2019 by Lucy Winters Durkin and may not be used in any form without prior permission. The images and sources are listed here:
Peacemakers Images Source List
ABOUT TONIGHT’S IMAGES:
The individual texts and the music have inspired the selections. The images vary widely; many of them focus on the people who have risked and endured so much for their beliefs. In others we have charted new territory; in Healing Light: a Celtic prayer, the musical and textual dynamics inspired a more abstract approach which connects our fragile planet and its inhabitants as celebrated in three 19th century paintings in a counterpoint dance with the much larger cosmos, captured in the spectacular images of infant stars and distant galaxies taken by the Hubble telescope.
Particular thanks are due to Susan Winters, the award-winning photojournalist who generously allowed us to include her poignant documentation of the transitions in South Africa seen in Let there be justice for all. Her images span the period from 1988 when she first photographed the Transkei region where Nelson Mandela was born and grew up, through Mandela’s release from prison in 1990, to the first free elections four years later. Ms. Winters has lived in a small rural community in the Eastern Cape region since 1997.
Of local note, Hale Woodruff’s painting, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln Discussing Emancipation, is in the permanent collection of the Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY. See it and the powerful special exhibition, Lessons of the Hour – Frederick Douglass, a series of ten video projections designed by Isaac Julien, through May 12, 2019.
For all who are moved by these images, congratulate the photographer who saved the moment or the artist who captured a particular perfection. They should count among the heroes tonight.
All of the images used are either in the public domain or permission has been obtained from the copyright holders to use them for this performance.
