“Trialling Witchcraft: Adapting Public History to New Heritage Settings”

Activity: Talk or presentationInvited talk

Description

This talk will discuss the ongoing “The Islandmagee Witchcraft 1711 Digital and Creative Project” directed by Dr Andrew Sneddon (History) and Dr Victoria McCollum (Cinematic Arts) of Ulster University (Project website: w1711.org). This interdisciplinary project aims to take the last trial in Ireland under a witch act to new audiences using creative and digital technologies by producing: a new graphic novel; a video game; a bespoke animation; an interactive website; a play; a musical score and a Virtual Reality application. The talk will cover the challenges of this type of public history that deals with traumatic events in places with contested pasts, and how these can be overcome and hidden histories used to discuss wider issues of gender violence, othering, poverty and exclusion. Finally, we will cover how we adapted the project to a heritage setting in 2023 for a major exhibition, “Reimagining the Islandmagee Witches: an exhibition”.
Period3 May 2024
Event titleFriday Frontiers: Dariah-EU
Event typeSeminar
Degree of RecognitionInternational

Keywords

  • Heritage
  • Digital Futures
  • Cinematic Arts
  • History
  • Exhibition
  • Difficult History