A POWERFUL and moving exhibition about the legacy of child abuse in Ireland has just opened in Dublin.
‘In Plain Sight’, by talented photographer Kim Haughton in collaboration with survivors, is an important and timely challenge to the silence that still surrounds the issue of sexual abuse.
The exhibition brings together landscape and portrait photography, family snapshots and audio recordings where survivors recount their stories of love, loss, forgiveness, suffering and injustice.
Some survivors are photographed revisiting the places where the abuse took place. These seemingly benign landscapes present familiar locations of childhood which are now irrevocably transformed into crime scenes and places of terror.
Among those featuring in the exhibition are Marie Collins, who was abused as a child in Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin by then chaplain, Fr Paul McGennis. In 1997 he was convicted of abusing her and received an 18-month sentence.
The Glasnevin house where Northside victim Andrew Madden was abused by the notorious Fr Ivan Payne also forms part of the exhibition, as do the ruins in Fethard-on-Sea in Wexford where Fr Sean Fortune carried out his crimes against children.
The work also highlights the heroic efforts by one Garda detective to secure prosecutions against rapists. Despite this, Kim Haughton, from Portmanock, points out there has not been a single prosecution against those in overall authority
“whose actions and inaction shielded the rapists from justice
?. She believes that the culture of secrecy and suppression still thrives today.
Haughton is an award-winning photographer and lecturer, now based in New York. Since starting her career at The Sunday Tribune, she has documented social and environmental issues throughout the world and has been commissioned by major international media including The Guardian, The Financial Times, Boston Globe, L’Express and Time.
Her work with Concern was exhibited in the Gallery of Photography in 2010 and she has lectured widely on documentary practice.
She recently completed an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography, exploring the relationship between art and documentary photography.
‘In Plain Sight’, which is her first solo exhibition, received the inaugural Press Photographers’ Association Bursary and a Project Award from the Arts Council.
‘In Plain Sight’ is now running at the Gallery of Photography in Temple Bar until June 7.