The stories artists tell: Art as critical history with Dr Barnaby Haran

One of three free online workshops exploring art and critical thinking, organised by The Critical Fish and commissioned by Absolutely Cultured as part of Creative Hull.

We often look to art as a reflection of our times, but artists have always told stories of the past, whether through epic historical paintings of battle scenes or haunting images of radioactive Soviet cities.

In recent years there have been many controversies and debates about the relationship of art and history, particularly concerning memories of empire, colonialism, and slavery. Statues of Confederate generals or slaver city fathers are defaced or removed by protestors, whilst conservative critics deride Fourth Plinth plans as ‘woke monstrosities’. There are mutually antagonistic accusations of ‘rewriting history’ as historical facts are contested.

Yet history is not just a written mode, and many of the arguments concern visual art. Why is art so often the focus of these arguments? What then do artists bring to the debates on historical memory?

This workshop discusses art’s engagement with conflicts of the past, exemplifying with works by contemporary African American artists. Participants will be asked to respond to these works, to propose other stories to tell (local or global, recent or longer ago, social or biographical), and to explore, from a personal perspective, how art can be (and whether it should be) a form of critical history. What and whose stories have been told, or should be told, by artists about Hull’s past?

Dr Barnaby Haran

Dr Barnaby Haran is Senior Lecturer in American Arts at University of Hull. His research covers American and Soviet cultural relations, documentary film and photography, radical culture, and more recently the photographic representation of racial injustices. He is an editor for The Critical Fish, the Hull-based art and visual culture magazine.