Staging the Body in Post-Independence Ireland

Abstract

The photograph that we are looking at is a photograph about looking. A young woman facing the camera looks at an older man who is in silhouette and who seems to be smiling. The man looks appreciatively at the young woman, who is not at all discomposed by his stare, and who looks back at him. Against a background of an antiquated and down-at-heel domestic space the two figures appear preoccupied with admiring each other and at the same time posing for the camera. It is as if, to them, the materiality of their background has evaporated and that they exist solely in their self-consciously performing bodies: one looking, the other being looked at. A cloth cap hides the man’s eyes, but we can see clearly the upper body of the young woman and the expres- sion on her face. With arms akimbo and smiling mouth slightly open, the woman’s stance is inviting. Frozen by the photograph as if in the paralysed present tense of a tableau vivant, the easeful flirtatiousness of the pair and the contrast between the leisurely aspect of their pose and the dilapidated interior of the background, reinforce our initial impression that what we are looking at is bodies performing. The performance captured by the photograph tantalizes the spectator with an illusion of the full self-sufficiency of modern times — a fantasy present, apparently unencumbered by the past, but beckoning to the possibility of an evermore abundant future.¹