Noch bis zum 19. Juni ist die Ausstellung zu sehen, die von einem fantastischen zweibändigen Katalog begleitet wird. Bd. 1 enthält Aufsätze und Katalogbeschreibungen, während Bd. 2 eine Monographie von Heidrun M. Lange über die Augsburger Prachtcodices des Herolds Hans Tirol in Eton und im Escorial ist.
Die Ausstellungs-Website enthält wie üblich viel zu kleine Bilder:
“Ob beschlagnahmte Plakate, Zensur oder abgesetzte Programme – das deutsche Kabarett hatte es in den vergangenen 110 Jahren so manches Mal mit der Justiz zu tun bekommen. Nun dokumentiert eine Ausstellung diese oft nicht so heiteren Berührungspunkte. Am 13. Mai wird die Schau “Satire und Justiz” des Deutschen Kabarettarchivs in Mainz eröffnet. Vom 16. Mai an ist sie dann für Besucher in den Räumen der Mainzer Staatsanwaltschaft zu sehen. Kabarettarchiv und Staatsanwaltschaft kündigten die Ausstellung am Donnerstag als eine “exemplarische Bildergeschichte von der Kaiserzeit bis ins 21. Jahrhundert” an. Es gehe dabei um die schwierige Beziehung zwischen der auf Eindeutigkeit und Einhaltung klarer Regeln bedachten Göttin Justitia und der auf Kunst- und Meinungsfreiheit bestehenden, ihre subjektive Weltsicht verteidigenden Satire.
Die Sonderschau aus Anlass des 50-jährigen Bestehens des Kabarettarchivs läuft bis zum 9. September 2011. “
Boston College has been subpoenaed by the British government to release secret transcripts of conversations with IRA operatives.
The British are likely seeking evidence against Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams in one of the most controversial killings of the Troubles, that of Jean McConville.
[…]
This is the first time that secret archives have been subpoenaed in pursuit of a British criminal investigation into The Troubles and has sent a shudder through the academic world.
“This is our worst-case scenario,” Mary Marshall Clark, the director of the oral history research office at Columbia University told The New York Times
Anthony McIntyre, the researcher, said the British move was appalling “The damage it would do to research at the university would be unimaginable,” he said. “People will hold onto their secrets forever” he told The Times
“The photographs, faded and dusty, are laid out on blue plastic sheets. A smiling schoolgirl in an ornate kimono holds a bouquet of flowers. A group of excited teenage boys huddle on a school trip. A party of red-faced men crowd around a long table filled with beers.
The March 11 tsunami that devastated Rikuzentakata, a small seaside city in northern Japan, wiped away thousands of homes and left 2,000 residents dead or missing. As it swept away a community, the tsunami surge also carried off its memories, stockpiled on photographic paper and catalogued in albums.
As search crews recovered bodies in the weeks following the disaster, they also collected what waterlogged family albums and muddy pictures they found scattered within the rubble. Volunteer groups have since embarked on the tedious tasks of drying, cleaning and organizing hundreds of thousands of photos.
Two months on, residents of hard-hit coastal towns like Rikuzentakata are starting to move into temporary homes furnished with free appliances and home goods, a first step in the long process of reassembling their lives.
Over three days last week, volunteers in Rikuzentakata also displayed the first small installment of recovered photos, hoping to offer their owners a chance to reclaim a more tangible link to their past.
“When they thought they had lost everything and something like an old picture reappears, we think it will give them strength to move forward,” said Tatsuya Hagiwara, a volunteer with the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention.
In a scene resembling a flea market, organizers spread out albums, yearbooks, diplomas and other keepsakes across a parking lot on the edge of town. A crowd quickly gathered, many seeking pictures of family members and friends who numbered among the dead and missing.
A yelp rose from the crowd. “That’s me!” shouted Etsuko Kanno, showing a picture of a young woman in a wedding dress. The bride, laughing, covered her mouth with a white-gloved hand.
Ms. Kanno—now a 51-year-old grandmother, who arrived at the parking lot with her one-year-old granddaughter asleep on her back—said the picture was taken 26 years ago at a photo shop in neighboring Ofunato. The photographer, she recalled, snapped the picture without warning her.
“This was the happiest moment,” she said, gripping the picture. “But this is only a picture of me. I wanted a picture of my husband.”
The man she married a few days after that picture was taken died in the tsunami. The powerful waters swallowed their home, where he was spending a day off from work with his 83-year-old mother, who also died.
Pictures of her three daughters, grandchildren and husband were washed away with the rest of their possessions.
“I want something on paper that I can look at,” she said. “I looked around and found nothing.”
When volunteers began tackling the photo cleanup several weeks ago, they started with a wet clump of snapshots. They laid the pictures out to dry. They dusted dirt from individual photos with paint brushes, and wiped plastic album sheets clean with damp rags.
The process was time-consuming and imperfect. Only about 10% of the recovered photos, some still damp and covered in dirt, were displayed last week.
People who found photos belonging to them filled out a form and took the pictures. Organizers said they may take the rest of the photos by truck to the 65 different evacuation centers across the city.
For group photos, the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, one of the organizations leading the volunteering, plans to scan the pictures digitally and upload the images to the Internet. The group is working on a project to archive photos along with tsunami-related information from Rikuzentakata and nearby towns.
Yoshito Takahashi arrived at the parking lot as soon as the pictures were brought out. He went from album to album, turning each page. Then he moved to crates that held the loose photos and thumbed through each one. “There’s nothing here,” he mumbled to himself.
The 67-year-old retiree from a life insurer had escaped the tsunami by running to Rikuzentakata’s new gymnasium, the designated neighborhood evacuation center.
As more than 100 people crowded the building on March 11, he searched for his wife. He couldn’t find her. Within moments, water filled the building. Mr. Takahashi was one of the few survivors. Later, his wife’s body was found at the shelter.
“It can even be a group photo,” he said. “I just want to be able to see her.”
He found a picture taken during a summer festival in their neighborhood 25 years ago. At the edge of the photo, Mr. Takahashi stood straight as an arrow, his graying hair still jet black. After scanning the photo, he said: “I don’t see her.”
Two days later, he was back. He said he didn’t find any pictures the day before either, but he said he would keep coming.
Nearby, a woman held up an album and shouted: “This is ours.”
Mr. Takahashi looked up and paused. Then he returned to the crate in front of him, moving from one picture to the next.
