Partnering with Professor Ian Kuijt, from the University of Notre Dame Anthropology Department, the Hesburgh Libraries is pleased to announce the opening of Mantelpieces and the Mundane: Homemaking and Ireland’s Disappearing History.

The exhibit features single-frame photos as well as large-scale composite panoramas, captured over 15 years of research by Kuijt on the Island of Inishbofin, Ireland.

“To a 20th-century Irish islander, mundane possessions on the mantelpiece and in the home were not simply keepsakes, economic tools, common items, or assets; rather, these belongings provided a point of entry into the emotional landscapes of memory, identity, and belonging,” Kuijt wrote in his artist statement.

Focusing on the central rooms of post-1900 buildings, the exhibit explores how the mantelpiece served as a display space above the central hearth and considers the material world left behind on the mantelpiece and in the home when Islanders moved away.

Mantelpieces and the Mundane can be found in the Hesburgh Library’s second-floor gallery space located outside the Beth and Lou Holtz Family Grand Reading Room, and will remain on display through the end of the calendar year. 

For More information, visit the Hesburgh Libraries events page.