Representing the Unimaginable: Narratives of Disaster

Finding words and images with which to describe and come to terms with a disaster is a psychological necessity, but it also inevitably manifests socio-cultural habits of thought and political interests. Language shapes, distorts and appropriates an occurrence that is not just a shocking and all too real destruction of life, property and the environment, but also a social construct. The ‘unrepresentability’ of the experience of a disaster and the textuality of the represented event – and thu...