Looking at the Woman in a Bomb Blast is an experimental ekphrasis by writer and artist Daniel Jewesbury, published by ArtMonitor: Voices, University of Gothenburg Press. Daniel will be joined on the night by Abigail McGibbon reading the voice of The Woman.

A slender young woman falls backwards, blown off her feet by a bomb. Frozen in time, her bare legs stick up, her hands grasping the air. Her face is covered by a page from a newspaper. People approach to look at her, bending down to study the folds of her dress, the immature curve of her thigh, her neat toes, splayed in surprise.

The woman is a sculpture, made by the Irish artist F. E. McWilliam in 1974. In this bronze figure’s awkwardly graceful near-death contortions, entire histories of pain, death, sex and visual pleasure have been condensed. Looking at the Woman in a Bomb Blast uses different voices to unravel these histories: a writer labours over an elaborate ‘explanation’ of what she means, while the voice of the Woman herself offers acerbic insights and asides. Interwoven with their argument is a comprehensive visual geneology of the sculpture, compiled from art historical imagery, McWilliam's own scrapbooks and drawings, and newspaper reports of the bombing that propelled McWilliam to make the work.

Daniel Jewesbury is a filmmaker, writer and critic who lived in Ireland for 25 years and is now based in Gothenburg. He is Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at HDK-Valand Academy of Art & Design. He has a forthcoming solo exhibition in 2026 drawing on the myth of Hermaphroditus.

This event is part of the Ekphrasis Project, an annual research and publication project run by the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen's in partnership with the Ulster Museum.