karen quinn - introduction
Belfast Exposed
Founded in 1983 as a community photography initiative, Belfast Exposed Photography now functions as a gallery for contemporary photography with emphasis on commissioning and publication of new work. It holds a community photography archive and runs an extensive educational outreach network.Trees from Germany John Duncan Exhibition: 26 September to 6 November 2003 In November 2002 Belfast Exposed Photography commissioned John Duncan to produce a photographic work of Belfast post-conflict on the threshold of progress. Duncan has spent five years photographing the impact of regeneration brought about by renewed economic confidence in the city. His previous work Boom Town shown at The Gallery of Photography in Dublin in 2002 looked at developer's idealised visions for the future of Belfast. In this new work Duncan explores some of the realities of the apartments, hotels and offices that have now been built and in particular how they interface with pre-existing aspects of the city. Through the work Duncan presents us with a detailed account of the current phase in Belfast’s evolution. A publication accompanies this work with essays by David Brett and Glen Patterson.
Archive_Belfast Claudio Hils Exhibition: 30 April to 4 June 2004 In Archive_Belfast the archive, repository of the city's conflictual past, is the object of investigation. Hils focuses attention away from the visible outcomes of conflict towards the underlying structures and patterns of thought by which conflict is both determined and contained. Hils' fascination with Belfast's archives lies not so much with their content, as with the systems, within which objects and facts have been, and continue to be, collected and organised. Simultaneously shaped by and supporting systems of social organisation, management, surveillance and control, the archive becomes in time the sum and store of these processes, product and guardian of the particular thinking behind its own construction. As processes of classification produce meaning, the archive itself becomes an object of enquiry, a cipher to be broken, a key to deeper understanding. The place in which our future may be revealed, encoded within conceptions of the past. There is also a publication to accompany the exhibition published by Hatje Cantz with texts by Klaus Honnef, John Taylor and Anna Eifert-Körnig.
Teenagers, Belfast Michelle Sank Exhibition: 21 October to 02 December 2005 In March 2005, Belfast Exposed exhibited Beyond the Family Album and other projects by Jo Spence. Spence described this work as aiming 'to better understand how, through visual forms of representation, our subjective views of selves, are structured and held across the institutions of media, and through hierarchical social relationships.' South-African photographer Michelle Sank works with similar ideas. She is interested in the experience of growing up, the transition from childhood to adulthood. She is interested in how the media and popular culture influence the way that young people understand themselves and their place in society. She has photographed young people from different parts of the UK and has been commissioned to produce this series while on a residency with Belfast Exposed. Through street photography and collaborative work with youth groups throughout the city, Michelle Sank has produced a series of 18 large- format portraits for exhibition. Belfast Exposed and Ffotogallery, Cardiff will publish a monograph of Michelle Sank’s work in October 2006.
Migrations Exhibition: 16 June to 25 August 2006 Migrations is part of a multi-stranded project being developed by Belfast Exposed exploring different experiences of migration. This first exhibition will feature major works on the subject of migration by well-known, contemporary artists and researchers; Anthony Haughey, Andrea Lange, Breda Beban, Penny Siopis and Terence Wright. The exhibitions includes: Between (2005) by Anthony Haughey Photo series, 2005, C-type prints Between is a collaborative visual media project critically exploring negotiation of citizenship with residents in a Government of Ireland Reception Centre for Asylum Seekers, a former Butlins Holiday Camp, Co. Meath, Ireland. Refugee Talks (1998) by Andrea Lange DV-Cam/DVD, 33 min Refugee Talks consists of nine sequences, each featuring one or several persons performing a song. The protagonists are all refugees from different countries who lived in the same reception centre in Oslo during the winter of 1998. Each of them chose a song that was relevant to their own situation, and to the film they appear in. Arrivals (2003) by Breda Beban Photo series, 2003/2005, C-type prints Breda Beban's work is about subjectivity and emotion occurring on the margins of big stories about politics, geography and love. Arrivals is a series of 8 sets of four photographs evoking in an uncomplicated and explicit way an experience of absence felt by those inhabiting the space between an unbroken desire (longing) and a broken sense of belonging. Each set of photographs depict; a picture of a bed(s), a picture of a window in bedroom, a picture of scene from a window and a close-up on some aspect of the same scene from the window. My Lovely Day (1997) by Penny Siopis 8mm colour film transferred to video and DVD, 21 minutes My Lovely Day combines spliced sequences of 8mm home movies that the artist's mother shot in the 1950s and 1960s in South Africa with sound and visual text which tell an elemental story of migration, displacement and exile.
MIGRATION NI, Forthcoming Exhibition: 31 August – 6 October 2006 The second exhibition on migration opening in September 2006 considers specifically the ‘visibility’ of migrant identity and experience in Northern Ireland. A programme of screenings, discussions, talks and workshops will accompany and contribute to this show.
For further info, www.belfastexposed.org www.belfastexposed.org
