Forget the ‘troubles’, the dissidents and NI’s tenuous hold on the Good Friday Agreement, Belfast’s simply flourishing with festivals. And it’s with excitement I attend a splattering of the events of the inaugural Belfast Photography Festival.
Held between the 4th and 14th of August, with nearly 50 events in 20 locations, ranging from the newly refurbished Ulster Hall, to little back street galleries it would take a sleuth to find; and with events including talks, exhibitions, walks, workshops and book launches, I’m left dizzy with the prospect of what to see and what I may regret not seeing.
August 6th sees The Third Space Gallery hosting Cork born, Dublin based, Miriam O’Connor’s exhibition Attention Seekers. In conversation with Matt Packer – curator of Cork’s Lewis Glucksman Gallery – Miriam talks the 15 or so attendees through her influences, techniques, scale and placement of photos selected. The title of the exhibition is somewhat misleading, though through explanation, the listener and most importantly, the viewer, O’Connor’s quirky view on life through a lens starts to make sense.
Instead of myriad of screaming colours, carnivals and Big Brother wanna-be’s the title suggests, Attention Seekers is an exploration of a more subtle and intimate style. Of the 21 pictures on show, only two have human subjects, just one has a hint of a horizon and the rest are snapshots of domestic or natural mundanity, often within the same picture. Such intimacy with O’Connor’s’ private-world-view, often bordering on claustrophobic, leaves the viewer with a tense sense of the invited voyeur.
Speaking of shot selection Miriam says: ‘I always carry a camera and with several projects on the go at any one time I never operate to a theme or in a linear matter. It is when the pictures are developed, scales played with and photos looked at again and again, a theme develops. With this exhibition I found the world without horizons an interesting model.’ With Attention Seekers published in countries as far-a-field as Australia and the US, and a New York pundit describing O’Connor as ‘my latest crush’, the horizon and future seem rosy for this Bjork-like pixie of the photographic world.
Jumping from the sublime and intimate to the horrific, and sometimes darn right funny, Golden Thread Gallery hosts a talk with renowned photo-journalist Alan Lewis. Working through the height of the ‘Troubles’ to the present day, Lewis’s work has appeared in multitudes of national and international newspapers. Capturing the horrors of the 1976 Kingsmill massacre of 10 Protestant workers by the PIRA, the Omagh bomb of 1998 and more besides, Lewis describes the ingenious methods he and his colleagues went to in order to secure the all important front-page shot: badgering neighbours to get into their houses to capture scenes cordoned off by the security services, chartering a plane to Richard Branson’s doomed 1987 trans-Atlantic balloon crossing which crashed off Rathlin Island, to liaising with paramilitaries both sides of the divide to picture ‘shows of strength’, all in-still a respect to the bravery or madness of those who ran toward the bombings while the sensible ran away.
Humour is also to be found. The benign idiot-behind-the-throne Dennis Thatcher captured minutes after departing a helicopter still wearing the protective ear muffs brings a moment of joy to what is in essence a humbling remembrance of the horrors of the North’s recent past.
Arguably the most poignant picture is that of trail-blazing, nationalist politician Gerry Fitt, staring at the remains of his wedding album following the provos firebombing of his house in 1983. Concluding the informal Q & A session, Lewis sums up his experiences saying: ‘If you ever had a sectarian thought before entering this kind of career, you’ll surely have none left at the end.’
Place Architectural Studio hosted the walking tour of Belfast’s art-deco buildings on August 13th. With tour guide Rosie Hickey and architectural photographer Todd Watson leading the way, the group is led around a square mile of the city centre given descriptions of the when, what and by whom some of Belfast’s most oft overlooked and understated buildings of the period. Post WWI with modernity, steel-framing and a stoic resolution to escape the classical, we’re invited, instructed and invoked to try and find the souls’ of buildings which remain constant reminders of a classic age. It’s hard to believe such restraint in architecture flourished when Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies extravagance is deemed the bench mark of the era.
Starting from Imperial House beside City Hall, the group is asked to find contrast to to neighbouring buildings. With five minutes per venue and with articulate explanation and instruction the group is led up Ann Street’s beautiful Burtons’ building displaying cascading Egyptian-style motifs, elephant trunks and verticality which only the educated would appreciate. Buildings four, five and six, all offer differentiations showing the development of art-deco design, but it’s the burnt corpse of North Street Arcade which grants the most obvious curiosity. Thankfully planning permission has been approved for its resurrection.
There was so much to see, much more to write, but word count counts and I must leave you to the photos taken.
With 18 nationalities on show, loads of visitors and the next BPF planned for 2013, there’ll be much more to see.
by Conor O’Neill
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