Belfast Exposed

Exhibitions

7th Mar - 1st Jun

Our Archive: 40 Years of Belfast Exposed

As part of this year's ongoing celebration of our 40th Anniversary, the Belfast Exposed Archive is taking over Gallery II wi...

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6th Feb - 30th Mar

Navigating Queer Landscapes

We are delighted to be working with the Queer Artist Forum to bring the work of two of its members to Embrace Style, the incl...

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Community

25th Sep - 7th Oct

Young People Behind the Lens

Over the summer, a group of young people from Start 360 explored the cityscape of Belfast. They found new ways to see the...

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21st May - 22nd May

Showing the faces of dementia with Alzheimer’s NI

Ahead of the Alzheimer’s Society Annual Conference 2019 (ASAC19), Belfast Exposed was commissioned by Alzheimer’s NI to w...

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Becoming Christine

Gallery 1

11th Dec 2020 to 19th Dec 2020

About The Exhibition

Belfast Exposed is delighted to present Becoming Christine by Amanda Dunsmore, an exhibition based on the lived experience of Christine Beynon. It is a body of work involving re-presented "selfies", sound installation and video portraiture. The "selfies" follow Christine Beynon's journey and transition over a 12-year period.  These self-portraits range in tone from the painful, to the playful, from the mundane to the contemplative to the joyful. The immersive sound installation & narrated artwork was a result of a collaborative partnership between the artist and Christine Beynon. This exhibition is part of Belfast Exposed’s three-year strategic plan to exhibit work about transgender topics.

A presentation of Becoming Christine in the form of a video portrait of Christine will accompany the sound installation, photographs and accompanying publication. The video portrait depicts Christine outside her home in rural Galway; a home she self-built for her family.

The legacy of Becoming Christine in combining specific artistic elements which together create an exhibition based in portraiture, is not only reflective of an individual finding themselves but is also reflective of the enormous socio-political change that has taken place in Ireland & England over the past sixty years.

Christine’s ongoing and remarkable journey to full self-realisation and the bravery of this act, make her a true pioneer. “Every time I go outside my front door it’s a political statement,” according to Christine.

The exhibition opens on Thursday 19th November and will include a live streamed artist talk featuring both Christine Beynon and Amanda Dunsmore on Friday 20th November, to coincide with Transgender Awareness Week which takes place between 13th and 19th November. We will also have speakers and community engagement events (dates to be confirmed).

The Artists

Amanda Dunsmore

Artist Biography

Amanda Dunsmore explores how societal transformation is represented through portraiture. She works with video, sound, photography and installation. Through sculpture and media, she has developed her practice over the past twenty-five years. Her contextual portraits evolve through long periods of research and the work is often presented as a series of extensive socio-political / historical art projects. Central to Amanda’s art practice is an exploration of potential future memory in society, the accumulative legacy of portraiture in archiving history and the long-term value of socio-political art making.

Amanda Dunsmore has exhibited widely in Ireland and internationally and her artworks can be found in private and public collections. Amanda is a lecturer and programme leader in Sculpture & Combined Media at Limerick School of Art & Design, LIT.

Amanda Dunsmore is currently working on two artworks representing female Austrian social reformers, commissioned by the socially engaged art organisation, Kunstraum Goethe Strasse xtd; a synthetic media/AI portrait, 'Curling Up with Reality' and 'The Green & The Belvedere', an artwork of a prominent Austrian political activist to be filmed in Vienna, 2021. Amanda is also currently writing 'Accumulative Legacy Practice: Art Making as Longitudinal Social Archiving and Reflection' a chapter for a 2021 Vernon Press publication.

The Jackman Goldwasser Research Residency at The Hyde Park Arts Centre, Chicago, USA, plus a research visit to Århus and Copenhagen, to explore representations of socio-political change in Denmark, have both been postponed for future dates. In January 2021, filming production will take place for the portrait of Ireland’s pioneering Transgender rights activist, Dr Lydia Foy.

www.amandadunsmore.com

Events

Artist Talk: Amanda Dunsmore & Christine Beynon

Date to be confirmed | 1pm | Belfast Exposed & Live Streamed

Free Admission

Acknowledgements

'Becoming Christine' at Belfast Exposed is generously supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Belfast City Council.