About The Exhibition
THE MARKET by Mark Curran is a critical and unflinching interrogation of the current context of global stock and commodity markets in the aftermath of the global economic collapse.
In this on-going project, Curran seeks access to the physical spaces that represent centres of global stock and commodity markets; spaces where futures are literally and metaphorically speculated upon. Multi-sited access has been sought in strategic locations and a series of photographs and interviews have been made in the Irish Stock Exchange in Dublin, the financial centres of Canary Wharf and the City in London and the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange in Addis Abeba (established in 2008 and the youngest exchange in the world). While access was unsuccessful in the Deutsche Borse in Frankfurt, it continues in relation to the Bombay Stock Exchange Mumbai (site of the oldest exchange in Asia) and the New York Stock Exchange.
Curran excavates these locations focusing on their operating functions, and the individuals who inhabit and labour in these spaces. It is the tension between the human individual experience and the increasingly cyber-based, algorithmic systems that govern the Market that provides an underlying sense of urgency to the project. Conceptually pivotal to THE MARKET is a desire to make visible an understanding of such sites, to explore their interconnectedness and to illuminate the lack of general knowledge about the systems that control and regulate the Market. Through this project, Curran enables a reading of the Market that takes it out of abstraction and positions it as a real and pervasive force that is absolutely central to our lives.
The artist has taken an ethnographic approach to the project, amassing a substantial body of research incorporating; photography, verbal testimony, digital video, artefactual material as well as the correspondence negotiating access to the sites. In the installation at Belfast Exposed, the relationship between the individual and the abstract algorithmic systems of the Market is heightened through a sound piece designed by Ken Curran that permeates the gallery space.
This exhibition is part of a larger series of visual art events marking the centenary of the 1913 Dublin Lockout, a project curated by Helen Carey, Director Limerick City Gallery of Art. Partner organisations include Belfast Exposed Photography, Gallery of Photography, Dublin, Limerick City Gallery of Art and CCA Derry-Londonderry.
The Artists
Mark Curran
Mark Curran is and artist and educator who lives and works in Berlin and Dublin. He completed a practice-led PhD through the Centre for Transcultural Research and Media Practice, Dublin Institute of Technology (2011), lectures on the BA (Hons) Photography programme, Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT), Dublin and is Visiting Professor on the MA in Visual and Media Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin. Incorporating multi-media installation informed by ethnographic understandings, Curran has undertaken a cycle of projects addressing the predatory context resulting from the impact of migrations of global capital. Completed over the last 15 years, these include SOUTHERN CROSS (Gallery of Photography/Cornerhouse 2002), The Breathing Factory (Edition Braus/Belfast Exposed/Gallery of Photography 2006), the outcome of his doctoral research, and Ausschnitte aus EDEN/Extracts from EDEN(2011) which have been extensively presented and published, including, DePaul Art Museum (DPAM), Chicago (2010), Xuhui Art Museum, Shanghai (2010), Encontros da Imagem, Braga (2011), PhotoIreland, Dublin (2012) and FORMAT 2013, Derby, England.
Events
30th August | 12.30pm | Belfast Exposed
Free Admission1st October | 2pm - 3pm | Belfast Exposed
Free Admission3rd October | 1pm - 1.45pm | Belfast Exposed
Free AdmissionAcknowledgements
THE MARKET is supported by Arts Council NI and Belfast City Council. It is also supported through Project Funding from the Arts Council of Ireland in addition to support from Department of Foreign Affairs, Government of Ireland, Dublin City Council.
The help and advice from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Dublin, the Embassy of Ireland in Ethiopia, the Embassy of Ireland in Germany, the Embassy of Ireland in Great Britain and the Ethiopian Embassy in Ireland, the Irish Stock Exchange, the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange, Addis Abeba is gratefully acknowledged.
The artist would like to sincerely thank all those individuals who contributed their time and engagement to the project including the staff at the ISE, traders and staff at the ECX and those individuals working in Canary Wharf and The City, London. Further to thank Deirdre Somers and Emer Cobbe (ISE, Dublin), Aidan O'Hara (DFA, Dublin), Ato Tsehaye Gebrekidan (Ethiopian Embassy, Dublin), Dr. Eleni Gabre-Madhin and Taika Fantaye (ECX, Addis Abeba), Sean O'hAodha, Elleni Kedebe and Ato Hailu (Irish Embassy, Addis Abeba), Eugene Forde (Irish Embassy, London), Martin McCabe, Ann Marie Curran, Jamin Keogh and Ken Curran.