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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News

Belfast Exposed 35th Anniversary Exhibition

Posted on: 10th October 2018

Belfast Exposed Photography are delighted to announce plans for the opening of their retrospective 35th anniversary photographic exhibition which provides a unique insight into political, cultural and social change in Belfast and beyond since 1983, to be held at the Artcetera Gallery Belfast (exhibition dates: 12 – 24 October 2018).

The exhibition offers an array of powerful and invaluable historical images by the many individual photographers and communities who have engaged with the project since 1983 were selected by Belfast Exposed Co-Founder Sean McKernan and Community Photography Coordinator Mervyn Smyth from the Archive Collection, which contains over 500,000 images.

Following the intense social and psychological trauma of the 1980-1981 Hunger Strikes, teacher, trade unionist and community activist Danny Burke and community photographer Sean McKernan brought together a small team of local photographers to initiate an exhibition of local photography reflecting the experience of Belfast from the inside. The exhibition was called ‘Belfast Exposed’, and initially comprised of over 600 photographs and slides, articulating the life of the city from predominantly working class perspectives. Opening on 17 October 1983 at the People’s Theatre, Conway Mill, Falls Road.

Opening the exhibition at the Bank of Ireland Gallery in Baggot Street, Dublin in 1984, Seamus Heaney described “Belfast Exposed as a marvellous moment” and remarked on the “powerful, democratic feel running through these photographs” which documented a common experience of unemployment, poor housing and economic deprivation, at once intensified by the effects of conflict and sectarian division and alleviated by the gritty humour and reality of working class Belfast life.

Attempting to forge solidarities across Belfast’s sectarian divide, Belfast Exposed Community Photography Project, as the group came to be known, represented the work of photographers from a range of political backgrounds, while recruiting a ‘cross community’ steering committee and bringing the critically acclaimed Belfast Exposed exhibition to communities throughout Belfast and as a result of it’s growing success the exhibition travelled both nationally and internationally up to 2001.

In the years that followed, new photographic practices began to emerge in Northern Ireland, providing critical tools for reimagining the future in a rapidly changing region. While community experience of conflict remained an important focus of our work, the challenge was to make this work more relevant and accessible for a new generation of audiences and photographers. Since moving to the city’s Cathedral Quarter in 2003. Belfast Exposed has engaged with many thousands of people: photographers, artists, activists, local communities, visitors to the city, students, school children and the public at large. Each has contributed to a substantial portfolio of exhibitions, publications and projects, often informed by questions that resonate with local experience: representation, identity, history, memory, commemoration and attachment to place.

Official Opening:             Friday 12th October, 6-9pm

Exhibition Dates:                  12 – 24 October 2018

Gallery Opening Hours:      11am – 6pm, Monday to Saturday

11am – 9pm, Thursday