Archive_Belfast

About The Book

Archive_Belfast by photographer Claudio Hils examines both Belfast’s formal and informal conflict related archives. The experience of conflict is deeply embedded in Belfast’s collective consciousness. Evidence of conflict is contained within information archives throughout the city, where photography is employed as a means of interpreting, objectively, the effects of violence. Medical x-ray technology registers the body as site of trauma, police forensic photography particularises scenes of crime, surveillance cameras militarises civic space. These archives are extensive, systematically organised and primarily contingent on use. In contrast private and semi-public stores of conflict-related memorabilia are presently being formulated into official public archives. As collections of objects (uniforms, propaganda) become redundant, they are recontextualised and transformed into historical artefacts. Archive_Belfast observes a history under construction.