About The Exhibition
Bringing together young people from across communities for Coronation Generation
In April 2023, Belfast Exposed worked with over 50 young people from a range of community backgrounds to produce a series of portraits that provide a snapshot of Northern Ireland's youth.
Working with the Ideas Foundation, this was part of the Coronation Generation project that asked young people from communities across the United Kingdom to produce creative artwork to mark the Coronation in May 2023.
'The Coronation Generation creative brief is one that we wanted to share across the United Kingdom - offering students the chance to exercise their creativity in response to briefs on community, diversity, sustainability and youth.
Over three weeks Belfast Exposed arranged and hosted workshops for 50 students from all parts of the community. The photographs and works are inspired by the Cyanotypes, one of the oldest photographic printing processes in the history of photography. The distinctive feature of the print is its shade of cyan blue, which results from its exposure to ultraviolet light.
The young people themselves have been an inspiration. I am blown away by the graft, passion and commitment of Belfast Exposed who are genuinely opening their doors and helping young people see their futures and their community from different lenses'.
Heather MacRae, Chief Executive of the Ideas Foundation who visited the project during the workshops and met with participants added;
To add an additional creative element to this project, we used cyanotype printing to produce these portraits. One of the world's oldest forms of photographic printing, cyanotypes have a unique blue hue and their creation involved hands-on work from all participants.
Launching at Late Night Art on 4th May 2023, an exhibition of the cyanotypes produced as part of the project ran for three weeks in the Studio Gallery. Watch below to see how the project unfolded and what the young people involved thought!
This project was carried out in partnership with The Ideas Foundation, with funding from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport.