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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Street View: Chad Alexander

Street View

1st Dec 2022 to 25th Feb 2023

About The Exhibition

From December 2022, Belfast Exposed is proud to be sharing a range of work by Chad Alexander via our Street View installation.

Alexander, a Belfast-based artist and lecturer in photography, uses his work to examine themes of conflict, equity and urban environments. Much of his work is grounded in the built environment of Belfast and how it interacts with the various communities that live in the city. For Street View, he has provided a series of complimentary images from two of his photographic projects, Entires and Bonfire Portraits.

Entries (2016 - 19)

Entries is a series created between 2016 and 2019 in Belfast. Alexander photographed both people and places which underpin the artist’s relationships and experiences in Belfast, a city indelibly marked by decades of conflict. Many of the spaces were photographed at night, transformed by artificial street light and with a great sense of foreboding. Meanwhile, the portraits are created in intimate and domestic spaces; for example, living rooms and back gardens. They are sequenced alongside photographs of public spaces to highlight the conjunctions between public and private spaces, as well as the personal and political.

Bonfire Portraits (2016 - Present)

Bonfire Portraits is an ongoing series. It takes place during the annual celebration of The Battle of the Boyne - held around the 12th of July - that marks the victory of Protestant King William III over the Catholic King James II in 1690. It is a contentious event and time of the year in Northern Ireland. One that has often been a flash point for violence between small groups of nationalists and loyalists, especially at interface areas. For the series, Alexander purposefully avoided the sensational and dramatic aspects of the spectacle and instead turned his focus toward some of the young individuals who attended the celebration events, lit by the huge bonfires that characterise these celebrations, but which are always out of shot in Alexander's work.

By photographing the young people isolated from friends and family, Alexander shows their individuality within a collective identity. People in Northern Ireland are often categorised into two basic ideas of collective thinking and political views, which is an image that dominates media representation at the expense of a more nuanced view.

The Artists

Chad Alexander

Artist Biography

Chad Alexander is an artist and lecturer in Photography from Belfast. His practice is characterised by his home and revolves around themes of conflict, equity and urban environments. Alexander is interested in the frictions between place and identity and how they relate to one another. Within his work, he explores the effects that urban spaces and planning have upon the body and social contexts, especially within post-conflict and working-class environments.

Alexander’s work is exhibited internationally and his work has been exhibited at the Photo Ireland Festival in Dublin, Victoria Gallery and Museum in Liverpool, The Ulster Museum, Belfast and The Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast. His work is held in the collection of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Events

Artist Talk: Chad Alexander

16th February 2023 | 5pm | Belfast Exposed

Free

Acknowledgements

Belfast Exposed is supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Belfast City Council.