Belfast Exposed

Exhibitions

5th Oct - 28th Oct

No Surrender: The Protestants

Belfast Exposed is thrilled to be exhibiting No Surrender: The Protestants, a body of archival work by internationally renown...

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5th Oct - 28th Oct

Not Surrendering

Belfast Exposed presents ‘Not Surrendering’ by Mariusz Śmiejek, an exhibition of images taken from Śmiejek’s forthcom...

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Community

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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4th May - 20th May

Coronation Generation 2023

Bringing together young people from across communities for Coronation GenerationIn April 2023, Belfast Exposed worked wit...

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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.