Camera Obsolete?

EXTENDED UNTIL SATURDAY, 4th JULY

Belfast Exposed is delighted to host ‘Camera Obsolete?’ – a participatory installation and major public exhibition confronting the collapse of photography’s mechanical era. Conceived and produced by Belfast Photo Festival, audiences are invited to destroy, dismantle, recast or resist the transformation of obsolete cameras into new sculptural forms.  Part participation, part spectacle and part material transformation, the exhibition forces questions of authorship, truth and the erosion of photography as a physical, tangible medium.

Dismantle, recast and resist activities are open to all ages, with no booking required.

Bring your own camera or choose one of the hundreds available on display. Everyone is invited to gather, sort and rework the mechanical fragments into new sculptural forms. The resulting objects will remain on display throughout the exhibition and will ultimately inform a permanent public sculpture for Belfast Botanic Gardens. Alternatively, visitors can choose resistance over destruction by adopting an old camera and returning it to use, asserting the continuing value of photography as a physical medium in an increasingly synthetic image culture.

‘Camera Obsolete?’ reframes photography’s transition not as quiet decline, but as a charged, creative and public act. It marks a moment in the medium’s evolution and mechanical history, inviting audiences to engage directly with what is being remade and reimagined. As image-making enters an algorithmic and AI-driven age, choose to question, confront, create or simply watch.