Michael Hanna

This page is under construction. If you wish to add information to it, read the instructions here.

Michael Hanna

Born 1979, February 22 (Craigavon, Northern Ireland)
Website michaelhanna.org

Michael Hanna is an artist based in Northern Ireland. His recent work has taken the form of social and sensory experiments with myself as the subject. The works set in motion open questions about how things might be altered at micro and macro levels, and how we make sense of the world. These are realised through immersive environments, and long-term performances that are documented with photography, video and text.

Running alongside these works is ‘The Utopia Project‘, an ongoing research project informing his practice and his life, which are becoming increasingly intertwined. As part of this project he has taken a series of trips to utopian sites across the world. These trips constitute first-hand research looking at communities and architectures, building up a visual archive detailing ‘how to live’. His recent solo exhibition ‘Looking Backward’ drew on this research as it brought together new and past works as a way to consider promised futures and the disparities between utopian ideals and local realities.

Exhibitions include PhotoIreland Festival, Dublin Castle (2022), TULCA Festival of Visual Arts, Galway (2022), Crawford Art Gallery, Cork (2022), Chennai Photo Biennale (2021) and The MAC, Belfast (2020).

He has recently completed a residency at Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris (2021), and the Freelands Artist Programme (2019-21), a 2-year fellowship with PS², Belfast and Freelands Foundation, London.

Michael is a co-founder of AMINI, an artist led initiative for the promotion and critical discussion of artists’ moving image in Northern Ireland. ¹ ²

Awards and honours

2022, Artist Bursary, a-n The Artist’s Information Company, Newcastle upon Tyne
2021, Artist in Residence – Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris
2020, Project Grant, The Elephant Trust, London
2020, Artists Emergency Programme – Arts Council of Northern Ireland
2018, Freelands Artist Programme – Freelands Foundation, London
2018, Artist in Residence – Gluck50, Milan
2017, Artist in Residence – NI Science Festival
2016, Shortlist Suki Tea Prize, Visual Artists Ireland
2016, AMINI – Artists in Residence, The MAC, Belfast
2014, Support for Individual Artist Programme – Arts Council of Northern Ireland
2013, Individual Artists Award – City of Culture, Derry~Londonderry
2013, Artist in Residence – Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown
2012, Artist Career Enhancement Scheme – Arts Council of Northern Ireland
2012, Alice Berger Hammerschlag Award – University of Ulster, Belfast
2012, Artist in Residence – Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast
2010, Residency Programme – Digital Arts Studios, Belfast
2009, Andrew Grant Bequest – Edinburgh College of Art
2008, Original Vision Award – Royal Ulster Academy
2007, The Alumni Fund Academic Excellence Award – Faculty of Art and Design, University of Ulster

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

2020, A Living Colour Index, The MAC, Belfast – online
2019, Looking Backward, PS2, Belfast, Northern Ireland
2018, Windows, Timisoara European Capital of Culture 2021, Romania
2017, Short Films about Learning, Lismore Castle Arts, Waterford, Ireland
2017, Predictable Contact, Naughton Gallery, Belfast
2015, Short Films about Learning, Belfast Exposed, Belfast
2013, Behaviour Setting, Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown
2012, Calculated Error, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast

Group exhibitions

2022, TULCA Festival of Visual Arts – Galway
2022, PhotoIreland Festival, ‘Opening the Gates’ – Dublin Castle
2022, Artists in Neighbourhoods – Household Belfast
2022, How Did We Get To: Know So Little? – Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast
2022, Saturation – Crawford Art Gallery, Cork
2021, Maps of Disquiet – Chennai Photo Biennale, India
2021, Quicksilver – Freelands Foundation, London
2021, Mediating Signals, Havelock House, Belfast
2021, Urgencies – CCA Derry~Londonderry
2021, Northern Ireland Mental Health Festival – online
2020, In a Rainbow of Coalitions – The MAC, Belfast
2020, Dissolving Histories: An Unreliable Presence – Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast
2020, ALL IN! – Catalyst Arts, Belfast – online
2019, Radical Arcadia – Zaratan Arte Contemporanea, Lisbon, Portugal
2019, Glasshouse V – Shankill Library, Belfast
2018, Frame Forward: Rather Life – Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis St Paul International Film Festival, USA
2018, Single Channel – Anthology Film Archives, New York, USA
2018, Sights and Sounds of Ireland Today – Solas Nua, Washington DC, USA
2018, 0.1km – online
2017, In Real Time, 126 Gallery, Galway
2017, Windows, Corners of Europe – Gdansk, Poland
2017, CYFEST 10 -Taiga Arts Centre, St. Petersburg, Russia
2016, Windows, Corners of Europe – DSS2016, Donostia/San Sebastian, Spain
2016, Notes on Belfast – ltd los angeles, USA
2016, Suki Tea Prize, Oonagh Young Gallery, Dublin
2016, Afterimage – Belfast Film Festival, Queens Film Theatre
2016, CYFEST 10 – Conferias in Partnership with SOFA, Bogata, Columbia
2015, Les Rencontres Internationales – Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany
2015, Vanishing Futures: Collective Histories XII – Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast
2015, The Numbers Station, University Gallery, Belfast
2015, Windows, Corners of Europe – Haninge, Sweden
2015, GLUMBA SKKZX – Ex Elettrofonica, Rome, Italy
2014, Les Rencontres Internationales – Gaîté Lyrique, Paris
2014, Multiplicity – NURTUREart, New York, USA
2014, Windows, Corners of Europe – Taranto, Italy
2014, Little Kingdoms – Catalyst Arts, Belfast
2013, Off-site project: Distillation Hollywood – Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown
2013, Oscillator – Science Gallery, Dublin
2012, Instances of Agreement – Kao Yuan Arts Centre, Kao Yuan University, Taiwan
2012, The New Adventures of Wonder Woman – PS2, Belfast
2012, Interplanetary Revolution – Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast
2011, Digital Arts in the Gallery – DAS @ Catalyst Arts, Belfast
2011, Contemporary Art and the Moving Image – Galway Arts Centre
2011, Other Perspectives, Millennium Court Arts Centre, Portadown
2010, Futures – Elephant, Los Angeles, USA
2010, Arrivals – Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast
2010, As Seen On The Radio – Mill Street Studios, Dublin
2010, Salon – Embassy Gallery, Edinburgh
2009, Showreel – Collective Gallery, Edinburgh
2008, Colloquiart, The GRV, Edinburgh
2008, Carnival of Souls – Wasps Studio, Glasgow
2008, Royal Ulster Academy – Titanic Drawing offices, Belfast

Projects

A Living Colour Index, 2020
A Living Colour Index is a photo series produced in response to the days and weeks blending together during the first Covid lockdown in Northern Ireland. The interior of the artist’s home was lit entirely with a different colour each week for 7 weeks, moving through the spectrum from red to violet. The colour provided a new sensory living environment within the same space, testing the idea that novel experiences play a part in memory formation and in turn set the parameters for our experience of time. An image was posted online each day with an accompanying quotation related to space, time, perception and memory. The work was originally commissioned by the MAC in Belfast as a digital project to be shown online daily, it has since been produced in a printed format for gallery exhibition.³
Windows, 2014 – 2018
Windows is a collaborative public work with Basque choreographer Asier Zabaleta. The project invites participants to create, answer and discuss questions of personal, local and global interest. Over a 5 year period the project travelled around Europe to Taranto, Haninge, Belfast, Northumberland, Donostia, Gdansk and Timisoara. ⁴
Short Films about Learning, 2015
Video juxtaposing a selection of images taken from the Belfast Exposed photography archive with excerpts from the Yale lecture series ‘Introduction to Psychology’. ⁵
Calculated Error, 2012Funding was secured in advance to correct a series of planned mistakes. These included getting a misspelled tattoo which was then corrected using laser treatment. ⁶

Works

: A Living Colour index is a series of 49 images and texts produced over 49 days during COVID lockdown in 2020.

: Windows invites participants to create, answer and discuss questions of personal, local and global interest.

: Short Films about Learning juxtaposes a selection of images taken from the Belfast Exposed photography archive with excerpts from the Yale lecture series ‘Introduction to Psychology’.

: Funding was secured in advance to correct a series of planned mistakes. These included getting a misspelled tattoo which was then corrected using laser treatment.