Belfast Exposed

Belfast Exposed

Founded 1983
Website belfastexposed.org

Belfast Exposed are an independent, non-profit organisation and registered charity situated in the Cathedral Quarter, Belfast. Founded in 1983 by a group of local photographers as a challenge to media representation of Belfast’s experience of conflict, their work continues to reflect a socially engaged ethos, while responding to contemporary currents in photography and politics further afield. ¹

History

Thirty years ago, in the period following the intense social and psychological trauma of the 1980-1981 Hunger Strikes, teacher, trade unionist and community activist Danny Burke brought together a small team of local photographers to initiate an exhibition of amateur photography reflecting the experience of Belfast from the inside. The exhibition was called ‘Belfast Exposed’, and initially comprised over 200 photographs and slides, articulating the life of the city from predominately working class perspectives.

Opening on 17 October 1983 at the People’s Theatre, Conway Mill, on the nationalist side of the ‘peace wall’, the exhibition attracted interest from all over the city. Attempting to forge solidarities across Belfast’s sectarian divide, Belfast Exposed, as the group came to be known, represented the work of photographers from a range of political backgrounds, while recruiting a ‘cross community’ steering committee and, wherever possible, bringing exhibitions to venues in neutral and loyalist areas of the city.

Opening the exhibition at the Bank of Ireland Gallery in Baggot Street, Dublin in 1984, Seamus Heaney remarked on the “powerful, democratic feel running through these photographs”, which documented a common experience of unemployment, poor housing and economic deprivation, at once intensified by the effects of conflict and sectarian division and alleviated by the gritty humour of working class Belfast life. In the years that followed, new photographic practices began to emerge in Northern Ireland, providing critical tools for reimagining the future in a rapidly changing region.

While community experience of conflict remained an important focus their work, the challenge was to make this work more relevant and accessible for a new generation of audiences and photographers. Since moving to the city’s Cathedral Quarter in 2003, Belfast Exposed has engaged with many thousands of people: photographers, artists, activists, local communities, visitors to the city, students, school children and the public at large. Each has contributed to a substantial portfolio of exhibitions, publications and projects, often informed by questions that resonate with local experience: representation, identity, history, memory, commemoration and attachment to place. ²

Selected Exhibitions

Selected exhibitions

2022, We, Us, Them, Deirdre Robb, Lesley Cherry, Belfast Exposed
2021, 5th Aug – 25th Sept, Above the Fold, Noel Bowler, Belfast Exposed
2021, 2nd Sept – 2nd Oct, A Blanket of Woven Shadows, David Copeland, Belfast Exposed
2021, 7th Oct – 18th Dec, Beasts of Burden, Paul Seawright, Belfast Exposed
2020, Inside Out – New Photography from China, Group Exhibition
2019, Cordon Sanitaire, Frankie Quinn, Solo Exhibition
2019, Post Truth, Group Exhibition
2019, Arts Council Northern Ireland Collection, Group Exhibition
2017, Let Us Eat Cake, Anthony Luvera, Solo Exhibition
2017, Catharsis, Group Exhibition
2017, Marrow, Jane Cummins, Solo Exhibition
2017, Belfast Exposed Graduate Award Residency, Jane Cummins, Solo Exhibition
2017, Observations, Group Exhibition
2017, Memorabilia, Gábor Arion Kudász, Solo Exhibition
2017, Complete and Utter Happiness, Jacqueline Douglas, Solo Exhibition
2017, Roscommon Arts Centre Photography Award Exhibition: Project Cleansweep, Dara McGrath, Solo Exhibition
2017, Snake, Clare Strand, Solo Exhibition
2017, Thf, Aisling McCoy, Solo Exhibition
2017, Before, Victor Sloan, Solo Exhibition
2017, Proverbs, Robert Ellis, Solo Exhibition
2017, Interactions, Group Exhibition
2017, Reciprocated Gaze, Group Exhibition
2016, Idiolect, Group Exhibition
2016, Oh Well, It Was Red Anyway, Ciarán Óg Arnold, Solo Exhibition
2016, Welcome to Belfast, Martin Parr, Solo Exhibition
2016, Jerwood/photoworks Awards 2015, Group Exhibition
2016, The Thousand Year Old Boy, Yvette Monahan, Solo Exhibition
2016, The Hopeless End of a Great Dream, Declan Clarke, Solo Exhibition
2016, Close To You, Andrew Rankin, Solo Exhibition
2016, Seeing With Your Eyes: The Photographs of Peter Dressler 1972 – 2003, Solo Exhibition
2016, Enquiries, Joanne Mullin, Solo Exhibition
2016, Beyond Maps And Atlases, Solo Exhibition
2016, Contact, Solo Exhibition
2015, Mask, Group Exhibition
2015, Irresistible Drift, Solo Exhibition
2015, Stray, Solo Exhibition
2015, Rural Fluorescent, Solo Exhibition
2015, Tokyo Compression, Michael Wolf, Solo Exhibition
2015, Unfathomable, Geert Goiris, Solo Exhibition
2015, Short Films About Learning, Michael Hanna, Solo Exhibition
2015, An Ulaid, South Down Society Of Modern Art, Solo Exhibition
2014, Home Truths: Photography, Motherhood And Identity, Group Exhibition
2014, Reconstructions, Group Exhibition
2014, Found Not Taken, Edson Chagas, Solo Exhibition
2014, How We Learn, Group Exhibition
2014, Men And Women, Tom Wood, Solo Exhibition
2013, Yu: The Lost Country, Dragana Jurisic, Solo Exhibition
2013, The Market, Mark Curran, Solo Exhibition
2013, Resolutions, Group Exhibition
2013, Northern Ireland: 30 Years of Photography, Group Exhibition
2013, Thresholds, Group Exhibition
2013, A Natural Order, Lucas Foglia, Solo Exhibition
2012, Everyday Selves, Group Exhibition
2012, Enemy Blue, Solo Exhibition
2012, Settlement, Solo Exhibition
2012, Open Shutters Iraq, Solo Exhibition
2012, Prima Materia, Group Exhibition
2012, Churches, Solo Exhibition
2011, Contraband, Solo Exhibition
2011, Men and my Daddy, Solo Exhibition
2011, Silent, Empty, Waiting for the Day, Solo Exhibition
2011, Polonia and Other Fables, Solo Exhibition
2011, Will we be there?, Group Exhibition
2011, Secret Satellites, Group Exhibition
2011, Make it new John, Solo Exhibition
2010, Shadow Play, Solo Exhibition
2010, Shadowlands, Solo Exhibition
2010, I Felt I’d Been Here Before, Solo Exhibition
2010, Daniel Jewesbury and Aisling O’Beirn, Group Exhibition
2010, Playgrounds, Group Exhibition
2009, Habitus, Solo Exhibition
2009, Red Light, Solo Exhibition
2009, The Prehistory of the Crisis (2), Group Exhibition
2009, What You Can’t See, Group Exhibition
2009, MAZE, 2007/8, Solo Exhibition
2009, Ex-Voto, Group Exhibition
2008, 22 – 3 Oct, The Last Things, David Moore, Belfast Exposed
2008, Replications, Group Exhibition
2008, Border Country, Solo Exhibition
2008, The Last Things, Solo Exhibition
2008, Bonfires, Solo Exhibition
2008, 2MOVE: Ireland, Group Exhibition
2008, Residency – Assisted Self-Portraits Belfast, Solo Exhibition
2008, Motherland, Solo Exhibition
2007, Portraits: Reflections on the Veil, Group Exhibition
2007, Suburban Developments, Group Exhibition
2007, 15 May – 27 Jul, British Watchtowers, Donovan Wylie, Solo Exhibition
2007, Knock Three Times, Solo Exhibition
2007, Homelands and Tales of a City, Solo Exhibition
2006, Question for Seller, Nicky Bird, Solo Exhibition
2006, Undergarments and Armor, Tanya Marcuse, Solo Exhibition
2006, Migrations, Group Exhibition
2006, 11 Feb – 26 Mar, The Breathing Factor, Mark Curran
2006, Crossings, Alex Webb, Solo Exhibition
2005, Teenagers, Belfast, Michelle Sank, Solo Exhibition
2005, Still Lovers, Elena Dorfman, Solo Exhibition
2005, The Examination Room, Catriona Grant, Solo Exhibition
2005, Beyond the Family Album and Other Projects, Jo Spence, Solo Exhibition
2005, Sun City, Peter Granser, Solo Exhibition
2004, Archive Lisburn Road, Daniel Jewesbury and Ursula Burke, Group Exhibition
2004, Wendy McMurdo, Solo Exhibition
2004, Three Projects, Gareth McConnell, Solo Exhibition
2004, Archive_Belfast, Claudio Hils, Solo Exhibition
2004, Somewhere…Fast, Mary Maclean, Solo Exhibition
2004, The Maze, Donovan Wylie, Solo Exhibition
2004, Afghanistan: Chronotopia, Simon Norfolk, Solo Exhibition
2003, The Vacuum Raffle, Group Exhibition
2003, Trees From Germany, John Duncan, Solo Exhibition
2003, Topography of Titanic, Kai-Olaf Hesse, Solo Exhibition
2003, Our True Intent Is All For Your Delight, John Hinde, Solo Exhibition
2002, The Zone, Solo Exhibition
2002, 67/89, Solo Exhibition
2002, Memorial, Solo Exhibition
2002, Routes, Solo Exhibition
2001, Red Land – Blue Land, Solo Exhibition
2001, Face Value, Solo Exhibition
2001, Afterwars, Solo Exhibition
2001, Concrete Dreams, Solo Exhibition
2000, The Docks, Richard Adam, Solo Exhibition
2000, Beaches, Trevor Appleson, Solo Exhibition