Where are the people?: Contemporary Photographs of Belfast 2002-2010
Karen Downey

Over a decade has passed since the Good Friday Agreement was signed. While representing a time of significant change, the post-agreement period can also be characterised in terms of an experience of waiting- for a new kind of politics and new social and cultural arrangements to emerge. During this time, a number of artists and photographers have sought to represent this process of transition and the inherent tensions between stasis and change, particularly as they play out across the city of Belfast. In Where are the people? Contemporary Photographs of Belfast, 2002-2010, six writers have been invited to reflect upon a series of photographic projects and to think through different images from a number of viewpoints. The photographs are considered from sociological and political perspectives, in the context of photography history and the archive, and in relation to memory and subjectivity. This book presents a series of reflections on the effects of peace on a city that has been, to a large extent, determined and defined through political conflict.

Karen Downey is Senior Curator at Belfast Exposed. Karen also works as an independent curator. In 2009 she curated Northern Ireland’s presentation at the 53rd Venice Biennale with a solo exhibition by Susan MacWilliam, and in 2011 she curated Versions and Diversions at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin. In 2012 she was Lead Curator and Editor for Into the Light: The Arts Council – 60 Years of Supporting the Arts. ¹

Belfast Exposed is Northern Ireland’s premier contemporary photography organisation, commissioning, publishing and showing work by artists and photographers from Northern Ireland and across the world.