rbg

2012-02-21T12:30:00.000-08:00

Robert Mercer

An Irish Australian not looking for trouble.

Robert Mercer recalls how his family left Portadown for Australia in 1958 with photographic clarity: he remembers sitting in a black cab with his Mum and Dad and his two brothers, one of his brothers was crying. This lesson in grasping the pathos in each adventure has never left him. His photographic practice in Australia ranges from ‘straight’ documentary photography to manipulated painterly Polaroids, to scanned digital images, to whimsical phone-cam diaries. Yet in each genre he manages to blend extraordinary beauty with a sense of heartbreak.

Consequently, Mercer’s long career as an image maker is marked by being political without seeming to try to be political. In his ground-breaking documentation of life in Australian Aboriginal communities, for example, he avoided sensationalism by concentrating on happy moments that nonetheless alluded to the troubled state of indigenous life.

It is also thus when he makes the pilgrimage home to his birthplace.

The photographs in the present show record a view of Ireland perhaps too well known by Irish people to prompt photographic recording. A sensibility honed by exile, however, and nostalgia for a homeland barely remembered, enable Mercer to capture that which is quintessential about Ireland but taken for granted by its inhabitants. At the same time, it is framed within an understanding of contemporary issues.

Invited to a commemoration of the battle of Boyne, Mercer chooses first and foremost to photograph not the marches, the pomp and spectacle, but the humble family ritual of gathering, waiting at the station, boarding a train, pulling out from the platform. The people in these photographs are thus not posing for a public spectacle but just being themselves. Nonetheless, there is a tension and an excitement about the occasion. The troubles just do not go away.

In Australia, such commemoration is almost unthinkable. European history and all its triumphs and animosities are as remote for us as its geographical location. But cultural character is fashioned through vicissitudes. So simultaneously there is a sense of loss in Australia, for community spirit has fewer opportunities to be re-enacted. Australian culture is moulded from far fewer iconic events and its myths of the past are less present in everyday reality. Mercer senses this, and sees such commemorations in Ireland as an opportunity to capture a living Irish character.

It is the contradiction between social conflict and aggression on the one hand, and solidarity and social cohesion on the other that exposes the rich human character of Irish society. To an Australian, the personalities on both sides of the conflict appear to share more similarities than they possess differences. When Mercer does photograph marches, it is the human face of its participants that he concentrates on: a group of indeterminate allegiance winding down the hill, children carrying banners, a guild flag proudly hoisted. Somehow, it is not the disputes themselves but the fervour, the sheer involvement in community that matters.

But Mercer is nonetheless also Irish. He is aware of the tragedy that underlies the passion. He is able to capture eternal Irish optimism and doggedness in his photographs of a storm-tossed voyage from Tory Isle to Donegal yet also see reflections of explosions in a window. Thus Bernadette Devlin at a march or Gerry Conlon of the Guilford four in a street debate, are as ordinary in Mercer’s Ireland as gawkers gathering in response to a car detonation, an empty barricaded street, a heavily armoured lunch wagon parked next to a housing estate, or a pall of smoke enveloping the city. At the same time, there is a romantic streak in his photographic choices. His street shots invariably reveal an eye for a pretty girl or a soft spot for a pub musician.

This ability to merge contradictions is at its best when Mercer chooses to do portraits. Borrowing the format of security mug shots he nonetheless captures vibrant young personalities. His series of colour portraits thus undermines the mug shot convention from within. His subjects emerge as wonderfully human rather than dehumanised: victorious over all the vicissitudes that have beset Ireland.

Robert Mercer is a senior lecturer at Queensland College of Art , Griffith University. He has remained research active through activities as an individual visual artist and collaborator. His research has centred on new technology based mediums and applications in photo media and installation, the position of contemporary art in post-modern societies, and the relevance of art practices in cross cultural communications. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally and has worked in numerous collaborations with Australian indigenous and non-indigenous artists. His work is in public and private collections including the Queensland Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Australia.

2012-01-10T05:01:00.000-08:00

"The Death and Life of The Shankill"
1981-2011

Paintings by Stephen Shaw

February 2012

A collection of over 40 paintings chronicling the redevelopment and changing face of the Greater Shankill area of West Belfast from the 1980's to the present.

Award winning Artist Stephen Shaw has been painting and photographing the changes to his native area of Belfast for over 30 years and this Exhibition brings together much of this ongoing project to the public for the very first time.

Many of the paintings, some made over 25 years ago have never been seen before, others will be familiar to collectors and admirers of his work.

This Exhibition will be of great interest to anyone interested in the ongoing changes our City is still going through and records in detail the effects the wholescale redevelopment of the Shankill area had on the landscape and life at the time.

An important historical document, it also showcases Stephen's skill as a painter in watercolour. A true "Labour of Love" bringing out the very best in his talent.

A selection of Stephen's photographs taken in the 1980's may also be on display.

2011-12-13T05:44:00.000-08:00

'Up Above Down Below' exhibition by Francis Morgan

Belfast born artist, Francis Morgan, who has this year published a beautiful hard-backed children’s/art book entitled: Up Above Down Below, is perhaps best known for his giant puppets and animated sculptures, creatures and inventions which have appeared at events nationally and internationally. His designs, concepts and creations have added a touch of the unusual to such momentous occasions as the Special Olympics opening ceremony in Croke Park 2003, the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony 2002 and numerous pageants, projects and parades.

A recent exhibition of the original paintings from Up Above Down Below alongside other pieces of artwork by Francis was recently hosted by the Ulster Museum as part of Belfast Festival at Queen’s to an amazing response from the visiting public.

Up Above Down Below is packed with intricate, intriguing and very colourful illustrations, excellently reproduced by local company Nicholson & Bass and woven into a captivating story set in present day N. Ireland.

The story follows the adventures of four dragon friends who set out from their underground home in the Mourne Mountains to discover the wonders of “The World Outside.”

Exhibition of over 40 original artworks now on display in Red Barn Gallery till 24th Dec. Signed copies of works and book available.

2011-11-21T12:54:00.000-08:00

‘Hidden Voices’ Images of Homelessness

The homeless are amongst the most isolated and disadvantaged people in society. The Westcourt Centre’s ‘Hidden Voices’ project aims to capture and share the personal experiences of people that are homeless or have been homeless in order to raise public awareness of the issue and highlight their marginalisation.

The exhibition was produced by men and women who are currently or who have recently been Service Users with a number of voluntary sector homelessness service providers including DePaul Ireland, Morning Star House, Simon Community NI and The Welcome Organisation.

The images give voice to their experiences and show others what it’s like to be sleeping rough or staying in temporary accommodation.

The project offers a unique insight into what it’s like to be homeless from a range of individual and personal perspectives, including young and old, male and female.

Hidden Voices is supported by The Community Foundation for Northern Ireland’s Voices Programme. ‘VOICES: Participation for Social Justice’ was established in 2010. The programme offers funding and support for locally based projects that are run by, and for people who may be experiencing some form of disadvantage and/or marginalisation.

The photographs will be exhibited at the Red Barn Gallery in Rosemary Street, Belfast from 2pm on Friday 25^th November to Saturday 3^rd December 2011.

The gallery is open Monday to Saturday from 10am-5pm.

The exhibition is open to the public and admission is free.

The event is running in conjunction with National Homelessness Awareness Week 2011. The full schedule of events are listed on www.chni.org.uk

2011-11-21T12:22:00.000-08:00

David Alexander Photography Exhibition

This is David’s first solo exhibition, and it runs 11^th-19^th November at the Red Barn Gallery, part of Belfast’s 5^th Annual OUTBURST Queer Arts Festival.

Pieces include fine art landscapes taken on a recent USA tour - New York, San Francisco, Point Reyes, Big Sur, Sequoia National Park, Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley and Las Vegas during April and May 2011.

Also on display are autographical pieces that chronicle the past 10 years of David's life with his partner Vincent and that of their son.

Also displayed will be David's "Elegies" series, taken during the 2010 Belfast production of “Elegies for Angels, Punks & Raging Queens”, a powerful and moving piece of theatre about those who have died from AIDS and the people they leave behind. Music and performances from the “Elegies” soundtrack CD will be played during the exhibition and CDs are available for purchase (all proceeds from CD sales are donated to The Rainbow Project in Belfast).

David Alexander hails from the County of Down, in the foothills of the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland. He has travelled widely but has chosen to remain based in Down, in the historic town of Newtownards on the Ards Peninsula.
With a strong background in local history, Victoriana, and information technologies, photography has over the years increasingly become a fascination.

Landscapes and cityscapes are his first love, however experimenting with long exposure projects, creative avant-garde portraiture and specializing in low light social imagery, also provide an outlet for skills and vision.

2011-10-11T10:20:00.003-07:00

'Shattered Dreams' by Judah Passow

60 Images from 4 times World press photo award winner - part of the Festival at Queens 2011 - Exhibition preview Thursday October 13th, 7-9pm. Exhibition runs to October 29th. Judah will be at preview to sign copies of his book.

Shattered Dreams revisits the Israel-Palestinian conflict within Israel, the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon. Taken on newspaper and magazine assignments over the last 25 years, acclaimed photojournalist Judah Passow’s images are more than simply a journalistic record of conflict and turmoil. They are the product of a very personal journey of exploration across the emotional landscape of the country in which he was born and for whose survival he once wore a uniform and fought.

From both sides of the Israel-Palestinian divide, Judah uses his critical eye and signature black and-white photography to take us on an empathetic journey to a place where people glorify their past, curse their present, and have difficulty imagining a future.

Judah Passow has been working on assignments for American and European magazines and newspapers since 1978.

Based in London, his work has been published extensively by all of the leading British newspapers and their associated magazines, including the Guardian, the Observer, the Times and Sunday Times, the Daily and Sunday Telegraph and the Independent. Abroad, he has contributed regularly to Time, Newsweek and the New York Times in America, Der Spiegel and Die Zeit in Germany, Elsevier magazine and De Volkskraant in Holland, Das Magazin in Switzerland and L'Express in France.

A winner of four World Press Photo awards for his coverage of conflict in the Middle East, his photographs have been exhibited in London, York, Leeds, Glasgow, Amsterdam, Paris, Arles, Perpignan, Tel Aviv, New York, and Washington D.C.

In 1995 Passow formed Further Vision, a new media production company, to explore the possibilities for combining traditional photojournalism with digital technology. His CD-ROM, Days Of Rage, based on his work in Beirut from 1982 to 1985, received critical acclaim in the British press for its journalistic integrity and technological innovation.

He was an Artist In Residence at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in 1998, where he directed the New Media Centre's Digital Photojournalism Laboratory, and has served as a consultant to the Soros Foundation's Open Society Institute, training photojournalists on newspapers in the former Eastern Europe. He is a frequent lecturer on photojournalism at British universities.

His book Shattered Dreams, looking back at twenty five years of his coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, was published in 2008 and accompanied by major exhibitions in London, Hamburg and Jerusalem. It was nominated for the Deutsche Borse Photography Prize.

Passow graduated from Boston University in the United States in 1971.

Photography critic Steve Mayes noted in Reuel Golden's book "Witness: The World's Greatest News Photographers", that "Judah Passow has an extraordinary ability to distil complex situations into powerfully loaded images that are deceptively simple to look at. He starts with a conceptual overview of a political or social situation and looks for circumstances that demonstrate the human reality, producing clean, graphic frames that combine metaphor and actuality. His signature black-and-white technique has cut-glass clarity and beauty with a sensual quality that seduces the viewer to engage with even the grimmest reality. He is driven to extremes of professional endeavour by his idealistic belief in the power of photography and technical perfectionism."

2011-08-03T09:47:00.000-07:00

Bill Kirk 'Sandy Row 1974'

Exhibition launch, Thursday, September 1st, 2011

Selection of images from Sandy Row taken in 1974 including Klondyke Bar, Festival, 12th July and some faces and places. Part of the Red Barn Autumn programme. Show runs to October 5th.

DUE TO HIGH INTEREST EXHIBITION EXTENDED TO OCTOBER 8TH

HERE IS A SHORT SELECTION OF THE OVERWHELMING NUMBER OF COMMENTS LEFT IN RBG VISITORS BOOK. WE WOULD LIKE TO SAY THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR KIND WORDS AND SUPPORT.

13/08/11 Sinead O'toole RBG brilliant venue. Superb stuff

13/08/11 Sally Visick Belfast Excellent exhibition

13/08/11 Paul Grimly Dundonald Excellent images. Black and white rocks!

14/08/11 Holly Meadows Belfast Pictures are sometimes better than words, amazing

16/08/11 Headliners Rosemary Street Incredibly interesting and informative

16/08/11 Kim & Fionn London Fascinating, new worlds are opening up for me in old places

17/08/11 Marie Hannon Galway Really fascinating exhibit, “the power that an image holds”

19/08/11 Collette O’Neill Lisburn Fascinating window into the past. Excellent photographs...

22/08/11 A. McArdle Oxford, UK Great nostalgic shots

24/08/11 Lesley Paisley London It captures life, hope & despair. Great pictures...

25/08/11 P. Moore Nairobi Good pictures, excellent documents & warm welcoming! Just miss some information about some pictures but I asked and the discussion was very interesting!

25/08/11 Robin & Stephan Manchester Interesting seeing sights of the city today through the troubled times, really puts the ‘riots’ recently in London/Manchester into perspective

01/09/11 Clair Regan Co. Antrim Fabulous as always!

photograph by Bill Kirk

Red Barn Archive - Group Show

as a part of Belfast Photo Festival
5th August - 25th August 2011

This exhibition represents the launch of the Red Barn Gallery archive, consisting of 50 selected photographs taken by some of the countries most respected photographers. Covering the last 5 decades and some of the most prominent moments in Northern Irelands history the archive consists of approx 160,000 images and continues to grow.

Photographer Unknown

2011-08-03T09:27:00.001-07:00

Anything but a still life...

Margaret Hamill’s dedication to bringing art into the community as a unifying force was as vibrant as her extraordinary paintings. A new exhibition of the late artist’s work at Belfast’s Red Barn Gallery offers a rare and welcome opportunity to experience the vision and energy of her images.

The Margaret Hamill Retrospective is showing at the Red Barn Gallery, 43b Rosemary Street, Belfast Thur June 30 – Sat 16 July (Gallery closed 12-13 July)

Landscapes which are as internal as they are external; large scale abstracts which create wholly new worlds –vibrating with colour and intensity - within the spaces they inhabit; figurative works that evoke universal experiences from a uniquely personal perspective; and collages that allow chaos to find harmony - Margaret Hamill’s painting is elemental, engaged and often elegiac.

West Belfast-born Margaret Hamill worked for several years as an addiction counsellor in England before returning to Belfast to study at the Art College as a mature student. After graduating with honours, she became a significant figure in the city’s art world driven not only by her own need to evolve as an artist, but by the conviction that creativity was a universal human need, with the power to breach barriers, both internal and external.

Hamill was the charismatic co-founder and chairperson of the Blackstaff Artist’s Collective, which helped to transform West Belfast’s Blackstaff Mill into a dynamic artistic force in the community. The Collective sought to create a space for all forms of creative media and for all sections of the community. It attracted participants from throughout Ireland, and throughout the city. Margaret was active in inspiring and engaging young people through creativity, and acted on a cross community basis, encouraging creative self expression as a means of deflecting self-hatred and damaging preconceptions.

Having come late to art (she was 42-years-old when she started painting), Hamill’s life experience informed the expectations she had of art; it was not hermetically sealed in the elitist art world. It was inclusive and, above all, necessary. The art world was our world, and it was not just about interpreting our environment, but changing it.

For Hamill, the concept of interface was one of boundless potential; interface was where the personal interior met the exterior environment; where the individual met the collective; where society met itself. Her community activities, therefore, were inseparable from her beliefs about the role and scope of art.

This principle is evident in her work. Initially figurative, it became more abstract as she evolved. Frequently starting her abstract work with collages, she allowed a certain degree of chance to inform her finished work and, according to close friend and fellow artist Mary Therese Keown ‘She was tremendously excited by the possibility of creating worlds that perhaps represented her internal imagery.’ The more figurative works on show are intensely expressive.

Hamill’s work rapidly became sought after and has taken its place in many private and public collections, including that of the DOE. The Red Barn exhibition, however, will be the first public outing of a collection of Hamill’s work since her untimely death in 1998 and, as such, represents an unmissable opportunity to experience a very vital vision.

2011-05-26T12:14:00.001-07:00

Tomasz Tomaszewski. Hades: Upper Silesia, Poland - Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival and Polish Cultural Week.

This project pays homage to people who perform hard manual labour. Workers who were once were very proud of their positions are now losing their jobs due to the recession.

In Upper Silesia, Poland, the work ethos, traditions, and related customs are alive and colourful. But, in recent years, half of the existing coalmines here were shut down, along with 70% of the heavy industry factories. These photographs depict tasks, places and objects that are becoming things of the past. It is a story about Silesia and what it is today.

Tomasz Tomaszewski has had his photos published in the world’s major magazines including Stern, Paris Match, Geo, New York Times, Time and numerous others. His numerous individual exhibitions have been held in the U.S., Canada, Israel and Japan, Madagascar, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy and Poland. He is the winner of Polish and international awards for photography. For over twenty years, he has been a regular contributor to National Geographic Magazine, where 18 of his photo essays have been published. Tomaszewski teaches photography in Poland, the U.S., Germany and Italy.

2011-05-26T11:46:00.001-07:00

Bill Kirk 'A retrospective'

From March 24th - April 26th the RBG is delighted to present a retrospective of the reknowned photographer Bill Kirk.

As well as his better known images from the book 'Images of Belfast' (Blackstaff 1983), we will be re-producing a selection of previously unseen images from his book, 'The Klondyke Bar' (Blackstaff 1975).

A catalogue and a new publication of 'The Klondyke Bar' with over fifteen new images is be on sale at the RBG.

2011-05-26T11:40:00.000-07:00

Frankie Quinn - A retrospective

Have a look at the works of the Gallery's Director, Frankie Quinn. His images from Ireland, Bosnia and Kurdistan are on sale. Purchases will help to support the funding of the gallery.

"My work has brought me on many occasions into the thick of events and incidents that have marked the conflict in the north of Ireland for nearly 30 years. It has also taken me on several occasions to other areas of conflict around the world, to Bosnia and Turkish Kurdistan in the mid 1990s and in 2002 to Palestine and Israel. Some of the images have been used by newspapers, magazines and journals. I have also had the good fortune to be invited to exhibit my work in Britain, Europe, Australia and the USA."

2011-05-26T11:38:00.003-07:00

BLINDSPOT: a DOCU photographic/sound exhibition by Elvina Porter - McCullough

2011-05-26T11:34:00.001-07:00

Sex, Art & Politics by Patrick "Quinn" Magee

Patrick Quinn Magee (1934-2006) was an extremely talented Irish painter, cartoonist and illustrator. He was born in Belfast and was educated at St. Malachy’s College in the city, and later at Trinity College, Dublin. It was whilst he was in Dublin that he launched his artistic career, working for the Evening Herald and RTE and gaining commissions from, amongst others, the Dublin Corporation to paint murals to “lighten the bleakness”. In 1968 he joined the staff of International Publishing Corporation in London and his work was circulated widely throughout Europe and the USA – his commission work also increased and his works are held in many collections throughout the world. “Quinn” returned to his native city in 1978, where he continued to work as a freelance artist, illustrating magazines and novels, and beginning a long and productive association as a political cartoonist with The Sunday Tribune – where he was the resident staffer - and the popular Irish satirical magazine, Magill. In 1980 he won the highly coveted Award of “International Artist of the Year” at the International Exhibition in Berlin.

The first exhibition of his water-colours was a joint venture with his friend and Irish artist, the late and much admired Charles (Charlie) McAuley, and was held in Belfast in 1986 at The Eimear Gallery. It was entitled “The Last Age of Innocence” and captured some of the personal recollections of his youth growing up in the Belfast of the 1950’s. This proved such a resounding success that another solo exhibition was held in 1987 and, until his untimely death in 2006, “Quinn” Magee held over 20 exhibitions of both his water-colours and oils throughout Ireland.

Like any true artist, Patrick “Quinn” Magee painted what he knew and his work was in many ways a reflective prism into the man and the way he liked to live his life... gently, honestly, thought provokingly and uniquely passionate. All those who knew him have said after his death that he was true gentleman who lived to paint rather than painted to live.

2011-05-26T11:30:00.001-07:00

The II part of the story by Jakub Swiderek

Jakub Swiderek is a Polish independent photographer based in Belfast. He graduated from Melchior Wankowicz School of Journalism in Warsaw. He is a member of the Red Barn Gallery. He arrived at NI in 2004 and since then he has been documenting every day life in Post Conflict Belfast. In 2006 he was awarded first prize in Young Photography Competition organized by Ateneum Fundation in Warsaw for his first selection of photographs from NI . 'The II part of the story' exhibition is a selection of his work up to date.

2011-05-26T11:06:00.001-07:00

STEFANIA GURDOWA as a part of Polish culture week 2010

Eleven years ago, at the attic of a tenement-house in the town of Dębica, there were discovered over a thousand of damaged glass negative plates. Most of them depicted expressive portraits of anonymous individuals living in the neighbourhood in the 20’s and 30’s.

One could tell hardly anything about an author of the plates at the first look, although there was her name on them. Yet deepened research of the group of photographers gathered in Visavis.pl and Imago Mundi Foundation shed more light upon the person which appeared to be unusual: an independent, consequent, gifted woman whose workshop remained far away from grand cultural capitols and who performed her art while taking ordered portraits of her neighbors: shopkeepers, craftsmen, peasants, priests and Jews.

Gurdowa, the distinguished artist, died in 1968. The flat was cleaned after she had passed. The immense photographic archive was disposed and wasted. Only a fracture of her art lasted, together with a question without an answer: who hid a collection of glass plates behind a wall in the attic of her workshop in Dębica. Perhaps was it her own decision to preserve them this way. As a responsible professional she must have obviously been aware of the rule that “negatives are to be stored”.

2011-05-26T11:04:00.000-07:00

Ardoyne - The Aftermath by Hugh McKeown

In July of this year, Belfast’s Red Barn Gallery exhibited a collection of eye witness photography documenting the after effects of the burning of Bombay Street on 14-15 August 1969. Their most significant effect, perhaps, has been to bring to light the photographic collection of the late Hugh McKeown, who, while helping evacuate his family, captured the impact of the burning of Ardoyne on its people and its streets.

Hugh, like Gerry, was a remarkably talented amateur. His images express an instinctively artistic vision and an extraordinary empathy, which makes them as emotionally compelling as they are historically valuable.

Hugh shows us British soldiers enjoying an impromptu tea party (complete with cups and saucers) on a demolished street, he shows us groups of people regarding their streets with stupefied disbelief, he shows us buildings which, only hours before were family homes, reduced to scorched ruins. In one image, two children pose at the wheel of a burned out bus. The bus’s destination – Falls via Ardoyne – forges a strikingly ironic link between the two collections of photographs. As Ardoyne burned, so did Bombay Street on the Falls.

Hugh’s exceptional photographs are to be seen in public for the first time thanks to his widow, Terry McKeown, who was encouraged, after seeing the Bombay Street exhibition, to unearth his collection and show them to Frankie.

Frankie says: ‘Hugh was an amazing and truly gifted photographer. He had an amazing ability to capture ordinary people struggling to cope in extraordinary circumstances.

Exhibition open to public at the Red Barn Gallery, 43b Rosemary Street, Belfast, BT1 1QB.

18th September – 22nd October

10am – 5pm. Admission is free.

2011-05-26T10:59:00.003-07:00

Bombay St. - taken from the ashes

A historically unique series of photographs, taken by an eyewitness and never before seen collectively in public, is set to commemorate the 40th anniversary of a tragic watershed in the history of Northern Ireland, at Belfast’s Red Barn Gallery.

fot. Gerry Collins/RBG

FROM ANY PERSPECTIVE the burning of west Belfast’s Bombay Street on 14th-15th August 1969 marked a pivotal moment in the history of Northern Ireland. It heralded the deployment of the British Army onto the streets of Belfast, and sparked the emergence of the Provisional IRA.

The event was a catastrophe of failed communication. In a climate of growing distrust and division, the Catholic street was burned out by its Protestant neighbours, while the RUC withdrew, leaving the situation to a British Army not yet familiar with the contours of conflict. When the Army finally entered the area, one soldier described the sight that greeted them as ‘resembling a scene from WWII’.

It was this scene that local man Gerry Collins captured on camera, as firefighters were still dousing smouldering homes. Collins, a keen amateur photographer with an instinct for composition and the expressive image, secured the only known visual record of the event. The medium format camera used by Collins secured exceptional quality of image.

fot. Gerry Collins/RBG

The Red Barn Gallery’s director, Frankie Quinn (himself a highly respected Belfast photographer) says: ‘Forty years after the Bombay St incident I was presented with a box containing 50 stunning images, which had never been seen in public before.

‘These images are the only existing record of that fateful night, and they provide a forceful, eloquent and historically significant first-hand view of its impact.

‘Gerry has decided to reveal this amazing set of images to coincide with the 40th anniversary of this momentous event in local history. He’s bringing the past to the present, for the benefit of the future.

fot. Gerry Collins/RBG

‘By making the photographs accessible to everyone, and making them a subject for widespread historical record, we hope that the exhibition will create the conditions for discussion about the consequences of the failure of dialogue and its long term effects on all of us.

‘With forty years’ of hindsight, we hope that the images will create a space where conflict can be reflected upon, rather than engaged in. The exhibition will also provide an unmissable opportunity for the public to benefit from a historically unique record which may otherwise have been lost forever.’

Bombay St – taken from the ashes opens Thursday 25th June 2009 at the Red Barn Gallery, 43b Rosemary St, BT1. Entrance free.

Editor’s notes

For more information about the Red Barn Gallery contact:

email: theredbarngallery@gmail.com

tel: Frankie Quinn 0782160883 or Royce Harper 07754585604

All images copyright of Gerry Collins / Red Barn Gallery

2011-05-26T10:28:00.001-07:00

Iconic moments of the troubles

Over the last three decades Frankie Quinn has worked on a variety of topics. "My work has brought me on many occasions into the thick of events and incidents that have marked the conflict in the north of Ireland for nearly 30 years. It has also taken me on several occasions to other areas of conflict around the world, to Bosnia and Turkish Kurdistan in the mid 1990s and in 2002 to Palestine and Israel. Some of the images have been used by newspapers, magazines and journals. I have also had the good fortune to be invited to exhibit my work in Britain, Europe, Australia and the USA."

fot. Frankie Quinn/RBG

John White also built up a vast collection of photographs taken in and around his native Belfast. After his death, White's collection was subsequently handed over to Red Barn Gallery for safe keeping. He’s one of the finest photographers that Belfast has produced, and he certainly deserves recognition.

Current Exhibition by two outstanding Belfast photographers takes you through the 70s, 80s and 90s in the north of Ireland.

2011-05-26T10:23:00.001-07:00

THE RED BARN GALLERY in Belfast is to host the launch of Northern Ireland’s third Polish Cultural Week on Saturday 2nd May. The event will springboard a week long showcase of Polish cultural and artistic expression across all platforms.

In its second year of involvement with the project, the Red Barn, a photographic gallery, will host the powerful 802% Above the Norm exhibition, which features the work of photographers Henryk Makarewicz and Wiktor Pental from The Visavis.pl Photographers’ Collective. It casts a sharply ironic light on Poland’s years under communism and many of the images on show spent over half a century in hiding from the consequences of state censorship.

The exhibition’s title reflects the state’s propagandist claims that front rank mining and construction workers could exceed work targets by anything up to 2000 per cent, during the construction of the city of Nova Huta (Communist City of Dreams) during the forties and fifties. The state-sponsored images of ‘workers’ (many were models) wearing sashes detailing their target-thrashing achievements aimed to provide poster boys and girls for a long working week.

The photographers’ own pictures, however, explore the migration of masses from the countryside to industrial labour in Nowa Huta’s Lenin Steelworks; a project which sparked a communist myth of sublime socialist realist planning and art, which clashed with the brutal urban reality of its inhabitants. The conflict between myth and reality led to expressions of resistance which eventually resulted in the Solidarity revolution of the eighties and the collapse of Polish communism.

See opening speeches by gallery director Frankie Quinn, Szymon Szyndlar from The Visavis.pl Photographers’ Collective and exhibition curator Jakub Swiderek.

Both photographers chronicled the construction of Nowa Huta from the foundations up and, although the images are all based in the city, they are a powerful representation of contemporary Polish life under communist rule.

Henryk Makarewicz enjoyed certain privileges as a cameraman for the Polish Film Chronicle. Taking pictures in places denied to others, he and his camera were inseparable. Wiktor Pental on the other hand witnessed almost every corner of the new city as a part of his duties on a construction site. Both photographers seized images that they were not contracted to take and the result is an archive with exceptional visual power and universal human impact.

Makarewicz’s formal precision and Pental’s deft humour complement one another perfectly.

Exhibition curator Jakub Swiderek says ‘It’s by understanding one another’s history that we understand one another, and this exhibition is a powerful reflection of Polish cultural history.’ The Red Barn Gallery’s Director, photographer Frankie Quinn, says ‘These are brave and exceptional images which have as much impact today as they were when they were taken.’

Project by Imago Mundi Foundation & Visavis.pl Photographers’ Collective

Fot. Marcin Wilkowski