Belfast Exposed ~ Presents " Migrations"

Thursday, 22 June 2006 13:26

Belfast, Ireland - MIGRATIONS is part of a multi-stranded project being developed by Belfast Exposed exploring different experiences of migration.  There will be a second exhibition in September 2006 considering specifically the ‘visibility’ of migrant identity and experience in Northern Ireland.  This first exhibition, until 25 August, will feature major works on the subject of migration by well-known, contemporary artists and researchers; Anthony Haughey, Andrea Lange, Breda Beban, Penny Siopis and Terence Wright.

Between (2005) by Anthony Haughey
Migrations will feature a number of photographic portraits from Anthony Haughey’s Between series.  Between is a collaborative visual media project critically exploring negotiation of citizenship with residents in a Government of Ireland Reception Centre for Asylum Seekers.

Refugee Talks (1998) by Andrea Lange, DV-Cam/DVD, 33 min
Refugee Talks consists of nine sequences, each DV-Cam/DVD, 33 min featuring one or several persons performing a song.  The protagonists are all refugees from different countries who lived in the same reception centre in Oslo during the winter of 1998.  Each of them chose a song that was relevant to their own situation, and to the film they appear in.  The work is shot at various locations within the reception centre in the common rooms or the family rooms.  The title is taken from Bertolt Brecht’s Flüchtlingsgespräche (written in exile 1940-41).

Arrivals (2003) by Breda Beban
Photo series, 2003/2005, C-type prints
Breda Beban’s work is about subjectivity and emotion occurring on the margins of big stories about politics, geography and love.  Arrivals is a series of 8 sets of four photographs evoking in an uncomplicated and explicit way an experience of absence felt by those inhabiting the space between an unbroken desire (longing) and a broken sense of belonging.  Each set of photographs depict; a picture of a bed(s), a picture of a window in bedroom, a picture of scene from a window and a close-up on some aspect of the same scene from the window.  These photo-works are structured like narratives: they are literally a story of an escape, of a journey and of arrivals.