PhotoIreland Festival / Belfast Photo Festival 2011
Long Way To Paradise Yaniv Waissa Mark Curran Dan Shipsides Diarmait Grogan David Blackmore Paul Corcoran Virginie Rebetez Sarah Sudhoff Stephen Gunning Darby & Peters
SuperMassiveBlackHole Presents
Long Way To Paradise A photographic installation featuring the work of ten selected artists from the magazine:
Yaniv Waissa/Mark Curran/Dan Shipsides/ Diarmait Grogan/David Blackmore Paul Corcoran/Virginie Rebetez/Sarah Sudhoff/Stephen Gunning/Darby & Peters SuperMassiveBlackHole was invited to present a special exhibit as part of PhotoIreland Festival and Belfast Photo Festival 2011. The title of this group exhibition is taken from the Belfast punk band Stiff Little Fingers song It’s A Long Way To Paradise (From Here), which deals with the daily grind of living in an economically deprived urban environment - a broken city. The song’s title set the tone for this exhibition which sets out to reflect the current frustrations resulting from the recent economic collapse and political upheavals as interpreted through the urban environment and its inhabitants. This exhibition will show the work of 10 engaging photographers from Ireland and around the world, whose work explores the contradictory nature of living in a modern city; combining a sense of anxiety and hope, of inertia and freedom, and of dreams and reality. PhotoIreland Festival - 15th - 31st July 2011. Magazine and Book Fair, Filmbase, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, Republic of Ireland www.photoireland.org Belfast Photo Festival - 4th - 12th August 2011. Platform Arts, 1 Queen Street, Belfast BT1 6EA, Northern Ireland www.belfastphotofestival.com SuperMassiveBlackHole is a free online photography magazine, based in Ireland but open to the world. It is published three times annually as a downloadable PDF in both print and screen resolutions. SuperMassiveBlackHole accepts submissions and invites individuals to contribute, please see the Submission Guidelines on the website for details. Time, Space, Light & Gravity are what drive SuperMassiveBlackHole
www.supermassiveblackholemag.com
Yaniv Waissa
Disintegration of a Revived Nation (The Heroes Bridge, Haifa, 2008; Grand Canyon, Haifa, 2009)
www.waissa.com
Mark Curran
www.berlinphotoworkshops.de
F. O. German History (Untitled, Forst, Niederlausitz, Brandenburg, Germany, May 2007; Untitled, Cottbus, Niederlausitz, Brandenburg, Germany, June 2007)
Dan Shipsides
Let’s Get High, 2007; Alternative Ulster, 2008
www.danshipsides.com
Diarmait Grogan
New Way Home, 2011
www.groganphotography.com
David Blackmore
Ceiling
www.davidblackmore.co.uk
Paul Corcoran
IN/BETWEEN (Untitled, Berlin, 2010); Empty Promise (Ingrained, Welsh Valleys, 2010)
www.paulcorcoran.info
Virginie Rebetez
Visiting Jane (Untitled #1; Untitled #2, 2009-2010)
www.virginierebetez.com
Sarah Sudhoff
www.sarahsudhoff.com
At The Hour of our Death (Suicide with gun, Male, 40 years old (II), Texas, USA, 2010; Overdose, Female, 30 years old, Texas, USA, 2010)
Stephen Gunning
Untitled, la commune, Paris 2011; Untitled, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris 2011
Angela Darby & Robert Peters
Plot I, Bangor, Co. Down, 2007; Plot II, Bangor, Co. Down, 2011
www.adarbyrpeters.com
About the works:
Yaniv Waissa
The Heroes Bridge, Haifa, 2008 Grand Canyon, Haifa, 2009 From Disintegration of a Revived Nation My photographic journeys lead me all across the country- my hometown, the city where I currently live and places I see for the first time through my camera lens. Wherever I go I examine the relationship between man and nature and the, sometimes absurd, connection and constant tension between past, present and future. I create an intimate atmosphere in every frame and put my personal feelings, emotions and nostalgia into it. Everywhere I go I recognize a personal memory that can ignite a collective memory of the viewer. I deal with the urban revolution, manifested in the massive construction of buildings, roads, bridges and all kinds of huge concrete structures. Man is gradually reducing nature and neutralizes the past in its path. The project deals with the changing generations. One generation is fading and its cultural remaining is being replaced by a new generation that deserts its’roots and creates a new, alienated, form of esthetics. In this new age we live in we’re exposed to an endless stream of information. We get that information immediately from a huge verity of medias. It seems that the information overdose is causing us to ignore our environment and miss out on the constant changes in the small details that eventually change our world, without we even notice. In this project I intentionally produce images that are lacking human presents in order to focus the viewer on the magnificent work of art we call a metropolis. During the years that this project is in progress, I often came to think on the duality of this urban landscapes. On one hand these landscapes are impressive and emphasize how small we, humans, actually are. On the other hand it seems to have the ability to help us come to terms with the concrete and steal horrors that surround us. I’m interested in taking the viewer into my journeys, to stimulate the viewer to feel and to interpret this reality according to his own personal charges.
Mark Curran
David Blackmore
Untitled, Forst, Niederlausitz, Brandenburg, Germany, May 2007 Untitled, Cottbus, Niederlausitz, Brandenburg, Germany, June 2007 From F. O. German History
Ceiling, Galway, Ireland
Dan Shipsides
Let’s Get High, 2007 Alternative Ulster, 2008 Graffiti on the hoarding of the under construction Obel tower in Belfast. Both images were exhibited as billboards. Let’s Get High became the title of an art project with teenagers which explored the high buildings and places in Belfast in 2007. It was made into a public art billboard for this project. http://www.danshipsides.com/DshipsidesWeb/LGH.html
The image is of the kitchen ceiling in my Uncles home, built by my Grandfather in 1941/42. My mother was born in this house and all my Aunties and Uncles were raised here. The interior, empty voids of this dwelling, are reminiscent of an older romanticised Ireland. The building emphasises the changes that the country has gone through in the not too distant past. The absence of blood relations, now spread across the globe is testimony to the long running history of economic emigration - a tradition that continues today and one I am part of. Within this image the cold light represents the illumination of a harsh reality that economic reversal has provided. The materialistic veneer of the Boom years has now been stripped away via the probing examination of acute fiscal downturn. This highlights the difference between contemporary Ireland and the dizzy heights reached during the so called Celtic Tiger, exposing the false economy personal and institutional. While commenting on the present day Ireland, it also brings to mind the simpler Ireland that is exported and romanticised.
What is paradise? Happiness? What makes you happy? Can it be measured by personal and/or national affluence or the attainment of materialistic Alternative Ulster (after the 1979 Stiff Little Fingers song - from which the objects? Or is it the desire for a simpler way of life evoked via memories graffiti originates) also became a public art billboard for the Art, Media and viewed through the rose tinted glasses that hindsight offers? Contested Spaces Biennial in Belfast in 2008. http://interfacebelfast.com/projects.php?id=46
Diarmait Grogan From New Way Home, 2011 At their most basic, my photographs are concerned with the poetic qualities of everyday life.‘New Way Home’incorporates autobiographical elements into a non-linear narrative on longing, loss, joy, intimacy and vulnerability. The result is a highly subjective reflection on the human condition. Disparate experiences coalesce in a body of work that is ultimately concerned less with an external reality than with highlighting ‘fragmentary moments of interior significance’.
Paul Corcoran
Untitled, (Berlin, 2010) From IN /BETWEEN Ingrained, (Welsh Valleys, 2010) From Empty Promise IN/ BETWEEN is an on-going exploration of the transitional times and transient spaces of youth Empty Promise was produced as a response to the growing cycle of youth unemployment, a direct result of global economic events affecting thousands of young people right across the UK and Europe. Political rhetoric
promises much yet delivers little only adding to the isolation, emotional distress and fear for future prospects being felt by so many. Addressing this reality through a combination of portrait, vacated workspace, landscape and text the work opens up a window onto a situation that shows little sign of easing and will directly impact the economic prospects of effected regions long into the future.
Virginie Rebetez
Untitled #1 Untitled #2 From Visiting Jane, Los Angeles, USA, 2009 - 2010 Visiting Jane is like a pilgrimage. A visit to crime scenes where people died 10, or sometimes even 25 years ago, and who have not yet been identified. The Jane Doe and John Doe of Los Angeles County. Through research in the archives of the Los Angeles Police Department/Cold Case Unit, I found information about the locations and the belongings of the deceased. It enabled me to visit these locations, create an imaginary map and connect the dots to set up a constellation. The work was included in a book, which contains pictures and extracts from the Police archives. (...’She had kinky hair that was either red, brown or black’...’a blue football jersey that had two stripes on the sleeve and the number‘44’on the back of the jersey’...’She had a gap between her upper front teeth which would have been noticeable in smiling photographs or to her family and friends’...)
Sarah Sudhoff
Suicide with gun, Male, 40 years old (II), Texas, USA, 2010 Overdose, Female, 30 years old, Texas, USA, 2010 From At The Hour Of Our Death Death, like birth, is part of a process. However, the processes of death are often shielded from view. Today in Western society most families leave to a complete stranger the responsibility of preparing a loved one’s body for its final resting place. Traditional mourning practices, which allowed for the
creation of Victorian hair jewelry or other memento mori items, have fallen out of fashion. Now the stain of death is quickly removed and the scene is cleaned and normalized. As Phillipe Aries writes,“Society no longer observes a pause; the disappearance of an individual no longer affects its continuity”. At age of seventeen, I lost a friend to suicide. While visiting his home the day after the event, I witnessed a clean-up crew steam cleaning the carpet in his bedroom. All physical traces of the past 24 hours had vanished. These large-scale color photographs capture and fully illuminate swatches of bedding, carpet and upholstery marked with the signs of the passing of human life. The fabrics which are first removed by a trauma scene clean up crew, are relocated to a warehouse before being incinerated. I tack each swatch to the wall and use the crew’s floodlights to illuminate the scene. The images are my attempt to slow the moments before and after death to a single frame, to allow what is generally invisible to become visible, and to engage with a process from which we have become disconnected.
Stephen Gunning
Untitled, la commune, Paris, 2011 Untitled, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, 2011 These works are from a series produced while on residency at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, France 2011
Angela Darby & Robert Peters Plot I, Bangor, Co. Down, 2007 Plot II, Bangor, Co. Down, 2011 Plot I and Plot II document areas designated for re-development as part of a project entitled ‘The Gold Coast’. In Plot I a family home purchased by a developer is left to deteriorate through vandalism until the market value increases. In Plot II a disputed tract of land is claimed by an aggrieved resident. The artists are interested in exploring the interlocking concepts of ownership, aspiration, territory and identity.
SuperMassiveBlackHole Presents
Long Way To Paradise At PhotoIreland Festival 2011 and Belfast Photo Festival 2011
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SuperMassiveBlackHole’s Long Way To Paradise was curated by Barry W Hughes www.supermassiveblackholemag.com / smbhmag@gmail.com All images in SuperMassiveBlackHole’s Long Way To Paradise exhibition and this catalugue are the sole property of their named creators unless otherwise stated. No image in the catalogue may be used in any way without permission of the copyright holder. The SuperMassiveBlackHole magazine title and logos are copyright ©2008 - 2011 Shallow publications. All rights reserved.