belfast photography dance arts photographer exhibition

Life isnt about waiting for the storm to pass…

…its about dancing in the rain. Or so the saying goes.

One of my arts clients is local dance company DU Dance. DU Dance aims to introduce young people to dance and the creative arts and through a variety of programmes and I have been working with them for the last 12 years.
As part of their BelFEST 15 celebration of youth dance they asked me to curate three concurrent exhibitions as part of the festival. One of the exhibitions is on a single display stand in Belfast City Hall, another on two display stands at the Theatre at the Mill in Newtownabbey and the third is a traditional framed hung display in the Crescent Arts Centre gallery. As part of the exhibition in the Crescent I will also be doing a series of talks around dance photography, arts photography in context and in the media and photography in general all tailored to specific different audiences.

The exhibitions are part of a week long series of events including flash mob events in City Hall and Writers Square as part of Culture night and an evening Youth Dance showcase at the Theatre at the Mill Newtownabbey featuring groups from all over the British Isles.

The photographic exhibition was in three parts, two with mounted photographs on display boards at Belfast City Hall and the Theatre at the Mill and one main exhibition in the Crescent Gallery in Belfast.

belfast photography dance arts photographer exhibition

belfast photography dance arts photographer exhibition

belfast photography dance arts photographer exhibition

belfast photography dance arts photographer exhibition

belfast photography dance arts photographer exhibition

belfast photography dance arts photographer exhibition

belfast photography dance arts photographer exhibition

belfast photography dance arts photographer exhibition

The curation involved revisiting the entire archive over the last 12 years including scanning something called ‘film’ and creating panels of images tailored to each display and to each audience. For the Theatre at the Mill display I also liaised with the other groups participating to produce a display featuring images from all the groups.
Both board exhibitions were produced from a large panel of images all printed off at 12×8 and mounted with simple black card mounts with white core and heavy card backboard. I’ll not say how much material was delivered but it came on a pallet! The framed photos were all 18×12 with a cream mount and simple black frame. All this is really irrelevant to the discussion except to highlight how difficult it was and how much work was involved!

It wasn’t my first exhibition but was certainly the most challenging, particularly multi site, different formats and tailored for different audiences.
The festival culminates with events as part of Culture Night and at the theatre at the mill and hope they don’t have to dance in the rain although I will pack my waterproofs and covers for the cameras just in case!