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Golden Thread Gallery: Dan Shipsides & Seamus Harahan : The Munter Hitch Project Space : Benjamin de Burca - 20 Mar 2009 to 18 Apr 2009 Current Exhibition |
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Seamus Harahan
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Dan Shipsides and Seamus Harahan The Munter Hitch Exhibition Opening Friday 20th March 2009 @ 6pm until 9pm Dan Shipsides and Seamus Harahan, two of Northern Ireland�s finest contemporary artists, come together in The Munter Hitch, showing video works that blur the lines between documentary film making and visual art. Shipsides and Harahan share a unique relationship with the environment that they occupy and offer the viewer an opportunity to walk/climb into their shoes. If you were blind would you consider rock climbing? Dan Shipsides' works Echo Valley and A Guiding Dilemma creatively document his long term venture of climbing with and guiding a blind man. �I have no sight at all - so I didn�t have any fear climbing � it probably helps not to have any idea of what 20metres looks like from above.� Before Sunrise, by Seamus Harahan, leads viewers through Alexandra Park in North Belfast, following the peace line and its division of neighbourhoods. His second work, Splitting in Two, continues the theme of the separation of communities in Belfast . "If it�s a question of me or you, I never, ever know quite what to do because I�m always too late, I�m biting my nails, I�m splitting in two. If it�s a question of loving you, there�s a barrier that I can�t break through, because I�m lonely and sad, I�m biting my nails, I�m splitting in two." Mark Perry, Alternative TV. This exhibition is in collaboration with the Belfast Film Festival and runs until the18th of April 2009. Gallery open Tuesday � Friday 10.30am � 5.30pm & Saturday 1pm � 4pm Golden Thread Gallery, 84 -94 Great Patrick Street, Belfast, BT12LU T: 02890330920, E: [email protected] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTES TO EDITOR / ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Echo Valley / A Guiding Dilemma Dan Shipsides �I have no sight at all - so I didn�t have any fear climbing � it probably helps not to have any idea of what 20metres looks like from above. As long as it feels safe I enjoy the climbing and I don�t have any fear - it doesn�t come into my mind. The only time I�m scared of heights is in my dreams.� �As an artist it gave me a process of generating new material and ideas. But also John was able to do something new to quite an extensive level. But it�s important for me to say the project wasn�t about giving a blind person access to climbing (John would have done that if he wanted anyway) but that the project was about finding new ways of working and reflecting this experience as landscape.� Echo Valley is a multi screen video installation which presents John climbing Little Bootie (Grade S / 4). It screens in real time (32mins long) and contains close-up footage from John�s fingers - seeking out holds as well as wider footage from cameras on his backpack giving a sense of the body�s vertical height, balance and movement. A Guiding Dilemma consists of video works, text and photography which include the wider aspects of the activity; conversations and the fun, human stuff. This project was funded by the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) under its Landscape and Environment programme and supported by the University of Ulster Art & Design Research Institute. Biog. Dan Shipsides (born 1972 Lancashire, England), Former co-director at Catalyst Arts, Belfast and is now an artist based in Orchid Studios and also currently a researcher at the School of Art & Design at the University of Ulster in Belfast. In 2004 Dan Shipsides was awarded the ACNI Major Artist Award, in 2000 won the Nissan Art award IMMA (Bamboo Support) Dublin and 1998 won the Perspective award, OBG, Belfast (The Stone Bridge). Recent solo and group exhibitions/projects include; Tate Modern (Figuring Landscapes), South London ( Games &Theory;), Castlefield Gallery, Manchester (Radical Architecture)Wings Project Art Space, Switzerland (Performance), Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol (Elastic Frontiers), Konsthall C / Lava Kulturhuset. Stockholm, Sweden (Under plattan, �ngen!), Galerie Wandelbar, Gstaad, Switzerland (Flat-pack Vertigo), ACT, Canberra, Australia (24-7 / Dwell). Platform, Istanbul (Hit & Run), Confederation Gallery, PEI, Canada (Beauty Queens/Pioneers) HEDAH, Maastricht (Rochers � Fontainebleau), Riga Sculpture quadrennial, Latvia (European Space), Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast (Beta), Rialto Santimbrogio, Rome (Think Over), Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin (Pioneers), Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (Sporting Life). Smart Project Space, Amsterdam (Endure). The Alpine Club (Art&Mountains;) and Gimpel Fils Gallery (Nature/Culture) London, Melbourne International Biennial, Australia (Signs of Life). Centre Chor�graphique National de Montpellier, France (Edelweiss). Art Gallery of Mississuaga and Art Gallery of Victoria, Canada (Performing Generations). Seamus Harahan A Belfast-based artist working primarily in film and video. For this show he is presenting two new works. Splitting in Two, 2008 �If it�s a question of me or you, I never, ever know quite what to do because I�m always too late, I�m biting my nails, I�m splitting in two.� � If it�s a question of loving you, there�s a barrier that I can�t break through, because I�m lonely and sad, I�m biting my nails, I�m splitting in two.� Mark Perry, Alternative TV Before Sunrise (2007) is an experiment in response to On a Beautiful Day, a film made by artist KP Brehmer in 1969. He was asked by a friend to retrace a walk along the Berlin Wall and to record it on film. Harahan was asked by a fellow artist to do the same through Alexandra Park in North Belfast. He was given a super-8 camera and one reel of film. The camera leads the viewer to a peace line separating the people of the neighbourhood. His most recent exhibitions include Inevitable Continuum at Locust Projects, Miami, AWingBigCell, Spencer Brownstone Gallery, New York, Nought to Sixty, ICA, London, and Don�t Play my Game Again Ever, Gimpel Fils, London. _______________________________________________ Uncertain Refuge Benjamin de Burca Project Space Opens April 2nd at 6pm- 8pm The exhibition runs until the 16th April 2009 'I cannot walk through the suburbs in solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does.' - Jorge Luis Borges Uncertain Refuge Benjamin de Burca's practice presents diverse artistic concerns and a wide ranging set of registers and styles. However, there are undercurrents informing his work which link it thematically. In many of his recent paintings he appropriates and re-examines the stale tradition of romantic landscape painting in its trivialised form, in his collages he engages with kitsch images sold in discount stores by dismantling them and reassembling them in startling new ways. Employing irony and wit he questions the inherited cultural signifiers through exposure and deconstruction of hidden tyrannies of cultural memory. For this exhibition in the project space of the Golden Thread Gallery, de Burca will present a series of black and white photographs. In these nocturnal scenes our understanding of the nature of reality as a construct of the imagination is explored. What connects these photographs to de Burca's painting and collage work is the particular way in which they engage with physical space. Emerging from an expanse of black the images create an interplay between revelation and concealment, representation and abstraction. They transform the dark into a symbolic, even metaphysical space. The work addresses the dilemma facing artists of putting forward in material form, or by fixing in an image, the volatile, partial nature of what and how we remember. Memory involves forgetting as much as remembering, the imagined as much as the real, it can shift from the historical or collective to the personal or diaristic. The viewers are encouraged to allow themselves to be drawn into the shadowy terrain where the imagination and memory coincide. -Benjamin de Burca For More Information Contact: Deirdre or Ruth on 028 90330920 or e-mail [email protected]. Should you wish to avail of our gallery tour, please contact us for an appointment ________________________________________ North Down Borough Council Art of Regeneration Photographic Exhibition Thursday 19th March 6pm �8pm, Golden Thread Gallery, 84-94 Great Patrick Street, Belfast On Thursday the 19th of March, at the Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, Roisin McDonough, Chief Executive of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Mayor of North Down, Alderman Leslie Cree M.B.E, will open the North Down Art of Regeneration Photographic exhibition, as part of the successful Art of Regeneration Public Art Project in the Kilcooley and Loughview/Redburn estates. North Down Borough Council�s 4-year Art of Regeneration Project, set out to address aggressive paramilitary murals and anti social graffiti through the medium of public art. The project culminates in August 2009 and this exhibition documents how the project has achieved its main aims and objectives. Documentation of the project was an extremely important aspect of the process. The images range from before and after shots of potential sites, removing murals, workshops, site visits and the overall involvement and commitment of the communities involved. This exhibition images are also being collated into a publication, which will be launched in June 2009. The project has created 9 artworks to date, with 2 more being launched in March 2009. 2 have replaced paramilitary murals, a paramilitary memorial has been removed and a contentious area has been regenerated. No artworks created in either area have been vandalised. The North Down Art of Regeneration Project is funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, The Department of Social Development, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive, North Down Local Strategy Partnership through Peace II and North Down Borough Council. For more information on the project contact Lesley Cherry, Art of Regeneration Officer on 028 91 270371 extension 8027 or email [email protected]. The exhibition continues until the 28th March 2009 The Golden Thread Gallery, 84-94 Great Patrick Street, Belfast, BT1 2LU. Tel: [028] 9033 0920 Email: [email protected] Web: www.gtgallery.org.ukOPENING TIMES of Golden Thread - Tuesday-Friday 11am-5pm. Saturday 1pm-4pm. Admission Free. |
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