Photography, Community and Memory in the Belfast Exposed Collection

贝尔法斯特曝光成立于1983年，是一个以社区为基础的摄影项目，拥有近30年与摄影师合作制作和展示社会参与摄影的历史，是该市唯一一家专门的当代摄影画廊。在这一时期，档案收藏已经增长到50万张照片，涵盖了一系列主题，从游行和内乱到贝尔法斯特社区的日常生活。正是这个集合提供了项目的中心焦点。尽管近年来BX委托了少量的艺术活动，并且相对较少的图像已被数字化并在网上提供，但这些收藏尚未成为任何持续研究的主题。因此，这个项目的目标是做很多事情。首先，了解藏品在不断变化的社会、文化和政治背景下是如何发展的；收藏的历史是已知的，但没有很好的文献记录。其次，探索该收藏对贝尔法斯特及其他地区的社区和观众的当代文化价值。第三，将作品置于对摄影的理解和使用不断变化的背景下，特别是它与社区记忆和历史的关系。第四，向当代观众介绍和展示历史藏品图像的策略。该项目将围绕藏品开辟一个反思空间，探索和讨论一系列问题，包括摄影记录的意义、与冲突后贝尔法斯特的关系、作为视觉历史守护者的组织的责任以及作为城市愿景生产者的机构。该项目将借鉴摄影、记忆和历史方面的理论文献，以及世界其他地方冲突后环境下视觉记录和展示的学术研究，以便将这些藏品的特殊情况置于背景下，并为其解释提供信息。学术和非学术合作伙伴之间的合作有许多好处。对于学术合作伙伴来说，该项目提供了一个扩展摄影研究项目的机会。学生将有独特的访问收集和组织，围绕他们将形成一个博士项目。他们将能够从学术研究中获得理论和想法，因为它们与摄影实践和展示有关，与实践的挑战密切相关。对于非学术合作伙伴，该项目提供了有人与他们一起工作的机会；通过参考其他地方的比较工作，将材料置于背景中，并围绕其文化意义提出新的想法，以及如何为当代受众实现这一点。预计除了学术产出外，还将对该组织的收藏战略产生长期影响。

Founded in 1983 as a community based photography project, Belfast Exposed has a near thirty year history of working with photographers to produce and exhibit socially engaged photography, and is the city's only dedicated gallery of contemporary photography. The archival collection that has grown over this period now contains in the region of half a million photographs, covering a range of subject matter, from parades and civil disturbances to the everyday life of Belfast communities. It is this collection that provides the central focus of the project. Although in recent years BX has commissioned a small number of artistic engagements with the collection, and a relatively small number of the images have been digitised and made available online, the collection has yet to be the subject of any sustained research.The project therefore aims to do a number of things. First, to understand how the collection has developed in a changing social, cultural and political context; the history of the collection is known but not well documented. Second, to explore the contemporary cultural value of the collection for communities and audiences in Belfast and beyond. Third, to situate the work in the context of changing understandings and uses of photography, specifically in its relation to community memory and history. Fourth, to inform the organisation's strategies for the presentation and display of images from the historical collection for contemporary audiences. The project will open up a reflective space around the collection in which to explore and debate a range of issues concerning the meaning of the photographic record, its relationship to post-conflict Belfast, the responsibility of the organisation as a guardian of this visual history and its agency as producer of visions of the city.The project will draw on theoretical literature on photography, memory and history, and academic studies of visual documentation and display in post-conflict settings elsewhere in the world, in order to contextualise the particular case of this collection and inform its interpretation. The collaboration between the academic and non-academic partners has a number of benefits. For the academic partner, the project provides an opportunity to extend a programme of research on photography. The student will have unique access to the collection and the organisation, around which they will shape a doctoral project. They will be able to bring theory and ideas derived from academic study, as they relate to photographic practice and display, into a close relationship with the challenges of practice. For the non-academic partner, the project provides the opportunity to have someone work with them on the collection; to contextualise the material through reference to comparative work elsewhere, and bring forward new ideas around its cultural significance and how this might be realised for contemporary audiences. It is anticipated that there will be a long term impact on the organisation's strategy for the collection, in addition to academic outputs.