Hatje Cantz
Claudio Hils
Archive_Belfast
Edited by Belfast Exposed Photography, texts by Anna M. Eifert-Körnig, Klaus Honnef, John Taylor
2004. 120 pp., 44 color ills.
28.30 x 28.60 cm
hardcover
ISBN 978-3-7757-1391-7
“This book is worth buying for the text alone, but combined with Hils’ profound and eloquent photographs, it is a remarkable publication.” Eyemazing
This unusual photo essay by Claudio Hils documents the persistent, omnipresent traces of violence as revealed in public and private archives in Belfast.
The experience of conflict is deeply embedded in Belfast’s collective consciousness. Evidence of conflict is contained within information archives throughout the city, where photography is employed as a means of interpreting, objectively, the effects of violence. Medical X ray technology registers the body as site of trauma, police forensic photography particularizes scenes of crime, surveillance cameras militarizes civic space. These archives are extensive, systematically organized, and primarily contingent on use. In contrast private and semi-public stores of conflict-related memorabilia are presently being formulated into official public archives. As collections of objects (uniforms, propaganda) become redundant, they are recontextualized and transformed into historical artifacts. Archive_Belfast observes a history under construction.
Exhibition: Belfast Exposed Photography, Belfast April 9 – May 21, 2004 Galerie J.J. Heckenhauer, Berlin November 20, 2004 – January 4, 2005
