Stranger Next Door
Community Exhibition in Association with New Belfast Community Arts Initiative
Stranger Next Door is an art project of local relevance developed by the New Belfast Community Arts Initiative.
Around 240 Young people ages 8-25 years have used the medium of photography to explore their common experiences and addresses issues of living and growing up in peace line/interface areas in Belfast.
The Stranger next door exhibition draws together 12 individual and unique collaborative projects with young people, arts providers and contemporary visual and lens based artists. Each project aims to creatively explore themes of self and community identity and solidarity through different processes and formats of photography. The resulting exhibition is an exciting fusion of traditional documentary photography and new media.
The exhibition features a diverse range of works compiled from the vast quantity of works created, and includes:
Model houses made by after-schools groups on both sides of the Roden Street area of South Belfast in conjunction with visual artists from Fat Arts.
A combined music and photographic installation created by Young People from Star neighborhood Centre and Duncairs Community Centre in North Belfast in collaboration with Wheelworks.
In East Belfast the BT5 project, a collaboration with Wheel Works and Young Men’s Groups in Short Strand and Albertbridge Road have developed digital images based on territory, culture and fantasy/ideal street.
Belfast Exposed collaborated with Young People fro Forth-Spring Inter Community Project in West Belfast on the creation of documentary and billboard images.
Children from Traveller’s Association and Holy Trinity Youth Clubs in the Turf Lodge area also collaborated with artist Peter Richards in the creation of large scale pin-hole photographs.
Finally full size billboard images combine Young People’s images from Strangers Next Door with poetry generated through the New Belfast’s Poetry in Motion project.
This exhibition is spread over two venues and is curated by Peter Richards and Gail Prentice.
The projects have been generously supported by DCAL & BELFAST EUROPEAN PARTNERSHIP BOARD
Supported by Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Belfast City Council