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Frag– ments From a Broken KP/SH 01 — Fragments From Curated and edited a Broken World by Anthony Haughey kennardphillipps In association with and Séan Hillen PhotoIreland Festival 2010 World. PhotoIreland Fragments From kennardphillipps Festival 2010 a Broken World and Séan Hillen KP/SH 01 — A newspaper featuring art works by Fragments From a Broken World Séan Hillen and kennardphillipps, with contributions Fragments From from John Berger, Mic Moroney, John Slyce and National Photographic Archive, a Broken World Doireann Wallace Meeting House Sq, Temple Bar Dublin 2, Ireland kennardphillipps of 3,000 and Séan Hillen Date: 01.7.10 — 02.8.10 1 Special Thanks kennardphillipps, Séan Hillen, John Berger, John Slyce, Mic Moroney, PhotoIreland, Angel, Val Connor, Trish Lambe, Sara Smyth, Keith Nally, Elizabeth Kirwan, and all the staff at the National Photographic Archive Curated and edited by Anthony Haughey Publication design by Keith & Jamie at www.makeitworkdesign.com — [email protected] +353 (0)87 278 2658 Printed on 45gsm Newsprint by Datascope © All copyright resides with the artists and authors Published by PhotoIreland on the occasion of Ireland’s inaugural Festival of Photography, 2010 “I Never Read, I Just Look At Pictures” — Andy Warhol KP/SH 01 — 02/16 PhotoIreland Fragments From kennardphillipps Festival 2010 a Broken World and Séan Hillen Fragments From But surely one thing art can still do is to take a stand, and Séan Hillen is well known for his witty and sardonic a Broken World to do this in a concrete register that brings together photomontages dealing with issues of the Northern Ireland by the aesthetic, the cognitive and the critical. And conflict. Hillen spent his childhood and teenage years during Anthony Haughey formlessness in society might be a condition to contest the height of the Troubles living in Newry. In several early works rather than to celebrate in art — a condition to make over Hillen combines images of the gritty reality of living in a highly into form for the purposes of reflection and resistance.1 militarised border town with images of 1970s television heroes, detectives Bodie and Doyle — The Professionals, who visit The three artists in this exhibition, Séan Hillen and Hill Street in Newry, (where the artists grandparents lived) to kennardphillips share a common interest in searching archives investigate a series of psychic disturbances. The juxtaposition for source material to generate their vision of the world. A world of fantasy and ‘reality’ in Hillen’s montages is not as absurd as it that appears strangely familiar despite being turned on its axis first seems. Living in a small town in the midst of a violent conflict to ask the difficult questions that politicians and their PR teams required a fertile imagination and a sense of humour in order to are expert at deflecting. The images they retrieve have previously escape the oppressive presence of armed forces. His Troubles circulated widely in the media, reporting international conflicts, series give form to the artist’s resistance, despite early attempts in advertising campaigns and as popular tourist imagery before to censor this work. being archived in picture libraries, private collections and His later work, IRELANTIS was described by Mic electronic databases. Moroney (a contributor to this edition) as ‘a psychoactive They consider these retrieved images as inherently tourist idyll, with citizens strolling past sunlit wonders’.5 More unstable and open to manipulation to generate new meanings. recently his work investigates the collapse of Ireland’s Celtic Using photomontage, collage and installation methods the artists Tiger economy, drawing attention to the anomalies between set out to rupture the natural order of things by reworking images the utopian worlds envisaged in advertising images used by and documents that pervade and shape our perception of world corporations and financial institutions and the shocking reality events and bear witness to official histories. In a time of political of economic collapse. For this exhibition in the NPA Hillen uncertainty and corporate unaccountability these art works are will include original photomontages from his Northern Ireland an ethical counterpoint to ubiquitous images that advertise and Troubles series as well as more recent work. promote excessive consumerism and corporate greed. Their By plundering these unofficial and emerging archives, the art process is one of postproduction, constantly drawing on artist's disturb the smooth surface of official histories, echoing their own expanding archives using new forms and production Stuart Hall’s interpretation of ‘living archives’ as a field of… methods, echoing Walter Benjamin’s insistence that in order rupture, significant breaks, transformations, new and unpredicted to avoid reification it is vital to continually update the form and departures’.6 Reworking images in this way is transformative; an means of production, to stay ahead of the system that threatens act of resistance. to assimilate radical critique. The written contributions in this edition feature Fragments From a Broken World is installed in articles by John Berger and John Slyce, both respond to the National Photographic Archive (part of the National Library kennardphillipps’ installations and iconic protest images. Mic of Ireland), an institution associated with broadening knowledge Moroney’s article ‘Rumblings in the Dreamland’ considers of the past, where photographs and associated documents Séan Hillen’s photomontages based on the Northern Ireland are carefully catalogued, historicized and mediated for the Troubles, his iconic IRELANTIS series and recent work dealing viewer. For this exhibition however, the artists consider material with the collapse of Ireland’s 'Celtic Tiger' economy. A specially from archives as sites of contestation and resistance. This is commissioned essay by Doireann Wallace investigates the particularly pertinent in a time of the so-called ‘global crisis’, significance of the three artist’s work in relation to political where systemic failures of governance and attempts to paper montage and archives. over the ensuing cracks barely contain the anger and frustration of millions of people. Kennardphillipps have produced a new site-specific installation for the National Photographic Archive exhibition space. This immersive piece places the viewer in the centre of the Iraq Inquiry. The title for this work, “We hope to be finished by lunchtime”… is borrowed from a statement made by Sir 2 John Chilcot, chairman of the Iraq Inquiry during his opening remarks, introducing the ‘evidence’ from former Labour Party spin doctor Alastair Campbell.2 Chilcot’s words resonate with the rhetoric and expediency of the Iraq invasion itself. The artists have searched extensive volumes of written testimonies from the inquiry and juxtaposed these printed transcripts with images taken from archives of press imagery generated in Iraq to produce the work. The use of testimonies recall’s Benjamin and Paul Ricoeur’s account of ethical memory and archives. Memory that is ‘not so much locked into the past, but is concerned with opening the past as mechanism to release the future’3 and recalling John Taylor’s comment that ‘the act of remembrance is also the payment of a debt owed to the dead’.4 In this way kennardphillips’ installation is a counter-memorial to the victims of an unwarranted invasion. 3 Images 02 – 03/16 1 kennardphillipps, Soldier #01, 270cm x 700cm, pigment, charcoal, paper, on newspaper, 2006 2 kennardphillipps, Capital Expense, pigment print, 2006 3 Séan Hillen, The Professionals #2, 1989 1 Foster, H. (2004) 2 For further information 3 Whelan, K. (2005) 4 Taylor, J. (1999) 5 Moroney, M. (2001-4) 6 Hall, S. (2001) ‘Chat Rooms’, published about the Iraq Inquiry Conference Report ‘Shock Photos’, ‘Mic Moroney peers into Constituting an Archive. as ‘Arty Party’, London: visit www.iraqinquiry.org. ‘Rights of Memory’, in D. Brittain (ed.), the bewildering, hilarious Third Text, 84: 89 – 92 London Review of Books uk/transcripts/ in Storytelling as the Creative Camera: and destabilising collages oralevidence-bydate/ Vehicle, pp.11 – 20, 30 Years of Writing. of Newry-born artist Seán 100112.aspx. Healing Through Remembering Manchester: Manchester Hillen’. Available at The transcript of Conference, Dunadry Hotel, University Press, 296 – 300 www.irelantis.com/ Alastair Campbell’s Dunadry, County Antrim, MicMoroney.html. evidence and Sir John N. Ireland 29.11.05. Paul Accessed 8.06.10 Chilcot’s opening remarks Ricoeur refers to testimony is available at www. as ‘ethical or political iraqinquiry.org.uk/ memory’ Paul Ricoeur, media/42384/20100112am- Memory, history, campbell-final.pdf. forgetting, (trans), Accessed 8.6.10 Kathleen Blamey and David 03/16 Pellauer (Chicago, 2004) PhotoIreland Fragments From kennardphillipps Festival 2010 a Broken World and Séan Hillen Blood On The series of prints in ‘Award’ arose out of our need We gritted the scanner; bled on it; threw torn up rags, The Scanner to find a way to express our disgust with the war against Iraq flags and ribbons on it; poured oil, then stamped on the by and attempt to revoke our impotence in the face of the raging stuff, burnt it and spat on the lot. On some of the images we kennardphillipps terrorism committed in the name of democracy. We wanted used photographs taken with great bravery by documentary to use digital technology to make visceral images that used photographers in Iraq. Their commitment to keeping us informed everyday stuff as directly as we could in order to respond to the often showed us the extreme degradation that this war has war’s full horror with thousands of Iraqis being killed. brought upon the Iraqi people. We had been on the anti-war demos. Now the flat bed It is a continuing process as we search for images that scanner became our stage on which we could let rip with our can represent our fury and the fury of the millions who oppose feelings of outrage. We placed medals and bandages, threw dust this action.

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