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Genesis Lost at Fort Dunree
21.10.19
GENESIS Lost is to be
hosted by Artlink from October 26 to November 16,
2019 at the Saldanha Suite in Fort Dunree. This is
the premier showing of a new exhibition by Mhairi
Sutherland. The project explores the history and
landscape of former military airfields along the
eastern coastline of Lough Foyle and the military
architecture of a ‘Trainer Dome’ located near
Limavady.
Mhairi Sutherland has explored military
archaeologies and their relationship with
photography over a number of locations and projects;
from Lough Swilly, Lough Foyle and Belfast Lough to
the east and west coasts of Scotland and more
recently as far afield as Linköpinginin, Sweden. Her
approach draws both on personal experience and
collaborations and partnerships using archives,
experimental photography and drawing as connected
strands of a larger narrative. She embraces
contradiction, chance and association. |
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Genesis Lost at the Saldanha Suite in Fort Dunree is
open Monday to Friday 10:30am - 4:30pm and Saturday
& Sunday 12 noon - 6pm from October 26 to November
16, 2019. |
Mhairi first came
across the main focus of Genesis Lost whilst
researching the landscape of derelict military
airfields around Lough Foyle. Part of the former
Limavady Air base stood out amongst the more
conventional conflict architecture; an isolated,
bitumen-black spherical structure, suggestive of an
extra-terrestrial form, marked it out as having a
particular purpose. The building was an
anti-aircraft training dome, conceived, designed and
built in order to train WW2 gunners to shoot down
enemy aircraft. Over 40 were built throughout the UK
in the 1940’s and this is the only one remaining in
Northern Ireland.
Within these domes photography and the moving image
were employed for the first time to help train
gunners to improve the accuracy of their firing in
combat. Films specially made by Pathé and Ektachrome
were projected, with accompanying sound effects,
against the interior of the dome, as trainee
gunners, using a rotating gun tower, took aim at
emerging filmic aircraft in the simulated day and
night skies around them. The construction and
immersive experience of the domes are acknowledged
as being the forerunner of Imax cinema, gaming, VR
and video technologies.
Genesis Lost is an exploration of temporality,
inspired by reflections on the landscape of the
dome, which carries the marks of the origins of
particular tools and technologies, mapping image,
sound and place; a quiet witness perhaps to the
daily sound of a dawn chorus to the deep time of the
Mesolithic period - to a potentially very different
future.
The exhibition includes HD video, a unique artists’
book with hand printed analogue and digital
photographic prints, cyanotype and drawing, and
sculptural pieces of gilded wood. |
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