Topographies: Smithfield, Belfast
High Definition Video Work, duration 07minutes and 02 seconds. (2013)
In Topographies: Smithfield, Belfast, the running figure is used as a device to explain and describe the landscape. The research was underpinned by studies on forms of space including the real and the psychological such as in The Psychopathologies of Urban Space by Anthony Vidler. I am interested in a formal approach to representing landscape using video, looking at compositional elements such as colour, scale and perspective. Topographies: Smithfield stems from previous work that has responded to filmic tropes of the Irish landscape with an emphasis on the form of the video itself. In Topographies: Smithfield, the viewer is encouraged to look and consider both the historical and the formal landscape. I was interested in how dilapidated and ramshackle the buildings around Smithfield had become during years of an enduring negative economic climate, but was fascinated by the range of architectural styles and periods, which reflected earlier more prosperous periods in Smithfield’s history.
The work was filmed over a period of four months, filming at dawn in the summer months so that the area would be clear of pedestrians and traffic. This enabled focus on the buildings and the lines and markings in the disjointed space; an accidental and dystopic piazza. The camera was placed in a fixed position, to capture a set of carefully composed shots. Multiple shots were made, from which the final images were carefully selected. The running figure, which has also featured in Curfew Running (2012), appears again here as a way to highlight the perspective, depth and scale of the urban environment by drawing the viewer’s eye around the scene. The figure connects each scene as it runs, explaining the architecture of the Smithfield area. The audio track of seagulls was also recorded in the very early morning at dawn, as the seagulls congregated on the wide-open space at Smithfield to scavenge before the day began. The noisy gulls remind us of Belfast’s port status and indeed that Belfast owes its existence, its charter, its growth and success to the geography of the land. The gulls’ wails evoke a sense of nostalgia for a landscape that exists just outside of Belfast, the countryside and coastlines that are never far away.
Topographies: Smithfield, Belfast was exhibited at the 132nd Royal Ulster Academy Annual Exhibition in the Ulster Museum and was awarded the Original Vision Prize, (Adjudicated by Professor Paul Gough RWA) in 2014.
Topographies: Smithfield, Belfast was reviewed by Slavka Sverakova here: https://slavkasverakova.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/angela- halliday-topographies-smithfield-belfast-2013/
