Ulster Museum is hosting Collage: A Political Act until 29th May 2022. The exhibition features recent acquisitions by international artists such as Troy Michie, along with works by local artists such as Belfast based Joy Gerrard and 2021 Turner prize winners Array Collective.

Collage: A Political Act reframes images, exploring how artists use existing imagery to make bold statements that spark conversations by creating new works.

With artworks spanning a hundred years, the exhibition plays with the idea that collage encourages us to look at images from a new perspective by deconstructing them. Viewers are challenged to consume the collages differently and reconsider how they view the world around them.

Collage: A Political Act

The exhibition features Protest Crowd, Charlotte, USA, (Black Lives Matter 2016), (2017) by Joy Gerrard. Gerrard is known for work that interrogates relationships between crowds, architecture and urban landscapes. Created with Japanese ink on linen, this striking and contemporary piece conveys a sense of the consolidated power of global protest movements.

She commented, “It’s a pleasure to exhibit as part of Collage: A Political Act. The concept of collage – of using existing images to create new works, encourages us to re-examine how we view the world around us. In Protest Crowd, Charlotte, USA, (Black Lives Matter 2016), (2017) I have used scale and a monochrome palette to re-make media images of Black Lives Matter Protests in the USA from late 2016. Though not a collage in the traditional sense, being included in this exhibition challenges the idea of what collages can be. In this work the crowd is viewed from above, suggesting the use of a drone or media surveillance, while the fluidity and drama of the moment is expressed through precise, expressive mark-making.”

The disruptive exhibition breaks rules both by repurposing images and by altering how we view them.

Anna Liesching, Curator of Art at Ulster Museum, said “We are excited to welcome visitors to Collage: A Political Act. We strive to make our collections accessible to everyone and at National Museums NI, we seek to help people understand multiple perspectives of history, culture and identity.

“For this exhibition, we have worked closely with partners such as the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queens and Reimagine Remake Replay to create events to explore this unique exhibition that challenges preconceptions and creates discussion around feminist and queer practice. We hope that the exhibition will help us to reach new and varied audiences.”