The Seán Hillen Collection: Photographs from the North of Ireland 1979 – 1990

Saturday 28 July at 2.00pm at the National Photographic Archive in Temple Bar.

Seán Hillen talks about his exhibition: Photographs from the North of Ireland 1979 – 1990 showing at the NPA 27 July- 30 September

Part of PhotoIreland Festival 2012

Free, all welcome, no booking required

In 2011, the NLI acquired The Seán Hillen Collection.  The collection consists of 530 original 35mm black and white negatives taken by the Newry-born photographer in the north of Ireland between 1979 and 1990. The collection is a significant addition to NLI’s photographic collections, currently containing an estimated 4.5m photographs.

The photographs in the Seán Hillen Collection are unique local insights and are largely unpublished. In 1979, 18 year old artist Seán Hillen began taking mostly black-and-white photographs recording the “already surreal” life as he saw it in Northern Ireland and between then and 1990 created a collection of several hundred photographs.
  "The photographs are like black and white time machines that bring back the desolation and danger of the Troubles. The images have a documentary accuracy but it is the aura of melancholy witness that marks them as the work of Seán Hillen."- Seamus Heaney

See more about Seán Hillen.

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