Opening Reception Friday 31 May at 7:30pm • Curated by Declan Sheehan

The first major photographic exhibition of Derry~Londonderry’s UK City of Culture year is opening at the iconic City Factory Gallery on Friday 31 May. The exhibition features works by Camerawork, Gilles Caron, Willie Carson, Larry Doherty, Willie Doherty, Brian J Gill, Sean Hillen, Clive Limpkin, Barney McMonagle, Cnl A W Martin, Eamon Melaugh, Victor Sloan, Homer Sykes.

Picturing Derry, which is a partnership project between the Nerve Centre and City of Culture, brings together for the first time, some of the most iconic images of the Troubles in the city in one exhibition.

Legendary French photojournalist Gilles Caron’s previously unseen major body of work during the Battle of the Bogside in August 1969 forms a major part of the exhibition. It also includes the work of other visiting photographers from around the world as well as images by local news photographers and amateur photographers.

The exhibition consists of four main constituent parts:

• The work of the photographers of the city including Willie Carson, Larry Doherty, Eamon Melaugh and Barney McMonagle, brings their unique local knowledge to cast a light on some previously unseen elements of life in the city.
• Photojournalists from around the world covered the conflict and the work of Gilles Caron and Clive Limpkin became iconic images, known around the world. Documentary photographers such as Homer Sykes from the UK and Brian J Gill from the USA fitted the Derry’s conflict into their studies of working class lives and youth gangs.
• Camerawork Darkrooms, a photography training collective established in the Bogside at the height of the Troubles with international curator Trisha Ziff, used photography as a means to express community identity. Over the same period, the official British Army photographer captured surveillance images of the community as conflict zone. One gallery room tells the stories of these opposing perspectives.
• Artists from the city and further afield, including Willie Doherty, Sean Hillen and Victor Sloan made the conflict in Derry their subject, establishing international reputations and bringing unique insight into the image of the city in conflict.

These photographs have been brought together to form the most substantial exhibition of a period of almost 30 years, covering many different aspects of life in the city from 1969 up to the late 1980s.

The exhibition, which is supported by the Culture Programme of the European Union, Derry Credit Union, Derry City Council and BT Portrait of a City, is curated by Declan Sheehan.

A partner exhibition runs at the Browse Photo Festival Berlin, 11 – 18 June 2013. A selection from the Picturing Derry exhibition will tour to the Grand Hall, Stormont, 12 August – 20 September 2013.

Late opening to 8pm on 27 June

Further information from nervecentre.org