Curated by writer and art critic Sean O’Hagan for Gallery of Photography & the Nerve Centre

The Lost Moment looks anew at the Civil Rights movement in Northern Ireland fifty years on from the marches and peaceful protests that immediately preceded the Troubles. Curated by Sean O’Hagan, writer on photography, art and culture for The Guardian and The Observer, the show places the Northern Irish civil rights struggle in the context of the many international street protests that made 1968 such a tumultuous year.

From Paris to Prague, Chicago to London, mass protests reverberated across the world via the TV news. The year of discontent began in Northern Ireland when activists organised civil rights marches against discrimination in housing and jobs. Using the tactics of non-violent civil disobedience employed by Martin Luther King Jr. in the American south, the marches unleashed a wave of Unionist counter-demonstrations. The often brutal police tactics used against the marchers were caught on camera and broadcast around the world, igniting global media interest in the Northern Irish civil rights movement. Though its legacy remains contested to this day, the exhibition argues that this was the lost moment when the Troubles might have been averted.

The exhibition features dramatic images by Steve Shapiro of the famous Selma to Montgomery civil rights march in 1965, alongside work from three renowned Magnum photographers: David Hurn, Josef Koudelka and Ian Berry.  The Northern Irish civil rights struggle, from the first march in August 1968 to the Battle of the Bogside in 1969, is captured though the work of Gilles Caron, Clive Limpkin, David Newell Smith, Buzz Logan, Barney McMonagle, Eamon Melaugh, Larry Dickinson and Tony McGrath. The exhibition also includes projections, video installations, contemporary political posters and a wealth of other ephemera from the time.

‘The Lost Moment’ was produced by Gallery of Photography Ireland in partnership with the Nerve Centre, Derry~Londonderry.

Supported by funding from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Reconciliation Fund and the Heritage Lottery Fund (UK).

The organisers thank RTÉ Archives, Remote Photo Festival, the Cain Archive at Ulster University, Belfast Archive Project, Linen Hall Library and the National Museums Northern Ireland. Gallery of Photography is supported by The Arts Council and Dublin City Council.

Visitor Information – Nerve Visual
Exhibition at Nerve Visual continues until June 17, 2018.
Address: 80-81 Ebrington Street,
Ebrington, Derry~Londonderry, BT47 6FA
Open: Tuesday – Saturday 11am-5pm; Sunday 12­-6pm
For more information about Nerve Visual click here.

About Remote:
Remote Photo Festival is a unique festival dedicated to photographers creating work in a remote or rural context. Based in Donegal, the festival is an invitation to the international photographic community to come together in a unique location, away from the usual distractions of large urban areas, but with its own bedrock of resilient artistic endeavour.
For more information click here.

Our principal funders are:
Regional Cultural Centre, Local Enterprise Office Donegal (Creative Coast Programme), Donegal Film Office, Donegal Tourism, & Gallery of Photography Ireland

Partners & Supporters: Donegal County Council, Donegal County Museum, Nerve Centre Derry~Londonderry, Kinnegar Brewing, Artlink Fort Dunree; Breac House, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Reconciliation Fund, The Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht & Source Photographic Review.