A Hard Place
In A Hard Place, the (re)construction of history and identity are explored through interviews with ex-Hunger Strikers from the Northern Irish conflict. These testimonies are fused into a single voice and reveal their memorial residues when viewed through the psychoanalytical prism of Jacques Lacan’s theory on Desire and the Other. This reconstructive process was directly influenced by the figure of Bobby Sands and the object of his desire, a heroic nationalist identity. The imagery suggests the psychological as part of a mapping process and how it, like memory itself, is replaced or fictionalised to accommodate the patina of trauma.  The function and role of memory in the simulation and/or re-enactment of experience directs the practice in exploration of historical consciousness: both individual and collective.

Ronnie Close
Ronnie Close is a photographer based in Bristol and Senior Lecturer at the University of Wales Newport. Since 2004 he has been developing a body of photographic works as part of a practice-led PhD research project that looks at the contested historical narratives of Irish Hunger Strikers. His practice examines the meaning of documentary imagery and invites a critical discourse on post-photography representation. Close has participated in video and photographic exhibitions and screenings throughout Ireland, the UK, Europe, USA, Canada and Syria. In 2006 he was invited to the 9th Syrian Photography Festival in Aleppo; other events have included the  ‘Photo London International Photography Fair’ (2006) and several academic conferences. His work has been exhibited in Videographe Art Centre Montreal, Canada (2007), Apexart, New York, (2007) and published in ScreenWork Journal of Media Practice Magazine. Close is co-founder of FORMAT, an artist’s group in Bristol consisting of visual artists working with still and/or moving image practice.

www.ronnieclose.com
www.formatnetwork.com