The Market is central to our lives
THE MARKET
An installation by Mark Curran
Curated by Helen Carey
Opening: Thursday 29 August 7 – 9pm
Exhibition runs 30 August – 11 October 2013
…what people don’t understand… is that what happens in the market is pivotal to their lives… not on the periphery…but slap, bang, in the middle…
(From telephone conversation with trader, name withheld, Dealing Room, Investment Bank, London, February 2013)
THE MARKET by Mark Curran is a critical and unflinching interrogation of the current context of global stock and commodity markets in the aftermath of the global economic collapse.
In this on-going project, Curran seeks access to the physical spaces that represent centres of global stock and commodity markets; spaces where futures are literally and metaphorically speculated upon. Multi-sited access has been sought in strategic locations and a series of photographs and interviews have been made in the Irish Stock Exchange in Dublin, the financial centres of Canary Wharf and the City in London and the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange in Addis Abeba (established in 2008 and the youngest exchange in the world). While access was unsuccessful in the Deutsche Borse in Frankfurt, it continues in relation to the Bombay Stock Exchange Mumbai (site of the oldest exchange in Asia) and the New York Stock Exchange.
Curran excavates these locations focusing on their operating functions, and the individuals who inhabit and labour in these spaces. It is the tension between the human individual experience and the increasingly cyber-based, algorithmic systems that govern the Market that provides an underlying sense of urgency to the project. Conceptually pivotal to THE MARKET is a desire to make visible an understanding of such sites, to explore their interconnectedness and to illuminate the lack of general knowledge about the systems that control and regulate the Market. Through this project, Curran enables a reading of the Market that takes it out of abstraction and positions it as a real and pervasive force that is absolutely central to our lives.
The artist has taken an ethnographic approach to the project, amassing a substantial body of research incorporating; photography, verbal testimony, digital video, artefactual material as well as the correspondence negotiating access to the sites. In the installation at Belfast Exposed, the relationship between the individual and the abstract algorithmic systems of the Market is heightened through a sound piece designed by Ken Curran that permeates the gallery space.
This exhibition is part of a larger series of visual art events marking the centenary of the 1913 Dublin Lockout, a project curated by Helen Carey, Director Limerick City Gallery of Art. Partner organisations include Belfast Exposed Photography, Gallery of Photography, Dublin, Limerick City Gallery of Art and CCA Derry-Londonderry.
Exhibition Events
30 August 12.30pm | Mark Curran will be in conversation with Curator Helen Carey, opening up some of the key issues of this project. This is a free event, please register with
ciara@belfastexposed.org to reserve a place.
