family album: photographs of a belfast community by frankie quinn

'Family Album | Photographs of a Belfast Community' is the second in a series of three exhibitions, co-curated by Frankie Quinn and the Belfast Archive Project.  

The Belfast Archive Project aims to preserve, interpret and present our vanishing photographic heritage. It has been entrusted with collections of negatives and photographic prints in order to protect them for future generations, and make them accessible through exhibitions, digital resources and print publications. 

These archives include the work of some of Northern Ireland’s most respected photographers - like Frankie Quinn, Bill Kirk (previously on display in Spring 2025) and James Bell (on display in Autumn 2025). 

About 'Family Album | Photographs of a Belfast Community' by Frankie Quinn

In 1982, a camera club started at the local community centre, and for my 16th birthday my dad gave me a camera. The simple message was; ‘go there, do something with the camera and stay out of trouble’! The idea behind the club was to encourage people to record the life of the area before the big change, or ‘re-development’ as it was called. I had my brief and started work with enthusiasm and a sense of purpose. What remained of the unique Belfast community of Ballymacarrett/Short Strand was to disappear in a short time, changed entirely, forever. Large swathes of the area had already been bulldozed from existence; I caught the tail-end. I look back two generations with amazement at how we managed to get through it all and still manage a smile. They were hard times that I have no nostalgia for. In 1997, I sent the photographer and friend of the area, Gilles Peress, a selection of images and asked if he would like to write something. Twenty-eight years later, I felt I owed the community a chance to see what it was all about. I have chosen 100 photographs for this exhibition covering streets, housing, faces, conflict, fleadh/festival, new build/the move and daily life.

About Frankie Quinn

Since the 1980s Frankie Quinn has documented conflict and its social context across Ireland, Palestine/Israel, Turkey/Kurdistan and Bosnia as well as his native Belfast. His work has been widely published, and exhibited and acquired for public collections in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, North America and Europe.

About Gilles Peress

Gilles Peress was born in France in 1946 and began working as a photographer in 1970. He joined Magnum Photos in 1971 and his work is represented in the collections of major cultural institutions across America and Europe. Peress came to Northern Ireland in 1971 to begin a 20-year project on the Troubles. The power and focus of his work created a landmark in the history of photography when his continuums of events during Bloody Sunday were used as forensic evidence in subsequent inquiries.