what's on
I Want To Believe
David Vintiner & Gem Fletcher
3rd June – 8 July 2021
Opening: 3rd June, 2021 from 5pm – 8pm
The University of Atypical is delighted to welcome you back with the launch of our new exhibition I Want To Believe, part of Belfast Photo Festival 2021 with work by David Vintiner & Gem Fletcher. This captivating exhibition poses profound questions about what it is to be human, challenging our understanding of what a body is and how we converge with technology in a world of evolving possibilities.
David & Gem began this project on futurists five years ago, based on a curiosity about transhumanism and its implications for the future of humanity.
Transhumanism is the belief that human beings are destined to transcend their mortal flesh through technology. Transhumanists believe our biology constrains our experience of reality and refuse to accept what nature has given us. From bionic eyes to designing new senses and extending life expectancy, they are redefining what it means to be human.
Although these ideas have long lived on the pages of comic books and sci-fi novels, the movement – now a reality – is starting to disrupt industries and individuals in meaningful ways. With technology evolving at an unprecedented rate, further change is imminent. This project documents a critical moment in time as we enter the next chapter in human evolution.
The ideas explored in these images demonstrates how optimising our brains and bodies could revolutionise and redefine humanity. As human architects, we are limited only by our imagination. The profiles of transhumans are as diverse as its application, from artists and CEOs to academics and bedroom hackers, the transhumanist movement raises some important questions for us all.
While we love the efficiency and connectivity technology provides, can we embrace a future where it goes beyond our environment and enters our bodies and minds? Could we reach a point where we gift friends and family cognitive implants and new senses? If we are able to defy death, what are the implications for the meaning of life? And, most importantly, will this evolution divide or unite us?
Humans are now gods. We are able to design and create our personal evolution. But do we have the foresight to do it the right way?
TALK
Transhumanism and the Future of Humanity
Tuesday 22nd June, 6pm
CLICK HERE TO BOOK A TICKET
Please Note: due to Covid restrictions we ask that visitors use the sanitising units, practice social distancing and wear a mask unless exempt. We look forward to seeing you and will have a limit of 10 visitors in the space at a time to allow for social distancing.
About the Artists
David Vintiner is a photographer based in London. His projects focus on human behaviour, exploring unique communities and events that connect people.
David’s photographs have an elegant simplicity that finds order and formality in amongst complex scenes and stories, bringing attention to place, gesture and expression. His images are gentle and honest, celebrating those pictured and seeking an emotional connection with each subject. With a constant curiosity about people’s desires, interests and passions, he is drawn to the obscure and unusual yet always placing human experience front and centre.
Alongside his personal practice David works on editorial and commercial projects for the likes of The Guardian, Wired, GQ & The New York Times. His work has been exhibited in several group shows throughout Europe and a number of his portraits are included in the National Portrait Gallery archive in London.
Gem Fletcher is a writer, podcaster and photo director based in London. As a writer, she focuses on photography, art and the creative process and how they manifest in contemporary culture. She has written for the British Journal of Photography, Elephant, It’s Nice That, The Guardian and An0ther. As Photo Director of Riposte Magazine, Gem collaborates with a global roster of visual artists to frame Riposte’s mission, making provocative and engaging content. In 2019, she launched The Messy Truth podcast, a series of candid conversations that unpack the future of visual culture and what it means to be a photographer today. In dialogue with photographers, artists, curators, commissioners, critics and editors, she discusses the complexity of image-making and its relationship to a range of topics including representation, process, mental health, power and more.
Image ID: Neil Harbisson (from the series ‘I want to Believe’)
Colour photographic portrait of Neil Harbisson. They have short blond hair cut in a style that is similar to a bowl cut, shaved at the sides above the ears. Neil is wearing a grey suit jacket with a bright pink shirt and multicoloured bowtie. A curved antenna comes from the back of Neils head to the front, on one cheek they have a plaster . The background is a cream colour.
Additional information about the image..
Neil Harbisson was born with achromatism, a rare disease that means he is colourblind. Harbisson created a new sense to go beyond the human visual spectrum—in 2004 he had an antenna implanted into his skull. The antenna allows him to perceive visible and invisible colours as audible vibrations, including infrareds and ultraviolets.
As a Cyborg artist, he uses his new sense to explore identity, human perception and the connection between sight and sound. He can listen to Warhols, paint with sound and write music based on what he sees around him.
‘In the same way that a sculptor uses a hammer to sculpt a piece of stone, I’m using cybernetics to sculpt my brain. I don’t feel like I’m using technology or wearing technology. I feel like I am technology. I don’t think of my antenna as a device—it’s a body part.’ (Neil Harbisson)
Safety protocols:
- We will be gathering your name and contact information at the entrance to the Gallery, which we will keep for 21 days and then delete, in accordance with effective track-and-trace measures.
- Sanitiser units at the entrance and around the venue
- Anyone who can, should wear a face covering when visiting the venue
- We request that people practice social distancing inside of the space
- We will be regularly sanitising all surfaces within the venue
- We will no longer permit the audience/visitors to gather inside of the office space to protect staff
- We will provide single use biodegradable paper cups for refreshments for events
strangely disjointed & idiosyncratic
strangely disjointed & idiosyncratic
Dara Condon
22 July – 19 August 2021 Opening: 5pm – 8pm
The University of Atypical is delighted to invite you to the long-awaited exhibition strangely disjointed & idiosyncratic by artist Dara Condon.
Dara Condon was the recipient of the University of Atypical’s Graduate Award 2019 and we’re pleased to see this promising graduate’s exhibition realised. Dara’s inspiration derives from eclectic pools of thought drawing on scientific theories, sacred symbols and forms, mythology and the power of the natural world.
This is Dara’s first solo exhibition and he has created an environment that explores how the mind processes visual information on a conscious and subconscious level. This new body of work forms a constellation of art forms drawing from the artists life and his experience of the mind, memory and mental health.
Gilly Campbell, Head of Community Arts & Education, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, commented, “I’m delighted to see this exhibition from Dara Condon open at the University of Atypical. This is Dara’s first solo exhibition, offering the artist that all important next step in his professional, artistic career. After such a long period of galleries being closed due to restrictions, it’s heartening to see them re-open and enthusiastically welcome the public back to see art up close and personal. There are so many terrific exhibitions going on in galleries across Northern Ireland and I would encourage everyone to go along and support your local gallery this summer.”
Artist in Conversation: Dara Condon
29 July 2021
1pm – 2pm
Booking required – limited numbers are permitted on site, please include your access requirements when booking your place.
To book HERE
or email administration@universityofatypical.org
About the Artist
Dara Condon is a Belfast based artist originally from Donegal. He studied fine art at Ulster University graduating in 2019. He was the recipient of the graduate residency award by Digital Arts Studio 2019, Belfast. Condon is a multidisciplinary artist and performed in Jan McCullough’s film Vision Board Part “Dissolving Histories: New Narratives”
This will be my first solo show. I have created a large ceramic wall piece of a brain. Intricate patterns representing thought processes, images relating to memories, thoughts, hurts and love. Tiny faces of those that I hold dear in my memory. I want to depict the flaws of the brain, the void or mental blocks. But also, a celebration of art and the impact it has on the mind, the healing, almost like a large tree with foliage intertwining. Art instilling hope. A burgeoning creativity to counterbalance the destructiveness. This will be my main piece.
Gallery tours & audio described tours are available. To book a tour of our current exhibition email us including your access requirements when booking your place. administration@universityofatypical.org
Artist in Conversation: Dara Condon
29 July 2021
1pm – 2pm
Booking required – limited numbers are permitted on site, please include your access requirements when booking your place.
To book email administration@universityofatypical.org
Past Exhibitions
The DisOrdinary Architecture Project in conversation with Richard Dougherty.
4th August 2021. 7pm – 8pm
Join us for an evening with The DisOrdinary Architecture Project’s founders Zoe Partington and Jos Boys as they discuss their creative collaboration with architect Richard Dougherty.
The DisOrdinary Architecture Project was established in 2008. Since then a network of disabled artists have collaborated with architecture, interiors and built environment students, educators, researchers, practitioners and other interested groups to co-create new and exciting ways to do disability differently in the design of built space.
Fittings and MisFittings is part of Accessing Architecture: Disability and Belfast’s Built Heritage by the University of Atypical is funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund Northern Ireland. The project researches the history of the disabled community in Belfast through the city’s built, industrial and cultural environments.
About DisOrdinary Architecture
The DisOrdinary Architecture Project starts from the experiences, expertise and creativity of disabled artists. We work through co-partnering and co-design to bring together artists and built environment specialists on an equal footing.
Our collaborations aim to generate creative and critical opportunities that open up innovative new provocations for thinking and doing disability (and ability) differently in architecture and the built environment. By learning lessons from what we do, we aim to become thought leaders in the field, and to influence attitudes and practices as well as the design of our built surroundings.
To Book: LINK
For More Information – disordinaryarchitecture.co.uk
About Richard Dougherty
Richard Dougherty recently was the recipient of the ‘Project Architect of the Year’ award at the 2019 RSUA Awards, for his work on the Colin Connect Transport Hub in Belfast.
Richard is a practicing architect and has designed a new campus building for Gallaudet University for the Deaf in Washington D.C and has researched the relationship between upbringing, d/Deaf space, design and aesthetics; and how that informs access and architecture.
Access: Please let us know your access requirements, you can do this when you fill in the booking form. This talk will have BSL and captioning available.
Image ID: A feminine figure sits on the ground in the bottom left of the photograph. They have long reddish/brown hair, wearing a white t-shirt and teal coloured trousers. They are looking through a camera on a tripod, beside them is a wheelchair. Six people are standing in a semi circle in the background and there are other people to the left and right of the photo.
Exhibition dates: 22 October 2019 to 15 November 2019
Programmed with Belfast International Arts Festival, Atypical Gallery presents Missing Voices, a participatory photographic project about the lives of young women with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), led by Queen’s University researcher Gillian O’Hagan and photographer Helen Sloan.
Over a five week period, Helen and Gillian worked with a group of nine adolescent girls from four schools across Belfast. Using smartphones, the girls produced a series of 34 photographs, giving a powerful and moving insight into their lives inside and outside of the mainstream school environment.
To complement the exhibition, Atypical Gallery will host a panel discussion and photovoice workshop from 7pm on the evening of Thursday 24 October.
Led by Gillian O’Hagan and Helen Sloan, this discussion will delve deeper into the focus of the Missing Voices project which aims to amplify the adolescent female voice of ASD. The panel will look at the importance of creative expression in helping girls with ASD to allow parents, teachers, friends and others to understand their experience of the world around them.
They will also discuss the chronic problem of misdiagnosis in female ASD, asking why practitioners continue to use male-led diagnostic criteria that leaves countless young girls unseen, unheard and unrepresented.
Gillian O’Hagan is a doctoral student at Queen’s University Belfast. She is also the SENCO and Head of Psychology in Aquinas Diocesan Grammar School in Belfast.
Helen Sloan is an Irish photographer best known for her work as primary stills photographer on the HBO series Game of Thrones.
Exhibition Dates: 13th June 2019 to 19th July 2019
Launch: Saturday March 30th 2019 2pm to 4pm
Exhibition Dates: April 1st to April 26th 2019
Launch: Saturday January 19th 2019 2pm to 4pm
Exhibition Dates: January 21st to March 1st 2019
Launch: Saturday November 10th 2018 2pm to 4pm
Exhibition Dates: November 12th to December 21st 2018
Launch: Thursday August 2nd 5.30pm to 8pm
Exhibition dates: August 3rd to August 31st