The Market

Photographs By Mark Curran

Curated By Helen Carey

“...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)

JP Morgan (formerly Lehman Brothers)

Canary Wharf,

February, 2013 London, England

Bethlehem, Trader

Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX),

September, 2012 Addis Abeba, Ethiopia

Bell, Decommissioned Trading Floor

Irish Stock Exchange (ISE),

July, 2012 Dublin, Ireland,

Trading Pit

Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX),

September, 2012 Addis Abeba, Ethiopia

Literally and metaphorically, the sphere where our futures are speculated upon - this is what Mark Curran's challenging new project THE MARKET sets out to make visible. In the evolutionary aftermath of the global economic collapse, how do the global stock and commodity markets function beyond the iconography of the sites of the trading floor. Continuing a cycle of long-term projects focused on the predatory impact of global capital, Curran explores these sites and beyond to try and elaborate an understanding of what is deciding our futures.

For this ambitious undertaking, Irish-born artist Curran contacted specific stock and commodity exchanges around the globe. Negotiating access to these international exchanges took on average over 18 months, and indeed are ongoing in some countries. For the installation in Ireland's Gallery of Photography, Curran exhibits photographs, film, artefactual materials, sound and verbal testimonies. The installation includes work made in the Irish Stock Exchange in Dublin; the financial centres of Canary Wharf and The City, London; the Deutsche Borse in Frankfurt, and in the recently established Ethiopian Commodity Exchange in Addis Abeba, the youngest exchange in the world.

Anthony, Analyst

The City,

May, 2013 London, England

James, Operations Manager

Irish Stock Exchange (ISE),

May, 2012 Dublin, Ireland

Matthew, Banker

Canary Wharf,

March, 2013 London, England

Taika, External Relations Associate

Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX),

September, 2012 Addis Abeba, Ethiopia

Acknowledging the technological evolution of the markets towards primarily non-human apparatus, generated from algorithms identifying the words market or markets from speeches given by the Irish Minister of Finance, the soundscape of the installation represents the defining sound of the market, the sound of Capital through the conjuit apparatus of the Nation-State.

Curran focuses on the individuals who labour within the heart of global capitalism, underlining the human stories at the centre of this most complex of functions. It therefore lends particular resonance to the centenary events marking the 1913 Lockout, which marked the streets of Dublin at the time, but left deep scars on a newly emerging Republic. The implicit critical resonance associated with this event of exclusion, omission and invisibility regarding labour and its defining relationship to capital remaining ever pertinent, ever urgent. Joining together with CCA Derry Londonderry, Belfast Exposed, Temple Bar Studios & Gallery and Limerick City Gallery of Art, this exhibition in Gallery of Photography shows how contemporary art is concerned with how unknowingly people work and live, within systems that govern the detail of life.

Algorithm and installation sound design by Ken Curran.

The Opening Night of the Exhibition

This installation of THE MARKET is one of the keynote visual art events marking of the centenary of the 1913 Lockout. The project is curated by Helen Carey, Director Limerick City Gallery of Art, and supported through Projects Funding from the Arts Council of Ireland, Faculty of Film, Art and Creative Technologies, Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT) in addition to support from Department of Foreign Affairs, Government of Ireland, and Dublin City Council. The project is partnered by Gallery of Photography, Dublin, Belfast Exposed Photography, Limerick City Gallery of Art, Arts Council of Northern Ireland and CCA Derry-Londonderry. Algorithmn and installation sound design by Ken Curran. The help and advice from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Dublin, the Embassy of Ireland in Ethiopia, the Embassy of Ireland in Germany, the Embassy of Ireland in Great Britain and the Ethiopian Embassy in Ireland and the Irish Stock Exchange as well as the time and engagement of all those individuals who have participated is gratefully acknowledged.

The Exhibition in the Gallery of Photography Ireland

Mark Curran is and artist and educator who lives and works in Berlin and Dublin. He completed a practice-led PhD through the Dublin Institute of Technology (2011), lectures on the BA (Hons) Photography programme, Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dublin and is Visiting Professor on the MA in Visual and Media Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin. Incorporating multi-media installation informed by ethnographic understandings, Curran’s has undertaken a cycle of long-term projects in Ireland and the former East Germany, addressing the predatory context resulting from the impact of migrations and flows of global capital. SOUTHERN CROSS (Gallery of Photography/Cornerhouse 2002), The Breathing Factory (Edition Braus/Belfast Exposed 2006), the outcome of his doctoral research, and Ausschnitte aus EDEN/Extracts from EDEN (2011) have been extensively published and presented, including, DePaul Art Museum (DPAM), Chicago (2010), Xuhui Art Museum, Shanghai (2010), Encontros da Imagem, Braga (2011), PhotoIreland, Dublin (2012) and the biennale, FORMAT in Derby, England (2013). Curran has also presented widely on his research practice most recently, Photomedia-Images in Circulation, Aalto University, Helsinki (2012), Between Nature and Culture: Photography as Method and Mediation, The Photographers Gallery, London (2012) and Marxism and Critical Theory and Contemporary Art, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (2013). He has also published articles addressing his research practice and is included in a forthcoming edition of the UK journal, Photographies, edited by Liz Wells and Deborah Bright.

Helen Carey is Director / Curator at Limerick City Gallery of Art since 2012. Previous employment has included inaugural Director of the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, Executive Director at Galway Arts Centre and Public Art Project Manager At Bristol, a landmark millennium project. Her independent practice has included work with An Post, with local and national government authorities as well as independently intiated projects, which include Lockout 1913-2013. Her research interests include Contemporary Art and commemorative function. This project is part of a national commemoration, including exhibitions at CCA Derry Londonderry, Belfast Exposed, Limerick City Gallery of Art and Temple Bar Studios & Gallery. An independently curated trail will take place in Dublin, including Pallas Contemporary Projects and Rotunda Hospital Pillar Room.