Troubled Land
Paul Graham
MACK
English
Hardcover
80 Pages
305 x 235 mm
2022
ISBN 9781913620608
An iconic project made at the height of the ‘Troubles’, Troubled Land deals with the small but insistent signs of political division embedded in the landscape of Northern Ireland. At the heart of the Irish conflict lays the land — who owns it, who controls it, whose history it expresses. Paul Graham’s quietly radical book keeps this material truth in mind as it uniquely combines landscape and conflict photography, seducing us with bucolic views in which telling details only gradually appear: painted kerbs, distant soldiers or helicopters, flags and graffiti, paint-splattered roads, each tacitly aligning that location to its Republican or Loyalist allegiance. Pastoral photographs of green fields and hedgerows reveal themselves to be images of conflict and dispute — despite the steadiness of the photographic frame and the clarity of Graham’s vision, this is unsettled land. Originally published in 1986, Troubled Land is reprinted here for the first time in thirty-five years. Controversial then for its use of colour and refusal to follow the clichéd tropes of photojournalism, the book was pivotal in providing a fresh perspective on Northern Ireland’s ‘Troubles’ and left a lasting impact on landscape photography, suggesting how it might engage with politics and society rather than escape from them. Together with A1 – The Great North Road and Beyond Caring, it completes a new edition of the remarkable trilogy of books Graham made in 1980s UK.
About the Artist
Paul Graham (b.1956) is a British artist who works in Fine Art photography. His pieces typically show people and objects in realistic settings with surreal or unusual elements added to the image. Though Graham worked as a photographer during his 20s, he did not have his first show until he was 30. In 2012, the Hasselblad Foundation awarded him the International Award in Photography, making him the only British winner of the award. Graham is the author of over a dozen books and survey monographs that document different areas of the world.
paulgrahamarchive.com
(source http://www.artnet.com/artists/paul-graham/biography)
About the Publisher
MACK Books are an art and photography publishing house based in London, working with established and emerging artists, writers and curators, and cultural institutions.
mackbooks.co.uk
