As coincidence would have it, I was in Derry-Londonderry for a set of meetings and decided to stay on for an early evening launch event of the 2012 Foto Foyle programme of photo exhibitions. Inside The Playhouse was a display of a new body of work by Christof Pluemacher, “one of Germany’s foremost photographic artists”. His exhibition, “Europe”, is a set of images that purposefully portray national stereotypes, e.g. “…So Spanish”, “…So British”, “…So Dutch”, “…So French”, and “…So German”:
Foyle Foto Director, Michael Weir, described the different exhibitions on display, including an Open Submission at the Tower Museum, and Tribes (by Lucia Herrero) at the Big Screen, Waterloo Place. He was followed by welcoming remarks by the Mayor, Councillor Maurice Devenney:
As I am at the opposite end of being a fine art photographer such as Pluemacher, I demonstrated the capacities of my iPhone 4S, with magnetic snap on lenses by Photojojo. There was particular fascination with the fish eye and macro lenses.
I went over for the immediately following launch of the Open Submission group exhibition at the Tower Museum. I was expecting more images — there were about a dozen, based around four themes. I guess I’m saying that I would like to see more photography exhibitions featuring local artists!
The Foto Foyle programme runs until 11th February, and there’s a talk on Thursday, 2nd February: “Image and Reality: Photography and the Construction of an Ideal of Irish ‘Irishness’”, 1pm at the Tower Museum. I hope I have more work meetings in Derry that day.
