Dynamic Collections
Belfast Archive Project was inspired by disaster. Director Frankie Quinn’s flat was flooded, damaging his photography collection. Speaking to fellow photographers about the vulnerability of their work, he set upon the idea of a shared archive to protect stills and footage for future generations.
The project now looks after more than 100,000 images in 35mm, medium format and 8mm moving film – a unique and growing resource for those interested in the history of Northern Ireland. The original images are at risk of deteriorating, so the team focuses on preserving them through digitisation and making them accessible to all, online, in person and in print.
In 2023, as part of our Dynamic Collections campaign, our grant enabled the project to forge ahead with digitisation, deliver engagement days and recruit a dedicated staff member to take their cataloguing to the next level.
The benefits of working in partnership
Our Dynamic Collections funding was designed to help archives evolve, meet user needs and broaden their reach, assisting with collections management, outreach and interpretation. For Belfast Archive Project, this was transformative – enabling it to work with Northern Ireland-wide organisations and their professional teams.
The project has been working in partnership with the Public Records of Northern Ireland and National Museums Northern Ireland, depositing material for safekeeping as well as hosting events and exhibitions.
Project co-ordinator Jamie Curran says: “Collaboration has allowed us to reach a far, far broader audience. If we put an exhibition on ourselves somewhere local, you’d attract people locally but you wouldn’t get people travelling from Armagh or Tyrone. But if you put something on with National Museums Northern Ireland, you get that pull.”
The project team believes it’s important for smaller volunteer-led groups to be ambitious when seeking to work with larger partners. “It’s understandable that small community organisations feel like they’re not important enough to work with council or government-backed organisations. They might think their story isn’t important enough.
“But we’ve found that if you knock on the door, when you get somebody to answer, it’s very much the opposite. It’s about finding the right people to speak to at a community level, at a council level, at a government level. You never know until you ask the question.”
Another benefit of working with heritage professionals has been receiving advice and guidance on how to both protect and present the collection. “When you’re looking to reinterpret a collection to connect to as broad an audience as possible, it’s important to take as much advice as you can,” Jamie says. “Having that outside point of view can help you make more informed decisions that consider the audiences you’re trying to connect with. Take that advice and learn from it.”
Reaching hidden treasures
Belfast Archive Project is answering a need in Northern Ireland: to shine a light on and share a previously overlooked photographic heritage, waiting to be discovered.
Director Frankie Quinn recalls: “A woman came to our engagement day who knew someone who was disposing of her brother-in-law’s life’s work. I went half-an-hour’s drive up the road and I came across this collection that was mind-blowing. I’ve been calling it Belfast Archive Project’s Tutankhamun moment!
"They’re photos of the west coast of Ireland in the 1950s and possibly one of the biggest finds in Irish photography in a long time.”
A resource for the future
Looking ahead, the project team is busy delivering exhibitions and more engagement days in Belfast and beyond. Frankie and Jamie also have longer-term ambitions to create a searchable online archive that would offer audiences the option to capture and share even more, by uploading stills, footage and audio themselves.
“We want to engage those people whose houses are full of photos, particularly those older generations. So much can be captured through WhatsApp voice notes; it takes no time at all to record and send that across. When people pass, the knowledge of who’s in those photographs, what they show, is lost. We want to capture that; combining these different media and creating a collection that everyone can contribute to.”
Find out more about Belfast Archive Project or explore other projects we’ve supported in Northern Ireland.
