‘PROTESTANT PEOPLE HERE ARE VERY CLEAR ABOUT WHAT THEY’RE NOT, BUT THEY’RE NOT VERY CLEAR ABOUT WHO THEY ARE’ - PHOTOGRAPHER STEPHEN WILSON
Belfast-based photographer Stephen Wilson has been capturing moments in time for the last 25 years.
His work has been featured in numerous national and international publications covering subjects from the conflict in the former Soviet Union to the drought in sub-Saharan Africa.
“I wanted to travel, go places and see things,” Stephen explains.
“But once I’d done that, I started to look at my own environment, my own country, and trying to understand that a bit more. I thought that would be a worthwhile exercise.”
In addition to lecturing in photography Stephen has worked on various projects about representation and expressions of faith and identity within Northern Ireland.
“I used to work for Pacemaker (Northern Ireland’s longest established photographic agency) and we used to have reporters from all over the world come and cover Northern Ireland.
“And after a week of travelling and working with people from both sides of the community these reporters would say when they spoke to nationalists they were very clear about what they wanted – a united Ireland.
“Whereas when they asked loyalists what they wanted, they’d get very defensive.
“And I realised, Protestant people here are very clear about what they’re not but they’re not very clear about who they are, because that’s much harder to define.”
Stephen, who was brought up in a Protestant family in Portglenone, Co Antrim describes how the Protestant faith was formed as a result of religious reformers protesting against the authority of the Catholic Church.
“The focus has always been on what they’re not because they’ve continually broken away from others,” he says.
This is a concept he has explored in depth as part of his latest project Liminal - a photobook showcasing a collection of photographs of Protestant church buildings depicting them as ‘liminal spaces’. Stephen says liminal means to be at or on both sides of a boundary, or at the beginning or start of a process.
“Protestant churches are very famous for being plain, cold and boring and they’re designed that way because the theology is that nothing should distract you from your journey to encounter God – and that was the idea behind Liminal,” he says.
“So basically, I’m photographing the people, my culture, Protestants in Ireland but I’m not showing the people.
“I thought it would be more interesting to photograph the marks that people leave and the buildings that people use and see if that shows their personality.”
However, given the simplicity of his surroundings Stephen admits it was a challenge for him creatively.
“I found it immensely hard because photographers need a thing – you can’t photograph nothing.
“There’s one picture which is really key, which is a blue carpet with dusty marks and footprints on it and in the background there’s an out of focus leg of a chair.
“And I liked it because I love Rothko paintings and his squares of colour. But my thought was if you’re in a church where some guy at the front is talking and you’re not listening because he’s been talking for the last 45 minutes, and you’ve zoned out and you’re staring at the carpet it becomes like a meditation.
“A photographer called Jerry Yulsman said if you look at something long enough it becomes interesting and that’s what church is for a lot of us.”
He hopes Liminal will help start a conversation about the spaces we live and how that has shaped our identities.
“This is not a book of hero photographs - the book is there to provide a platform for people to have a conversation or a reaction and have the opportunity to listen to other people’s views and see things from alternative perspectives.”
A ‘kickstarter’ for the Liminal book project is now live - more at stephenwilsonphotography.com/liminal 2024-04-23T05:15:04Z dg43tfdfdgfd