Dual Vision of Ulster

Marius Moen Holtan visits two Ulsters without leaving East London.

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If you go down Heneage Street, an uninviting alley off Brick Lane, you will most likely pass right by 5th Base Gallery. But in the first weekend of November photographer Martin Seeds took visitors to an even more unlikely destination: a dual world in which there were two Ulsters, one of which is Northern Ireland, while the other exists in upstate New York.

Originally from Ulster, the Irish one, Martin first met Ulster, New York, through an IBM recruitment video from the early 1970s, tempting potential employees with Ulster County and the American Dream.

‘During several visits to this alternative Ulster I found familiar, but out of place, references to my history, folklore and culture… it felt like I was cheating on a lover,’ Martin said.

His exhibition was made up of photographs from the two Ulsters, both new and old, as well as maps and colour charts, creating the effect of proximity to two different places which were also one and the same.

In a white square room, with concrete floors and an industrial acoustic, Martin was able to portray the particular feeling of longing and loathing for where you come from, and how it always stays with you and colours your perception of wherever you go – even as the reality recedes and ‘home’ becomes ‘the fantasy I desired it to be’.

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