A Tale of Two Houses
Daily
vault artists studios
Marlborough House 28-32 Victoria St Belfast BT1 3GG
Belfast
Co. Belfast
bt1 3gg
A Tale Of Two Houses.
Marta Dyczkowska is a filmmaker and photographer who works across media including printing and performance to investigate loss, grief, friendship and personal and collective stories within their urban context. This exhibition lets us in the artist's home and studio.
The entanglement between the political and the personal spheres characterises the artist’s practice and approach to life and art. At the centre of the exhibition, Havelock House is used like a lighthouse that, with its revolving mechanism, shines light on different stories. It tells the tale of two houses: how Marta’s personal story waves in the history of the building and how they connect to the changes in Belfast.
The film A Tale Of Two Houses and this installation show Marta’s incisive approach in contextualising her work in broader discussions and being attentive to a changing world that seems to move on a macro scale but ends up affecting us too on micro and personal scales. From her former home, opposite Havelock House, she has been documenting this building since she noticed the first changes in the area in 2014. The footage was built over the years to include snippets of her domestic and family life.
Parallel to the building of her artistic and family life, archival footage from the UTV shows the construction of the building extension of Havelock House in 1960s. This historical landmark of Belfast rooted in the neighbourhood held a shimmering light on its past inhabitants and uses: from a handkerchief manufactory, a troops billet and then the headquarters of Ulster Television until it became Flax Art Studios in 2018, when the artist took a studio there.
The point of conjunction of these two tales is the final demolition of Havelock House in 2024, which erased the presence of the building from the neighbourhood but also symbolised the end of her previous house as home. The personal and urban histories here are entangled in a layered reflection on individual and collective memory, heritage and loss.
Text by: Benedetta D'Ettorre