About my Work
Low voltage orange streetlights bouncing off wet black asphalt, surrounded by breaks of light shining through window blinds. Yellow floodlights contaminating every inch of space, and cold white tunnels scrawled with graffiti and melted plastic. A perception of night that became ingrained in me from growing up in a housing estate in Ballymena County Antrim where, like in many towns and cities across Northern Ireland lighting extends beyond the norms of lighting parks and pathways to create balanced, safe social spaces. In this context it becomes an instrument of social control and surveillance, where darkness is positioned as a space of tactical menace, exile and the unknown. I recall on occasions during the early 1990s lights being switched off, providing cover for police to covertly enter the estate during drug raids, while black spot areas of the estate remained engulfed by powerful light throughout the night. I lived beside the main thoroughfare of the estate making the house an easy target for passing vandals. Frustrated by the exposed position I decided to climb the lamp post next to the property spray-painting the light black. From my window I could see those near but they could not see me, the veil of darkness almost stopping attacks on the house. I found this situation intriguing, prompting a desire to probe these spatial dynamics.
Fergus Jordan (b.1982) is a Belfast based artist having recently completed his doctoral research study in Photography. His work with photography and video investigates the conflict between darkness, night and artificial light, city in photography, the invisible, and the study of post-conflict societies.
I am available for commission and artistic collaboration. Feel free to contact me via my contact page or email at: hello@fergusjordan.com to request a portfolio or artist C.V or just drop me a line and we can to talk about photography.
Image to the Left Garden Estate Fergus Jordan | Mirjami Schuppert
Published by The Velvet Cell.
32 pp / 240 x 300 mm. Sewn Binding, 4 Colour Offset
ISBN 978-1-908889-18-8
October 2013
Limited Edition of 750
Photographs and foreword by Fergus Jordan | Essay by Mirjami Schuppert
Book designed by Alex McCooke. Cover Photograph by This is Work | http://www.thisiswork.eu
If you are researcher or organisation collecting books or if your local library needs some visual stimulation I will donate a copy of Garden Estate: Just send a large stamped addressed envelope to: White Cloud Studios, 17 Park Parade, Belfast, BT6 8GG. Northern Ireland.