Arts or storage

The title of this exhibition - the last to be held in Vault’s Marlborough House Gallery before we are forced to move once again - is taken from an estate agent’s brochure, which boasted of space that would be ‘suitable for arts or storage purposes’. 

The exhibition is a visual and written survey of the conditions that artists in Belfast work in, and a collaboration between Neal Campbell (photographer) and Jane Morrow (curator and writer).

‘For some years, Neal has been crossing the streams in his day job and photography practice: capturing through a series of vignettes the shifting spaces that arts organisations are forced to adopt and adapt to. But with Vault and four other organisations poised to relocate before the end of 2025, the time to document these premises is now. The next ones may be worse.

For Neal and I, having occupied, and continuing to occupy roles with those responsibilities, our project is not designed to implicate anybody – these conditions are bigger (and badder) than all of us. None of this is about blame, at least not at departmental levels that any of us can properly affect. Though it’s not for a lack of trying…’

From the essay by Jane Morrow which accompanies the exhibition of photographs by Neal Campbell.

Getting here and accessibility - Marlborough House