Philip Arneill, Untitled I (from the FLEGS series)

Please note: we only post unframed prints. For framed purchases, free Click-and-Collect is available from The Library Project and Dublin delivery only. See further shipping information below.

Untitled I (from the FLEGS series)
2023
Photography
31.5 x 24 cm Framed | 22 x 13 cm Unframed
Edition of 12
€397 Framed | €244 Unframed (includes 13.5% VAT)

There is something ethereal and beautiful about the shadows cast by moving flags, in contrast to the concrete messages they send, and the connotations they inevitably have in a Northern Irish context. Flags, or ‘Flegs’ in Belfast vernacular, while visible all year round, increase dramatically in number and size during the summer months, ostensibly as a celebration of the Protestant Orange marching season. They are of course more commonly a marker which declares the political and cultural loyalties of the neighbourhoods which erect them. Photographing them as shadows forces the eye to see them as something else, neutralising their symbolic and sectarian power. Their message becomes illusory – as illusory as the sunshine required to make these images in a land famed for its grey, rainy skies – as they become indistinguishable from flags raised on any pole anywhere in the world.

About the Artist

Philip Arneill is a Belfast-born writer, photographer and researcher. Creator of the Tokyo Jazz Joints audio-visual documentary project, his Tokyo Jazz Joints photographic monograph was published by Kehrer Verlag in July 2023 and is now in its third edition. His writing and photographic practice explore the illusory ideas of home and culture by examining insider-outsider dynamics and autoethnographic issues of place and identity, combining images with creative nonfiction and fiction texts.

A selected artist for Nuit De L'Année at Rencontres D’Arles 2024, images from his Flegs work were included in Belfast Exposed’s recent Now & Then: Part III exhibition showcasing Irish photographers. After the 2022 publication of Barred in PhotoIreland’s TLP Editions series, This is East Belfast was published in August 2024 as part of the same collection. His writing has been published in The Guardian, Sonder, Honest Ulsterman, and The Storms literary journals among others.

Postage and Collection

We only deliver framed prints within Dublin. Framed prints are no longer posted. All postage costs for unframed works are processed separately following order of the print. This is to allow for specific protective packaging for each individual case. After purchase, we will contact you to organise delivery and payment for delivery costs.

Alternatively, free Click-and-Collect is available from The Library Project at 4 Temple Bar Street, D02YK53 during opening hours.