IMMA presents the first major exhibition in Dublin by Duncan Campbell, recicipient of the 2014 Turner Prize. Irish-born artist Duncan Campbell ‘s (b. 1972) is best known for his films which focus on particular moments in history, and the people and objects at the centre of those histories. He uses archive material as a route to research subjects and histories that he feels are important. The process of making the films becomes a means to further understand his subjects and reveal the complexity of how they have been previously represented.

Although these histories are located in specific times and geographies they resonate with and inform our present. Extensive research into the subjects through archive material underpins all of the films and the histories Campbell chooses to focus on reflect his interest. Using both archival and filmed material, his films question our reading of the documentary form as a fixed representation of reality, opening up the boundaries between the actual and the imagined, record and interpretation.

His solo exhibition at IMMA comprises four of his major film works: Bernadette (2008) is about unity candidate MP and socialist activist Bernadette Devlin. Make it new John (2009), takes as its subject the American automobile manufacturer John DeLorean, the iconic DMC-12 car he produced, and the West Belfast plant where it was made. Arbeit (2011) is about the German economist Hans Tietmeyer who played a key role in the European monetary union. It for Others (2013), the work which won the Turner Prize, takes Chris Marker and Alain Resnais’ 1953 film Les statues meurent aussi (Statues Also Die) as a starting point for an examination of cultural imperialism and commodity and includes a performance made in collaboration with the choreographer Michael Clark.