Upstairs in the Cafe Bar, in January, we will be presenting artist Darren Smith’s Mayflies exhibition, which this local photography exhibition will run alongside. As part of Mayflies, Darren travelled to Shetland to capture Up Helly Aa in 2020 (read more about the exhibition below).
We are looking for alternative perspectives of Shetland Fire Festivals, from people within Shetland, to be presented downstairs in Mareel’s Cafe Bar. These are photographs that have already been taken, and not a commission for photographing this coming year.
Photographs can capture any aspect of the Fire Festivals: the halls; the preparation; the details on the suits; getting ready (squads, procession goers, hall attendees); a squad's act. We want to showcase what all aspects of the Fire Festivals mean to those who live here.
There will be a panel that will assess the photographs, including Darren Smith himself, which will be chosen based on how they have captured Shetland’s Fire Festivals creatively and how they will complement one another. We want to ensure a range of ages and abilities, of professional photographers to hobbyists, and of photographs from different Fire Festivals across Shetland.
Darren Smith - Mayflies
Darren Smith is an award-winning photographer from America, based in The Netherlands. For the past seven years, he has been working on a series of studio portraits centered on spectacles - what began with Amsterdam’s vibrant night culture has evolved into a once-in-a-lifetime journey across three continents, capturing moments of human connection when people embrace new identities, like ephemeral mayflies living intensely and briefly.
His exhibition, Mayflies, celebrates radical self-expression through a collection of portrait photographs, from the swirling dust of the Mojave desert to Paris' underground vogue ballroom scene and far beyond.
There is now a series of photographs from all around the world, that capture people in carnival costume. These photographs depict real people, presented in the midst of celebrating life during festivals and cultural gatherings. Taking a step away from the party, they assemble in front of the camera against a seamless studio background to be captured in living in the moment. Stripping all reference to place, Darren focuses only on the unique human presence, with striking intimacy.
“I call this body of work Mayflies, after the tiny insects that, for one brief but consequential moment, they hatch, meet, mate, and then they're gone. They embrace a lifetime within a single day. It seems an appropriate metaphor for the sort of people I was looking for.
My work centres around the meeting point of fantasy and reality, and explores creativity, transformation, and belonging. I'm utterly fascinated by radical self-expression and its unique beauty. The sheer diversity and individual creativity that exists in the world is incredible to me. As society further blurs the lines of what's true / real and what's artificial, I want to share things that are fantastically real.” - Darren Smith
