Northern Ireland still bears the trauma of several decades of conflict between Irish nationalists and British loyalists. In the heart of Belfast, the "Peace Line" - a network of walls and fences - still divides the capital in two. Erected in 1969, these barriers were meant to be temporary. Faced with the government's inability to contain the violence, this stopgap solution was adopted.
More than forty years later, what was meant to be temporary has become permanent. Every evening, as the roughly twenty crossing points close, Catholics and Protestants withdraw into their respective neighborhoods, sustaining the silent divide that settles in with nightfall. Every year, on the night of July 11 to 12, the city's Protestant community gathers around bonfires - towers built from wooden pallets and tires - set alight to commemorate the victory of William III of Orange over the Catholic king James II in 1690. The blazing lights that flood the city once a year mark the divisions that still persist today. The project This Wall is a years-long immersion in Belfast, between two communities separated by a wall. The "Peace Line," this fracture at the heart of Europe dating back to the late 1960s and still unresolved, becomes the photographer's guiding thread.
Spirale Galerie
Founded in 2026 by Camille Romagnani, a sculptor, and Nicolas Melemis, a photographer, the gallery's program embraces a wide range of practices, blending craft, visual art, and documentary work. This openness also extends to the periods represented: contemporary works, modern pieces, and older objects are shown together within the same hang. The gallery is openly guided by the sensibility and vision of its founders, who continue to shape the selection over time, giving particular weight to the intelligence of the hand in the practices of the artists and artisans shown, as well as to the current local scene. Rather than a series of independent exhibitions, Spirale Paris follows a model closer to a salon, in which works coexist and are gradually renewed. Thematic exhibitions, or shows devoted to a single artist, punctuate the program from time to time.