Upcoming exhibition: A Tale of Two Houses

Marta Dyczkowska is a filmmaker and photographer who works
across media including printing and performance to investigate loss,
grief, friendship and personal and collective stories within their
urban context. This exhibition lets us in the artist's home and studio.
The entanglement between the political and the personal spheres
characterises the artist’s practice and approach to life and art. At the
centre of the exhibition, Havelock House is used like a lighthouse
that, with its revolving mechanism, shines light on different stories. It
tells the tale of two houses: how Marta’s personal story waves in the
history of the building and how they connect to the changes in
Belfast.
The film A Tale Of Two Houses and this installation show Marta’s
incisive approach in contextualising her work in broader discussions
and being attentive to a changing world that seems to move on a
macro scale but ends up affecting us too on micro and personal
scales. From her former home, opposite Havelock House, she has
been documenting this building since she noticed the first changes
in the area in 2014. The footage was built over the years to include
snippets of her domestic and family life.
Parallel to the building of her artistic and family life, archival footage
from ITV shows the construction of the building extension of

Havelock House in 1960s. This historical
landmark of Belfast rooted in the neighbourhood held a shimmering
light on its past inhabitants and uses: from a handkerchief
manufactory, a troops billet and then the headquarters of Ulster
Television until it became Flax Art Studios in 2018, when the artist
took a studio there.
The point of conjunction of these two tales is the final demolition of
Havelock House in 2024, which erased the presence of the building
from the neighbourhood but also symbolised the end of her
previous house as home. The personal and urban histories here are
entangled in a layered reflection on individual and collective
memory, heritage and loss.

Text by: Benedetta D'Ettorre

This work has been made with the support of the Arts Council NI and Northern
Ireland Screen’s Digital Film Archive.
The exhibition is part of Belfast Film Festival 2024 and a year-long series titled Late
Night Vault part funded by Belfast City Council and Esmé Mitchell Trust.
Location: Vault Artist Studios Gallery & Project Space. Ground Floor, 28-32
Victoria St, Belfast, BT1 3GG
Exhibition Preview: Thursday 7th November 6 p.m - 9 p.m
Open Friday 8th - Sunday 13th November from 12 p.m - 6 p.m
And Sunday 17th of November