A west Belfast photographer and video-journalist who has spent the past four years on the frontline of the Ukraine war has said that he hopes to turn a collection of his life’s work into a photobook following his first exhibition in Belfast.
Conall Kearney, 29, is originally from the Beechmount area but has been living in Ukraine since the outbreak of the war in 2022.
The award-winning photographer, whose work focuses on the human impact of political unrest and war, held his first home exhibition, Chaos Stadt, at Belfast Exposed Photo Gallery earlier this month.
Speaking to The Irish News at its conclusion, Mr Kearney said that the exhibition, which focused on his work in cities including Berlin, Belfast, Paris and Kyiv felt like “a bit of a homecoming”.
“The exhibition is more or less ten years’ worth of work that I hope to turn into a photobook,” he said.
Mr Kearney is hoping that his work so far can be made into a photobook PICTURE: BRIAN LINCOLN
“I started photography professionally maybe about 15 years ago, where I started to photograph protests,
“As I got older, I started to travel to different places in Europe, covering riots, and then kind of going through the steps.
“I went to the Middle East for a little while, covered the revolution in Hong Kong, before eventually finding myself in Ukraine, covering the full-scale invasion in 2022.”
Mr Kearney said that he had always had a “deep interest in Ukraine” and had travelled there before the war.
“Once the war had started in 2022, I’d already had a kind of involvement in conflict journalism and photography,” he said.
His work has centred on his time in cities ranging from Belfast to Berlin PICTURE: BRIAN LINCOLN
“Living in Berlin, it was extremely easy to get to Ukraine.
“Within the first few days of the full-scale invasion, I found myself in Ukraine. And within a week, I found myself in the city of Kharkiv, at the time one of the most intense front lines of the war.
“And that was kind of my first major exposure to proper warfare.”
Mr Kearney said that his work has seen him in countless dangerous situations, but that being in the “front row of history” and documenting it is “a big reason” why he does what he does.
“Even before Ukraine, I’ve been in many, many cases of police violence, where I’ve been beaten up, by protesters, police, got my camera broken many times,” he said.
“Then in Ukraine, I’ve been injured three times, once by a dog, twice blown up by the Russians.
“It, of course, comes with a cost, but at the end of the day, I actually would not change what I do at all.
“Especially in Ukraine, having been around people who have died also doing this job, I wouldn’t change that, because they wouldn’t want me to change that.”
To date, Mr Kearney has released a series of ‘zines’ – self-published collections focussing on his work in specific locations.
“Originally Belfast was obviously meant to be the first zine; I’ve made three zines, but in the end, after six, seven years of the series, Belfast has only been the latest one.
“It has been this whole struggle about where I belong, what am I doing, am I too local for foreign places, am I too foreign for local places?
“Basically, it’s just a kind of self-discovery project, in a way, for the Belfast edition. It is just about kind of diving deeper into this, living in the shadow of conflict, and a post-conflict society, and how we’re dealing with that in a more visual way.”
The next zine in his series is intended to document his time in Ukraine.