Group Portrait with Explosives

Declan Clarke’s film Group Portrait with Explosives (2014) connects the city of Brno in the Czech Republic with South Armagh in Northern Ireland, which became notorious for its violent resistance to British military presence between 1971 and 1998.

Though not areas that one would normally associate with one another, through the vagaries of industrial manufacturing and international trade Clarke traces links between the two: from Czechoslovakian tractor production to the invention and manufacture of Semtex to the related smuggling and subsequent use by the IRA to the artist’s early fascination with militia. Clarke presents a live version of his forty-two minute film, complemented by new audiovisual materials. At its core, the work considers how the abstract nature of global economy and border politics has a lasting impact upon people.