People in Trouble Laughing Pushed to the Ground

A new digital edition of Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin’s People In Trouble Laughing Pushed To The Ground, complete with exclusive essays, an audio and video guide and additional archival material.


The digital edition recontextualises the original work published by MACK in 2011, in which the artists selected images from the Belfast Exposed archive according to a code – the stickers that successive archivists put on the contact sheets as markers. In this edition, each plate is accompanied by an audio clip of its title, read by Belfast curator Rachel Brown, and accessed by the tap of a finger. Oliver Chanarin introduces the ideas behind the project in a video introduction, and the ebook contains three illuminating texts: the first by Pauline Hadaway, director of Belfast Exposed, reflecting on the complex evolution of the archive; a text by photographer Mervyn Smyth, who provides personal and political context to his selection of archival images; and a statement on the commissioning process of People In Trouble and its group exhibition 'Prima Materia' by curators Rachel Brown & Brighdín Farren.