by I loved growing up in Belfast because it was wild. You shouldn’t say that, but although I was a working class and we were in the middle of the thick, I did not experience any violence directly. I experienced the warmth of the communities of the working class on both sides, Catholic and Protestant, and the power of the community in the struggle for justice, fairness and equality. I mainly learned these principles from women.
Belfast was a very patriarchal place, but women always seemed to be those who made the greatest sense. If you look at the UN statistics when women negotiate tables, the chances of achieving peace agreements are much higher. If you then stay at the table, the peace agreement takes longer. In different parts of the world that I have commissioned to shoot like Sudan or Beirut, I met many different women, but everyone has the same ability to cut the shit, but they have no power.
This was taken in 2023 when I was back in Belfast and at a show of 21 portraits for Ulster Museum called Principled and Revolutionary: Northern Irish Peace Women. It should commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Treaty. I wanted to grasp the often countless stories of women who were influential in Northern Ireland to appreciate their work.
When I have an idea for a protagonist, I go into the world and hope that our paths cross
While I was there, I wore this picture in my head with a murals that I repeatedly suppressed because it is a tourist picture in a way. My process is that when I have an idea for a specific protagonist, I will go to the world and hope that our paths will cross. I was in a vintage shop and this girl searched exactly the way she looks in the picture. It seemed so strong, so powerful, so powerfully dressed by Belfast and probably endured with a lot of shit from the street.
I thought: “You are incredible.” She projected this hyper-feminized character and was a real “fuck her” for male violence and oppression. I gave her my card, told her how much she would be paid for, what it would be in the picture, and go home and look at me and think about it. But she said yes immediately. The next day we went around Belfast and talked about her life and she was everything I projected her. She was not afraid of authority as I was when I was young. I think that could be quite a Belfast thing.
Related: A touch of class: an authentic view of Great Britain – in pictures
Finally I decided that I needed a mural because the picture I wanted to create about male aggression and control. We went to an area called Sandy Row, who used to be a very Protestant area. The murals were on the wrong side of the street because I knew that I had to straighten the camera in the direction of this dark sky, with the sunlight and then the seagull that came from the harbor, which is a belt for me. I knew that this was a happy picture. If you take a picture, you hope that the gods of photography are with you. There is a transcendence. I chose the frame that worked the strictest – and then in Photoshop the mural from one side of the street and on the other.
I am not a documentary photographer. I am interested in cinema and how they cause emotions. I have always constructed pictures to expand the story of the picture and to remind the viewer from the fact that photography is a constructed medium. These pictures are exhibited large on a gallery. You can view all the details and think about how you have derived a meaning from these information – and see how photography manipulates us.
• After the end of history: British photography of the working class 1989 – 2024 is located in Stills Gallery, Edinburgh, from March 21 to June 28th
Hannah Starkeys CV
Born: Belfast, 1971
Trained: Edinburgh Napier University Edinburgh, Royal College of Art London.
Influences: “Women and photography.”
Highlight: “There were many.
Low point: “No.
Top tip: “You really have to fall in love with photography.
