For nearly 30 years, the Maze prison, ten miles outside Belfast, played a unique role in the Northern Ireland Troubles. Built in 1976 to house terrorist prisoners, political segregation was so fierce it led to scenes of violent protests, hunger strikes, mass escapes and deaths of both inmates and prison staff. At its peak capacity in the 1980s, the Maze housed more than 1,700 prisoners. In September 2000, under the terms of the Good Friday agreement, the prison was closed and the last four inmates were transferred to other ...
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For nearly 30 years, the Maze prison, ten miles outside Belfast, played a unique role in the Northern Ireland Troubles. Built in 1976 to house terrorist prisoners, political segregation was so fierce it led to scenes of violent protests, hunger strikes, mass escapes and deaths of both inmates and prison staff. At its peak capacity in the 1980s, the Maze housed more than 1,700 prisoners. In September 2000, under the terms of the Good Friday agreement, the prison was closed and the last four inmates were transferred to other prisons in Northern Ireland. Now, a handful of prison officers man the empty complex while the future of the site is debated. The prison's current state of limbo and the unanswered questions regarding its fate seem to reflect Northern Ireland's unsteady progress in grappling with its recent history. Last year, the Northern Ireland Prison Service gave Donovan Wylie exclusive and unprecedented permission to photograph the entire prison complex without supervision. The result is a book which not only documents the physical structure but manages to communicate some experience of the psychological impact of being inside the Maze. With a text by Louise Purbrick, Senior Lecturer in History and Design at Brighton University, and a timeline history of the prison and its prisoners as they relate to the history of the Troubles, this book records and preserves a unique physical structure that has played an important role in our recent history.
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Seller's Description:
Fine in Fine jacket. First edition, first printing. Hardcover. Gray paper-covered boards with title printed in black on spine; with photographically illustrated dust jacket. Photographs and text by Donovan Wylie. Essay by Louise Purbrick. 112 pp., with two 2-page gatefolds and 81 four-color plates finely printed in Germany by Steidl. 9-1/4 x 11-3/8 inches. [Cited in Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, The Photobook: A History, Volume II. (London and New York: Phaidon, 2006).]. Fine in Fine dust jacket. From the publisher: "Repetition is a feature of control systems. It creates a predictable and therefore secure environment. The Maze prison was a model of repetitive and systematic architecture. Its primary function was to contain and isolate. Opened in 1976 at the height of the Northern Ireland conflict, it held both republican and loyalist prisoners in its eight identical H-blocks. Throught its history of protests, hunger strikes and escapes, the Maze became synonymous with the Northern Ireland Troubles. After the peace negotiations, it was finally closed in October 2003. Over a period of a year, Donovan Wylie spent almost 100 days photographing inside the prison. Gradually he came to understand the psychology of the architecture and its ability to disorient and diminish. His photographs are a testimony to that experience."
