Maze

Through its history of protests, hunger strikes and escapes, the Maze prison, held both republican and loyalist prisoners, and became synonymous with the Northern Ireland conflict. Donovan Wylie was the only photographer granted official and unlimited access to the Maze Prison site, when the demolition of the prison began, symbolizing the end of the conflict in 2007. Wylie systematically documented the fabric and physical structure of the prison and spent over a year exploring how architecture is utilized as a form of control. Repetitively photographing the prison he came “to understand the psychology of the architecture of containment and its ability to disorient and diminish”. Wylie focuses solely upon the material remains of the prison and its eventual demise. Implementing a photographic landscape approach as a form of archaeology the photographs which document this period are divided into four sections, each depicting a “layer” of the prison: the internal walls, the various modes of fencing, the H-blocks and, finally, the perimeter walls, which reveal the external landscape. Eventually this once-enclosed space is reintegrated with the outside world. Wylie's work lay bare the architecture and instruments of power.